Lords Sitting of 20 November 1918

Preamble
Lord DE MAULEY—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his brother.

TREATMENT OF BRITISH PRISONERS.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON): My Lords, before we proceed to public business I have a brief statement to make upon a matter which will interest the House. Your Lordships will no doubt have read in the papers harrowing accounts of the conditions under which our unhappy prisoners are making their way from their places of confinement in Germany across the frontier to the lines now held by the Allies. His Majesty's Government regard the matter as one of so much gravity that they have sent the following message by wireless to the German Government, and to Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig for immediate communication to the German Headquarters—
"Information reaches His Majesty's Government of the shocking lack of organisation in releasing British prisoners in German territory, and of their return march on foot miserably clothed, without food or transport, and with no escort or guides, to the Allied lines, with the one result of lamentable suffering and heavy mortality. His Majesty's Government cannot tolerate the continuation of this cruel treatment, and must insist on adequate arrangements being made in all above respects by German authorities with whom responsibilty lies; otherwise we shall be compelled to take this into account in any question of revictualling Germany or satisfying the requirements of the German population. His Majesty's Government are ready to lend all available assistance by forwarding food, clothing, and transport to prisoners' camps where they are not otherwise forthcoming, and are addressing the Allied Commanders in this sense."
In addition, Sir Douglas Haig has been instructed to take every possible step to provide with the utmost rapidity food, clothing, and means of conveyance for the use of our prisoners in Germany. Our Allies are being asked to co-operate in this action.
NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: My Lords, I am sure that the House and the country will regard with the utmost satisfaction the statement of the intention of His Majesty's Government and the vehement remonstrance that they have addressed to the German Government.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: My Lords, I beg leave to make the Motion which stands in my name on the Order Paper, the reason of which I stated yesterday afternoon.
Moved, That Standing Order No. XXI be considered in order to its being suspended and that for the remainder of the session all Government Bills and Notices which are entered for consideration on the Minutes of the day shall have precedence of other Bills and Notices.—(Earl Curzon of Kedleston.)
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: My Lords, before the Motion is put, I want to ask the noble Earl the Leader of the House whether he is aware that among the measures which are to take precedence to-day, and which it is proposed to press, is one called the Ministry of Munitions Bill, which has the effect of perpetuating for all time the control of the Ministry of Munitions, not merely over the production of munitions, but over rules and orders that may be given for the diversion of production to peace conditions. We understood from the first that the Ministry of Munitions would disappear in its present form at the close of the war. To ask your Lordships to give precedence to a Bill of this kind on the last day of the session—a Bill, too, which we have never seen before—seems to me an extraordinary thing, and I hardly think that the noble Earl could have been aware of the nature of the Bill when he made this Motion. We shall be entirely in the hands of the Government if this Motion passes; and I really think, in the state of the House and without notice—because I will undertake to say that there is not a single one of the 650 Peers who might be here who is aware of such a measure—that to ask us to pass such a measure is hardly reasonable. I therefore ask the noble Earl whether he proposes to press this measure to the end.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: Yes, my Lords, I do; and I do so not merely on the general merits of the case, but because I believe that my noble friend Lord Midleton is mistaken in the interpretation which he places on the words of the Bill. However, when we come to the Bill my noble friend Lord Elphinstone, who is in charge of it, will make a full explanation of the matter, and will give the reasons for the statement that I have just made.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: If it is necessary to treat the matter in that way, we are, of course, in the hands of the Leader of the House, but the only effect will be that if Lord Elphinstone's explanation is unsatisfactory, we shall be left without remedy because, in the state of the House, we have not got the power; and most assuredly, unless we can receive an indication that this measure will be of a temporary character, it will put us in a very difficult position, and force us to endeavour to put your Lordships in a difficult position.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I think that the noble Viscount had better wait to hear the explanation which will be given by my noble friend, and which, I think, will relieve the greater part of the apprehensions which he expresses.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
LORD HYLTON: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Hylton.)
On Question, Bill read 2a; Committee negatived. Then (Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended) Bill read 3a, and passed.

MINISFRY OF LABOUR (REQUISITIONING OF PREMISES) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: My Lords, in moving the Second Reading of this Bill I have only one prefatory remark to make. I am well aware that it is
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asking a good deal of noble Lords to take the Second Reading on the last day of the session of two important Bills which it will be my duty to ask you to read a second time to-day. I can assure you that I act with great reluctance in this matter, but I do not think the Government are to blame, because this course is forced upon us by the rapid and happy march of events in the last three weeks, which none of us could possibly have foreseen.
This Bill is a very short and a very simple one. It is a Bill of one clause. It is a temporary measure only; to end with other Regulations under the Defence of the Realm Act. It has two objects. The first is to enable premises to be taken for labour exchanges and staff for the purpose of demobilisation; the second is to enable premises to be taken for Other purposes, those other purposes being to provide offices and staff for what is known as the Appointments Department of the Ministry of Labour. The function of that Department; is to deal with re-settlement of officers in civil life and others in ranks of like standing and education, and other persons similarly situated, who have left work or business to their disadvantage for war work; and to give facilities for such re-settlement it is intended to provide advice and assistance and, where necessary, education and technical training to that end.
The reason why the extension of the Defence of the Realm Act in this direction is necessary is that the existing Defence of the Realm Act and the Regulations made under it include and are limited to steps and action to further the prosecution of the war. The Ministry of Labour is legally advised that, demobilisation being a peace measure, the existing Regulations under the Defence of the Realm Act do not apply. It is recognised that the Defence of the Realm Regulations should, of course, come to an end at the earliest possible moment. This proposal, however, is to extend one power only for a strictly limited period on a task which is intimately connected with the war, and is therefore of a very special and extremely urgent character.
The labour exchanges, with the development of which this Bill has to do, are recognised as the agencies for finding employment, and also will be in a greater degree used for that purpose for demobilisation. Already their work is very great;

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there is a staff of 6,000 concerned in placing in employment and payment of benefit to people to the number of about 4½ millions, and this, I think, cannot be called an extravagant staff for the purpose. The exchanges have during the war placed some 5,000 persons a clay in employment. Their work will be further increased by payment by arrangement of the out-of-work pay. I mention this to show the present volume of the work of the labour exchanges, and in the circumstances of demobilisation it cannot he doubted that it must be much increased. There will be a great network of these agencies all over the country, central offices here and there, with numerous branches in almost every locality. Every effort will be made to acquire premises by agreement, and it is hoped that it will be only in the last resort that the powers will have to be put in force. The labour exchanges, as I have said, now have to deal with 4½ millions of people, and on the return of the soldiers they will be finding employment for them, as well as for the civilian population. It is estimated that the numbers with which they will have to cope will be about 14 millions of people, and I do not think I need labour the necessity for the increase.
I think I must say a word as to the nature of the premises which it may be necessary to take. I do so because my noble friend Lord Midleton has at various times called attention to the taking of hotels and similar institutions on a large scale, and has commented upon that action. Of those comments and criticisms I in no way complain. But I think I may be able to say something to allay the anxieties of my noble friend. He need be under no apprehension whatever that any of the great hotels are likely to be taken for this purpose. In the first place, they would be totally unsuited to the work of labour exchanges. There is no intention whatever of setting up a sumptuous or imposing head office in London; indeed, I am not sure that I shall be very much beyond the mark in saying that I doubt very much whether these powers will be much, if at all, put into operation in London. It may be so here and there, possibly in some congested districts; but they will be made use of mainly in the country and provincial localities. A labour exchange office is really a modest kind of institution; sometimes one small house, perhaps two houses put together and adjusted for the purpose.
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What they mainly want is accommodation on a ground floor, with a long counter so that a number of people can be attended to at the same time.
I may add that where any suitable premises at present tenanted for other Government purposes may be found available, advantage will be taken of them. The existing offices of these labour exchanges are quite inadequate even for the work they now have to do, at any rate for heavy unemployment; and I am sure that none would wish to see a repetition of impatient queues—of which we have had experience—standing about in inclement weather; and certainly it would be pitiful to see ex-soldiers and other waiting about in the streets in that way. I should add that compensation will be awarded by the Defence of the Realm Losses Commission, and on a survey of the awards by that Commission it will be found, I think, that the Commission do not take an ungenerous view of bona fide applications.
I may remind your Lordships that this Bill passed through all its stages in the House of Commons without a Division, and I believe almost without adverse comment. The object of the Bill is to enable us to extend and to develop the State machinery or organisation for employment and unemployment in civil life of those to whom we owe so much; and I am confident that your Lordships will wish neither to cripple nor to postpone the development of this organisation. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Sandhurst.)
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: My Lords, the tone in which the noble Viscount has put the whole question, and the limitation he has mentioned, will no doubt greatly influence the opinions of members of the House as regards the desirability of some measure of this kind being put forward. But I am not quite certain at the outset whether the noble Viscount was correct in stating that the measure is for a limited period. We have had no opportunity of studying these measures because they were before us only yesterday. I can, however, find no limitation of time in the Bill. As far I can see, the Minister of Labour can use the powers of the Bill for a long period.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: I do not know whether my noble friend was in the House, but I expressly stated that it would come to an end as the other Regulations under the Defence of the Realm Act.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: The other Regulations come to an end with the Defence of the Realm Act?
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: Yes.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: What limitation is there on this Bill? I am afraid that my noble friend will have to consult the draftsman, because this is one of those measures which is brought forward in a great hurry with a bona fide desire to meet an existing difficulty, is put upon the Statute Book, and then we are at the mercy of the Department for all time. I do not want to pursue the point if my noble friend can dispose of it.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: I was right. It comes to an end on the declaration of peace.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: I hope it is so. But with regard to the provision of buildings for labour exchanges in various parts of the country, I am sure we all wish in the highest degree to facilitate the very difficult task of the Government in replacing in other avocations the enormous displacement of labour which there has been. I think that a measure of this kind ought to be accompanied by some statement on the part of the Government, as regards their intention of demobilising the enormous mass of Civil Servants they have appointed, as they are demobilising the Army.
I am in a very difficult position with regard to this matter. At the invitation of the Prime Minister I sat, as one of a Committee of three, for many months last year in order to consider how the existing inflated establishments might be reduced; in what circumstances in future the Government, could add to them if a fresh emergency arose—as in this case appears to have happened; what were the conditions under which we might endeavour to obtain really adequate service for the enormous expenditure which we had hastily incurred in equipping Departments—like that of the Food Controller, over which my noble friend near me presided, which had to be done with such rapidity that all ordinary laws were disregarded. I have pressed
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over and over again that the Government would publish the Report of that Committee; and I think it is a little hard that I am forced here as a member of your Lordships' House to discuss these questions and practically to be told that the evidence which I heard was heard confidentially, and to feel that a good many statements, which might startle your Lordships if you were aware of them, cannot properly be made. But one thing I think I have a right to say, because it is not divulging anything with regard to the evidence—namely, that the Committee unanimously proposed the appointment of, and urged the Government for their own protection to appoint, a strong independent Committee to sit permanently; such Committee to include a representative of the Treasury, to have upon it when it sat a representative of the Department which desired expansion, and also to have one or two Parliamentary representatives, independent of the Government, who could give the time to it which we know busy members of the War Cabinet and other members of the Government could not give.
I feel that we have some ground for complaint that not one single point collected by the Committee has been taken up, not one thing has been done in furtherance of the advice, which we did not proffer to His Majesty's Government but which we gave at their earnest request, after a sacrifice of months of time. In this particular case can any one doubt, with the need of these larger numbers of labour exchanges all over the country, if that is to be vouched for by the Minister for Labour with the same haste and rapidity with which the noble Viscount, Lord Davenport, had to set up the machinery for food control, that you must again have an enormous waste and an enormously heavy expenditure? But that is not all. I firmly believe that there are a number of offices which ought to be reduced at once, and which, if you could only get some independent authority to override the natural desire of everybody to continue their own work to the last moment, might be dealt with in the course of the next few days. I will give you a few. I think the Ministry of Propaganda ought, on every ground, to come to an end. The vast staff which are employed on propaganda, at an expenditure amounting, I think, to over a million pounds a year, which has been denounced by the House

