Lords Sitting of 13 November 1918

SOUTH SUBURBAN GAS BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
GAS LIGHT AND COKE COMPANY BILL.
Read 3a, and passed.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF CRAWFORD): My Lords, I rise to move that Standing Order No. XXXIX be considered in order to its being suspended for the remainder of the session. Your Lordships will remember that yesterday I withdrew this Motion, which then stood in my name, in order to satisfy myself that it was a reasonable proposal to make within the precedents of your Lordships' House. I have satisfied myself that a good precedent exists, and I accordingly submit that the Motion can be carried.
Moved, That Standing Order No. XXXIX be considered in order to its being suspended for the remainder of the session.—(The Earl of Crawford.)
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, I am not quite satisfied that the precedents bear out the interpretation which apparently the noble Earl puts upon them. I have done my best to look into them with the assistance of the Clerk at the Table. Taking the last three occasions I find upon the second—in 1914—that Standing Order No. XXXIX was suspended for the remainder of the session on January 26, and Parliament was prorogued the following day. In 1917 notice was given on January 31, the Standing Order was suspended on February 4, and Parliament was prorogued on February 6, so there were only two days between. In the session of 1916 the Standing Order was suspended from day to day, and had been on three particular days—December 12, 18, and 19. I do not think that there is any precedent for suspending the Standing Order for an unlimited time unless the date of the Prorogation is actually announced. That is not the case, as I understand it, to-day. Therefore to put myself in order I move that the Standing Order be suspended for the remainder of this week.
Amendment moved
Leave out from the Motion the words "for the remainder of the session," in order to insert" for the remainder of this week."—(Lord Balfour of Burleigh.)
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I shall not oppose that Amendment if the noble Lord desires it to be done in that form.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I desire to say one word on this Amendment. My noble friend is very courteous in the management of the House, and he has said that he accepts the suggestion made by my noble friend Lord Balfour. But I think it only right to point out how very necessary it is to proceed cautiously in this matter. The noble Earl yesterday, no doubt speaking from information supplied to him, told us that the proposal to suspend this Standing Order for the remainder of the session was well within the precedents of the House. He, of course, has been convinced by my noble friend that that is not the case, and that it is very unusual indeed to move the suspension of the Standing Order except when the Prorogation is quite immediately in prospect—within two days—and had we done as he suggested last night, we should have created a new precedent of a very far-reaching character. I think it only right to point that out. Not that I comment in any way upon my noble friend's action, because he only did what he was instructed to do, and what he thought was within the precedents. This just shows how cautiously your Lordships should proceed in matters of this kind before agreeing to a novel form of Resolution.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: In justice to myself I think I ought to tell your Lordships that I consider the precedent is adequate for the Motion; but rather than occupy your Lordships time when there is so much business to be done, I preferred, as being the most courteous course to pursue, to accept Lord Balfour's Amendment, though I should have been quite prepared to argue my case.
On Question, Amendment agreed to, and Motion as so amended agreed to.

GAS PROVISIONAL ORDERS BILL.
Read 2a (according to Order).
GAS AND WATER PROVISIONAL ORDERS BILL.
Read 2a (according to Order).

THE BESTOWAL OF HONOURS.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE THE EARL OF SELBORNE had the following Notice on the Paper—
To move, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty submitting that, whilst the Prime Minister is constitutionally responsible to the Crown for recommendations for the bestowal of honours, it is manifestly impossible for him to give his personal attention to an examination of the merits of all the cases which are brought to his notice; and humbly praying His Majesty to appoint a special Committee of the Privy Council to report to His Majesty on all recommendations in respect of such classes of honours as His Majesty may be pleased to refer to it, and to direct that the Report of this Committee on each case should be sent to the Prime Minister, and, when an honour which has been so reported upon has been conferred by His Majesty, that the Report of the Committee upon it should be laid before Parliament at the same time as the Gazette is published in which the grant of the honour is announced.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I am glad to have one more opportunity before this Parliament comes to an end, of bringing to your Lordships' attention the question of honours, and I hope that I shall persuade you to accept the Motion which I have put upon the Paper, and thus make a definite suggestion for applying a remedy to a grievance which has already been proved, and which I can show is to-day becoming larger. Your Lordships' House has taken the lead of public opinion in this matter, as distinguished from the other place, which has shown a great indifference to a growing scandal.
On previous occasions I, and those with whom I have been acting, have endeavoured especially to draw attention to that particular form of danger which we believe to exist in the sale of honours mainly for the purpose of enlarging Party funds; and in that connection I think it may be said that we proved our case and achieved a certain measure of success, because, although my noble friend who leads this House never was willing to admit that the evil was quite so great as we think we have proved it to be, yet I do not be-

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lieve, if he was here, that he would correct me when I say that he admitted that there was an evil, and within certain limits he was prepared to do what he could to help us in mitigating it. Consequently he agreed, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, to do two things which had never been done before. The first was that all honours of every kind should be inserted in a supplement to the Gazette; secondly, that on each occasion there should be a statement of the public service in respect of which the honour had been recommended to His Majesty. I think that both those steps were important, and since that pledge was given all honours have appeared in the Gazette, and there has been a statement on each occasion of the reason for which those honours were given.
I do not say that those statements are all equally full or equally satisfactory. They are not. But at any rate they are a commencement of a definite explanation of what the public service is supposed to be in respect to which the honour has been granted. I am not going to deal with that aspect of the case to-day, though I am in a position to say that the danger of the sale of honours for the purposes of Party funds still exists. And, although I have no fresh case in respect of which I am authorised to give facts publicly, I could give facts privately either to my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal or my noble friend the Leader of the House, which would show that that danger, although possibly scotched, is not killed.
I want to draw your Lordships' attention to the fresh danger of abuse which arises from the fact of the great recent multiplication of honours. It is quite natural, after all the excellent service rendered by so many men and women in connection with this war, that there should be more honours granted than there were More, and I wish again to make the public fully understand that I and those with whom I am acting take the action we do because we want to preserve the system of honours for those who have deserved them by genuine public service. What we are afraid of is that if the honours are bought and sold in the market, or if they are given with such profusion and carelessness that the undeserving receive them, then the inevitable consequence will be that the deserving will reject them. They will become a by-word and a scandal, and the system will finally have to disappear. Therefore, in our judgment the only
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possible method of preserving the system of honours as a real reward for genuine public service is that it should be hedged round with such safeguards against abuse and such precautions against misapplication as to maintain and enhance the value of honours as a reward for public service.
The first of the fresh dangers to which I wish to draw your attention is lest all the proper forms, procedure, and precautions which are essential in this matter should be neglected and consequently that wholly unworthy persons should receive honours; and also lest His Majesty's Prerogative should also in this matter cease to be treated with the great respect due to it; and, finally that, as a result, the persons worthy of honour should come to regard an honour as dishonour. I want to exhibit to you this document. It is the third Supplement of the London Gazette of June 4. It consists of over sixty closely-printed pages, and this is only one Honours List. As far as I can make out, there are somewhere between forty-five and fifty names on each page. Though a good specimen, it is only one specimen of other lists. In the circumstances the Prime Minister's responsibility becomes a farce. The whole of this system rests on the Prime Minister's responsibility; he is responsible to the Sovereign for the recommendations made, and the honours are conferred on the subject by the Sovereign as a mark of his favour for the public service rendered. Now, who suggests that the Prime Minister in the middle of the war could have any real responsibility for the names contained in this Gazette? He would have been neglecting his work, he would have been doing very wrong, had he attempted to fulfill that responsibility. But it would be almost equally impossible in time of peace.
Therefore we have to find some other method of ensuring that the advice tendered to His Majesty is the result of due thought after the exercise of proper precautions, and that the proper forms and formalities have not been ignored. I do not doubt—I do not think my friends doubt—that the great majority of the names in this Gazette are the names of people who have earned their honour by faithful public service. Nor do I doubt that a great many of them have been recommended to the Prime Minister either by his colleagues or by some other responsible person whom he can fully trust—such, for instance, as the head of the

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Red Cross; and therefore, as regards the great number of these names, I do not doubt that the rewards are for real public service, or that the Prime Minister has had his responsibility covered by recommendations, either from colleagues or from people whom he can trust. But I assert quite definitely that that is not quite true of all these names.
On the several occasions when I have brought this subject forward I have been extremely careful never to make a statement that I was not in a position to verify. I have only given names when I was authorised to state those names, and I have only stated cases of another nature when I had the proof by me on the Table in such a form that I could make good at once what I stated. Now to-day, unfortunately, I have not been entrusted with any confidences which I can make public, but I have been entrusted with knowledge which I am allowed to state to my noble friends the Lord Privy Seal or my noble friend the Leader of the House privately, and I think I have sufficient credit with your Lordships that when I tell you the nature of the cases of which I can speak privately you will believe that I am not speaking in vain. In the first place, I can prove that great carelessness and impropriety and constitutional slackness have occurred in dealing with these honours. I will give you two cases. I have been informed of one case of a recipient of a high honour to whom no kind of communication was made before it was gazetted, and who had received no communication for a month after it was gazetted. I do not know whether he has received any communication since. But this honour was conferred on him without any kind of previous communication with him—a thing, I should think, absolutely and utterly unknown in other days. A corresponding case was where another gentleman had a high honour also conferred on him, and a notification was sent to him, but when he made inquiries he found that His Majesty's pleasure had not been taken, and therefore he declined it. Now, both those are in my judgment instances of great slackness, carelessness, and want of knowledge of constitutional practice, and show that the thing has not been done in the right way.
Then I can show that some very unworthy people have received honours.
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By "unworthy," I mean persons stigmatised in the public Courts for highly dishonourable conduct; and another form of unworthy person is a common, low, vulgar adventurer of the very worst type who has received an honour. Both these cases, again, indicate most extraordinary carelessness and slackness on the part of those dealing with this subject. Lastly, I can show that in some cases at any rate the real dispensers of the Prerogative have been not the Prime Minister or the Minister but the private secretaries; and if you think of it, when you come to deal with lists like these, unless the utmost care is taken and a real procedure is provided for dealing carefully with this important matter, it is sure to fall into the patronage of the private secretary; and if honours in this country are to be in the last resort, to whatever degree, conferred by private secretaries, then I think the time has come when honours should become a relic of the past. With such carelessness, with such utter want of responsibility—because private secretaries are people who are wholly irresponsible, people unknown to the Constitution, and with no responsibility—it is quite certain that the door will be open one day to corruption. I am making, of course, no suggestion of corruption against any existing private secretary. So far as I know there has been no taint of corruption in this matter. But what I say is that if honours are given on this scale, and if the whole system is left uncared for and slack, corruption one day is perfectly certain to supervene. All experience shows that; and it does not require any particular spirit of prophecy on my part to suggest it.
I think, therefore, I have shown that, in addition to the old dangers, there is a fresh batch of dangers; and I come now to the definite suggestion which I and my friends make to your Lordships' House and which we hope you will respectfully submit to His Majesty. Our suggestion is that a small Standing Committee of the Privy Council should be set up, consisting of, say, five or six members, with a secretary. That Standing Committee, of course, would be appointed by His Majesty on the advice of the Prime Minister.
The first question is, In respect of what honours should this Committee exercise any function? My answer is that only His Majesty and the Prime Minister can decide that question. It is quite

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clear that the Prime Minister can exercise his responsibility personally, and ought to, as regards the most important honours; therefore about them the intervention of no Committee of the Privy Council is required. It is also clear that in respect of other honours—I have particularly in mind the naval and military and the Civil Service honours, about which there has never been any question of improper bestowal—the Prime Minister can reckon in the future, as he has reckoned in the past, on the advice of his colleagues. Consequently, there are some honours with which he can clearly deal himself, and there are others in respect of which he can trust his colleagues; and it, is for him to decide and to advise His Majesty in regard to what honours he should utilise the services of this Committee of the Privy Council.
I do not attempt to define what those honours are; but in respect of them I can describe the kind of function that we think the Committee of the Privy Council could perform. As regards such honours as were submitted to this Committee, we think that it should examine each case carefully and report the public record of the person in respect of whom it was proposed to confer the honour. There would be no difficulty in our opinion in the Committee of the Privy Council doing this with a little care, with a little time, and with the assistance of a secretary. It would report, in regard to every name put before it, what the public record of that person was—honourable and dishonourable; and, when it had completed that report, there the function of the Committee would terminate. The sole responsibility for the decision to advise His Majesty to confer an honour would remain with the Prime Minister. But the Prime Minister would have before him the report of the Committee of the Privy Council as to these persons, and if he advised His Majesty to confer an honour on any one of these, and that honour were granted by His Majesty and gazetted, then at the same time the report of the Committee on that person should be laid or the Table of both Houses of Parliament.
By that plan you would ensure that every case was dealt with properly, and that such cases as I have mentioned—the people stigmatised of dishonourable conduct in the public Courts, or who can be exposed as common, vulgar adventurers—never could get into an Honours List. The Prime Minister, of course, would not have
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suggested to His Majesty to appoint these people had he known what their record was. He did not know. There was no proper machinery to keep him informed. But with the machinery of the Committee of the Privy Council the whole of a man's public record, honourable and dishonourable, would be before the Prime Minister, and he would recommend the King to confer an honour only in a case where the record was unblemished. Therefore I submit that the safeguard would be real.
It is true that there would be some delay; but what does that matter? What does it matter whether a Gazette like this is published on New Year's Day or two months later? Or, if it is important that it should be published on New Year's Day, then the preliminary steps that are taken on these occasions should be taken a month or two earlier. I cannot admit that delay is an argument of any consequence against the plan. Lastly, for the first time there would be a record. I attach great importance to this. Supposing that private secretaries were as efficient and careful as they very often are, but as I do not think they always have been in the cases I have mentioned, private secretaries come and go. There may be some tradition of record from one private secretary to another of the same Prime Minister, but if the Prime Minister is changed, particularly if he belongs to a different Party, there is no continuation of record at all, and the man of very doubtful reputation who has been well known to the private, secretary of one Prime Minister may be quite unknown to his successor. That is what I suspect certainly has happened in one of the cases I have mentioned to-day. Therefore I say that a permanent record of these matters in the office of the Committee of the Privy Council would be an additional guarantee, and this plan is one that merits the very favourable consideration of His Majesty's Government.
In conclusion I would only again express my conviction that, unless this matter receives more attention from His Majesty's Government than it has ever yet done, the system will not be able to last, because of the dangers and evils in respect of which I have been able to give your Lordships some indication and some specimen, and because the plain man will be inevitably driven to the conclusion that it is better to go without an honour than to share an honour with a man whose record is known to be dishonourable. I beg to move.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty submitting that, whilst the Prime Minister is constitutionally responsible to the Crown for recommendations for the bestowal of honours, it is manifestly impossible for him to give his personal attention to an examination of the merits of all the cases which are brought to his notice; and humbly praying His Majesty to appoint a special Committee of the Privy Council to report to His Majesty on all recommendations in respect of such classes of honours as His Majesty may be pleased to refer to it, and to direct that the Report of this Committee on each case should be sent to the Prime Minister, and, when an honour which has been so reported upon has been conferred by His Majesty, that the Report of the Committee upon it should be laid before Parliament at the same time as the Gazette is published in which the grant of the honour is announced.—(The Earl of Selborne.)
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, I do not propose to contest the fact stated by Lord Selborne, that there may have been mistakes made such as those to which he has referred. I myself came across a mistake of that character six or eight years ago in which two members of your Lordships' House were concerned, and which produced very singular results. I also came across a case quite recently in which two persons of identical names, not only living in the identical street but living actually in the same great block of buildings, were confused through a mistake which perhaps was not quite inexcusable. Mistakes I have no doubt do occur. Mistakes perhaps will go on, but I propose to devote myself to the remedy proposed by Lord Selborne, which in my opinion is not likely to improve matters, but rather, as I shall attempt to show your Lordships, may, by diffusing responsibility, do more harm than good. I will, if I may, deal with the remedy proposed by Lord Selborne. He suggests that a special Committee of the Privy Council should be set up, consisting of half a dozen members, who are in effect in certain particulars to replace the Prime Minister. I was surprised to hear from Lord. Selborne that the Prime Minister is to choose what cases are to be sent to this Committee.
THE EARL OF SELBORNEWhat class of case.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Quite so. What class of case shall be referred to this committee. Some classes evidently can be reserved to the Prime Minister, and those are classes which Lord Selborne indicated, in a parenthetical remark, the Prime Minister himself, owing apparently to ample time, is capable of giving personal attention to; and by inference the larger honours, such as those referred to in this Gazette here, are to be referred to the Privy Council Committee. I would point out to your Lordships at once that the gravamen of the charge has always been that great personages of great wealth receive honours at the hands of His Majesty, and at the instance of the politicians, in return for money.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: That is one of the charges.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: It is the gravamen, I think, of the charges. You are not going to get rid of that difficulty in this way. The great people are going to be reserved to the Prime Minister; the humble people against whom such charges of money corruption are not brought, I presume, are to be referred to this Committee. It is quite clear, therefore, that if Baronetcies, Garters, Stars, and Peerages are to be reserved to the Prime Minister, the danger to which Lord Selborne alluded in his last speech, although he did not refer to it much to-night, will not be in any way eliminated. I want to say a word, not quite so much in reference to what Lord Selborne has said to-day, but in relation to this Gazette; and he inferred that this enormous Gazette—and he and others have written it in the public Press—is a recognition of honour at the expense of the soldiers.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I did not say so. Nobody suggested it.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I am reading a letter which appeared a month or two ago from a number of well-known public men, in which they are dealing with this very point, of the number of honours conferred, and one of the phrases is—
"The men who most deserve honours are nearly all under arms, and at the present time it is the names of these men the country would prefer to see in the Honours List."
The inference is that the honours are being given to the civilians in undue numbers,

