Lords Sitting of 29 July 1918

GLASGOW AND SOUTH WESTERN RAILWAY ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

TRADE BOARDS BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: My Lords, this is a Bill to amend the Trade Boards Act of 1909, and the amendment takes the direction of a simplification and extension of its functions. Nine years ago the Trade Boards Bill was passed. Its main object was to secure minimum rates of wages, and I think it was stated in the debate that the change, if not initiated by, had at all events a great deal to do with the work of, the Sweating Committee which had sat some years, and of which I had the honour to be a member. That Bill received a most cordial welcome from all parts of the House. The procedure was that the trades—four in number—were put in the Schedule of the Act in the first instance, and the number of those trades was subsequently increased by means of a Provisional Order. The experiment—for experiment it was—suceeded very well indeed, and it is now hoped to increase the numbers of the trades by an easier means.
After three years other trades were added to the Schedule, with the result that some
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390,000 people came within the purview of the Act, of whom 80,000 were women. It was a great benefit to them, because women were the people who principally suffered from sweating. It is rather interesting to observe that in this legislation we took a leaf from the book of an Oversea Dominion. The Colony of Victoria had for some years had Wages Boards, which answered in every respect, I believe, to the new Trade Boards in this country. Victoria's legislation was very successful, and we followed their example, though our experiment was on a much smaller scale than the Victorian one. At the same time we profited in proportion, and it is fair to say that not only did the workers profit but the trades also.
As reconstruction goes on its way it is extremely desirable to try to ensure that these women, who have suffered so from sweating, shall not fall back into their prewar conditions, and that their wages and position shall not be prejudiced so as to render them liable to the social evils which go in the wake of low wages and bad circumstances. Even now there is a danger of that, for I understand, though it is generally believed that the wages of women have increased, perhaps not quite to the same extent, but in like ratio to those of men in certain localities where there are large munition works and there is great competition for labour, that in out-of-the-way places where there is not very much employment the wages of women are still lamentably low, and we want, if possible, to prevent the risk of their falling back into the pre-war conditions.

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The process for increasing these Trade Boards was by Provisional Order, but the Provisional Order, as your Lordships know, necessitated a Bill to confirm it, and if there was opposition there had to be a Select Committee of inquiry with its attendant delay and expense. It is, therefore, proposed by this Bill that the place of the Provisional Order should be taken by Special Order. The old process is thought somewhat cumbersone, though it served its purposes in the past. The Trade Boards now are a recognised portion of our industrial system, and it is considered advisable to give facilities for their being more rapidly increased. While the Provisonal Order and the Confirmation Bill will be withdrawn, this does not mean that the control of Parliament will also be withdrawn, because the Special Order will have to lie on the Table of both Houses of Parliament for forty days, and those must be forty days of Parliamentary time, as your Lordships will see if your look at Clause 2. The Special Orders, therefore, could not be put upon the Table of the two Houses of Parliament just before a Recess and eke out their time of forty days when the House is not sitting. The words of the Bill are "within the next subsequent forty days on which that House has sat." If it is thought advisable, an Address to the Crown can be moved and objection taken. This procedure, as your Lordships know, we do not enact for the first time, for the Secretary of State, under the Factory Act of (I think) 1901, in regard to dangerous trades, is empowered to make Regulations and to put them on the Table of the Houses of Parliament for forty days. The Special Order corresponds to those Regulations. But that is not all. The Select Committee disappears, but an opportunity for revision exists in the Schedule. In the Schedule there is provision for a public inquiry by a competent man not in the Government's employ. That exists for forty days before the Order is laid on the Table of the Houses of Parliament. Therefore it will be seen that there are two periods of forty days. The action of the Secretary of State in regard to these Regulations has, I understand, never been called in question, and I think that we need not anticipate, with respect to the Minister of Labour, that equal confidence may not be shown.
I may point to one or two things in the Bill. The period of raising objections used to be one of three months. It is proposed to reduce that to two months.
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The President of the Board of Trade had to wait for another six months before he could confirm the Order. This in a familiar phrase was found to be "asking for trouble." First of all the workers wanted to have their minimum wage fixed as soon as they could, and during the six months the employers themselves did not know what view other employers might take of the rates, and it was found that many employers contracted with their workpeople out of the arrangements for this six months. In regard to apprentices, there is a proviso in Clause 7 that bona fide apprenticeship shall go on, and there is to be a four weeks' trial. The reason for putting something into Clause 7 in regard to apprentices was that it was found that if a rate was fixed, we will say at 6s., the former wage having been 2s., some employers have a plan of charging a premium and working that out at 4s., so that they got the 4s. back, and really only paid 2s.
In the other clauses certain flaws in the Act are put right, and Trade Boards may make recommendations to the Government Departments in various directions. As your Lordships, know, in a Bill of this kind there are a great many technical details. Perhaps I have said enough to ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading to a Bill which, I think you will agree, will be very useful. If there are matters upon which your Lordships desire further explanation I shall be very glad to give it, if I can. If I cannot do so now, I can ascertain and let your Lordships know at a later stage what you desire.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Sandhurst.)
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, I certainly do not rise for the purpose of criticising this Bill. On the contrary, I rise for the purpose, so far as I can, of entirely blessing it. It is a Bill which takes a great step forward, and it is well that we should realise how great that step is. In the first place, the Ministry of Labour becomes still more than at present a Ministry of Employment, charged with the form of public assistance which assumes the shape of regulating the terms of employment in certain trades and industries. There are certain trades which were the subject of the Trade Boards Act of 1909, in which that was a very necessary interposition of the Legislature. It is a great mistake to be always

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considering whether you will interfere with the liberty to carry on industry by fixing wages and making them higher than they are at present. It is much better for the country that, where a trade can subsist only by means of sweated wages, conditions should be imposed which would even make it impossible to carry on that trade in this country. It may be better to let the articles required be produced in some country where labour is cheaper and conditions are easier, and that we should manufacture something else and export it in exchange for those things. It certainly is not good that any section of the community should be forced by economic pressure to work at sweated wages.
This Bill takes a great step forward in that beneficial process by increasing the powers of what is called the Ministry of Labour but is really developing into a Ministry of Employment under this Bill. To begin with, it is quite right, I think, to follow out the principle of the Act of 1909, and to put matters within the discretion of the Minister, subject to his responsibility to Parliament, which seems adequately provided for. It is impossible to regulate these matters by making a mere Schedule in the Act of trades to which the Act is applied. Not only does this Bill do what the noble Viscount has told us, but it enables the Ministry of Labour, subject to the approval of Parliament if the Special Order is not objected to, to repeal the Schedule to the Trade Boards Act of 1909, and to substitute other trades and take out trades which are in the Schedule. I think this is a very valuable addition to that Act. Not only may you make a Special Order about any particular trade, but you may alter the Schedule of the existing Act.
The Bill is a step towards what is becoming more and more apparent—the necessity for the State fixing certain minima below which it is not to be expected that people can live and be at the same time good citizens of the State. It develops the principle of the minimum wage. We are already thinking of the minimum home; we were engaged last week in developing the minimum of knowledge; and when these three minima are adequately carried out and the country begins to live up to them, then indeed we ought to have a fruitful soil for the beginnings of the growth of an improved commonwealth.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House,

MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE BILL.
Amendment reported (according to Order).
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY had on the Paper an Amendment to insert the following new subsection in Clause 5—
"(2) This Act shall be construed with the Midwives Act, 1902 and 1918, and nothing in this Act or in the principal Act shall have effect so as to grant any powers or to impose any duties which are granted or imposed in the said Midwives Acts."
The noble Marquess said: My Lords, on the last stage of the Bill I called the attention of my noble friend opposite (Viscount Peel) to a possible cause of overlapping as between the midwives statutes and this Bill, and I put to him a question as to whether the government had considered that point. I have no doubt that he will be in a position to answer me this afternoon. The point is this. Recently there has been before this House the Midwives Bill Which we have passed and sent to another place, and that Bill (amending the principal Midwives Act), together with that Act makes certain provisions. Among other things the question of delegation is dealt with. Under the principal Midwives Act—the Act of 1902—there was a possibility of delegation by the county councils to the district councils, and in the new Bill your Lordships saw fit to repeal that power of delegation and make it impossible henceforward that delegation, which had been found to work exceedingly badly, should be allowed any more as between the county council and the district council.
Now comes this Bill, under which it appears that there would be power to deal with all midwives questions. There is no decision, so far as the Bill before us is concerned, as between the county council and the district council. On the contrary, unless I have made a mistake, it is quite open to the Local Government Board to authorise the district council to exercise the powers of the midwives legislation. This would evidently be inconsistent with the Bill which we have just passed; indeed, there is an obvious objection to having two Bills overlapping and dealing with the same point in a different sense. It seems quite clear that, as we are dealing with midwives legislation in another Bill, we ought to leave out of this Bill any power of dealing with midwives in so far as they are

