Lords Sitting of 20 March 1918

ECONOMY IN PRINTING.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON): My Lords, before public business commences this afternoon I would ask your Lordships' attention for a moment to a matter of some moment in its effect upon ourselves. I have just had handed to me a Paper representing what has passed in the House of Commons. It relates to the printing and circulation of the Votes and Proceedings of that House. It appears that the Speaker has directed that, in view of the acute shortage of paper, the Votes and Proceedings of the House of Commons shall not in future be circulated to Members generally, but only to such Members as shall signify on a slip before the 23rd inst. that they desire to receive copies as issued. In the absence of any notification from a Member that he desires to be supplied with copies, the supply will be discontinued as from the 9th proximo. The reasons for that action in another place are obvious, and I hope I shall not be wrong in suggesting that they apply equally to ourselves. It is clear that there must be a very considerable expenditure—I might almost say in some cases a waste—of material, labour, and paper in the circulation, every day, to all members of your Lordships' House, wherever they may be and in whatever part of the country they reside, of the Minutes of Proceedings of this House; and the measure of restraint which in the public interest the Speaker has suggested that the House of Commons should apply to itself, and which that House has accepted, I am sure your Lordships will be willing, in the public interest, to accept for yourselves.
Several NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I hope I may, unless I hear to the contrary, assume the assent of your Lordships' House.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, as the noble Earl appears to expect acquiescence, I may say that so far as I am concerned I most cheerfully give it. I think probably there is a great waste of paper, and I am quite sure that what
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applies to the Minutes may not also apply to a considerable proportion of the Bills. A very large number of Bills, some of them occupying considerable space and not perhaps dearly cherished by those who receive them, are circulated with the Minutes to, I suppose, all members of your Lordships' House. I should have thought that some restriction might possibly be exercised with respect to Bills as well as in respect of the Journal, Minutes and daily entries of business. I do not know whether the noble Earl has any views on this point. It may be difficult to discriminate as between Bills which are of general interest and special importance and those which are not, but a great many of the Bills which are received by your Lordships find their way, I am afraid, to the waste paper basket, and are not studied.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I think the remarks of the noble Marquess are most pertinent, and for my part I entirely agree with them. I recall very well, in the proceedings on the Representation of the People Bill, how day after day we saw on this Table, and we ourselves received, constant reprints, voluminous in character, during the different stages of that Bill, and I thought at the time that it might be possible, and if possible it certainly ought to be done, to practise some economy in that respect. I will consult with the Clerks at the Table and see whether some restriction cannot be applied to Bills as well as to other Papers.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, may I inquire how we are to know the business of the day? Is any notification to be sent as to what business will be taken? Unless something is circulated giving the business of the day, members of your Lordships' House will be compelled to ask for the Minutes and Papers for which a great many of them would not otherwise ask. If we could have from day to day the business that was to be taken on the next day, many noble Lords would not ask for the Minutes and Papers.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: It is true, of course, that a statement appears in the Press every morning as to the general nature of the business to be taken in your Lordships' House. But I do not assume that there would be a complete stoppage of the circulation of Papers. I thought

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that the noble and learned Viscount would have been—like myself and other noble Lords—one of the favoured ones, and would receive the Papers. If the proposal is accepted, the Papers would be circulated to noble Lords living in London and constant in their attendance at your Lordships' House, and we should escape the sending of Papers to noble Lords living at a great distance and not attending here at all.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: I quite agree with that. But may I point out that unless some provision is made for telling noble Lords the Bills that are to be taken and the Motions to be considered, they would not get the information in any other way. It does not appear in the newspapers now, and they would be compelled to ask for the whole of the Papers, thereby leading to a great deal of waste. If some provision could be made, by means of a single sheet, which would acquaint us with what business is to be taken, a great many members would abstain from asking for anything more.
EARL CURZON or KEDLESTON: I should not like to answer on the spur of the moment, but I will consult with the Clerks at the Table on the matter.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: May I make a suggestion to the noble Earl? It is that any change that is made should be done by a Resolution of the House, so that we should know where we are, and that such and such Papers cannot be got in future.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: With the permission of tire House, I will consider the various suggestions that have been made and make a brief statement on the matter to-morrow.

TRUSTEE SAVINGS BANKS BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and to be printed.

THE BESTOWAL OF HONOURS.
The EARL of SELBORNE The EARL of SELBORNE had the following Notice on the Paper—
To call attention to the Honours List published on January 1, 1918; to point out wherein the public statement therein made of the reasons for which these honours were recommended to the Crown falls short of the undertaking given by His Majesty's Government to this House on October 31, 1917; and to move for Papers.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, the point to which I wish draw your attention to-day is a very limited one. We have had more than one discussion in this House on the subject of the abuses which some of us think have taken place in the recommendations made to His Majesty in respect of honours. I do not desire to-day to raise the question of abuse; I wish to confine myself to the consideration of the Resolution which was actually passed by this House and accepted by His Majesty's Government on October 31 last.
The noble and learned Earl, Lord Loreburn, brought forward two Resolutions. One of them was accepted without amendment by the Government, and the other was accepted with an Amendment moved by my noble friend the Marquess of Lansdowne. I myself voted against that Amendment, because I preferred the Motion in the form in which the noble Earl, Lord Loreburn, had moved it. I am not going back on that question to-day, but having gained what seemed to us a real concession from the Government, a concession which, in our judgment, marked a step in advance in the regulation of this most difficult matter, I hope your Lordships will agree with me in endeavouring jealously to safeguard that concession, and to watch the lists that are published and the statements that are made; and if we find that His Majesty's Government are not acting up to what we consider the spirit of their undertaking, we should remind them and ask an explanation from them.
Let me remind you to what it was that His Majesty's Government pledged themselves on October 31 last. Lord Loreburn moved the following two Resolutions—

"(1) That when any honour or dignity is conferred upon a British subject, other than a member of the Royal family or the members of the Naval, Military, or permanent Civil Service under the Crown, a definite public statement of the reasons for which he has been recommended to the Crown shall accompany the notification of the grant.

"(2) That a declaration to the Sovereign be made by the Prime Minister, in recommending any person to His Majesty's favour for any such honour or dignity, that he has satisfied himself that no payment or expectation of payment to any Party funds is directly or indirectly associated with the grant or promise of such honour or dignity."

My noble friend the Leader of the House (Earl Curzon of Kedleston), in dealing with these Resolutions of Lord Loreburn, referred to the second one as follows—
"As I understand, in proposing the omission

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of the words about a declaration to the Sovereign—"
That was is allusion to Lord Lansdowne's Amendment—
"in which I concur, he suggested that Resolution No. 2 should run as follows: 'That the Prime Minister, before recommending any person for any such honour or dignity, should satisfy himself that no payment or expectation of payment to any Party fund is directly or indirectly associated with the grant or promise of such honour or dignity.'"
He went on to say—
"If Lord Lansdowne moved his Amendment in the form which I understand him to recommend—that is to say, the Motion of the noble and learned Earl omitting the Preamble, containing No. 1 in its present form and No. 2 in the amended form which I read out to your Lordships—I shall be quite prepared to suggest that it should meet with your Lordships' acceptance."
I have only now to say in respect of the second of those Resolutions, which dealt with the obligation of the Prime Minister to satisfy himself that no payment or expectation of payment to any Party fund is directly or indirectly associated with the grant or promise of such honour or dignity, that I assume that in relation to the Honours List of January 1 the Prime Minister acted on the assurance given to us on his behalf by my noble friend the Leader of the House. Therefore I have nothing more to say about that.
It is to the first of these Resolutions, which was accepted without any qualification by my noble friend, that I wish to refer. The acceptance by my noble friend was quite complete and unreserved. My noble friend Lord Salisbury felt some doubts as to the extent to which the noble Earl who leads the House was prepared to commit His Majesty's Government, and my noble friend the Leader of the House exhibited a little impatience with my noble friend's doubts. Then Lord Lansdowne stepped in in order to clear up what seemed to him to be a misunderstanding, and spoke as follows—
"My noble friend Lord Salisbury asked the Leader of the House what action he proposed to take if this Resolution was carried. I understand the noble Earl to say that he is prepared to accept the Resolution on behalf of the Government of which he is a member—that is, the Government presided over by the Prime Minister; and surely the inference from that is that the Prime Minister and his colleagues would abide by the terms of the Resolution."
My noble friend the Leader of the House stated—
"That was exactly what I said, almost totidem verbis."
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Therefore there is no doubt whatever that the Resolution as amended was accepted without reservation by my noble friend on behalf of His Majesty's Government.
The first occasion since that debate on which there has been a grant of honours on a large scale—and it was on a very large scale—was on January 1 last. You may say that it is rather late in the day, in the middle of March, to raise a question about a list that appeared on January 1, but it has not been in our power to find an opportunity to raise this question earlier. Your Lordships will remember that in the early part of the year this House was occupied entirely with the Franchise Bill, and there has been other important work ensuing on that, and to-day is the first day on which I could get the opportunity of raising this matter. I want to say, in order to follow out what I said at the beginning, that I am not to-day going to deal with the general subject, nor am I going to deal with the merits or otherwise of any of the gentlemen whose names are found on this rather portentous list. My sole object is to point out to my noble friend, who of course is not personally responsible for the statements inserted in the papers, that the spirit of the Governmental obligation does not seem to me to be entirely and in every case fulfilled.
Before I give instances, I want to give my noble friend a piece of information of which I do not think he is aware, and which I have only learned after strenuous inquiry and a long search, and that is that these honours of Peerages, Baronetcies, and Knighthoods are the only honours bestowed by His Majesty which are never put into the London Gazette. They are never sent to the London Gazette at all, though every other honour is sent to it. I ask my noble friend to see that that is remedied, and for this reason. The Government is pledged when these honours are published to make a statement as to the reasons for which the recommendation on behalf of these gentlemen has been made to His Majesty. That statement, I have ascertained, is issued from the Lord Chamberlain's office, but, it is only sent to the daily Press and not to the London Gazette. There is no obligation on any newspaper to publish a word of that statement absolutely none; whereas if it is sent to the London Gazette we are perfectly certain that it will be published. Everybody would know where to look for