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and that the soldiers are not being duly rewarded. I want to deal with that point, because I think it is based on a complete misapprehension. The Order of the British Empire was instituted in order for the Sovereign to give recognition to persons, men or women, who were not fighting, but who none the less were contributing much towards war service. But the number of decorations given under the Order of the British Empire is quite insignificant in contrast to the numbers given to soldiers. That, of course, is natural, but people do not realise that a considerable number of decorations, quite apart from the ordinary service medal, which has not been allotted, are special recognitions and given to the troops. I will not trouble your Lordships with complete figures, but I will give you three or four.
There have been 1,500 C.M.G.'s, 7,500 D.S.O.'s, 28,000 M.C.'s, 1,600 bars to the M.C. of the first class, 18,000 D.C.M.'s, 8,800 Military Service Medals, and 80,000 Military Medals. That will show your Lordships that in point of fact, when numbers are compared, the difference between the two is significant. For every decoration given to a civilian I suppose twenty, fifty—I do not know how many, but a very much larger number—have been given to the soldiers, and it is sot quite right to assume that when civilian work is rewarded it is done at the expense of the soldiers. Apparently, as the important recommendations to His Majesty are to be in the hands of the Prime Minister, this Motion only applies to subordinate categories of honour. To my mind, that is a very grave objection to Lord Selborne's scheme. Let me outline what the procedure will be.
TEE EARL OF SELBORNE: I never said where I would draw the line. I said a line must be drawn, but I left the Prime Minister to draw it. I never said I would draw it.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: No, my noble friend was very cautious not to tell us what his scheme really was, but he said that those personages with whom the Prime Minister and his colleagues were likely to be familiar would be excluded from reference to this Committee. That I roughly interpret to be a baronetcy or knighthood or—
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: No, that is not my view.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: At any rate, there is to be some division.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: Yes.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Some will go, and some will not go. That, I say, seems to me to be open to very grave objection. How will the actual procedure work? As the Motion puts it, the King will have to settle what categories of honours are to referred to this Committee, but it is quite clear that this means that some are not going to be referred to it. Some will be referred, and some will not. Certain classes of honour—those which are subject to this special inquiry—therefore become suspect at once. It is a kind of black list that is being formed which has to be purged before this Committee of the Privy Council. I think that that is an objectionable thing. It would be most difficult to settle what special class of honour has to be submitted to this special kind of scrutiny. Of course, if there are to be half a dozen members of the Privy Council upon whom these duties are to devolve, they must be impeccable. The politicians who are blamed in this matter are all, or most of them, I presume, Privy Councillors. They must therefore be excluded from this Committee clearly. They are, rightly or wrongly, supposed to be very susceptible to lobbying, and I dare say this Committee will be thoroughly well canvassed. Take it a stage further. The Ambassador and the Foreign Minister, of course, must be excluded. I presume that the high Civil Servants will be excluded. I presume also that Dominion and Overseas members must be excluded. Clearly they must. Finally, the Lord Chancellor, I doubt not, would take steps to prevent Judges from serving. You rather reduce your panel to which this enormous responsibility is going to be handed over, and it is not going to be quite so easy as some people seem to think to find a panel of active and leisured men who will take charge of a task which may really be very onerous indeed. For my part I am not at all sure that they would perform their function with any particular success.
I gather from the Motion that this Committee has no initiative. Yes; I am right in that. The Prime Minister therefore recommends an honour, but he does not

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recommend it to the Sovereign; he recommends it to this Committee. They will examine the man's claim. They report upon it. The report goes to the Prime Minister. If it is favourable, presumably the Prime Minister sends that report to His Majesty. But if it is unfavourable? Suppose the Prime Minister takes a strong view on the subject; suppose he differs from the view taken by this Committee, is the Prime Minister to be bound by the decision of these six gentlemen? And if His Majesty desires, as he is often bound to do, to discuss the question of an honour, or, if you like, a promotion in the Peerage of one of your Lordships, I take it that the Sovereign is not expected to call in these six gentlemen with whom to discuss a matter which, so far as I can see, rests entirely within his Majesty's Prerogative. I do not see how the Prime Minister can be bound by the decision of these gentlemen. At least it seems to me most improbable that he would be, and in many cases—I do not say in all—the Prime Minister would certainly be in a position to know infinitely more about the candidates than this Committee. The Ministers of State are living amongst the active and influential minds of the day. If they went to suggest an honour for a Member of Parliament or for an Overseas Minister or Ambassador, they have means at their disposal better than those which this Commitee will possess.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I do not want to interrupt my noble friend, but has a little misunderstood what I said. I never suggested—it is not my idea—that this Committee should express any opinion whether an honour should be conferred or not. It would simply state what the record of the individual was, leaving it entirely to the Prime Minister whether he was going to recommend that individual or not. If he does recommend him the record, as drawn by the Committee of the Privy Council, must be published at the same time.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Is that business? You set up a Committee to inquire into the man's character and personality. You tell the Committee, "This has nothing to do with honours; we merely want to know what is the man's record. You are a kind of official 'Who's Who.'" They cannot pursue it except in relation to the conferment of a public honour by His
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Majesty, and therefore it is no use saying that they are not to consider the question of an honour but merely the question of his record. This Committee are going to be appointed; they know that their report is made in relation to a particular honour in respect of a particular man; and that is, I think, where the noble Earl, on reflection, will find that his case is weak. They will not know as much, in many cases, as the Ministers who are responsible. There are no politicians on the panel, there are no Ambassadors, there are no Overseas Ministers. If it is proposed to confer an honour upon a Member of Parliament, upon an Ambassador, upon an Overseas Minister, the people who can get the good advice are the Prime Minister, who knows the Members of Parliament, who is in touch with the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the case of an Ambassador, and who can be in communication with a Governor in the case of Overseas statesmen. And if a Prime Minister has to advise His Majesty on matters of vastly greater importance and moment than the Order of the British Empire, is it wise to disperse the responsibility and share it with a Committee of this kind?
On these matters, especially where the Prerogative of the Crown is so very closely concerned, one cannot be too careful in examining the routine with precision. What happens next? The Prime Minister reports the name to the Committee; the Committee report it back to the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister recommends to the Sovereign, who graciously confers an honour if he thinks such a course suitable. Meanwhile, the notice of appointment is gazetted. But simultaneously with the publication in the Gazette, the report of the Committee is to be published as a Parliamentary Paper. This seems to me to be open to the very gravest criticism. In making their reports to the Prime Minister this Committee will know that publication has got to, or may, ensue. Take an ordinary case, any commonplace case. We will take that of a man who has received knighthood, and who is recommended by the Prime Minister for a baronetcy. The Committee, I think, considering the object for which they are set up, would be perfectly entitled—you could not stop them—to say that they quite approved of this, that the man was unexceptionable in character, but that they recommended the step with reluctance.

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They could say that perfectly well. Or else they might equally well justify the recommendation of an honour to a man who, according to Biblical precedent, at some time or other before that date had been bereft of style and title; and they would be entitled to explain why they did so. In fact, I think they would be obliged to explain why they did so, knowing that their reports are to be printed. Can anybody expect that the dossiers issued by these six gentlemen—could anybody expect under these conditions that these reports would be free, or candid, or unreserved? Lord Selborne says they are to publish what is honourable or dishonourable in a man's career. I do not think you will find a Committee which will be prepared to make what may be just but none the less very grave charges against a man, unless that Committee is invested with very much stronger powers and receives statutory authority rather than a mere recommendation of this kind.
And let me, finally, refer to the position of the candidates themselves. Will they consent to this procedure? Of course, there is going to be publicity about it. These six gentlemen, in nine cases out of ten, will not know anything of the existence of these kind of people who are receiving rewards at the hands of His Majesty. And here let me say one personal word about the Order of the British Empire. It so happens that throughout the war I have found myself in touch with humble people who are getting small credit, who are working unobserved, but who are doing, and have been doing, the great work of the war. Those are the people who are receiving the Order of the British Empire. It has been my duty on more than one occasion to make recommendations for that Order. I know the kind of man and the kind of woman who is receiving recognition from the Sovereign under that Order, and I cannot say how bitterly I resent reading this kind of thing in a paper written by persons of high standing and full of honours about the humble people who are receiving well-earned and hard-earned recognition for work which has been of incalculable value.
I read this kind of thing—
"It has become obvious that a Minister overwhelmed by public duties of the most arduous kind cannot possibly supervise the distribution of honours or prevent the monetary corruption and debasement of standards which will assuredly ensue. He would be obliged to neglect other vital duties."
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And in the next line one reads—
"A new Order of the British Empire has been instituted. In a recent Gazette the names cover no less than 60 quarto pages… We make no suggestion of corruption—
and so on. But it is a suggestion of corruption. It refers to the danger of a peculiarly mean kind of pecuniary corruption, and so on. I cannot express to your Lordships the indignation I feel when, knowing as I do the kind of people who are getting this recognition under this new Order of the British Empire, I read that it is alleged that there is monetary corruption or debasement of interests, or anything of that kind.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: There is no such allegation whatever in that letter.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: It says "We make no suggestion of corruption," but it is there, for what did I read three lines before? "A new Order of the British Empire has been instituted," and so on. I know it is read in that way; I read it in that way and I know other people have so read it. I also know that many people resented it as bitterly as I do myself. I say it is impossible that these five or six gentlemen can know all about the candidates. There will have, therefore, to be publicity. They will have to have an office, they will require a secretariat, very likely a large one; they will have to conduct correspondence, and I think in all probability they will have to have personal interviews. At the present moment recommendations are made by Ministers with personal knowledge of candidates. If this Committee do not know anything about the candidates they will have to pursue their inquiries as best they can, and it will perfectly well be known, of course, that So and So's case is to come up for discussion on such and such a day. And that will be the thing which I should imagine many people would resent. I do not suppose I exaggerate in saying that many people would refuse to submit themselves to a cross-examination of that kind, perhaps with the knowledge that they had been graded as B2 or B3, perhaps blackballed altogether. Now, if he is successful he knows that he has to have a report about his character and his personality published as a Parliamentary Paper. Either the report will be a conventional panegyric which will be a farce, or it will be a confidential and intimate report, the

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publication of which would, I think, be an impropriety. I cannot imagine any more distressing ordeal for an honest man to go through who is recommended for an honour which he has well deserved at the hands of the State.
I therefore think that the scheme, which must be judged upon its technical merits and how it will work, is open to objection from many points of view. In many ways, of course, it is a censure upon the Prime Minister. Lord Selborne says that the House of Commons is lax in this matter, but that really is the proper place to bring these charges against the Prime Minister. There must be at any rate one righteous man in the House of Commons. Perhaps even a Privy Councillor could be found. But this is a direct charge against the Prime Minister, and I should have thought that it is a criticism which should have been directed to his personal attention in the House of Commons itself.
I have read this Motion with the very greatest care, and I cannot help thinking that sufficient heed has not been given to the actual scheme, to the scope or to the capacity of the Committee, to the objection I have referred to on the score of publicity, and to the position of the man whose services are to be recognised, nor to the exclusion of certain grades of honour from the purview of this Committee. Altogether this question has been discussed in your Lordships' House three, or perhaps four, times. My noble friend Lord Curzon, who is still detained abroad and cannot therefore attend here to-day, has already given to the House and the public a pledge that the greatest care shall be exercised in view of the increased number of honours conferred owing to the war, and that the most careful scrutiny and examination shall take place. Great care has been exercised. I daresay mistakes have been made. I think that I have referred already to one or two cases with which I am familiar. But I am convinced that this Committee is not the right way to remove the danger of such mistakes as have been referred to.
It is quite possible that mistakes will be made. The Prime Minister is the last person to claim infallibility on his own behalf. As one knows, sometimes the wrong man is appointed to a colonelcy or governorship, or to the management of a railway or business, or indeed to Ministerial rank, and to the end of time mistakes I daresay of this kind must occur; but of this I am
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convinced, that mistakes are much less probable where responsibility is concentrated upon one man, aided as he is and must be by really well qualified colleagues. Such responsibility should not be diffused amongst a Committee. It will be unversed in ninety-nine cases out of 100 in the direct problem at issue. The Committee will be answerable to Parliament, and it will not be, I imagine, appointed by the Sovereign. I think a Committee of this kind is quite unfitted for duties which relate to the Public Service, and also to the Prerogative of the Crown. These duties of recommending honours to His Majesty are of such far-reaching importance that by tradition, by long custom, and I think also by propriety, they are entrusted by the Sovereign to the care of his First Minister of State.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, I am sure that your Lordships will all have recognised the sincerity and conviction with which the noble Earl behind me brought forward this Motion, and we all honour him for the strong desire which has been evident to-day and on former occasions to remove all that seems to act against the purity and dignity of public life, and of the grant of honours; but at the same time I cannot help hoping that your Lordships will think twice before you adopt the remedy which the noble Earl suggests, for some of the reasons which have been made by the noble Earl who has just sat down. This is an age when Advisory Committees are greatly in the air. There is a tendency to fortify, or sometimes possibly to hamper, all responsible persons by surrounding them with an Advisory Committee, but the essence of an Advisory Committee and of its value must be the expert knowledge which it possesses. Such an expert Committee as the Advisory Council on Industrial Research, composed of the first scientific men of the day, advises the Lord President of the Council and the other Ministers who form that. Committee of Council, but it cannot be, I think, stated by my noble friend that this particular Committee can claim, or indeed acquire, the particular kind of expert knowledge which is needed for the grant of honours, because, quite rightly, my noble friend eliminates from his suggestion those cases in which expert knowledge is required, simply because that expert knowledge is forthcoming already.

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When it is a question as to which Colonel should receive the Companionship of the Bath, which Indian Civil Servant should receive the K. C. I. E., the Prime Minister naturally relies upon his colleagues who are the heads of the Department concerned, and therefore it may be assumed that all those classes would not come under the notice of this Committee at all. It therefore would appear that, leaving aside the special case of the Order of which the noble Earl opposite spoke in some detail—namely, the Order of the British Empire, which stands on a somewhat different footing, although even there I take it the great bulk of the recommendations are made by and on the responsibility of the heads of the Departments—the conferment of Peerages (including steps in the Peerage), of baronetcies, of Knight bachelorships, and of membership of the Privy Council, are the only kind of honours which could fall within the purview of this Committee. And, as the noble Earl has pointed out, it would seem likely that a considerable number of these would be withdrawn by the Prime Minister himself from the inspection of the Committee on the ground that he preferred—and was highly competent, to do the work—to examine into the claims of those who might be put forward from one source or another for the conferment of such an honour.
I think it rather interesting to consider what the opinions of Prime Ministers would be in a matter of this kind. My noble friend Lord Selborne and I have the honour of knowing no less than eight Prime Ministers. Of those eight, four, I am happy to say, are still with us, and if my noble friend would invite the opinion of any of those four as to the appointment of an Advisory Committee of this kind to report upon the past history of gentlemen who are put forward for honours of the kind I have mentioned, I think he would not find much agreement with his view from any of the four. I also see, as the noble Earl opposite did, some difficulty in the selection of the personnel of such a Committee. It must obviously be composed of people who are themselves not likely to be the recipients of honours, and therefore I think it would have to be composed entirely of noble Dukes who are also Privy Councillors, and who have also received the honour of the Order of the Garter. Such men, I think we may suppose, may be taken to have reached the highest summit of earthly bliss and
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eminence, and they therefore would be in a position to look down from the mountain heights on all possible aspirants for honours of every kind. But, as the noble Earl pointed out quite seriously, it is not exactly easy to see what class of Privy Councillors would be selected for this particular function.
But my real objection to the proposal of the noble Earl is the one which was alluded to by the noble Earl opposite—namely, that it takes away the responsibility of the Prime Minister in this matter. The present system of government, whatever its merits, has to my mind one, unhappy demerit—, namely, that of the destruction of the collective responsibility of Ministers, and if to this is to be added the destruction of their individual responsibility to the Crown it seems to me that there is not very much left. I do not agree with the statement of the noble Earl that it is manifestly impossible for the Prime Minister to give his personal attention to the merits of all the cases that are brought to his notice. In a sense, of course, it is true, all promotions in the Army are made by the Army Council, but nobody supposes that the actual members of the Army Council inquire personally into the promotion of every officer who gets his company. It is done by a system of inquiry and devolution, and even in war time I think it is quite possible for the Prime Minister to establish a system of inquiry by persons upon whose judgment he could rely, which would make it possible for him to take the responsibility of laying the name before the Sovereign.
The noble Earl has said with great frankness that in his opinion this has not been done, and that proper inquiries have not been made. That is a charge, as the noble Earl pointed out, if not against the Prime Minister himself, at any rate against his entourage and those whose opinion he is able to take. It is no business of mine to put up a defence for the Prime Minister in such a matter. He is as competent as anybody is to put up a defence of that kind for himself. But even if it were so—which personally I do not admit, and upon which I express no opinion—it does not follow that the particular remedy which the noble Earl suggests is the proper one to apply. A more simple and obvious remedy would be to ask the Prime Minister to appoint some gentleman—whether called a private secretary or not does not matter—upon whose opinion he can rely for the