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dealt with in the other Bill. It seems to me an obvious matter of businesslike procedure, and all that my Amendment seeks to do is to withhold any powers from being used under this Bill which are to be used under the Midwives Bill.
Since I put the. Amendment on the Paper my attention has been called to the fact that the drafting is not perfect. This is not a matter of surprise to me, because I drafted it myself. An amended draft has been put into my hands. There is no difference in substance whatever, and I will read to your Lordships the form in which I propose to move it: "Nothing in this Act or in the principal Act shall have effect so as to grant any powers or to impose any duties which are granted or imposed in the Midwives Act 1902 or any Act amending that Act." I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Clause 5, page 3, after line 8, insert as a new subsection:
(2) "Nothing in this Act or in the principal Act shall have effect so as to grant any powers or to impose any duties which are granted or imposed in the Midwives Act, 1902, or any Act amending that Act."—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
VISCOUNT PEEL: My Lords, there are one or two technical objections to the Amendment of the noble Marquess, with which I will deal in a moment; but perhaps he would prefer that I should deal first with what I may call the substance of his Amendment. I think I can relieve the mind of the noble Marquess from anxiety that there is any sort of overlapping, or that any Amendment of this kind may be necessary. If he will cast his mind back to what the Midwives Act did, he will remember that it established certain local authorities, and the powers of those local authorities were to deal with the general question of midwives—to grant to them or to withdraw from them diplomas, and to see that only proper persons exercised those functions. There is nothing of that kind in this Bill. No doubt there are powers given to local authorities to supply midwives, but they can only supply a midwife approved by the Central Midwives Board, There is no question of delegating these powers. I understand that the noble Marquess is anxious because this measure may in some way alter the law as it may be settled when the other Bill becomes an Act, and that the smaller local authorities, not being able to have these powers dele-
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gated to them under the Midwives Act, might regain that power under this Act.
The Marquess of SALISBURY: That is it.
VISCOUNT PEEL: I can reassure the noble Marquess on that point. There is no possibility under this Act of anything of the kind taking place. The two powers are distinct; one is supply, and the other is supervision. Even if the Local Government Board were so malevolently minded as some people think they are, they would not break the law, which is what they would have to do if they delegated these powers to the smaller local authorities. Perhaps in these circumstances the noble Marquess will not press his Amendment.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, I think the noble Viscount is right. The real purpose of this Bill is to set up health committees. Just now there are health committees which exist in a good many places; for instance, in Westminster there is one which has flourished for the past eight years; there is another in St. Pancras, and yet another in another part of London. But there are whole regions where there are none. These committees look after the health of the children and of the mothers, and they take care that the proper medical attendance is available. They work in many cases, as I know from my own knowledge, with the hospitals. There is no reason at all why they should be working with the midwives as established under the Midwives Act. As the noble Viscount has said, these committees will exist for the purpose of seeing that there is adequate provision for the people of whom care has to be taken; and the real purpose is to secure that in every locality of England and Wales there should be set up a health committee in the proper place and under proper supervision which will enable care to be taken of young children and of actual and expectant mothers. I think the noble Viscount is quite warranted in saying that the two systems can exist side by side, and that there ought not to be any overlapping of any sort.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I may say that the error into which I fell was caused by some enthusiastic words contained in the speech of the noble Viscount on the Second Reading of this Bill, in which he claimed that they could deal

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with the midwives question. But no doubt I did not rightly apprehend the limitation of the scope of his remarks. At any rate, I am perfectly satisfied with the assurance of the noble Viscount that the two Bills do not clash, and I shall not, of course, proceed with the Amendment.
VISCOUNT PEEL: May I say, with the leave of the House, that I looked up an hour ago the statement which I made on the Second Reading, and I saw that I had been more cautious than I thought. In that sentence I did carefully limit the scope.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

ASYLUMS OFFICERS SUPERANNUATION BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: My Lords, I have to ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading to this very short Bill, which deals with the staffs of certain certified institutions for mentally defective people. It is to ensure that when experienced men and women are moved from the asylums to certified institutions they should not lose their pension rights. It is extremely valuable that certified institutions should have the advantage of the services of these experienced people. At present these persons lose their pensions rights, and this Bill is merely to ensure, if they are transferred, that people so transferred shall not lose those rights.
The provisions for Scotland differ in detail from the provisions of the English Act. Seeing, however, that officers may be removed from Scottish institutions to English institutions and vice versa, it is very desirable that the provisions obtaining in the two countries should be the same. The Asylums Officers Superannuation Act applies to both countries alike. The Bill brings the arrangements for both countries into line, and it is a useful measure for those concerned. I beg to move that it be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Sandhurst.)
EARL RUSSELL: My Lords, the title of this Bill is perhaps a little misleading. It is called on the Paper the "Asylums Officers Superannuation Bill," but I notice
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that the title contained in the Bill itself is the "Asylums and Certified Institutions (Officers Pensions) Act," which, I think, rather more correctly states its meaning. I understand that this Bill, in fact, does not apply to asylums officers in the ordinary lunatic asylums. The lunatic asylums of London are a matter in which I was considerably interested for a number of years. I have looked at this Act and received some communications with regard to it, and, among others things, I have received a suggestion which perhaps the Department that advises the noble Viscount might consider.
The present provision as to superannuation contains a certain amount of, I will not say so much of injustice as of actual public inconvenience; that is to say, the provision which prohibits any remuneration paid to a person in respect of a pension from bringing his total income beyond what his income was before he received his pension. I understand that at present, in consequence of the war and the difficulty of staffing to which all institutions are subject as well as all businesses, these asylums have to employ a certain number of what in other ranks are called "dugouts." The effect of this provision is that when these persons who are pensioned come back into asylum service, they cannot receive any remuneration which brings their total pay beyond what they had whom they were pensioned; and the result is that in some cases the incentive is not sufficient to bring these people back. It might not from the form of this Bill be possible to graft upon it an Amendment to this Act, but perhaps it will be considered whether it is possible to do so and whether in the view of the Department it would be desirable. I am told that it now operates to prevent a supply of persons who thus remain retired which might be possible in view of the present shortage of labour in all directions.
Then with regard to this Bill itself, which applies only to institutions for the mentally defective, I should be glad to ask a question with regard to proviso (a) of Clause 1 which says that—
"An officer or servant employed in a certified institution shall be treated as an officer or servant of the second class."
I understand that the usual definition of classes which is made is that the second class includes gardeners, labourers, farm hands, and people of that sort, whom you might call the outdoor staff, and that the

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first class includes only those who actually attend to the patients. I do not think that attendance on the mentally defective is likely to be more agreeable or less arduous than attendance, on lunatics, and I do not know why there should be any distinction in rank in respect of pensions. If I understand proviso (a) aright, officers and servants in these institutions cannot be treated in the same way as officers and servants in lunatic asylums.
Then there is another proviso, proviso (b), which takes away the power of adding years spent in service in certified institutions to the actual years of service. There, again, there, is no reason given why there should be this difference in treatment between officers in the institutions for the mentally defective and officers in asylums, and I should be glad to know the reason why there is this difference. I think if the noble Viscount could answer those questions we should understand the Bill better. As I read it, it seems to me that the officials in these institutions are treated worse than the corresponding officials in lunatic asylums.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: I am not in a position at the moment to give the information which the noble Earl requires, but I will inform myself and communicate with the noble Earl or make a statement when I make the Motion to go into Committee on Friday.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

STATUTORY UNDERTAKINGS (TEMPOR- ARY INCREASE OF CHARGES) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD SOMERLEYTON: My Lords, In moving the Second Reading of this Bill I will not trespass upon your indulgence for more than a few moments. I think it is clear that this Bill is necessitated by the conditions which are now prevailing owing to the war. These undertakings have to face an enormous increase in the cost of production in every way. Wages have risen from 60 to 100 per cent., materials have risen from 100 to over 200 per cent., and, in addition to this, there have been various restrictions on the amount of each article allowed to be consumed, and we fear that those restrictions may even be in-
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creased in the future. These undertakings, therefore, the profits of which are fixed by I Statute, require now to be reviewed, the war having brought about a total reversal of the conditions obtaining before, in order that the interest may be paid on the capital expended. Hence this Bill is now introduced. May I remind your Lordships that in all similar undertakings the charges have greatly increased; and although they have been increased in these particular undertakings, in other undertakings which are not statutory the increase has been much greater.
A Select Committee which reported some little time ago recommended legislation, and the need for a Bill is therefore, I think, apparent to all. May I say one word with regard to the amount of modification allowable The Select Committee recommended no modification should be authorised more than would enable a dividend on the ordinary shares or stock to be paid at half the standard or maximum rate of dividend, if any, prescribed, or at half the pre-war rate of dividend, whichever was the lower. The Bill as introduced had a provision to this effect, but in another place, as you are aware, an Amendment was carried and three-quarters was substituted for one-half; but I would remind your Lordships that this three-quarters fixed in another place was so fixed after the very fullest discussion in Committee, and that two different divisions took place and the Amendment was carried by a very large majority. Not only this, but the point was raised again on the Third Reading of the Bill, and again three-quarters was carried by a very large majority. I would also venture to remind your Lordships that since the Report of the Select Committee was made the price of coal has risen 4s. per ton, in this way further increasing the cost of production.
I should say, before I sit down, that it is proposed that the Act shall have effect until the expiration of a period of two years after the war. This is in accordance with the recommendations of the Committee on Tramway Undertakings, and differs somewhat from the recommendation of the Gas Committee, which was that general legislation should have effect for one year after the war and such further period as the Board of Trade might by Provisional Order determine. The rather longer maximum time seems, in the view of the Board

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of Trade, not unreasonable, and the period is final. I trust, therefore, that your Lordships will give a Second Reading to the Bill.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Somerleyton.)
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, I have no intention of offering any opposition to the Second Reading of this Bill, but I desire to make one or two observations arising mainly out of the point to which the noble Lord opposite devoted a considerable part of his speech. As he has stated, a Select Committee was appointed in another place to consider the situation which my noble friend opposite has correctly described. These statutory companies with a standard dividend and a standard price have naturally found themselves placed in a highly inconvenient position owing to the circumstances of the war, and I do not think any one can complain of the interference of the Legislature with a system which in the past has worked exceedingly well and which has been highly profitable to the gas companies themselves and has been by no means adverse in its effects to the consumer.
His Majesty's Government therefore appointed a Select Committee—I think in April last—and that Committee reported in the sense which the noble Lord stated—namely, that in the case of any company operating under a sliding scale whose dividend has been reduced to one half of the standard or maximum rate, or one half of the maximum dividend, the sliding scale ceased to operate; that is to say, when the dividend reached only one half then the company should be able to reimburse itself to a certain extent. That was understood to be the unanimous recommendation of the Committee. I think this was stated in another place. But when the Bill was under discussion there the change which the noble Lord has spoken of was suggested—namely, that a figure of three-quarters in place of the figure of one half should be permitted to be the point at which the companies could seek for reimbursement.
The Government, for some reason which is not comprehensible to everybody, in lieu of supporting the recommendations of the Committee, allowed this to be treated as an open question, and, as the noble Lord has stated, the substitution of three-fourths for one-half was carried by a considerable
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majority at two stages of the Bill. Knowing the influence possessed by such powerful corporations as the gas companies, assisted, it must be remembered, in this particular measure by the representatives of a number of other companies—electric lighting, tramways, and others—whose interests, for one reason or another, were not directly affected by this particular provision, but who were prepared to act, as they usually do, in common with those whose interests are generally similar to their Own, I think it may be assumed that no inconsiderable pressure was applied to hon. Members in order to induce them to make this change in favour of the companies and against the consumer.
The effect of this change upon London is very serious indeed. Already the sum which London has to pay for its gas has unwanted to no less than £4,000,000 above the pre-war price, Owing to war conditions. The addition of this quarter to the amount which the consumers will have to pay—because it may be taken as a fact that the whole of this will fall upon the shoulders of the consumers—represents for London alone no less than £289,000. Therefore it is not surprising that the representatives of London, both the London County Council and the Corporation, desire to enter the strongest possible protest against this provision and are prepared to do their best to get a change made.
What are the reasons put forward for the alteration? One reason advanced is that the shareholders in gas companies are, many of them, quite poor people, and that they council afford to see a reduction of as much as one-half in the dividends which they receive. This is no doubt true in a great many cases. There are far more small shareholders in gas companies than there are, presumably, in electric lighting companies, or certainly in railways. From the days of Sir George Livesey's well-known policy at the South Metropolitan Gas Company it has been the wise and praiseworthy custom of these companies to induce as ninny as possible of their employees and their friends to invest in small amounts. Although this is true, it is by no means the whole truth. Large blocks of shares ill gas companies are held by important corporations and by individuals, and it is by no means the case that the whole interest is in the hands of small people. Even if it were, that would be no reason for making this change. If it be necessary to

