Lords Sitting of 30 July 1918

LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 6) BILL.
Read 2a (according to Order).

SMALL HOLDING COLONIES (AMEND MENT) BILL.
Commons Amendment to Lords Amendment considered (according to Order).
[The reference is to Bill 37.]

LORDS AMENDMENT.
Clause 1, page 1, line 12, after the third ("acres") insert ("provided that for the purposes of the acquisition, equipment, and settlement of the area hereby authorised to be acquired by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Board may, as respects any county, with the consent of the council of that county, employ that council as their agents, and vest in them all the powers hereby or by the principal Act conferred upon them, in addition to those vested in such council by virtue of the Small Holdings Act, 1908,")
The Commons agree to this Amendment with the following amendment:
After ("all") ["rest in them all the powers"] insert ("or any of").
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (LORD CLINTON): My Lords, the object of the Commons Amendment is to make clear in the first clause that the powers which may be transferred may be the whole powers or any part of them.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Clinton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

INCOME TAX BILL [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee, read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD FINLAY): My Lords, I rise for the purpose of moving that the House do resolve itself into Committee upon this Bill, and in making this Motion it is only right that I should give a short statement as to what has been done with this Bill. Your Lordships will recollect that it is a Con-
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solidation Bill for the purpose of reducing to order the various provisions regarding Income Tax which have hitherto been scattered in different Acts.
When the Second Reading had been taken the Bill was necessarily sent to a Joint Select Committee of both Houses. That Committee has done its work with very great efficiency. It was presided over by my noble and learned friend Lord Loreburn in a way greatly to increase its efficiency. The Bill has been subjected to a very prolonged consideration by that Committee. There are a great many Amendments, and it would have been idle to print them separately as Amendments, but every one who has had to deal with Bills is aware that the only way of appreciating the effect of an Amendment is to write it out as part of the Bill which has to be amended. That is the course which the Committee have taken. They have printed the Bill with their Amendments in it, so that it is intelligible as a whole, and may be re-read by any one who desires to compare the Bill as it has come back from the Committee with the Bill as it was originally introduced in this House. I think that any one who compares the Bill as it now stands with the various Statutes in which the law of our Income Tax was scattered before this labour was undertaken, will feel that the result has been to produce order out of chaos. I think, therefore, that the Bill deserves the most favourable attention of your Lordships' House.
I desire to say only a very few words as to what has been done in the way of alteration by the Committee, so that your Lordships may be able to appreciate the value of their labours. They have done a good deal of rearrangement, and one very striking illustration of the benefit of the rearrangement they have effected is that the provisions of the various schedules relating to the Income Tax—so-called Schedules with which we are all painfully familiar, Schedules A, B, C, D and E—are now not in the body of the Act as they hitherto have been, mixed with the sections themselves, but are put into a Schedule, as we understand the term nowadays. There each notice stands in order with the rules relating to it printed beneath. I think this is a very great improvement, and it is not only an improvement in point of language. The provisions are now in a Schedule as that term is understood to-day, and they take

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their place there in such a way as not to give any difficulty to those who are familiar with the Act as it stood.
I desire to say a few words as to the method which has been adopted by the Committee in dealing with the language of these Acts. They have so far as possible preserved the language of the old Acts. It was very undesirable that any change should be made unless it was necessary. In some cases, of course, some alteration was wanted, because there are portions of enactments which have become obsolete and some are ambiguous, and in rendering these enactments the course has been taken of putting them in a form which corresponds to the understanding not only in the Department but among the public as to what the effect of the enactments is.
The extreme care with which the work of the Committee in this respect has been done is well illustrated by a glance at pages 3, 4, and 5 of their Report, where is set out in detail a whole series of cases in which they thought that sonic change in the language was necessary, and they have given in the last column their reason for, and the nature of, the change. The conclusion that the Committee arrived at with regard to the result of their inquiry is summed up in paragraph (9) of the Report:—
"The Committee consider that the Bill as amended represents the existing statutory law relating to Income Tax, and that the Bill should be allowed to proceed."
Your Lordships are aware that it was considered desirable by this House, when a Second Reading was accorded to this measure, that there should be in the first place only consolidation, and that it should not be mixed up with the work of amendment, because it is very desirable in itself to get the existing law into an intelligible state. The labours of the Committee followed upon admirable work that had already been done on the Bill by those who were responsible for preparing it in the first instance—that is the result of the labours of all parties—in order that not only the profession but the Income-Tax-payer should have a clear, intelligible and compendious statement of what the law is. Of course, that lays the foundations if it should hereafter be desired to make amendments in the law relating to Income Tax. You have first to get the existing law into proper shape, then you see what you have to deal with, and you are in a better position to appre-
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ciate the amendment which it is proposed to make. The Committee, as they state in paragraph 9, consider that the Bill now embodies the existing statutory law, and that it should, be allowed to proceed.
There is only one other matter with regard to the work of the Committee that I desire to mention, and it is this. Difficulty had arisen with regard to the meaning of the word "person" in dealing with the section relating to a right to abatement of Income Tax where the income was below a certain sum, and the question was whether the word "person" included a corporation. The better opinion undoubtedly was that it did not. The matter has never been decided as regards a corporation by the highest tribunal. It had been decided by the House of Lords as regards an unincorporated body of persons. The Committee have intimated their opinion that the word "person" in that connection was not intended to include a corporation, but—and I think this shows the extreme caution with which the Committee have done their work—they have not themselves embodied an alteration to that effect in the Bill. They have contented themselves with recommending a form of amendment if it should commend itself to the House of Commons, which sets out clearly the application of that right to abatement to an individual who proves that his income is below the necessary amount. This portion of the Report, which is set out in the later paragraphs, and in Appendix II, is worth looking at as showing the extreme caution and jealousy with which the Committee have guarded themselves against any alteration of the language itself, beyond what was in their judgment absolutely necessary. The propriety of making that Amendment will no doubt be considered in the other House.
The labour of the Committee has been enormous, and they have held a great many sittings, they have spent three or four months over this Bill, and the result of their labour is produced in a form which ought to be very useful to all who are conversant with the income tax in any capacity, either as taxpayer or otherwise. I desire to express my very warmest thanks to all members who have served on this Joint Committee. The care and attention that they have given to the matter is beyond all praise. More particularly would I refer to the Chairman, the noble and learned Earl, Lord Loreburn, who so long has presided over that body with such admirable results. He has

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bestowed an infinity of pains upon this measure, and has been most ably seconded by all the members of the Joint Committee. The work of the Committee has been materially facilitated by the aid given to them by the Parliamentary Counsel. I need not tell your Lordships how heavy the ordinary labours of Parliamentary counsel are, but with very great public spirit, Sir Frederick Liddell, Mr. Graham-Harrison and Mr. Godley took upon themselves the additional burden which dealing with this very elaborate Bill entails. I know how invaluable their assistance was to the Committee, and I think we ought to recognise that, in undertaking this additional labour, the Parliamentary counsel have rendered a service to the country.
The Report itself mentions what the Bill owes to Mr. Bertram Cox, the Solicitor of Inland Revenue. Paragraph 3 of the Report states that the original draft WS prepared by Mr. Bertram Cox "personally, not under official instructions but as a voluntary piece of work," that it was most carefully considered, and that "throughout these proceedings Mr. Bertram Cox continuously took a leading part in the work. It is not easy to over-rate the value of his services." I certainly can add my own testimony as to the zeal, enthusiasm and conspicuous ability which Mr. Bertram Cox brought to bear upon this very difficult subject. The Report also mentions the names of two other gentlemen who rendered valuable assistance to the Committee in the course of their labours, Mr. Holme, a well-known City solicitor, and Mr. Bremner, a Bencher of the Inner Temple. And the result of all this is that I think the House has before it a very efficient measure for the consolidation of the law with regard to Income-Tax as it stood. I have now to move that the House do resolve itself into Committee to consider the Amendments made in Select Committee.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee—(The Lord Chancellor.)
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, I think it is appropriate that some lay member of the House should join in the tribute which the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has paid to the work of the Joint Consolidation Committee on this subject. It must have been extraordinarily laborious, as is evident from the dimensions
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of the Bill which has been presented to your Lordships. The subject of Income Tax is not a very attractive one at any time, and it has become more repellant, if possible, of late years; but obviously it is of general advantage that the law on the subject should be consolidated, and that the knowledge of it should be readily accessible to all those who are concerned in what always is bound to remain an exceedingly complicated matter. I merely rose to pay this tribute, and also to say a word upon the Motion which the noble and learned Lord will shortly make as to the suspension of Standing Order No. XXXIX in order to pass this Bill through all its stages to-day. We always look with some jealousy on the suspension of this Standing Order, but I think it right to say that, with regard to the subject-matter of the Bill, it is not one of course, which specially concerns us; and I feel certain that none of your Lordships will desire to protest on this occasion against the suspension of the Standing Order.
LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, as a member of the Committee I should like to say a word in support of what was said by the Lord Chancellor. I am sure that we could never have carried through our duties but for the assistance to which he has referred, especially that of Mr. Bertram Cox, Sir Frederick Liddell, and Mr. Holme.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I have to move that the Amendments made in Select Committee be agreed to. As I stated, they are embodied in the Bill as now printed, and of course it would be idle to go through them in detail. We have the work of the Committee before us, and I think, in the circumstances, we should do right in accepting the result of that work.
Moved, That the Amendments made in Select Committee be agreed to.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
House resumed.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, with a view to expediting the progress of this Bill, as every day is of sonic importance, and for the reasons that have been indicated by the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition, I beg now to move that the Standing Order be suspended so as to permit all the stages of this Bill to be taken to-day.
Moved, That Standing Order No. XXXIX be considered in order to its being dispensed with.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE: My Lords, as one who was engaged during the whole of the summer upon this portentous Bill, I should like to say how glad I feel—and I am sure all the members of the Committee must also feel glad-—that, by his Motion this evening, the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has shown that there is determination to try and carry this Bill into effect as an Act this session. There is no doubt that a very heavy task was imposed upon the Committee, and a still heavier task imposed upon those who assisted the Committee; and if we thought that our labours were going to be thrown away, or even to be postponed for a long time, it would naturally be somewhat of a disappointment. I am very glad to hear that the noble and learned Lord has made this Motion, which I trust the House will accept.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Amendments reported.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 3a and passed, and sent to the Commons.

