Lords Sitting of 14 November 1918

VISCOUNT CAVE.
The Right Hon. Sir George Cave, Knight, one of His Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, having been created Viscount CAVE of Richmond, in the County of Surrey Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
LORD STERNDALE.
The Right Hon. Sir William Pickford, Knight, President of the Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice, having been created Baron STERNDALE of King Sterndale, in the County of Derby—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.

WAR DECORATIONS.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, I beg to ask the noble Earl the Parliamentary Secretary of the War Office, a Question on which I have given him private notice. Your Lordships may know that in the name of Lord Dunraven there is a Question down for November 21, whether any decision has yet been arrived at regarding the award of a decoration for the Gallipoli Campaign of 1915. My noble friend Lord Dunraven is not in the House, but as I understand the War Office are now able to give an answer to this Question I take the liberty of asking my noble friend opposite if he will kindly inform the House what is being done.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE WAR OFFICE (EARL STANHOPE): My Lords, I am glad to be able to say that an agreement has been reached, which has received the approval of the War Cabinet and of his Majesty the King, which, I am assured, is satisfactory to those principally concerned. The settlement of this matter has been complicated owing to the diversity of the interests involved, and has been delayed by the need for consultation with the Dominion authorities.
In the first place, the 1914 Star will be reserved for its special purposes. A Star on the same model and with the same riband but bearing distinctive marks as to dateߞnamely, the years 1914–15ߞwill be given
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to all officers and other ranks of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, who prior to December 31, 1915, served in a ship of war at sea, and all officers and other ranks of Military and Air Forces who served in a theatre of war prior to the same date. In every case, the officer or man must have served on duty and with proper authority, and no officer or man will receive the 1914–15 Star in addition to the 1914 Star.
Thus, in the same way that those who first bore the brunt of the attack in France and Flanders received a special mark of recognition by the award of the 1914 Star, so those from our Dominions and Colonies, as well as British and Irish troops who first responded to the call of duty and served in a theatre of war, will receive special recognition. The House will recollect that it had been originally proposed and sanctioned that the Governments of Australia and New Zealand should present their troops with a special medal for the operations on the Peninsula. They have now agreed to the new proposal, so that all troops, British and Indian and those from the Dominions, who shared the same dangers and hardships, shall receive the same award. The date chosen—namely, December 31, 1915—forms a definite break in the operations, and all concerned have accepted it on the understanding that it is final. It will interest the House to know that there will be included, in addition to all those who fought on the Gallipoli peninsula, the Canadian troops who fought at the second battle of Ypres, the battle of Festubert, and subsequent operations of that year in France and Flanders, all those who fought at the battle of Loos, the troops engaged in the defence of Egypt, the troops who conquered German South-West Africa under the command of General Botha, as well as all who were engaged in other parts of the African continent, the Australian Force which captured the Bismarck Archipelago, and those who fought so gallantly under General Townshend at Kut.
The Committee arrived at this solution after consideration of a number of alternatives, which they had to reject for a variety of reasons. Thus the adoption of a special medal marked "Gallipoli" would have landed us in claims which could not have been withstood for medals for other theatres of war or special operations; and, moreover, the recognition of locality as marking special operations will be made in due course in

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the form of clasps to whatever war medal is adopted
The "Dominion Star," which had already been approved for Australia and New Zealand, could not have been accepted and worn by Imperial troops; and, moreover, the Canadians did not want, nor indeed did the Australians and New Zealanders want, a decoration which was not to be shared by their brethren of the United Kingdom. Thus the Committee reached the position that whatever was given must be common to all who had shared the same dangers and hardships, and as one medal and not a multiplicity was the only practicable solution, the Committee had to seek a common basis of services for all which would entitle to the award.
They found this in the principle underlying the 1914 Star—namely, services in a theatre of war within limits as to dates. The 1914 Star is limited to one theatre and is for services during a limited time and of a certain limited special significance. The Committee decided to avoid depriving that Star of its special value. They took it, however, as their model for the solution of the problem before them. They adopted the plan of a Star on the same model but with the marked distinctiveness of a different date—namely, 1914–15—instead of that which now appears on the 1914 Star.
As to the limits of time, they first selected the first year of the war, the idea being to reward those who first came forward and served against the enemy, but this period would have ended on August 5, 1915, would have excluded many whom they wished to see rewarded, and, moreover, would not have answered to the description on the medal of the year 1914–15. They therefore, after consultation with the Dominions, adopted the date December 31, 1915.
As to the riband, they considered the advisability of a special riband, but they found that if the model of the 1914 Star were not followed, a diversity of ribands to meet the particular wishes of the Dominions would have had to be adopted. A suggestion was considered of using the same riband but marking that of the 1914 Star with a thin red line. This, however, presented difficulties of manufacture, and, moreover, would certainly have led to claims that both ribands and Stars might be worn by the same officers and men. As it, was desired not to issue two medals, it
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was necessary for the Committee to confine themselves to the same riband as that of the 1914 Star.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: I understand, from the answer given by the noble Earl, that members of the Territorial Force will be put on exactly the same footing as members of the Regular Army.
EARL STANHOPE: Anybody who served in a theatre of war with a Territorial Force or the New Army.

REPATRIATION OF PRISONERS OF WAR.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I beg to ask His Majesty's Government a Question of which I have given private notice to my noble friend Lord Newton. Is he able to give the House any information as to the arrangements which have been made or are in contemplation for bringing back the British prisoners of war?
THE ASSISTANT UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (LORD NEWTON): My Lords, arrangements have been made for the repatriation of prisoners from all the countries with which we have been recently at war. With regard to Austria, a certain number has already arrived in Italy or at. Trieste, and the Earl of Cavan has been instructed, and the Italian Government have been requested, to take all the necessary steps to secure the early repatriation of such as desire or are entitled to return. With regard to Bulgaria, all the British prisoners, with the exception of, I believe, something between forty and fifty, are already in British hands. As regards Turkey, a considerable number of prisoners have already arrived in Egypt and other districts under our control. A certain number have also been exchanged across the lines, both in Mesopotamia and in Palestine. The bulk of the British prisoners in Turkey are concentrated in the neighbourhood of Salonika, and arrangements have been made to bring them from Salonika in British vessels. In the meanwhile the authorities in Egypt have been instructed to see that everything necessary for their comfort is supplied.
As regards the prisoners in Germany, our information is that the number of prisoners who have arrived in Holland up to

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the present date are not believed to exceed, roughly speaking, 1,000. Our Minister at The Hague has appointed, with the approval of His Majesty's Government, a Committee consisting of the Consul-General at Rotterdam, our Military Attaché at The Hague, and General Bruce, who has himself been a prisoner in Germany, to act as a Committee charged with the welfare of our prisoners arriving in that country and their earliest possible repatriation. Extra medical supply and transport staffs are being sent out, and besides a very large stock of emergency parcels from the Central Prisoners of War Committee, 30,000 full kits and 30,000 rations for a month will be sent immediately as a first instalment. All Red Cross workers, V.A.D.'s, and medical personnel now in Holland will be retained for the present to cope with the emergency if required. Besides such Dutch ships as may be available, seven ships capable of carrying 9,000 persons have been ordered to Holland to bring back the prisoners, and three of them sailed yesterday. I may add that, independently of these arrangements, a small party is expected in England to-day or to-morrow. And I might observe, in connection with this, that the statements in the Press with regard to the arrival of British prisoners appear to be totally inaccurate.
In addition to these arrangements, arrangements are being made in order to evacuate prisoners from the Baltic, if necessary, or from Copenhagen. In connection with these measures 10,000 kits and 10,000 rations for a month are being sent, and it is hoped to effect the repatriation of prisoners east of the Elbe by neutral ships from Baltic ports. For such of our prisoners as may return via Switzerland, like orders are being given. For these prisoners it is proposed to draw on the British Army in France for supplies of food, and a large supply of clothing has been placed at the disposal of General Hanbury Williams, our representative on the spot. For any prisoner who may be returned directly across the lines in France and Belgium, instructions are being sent to expedite their passage to the Channel Ports and to do everything possible for their comfort on the way.
The whole question of moving the prisoners from the camps in Germany under the Armistice will be dealt with at an international conference which opens tomorrow at Spa, at which Major-General Sir
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John Adye will represent the interests of British prisoners of war for some considerable time.
All the combatant prisoners, on their arrival in England, will go to large reception camps, where it is to be hoped they will receive the heartiest of welcomes, their medical wants will be attended to, and arrangements will be made for giving them leave as soon as possible. Other arrangements are being made for the reception of the civilian prisoners. I trust and believe that, in so far as time allows, nothing will be lacking to secure that the practical gratitude of the nation shall be shown to those who have done so much and suffered so grievously in the cause of right.
EARL RUSSELL: My Lords, there has been a statement universally published in the Press about our prisoners in Germany having to work and being guarded by armed guards. Apparently it was official, but published without comment by the Press Bureau. It would tend to reassure the public mind if the noble Lord could say whether it is an ordinary measure of discipline, or whether it has any significance.
LORD NEWTON: We are under the impression that it is, as the noble Earl describes it, only a measure of discipline of a purely temporary character. We have every reason to suppose that the German Government, so far as we know, is anxious to expedite the repatriation of prisoners.
LORD LAMBOURNE: May I take it that the term the noble Lord used of camps for prisoners means huts, and not canvas?
LORD NEWTON: Oh yes, that is an arrangement for which I am not responsible; it is an arrangement for which the War Office is responsible. I understand that two large camps have been prepared, one in the neighbourhood of Hull, and the other in the neighbourhood of Dover; that all combatant prisoners will be directed to these camps upon their arrival, and that everything possible will be done for their convenience and welfare generally.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I am sure we are all very much obliged to the noble Lord; but there is one point which, probably owing to my stupidity, I did not understand. He spoke of the Turkish prisoners, and said the bulk of them were

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concentrated at Salonika. Will be explain whether we may hope that nearly all the British prisoners of war who were taken by the Turks are now in British hands?
LORD NEWTON: I am sorry I should have misled the House. When I said Salonika I meant Smyrna. The bulk of these prisoners will be concentrated at Smyrna, and will be brought home via Italy and France as soon as possible.