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maintain the dividends of the shareholders in gas companies, His Majesty's Government ought to make it possible for the gas companies to pay their dividends.
In ordinary times a large part of the profits of gas companies comes from their by-products. The residuals of gas-making, as we all know, are at all times valuable, and they have become infinitely more valuable since the war began. Benzol and toluol have enormously increased in value for the national needs, but the price of these by-products was fixed in 1914 on the average of the twelve previous years, I think I am right in saying, and this has practically never been altered since. If the gas companies could get the benefit of anything like the market price of these products they would be able to pay a slashing dividend to their shareholders and reduce the price of gas. This is equally the case with sulphate of ammonia. Speaking as a farmer I am exceedingly glad that still late of ammonia is cheap. It is fixed at £15 a ton. When war broke out it was £12 a ton. If you want to buy sulphate of ammonia in the open market you would have to pay £40 a ton, but the gas companies—I have no doubt for good national reasons—are not permitted to receive men than the miserable allowance of £3 in addition to the pre-war price.
If His Majesty's Government are so careful of the interests of the shareholders in gas companies it is for the country generally to contribute and not the unhappy consumers of gas, who are in the main, as we know, very poor people themselves. Take one of the biggest companies. The Gas, Light and Coke Company's gas was 2s. 7d. a thousand feet in 1914. It is now 4s. 4d. Think what that means to the penny-in-the-slot users of gas; and these people are going to be further mulcted in order to maintain this large proportion—this three-quarters of the statutory dividends. This is by no means a question which affects only people of what may be considered extreme political views. The noble Lord will doubtless remember that in the principal division in another place one of the protagonists, speaking in the sense in which I am now speaking, was Sir Frederick Banbury, who is certainly not considered to hold wildly socialistic or extreme views on subjects connected with property, or to be likely to disregard the proper treatment of limited companies. I am very glad indeed that these share-
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holders should receive a considerable dividend, but if they are to do so it should be at the expense of the country as a whole and not at the expense of the poor people who are consumers of gas.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, I want to say a word or two about this Bill, and to ask for information as to why all the small and the large areas have been lumped together and all treated in the Sallie way. I have been in communication with a friend in a county town in Scotland, whose gas company is likely to be seriously prejudiced and injured in an unfair way by the terms of this Bill. The circumstances of Stirling are not certainly those of London, and the interests are probably different. The circumstances are certainly different, and I cannot see why the same treatment which is meted out to very large corporations is to be placed indiscriminately on the shoulders of those who really cannot afford it. I have great sympathy with the view expressed by the noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, in this respect—that the gas companies are, I think, being hit in two ways. They are being highly charged for coal, against which they have no remedy, and they are absolutely prevented from making a relative profit from their by-products. Balancing On e against the other; if they had been given equal treatment in both cases there probably would have been no necessity for this Bill at all.
The circumstances of the case that I want to present are these. The Stirling Gas Company promoted a Bill asking for temporary relief from the sliding scale clause in its present Act. That was promoted under the Private Bill Procedure Act of Scotland, and ought to have been proceeded with and heard on its merits under that Act. But for some reason or another which none of us can understand, the Bill for this relief has been conjoined with all those English Bills promoted for the same purpose, the circumstances of which are represented to me as being wholly and entirely different. In almost all these cases the gas companies have very large reserves. Surely there ought to be discrimination between the respective circumstances and position of gas companies which had distributed their profits, kept down their prices, not accumulated large reserves, not attempted to make money, and continually reduced the price of gas.

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The circumstances of Stirling are these. Their Act was passed in 1898. It was followed by a Municipal Electric Lighting under which the town council levied for some years a total sum of £4,200 from the ratepayers to cover their annual deficits. All the time they were competing with the gas company. As a result of this competition the gas company had to keep down their price as low as possible, and in the twenty years that have passed since 1898 it has accumulated only a small reserve fund of £2,300. The Stirling Gas Company promoted a. Bill in its own way tinder the Scottish Private Bill Procedure Act, 'and it ought to have been heard by the tribunal in Scotland and reported to Parliament. So far as that Bill was concerned, there was absolutely no opposition to it. It modified the sliding scale to some extent, but the town council, as the corporate body representing the ratepayers of Stirling and the poor consumers, just as the county council represents the poor consumers in London, presented no opposition, and it met with no difficulty. No single protest was made, so far as I am informed, by a single consumer in this particular case. I do think that the regular procedure ought to have been followed, and that the Bill should have been heard on its merits. It scents very hard that the shareholders of this small company, a large proportion of whom are small shareholders, should have their dividends reduced by one-half or three-quarters under the circumstances I have indicated.
My correspondent and friend, who is chairman of the gas company, says—
"I may mention that non-statutory vein-panics in Scotland pay much larger dividends than we do; also that a coal company, which supplies us with coal, has just paid a dividend of I6 per cent. to its shareholders, while we are limited to, and threatened with a reduction of, the standard rates although producing those things for munition purposes and supplying light and heat to t he public. The cost of coal, wages, awl material, has been more titan doubled since t he war began, and a temporary relief from the operation of the sliding scale, which holds the balance evenly between consumer 'and producer, should be granted to us apart from the other Bills. Surely in disposing of the general Bill it should be possible to draw a line between companies which have observed their Acts, or which have not accumulated large reserves, and those which have. It seems unreasonable that while the coal companies, miners, and many others should receive large additional payments owing to the war, the shareholders of gas companies should have their income reduced at
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the very time when the cost of living is so much in increased."
I think this is temperately and forcibly put and it scents to me that the action of the Government in mixing these questions up in one Bill is likely to lead to injustice.
I think a line could In' drawn by granting full relief to companies which could show that for twenty years past what they had set aside as a reserve fund did not amount in all to more than one-fortieth part of their annually divided profits; partial relief where this came to one-twentieth; and less, or no relief, where it came to one-tenth. I think this could he easily worked out, and it would be only a matter of justice. This is far too complicated a matter for me to attempt to deal with, as I have not the facts and figures: but I propose to put down an Amendment for the Committee stage which will give relief to the shareholders of these particular companies in whose interests I have been speaking; and I believe f shall be able to make out a good case for it. It is not a question of opposing the Second Reading of the Bill, although I think it would be much fairer if Stirling could be cut out of the Bill altogether and allowed to proceed in its own way by the ordinary procedure. I shall not oppose the Second Reading, but On the Committee stage I intend to move the Amendment I have indicated.
LORD BUCKMASTER: My Lords, I hope that, the speech which has been made by the noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, will be a preface to an Amendment on the Committee stage proposing to alter once more the clause of the Bill so as to make it in agreement with the recommendation of the Select Committee. If such an Amendment is put down, no doubt its discussion will afford the most convenient opportunity for a careful investigation of the circumstances which are urged as justifying the proposed change. I certainly do not propose this afternoon to occupy your Lordships at any length in discussing what these circumstances may be.
What I desire to lay before your Lordships is the consideration of the course, which I regard as dangerous, that this Bill is attempting to make into law. In order to understand the circumstances in which the gas companies have induced the Government to conic forward to their relief it is, I think, only right to consider the history of the gas companies. I deal with the gas

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companies alone, because I think that, although this Bill has mixed them with others, it is the gas companies with which the greater part of this suit is concerned. It is, I think, common knowledge that the original capital of a gas company was a capital upon which they were at liberty to earn dividends up to 10 per cent., and this they were unable to exceed. If no alteration whatever had taken place in that original arrangement they would still be at liberty to earn that dividend on their original capital. I think it was in 1875, or 1876, that they obtained relief from the rigid limit of that dividend and were enabled to adopt the sliding scale. The result of that change has been that from that period until now they have distributed some six and a half millions in dividends over and above what they would have been able to pay had they been kept to their original limit.
I think that the noble Lord who is in charge of this Bill will confirm my recollection when I say that the gas company, either as coincident with the change in their system of paying dividend or by some subsequent provision, altered their original capital from £100 to either £240 or £250 a share, not by issuing fresh capital but merely by providing that the nominal value of the capital should be so proportionately increased, a matter that is not without value when we consider the phrase which I think the noble Lord somewhat incautiously used when he said the desire of this Bill was to enable a dividend to be paid upon the capital expended. It is not upon the capital expended that this Bill will provide a fair dividend, but upon the capital expended and expanded in the manner that I have mentioned.
What is the justification that is urged for this relief? It is that the war has fallen with a heavy hand upon the gas companies, and that the restrictions under which they are placed by their statutory obligations prevent them from earning a fair market dividend for the shareholders. If a company obtains statutory privileges, and subjects itself as a return to statutory restrictions, is it right, as soon as these statutory restrictions press upon them, to come and ask that they should be released when they have, to the extent that I have already stated, the statutory advantages which were conferred upon them? I think that it is wholly wrong, and I cannot understand what case can be made out for the
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relief of the shareholders in gas companies that cart be denied to the innumerable number of humble individual cases who have suffered a wrong far greater than will fall upon the shareholders of the gas companies by the incidence of the war.
Let us take the ordinary case of the small shopkeeper, a person to whom the use of gas is of the greatest possible consequence. If the shopkeeper was under fifty lie has been torn from his business, and that business has to be carried on as well as it can be by those whom he has left behind. The profits that he formerly earned are now represented by the small pay that he receives as a soldier on active service and the separation allowance that is given to his wife. Upon that class of person the hand of the war has fallen with a far more heavy and crushing effect than it has upon the collective bodies of the shareholders of the gas companies. Yet it is upon them that is to be placed the burden that is necessary in order to pay this increase to the gas company shareholders. It seems to me unfair and unjust, and also most unwise, if the shareholders of the vast corporations are to be able, by the exercise of their wide and far-reaching influence, to induce the Government to come to their rescue. In these circumstances how is the Government going to refuse to come to the rescue of other people in exactly the same position? The misery and the mischief of this war fall with impartial hand, and it is quite impossible that the Government can relieve each individual and each interest from the loss and the suffering that ensue.
If it were possible I should be far inure ready to support a general Bill than I am to support a Bill which makes a selective discriminination, and attempts to relieve only a body who frequently, as the noble Marquess has pointed out, are represented by large financial interests. It is, I know, true that there is a considerable amount of shareholding in this company, and that a great number of the small shareholders are workmen of the company itself, but the wages of these workmen have already been increased very nearly 100 per cent., and it max well be doubted if the small shareholders will get any great advantage out of this Bill compared with the extra cost that they will be called upon to pay for the gas that they consume.
I certainly would not take upon myself the responsibility of attempting to prevent