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it if he is interested in the subject, and the matter is regularised, and put on an official footing. I do ask my noble friend most earnestly, as the natural consequence and complement of the pledge given on October 31, that he will see that these honours are henceforward, with the official statements issued, published in the London Gazette. I think he will be surprised when I tell him it is not so now, but I assure him it is a fact, because the head of the Stationery Office, who is responsible, is my informant.
Now, I come to the statements themselves. I have no wish to make out any case against His Majesty's Government, and therefore I am not going through this list in at all an exhaustive way. I think if any of your Lordships had the curiosity to refer to The Times of January 1 and read these statements through, you would agree with me that, while some of them give the public all the information which could be desired, a good many of them fall short very materially of the spirit of the undertaking given to your Lordships' House by my noble friend on behalf of His Majesty's Government. But I am not going to attempt an exhaustive inquiry. I am going to take only three instances. And again, in taking those instances, I wish it to be understood that I am making no reference to the merits of the gentlemen in question; I am dealing only with the statement issued by His Majesty's Government from the Lord Chamberlain's office of the reason for which the honour is conferred. I am taking these three cases only as illustrations.
Alexander Black, Esq., is put down for a baronetcy. The statement of the reasons for which it is given is in the following words—
"An active worker, supporting local charities and efforts to encourage food production. Has assisted the Government in the promotion of the fishing industry."
If you substitute for "fishing" agriculture, coal, iron, cotton, or any other industry, I think you will agree with me that there probably are at least 100,000 gentlemen in the country whom that description will exactly fit—an active worker, supporting local charities and food production; has assisted the Government in the promotion of a certain industry. I submit that this is altogether too general and too vague a statement to be accepted as a real reason for the grant by His Majesty of such a signal honour as that of a baronetcy, and
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that it does not really carry out the spirit of the pledges given to us.
Then I come to the second case—W. H. Clemmy, Esq. Here the statement of reasons is very short and very sweet. It is "Mayor of Booth."
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Is that all?
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: That is all—"Mayor of Bootle." And he receives a knighthood. Another knighthood is given to "S. B. Quinn. Esq., Mayor of Limerick." In the same number of The Times there is a grant of a knighthood for another gentleman who has occupied the mayoral chair—"S. Garland, Esq. Has been Mayor of Chichester for six consecutive years." That is a signal instance of public service. Nobody who knows what is implied in the amount of self-sacrifice and public work in the mayoralty of a town like Chichester for six consecutive years can deny that it is a striking example of public service, and it is most natural that His Majesty should select such a man to honour. But what inducement can there be to anybody in the future to become mayor for six consecutive years if he can get the same honour by being mayor for one year? I suggest that if the mere occupation of the mayoral chair on a single occasion is to be taken as a sufficient qualification for a knighthood, then we may revise our estimates of the value of these honours and of the meaning conveyed in an approbation by His Majesty of public service. I submit that those curt statements, "Mayor of Bootle" and "Mayor of Limerick" are wholly insufficient as an endorsement of the pledge given on behalf of His Majesty's Government. Nothing would surprise me less than to find that these gentlemen have behind them an excellent record of public service. But why is it not stated? And what can be in the mind of the official—I wonder very much who the official was who drew up these statements—what can have been in his mind when he thought that it was a respectful thing to your Lordships' House or to the public that all the information that could be vouchsafed to us was that a gentleman was a mayor of a provincial town?
I have said that my point was a small one. I do not pretend that it is otherwise, but I think that it is very important that, having secured this willing and full concession from His Majesty's Government

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—not going so far as I should like, but still going a considerable way—we should scrutinise these lists, and when we think the statements are inadequate, as indeed I think in many of these cases they are, that we should draw the attention of my noble friend to their inadequacy. He does not think for a moment that I regard him as personally responsible for this inadequacy, but unless he will, on behalf of the Government, see that the official who is charged with this responsibility really fulfils it, I am quite sure that it will not be fulfilled according to the spirit of his undertaking. I beg to move.
EARL CURZON of KEDLESTON: My Lords, although I do not think that my noble friend was either altogether happy or altogether just in his criticism of the list, to which I will presently turn, I have no objection whatever to his raising this matter, which I think he was fully entitled to do. Nor do I dispute anything that he said as to the interpretation of the words which I employed on the previous occasion—October last—when this matter came before your Lordships' House. I am sure that neither he nor any other noble Lord will suspect me of any wish to detract in the smallest degree from the fulfilment of the pledge which, on the part of His Majesty's Government, I then gave. I entirely accept the canon laid down by the noble Earl—that this House is right, in the event of any pledge having been given from the Ministerial Bench, to act as the jealous guardian of the rights which it has thereby secured.
The remarks of the noble Earl this afternoon have been directed not to the second part of the Resolutions carried by your Lordships in the month of October, but to the first branch of those Resolutions. I will briefly read again the particular Resolution to which he has asked your Lordships' attention. It ran as follows—
"That when any honour or dignity is conferred upon a British subject, other than a member of the Royal Family, or the members of the Naval, Military, or permanent Civil Service under the Crown, a definite public statement of the reasons for which it has been recommended to the Crown shall accompany the notification of the grant."
That was the Resolution which, on behalf of His Majesty's Government and with the fullest intention that it should be observed in all future Honours Lists, I accepted in your Lordships' House. Now, if you will look at the report of the discussion you will
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see that I was myself in some doubt as to what was the exact form of statement which your Lordships' House, and those noble Lords who led the discussion, required. I pointed out at the time that a statement—of which the noble Earl seems still to be unaware—is issued to the Press as an ordinary practice upon the distribution of honours, a statement which contains an account of the services rendered by the recipient. I am very sorry not to see the noble Lord, Lord Burnham, in his place, because on that occasion he gave a categorical and point-blank denial to what I said across the floor of your Lordships' House. The noble Lord was wrong, and I was right. Such a statement—I have a copy of the latest one—is drawn up, not in the Lord Chamberlain's office, but at Downing-street. It is printed, and it is issued on the same day and at the same hour as the List of Honours itself, to the representatives of the Press for their use in the columns of the daily Press the next day; and the statements that you read in the newspapers are in the main derived from the compilation of which I hold a copy in my hands. Downing-street, of course, cannot compel the Press to make full use, or any use at all, of this statement. Sometimes they use it; sometimes they do not; sometimes, perhaps, they amplify it; sometitnes—and more commonly, owing to the pressure upon their space—they compress it.
Having made that statement about this Paper (which I shall be only too glad to hand to any noble Lord who desires to see it), I then in the debate asked what more the House, and those who were leading the discussion, desired. These were my words—
"It is, of course, difficult to settle this matter by dialogue or conversation across the House. Assuming that the Government are quite willing to carry it out, noble Lords should favour me with their own views as to the best method of carrying it out, and as to what extent the range of it should extend."
That is, the range of information about individual cases. To that question on my part the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, speaking a little later in the afternoon, made reply. His observations are to be found in column 879. They are as follows—
"Broadly, we may say that, if anybody receives an honour, somebody ought to be able to say why he receives it, and what the good reasons for its bestowal are; and the only question is to have those reasons printed in public. Whether they are printed in the Gazette or in