NAVAL PRIZE BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE ADDITIONAL PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE ADMIRALTY (The EARL OF LYTTON): My Lords, this Bill sets forth the conditions and principles governing the distribution of naval prize money to the officers and men of the Fleet during the present war. Several questions have been asked from time to time in this House, notably by my noble and gallant friend Lord Beresford, as to the intentions of the Government in this matter of the
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distribution of prize money. In this Bill, and in the draft Proclamation which accompanied it, your Lordships will find embodied the policy which was foreshadowed in the answers given to the noble and gallant Lord and others from time to time. I am sorry that the noble and gallant Admiral is not able to be present this afternoon, because, on the last occasion when he questioned me on this matter, I asked him to wait for the introduction of this Bill; and I hope to-day to be able to reply to all the points he raised on that occasion.
The last time we had a discussion on this matter, my noble and learned friend Lord Desart complained that there had been considerable delay in the introduction of this Bill. I admitted to him that the Bill was considerably overdue, but I told him that I hoped to be able, when the Bill was introduced, to give some explanation of the reasons for the delay. I am sure that if he will consider for a moment what is involved in the adoption of the policy of pooling, which is the main principle of this Bill, the noble and learned Lord will realise that a considerable amount of time must have elapsed before the Bill could be introduced. In the first place, the adoption of this principle necessitated considerable discussion with the Treasury. Those discussions ranged over a number of points—some of which I will explain in a moment—but they were very necessary, and they occupied a good deal of time. Then, secondly, it was necessary that we should consult with the Governments of our Dominions, because they are interested in the Bill. That meant that copies of the Bill had to be sent to the various Dominions, and we had to wait for the answers and the criticisms of the Dominion Governments. Thirdly, we had to spend a considerable amount of thought upon the scale of distribution which is now embodied in the draft Proclamation that accompanies the Bill. All these things necessitated the spending of a great deal of time, and really the Bill has only been approved in its final form in the last few weeks, and it was introduced in the House of Commons at the earliest possible moment after that date.
I know that your Lordships are anxious to get as quickly as possible to the other matters on the Order Paper this afternoon, and I do not wish to detain you more than is absolutely necessary in explaining this Bill. I think I can explain its main pro-

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visions very shortly, but as some of your Lordships may not be acquainted with the technical expressions in the Bill, I should like at the outset to say one word to explain the difference between prize money and prize bounty, and also between droits of Admiralty and droits of the Crown. Prize money is an award to the Navy for the capture of enemy merchant ships and cargoes, paid out of the proceeds of the sale of the same. Prize bounty on the other hand is an award paid by the State out of money provided by Parliament, in accordance with the Naval Prize Act of 1864, for the destruction of enemy ships of war. There is only one clause in this Bill—namely, Clause 3—which deals with prize bounty, and that is introduced because aircraft, which are unessential arm of modern warfare, do not come within the definition of His Majesty's ships of war contained in the Naval Prize Act.
Both prize money and prize bounty have an historical origin of considerable antiquity. Prize bounty dates from the Commonwealth, but prize money, with which this Bill is chiefly concerned, is older still. Prize money is, in fact, older than the Navy itself, amid dates from a time before the existence of the Navy when various ports of the United Kingdom contributed their quota of ships for the defence of the country, and the crews of which ships were paid for their services out of the proceeds of the enemy vessels which were captured. This custom of awarding prize money has been continued down to the present day, and in all previous wars this money has always been paid to the crew of the ship which actually captured the prize. That system was a very simple one and very easily administered, but you will see that it necessarily involved a great deal of chance and luck and. the inequalities of distributing prize money in that way are very much accentuated by modern conditions of warfare. It might, for instance, be possible at the present time for a ship with a crew of anything under 100 to hold up and capture a vessel the value of which might be a million pounds sterling.
The Government have therefore decided to place the proceeds from all prizes captured during this war in a general pool from which they will be distributed throughout the Fleet according to a scale which I will refer to in a moment. I mentioned just now that the proceeds of all the prizes captured in war belonged to the Crown, and I may explain how these monies came to be divided into what are now
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known as droits of Admiralty and droits of the Crown. When in the course of time the office of Lord High Admiral originally held by the Sovereign was conferred upon a subject the proceeds of all merchant vessels captured in ports at the outbreak of war, or driven into port by stress of weather or accident, or captured by any other means in any other way than by commissioned ships, were given to the Lord High Admiral as perquisites of his office. On the other hand the proceeds of all enemy vessels captured at sea by commissioned ships of His Majesty's Navy belonged to the Crown, and they were given as prize money to the captors of the vessels. When King William IV surrendered his rights of Admiralty and other Crown property for a fixed grant from the Exchequer his droits of Admiralty belonged to the Treasury. As the result of these historical changes we now have the rather paradoxical results that droits of the Crown, which are the proceeds of ships captured by ships of His Majesty's Navy, go to the Navy, and droits of Admiralty, which are the proceeds of ships captured in port, belong to the Treasury. If your Lordships will keep this distinction in mind the provisions of the Bill will be easily understood and can be explained very shortly.
The adoption of the principle of a common pool has prevented any distribution of prize money taking place during the war. Until the end of the war you cannot tell what sum will be available for distribution, and as ships have been brought from time to time into the prize courts of the Empire, no distinction has been made between droits of Admiralty and droits of the Crown. It is necessary therefore to establish a tribunal for the purpose of distinguishing between these two categories. The constitution and powers of that tribunal are contained in Clause 2 of this Bill. It will consist of the three distinguished gentlemen whose names are there mentioned. The tribunal is to have the powers of a High Court judge and it will be the duty of the tribunal to decide what sums are to be paid into the prize fund from which distribution is made to the Fleet.
On May 15 last the noble and learned Earl, Lord Desart, expressed a doubt as to whether if this distinction between droits of Admiralty and droits of the Crown

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were retained there would be a sufficient sum to meet the requirements of the Navy under this new system of distribution. The noble and learned Earl I know holds the opinion that we should have done better to abolish this distinction and to have placed all the proceeds from prize into one fund to be distributed to the Fleet; and I should like to tell him very shortly what are the reasons for the course which we have adopted. As soon as the policy of constituting a pool was decided upon we had three alternatives open to us. The first was to place all the proceeds of prize, both droits of Admiralty and droits of the Crown, in one fund and to distribute the whole of that fund on sonic scale such as that which has been adopted to the Navy. That I believe is the course which the noble Earl would himself recommend. The second alternative was, having created a fund in this way, to accept from the Treasury a certain proportion of it, to be agreed with them, as a gratuity to the Navy. The third alternative was to maintain the distinction which has always existed between droits of Admiralty and droits of the Crown and to take the latter for the Navy,
The first of these alternatives was not open to us because the Treasury were not willing to agree to the whole of the fund so created going to the Navy. Although unwilling to allow the Navy to distribute the whole of the fund which would be thus created, the Treasury were quite willing to agree with us upon either of the other two courses. Several discussions took place between the Treasury and the Department upon this point, and that was partly the cause for the delay in getting the Bill into its final shape. The Admiralty, of course, had to consider what was best for the Navy, and we came to the conclusion that in the interests of the Navy it was better that we should take the droits of the Crown which had by long custom come to the Navy, than take our chance of a Treasury grant by way of a gratuity, the amount of which was to have been the subject of discussion between us. It was for that reason that we adopted the procedure embodied in the Bill now before your Lordships.
I have now explained the historical origin of the grant of prize money and the Tribunal which has been set up to distinguish between the sums which will go to the Navy and those which belong to the Treasury. There remain two other matters which
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require some explanation—namely, firstly, who are the persons eligible to receive prize money, and, secondly, what is to be the scale of distribution to them. These matters are not contained in the Bill, but are to be found in a set of Regulations authorised by Proclamation as provided for in subsection (2) of Clause 1 of the Bill. A draft of the Proclamation which it is proposed to issue dealing with these matters has been issued as a White Paper, and this must be read in connection with the Bill. I regret that some words which I used in this House on May 15 have given an impression in some quarters that these matters of eligibility and scale of distribution would be contained in the Bill itself.
I desire, therefore, to say that the grant of prize money is, and always has been, a prerogative of the Crown. It is not a matter which is under the control of Parliament or for which Parliament is responsible; and, therefore, the scale of distribution to the recipients of prize money has always been contained either in a Proclamation or an Order in Council, but not in a Bill. If your Lordships will look at this White Paper you will see, first of all, that those persons eligible to receive prize money are defined as being members of the Naval and Marine Forces who have during the war performed service at sea in ships and vessels of war. "Sea service" is defined as—
"having been borne for service at sea on the books of a seagoing ship of war which goes to sea or on the books of a parent ship for service in armed sea-going tenders."
This expression "ships of war" is defined in such a way as to include armed boarding vessels, trawlers, drifters and those smaller vessels of the Admiralty patrol which have done during this war such magnificent service in combating the submarine danger. Members of the Air Service operating with the Fleet will also participate under conditions which are defined in the Proclamation. In the case of aircraft the following definition of sea service has been arrived at after much discussion and careful consideration—
"Trained pilots and observers, the crews of our naval airships and others who have had to fly continuously at sea shall, while borne on the books of one of H.M. ships and attached to a naval air station, be considered to have been performing service at sea, but no service at a training establishment or whilst employed on shore for service with our army or the armies of any of our Allies shall be so considered."

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The recipient will get a full share, according to his rank, if he has served at sea for a period which at the present moment is fixed at thirty months. That is considered to be a very severe test of service. Only those who have done thirty months' seaservice will qualify for a full share of prize money. We realise, however, that if the war is continued beyond, say, sixty months—that is to say, five years—it may be necessary still further to increase this period in some proportion to make it bear a relation to the duration of the war as a whole. Any man who has served at sea for one month will qualify to share in the distribution, and he will obtain a proportionate part of a full share corresponding to the period of his sea service. Men who have been prevented by death in action, or by wounds obtained either in action or in a manner attributable to sea service, or men, again, who have been taken prisoner through no fault of their own, if they have had ten months of sea service will be deemed to have served for the whole period. I feel sure that your Lordships will agree with the special consideration shown to these persons.
So much for the persons eligible for the receipt of the money. Let me say one word in conclusion about the scale of distribution. This has been very carefully considered both by a Departmental Committee and also by the Board of Admiralty, and the scale now adopted represents, I think, as near an approach to general agreement as is reasonably possible. Time scale is contained on the third and fourth pages of the White Paper. By the old scale of distribution Flag officers received one-thirtieth of the total sum available, of which one-half went to the senior Flag officer and the other half was divided among the remaining Fleet officers. Of the remaining twenty-nine-thirtieths one-tenth was divided among the captains, commanders and other officers in command, and nine-tenths was given to officers other than those in command, and to naval ratings. By the new scale contained in the Proclamation officers of Flag rank and officers in command will receive considerably less than under the old scale, but the shares of officers not in command and the shares of naval ratings will approximate to the old scale.
I do not propose to take up any more time in explaining this scale of distribution. It is set out in the Proclamation, and, of course, I shall be prepared to answer any questions that may be put to me upon it. I should like
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to explain that, although the scale of distribution is a prerogative of the Crown and is not a subject for which Parliament is responsible, we are, nevertheless, very anxious to have the views of Members of Parliament and of any of your Lordships interested in the matter before this scale is finally published, and ill order to provide an opportunity for this we have decided to divide this Proclamation into two parts. Tile first Proclamation, with such alterations as may be necessary to make it complete, will be issued at an early date. That will contain the first five paragraphs of this White Paper down as far as the figure one, on page one. That Proclamation will be issued at once because it is necessary to enable the tribunal set up under the Bill to start its work. The second Proclamation, containing the definition of persons eligible under the scale of distribution, will be issued at a later date. In the meantime the Financial Secretary to the Admiralty has undertaken to afford an opportunity to members of Parliament at a private conference to express their views to him upon it. That invitation will, of course, be extended to any of your Lordships who may be interested in the matter. I think that is all I need say on the present occasion. There may be other details in the Bill which require explanation, but they can be left for consideration when we get into committee.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Lytton.)
THE EARL OF DESART: My Lords, the noble Earl who has just addressed the House always presents the measures of which he is in charge with such lucidity that it is a pleasure to listen to them. This is a Bill, which one has the ungrateful task of criticising, where one has at any rate before him a very clear account, not only of the measure itself, but of the policy which inspires the measure. In the remarks at the commencement of his speech the noble Earl made some comment on something I said a few weeks ago in this House about the delay in the presentation of any measure affording reward to the Navy for its services in connection with "prize" during the war. I accept fully the explanation, but, unfortunately, the course that has been adopted has produced results which, I think, have increased the, difficulties of framing a measure of award, and which would not have arisen if it had been possible to follow out the Order in Council of August, 1914, more immediately