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the Second Reading of this Bill, but I cannot say that I agree even with the Report of the Select Committee. I do not think that the Government ought to step in and throw upon a class of consumers the burden of the loss of any trading concern; and if, indeed, the inability of the gas companies to pay a fair dividend has been due to the fact that the Government has improperly restricted the price of their residual outputs, the fair and businesslike thing to have done would be to fix their residual products at the market rate regulated by the conditions of the war, and no:, to have attempted to benefit the people who use these products at the expense of the people who use gas.
Notwithstanding this, recognising as I do that this matter was considered and discussed before a Select Committee of another place who heard all the arguments that could be advanced—and I believe heard learned counsel—and recommended that the dividends should be increased to one half of what they were, I should not be prepared to oppose the Second Reading, but I submit that there is no justification whatever for going beyond the Report of that, Committee and increasing by 50 per cent, the margin which they allowed and laid down.
Finally, I cannot conclude without saying that I regard with great regret the way in which this matter has been brought forward, not of course in this House. But it is common knowledge that there has been an elaborate campaign in which the shareholders in the gas companies and these kindred companies have been circularising extensively, and that pressure has been brought to bear upon members of the House of Commons by w hat, after all, is nothing but a group of financial interests.
LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, I think that this is a most dangerous Bill for all companies whose rights depend upon Statute in the same way as in this Bill. At the present moment it is proposed, by the action of different Departments, to increase prices which now are under statutory guarantee. Therefore on some other occasion, under different conditions, it would be a precedent for lowering and diminishing the statutory rights which other companies have in some special circumstances which may arise at a particular time. I am bound to say, with regard to what is proposed in this Bill, that I agree
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with Sir Frederick Banbury—namely, that interfering with a statutory charter is a proposal of the most dangerous character, because in this country statutory rights as regards companies are considered to have the soundest foundation, which is recognised in the giving of a larger number of years purchase for statutory undertakings as compared with what is given for undertakings of another character.
Let me say a word upon a point dealt with by the noble Lord who spoke last—namely, as to the history of this matter, with which many of us are very familiar. What is known as the sliding scale was originally introduced in the case of the London Gas Companies, and the great fight was for a fair arrangement as between the gas consumer in London and the gas companies. The result of the sliding scale was to make a partnership between the gas consumer and the gas producer. I think that that is an admirable arrangement and it is one which has worked exceedingly well, although, as the noble Lord who last spoke pointed out, it has eventuated in the payment of six and a-half millions in dividends which otherwise could not have been paid. Every one knows that the history which he stated is perfectly accurate—namely, that there was originally a standard dividend, but under the sliding scale more than the standard dividend could be paid if the conditions of the trade allowed it.
Let me refer to what was said upon this point by the noble Marquess, with whose opinion I entirely concur. The partnership between the gas consumer and the gas company involved a partnership in what is called the residual products—that is to say, the gas consumer in London has an interest in the proper sale of the residual products, practically to the same extent as the gas company. The gas company in certain circumstances receives an enlarged dividend and the consumers received a reduction in price. What has happened now? These residual products have been given a fictitiously low price, which is to the disadvantage of the gas company. But what is overlooked is that it is also a disadvantage to the London pas consumer, who had a vested interest under the sliding scale system in these residual products and a share in the profits derived from them. I by no means desire to criticise the fact that sulphate of ammonia is cheap for the agriculturist.

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I agree with the noble Marquess that it is a great advantage to the agriculturist. But why should this be made an excuse for placing a special charge on the London gas consumer? To my mind there is no connection between the two.
I think this is a dangerous Bill. It is one of those Bills which may have been rendered necessary by the constant interference with matters of price and matters of wages, so that really almost every element in our industrial life has come under the dominion of official Departments. This is a further step in the same direction. I ask your Lordships to notice that Parliament is not asked to give this advantage to the gas companies. The gas companies are entitled to go before the Department and to ask for that Department's sanction. That is a very different matter. Are all the prices to gas consumers and all the profits of gas companies to be placed under the jurisdiction either of the Board of Trade or the Local Government Board? That is what it comes to. You are substituting for a statutory Parliamentary protection the mere action of a Department. The only justification for this Bill, although I think it is very slight, is to be found in the recommendations of the Select Committee.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: My Lords, the discussion so far has almost inevitably been entirely upon the gas question. I suppose this was the main reason for the introduction of the Bill. But there are other companies concerned besides the gas companies, and I want to say a word for the water companies, which I believe come under this Bill. I am quite sure that there are a great number of water companies which do not pay and never have paid large dividends. They also have a very great, proportion of small shareholders, and it seems to me hard upon them that they should get no relief whatever until their dividend has fallen by one-half—say from 5 per cent. to 2½ per cent. No reference has been made to the controlled companies but great consideration has been shown to the controlled companies by the Government, and without a Bill being passed by Parliament certain of the controlled companies—the dock companies—have just lately been able to increase their charges. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Parmoor, shakes his head. Am I wrong?
LORD PARMOOR: They could not by Departmental action increase statutory
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charges, beyond which they are not allowed to go.
THE EARL or PLYMOUTH: Then I must have made a mistake, and they only get relief within their statutory charges. It must be taken into consideration that this is a war measure. It is for the period of the war only and for the prescribed time after the close of the war. There have been many measures passed through Parliament which are war measures but which were thought necessary, though some of them—certainly one of them—pressed very hardly upon the owners of some industries. I am referring to a measure with regard to coal. But I think it should be looked at from a broad point of view and during the period of the war is it unreasonable that these companies should have some relief if their dividends sink beyond a certain point? I do not discuss the question of departing from the recommendations of the Select Committee; I am not prepared to say anything about that. But at the same time I feel that, so far as small water companies are concerned, they would get a very small measure of relief front this Bill if the noble Marquess opposite succeeds in altering the Bill back to its original form.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: My Lords, I desire in a few sentences to thank the Government for bringing this Bill forward. I have felt for some time that the question was one that wanted dealing with. Your Lordships are aware that there were about ten or a dozen Bills introduced into Parliament in this session to deal with this point, and I am glad that His Majesty's Government dealt with it in the way they did—namely, by appointing a Select Committee and by treating the matter as a whole. Several of your Lordships in speaking—my noble friend opposite (Lord Buck-master) among them—mentioned the fact, which is obvious, that the importance of this matter will arise really in Committee. I do not wish, therefore, to take up time in discussing Committee points. I know it is the usual habit of your Lordships to support Committees; I think on the w hole we generally take that view. At the same time, I ought to point out to your Lordships that this matter was evidently very thoroughly gone into in another place. There were no fewer than three divisions on this very point as to the difference between the half and the three-quarters, and in every case the three-quarters won by a substantial majority.

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The noble Marquess (Lord Crewe) partly explained this by pointing out that these gas companies are powerful corporations, and no doubt they took very thorough steps to put their views before hon. Members. At the same time the noble Marquess will permit me to say that the distinguished body with which he is concerned (the London County Council) in no way fails in that direction. There is no public body which is more efficient in placing its views before Parliament, either through your Lordships' House or in other ways in the Committee rooms upstairs. I am glad that this matter is going to be raised in Committee. At the same time I thought it right to point out that evidently the change from the half to the three-quarters has been no capricious action of the House of Commons. The matter was very thoroughly considered there, and I have no doubt that it was for reasons that entirely satisfied it that the House departed from the recommendations of the Select Committee.
LORD SOMERLEYTON: If I may, I will say a word or two in reply to the speakers who have asked questions on the Bill. The noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition referred to the prices of residuals. These prices were fixed at a fair figure and any increase would be too small, according to the best of my information, to affect prices or dividends. This is really a question for the Ministry of Munitions, who, I believe, would not at all object to any review being made of these prices.
Lord Balfour of Burleigh asked why we should place the great and the small companies together when they are so different, and he inferred that it was a great hardship on the small companies to be put in with the others. In reply I would point out the great difficulty of picking and choosing between companies. The applications of the companies under this Bill, if it becomes an Act, would be dealt with according to their own special merits; and it is not to be assumed that, all will get equal relief. Each will be judged on its own merits; and if a good case is put forward for any particular township or any particular district that case would be judged entirely on its merits.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: Is there such a provision in the Bill?
LORD SOMERLEYTON: I am informed that this is, at any rate, the intention of the Government; and I believe it is in the Bill. However, I will find out afterwards if the noble Lord will allow me to do so. There is a limit fixed in the Bill. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Buckmaster, quoted some words of mine. I do not think he quoted them exactly as I intended to state them. I think he quoted me as saying that a fair dividend should be paid, but what I thought I had said, and what I think I said, was that interest should be paid on the capital expenditure, which is very nearly the same but not quite.
LORD BUCKMASTER: It was not interest on shares which was in my mind but the actual expenditure of the capital.
LORD SOMERLEYTON: I understand the point brought forward by the noble and learned Lord. I think that some consideration should be given under this Bill to those who have invested their money in undertakings of this kind as well as to people who have invested their money in other businesses. In regard to another point raised by Lord Buckmaster, may I say that under the sliding scale five-sixths of the advantage, or disadvantage, of a change of price must fall on the consumer and one-sixth must fall on the shareholders. If the latter have benefited by £6,000,000 the consumer must have benefited by £30,000,000. This seems to be a fairly good argument in reply.
With regard to what was also said by Lord Buckmaster as to the position of a shopkeeper, I would point out that if a shopkeeper is hard hit there is nothing to prevent him putting up his shutters, closing his shop, and taking up another line of business, as he has no statutory obligations. But the companies with which we are dealing are under statutory obligations and have to continue their business whether it pays or not.
A further question was raised with regard to the statutory companies being under the control of the Local Government Board or of the Board of Trade. I would point out that all statutory companies must be to some extent under the control of the Government; and I hope that they will be allowed to proceed with this Bill, which I believe is entirely necessary. If I have not satisfactorily answered all the questions that have been raised, I trust your

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Lordships will understand that I have done my best to do so; and these points may be considered further in Committee if the House desires to do so.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: Will the noble Lord say when he proposes to take the Committee stage?
LORD SOMERLEYTON: On Friday, if your Lordships please.

