Lords Sitting of 13 June 1918

Preamble
Lord BYRON—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his brother.
LONDONDERRY CORPORATION BILL.
Read 2a.

MIDWIVES BILL. [H.L.]
VISCOUNT PEEL: My Lords, on behalf of the Lord President of the Council, I beg to introduce a Bill amending the Midwives Act of 1902, and to move that it be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Viscount Peel.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

SMALL HOLDING COLONIES (AMENDMENT) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD STRACHIE LORD STRACHIE had given notice, on the Motion that the Bill be now read a second time, to move to leave out all the words after ("That") for the purpose of inserting the words "this House regrets that the Bill contains no provision for the creation under the Bill of Small Holdings Colonies by or through the agency of County Councils."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I understand that the noble Earl the Lord Privy Seal proposes to postpone the Second Reading of this Bill owing to the fact that the noble Viscount (Lord Goschen) who is in charge of it is not able to be here to-day. Might I ask the noble Earl to put it down for a day when it is perfectly certain that the noble Viscount will be able to be in his place, because it is inconvenient to noble Lords who have other things to do to come here for the Second Reading of a Bill in which they are interested and then to find it further postponed. I would suggest that the Second Reading of this Bill should be put down for Tuesday week, June 25. There cannot be great urgency for a Bill of this kind.
VISCOUNT GALWAY: My Lords, before the noble Earl replies I should like to call his attention to the fact that in a debate about ten days ago the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, promised to give full accounts of the small holdings colony which has been working for over a year, and I support my noble friend in his request that the postponement of the Second Reading of this Bill should be to a date when Lord Goschen will be able to be present. I hope that the noble Earl will press on the Board of Agriculture to hurry up the production of the accounts, so that we may be able to judge how the colonies work.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF CRAWFORD): My Lords, I much regret that my noble friend Lord Goschen is indisposed, rather suddenly, and it has been impossible for me to give private notice to those members of your Lordships' House who are interested in this Bill. I would suggest that the Second Reading should be put down for Wednesday of next week. It is quite true that the Bill is not urgent in the sense that certain financial measures which reach this House are urgent. None the less it is desirable that a measure of this kind should be passed as soon as possible in order to free the authorities to begin negotiations about the purchase and hire of land. If it proves impossible to take the Bill next Wednesday I shall hope to be able to let the noble Lord, who has a Motion on the Paper, know in good time so that he will be able to pursue his other duties. I rather deprecate putting off the Bill for ten days, as I hope the noble Viscount's indisposition may be removed much earlier.
LORD STRACHIE: The noble Earl is, of course, aware that there is an important Motion in the name of Viscount Midleton down for Wednesday next regarding Cabinet Government, in which no doubt many noble Lords will be interested. I would also point out that on Wednesdays Motions and Questions come first, and some other noble Lord may put down a Motion for that day which would mean that this Bill would come on rather late. It is a subject of great interest, and I think the Bill should be the first Order on the Paper.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, I am anxious to meet the noble Lord, and if what he says proves to be the fact he

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would no doubt make out a case for a further postponement, or an adjournment of the debate after a few speeches. I suggest that we should put it down provisionally for Wednesday, if that would suit the noble Lord's convenience. I will represent to the Board of Agriculture what noble friend Lord Galway has said about expediting the printing of the document to which he referred.
Second Reading put off to Wednesday next.

MILES DIVORCE BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a and passed, and sent to the Commons.
WESTGATE-ON-SEA CONGREGATIONAL CHAPEL CHARITY BILL.
Read 3a and passed.

THE POPE'S NOTE.
LORD BRAYE LORD BRAYE had the following Notice on the Paper—
To refer to the Pope's Note which His Majesty's Government has not answered, and to the Secret Treaty with France, Russia, and Italy in opposition to any endeavours on the part of the Holy See in the direction of peace.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, one of the most melancholy accompaniments of the present war is the refusal of the Entente Powers to reply to the Pope's Note addressed to all the belligerent countries. Even the United States sent an answer of a kind. Very great inconsistency has been manifested by our Governments in their various attitudes towards the Holy See. Long ago and for centuries they refused to be represented at all at the Vatican. Then suddenly in the Gladstone Administration they sent a private member of the House of Commons without any definite mission, at least as far as the public were informed. This irritated Ireland, as well it might. Questioned in Parliament, the Government tried to minimise the error they had fallen into. Very soon this mockery of an Embassy was dropped.
In recent times a fresh representative has been installed at the Vatican. This
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time he has a definite, status, and, let us hope, a definite function. But although this envoy is accredited to the Vatican, when the Pope writes to us no notice is taken of his letter. However, the reason is not far to seek. Revolution has laid bare the Secret Treaties into which our Government entered with certain other States, and while they undertook to carve out various annexations for Governments which coveted them, special care was taken to prevent the Pope from bringing about peace by negotiation before the re-arrangement of the map was secured. Clause 15 of the Secret Treaty with France, Italy, and Russia—that is to say, with quondam Russia—sets forth that if Italy objects to the Pope sending representatives to any Peace Conference we shall support the objection.
While the millions suffer, Secret Diplomacy hides the causes of wars from us. We are ruled with a dark rod. Years hence whole books, nay whole libraries, will be written on the causes of this war; but whoever may be deemed the beginner of it, there is little doubt that those who continue it in defiance of the Holy See must share in the guilt of it. The saying of the Swedish Chancellor Oxenstern has not yet sunk in the stream of oblivion. He said—
"You do not know, my son, by how little wisdom the world is governed."
I recollect hearing the late Lord Salisbury say one evening in this House—
"We all know now that the Crimea was a mistake."
Well, a mistake is a move without wisdom; all wars the reasons for which might be settled by arbitration are criminal follies, and even this war could have been so settled if recourse had been made to the supreme court of arbitration—namely, the Holy See. Even Bismarck—in other words, Prussia and the new German Empire—in company with Spain, went to arbitration about the Caroline Islands before the Pope, and there is no reason why more important appeals, involving far more transcendent issues, should not be made in a similar way.
Last December the Pope referred to his appeal to the belligerents in the following terms—
"From the highest quarters some guiding motives for an understanding have been put forward; therefore we invite the heads of the belligerent States to make a particular study of them."