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Papers laid before your Lordships' House is a matter indifference. The point is that when anybody receives an honour there ought to be some good reason for its conferment. Let us print what the good reason is."
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Hear, hear.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I have nothing to object to in that language. There the matter rested, and when the debate was over and the Resolution had been accepted by your Lordships' House I drew the attention of Downing-street to the Resolution, with the full intention that it should be acted upon not only in the letter but in the spirit. I think the impression prevailed there that the printed statement which is now drawn up, and to which I have more than once alluded, is adequate, and satisfied the requirements laid down in this discussion by your Lordships' House. But it is clear from what the noble Earl has said that it has not satisfied him, and he has drawn attention to this list—or, rather, not to this list in the form in which it was issued to the Press, but to the List of Honours in the form in which it appeared in the Press.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I had no possibility, of course, of seeing the other list.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: No; the noble Earl, of course, had not any possibility of seeing it. I am merely explaining the practice that has hitherto prevailed, and was carried out on January 1 last. The noble Earl has called attention to the statements that appeared in the Press, and he has named one or two cases in which he seems to think that they were inadequate. If I may say so, I do not think the cases of the noble Earl were altogether well chosen. Let us see what they were. He took the case of a Baronetcy conferred upon Mr. Alexander Black. I know nothing about that gentleman beyond what is stated in this record and in the newspapers. The newspapers having, as I indicated just now, varied very much in the degree of information they gave, let me read what appeared in the Daily Telegraph, for instance, about Mr. Alexander Black. These were the words in which they justified the appointment.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I read it from The Times.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: Yes. The Daily Telegraph contained a fuller use of the information supplied. It is there stated—
"Mr. Alexander Black has taken an active part in many directions, and has been a generous supporter of local war charities. He has shown particular interest in the encouragement of food production and school gardens on a large scale, and has made a handsome gift in furtherance of these objects. The Government secured his aid in connection with the fishing industry."
THE MARQUESS or SALISBURY: Is the noble Earl quoting from the Official Paper?
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I am reading from the use made by the Daily Telegraph of the information in the Official Paper. That seems to me precisely the kind of general statement about the services of a man who has moved in public life, and who has been what we may call an honourable, useful, and distinguished servant in the best sense of the term. It is precisely the kind of information which the noble Earl complained of our not giving. Later on Lord Selborne came to the case of the two Mayors. It is rather difficult to satisfy my noble friend. If we give the information he says, "That is too general." But when we come down to the case of the Mayors he says, "Give me general information; that is what I want."
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: Could we hear what is said in the Official Paper about the case of Mr. Black?
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: It is a compression of what I have read. It says—
"Alexander Black, Esquire. Has been a generous supporter of all local war charities, including gifts to encourage food production and school gardens on a large scale. Has rendered valuable assistance to the Government in connection with the fishing industry."
I take now the case of the two Mayors. One of those gentlemen was Mr. Clemmy, the Mayor of Bootle; the other was the Mayor of Limerick. The noble Earl expressed dissatisfaction that the mere statement of this fact was regarded as sufficient by the Government, and he seemed to claim that a Mayor is not worthy of an honour at the hands of his Sovereign—certainly not of the honour of Knighthood—unless he has served for a number of years in succession; because the test that

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the noble Earl applied was that of another Mayor, Mr. Garland, who had served for six years in succession. I suggest that a man who, very likely in the latter part of a meritorious life, becomes the Mayor of a great borough and receives this proof of the confidence of his fellow-citizens, is likely to be in the list of persons who might be suitably considered, and who have for more than a generation past been considered, for such a form of honour. Now I will go a little more particularly into these two cases. Take the case of the Mayor of Bootle. It does not satisfy the noble Earl that he has not been elected many times in succession, but at any rate the Government were satisfied that this gentleman, now between seventy and eighty years of age—
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Is the noble Earl going to read from the Official Paper directly?
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I am now giving the reasons for which the appointment was made, and I shall proceed to ask what it is that the noble Marquess and his friends desire should have been stated in the published record. The printed list contains the remarks "Mr. So-and-so, Mayor of Bootle."
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: What we are anxious to ascertain is whether those terse and impressive words are all that is contained in the official communiqué.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: Yes; and I am now trying to explain why more was not contained in the official statement issued to the Press. This gentleman was rewarded by the confidence of his fellow-citizens, being made Mayor of Bootle. He has had a long and distinguished career and has been identified with many war services, and that is the kind of man who in the evening of his life receives this kind of honour. He was recommended by the Member for the constituency, who happens to be the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and by another member of His Majesty's Government. In those circumstances I really do not quite understand what kind of statement of the public services of this gentleman it is that the noble Marquess or the noble Earl would desire.
Then I take the case of the Mayor of Limerick. I do not know what the career
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or the services of this gentleman have been, but he was Mayor of Limerick and was recommended for this honour by the Lord Lieutenant and by the Chief Secretary. Is not that enough? Are you to put in the statement of this gentleman's services "Mayor of Limerick, recommended by the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary" or is it of great interest to the public to know that this gentleman has rendered this or that public service? I should not have taken these instances unless they had been selected—I think not altogether successfully selected—by the noble Earl himself. But let me point out to the House what is the real difficulty that arises in the case. The noble Earl is really interested in the case of gentlemen, unknown perhaps to himself, and perhaps unknown to the public at large, and he is very anxious, and rightly anxious, that in such cases the public should be given a clear idea as to why the honour is conferred. He accordingly demands that a full statement should be made in each case. Now let us see how that would work out in practice. In the New Year's Honours List, which he was criticising, there are, among the names of Privy Councillors, those of Lord Hugh Cecil, Sir Gordon Hewart, and Lord Edmund Talbot. The gift of that honour to them would be recognised by everybody without a word of explanation as an entirely reasonable and legitimate thing. The positions they occupy are known to the world. Does anybody really mean that where a Privy Councillorship is conferred a kind of biography of the recipient should be published in the Gazette, or, if this is unnecessary because it is already in "Who's Who," that the services which they have rendered in the preceding one year or two years should be put down? I take the case of Baronetcies, and there I find the name included of Mr. Ellis Griffith, M.P., a very distinguished man, who has served for many years in the House of Commons. The sole thing stated here is that he was M.P. for Anglesey since 1895. If that does not satisfy the views of the noble Earl, what more would he have us do? Then Sir F. E. Smith was made a Baronet, and the only information given to the public was "Attorney-General." Again, are we to give a full description?
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I have a very full description here of Mr. Ellis Griffith.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I am talking now about the list issued by the Government, which was challenged. The newspapers may have amplified it or treated it in what way they liked, but I am speaking about what you are talking about, and I am seeking to get from the House information as to what it is that you have in your minds. Take the case of knighthoods, about which, in regard to those conferred upon mayors, the noble Earl was so sensitive. But Mayors are not the only recipients, and in the list of knighthoods on the last occasion, I find the following. "Mr. John Galsworthy, novelist and playwright—"
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: Who refused it.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: It was offered him. "Mr. John Lavery, artist; Mr. Edwin L. Lutyens, architect; Mr. Leslie Ward, the artist of Vanity Fair." In all those cases it has been considered by the Government at any rate sufficient to state to the public what were the main credentials and credit of the recipient. Does the House want more? When a statement is published in the Gazette or otherwise—I am coming to that in a moment—what is it exactly that the House desires? Does it desire that one standard shall be applied in the case of inconspicuous people and another in the case of conspicuous people? Are gentleman of the class of whom I am speaking to be treated as if their tames alone were sufficient to justify the acceptance of title, but in other cases are we to embroider the services and give a full record to the country? The point is one of some difficulty, which I should be very glad if this debate should enable your Lordships to elucidate for my benefit.
Take again the case of a Peerage. That was a point about which noble Lords were very sensitive when we discussed the matter two or three months ago. When Lord Tennyson, or Lord Lister, or Lord French, or Lord Jellicoe are made Peers, are we to draw up a list of their services and present it in the Gazette, or otherwise, to the House; or is the mere fact that they have been appointed with the general approval of their countrymen, to whom their names are so well known, sufficient? That, again, is a question to which I shall be very grateful for some sort of reply. Therefore I have shown that, with the utmost desire on the
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part of the Government to carry out its pledge to the full, I am still, even after these three debates, in some doubt as to what it really is that the House desires. One other point abort the Gazette. The noble Earl acquainted its with a discovery that he had made—namely, that hereditary honours are nut published in the Gazette. I am not quite certain that the noble Earl is correct in that.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: What I ascertained was that these Birthday and New Year's honours, except the orders of knighthood, are not published in the Gazette.
EARL CURZON or KEDLESTON: Obviously they cannot be, for this reason. Suppose a man is created a Peer. The statement of the intended honour appears, we will say, in the New Year's Honour List. Then some time elapses during which the patent has to be made out. The title which the noble Lord is going to take has to he settled between him and the advisers of the Crown, and in some cases arrangements as to the form of remainder or other points have to be settled. I think I remember my own case, in which two or three months elapsed between the date on which the Peerage was announced in the paper and that at which I was, as I believe, gazetted. Upon that point I hesitate to pronounce definitely, but my impression is that, although a Peerage cannot be gazetted straight away for the reason I have named, it is gazetted later on.
Several NOBLE LORDS: Hear hear.
EARL CURZON or KEDLESTON: There are noble Lords heer who support me in what I say.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: What about the others—the baronetcies and knighthoods?
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I cannot speak for the question of knighthoods. As regards baronetcies, with hereditary title, the same questions have to be settled. The noble Earl just now seemed to think that it would be an easy thing to publish the statement in the Gazette. For the reasons I have named I do not believe it would be easy, but I have a suggestion to make to the House