PUBLIC WORKS LOANS BILL.
Order of the day for the Second Reading read.
LORD HYLTON: My Lords, this is an annual Bill for the purpose of authorising the issue of money for loans from the Local Loans Fund. If any of your Lordships wish for information on the subject-matter of the clauses, I will do my best to deal with any questions that may be asked; if not, I will formally move the Second Reading of the Bill.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Hylton.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a. Committee of the Whole House.

WHEAT AND SUGAR SUPPLIES.
VISCOUNT CHAPLIN VISCOUNT CHAPLIN had the following Questions on the Paper—
To ask His Majesty's Government—

1. What has been the total amount of the payments made by the Royal Commission on Wheat Supplies and the Royal Commission on Sugar Supplies for the purchase of wheat and sugar by those two Royal Commissions respectively;

2. Who is the chief official responsible for the distribution of food purchased by the Ministry of Food, and by whom are the payments made for the cost of its distribution;

3. What are the duties and functions in the organisation for the maintenance of supplies, and who is the chief official responsible;

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4. How far has the cost of administration, so far, been paid for as it was "hoped" it would be by the margin above cost prices at which 'foodstuffs are sold to the consumer; and

5. How much has been paid for the purchased home-produced food and imported food respectively; and to move for Papers.

The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I do not ask these Questions for the purpose of raising a debate, but I have two reasons in particular for putting them on the Paper. Those reasons arise out of replies given to me on July 10 by the noble Lord who answered the Questions I then put to His Majesty's Government; and I was not altogether able to follow what he said when he told me that two of them could not be answered, and that certain items of expenditure could not be separated.
I was particularly anxious to know what the cost of the distribution of food by the Food Controller's Department was, because, until the distribution was undertaken by the State—which distribution, I imagine, must mean an enormous expenditure—it of course cost the State absolutely nothing. My noble friend on that occasion replied to me in these terms—
"The distribution of food by the Department is worked conjointly with the general control of prices 58 fixed by the Food Controller's Orders and with the organisation for the maintenance of supplies. It is, therefore, impossible to discriminate between the two items, and the cost of these functions cannot be separated."
I myself do not care twopence whether the cost of distribution can be separated or not as between two Departments. What I should like to know is what it costs altogether. Somebody must pay for the cost of distribution, and there must be sonic account of such payment; and I do not understand on what grounds it is impossible that we can be told anything as to the cost of the distribution of food by the Food Controller's Department.
There is another reason why I have thought it necessary to put these Questions. The cost of this Department, which was £48,000 for the month of December last, has gone up by leads and bounds in such an extraordinary fashion that, according to the figures given to me by the noble Lord, they have now come to be at the rate of, as I stated on a former occasion in this

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House, something like £400,000,000 a year. It is quite true we have been told that Hare is to be a return for this enormous expenditure, and that it is to arise from margins on the sale of commodities, but we have been told nothing about the returns at present, and it is in connection with that subject that I have asked Questions also.
As to the first Question, I hope there may be a possibility of an answer to that, and it is as to the total amount of the payments n Lade by the Royal Commission on Wheat Supplies and the Royal Commission on Sugar Supplies for wheat and sugar respectively. I am much interested in that because I recollect, perfectly well while I was still in the House of Commons an occasion on which the Government, although they had declined to spend something like £250,000 or £300,000 for setting up factories in one or two different parts of England where fanners had already agreed to grow all the sugar beet necessary for the purpose, instead of taking that course, which would appear to have been a reasonable one and calculated to be of great benefit to agriculture and the employment of labour at the same time—instead of doing that they purchased £18,000,000 worth of sugar abroad. Whether that was after the war broke out, or before, my memory does not serve me to say.
Then a most extraordinary thing happened afterwards, as it appeared that there was a considerable rise in the price of sugar, and the Free Trade Government of that day immediately prohibited the import of sugar into this country altogether. I think I am justified in asking for some information about what has been spent in the purchase of sugar and wheat, unless there be some objection of which I am not personally aware. As to my second Question, if we can ascertain that information we shall be getting on in the direction of what I want to know.
[The noble Viscountthen read his remaining Questions, and proceeded.] It seems to me that these are all Questions which anybody is fairly entitled to ask, grid I hope the noble Earl will be able to give me some further reply to-day than he was able to give me on the last occasion when I raised this subject.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF CRAWFORD): My Lords, the total amount paid by the Royal Commission
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on Wheat Supplies for the purchase of wheat, including flour, is approximately £270,000,000 f.o.b. Of the quantity so purchased a considerable amount was allocated to the Allies, the balance available for British consumption representing approximately a f.o.b. value of £160,814,000, or, including freight and insurance, about £226,000,000. Down to September 17, 1917, it is hoped that the cost of administration was wholly met by the margin between purchasing and selling prices. Since that date, owing to the introduction of the 9d. loaf and the consequent fixing of selling prices below cost, there has been no available margin. The disbursements of the Royal Commission on the Sugar Supplies total £147,621,460. These figures include sums owed to the Ministry of Shipping, but for which no accounts have been received, and exclude sums paid on account of Allies and not yet refunded. In the case of sugar, the cost of administration has been wholly met by the margin between purchasing and selling prices. The Ministry of Food pay for the machinery of rationing.
With regard to the second Question, it is the duty of the Food Controller to regulate the supply and distribution of food, and for this purpose he has appointed secretaries and officers to take such steps as he may approve for maintaining supplies and, giving directions with respect to distribution. The problems of supply and distribution are inevitably linked together, as it is impossible to distribute supplies which are not available, while imported supplies, at any rate, are based on requirements which are ascertained in the last resort from distributing centres.
As to Question No. 4, the total amount of the payments made by the Ministry of Food in respect of purchases is £195,832,311, of this, £60,411,670 was for home-produced food, and £135,120,641 for imported food. All payments in the United Kingdom are made by or under the direction of the Financial Secretary to the Ministry. Payments abroad are made by accredited agents under the direction of the Financial Secretary of the Treasury. It is not yet possible to say exactly holy far the cost of administration has been met, but it is again hoped that this will be covered by the margin between purchasing and selling prices.
The annual accounts of the Ministry of Food and of the Wheat and Sugar Commissions will be duly submitted to the

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Comptroller and Auditor-General, and will be forwarded with his observations to the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons. I understand that the Chairman of the Select Committee of the House of Commons charged with the investigation of the expenditure of the Ministry of Food has expressed his entire satisfaction with the financial system set up by that Department.
VISCOUNT CHAPLIN: I am sorry to say I hear so badly that at times it has been impossible for me to follow the noble Earl as closely as I should have wished. I still do not understand—it may be my own fault—why it is impossible to answer the Question as to the distribution of food. However, I must wait until I have an opportunity of seeing the noble Earl's reply in print, and then perhaps I shall have some further observations to make upon the subject.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: May I explain in one sentence why distribution and supply are inextricably combined? Take wheat. Wheat arrives in this country from overseas, and it is handed over to the agent who is a distributor. He distributes to the miller; the miller treats that wheat, buying it as a wholesaler, and distributes it to the baker who is also a distributor. The baker distributes the wheat to the ultimate consumer, who is a member of the public. At the same time wheat grown in Lincolnshire is bought by a private corn merchant who is a wholesale dealer. He sells it to the miller, who for that purpose, becomes a retail buyer. The miller mixes that wheat with his imported wheat, and again it passes through the flour stage and ultimately reaches the consumer. At the same time a cargo of imported flour has come into this country. It is received here by the Royal Commission and handed over to the flour factor. The flour factor again, as a wholesaler, distributes it to his retail merchants, the bakers. They mix the flour with the home-milled G.R. flout and it ultimately reaches the consumer. Each of these persons, at one stage or another, is a distributor or wholesaler or retailer. I can assure the noble Viscount that it is through no desire to avoid the implication of what he asks that we say it is impossible accurately to define the division between the maintenance of supply and distribution.
VISCOUNT CHAPLIN: I can see that with regard to flour.

LOTTERIES (WAR CHARITIES) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I am fully conscious that the Bill which I am asking your Lordship to read a second time requires some words of explanation, perhaps I ought almost to say some words of defence, because it has the effect of legalising practices which the law has hitherto consistently discouraged and punished. It does that quite unashamedly. I will not take up the time of the House by recapitulating the law which affects lotteries at present. It is to be found in a number of Statutes, some of them going back as far as the reign of William III and others of a very much more recent date. All of these discourage and punish the holding of lotteries. It is, perhaps, fair to say that the earlier Statutes seem to be based upon the assumption that the State has a right to resort to lotteries as a means of raising revenue, and to discourage private lotteries quite as much with the object of protecting State lotteries from undue competition, as from any desire to raise the standard of public morality.
But I am bound to say that the more recent Acts are unreservedly condemnatory of lotteries in any shape or form. They forbid the distribution of prizes by lot or by chance of any kind, whether the distribution takes place by means of the drawing of lots, or by cards, or by dice, or by any other mechanical device. The test all through is that that form of distribution is condemned which depends upon chance rather than upon skill. At any rate, as the law now stands, lotteries are treated as a common nuisance; persons aiding and abetting lotteries are liable to be punished; premises in which lotteries take place are treated as gaming houses; and altogether it is no exaggeration to say that the whole spirit of our legislation is against lotteries in any shape or form.
The law has, indeed, been applied stringently in many cases with which your Lordships are familiar. You remember, I think, that at one time not very long ago, what were known as "missing