SCHOOL TEACHERS (SUPERANNUATION) BILL.
Amendments reported (according to Order).
LORD SOUTHWARK: May I ask the noble Earl whether he will kindly reply to the question that I put to him last evening on which he promised to make a statement?
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF CRAWFORD): I have made inquiry on the subject to which my noble friend referred last night, and I think I can give him assurances to show that adequate scope for inquiry and for criticism will be provided before rules under this Bill come into effect. If he will rifer to Clause 15, subsection (2), of the Bill he will find that all rules made under this Act have to be laid before both Houses of Parliament. The procedure as to the laying of rules has been considered very carefully for many years with regard to education, and in this Bill the general procedure followed is that which applies to all statutory rules. Under this particular Bill the Rules Publication Act of 1893 is incorporated. That involves forty days notice being given before any rules can become effective. The rules must be published, facilities must be given for their examination, not only in Parliament but by the public and by persons such as those to whom Lord Southwark referred, who are themselves responsible for looking after these schools. So there is every opportunity to discuss and to criticise the rules. There is, it is true, a provision which allows in certain provisional cases—that is, where special cause for urgency exists—that the rules shall come into immediate operation. Of course, pending the completion of the full procedure prescribed under the Act, forty clear days notice has to be given in every case; and during those days your Lordships, or members of the other House of
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Parliament, will have ample opportunities of suggesting amendments. Let me add one further point. There is nothing in the Bill which imposes upon bodies who are in charge of non-grant-aided schools any statutory obligations to insist upon any change in the constitution of their governing bodies, but, as I pointed out to your Lordships yesterday, in the event of those schools securing for their teachers considerable grants of public money, it will probably be found desirable in the public interest to enlarge their governing body and to introduce some outside elements in return for the conditions by which they receive public money.
LORD SOUTHWARK: I am much obliged to the noble Earl for answering the question which I put to him, but I am not altogether satisfied with the answer contained in the last observations that he made regarding the governors not being compelled to have any addition to their governing body because they need not take the grant. The question that I asked was whether in the case of the schools which are inspected by the Board of Education, and recognised as being efficient, the Minister of Education ought not to have the power of saying that no further addition or alteration in the governing body is necessary. My point is that where a governing body is competent and is doing its work well and giving entire satisfaction to the Minister of Education it ought not to be interfered with. If a Minister of Education is not to have that power, then I ask that the rules which are to be laid before Parliament shall be so laid for a certain number of days in order that Parliament shall have an opportunity of discussing whether it is right and proper to interfere with the particular school or schools in the way suggested by the Rule.
NOBLE LORDS: Order, order!
LORD SOUTHWARK: Otherwise we shall be handing ourselves over body and soul and spirit—
NOBLE LORDS: Order, order!
LORD SOUTHWARK: I have had the honour of being a governor of several schools which received no state aid, but where it is very desirable that the teachers should receive some of the superannuation money. At the same time the governing

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bodies of those schools do not wish an outside body to come in and interfere. I do not think that they would do any good. I was going to move—
NOBLE LORDS: Order, order!
LORD SOUTHWARK: May I not say what I would like to move?
NOBLE LORDS: Order, order!
LORD SOUTHWARK: I will wait.
Then (Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended) Bill read 3a and passed, and returned to the Commons.

TITHE BILL
Amendments reported (according to Order).
LORD STUART OF WORTLEY: I move the insertion of a new clause after Clause 1.
Amendment moved—
Insert as a new clause:
"Regulation of pension to retired incumbent.
". A pension to a retired incumbent of a benefice whether awarded before or after the passing of this Act which under the Incumbents Resignation Act, 1871, Amendment Act, 1887, is variable, shall from time to time vary with and be regulated by the average prices by which under this Act the sum payable in respect of any tithe rent-charge is ascertained.'—(Lord Stuart of Wortley.)
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (LORD CLINTON): This Amendment appears to remove some possible causes of hardship, and I am quite willing to accept it.
On Question, Amendment 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-
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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 consideration 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.
(3) An agreement by an owner of a rentcharge under this section shall not be valid—

(a) if made by a spiritual person entitled in respect of his benefice or cure, except with the consent of Queen Anne's Bounty, or, in the case of a rentcharge affected by the Welsh Church Act, 1914, of the Commissioners of Church Temporalities in Wales; or

(b) if made by a person (not being a spiritual person so entitled), who is not empowered to sell the rentcharge unless he obtains the consent of some other person, except with the consent of that other person.

(3) This section shall not apply as respects any tithe rentcharge with respect to the redemption of which proceedings are pending at the passing of this Act.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE THE EARL OF SELBORNE had given notice to move, at the beginning of subsection (2), after the words "An agreement made under this section may provide," to insert "and in default of such agreement on the application of the owner of the land or any part thereof, the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries for the purpose of the redemption of a rentcharge for the redemption of which an application is made on or before the first day of January one thousand nine hundred and twenty-one shall determine."
The noble Earl said: I can shortly explain to your Lordships the purpose of the Amendment which I have put on the Paper. This Bill, if my noble friend will allow me to say so, is a very useful one. I was not able to be here at the time of the Second Reading, and I am glad to have the opportunity now of congratulating the Board of Agriculture upon it. By this Bill it will be a simple, and in many cases a very wise, transaction for a tithe-payer who possesses the cash to take advantage of the redemption classes, especially under

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the fixed provision of Rule 3 of Schedule 2. But we know that a great many tithe-payers will not be able to command the cash, and consequently, in another place, Major Courthope moved an Amendment allowing the redemption to take place compulsorily on annual payments extending over fifty years, in which, of course, a sinking fund was included as well as interest. The President of the Board of Agriculture, in another place, though in no way hostile to that Amendment, did not accept it, as I understand, mainly for this reason. He thought that if the tithe fell considerably in future years there might arise an agitation for the reduction of the annual payment. I confess that I do not share that anxiety, and I should have been very glad if the President of the Board of Agriculture could have seen fit to accept Major Courthope's Amendment. What he did was to accept an Amendment existing now in Clause 3, by which such a method of payment may take place by agreement, but it cannot be done compulsorily at the option of the tithe-payer who wishes to redeem. The Amendment which I hope the Government will see fit to accept, and of which I have given notice, would have this effect. It would give tithe-payers who wish to redeem the power to redeem compulsorily by payment of an annual sum for fifty years. It will give them the power to insist on that for two years only; that is to say, so long as the fixed amount of redemption defined in Rule 3 of Schedule 2 exists. I will remind your Lordships that Rule 3 of Schedule 2 is as follows—
"For the purpose of the redemption of a rentcharge for the redemption of which an application is made on or before the first day of January, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-one, the gross annual value of the rentcharge shall be the original commuted amount thereof, and the compensation shall be twenty-one times that amount after such deductions therefrom as aforesaid."
I suggest by this Amendment that till the end of that period the tithe-payer shall be able to insist that the redemption should take the form of an annuity for a period not exceeding fifty years on the basis of 5 per cent. for interest and 3½ per cent. instead of 4 per cent. accumulation of sinking fund. I have reason to believe that that proposal is not unacceptable to those representing a Very large proportion of the clerical tithe, and that is the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The reduction of the 4 per cent. to 3½ per cent. for sinking fund
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cases the position with them, and I understand—and I think my noble friend behind me would be prepared to say so—that so far as the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were concerned they would regard this as a fair proposal.
If that is so from the point of view of the clerical tithe-owner, let me show your Lordships the great advantage it would be to the tithe-payer who has not got the cash with which to redeem right away. I have had a calculation made, and by that I understand that, instead of paying £109 a year for tithe, as he would have to do under this Bill for seven years, and a larger tithe perhaps afterwards, his total payments under my proposal would Come just under £100 a year. That, therefore, will be a great advantage to the tithe-payer, and there is no doubt it would largely increase the amount of redemption, because it would enable a great number of persons who cannot find the cash to pay in one sum to redeem by this method.
LORD CLINTON: I quite understand the noble Earl's view as to the advantage of bringing in this system of paying off the redemption money by way of annunity. That has been accepted by my right hon. friend in another place, and I need not go into the matter. The effect of this Amendment is that this is made compulsory on the tithe-owner.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: For two years
LORD CLINTON: For two years, and I do not think that the alteration is a satisfactory one. I am going to suggest to the noble Earl that there are one or two outstanding objections to it. He has told us that it would be convenient to a body like the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. I would agree with him so far as to say that it would be less inconvenient to a body like the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, because of the probability that they would have a large number of sums paid in for investment to pay off the redemption money, and they may be able to work it economically. But I ask my noble friend to recollect this, that, particularly of recent years, the number of tithe-payers has increased very rapidly owing to the sales of estates. You have a very large number of tithe-payers of the occupying-owner class now. The tithe has been split up into small amounts and the amount of