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special function of examining into all these cases in the light of the information that he is able to obtain from the different Departments. But, as I said, my main objection is the abstraction from the Prime Minister of his proper responsibility in this matter, and the consequent effect upon the Prerogative of the Crown. I trust therefore that, although recognising to the utmost the admirable intentions of my noble friend, your Lordships will not agree with his Motion.
LORD LEE: My Lords, may I express my warm agreement with the strong and spirited protest which was made by the acting Leader of your Lordships' House with regard, not to those high honours to which reference has been made, but to the very humblest class of honours referred to by Lord Selborne when he produced a copy of a recent Gazette. Your Lordships are aware that in that Gazette there are possibly 2,000 names. But those names, as has been shown, are mainly of people who would necessarily be utterly unknown to members of the Privy Council, but who none the less have deserved as well of their country during this war as any member of the Privy Council or of your Lordships' House.
If we consider that the whole population of these islands has been mobilised for war, even if we assume that only one-quarter of those who are not serving in the Army or Navy have done some work in connection with the war, that Gazette does not represent one name in a thousand of those war-workers. Every one of those names have been submitted by some responsible official under the Government, or a body like the Red Cross; they have been most anxiously considered and weighed before being recommended; and they represent, I believe, in 999 cases out of 1,000, individuals who have perhaps not only given their time, but have worked without remuneration day and night during the years of this war. These small rewards, while they may seem a contemptible thing to some very distinguished people, mean a very great deal to them—not merely the conferment of the small honour itself, but the fact that it is given personally by the hand of the Sovereign. As the head of a subordinate Department I have had to recommend a small number of those persons for the British Empire Order. I know how numerous have been the names of deserving people,
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how anxiously their claims have been weighed one against the other, and how in the end the recommendation put forward has in all cases been put forward solely on merit.
I think it is time that a protest were made against this attempt—I will not say conscious attempt, but the effect is the same—to depreciate the value of these small rewards; because it can have no other effect but to poison the pleasure and the pride that these humble individuals must naturally feel at the recognition of their services at the hand of their Sovereign. I hope, whatever attacks may be made upon the system of conferment of high honours, there will be no more of this brandishing of large Gazettes, and suggesting that in some way or other the honours are not real or are not a credit to their recipients.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, there have been several discussions upon this subject in your Lordships' House, and I have always been impressed by the earnestness with which my noble friend Lord Selborne has urged the necessity for greater caution in the distribution of honours. I am prepared to go a certain length with him. I am quite ready to admit that the suspicion which undoubtedly prevails in regard to this question would not exist unless there was a certain amount of foundation for it. I am quite prepared to believe that there have been cases where the Crown has not been well advised in the exercise of the Royal Prerogative. I am quite prepared to believe also that there have been indiscretions—blunders—perpetrated very often by people who are not in the front of the scene, but who are rather in the position of the subordinate agents of the Government. I am quite prepared to believe all that; and if my noble friend could really show me a way of preventing the possibility of abuses, or even of mistakes, I should certainly be inclined to follow him.
But while I make these admissions, I have always felt that it would be a grievous injustice to the community of which we are members to allow the impression to go abroad that there was anything like general venality or corruption in the matter of the distribution of honours. I believe, on the contrary, that our public life here is as clean in this respect as that of any other country—probably much cleaner; and that it would be a libel to

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suggest that the whole system of our public patronage was permeated by the kind of motives which are sometimes imputed. Where mistakes have been made, by all means let us point them out; and let us ascertain who is responsible for them, and let us visit those who are guilty. But the complaint that I make of the particular proposal which my noble friend has put forward is that, far from fixing responsibility more distinctly where it ought to be fixed, it tends to transfer responsibility, and to transfer it to a wrong set of shoulders.
This question came before your Lordships' House last year and your Lordships then took action upon the subject. You refused, indeed, to agree to the preamble of a Resolution moved by my noble and learned friend Lord Loreburn—a preamble which seemed to many of your Lordships to amount to a plea of guilty where no such plea ought to be entered. But you agreed to two Resolutions—one of them requiring the publication, in every case where an honour was conferred, of a full statement of the reasons for which that honour was given; and the other fixing upon the Prime Minister the responsibility—and it is a very remarkable responsibility—of satisfying himself that "no payment or expectation of payment to any Party or political fund is directly or indirectly associated with the grant or promise of such honour or dignity." Those Resolutions were accepted by my noble friend Lord Curzon on behalf of the Government. He explicitly told the House that, speaking for the Government, he accepted those Resolutions; and we have a right to assume that since they were passed those Resolutions have been observed not only in the letter but in the spirit. Those Resolutions surely were a not unsubstantial achievement on the part of my noble friend Lord Selborne and those who think with him.
What has passed, I would ask, since those Resolutions were carried to make a new departure necessary? My noble friend told the House that the danger was far greater now than it was then, mainly because of the immense increase in the number of distinctions which are being conferred owing to the war. But, my Lords, I cannot believe that if there has been anything like—corruption is too strong a word—but anything like an improper reward of Party services, it can be supposed to have
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taken place in connection with these war honours. The cases that your Lordships were asked to consider specially last year were cases where Peerages and high honours of that kind has beer given as a reward for political services associated with large contributions to the political war chests. No suspicion of that kind arises in connection with this great host of honours which are being conferred in connection with the war.
I confess that I should very much prefer to leave the responsibility where it is now—with the Prime Minister. I recall the words which were used in the debate of last year by my noble and learned friend Lord Loreburn, than whom no Peer was more anxious to put an end to any abuse in connection with the conferring of honours. Let me read Lord Loreburn's words. He said—
"I am quite content if the Prime Minister insists on being told the whole of the facts, and then settles the matter with the honest determination, with which we justly and naturally credit every Prime Minister, that he will put down corruption."
I think we have, a right to ask His Majesty's Government whether that condition is now fulfilled. I hope, since the Resolution of last year, that we may take it that the Prime Minister does insist, I do not say in going personally into every one of these thousands of minor honours to which reference has been made, but in satisfying himself, either by himself or through the heads of Departments who are responsible to him, that no impropriety has taken place.
My noble friend proceeded to give the House illustrations of the still greater scandals which he thought had taken place since the Resolution of last year. Will my noble friend forgive me when I tell him that I really was not greatly impressed by the two or three cases which he cited. There was a case where there had been a failure to notify the honour to the individual upon whom it was conferred—a blunder which might very well be committed in the middle of the stress and strain that are inseparable from the war. The second case I did not note, but it seemed to me to be a case of that kind.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: The case of vulgarity.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Oh, yes; the case of the vulgar adventurer. That might lead to all sorts of enquiries as to what constituted vulgarity and what was an adventurer. At any rate, my noble friend's indictment at that point did not seem to me to be a very formidable one. Then I will take my noble friend's plan. I think it was rather mercilessly dissected by my noble friend Lord Crawford, but I am bound to say that it seems to me to be a plan which would not be at all likely to work well or produce the desired result. You are to set up a small Committee of the Privy Council. The Committee is not to have individual cases referred to it, but certain classes of honours are to be marked off and within those classes particular cases may be referred to the Committee. I think this would work very badly indeed. How are you going to draw the line between the class of cases which ought to go to the Committee and the class which ought not? That seems to me to be full of difficulty. Then what is the Committee to do? The Committee is to inquire into the honourable or dishonourable antecedents—
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: The record.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: The honourable or dishonourable record of the person whom it is proposed to honour. How is the Committee to adjudicate upon the honourable side of the record? Will your Committee really be in a position to deal intelligently with the merits of each individual whose services it is desired to reward? The Minister can get from his official chief full particulars, and particulars of a reliable character; but this Committee would have no particular knowledge of the case at all. It would be turned on to investigate from the beginning the career of people with whom it had nothing to do, and whom it was quite incompetent to criticise. I do not think the Committee would do its work nearly as well as the responsible head of a Department, who would be able to say what he thought of the man who had served under him. But, then, how will it work when you come to the dishonourable side of the record? That seems to me to be a very serious task to impose upon any Committee. It means turning this Committee into a sort of private inquiry office, who are to rake up—
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I used the word "record." Record is conviction in public Court, or something of that kind.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: How would you catch your "vulgar adventurer" on a point of that kind? I doubt extremely whether a Committee of the Privy Council would be a very useful detective for such purposes. With every desire, and I have a sincere desire, to support my noble friend, I feel that he is putting upon this Committee a task which would be a very odious one, and which it would not be at all likely to perform to the satisfaction of anybody. Above all I feel, as I said at first, that by putting responsibility upon the shoulders of a Committee you take that responsibility off the shoulders of the men who ought to bear it, and they are the Prime Minister and his colleagues.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I do not think that my noble friend Lord Selborne is open to any censure, as the Lord Privy Seal seemed to think, because he has brought forward this question in your Lordships' House. The noble Earl seems to think that no Motion of this kind, supported by a very moderate speech such as my noble friend Lord Selborne delivered, ought to have been made except in the presence of the Prime Minister in the House of Commons.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: No! I did not say that. If the case was as serious as alleged I rather indicated that it was surprising that the Minister responsible—namely, the Prime Minister—had never been faced on the subject himself. I did not attempt to censure Lord Selborne for making the Motion. That is the last thing in the world that I would wish to do.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I thought the noble Earl did, but I will not dwell any more upon that point. Having listened to the speeches of the three noble Lords who preceded me, I felt that the way of a reformer was very hard. Nobody denies the existence of these mischiefs. Nobody in the debates before has denied that these evils exist. Everybody has admitted them. My noble friend Lord Lansdowne, speaking with all the great weight of his authority in your Lordship's House, never denied in the former debates the existence of these mischiefs. On the contrary, he assisted Lord Selborne in carry-

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ing in a modified form the Resolution which stands on the records of the House. Yet what sort of language does the noble Earl use, and the noble Marquess behind me use, in regard to these occurrences? They say mistakes may have been made—blunders, indiscretions. Those are the words.
Does any noble Lord believe in his heart that there are nothing but blunders and mistakes and indiscretions. I mean, of course, that we are used to very moderate language in your Lordships' House, I am glad to say, and many of these phrases are euphemisms, because we do not like, and think it better manners not, to call things by their proper names. None of us believe in our hearts for a moment that there is not ground for charges of something much worse than blunders or mistakes or indiscretions. I am not, of course, denying what my noble friend Lord Lansdowne said just now, that on the whole the administration of honours is not corrupt. I entirely agree with him; but there ought to be no exceptions. Honours are not things which ought to be conferred generally purely, generally without corruption. There ought to be no possibility in this country of anything like a charge that honours are and have been sold for money, directly or indirectly, or that they have been granted without all that care and all that sense of responsibility which honours, if they are to be honours at all, ought to receive. That is why I say that the ways of the reformer are hard.
The task which some of us have undertaken to try and produce a remedy is very difficult. You always can find objections. Great constitutional authorities, like my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition or my noble friend Lord Lansdowne, will always be able to say, "Oh, but you are doing a very serious thing; you are interfering with the Prerogative," or "You are depriving those of responsibility who ought to bear it." It is perfectly true, we are changing a little bit, or trying to change a little bit, the burden of responsibility. I earnestly hope that we are not interfering with the Prerogative, but it seems to me that there can be no deeper injury to the Prerogative in this country than that there should be a well-founded suspicion that some of the honours which His Majesty is called upon to confer are conferred for unworthy motives.
It is not possible, if I may say so with great earnestness to your Lordships, to
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meet a case of this kind with merely, may I call it—my noble friend will forgive me—constitutional pedantry? We require to look the thing in the face, and to say, "Are we doing all that we can do to prevent any of these evil practices?" My noble friend the Lord Privy Seal was apparently in great doubt as to the kind of honours which we have in view. In one part of his speech he seemed to think they were only the very small honours of which we were thinking; in another part his mind was evidently on a different plane, because he spoke of honours with which he thought Overseas Ministers and Ambassadors would be better qualified to deal than anybody else. I do not quite know what was in his mind. But the only honours which I think we desire to exclude are honours of such a very special kind that it may be quite obvious it is a matter for the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister alone to deal with them. These are not honours as we hope that are or could be the subject of any corrupt or improper use. But, broadly speaking, we are thinking of all the honours which have been under discussion so often in your Lordships' House—knighthoods, baronetcies, even membership of your Lordships' House. We are thinking of all those, and if the matter is to be dealt with at all we ought to deal with those.
Now I come to the British Empire Order. I confess I did interrupt the noble Earl rather warmly just now, because I felt very deeply the way in which he put it to us. I yield to none in my admiration of the great services which many of these humble people have conferred upon the country. I have had the honour of standing by His Majesty when he has conferred these distinctions, and I have felt and reflected how much more deeply they deserve many of these honours than some more highly-placed individuals. I confess I resent the sort of implication which, in the heat of the moment, the noble Earl seemed to throw out, that we who are more fortunately placed, and those of us who, no doubt unworthily, bear honours on our breasts, are critics of those humble individuals. Of course, the noble Earl almost makes it impossible for us to say a word if he really thinks, which I am sue he dyes not, that we ignore the humbler folk in the pride of our hearts in our own position. No, My Lords, all honour to these humble people. All honour to them for what they have done during this great war. But

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is it not right that we should seek to keep at their highest value the honours which these men have had conferred upon them? Are we to be shamed by the noble Earl opposite, the acting Leader of the House, because we humbly are doing our best to see that these honours shall be maintained at their high standard? Surely not. Surely we are only doing our duty, and are not susceptible to the sort of shameful innuendo of my noble friend's observation. What is it that we are afraid of in respect of that Order? My noble friend who moved this Resolution to-night said that he was convinced that the Prime Minister was not able himself to exercise any kind of check upon the selection of these honours. My noble friend spoke with knowledge. He knows that in certain cases the Prime Minister has not exercised any check. I put it to my noble friend, Are they satisfied that these honours should be conferred practically upon the advice of private secretaries?
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Which honours—the O.B.E.?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I would rather not say.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I will tell you.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I will answer if I know.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I would rather not say, because, if I can avoid it, I do not want to say anything more about the British Empire Order after what has passed. I take it that there are a large number of honours—I will not put it too high, but a considerable number of honours—practically conferred by private secretaries. Is the House satisfied with such a system? Is that really a good system? Does anybody believe it is a good system? Of course not. I am not speaking of cases where the Prime Minister relies on the advice of one of his colleagues or relies on the advice, let us say, of the head of the Red Cross or the local heads of the Red Cross, all of whom, as far as I know, are ladies and gentlemen of high standing in every way. But is it satisfactory that the other system should prevail? If it is not, then surely we ought to try to find a remedy, and the fact that it is unprecedented, and that it interferes
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to some extent with the hitherto accepted responsibility of the Prime Minister, ought not to be used as an answer to us unless some other plan can be devised.
Let me say one word about the plan which is suggested in my noble friend's Motion. The noble Marquess behind me, I think, and other noble Lords, have said that the institution of a Committee like this of the Privy Council, to advise, is an unprecedented affair, and that is not likely to produce good results, that it dilutes responsibility, and so forth. But let me quote from a humble precedent. I have the honour to be a member of the Advisory Committee in my county for the appointment of magistrates. That was instituted a certain number of years ago in order to advise the Lord Lieutenant in his recommendations. It was said in the counties that certain evils had grown up, not precisely the kind of evils we are now talking of, but other evils had grown up in regard to appointments to the Bench; and it was said that if Advisory Committees were appointed to advise the Lord Lieutenant, these evils would be largely avoided. They were appointed. As far as I know, the system has worked admirably. None of the difficulties which are foreseen by my noble friend behind me, or by the noble Marquess, have arisen. The Advisory Committees have worked admirably; there has been no difficulty about them whatever. What does happen? Somebody with knowledge of a proposed magistrate brings his name before the Advisory Committee. The Advisory Committee are able to discuss amongst themselves whether they think he is a suitable person for the Bench. There are representatives, I need not say, of the different political parties, but that is nothing to the purpose in this particular question. There is no difficulty about it and it works very well. And the appointments of magistrates have, as I believe, been more satisfactory in the public mind than they were before, and no difficulty arises. If that can be done in the appointing of justices of the peace in counties, should it not be equally successful in the appointment to honours on a larger scale in the matter of the Honours Lists in this country? I suggest to your Lordships that this ought not to present any difficulties.
But I do not desire to dwell any longer upon that side of the matter. It seems to be a simple remedy, a remedy indicated

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by obvious considerations. I will just say this. My noble friend seemed to have some difficulty as to how these Privy Councillors would be appointed. He has only to read the Motion. They are to be appointed by His Majesty. He thinks there would be no Privy Councillors who would be exempt from a position which laid them open to all sorts of suspicions. I do not think so. I see no difficulties on that head. There are many gentlemen, noble Lords and others, holding the office of Privy Councillor, who are abundantly to be trusted in this matter, and if they had direct responsibility thrown upon them there is no reason to suppose for a moment that they would not, exercise it under every proper care and feeling. After all, is it true that they are open to the same kind of difficulties as the Prime Minister himself? They are not overworked, as he is; they have not got the care of a great Empire, as he has; they would not be the leaders of a political Party, as he is; they would not have all sorts of persons round them who are not governed by the highest motives, as he is. In every way they would be in a far better position, and being many and not one, if one of them found himself the object of pressure he would always be able to fall back upon his colleagues and so avoid the impact.
Lastly, I would make an appeal to your Lordships. You do not approve of this particular remedy. That is possible. The objections of the Lord Privy Seal, Lord Lansdowne, and the noble Marquess (Lord Crewe) may convince you or may not convince you—I do not know how it is with regard to that that the remedy is not the best remedy. Well then, my Lords, for goodness sake propose some remedy. Do remember that we are standing before the country at a time when everything of this kind is being called in question. There is no question whatever that the great mass of the people are intensely suspicious. They believe that there are many matters in respect of politics and politicians and the by-ways of politics which will not bear the light. I earnestly hope we may do everything that is possible to eliminate all these suspicions. We have an immense responsibility. There is going to be an Election, probably one of the most momentous Elections which have ever taken place in English history, and I should have liked for it to have been possible to say that at the last moment, before that Election, at any rate the House of Lords showed itself fully
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alive to its responsibility as the guardian, above all other bodies in this country, of all that appertains to honourable distinction; that it had stepped forward and said that, in so far as it could manage it, it would prevent any of these evils from taking place in the future, and so we might go with clean hands and clean hearts before the people of this country.
On Question, Motion negatived.