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with some scheme in connection with the proper reward of the Navy in connection with prize.
The words of this Order in Council deserve, I think, a little consideration. They were not referred to by the noble Earl, and I cannot help thinking they had a meaning and adumbrated a form of reward for the Navy which, after full consideration, has not been adopted by His Majesty's Government. That Order in Council, which was submitted to His Majesty and issued almost immediately after the outbreak of war, recognised the objection to the old system of prize money. The Order says that "the conditions governing the distribution of the proceeds of prizes captured from the enemy to officers and men of your Majesty's Fleet require modification in order to bring them into accordance with modern conditions." And it proceeds: "In lieu of the system of distribution of prize money there should be substituted, under regulations and conditions to be hereafter announced, a system not of the distribution of prize money, but a system of prize bounties or gratuities for more general distribution to His Majesty's Forces."
I cannot help thinking that when this Order was introduced it was not contemplated that you would merely distribute the old form of prize money to the Fleet, but that you would establish a new system of prize bounties, or gratuities, in a different form. If I have to say a few words in a perhaps barren task of criticising the framework of a Bill which must unquestionably pass through Parliament, and which I am glad should be passed as being the measure which the Government, with their responsibility, say they desire should be the way to recognise the services of the Fleet in this matter, I am bound to say that I think a good deal of difficulty and complication, perhaps a good deal of delay, might have been avoided if a somewhat simpler procedure had been adopted for dealing with the matter, not on the old lines but on the broader lines which, I think, were indicated by the Order in Council of August, 1914.
The actual situation, as I understand it, and I think I am right, is this. There is a very large fund in the hands of the Assistant Paymaster-General, which I will call for convenience the "produce of prizes." After the Order in Council up
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to the present date there has been no grant by the Crown of any produce of prize whatever, and the Crown now stands in the position that it is free to grant either to the Fleet, or by way of bounty to other people, either the droits of the Crown, or the droits of the Admiralty, as it pleases. There is, therefore, at the present moment a clean sheet. There is this fund to reward the Navy, or for whatever purpose it may seem right to use it.
There is another complication that has arisen from the delay. Although no grant has been made to the Navy during this time, it was decided by His Majesty's Government at the outbreak of war—and a Committee was formed to deal with the matter—to follow the old practice of grants being made out of bounty to persons who are British subjects, and in this case to Allies or neutrals, who had suffered hardship by the action of the Prize Courts in certain specified directions. The Committee was formed quite early in the war and has sat continuously ever since. It has dealt with about 1,700 applicants, and it has made awards—perhaps it is not right to express it so—but it has made recommendations to the Treasury, which the Treasury have adopted, dealing with considerable sums of money. So that, whether the fund be droits of the Admiralty or droits of the Crown, there is this charge of money which has already been paid, and which has to come out of it. The fund remains a very large fund subject to whatever this may amount to, but I may say there are still many claims to be considered and to be dealt with.
In these circumstances I should have thought that the line of least resistance, and the line which would give you the greatest liberty and the best result, would have been to abandon altogether the old distinction between the droits of the Crown and the droits of the Admiralty—all being now in the power of the Crown—and to have allowed, when the time came, grants to the Navy which would be a reasonable and proper remuneration in connection with its services for prize as a whole, and apply the residue as you like. I do not think it is necessary to say that the whole of the fund should necessarily have gone to the Navy at all. But you would have secured by this that the Navy could have had a proper reward, and I think that you would have been equally sure that there would

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be a balance of some kind for Greenwich Hospital or the Exchequer Or some other purpose. That, it seems to me, would have been a simpler way to deal with it, for it would have avoided any inquiry by any tribunal with a view to separating one from the other, an operation which I think is bound to occupy time and—I hope that I am wrong—one which may involve a much more difficult task than T thin k perhaps the Government have altogether realised.
What is the real objection to it? The noble Earl in his speech said, I think at the beginning, "prize money was granted in the old days for the Navy." In a sense that is true; but it is not really what the facts were. This money was really granted to the individual captors, and the crews of the ships which captured prizes, and it was not limited to the Navy, for in the eighteenth century it went also to privateers. It was a grant for a particular service done, and, subject to a small Treasury deduction, the proceeds of the condemned cargo or condemned ship went to the captors who themselves conducted the proceedings in Court and not the Crown. What you are doing now is to reward the whole Navy—a much bigger thing—for what they have done in producing the profits of prizes for the benefit of the Government and the State of this country. With some very small exceptions such as detained ships I venture to say that all prizes—droits of the Crown and droits of the Admiralty—are equally due to the vigilance of the whole Navy. You are rewarding the vigilance of the Navy, and not the act of the individual, and it seems to me that it is not only an easier line but it is a more logical one that the Navy should have some portion—whatever is right—out of the proceeds of prizes to the capture of which they have contributed, because there is no longer the reason for the limitation as a reward to an individual ecuring certain property and taking certain property away from the enemy. I cannot see, therefore, any logical objection to dealing with it in the way I suggest.
Moreover, yon would avoid what may be a very difficult inquiry, that of distinguishing between the cargoes of ships which are droits of the Crown and those which are droits of the Admiralty. The reason for that—it was touched upon by the noble Earl—is that in consequence of there having been no grant of any sort or kind it has
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not been necessary for the Courts to distinguish in their decrees and documents and forms between one and the other. I think, therefore, that it will be found that there are cases—very likely a great many—in which the ship may be condemned as a droit of the Crown when really, if the facts could be inquired into, she would turn out to be a droit of the Admiralty. Equally there would be cases—more of these, I think in which a ship would be condemned as a droit of the Admiralty when really she was a droit of the Crown. That is rather a serious thing. I could give several instances, but I will give only one illustration which is a typical one. It is that of a short case where there is no appearance. What happens in many cases is this. The officer of the Customs makes an affidavit that the ship came in, that the cargo was so-and-so, and that the cargo was condemned for such-and-such a reason. That is all. Nobody appears, and nobody opposes it, and it is not clear in which category it should be placed.
In the course of this war, it is extraordinarily probable that in a great number of these cases although the cargo is condemned as a droit of the Admiralty it is in fact a droit of the Crown, and as far as the record goes it will be a droit of the Admiralty. In order to ascertain which it is you would have to re-open the facts of the case, and it might not he very easy to do so. You might not have the material to do so. That is one illustration. Again, I think that the tribunal might have to deal with serious judicial questions. To that, of course, there is very little objection if my noble and learned friend Lord Phillimore presides, for nobody is more capable of dealing with such questions. But I do not think that is what was contemplated. Many new questions have arisen in this war and you will find that the documents in the Courts will not always show how the ships were condemned. There were sonic cases in which neutral ships came into our ports under agreement. There were other cases in which neutral ships were sent in to be examined. There have been cases in which British ships were diverted into a British port and in which possibly there was enemy cargo on board. In those cases it was the cargo which was condemned and not the ship, but there has sometimes been no judicial decision as to whether they were droits of the Crown or droits of the Admiralty. No one is more qualified to decide these matters than my noble and learned friend Lord Philli-

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more, and it may be that the tribunal will be able to decide upon a principle in those cases apart from the facts, which I think it will be extremely difficult sometimes to ascertain. A learned friend of mine, with whom I had a conversation with regard to this matter, went so far as to say that it would be almost impossible to disentangle the problem.
The real object that we all have at heart is that the Navy should get its reward, and get it within a reasonable time, and should understand what it is going to get. I think that if you had taken the opportunity that was afforded by the position of this fund you would have been able to deal with it more promptly, clearly, and comprehensively. I do not think that there is really any logical reason for distinguishing one class from the other. With regard to the charges on the fund which are referred to in the Bill, there is some language which is not quite clear, but I think that I understand it. I am personally, as chairman of the Committee, very familiar with the practice. Under direct authority from the Government any recommendation made by that Committee has only been acted on so far as it could come out of the particular condemned ship or cargo to which it related. Consequently it may happen in some cases that you would have a droit of the Crown which would result in there being little left to the Navy out of that prize. That involves an inquiry in each case in which the Prize Committee have made a grant to decide whether it was a droit of the Crown or whether it was a droit of the Admiralty.
There is also the possibility of a third fund. The question whether the monies arising from what are called the detained sin is will ever be available depends upon whether at the end of the war the provisions of The Hague Conference are acted on. I still think that the form in which this Bill is presented is cumbrous, and that you could have obtained the results we all in common desire more easily and more readily by not having adhered to this plan of distinguishing between droits of the Crown and droits of the Admiralty. It is not necessary technically, and I should have thought it was not necessary logically, and I think that if you could have avoided it it would have been much more convenient, and you would have obtained the result desired more readily and more speedily.
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I should not dream of suggesting that your Lordships should do anything so unreasonable as to throw out a Bill which is approved by the Admiralty and is their means of meeting the proper claims of the Navy to recognition. But there is just this that I might say as an excuse for the few observations that I have ventured to make. It may turn out—and I really think it is likely—that when this inquiry is completed you will have an insufficient sum, and I only wish that we could have some assurance that if that should be the case nothing will be done with the money that represents Droits of Admiralty which will preclude the Crown from making out of that fund an additional grant to the Navy. My main object, as it is that of all of us, is that the great services which the Navy has rendered to this country, and in this respect particularly, should have the reward which is not necessarily confined to principles of old days but should be reasonably adequate for what they have done. Having regard to the fact that they have adopted this principle of distinguishing between droits of the Crown and droits of the Admiralty under this Bill, limiting the rights of the Navy to droits of the Crown, I hope that if these should hereafter prove insufficient the balance of the produce of prize now in the hands of the Admiralty will not have been dealt with so as to preclude its being available to supplement the produce of droits of the Crown if that should turn out to be too small to satisfy the reasonable claims of the Navy for remuneration in respect of prize.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS.
LORD RIBBLESDALE LORD RIBBLESDALE had the following Notice on the Paper—
To invite the attention of the House to the recent pronouncements (on I 17th July) of the Leader of the House upon the propriety of putting questions down on the Notice Paper with a view to receiving replies from His Majesty's Ministers; and to ask whether, for the future, permission will be required to do so.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I do not think I need assure the House that I have not put this Notice on the Paper on any