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each one of them is very small. It appears that as this is the case the cost of collection from this large number of small people will be very heavy. My noble friend is aware that the redemption money is fixed after deducting the cost of collection, so that there is nothing in the sum received which would be any set-off to the additional money they would have to spend in collecting these small amounts. Either it would affect the total accumulated funds at the end of the period and reduce them in amount, or it might upset the calculation which is made for the purpose of the sinking fund.
While that is an inconvenience and possibly a loss to a great body like the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, I should like your Lordships to consider how this compulsory proposal would affect someone in the position of a lay impropriator. He probably has a small tithe to collect. Is it possible for him to invest economically the very small sinking fund which would be necesssary to extinguish that tithe? To pay off a sum of £100 over a period of fifty years the sinking fund calculated at 3 ½ per cent. would be 15 s. 6d. I submit that a private person is certainly not in a position to invest those monies in such a way that they will certainly return to him the expected fund at the end of fifty years. I think there would certainly be a loss on the calculated amount received. I am not asking for any sympathy or any special advantage for the lay impropriator. I do not think it is in the slightess degree necessary to give him any advantage; but at the same time this Bill does provide that a certain sum in redemption money should be paid to extinguish a tithe, and I do not think we ought to put into the Bill any provisions which would make it impossible that that sum will reach the accumulated amount at the end of the period of fifty years.
I think those are two reasons why it is not fair to force a scheme of annuity upon an unwilling tithe-owner. But if the noble Earl would accept an alteration at the end of his Amendment I should probably withdraw my objection to his Amendment. In place of the word "shall," after "twenty-one," put in "may if they think fit." That would give to the Board of Agriculture a certain discretion which I think it right that they should have, so that they could say that an annuity in the case of some of these very small tithes
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would be unfair to the tithe-owner, that he would not be able to invest it as it is necessary to invest it to pay off the whole sum at the end of fifty years, and they would be able to say in such circumstances "We decline to use compulsion."
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: With the permission of the House I would say at once that I think my noble friend's point is a perfectly fair one, and I will gladly accept that change and move my Amendment in that form.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 15, after ("provide") insert ("and in default of such agreement on the application of the owner of the land or any part thereof, the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries for the purpose of the redemption of a rentcharge for the redemption of which an application is made on or before the first day of January one thousand nine hundred and twenty-one may, if they think fit, determine").—(The Earl of Selborne.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 17, leave out ("such") and insert ("a").—(The Earl of Selborne.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 18, leave out. ("as may be agreed").—(The Earl of Selborne.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD CLINTON: The next Amendment means that the interest of this redemption money will be a rate not exceeding 5 per cent., and the money will be accumulated at compound interest at a rate not exceeding 4 per cent. This is to give the necessary elasticity in carrying out a proper scheme for redemption.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, lines 18 and 19, leave out ("the rate of") and insert ("a rate not exceeding").—(Lord Clinton.)
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I would like to ask my noble friend how that is affected with regard to the 4 per cent., by the acceptance of my Amendment. It was part of that. Amendment—the consequential part—that I was going to insert 3½ per cent, instead of 4 per cent. Does my noble friend propose that the words should be read "not exceeding 3½ per cent."
LORD CLINTON: No. I propose "not exceeding 4 per cent." I think that probably gives the noble Earl what he wants.
LORD PARMOOR: As I understand, that would really give greater security for the annuity; and that is the object of it?
LORD CLINTON: Yes.
LORD STUART OF WORTLEY: Everybody can see, of course, in the present financia1 conditions, and the rate of Income Tax being what it unhappily is at the present time and is likely to be for a long time to come, that the rate of 4 per cent. would be a total extinguisher to all redemption business.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, lines 21 and 22, leave out ("the rate of") and insert ("a rate not exceeding").—(Lord Clinton.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 27, after ("agreement") insert ("or determination").—(The Earl of Selborne.)
LORD CLINTON: I accept that.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD STUART OF WORTLEY: The Amendment standing in my name is to provide that, in the cases in which it has to administer the accumulation of these annuities, the Queen Anne's Bounty should be able to say that the incumbent cannot have the whole of the 5 per cent., because the rest of the annuity may be required for the replacement of the sum raised for redemption at the end of the term.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 30, at end insert ("In the case of any such annuity payable to Queen Anne's Bounty on behalf of any benefice or cure, Queen Anne's Bounty in determining the portion thereof payable year by year by way of income to the spiritual person entitled in respect of the benefice or cure may make any necessary provision for securing that the portion accumulated shall at the end of the term produce an amount equal to the consideration money").—(Lord Stuart of Wortley.)
LORD CLINTON: I presume that my noble friend has satisfied himself that the Queen Anne's Bounty require this Amendment?
LORD STUART OF WORTLEY: Oh, yes.
LORD CLINTON: I am advised that they might he covered by the words in line 27 of subsection (2) of Clause 3; but I will not raise an objection if Queen Anne's Bounty consider it is necessary for the protection of their own interests.
LORD STUART OF WORTLEY: I am so advised. After all it is only a general direction to make suitable provision.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Second Schedule:
2. The compensation for redemption shall be such sum as in the opinion of the Board is sufficient, after payment of the cost of investment, to produce when invested in Government securities a permanent annuity equal to the gross annual value after deducting from that value the average amount paid or payable by the tithe-owner in respect of the rentcharge for the three years immediately preceding the date of the application to redeem on account of rates and land tax, and such sum not exceeding two and a half per cent. of the gross annual value as in the opinion of the Board represents the necessary cost of collection of the rentcharge.
LORD STUART OF WORTLEY LORD STUART OF WORTLEY moved, in paragraph 2, after "value" where that word secondly occurs, to insert "a sum calculated on that value at the rate in the pound of." The noble Lord said: This is to provide that in arriving at what, after all, is an official valuation of a variable annuity—I am afraid that my language sounds of necessity rather obscure—you should not, in order to arrive at the net at which you wish to arrive, do so in relation to a gross annuity thus artificially valued, but upon some basis which shall have some relation to reality. If you deduct rating at the rate at which rates have been previously levied you would be deducting a rating which might be on a very high state of the tithe; whereas on all the conditions supposed by the introduction of this Bill you are producing, for at least seven years, a much more stable condition of tithe when it cannot rise above £109; and it is right therefore, in order to arrive at the net annuity, that you should not accept such rates as have a relation to that fixed value which this Bill proposes to establish.
Amendment moved—
Page 6, line 5, after ("value") insert ("a sum calculated on that value at the rate in the pound of").—(Lord Stuart of Wortley.)
LORD CLINTON: I think that the Amendment of my noble friend really goes a great deal further than he has suggested to the House; because he proposes an alteration in the rating law. For the first time it is suggested here that rates should be levied on a gross tithe. In no other case, as far as I know, is anything but the net tithe considered. I do not know whether that is the intention of my noble friend, but that would be the effect of the Amendment. On the general principle of poundage against rates, my noble friend apparently thinks that his is a more scientific and accurate scheme than that which is in the Bill. I am not inclined to accept that view. I would accept the view that neither of them is scientific, but I do not know that we can get at any actual scientific principle. We have adopted the scheme in the Bill of deducting actual rates, partly because it is following the precedent of the Welsh Disestablishment Act, and partly because it is very much simpler, probably equally fair, and it does not require any fresh calculation at the time of each redemption. The amount of the actual rates that have been paid in the last three years are easily ascertained, and I am afraid that I must decline to accept the Amendment.
LORD PARMOOR: I hope that the noble Lord will not accept this Amendment. It would introduce a change in the rating law—namely, a matter of calculation instead of a matter of certainty; and I think that a three years average of that has been actually paid immediately preceding the redemption is the right principle.
LORD STUART OF WORTLEY: I am still prepared to contend that I am bringing the thing much more into relation to reality than the scheme of the Bill does. But I am aware that in order to defeat the Government you have to produce a wave of emotion, and, as I cannot do that in regard to so abstruse a matter as this, I beg to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Then (Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended) Bill read 3a, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

JUSTICES OF THE PEACE.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE THE MARQUESS OF CREWE rose to call attention to the recommendations in the Report of the Royal Commission on the Selection of Justices of the Peace in 1911, regarding political pressure exercised in favour of particular candidates; and to ask His Majesty's Government whether these recommendations may be taken to cover the practice of canvassing the members of Advisory Committees.
The noble Marquess said: My Lords, I hope I need not detain your Lordships at any length in putting this Question to His Majesty's Government, and in particular to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, although I must go back for a moment to what happened some years ago with reference to the appointment of magistrates. About nine years ago, as your Lordships will remember, a considerable stir was created, both in this House and in the country, with reference to the method and the practices actually pursued in the appointment of justices of the peace. The noble and learned Earl, Lord Loreburn, who I think is not now in the House, was at that time Lord Chancellor, and was greatly concerned with the matter. The result was that an important and strongly-manned Royal Commission was appointed, just nine years ago, to consider the whole question. The difficulties which were alleged were that strong political pressure used to be applied to Lords Lieutenant, by members of Parliament and others, for the appointment of particular gentlemen to the Commission of the Peace, and that in submitting names to the Lord Chancellor for appointment Lords Lieutenant were placed in considerable difficulty, with the result that the appointments tended to be more political in their character than they ought to be, and that in certain parts of England practically all the magistrates that were appointed were of one political persuasion.
There is no need now to go at length into the whole matter, but I may remind your Lordships that when the Royal Commission reported it expressed itself strongly on this point, and it recommended the setting up of Advisory Committees, appointed by the Lord Chancellor and advisory to him but presided over by the Lord Lieutenant, so that when the Lord Lieutenant submitted a list of names to the occupant of the Woolsack he would have the support of much local authority and knowledge in

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suggesting the persons to be appointed. The Royal Commission expressed themselves in these terms. They said—
"We seek to enforce these views by recording an opinion, formed after full inquiry, that appointments influenced by considerations of political opinion and services are highly detrimental to public interests, and tend to lower the authority of the Magisterial Benches in the country. We hold also that any one who takes share or part in giving effect to such influence is playing an injurious part in the citizenship of the country, and is therefore deserving of much censure."
They went on to say—
"Both the Lord Chancellor and the Lords Lieutenant must often be greatly embarrassed by the receipt of political demands they cannot with propriety accede to. Their refusal to do so produces complaint and criticism, injurious to all interests. We therefore strongly urge those who may be the Lord Chancellor or Lords Lieutenant or members of an Advisory Committee that they should firmly refuse to receive any applications, or unasked-for advice to appoint Justices from Members of Parliament or candidates in their own constituencies, or from political agents or representatives of political associations. If such a rule be made and acted on, all concerned, especially Members of Parliament and candidates, will be able to escape from a position they must deplore."
This last recommendation was not quite unanimously made. Two or three members of the Royal Commission thought that this went a little too far; that after all both Members of Parliament and members of local political associations were in many cases able to form a good opinion, from personal knowledge, of the merits of a possible candidate for the Bench, and that to condemn them to complete silence was not a useful course to take.
The findings of this Commission were generally applauded. Advisory Committees were appointed to assist Lords Lieutenant, and I think it may be safely said—and I should appeal with confidence to any noble friend of mine in this House who also is one of His Majesty's Lieutenants—that the services, which are of course quite unremunerated, are most ungrudgingly given, and are of great value and assistance to the Lords Lieutenant in making submissions to the noble and learned Lord. But excellent sentiments are sometimes apt to wear rather thin. Eight or nine years ago it was generally agreed that influence of this kind, brought to bear for the purpose of appointing magistrates, was mistaken and wrong, but I am inclined to think that that has been to a certain extent forgotten, and that there is something of a renewed tendency
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now to fall into the mistake which was so prevalent before, of regarding appointment to the Bench, not as the undertaking of an important and sometimes tedious public duty, but rather as a mark of distinction which can be conferred upon a locally popular or influential gentleman. I have seen some signs of a recrudescence of that view in my own correspondence.
But my real purpose in putting this Question and securing a statement from the Government on the subject is that members of my Advisory Committee have complained to me that they have become the subjects of a great number of personal requests from individuals, political associations, and in some cases from the representatives of local authorities, themselves, as we know, largely framed on political lines, with a view to their bringing particular names before the Advisory Committee and myself. I brought the matter before an association which we have of Lieutenants of counties, and informed my colleagues there that I proposed to put a Question of this kind. I think any of my noble friends who were present at that meeting will bear me out in saying that my intention was universally approved. No voice was raised in contradiction of it.
I say quite frankly that I do not think it is possible entirely to dispense with recommendations made either by Members of Parliament or, in some cases, by political associations. I think it is going too far to say that the chance of a man being appointed to the Bench would be entirely destroyed if he is recommended by a local Member of Parliament or by a local political association. But I am prepared on my own account to say this—that, other things being equal, a recommendation of that kind would rather go against a man than for him, although it may be that in some cases the candidates are put forward as thoroughly worthy of the honour, and in these cases the recommendation ought not to be allowed to stand in their way; yet of itself it ought not to be regarded as assisting a man to have his name put forward. It ought to be on general grounds of fitness and public service that a man's name is put forward, and not of political service of any kind. I hope, therefore, that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack will be able to express an opinion in the same sense—that is to say, deprecating interference of this kind, whether it is applied

