§ The EARL of DESART rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether they are now in a position to state when it is proposed to introduce the Naval Prize Bill to which reference was made by the Additional Parliamentary Secretary of the Admiralty in this House on April 9.
§ The noble Earl said: My Lords, I do not think, if I should venture in putting this Question to add some word that a Naval Prize Bill of some kind ought shortly to be produced, I can be said to be urging the Government to any very precipitate or hasty action. When I call your Lordships' attention to one or two dates, I think you will agree with me that there has been ample—shall I say a good deal more than ample?—time for His Majesty's Government, or for one of His Majesty's Governments in the course of the last three and a-half years, to decide upon the principles and the policy by which they are going to remunerate the officers and men of His Majesty's Naval Forces, and to have put forward in the shape of a Bill an expression of that policy.
§ As your Lordships are well aware, the old system of prize money created no difficulty as to the fund, because the people who took the grants that were made from time to time by the Crown were the people who captured the ship or the cargo, and when there was a grant of prize it operated only after condemnation. The captors brought the ship or the cargo into the Prize Court, and if they obtained its condemnation they secured the proceeds. This at the time of the beginning of the present war was governed by Proclamation of the year 1900 which generally was on the old lines; but on August 26, 1914, almost immediately after the outbreak of war, it was decided—and if I may have an opinion on the subject, I think properly decided—that the time had come when the distribution of rewards of this character to His Majesty's Naval Forces required alteration, that instead of being limited to the individual captors of naval prizes, payment should be spread over the whole Navy; and that in some way or another it should, in such proportions as might be settled, reach all those who serve on the sea or in connection with the sea during the war.
§
The Government cancelled by an Order in Council of August 28, 1914, the Proclamation of 1900, and put it in this way—
1077
Whereas it is intended that, in lieu of the system of distribution of prize money described in the above Proclamation, there should be substituted, under regulations and conditions to be hereafter announced, a system of prize bounties or gratuities for more general distribution to the officers and men of His Majesty's Naval Forces.
On August 31, 1914, my noble friend Lord Camperdown called attention to the matter, and made some comments about one system being done away with and nothing having been brought forward to substitute it or to describe what the new system should be. Lord Wimborne, who at that time represented the Admiralty in this House, said that the matter was under consideration, that the old system had been done away with and a new one set up, and that the exact form which it would take would be announced in due course.
§ LORD BERESFORDWas that in 1914?
THE EARL OF DESARTYes; August 31, 1914. Of course, that answer was vague, but I do not think that those who heard it imagined that an announcement to be made "in due course" would result in complete silence for nearly four years. That is what has happened. Up to the present date there has been no communication of what the policy of the Government is to be in this matter, and no Prize Bill has been presented in either House of Parliament. On April 9 this year my noble and gallant friend Lord Beresford put a Question in this House which, dealing with a number of other matters, raised the whole subject of the manner in which the Naval Forces of His Majesty were to be remunerated for their services during this war. We did then for the first time in public get some information that a policy was contemplated and was in some stage of progress, because the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, said—
The noble Lord asked me when the Bill will be introduced. I cannot give him a date, but it is intended to introduce the Bill this session, and it will no doubt come before your Lordships at an early date.I hope that it will, because I do not think that it is right that people who are serving us as the Navy are doing should be kept in suspense for a period of three years and nine months without knowing whether any source of remuneration is provided.The old system which gave to a portion of the Navy a reward for their services 1078 in connection with prize is abolished and nothing whatever is substituted for it. There is, in fact, no Prize Fund. There are large sums of money, no doubt, in the Paymaster-General's keeping, credited. I suppose, to an account opened by the Prize Court, but there is no Prize Fund in a technical sense at all, and there is no indication of what is ultimately to become of the moneys that He with the Assistant Paymaster-General. There is no indication for the men who are serving as to what the terra "Naval Forces" will include. Does it include the mine-sweepers, the air force, and the adjuncts which have done so much splendid service for us? These men are serving without any idea of how they will be considered or what will be done for them at the end of the war. I think, therefore, that it is perfectly reasonable that we should from time to time urge His Majesty's Government to inform us in the form of a Bill what their intentions really are on this subject, and I hope it may be done shortly.