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private, or still less on any personal, grounds. On the contrary, in common, I think, with all your Lordships, I always listen with pleasure and interest to the agreeable speeches of my noble friend the Leader of the House, and I admire the urbane eloquence which he ungrudgingly gives to the routine business of the House. But I am bound to say that on July 17, and the various incidents prior to July 17 which led up to the pronouncements that I am examining this evening, my noble friend was not fortunate either in his choice of methods or his choice of phrase, and the more I reflect upon this, and the more I peruse my Hansard, the more disquieted I feel about our future. I have put this Notice down in the hope that I may give my noble friend an opportunity—I dare say he will not thank me for it—of retreating from what (looking at it quite as a backbench and unofficial Peer, merely one of your Lordships' House) I think is an untenable position and one which I think is hazardous to our liberties as a House and to our practice.
I would claim your Lordships' attention for one moment to a postulate. I am sure you all agree that postulates are almost platitudes. Let it be granted that the two main safeguards, perhaps the two main distinctions of our free and unwritten Constitution are, first, the right of free speech; and, secondly, Ministerial responsibility. To amplify the postulate for a moment, I think it will be generally admitted that free speech in this House has been sanctioned by theory, ratified by practice, and secured to us by the troubles and by the controversies of the 17th and 18th centuries, As to Ministerial responsibility, I have no need either to labour or to belabour that. Ministerial responsibility is, after all, the pièce de resistance of all Constitutional history and practice. I shall only be preaching to the converted if I affirm that nothing should be allowed to molest or to impair free speech, and that nothing should be allowed either to excuse or to diminish Ministerial responsibility. As to Ministerial responsibility, I say that this vigilance on our part is especially requisite in these days. As it is, Ministerial responsibility has become a remarkably intermittent apparition—almost that. It is extremely evasive, and it is really wonderful how it is able to take cover under the skirts of D.O.R.A. and to hide itself away, thanks to the various bureaucratic controlling contrivances of the
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emergency days in which we happen to be living.
Now I submit that the Leader of the House the other night in what he said—though I do not wish to go back to the merits of that in his dealing with Lord Wimborne's Motion—to borrow a once famous phrase, has dismissed free speech and Ministerial responsibility "to Jupiter or Saturn." I ask you what becomes of us and of this House, of our liberties and our ways, if the noble Earl's pronouncement the other night stands. I submit that we become in the jargon of the day a "controlled establishment," regulated as to our ancient freedom and rights at the discretion of a Government and of a Leader of the House, just as hay, corn, and bacon are now regulated by authority.
And now, my Lords, I ask, Will that do? It is quite possible that the present Leader of the House, having, as it were, had his excursion the other day, may be very careful of these things. Byron told us that the Tyrant of the Chersonese was Freedom's best and noblest friend. I believe that is rightly quoted, but, whatever Byron said, we have never had any opportunity of knowing what the inhabitants of the Chersonese thought about it. It is this conjuncture of affairs and influences that, I will not say causes me alarm or perhaps dismay, but honestly I have been here a long while and I do not like this state of things, and it does, as I said just now, cause me disquietude and anxiety.
The other night my noble friend Lord Crewe, to whom in former years I had the honour of acting as Chief Whip when he was leading this House, on the spur of the moment intervened, I thought in perfect taste, as he always does, and with very good sense. He put in what I understood to be a caveat to what we had just heard from the noble Earl the Leader of the House. I think, having regard to the rather strained circumstances of that evening, the noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, could not have said more. But I felt very strongly then, and these few days have matured the impression I then formed, that things cannot be left as Lord Crewe left them. Lord Crewe suggested a remedy. In that particular ease the remedy might apply, but it would not apply in ordinary cases. Lord Crewe adumbrated this kind of remedy, that all this kind of thing, where it was an awkward Question, could be done

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by friendly conversations outside. The Minister would show his whole mind to the inquirer, and the inquirer would go away perfectly satisfied that all was for the best in this best of worlds. I think it very possible that if the noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, or if the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, had Questions of that kind on the Paper, they would have had immediate access to the noble Earl, and they might go away satisfied with all lie told them.
But I will just put it to you: perhaps a Peer who lives in some remote part of Ireland, who feels very strongly about something which is happening affecting Ireland, who knows nobody up here, who perhaps does not even know the Whips, puts down a Question which, it may be, is inconvenient to the Government. Do you mean to tell me that that Peer, coming up to London, trying to do the kind of things which Lord Crewe recommends as the palliative to Lord Curzon's ratter violent medicine, would have very much chance, however strongly he felt about the matter at issue, of either getting the House to know his views or getting any satisfaction? It is quite clear that it is impossible.
I would also put this hypothetical case which arises out of this. Let us suppose that we may find ourselves in this position very shortly: a Government in office pledged and plighted to some very extreme Irish policy, an Irish policy of the colour which I approve of, for I am one of those dangerous characters, an English Home Ruler. Assume a Government of that kind, and assume that my noble friend whom I see in his place opposite, Lord Londonderry, feels that he must put forward the case of Ulster in a manner which cuts directly across the Government policy, and wants to put down a statement of argument in his Question which is extremely inconvenient to the Government. Are we to understand, on Lord Curzon's pronouncements, that because it is inconvenient to the Government the Leader of the House is henceforward to say: "I do not like this Question of yours, and if you do not take it off the Paper I will not answer it"? I do not think that this will commend itself to the House as a very desirable outcome of the Tables of Stone which were delivered to us the other evening.
Take the case of a Government plighted to the secularisation of the Establishment. Let us assume that the Archbishop of
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Canterbury or the Bishop of Oxford in the same way put down a Question, as they would be bound to do, which again struck a vital blow at the general policy of the Government. Are they, again, to be told on the authority of the Leader of the House, "This is inconvenient; you can go on if you like, but no one will answer you? "
Well, my Lords, I do not know that I have very much more to say. As you see, in the latter part of my Question, which gives me, if I like to exercise it, some right of reply, I ask whether in future we are to ask permission to put down Questions at all. Because it really amounts to that If the reply is to be withheld, having regard to the custom of the House by which we generally put down Questions to convey arguments, it is an automatic piece of machinery if we are not to be replied to; it is no use putting down Questions. Therefore you have the censorship of a Question and the discretionary authority of the Leader of the House for the time being, which means the Government, as to whether a Question is to go down at all or whether it is to get an answer.
I have no desire to over-interpret or overweight in any way what Lord Curzon did and what he said in this matter. I should be sorry to do that. I think that every allowance is to be made for every Minister owing to the great overwork and strain which is put upon them by these troublesome days. I also think that I must personally make some excuse for the noble Earl for his comparative newness to the more delicate transactions of the Leadership of this House. Perhaps, too, he may have been uneasy at the back of his mind that from the first in the management of this affair he had made a mistake. All those things are possible, and I make every allowance for them. But I submit that the new dispensations laid upon us the other night will not do. I do not know what other noble Lords think about it, but I shall not acquiesce in any hoc rolo, sic pro ratione voluntas pretensions or pronouncements. I invite the House to share toy view that any such pretensions should be withdrawn as categorically as they were advanced.
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: I think your Lordships will feel very grateful to the noble Lord for having opened up this discussion, and I am sure that in the very temperate manner in which he

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has alluded to it he does no more than fully carry out the ideas and feelings which are in the hearts of the majority of your Lordships; but I think we must agree that this is a matter of vital importance and one which, in the important affairs in which we are standing at this moment, should not be lost sight of. I am bound to say I fully sympathise with the noble Lord's apprehension that circumstances are gradually bringing your Lordships to finally abdicating those remaining powers which belong to you. The House of Lords has occupied a very honourable position in the State. It can boast a record which no words of mind are required to establish, and we know well that on more than one occasion it has proved itself to be more fully representative of popular opinion than is the House of Commons, and when we consider the action of your Lordships' House in reference to the Declaration of London in the year 1911 we know well that it is due to the action of your Lordships on that occasion that the greatest possible disaster was averted in connection with the war at the present moment. Yet the conscious and sub-conscious thought which is gradually entering into your Lordships' minds is that this House as an effective force, as a necessary balance in the Constitution, as a revising body, and as a cheek to the initiation and passing into law of hasty legislation—that as a force in that direction, your Lordships' Rouse is rapidly ceasing to exist.
I can only say that I welcome this discussion, and there are two particular points to which I would venture to draw your Lordships' attention. I should like to say at the outset that my remarks are more in the nature of an appeal to the noble Earl who leads the House and are certainly not an indictment, and when I appeal to the noble Earl it is because I am aware of the very powerful position which he occupies—a position in which he alone can assist us to retrieve the position of this House. Therefore I would venture to ask him to use his great influence and great powers to establish this House in the position which it should occupy as a legislative chamber in this country. My Lords, the first point to which I wish to refer, and which has been most eloquently stated by my noble friend who sits opposite, is that we have seen that a custom is developing that no Question shall be brought forward in your Lordships' House unless it receives the special sanction and special approval of the noble Earl who leads
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this House. I agree and fully agree that there are many amenities and courtesies in this House which not one of your Lordships would like to see omitted, but when it conies to what we who are on the outside are inclined to think we are coming to—namely, that the noble Earl should occupy and maintain a complete jurisdiction over the liberty which has been traditionally enjoyed by noble Lords—it seems to me that the main object for which your Lordships' Home exists is rapidly going through a process of complete destruction.
Now, my Lords, our opportunity and our chief duty lie in this direction, that we are able to bring forward any Question on any subject, and that we can receive an answer from the Government to satisfy us on those points. There is a system which we know well in the House of Commons which goes by the name of negotiations behind the Speaker's Chair, and I am bound to say that as a member of the House of Commons I always looked with the greatest suspicion upon those negotiations which took place behind the Speaker's Chair, and when that system is to be introduced into your Lordships' House I am bound to say that I look with still greater suspicion upon it. We know that in this House such negotiations are completely unnecessary, because there is a feature in your Lordships' constitution which I think obviates any difficulties or harmful results which are supposed to ensue from inconvenient discussions, and that is a Motion "that the noble Lord he no longer heard." Now, my Lords, there is one great reason which has been paramount lately, and necessarily paramount, and that is what is known as the public interest, and I would not endeavour to minimise what is meant by those words when used by a responsible Minister. The public interest is something to which we are necessarily bound to bow, but under the shadow of that phrase, "the public interest," I foresee that it is possible to enact the greatest tyranny. I would venture to define what is public interest, but I feel that this phrase is likely to become a habit, and I have seen it very frequently used in the House of Commons as what I may call a "get out" for harassed Ministers.
I claim to be one of those who firmly believe that confidence has never been misplaced in the British people, and I believe that if a little more latitude were given to dis-