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directly to the Lord Lieutenant, who after all is perhaps in a stronger position in resisting it, or to the members of the Advisory Committees, known as being the people responsible in the immediate locality for bringing recommendations before the whole Committee and who may be greatly inconvenienced by receiving personal pressure of this kind.
It is very hard, indeed, to eradicate the public feeling that almost everything can be done by influence. All of us who have held public positions know very well how hard it is to persuade people that one cannot get a man appointed to any regiment in the Service, or to any branch of the Service, or to any position in any of His Majesty's Dominions, or in India or elsewhere. All of us who have held public positions know how deep-seated this belief is, and in such a matter as the appointment of magistrates it is very difficult to persuade people that pressure and representations do not have their way.
There is nothing positive to be done except to make declarations of the kind which I have just made, and I sincerely hope that the noble and learned Lord will be able on his own account, as the person ultimately responsible who actually appoints the magistrates, to make a general declaration which can be recorded in the same sense, deprecating the use of influence of this kind, or indeed of all kinds, beyond the supplying to the appointing body of information regarding the fitness of persons whom it is desired to appoint.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD FINLAY): My Lords, I desire in the first instance to express my entire concurrence with what the noble Marquess has said as to the value of the services rendered by the Advisory Committees. They have been most useful. I have now had nearly two years' experience of the work of appointing magistrates and I can say from that experience that the Advisory Committees afford very great assistance in selecting men who are fit for the duties and qualified to discharge them to the public advantage in the particular locality.
The observations made in the Report, to which the noble Marquess has referred, as to the undesirability of anything in the nature of political pressure, in my judgment are right. I should deprecate anything like political pressure being attempted in the case of members of the Advisory
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Committees. The Advisory Committees are there to afford assistance to the Lord Lieutenant, and ultimately to the Lord Chancellor, in the appointment of justices, and political pressure is really an invitation to them to disregard their primary duty which is that of selecting men who are fit in every respect for the discharge of the duties of the office in their locality. By the word "canvassing," which is employed in the Question of the noble Marquess, I understand solicitation of votes, and I think canvassing of votes, the votes of members of the Advisory Committee, is very much to be deprecated, and particularly political canvassing. But I must not be misunderstood. It is extremely difficult to draw the line, and the noble Marquess himself indicated that.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: Hear, hear.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It would be the greatest possible mistake to cut off the local Advisory Committee from sources of information, as to the fitness of particular candidates, which are reasonably open to them, and nothing I may say or that the noble Marquess has said will, I hope, ever be quoted as tending to show that reasonable and proper statements as to the qualifications of particular men for the office would be in any way contrary to what was said in those Reports as to the application of pressure.
It is highly necessary, if the Advisory Committee are to discharge their duties properly, that they should inform themselves, and it is highly proper that all persons who have the means of knowledge should, in a right and reasonable way, assist the Advisory Committee with such information as may enable them to arrive at a right conclusion. I am perfectly sensible, and no one can ignore the fact, that it is extremely difficult to draw the line between what is right in this direction and what would overstep the bounds of what is desirable and become what, for convenience, I call canvassing or solicitation of votes. It is extremely difficult to draw the line. That must be left to the good sense of the public and to the attitude to be taken up by the members of the Advisory Committees themselves. While they will welcome any information given to them, they are quite able to discourage the pestering for votes in the way of canvassing.

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There is one aspect of the case to which I should like to refer, which the noble Marquess has touched upon, and that relates to the question of political opinions. This matter was touched upon by the Committee to which the noble Marquess has referred, and is dealt with in a sense which they consider, and I think rightly consider—namely, that political considerations should not be altogether excluded. For this reason it is most desirable that the men should not only be as efficient as possible; it is also most desirable that they should command the confidence of the community. And however fit the Bench might be for its work, if it were the case that members of a particular party were consistently excluded from it, the impression would grow up that the composition was one-sided and unfair. And from that point of view it seems to me that the question of political opinion cannot be properly altogether excluded. It should not interfere with fitness for the office; but it is an element in determining whether the Bench shall be so constituted as to enjoy the confidence of the community. I should like to quote, as expressing what I think on this point, three very short passages from the Report of the Commission. At page 8 this passage will be found—
"This preponderance of justices drawn from one political party has been described as a 'political misfortune.' … The impression that persons of one set of political opinions were in practice being excluded from appointment has engendered a sense of dissatisfaction which it is of the highest importance to dissociate from the administration of justice."
In Earl Loreburn's words—I think in the evidence he gave before the Commission—"it is contrary to the public interest that the authority of the Bench of Justices should be weakened by any widespread suspicion that the members of it are not fairly selected." That is question 243, at page 11 of the evidence.
Then on page 9 the Commission go on thus—
"Those who appoint justices or make recommendations for appointment ought not to be indifferent to the existence of this inequality, and should endeavour to redress the balance, so far as public interest will permit."
Then on page 10—
"It is also in the public interest that they" [the Justices] "should be men who command general confidence. And for this reason also it is desirable that the area of selection should be wide and the choice comprehensive, so that the Bench may include men of all social classes and all shades and creeds and political opinion."
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It is obvious that, in order to carry out what in the opinion of the Commission should be done in these cases, political considerations cannot be altogether ignored, and I agree in a general sense with the passages that I have read, which, I think, express the views which the noble Marquess indicated in putting this Question. I hope I have answered fully the question put to me, and I have endeavoured to indicate my own views on the subject, as well as to explain what the recommendations of the Commission were.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, I wish to say a very few words on this question. I do so because I, perhaps, have had more to do with this system and for a longer period than any of your Lordships now present. For nearly three years I occupied the Woolsack, against the two years of my noble friend, and I was keenly conscious of the difficulties with which he had to deal. I entirely agree with what was said by my noble friend beside me, and by the Lord Chancellor, and what I wish to say a word or two about is the reason why this difficulty has grown up, and the principle which I think proceeds from it.
I agree that you must lock to something more than merely the selecting of the most perfect people, from a judicial point of view, upon the Bench; you must try to get the interests of the community. For instance, it is not merely ordinary questions which a magistrate has to deal with. He has to deal with persons who have conscientious objection on vaccination, and topics of that kind. Anti-vaccinators have feelings, and they must be considered. It would be very wrong to appoint an anti-vaccinator to the Bench. It is also desirable not to appoint somebody who has by his utterances and by his way of going on produced a feeling in the minds of anti-vaccinators that they will not get justice. That is the kind of man you must exclude as a magistrate. Why has this difficulty grown up? I think I understand it. First of all, let it be remembered that the person who appoints a magistrate is not the Lord Lieutenant, but the Lord Chancellor, as has already been said. Secondly, the Lord Lieutenant by custom is the person who recommends to the Lord Chancellor for these appointments to the Bench. That was the practice before the Royal Commission reported, and the Royal Commission has not really modified it in prin-

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ciple. It is true that appointments are made irrespective of the Lord Lieutenant by the Lord Chancellor, and sometimes made in the last stage. That was always so. It was so, in my experience, before the Royal Commission was put into operation and Advisory Committees were appointed.
But the meaning of the Report of the Royal Commission and the difference in machinery which it introduced was this—that the Lord Chancellor has now somebody else to whom he is to refer questions of the fitness of those names besides the Lord Lieutenant. He has the Advisory Committee to refer to. The notion has got into people's heads that the Advisory Committee is the Lord Lieutenant's Committee, but that is not so. The Committee is set aside for advising the Lord Chancellor. When a recommendation comes from the Lord Lieutenant, naturally the Lord Lieutenant does not want to make a recommendation which the Committee will reject when the name is referred to it, and consequently—and this is the real difficulty—a system of short-circuiting is produced, by which the Lord Lieutenant goes to the Committee straight away. This does not matter so long as it is not thought that the Committee is the Lord Lieutenant's. That being so, it is plain what the standard of the Committee should be. They should consider that they are there to advise the Lord Chancellor and him alone, consequently to bring to bear upon their recommendation those considerations, and only those, which the Lord Chancellor might legitimately entertain. They are there to give him any advice he may desire. It is therefore right that they should both take these general considerations into account. It is wrong that they should regard themselves merely as bodies who may be approached by anybody and for any reason, and should send up names to the Lord Chancellor without very searching prime consideration as to whether these are names of persons taken according to the standard which the Lord Chancellor himself would apply.
I am sure that much of the difficulty about the Advisory Committees has arisen from this idea of short-circuiting, this idea that you can go to the Committee just as if it were to the Lord Lieutenant, and apply the same kind of considerations as you would in a county where the Lord Lieutenant is a great local personage representing
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the Sovereign and approachable by everybody in a way that the Lord Chancellor is not. The function of the Committee is to apply the standard which the Lord Chancellor himself applies. It is not merely local. They are there to pronounce upon the facts, and their duty is consequently measured. I think my noble friend has put it pretty accurately. It comes to this. You must take all the considerations which are legitimate into account. In doing so, you must remember that the advice you are tendering to the Lord Chancellor is advice tendered upon those principles which have been enunciated during the course of this debate. I am very glad that the question has been discussed, because there has been a great deal of obscurity about what these Advisory Committees are, and as to their responsibility and for what they are to act. I think that this debate will do much to clear that up.
LORD HARRIS: My Lords, I should like to add one word from my own experience regarding the original appointment of these Advisory Committees and their working. Not a word has been said about it to-night. The main object of appointing Advisory Committees was to equalise on the Benches Party political opinion. That possibly does not appear in the Report referred to, but, as I was responsible for the selection of the Advisory Committee in my county, I have a very clear recollection of what I was told. I was told by a very high legal authority that this had to be done in order to assist him in another place. We had, therefore, to set to work and find a suitable Advisory Committee with the deliberate object of selecting as many Liberal justices of the peace as possible in order to equalise the Benches. For myself, I can say that in almost every case where I have been asked to support the name of a candidate for the Bench, I have always asked—and for two years I was Acting-Lord Lieutenant, so I had to act in every case—"What is the Party political opinion of this gentleman?"
Your Lordships must remember that it is the duty of the Advisory Committee to advise the Lord Chancellor of the political opinions of each candidate, and that practice, so far as I know, has been carried out since I resigned the exalted office of Lord Lieutenant. As regards pressure or the difficulties referred to by the noble Viscount and by the noble Marquess, I am