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which I think may be a way out of the difficulty—that is that in substitution for, or preferably in addition to, the statement to which I have more than once referred as issued from Downing-street now, there shall be drawn up a list which should be issued by the Government simultaneously with the appearance of the Honour List in the Press, and which should contain the information that the House desires, and that I, on behalf of the Government, promised to give. It might take the form—I think it would be possible that it should take the form—of a special Gazette (not an ordinary Gazette, for the reasons I have named), issued for the purpose of stating the reasons for these honours, and published synchronously with the appearance of the list of names in the newspapers. That suggestion, which I throw out, will I hope meet with the approval of your Lordships. But, again, I would say that it still leaves me in some doubt as to exactly what this Gazette ought to contain. I put to the House the difficulty which is in my own mind as to the discrimination between the recipients of honours who are well known to the public and those who are not, and I would ask your Lordships who take an interest in the matter to give me some guidance as to the character of the description that you want in both of these cases.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, we are glad that at the close of his remarks my noble friend proposed a method by which the publication, whatever it is, can be properly secured; but before I say anything about that I should like to remind my noble friend of what is quite evident—and your Lordships generally will agree—that when your Lordships debated this subject for two whole afternoons you did not do so with the object of getting some technical compliance with a rule which the Government accepted. I am sure your Lordships will all agree, and my noble friend himself will agree, that something more was intended by the House than a technical compliance with a rule accepted by him on behalf of the Government. What is behind it? There is no advantage in printing a gentleman's name either in the newspapers or in the Gazette with an insufficient description of his services. That does no good to any one. What is required is that the public should know the reason why Ministers have recommended to the Sovereign a particular gentleman for an
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honour. That is the substance of the thing. It is that which the public should know.
The question which we have to put to my noble friend is, Did the list which he tells us was circulated to the newspapers contain the full information for which the public have a right to ask? I need not tell your Lordships why the public have a right to ask for it. Everybody knows the real reason. The only difficulty of stating the reason is that one is most reluctant to seem to imply any suggestion against particular gentlemen's names which must perforce be mentioned in the course of the debate. I have no doubt that the Mayor of Bootle and the Mayor of Limerick are most worthy gentlemen, entirely deserving, so far as I know—I certainly do not know anything to the contrary—of His Majesty's favour. But the point is that if nothing but a phrase like "the Mayor of Bootle" or "the Mayor of Limerick" be published, there is no security against what we know in common colloquial language as a political "job." That is the point. Do not let anybody think that I am suggesting for a moment that the noble Earl and his colleagues are guilty in these cases of "jobs." I have no doubt they are not. The noble Earl, of course, has nothing whatever to do with the matter except that he is kind enough to answer our questions in this House. But the point we have to secure, as the guardians of the public credit, is that there should be no room for political "jobs." That was the reason for the debates which have taken place in your Lordships' House. We established on the last occasion that political "jobs" had taken place. We proved to your Lordships that money had been asked for for political honours, and we shrewdly suspect—indeed, we are all satisfied; let us not pretend—we are all satisfied that money has been given for honours. Very well. It is in order to prevent this that we are asking the Government to make certain concessions, and one of the concessions was the obvious one that the reasons why a gentleman was recommended to His Majesty's favour for an honour should be published. The question is, Is such a phrase as "the Mayor of Slocombe Poget" sufficient to protect the public against a political "job"? Obviously it is not. That, standing by itself, is no use whatever.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: Why?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: It is net very distinctive. The Mayor of Slocombe Puget! There are a great many Mayors, one every year. It is quite obvious that this is no protection whatever. No doubt, if the gentleman is in the particular case made a Mayor in the latter part of a meritorious life, which was my noble friend's phrase, it makes a considerable difference. But who knows that it was the latter part of a meritorious life? All we knew was that he was Mayor of some place or other. That is no protection. That is nothing more than a technical compliance with the rule to which your Lordships agreed, and which the Government accepted in the most solemn manner. They assured us, or gave us to understand, that they intended to comply with it. My noble friend said: "Are you proposing one rule for humble people and another rule for more distinguished people?" Apply my criterion. Does the country wish to be carefully and elaborately informed why Lord Jellicoe has been recommended to His Majesty for a Peerage? Obviously not. The Government are protected by the distinction and fame which that gallant officer has obtained. But I see no objection why all his services—perhaps they are so numerous as to make that impossible—but why a selection of his services should not be printed. It would be a proper thing to do. There is no difficulty. The same observation applies to a large number of the eases which the noble Earl quoted—gentlemen who have been made Privy Councillors or Peers.
The noble Earl thought it was amply sufficient if he said "the gentleman has been recommended by the Chief Secretary," or "by the Lord Lieutenant." "What more can you want?" he said. I can see my noble friend standing at the box and saying, "This gentleman is recommended by the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury; what more can you want?" There is no charge against the Chief Secretary or the Lord Lieutenant, or against these gentlemen, as far as I know, who fully deserve the honour, but the language of the noble Earl—and he himself knew it—was no protection against the particular evil which the whole of the discussions in your Lordships' House on the last two occasions were designed to prevent.
I am quite certain that when my noble friend comes to think over the matter, and also when your Lordships think over it, you
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will see that what is wanted is a publication of the motives, the real reasons, width led the Government to recommend a gentleman for an honour. If he is a citizen of a considerable town, lots worked long for many years and has grown grey in the service of the town, why should not that be stated? What is the objection to it? It is all to his honour and to his credit, and I suggest that in the future everything should be so stated. Then there will be security. Let my noble friend recollect that, glad as we are to see him occupying a great position in the Government, he and his colleagues will not be there for ever. They will be succeeded by other Governments in the course of nature, and some day we may have a Government which is less meticulous in the care with which they recommend for honours. Then these precedents which we set will become effective. The mere designation of a gentleman as the Mayor of something or other may be used to conceal every conceivable kind of mischief which we desire to avoid. We are not legislating or establishing rules and regulations for the moment; we are doing it as a permanent part of the practice of our Constitution, and in that spirit I suggest we have established that such terse and limited accounts of gentlemen's services are not sufficient really to comply with the spirit of the Resolution which the Government accepted in your Lordships' House.
Then comes the question of how the publication should be made. The noble Earl says he sees a way out of the difficulty. He would have a special edition of the Gazette in which all these things should be set forth. I have nothing to say against that; it appears to be a very valuable suggestion. I do not make any complaint against newspapers. They are extremely valuable public servants in this respect, but we have no security that they will print what the Government give to them, and there will always be a doubt, when we see that somebody has been honoured because he is an alderman of something or other, that the whole facts are not stated in the newspapers. I was obliged to put a question to the noble Earl to know whether there was anything more in the official publication than appeared in the newspapers, and that doubt will always occur to every one. But once the matter is printed in a special Gazette no doubt will arise, and we shall know that we have the full reasons why the Government have recommended to His Majesty gentlemen to

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be the recipients of honours, and we shall be satisfied that to some extent protection is afforded to the public against a misuse of this power of the Crown.
LORD BURNHAM: My Lords, I regret that I was not in my place when the noble Earl referred to an interruption of mine in a former debate in which he said I was misinformed. The interruption was to the effect that no official notice was sent to newspapers to be inserted as to the reasons for the conferment of honours upon gentlemen whose names were sent for publication. I took the trouble, after that debate, to refer to the actual papers which came into the newspaper offices, and I find that, strictly speaking, that was absolutely correct. The information sent was not, in the strict sense, official at all.
I will tell your Lordships what actually happens. It is only recently that any information was given to the papers at all. I think it dates from the time when Lord Gainford was Patronage Secretary to the Treasury in a former Administration. Then it was limited to certain classes of honours. Up to the moment when I spoke no information was given at all in respect to those gentlemen on whom the honour of a Peerage was conferred, and who were called to His Majesty's Privy Council. I do not know whether it was assumed in all cases that their merits were so obvious that no explanation was required, but in those cases no information was given at all.
In regard to Baronets and Knights information was furnished by the Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, and it appeared in a paper issuing horn official quarters but not in the nature of an official publication. This information was generally of a perfunctory kind. It merely gave what could be gathered from some books of reference, or from local histories where the general book of reference did not embrace the name, and it was the practice, I think, in most newspaper offices to take this paper and use it for what it was worth. The details given were as to the public offices which the gentleman on whom the distinction was conferred had filled. Sometimes these were supplemented by biographical details derived from other sources. It was not looked upon as giving the official reasons for the conferment of the honour, the particular services for which the honour was conferred, but as showing the general nature of the claims of public service and
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other reasons of that kind. I saw the Paper actually that came in on the last occasion, and in the case of Peerages and Privy Councillors no reasons and no record were given. Therefore I do not think I was wrong in informing your Lordships' House that in these two most important classes of honours no information was given—and attention had been directed to the case of Peerages which had been conferred, as it was alleged (I am making no allegation myself) from undesirable motives. Therefore it is true that since last January there has been this list sent round, but it cannot be looked upon, as my noble friend Lord Salisbury has said, as giving the reasons for the conferment of the Peerage, or otherwise than as a record of the bare facts in a ecrtain number of cases.
Even in regard to some knights and baronets, no details at all were given. They may not have been available, or there may not have been any record worth giving, or the facts may have been so well-known that they were not furnished. Certainly what was given was not sufficient for the purpose of a newspaper office, which had to supplement the information in other ways. It is to be assumed that the information furnished is the ground upon which the honour is conferred. I would suggest that it ought to be given in a slightly different way. If the service done in war or peace is to be presented to the public as the reason for the Crown having acted, that ought in itself to be stated, and not merely facts which can in most cases be derived from books of reference. Since the last list I have noticed in the case of Peerages, that a statement was made as to the posts which the gentlemen so honoured had occupied. I observed that especially in the case of one of my noble friends who was sitting for a moment behind Lord Curzon.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: My Lords, the point is a small one, because it does not touch the main subject of our discussion. But the noble Lord is not quite accurate in his recollection of what he said on a previous occasion, or in his account of the practice that at present prevails. What he said on a previous occasion was this—
"It is not the case that any official statement is issued of the Honours List, or circulated to the newspapers."
LORD BURNHAM: Officially.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: The noble Lord added—
"The Press agencies send out details as to the lists and as to the merits of various persons in the Honours List, but no official statement is issued."
That, my Lords was incorrect. An official statement is drawn up at Downing-street. It is issued—I have a copy of the last in my hands—in this form. It is not sent out, but it is handed to the representatives of the Press at, I think, five or six o'clock in the evening of the day before that on which the honours are published, along with the list itself. Representatives of the Press take it away, and I have no doubt tha the representative of the Daily Telegraph did so. It is therefore an official statement. It may not be sufficient for the purpose of the noble Lord, or for your Lordships' House, but it is an official statement. It has been twice issued since the present Government came into power in the case of two distributions of honours, and I was told by the Secretary to the Prime Minister that he was carrying on the practice which he had inherited from his predecessor. Further, my Lords, the statement is not limited to Peers.
LORD BURNHAM: Not now.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I can only answer for the present Government. The statement—here it is—contains an account of the service and the reason for which the honour is conferred not only upon Peers or Baronets, but upon Knights. In fact, it covers the entire Honours List. The point, however, is one of no very great importance.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