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of Commons, ought to be brought to an end, and their premises set free for the needs of the Minister of Labour, if necessary. Again, with regard to the Censorship. We gathered from the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Cave, last night that a very great reduction in the work of the Censor must take place at the earliest moment. Then take the Air Force. The Air Force is encamped in buildings which, I believe, are larger than the War Office was before the war started, or something like that. Can anybody doubt that when the Air Force ceases to engage men and has merely to demobilise its existing establishment, a large proportion of the buildings of the Hotel Cecil might at once be restored to ordinary purposes?
My complaint of the Government is that each Minister finds that the whole question of economy, either of money or of labour in civil establishments, has gone. Each Minister asks for what he wants, no Minister is coerced into giving up what he does not really require, and I think if the scandal of all these hotels and public buildings in London being occupied in a manner which I say I could better describe to your Lordships if I were allowed to make use of the information with which I was supplied by the Departments at the time of this inquiry—I say that if this scandal is to be allowed to go on after the war is over, it really will react most seriously on the Government when the bill comes to be paid. Therefore I ask the noble Viscount whether, if your Lordships consent to pass this Bill, he will give us some assurance that a Committee will be at once established, and that the Government will not take the view which the Committee they themselves appointed asks us to take—namely, that it shall have some extraneous authority. After all, one cannot suppose that all public spirit and public work rests in the overworked members of the Government. But if they cannot take an extraneous authority, will not the Treasury set up an authority of its own to set to work to reduce at once and to override with a strong hand the desire of everybody who is employed in the Government service that the particular offices with which they are concerned shall complete their labours? Cannot we have some assurance of that character?
The present state of London is a very undesirable one. Most of the great hotels are being used for Government work.
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People who come from the country, wives to meet husbands who have been sent back from the war, Canadian ladies who have planted themselves near some camp from which their husbands have now to be removed, even if they come for a single night, find it impossible to obtain shelter in very many cases. And that is not a desirable thing to continue in the months which are coming, when the numbers of these immigrants, if we may so call them, to London will be enormously increased. I do not want to weary your Lordships, but I hope that if we consent to proceed with this Bill the noble Viscount will give us an assurance that an immediate and proper overhaul by some real authority will be made in regard to a great number of the premises which are occupied by the Government.
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE: My Lords, I should like to join in some protest against this Bill. It has been again and again said in this House that there was a very strong feeling in the country against the great multiplication of public offices and buildings and staffs of all kinds, with the expenses attached; and I am sure that there must be very generally throughout the House a feeling of disappointment that at the very last moment of the life of this Parliament another Bill of this scope should be introduced, and should be not only, as we are so well accustomed to see, passed through this House without adequate consideration, but apparently, from what the noble Viscount said just now, it was passed through the other House without any consideration.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: No, without a division.
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE: I thought the noble Viscount said that it was passed through all its stages in one sitting.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: Oh, no, I do not think that is so.
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE: I beg the noble Viscount's pardon. It was passed through with very great expedition. The main point upon which I think there must be disappointment is not that there should be provision made for the exceedingly important and difficult matter of demobilisation and distribution of people, either in their old offices or otherwise, but that there is no indication of

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measures having been taken, or being intended to be taken, to utilise the buildings and the men who can no longer be required, or ought not to be required, now that the war has, in its most acute sense, come to an end. The noble Viscount opposite has suggested that there should be some strong assurance given that measures of that kind will be taken so as faithfully to utilise what there is already; and if the noble Viscount is good enough to give that assurance, it will, of course, make a great difference to the House.
The reason I venture to intervene in the debate is not for the barren purpose of fault-finding. I did so for the purpose of making a suggestion which I have not heard in other quarters, but which, I think, deserves some consideration. The tribunals whose duty it has been for a long time to consider what is the best way of taking men out of various employments and allowing them to be taken up in service in the Army or in employment of national importance, now find themselves without occupation. In their various districts they have become most intimately acquainted with the nature and the different forms of businesses, and I venture to think that it would be quite worth consideration whether those tribunals might not be asked to give some assistance, either in an advisory character or, possibly, as a sort of court of reference to which difficult cases might, be referred. There are such cases as conflicting claims for reinstatement in different businesses. There is in that kind of case, which I know from my own experience, having sat on the tribunal for Westminster, a class of business for which there is available a tribunal which has shown itself, I think, to be very well capable of doing its work, and I think it would be quite worth while if those tribunals were kept alive and had questions of that kind referred to them for assistance to the Government.
LORD SOUTHWARK: Before the noble Viscount replies, I should like to ask whether it is provided in any Act that an appeal can be made against taking possession of any business premises. If not, as we are asked to pass this Bill at this late period to the session, just when Parliament is rising, could not a clause be included in Committee to make it clear that there is a Court of appeal somewhere, so that, before these buildings or land are taken over by some autocratic authority, there
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should be a right of appeal. We know in London—and I think it is done all over the country—that demands have been made for premises which a great many people have thought were undesirable for the purposes to which they were to be applied, and that very autocratic means have been taken to get possession of them, though, of course, there is no appeal. As Parliament is rising I suppose there could not be such a great emergency for taking over the premises in the recess, and there should, be some appeal that could be made against any unnecessary or provocative taking possession of premises.
LORD SYDENHAM: My Lords, I should like to ask the noble Viscount whether he will accept some such proviso as this, "Provided that it can be shown to the satisfaction of the Treasury that accommodation cannot be obtained in buildings vacated by other Departments." If he would accept a little addition of that kind it might meet some of the considerable misgivings which arise.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, I very much doubt the need of any haste in this matter. The Bill purports to provide land and buildings for demobilisation. If this is in country towns and country districts, I do not know what the position may be, or whether the Government have already buildings there or could get hold of buildings without compulsion. But we all know that in London the Government already have a great many more buildings than they need. The noble Viscount opposite has spoken of the Censorship and the Ministry of Propaganda, which are coming to an end, and it is obvious to anybody that at the moment the Ministry of Munitions cannot need in London one-tenth of the staff or the buildings which it has What it needs is a winding-up department. It wants an office in which to pay people off and to cancel contracts. To say that it requires one-tenth of the buildings which it has to-day is absurd.
I do not even approve of the object for which these powers are required. If the Bill was to help soldiers and sailors to get into civil life I should say "Yes." But I know what is going on. I have been paying particular attention to this matter, as I told the House the other day when speaking on another Bill. What is happening is that the Ministry of Labour is holding out to employers that they should give the