I should have stopped at this point but for some of the observations which Lord Lytton made on April 9 in the discussion that took place on the Question of my noble and gallant friend Lord Beresford. There were one or two things which he said then which have caused me a little anxiety as to what really is contemplated. He said, in answering as to the figures of the Fund that stands to the Assistant Paymaster-General, that the amounts there "would be of no value as a guide to the ultimate amount of the Prize Fund which will be available for distribution"; and on Lord Beresford asking, "Why not?" the noble Earl said—
Because that Fund will contain a number of items which will not be available for distribution. It will contain droits of Admiralty, which will not go to the Prize Fund but to the Treasury.I confess that this view of the matter gives me a good deal of uneasiness. Hitherto it is quite true—it is in accordance with precedent—that what are called droits of the Crown (that is, property captured at sea by His Majesty's Naval Forces) did go to the captors. Droits of Admiralty in old days went to a different fund from droits of the Crown—either to the Lord High Admiral or to the Crown in its office of Admiralty, and it ws not the practice to grant droits of Admiralty; droits of the Crown with condemnation were granted, but not droits of Admiralty.1079 But in doing what is proposed to be clone under the Order in Council of 1914 the Government have changed the whole thing. Instead of a small portion of the Navy getting certain funds which they themselves have produced and which were there, you are now proposing to make payment to the whole of the Navy. Not only that, but the Navy must be very much larger than it ever was before, with all its auxiliary forces, and you may want, in order to give them any adequate remuneration a very large sum indeed. For there is one thing which the Government, the House of Lords, the House of Commons and everybody else, are agreed about—that is, that, whatever is given to the Navy, it must be adequate. Is the noble Earl at all satisfied that the droits of the Crown alone are likely to fulfil those conditions? There is no difficulty as to the division of the Fund for the purpose of granting, because they both now go to the Exchequer, and the Crown has absolute power to grant either one or the other. There has been no grant made, and the Crown is perfectly free to grant either the one or the other. So there is no technical reason why droits of Admiralty should not be available just as much as droits of the Crown. I do not put it higher than this, but I hope that until the Government know what the funds are they will not finally commit themselves by excluding droits of Admiralty from the possibility of forming a subject of grants if droits of the Crown prove to be insufficient. I think that is essential.
While I am on this point I want to suggest to the noble Earl that in this war we may have very great difficulty in distinguishing between the two. I have had to, and I have been interested as far as I could to follow the proceedings of the Prize Courts since the beginning of the war. I do not want to put it too high, but I am very doubtful whether it would be possible properly to distinguish between them and to say in particular condemnations which are droits of the Crown and which are droits of Admiralty. It is rather a technical argument, and not one that I ought to enter upon at length now. I only really put it as a caveat before you finally commit yourselves in the form of a Bill. It is a point that you ought to consider very carefully. I am not saying this lightly; it is a matter that I have considered very fully indeed.
1080 As to the question of detained ships, to which my noble friend referred, I do not see how that could really come under discussion at the present time, because what happens to them where they are available for any purpose depends on whether at the end of the war it is decided to abide by, or not to abide by, one Article of The Hague Conference, and that I should have thought could not possibly be decided at the present time. If that is followed, the produce of the cargoes will not be available at all. If it is available, it will be a very considerable addition to the Fund. I only hope that soon we may know what the policy of the Government is, and I want to urge that we should know it as soon as possible, because the delay has been very great.
I hope the noble Earl will not think that I am attacking this Government or any Government. Since 1914 there have been so many Governments and so many changes of personnel that I should find it difficult to know against whom the attack should be made. But I hope that something will be done, and I trust that in doing it the Government will have in mind that the Bill must be elastic enough to provide sufficiently for adequate remuneration for the Navy at the end of the war.
It has occurred to me sometimes that there is another and a very much simpler way in which the thing may be done—that is, that all produce of prize should be paid into the Exchequer, and that an adequate grant should be made by Parliament. That, of course, gets rid of all your difficulties. And if it is feared that Parliament might be niggardly—well, I should hardly have thought there was a foundation for that, because there is one thing in which everybody in or out of Parliament is agreed. Considering that we owe almost everything, that we owe our existence, to the Navy, in no place would there be any tendency to such niggardliness. But I am not advocating this course. The only advantage it would have is that it would get rid of any technical difficulty or of anything hide-bound in a Bill which might, when it came to be acted upon, turn out to be inadequate. Anyhow, for the moment I think I have not done an unreasonable thing by expressing the hope that my noble friend may be able to tell us approximately, at any rate, the date at which the proposed Bill will be introduced.
§ LORD BERESFORDMy Lords, we shall be very interested to know what is the Government's definition of "an early date." We were told that we were to get this Prize Bill in 1914. My noble friend Lord Lytton told us on April 9 also that we were to have the Bill "at an early date," and I hope he will be able to inform your Lordships to-day when the Bill will be introduced. Not only in the Royal Navy but in the Mercantile Marine, without whom we could not have arrived at this stage of the war, does this interest exist.
I should like to know whether the question of Admiralty droits is going to be dealt with in the Prize Bill. In the old days they went into the Exchequer, and my noble friend was not very clear about this point on the last occasion when he answered me. I imagine that the country will want the whole Navy and the whole Mercantile Marine, those who have been actually under shot and shell and who have risked their ships and their lives, to take advantage of the money which will be forthcoming from the Prize Bill. I think that my noble friend Lord Desart made a point that we should have a fund to go into the Exchequer. Anyway, that would get rid of a considerable amount of the money that is now paid to lawyers. The matter would be before the House of Commons, and the country would have an opportunity of saying how these people should be rewarded; and when the Bill is produced I hope it will definitely state who is to benefit. There is the question not only of the Mercantile Marine, of the patrols, and of the sweepers, but of the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Naval Division, both of which belonged to the Navy up to a certain date. All the different branches that have undertaken maritime warfare and who have acted with great resource and courage should be specifically designated in the Bill.