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happy to say that I have had no experience whatever of any pressure or difficulties. A number of applications came in. I should not say that they came necessarily from political parties. A great majority came from working men's associations asking that the name of Mr. So and So should be considered. Judging from the results of my request for information regarding the public services of the persons named, I should say, from my experience, that it is a very great advantage to the Advisory Committee that these names should be put before them with the records of the public services of the gentlemen in question. It would be a much more difficult proceeding for an individual to go round to the various places and ask somebody for that information. I do not know whom he could ask. It does not follow that the Chairman of the Petty Sessional Bench would know any better than any member of the Advisory Committee who are the most trusted persons in a particular neighbourhood.
I think that these requests which came to us, not in large but in very limited numbers, were distinctly useful, because they did indicate that in a particular neighbourhood there was a gentleman who had done a lot of public work and who had won the confidence of his comrades in a particular circle. I cannot say that I have had any experience of any real pressure or of any difficulty. It is not my experience that we were asked to put a man on the Bench regardless of what his public service was, but merely because he was Mr. So and So and had come into the county and had bought a piece of land. I think that my noble friend Lord Weardale, who is a colleague of mine on the Advisory Committee, will bear me out when I say that we have had no experience such as that described by the noble Marquess opposite, or similar to that referred to by the noble Viscount opposite. As far as I know the system has worked very smoothly, and I am sure that it has been a very great assistance, and I gather from what the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack said just now that it has been of great assistance to the Lord Chancellor.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords perhaps, by leave of the House, I may be allowed to thank the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack for the tenor of his reply, which exactly fulfils my hopes in supplying an authoritative declaration on this point. It undoubtedly is the
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case, to use the words of the noble and learned Lord, that members of the Advisory Committee with which I am concerned have in some cases been unduly pestered in support of particular individuals, and so far as they can be saved from solicitations of that kind it is obviously our duty to attempt to preserve them from it. I was particularly glad to hear what the noble and learned Lord said of the general value of the Advisory Committee in London. It naturally is a very important body, and I am proud to say that the present Lord Mayor has been a member of it ever since its foundation, and several distinguished members of Parliament and others also sit on it. It is perfectly true, as the noble and learned Lord said that you cannot leave political considerations out altogether. It is hardly too much to say, as my noble friend opposite stated, that one of the purposes of appointing these Advisory Committees was to some extent to redress the balance in the appointments as between the different Parties, and I frankly say that in London we always draw some kind of general balance as between Conservative, Liberal, and Labour, bearing of course especially in mind the claims of Labour. I take it that probably something of the same kind is done in all the counties.

INDIA.
LORD SYDENHAM LORD SYDENHAM rose to ask the Under-Secretary of State for India (1) whether he can give any information as to the rioting in Calcutta and Madras in September; (2) whether the Report of Sir Narayan Chandavarkar and Mr. Justice Beechcroft will be published with that of the Rowlatt Committee.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, throughout the war the Censor has been very active, and our news from India, generally speaking, has been much too scanty. Meanwhile the strain upon us all has been intense, and we have not had, and we have not even now, time to give to consider the affairs of India and to watch events in that country. But, my Lords, the questions of India are of supreme importance to the whole Empire, and if we continue to ignore them we shall before long be faced with the most unpleasant surprises. In September last there were prolonged riots in Calcutta and in Madras, and in the former place there was considerable loss of life. It seems to have been arranged by someone

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that large public meetings should be simultaneously held at Calcutta, Madras and Rangoon. Those meetings were all prohibited by the respective Governments, and in Rangoon happily nothing untoward happened, but in Calcutta a meeting was called by certain Mahomedan leaders who disagree with the policy of the Moslem League which, as we all know, was captured by the Hindu extremists.
All over India there is a certain amount of Moslem unrest due to the Report of the Viceroy and the Secretary of State. That Report is regarded by Mahomedans generally as having dealt too lightly with their interests. I am bound to say that I think that complaint is not altogether an unreasonable one. If the proposals of the Viceroy and the Secretary of State are adopted, Moslem interests, which the Government—at present all powerful—is able to safeguard, would most certainly suffer in the future, and we should have the Government practically controlled by Hindus.
The Calcutta meeting was prohibited, and, then the dangerous elements of the population took the chances of rioting that were offered to them. The disorder several days, and I am informed that about 300 people were killed, and in addition to that there was much looting and much destruction of property. It is significant that the sufferers were mainly Marwaris, and up-country Hindus and Bengalis really suffered little or nothing. That arose from the fact that the Bengalis generally are not the small shop-keeping class of Calcutta. In Madras there was no loss of life; but a great deal of damage was done, and one large market was burnt down. The rioting occurred at several centres some considerable distance apart. My information as regards Madras is that the rioting was undoudbtedly instigated by some persons operating from a safe position, but that the instigation was made effective by the high prices which were prevailing in Madras at the time—of course, as always, the danger in India—and the shortage which must now exist in many parts of the country gives cause for great watchfulness and for every measure of remedy which it is possible to apply. I hope my noble friend will be able to say that such measures are being applied at the present time. It is interesting to note that, while this serious rioting was going on, the Extremists in
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the Viceroy's Council were pressing for great modifications in the Arms Act which, if they were carried, would have the effect of allowing a very great part of the population of India to obtain and to carry arms. If that is ever done I can only say that the small disturbances between sects and religions to which one is accustomed in India may in many cases lead to massacre.
My second Question falls to the ground because the Report of this important Committee has, I understand, been laid on the Table of the House since my Question was put on the Paper. This Report supplements to a remarkable extent that of the Rowlatt Committee which I hope your Lordships will most carefully study. The Rowlatt Report throws a lurid light upon the revolutionary proceedings in India during the war, and it shows that a disaster was only avoided by the diligence and efficiency of the Indian police, with the co-operation of some of the loyal Indians in Bengal especially. The Rowlatt Committee was appointed, as your Lordships are aware, because the Indian intelligentsia declared that the Defence of India Acts were uncalled for and oppressive, and the supplementary inquiry was demanded by the same persons because they said that innocent people were being interned, or were being left to rot in gaols—which is one of the favourite expressions of Indian journalism. I hope my noble friend will point out how extremely satisfactory that Report is. It is the Report of two learned judges, one Indian and one British, and it proves to the hilt the extreme care that was exercised by the Bengal Government in administering the Defence of India Act.
Your Lordships may have seen the very threatening language which was used by Mr. Surendranath Banerjee on November 1, which was reported in The Times of yesterday. He said among other things that—
"The attitude of the British Government in regard to the reform proposals is, so far as one can judge, unsatisfactory and even ominous."
There is really no justification for that very wild statement. So far as I can judge, the attitude of His Majesty's Government is not to commit itself until it has much fuller information at its disposal. The noble Earl the Leader of the House has, I think, undertaken that there shall be some inquiry

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into the proposals of the Viceroy and the Secretary of State, as the noble Viscount, Lord Midleton, so strongly urged upon us the other day. That seems to me to be the most reasonable course, really the only right course, and it is ominous that Mr. Surandranath Banerjee should attack and threaten the Government at a juneture like this. This ex-Civil Servant, whose speeches and writings have certainly gone far to encourage the revolutionary movement in India, has been selected recently by the Secretary of State to serve on one of his Committees. That Committee is one which requires calm judgment and an unbiased mind, and in spite of the trust which has thus been reposed in Mr. Surandranath Banerjee he has not hesitated to use the language which I have quoted, and to say a good deal more. I hope your Lordships will agree with me that it is high time that full attention was given to what is going on in India.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (LORD ISLINGTON): My Lords, I am sure the noble Lord will forgive me if I do not enter into the point which he has just raised in regard to a speech delivered by Mr. Surandranath Banerjea. The speech in question has not come under my notice, and I think he will agree with me that, whatever remarks that gentleman may have made, they really have no bearing upon the particular question which he has placed upon the Paper. Neither can I be induced to enter into a discussion as to the relationship of these riots to the proposals that have recently been made by the Secretary of Sate for India and. the Viceroy. When these proposals come seriously to be considered of course questions of this character, with which I shall have to deal in reply to my noble friend's Question, will have to be taken into very serious consideration.
Very full reports of the riots in Calcutta and Madras have appeared in the Indian Press, and I would refer any noble Lord who wishes any information to the Press. The reply to the noble Lord's Question which I will now endeavour to give is in the form of a brief narrative of the main features connected with these untoward incidents, showing the extent to which rioting took place and the manner in which it was dealt with by the authorities. Following upon meetings of Mahomedans at Calcutta, at which highly objectionable speeches were made, mass meetings were
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arranged for September 8,9,10, and leaflets in inflammatory language were circulated in Calcutta calling Mahomedans to attend for discussing Mahomedan grievances—such grievances as the internment of Mahomedan leaders, a recent foolish and thoughtless article in the Indian Daily News which has given offence to the Mahomedan community, and various incidents between Hindu and Mahomedan schoolboys. After a conference with local Mahomedans, and having regard to the approaching Bakr-id festival, the Government of India apprehended incitement to a breach of the peace, and they accordingly prohibited meetings under the Police Act, and under the Defence of India Rules directed persons—and there were several—who had come to Calcutta for the purpose of attending these meetings to return quietly to their homes. On the morning of September 9 several hundred persons had assembled wishing to know the decision as to the meeting. The Governor, Load Ronaldshay, received a deputation and explained that the meeting should be postponed till after the approaching Mahomedan and Hindu festivals, and this was accepted.
Meanwhile, however, serious disturbances occurred at the very time when the deputation was being received at Government House. They were confined to an area in the centre of the northern part of Calcutta, and the trouble began shortly after midday when a mob of Mahomedans, which in its impatience had set out to meet the Deputation returning from Government House, was intercepted by the police, The crowd attacked the police with bricks and stones, and in some cases with knives; while scattered police officers in other parts of the city were assaulted in a similar manner. The tramcars which were passing through the streets where the crowd was collected were pelted with bricks. It was, therefore, found necessary in the course of the afternoon to summon military assistance, and shortly afterwards the police were compelled to fire to repel the attacks of the crowd. The mob dispersed after this, but there was some further trouble in the evening in the south of Calcutta near the docks, and some scattered looting in parts of the city. A large number of arrests was made, the rioters being composed entirely of men of the lower classes, while those engaged in the looting were Hindus. Members of the Indian Defence Force