ARMENIA AND CILICIA.
VISCOUNT BRYCE VISCOUNT BRYCE rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether they will consider the expediency of occupying, for the purpose of preserving order, the districts of Armenia and Cilicia, in which disorders are most likely to arise, or at least of sending detachments of troops into such districts having regard to the following facts—

1. That the demobilisation of the Turkish army under the provisions of the recent armistice is setting loose a large number of armed men likely to be a source of danger to peaceful inhabitants, especially as food is now very scarce in the countries aforesaid.

2. That the Christian refugees from the recent massacres who desire to return to their homes and to sow their fields for the next harvest, cannot de so in the present, disorderly condition of these countries.

3. That a large number of Christian women who were during the massacres seized or publicly sold by the Turkish officers into slavery in Turkish harems cannot be liberated from this slavery except under the authority and by the action of European officers.

The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I do not propose on this occasion to call attention in any way to the ultimate disposal of the territories in Asia Minor which have hitherto belonged to the Turkish Empire. I desire rather to call your Lordships' attention to a question of immediate urgency, and upon the general question of the future destiny of these territories I shall not enlarge further than to say this. His Majesty's Government have given us assurances, and those assurances or similar ones have been given by the Governments of the Allied Nations, that the rule of the Turk shall be altogether removed from and extinguished in those

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districts where the population is largely Christian, so that this detestable Government which has been the curse of Western Asia for six centuries shall no longer have any opportunity of oppressing or massacring its Christian subjects. Those declarations made by His Majesty's Government have been so explicit, and so often repeated, that I do not think it is necessary to do more than say that we have taken note of them with the greatest satisfaction; indeed, His Majesty's Government could not have declared their purpose in any other sense, as they know, and we all know, how strong is the popular feeling in this country, and how strong also is the similar feeling in the United States of America, a country which has done more for the Eastern Christians than any other people has ever done.
I come then, my Lords, to the questions which are raised in the Notice of Motion that I have given. I have made this Notice somewhat full in order that I may spare time by not going into so many details as I should otherwise have to do. I will therefore merely comment upon the points that are raised in my Notice, and ask His Majesty's Government to consider the extreme urgency which the question has, the reasons for the urgency being suggested in the words that I have used. In the first part of the Question I ask whether His Majesty's Government will consider the expediency of occupying, for the purpose of preserving order, the districts of Armenia and Cilicia in which disorders are most likely to arise. There is a provision in the Armistice which was concluded with the Turks that if disorders arise the Allied Powers may send in troops to occupy those districts. It has given great surprise that the terms which were granted by the Allied Governments to Turkey should have been so lenient—so much more lenient than those which were granted, for instance, to Austria—and I think this surprise was not unnatural, because the Turks were absolutely at the mercy of the Allies. They were perfectly helpless. Most of their Army had surrendered, and it would have been easy for the Allied Powers to impose upon them any terms whatever that they thought fit.
As your Lordships are aware, the present Government of Turkey contains a number of men who were partners in the guilt of those appalling massacres which took place in 1915. Those of your Lordships who wish to refresh your recollection may turn
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to the Blue Book which was published by the Foreign Office in 1916, in which you will find an account of the most awful massacres that are anywhere reported in history—an account which no attempt whatever has been made to disprove or to explain away. Not only Talaat Pasha, the most conspicuous among the ruffians who then formed the Committee of Union and Progress, but also several other persons who are still members of the existing Turkish Government, have to bear the guilt of those massacres. That being so, one is surprised that anything whatever except unconditional surrender was required from such a Government.
I pass from that to the question of what ought to be done now. Disorder is the chronic condition of these countries. When the Armistice said that if disorders arose the Allied Powers should be at liberty to send in their troops, it seems to have been forgotten that those countries are always in disorder, and that if anything exceptional arose it might be some considerable time. and serious evils might have resulted before news would have reached the Allied Commanders, so as to enable them to send in the troops which would be required to suppress those disorders. I submit to His Majesty's Government that there is a very strong case for sending troops in at the earliest possible moment. But I can quite understand that even the Army in Mesopotamia, which no longer is occupied in active operations against the Turks, might be unable for reasons of transport, or other reasons of that kind, to spare at the moment all the troops that would be needed to occupy the large regions included in Armenia (the six vilayets) and Cilicia. Should that be so, then at any rate it would surely be possible for sufficient forces to be detached from the Army in Mesopotamia and perhaps also from the force which is now occupying Northern Syria, and sent in under British officers to the points which either were most likely to be the seat of trouble, or which commanded the main lines of communication through those countries.
I venture to suggest that disorder is always chronic in these regions. Those of your Lordships who have followed their history for the last twenty or thirty years know that to be the case. But at present the situation is exceptionally dangerous and difficult. The Turkish Army has just been demobilised. The Turkish Army had been

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occupied during the last four years in massacring and plundering Christians wherever it could find them. That army is now removed even from such feeble control as its officers exercised, and the troops, probably with their arms, are let loose to wander over these countries and to rob and murder wherever they please. Further, the temptation, it must be admitted, is greater than usual, because there is a very great scarcity of food, and it is only natural that hungry soldiers with arms in their hands should endeavour to take whatever they can get from the unfortunate peasantry by whom they may be passing. Therefore there is every reason to believe that at present this immense area, stretching from the South-eastern corner of the Black Sea as far as the North-eastern corner of the Levant, is in the hands of disorderly bands who are perpetrating outrages wherever they may find people upon whom they may be perpetrated, and robbing every one who has any food or anything else left.
Any one who knows those countries knows what happens when an army is suddenly disbanded, especially such an army as this. I may mention that I have only just received from Paris a copy of a Despatch which has been received from the Transcaucasian region which states that two Turkish divisions,—the 5th and 15th of the Turkish Army—have discarded their Turkish uniforms, and have joined with the Tartar forces which were in existence there, and which were acting at Baku, and in conjunction with those Tartar forces they are bombarding the villages of the Christians, and generally carrying on that sort of guerilla warfare which naturally arises when soldiers are relieved from discipline and still have an enemy on whom they would wreak their will. I do not, of course, venture to authenticate this despatch—perhaps something similar has already been received by His Majesty's Government—but I do desire to call their attention to the statement, because there is nothing improbable about it, and it supplies a further reason why troops should as soon as possible be detached to occupy the district in question. That district, as far as I can gather from the telegram, would appear to be the region south of Baku—between Baku and Enzeli on the coast of the Caspian.
The second point I desire to make is that the Christian refugees who escaped
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from the recent massacres and desire to return to their homes and to sow their fields for the next harvest cannot do so in the present disorderly condition of those countries. When the Turks were driven out of Van by the rising of the Armenians about the middle of 1915 the Russians joined them, and a large number of refugees returned. Subsequently the Turkish Army was greatly strengthened. The Armenians, who had fought with the greatest valour against the Turks, were driven with the Russians out of Van and obliged to return into Russian territory, and the refugees fled with them. This shows the danger of endeavouring to reoccupy a country when it is still in a condition of disorder. But these refugees exist in very large numbers in what were the Russian territories of the Caucasus. Many thousands of them have been supported by the contributions of charitable persons in this country and in the United States. There is nothing that they so much desire as to be able to return at once to their desolated homes, to rebuild their houses, and to sow their fields once more. The necessity is very great, for there has been grave famine in those countries for the last two or three years, and the famine will be worse and worse if the fields are not allowed to be sown now. There is a comparetively scanty population to carry on the operations of agriculture, and it is therefore of the greatest importance for everybody's welfare, the Moslem population as well as the Christian, that order should be as soon as possible restored, and that the fields should begin to be cultivated. The matter is really urgent, because unless the people can return in time for the early sowing there will be no crops next year, and a terrible famine must supervene.
Thirdly, a large number of Christians who during the massacres were seized or publicly sold by the Turkish officers into slavery in Turkish harems, cannot be liberated from this slavery except under the authority and by the action of European officers. When the great massacres were going on in 1915, and while the men were being taken out of the towns and slaughtered, so that some of the ravines in the mountains are still full of their skeletons, the young women were either seized and appropriated by Turkish officials and Turkish military officers or else were brought into the market and sold to the highest bidder. The older women were driven out along the roads and

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nearly all perished from hardship and want of food before they reached their destination in the distant Syrian desert. These young women, who were seized to be carried off and consigned to the most odious kind of slavery in the Turkish harems, are still wearing out their miserable existence there. They are numbered probably by thousands. They cannot be released except by the presence of European officers and European troops. And surely there is no one among your Lordships who will not sympathise with these unfortunate women, taken from their parents and their husbands, forced into a faith that they detest, obliged to call themselves Moslems, and subjected to the tyranny of their oppressors. Surely it is an obligation of humanity of the highest order that we should at once endeavour to liberate them before it becomes more difficult, as it does become more difficult with every year and every month.
I may add that a similar fate befel a large number of young boys. The older ones above the age of twelve or thirteen, those who could be caught, were all killed, without exception. The younger ones were handed over to dervishes and carried away to be brought up in Moslem monasteries as Moslems, taught to detest the faith of their parents, taught to detest the parents themselves, and without any hope of seeing their parents again. Many of those unfortunate boys might also still be rescued, but with them, as in the case of the women, every month that passes makes the process of rescue more difficult. I hope, therefore, that you will think that a very strong case exists for immediate action in these matters, and that it becomes an obligation and duty of humanity upon the Allied Powers to do what they can to rescue the people who are held in slavery and provide safety for thee refugees who wish to go back and try to rebuild their homes and bring some sort of faint first tinge of prosperity to countries that have been devastated.
I have only to-day received a telegram upon a matter which, although it does not directly concern my Question, is of so much interest that I will mention it and ask the attention of His Majesty's Government to it. I have just received it from a Committee at Geneva which has been, for the last three years, collecting subscriptions from charitable Swiss citizens and sending them out to the relief of Armenian
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refugees. It is authenticated by a Genevese gentleman of great distinction belonging to one of the highest families in the city and by an American missionary who served for a long time in the city of Adana. The telegram reads—
"I beg to call your attention to the fact that many Armenian orphans and deported women have been during the past three years devotedly cared for by German missionaries in several places—"
They name the places, but the names have been so much distorted in the telegram that all I could do is to guess that one of them is Kharput—
"We fear it would cause terrible distress if such missionaries should be compelled to withdraw before a new relief force could arrive and take over the work. We would express the hope that some delay might be granted until arrangements could be made."
Your Lordships will be glad to hear, I think, not only that the American missionaries in Asiatic Turkey have done their very best to relieve all the distress they could find, but that these German missionaries made the strongest possible representations to the German Government begging them to force the Turks to stop the maasscre, representing to them that the name and fame of Germany would be for ever sullied and disgraced if the German Government were to stand by and appear to give its acquiescence to the massacres which the Turks were committing.
Those appeals fell upon deaf ears. The late German Government—one is glad to call it the late German Government—not only refused to take any action to stop the massacres, but they forbade any information to be published regarding them in Germany. They suppressed the report of the missionaries, and they did their very best to keep the whole thing from the knowledge of the German people, or to invent false stories representing the Christians as having been the aggressors. I hope His Majesty's Government will feel that it would be proper that these German missionaries should not be disturbed in their charitable work, and that instructions should be given to any troops who may occupy the country that the missionaries should be allowed to carry on that work which is guaranteed in the way I have described until a relief force can come. I am glad to hear that the American Relief Committee, which has done so much to alleviate the sufferings of the Eastern

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Christians during the last three years, is preparing to send out a large relief force with ample funds for the benefit of the refugees. It would not be safe, of course, for them to traverse the country, or to attempt to distribute these funds, unless they could have such protection as the entry of British troops would afford.
I know that it may be difficult for His Majesty's Government to answer in detail the points which I have put to them. They would probably require to communicate with the military authorities abroad, and they might find it difficult to do more than to undertake to give careful and sympathetic consideration to the facts which I have endeavoured to lay before your Lordships and them. I hope, however, that they will do that, recognising the gravity of the matter, and I therefore leave the subject with confidence in their hands.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I should like to be allowed to say a few words about this matter, because circumstances have led me to be in close touch with some of the Christians of the regions to which the noble Viscount has referred, though perhaps my relations have been closer with those who lie a little to the south and east of the region which Lord Bryce has mentioned. I speak of the Christians on the borderland between Persia and Turkey—Van, Urumiah, and so on; mainly Nestorian Christians, and a certain number of Armenians with them. I am constantly in touch with those people, and, strange to say, even during the war, with that determination and perseverance to overcome difficulties which has characterised their whole story, they have got not only communications but emissaries through where other emissaries have failed to pass.
No terms can be used which would be too strong in describing the horrors which have been narrated to me by Christians from these regions—namely, those to which the noble Viscount had referred; the frequent putting up of women and girls to public auction as he troops passed, the old women driven away and the girls sold as cattle. A great many of the men were massacred, but those that were left succeeded with great courage in routing the Turkish and Kurdish forces which were trying to overcome them. I understand, as every one must, the extreme difficulty the Government would have in giving detailed replies or promises about I he matter
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at present; but the thing which always surprised me about that region is that the fact of some utterances being made, some assurance being given that we are not forgetting them, and that help will come to them where possible, does find its way to these people in a way which one would have thought impossible and makes a great difference to them. One would not imagine that meetings held in this country, arguments used in this House, or utterances made by the Government, would get through to these people. But they do get through. One has found again and again that they know more about these things than one would have thought possible; and anything we can say to them to assure them that they are not forgotten may be of inestimable value to people who have been suffering untold outrages and horrors of every kind, and who are now exposed to the outrages of soldiers, disbanded, reckless, and in search of food.
We owe a great debt of gratitude to the American missionaries who have remained at their posts through difficulties such as would have driven away almost anybody else. The same applies to the English missionaries, and, we are bound to admit it, to the German missionaries. There can be no question of the difficulties which they have all had to face. I felt that I could not remain silent, but that I must endorse every word Lord Bryce has said as to the gain that would come directly or indirectly from anything that could be said, still more from anything that could be done, to show that we have not forgotten these people.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, I cannot reply in detail to the Questions put by Lord Bryce, but I can give the noble Viscount an assurance in general terms which I think he will find satisfactory. The subject he has raised is one which is at this moment engaging the serious attention of His Majesty's Government in consultation with their Allies. I regret that a statement of the precise action which it may become necessary or desirable to take, in view of the situation described by the noble Viscount, cannot at this moment be made; but I gladly take this opportunity of assuring him that His Majesty's Government are fully alive to the gravity of the national and humanitarian interests involved, and are determined to spare no efforts to secure full satisfaction for the rightful claims of the Armenians.