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cussion it would be found very soon that that confidence would in no circumstances be misplaced. I believe that it is far better that questions of broad policy should be discussed, and one usually finds that on these questions on which so much secrecy is insisted there is a great deal more knowledge outside the House than is enjoyed by members of your Lordships' House or of the House of Commons; and when we see that questions are put on one side in your Lordships' House and not brought forward for discussion, I am inclined to feel that most of your Lordships' discussions are carried on more or less in the guise of a secret session. We know very well, whether the position of your Lordships' House is decreasing or not, that the Press do not pay much attention to your Lordships' debates.
Let us consider the position at the present moment. We see the House of Commons wielding autocratic authority and in possession of smaller elements of a representative character than has ever been possessed by any House of Commons in the past. A measure was passed through the House of Commons which enacted that no House of Commons could efficiently carry out its mandate for more than five years, and yet we find the House of Commons enjoying an enormous amount of power after an eight years session, and we also see measures of far-reaching importance wholly unconnected with the war carried out by this moribund assembly. It has proved itself on many occasions a docile and subservient body, and members who are inclined to be critical are usually told that their criticism is unpatriotic, and, what is a far more serious feature, there is a steadily increasing body of Government officials in the House of Commons, and the House of Commons bids fair soon to be a body of Coalition Placemen and nothing more. With regard to some of these appointments one considers that they have not been made on the merits of the candidates, but that those Members of the House of Commons who are inclined to criticise the Government, and be inconvenient in their criticisms and speeches, are much more likely to occupy positions on the Treasury Bench than some Member of far higher intellectual capacity who is inclined to hold his peace. One is forced to the conclusion that the only free and independent assembly—by that I mean your Lordships' House, which is the sole instrument for guarding popular interests, and which, moreover, is the sole vehicle
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now for the expression of popular opinion—is rapidly going through a process of decay. That is the first point which I would venture to put before your Lordships' House.
The second point is the apportionment of Ministerial appointments between the two Houses. This is a question which it is always very difficult for any one to approach, and I would ask your Lordships to believe that I am bringing this forward entirely on its intrinsic merits. T should not like your Lordships to attribute to me any unworthy suggestion of desiring to be a recipient of one of these posts, although I am certainly going to say that I do not think there is any member of your Lordships' House who is not ambitious, if the opportunity offered and if his conscience was agreeable, to do whatsoever he could, all that lay in his power, in whatever minor or unimportant post, to carry out the duties of the country to the best of his ability. I view with grave misgivings the decrease of what are known as Ministerial appointments in your Lordships' House.
LORD HARRIS: With great respect, may I ask the noble Marquess to consider whether the subject to which he is now addressing himself is germane to the Notice put down by my noble friend?
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY:I fully agree with what the noble Lord has said, and I have taken the Question which my noble friend has raised as drawing attention to the position which your Lordships' House has occupied, and whether or not it has those powers which intrinsically belong to this House and which, I believe, it can exercise for the benefit of the country and the Empire. I certainly feel—I say it with the greatest possible respect to the noble Lord who interrupted me—that this question of Ministerial appointments, which I will venture to develop very briefly, is one which strikes at the root of the authority which we desire that your Lordships' House should possess. I would say at once that it always has been the idea, and up till quite recently has been the custom, that in this House we should have the benefit of a responsible official belonging to each of the Departments, or as many of the Departments as possible; and I say that I view with grave apprehension and misgiving a very sinister feature, which is becoming more and more prominent in the Ministerial appointments

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in this country, and that is that responsible officials are placed in the I louse of Commons while other officials are brought into this House, placed on what is known as the front Bench, and are called upon to give the answers of the Department to which they are accredited.
I think all of us will agree that on the Front Bench of this House there are men who, from their intellectual capacity, from their own records, and front their experience, are capable of occupying the highest posts in the land. I venture to say that there is not one who, if he were a Member of the House of Commons, would not be occupying a very responsible and important position. Yet, because he is a member of your Lordships' House, we find that he is not good enough to be an Under Secretary, but he is asked here to take up those duties in a very patriotic spirit and to give your Lordships the information which it is possible for him to give. It seems to me that the trend of this policy is obvious. It is destroying the power which your Lordships may have for good in this country, and, because the noble Earl who leads this House—fortunately, I may say—occupies a very important and a very powerful position and, apart from a very few positions in this House, stands by himself in a position of importance in the counsels of the State, I would venture to appeal to him to use the power of his great position and also his influence to establish the character of this House and so enable it to carry out those duties efficiently and properly, which I believe are necessary to the good government of this country and this Empire.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, my noble friend who introduced this subject told the House that he had been a long time a member of it. I, too, have been a long time a member of this House—so long that I think I may, perhaps, be pardoned for saving half a dozen words as to the manner in which the Motion of my noble friend strikes me. I was not present on the occasion of the debate of the 17th of this month, but I have read it pretty carefully in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I say nothing as to the sufficiency of the reasons for which the noble Earl who leads the House declined to discuss the particular Question which had been suggested by my noble friend beside me (Lord Wimborne) for discussion. I say nothing as to that, because I do not know what the reasons of the Government were; nor do I wish to enter into a minute exami-
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nation of every phrase that was used by the noble Earl. But of this I am certain, that he did not intend to claim, and did not claim, any right to put a veto on the discussion of any subject that a member of this House might desire to discuss.
Several NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I find nothing in the words that he used to suggest the idea that he conceived that it was the duty of a private Peer to come to him for permission before a Notice could be put on the Paper or debated. Such a claim, if I may say so, would have been monstrous and absurd, unsupported by any kind of authority. There is one authority and only one authority that can decide whether a particular subject is to be debated or not, and that is the House itself.
NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: It does not rest with any Minister, however powerful; it rests with the House itself. I venture to think that the position was quite fairly summed up by the noble Marquess opposite, Lord Crewe, when he told the House on the 17th that in his view it was part of the ordinary comity of this House that debates on delicate questions should not be attempted without at least giving the responsible Minister a chance of suggesting that the moment was an inopportune moment for the discussion. When I say "inopportune" I do not mean for a moment inopportune because it is inconvenient to the Minister to come down and make a speech. The only plea upon which a Notice can be put on one side would be that the discussion of it was inadvisable in the public interest, and not with reference to the convenience of Ministers.
I have had some experiences of these matters. I was Secretary of State for War at a time when war was going on; I was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs at a time when very delicate foreign negotiations were in progress; and I can recall many cases in which noble Lords came to me, or I went to them, in order to consider whether at some particular moment it was, or was not, desirable in the public interest that there should be a debate upon this question or upon that. I am glad to bear witness to the invariable courtesy and to the reasonable spirit in which I was always met upon those occasions.

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I think something was said with regard to the practice, which is sometimes resorted to, of meeting an undesirable Motion by silence on the part of the Minister responsible for the Department involved. That, no doubt, is the last resort. If the Peer persists with his Motion, and the Government are unable to discuss it, they are obliged to take refuge in silence. It is a very disagreeable solution of the difficulties for all concerned. It is not pleasant for the Peer who desires to provoke the discussion, and it certainly can never be pleasant for the Minister concerned. The Minister concerned will always feel that, if he declines to open his mind, he is liable to the suspected of shirking a difficulty. I am sure my noble friend behind me remembers the line in Pope's "Ode to Silence," which I think runs thus—
And routed reason finds a safe retreat in thee."
I daresay the Minister who, for reasons of prudence, is not able to say what he might like to say, feels all the time that he is liable to an imputation of that sort.
But, if I may sum up what I want to say, I do so by expressing my belief that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred these difficulties can be overcome by amicable discussion out of doors, as they have been overcome in the past. I am not very much alarmed by the picture which my noble friend drew just now of the diffident Irish Peer. I have never observed such diffidence, which can scarcely be said to peculiar to members of that race, and I doubt whether any Irish Peer is likely to be deterred because of the awful reception he might encounter from some member of the Front Bench. I do not believe the difficulties are really as formidable as my two noble friends suppose. I venture to express my hope that, as these misgivings have arisen, and probably do exist in the minds of a good many of your Lordships, the noble Earl who leads the House will take an opportunity of reassuring them, and saying (as I am sure he will be able to say) that it never entered into his head, or into the heads of the Government, of which he is so distinguished a member, either to menace freedom of speech in this House or to attempt to shirk that Ministerial responsibility to which, in all parts of this House, we attach such a great amount of importance.
EARL RUSSELL: My Lords, I propose to confine myself quite closely to the Question of my noble relative opposite, and not follow the excursion into the general powers of your Lordships' House to which we have listened. My noble relative began, and I entirely agree with him, on the great importance of preserving not only the liberties of the House as a whole but of preserving the liberties and privileges of each individual Peer. I am afraid I find myself rather parting company front him if he thinks that those liberties are, at the moment, in danger, and therefore I find myself much more in agreement with the noble Marquees, Lord Lansdowne.
I have been a member of this Assembly for thirty years, and I have occasionally in the course of that time put down Questions which I am sure have been inconvenient and disagreeable to the Government. Indeed, they were often not intended to be agreeable. I have never been approached by any member on behalf of the Government on the ground that my Questions were disagreeable or inconvenient and asked to remove such Questions from the Paper. What I understand the noble Earl the Leader of the House to say—and I agree—is that in the case of delicate matters, and particularly in the case of foreign affairs, the mere putting down of Questions might, in itself, be against the public interest. That is a matter on which the Government must be the judge, and in cases of that sort they would naturally approach any one who had put down such a Question and would ask him not to press it. I think I shall be right in saying that there is no member of our Lordships' House who would not, in those circumstances, leave the responsibility to the Government and not press such a Question.
In passing may I say, lest I should be thought reflecting on the noble Lord in connection with whom this Question arose, that I am quite sure it was not clear to him that the Question would be embarrassing to the public interest; otherwise I could not imagine it would have been pressed. It is, of course, necessary also for the liberties of this House that when we are offered that advice the decision should be acted upon, and remain in the last resort, with the individual Peer. If he likes to take the responsibility, and if he thinks in the public interest, and his own conception of the public interest and his duty