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were used for patrol duty during the night of the ninth and on the tenth.
On Tuesday, September 10, in Calcutta itself there was a certain recrudescence of serious rioting in the morning, and some scattered looting by bad characters, both Hindu and Mahomedan, in which some police constables were attacked. Near the Nakhoda Mosque a patrol of three British privates was attacked by a large mob. One soldier fired in self-defence, and some troops in the street then fired also. A Military Court of Inquiry found that the men of the patrol were justified in firing, but that the other troops should have waited orders. Nine persons are said to have been wounded here. But the most serious danger that day arose when 10,000 mill hands from Garden Reach, just outside Calcutta, struck work, and a mob of 2,000 from the mills at the south of Calcutta beyond the docks attempted to march into the city to hold a meeting. These were stopped on the road by the police and a military detachment. They attacked the police and soldiers, and it was necessary to disperse them by firing. Fourteen of the rioters were killed at this place and about thirty wounded, of whom ten subsequently died. Further arrests were made also on this day, and the total number arrested in the course of the disturbances is reported to be about 400. If a large fanatical mob had succeeded in crossing the Maidan and entered the city, a most dangerous situation would have arisen.
On the 11th the city was quiet except for a few scattered cases of looting by bad characters, and an official report just received records for the whole three days the death of forty-three persons—thirty-six Mahomedans and seven Hindus—while it is thought probable that other dead Mahomedans were removed by their friends. About 400 wounded persons were treated at the various hospitals, but most of these were cases of slight hurt, the number detained in hospital being 174. On subsequent days there was no disturbance of any importance, and the celebration of the Bakr Id festival on the 17th of the month passed off without any unusual incident. This is the festival which a year ago had been the cause of the very serious riots in the neighbouring province of Bihar.
The trial of the persons arrested began on Tuesday the 10th, a special magistrate being appointed for the purpose. It is
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clear that, although the original causes of the rioting were the feeling roused among Mahomedans to which I have already referred, and the action taken by the local leaders of that community to hold meetings of protest, yet when the disturbance began opportunity was taken by the lawless characters, Hindus as well as Mahomedans, of attacking shops—particularly cloth shops—and no doubt the high prices and scarcity of cloth contributed to the extent of the looting. The shops that were looted appear to have belonged principally to Marwaris, a class of traders from Western India, and some members of this class were also seriously assaulted by the rioters in some places, and one or two deaths among them are reported. There was no indication of sectarian feeling as between Hindu residents and Muslim residents of Bengal; but Bengali Hindus were among those injured by the rioters.
One other incident may be mentioned which occurred on September 10, in the morning. At one point the rioters made a barricade of municipal dustcarts and other vehicles and placed on the top of it a bamboo flying a red flag. There is nothing in the reports to indicate that any special importance was attached to the colour of the flag, and the other occurrences at the time in the vicinity were confined to the looting of shops. It will be realised that the Bengal Government were suddenly faced by a situation containing the elements of serious danger, and that Lord Ronaldshay and his colleagues showed marked qualities of tact in dealing with the excited condition of Mahomedan feeling; combined with resolute firmness towards the rioters; and I think that a tribute is due to the Governor and to his colleagues for the admirable manner in which what might have been a very serious incident was handled. The thanks of the Government have been expressed to the troops, to the Indian Defence Force, to the police, to the fire brigade, and to the ambulances, and well-deserved acknowledgments have been made of the conduct of General Strange and. his staff and of Mr. Clarke, the Commissioner of Police.
The tension of feeling was reflected among Mahomedans at Rangoon where meetings were called for the same dates as at Calcutta. These meetings were forbidden under the Defence of India rules by the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Reginald Craddock, who received loyal

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support from local Mahomedan leaders, and no disturbances took place.
I turn now to the second part of the first, section of the noble Lord's Question—the Madras riots. In Madras the disturbances were purely economic in origin, no sectarian element being reported. It may be true what the noble Lord has stated in his speech, that in all these cases of disturbance there, may be underneath political fermentation supplementing the ostensible reason. The disturbances began on the afternoon of September 8, and were confined to attacks on shops containing rice, groceries, and cloth. There does not appear to have been any serious disturbance of public order, though the looting was renewed on the 9th, and the police in places were assaulted. It was, however, found necessary to call out troops, and with their assistance the looting was completely stopped, none being reported after the 11th. A portion of a market was burnt but it is not certain what the cause of the fire was. One effect of the riots in Madras itself was a reduction in the price of rice. The trial of the arrested persons commenced on September 12.
There were also disturbances, and anticipated disturbances, in a few other parts of the Madras Presidency, but the only place in which serious trouble occurred was Conjeeveram, a place about forty miles south-west of Madras, where the police, and the Indian Defence Force detachment which was assisting them to guard the railway station against rioters intending to loot the goods there, were compelled to fire, and about a dozen rioters were injured.
I will now say a word in regard to the second paragraph of the noble Lord's Question—the Report of Sir Narayan Chandavarkar, who is a retired Judge of the Bombay High Court, and Mr. Justice Beechcroft, of the Calcutta High Court, on the persons placed under restraint in Bengal. This Report has now been presented to Parliament, and I need not say very much, therefore, in exposition of a Paper which will be at once in your Lordships' hands. It was inevitable that the restriction of personal liberty by purely executive order in hundreds of cases, under the Regulation of 1918 or the special temporary war enactments, should have excited suspicion that the authorities, armed with extraordinary powers, might have made numerous mistakes. Such
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suspicions were not confined to persons capable of asserting—as did one influential Bengali newspaper that the whole story of the German-Indian conspiracy was a bad joke.
The Government of India announced last March in their Legislative Council that they would ask the Bengal Government to appoint a Committee of one Indian and one Englishman, with judicial experience, again to make careful enquiry into each individual case, to sift the materials on which each order for restraint was based, to consider any memorials put in on behalf of the détenus, and to enquire, so far as possible, in each case whether a détenu confined on reasonable grounds might safely be released. With regard, to the, last point I should make it clear that the Bengal Government and the Government of India have steadily borne in mind and acted upon any evidence of genuine repentance in the case of these young Men involved in seditious plots.
The Committee, which was appointed in June, necessarily held its sittings in camera. It investigated 806 cases. In six of these 806 cases the Committee advised that they had not found sufficient grounds for believing that the persons had acted, or were about to act, to the public danger, and these six persons were released. In 800 cases they found that the reasons for detention were sufficient. It is to be regretted that the six persons were confined on evidence that did not satisfy the Committee, but when the difficulties of the authorities are considered—the tortuous webs of intrigue that had to be unravelled, the nature of the evidence to be obtained when dealing with widespread conspiracy in time of war—I think it is not too much to claim that the Report furnishes a really remarkable vindication of the action of the Bengal Government in a time of serious peril, and disposes of the aspersions upon the good faith of the police.
How the Judges arrived at their conclusions is made clear in the text of the Report, but I may mention the very interesting pronouncement that really dangerous plotters came to realise their position, and honestly determined to make a clean breast of their misdeeds. Statements made received most striking corroboration—as to which there could be no possibility of collusion—in ways fully described in the Report. The Judges are

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satisfied that the police had taken care to see that the confessions obtained were true, and had indeed been over-cautious sometimes. They make this very significant statement—
"Before the Defence of India Act was brought into force, the fair trial of a person accused of revolutionary crime had been rendered practically impossible by the murders of approvers, witnesses, police officers, and law abiding citizens, suspected by revolutionaries of … having assisted the police."
The Emergency Powers enabled the Bengal Government to overcome a most dangerous conspiracy, and effectually to protect the people of Bengal from a campaign of murderous outrage and robbery. The Special Branch of the Bengal Government that dealt with these matters has succeeded beyond all expectation, and the success of the very able officers at the head is largely due to the courage and ability displayed by Indian police officers and constables. The latter have paid a heavy toll of lives, and I do not think that full justice has been done by public opinion to the loyalty and devotion of these subordinate servants of the Crown, who have had to face not only the activities of assassins, but insidious and persistent attempt at social intimidation on the part of persons of their own race not openly identified with the forces of disorder.
In conclusion, I should like to impress on noble Lords three important points which merge from a consideration of the recent disturbances in India, and the political detentions examined in the Chandavarkar-Beechcroft Report, of which I have given an account this afternoon in reply to the noble Lord's question. The first is that in Bengal there is an undercurrent of lawlessness and hostility which, unless carefully watched and checked by all means in our power, is liable to break out and involve all classes of the population in anarchy and bloodshed. The second is that the Government of Bengal, faced with most difficult conditions, have shown and are showing foresight, promptitude, and firmness in dealing with the manifestations of disorder or disloyalty, while at the same time paying scrupulous attention to the opinions and feelings of the various sections of the community. The third is that it is abundantly clear that Government cannot be deprived of the special powers necessary to deal effectively with violence and disaffection.
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I do not say that it will necessarily be desirable to retain unchanged the existing measures introduced under war conditions. Most careful consideration must obviously be given to the question of the precise form of the special powers with which Government should be equipped, and I have no desire to prejudge the decision; but it is imperative that the authorities should retain at their disposal means adequate to cope with a situation which presents unusual features, which the ordinary law is not framed to meet, and one that will ensure reasonable security and safety to the people entrusted to their care.
LORD SYDENHAM: I beg to thank the noble Lord for his very full and interesting speech. I think the facts which he has stated ought to be much more widely known than they are. They show clearly how easily grave danger may arise in the great cities of India; and the moral which I draw is that he thoroughly understands that a strong Government must be maintained in India, otherwise we are certain to have disaster.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: May I ask when we may expect to have the Rowlatt Report in our hands? I think the noble Lord promised it, on the last occasion, in about three weeks.
LORD ISLINGTON: I will make inquiries to-morrow. I had been in hopes that it would be circulated by now. It should come out any day, and I will inform the noble Marquess directly I hear.

THE CENSORSHIP.
LORD BURNHAM LORD BURNHAM rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether the censorship of the Press, of cablegrams, and postal correspondence is to be continued, and, if so, for what period of time and under what conditions.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Question that I have pot upon the Paper is one of a kind to which you are accustomed. It is a Question with a purpose and I am free to confess that my purpose is to obtain, at the earliest possible moment, the restoration of the primary rights of private citizenship, which have been abridged so largely and so necessarily during the war. I refer to the Censorship. As your Lordships know, the Censorship is of three