OFFICERS AND MEN ON LEAVE.
LORD DENMAN LORD DENMAN rose to ask His Majesty's Government what provision is being made for the accommodation of officers and men of the British and American Forces when on leave in London.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, from correspondence and paragraphs that have lately appeared in the Press, there appears to be some uncertainty as to the amount of accommodation available for officers and men of His Majesty's Forces when on leave in London, and I think it would be well—it would certainly be for their convenience—if an authoritative statement could be made here this afternoon as to how the matter stands.
In asking this Question, I should like to say that I am well aware of the excellent work that has been done recently in the difficult months and years through which we have passed. His Majesty the King, for instance, has found accommodation for about 100 men every night at Buckingham Palace since the war began. Other good work in organisation has been done by General Sir Francis Lloyd, lately commanding the London District; by General Feilding, who has succeeded him in that command; by the Dominion and American authorities, by various organisations, and by private individuals. So the last thing I should wish would be to be interpreted as casting any reflection on the excellent work which has been performed in this direction.
But the point I desire to make and to urge upon the Government is this. I assume that within a short time—it may be a few weeks—there will be a more widely extended scale of leave given in France and elsewhere. I take it—at least I hope it will be the case—that more leave boats will be placed on the Channel service, and that a much wider allotment of leave will be given to the Armies in France, and to the lines of communication. I also hope it will be the case that a similar extension of leave will be given to the officers and men of the Grand Fleet, to the officers and men serving at the great naval stations and at the military centres in this country, and possibly also to the Armies which are serving in what were lately the more distant theatres of war.
If I am right in any of these suppositions, I think it is obvious that there will be a great influx of officers and men into this
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city, and that the existing accommodation will be severely taxed in order to meet requirements in this matter. With regard to our own men, I think your Lordships will agree that everything possible should be done for them to meet their convenience in this matter, especially when we think of the strenuous months and years of campaigning that they have undergone, and the great victories that they have won on land, by sea, and in the air. I think the same thing applies to the American and Dominion Troops, with this added consideration. In a good many instances, in the case of these forces, it may be the only occasion in their lives when they will visit this city and this country, and the impression thus formed will perhaps last for a life time. Therefore I think it is desirable, on every ground, that they should take away pleasant recollections of their stay here, and that everything that is possible should be done for their accommodation, and let me add, for their entertainment while they are with us. I do not want to take up the time of the House in making any detailed suggestions, but it seems to me that General Fielding and the American and Dominion authorities are the proper people to deal with them.
I desire, however, to touch upon two points. First of all, the question of accommodation for officers. That presents some difficulty, because His Majesty's Government have been obliged to commandeer so many hotels in this city, and in the few remaining hotels—some of them at all events—prices have been very largely raised and are higher than perhaps some of the officers are able or willing to afford. I was glad to see a letter in this morning's paper from General Fielding, appealing to householders in this city to find accommodation for individual officers, and I hope that this appeal may meet with a wide and generous response; but I think that something more might be done in this direction. I hope the Government may be able to take over one or two large buildings and administer them for the convenience of officers who are visiting or passing through London.
The second point which I desire to touch upon is the question of the meeting of leave trains. I know that a great deal of really excellent work has been done in this connection by the Motor Transport Volunteers, whose members have met leave trains at all hours of the night for many months

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past. I think I am right in saying that the resources of this corps have already been strained in order to meet the demands made upon it, and I would like to suggest to the Government that, as the supply of petrol increases and becomes available for owners of private cars, priority should be given to those people who are willing to place their cars for a certain number of days in the week at the disposal of the Motor Transport Volunteers, to be used for meeting leave trains, for hospital work, possibly for driving convalescents, and for similar purposes.
I naturally do not expect a definite answer from the Parliamentary Secretary, but I hope he may be able to consider the suggestion which I have made. I repeat that I have asked this Question in no spirit of criticism, but I am sure that the noble Earl is quite as keenly desirous as I or any member of your Lordships' House can be that everything possible shall be done for the convenience of officers and men when visiting the metropolis on leave.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE WAR OFFICE (EARL STANHOPE): My Lords, the situation at present is as follows. There are sixteen hostels or clubs in London providing accommodation for 882 officers. There are ninety-one other hostels or clubs for the accommodation of 11,309 other ranks. These figures, I think, will show to your Lordships that the question is by no means a small one, and, as my noble friend said, a great deal has already been done in order to meet the requirements of the large number of troops who visit the metropolis. I frankly confess that at one time the accommodation was inadequate, and the War Office have found it necessary to stop leave to London of home troops quartered in the Home Command. A large number of officers and a certain number of other ranks used to visit London when given leave from the provinces, and since we have stopped this leave we find that as a whole the accommodation in London is sufficient for those coming from overseas, by which I mean coming from service at the Front. Of course, the stopping of leave to London does not apply to troops of the Dominions or of the American Forces.
The War Office realise fully that additional accommodation will be required in the near future. When demobilisation begins, it is true that demobilisation will
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take place in the neighbourhood of the homes of both officers and men, but I think it is to be expected that at any rate a large number of officers, some of them accompanied by their families, are likely to visit London. Therefore we are endeavouring to get additional accommodation, and the whole question is under consideration by a Committee on which representatives of the Dominions and of the American Army have been asked to attend. The problem is not an easy one of solution. It is quite useless to commandeer hotels, for the simple reason that, if you do, it merely means that those who at present are living there will have to find accommodation elsewhere, and so the problem remains as before. The real difficulty is to find out for individuals where accommodation is available, and it is under consideration whether it is possible to institute something rather like a theatre booking agency, by which it would be possible for officers and other ranks to go to a central place and there purchase a ticket for a bed. The trouble at present is that they go to places which are already full, or overfull, whereas not far off there may be accommodation available which they fail to find. Therefore if we can get some organisation of that kind obviously it would be an advantage, but I trust that, my noble friend having brought this question forward, it will get still further publicity, and that the appeal made by General Feilding, Commanding the London District, will receive a very wide response.
I do not pretend that this will meet the whole case, because it is possible that we may have to undertake either some building, or possibly get possession of some houses, so that we may have centres where we can put up great numbers of people, ratherthan a largenumber of centre where we can put up a few. The whole question, as I have said, is under consideration by a Committee of the War Office, and I have every hope that it will be able to find a solution which will be satisfactory to all concerned.

THE MINISTRY OF FOOD.
LORD STRACHIE LORD STRACHIE had the following Notice on the Paper—
To call attention to the shifting policy of the Ministry of Food; and to move to resolve, "That in the opinion of this

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House the regulation of imports and exports and the system of administration of the feeding, grading, and sale of cattle, sheep, and pigs are vitally affecting the flocks and herds of the country and require immediate attention."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Motion which stands in my name has been put down in consultation with and with the approval of Mr. Cautley, who till lately was the Pig Controller appointed by the President of the Board of Agriculture. As your Lordships are aware he has resigned. A, similar Motion, having the approval of 150 Members of Parliament, was also put down in another place. That, I think, shows your Lordships that there is a good deal of backing behind it. Owing to the forms of another place, and the fact that the Government have complete control of the time of the House, it was impossible for that Motion to be brought forward, and the only means of bringing it to the notice of the House was by referring to it, as I understand is being done to-day; on the Vote of Credit.
Your Lordships will see that it is a Motion which requires some attention. It may be said that the Ministry of Food have at the last moment, as a sort of deathbed repentance, made a considerable number of concessions, not, it is true, to the House of Commons or to your Lordships' House, but to the Royal Agricultural Society. I understand they have announced that they will do away with the prohibition against the slaughter of pigs under 112 lbs. Your Lordships will see that that is a very considerable concession, because the prohibition grossly embarrassed unfortunate cottagers and small-holders who had no means of feeding these pigs except by purchased stuff. As they were unable to purchase any stuff, certainly after the end of this year, and probably not at the present moment, it was unfair they they should be obliged to keep the pigs alive and not slaughter them. I am glad to think that that concession has been made.
But why is it that these difficulties always have to be pointed out? It always seems that the Ministry of Food can never look forward more than a week or two, and that they are constantly altering their arrangements and Orders. It has been very hard indeed upon the cottagers and small-holders, who were appealed to by the President of the Board of Agriculture last
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year and at the beginning of this year when he reversed his policy. Previously he said that bacon was not wanted and that nobody should keep pigs. That policy was reversed and pig clubs were started to encourage everyone in town and country to keep a pig. Then they made all these contradictory Orders. To a certain extent, I think the pig question has been met, but that is not the case so far as I am aware with regard to the question of cattle.
There it seems to me a most peculiar state of things has arisen. Cattle were sent to market in large quantities in the autumn, as is always the case, coming off the grass in good condition and fit for the butcher. What was done? These cattle were sent back from the markets and farmers were told that they must keep them. I heard the statement made at a meeting of the Council of the Royal Agricultural Society that one area, which had 12,000 cattle fit for slaughter, was told that the farmers would only be allowed to slaughter 1,000 per week, so that in some cases farmers would have to keep the cattle for twelve weeks. Practical agriculturists know what would be the result of keeping them at home when there was no grass in the pastures, no feeding stuffs, little hay and in some cases very bad hay.
This behaviour of the Ministry of Food is all the more extraordinary when one remembers that they made a promise to the farmers and graziers that there should be two ways of disposing of their cattle. One was that if there was not sufficient demand in the local market the cattle should be sent to distributing markets further away, and the other that if there was any over-supply in the local market the Government would at once buy and, at the option of the farmer, send the cattle back to his farm for a week at the risk of the Government. That promise—which of course was a very reasonable one and one which farmers thought would be carried out—has been broken, and I do not think that my noble friend who is going to reply will say that that is not the case.
I should like to ask my noble friend why it is that at this time, when there is an actual glut of cattle in the country and cattle are being sent back to the farmers, more cattle are allowed to be imported from Ireland into this country? I was told that instead of an average of something like 4,000 cattle per week being brought over, at one time 13,000 cattle

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were brought. At the same time we are aware that the meat ration had been reduced during the autumn. It seems curious that this should happen, although there was more cattle for slaughter and less meat was allowed to be consumed in this country.
I would also ask my noble friend as regards the American Meat Trust. No doubt he has made himself acquainted with the report of the American Commission. I gave him notice of the various questions that I am putting to him, because I recognise the difficulty of my noble friend in answering for a Department with which he is not connected, and also the difficulty which arises from the fact that he is not even a Minister of the Crown. If the Leader of the House the Lord President of the Council had been here I should ventured to remind him how, when he sat on this Bench, he used to protest even against Court officials representing Departments instead of Under-Secretaries. I do not know what he would have said, if he had been sitting here now, of a great Department like the Ministry of Food being represented by a noble Lord who, however efficient—and we know how efficiently he can speak for it—is not speaking as a Minister of the Crown, as we should like to see him speaking.
I would further ask the noble Lord what arrangements were made with Mr. Hoover regarding the meat and grain in Great Britain; whether any agreement was reached as to the supply of concentrated food-stuffs; whether any supplies were promised, and if so, what such supplies were forthcoming; and if not, why they were not forthcoming afterwards. I would also ask whether it is a fact that flour is being imported in very large quantities and grain in very small quantities indeed. Of course, the House will think that this is very germane to the subject, became if only flour is being imported there are consequently no offals for the feeder in this country. From the American point of view—as good business men (and Mr. Hoover, I suppose is one of the most astute business men in this country or in America)—they naturally wish to send over food and also to keep up a good market not only for now but for the future. That is the reason apparently why we get only the finished article in the form of bacon, or in the form of flour, and not in the form of foodstuffs.
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We do not get food-stuffs, although we ought to.
Next, I would ask whether it is the case as regards feeding cakes that, while last year there were 350,000 tons in the hands of farmers, there are at present only 70,000 tons? Also, whether he can give us any idea what will be the available supply, for the next three or four months, of cattle cake? The noble Lord is aware it is very important indeed that farmers should have oil cake and also cotton cake. I was surprised to be told the other day that out of the little cotton cake they allowed the Government are making a handsome profit. I was told they are actually making a profit of £4 a ton on all the cotton seed which is brought over and sold to the crushers here. I think the House will agree that this whole question of animals generally and the supply of food for them in this country is not very admirably managed. They have not looked ahead and there have been great difficulties placed in the way of agriculturists in this matter. And, of course, what we have always been met with in the past was the argument "We must break our promises; we admit it is a great muddle, and there are difficulties to the farmers, but you must not mind, because we are at war." Fortunately we are now no longer at war, and I hope the Minister of Food, and certainly the President of the Board of Agriculture, will do what they can and let farmers know exactly where they are.
There would not be such complaints of the Board of Agriculture and of the Ministry of Food if farmers had been kept well informed ahead of what was likely to happen. What they dislike is this constant change and alteration. I wish to point out to your Lordships' House that not only is there a difficulty with regard to food and feeding of cattle, but if you allow to go down our stocks of cattle and sheep in this country, it will be a very serious thing—that is, to reduce our breeding flocks and herds—because the tendency, as we know, under these difficulties is to slaughter both sheep and cattle which ought to be preserved for breeding purposes. Moreover, if you diminish them, you diminish also enormously the fertility of the land, because unless you can have an adequate amount of manure you cannot have proper production. Artificial manures are all very well in their way, but they can never replace the manure of cattle and sheep.

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While the Government on one hand are urging that more land be ploughed up, they are not giving the farmers the opportunity of treating that land properly.
I do not intend to detain the House any longer, except to ask my noble friend one or two questions of which I have given him notice. One is, whether there has been appointed a new super-grader who controls the decisions of the grading committees; whether the old grading committee consisting of one farmer, one butcher, and one auctioneer, was appointed by an Order in Council which provided that the decision of such Committee was final; by what authority Mr. Clynes's new commissioner overrides the decisions of such Committee. I think the House will see that is a very serious matter, a practical Committee having been set up, that he should appoint somebody else to override the decisions of that Committee.
I also ask another question with regard to freezing plant, because I venture to think one of the great difficulties with regard to bacon and other foods is that the Government did not look ahead and provide freezing plant. Why has the Ministry of Food during the last two years done nothing to set up freezing plant for the purpose of keeping a reserve of meat in the country? I also ask whether, when they did contemplate a little while ago, setting up a cold storage, they abandoned the idea because certain companies interested in cold storage took objection to the Government intervering with their business, as they contended it would do after the war, as the Government storage would be in competition with their own. As regards that statement, I may say it was made by Colonel Stanyforth at a meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society, and appears in their printed Report, as probably my noble friend may have seen. What is the reason that the Foodstuffs Distribution Committee is not under the Board of Agriculture and is under the Ministry of Food, and what was the reason why it was thought that Mr. Renwick, an electrical engineer, was the most fit person to deal with a purely agricultural matter? If it were not that we are accustomed to that kind of thing, it would be very surprising to reflect why an agriculturist was not appointed by the Ministry of Food to look after such an essentially agricultural question as that.
I ask, further, whether it is the case that owing to the representations of the Royal
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Agricultural Society, barley is to be released to the farmers for feeding stuff purposes, and if so, why there has been this delay in releasing such barley. Will the barley be sold at a controlled price, and will, in their turn, the millers be allowed only to sell it at a small profit on the cost of milling and distribution? That is a question on which farmers take a great interest. Farmers who are not large growers of barley and have to buy, think it is very unfair when there is this fixed price for the finished article, that the millers should be allowed to make a large profit by selling this stuff at a profit in excess of what they would make on ordinary occasions.
I also ask whether it is the case that a thousand tons of feeding stuffs, valued at £l6,000 was stored at Darlington at the cost for putting into storage of 3d. per ton, making a further charge of £12 10 s. a week for keeping it there, and further, whether, from being stored too long, the feeding value of the stuff was practically destroyed I have tried to be as short as possible, and to go in details very little indeed, owing to the late hour of the night, but I think your Lordships will agree that this is a very important matter indeed, the matter with regard to our food stuffs for the stocks in this country, if we are to be self-supporting. Therefore I have ventured, even at this late hour, to go into this question shortly, and move the Motion standing in my name.
Moved to resolve, That in the opinion of this House the regulation of imports and exports and the system of administration of the feeding, grading, and sale of cattle, sheep, and pigs are vitally affecting the flocks and herds of the country, and require immediate attention.—(Lord Strachie.)
LORD BLEDISLOE: My Lords, the noble Lord has moved what is, in effect, a vote of censure upon the Government in respect of its food policy. He has at the same time addressed to me, or rather to the Government for whom it is my business to reply, certain questions, which I propose to reply to, to the best of my ability. I may, perhaps, say it is by no means the first time that the noble Lord and I have crossed swords across the floor of a debating chamber; and on many an occasion in another place, when our positions were reversed and I was the interrogator, I am afraid his replies failed altogether to carry conviction to my mind; and I fear it is just possible that on this occasion my