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Ministry all the vacancies they can for ex-officers; but the ex-officers are not there. I know, because I have been running a small organisation to find work for ex-officers. At the present moment 80 per cent of the officers who are out of the Army are not fit to take any work. They come to you on a day when they feel rather better, and ask you to put them in touch with an employer. You do so, and three or four days later they write that they have never been able to take the opportunity because they are feeling worse. What is happening? You have not got the men out of the Army and Navy to place in positions. The Ministry of Labour is getting vacancies and it is filling them with civilians. I would rather that these vacancies were kept to the end of the war, if necessary. If employers must fill them, let them fill them, but I say it should not be done at the public expense; and it is being done at the public expense. Here is the Ministry of Labour with a great organisation which is getting men out of civil life—men who have been getting very high salaries and wages at munitions—and is placing them at the public expense in vacancies which, if they are not going to be filled by the employers on their own account, ought to be left unfilled until some of the soldiers come home.
We are being asked to give extra accommodation for that. I disaprove of the object of it. The Government should strike out the words about "otherwise engaged in work of national importance," which mean highly paid people, who have been highly paid for the last three or four years, and very often have received honorary military or naval rank as well, but have never done any military or naval work, and have never risked their lives. I say these men should not be looked after at the cost of the public, and we ought not to be asked to take more offices for them. What I suggest to the Government is this. Let them modify their Bill and make it apply to country places outside London. I only say that because I do not know what the position there is. We know that in London they cannot want all the places they have got. They have any number of offices and buildings which they ought to empty and we ought to force them to empty them. At any rate, I strongly dissent from the idea that we should give the Government power to take houses by compulsion in order to find work for well-paid civilians.
VISCOUNT CHAPLIN: My Lords, I wish to say one word only in this respect. To a large extent I agree with the noble Viscount who has just sat down. I have reasons of my own for knowing what the position is, through two servants. One of them was in my employ; he was thirty-seven years of age and was called up to join a regiment. He joined the Grenadier Guards. I have also another at the present moment who was badly wounded in the first great Somme battle. He is not yet recovered, but is still suffering, and had it not been for the place that he obtained with me I doubt very much if he would have got employment at all. I have, from a variety of different sources, the strongest possible reasons for believing that the one thing resented by the wounded soldiers who are now coming home and finding more difficulties in getting employment is exactly what the noble Viscount has pointed out—namely, that men who have been receiving enormous wages during the war in munitions and other work are the men who are now being put into employment instead of those who have given up everything, many of whom have suffered severely from wounds and still require employment. They feel this beyond everything and they resent it. I must say I think they are entitled to do so.
THE EARL OF DESART: My Lords, there is one word which I should like to say before the debate closes. I came here with a perfectly open mind, and after listening to what has been said by noble Lords I am bound to say—subject to what may be answered from the Government Bench—that they really convinced me that the necessities for this power are neither immediate nor urgent. I venture to submit that, unless they be immediate or they be exceptionally urgent, they should not be asked for by the Government, and that this Bill, if it ever becomes necessary, is really not necessary at the present time.
There is one consideration which I have not heard referred to but which I should like to submit to the Government. It is true that peace has not come. It is true that hostilities are, at any rate technically, only suspended, but at the same time I do not suppose any of your Lordships anticipate that they will—at any rate we hope they will not—be resumed. The Defence of the Realm Act is essentially and purely a war measure and I must say, as a general proposition, that, unless it is absolutely

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necessary, any extension of the powers under the Defence of the Realm Act should not be embarked upon at this time.
I think it is the desire of every one, and I am sure it is the desire of the Government, to restore as soon as may be all the liberties we enjoyed and which we gave willingly and gladly away for the purpose of the prosecution of the war. That urgency has ceased to exist, and I think the tendency of the Government should be to reduce the action of the powers under the Defence of the Realm Act rather than to extend them, unless they can show that the necessity for so doing is not only desirable but is urgent and immediate. I venture to submit this consideration with great diffidence, being convinced, speaking as one may be without hearing the reply, that in this particular case it may never be necessary to put these powers into force; and it is hardly possible to imagine that it is urgently necessary to do so at the present moment.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: My Lords, I may, perhaps, be permitted to say a few words, having listened to the speeches that have been made. The debate has ranged over two grounds. The first is the comparatively narrow issues which arise out of this Bill; the second is the wider considerations of public convenience and economy upon which so much stress was properly laid, by the noble Viscount, Lord Midleton. As regards this Bill itself, I am not aware if all the noble Lords who have spoken had the advantage of hearing my noble friend Lord Sandhurst. He gave what in my judgment was a very clear and adequate explanation of the Bill, and I may perhaps be allowed, in one or two respects, to amplify what he said. Of course, my noble friend who has just spoken is entitled to say, from his point of view, that Parliament ought not to be asked with so much rapidity to pass a Bill of this sort, unless the case is strong, the need immediate, and the necessity urgent. I quite agree with him, and I shall endeavour to show that they are.
I think I heard my noble friend Lord Sandhurst say that during the demobilisation period, upon which we are now about to enter, the exchanges would have to deal with some fourteen million persons, and indeed it would not be an exaggeration to say that practically the whole of the working classes of this country will be
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brought within the unemployment benefits scheme. It is therefore necessary to make a very great increase in the staff of the employment exchanges, and the idea is that their number must be at least tripled for this object. The present accommodation is utterly inadequate for the purpose. It is all very well to talk about taking establishments and buildings which have been devoted to other uses, and which will no doubt as time passes, and I hope quickly, be evacuated and resigned, but you cannot do that in a day or even a week, and in this case I wonder if noble Lords realise that in about a week's time there will be a million of people in this country out of work, and that this is the case we have to deal with. The out-of-work donations scheme commences on Monday next, and it will break down if the Bill is not passed; and I am certain that if I were in your Lordships' position I should hesitate to assume responsibility for the outbreak of civil discontent and disorder which will ensue unless you make the provision which I have described.
A point was made, and I think not persisted in, by Lord Midleton at the beginning of the discussion, as to the duration of this measure, and my noble friend behind me replied, quite correctly, that it is a purely temporary measure. As a matter of fact, the point was referred to the Legal Committee on the Termination of War Legislation, and they were of opinion that the power to issue regulations under the Defence of the Realm Act only exists during the continuation of the present war; and therefore the effect of this Bill is only to give this temporary power, of which I speak, so long as the war lasts.
As regards the wider case, the noble Viscount referered to a Committee of which he was a member and which I believe rendered very valuable services. I am not myself conscious of the reasons of general policy which led to the non-publication of the Report of that Committee, but I fancy that it was a private Committee set up to advise the Government, and that it is contrary to the usual practice to lay before Parliament the Reports of such Committees. The noble Viscount expressed the opinion that no action was taken upon the Report of this Committee. That is not the case. The views which he has more than once expressed in your Lordships' House have been incessantly before our eyes, and the fact that there has been no

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public pronouncement does not mean that the most close and persistent vigilance has not been employed in all these respects. If it were otherwise I am sure that the noble Viscount, with all the sources of information which he possesses, would many times have arraigned the Government in this House.
The noble Viscount seemed to think that this was an opportunity to make a general statement upon demobilisation, the closing down of public Offices, and the evacuation of premises. It is, I think, not more than ten days since the Armistice was concluded—at any rate, it is not much more—and the Government, although they have set in hand the whole of the machinery for this purpose, have not been in a position to make the full and systematic statement which he, not without reason, desires. He alluded to certain special Ministries—the Ministry of Propaganda—I forget whether he mentioned the Ministry of Information—and the Ministry of Air and the Censorship. The moment the Armistice was declared inquiries were at once set in operation by the Government with regard to these Ministries and others, and proposals are now before us for a great reduction, for the closing of premises, and in some cases for the complete cessation of the work of the Ministries concerned. I wish that Parliament was sitting a little longer, because in a week or ten days I, or some other Minister, might have been able to make a very full statement on the subject.
In the circumstances of the case I can do no more than give the noble Viscount the general assurance which I have just done. As to whether it is desirable or necessary to set up a Committee for the purpose I cannot, without consultation, express an opinion. We are constantly told that this Government invariably shelves its responsibility upon Committees, and I think I have heard my noble friend complain over and over again of the enormous number of Committees that have been set up. If the war has been largely conducted by Committees, it has also, in my judgment, been won by Committees, and the service rendered by these Committees, on which many noble Lords have served, has been immeasurable. Whether a fresh Committee is necessary or not I hesitate to say. If it be necessary, there will be no reluctance on the part of the Government to employ it.
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There is one other point about this Bill. I have alluded to its main object, but there is a second object, and that is to enable the Minister to take premises for other purposes than those I have described, and those purposes are the provision of offices and accommodation for the staff of the Appointments Department of the Ministry. Here we come in contact with the greatest of the problems with which we are faced. We have now, as soon and as effectively as we can, to arrange for the re-settlement in civil life, firstly, of officers, and other ranks of similar standing and education, and, secondly, of persons who have left their work or business in order to undertake war work. For these classes it is intended to provide advice, assistance, and a course of training, both educational and technical, where necessary, with a view of resettling them in civil life. The country is to be divided into a number of separate local districts, in each of which will be a head office with a staff of persons adequate for the purpose. Branch offices will also be required in each district.
A question was raised as to the use of compulsory powers. Of course, premises will be taken by agreement wherever this can be done, and it is not contemplated that compulsory powers will ever be used except in congested districts where voluntary methods would not avail. It is with the utmost reluctance that I or any Minister ever urges Parliament to rush through legislation at the close of the session, but surely I am entitled to point out that the rapidity with which the House of Commons passed these measures is itself a demonstration that, in the view of the representatives of the people and the working classes, this is most urgently needed. I beg your Lordships to dismiss from your minds, firstly, the idea that the case is not one of the gravest importance and, secondly, the idea that the Government are taking advantage of their position or their powers to press upon Parliament any legislation which is not absolutely needed in the circumstances of the case.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Your Lordships have heard, as usual, a very courteous and able defence from the Leader of the House, but I should like to recall your Lordships' attention to the fact that we do not approach this subject of the provision of premises for the Government for the first time. On the contrary, it has