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kinds There is the Censorship of printing and publication; there is the Censorship of inward and outward telegrams; and there is the Censorship of correspondence. Now the Censorship has never been a popular institution in this country. At the best it is a clumsy contrivance, and at the worst it is a hateful and disabling expedient, There is no right, I believe—I speak in the presence of many noble and learned Lords, and I therefore speak subject to correction—there is no right in the hands of the Government of exercising any censorship at all in regard to any of these spheres to which I have pointed. The last attempt in the 18th Century was, I think, repudiated by the Courts when they condemned the general warrants for search and seizure.
The present Censorship is exercised entirely by virtue of the Regulations made under the Defence of the Realm Act. The reason I have thought it necessary to draw attention to the matter now, with a view to their immediate relaxation, is that we are said to be very close to the Prorogation of Parliament, and I think it would be very unwise to go to a General Election under the present conditions of Censorship as regards all three of the matters of which I have spoken. Of course, in regard to publication, there are always the provisions of the general law which throw upon the publisher the responsibility of his action. It is laid down in the text book by Black-scene, that if he publishes what is improper, mischievous or illegal he must take the consequences of his own temerity.
I amalluding, of course, nor to any general liability to prosecution by the authorities, but to the special fetters which have been placed, during time of war and for military necessity, upon the printing and publishing of news. The organisation of the Censorship is a vast one. There are no less than 6,000 persons, men and women, employed at this moment in the censorship of, telegrams and correspondence. So far as the newspaper Press goes, the main part of the Censorship is exercised by means of the Press Bureau and a false idea has got about that any of the blunders that may have been committed, or inconveniences which may have been caused, are attributable to the Press Bureau.
As a matter of fact, the Press Bureau is a line of communication between the newspaper Press and the Departments of State, especially the War Office and the Admiralty
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I think myself the country owes a great debt to Sir Frank Swettenham and Sir Edward Cook and the other officers of that Department for the manner in which they have tried to discharge their duties to the satisfaction of the Press and with a rare conscientiousness during the course of the war. If there has been dissatisfaction the real blame must rest elsewhere, and I fancy they have been made scapegoats for other Departments of State. At present, as a matter of fact, there is a general restriction on whole departments of news which cannot be justified I think, now that the Armistice has been set up.
Only yesterday, at a conference of the whole newspaper Press of the country at which I presided, a resolution was carried in these terms—
"This conference desires to represent to His Majesty's Government the urgent necessity in the national interest of the immediate suspension of the Censorship on all foreign and inland telegrams addressed to newspapers, and the cancellation of the various Regulations prohibiting the publication in the Press of shipping and weather reports and kindred matters, other than naval and military movements. The conference further desires to represent that the existing system causes long delays which are now unnecessary and calculated to entail serious loss and inconvenience."
It is quite obvious that at this moment it is an absurdity not to allow to be published in this country weather reports which are not merely satisfying to private curiosity but a very great benefit to the agricultural interest.
With regard to news as to shipping, whilst it may still be necessary to make reservations in respect of ships of war, it would be a great convenience to the business community and to the ordinary run of commerical affairs if that restriction also were taken off. These matters, of course, all fall under the Regulations made under the Defence of the Realm Act. At present nothing has been done to relax them. I quite admit that in reference to the movements of troops it may still be necessary to keep up the present system for a short time, and of course until the conclusion of peace. That, however, does not apply to commercial matters, and I think His Majesty's Government ought at once to consider whether in the work of reconstruction there ought not to be a general release from all hindrances which stand in the way of the resumption of our normal life. That is in regard to publication.
In regard to the telegrams coming in and going out, there also, I think, a good case can be shown for altering at once the system that now prevails. I was told by two of the editors of important papers that one had received a telegram in which only three words were left out of 500, and the other one in which only 200 remained out of 400 words. That has been done constantly during the war, and there may have been a reason for limiting the knowledge that even reached the editors of daily newspapers, but in that case the military necessity has passed away.
It is no good going back to what has been done in the past; the thing is now to meet the convenience of the present, and I cannot believe that it is necessary—in fact, I am sure it is not necessary—any longer to prevent news sent by special correspondents from various countries abroad from reaching their destination in the offices from which they have been accredited. May I say also that I think that applies very largely to commercial telegrams? It may be necessary in some cases to keep part of the present system working for a short time, but, as the one thing at which the Government aim is to release the industrial forces of the country so that they may work at their full efficiency, all these fetters and hindrances ought to go, and go quickly.
One always doubts how far, even in the past, the censorship of cablegrams has been wisely exercised. I heard Admiral Sims, speaking in public the other night—and I asked his permission to repeat his words here—say that the restriction on the outgoing telegrams to America had kept the United States in ignorance of what we were doing for a long period of time, and, in his opinion had actually prevented the formation of the sentiment that would have brought America earlier into the war. I am no judge of that and I do not in the least profess to dogmatise on the subject. I am only quoting what he said. In any case what I said in regard to incoming telegrams also applies, I think, to outgoing telegrams.
Now that the necessity has passed away, the fetters ought to be to a large extent removed. When you get to correspondence it is slightly different, but I think the same argument applies to a large extent. Every letter that I receive from a special correspondent abroad of the journal with which I am associated is opened now at the
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General Post Office by some young lady who has the advantage of reading what is intended for our consumption. I have heard of cases in which the information obtained by means of the opening of correspondence has been extremely useful and it may possibly be that there is a necessity for doing it to some extent now, but one recollects that in the past the censorship of correspondence and the opening of letters have led to an unpleasant and irritated state of public feeling in several familiar episodes of history. Now that the war has virtually come to an end, although this power may be a great convenience to the Government, still I suggest that it should be exercised as little as possible, and that the staff dealing with these matters should at once be reduced to very small proportions. I cannot think that it is necessary to have the enormous number of men and women attending to it now that there may have been during the war.
Bureaucracy always likes to have powers which it, rightly I dare say, thinks it can use in the public interest. It is a very convenient thing for the Government to have power to do all this. But is it wise to continue it a moment after it is necessary, and having regard to the change, the enormous catastrophic, change, in the military situation? We certainly in this country do not want to sit on the safety valves. I am the last person to take a pessimistic view of the present trend of affairs, and I do not think any such view is justifiable, but I do say that the sooner we get back to the ancient habits of British freedom the better, and in this House those precedents have always been held in high esteem, and I am sure that in what I have mentioned shall have the general sympathy of your Lordships.
EARL RUSSELL EARL RUSSELL had the following Question on the Paper—
To ask His Majesty's Government whether all regulations interfering with freedom of speech and writing will be at once withdrawn.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I have a Question so much on the lines of Lord Burnham's, that it will probably be convenient if I deal with it at the same time, and as part of the general discussion. The noble Lord has confined himself chiefly to matters connected with the Press and to correspondence. Your Lordships may,

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perhaps, be a little surprised to hear that personally I have never myself resented any reading of one's private correspondence. I agree that in normal times it is an odious thing, which one would protest against. But probably we all feel that we do not mind how much our private correspondence is interfered with, provided any harm which may have occurred can be prevented. No honest man would mind an official, even if that official be represented by a young girl of eighteen, reading his private correspondence if anything is to be gained by it. The time for that has now gone, especially as applied to what the noble Lord emphasised—namely, Press telegrams. I think they might now be allowed to go without mutilation, because as a rule they are received by more or less responsible people, who would not be likely to publish anything that it was undesirable to publish.
But I want to carry it a good deal further than that, to something which I think matters more. Interference with your cablegrams and correspondence produces a certain amount of delay, and perhaps irritation, but it does not prevent the expression of opinions. I want to see at the earliest possible moment those regulations withdrawn which interfere with the free expression of opinion, either by speech or writing, in this country; and there is an eminent necessity for doing this in view of the fact that we are to be confronted, in the shortest possible period, by a General Election. A General Election cannot be conducted with even any pretence of fairness unless everybody can say what they think about political affairs. I have not that fear which the Government have had all through the war regarding the expression of opinion of an unpopular or a small minority. I think if anybody were to be found bold enough to say that he approved, say, the sinking of the "Lusitania," he might very well be left to the judgment of those who immediately surrounded him, and of the country at large. Or if any pacifists were to be found who were to maintain that they did not approve of the terms of the Armistice, and that they were afraid of the terms of peace; or if a man were found who said he though Germany had had very hard measure, and things of that kind—those people would be such a small minority that they could safely be left to the judgment of their countrymen.
I urge upon your Lordships and the Government that it is very much safer
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that these things should be said than that they should be bottled up. If they are bottled up they are likely to lead to dissatisfaction. If you punish people for saying that sort of thing, you increase their importance; you are, as the noble Lord said, sitting upon the safety valve. I think in this country we are least of all likely to give way to that unrest in an extreme form, that anarchy, which we have seen fall upon the countries of Europe; but the best way of avoiding it is to give us our old liberty of speech. And as it has never in the past led to bloody revolution in this country, I do not think it is going to do so now. I saw that the noble Lord whose advent we welcomed to-day to this House, only yesterday or the day before said that a Committee of the Home Office was going to be set up to deal with these questions. But we want no Committee. These are matters of our ordinary liberties, which we so much value. We do not want to know what any Committee thinks about it, but rather what the people think about it.
Let me take the regulation which requires that no political pamphlet of any sort shall be printed until it has received the imprimatur of the Press Bureau. That is a regulation which ought to have been withdrawn last Monday; there is no excuse now for its continued existence. There is the regulation about making statements to the prejudice of discipline and recruiting. There is no recruiting now; and as to statements prejudicial to discipline, do noble Lords realise how that has been interpreted and applied by magistrates? It has been applied to utterances of the most innocent character. If you mean by statements prejudicial to discipline statements inciting to mutiny, let the Regulation as it stands be withdrawn at once, and let some regulation be made, if it is necessary, preventing soldiers inciting to Bolshevism. I do not think it is necessary, and I do not think such statements are likely to be made by any number of our countrymen, and if they are made they will not be listened to. We want to be free, at the earliest possible moment, to express opinions of all sorts, including unpopular ones, including such expressions as that the war is a war of capitalists. The best way to deal with them is to let them be said openly in the market place. Do not let us be afraid of these people.
There is another matter in connection with this Election. The Press Bureau, which exists for the dissemination of the

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censorship on news, must be abolished at the earliest possible moment. We have seen an unholy alliance between Mr. Lloyd George and Mrs. Pankhurst, an alliance of a mysterious character which is still supposed to exist, and we cannot have an official bureau of Government views at an Election. We do not want anything corresponding to what is called a "made Election" in other countries. Let all the sources of propaganda with public money disappear at once before there is an Election, and the earlier the better. I put the Question standing in my name, and if I do not receive a satisfactory answer I shall have to raise it again.
EARL STANHOPE: My Lords, the censorship of the Press cannot with safety be abrogated until the conclusion of peace. As however, military operations are at a standstill, it has already been found possible to cancel a number of restrictions. I am rather surprised that the noble Lord did not seem to be aware of them. Your Lordships will find that the Press are now able to refer to the numbers of units and to the place where they have been seen.
LORD BURNHAM: Nothing is known by the Press at present.
EARL STANHOPE: I understand that has been issued, and that they will now be allowed to say such and such a battalion was seen at Lille and is having a good time, and so on. I believe orders are about to be issued by the authorities in France permitting officers and other ranks to write home and say where they are, and no doubt that example will be followed in other countries which have recently been theatres of war. The advisability of further relaxations is being carefully considered, but they are necessarily contingent on the fulfilment of the terms of the Armistice. I think your Lordships will realise the force of that when you consider what may or may not be known with regard to the German Fleet. There has, for a long time past, been no censorship of the Press on behalf of the Foreign Office, and as soon as the naval and military conditions of the Armistice have been fulfilled, it will no doubt be possible to abolish all such restrictions as were intended to prevent the leakage of naval and military information. As regards the naval censorship, it will be impossible to make any radical change so long as the
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blockade continues. I do not think the, House or the country have the faintest idea as to what has been achieved by the censorship during this war. It has been customary to abuse the Censorship Department, and many jokes have been made at its expense, but I firmly believe, if the public realised the immense value of the work that has been done in that Department which, as the noble Lord quite truly says, is a very large one, ridicule would give place to unbounded admiration.
If I may for a few moments I will lift the veil which I think the Censorship Department has drawn very tight around itself. The ladies and gentlemen who are working there many hours a day, day after day and year after year, have to plod through innumerable letters, many of them by no means easily legible, and with such concentration that they can notice any phrase which is not exactly what it seems, but by a sous entendu may give information to the enemy, or information which, in the interests of the Allies, should not be known. It is quite true that the Navy has swept the seas clear of German ships, but if that alone had been done the blockade would not by any means have been as effective as it is. It is impossible to go into the question of what is contained on neutral ships. It is impossible to search them all at sea, but, when goods are transferred from one part of the world to another, at some time, by some method, either by letter or cable, information has to pass from one country to another stating from where those goods originated, and what is to be their final destination. Without the Censorship it would have been quite impossible to prevent trade between South America and Central Europe through Holland and Scandinavia. It is entirely by the Censorship that indirect trade with enemy countries has been so largely stopped.
During this war practically every case of contraband has been founded on evidence supplied to the Prize Court by the Censorship. I may tell your Lordships that the value of prize cargoes, exclusive of ships, is believed to be over thirty millions sterling. But for the Censorship traffic in contraband would certainly have increased by leaps and bounds. The Censorship has also been an essential instrument for enforcing restriction on financial and commercial dealings of a kind prejudicial to the Allied cause. All the more important cases of trading with the enemy have been founded on evidence chiefly collected by