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word competitions" were very popular. They were condemned as violations of the law. Another case was the practice resorted to by certain tradesmen of selling goods with prize coupons attached to them; and what is perhaps more important than any case of that kind is another case with which the House is very familiar—I mean the proposal which was made since the war began to raise revenue by the issue of premium war bonds. The matter was very thoroughly gone into by two Parliamentary Committees, and although opinion was much divided upon the question of policy, and although there was no question at all that the issue of premium war bonds would be likely to bring a great accession of wealth to the State, the Committees reported adversely to the proposal, on the ground that it was opposed to the sentiment of public opinion and that it was not desirable to introduce legislation which would give rise to acute controversy upon a question of that kind.
I quite realise that up to this point I have been making a speech against my own Bill, and I wish now to lay before the House one or two reasons for which it seems to me that the time has come when we might well make a departure from the old practice. And I shall, I hope, be able to show your Lordships that it will not be really any departure from the paths of virtue. There are two or three reasons why it seems to some of us that charity lotteries should, as a temporary measure, be legalised. In the first place, these charities are sorely in need of money—the calls upon them tend to increase constantly—and there is no doubt whatever, in the minds of those who are in a position to judge, that a very considerable amount of revenue might be tapped by resorting to these lotteries. But there is another reason to which I confess I attach great importance. It is this—these lotteries are at the present time taking place all over the country. There is no doubt about that. Whether it is due to deliberate laxity on the part of the Police, or to whatever other cause it may be due, the fact is there, and you have in many parts of the country a roaring trade in lotteries and tombolas and other devices of that kind. In our view it would be much better that we should regularise these proceedings, that we should not permit a contravention of the law, but that we should render the law more elastic than it is at present.
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The Bill which I recommend to the House deals with the subject in the following manner. It authorises the use of lotteries only on behalf of charities which have been registered under the War Charities Act of 1916. Under that Act, as your Lordships probably remember, no appeal can be made to the public for any war charity, bazaar, sale, or entertainment unless the charity has been registered; and it is laid down that a "registered charity," is "a charity having for its object, or amongst its objects, the relief of suffering or distress, the supply of needs or comforts, or any other charitable purpose connected with the present war." But the Act does not stop there, for it lays down some very stringent conditions subject to which alone a charity can be recognised as worthy of registration. These are the principal of them. A charity must be administered by a responsible committee or other body; it must keep proper accounts audited at proper intervals, and by proper people; it must pay all moneys received into a separate account; and in all other respects it must comply with the Regulations laid down by the registration authority or the Charity Commissioners. The Bill that I am asking your Lordships to read a Second time provides that no lottery is to be promoted except with the previous consent in writing of the Police authorities, so that you have the means of preventing irregular and contraband lotteries. You get, in the first place, a guarantee for the respectability of the charity, and you get security for proper Police supervision. The other precaution contained in the Bill which I regard as an important one is the stipulation that the relaxation of the law is to operate only during the progress of the present war. That is, briefly, an outline of the provisions of the Bill.
In fairness to the House I ought, perhaps, to explain that I have taken charge of this Bill because it is one in which the Red Cross Society is greatly interested, and because I have the honour of being connected officially with that society. As I wish to keep nothing back from your Lordships, I will add this. There is a lottery, a special lottery, which we have in contemplation, and which we shall probably, almost certainly, set up if this Bill passes into law. I am sure the House knows of the great collection of pearls which has been in progress for some time in support of the Red Cross Society. The success of that collection is certainly a remarkable testimony to the energy of the ladies who

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Started the collection, and also to the generosity of the owners of pearls who have contributed so generously and so ungrudgingly. The result has been a collection of pearls of very great value and interest. I think the number of pearls we now hold is in the neighbourhood of 3,300. The problem we shall have to face is, What are we to do with these pearls, and how are we to turn them to the best advantage? I am advised that to attempt to dispose of them by retail would be perfectly hopeless at the present time. I am also told that to attempt to dispose of them by public auction would probably be most disappointing. One can quite understand that to throw between 3,000 and 4,000 pearls upon the market through the auction room at a time like this might have the most disappointing results. A lottery seems to afford the obvious solution of these difficulties.
I do not like to give figures based on conjecture, and I will not do so; but I am told that a properly conducted lottery with these 3,300 pearls as prizes would produce probably quite an astounding sum of money. Of course we are concerned, and all these charities are concerned, not only with things like pearls. There are much humbler gifts. May I cite one. We have 3,300 pearls, and we have one pig. The history of the pig is romantic. On the occasion of a recent visit paid by their Majesties to some of those allotments which have done so much for agriculture and been so instrumental in increasing the production of food, a loyal and enthusiastic agriculturist presented Her Majesty with a pig, and Her Majesty has been pleased to present it to the Red Cross Society. I would rather like to put it to the House, What are we to do with this historic animal? I think your Lordships will agree with me that it would be something of an outrage to consign it to the nearest butcher for human consumption. We are advised that a considerable sum of money might be earned by raffling the pig. I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Chaplin is no longer in the House, but I will undertake to say that if we raffle this pig we shall get a sum of money which would compare not unfavourably with the value even of the famous animal of which he has so often spoken in his agricultural speeches. The pig, of course, is only a single case. There are many other gifts which might be dealt with in the same way. The real argument—and it is a summary of my
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case—on which we rely in promoting this Bill is that it will enable us to get money for charitable purposes, and that it will enable us to get money which we should not be likely to get by any other means.
The calls upon these charities are becoming harder and harder to meet. I ventured to remind the House of the fact that I had some connection with the Red Cross Society, and I should like to tell your Lordships this. The expenditure of the Red Cross, which stood roughly at a £1,000,000 in the first year of the war, amounted in the second year to £2,000,000, in the third year to £3,000,000, and it has now considerably overtopped £4,000,000 a year. Your Lordships may ask where all this money goes. I should like to give two figures. We are spending £25,000 a week on stores—medical, general, and other stores—destined for use in hospitals, stores which go to all the different theatres of war and by which our Allies as well as we ourselves benefit. We are spending £40,000 a week in comforts and things of various kinds sent out to our prisoners of war.
I know how deeply the House was moved the other evening when the noble Lord, Lord Devonport, laid before your Lordships the pitiable case of some of the prisoners of war. When we think of what the condition of these prisoners is, and that these lotteries may be the means of bringing a great deal more help and comfort to them, I say, Do not let us be too squeamish about the ethical aspects of these distributions. We think this Bill will enable us to get a good deal of money, and a good deal which we should not get in any other way. After all, in these appeals for assistance to the public we have to study human nature. Human nature is very human indeed about these things—about charity, in particular. There are numbers of people who are charitable, and who look for no reward for their charity. There are others whose charity is of a more languid description—a charity which needs the stimulus and the excitement of something to provoke and bring it into activity. It is people of that class who perhaps will not give you anything for an ordinary humdrum collection, yet will put their money freely into these raffles and lotteries. I am not at all ashamed of confessing that I think, at a time like this, that we are within our rights if we trade a little upon that particular form of human frailty. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Marquess of Lansdowne.)
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I have followed with the closest attention, and with, what does not always accompany close attention, a very keen and living interest, the delightful speech to which we have just listened. It is characteristic of the spokesman, to whose voice we all desire to listen with perhaps greater respect and affection than we listen to almost any voice that can be raised in this House. I am quite sure that your Lordships will have some sympathy with me if I say that I feel bound, notwithstanding those thoughts, to oppose giving a Second Reading to the Bill which Lord Lansdowne has brought before us.
The subject is one of very far-reaching importance. This is not really a little Bill. I think that the noble Marquess, with parental modesty, rather belittled the result of the measure which he has introduced if it were to become law. A great and far-reaching principle is involved. The arguments that the noble Marquess brought before us were that the object in this Bill is a good one, that its operation is to be temporary in its character, and, incidentally at least, that what he desires to make legal is, whether legal or not, being done to a considerable extent at this moment. Those, I think, were the main arguments that the noble Marquess brought forward.
As to the object, no one—I do not need to stand here and say it—is stronger than I am in its favour. I have done in every way everything in my power to further and promote the object for which the noble Marquess is so exceptionally qualified to plead, and it is hateful even to seem to be putting a bar or an obstacle in the way of raising money for an object so obviously and so entirely right. I am quite prepared to say that with the registration which the Bill requires as one of the conditions we should be safeguarded, but what exactly would be said by other institutions of the highest possible merit, and with the noblest possible objects, which are not war charities in this particular sense, but which are at this moment extremely hard pressed—hospitals for the civil population, among the rest—if they were told that this process may be adopted for a war charity but that they are absolutely barred from using it.
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But the question of the object does not really cover the ground. I venture to say that it is from a different side altogether that we must look at far-reaching legislation of this sort. We are told that what is proposed would be temporary in its working. I very greatly doubt it. There are many other War Emergency Bills at this moment which are stamped with a temporary character, but which will in all probability find a permanent place on the Statute Book; and in this case it would seem to me very difficult indeed to say that a principle upon which we have based legislation for the last 300 years, having once been thrown aside as regards the particular measure which is proposed, must hold good when we are dealing with other good objects in the future.
The noble Marquess referred to the famous pearls, about which I shall have word to say in a moment; and he rested one of his arguments upon the fact—putting pearls aside—that at this moment there is what he described as a roaring trade going on of this kind throughout the country. It may be so, my Lords; I take it readily from the noble Marquess as a fact. I say that I was entirely unaware of it, and I do not know where the roaring trade is going on. I honestly admit that I am not an attendant—I doubt whether many of your Lordships are constant attendants—at the actual working out of bazaars, though no doubt your Lordships' names may have been given to them. But I know that in the cases of all those with which I have had any connection, or those with which my friends have had any connection for the past twenty years, it was made a condition that we did not desire that lotteries should form part of the bazaar procedure. To what degree of strictness that is observed, I do not know, but I know for certain that it has succeeded in sonic cases in preventing what had been contemplated being done.
The greatest and the most fundamental difference seems to me to lie between the fact—if it be a fact—that at this moment a great many people are stretching the existing law so as in a sort of half-humorous, half-serious way to have raffles or lotteries, and the Government of the country changing legislation which has been persistent, recurrent, and imperative for 100 years at least That is a very large step to take, and the immediate exigencies and requirements do not seem to me to justify the Government in saying "We shall tear up these arrange