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been very much before the public and before your Lordships' House, and I think, by universal consent, that there has been a degree of extravagance about the provision of premises which might be pardoned on account of the preoccupation of Ministers, but which is profoundly deplorable. It has become notorious that the Government have more premises than they ought to have had for the work which was performed, and now, in the last hours of the Parliament, we are asked to add to the number which is already so very much larger than it should have been. My noble friend the Leader of the House said, "Surely your Lordships are not going to take the responsibility of risking great public disorder by rejecting this Bill." I do not suggest that the house should reject this Bill. But why has the difficulty arisen? Why should we be put in this dilemma—the sort of dilemma in which the Government always leaves both Houses of Parliament—either you pass the Bill or you run the risk of great disasters; either you pass the Bill without any consideration, without any defence practically, and without any figures or facts being laid before you, or you run enormous risks. Revolution stares us in the face, we are told, unless we abrogate all our functions as a House of Legislature and pass this Bill without hesitation.
I do not deny the argument of my noble friend to some extent. I think that the Government have placed us in this position, but why have they done so? Because they will hurry on this Election. If the Election had been postponed to a reasonable period there is really no reason in the world why we should not have discussed all these matters properly. Why a General Election should have been made to synchronise exactly with the urgent matter of preparing to bring this country back to peaceful conditions nobody knows except His Majesty's Government. That being the case, we approach the Government with great humility, and ask them whether they can give us any comfort. Are we to be asked to give them an absolutely free hand? Is there to be no check upon the voracity of the first Commissioner of Works for premises? There have been two suggestions made to your Lordships, either of which I think my noble friend might be able to consider favourably. One is that there should be some sort of committee appointed whose consent should
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be sought before the First Commissioner of Works is allowed to act. That would seem to be a very simple remedy, though I confess not a perfect remedy, because we have the assurance of my noble friend Lord Midleton that the recommendations of his Committee were never followed by the Government. My noble friend said that Committees have done great work in the war, and I think that he is right, but it is rather a pity that the particular work of Lord Midleton's Committee did not bear fruit. The reason of course was that Lord Midleton's Committee was appointed in order to restrict expenditure, and that is the last thing anybody wants to do nowadays. But if my noble friend could give us an assurance that there will be appointed some Committee which would act as a guarantee to Parliament that these ample powers which we are giving should not be misused, that would very much reassure us.
Moreover there is the proposal of my noble friend on the Cross Benches, Lord Sydenham, that the First Commissioner of Works should not be allowed to act, without the consent of the Treasury. That is almost the most moderate proposal that could have been made, and I cannot see why the Government should not consent in Committee to insert some provision, by which the consent of the Treasury should be obtained before the First Commissioner of Works acts. May I say to my noble friend just this one thing? He will be the first man to admit that to ask Parliament to legislate in this particular way, with this precipitancy, on these important matters, is a tremendous demand upon, them. If your Lordships' House and the House of Commons consent to pass legislation like this in this headlong way, and without consideration and proper information, they are entitled to some kind of consideration from the Government, and I suggest that my noble friend should engage to allow us to put in Committee some Amendment of the kind which I have described. If he will do that, I do not think that your Lordships will make it more difficult for the Government than the circumstances of the case permit.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: May we understand that there is a prospect that some authority will be set up not only to control the taking over of great buildings but the reduction of the present ones?
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I desire, of course, to treat the House with courtesy. I understood that the question was going to be raised in Committee, and I was going to place myself in consultation with the representatives of the Department with a view to giving an answer when the point came up in Committee. I understood that my noble friend did not propose to take a Division on the Second Reading; indeed, I was expecting the Motion to be put from the Woolsack.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House to-morrow.

TERMINATION OF THE PRESENT WAR (DEFINITION) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE NATIONAL SERVICE DEPARTMENT (VISCOUNT PEEL): My Lords, in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, I want first to call your Lordships' attention to a very serious misprint which makes nonsense of one of the clauses. In line 21, after the word "peace," all words till line 32 are in the wrong position, and they ought to be inserted before the word "referring" in line 10.
The object of this Bill is to provide a definition of what the termination of the war means. Your Lordships may remember that a Committee was set up under Mr. Justice Atkin in order to give a definition of what the termination of the war really meant—to decide it for the purposes of Acts of Parliament and contracts, and so on—so that there might be no doubt upon the subject. The recommendation of this Committee was that the date of the ratification of the peace treaties should be taken to be the end of the war. That definition was further approved by a Committee of the House of Commons to which the matter was referred. They, indeed, suggested that legislation should take place on these lines.
This Bill is introduced to set this matter at rest, if possible. But I have to call your Lordships' attention to this, that of course the term "ratification of the peace treaties" is in itself an ambiguous term, and in this Bill, therefore, the definition is itself defined; that is to say, power is given to
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His Majesty in Council to proclaim and announce when the end of the war has come. That date will be conclusive for all purposes of Acts of Parliament containing references to the end of the war. For Orders in Council, for Proclamations, and also—and perhaps that is one of the most important things of all—for contracts. It uses the words "expressly or impliedly, and in whatever form of words" reference is made to the end of the war. Your Lordships, I dare say, are aware of the fact that there are something like over thirty different forms of phrase referring to the end of the war which are used in various commercial contracts, and this clause is so drawn as to embrace all those particular forms of words under the definition which will be made by the declarations under the Order in Council.
There is a special provision, too, in Clause 1 with reference to certain Acts. These Acts can by Order in Council be declared to be at an end before this general declaration that the end of the war is come, if it seems advisable that they shall be brought to an end before that general date. But there is some limitation, as your Lordships will see, upon the Order in Council, because this general declaration that the end of the war is come must be fixed with regard to, and is not to be later than, the date of "the exchange or deposit of ratifications."
There is a further and important subsection, sub-section 3, which applies to the ease of particular States. It may be of great advantage, supposing that a treaty was arranged with one of the belligerent States, that the end of the war should be declared to have come with that particular State, without referring to this general declaration, because, of course, there is a considerable number of arrangements, or Orders, or disabilities, on British subjects and on the subjects of the corresponding States which might just as well be removed at as early a date as possible. It would be convenient, therefore, that the Order in Council should declare the war at an end between this country and that particular State before the general Order in Council is proclaimed saying that the war itself is at an end.
Your Lordships will see that there is an immense convenience to have this date definitely stated. A certain elasticity is allowed in this Bill as to the time when that declaration should be made, but I

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think probably your Lordships would approve of that elasticity, because it is very difficult to foresee all the different situations that may arise as to whether there is one definitive Treaty of Peace, as to whether there is any delay, let us say, with the ratification, and for the purposes of Acts of Parliament and the purposes of business it is essential that that date of the termination of the war should be made absolutely clear and should be defined in this way by Order in Council I beg to move the Second Reading of the Bill.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Peel.)
LORD BUCKMASTER: My Lords, the necessity for the introduction of this measure has been recognised by your Lordships on many occasions. At the present moment there are a large number of Statutes, grouped together under the head of emergency Acts of Parliament, each of which contains references to the period of their duration, and very few of them fix the period by the use of the same phrase. The greatest possible confusion would undoubtedly arise unless some clear and definite date were fixed by which those Statutes might receive interpretation.
I have one or two comments to make upon this Bill. The first is that the date mentioned in the Bill as the longest period for which these Statutes can endure is a date which in itself appears to me to be uncertain and vague. What is meant by the "date of the exchange or deposit of ratifications of the treaty or treaties of peace"? The phrase is alternative: deposit of ratifications of the treaty is one of the occasions on which the war is to end; the exchange of treaties is another. By whom is the deposit to be made? Is it the deposit by ourselves, or is it the deposit by our enemies? Does it mean the deposit of the ratification of peace with all the different Powers, or will the deposit or ratification with one be sufficient? Because the last subsection does not deal with that, but enables independent provisions to be taken with regard to settlement treaties.
I do not think that the Government has defined with the exactness that the importance of the subject deserves what is the period which, in the absence of an Order in Council, will be the period for the termination of hostilities—the end of the war, or the making of peace, or whatever the
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phrase may be—in the many Acts of Parliament which will be covered by this Bill. No one can be more anxious than I am that emergency legislation should at the earliest moment cease. It was introduced for special purposes; it ran counter in many ways to well-accepted principles upon which laws should be passed; it no doubt interfered in a very serious manner with a great many of the commercial arrangements and bargains, the maintenance of which is of the greatest possible importance for our future; and, it never could have been looked upon with favour but for the extreme conditions in which the country found itself. I say all this about that legislation because I dislike it. But at the same time, while I recognise that it was important in the first instance, so also I recognise that it may not be wise that the whole of that legislation should automatically be ended by a period which, if I apprehend the provisions of this Bill rightly, cannot possibly extend beyond the date which is mentioned by the deposit or the ratification of these treaties.
Some of these measures it may be of the utmost importance to continue. I am by no means certain that some of the powers, with regard for instance to the control of food, the control of supplies, and many similar matters, will not of necessity have to be continued for a very long period past the date that is referred to here. If this Bill passes it will become necessary for all these provisions to be re-enacted by independent Statutes. I agree that this is a very wise and desirable method of proceeding, but I look forward to the next Parliament being filled to the last moment of its time with urgent important legislation of all kinds. I think that it is a matter to be considered whether steps might not have been taken in this Bill to have relieved them of the necessity of considering again which of these Statutes it will be necessary to reenact, and to enable some greater elasticity than this Bill provides for the continuance of these emergency measures which in the national interest it may be found necessary to continue. I cannot help thinking that the wiser plan would have been to have adopted a totally different course, to have provided periods of time for each Act of Parliament, to have had a Schedule in the Bill and fixed the dates with reference to each one instead of doing what is attempted to be done by this Bill—namely, to have one date, the furthest possible limit, made