Another point. Will the Prize Bill deal with the vexed question of enemy goods, of ships' cargoes, or the value of their cargoes, being restored to the owners after the war? I cannot imagine that this country will ever allow any of these things to be restored to the Germans at the end of the war after the shocking brutality they have perpetrated on our Mercantile Marine. As I have said before, this is the first time in the history of the world that any nation has prostituted the chivalry of the sea, and the Germans ought to be punished for it. At 1082 any rate, as far as the National Sailors' and Firemen's Union are concerned, they are determined to punish the Germans for the brutality they have shown their class. I hope that the noble Earl will give us as much information as he can. I do not know whether he has seen the Bill, but if he would tell us what he can about the different points raised by my noble friend and myself it would go to satisfy to some extent the curiosity and the anxiety which are now being exhibited not only in the Navy but in the Mercantile. Marine among our brothers of the sea.
THE ADDITIONALPARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE ADMIRALTY (THE EARL OF LYTTON)My Lords, I can assure the noble Earl that I do not in any way resent the complaints he has made on the subject of delay. I think they are very reasonable and fully justified, although I believe he was not quite accurate when he said that no indication of any kind had been afforded as to the policy of His Majesty's Government with reference to the matter since the answer given by Lord Wimborne. I have not looked up the references, because I did riot know the noble Earl was going to raise the point, but if he will look back through the columns of Hansard he will find that answers were given in general terms certainly on one, if not on more than one, occasion by the Duke of Devonshire, when he was Civil Lord of the Admiralty, as to the contemplated policy of the Government. The noble Earl will find that the policy of the Government has been defined and has been stated in general terms to this extent, that I think it is now common knowledge that instead of the old system of distributing prize money to the individual members of the crew of a ship who were the actual captors of the prize, it has been decided that in this war all the prize money shall be pooled and distributed throughout the Navy upon a scale to be submitted to Parliament which will appear in the Naval Prize Bill.
THE EARL OF LYTTONYes. I want to emphasise that this is the policy, and that so far as our policy goes it has already been made clear. But it is perfectly true that no detailed information as to the scale of distribution and many other 1083 extremely important matters, some of which have been referred to to-day, has yet been disclosed. It has certainly been the wish of the Government that this Bill should be introduced at the earliest possible date. Delays have taken place which are very much to be regretted. They were caused by the necessity of consulting the Colonies and the time taken up in doing so, and I think I may be able to justify when the time comes some at any rate of the delay which has taken place. I admit, however, that there has been regrettable delay, and I trust that I shall be able to assure the noble Earl that the Bill will be introduced very soon.
I do not think that it would be desirable for me to anticipate now a discussion of details which must he the subject of debate when the Bill is before the House, especially as some of the points raised by the noble Earl are rather technical and I would like to be excused from dealing with them now. As reference has been made, however, to the answer I gave in this House on April 9, without arguing the matter I desire to make clear the point which I then made. I warned the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Beresford, that the figure I gave of £9,518,000 was not a sum which would of necessity be available for distribution as prize money. I told him that this amount included droits of Admiralty and droits of the Crown, and I reminded your Lordships that there was a distinction between these two funds. I intended to state also that the practice hitherto has always been for droits of the Crown to go to the Navy as prize money, and for droits of Admiralty to go to the Treasury. I think the noble Lord will admit that this is a correct statement of what has hitherto been the practice; and it is the intention of the Government that this distinction shall be retained. The matter, of course, is one which will be submitted to Parliament, and the ultimate decision will naturally rest with Parliament. I did not wish to do more on that occasion than to state that there was this distinction between the two; that they had always gone to different sources, and that therefore it must not be assumed that this £9,000,000 should be available as prize money.
Perhaps I should have more correctly stated, with regard to the detained ships, that I agree with the noble Earl that their ultimate destination is not decided, and I mention them therefore as being in a 1084 separate category. They belong neither to droits of Admiralty nor to droits of the Crown; and I might have said that they represent moneys which, according to the decision taken, would go neither to the one nor to the other. Again, on the subject of what persons shall be entitled to claim under the prize fund, that is also a matter which will be contained in the Bill—or, rather, I should say that the Bill will be accompanied by Regulations which will set forth in clearly-defined terms the precise definition of those who will be entitled to claim. I do not think that it would be desirable for me to anticipate the introduction of the Bill by saying more than this, but I can assure the noble and gallant Lord that the point will be made clear when the Bill is introduced.
In conclusion, in answer to the Question on the Paper, I would say that it is intended that the Naval Prize Bill shall be introduced into the House of Commons after Whitsuntide at the earliest date which can conveniently be arranged having regard to the business of that House. The actual date has not yet been fixed, but the Financial Secretary to the Admiralty, who will be in charge of the Bill there, hopes to arrange a date with the officials as early as possible after Whitsuntide.
THE EARL OF DESARTWith your Lordships' permission, may I say that I am not sure whether the noble Earl understood what I said about droits of Admiralty? I never questioned that he was following the old precedent with regard to prize money, but I suggested that as the whole system was being altered different considerations arose, and there was a possibility that droits of Admiralty might be dealt with differently from what was the case before.