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ments as regards what is going on, and we bid you go forward notwithstanding the law that has hitherto absolutely been against it." The noble Marquess, with absolute fairness, emphasised how clearly the law is against it. The law, as he said, has hitherto consistently denounced and punished such things; the recent Acts are unreservedly condemnatory, and so on. That is absolutely the case, and what we have to face is that, if we pass a Bill like this on the wholesome sentiment of an enthusiastic desire to support a splendid cause, we may, without in the least intending it, be opening the flood gates of difficulty for coming years and letting in the water over a far wider area than we in the least imagine or contemplate.
It is a very important step, but it is not only important; it is to my mind quite palpably mischievous. The evil of the growth of the gambling spirit was practically recognised again and again in this House as well as by most thinking people of the country in the years that preceded the war. When a few years ago we were debating a Bill in this House dealing with a kindred subject, speech after speech was made by noble Lords specially interested in sport and all that belongs to it upon the danger, which they along with many of us agreed in deploring, of the growth of a gambling spirit of a mischievous and unwholesome kind which was spreading steadily through the factories, among men and women, and in the great shops of our country, and sapping a great deal of that kind of spirit of which Englishmen have been proud. There was nothing really sporting in it; it was a spirit of a different kind altogether. You remember all that we were told. I am familiar with some of the stories at first hand. The foremen and forewomen in factories were practically making a tax on the girls working under them who must put money into their hands to be used as part of the system.
We tried to legislate then to check all this, and we succeeded to some extent. That particular peril has been checked in war time owing to the excitement of other things, and owing to different causes which I could enumerate. The danger is that we shall here, as I believe, permanently reopen the difficulties that we are trying to get rid of and simply reduce to despair some of the workers who have been giving their mind and thought to this task for years past. We shall find them faced by
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the fact that the Government of the country has said, "The fight that you have been trying to wage is all wrong. You will now find in us the opponent who will harm you most, because we shall allow that to take place which you believe and can show you believe to be so mischievous."
It will probably quite naturally be said that ecclesiastics and clergy and ministers of religion are apt to be prejudiced in these matters, that they are not men of the world, that they do no think of these things with fairness, and that you must look elsewhere for a reasonable, manly, and robust opinion. The noble Marquess, I was glad to note, referred to the recent Blue Book containing the Report of the Parliamentary Committee on Premium Bonds. I would ask any of your Lordships to pick out from that book the evidence of the men whom, without knowing beforehand what they said, you would regard as best entitled to speak upon the subject of this sort—not from an ecclesiastical, or philanthropic, or pedantic points of view but from that of knowledge, and who express an opinion that they are qualified to form from the experience that they have had. Look at what they say with regard to the danger of encouraging, by what was a far less marked thing than this, the premium bonds, a spirit which they desired to deprecate. I should like to take the evidence of five men whose opinion is that of men who are entitled to be considered.
The first is Sir Robert Kindersley, the Chairman of the National War Savings Committee. He has given his time during the war to the whole subject of raising money in the best and most wholesome way for war purposes, and no one has a stronger opinion than he on the peril, the infinite peril, which would be involved in raising at this time of tension and excitement the very sentiment to which the noble Marquess has referred. The desire for getting money anyhow, and at the same time the slight excitement that belongs to getting it by a process of what some would call gambling—I am not speaking of that gambling which is a serious root and branch evil to the country—is a thing which we have all deprecated, and no one has deprecated it more than he.
Then take a member of your Lordships' House, Lord Leverhulme, who, speaking from the widest experience of great works in this country, tells us how absolutely he would deplore on ethical grounds the raising of premium bonds—a far less thing than

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this—and says that that would raise the very spirit which he felt to be so extraordinarily difficult and dangerous. It is he who calls attention to a point which perhaps I might better refer to in a moment but I think I will refer to it here—the strange position we should be in with regard to foreign lotteries. At this moment we try to forbid in this country the circulation of circulars for foreign lotteries, though not always successfully, and we try to prevent the collecting in this country of shares for those lotteries. But now, if the Government were to say "We have withdrawn all that prohibition as regards a particular class of funds which we are trying to raise," with what face could we prevent the lotteries coming into this country from our Allies or other people who desire to make use of people with money in Great Britain as a source from which to draw supplies? That is not a fanciful thing.
The noble Marquess referred to the pearls. I was approached from one quarter with regard to the very proposal he speaks of, the great tombola—tombola is only a mere euphemism or camouflage for a lottery, and I do not know that we gain anything by using a foreign word. That was to be done on a gigantic scale. As described to me by the promoter, it was to go all over the world. "We hope to get it into every country and town in Europe; we hope to get the matter taken up right through the Colonies, and in America. It is to be on a huge scale, and we believe that the financial results will be enormous." But at what peril should we gain those funds? peril to the principles which we have been trying to assert for generations past both in Parliament and outside it.
The next man I would name is Mr. W. L. Hitchens, foremost among economists, a large employer of labour, an eminent and thoughtful philanthropist, who has shown extraordinary power and interest in the well-being of those who are in the less well paid grades of our national life. He speaks again of the danger of a Government stimulus, a Government imprimatur, being given to a spirit which he, with others has been trying to check, as heart-breaking.
I now turn to Mr. J. H. Thomas. I imagine that there is nobody in this country who is in touch with a wider circle of working men than he; and there was no witness before the Parliamentary Committee who spoke with more emphasis, with more reiterated appeal almost, to the Govern-
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ment not to do what he believed to be so unutterably perilous. Mr. Thomas spoke of the impossibility of drawing a distinction, once you have started, between one kind of gambling, organised on a huge scale for those who know nothing about what they were betting on, and what is here argued for. The last name I will give is that of Mr. Reginald McKenna, and for totally different reasons. Speaking from a very wide experience, and having thought out these things both in the Government and outside, he says in the strongest way in his evidence what mischief would be caused I could easily multiply these witnesses. There were about thirty of them, and practically all were unanimous on this part. They were not all against premium bonds, although the majority were. Some of them were not against premium bonds because they said they did not think it was a lottery. I will not say that I have read every word of the evidence of all the witnesses, but I have not come across one who would admit himself in favour of a pure and simple lottery.
In the face of all this, are we—on the noble grounds brought forward by the noble Marquess as to the need for more money, and the desire for raising it in every possible way—going to legislate in a way which I believe will turn out hereafter to be fraught with enormous peril? I feel sure how it will be regarded by our kinsmen across the Atlantic. We know what pains have been taken in America to prevent the growth of this spirit; we know what is felt there with regard to lotteries and the circulation of lottery appeals; and I believe that if America were flooded with lottery appeals on behalf of the Red Cross Society of this country we should find that such a step would be met at first with surprise and then with something like indignation.
There is one other point. When this matter came to the notice of a friend of mine he came to me to-day appealingly and asked whether it were really possible that those who had given pearls, as he had done, in memory of some loved one who had lost his life, had given something which was going to be used for a purpose which the givers would deprecate. That seemed to me to be an appeal of some weight; and I do not think that it is an exaggeration to say that the far-reaching character of the results which would accrue from the successful prosecution of this proposed plan would be of the very character which is there

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described. It is a thankless task, of course, to be opposing something which one wants to support in its object. I say again that the object is beyond praise; and I should be pleased to see the society's funds increased twofold, fourfold, and tenfold, though I should want to do it in a way which did not compromise principles which I regard as of vital importance in our national life. By such legislation as is proposed here, we should let in water on a scale of which we had no contemplation; and ten or twenty years hence people would look back with dismay at what had been done at this crisis of the war on sentimental grounds. We should be acting not only contrary to the legislation of 100 years, but we should be doing something which would be fraught with consequences of an indefinite but not insignificant peril. For these reasons I hope that the noble Marquess will not perserve in this endeavour to convert this Bill into law.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, the most rev. Primate has stated the case against the Bill of my noble friend opposite with the weight and the general moderation which your Lordships always expect from him; and if I am not able to take the same view that he does of the measure, it is because I cannot find my-self in agreement with him as to the consequences to the country which might be expected to follow its adoption. If this measure were one for the legalising of gambling it would certainly not receive in any sense the approval of your Lordships' House.
The most rev. Primate, with the utmost fairness, reminded us of some past discussions here in which many of us personally interested in different forms of sport have taken as strong a view as the most rev. Primate and the other occupants of the Episcopal Bench itself of the scandals which followed the gambling spirit throughout the country. The most rev. Primate mentioned starting-price betting, and he said that he remembered very well that many of us, ourselves connected with racing, have spoken as strongly on that subject as the most rev. Primate himself could. And it is because the most rev. Primate does not draw much distinction, and thinks that the country will draw very little distinction, between a gambling proposal and the proposal of my noble friend that he naturally opposes the Bill as he has.
The subject of premium bonds has been mentioned, and the most rev. Primate
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stated—I think I am quoting correctly the general sense of what he said—that in his opinion the adoption of the system of premium bonds would not have been so marked or so serious a step in the direction of legalising gambling chances as would the adoption of the noble Marquess's Bill. There I confess I cannot agree with the most rev. Primate. Whatever is to be said for or against a system of premium bonds, I think it cannot be disputed that their institution would give the Government imprimatur to the taking of chances far beyond anything that could be supposed to happen through the adoption by this House of a private Bill such as that for which my noble friend opposite is responsible. I do not express any opinion on the subject of premium bonds one way or the other, but I can well understand that many people might have hesitated at committing the Government to the adoption of such a scheme, which, although in a sense thinly veiled from being a lottery in the old sense, does, of course, involve the taking of chances; and as my noble friend Lord Lansdowne stated, as I should have thought with great accuracy, one of the arguments favouring the adoption of his measure is the fact that raffles, sometimes on a quite considerable scale, are being held and have for many years been held at any rate with the connivance of the public authorities. I know quite well that, as the most rev. Primate has said at a great many bazaars and sales for Church objects it is announced that no raffles will be held, but I cannot believe that even at those the practice is universal, and there are a great many other bazaars where all of us, I think, when we have had the privilege of attending the ceremonial openings, have seen some form of raffle freely adopted.
This leads me, my Lords, to the conclusion at which I arrive, that I do not believe that the adoption of this measure would have the effect which the most rev. Primate conceived it would have of shocking serious opinion in this country. Nor do I believe it would in any way open the door for a general legalising of gambling. I believe that the objections to setting up at seaside resorts such establishments as many people have visited, some with pleasure and some with disapprobation, at Monte Carlo and elsewhere—I believe that the objections to such an institution here would remain, and would be held quite as strongly at the conclusion of the war as they could have been before