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inflexible and applicable to all the varying matters which those Statutes cover.
Finally, may I express my sense of relief at the explanation of subsection (3) given at the outset by the noble Viscount? I began to wonder whether it was that something had affected my reason, or whether the drafting of Bills of Parliament had assumed a new form. As it stood the subsection was unintelligible, but it is now plain.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I would ask the noble Viscount whether he will explain to your Lordships the urgency of this Bill. I understand that the termination of the war, whatever date His Majesty fixes for it, will certainly not be until the Treaty of Peace has been settled. I do not believe that the Treaty of Peace has even begun to be settled. It will take weeks, probably months. But a new Parliament will be in session in six weeks time, though it will be in being much sooner; therefore I fail altogether to see the urgency of this Bill. No doubt, however, the noble Viscount will explain that when he gets up to reply. I should like to be clear that I understood the noble Viscount aright. I understand that under Clause 1, subsection (1), it is to be one uniform date for all purposes; that it is not proposed to take power to fix the end of the war for one Act of Parliament at a particular date and for another Act of Parliament at another date; or for one Order in Council at one date and for another Order in Council at another date; that they are all to be one uniform date except in so far as that is modified by the proviso which immediately follows. Is that correct?
VISCOUNT PEEL: Yes. The proviso, of course, is applicable to Acts of Parliament, and provides for bringing them to an end before that date.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Yes, that I understand. But otherwise it is to be a uniform date for all purposes?
VISCOUNT PEEL: Yes.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I imagined it was so, but I wanted to be quite clear. I should like to make one observation in respect of that now that I understand it is to be a uniform date. The termination of the war is important
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with respect to all those emergency Statutes of which the noble and learned Lord (Lord Buckmaster) has spoken. That no doubt is the primary object which the Government have in view in fixing the date of the termination of the war. But there are two very famous Statutes which do not belong to the emergency class, the date of whose operation depends upon the exact definition of "the termination of the war." I refer to the Government of Ireland Act and to the Welsh Church Act. Both those Acts, under the Suspensory Act of 1914, come into force, as I understand, upon the termination of the war. Those are a very different class of Act of Parliament, and very different considerations arise with regard to them; because in respect of the emergency Statutes the general desire of the public and of your Lordships' House is that they should be brought to an end as soon as possible, and therefore in their case the sooner the technical "termination of the war" can conveniently take place under this Bill the better everybody will be pleased. We all want to return to normal conditions; we want to get rid of all these special emergency powers which are altogether foreign to our ordinary system.
But when you come to deal with the two great Statutes of which I have spoken, very different considerations arise. It is perfectly clear, I should have thought, that in the case of both of them very important decisions must be taken by the Government and by Parliament before they are allowed to become operative. I should therefore like to ask my noble friend whether the Government have thought of that in drafting this Bill. Your Lordships will follow the argument. There is to be only one date for the termination of the war. That date in respect of the emergency Statutes ought to be as soon as possible. But it will also affect these other great Statutes; and there, although the wish of the public and of those concerned is that it should be as soon as possible, many of them desire that a reasonable interval should be allowed to elapse in order that the Government may have time to consider very important matters which have to be settled before they operate, because the persons concerned have to make very important provision for the objects which they have at heart before these Acts become operative. I need tell your Lordships that I am thinking especially in this connection of the Welsh

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Church Act. Those who are interested in the Welsh Church are in profound financial difficulty. I do not know what they can do; they must do their best, but they evidently must have time; and moreover not only must they have time, but it is clear that the Government themselves are considering a modification of that Act, for we know from public sources that this is part of the policy of His Majesty's Government. Therefore for all these reasons I beg to ask my noble friend whether the Government which he represents have considered the effect of this Bill upon the operation of those two important Statutes?
THE LORD BISHOP OF BANGOR: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Marquess for having been good enough to mention the case of the Welsh Church. I want to tell your Lordships what was the impression left on my mind when I read this Bill. It seemed to me that it gave power to the Government by a simple Order in Council to declare the war to be at an end. What would be the effect? I do not think I am exaggerating when I state these figures. I think about a hundred clergymen would on that day be told that their stipends ceased automatically on no notice whatever, that their income would cease at once; there would be just the Order of Council passed and all these gentlemen's stipends would cease. That is the effect on my mind. I am very much obliged to the noble Marquess, but I hope we shall have some information on this point.
Speaking of this, may I trespass on your Lordships' attention to remind you of what took place. In 1915 it was felt that the war was inflicting a special hardship on the Welsh clergy. An arrangement was come to, I think very much under the auspices of the present Prime Minister, and a Bill was passed through this House with an implied promise that it would be passed through the other House very soon. That Bill provided that six months grace after the termination of the war should be given before the Act should be put into operation, in order that there might be time, in a moment of less stress, to make such arrangements as were absolutely necessary for the carrying on of the Welsh Church. It was found when that Bill came to another stage that it would provoke a very undesirable controversy in the state of public affairs then, and it was withdrawn, the Government appealing
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to us—and, of course, we accepted their assurance—not to press its passage, because although they felt that it should be passed, they did not wish to raise controversy at that particular time. While quite accepting the necessity of the case I did appeal to the Government—the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, was then sitting there—and there was a kind of idea that when the time came the position of hardship which the Welsh Church was put into should be sympathetically considered. What one does wish to be assured of is that this definition by Order in Council of the termination of the war, which will automatically bring in the date of Disestablishment, will be such that it will not take us too much unawares and inflict unmerited hardship.
VISCOUNT PEEL: There were one or two points raised by your Lordships on which I think I ought to say a word. The noble and learned Lord opposite raised two points. The first was that the actual date of the exchange or deposit of ratification of treaty or treaties was in itself an indefinite period. I think that is inevitably so, and I did point out, when I introduced the Bill, that obviously under the Bill a certain elasticity was to be allowed to the Government to declare by Order in Council when the end of the war had actually taken place. Because it was obvious that if the end of the war had taken place and some of these treaties had been exchanged, it was important that the declaration should be made.
LORD BUCKMASTER: What power is there in this Bill for an Order in Council to declare that the war is ended on any date except a date prior to the ratification of the treaty?
VISCOUNT PEEL: It would mean the ratification of the general treaty. It is possible that there might not be one general treaty, but several treaties between specific States. I do not want to go into too much detail, but there may, for instance, be several new States, and we might have a series of these arrangements for ratification.
LORD BUCKMASTER: I wonder whether the noble Viscount and the House will permit me to explain the position. I desire to have this Bill made as workmanlike as possible. As this Statute is drawn, it is impossible to fix by Order in Council

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the date of the exchange or the deposit of ratification. That cannot be made definite by any Order at all; it is a period fixed by the Act, and the Order in Council can only operate after that date. It also has, it appears to me, as the Bill is drawn, a provision that the termination of the war might be held to have taken place under a treaty of peace which was deposited or exchanged with any one of the belligerent Powers. There is no means whatever by Order in Council to vary or alter that, or make it more definite.
VISCOUNT PEEL: It says "and shall not be later than the date of exchange of these treaties."
LORD BUCKMASTER: Certainly.
VISCOUNT PEEL: I presume that means all the treaties, Supposing there were sets of three or four treaties, it would be possible to declare the date to be after one set of treaties had been exchanged but not after the whole set had been. There is another point which the noble Lord raised with respect to exchange or deposit. The question is what these processes make. I imagine that the noble Lord is fairly familiar with them, but I understand the process of exchange refers to the process of exchange between two Powers, but where treaties are made between several Powers I understand the practice is that it is not exchange but deposit; it is a technical distinction used by the Foreign Office, but not, I think, of very great importance.
The noble and learned Lord raised the further point as regards all these Acts coming to an end at precisely the same time. He thought there might be some inconvenience in that. I do not think that question is particularly affected by this Bill. It is decided that there must be some particular date on which the war comes to an end, and I think I may add this reason to my statement, that there is now in fact a Committee of the House of Commons which is charged with the duty of dealing with this matter, and also that of defining which Statutes are suitable to be prolonged and which ought not to be. That Committee presented an Interim Report, and in that Interim Report they said it would be hardly possible for them to go on with their duties until a Bill like this was passed defining what the date of the end of the war was to be. It is rather unfortunate in that sense that this
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Parliament is coming to an end, because, of course, the Committee also will come to an end and will not be able to discharge its duties beyond saying what Acts ought to be carried on, and what Acts ought not to be carried on. It must be obvious that some of these Acts and Orders will have to be carried on, and of course there will have to be legislation, no doubt in the coming Parliament, to decide which those should be.
Then there was a further point raised by the noble Marquess with reference to the Welsh Suspensory Act. The terms of the Suspensory Act must come to an end at a time not being later than the end of the present war. Therefore the noble Marquess says that this Bill defines the period at which the war does come to an end, and therefore, in a sense, it puts an end to the Suspensory Act. It does not really alter the position of the Suspensory Act, because under the terms of that Act it comes to an end when the war comes to an end. Really all this Bill does is to define that precise period. I am afraid that the only answer I can give to the noble Marquess is that it is another matter which must be dealt with by legislation. It cannot be dealt with in this Parliament, but must be dealt with in a subsequent Parliament. Whatever Government is returned will have to deal with the matter. That is all the answer that is possible.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I am afraid I am not able to follow the argument of the noble Viscount that this must be dealt with by legislation. It seems to me that what was said by the Bishop of Bangor just now is perfectly true—that, according to the wording of the Bill as it stands, an Order in Council might be passed during the recess, when we know nothing about it, and we may find on a particular morning that the war has been declared to have come to an end some time before the Order in Council was issued. How that would depend on legislation being introduced I do not understand. I do feel the point to be a most grave one as regards the incidence of the Bill, if it becomes an Act, on the Welsh Church generally, where immense considerations depend on the falling of the guillotine on a particular day. That does not seem to me to need further legislation, and this Bill leaves the matter in utter confusion as regards the Order in Council which may possibly

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decide the day without any notice to anyone at all. I press the point merely because the noble Viscount has said it will require legislation. What will be the nature of the legislation?
VISCOUNT PEEL: An Order in Council does not require further legislation, of course. I only said that obviously any dealings with the Welsh Church would require legislation; that the Act to suspend the operation of the Welsh Church Act comes to an end at the end of the war; and that all this particular Pill does is to define when the end of the war takes place.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: It does not define that. It says it is to be done by Order in Council.
VISCOUNT PEEL: As I think I explained, that Order in Council is limited. That is to say, it must have reference to the time when the Peace ratifications take place. Under this Bill, as I understand it, an Order in Council could not be issued to-morrow, let us say, stating that the war had come to an end, because clearly that date would not be fixed with regard to "the date of the exchange or deposit of ratifications of the Treaty or Treaties of Peace," and would not be in accordance with the terms of the Bill.
THE LORD BISHOP OF BANGOR: Will the noble Viscount explain more clearly? I understood the Act to say that at a date not later than the ratification of peace—that is, a date some time before—the Government might, by Order in Council, declare the war at an end. The date when the war ends becomes automatically the date of Disestablishment. Disestablishment has been deferred by Order in Council to the end of the war; therefore, with the arrival of that date Disestablishment automatically takes place, and all these hundreds of clergy lose their incomes on that day. So far as I can understand it, this date may be delared before the actual ratification of Treaties.
VISCOUNT PEEL: I think the suggestion in the mind of the right rev. Prelate is that this Order in Council might be issued to-morrow or in a few days. I thought I had pointed out that that could not be so because, if the right rev. Prelate will look at the terms of the Bill, he will see that
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the date so declared"—that is, the date of the termination of the war—"shall be fixed with regard to, and shall not be later than, the date of the exchange or deposit of ratifications of the Treaty or Treaties of Peace." Obviously until the Peace Council is settled, until the Treaties have been arrived at, it will be impossible to fix any day with reference to "the exchange or deposit of ratifications." Nobody can possibly say when the date of the ratifications will be. That, obviously, may be a period which is rather remote. It would be impossible to fix that day, as is suggested, next week or the week after, because it would not then comply with the terms of the Bill.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House to-morrow.