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to the country, he must take the responsibility of pressing some Question which he is told is embarrassing then, undoubtedly, he must be at liberty to press it; otherwise if that were not so, it is quite obvious the Government could suppress what many people would regard as legitimate debate. I very much doubt whether your Lordships have any reason to complain in the past as to the non-compliance on the part of any Peer with such a request.
Let me add where, I think, the mis-apprehension arose. The noble Earl the Leader of the House rather suggested the other day—I have not studied the language in Hansard, but I was present at the discussion—that you must not put down a Question if it is inconvenient. I am sure what he meant to say was, that you ought not, and of course you would not, to put down a Question if your attention was directed to the fact that it was against the public interest. To that I do not think your Lordships could take any exception, although the ultimate decision must remain with the individual Peer. I trust that the noble Earl when he replies will make it clear that he meant no more than this. It has been in my experience of this House the invariable practice, and I think in that case we shall have really nothing to apprehend. It is true that in another place, as in the Press, we are suffering from a great deal of muzzling, and it is very important that in this House we should retain completely in theory full liberty of discussing anything we like, inconvenient or convenient to the Government.
LORD LAMINGTON: My Lords, I only want to say a word or two because the other evening I intervened when this Question was raised. I said that several times I wished to put down Questions about Persia, and have been asked to postpone them by the noble Earl the Leader of the House. When I made that interjection it was not by way of complaint, but only to show the noble Viscount, Lord Wimborne, that it was nothing unusual for any Peer to be asked not to press his Motion or Question
I remember perfectly well that when the noble Earl was in Opposition and I wanted to put down a Question to the Minister responsible and that Minister had asked me to postpone it or remove it, if I consulted the noble Earl he always said, "Of course, you must post pone it; you cannot possibly ask the Question if the Govern-
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ment say it would be inopportune." It seems to me that this evening a most exaggerated and highly coloured description has been given of a very ordinary incident indeed—an incident which is ordinary both in this House and in another place. It constantly happens to members of both Houses that they are told that it would be against the public interest that a particular Question should be put. I think that the noble Earl behind me did not know what were the exact words used the other evening. What the noble Earl then said was—
"What I did was to ask him not 14, pursue it in the public interest, and to that appeal he turned a deaf ear".
I can only imagine that the noble Lord who has put down the Question this evening has introduced this subject again because on an occasion that I remember—although I was not present—he had down what I thought was a very indiscreet Question—a very improper Question—in connection with the war and having a fellow-feeling I suppose he thinks it necessary to raise this topic again. I think that it is most unfortunate that such a debate should have been again raised, and also that it should have been brought forward in two such very exaggerated speeches covering a very ordinary incident of Parliamentary life.
LORD WILLOUGHBY DE BROKE: My Lords, may I say one word. I am sorry to stand between your Lordships and the noble Earl, but the noble Earl will see the reason directly. It is perhaps fitting that I should say a word, because I am one of those who have been getting into hot water for putting down on the Paper a Question which, I am informed, is not in the public interest. I wished to ask a certain Question—I will not say what it is, because it is as undesirable to allude to it now as it was then. I informed the noble Earl, and he wrote to me a certain letter to which I did not send any answer. I intended to come down to the House and tell your Lordships that I did not mean to press my Question. I wish to tell the noble Earl now, and also your Lordships, that in not having answered the letter of the noble Earl who leads the House I was guilty of something which was worse than a crime. It was not only a mistake and a breach of good manners, but it was a tactical blunder. Since then I have had a friendly meeting with the noble Earl, and

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I then expressed my regret to him for not having answered his letter. I shall be very glad if your Lordships will allow me this opportunity of expressing my regret now.
But in the letter which the noble Earl wrote to me he raised an important point, To that point, without however desiring to introduce anything of an acrimonious character at the present moment, I should very much like to direct the attention of the noble Earl. There are two ways of looking at this matter. 'There is, first of all, the influence that a member of the Government or the Leader of the House has when a Question has been put down upon the Paper which he considers it detrimental to the public interest should be put. There is also the tradition of this House. Nobody for a moment will question the right of the Leader of the House to ask a noble Lord who has put down such a Question to withdraw it. Then, as the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said, it is open to the member to decide whether he will proceed to the bitter end and raise a debate.
The noble Marquees, Lord Crewe, referred to the position of the noble Lord who wished to do that the other day, and said that there might be a case in which a member of your Lordships' House might desire to persist in a Question, and it might even be, from his point of view, in the public interest that he should persist in it in spite of the fact that the Minister for the Government desired that the Question should be withdrawn. That is a matter for private judgment which every member of your Lordships' House has a right to exercise. Those who persist in asking Questions of that kind might perhaps be adjudged to be guilty of a lack of patriotism or a lack of good taste. That is one position. But quite another position arises out of these debates, and that is this. In the letter which the noble Earl wrote to me he seemed to think that before Questions of a certain character were put on the Paper he should first be consulted as to whether he thought them desirable. I can quite see from the view of the noble Earl and of the Government that he would like that to be done, and that it would be a convenience. But that theory, may I say with profound respect, I do not accept. For one thing, it would be difficult for any noble Lord who wished to put a Question on the Paper to destinguish between those Questions which he could take direct to the Clerk at the
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Table, and those which the noble Earl thinks that he ought to be consulted about even before they are put on the Paper. Upon that point I hope that the noble Earl will say a word in explanation.
When my noble friend Lord Londonderry made his extremely able and statesmanlike speech he was interrupted by the noble Lord opposite, because, in the view of the noble Lord, he was bringing forward considerations which were not germane to this exceedingly important subject. I say with all the force that I can command that the speech of Lord Londonderry, to which I listened with very great pleasure, as also I believe did your Lordships, was exceedingly apposite, and bore most acutely upon the public position at this moment. If your Lordships search for what is really at the back of the industrial unrest, and of the general lack of confidence which exists among the disaffected elements of this country, you will find two kinds of persons. There are first of all the people who are far worse than the aliens—people who are dead against England, first and last and all the time. I could name them; everybody knows who they are. There are, in the second place, other people who have been led astray by the Bolshevists in this country. The reason that they have been led astray—I have had conversations with some of them—is that they are not confident that they are being told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the war.
I am well aware that there are things in the public interest, interpreting that term in its highest sense, which it is impossible for your Lordships to reveal. But let me tell the noble Earl with all the sincerity and all the respect at my command—and no one has a greater respect for him than I have—that there are a great many of our fellow-subjects in this country who are in a state of unrest to-day because they are being kept in the dark, or think that they are being kept in the dark, and because they are not quite sure whether the Government are really "bitter-enders," and whether they are out to destroy and humiliate—yes, I will deliberately use the word "humiliate"—the power and position of the German Emperor and the whole German race.
I put this consideration to the noble Earl with the very greatest respect. These questions which sonic of us have asked here, which have been suppressed, in our humble

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view have been put forward in what we conceive to be the public interest, because we have been asked to do so by people outside who feel that they have been kept in the dark, and it is because these people feel that they have not such access to the intentions of the Government as they ought to have that some of them feel that the Government have been backward in their endeavours to win the war.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON): My Lords, I hope that your Lordships will excuse me if I do not follow the noble Lord who has just resumed his seat into the disquisition with which he concluded the less relevant portion of his harangue. Neither will I pursue the details of the incident to which he referred in his opening remarks. I will only say this, that I think it would be the initiation of a somewhat unfortunate practice in your Lordships' House if noble Lords felt themselves at liberty to come down here and either to quote or to refer in debate to private letters that have passed between members of your Lordships' House on other occasions.
I do not at all deprecate the raising of this discussion by my noble friend Lord Ribblesdale. His eloquence is always agreeable, even if it was not to-night positively urbane. My noble friend appeared to-night in what to me was a most unusual garb. We are accustomed in his speeches to a humour which every one enjoys, and to raillery which not even his victims resent. But to-night he appeared for the first time moving on the high platform of constitutional orthodoxy, discoursing to us at some length and with almost professorial gravity upon the great principles of freedom of speech and Ministerial responsibility. I must confess that I was some what startled at the exordium of the noble Lord's oration, and I was anxiously looking forward to the moment when, after some quarter of an hour or twenty minutes of high principle, we were coming down to the charges against me.
But though the noble Lord invited me to recede from what he described as an untenable position he did not inform your Lordships' House what that position was. He did not quote a single sentence from my remarks. The only sentence from my speech the other day which has been quoted to-night was quoted by Lord Lamington. To that I adhere. It cor-
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rectly described the situation on that occasion. From it I have no intention to recede. And really when the noble Lord, having delivered this exordium about free speech and Ministerial responsibility, and having failed to supply any substantiation whatever of the implied charges against myself, then gave way to my noble friend Lord Londonderry, and when my noble friend Lord Londonderry enunciated as my doctrine that no Question can be put down that does not meet with my approval, and that I claim a complete jurisdiction over the proceedings of your Lordships' Houser, I must confess I was still more astonished. Not a shadow of foundation was offered by either of those noble Lords for this preposterous and ridiculous charge. It was not borne out by any other noble Lord who spoke. It was not borne out by my noble friend Lord Russell, who I thought alluded, if I may say so, both with candour and correctness to the facts of the situation, or by my noble friend Lord Lansdowne, who laid down, in language which impressed all who heard it, the true doctrine of the relations that exist between the Leader of this House and those whom he is proud to call his followers.
What is the position? In so far as I have been invited to state it, I will endeavour to do so to your Lordships' House. The constitutional position, consecrated by immemorial practice, is this—that it is in the power of any noble Lord to put down any Question, Notice, or Motion that he pleases. That I admitted the other day, although I also stated—and who can dispute the proposition?—that it is not in the power of any noble Lord to compel any member of the Government, if he regards it as not in the public interest, to give a reply. How is the whole matter regulated in this House? There are certain tacit limitations on the liberty that we enjoy here which are generally acted upon in the spirit of courtesy and friendly understanding that always prevails between the members of your Lordships' House. That understanding is not written down in books; you will not find it in the Standing Orders of your Lordships' House: it is a kind of unwritten code of manners. It regulates the proceedings of every one in this House front the highest to the lowest, and without it I venture, oven from my short experience, to say that the business of this House could not be amicably or successfully carried on from day to day. This unwritten code is.