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the Censorship Department. It has prevented contracts being entered into with the enemy for the purchase of goods which have been stored in this or other countries for post-war delivery. It has assisted the prevention of investment abroad. The banks, by most loyal co-operation, have assisted the Government to a very great extent, but mistakes, of course, occasionally arose which sometimes the Censorship were able to correct. In any case the banks would have been unable to stop notes and cash being sent by post, because they would not have passed through the banks as would a cheque. The Censorship has prevented the dispatch of securities abroad for sale, and has assisted the supervision of imported securities, thereby eliminating the sale for enemy interest. It has stopped enemy remittances to the value of about seventy millions sterling. It has prevented the export of small goods through the post such as diamonds (obviously in many cases invaluable for machine tools). The black list of suspect firms has been drawn up largely as the outcome of information supplied by the Censorship Department.
Finally, in regard to the control of imports, it has supplied essential information with regard to dealings all over the world, thereby assisting various Government purchasing bodies. Your Lordships will realise, in regard to the many interests of war of which the Government is either sole agent or very often part agent, how valuable the information is which enables them to keep the market at a steady level, and to prevent speculation which would raise the price very considerably not only against this country but against private individuals in the country. The Censorship alone has prevented speculative purchases by option hunters which has been forbidden under section (30a) of the Defence of the Realm Regulations, and only by the Censorship of letters and cables could that most necessary of the Defence of the Realm Regulations against profiteering have been carried out. The Censorship has been instrumental again in checking speculative operations in such products as wheat, oil, seeds and other commodities, and has assisted our own and other Governments in these matters. It has also assisted in the proper distribution of foodstuffs and essentials. It has enabled not only our own Government but even Allied Governments to distribute articles in which there
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was a shortage to the best advantage, and has prevented goods being bought and sold in order to raise the price in certain countries for the benefit of those who had no objection to making money under such circumstances.
I think that it is quite true to claim that it has formed the chief, and in many cases the only, executive instrument for preventing speculative transactions in war materials, food supplies and raw material, in controlling prices, in estimating available supplies of the essential commodities, and in assisting the various purchasing bodies in framing their policy and carrying out their work. It will be obvious, and I think that your Lordships will agree, that during the period of transition from war to peace, so long as it remains necessary for the Government to exercise control over essential supplies, it may be imperative to retain some form of cable and postal censorship. I am sure that everyone in the Censorship Department itself will be only too glad to bring their labours to an end at the earliest possible moment, but it is impossible at the present time to give any definite date for the end of their work, or as to the occasion on which the whole of the Censorship Department can be closed down.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, the noble Earl who has just spoken covered a part of the ground which was opened up by the few questions of my noble friend Lord Burnham and of my noble friend Lord Russell, and covered that section of it very completely; but he has not attempted in his reply to make a complete answer to the different contentions put forward by those two noble Lords.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: I propose to give Lord Russell an answer.
LORD BURNHAM: I have not had an answer.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: I understand that the noble Lord intends to touch on the other side of the subject, but so far as the question of the Censorship is concerned, of which the noble Earl gave so full a defence, it was a defence against an attack which, as a matter of fact, was not made. Neither my noble friend behind me nor my noble friend below the gangway made an attack on the Censorship as such. On the contrary, they both expressed the view that it has been not merely necessary

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during the progress of the war but that its operations have been of great value. As it happens, I am able to confirm that with more knowledge than most people. For a considerable time I was Chairman of the War Trade Advisory Committee, which is a body comprising representatives of all the Service Departments and the Departments concerned with the blockade. We met frequently, and I am entirely able to support what was said by my noble friend opposite as to the services rendered in the different directions of national defence and of the carrying out of the blockade by the Censorship. In all these matters the Censorship, of cables and of letters and communications of all kinds, was, I believe, carried out with the utmost possible care and the greatest possible efficiency, and I am very glad that the noble Earl has been able to set on the records of your Lordships' House an account of the services which that Department has performed, and for which the thanks of the country are due.
Nor do I think it would be disputed that to a certain extent during the present continuance of the blockade and during the actual progress of the Armistice some restriction may be necessary. That, I think, will not be disputed by anybody. But I think we are entitled to ask that those restrictions should be on the lowest possible scale compatible with national security, and I do not think it can be disputed—this applies to the points raised by the noble Earl below the gangway, just as much as to those raised by Lord Burnham—that it is an official temptation to maintain restrictions of this kind in a larger degree and for a longer period than may in the general opinion be really necessary. When a man has had charge of a key to a door he is not very willing to give up that key to the public; it is only human nature, and it is certainly human nature as expressed in the conduct of Departments of all kinds.
Therefore I feel that both the noble Lords are entitled—and I desire to support them in doing so—to point out to His Majesty's Government that the tendency to maintain restrictions of this kind, all of which have a certain convenience in helping to carry on the work of Government (because, as we know, in all Departments we should be able to carry on our work more easily if we had more absolute power)—that this temptation to maintain restrictions does exist, and it is one against which His Majesty's Govern-
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ment will have to guard themselves, and regarding which it may for some time to come be the public duty to put pressure upon them. I feel this strongly myself—and I believe it is a view that will be shared by most thoughtful people outside—that, while unwilling to press the Government to depart from anything that can be shown to be necessary, the burden of proving the necessity of maintaining restrictions of all kinds rests upon them.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: My Lords, I will give a very short reply to my noble friend below the gangway (Earl Russell). I have been a political associate of his for many years, and I cannot say that I am in any way surprised that he has raised this subject. I did not know myself that the Home Secretary had answered this Question yesterday—I thought it was Mr. Bonar Law a day or two ago who said that the matter was under the consideration of His Majesty's Government. As my noble friend has said, the Secretary of State has appointed a Committee to go into the general subject. That Committee met to-day at five o'clock, and, I should think, very likely is sitting at present. The first subjects that they propose to deal with are the particular subjects mentioned in my noble friend's Question, and I think he may rest assured that there will be no delay in coming to a decision.
EARL RUSSELL: The answer is satisfactory as far as it goes—that is to say, I understand the noble Viscount to hold out some hope that I shall be satisfied by a Report in a few days. But we have so very few days of Parliamentary time now, and the matter is so urgent that I think it is only fair to give him notice that, unless some announcement has been made, I shall feel it my duty to put the Question down on Tuesday and raise the matter again, when I shall give the specific Regulations one by one to which I wish to draw attention.
LORD BURNHAM: Would the noble Viscount answer the specific questions which I put? I asked whether there would now be liberty to publish weather reports and shipping intelligence, so far as concerns all commercial shipping; and I asked, further, whether inward telegrams addressed to newspapers, instead of being cut to pieces by the cable censors, would be allowed to be delivered as they were received.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I hesitate to give an answer about the weather reports, but it is quite clear from what has been said by my noble friend Earl Stanhope and my noble friend beside me, that the Government are ready to give an undertaking that as soon as these restrictions and regulations can be relaxed they shall be so relaxed. Lord Burnham dilated upon the terrors of a bureaucracy. I am no advocate of bureaucracy. But I must say this, that there is this huge Department of press and letter censorship. In addition to that, there is the Press Bureau. Further, there is the cable censor, and, on the other hand, the editors and the staffs of the great newspapers. So far as I am concerned I think it is a triumph of good management on the part of the editors and their staffs on the one hand, and the Press Bureau on the other, that the ordinary newspaper readers—I, for instance, who read many newspapers every day—is quite unaware of the fact that any Censorship exists; and when we hear that there are cases of telegrams running to 500 words, of which only two are left en clair, and another of 200 words and only two words are permitted to pass through, the answer is that the newspaper editor was not employing a man who knew his business. As soon as the regulations can be relaxed they will be relaxed. The Home Secretary, as has been announced, has called a Conference to look into these matters. I would remind your Lordships that there has been throughout this war a tremendous desire to act in harmony with one's Allies, and one is anxious that all these things should be done with their knowledge and assent, so that these relaxations could be made as free and as widespread as possible, as well as at the earliest possible moment.
LORD STUART OF WORTLEY: My Lords, may I call attention to one instance of the kind of unrest which has been pervading the public mind about the Censorship? Is it necessary that there should be this veil of secrecy as to what is going on in Holland? Is there no communication between this country and Holland? Surely the whole of civilisation has a right to know where the ex-Emperor William II of Germany is, what he is doing, how he bore himself in the last moments of the exercise of the office he has laid down, and since; and where his son is. Surely that
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is nothing to do with the movements of the Fleet, or the exercise of our rights under the blockade. Do no Dutch papers come here, or are they stopped the same as German newspapers were stopped? Why should we not have newspapers of all countries here? I dare say the noble Earl cannot give answers now to these questions.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: No, I cannot. The Armistice was signed only three days ago, and there has been a great deal to occupy the attention of people who have to settle these questions in the interim. I can only give my noble friend the assurance once more that there is every desire to relax these regulations as soon as possible.

CULTIVATION IN THE ROYAL PARKS.
LORD STANMORE: My Lords, there was a misunderstanding yesterday as to a Motion made by my noble friend Lord Strachie for a Return on cultivation in the Royal Parks. Lord Strachie intended, and on behalf of the Office of Works agreed, that the Return should be granted; but there is some doubt whether the Motion was put. In these circumstances, for the purpose of carrying out the intentions of all parties, I ask your Lordships' permission to treat the Motion as though it had been put.
On Question, Motion agreed to, and the Return allowed accordingly.
[From Minutes of November 13]

BARON CLONBROCK.
Petition of Robert Edward Dillon, Baron Clonbrock, in the Peerage of Ireland, claiming a right to vote at the elections of Representative Peers for Ireland; read, and referred to the Lord Chancellor to consider and report thereupon to the House.

GAS AND WATER PROVISIONAL ORDERS BILL.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the opposition to the Llandrindod Wells Gas Order was withdrawn.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes past seven o'clock.