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replies may have a similar effect upon his mind. But at least I hope that I may be able to convince your Lordships' House that the alleged shortcomings of the Ministry of Food, if shortcomings they have been, are of a comparatively venial character when contrasted with the acknowledged benefits which that Department has conferred upon the country.
The questions which my noble friend has addressed to me are of a varied character, and I will endeavour to reply to them seriatim. The first I understood to be as to what arrangements His Majesty's Government made with Mr. Hoover regarding the supply of meat and grain for Great Britain. The arrangement was of a very indefinite character, and was, broadly, to the effect that owing to shipping tonnage and the difficulty of carrying food from any distant part of the world, North America, and particularly the United States, should furnish as much meat and as much grain as they possibly could. The noble Lord asks specifically what arrangement was made with regard to concentrated foodstuffs for farm stock. No specific arrangement was made with Mr. Hoover on this subject while he was on a visit to this country, but at a meeting of the Inter-Allied Food Conference, on which America was fully represented after he left, there was an agreement arrived at to allocate no less than 1,700,000 toms of animal food-stuffs, consisting of maize, oats, and cattle cake—maize to the extent of 750,000 tons, oats 500,000 tons, and cake 450,000 tons. I can only observe, when the noble Lord says, and truly says, that these anticipated supplies have not been forthcoming—and in fact they have not—that there was undoubtedly a serious miscalculation made as to what the available resources in animal food-stuffs of the United States were. There is no doubt, also that they very materially underestimated the food requirements of their own Army. Those are the only reasons that I am able to give to your Lordships for the fact that this anticipated food for our animals which was to come from the United States has not come to hand to a greater extent than something like 20,000 tons. I propose, if I may, to revert to that matter later, because I shall be able to give a comparatively reassuring statement to the House on the matter.
The noble Lord asked me as to whether there has been appointed a super-grader
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who controls the decisions of the grading committees, and whether the old grading committees, consisting of one farmer, one butcher and an auctioneer, were appointed by an Order in Council which provided that the decisions of such committees were final and by what authority the Food Controller's new commissioner overrides the decisions of such committees. The old grading committees undoubtedly did consist of a farmer, a butcher, and an auctioneer, but the constitution of those committees was not part of the Order to which the noble Earl refers. The Order was not an Order in Council but was an ordinary Order of the Food Ministry, and in fact it was so worded as to enable the Food Controller at any time to decide what should be the grading authority; that is to say, what the powers of the grading authority should be, what its constitution should be, and what changes in its constitution should thereafter be made I have in my hand a copy of the Order. I do not know if the noble Lord has studied it, but I think that he will find from it that the Food Controller was fully within his powers under the four corners of that Order in appointing the grading sub-commissioners, as they are called, in order to check the work of these grading committees.
I may say that the losses which resulted from inaccurate grading were becoming very serious and rendered necessary some supervision of the work of the committees. It was therefore decided to attach to the staff of each live-stock commissioner a person experienced in the judging of live-stock, and for that purpose there have been selected what I may call the best class of market dealer, who is fully conversant with the work of both buying and selling live-stock. It is the duty of there men to inspect the records in the different markets, and to intervene only when intervention is necessary under the existing system. If the farmer is dissatisfied with the results of their intervention, the sub-commissioners of grading have power to take over the stock on behalf of the Ministry on a dead weight basis, thus assuring to the farmers the maximum price based on the yield of meat from the animal in question. The result of their work has proved to be so satisfactory that it is in fact intended to add considerably to their numbers, so that the grading at all markets may be subject to systematic supervision.
The noble Lord referred to the question of freezing, and asked why it was that the

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Ministry during the last two years had done nothing to set up freezing plants for the purpose of keeping a reserve of meat in the country, and stated, in a later part of the question, that it was in fact contemplated, but that the idea was abandoned in deference to the objections of certain persons interested in cold storage. Arrangements have been made to freeze and chill in this country as large quantities of fresh meat as possible, but the existing plant is only capable of dealing with a small amount of meat. About eighteen months ago a freezing plant was set up at Cardiff on rather a large scale, and it has not proved altogether satisfactory. It is extremely difficult to obtain the machinery necessary for starting plant of this kind in this country, and it has been impossible to obtain such machinery from abroad. I think that it is only right to mention, in these days when one does not want to waste coal or power of any kind, that in the view of the experts it is a very wasteful system to adopt to freeze and preserve home-killed meat, because it takes from two to three times as much coal and power to freeze meat as to store meat already frozen. Investigations have been made as to the capacity of the existing freezing and chilling plants in this country, and fresh meat is in fact now being put into, chilling chambers wherever possible in order to postpone its consumption for a few weeks during which this unfortunate glut is likely to obtain. It is anticipated that in this way it may be possible to freeze from 4,000 to 8,000 quarters weekly, and to chill about the same quantity. This would mean that at least 56,000 beasts could be disposed of during the next three months. This will materially assist the general situation, although the shortage of labour also presents considerable difficulties. In this connection I may mention that the Ministry of Food have suffered very much during the last ten months owing to the conscription for the Army of such a large number of slaughter-men. An appeal has been made to release the slaughter-men now in the Army for this purpose, and there is every reason to believe that at an early date a much larger number of slaughter men will be available for carrying on this work.
It should be mentioned that the approximate amount of refrigerating space and cold store space throughout the United Kingdom is at present no less than 36,500,000 cubic feet. The scheme which
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the noble Lord said was abandoned owing to consideration for the trade interests of a certain company, was for the creation of accommodation in various parts of the country for the storage of refrigerated produce, and not for the actual freezing of the produce itself. This proposal, I can assure the noble Lord, was not abandoned in consequence of any request from the trade, but was solely on account of shortage of labour and materials.
Then the noble Lord asks why the supply and distribution of feeding stuffs are not controlled by the Board of Agriculture, but are controlled by the Ministry of Food. The answer to that is that, in the first place, the domestic edible animals of this country provide a very large proportion of our food supply, and their maintenance, therefore, is of vital concern to the Food Controller in whose hands the administration of the food supply must necessarily rest. Secondly, they compete with human beings for a very large number of feeding stuffs, particularly barley, oats, wheat, and indeed to some extent the offals of these cereals; and, thirdly, the importation of all feeding stuffs is made by the Ministry of Food, and, as the purview of the Ministry extends over the whole of the United Kingdom, it is obviously desirable that the distribution of feeding stuffs should come under the one Department which can control them wherever they are available rather than under a single Department having a very limited control, as any one of the Departments of the Board of Agriculture, of course, has I do not know whether the noble Lord considers that it would be desirable to put the control of animal feeding stuffs under the control of the Board of Agriculture in England, but I am quite sure that, if such a course were taken, the Scottish Board of Agriculture and the Department of Agriculture in Ireland would have a good deal to say.
As regards Mr. Renwick, he is not an electrical engineer; he is a commercial man of very wide business experience as an organiser and administrator. The late Lord Rhondda appointed him to this particular task, not as an expert on feeding stuffs, but owing to his exceptional capacity as an organiser and administrator—and he was well acquainted with his work. It is perfectly true he is connected with the supply of electricity. He holds some very important office in connection with the London electrical supply—I forget which—and he

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is also chairman of the Provincial Electrical Supply Association of the United Kingdom, and the importance of the work of those two bodies has recently grown to such an extent that he has resigned his position at the Ministry of Food quite recently to resume his former work.
The noble Lord referred to the release of barley for feeding stuffs. I notice that the noble Lord asked a question of me just now as to whether there was a year ago 350,000 tons of cattle cake which has now been reduced to 70,000 tons only. That is perfectly true. There is at the present time about one-fifth of the cattle cake in the country that there was a year ago. But I may add in passing, for his reasurance, that under a scheme to which I am about to refer briefly it is estimated that that amount will shortly be raised to something like one million tons.
LORD STRACHIE: Will there be an assurance that the millers will not be allowed to make an excessive profit on the barley which is released?
LORD BLEDISLOE: I am glad the noble Lord has reminded me of that. The noble Lord is referring to barley specifically. It is not expected that barley will in fact, be passing into the mills for conversion into flour for human consumption. An arrangement has now been made by the Ministry under which farmers will be allowed to retain 20 per cent. of the barley grown on their farms, and the balance they must place at the disposal of the manufacturers—the maltsters and the brewers—and in the hands of certain dealers who will put them upon the market for the purpose of feeding stuffs as animal food. The question of the millers' remuneration will not arise in connection with barley, but in the case of all these middlemen interests through whose hands barley will pass there will, in fact, be a limited amount of profit permitted for them to take. With regard to the other point raised by the noble Lord they will not in future be permitted to mix adulterants with the barley or other grain that passes through their hands. If they attempt to do anything of the sort or sell a worthless product at more than the aggregate value of its constituents they will be prosecuted and severe penalties imposed.
As regards the question about the storing of certain cake at Darlington, the
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question was as to whether 1,000 tons of feeding stuffs, valued at £16,000, was stored at Darlington, whether the cost of storage was 3d. a ton and a charge of £12 10 s. a week was made for keeping it there, and further whether, from being stored too long, the feeding value of the stuff was practically destroyed. I do not know what basis the noble Lord has for this suggestion, but, at any rate so far as I can obtain any information from the Ministry, there is no ground for his suggestion. Only 100 tons of cake appears, to have been stored by the Ministry at Darlington. Rent at 3d. per ton per week is being paid to the firms who are storing the cake on behalf of the Ministry, and this is the only charge that has been paid. The cake was stored on August 31 and was last inspected on October 15, and the report then made was that the cake was in perfectly good condition. Twenty-six tons of it have since been released, and no complaint has since been received by the Ministry that the cake is out of condition or has deteriorated in any way whatever.
The noble Lord asked a question with regard to the representations made by the Royal Agricultural Society. I should like to say, in passing, that the Ministry is under a debt of considerable gratitude to the Royal Agricultural Society for the very valuable advice which its Emergency Committee has given from time to time with regard to agricultural matters. But I should like to assure the noble Lord that it is not only in consequence of what I may call "ginger" being applied by the Royal Agricultural Society that the Ministry of Food have taken the line—shall I say have mended their ways?—in the direction that the noble Lord would desire.
I may, perhaps, refer in passing to a very important body called the Central Agricultural Advisory Council, composed of representatives of leading agricultural experts from every part of the United Kingdom, a most authoritative body which sits at least once a fortnight and gives advice to the Ministry of Food and to the Board of Agriculture on matters of Government policy relating to farm economy. That body is presided over by the noble Earl, Lord Selborne. I am one of its vice-chairmen, and a particularly able and vigilant agriculturist in the person of Dr. Charles Douglas is the other vice-chairman. All of us are appointed not by the Ministry but by the farmers themselves; and I

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assure your Lordships that a very searching investigation and scrutiny is conducted on the occasion of every one of our meetings into the policy, or proposed policy, of the Ministry as affecting British agriculture.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: Hear, hear.
LORD BLEDISLOE: It is perfectly true that very often suggestions have been made at meetings of that Council which the Government have found it impossible to carry out; but I am bound to confess—and I fancy the noble Earl will support me in what I am about to say—that the Ministry of Food have put an extraordinarily good case when such criticisms have been brought forward. Their very able officials have frankly stated the difficulties which the Ministry has to face; and in every case where the farmers on that Committee have not been satisfied with the assurances which the officials of the Ministry have given, I think they would be the first to admit that it is not the isolated policy of the Ministry of which they have to complain, but the fact that, in acting their part in the national administrative machine during a time of extreme emergency, what the Ministry would desire has had to give place to what either other Departments or the interests of the other Allies, render more important from a purely national standpoint.
It would be wrong for me to take up the time of your Lordships' House, but I think I ought to say in connection with this particular Motion that, in view of the extraordinary difficulty during the last three or four months of harmonising all the essential interests of the various Allies in the course of pooling all our resources, agricultural, financial, and shipping, and in order moreover to give priority to those war commodities which were most essential to the early termination of hostilities and the winning of the war, that the charge which the noble Lord brings against the Ministry—that of vacillation—is, so far from being a charge of which we have reason to be ashamed, one on which I think we have reason to pride ourselves. The noble Lord founds his vote of censure upon alleged shifting, or vacillation, in the food policy of the Government. But surely there are conditions in which vaccillation of policy is a positive virtue, in which consistency would be a mere fetish if not an unpardonable crime. If ever these conditions had existed, surely they have existed during
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the past seven months. Vacillation in policy is the necessary consequence of vacillation—fluctuation if you like—in the fortunes of war.
Seven months ago, in the month of April, the unexpected violence and success of the German advance threatened the occupation by the enemy of the Channel ports. Since that time every effort has been made to bring over American troops, their equipment, their munitions, and their food. To do this no less than 3,000,000 tons of shipping previously allocated to, or earmarked for, food, including animal food-stuffs, for British consumption has been transferred to the carriage of American fighting material. And who, in the light of the experience of the last four week—including the historic occupation of Sedan by American troops—will say that this policy was wrong? The Government shifted its policy—I accept the noble Lord's term—the Government deliberately shifted its policy, When last Spring the ranks of the miners, of the munition workers, of the farm workers, and of the slaughtermen—to whom I have referred—already seriously thinned, were further depleted in order to meet the requirements of the Army. In my own special sphere of food control—that of the direction of the supply and distribution of sugar—I had last Spring after consultation with my Commission, to decide most reluctantly to abandon several hundred thousands tons of cheap sugar of high quality in Java owing to the length of the voyage, and to buy at three times the price sugar of lower quality from Cuba and other Western sources of supply. It was a shifting policy; but there would not be an ounce of sugar in the United Kingdom to-day if it had not been adopted under the shifting circumstances.
Surely the victorious cessation of hostilities has to some extent taken the sting out of the noble Lord's Motion. It has shown the need, if I may say so, for observing a due sense of proportion in this matter of war time requirements, and has emphasised the importance and the true economy of giving priority, amid conflicting claims, to the vital needs of the armed forces of the Allies. But in saying this I should like to be perfectly frank with your Lordships' House on this the first occasion that I have had the honour of addressing it.
Several NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear.
LORD BLEDISLOE: I have never disguised from myself, and I will not disguise from this House, the grave risks to the future of British agriculture which might have resulted from the continued serious shortage—throughout the coming winter and the following spring, owing to the exigencies of the war and to the steady curtailment of our shipping—of concentrated animal feeding stuffs. I travel the whole way with the noble Lord when he adumbrates the possible—aye, the probable—dangers which might accrue to British agriculture assuming that this continued shortage were to exist over a prolonged period. The absence of sufficient animal food means necessarily a reduction in our flocks and herds. These have been, we all admit, the sheet anchor and backbone of British agriculture for the last thirty or forty years; and what is more, during the first two years of this war there would have been a meat famine but for that fact. Also this country has been undoubtedly the store-house of animals of the highest quality in order to feed the requirements of the whole world in the matter of the livestock they required, possessing the constitution which for some reason the climate and the soil of this country appear able alone to provide. But the most serious result—and I am glad the noble Lord emphasised it—would have been, as the result of this policy, had it been continued, the undoubted less of fertility to our increased arable area in consequence of the lack of farmyard manure. The noble Lord is perfectly right in saying that you cannot replace with artificial fertilisers—which are all too scarce, and which will be scarce for years to come—farmyard manure; its mechanical value alone is of enormous importance in maintaining the standard of fertility which we must maintain if we are going to justify the increased arable programme which this war has forced upon us.
Having said this, I hope that this House will admit that the Ministry of Food and the Food Controller, who have had an enormously difficult task during the last few months, and who, if I may say so, fully share the standpoint which the noble Lord has put forward and fully sympathise with the interests, both present and future, of the agricultural community—will admit that in face of the call made upon the very limited shipping resources of this country for needs even more paramount than those, for the moment, of the agricultural industry, have come out of this difficult period with
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credit to themselves and as events have fortunately turned out with no very serious risks to the future of our greatest industry.
LORD STRACHIE: Will the noble Lord answer my question, as to why there was such a large increase of Irish cattle allowed?
LORD BLEDISLOE: I have made inquiries on this subject, and I learn that the Order which was issued keeping back matured cattle from British markets, in order to maintain the present ration of meat, if possible, over the spring months of next year, applied equally to Ireland as to Great Britain, but for some reason or other the shipping companies did not carry out their instructions for something like a fortnight after the Order was issued, with the result that in the interim a certain number of Irish cattle came over and appear to have been given a preference in this country.
LORD ST. LEVAN: My Lords, I wish to ask my noble friend one question about the reply which he has just given. He said that the profits of the middle-men who were furnishing feeding stuffs to the farmers were going to be altered. I have information to the effect that while farmers have been selling their corn—wheat and barley—for £16 and £17 per ton, the feeding stuffs have been sold back to the farmers at £23 and £25 per ton. I do not suppose he is able to give an exact answer to my question, but if he can give some assurance that the profits which the middle-men will make on the corn will be a great deal reduced from that figure, it will be very welcome news to the farmers, who feel very deeply on the subject.
LORD BLEDISLOE: If I understand my noble friend Lord St. Levan aright, he is referring to the same point as was raised by Lord Strachie before, and I think I said, and I should like to repeat it, that an Order is in contemplation which will put a stop to all this profiteering on the part of these middle-men interests, and to the incorporation into mixed foods of worthless ingredients sold as a compound mixture at a far higher price than the value of the constituent.
LORD ST. LEVAN: I understood him to say that, but does he say that they will not be able to charge £23 for corn for which they paid the farmer £16?
LORD BLEDISLOE: I think that necessarily follows.
On Question, Motion negatived.

CULTIVATION IN THE ROYAL PARKS.
LORD STRACHIE: I beg to ask whether we can be furnished with a return on the cultivation of certain areas in the Royal parks in continuation of Command Paper 8996.
LORD STANMORE: The figures relating to this year's cultivation in Richmond and Bushey Park are still incomplete, as the crops of wheat and oats have not been threshed. It seems likely that this will be completed before next Spring, when the Office of Works will be very pleased to give my noble friend the Return for which he asks.
[The sitting was suspended at ten minutes past eight o'clock and resumed at a quarter past nine.]