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really the corollary and consequence of the great liberties and advantages that we in this House enjoy. I doubt if your Lordships thoroughly realise how remarkable, I might say how unexampled, are the privileges and prerogatives as regards debate that we possess in your Lordships' House. Let me give an idea, from the point of view of a Minister of course, of what those advantages are, and let me compare them for a few moments with those which are in existence in another place.
As regards Questions in the House of Commons, the Speaker of that House may refuse or modify, although he does it in very rare cases only, the terms of a Question when it appears on the Paper. Here no such power exists. In the House of Commons a Question is a Question and no more. It is put without even being read by the Member who desires to put it. It is answered in a sentence, and very often the Minister declines in the public interest to give any reply at all. Here a Question is very often not a Question only; it is the material upon which a speech may be hung, a speech of a quarter of an hour, or half an hour—I have even know speeches of an hour delivered upon what, as it appears on the Paper, is a Question only. In the House of Commons there is a Speaker in the Chair, who compels relevance to the subject of the speech or the Motion that is being made. If we had such a functionary in this House he would never be idle. He would have had a very busy time this afternoon. I sometimes wonder whether you realise the enormous advantages that you enjoy in the relative impotence of the noble and learned Lord who sits upon the Woolsack. Here in this House there is no one, unless we have some vigilant noble Lord like my noble friend Lord Harris, to call any one to order. And we frequently have this situation, that a Question is put upon the Paper about one subject and the noble Lord who puts the Question makes a speech entirely upon another. Still further, a noble Lord in this House may conclude his Question, as a noble Lord did ten days ago, with a Motion of the terms of which he had given no notice, and which was not divulged until the conclusion of his speech.
Then in the House of Commons a Question may, it is true, give rise to supplementary Questions, but supplementary Questions are only allowed in correction or in pursuance of the original Question, and it is a privilege that is very sharply restricted by Mr. Speaker. Here a Question
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apparently small and innocent, may give rise, not to a series of supplementary Questions, but to a series of speeches. And, again, in this House noble Lords, in, I am sorry to say, flagrant defiance of the Standing Order, continually arrogate to them-selves the right of reply. May I take this opportunity, as we are all inquiring how far we observe the rules written or unwritten, of your Lordships' House, of reading to you Standing Order No. XXVII:—
"No Lord is to speak twice to any Bill, at one time of reading it, or to any other propositions" [and this, of course, includes a Question] "except the mover in reply, unless it be to explain himself in some material point of his speech (no new matter being introduced) and that not without the leave of the House first obtained."
I trust the House will pardon me if, having drawn its attention to this rule, of which I am certain from my experience in this House that nine-tenths of your Lordships must be in innocent ignorance, I express the hope that it may be better observed upon future occasions.
Lastly, my Lords, a noble Lord in this House may choose his own time and date for raising any subject whatever that he pleases in debate. In the House of Commons a Member of Parliament can only raise a question—I put aside, of course, discussion on Bills, and I put aside Questions at the commencement of Parliamentary business—a Member of Parliament there can only raise a particular question, say on Foreign affairs or Irish affairs, either on the Votes for the Department concerned, or on a Motion for the adjournment of the House, or on one of two or three strictly limited occasions—the Appropriation Bill, the Consolidated Fund Bill, and the Adjournment of the House for the holidays, or, of course, on moving the adjournment of the House and getting forty Members to rise in their places to support it. Here no such restriction exists, and any noble Lord is at liberty to choose any day, any week, that he chooses for putting down any Motion that he pleases. Now these are—I think I have correctly stated them—in brief the great advantages which we enjoy. They are without parallel, I believe, in any legislative Chamber in the world. We would not voluntarily part with them. They are one of the attractions of this place; and they explain to us, I think, how noble Lords who perhaps in the evening of their life come up to us from another place to the ampler ether, the diviner air of your

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Lordships' House, enjoy themselves so immensely here. It is like roaming about in a spacious park after being confined to the trim alleys of a Dutch garden.
Well, my Lords, those are the advantages which we enjoy, but I submit to your Lordships that these liberties can only be exercised without damage by the existence of the kind of restraint to which I was alluding a little earlier—namely, by the recognition of certain mutual understandings as to the way in which noble Lords use the great opportunities that are open to them. Otherwise your Lordships can easily see that liberty might well degenerate into license; and if the doctrines which have been laid down here to-night were pursued to the extreme, it would be possible for any noble Lord or any group of noble Lords to hold up the Ministerial Bench and hold it up at any hour or time that they please.
Lord Russell, quite fairly I think, drew some distinction between the claims of foreign affairs and the ordinary subjects that come before your Lordships' House. It is obvious that any noble Lord can, in the enjoyment of the privileges to which I have referred, raise a debate on foreign affairs whenever he chooses. He can select a moment, no doubt without premeditation on his own part, which may be a moment of extreme delicacy in international relations. He may choose a moment at which it may be quite impossible, or at which it may be seriously detrimental to the public interest for the spokesman of the Government to give him a reply. And, my Lords, the case is stronger, I think, in cases where the Foreign Office has not a direct representative in your Lordships' House. For many years, for the best part of the last century, the Foreign Secretary had a seat in your Lordships' House; he was here himself to say then and there whether it was or was not desirable that the matter should be raised. But during the last ten years, or more, the Secretary of State, in the person of Sir Edward Grey, and subsequently of Mr. Balfour, has had a seat in the other House of Parliament. And, my Lords, undertaking as I have done, simply as an act of respect to your Lordships' House and of regard for my colleagues, the task of representation of the Foreign Office in this House, my position is not rendered easier by the fact that the Secretary of
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State is not here for me to consult at any time, so that I can refer to him and get his opinion upon the opportuneness of the moment that is chosen for discussion, or of the subject itself.
Observe this, too, about foreign affairs, that whereas if a Question is put in the House of Commons the Minister who replies can dismiss it in a sentence or can even say that he must ask the House to accept his assurance that it is not in the public interest to pursue the matter, this is hardly open to the spokesman of the Foreign Office in your Lordships' House. And for this reason. When the noble Lord who has put the Question resumes his seat, not after putting a Question, but, very likely after making a long speech, there rise after him two or three or four noble Lords who may pursue the subject for a number of hours, speaking with great responsibility, knowledge, and authority. I have often wondered to myself if noble Lords realise the position of an occupant of this Bench, having no notion in advance other than the terms on the Paper of what is going to be raised, coming down here with the material for a five-minutes' reply to a Question, such as would be given in the House of Commons and then finding himself confronted with a series of speeches by some of the most formidable speakers in this House, to which he is called upon to reply at decent length and in measured tones and with a due sense of responsibility. The position is one which I do not think anybody can be very keen to occupy.
My Lords, these are the circumstances that render it, I respectfully submit to your Lordships, desirable to pursue a somewhat different practice about Foreign Office affairs, about Foreign Office Questions, from that about other matters. They explain the procedure which was alluded to by my noble friend Lord Lansdowne, and which within my knowledge has been the invariable practice of your Lordships' House. I have only had the honour of occupying my present position for a year and a-half, but I sat on that [the Front] Bench opposite for some years, and one of my most absorbing interests has always been foreign affairs. Did I ever put down a Question upon foreign affairs without going to the representative of the Foreign Office? Never. Did I ever pursue a Question if the representative of the Foreign Office asked me not to? Never. I did not talk about freedom of speech and

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the rights of debate and all that rubbish in your Lordships' House; I accepted the advice of the responsible representative of the Foreign Office. I can recall on one occasion when Lord Morley was representing the Foreign Office in your Lordships' House I was very anxious to raise a debate, I think it was about Persia. Three times the noble Lord asked me to take the subject off the Paper. I did not get up and make a speech here; I acquiesced in his decision, and not until he gave me permission to put it down did I venture to bring it before your Lordships' House. I could give Scores of similar illustrations.
And here let me thank noble Lords for the general consideration which they have shown to me in this respect. There are noble Lords sitting in this House now who have wished during the past few weeks or months to raise questions of this sort. They have most courteously come to me in advance and asked whether it was opportune that it should be done, and I have either said "Yes, by all means," or I have asked them to desist. That is the way in which these things are done. I make no claim that they should be done in any other way. I am merely carrying on to the best of my ability the old traditions of immemorial courtesy and amity which prevail in your Lordships' House.
I do not know that I need say anything more. I should be very sorry if noble Lords, by a perfectly legitimate although an undue insistence upon their rights, were to drive the spokesman on this Bench to the position which was so wisely and rightly deprecated by my noble friend Lord Lansdowne. One does not want to be put into the position of ignoring a speech when it is delivered, still less of moving that the noble Lord be not heard. I should be ashamed if any Leader of this House were forced to take up such a position as that. And as regards not giving a reply, the case in which I declined to give an answer the other day was one in which I had tried without success to secure that the Question should not be proceeded with. But I am most reluctant to adopt that course. My desire is everywhere not only to give information but to give the maximum of information. Noble Lords must do me the justice to admit that. But if there is an obligation on the Leader of this House—and I frankly accept it—not to exercise any influence he may possess, not by any pressure to restrict the full rights
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and liberties of your Lordships' House, equally, indeed I think I may say even more, is there an obligation on the part of noble Lords to respect the confidence which he endeavours to repose in them, to listen to the appeals that he may think it his duty to address to their feelings, and, in the event of his representing that it is not in the public interest to pursue a matter, to defer, not to his orders, but to his responsible wishes. No other claim do I make, and the principles which I have ventured to lay down in the remarks that I have addressed to your Lordships, entirely agreeing with the outline of them given by Lord Lansdowne, are, I believe, principles which the great majority of the House Will unhesitatingly accept.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, I hope I may be allowed to make one or two observations on the Question which has been asked by my noble friend opposite, particularly as he alluded to me in some of his opening observations. I know very well that my noble friend Lord Ribblesdale is a most jealous guardian of the liberties of the House, and, like the noble Earl who has just spoken, I am sure nobody will complain that this subject has been brought up again. On July 17 last, when I said a few words, I then expressed a hope that the subject might be allowed to drop, but it is quite evident that the minds of a good many noble Lords were somewhat exercised upon the subject, and therefore no doubt it is well that has come up again.
It is well for this reason, that somewhat extreme views have been entertained by various members of your Lordships' House, and to some extent expressed. There is no doubt that the noble Earl who leads the House has been regarded by some as taking a too strict view of the right of the Government or of the representative of the Government to limit the putting of Questions on various subjects, especially those connected with foreign affairs. On the other hand, some noble Lords have been supposed to entertain and perhaps express in excess the right of all members of your Lordships' House to in the first place initiate and afterwards pursue debates on any subject on which they may desire to be informed. I am quite certain that neither the noble Earl nor my noble friend Lord Ribblesdale in reality hold those extreme views.

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But it must be remembered that there are two sides to this question which have to be carefully borne in mind. In the first place, it is undoubtedly a temptation to the members of any Government to regard as contrary to the interest of the public Questions which are inconvenient to themselves. It is a temptation which everybody who has held office must recognise, because it is not always easy to separate the interests of the Administration from the interests of the public in such a matter. It is the natural instinct of all Governments to avoid discussion on awkward subjects. I s appose the most classical instance is that which we remember in another place in the years 1904 and 1905, when His Majesty's then Government absolutely forbade, and succeeded in forbidding, any discussion of the fiscal question. Here, on the contrary, with the liberty which my noble friend has just mentioned, we used to discuss it at stated intervals. That danger does no doubt exist. On the other hand, it cannot be disputed that there are persons who are so desirous of opposing the Government or its policy on a particular subject that they are apt, in the interest which they feel, to forget the possibility of public inconvenience or even public danger.
I am not at all, in mentioning this, saying de te fabula to the noble Lord opposite, or to my noble friend below the gangway, with reference to the debate in which he engaged. This particular case of a discussion on foreign policy—because war policy is foreign policy in these times—was considered to be untimely by the noble Earl who leads the House, and he acted accordingly. I only hope that we shall not fall into the way in this House of considering discussions on foreign policy or war policy untimely in themselves. I can remember, although I was not a member of the House, some of the great days of discussion on foreign policy in this House when speeches of great power and eloquence were made on subjects of the greatest delicacy affecting the foreign policy of this country. I am speaking of the time of the Russo-Turkish war and of the kindred history of the Afghan troubles which followed that war. Those debates were obviously carried on upon the thinnest of ice, but I never remember hearing that Lord Beaconsfield, who led your Lordships' House, objected to them on public grounds. Again, later in the early and extremely difficult days of the troubles in Egypt in 1882–3 continual debates were carried on in your Lordships'
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House. I should therefore most greatly deprecate any assumption that discussions on foreign policy, and indeed on war affairs, should be considered improper in your Lordships' House without definite reason shown why they are not in the public interest.
The point as to whether the particular subject which was brought forward by Lord Wimborne on the last occasion was unsuited for public discussion must be a matter of opinion as between individuals; but I am bound to say—although I was not present in the House at the time—that, having read his speech, it seems to me that the noble Lord put his case with great care and discretion, and, I venture to think, not in a manner which the noble Earl who leads the House or anybody else could have regarded as dangerous. But I still adhere to the opinion that if it is at any time desired that a noble Lord should refrain from dealing with a particular subject, it should be a matter of private and friendly communication outside.
The noble Marquess who spoke early in the debate, Lord Londonderry, from his House of Commons experience expressed some suspicion of arrangements behind the Speaker's Chair. Such arrangements, however, are of a different sort from those which can be carried out here with courtesy and confidence in such instances as these. At the same time, I quite see the difficulty which the noble Earl who leads the House may find in invariably conducting such conversations himself. But the Ministers of the Crown are now extraordinarily numerous. They are approaching in number the tale of the wives of Solomon, and they may be supposed to have as close an access to the fountain of wisdom as those ladies could ever have possessed. Why does not the noble Earl tell off some Minister, who can regularly be informed upon foreign affairs—if those are the matters which it is specially desired to safeguard—who, when there is a question of an inconvenient discussion, should seek an interview with the noble Lord who placed the subject on the Paper and explain to him at full length why the discussion is not desired at that particular moment? Nobody, of course, would admit as a general proposition—as the noble Earl has so frankly acknowledged—that it is for His Majesty's Government to say whether a subject ought to be discussed here or not; but, of course, equally every private