WAGES (TEMPORARY REGULATION) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: My Lords, I have to ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading to this Bill, the object of which is to secure for a limited period of six months, when all industry is changing from war to peace production, that the rate of wages shall be maintained. Legislation is necessary because awards and Orders under the Munitions of War Act cease to be effective when munition work ceases. The principle was agreed at a great meeting between the Employers' Federation and trade unionists, and in the House of Commons the Bill was really an agreed Bill. There was no amendment and hardly any criticism. The principle is that the recognised rate in a trade should be maintained for six months. That is not the wages of an individual but the general district rate. The guide shall not be the possibly inflated wages of some individual, but that laid down by the Arbitration Tribunal who, in settling the scales, were guided by the cost of living in relation to the scale of wages.
There is the general assent of industry to the broad principle. In regard to men the changes in wages during war in each trade cover practically all the workers, whether in the Munitions Department or not, and in regard to women the changes in wages during war have not covered the whole of the trade or industry, for the

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machinery in regard to women is different from that in regard to men; but it is of first importance that they should be protected in the transition period, because large numbers must inevitably change their employment. There will very possibly be considerable unemployment, and all would regret that the great improvement in the status and wages of women should be prejudiced compared with what they at present are.
Then as to arbitration, under the settlement of wages that was entrusted to the Commission of Production as the arbitration tribunal under the Munitions of War Act. They did very valuable and admirable work, but with the decline of munition works the arbitration arrangements will have to be modified. In the interim arbitration tribunals of the employers and employed will be set up, with an independent chairman, to carry on the work of arbitration, and where it is a case of the wages of women, the women will be represented on those courts. The effect of this Bill is to give a breathing space of six months, so as to avoid confusion and possible chaos. The aim and declared policy of the Government is, as soon as possible, for trades to settle these matters for themselves, and it is hoped that the six months will allow the necessary arrangements to be made for settling the wages question in the future. and render it unnecessary for the Government to intervene.
Moved, that the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Sandhurst.)
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: I am sorry to trouble your Lordships again. I do not rise to offer any opposition to the Bill, but to ask the noble Viscount to consider how this measure stands by two others which we have on the Paper this evening. We all realise the absolute necessity of making the best arrangements possible for the present period; but what I would put to your Lordships is this—that this six months provision (which has been promised, as we understand, by the Prime Minister; and having been passed by the House of Commons is not likely to be overthrown in this House) is going to be a potent cause of trouble to the Labour Minister in finding employment for the millions of men who are coming home from abroad. You are stereotyping a rate of wages which has never existed before. If
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these wages which you are establishing for six months to come, were merely wages which raised, a man from £3 a week to £6, that would be in accordance with the rise in prices and the conditions of life, but what you are doing is stereotyping a rate of wages which has taken a man from £3 up to £10 and even £15 a week.
The consequence is that the numbers with whom you are dealing are so large that you are raising the general standard of wages all over the country. I know many people regard this as an extremely admirable result of the war; but just look how it is operating. You want to find employment for three or four millions of people who are coming back after serving their country abroad. You will also have a large number of munition workers thrown out of their present employment. The higher wages are the more difficult it is for private employers to take on a number of fresh men. At this moment the vast mass of private employers have been able to meet their taxes, and increased wages, by reducing the number of people they employ to something like half, but what is going to happen if you keep up this, I will not say excessive standard, but this very high standard, beyond the natural increase due to prices? You will not get employment for those who are coming home. You can force a man to pay a wage but you cannot force him to employ somebody to get it. In addition you are stereotyping for another six months the extremely high cost of clothes and necessaries, so far as it is affected by wages, and therefore the longer the period you have fixed the greater the difficulty will be in carrying out all the services about which the Leader of the House spoke so strongly a few moments ago.
I believe that if you had consulted the employers and taken time you would have found that three months instead of six would have been a far more satisfactory arrangement. Compare this Bill with the Bill which follows it. In the latter you are going to allow the Minister of Munitions to control establishments for six months after the war, while wages are at present halted at six months, and if you increase the period of the wages from six to twelve months you will increase for another six months the difficulty in which you are with regard to the employment of those outside, I venture to make these observations, not in order to stop the Bill, but to assure the

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noble Viscount that if the Government think they can further increase this period as soon as the new Parliament meets, I am afraid they will find that it will be the subject of long and most serious debate, because I can cite the highest authority in the industrial world, who considers that the period now fixed is likely to have the effect of retarding rather than accelerating re-settlement, and of therefore stimulating unrest in the industrial world.
LORD STUART OF WORTLEY: My Lords, it may be quite right that a limited period should be granted to, so to speak, mitigate any fall in wages which might follow the conclusion of peace, but I do not find in reference to this Bill what I may call a correlative right, to which this proposal of necessity gives rise. Your Lordships are doubtless conscious of the fact that any man who employs another man at a wage does so for the purpose of producing a commodity, or of rendering some service to the public, to which the payment of those wages is a necessary preliminary. He can only recoup himself, when this increase of wages is forced upon him, by charging more to the public either for the commodity which he produces or for the services which he renders.
The particular class of such cases which gives me anxiety is the case of those transport agencies, such as tramway companies, who are not permitted to charge more than a certain maximum face. It is true that under an Act of the present session they have been given power, during the continuance of the war, to exceed their maximum rate of fares, but my anxiety is lest, by the passing of this Bill, you may have a period during which the continuance of an artificial rate of wages is going on, whereas the power to charge a correspondingly higher rate for services rendered will have expired and gone by the board. What increases my anxiety is that it probably would not be in order for me in Committee to try to move an Amendment to this Bill dealing with the case of such transport companies, because I do not think it would be quite within the title of the Bill. I do not know whether it is a matter which the Government have considered, because it is obviously unfair that any transport agency should be obliged to continue these enhanced wages during a period when they have lost the right to exceed the maximum fares.
VISCOUNT CHAPLIN: My Lords, I do not wish to delay the House more than a moment or two, but I feel bound to call attention to the question of agricultural wages. The importance of this question cannot be exaggerated. The one thing that is needed at this moment is largely increased production of food. This was laid down by the Prime Minister on February 23, 1917. On that occasion he made what I have described more than once in this House as probably the greatest and most favourable speech regarding agricultural production that has ever been made in my recollection by any Minister of the Crown—I should not exaggerate if I said by any Minister since the days of the great conflict between Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Disraeli in the House of Commons. The Prime Minister in that particular speech laid it down most carefully on the part of the Cabinet that there should be a fixed minimum agricultural wage of 25 s. a week. He went beyond that, and said that during the war no Agricultural Wages Boards should be set up. On that particular point he gave an unqualified pledge. What has been the result? That pledge has been entirely departed from, I believe, however, through no fault of his, for he has had a thousand and one other things to attend to, and never was present to my knowledge at a single debate while the Corn Law Bill was before the House of Commons. If I am asked my own opinion I should say that I believe that he was never aware that this pledge had been departed from. But it was a most serious change, and for this reason. Every one knows that in arable cultivation the wages bill is far and away the largest outgoing on a farm, and if you enormously increase the wages bill you must, unless the industry is to be an unprofitable concern for all engaged in it, fix a corresponding price for the articles which are grown by arable cultivation.
What is the position to-day? Wages have gone up in many counties to between 40 s. and 50 s. a week, or in some cases more than double the amount laid down by the Prime Minister as a fair agricultural wage throughout the country. Undoubtedly at the time these proposal were first made the wages were much less than they ought to have been. In some counties they were deplorably low, and the proposal to raise them, as suggested by the Prime Minister, was heartily accepted by everybody engaged in agriculture in all parts of the country. The

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reason for the higher wages was the greatly increased cost of living. What was the reason of the great increase in the cost of living? It was due no doubt very largely to the war. But if you want to get over the difficulty that the war created the first thing that you have to do is unquestionably to increase production by every possible means in your power. But if wages are to be maintained at the level at which they are now that is going to hamper the increase of production which is desired.
The great object of the speech of the Prime Minister at the time I speak of—and in this he showed statesmanship and foresight—was to show that if we were to maintain our position in the future as one of the greatest countries in the world we must make ourselves as far as possible self-supporting so far as concerns essential foods. But that cannot be done, especially in the case of arable cultivation on a class of land which is not the best, without assistance from the Government. They may do it by subsidies or bounties, but they will only do it in that way at an enormous cost to the country, and that certainly will not assist us in meeting the gigantic charges that we shall have to face in consequence of the war. The sum that we shall have to provide is enormous. These are all matters that have to be taken into consideration. When the time comes that there is a greatly increased production of food—which please God may not be long deferred—there will of course, be, as there has been in the past, a very considerable fall in the price of agricultural produce. If that be so, then you have carefully to consider now what will be the effect if you pass legislation to continue wages at the present rate.
I am speaking of matters of which I have had a very long and, personally, a very painful experience. I am old enough to remember the days when agriculture was prosperous in all districts, when prosperity came to the labourers and the villagers, and to the shopkeepers in the little county towns and rural capitals as well as to the farmers and the owners of land. There was a degree of prosperity that I have never seen equalled in any other country in the world from that time to this. Shortly afterwards there came a period of the most terrible agricultural depression. When I first succeeded to the estate that I possess it was a time of that general proserity of which I have spoken. Wheat was making
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62 s. a quarter. I lived to see it not very many years afterwards quoted in Lincoln market at 17 s. 6d. a quarter. Imagine what would be the effect upon any other industry in the world if there had been such a fall in prices! Wheat was the main thing grown in the county of Lincoln in those days. It was said—I do not know with what truth—that at one time it grew more wheat than all the rest of the country put together. But, of course, universal ruin was produced throughout the whole of that district. All the best farmers I ever knew in my life one after the other were ruined, and the country has never recovered since.
I have therefore ventured to make this statement to-night, because I think that, knowing all that I do, and having lived through all these things, I should have been wanting in my duty, when I heard proposals made for continuing for a considerable period the present enormous increase in wages, if I did not utter a word of warning in this House. I am afraid it will not reach much further because the debates in the House of Lords are so meagrely reported in these days. What the result will be if the present rate of wages is continued permanently is that it will be impossible to continue the great increase in food production which would make us self-supporting, and which we have been told on the highest authority is absolutely vital to the safety and the life of the nation.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD FINLAY): My Lords, this is, of course, a. Bill intended to cover a transition period, and the necessity of something of the kind, I think, has been universally recognised. There would be very serious possibilities if an abrupt change were made in regard to the wages payable in certain industries. Before this Bill appeared in Parliament it was the subject of the most careful consideration. There was a meeting held, at which the principal employers' associations and the leading trade unions were represented. They conferred with the Prime Minister, and the employers on the one hand and the trade unions on the other appointed Committees to deal with the matter. These two Committees made suggestions which, I am informed, were largely embodied in this Bill, which had a very smooth passage in the House of Commons. In fact, the smoothness of a