SCHOOL TEACHERS (SUPERANNUATION) BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee, read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve it self into Committee.—(The Earl of Crawford.)
LORD ROE: My Lords, may I have the pleasure of a word before the House enters upon the Committee stage of this Bill? I desire to be permitted to say, my Lords, how glad I am to support a measure which will have the effect of inducing many deserving people who now stand aloof, to take up teaching as a profession. As this is a question which I have considered for years, I am pleased, on the first occasion of my taking part in the business of this House, to say what a pleasure it is to find this Bill being passed.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF DONOUGRMORE in the Chair.]
Clause 1:
The EARL OF CRAWFORD: I propose to submit to your Lordships four Amendments, all of a purely technical and drafting character, not changing or affecting the substance or policy of the Bill in any degree. The first Amendment is in Clause 1, and the other three in Clause 5.
Amendment moved—
Clause 1, page 2, line 26, leave out ("twenty years") and insert ("such number of years, not being less than twenty, as may be prescribed").—(The Earl of Crawford.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 2 to 4 agreed to.
Clause 5:
Amendments moved—
Clause 5, page 3, line 38, after ("employed") insert ("at whatever age")
Clause 5, page 4, line 24, after ("teacher") insert ("of any age")
Clause 5, page 4, line 26, leave out ("a grant-aided school") and insert ("recognised service ").—(The Earl of Crawford.)
In Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 6 to 14 agreed to.
Clause 15:
Power to make rules.
15.—(1) The Board may, with the consent of the Treasury, make rules for carrying this Act into effect, and those rules may in particular provide—

(a) For the manner in which, and the time within which, an application for a superannuation allowance or a gratuity is to be made;

(b) For the notice to be given to teachers of their option not to accept this Act, and the manner in which and time within which that option is to be exercised;

(c) For the notice to be given to teachers of their right to withdraw from a pensions scheme:

(d) For the manner in which and the time within which any application for the recognition of service as qualifying service is to be made to the Board:

(e) For the refusal or suspension of all or any part of a superannuation allowance or gratuity if the person to whom it is payable is wholly or partly maintained out of any public funds:

(f) For allowing any such service as may be recorded in the case of a certificated teacher by virtue of the provisions of the Elementary School Teachers (War Service Superannuation) Act, 1914, to be treated in the case of any teacher as recognised or qualifying service for the purposes of this Act, and for determining what salary a teacher is for the purpose of computing the average salary to be regarded as receiving during any such service:

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(g) For determining what salaries teachers are to be treated as receiving for the purposes of this Act during any periods of absence on sick leave, and how far such periods are to be treated as service for the purposes of this Act:

(h) For prescribing anything which under this Act is to be prescribed.

(2) All rules made under this section shall be laid as soon as may be before both Houses of Parliament.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY moved to insert the following proviso at the end of subsection (1): "Provided that in making rules under this Act with respect to teachers serving in non grant-aided schools which are open to inspection and are efficient, no differentiation shall be made by reason of the schools being connected with or not connected with any particular religious denomination."
The noble Marquess said: This Bill underwent, as I think I reminded your Lordships upon the Second Reading, one important change in passing through the House of Commons, and that was that the Government consented to admit under its purview schools which were not grant-aided but which were efficient and open to inspection. That is a very valuable concession, and makes this Bill more acceptable to many of us. I should have welcomed the Bill in any case, but with that addition it is a valuable measure. The effect of the acceptance of that Amendment in another place was to include a large number of schools which are extremely useful from the point of view of secondary education, providing as they do a great variety of type, being popular with a particular section of parents, and in many cases by their old tradition and by the position they occupy in public estimation, being very useful parts of the provision of secondary education. They have one additional advantage that they constitute a considerable saving to the public purse, because if the secondary education which is provided in these schools was not there provided—if they had ceased to exist, which might have been the effect of depriving them of the pensions scheme—then a much heavier charge would have been thrown upon the public in order to provide, at public expense, the necessary number of places which the closing of those schools would have made necessary;
For these reasons the Amendment which was accepted by the President of the Board of Education in another place was a very valuable one. That Amendment was ac-
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chieved in paragraph 7 of Clause 17, on page 11. The last paragraph on the page sets forth one of the conditions which these non-grant-aided schools must fulfill in order to have the benefit of the Bill. Paragraph (d) says "satisfies such other conditions as may be prescribed as necessary or desirable for securing the public interest." That is a very general power. I am not calling it in question, because think that it is necessary that the Board of Education should reserve to itself the power of making certain regulations in order to satisfy the very necessary demands of public policy and public opinion in these matters. In Clause 15, which is the clause that we are now upon; it is provided that the Board may, with the consent of the Treasury, make rules for carrying this Act into effect. If your Lordships will look at the end of the subsection, line 49, on page 10, you will see that it says, "for prescribing anything which under this Act is to be prescribed," and one of the things which is to be prescribed is the paragraph (d) of Clause 17 to which I have called attention. One of the provisions of Clause 15 is, therefore, to give power to make rules for prescribing what is to be done under paragraph (d) of Clause 17.
Your Lordships may ask what is contemplated in these Regulations which may be prescribed under Clause 15 and 17. In my conviction in the vast majority of cases there are not only likely to be but there are certain to be very salutary rules. But there is one subject in regard to which Parliament has always been jealous lest, by means of an Act of Parliament or by Rules prescribed under the powers of a provision in an Act of Parliament, a school professing particular denominational views, and teaching particular denominational doctrine, should be placed at a disadvantage with other schools because of its particular denominational character—provided only that the teaching which it gives in other respects comes up to the recognised standards of efficiency which the State lays down. It is evidently possible that under this Rules clause there might be prescribed a certain Regulation which a school might be called upon to fulfill which would be inconsistent with its denominational character.
I know I shall be assured by the noble Earl that nothing of that kind is to be feared from the present President of the Board of Education. That may be so but

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before I discuss that let me call attention to the precedents. First we have the precedent of the celebrated section 97 of the Elementary Education Act, 1870. That did not specifically deal with the difference between denominational and unsectarian under that name, but it did provide that the conditions for a Parliamentary grant to a public elementary school shall not give any preference or advantage to any school on the ground that it is or is not provided by a School Board. As I say, that did not expressly mention unsectarian schools, but of course it involved it, and that was the point of the provision. I take another precedent, the Act of 1902. The last precedent I quoted dealt with elementary education, but this one deals with secondary education. It does not deal, it is true, with grants of money from the Treasury, but it does deal with grants from the rates. This is what Parliament said—
"A Council, in the application of money under this part of this Act, shall not require that any particular form of religious instruction or worship, or religious catechism, or formulary, which is distinctive of any particular denomination shall or shall not be used, taught, or practised in any school, college, or hostel, aided but not provided by the Council—"
It is very parallel, except that it is rate money instead of tax money—
"and no pupil shall on the ground of religious belief be excluded from, or placed in an inferior position in any school or hostel provided by the Council."
That, of course, was dealing with maintenance grants and this is dealing with pensions, but the principle applies to the one as to the other; and that was dealing with rates instead of tax money, but there, again, the principle applies to the one as to the other; and in the Act of 1902 it was expressly laid down that no difference was to be made in respect of the support from public money by reason of the denominational or undenominational character of the school.
When I am told that at present we have the great advantage of Mr. Fisher presiding over the Board of Education, and that, therefore, nothing is to be feared from regulations made by him, I would remind your Lordships that in 1902 the then President of the Board of Education was certainly above suspicion, because he belonged to the Party to which the noble Earl and I belong, yet it was thought necessary, although there was a Con-
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servative and Unionist Minister of Education, to put in this strong saving clause, lest there should be some kind of possible victimisation (to use a word which is very common in another connection) on account of denominational belief. I do not know, for I have not heard, what particular danger Parliament at that time feared, as there was a Unionist and Conservative Government in power. It may have been a terror lest an undenominational school may have been put at a disadvantage. But you must not. I think, interpret an Act of Parliament in that way; you must not consider who is the President of the Board of Education at the moment. It may be a Unionist President, or it may be a Liberal; or it may have been a Unionist one when it was passed, and Parliament may have passed the regulation lest the Unionist one should become a Liberal, or his successor should be a Liberal.
We have an extremely distinguished, and I am bound to say a most satisfactory, President of the Board of Education, yet he might be succeeded at any moment by another President who is not so acceptable from every point of view. I think your Lordships will observe that I have addressed myself to this subject with every desire to avoid any language which may offend anybody's susceptibilities. I have learned of late to value so highly the contribution which Nonconformist religious bodies make to the religious equipment of the nation, that I should be intensely sorry if I said anything at all in your Lordships' House which would lead people to think that I for a moment looked upon them with anything except the most profound respect. But there is no doubt that upon subjects which men feel very deeply there is always the possibility of injustice. I should be sorry if it were the case that people in our country did not feel deeply on religion. I wish they felt more deeply; but I believe that the mass of the people have a profound respect for religion, and that some members of the nation feel for it most deeply.
You cannot avoid, if you have that very salutary frame of mind, a certain exaggeration. It is the necessary consequence of deep feeling, which leads people, or rather I should say misleads people, meaning to do absolutely right, into using the temporary power of a Parliamentary majority in order to place at a disadvantage those with whom they are not in religious agreement.

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Let us suppose that at the General Election, which we are informed is about to take place, that contrary to all expectations a very great change was to take place in the complexion of the House of Commons, and that the next new Minister of Education was supported by gentlemen who, perhaps deeply religious themselves, took a view adverse to the teaching of definite denominational doctrine in secondary schools. Then it might be that regulations might be prescribed under this clause which would place the denominational schools at a disadvantage. Consequently, I suggest to your Lordships that in order, even if I put it no higher than this, to prevent any kind of anxiety in the minds of the religious managers of some of these secondary schools, it would be well to introduce a protective clause—not a one-sided clause but a clause to protect, alike, both schools which do teach definite religion and those which do not—that in neither case shall they be put at any disadvantage whatever on account of their denominational or undenominational character. I wish to impress upon your Lordships that this is intended to be an absolutely fair Amendment between the two, that it is supported by substantial precedent, and that it cannot do any harm, while it will allay a certain amount of apprehension, and that it ought according to the settled practice of Parliament to be inserted in respect of the allocation of money in any Education Bill.
Amendment moved—
Clause 15, page 10, after line 20, insert ("Provided that in making rules under this Act with respect to teachers serving in non grant-aided schools which are open to inspection and are efficient, no differentiation shall be made by reason of the schools being connected with or not connected with any particular religious denomination").—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I am afraid that my noble friend seems to have had some inkling of the reply which I propose to make—namely, that while sympathetic towards what he has said and urged, it is considered by the Board of Education that there are serious administrative objections, and indeed that were the clause, as he outlined it, added to the Bill, it would not necessarily act as he desires—namely, as a protective measure. I will, with your Lordships' permission, state in some detail the attitude of the Board of Education on this subject.
In the first place I would ask your Lordships to remember that this Bill, as intro-
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duced, was primarily, and indeed was solely, intended for teachers in grant-aided schools. That is the first, and indeed at the outset was the sole, function of this measure. In another place, with the sanction of the Treasury, the Bill was extended to apply to non-aided schools, which are, of course, mainly secondary schools. Teachers in these establishments were admitted to the superannuation benefits laid down for the teachers in the grant-aided schools. It would have been very easy at that stage to have refused altogether to agree to this extension, but it was thought, rightly thought, that it was well to deal with all the teachers synchronously and to extend the benefits to the non-aided school teachers by an Amendment to this Bill, rather than wait for an amending Act at some subsequent date.
Mr. Fisher appreciated the changes and chances of political life and the difficulty which might arise next year, or the year after, of passing an amending measure, and so he seized this opportunity which happily presented itself. He quite appreciated the difficulty in which the teachers in the non-aided schools would be placed owing to the enhanced competition which might be expected to follow the improved status accruing to teachers in grant-aided schools as a result of the superannuation system. The Board of Education, therefore, must not be considered unsympathetic towards helping teachers in the non-aided schools, but I must at the same time point out that this is an accretion to the Bill.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: It expresses the wishes of the House of Commons. It has that honour.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Yes, of course. I do not depreciate either the teachers in the non-aided school or the wise action taken by the House of Commons. What I want to point out is that in the original Bill, as drafted, there would have been perhaps 160,000 or 170,000 teachers affected, the bulk of whom, of course, are in elementary schools, whereas under the subsequent Amendment dealing with the non-aided schools, probably not more than 2,500 teachers would be affected. Lord Salisbury is afraid that the latter category of teachers will be placed in a disadvantageous position. He said that there might arise a recognised standard of efficiency which might be used against their interests.

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But I must really point out to the House that, while Mr. Fisher was quite ready to open the door to the admission of these teachers to the superannuation scheme, the Board of Education has no official knowledge whatever of the existence of these schools. The noble Marquess said, If a proper standard of efficiency is maintained in these schools why should not the teachers have the full benefit, and why should not this Amendment be passed? There is no recognised standard of efficiency in these schools. Technically the Board of Education does not know of their existence.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The noble Earl will forgive me for interrupting him. He himself has provided the standard, because if he will look at Clause 17, to which I called his attention he will find in paragraph (b) of sub-section (vii) the words occur "is open to inspection by the Board and shown to the satisfaction of the Board to be efficient." The Board, therefore, must have in its mind some standard of efficiency; otherwise, this would not be an operative provision at all.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Of course, I am speaking of before this Bill comes into being. The existence of these schools is unknown. When this Act is passed, and when public money is paid to the teachers in these schools, it is, I think, clear to everybody that the Board of Education must have, I do not say some control—
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Oh, certainly.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: But some voice in the management—
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Certainly.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: And some supervision of the standard in order to ensure that public money is not going to be thrown away. I do not think Lord Salisbury gave sufficient attention in his remarks to the fact that these Rules have to be laid before Parliament for a period of, I think, fourteen days. That is laid down in the fifteenth clause of the Bill, and the procedure of the Statutory Rules Publication Act is followed in this case. It is not only either House of Parliament that is able to object to these rules, or to criticise. Practically anybody is entitled to
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raise objections, if he desires to do so. That is a great safeguard, and is a safeguard which I think has not had sufficient attention paid to it. If this Act comes into operation early next year, the rules will have to be made pretty soon, and I am sure that Mr. Fisher would not have opened the door to the admission of these teachers unless he had meant that a substantial number of the schools should profit by the conditions permitted under the Bill. Some conditions there have got to be.
In some cases I think it is admitted that certain defects may occur, and a particular case in point would be where there are claims of non-local boarding schools—many of which have high fees and perhaps somewhat exclusive tradition—on state funds, schools which are considerably weaker than the great mass of grant-aided schools. It is hoped that many of these local schools which at present receive no grant-aid will come on the list during the next five years, as is allowed under the seventeenth clause. One hopes that it may be much easier for them to do so than it is at present. That, of course, involves a reconsideration of the grant regulations, which it is understood may be undertaken in the future.
I wish to refer to a point on which Lord Sailsbury laid some emphasis. It was this. Whereas he himself would be quite ready to entrust the interests of these schools and of these teachers to a President of the Board of Education whom he knows and whom he trusts—Mr. Fisher, if you please—he feels sceptical about who Mr. Fisher's successor may be. Well, I understand the argument; I am perfectly familiar with it; I daresay in time gone by I have used the argument myself; but in this case I think there are safeguards which are adequate. Personally, I am interested in denominational schools, but I must say think it is to be deprecated that we should raise what is unquestionably a denominational issue on this particular Bill and on this particular occasion. The President has to frame rules under this clause. I am quite sure that in the present temper of the public the President will be trusted, and must be trusted, so to frame his rules, that he will have the support of public opinion in keeping out of them anything which could be said to savour of intolerance or improper discrimination against a particular class of school or teacher. So far as Mr. Fisher is

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concerned I have his assurance that is his own personal attitude.
But I wish to point this out to Lord Salisbury who says, "What about Mr. Fisher's successor? When the rules have been once framed and interests created under them, it will be extremely difficult for any future Minister so to stiffen them as to injure those interests, or to create a grievance on the part of the schools concerned, or of the individual teachers. I do not say that Mr. Fisher's successor, if actuated by sinister motives, could not find a hundred ways of circumventing the words which Lord Salisbury proposes, even if we put them in the Bill. I am quite certain that the malignity of man could swim through the protective clause which Lord Salisbury has drafted, and if somebody means determinedly to set out to evade it, the Amendment will be of course quite ineffective. On the other hand, from an administrative point of view, to put this Amendment in the Bill is going to be extremely awkward even for a man like Mr. Fisher, a Minister who is actuated by the most honest regard for the public interest.
In the first place, from a technical point of view, this Amendment would undoubtedly create a position of uncertainty, and uncertainty in itself is to be deprecated. It would also be doubtful under these words, if a rule which in fact operated so as to affect the denominational schools more widely than other schools, was or was not invalid subject to the words of Lord Salisbury's Amendment. I do not say that no rules ought, in the public interest and in consideration of the receipt of public money, to be made affecting in any way the giving of denominational instruction, or the obligations of scholars to receive denominational instructions, or the adherence by teachers to a particular religious denomination. I make no such claim. But, however devoted a man may be to the Church with which he is connected, it must be recognised that the State cannot and must not disclaim all interest in such matters, or leave a school to which it pays a public subsidy to act as it pleases. Some measure of control, therefore, is essential, but under Lord Salisbury's Amendment it would be uncertain whether the State, acting through the Board of Education, could impose any conditions at all in such matters, because the conditions from their very nature could only arise in the case of de-
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nominational schools, and therefore could be considered to be injurious to their interests compared with those of ordinary grant-aided schools.
I have said on previous occasions and I think from what I gather to-night that Lord Salisbury shares my views—that a better public spirit prevails than used to be the case a few years ago, that anti-denominational prejudices are less acute than formerly, and that we should act wisely in trusting to the responsible Minister of Education a very wide discretion in dealing with these non-aided schools. If that discretion be exercised narrowly or unfairly towards any interests for which Lord Salisbury specially speaks, the procedure under the Bill gives full opportunity for challenging it on the publication of rules either by members of the public who are interested and concerned or by members of both Houses of Parliament. Under these conditions I regret, my Lords, that I do not see my way to accept the first Amendment moved by Lord Salisbury.
LORD SOUTHWARK: I should like to put a question to my noble friend in the interests of the governors of schools which are not rate-aided, but which are inspected by the Board of Education and recognised as efficient, who do not wish their governing bodies added to or interfered with, What length of time, after the Rules under Clause 15 are laid, will be allowed before they are put into operation, and will Parliament have the opportunity of amending them? It is a very important question affecting schools which would like to avail themselves of this superannuation scheme, and where it would really not be in the interests of education to interfere with them. Will the Board of Education have power to say that these schools may continue to be governed in the same way as now without any alteration in the governing body?
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I shall have to inquire into that point and on the Third Reading or Report stage of the Bill make a carefully considered statement on the subject. For the moment, I am afraid I must plead guilty to not being able to answer the question without consulting the experts.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I did not hope by my Amendment to control the malignity of a sort of criminal President