GOVERNMENT APPOINTMENTS.
LORD RIBBLESDALE: My Lords, the Motion that I have put upon the Paper ollows on a suggestion which was made to me during the debate on March 6 by my noble friend who leads the House. The suggestion was made in such a very polite way that I find it impossible to resist it. These were the noble Earl's words to me—
"If I may venture humbly to advise him, it would be to withdraw his Motion and put some other Question upon the Paper."
The noble Earl had already enjoined upon me the necessity of definition, and had animadverted upon the futility of vagueness in any Motion of this kind. The Motion
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which I have now put down is the result, of my desire to fall in with Lord Curzon's counsels. I beg to move.
Moved to resolve, That there be laid before the House a tabulated Return for each of the years 1916, 1917, and 1918, showing new Departments or sub-Departments created, with the name of the Minister in charge of each Department and his salary, if any, and the individual names and salaries of all new appointments exceeding £250 per annum, and the total cost of the remainder of the staff of each such Department or sub-Department; the Return further to indicate shortly whether the powers of the Department are conferred by Statute or by Order in Council, with the necessary references.—(Lord Ribblesdale.)
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: My Lords, the noble Lord has correctly described what passed the other afternoon. I will take the terms of his Motion, as it stands upon the Paper. In the third line it asks for a Return for each of three years of new Departments or sub-Departments. The Departments or sub-Departments to which he refers are, I imagine, the Ministries of Labour, Pensions, Munitions, Food, Shipping, National Service, Reconstruction, Blockade, Air Ministry, and such Departments as the War Trade Department, the Central Control Board (Liquor Traffic), the Foreign Trade Department, the Food Production Department, and the Department for Information. The greater part of the information for which the noble Lord asks is already given, and is accessible to any one who knows where to look for it, in certain Parliamentary publications to which I will refer my noble friend. For instance, the Ministry of Labour is given in the ordinary Civil Services Estimates, Class 7, Vote 7. It is given there in full detail, but without the names, which are never given in these statements to Parliament, for reasons which I will explain in a moment. The list of the Ministry of Labour is given in those Estimates; and as regards audited expenditure, in the corresponding Appropriation Accounts presented every year to Parliament. The salaries of the Ministries of Pensions, Food, Shipping, National Service, Reconstruction, Blockade, and Munitions and of their Parliamentary Secretaries are shown in the total Estimates for those Departments. They also are presented to the House of Commons, and are accessible to any one who desires to possess them. Full particulars of the total expenditure of

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these Departments are published at the end of each year in the Appropriation Account in the Vote of Credit. This contains the salaries and expenses of Departments which do not appear in the ordinary Estimates. That is the information already accessible to the public, and I think it shows that a good deal of what the noble Lord has asked for is already available.
But I may inform the noble Lord—and I think it will give him satisfaction to know—that the Treasury are about, in connection with the Vote of Credit for 1918–19, to publish a White Paper which will give totals of the salaries and cost of the staffs of the various Departments, with particulars of the number of posts carrying salaries in excess of £300 a year in each Department. There are good reasons for making the dividing line £300 instead of £250 which I could explain if necessary, but it is hardly needful to trouble the House with that. I think the noble Lord will see that in this way he either has got, or will presently get, the greater part of what he desires.
I must say a word with regard to names, because one of the notable features of the noble Lord's Motion is that the individual's name should be given. I must ask the noble Lord not to press that, and for these reasons. The names have never yet been given in any Return of this character presented to Parliament relating to the Public Service. But I do not base myself upon precedent only. Let the noble Lord look at the case as it now stands. If we were required to draw up and to lay a list of the names of all the persons employed above a certain salary in these Departments the number would be many thousands. And observe, too, what a waste it would be, because a great many of these persons are constantly changing their posts. The noble Lord asked for a Return for the three years 1916, 1917 and 1918. Many a man who was appointed in 1916 to a post has gone away, has left the Office, has been promoted, or has been shifted somewhere else, and the amount of time that would he taken in identification would be very great. I do not think that the noble Lord in putting down his Motion had probably any idea of the labour that would be involved in compiling a list of names. I do not know whether he has any idea of the number of persons who are employed in these Departments, but I might mention to him that in the Munitions Department alone 17,600 persons are employed. Of
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course only a small proportion of them is drawing a salary of £300 or over a year. But I expect that you would find that even that number was very considerable, and it would place a great strain upon the time of those who were called upon to identify them.
The return in this form could, of course, be drawn up, but I must tell your Lordships quite plainly that it would take from two to three months of public time. It would take away men from work which they are doing, work vital to the prosecution of the war, to satisfy the perhaps quite legitimate, but, I think, rather exaggerated curiosity of your Lordships' House, and so far from serving any public purpose I think you would be doing an injury if you required so novel a procedure to be adopted. In these circumstances I hope that, while I have given satisfaction to the noble Lord on the question of salaries, he will not press me on that portion of his demand relating to names, which I have shown would not only be contrary to precedent but would in the present case be distinctly detrimental to the public interest.
The last words of the noble Lord's Motion are that the Return for which he asks is to indicate "whether the powers of the Department are conferred by Statute or by Order in Council, with the necessary references." That information also is already available, because of the Departments to which he refers all the more important have been created by Statute—I am speaking of those which have been created since the beginning of the war. For instance, the Ministries of Munitions. Air, Pensions, Food, Shipping, National Service, Reconstruction, Labour, and the Overseas Trade Department, a Bill concerning which is now before Parliament, have all been created by Statute, and in their case a reference to the creating Statute is given in each case in print in the ordinary Civil Service Estimates, to which I have referred. And as to Departments to which the noble Lord refers as having been created by an Order in Council, there is only one Department which has been so created, and that is the Liquor Control Board, which was instituted by Order in Council under the Defence of the Realm Acts. I hope, therefore, that the indications which I have given to the noble Lord and the promise that I have held out to him about the Paper shortly to be pre-