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measure's passage through Parliament is generally proportionate to the pains which have been taken to ascertain what will meet the views of all concerned before the measure is introduced.
I would say a word or two with reference to a point put by my noble and learned friend (Lord Stuart of Wortley) when he referred to the case of tramway companies and other undertakings. The answer I am going to make, which I think goes a very long way to meet the point, is also of general appliction. The Bill is not one to stereotype the wages that happened to be recognised in any industry on November 11. There is also power of arbitration. May I read the vital words in Clause 1—
"During the period of six months from the passing of this Act any person who employs in any trade or industry a workman or a class to which a prescribed rate of wages as defined by this Act is applicable, shall pay wages to the workman at a rate not less than the prescribed rate applicable to workmen of that class, or such other rates as may be substituted for the prescribed rate by an award of the interim court of arbitration constituted as hereinafter mentioned."
So it is not a cast-iron rule that you are to have the rate of wages which was recognised on November 11.
There may be a demand for arbitration and that is dealt with by Clause 2, sub section 2. It provides that any difference as to whether a workman is of the class to which a prescribed rate of wages is applicable, or as to what is the prescribed rate of wages or—and this is what I particularly call attention to—as to whether any rate should be substituted for the prescribed rate, or as to what is the substituted rate of wages, may be reported to the Minister of Labour on behalf of either of the. bodies, and then the Bill goes on to provide that the Minister can take steps to settle the dispute, and, if that fails, it is to go to an interim court of arbitration constituted as provided in the Act. I submit that the existence of that power to invoke arbitration will go far to mitigate any such hardship as my noble and learned friend apprehended with regard to the tramways. It would also very much ease the working of the Bill in a great many other respects.
On the whole, I subunit that the Bill is one which is very urgently needed and that if we try to make an abrupt transition we might deplore the consequences. It is framed in such a way as to meet the view of those who are thoroughly conversant
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with both sides of the question from the practical point of view, and in those circumstances I subunit that it is not tobe wondered at that the Bill had a smooth passage through the House, and I earnestly hope that your Lordships will now give it a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House tomorrow.

MINISTRY OF MUNITIONS BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD ELPHINSTONE: My Lords, the object of this Bill is to bridge over the interval between the Armistice and the conclusion of peace, and in certain cases to bridge over the interval between the Armistice and the demise of the Ministry of Munitions, which, as your Lordships know, must take place, at the latest, within twelve months of the end of the war. This Bill will enable the powers which the Ministry now has, which were given to it by Parliament for war production, to be used, until they expire in the ordinary course of events, for the reverse process of getting industry back as rapidly and effectively as possible to peace production. Although it is now reasonably certain that peace will be concluded within the next few months it must, I think, be admitted on all hands that, if all control over prices and direction of use is at once removed chaos must inevitably result. Articles which are essential to the re-establishment of our industry on a peace footing would, in the absence of any form of control, be very liable to be used, not for the most necessary purposes, having regard to the interests of the country, but for the purposes of those who were in the position of being able to offer the highest prices for those particular articles. In fact, what it really comes to is that industry would be at the mercy of those who hold after the war the limited supplies of the essential articles. That is all the Bill does.
But I would like to take the opportunity of pointing out what the Bill does not do, in order, if possible, to set at rest any doubts that there may be, such as those expressed by the noble Viscount, Lord Midleton. This Bill does not prolong the life of the Ministry of Munitions by one

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hour; that life is regulated by the Ministry of Munitions Act, 1915, under which the Department must cease within twelve months of the termination of hostilities, or at such earlier date as may be in the interval decided. Nor does this Bill extend the life of one of the Orders made under the Defence of the Realm Regulations; it merely enables the Ministry to make use of the powers already in existence until they expire in the ordinary course of events, not to use them for the prosecution of the war as hitherto but for purposes connected with the demobilisation of the war industry and the reinstatement of peace industries. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Elphinstone.)
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: My Lords, I do not rise to speak on the Bill, but the noble Lord will anticipate that, after what I said on the last Bill, I shall ask your Lordships in Committee to-morrow to consider the limitation of this Bill to six months. I would merely remark now that the commercial world are utterly unaware that this measure has been brought in. It was discussed yesterday for only a short time in the other House. The control which it is proposed that the Minister of Munitions should exercise has cost enormous sums of money to many firms. It has been used, and has had to be used, for the purpose of carrying forward the war, but to a degree which would make it inequitable in the last degree that control should continue for a day longer than is absolutely necessary. It should coincide, in the opinion of many people, with the period of controlled wages. I hope that the noble Lord will be able favourably to consider the Amendment.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House to-morrow.

VENEREAL DISEASE.
LORD SYDENHAM LORD SYDENHAM rose to ask His Majesty's Government what steps are being taken to prevent the spread of venereal disease during and after demobilisation.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, always after a war there has been a great spread of venereal disease. That happened after the Boer War, and we have accurate
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statistics as to what happened in the case of men belonging to the Navy and the Army. But no statistics can be obtained as to the effect upon the civil population, and it must be that some of these effects arising from the years of that war are lasting even to this day. At the present time there are conditions among the population far more favourable to a spread of venereal disease than in those days. I have had some special opportunities of studying these conditions, and I want earnestly to warn the Government that, if strong measures of precaution are not taken, and taken quickly, there will be most serious results upon the whole of our population extending over many years to come. There has been much necessary legislation which has not been taken, or which has been too long delayed. Practically I think it may be said that we have done nothing except to pass the Bill dealing with quacks and quack remedies. That Bill has done good; but as it is nobody's business to prosecute the quack, I do not think that the good has been as much as one had a right to expect. It is certain that in some places quacks and quack medicines are still prevailing.
The Local Government Board have taken some wise and excellent steps in establishing free treatment centres in various parts of the country, but many more of these clinics will be needed when demobilisation takes place—and the time is running very short. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill has been held up, and I assume that the Joint Select Committee will be discharged. I hope that the work which this Committee has already accomplished will not be wholly thrown away. That Bill passed through Grand Committee in the other House, and I have never been able to understand why the Government did not proceed with it. One of its provisions is most urgently needed, and I pressed that it should be taken in a separate short Bill by itself and passed quickly. Clause 5, which is the one to which I refer, make it a crime knowingly to communicate venereal disease. I think it would be a disgrace to our humanity if that crime is not recognised within a short time. The offence may be, and often is, much worse than murder; because it may wreck not only one life but many young lives of the unborn generations. If that shocking crime is made penal, then I am certain that a strong moral revulsion would be created against it, and I believe that public opinion is pre-

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pared to support the passing of that clause. Regulation 40D, I believe, will be shortly abolished. It was open to a great many objections, and I do not think it has done real good of any kind; but the withdrawal of that Regulation leaves us without any protection against wilful and knowing spreading of disease. Another important clause in the Criminal Law Amendment Bill seeks to save young girls who may be infected from the degradation of prison, and to give them the means of being kindly treated and cured, and so to make a fresh start in life instead of remaining a danger to themselves and to others.
My Council has prepared a set of recommendations which it is going to send to all the Departments concerned, and I hope that these recommendations, which have been carefully considered, will be also carefully considered by the Departments and that something may come out of them. One of the most important of the recommendations is that no soldiers or sailors shall be discharged while they are in an infective state. The percentage of infection in the enormous Forces of to-day is very small; but I am sorry to say that the total number of infected and infective men is very formidable, and the danger when they are spread about the country is therefore obvious if this precaution is not taken. Another recommendation is to strengthen considerably the medical profession for dealing with the civil population. There are several others with which I will not trouble the House at the present time. I will only say this, that our present line of defence against the spread of venereal disease is not sufficient, and that it ought to be very quickly and very materially strengthened. The other day the Prime Minister laid great stress upon the vital necessity of raising the standard of health in this country. I hope he realises that the conditions which he deplores are largely due to the ravages of venereal disease; because that is the most insidious enemy to national vigour, and also a cause of immense economic loss. We now have a very large amount of medical knowledge which is constantly increasing. If that knowledge is wisely and quickly applied then it may save us from what might easily become a national disaster; and that is my excuse for bringing forward this Question in the last hours of this Parliament.
Much can be done by administrative Order before Parliament reassembles; but
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when the new Parliament is assembled it imperative that certain legislation should be taken without the least delay, and I am convinced that the working classes generally are now alive to the danger and will support such legislation as I think is required. I do not press the noble Viscount for any detailed answer to my Question, but I press him to give an undertaking, which the country will understand, that the Government intend to grapple with the peril which will arise on demobilisation, and that they are determined to act promptly and fearlessly to safeguard unborn generations. If such action is not taken, then without a doubt harm will be done which cannot be remedied for many long years, and a deadly blow may be struck to the national health and to the vigour of our people which will tell in the years when both will be the supreme need. I beg to ask the Question standing in my name.
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE: My Lords, I do not think there was anything in the speech of my noble friend to cause any reflection on the Joint Committee, of which I happened to be chairman, which dealt with the two Bills that were brought forward in the spring in this House. The Joint Committee was not actually constituted until the very last day of the sitting in the summer. They commenced their sittings on the very first day that Parliament resumed, and sat until the day before yesterday, two days a week all day, so that I think there is no doubt that the Joint Committee did their best to get through the task which was set before them.
A great deal of most valuable evidence was brought before the Committee, and I do not think there was any difference of tone amongst the witnesses, varied as their views were. There was no difference of opinion upon one point, and that was that this was a very grave and serious matter, and ought to be dealt with soon and with a definite hand. The witnesses were in very sharp conflict over the remedies which they recommended, and probably the danger of the case is rather that of a deadlock. I think it might be open to a cynic who was always a champion of the doctrine of the equality of the sexes to say, after hearing the evidence before that Committee, that the two sexes were in irreconcilable divergence. My own opinion, if I may mention it, is that strong and