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of the Board of Education. We do not expect such persons in our well governed State. My noble friend had no difficulty in proving (but he really did not require to prove it), that if you once imagine unlimited malignity on the part of a Minister of the Crown he can avoid most statutes. That is perfectly true, but we need not legislate from that point of view. What we really wish is to express the view of Parliament, with the confident conviction that any Minister who would be likely to be at the Board of Education in the life of any of us, or of our grandchildren or great grandchildren, will administer his office bona fide. So I do not think that that argument is of any value. But listening with all my might I tried to find out what the noble Earl's argument really was, and at last I think I did discover it. I think what he is afraid of is that there might be some excessive form of religious observance or eccentricity, which it would be right for the President of the Board of Education to check. I really could not find any other argument of any substance in all that he said. Personally I would take my chance of that extremely improbably event. If that is all that the noble Earl has to say I think it would have been wiser for him to have accepted the Amendment. It would have been clear, if he had done so, that the President of the Board of Education was determined to administer this Act without any kind of discrimination against denominational schools. But I have great confidence in the present President of the Board of Education, and I do admit quite candidly that the first Rules made under this Act are the most important Rules which can be made under it. It is perfectly true that there is a certain difficulty in altering them once they are made—a certain difficulty in public opinion. And therefore, as I have received from the noble Earl assurance of the strong determination of the President of the Board of Education to administer this Act without discrimination against denominational schools I shall not ask your Lordships to divide upon this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave withdrawn.
Clause 15 agreed to.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I do not want to detain your Lordships. I have an impression that the noble Earl is going to accept the second Amendment standing in my name. Is that so?
THE EARL OF CRAWFORDindicated assent.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: In that case I will simply move it.
Amendment moved—
After clause 15, insert as a new clause:
"Power of governing bodies to comply with conditions.
"Notwithstanding any provision regulating the trusts or management of a school, the governing body of the school shall have power to fulfill any conditions which may be required to be fulfilled in order that service in that school may be recognised service for the purpose of this Act"—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.

TITHE BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee, read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Clinton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL of DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.
Clause 3:
Consideration for redemption.
3.—(1) The consideration money payable on the redemption of a tithe rentcharge on any land under the Tithe Acts, 1836 to 1891, or this Act, shall, in lieu of the amount authorised or directed by the Tithe Acts, 1836 to 1891, be such an amount as may be agreed by the owners of the land and of the rentcharge, and in default of such agreement as may, on the application of the owner of the rentcharge, or of the owner of the land or any part thereof, be determined by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, in accordance with the provisions contained in the Second Schedule to this Act, to be fair compensation for the redemption.
(2) An agreement made under this section may provide that the consideration money shall be discharged by an annuity payable yearly or half-yearly for such period, not exceeding fifty years, as may be agreed, consisting of interest at the rate of five per centum per annum on the consideration money, and of such sum as would be sufficient if the periodical payments thereof were accumulated at compound interest at the rate of four per centum per annum, to produce an amount equal to the consideration money at the end of the said period, and in any such case the Board shall by order direct the discharge of the con-

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sideration money by such an annuity as aforesaid and shall charge the land therewith, and the order shall contain such provisions for giving effect to the agreement and for protecting the interests of persons interested in the rentcharge as the Board may think fit, and after payment of the first instalment of the annuity the rentcharge shall cease and be extinguished.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: The Amendment which I have on Clause 3, and which is accompanied by various Amendments in the Second Schedule which your Lordships will see on the next page, is one of somewhat greater importance than might appear at first sight, and of rather greater importance, I confess, than I at first sight conceived when it was brought to my notice.
I am asked to move this Amendment on behalf of the London County Council, who are themselves tithe-payers to the extent of £1,200 a year, but it is one which I am informed is also approved by some important bodies, Chambers of Agriculture, and others. The general effect is that, questions of value—that is to say, both of the estimated annual tithe which is to be estimated in the first paragraph of the Schedule, and estimated outgoings, and the capitalisation value—that all these should be estimated by a single arbitrator appointed by the Board of Agriculture rather than by the Board itself. There are various reasons why it is desired to press this Amendment. One is—and I think it is of some importance—that the Board of Agriculture, like other Departments, wisely never states its reasons for doing what it does. That is to say, that, when it arbitrates on a question of value of this kind, the mental process by which the sum is arrived at is never likely or liable to be explained. When these matters are dealt with by an arbitrator, they come under the ordinary practice of the Arbitration Act, and are liable in the last resort, to review, and, in some cases, may finally come before a Court of Law; whereas my noble friend's Board states a sum and there is no appeal from the figure which is mentioned; and it is thought by those who prefer this alternative method, that the ultimate result will be that a certain standard of value will be fixed by the Board of Agriculture, which will be made applicable in practically all cases, instead of the very varying conditions being considered by different arbitrators, appointed in
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different parts of the country under the Act.
This is rather more important than appears, for this reason, that there, are certain cases, which are probably not very numerous but which do exist, where, as the tithe exceeds two-thirds of the value under Schedule B, the County Court can order the remission of the tithe, as the noble Lord knows, beyond that value; and the effect, of course, of that is that unless expert knowledge is brought to bear upon the actual value of the property, and the future prospects of the property, a sum might be fixed covering a term of years which would prove in the long run to be altogether unfair to the redeemer of the tithe. There is this further point, upon which the noble Lord will no doubt tell me if I am not right, but I am informed that, as the Act stands, once a tithe-payer enters into a scheme of redemption he is compelled to go on with it, however it may work out for him. It may, of course, happen that on discovery of the amount which he would have to pay, he finds that it is was a purely uneconomic thing to do, but I understand that he cannot withdraw but is obliged to continue the required redemption on such terms as may be decided. All these various considerations may not sound so very important taken singly, but taken together they do seem to me to make it desirable, really as much in the interests of the Board as in the interests of the public, that there should be no suspicion that these capitalisation values are being arrived at in anything like a hole-and-corner manner. I venture to think that the burden of proof, as against the appointment of an independent arbitrator of this kind, rests not so much upon myself, in moving the amendment, as upon the Department who by the Bill retain the power for themselves. Of course I do not for a moment suppose, and nobody would imply, that these arbitrations are likely to be unfairly conducted, but as a matter of public confidence, particularly in these days, when Departments are being accused in every quarter of taking too much power in their own hands, I wonder whether the noble Lord would not be wiser, on behalf of the Department, to agree to an Amendment which I cannot think would prejudice the justice of the awards or in any way interfere with the proper duties of the Department which he represents.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 11, after ("by") insert ("a single arbitrator appointed by").—(The Marquess of Crewe.)
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (LORD CLINTON): The noble Marquess, in moving this Amendment, has put forward three main grounds for the proposal to substitute a single arbitrator appointed by the Board for the Board itself. The first, I think, was this, that the Board would not state their reasons which caused them to arrive at certain conclusions with regard to the subject matter before them, but that an arbitrator would do so. I speak without absolutely certain knowledge on the matter, but I think an arbitrator very seldom gives his reasons; he does so only if he is forced to do it.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My point was that the arbitrator in some circumstances could be called upon to do it, whereas the Board never could be, and would not be subject to review.
LORD CLINTON: He may be called upon to do it if the Court thinks there is a miscarriage of justice or something of that kind. The second reason was that conditions are so varying in different parts of the country that they ought to be represented to an arbitrator. Generally speaking, in the matter upon which the Board will have to come to a decision the conditions vary very slightly. There is the case which the noble Marquess mentioned where possibly the tithe has risen above two-thirds value and it would remain to the County Court to strike off a certain portion of it. I admit there is that case, but, in spite of that, I think that the reasons I am going to give the noble Marquess why it is better to keep this clause as it is without this alteration, are sufficiently strong to get over the very insignificant number of cases where the appointment of an arbitrator might be better.
I am going to object to the proposal not mainly, but firstly, on the ground of expense. The number of redemptions under this measure will, we hope, be very large. It is quite certain that a considerable number of them will be of a very small amount—£2 to £3 perhaps—and it seems exceedingly unwise to add to the cost of redemption what would be a large percentage of the value of the redemption, owing
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to the appointment of an arbitrator; I do not think you could say that the cost of arbitration would be very small. The noble Marquess himself told the House some of the subjects which would come before the arbitrator; that is that mainly, he would have to estimate the annual sum payable in perpetuity equal to the value of the rentcharge.
It is quite easy to imagine that witnesses might be obtained in considerable numbers from different parts of the country to guess—and they could do no more—as to what is the proper value of a tithe rentcharge in perpetuity, and, even if a very large number were not obtained, they obviously would run up the cost of arbitration to a figure out of all proportion to its value. But it is not on the ground of expense alone that I am going to base my objection. I am going to claim that the Board of Agriculture is the most suitable body for the purpose. They have correspondents in most parts of the country. They are able to get at the value payable in perpetuity, which I admit is guess work, but they are able to get that just as well as the arbitrator can get it from any number of witnesses he may call.
The most important thing is that the Board of Agriculture, from the means at its disposal, will decide what the value payable in perpetuity is for the year. They will publish that value, probably in January in each year, at the same time as they publish the ordinary corn averages. That seems to me to be of the very greatest importance, particularly in view of the noble Marquess's last contention, his fear that when once a tithe-payer had entered into a scheme for redemption he would be bound to go on with it. I think that is the case under the Act. If it is left to the single arbitrator to decide, it is quite clear that the tithe-payer is leaping in the dark. He does not in the least know what these number of witnesses may persuade the arbirator is the proper value of the sum payable in perpetuity. But if left to the Board, he knows actually what is the value for the year in which he proposes to redeem, because that is already published by the Board in January. And I think that is really an outstanding advantage.
The general objection, the objection which is always taken—we have just been debating the subject—of the Department appearing at all in the position of arbitrator,

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is that the Department has an interest in the case. There can be no suggestion that the Board of Agriculture has any interest at all in a case of this kind. The interests lie entirely between the tithe-owner and the tithe owner, and the only interest that the Board has is to get at a fair value between those two bodies. I hope the noble. Marquess will see that at all events there is good reason for the Government adhering to the proposal which they have in their Bit. I am afraid must object to the Amendment.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: I am much obliged to the noble Lord for his full and courteous reply, and I shall not press the Amendment, even if it were possible to do so, against his objection. I confess I did not quite follow the point that he made of the superiority of the publication by the Board of Agriculture of the average redemption values for a particular year, because it seemed to me that that could equally well be done by the Board, in fact ought as a matter of propriety to be done by the Board, even if the principle of arbitration by an arbitrator were adopted. But I do not want to press that point, or indeed any other. I wish that the noble Lord had been able to accept the Amendment, because I think on the last point he made it would have inspired more perfect confidence if the Department had stood aside in a matter of this sort. But as he has not done so, I have nothing more to say. I withdraw it, and the consequential Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD STUART OF WORTLEY: I should like to raise the question of the amendment of line 18, on this page, in the same clause. I apologise for not having put it down on the Paper, because in truth we did not, receive this Bill as it left another place until so very late in our proceedings. But I will tell your Lordships, if it is not thought inconvenient, what it is, and I will move this Amendment now. It would be to cut away this fixed rate which is described in lines 18–23 [subsection (2)], the fixed rate at which the money is to be accumulated, and to insert in the first instance, after the words "fifty years," the words "computed in such manner," so as to leave the rate to be arrived at by agreement between the parties. Some consequential words will have to follow, and if the noble Lord in charge of the Bill prefers
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that it should be left to the Report stage, of course I shall defer to his wishes in order that we may arrive at the exact form the words should take. Still we all know that time presses and it is quite easy to any one who understands financial conditions to realise that there will be nothing left to produce a net yield of 4 per cent. if you say that 4 per cent. shall be a fixed rate at which the fund for redemption should accumulate, so long at all events as income Tax remains at six shillings in the £ and you wish to limit your investments to investments of a class which do not yield more than 5 or a fraction above 5 per cent. Therefore if this fixed rate remains in the Bill no business in the nature of redemption will result.
Amendment moved—
Clause 3, line 18, after the words ("fifty years") insert ("and computed in such manner").—(Lord Stuart of Wortley.)
LORD CLINTON: If the noble Lord puts in the words there, will be not require to make the subsequent sums of 5 per cent. and 4 per cent. more elastic?
LORD STUART OF WORTLEY: Certainly, or cut them out altogether.
LORD CLINTON: I would suggest to the noble. Lord that he had better defer this till to-morrow, because I have had notice of a considerable number of Amendments upon this particular clause, and I think that it would be more convenient to consider his Amendment along with the others.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clauses 3, 4 and 5 agreed to.
LORD CLINTON: The new clause that is down on the Paper in my name is little more than a drafting Amendment. Under the Act of 1846 a number of options are given as to the disposal of the redemption money by persons who only have a limited interest in their estates, and people under certain disabilities as to disposal, and certain Corporations who are not allowed to sell except by authority of the Act of 1846. It, is proposed here that if they do not take advantage of those options the consideration money may be paid into Court as provided by the Act.
Amendment moved—
Insert the following new clauses:
"Payment of consideration money into court in certain circumstances.
"Where any person fails to exercise within such time as the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries may direct the options given by section nine of the Tithe Act, 1846, as to the application of consideration money for redemption of a rentcharge, the consideration money may be paid into court in manner provided by that section.
"Statutory declaration for purpose of redemption.
".—(1) For the purposes of the redemption of tithe rentcharge the Board of Agriculture as
nd Fisheries may require the owner of the rentcharge to make a statutory declaration stating—
"(a) the nature and extent of his estate and interest in the rentcharge;
"(b) the date and short particulars of the instrument under which his estate or interest is derived;
"(c) the names and addresses of the trustees, if any, under such instrument; and
"(d) the incumbrances if any affecting the rentcharge;
and the Board may accept a declaration made under this section for the purpose of redemption."—(Lord Clinton.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD CLINTON: The next Amendment standing in my name is also of a drafting nature. It deals with the lay owners of tithe who may possibly put difficulties in the way of the ascertainment of their titles. This clause makes it clear that the Board can obtain a proper declaration of title if it is required.
Amendment moved—
Insert the following new clause:
"(2) If the owner of a rentcharge fails to make a declaration as required in pursuance of this section the Board may direct the redemption money for t he rentcharge to be paid into court as in a case where the owner is only entitled thereto for a limited estate."—(Lord Clinton.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clause 7:
LORD CLINTON: The next Amendment is a drafting one to make it possible to leave out of the Schedule the fourth subsection. It does not alter the sense of the Bill in any way.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, lines 13 and 14, leave out ("shall, except as otherwise expressly provided by this Act") and insert ("except the Second Schedule shall").—(Lord Clinton.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 7, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.
First Schedule:
LORD CLINTON: The next is a drafting Amendment consequent on the Second Schedule, which gives power to the Board to fix the consideration money for redemption.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 22, at end insert:

48 & 49 Vict. c. 32.

The Tithe Rentcharge Recharge Redemption Act, 1885.

In section three from "Provided always" to the end of the section.

—(Lord Clinton.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
First Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
Second Schedule:
LORD CLINTON: The next is also a drafting Amendment, consequent on the Amendment which I have just moved.
Amendment moved—
Page 6, line 10, leave out paragraph 4.—(Lord Clinton.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Second Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

LICENSED STOCKBROKERS (IRELAND) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

PARLIAMENT (QUALIFICATION OF WOMEN) BILL.
Debate upon the Motion of Viscount Chaplin—viz., to resolve that the Bill be read 2a this day three months—resumed (according to Order).
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The original Motion last night was that this Bill be now read a second time. An Amendment was moved to leave out the word "now" for the purpose of substituting "this day three months." A division was claimed, and in consequence of there not being thirty Peers present the debate stood adjourned.
On Question, that the word "now" stand part, Motion agreed to, and Bill read 2a accordingly.

A FRIDAY SITTING.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I beg to move that the House do now adjourn. I am afraid it will be advisable that the House should meet on Friday, and I suggest that it should be at the usual hour. The House will meet to-morrow, of course, at the usual time.

PRIVATE BILLS.
[From Minutes of November 12.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certi-
86
ficates from the Examiners that the Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with:

Gas Provisional Orders

Gas and Water Provisional Orders.

The same were ordered to lie on the Table.

GAS LIGHT AND COKE COMPANY BILL.
Reported, without Amendment.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes before eleven o'clock.