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sented to Parliament will give him the satisfaction that he desires, and that he will not press me further about the question of names.
LORD SOUTHWARK: May I make a suggestion to the noble Earl? He said that the expenditure was already set out, I understood him to say, in the Estimates. Would it be possible to publish a summary of those Estimates, with a reference to the Estimates, in case anybody wanted to look into further details? Because it would he almost impossible for any noble Lord to search through all the Estimates in order to find out a salary. The expenditure set out in the Estimates could be easily compiled under some heads, with a reference to the Estimate to which it refers.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I think, with all respect, that that is quite unnecessary, because the labour which the noble Lord thinks would be considerable it will not take him ten minutes of time. I could give the noble Lord the particular Estimates to which reference is made. Everything is put down there in due order, sad I am reluctant to impose upon printers and consumers of paper a burden at this time unless it is shown to be in the public interest. There is no concealment in this matter. Everything is there, available to those who require it, and if I indicate to noble Lords the places to which they ought to go for information I submit that that is sufficient for the purposes of the case.
VISCOUNT HARCOURT: I understand from the noble Earl that the Treasury intend to give us a White Paper almost immediately containing a good deal of this information.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: Yes.
VISCOUNT HARCOURT: That will be given now, and not at the end of the year, I understand?
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: It is already in print.
VISCOUNT HARCOURT: Well, we shall, of course, study that Paper, and see whether it gives us all the information which we desire. But when the noble Earl says that it has never been the custom to publish the names of the Civil Servants, both high and low, who govern us, I think
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he has forgotten the official publication yearly—certainly up to the beginning of the war, and, I think, during the early years of the war—of the "Imperial Calendar," as it is now called. It used to be the "Royal Calendar," and it gives the name and the Department of every Civil Servant in the employ of the Crown.
EARL CURZON or KEDLESTON: I did not mean to deny that. I meant that they had not been published in any Return of this character relating to the Public Service.
VICOUNT HARCOURT: The noble Earl has mentioned a number of Offices the details of which can be obtained from the Estimates. But the noble Earl is, no doubt, well aware that many of these new Departments, and Directorates, and Controls, do not appear on the Estimates at all, but are paid for directly out of the Vote on Account. If that is going to be cleared up by the Treasury Paper, it will be satisfactory. But I was sorry to hear the noble Earl state that the Return which is to be offered to us is only of those who are receiving a salary. It is quite clear that in the Estimates before the House of Commons there only appear those to whom salaries have to be voted, but the noble Earl said the other day, and said with much truth, that an enormous amount of unsalaried valuable work is being done for the country. Many of our Controllers and Directors are receiving no salary, but there is no reason why they should not receive the reward of public recognition, and there is no reason, because they are not paid, why we should not be allowed to know their names.
The Departments mentioned by the noble Earl will not give us all the information which would be desirable. For instance, there is a Controller of Wool, who has not been created by Order in Council or by Statute, but was appointed under the Board of Trade, and he is, I imagine, a sub-official of the Board of Trade. In ordinary times all those particulars would appear in "Whitaker's Almanack," supplied by each Department, and to it we could go when we wanted information. We do not want to ask for anything that will take long to compile, that will be expensive to the public, or that will withdraw a number of people from public service. What we want is a few sheets of simple print, which will tell us the names of our governors and rulers to-day.
LORD RIBBLESDALE: My Lords, I do not wish to be unreasonable, particularly after what the noble Earl has said. As the noble Viscount remarked, I think we are entitled to know, after three years of war, a little as to how our affairs are being managed. I believe that a few pages of print would do it, and I think that the noble Earl, Lord Curzon, himself defeats some of his points. For instance, he says there is great difficulty in putting the references, but the references are already there. If they are already there, the making of a summary in a compendious form which everybody could understand without prosecuting all sorts of inquiries into many Returns, does not constitute a difficulty. With regard to the names, I recognise that when you get 17,000 names in one Department this is the sort of thing which is beginning to excite apprehension in the minds of the public. As regards the point of the noble Earl that the names cannot be found because of removals—like removals in the case of votes—I can hardly believe that our affairs are so badly managed that the large number of people we have employed, say, in 1917, but who do not appear in 1918, should have gone away and left no trace behind them, so that nobody can know what they received, what they did, or what their names were. Surely the noble Earl is pressing his point a little far in that connection.
May I speak to the noble Earl in a parable? Let us assume that the noble Earl and I were partners in a large and rapidly-developing property—town property if you like, or anything else; at all events, a property which, owing to circumstances beyond our control, is developing by leaps and bounds. We put that property into the hands of a highly competent and zealous firm of solicitors. We are easy-going gentlemen ourselves and we do not want to be bothered much about these things, so we tell the solicitors that we will give them practically a free hand with regard to finding the proper people to deal with the development of the estate. We tell them that we will allow them to arrange salaries, define the posts of the people employed, and so on. Suddenly the noble Earl and I, after three years of this arrangement, begin to realise that it is costing us a good deal of money, and we do not know exactly for what we are paying that money. Thereupon we ask the solicitors to make us a report on the various classes of posts, and the different
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kinds of people they have employed during the three years. I do not think that the noble Earl would accept it as a satisfactory answer from these solicitors if they said, "Your estate is so important; it has given us so much anxiety appointing the people required and apportioning their work, and so on, that it is impossible for us to look up our books and to tell you what we have done or what we have not done." But that seems to me to be the position in which the Administration have placed our affairs; and I confess that some of the excuses which the noble Earl has brought forward against the Motion that I have on the Paper to-night do not seem to me any stronger than what I say he would object to very much if, in the hypothetical case I put, his solicitors returned to him such an answer as the one I have indicated.
If this White Paper is to be produced—I think it is in print—and if it deals with the points with which I think it ought to deal, I should be prepared to withdraw my Motion. After what has been said by the noble Earl it would not be good manners, and it would not be good tactics, to divide upon the Motion this evening; but I shall withdraw only upon the clear understanding that, unless this White Paper does give the details which I think requisite and necessary in the present state of our national housekeeping, I shall bring this matter forward again when the White Paper is on the Table of the House. I thank the noble Earl for the very kind way in which he met my Motion, although he did not like the whole of it. It was not likely that he would. But in these circumstances I beg leave to withdraw my Motion, on the distinct understanding that the White Paper gives the information which the public want.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

SOLICITORS (ARTICLED CLERKS) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD FINLAY): MY Lords, this Bill, of which I propose the Second Reading, raises two points in connection with intending solicitors. It relates to service under articles, and to the intermediate examination which solicitors have to pass in addition to the final examination. Your Lordships may be aware that the law requires that intend-

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ing solicitors should serve five years under articles, and that during their service under articles they should not engage in any other employment. There is a power to dispense with that requirement as to no other employment being taken with the permission of the solicitor with whom the clerk is articled, and with the approval of the Master of the Rolls. It has been the practice of the Master of the Rolls to grant his approval in cases where he is satisfied that the other employment would not interfere with the service under the articles.
I am informed that when the war broke out practically all articled clerks applied to the solicitors with whom they were articled for permission to join His Majesty's Forces, and, on application being made to the Master of the Rolls, he said that, as far as he could, he would certainly facilitate this being done. But it is doubtful whether, in conformity with the practice that had prevailed, leave could be given in a case where beyond all question service with the Colours would interfere with service actually the time under the articles. Anyhow, it is highly desirable that there should be some general provision upon the subject in order to prevent hardship from being inflicted upon a class of young men who devoted themselves to the most imperative service of their country.
The first clause of this Bill deals with that point, and it provides that, notwithstanding anything in the Solicitors Acts, any time after August 3, 1914, during which an articled clerk has served in any of His Majesty's Forces or in public service in connection with the war, of a character approved by the Master of the Rolls, or has in consequence of the war been detained as a prisoner, military or civil, in any enemy country, or has been interned in an enemy or a neutral country, shall, if the Law Society are satisfied as to the fact and length of such service, detention, or internment and that the articled clerk has in other respects complied with the Acts, be reckoned as time duly served under his articles for all purposes. I commend that clause to your Lordships' favourable consideration.
The other clause deals with the case of the intermediate examination. An intermediate examination has to be passed by intending solicitors in the course of their training; and, of course, as these young men have been away, and very many of them are away at the present moment, on active service, or otherwise detained in consequence of the war, they cannot go
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up for their examination in the ordinary course. Therefore, it would be a very great hardship upon them if, when they came back, they found themselves compelled to pass both the intermediate and the final examinations. The final examination, of course, cannot be dispensed with. But the object of the second clause, to which I will call your Lordships' attention, is this. It empowers the Lord Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls, or either of them, where in circumstances arising out of the present war it is thought fit so to do, to exempt any person from compliance with the enactments and regulations with respect to the intermediate examination, either entirely or partially, and subject to any such conditions as may seem fit. The power to impose conditions will enable the Law Society to secure, by application in the proper quarter, that nothing essential about the examination, such as bookkeeping, is altogether neglected. At the same time, it relieves these persons who have acted in so meritorious a manner of what otherwise would be a very serious burden. I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 2a.

DEPUTY LIEUTENANTS BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (THE EARL OF DERBY): My Lords, it will be in your Lordships' memory that this question was brought before your Lordships' House at the end of last year. It was then pointed out that under existing conditions the pool from which Deputy Lieutenants could be drawn was a comparatively limited one, and that under an old Statute there had to he a certain property qualification. Various Amendments have been made of the original Act, which is a very old Act, and thus the number of classes of people from whom Deputy Lieutenants could be drawn has been increased; but the fact still remains that even these concessions were to a certain extent nullified by the property qualification still holding good. The matter was brought before your Lordships' House and it received support from, amongst others, Lord Haldane, the noble Marquess

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opposite, Lord Crewe, and the Earl of Dartmouth, and there was no dissentient. I undertook to look into the matter and consult the Lords Lieutenant.
I referred the matter to the Duke of Bedford, who is Chairman of the Association of Lords Lieutenant, which embraces all except seventeen of the Lords Lieutenant. They entirely agreed, but made certain proposals which have been incorporated in this Bill, with one exception. First, they suggested that the property qualification should be abolished. Secondly that the residential qualification should be retained, but that the condition at present applicable to county justices—namely, residence either within the county or within seven miles thereof—should be applied, subject to the qualification that a Deputy Lieutenant should not necessarily forfeit his office by ceasing to reside within the prescribed limits. Thirdly—this is not in the Bill—that the appointments of Deputy Lieutenants should be non-political Fourthly, that the gentlemen appointed should have rendered worthy service either of a civil or military character on behalf of the Army, Navy, or Auxiliary Forces. I think your Lordships will find that these conditions have been included in the one-clause Bill of which I have the honour to move the Second Reading, and I hope by these means the position of Deputy Lieutenants will be enormously strengthened by the addition to their ranks of many men who do not hold the property qualification but who have done good service to their country during the present war. The Bill applies only to Great Britain and does not apply to Ireland.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Derby.)
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, the noble Earl opposite gave a perfectly accurate account, so far as I am able to speak, of the transactions in relation to this Bill. Speaking generally, I think Lords Lieutenant were, if not unanimous, at any rate by a very great majority in favour of the abolition of the property qualification, and also of the retention of the residential qualification. There was bound to be a certain difference of opinion as to whether it was desirable to maintain the connection, first indeed established in connection with the Territorial Forces Act, between some service to the Forces and appointment as Deputy Lieutenant, or whether it was
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desirable that the list should be once more thrown open to people of general standing and high character; but I am glad to say that there was a strong opinion among Lords Liuetenant, which I am sure will be confirmed by the House, that it would have been a great pity to break that connection with some form of service to the Forces in favour of a return to the older practice. At the same time the limitation of choice, which many Lieutenants of counties found very inconvenient, to those who had actually served in the Forces, is, I am glad to see, to be removed by the Bill. Those who in a civil capacity have rendered good service to the Territorial Force, or in some cases to the Volunteers, should be recognised in this manner, which is so highly appreciated by many men of worth and standing. I trust, therefore, that this Bill will become law without any Amendment.
On Question, Bill read 2a.