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member of the House and everybody on this Bench admits that where cause is shown, where His Majesty's Government are prepared to state that it is not to the public good that a particular Question should be put, the member will refrain and will keep silence, even from good words. I am quit certain that it is only by these colloquies outside the House that friction can be found that no such troublesome incident occurs again as that which we have been discussing this afternoon.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: My Lords, I think my noble friend Lord Lansdowne laid down the clearly doctrine of this House in respect of the matter which lies at the root of the speech of my noble friend Lord Ribblesdale, and as I understood the Leader of the House to accept that doctrine in its most unqualified form and to make no reservations about it, we may all congratulate ourselves that we are unanimous in agreeing as to what is the real practice and privilege of this House in these matters. But I think Lord Crewe touched on a very real point when he told us that it is not always easy to distinguish between the public interest and the interest of the Administration. All Governments must be liable to the temptation to consider their interests the interests of the public, and therefore we, on our part, should be jealous and retain to ourselves the right of personal discrimination.
We are not prepared to accept from any Government their opinion as our guide to what is or what is not in the public interest. It must always rest with the individual judgment of any member of your Lordships' House to decide that for himself. But in the present instance—and I am sorry my noble friend the Leader of the House is not here; perhaps the Lord Privy Seal will be good enough to tell him what I say—in this instance there is a third consideration, personal to my noble friend the Leader of the House. It is this—that he is so overworked a man, he has such an immense burden of responsibility put upon his shoulders (the whole duty of answering authoritatively for the War Cabinet rests upon him alone) that naturally it is difficult for him always to consider quite dispassionately whether a subject should be brought up on a given day or not.
I thought Lord Londonderry was abundantly justified in enlarging the scope of
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this debate and bringing in, as he did, the question of the representation of the Departments on the Front Bench. Indeed, the Leader of the House himself admitted that, because in an eloquent passage he appealed to your Lordships to try to realize the difficulty it was for his colleagues on the Bench, who had been provided with a five minutes reply by a Department, to confront some member of your Lordships' House on a subject on which he was a great authority. That really is almost the root of this whole matter. What I would ask my noble friend to believe is that this debate is a sign of a certain amount of restiveness and hostility in this House, not to my noble friend as the Leader of the House, but to the attitude of the Government, of which he is an ornament, towards this House.
There is a very strong and growing impression that the present Government show very scant consideration for the convenience of this House, very scant consideration for its rights, and show us very little courtesy. I mean the Government, not the members of the Government who are sitting on the Front Bench opposite. I mean the Prime Minister and Mr. Bonar Law. Look at the enormous size of the Government; yet how many members are there sitting on that Bench who in any debate can answer authoritatively of their own knowledge? I believe my noble friend the Leader of the House and Lord Milner are almost the only two, and of the others of my noble friends there is not one who is not qualified, by his experience and his ability, to hold high office in the Government. The places they ought to be filling are filled by Members of the House of Commons, often of quite inferior ability and experience, and my noble friends here speak with no authority, have no opportunity of mastering the subjects they are so qualified to master, but are only able to speak from a brief furnished them for the moment by the Department which they are set to represent. That is the position, which is being more or more resented in this House, and there are other instances to which I need not call your Lordships' attention now. But that feeling does exist, and this debate is a witness to the impression that unless my noble friend who leads this House stands up for the rights of this House with the Government of which he is a member, your Lordships' House will receive very little courtesy and very little consideration.
LORD RIBBLESDALE: My Lords, I believe, under the Standing Order which the noble Earl himself read out, that I have the right of reply, but I am going to be very short because of the important Notice in the name of Lord Sydenham which is next on the Paper. The noble Earl disagrees. Well, perhaps I may be given a ruling; we are all under the Front Bench——
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I was merely asking my noble friend beside me why the noble Lord has a right to reply.
A NOBLE LORD: Lord Ribblesdale has by the indulgence of the House.
LORD RIBBLESDALE: Then may I go on by the indulgence of t he blous—I am most anxious to keep right. I was merely proceeding to say that I was sorry the noble Earl, a very old friend of mine, found me dull. Of course, that one cannot help; but I am still more sorry that he found me disagreeable. A great part of his speech was directed to very old jokes about the latitude enjoyed and and taken advantage of by speakers in this House in conveying arguments out of Questions, but I should like to tell the noble. Earl this, that there he is very much at variance with Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Gladstone was very kind to me when I first came into this House, and he said to me, "Now remember one thing. You are going into a House which will give in you very great opportunities. Questions in your House are not put down to elicit information; they are lout down to convey arguments. You be a wise man and take every possible advantage of that." Lord Curzon, I think, deplores very much that that should be the case; and I have no doubt in his own case, as Lord Selborne said, being a very much overworked Minister, he has suffered a considerable amount of inconvenience from that awkward habit which we claim from right immemorial. He spoke about my not having referred to various phases and incidents of duly 17. That was for this reason, that I thought it was an incident which was more or less closed. I looked at this much more from the larger aspect which I put forward of the rights of the House to free speech, and the importance of Ministerial responsibility. This Lord Curzon did not like, of course. I am bound to say that on a good deal which the noble Earl said I am as unlikely to meet him as opposite angles. I do not agree with a great deal that he told us.
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I am animated by that certain feeling of mistrust to which Lord Selborne adverted just now, and I am still more so after the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Curzon. I do not at all understand that Lord Curzon accepted the noble Marquess's statement of the case. If he did, that would remove some of my objections; but why I still feel nervous is this. Lord Curzon seemed to tell us that because we had secured certain privileges, or, as he called them, advantages, we were to be good boys; and having got these advantages we were not to attach Importance to them or to be suspicious of any invasion of them. To that I do not subscribe. I am quite impenitent about the manner in which I have brought forward my Motion. I objected at the time to Lord Curzon's pronouncement, and I object to it still.

INDIAN CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS.
LORD SYDENHAM LORD SYDENHAM had the following Notice on the Paper—
To draw attention to the Report of the Viceroy and the Secretary of State on Indian Reforms; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, my Motion deals with matters which are vital to the interests of the people of India, and also vital to our own people, if they only knew. At, this late hour I feel that I cannot do justice to them, and unless this important question can be dealt with as it deserves I think it would be better not to deal with it at all. I therefore ask the permission of your Lordships' House to postpone my Motion.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: May I venture to ask the Leader of your Lordships' House a question arising out of what has fallen from the noble Lord on the Cross-Benches, although probably the noble Earl will not be able to deal with it at the moment. This Motion, as the noble Lord said, is one of the first importance, and I do not know whether the noble Earl the Leader of the House is able now to tell us if and when there is any possibility of its being taken, in view of the long list of business before us to which reference was made the other evening.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: My Lords, I should not like to give a definite reply on the spur of the moment, because

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the only date available for Motions of this sort is Wednesday, August 7, on which day Lord Beauchamp has put down a Question of some importance, and he would have priority. Without disputing the wisdom of Lord Sydenham I am rather sorry that he has not persisted in his Motion this afternoon, because if we are to lay down the doctrine that a debate of first-class importance cannot be taken at half-past six I confess that the proceedings of this House are likely to be very sensibly curtailed in the future. I had been making arrangements this afternoon to secure, if possible, a good attendance after dinner to-night, with the hope that the debate inaugurated by my noble friend, commencing at 6.30, might have gone on till 11 o'clock, or to whatever period he and his friends thought desirable. I can only say, on my own behalf, that I have no responsibility in the matter, and express my regret that my noble friend has decided not to pursue his Motion this afternoon.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

ROYAL COMMISSION.
The following thirty-seven Bills received the Royal Assent—

Finance.

War Loan.

Workmen's Compensation (Silicosis).

Solicitors (Articled Clerks).

Summary Jurisdiction (Ireland).

Deputy Lieutenants.

Land Drainage.

Labourers (Ireland).

Expiring Laws Continuance.

Flax Companies (Financial Assistance).

Juries.

Parliament and Local Elections.

Small Holding Colonies (Amendment).

Glasgow Corporation Order Confirmation.

Land Drainage (Pinchbeck) Provisional Orders.

Land Drainage (Woodwalton) Provisional Order.

Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 1).

Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Order (No. 2).

Electric Lighting Provisional Orders.

Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders.

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Glasgow and South Western Railway Order Continuation.

Aldershot Gas, Water, and District Lighting.

Railway Passengers Assurance Company. Pontypridd and Rhondda Joint Water Board.

West Bromwich Corporation

London County Council (Money).

Belfast Harbour.

British Gas Light Company (Norwich).

Morecambe Corporation.

Londonderry Corporation.

County of London Electric Supply.

Sligo Corporation.

Nelson Corporation Water.

Calthorpe Estate.

Hamilton Estates.

Scarisbriek Estate.

Miles Divorce.

GOVERNMENT WAR OBLIGATIONS BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read la; and to be printed.

TO-MORROW'S SITTING.
THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn until to-morrow afternoon at half-past three.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[From Minutes of July 29.

COUNTY OF LONDON ELECTRIC SUPPLY BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments.
SCARISBRICK ESTATE BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments: The said Amendments considered, and agreed to.
HAMILTON ESTATES BILL. [H.L.]
  MILES DIVORCE BILL. [H.L.]
  Returned from the Commons, agreed to.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 6) BILL.
The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn.
House adjourned at fifteen minutes past seven o'clock.