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1914. I do not believe there is any prospect whatever of a general legalisation of gambling or of lotteries in this country. I cannot far a moment believe that after the war this measure would be taken as a reason for the general introduction of State lotteries. It will be regarded, as the noble Marquess has described it, as being a purely war emergency measure, and it will, I venture to think, be completely forgotten a few years alter the war is over. So many singular things have happened, so much amazing legislation has been passed, that I venture to think this Bill, if and when it becomes an Act, will be regarded like so many other measures as belonging only to this moment: and without apprehending the alarming consequences which the most rev. Primate has put forward, I am prepared to give my support to the measure of my noble friend.
LORD SHANDON: My Lords, I had not intended to trouble your Lordships with any remarks in reference to this Bill, but when I heard the terms of it opened by the noble Marquess in moving the Second Reading I could not help recollecting the fact that I had in another capacity some practical experience with reference to the subject. It may not be within your Lordships' knowledge that in my country of Ireland the rules and statutes with regard to lotteries have not been enforced perhaps with the same rigour as in England, when those lotteries were held for charitable objects. That, of course, may be in the abstract quite wrong, and there are many people who think that any forms of gambling or lotteries are in themselves morally wrong, but I think that the vast majority of people do not regard the lottery in that somewhat narrow light; and undoubtedly as long as my memory goes, and I should say for many years before my memory can possibly go back, when the objects were charitable, lotteries of the kind proposed to be dealt with by this Bill have not been interfered with. It is true that the prizes were not on so large a scale as they might be in connection with this lottery of pearls, but the principle is the same; and beyond all doubt I should say our experience in Ireland has been that the public morality has not been affected so long as the object was charitable and everybody knew it. That is my experience extending over a long life, and also my experience as the result of several years during which I was connected with the administration of the criminal law in Ireland as Solicitor-
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General and Attorney-General. Questions frequently arose whether or not these charitable bazaars should be suppressed, and I think the Police in Ireland at any rate would unhesitatingly say that they had never found any harm come from them. There is, of course, another form of gambling which under the guise of charity is extremely mischievous, which takes place at charitable organisations and might really take place at Monte Carlo; but with regard to the particular class of lotteries dealt with in this Bill—the drawing and distribution and selling of tickets for objects such as are described—they do no harm whatever in my experience, and I certainly most strongly support the Bill which the noble Marquess has introduced. It is all very well to say that this is the thin end of the wedge. I suppose logically it is, but practically it is not. Somehow or other charity salves the conscience both of the people who buy the tickets and certainly of those who sell them, and I do not think it does either of them any harm. For those reasons, which occur to me as the result of my own experience, I strongly support the measure.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: My Lords, perhaps I may say a word or two on this subject I desire to support the Bill that the noble Marquess has introduced, and if I differ from the most rev. Primate I can, speaking with great respect, assure him that it is not because I view him as not being a man of the world. I have on many occasions, as the most rev. Primate will remember, asked his advice and I have never failed to profit by it, and I know no one whose advice I would more willingly take in matters which come before me in the administration of my office. I would also say this, referring to what was said by the noble and learned lord, that I do not view the speech, to which we listened I think all of us with great interest, made by the most rev. Primate—I do not regard it as a narrow speech in any sense of the word. It was a singularly high-toned speech, recognising the great object that the noble Marquess had in view, but at the same time asserting the great principle which the most rev. Primate had at heart.
But I must say I am not myself so sceptical as the most rev. Primate appears to be as to what may happen at the end of the war. I do not for a moment believe that these various matters of legislation

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which have been passed through both Houses of Parliament for the duration of the war, will be effective at the conclusion of the war. And for this reason, that I do not think the public would stand it. As the noble Marquess opposite pointed out, certain measures have been passed for the duration of the war. They are simply to deal with a set of circumstances by which we find ourselves surrounded. Their usefulness will in great measure have passed away when the day comes that the war is ended.
There was one remark which fell from the most rev. Primate on which, perhaps, I am qualified to speak. The noble Marquess is well aware of the great difficulty that there is in collecting money even for the objects with which he is connected. For some thirty years it has been my painful duty to pester and badger the public to get funds for one or two great hospitals with which I have the honour to be connected and which I direct. It is perfectly true, as was said by the noble Marquess, that the difficulty of getting money for this and that charity, irrespective of those that call for assistance owing to the circumstances of the war, is very great. But I can assure the most rev. Primate, and also the noble Marquess, that in my humble efforts to get money for St. Bartholomew's Hospital I shall not view with any jealousy whatever, but rather shall congratulate him on his success, if he manages by his lottery to get a large sum of money either for the pearl distribution or another great cause.
The generosity of the public is, indeed, without limit. I speak with very considerable experience, and I am sure that if my noble friend Lord Knutsford who has been so assiduous as myself, were here, he would say precisely the same thing. I do not think you can really draw an analogy between gambling—the tape, and various kinds of gambling that go on from day to day—and the proposal in the Bill of the noble Marquess. One kind of gambling is that which appeals very much to every class of the population, as we have daily experience—football watches, horse races, or whatever it may be—but here is a proposal by which it is hoped not to get a few shillings by people gambling, but to see if it is possible, when means appear to be almost failing us, to collect such a colossal sum of money that may tend, for the time at any rate, to set the Red Cross on its legs. As is acknowledged by the most
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rev. Primate, there is no nobler object, although he deprecates the means. If the noble Marquess will go to a Division I shall certainly follow him with great pleasure, and give him my vote.
VISCOUNT BRYCE: My Lords, I had not the slightest intention of intervening in this debate, but I do not think it ought to be left only to the most rev. Primate to say a word on behalf of the permanent principles of our law. The only argument advanced by my noble friend Lord Lansdowne—to whose speech I listened, as we all did, with the greatest possible sympathy, recognising its persuasive quality and feeling all that he said about the desirability of raising money for this admirable purpose—seemed to me not to go to the real root of the matter. We are told that this is not giving an imprimatur to gambling. What further imprimatur could we give than by introducing a Bill to make specific exception to the general law against lotteries—this is called a Bill with regard to lotteries—which has been in force in this country for very nearly a century?
The real argument in favour of the Bill seems to me to rest substantially upon this—the object is good, and the case is a hard one. Of course, the object is excellent, and, of course, the temptation of the case is very strong. There is an old maxim that "Hard cases make had law," and if you yield to temptation as soon as temptation comes in an attractive guise, you show that you do not have full faith in your principles. We were told that the law is being habitually broken. Well, is it because the law is being habitually broken that we are to give encouragement to the habit of disregarding the law, by legalising that infraction? We are shaking the moral authority of the law itself if we put forward the fact that it is occasionally broken as being a reason for sanctioning that breach for which people may be punished as the law now stands. We are told, and with perfect truth, that we must regard the tendencies of human nature. There is a tendency in human nature in this case to consider that a good end justifies bad means. There will also be the whimsical interest, to which my noble friend Lord Lansdowne referred, to be connected with a particular lottery of this kind.
But human nature is to be regarded also on the side of the perils that constantly

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threaten it. There is no peril which more constantly threatens human nature than the habit of yielding to the disposition to gamble; and it has been a very great sup-poet to the efforts which are made to repress a pernicious mental disease which works harm in all classes, that the policy of our law has been so clearly and strongly declared against every form of gambling with which the law can deal. It is said that this is to be only a temporary measure, but with what face after the war can we return to those strong moral arguments upon which the present prohibition of lotteries has been grounded if, as soon as temptation has presented itself, we yield to that temptation because the object seems to us good?
I remember some one who said, "I am a man of firm character; there is only one thing to which I ever yield, and that is temptation." When temptation presents itself, that is the test of our faith in our principles. The most rev. Primate referred to what would be felt in the United States. I have no doubt that what he said was true, that there will be great surprise and disappointment there if we flinch from the principle we have hitherto upheld; and I think the same thing will hold in many other countries. There are many countries, in which British law has been looked to as setting and maintaining a very high moral standard, where I think there will be some disappointment on finding that we have lapsed from that standard. For these reasons I cannot help regretting that the Bill has been introduced, and—however deeply I regret being compelled to differ from my noble friend Lord Lansdowne, and, as I perceive, from many other of my noble friends, including Lord Crewe—I cannot but feel that the interest of our law, and the authority of the law, and the fact that the law ought not to waver when it has laid down the principle, demand that we should, even in this hard case, maintain that principle.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I rise for one moment only, the more because I should be sorry if the most rev. Primate were to think me discourteous for taking no notice of the speech he made just now. Let me in the first place thank him for the friendly tone of his observations, and assure him of my regret on finding that he is unable to look upon this proposal in the same light as I do. I am quite sure that the most rev. Primate and I do not differ on the question of principle. I believe his views
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and mine as to the proper treatment of this question in ordinary circumstances are absolutely identical. Those of us who support this Bill defend our proposal solely on the ground that the circumstances in which we are living are abnormal, and that a relaxation of the law is desirable. The most rev. Primate suggested that this Bill might have far-reaching effects, and my noble friend Lord Bryce asked the House with what face we should be able to refuse if similar proposals were to be made after the war is over. This Bill comes to an end automatically whenever the war ends. Supposing somebody, after the war, were to revive the proposal, and came down to this House in time of peace and asked us to go counter to the spirit of the whole of our recent legislation in order to legalise lotteries, I presume the most rev. Primate would make again the speech he has made to-night. I believe the House would vote with him; I should most certainly vote with him. With regard to the reference to premium bonds, I rather brought that argument upon myself because, in endeavouring to be fair, I cited the case of premium bonds as one in which Parliament had taken a very adverse view to any proposal savouring of gambling. But there is all the difference in the world between a system of premium bonds, taken up on a colossal scale by the State—you might almost say imposed on the public by the State—and the kind of comparatively trivial enterprise hide this Bill is intended to legalise. I do not wish to take up your Lordships' time further, but I am afraid I must ask the House to give a Second Reading to the Bill.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

WAR LOAN BILL.
Read 3a, and passed.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: My Lords, I desire, on behalf of the noble Earl the Leader of the House, to give notice that he will to-morrow move the suspension of Standing Order No. XXXIX in regard to the Income Tax Consolidation Bill. The Bill originated here, and it is essential to get it to the House of Commons as soon as possible. I believe that the noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, has signified his assent to this course.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: I take no exception to the course proposed.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: I beg to move that the House do meet to-morrow afternoon at half-past three.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[From Minutes of July 26.]

JURIES BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
PARLIAMENT AND LOCAL ELECTIONS BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendment, agreed to.

LONDONDERRY CORPORATION BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments, agreed to.
House adjourned at twenty-five minute past seven o'clock.