MARRIAGE HOURS (IRELAND) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF CRAWFORD): My Lords, this Bill assimilates the hours for the solemnisation of matrimony in Ireland with those in this country. At the present moment the Church of Ireland, Wesleyans, and Presbyterians in Ireland are limited to 2 o'clock in the afternoon, whereas in this country it is 3 o'clock. Roman Catholics, Jews, and Quakers, on the other hand, are not subject to such a limitation in Ireland, and the proposal in the Bill is that the hour should be generally extended to 3 o'clock. If the Bill is given a Second Reading I trust that your Lordships will allow it to pass through all its remaining stages to-morrow.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Crawford.)
On Question, Bill read 2a.

OVERSEAS TRADE DEPARTMENT (SECRETARY) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD HYLTON: My Lords, the Bill to which I am going to ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading is one to regularise the status of the Secretary of the Overseas Trade Department, who has, as a matter of

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fact, been holding that office since the month of September last. It was a question, I understand, whether it would be possible to deal with the appointment of this new Secretary administratively, by appointing both an Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs and a Secretary to the Board of Trade, but there were certain difficulties in the way of taking this step. In the first place, there was an Act of 31 Victoria, providing for the appointment of a Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Trade, which was rather unusual in form, and it would appear that under that Act there was only power to appoint one such officer. In the second place, special provision is made by Section 9 (subsection 2) of the New Ministries and Secretaries Act, 1916, for the appointment of additional Parliamentary Secretaries to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and the Secretary of State for War respectively, but there certainly seems to be an assumption by Parliament that the number of Under-Secretaries which can be appointed is limited. In the third place, although the number of Under-Secretaries which may be appointed in any Department is not limited, there is in every case a limit to the number of Under-Secretaries who may sit in the louse of Commons. It is true that the limit has been removed for the period of the war and for six months afterwards by Section 9 (subsection 1) of the New Ministries and Secretaries Act, 1916, but the office of Secretary of the Department of Overseas Trade is intended to be a permanent one. In the fourth place, the Treasury have laid it down in very definite terms that it would be wholly improper to make any payment from the Overseas Trade Department Vote for the salary of the Parliamentary Secretary until the creation of his offices has been authorised by Act of Parliament.
There is a certain border land between the Foreign Office and the Board of Trade over which this new Secretary is presiding. Of course, the point might be raised that certain overlapping would take place between the new Department and the other Departments of the Board of Trade and Foreign Office respectively. As a matter of fact, ever since the month of September last when Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland, the present holder of the office, was appointed, a satisfactory delimitation of functions has been arranged and has been found to work quite reasonably in
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practice. The broad lines of this delimitation are that the Board of Trade deals with the large issues of commercial policy, and the Political Department of the Foreign Office with all matter affecting international relations, and within these limits the Overseas Trade Department is authorised to take action for the promotion of trade, in addition to collecting and disseminating commercial intelligence. If your Lordships look at the Bill you will see that it consists practically of one clause only. The second is merely a definition clause. I have to ask your Lordships to give the Bill a Second Reading this afternoon. At the same time, perhaps it is convenient that I should say that the Government hope the House will make no objection to taking all the remaining stages to-morrow, so that the Bill may receive the Royal Assent on that day.
On Question, Bill read 2a.

INCREASE OF RENT, &c. (AMENDMENT) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
EARL RUSSELL: My Lords, I do not know whether the noble and learned Lord will pardon me for recurring to a subject which we mentioned last night as to the possibility of making this Bill retrospective. I quite understand that in the short interval he can hardly have Arrived at any sort of even provisional conclusion on that matter, but I had hoped that perhaps the noble and learned Lord, in moving the Third Reading, would indicate whether there was any chance of anything being done in that direction. I have in my hand a paper of to-day's issue, which gives an illustration of the kind of thing that is happening—though it is not precisely the sort of evil which was called attention to yesterday—in which two men at Hitchin are at this moment under a magistrate's order of ejectment from their houses, which have been bought over their heads, in this case not from quite the worst motives of establishing "funk-holes" which we heard of yesterday, but in a sense for the legitimate requirements of the Electric Supply Corporation. It may be suggested that if a wealthy corporation of that kind wants accommodation for its own people the proper course would be for it to build.

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But what I want to call your Lordships' attention to for a moment is what is mentioned in the paper as the sort of thing which. I think, rather tends to influence and inflame public opinion on this matter. Some sarcastic attention is called to the fact that these two men who are being evicted were among the very earliest men to volunteer for lighting at the Front. They have fought and have been wounded, and they have been honourably discharged from the Army in consequence of their services. Among the various recruiting inducements which incited them to enrol, your Lordships may possibly recollect, was a poster showing a cottage home in England with the words underneath "Is this worth lighting for?" I think your Lordships will appreciate the rather grave irony of these words to these men, when they come back discharged from the Front and find that, although the home may have been worth fighting for, they are no longer to have it; that it has been bought over their heads, and that they are to be turned out.
I quote this only for the sake of emphasising what I was trying to say yesterday—namely, that I think this sort of thing is likely to cause a certain amount of unrest and ill-feeling. Indeed, it is so important that I think it would really be worth while, if the noble and learned Lord agrees with me, that the members of the War Cabinet themselves should consider whether legislation of this sort should he made retrospective. At the same time, I see the great danger of it. If there is a feeling of injustice and unrest created by this sort of thing, every one of your Lordships would agree that the Government should do what they can to put an end to it, but, of course, as I said before, I entirely recognise the difficulties of it, and I had rather hoped that the noble and learned Lord might be in a position to say something to-day on the matter.
There is another point which is one reason why I have thought it desirable to say a word to-night. Although the transactions to which this Bill refers have necessarily to have taken place before the date named—March 12, I think—in the Bill, evictions in connection with these transactions are now proceeding. The magistrates are now being asked for eviction orders as a result of these transactions, and if there were to be any sort of retrospective legislation I think it would be as well that a statement should be made at the earliest possible
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moment, so as to preserve as far as possible the status quo where, although the sale has taken place, the people have not as yet actually been evicted. The noble and learned Lord will appreciate that if anything is to be done the sooner the statement is made the better, because it will help to settle the situation.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH had on the Paper an Amendment to substitute "the fifteenth day of March" for "the twelfth day of March," as the date from which the Bill should take effect. The noble Lord said: I suppose I ought to have moved my Amendment first, because the speech of the noble Earl rather turns on the question that the Bill be passed. The proposal to make it retrospective will, I think, require grave consideration. If you do make it retrospective you must take care that innocent people do not suffer. There are hardships on both sides, and I think full consideration must be given to individual circumstances in each case. I have given notice of my Amendment for this reason, that if this is not done the Bill is already retrospective. I gave the House particulars yesterday of a perfectly innocent transaction which took place on the 13th instant in Glasgow, and I pointed out that if this Bill passed with the date as the 12th a man who had perfectly honestly bought a house on the 13th would find himself in the position that he was not allowed to get possession of the house, although he would be turned out of the one which he had already given up. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, I venture to say, did not thoroughly appreciate my point. What he said was—
"This Bill was introduced upon the 12th, and this is the reason why that date is inserted. The introduction of the Bill is, of course, notice to every one, and there is nothing retrospective in saying that from the time the Bill is introduced it will have effect, for its introduction is notice of that fact."
I pointed out that it was unfair to date the Bill from the time when it could not be generally known that it had been introduced in this House, and the Lord Chancellor replied—
"I will just say one word, if I may, in explanation. On the 13th the fact that the Bill had been introduced would be known through the ordinary channels of communication."
I have verified the facts. I find that the Bill was presented, and read a first time, on Tuesday, the 12th. Of course, no speech