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He then went on—
"We deplore that in some quarters the authorities do not deign to hear our words, while others do not spare an expression of suspicion and calumny. No obstacle or peril is capable of breaking our resolution to exercise our rights, those rights belonging to one who represents the Prince of Peace. Seeing the efforts of once flourishing nations thrown back into a paroxysm of mutual destruction, and fearing the ever-nearing suicide of European civilisation, we ask when and how this dreadful tragedy will end. The present calamity will never finish until men return to God with prayer from the heart. As once the unbridled lust of the senses plunged the celebrated cities into a sea of fire, so in our days the public impiety and atheism, erected into a system of so-called civilisation, has plunged the world into a sea of blood."
The Pope ended in a strain to the following effect—
"Think of the heavy responsibility you have before God and man. Upon your resolves depend the repose and joy of innumerable families, the lives of thousands of youths—in a word, the happiness of the peoples to whom it is your absolute duty to secure these boons."
Such are the exhortations which the Pope has addressed to the Powers engaged in fratricidal strife. Great Britain—that is, England, Scotland, and Wales, three peoples that glory in what is called "throwing off the yoke of Rome"—will not listen to him even now. They will not acknowledge his warning. They will have nothing to do with him except sending an envoy. They turn a deaf ear. They do not even speak about it. There is no contempt so piercing as the contempt expressed by silence. Yet the country is heading for bankruptcy and revolution. The poorest classes are earning guineas where before they scarcely got shillings. Firms are reaping millions of gold. A frightful motive is thus given for the prolongation of the war. Meanwhile our manhood and our youth are butchered to make a European holiday.
The misery is that the opportunities for concluding an honourable peace by negotiation have been rejected more than once. It would seem that as recently as the Versailles Conference the olive branch was once more refused. What can be done if every time your enemy comes forward to discuss the bare idea of peace you call him a deceiver and hypocrite? Meanwhile the massacre goes on. In the first year of the war the armies of Europe were ankle-deep in blood. In the following years they have been knee-deep in blood. Very soon the tide of blood must, will rise higher—even,
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to use the emphatic imagery of the Apocalypse, unto the horses' bridles.
I will read only a few words more of the pontifical speeches, but they are words so strong, so emphatic, and so pathetic that I certainly do not consider they require any commentary or addition—
"We adjure you, rulers of belligerent nations, in God's name to stop this horrible slaughter which for a year has dishonoured Europe—"
He was speaking on the first anniversary. Appalling is the import of the message now!
"You bear a tremendous responsibility. Hear the voice of the Vicar of that Judge to Whom you must give an account of your public and private acts. We invite all friends of peace to assist us in hastening the end of the war."
My Lords, those words commend themselves, not only to enemy countries, but to this Government and all the Governments on the face of the earth.
LORD STANMORE: My Lords, from the wording in the first part of the Notice on the Paper and from the noble Lord's speech I understand that he thinks His Majesty's Government have been wanting in respect and courtesy in the matter of the Pope's Note. Nothing could have been farther from the thoughts of the Government. The Note was received early in August. A few days later a reply was sent to the effect that His Majesty's Government had received the proposal of His Holiness with the most sincere appreciation of the lofty and benevolent intentions which animated him. A few days later—on August 29—the President of the United States sent an answer to the Note in some detail. His Majesty's Government associated themselves with this answer, and decided that there was nothing which they could usefully add to it. This was made public at the time.
In regard to the other matter that appears in the noble Lord's Notice, what Clause 15 does is to say that Great Britain will support Italy in the event of the Italian Government objecting to the Pope's sending a representative to the Peace Conference. This appears to be a perfectly reasonable course to take. The Conference will be attended by representatives of the belligerent Powers. The representative of a neutral Sovereign would not in any case be admitted unless with the general consent of all the

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belligerents. Of course, the clause cannot possibly be abandoned; it is part of the Treaty, and is just as binding as any other part. It can only be cancelled with the general consent of all the signatories to the Treaty.

PRIVATE BELLS.
[From Minutes of June 11.]
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill have been complied with:
Londonderry Corporation.
Also the Certificate that no Standing Orders are applicable to the following Bill:
Marriages Provisional Order.
The same were ordered to lie on the Table.

LAND DRAINAGE (PINCHBECK) PROVISIONAL ORDERS BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners.

CALTHORPE ESTATE BILL. [H.L.]
Committee to meet on Tuesday next.
House adjourned at five o'clock.