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was made—one never is made on the First Reading of a Bill—and no notice whatever of the contents of this Bill was given, or could be given. I am not blaming any one for that; it is the ordinary procedure. The Bill was not circulated until the morning of the 14th; therefore, it could not be known in Glasgow until the 15th at the earliest. It was read a Second time on the 14th, and the report of that debate appeared in the Glasgow papers, when it became known that the Bill was dated from the 12th. Therefore this unfortunate man in question, who made a perfectly honest transaction on the 13th, was deprived of his rights both ways.
I would have put down an Amendment if I could. A letter was written to me on the 15th, addressed to the House of Lords; it did not arrive until the 16th, and was delivered to me on the 18th, when it was too late to give notice of an Amendment for yesterday's debate. Whatever may be the general question of making the Bill retrospective as a whole, it is an absolute injustice to make it date from the 12th when those who have made perfectly innocent transactions on the 13th could not know of it. I had given notice to move the insertion of the "15th" in the Bill, but look at the position in which one is placed? I know quite well that I can provide myself with a Teller, but if we go to a Division it would have the effect—there being not thirty Peers now in the House—of delaying the Bill until another day.
I must say that great want of consideration has been shown in not giving a much longer notice of the intention to legislate at all. I gather that this has been under consideration for six months, and that there is a certain amount of feeling in different parts of the country on account of what is happening by people arbitrarily giving notice to evict tenants. That is obvious from what the noble Earl said just now, and from what the noble Earl Lord Camperdown, said yesterday. I hope, if the Bill is to be made restrospective hereafter, that consideration will be given to the interests of both sides, and that some tribunal will be set up to see that fair play is bestowed on all alike. I know too well the procedure of your Lordships' House to think that it is possible, reasonably, to divide on this occasion. Therefore I do not suppose I shall go to a Division; but even if I do not go to a Division I shall ask that the Amendment be negatived, so
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that it shall not be said that I am an assenting party to what I consider a serious injustice.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I should like to say a few words with regard to the two speeches which your Lordships have just heard. My noble friend who has just spoken said that the matter had been under consideration for some six months. It was brought to my notice by a letter coming from Buckinghamshire, only a few days before the introduction of the Bill. I at once took steps to have consultation with the Departments concerned—they are somewhat numerous—and the result was that it was felt there must be legislation, and I introduced the Bill with, I think, a minimum of delay from the time when the matter was brought to my attention.
Two points have been mentioned from totally different aspects. On the one side it is said, and said with great force, by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, that the Bill should be made retrospective, and he put a particular case which, of course, must excite the sympathy of every one. All I can say with regard to that is that it might be very useful if the noble Earl would supply particulars of the case to the Home Secretary, who, I understand, will be in charge of the Bill when it goes, as I hope it will at once, to another place. The final shape to be given to the Bill as regards the date on which it is to operate must be a matter of consideration. I confess that naturally one sympathises very strongly with what the noble Earl said. At the same time, we must not he blind to the difficulties which always attend retrospective legislation, and it is absolutely necessary, before a step of that kind is taken, that it should be seen that there are adequate materials for justifying an exceptional step of that sort. The matter is receiving, and will receive, the most careful consideration.
I felt that it was perfectly impossible that I should be in a position to ask your Lordships' House to pass retrospective legislation without more materials than were available. The information with regard to the subject is coming in from day to day, and when the measure comes on in the House of Commons after the Easter Recess the Government will be in a position to decide what its final shape should be. I think it is very useful that the noble Earl should have called attention to the point, because it is highly desirable

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it should be realised that this point is under consideration.
My noble friend who spoke last called attention to the matter from another point of view. May I correct one thing he said? He said we were making the Bill to take effect from March 12. It takes effect after the 12th; and on the morning of the 13th, I suppose, most newspapers would have an intimation that a Bill dealing with this subject had been introduced. It certainly would be very widely known. The particulars of the Bill, it is true, would not be known until two days after, but the fact that a Bill dealing with this subject had been introduced would be widely known on the morning of the 13th; and the object of making the Bill apply to any transaction taking place after the 12th was simply to prevent any parties desirous of carrying through transactions of the kind against which the Bill is aimed from hurrying them up so as to get them through before the Bill could actually pass into law. I think that what I said yesterday in answer to my noble friend on this subject was quite accurate and correctly appreciated what my noble friend had said. With regard to the point itself, it is very useful as illustrating the necessity for caution in making anything retrospective even to the mildest extent. A strong case is made, it is said, for retrospective legislation, and then your Lordships are given the particulars of one case, but we really know nothing about it except that it is said to be one where negotiations were pending which had ripened into a bargain on the 13th instant.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: I gave the noble Lord the particulars.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My noble friend handed me a letter containing the particulars, and from that I am speaking, but I think my noble friend will agree that one hardly had the materials in that letter for forming a judgment upon the whole transaction. Even if that be—and it may be—a case of a most meritorious kind, one does not know whether for one case of that kind which would mean some little hardship there may not be a hundred other cases where it would be very hard that the Bill should not operate from the date of its introduction. If transactions of this kind were hurried through in consequence of the introduction of the Bill it certainly would be said—and said with very great reason—"You ought to have taken steps to prevent
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the object of the Bill being defeated by these transactions being completed at once as soon as it was generally known that legislation dealing with this subject was intended." I do not, however, wish to say more on the subject to which my noble friend referred in anticipation of the Amendment which stands in his name on the Paper, to be taken after the Third Reading has been carried. All I can say is that what he has said will be given the fullest consideration before the decision of His Majesty's Government becomes final.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH): My Lords, before your Lordships pass the Third Reading of this Bill, may I say one word on behalf of the Board of Agriculture. I understand that the noble and learned Lord does not wish to receive any Amendments in this House, and that it is proposed that an Amendment shall be moved in another place on behalf of the Department which I represent. As your Lordships are aware, it is imperative at this time that no obstacle should be allowed to be put in the way of the increase in food production. The Bill as it at present stands might seriously interfere with the arrangements now being made for changes of occupation in relation to the cottages which are required for new stockmen, herdsmen, and other agricultural workers in the cases where tenancies are being transferred, and in cases of this kind which will occur in future. In its present form the Bill would rule out these changes in the case of cottages which are essential for the proper cultivation of the land, for in the few cases of such cottages required for the men I have indicated orders of ejectment would not be able to be issued. I think, therefore, that the Bill will require some Amendment in this respect. Time has not permitted of an Amendment being moved in your Lordships' House, but I hope that when the Bill returns the difficulty which I have mentioned may have been removed.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I may say that my attention has been called to the point to which the noble Duke has just referred, and it is proposed that the subject shall be considered and dealt with in the House of Commons.
On Question, Bill read 3a.
Moved, That the Bill do pass.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, in the circumstances which I have explained I shall not move my Amendment, but I do think that it is hardly fair to this House to introduce a Bill on such short notice which is obviously going to be largely amended at the instance of the Government in another place, and to which a representative of the Government in this House takes serious objection. It seems to me that it does put this House in a false position, and that we shall be told afterwards in the House of Commons that we hurriedly passed a Bill which does not meet the necessities of the case. That all goes down to the discredit of this House.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I will only say, with regard to that matter, that the case was one of extreme urgency, and it was considered necessary that as little time as possible should be lost. It is not certain that there will be these Amendments in another place. All I said was that the matter is to be most carefully considered from all points of view.
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: My Lords, I shall have to move to-morrow, with your Lordships consent, that Standing Order No. XXXIX be considered with a view to its being dispensed with in order to pass through their remaining stages the few Bills the names of which appear on the Order Paper.
PRIVATE BILLS.
[From Minutes of March 19.]
COUNTY OF LONDON ELECTRIC SUPPLY BILL. [H.L.]
  WEST SUSSEX COUNTY COUNCIL (BRIDGES) BILL. [H.L.]

    PONTYPOOL GAS AND WAT0ER BILL. [H.L.]
    WANDSWORTH, WIMBLEDON, AND EPSOM DISTRICT GAS BILL. [H.L.]
    NELSON CORPORATION WATER BILL. [H.L.]
    ALDERSHOT GAS, WATER, AND DISTRICT LIGHTING BILL. [H.L.]
    Report from the Committee of Selection, That the following Lords be proposed to
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    the House to form the Select Committee for the consideration of the said Bills; (viz.),

    E. Doncaster (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry),

    E. Eldon,

    V. Falmouth,

    L. Leigh,

    L. Forteviot (Chairman);

    agreed to; and the said Lords appointed accordingly: The Committee to meet on Wednesday the 17th of April next, at Eleven o'clock; and all Petitions referred to the Committee, with leave to the Petitioners praying to be heard by Counsel against the Bills to be heard as desired, as also Counsel for the Bills.

    WEST BROMWICH CORPORATION.
    Petition of the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the Borough of West Bromwich under their Corporate Seal praying for leave to introduce a Bill to authorise the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the Borough of West Bromwich to alter the Wards thereof, to increase the number of Aldermen and Councillors, and for other purposes, together with a copy of the proposed Bill annexed thereto; read, and referred to the Examiners.
    NITRATE RAILWAYS BILL. [H.L.]
    Reported, without amendment.
    BRIXHAM GAS BILL. [H.L.]
    Reported, with Amendments.
    HARROD'S STORES BILL. [H.L.]
    Committee (which stands appointed for this day) put off sine die.

    CANVEY DEEP-WATER WHARF AND RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
    Second Reading (which stands appointed for Thursday next) put off to Wednesday the 10th of April next.
    House adjourned at ten minutes before seven o'clock.