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prompt measures are required. It is no use talking to people as to how dangerous it is to play with fire when the house is actually burning.
It is very unfortunate, I think, that Parliament, by dissolution, has extinguished the Joint Committee. It is impossible not to refer to the disastrously long interval that was allowed to elapse between the time when your Lordships resolved to send the two Bills to a Joint Committee and the time when the House of Commons were asked to concur in that proposal. Ten weeks were lost at that time, and I think there was a strong feeling on the Joint Committee that had the Committee been appointed at the beginning of those ten weeks instead of at the end of them, they would have been able to finish their labours, and that there would still have been time for some Bill to be brought in fouuded upon such recommendations as they might make. I do hope that the Government will not let these labours be thrown away, and that the next Parliament will take up the subject in the light of the consideration which has already been expended upon it. I do not think I should be disowned by any of my late colleagues if I were to say that they would be ready to give their services again if called upon. What is required urgently is to get rid of a thing which is both a scourge and a disgrace.
VISCOUNT PEEL: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Sydenham, who has raised this question speaks upon it with great authority and experience, and he has already brought it on more than one occasion before your Lordships' House. My noble friend referred to the fate of the Criminal Law Amendment Bill, and regretted that it did not take its place upon the Statute Book. I understand that this was mainly due to those Parliamentary difficulties which arise in a crowded session. There were a great many Amendments on the Paper, and in the circumstances it was not possible to press the Bill at that time. My noble friend is aware—in fact, he spoke of it with some sympathy and approval; approval, I think, not always shown in this House to the work of the Local Government Board—of the action of that particular Department. And I think he is aware that in judging of the action of that Department in the future on demobilisation it is only fair to judge what it may do by the serious attention
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which it has paid to this matter in the past.
I do not know whether my noble friend is aware, though he probably is, that an arrangement was made so long ago as April last between the medical officers of the Local Government Board and the Army Council that soldiers who were about to be discharged on account of venereal disease, or for any other reason, should be examined to ascertain whether they were at the time of discharge suffering from active disease, and that the cases found to be suffering from venereal disease should be retained in military hospitals until all signs of active disease had ceased. My noble friend well knows that an arrangement in that form was only possible during the continuance of the war, and that a fresh situation may arise on demobilisation. But I should like to express to him very strongly that the Local Government Board is fully aware of those dangers which may arise from the release of infected men on the population, and at the present moment I understand that discussions, which I hope will eventuate early in a definite arangement, are taking place with the War Office, and that everything will be done that can be done. The noble Lord knows that there are certain difficulties under the Military Service Acts to see that these men are not let loose on the civilian population.
There is one other point on which my noble friend may be interested if I refer to it. It is the arrangement made in this country with reference to dealing with disease. I need not, I think, go into the methods of notification and so on, with which my noble friend is quite familiar. He spoke also with approval of the clinic system which had been set up under the auspices of the Local Government Board, and deplored the fact, I think, that this system had not been sufficiently widely established. He may be interested to learn that as regards the treatment of venereal disease after demobilisation, some 130 treatment centres for these diseases have already been established in England and Wales. My noble friend suggests, I think, that this number is not enough. but I am sure he will make allowance, with his wide knowledge of the situation, for the fact that the shortage of medical staff and other difficulties created by the war have really made it impossible to develop the work of these centres to the extent which

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is ultimately desirable. The same difficulties have made it impossible to set up any of these clinics and treatment centres in the areas of the smaller authorities.
The Local Government Board have made an arrangement, and are at present carrying it out—it is being carried out with the Ministry of National Service—for the early release of naval surgeons and Army doctors who have specialised in the treatment of venereal disease, and it is intended to press upon the local authorities and the hospitals the necessity for establishing further treatment centres and for arranging further clinics, especially in the evenings, at the existing centres. It is also intended to urge provision for facilities for irrigation for gonorrhea, either at the treatment centre itself or in special auxiliary centres, at intervals between the regular clinics whether at the treatment centre itself or in special auxiliary centres, so that I think it is true to say that the Local Government Board have done all they could in this matter, subject to the very severe limitation put upon their activities by the shortage of doctors and so on. With demobilisation and the gradual return of doctors and surgeons more clinics will be set up, and the system of treatment largely extended. I hope my noble friend will forgive me for not giving a more fully detailed answer to the Question at this moment, but I think I can give him, anyhow, a general assurance that the whole matter is being not only examined into but dealt with. The very grave situation that may arise from the demobilisation of these men to whom he has referred, has very seriously engaged the attention of the Local Government Board, and the dangers and difficulties are fully realised by that Board.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I cannot help feeling that I should have liked something a little more definitely assured in the reply of the Government to the Question asked and to the action taken by my noble friend Lord Sydenham. The whole of this subject has been, from a variety of reasons, bandied backwards and forwards between different authorities, civil and military, medical and lay, in a way that, has really resulted in confusing the public mind, and inflaming the alarmist feelings which, not without foundation, were current; and the very fact that the matter is obviously a disagreeable one for public discussion has added to the difficulties which already
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surrounded it and which could, I think, only have been met if the matter had been quietly but quite firmly taken in hand by His Majesty's Government with the military and civil authorities acting together, and if definite proposals had been made and persevered with.
There have been several proposals made that have been successively tinkered with and dropped, and as the matter now stands it is in a condition of confusion. The noble Viscount Lord Peel says that the delay in dealing with it and in bringing forward a Bill was due to Parliamentary difficulties. I am inclined to think it was due to other things than Parliamentary difficulties—to the lack of a determined dealing with the effusive utterances, quite wholesome on either side but widely differing, which men and women were putting forward, followed by responsible action, on the part of the Government. What Lord Muir Mackensie has called a "disastrously long time" was allowed to elapse between the original discussions on the subject and the introduction of a Bill and the appointment of a Joint Committee. It is absolutely certain that strong and prompt measures are required for dealing with the difficulty which is going to grow far graver than we have yet known it to be in the period of demobilisation which is coming.
After a discussion which took place in this House upon my initiative a good many months ago, it was promised that there should be conferences held at the War Office between those who were responsible as Military authorities, those who were responsible as medical authorities, and those who were dealing with the matter on its social side philanthropically, religiously and in other ways, which would bring to a point the various proposals which had been made and which we were led to hope would eventuate in specific proposals for action through the Home Office or the Local Government Board. Two such conferences were held. I attended both of them. It was done with the best intentions, but nothing less effective than these conferences proved to be, either in performance or result, can I remember in my experience. Now we are at this moment in the position of further indefinite delay. The Joint Committee over which Lord Muir Mackenzie presided has, he tells us, taken a great deal of evidence, and I greatly hope that the evidence may be published because I think it would be of very real use to those

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on either side who have been apt to exaggerate the matter from their own point of view and who would be steadied by the publication of such evidence. Whether that is going to be done or not I do not know.
Equally strongly should I urge that, at the earliest possible moment, that Committee should be re-appointed to resume the work at the stage which they had reached, for if this is allowed to drift on while the early months of next, year see England covered with men returning from the front in circumstances which are certainly not likely to be conducive to the strictest manner of life and the sternest self-restraint, I should feel that we may fear even worse things than we have yet had to experience. There is a constant danger, when people hear statistics quoted in this matter, that those who quote them or read them forget what an enormous number of people we are dealing with, and that a number which looks very large is not large at all if you take it as a percentage.
I have seen references made to figures about the extent of disease in the Army or Navy or civil life at the present time, which are entirely misleading unless they be turned into percentages and are not taken as positive statements alone. They look appalling until compared with the enormous numbers of the men to whom these statistics apply. All that kind of difficulty, of fallacious or misleading argument, is fostered at present by the confusion in which the whole matter is allowed to rest. The noble Lord referred to that strange Regulation 40D about which so much was heard. I entirely agree with what he said about it—that it has not worked well. Presumably—from what he tells us I gather—it is going to perish with other temporary Regulations which come to an end with the return of peace. I do not regret that it should perish, provided it is superseded by or gathered into something firmer, larger, and more definite and far-reaching, which would be obtained in the kind of Bill which I hope will be the result of the discussions of the Joint Committee.
But it will be a disaster indeed if the Joint Committee is not quickly re-appointed when Parliament meets again, if it does not conclude its business shortly, and if that does not eventuate very quickly indeed in definite legislation. We do want
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this matter to be firmly dealt with, and I do not believe that firm dealing with it is the least impossible. I do not think it is the least impracticable to bring into line even those who seem at present widely divergent, provided a somewhat different course is followed from the vacillating and drifting way in which, as it seems to me, it has been handled hitherto. I am very grateful to Lord Sydenham for having brought the matter before the House, and I am quite certain we must, all of us who are interested in the morals and in the health of the community, see to it that, the matter is pressed forward at the earliest possible moment when Parliament reassembles.
LORD SYDENHAM: My Lords, I beg to thank the noble Viscount for his reply. I accept his assurance that the Government is in earnest and will do everything that is possible for this important object. I know, and he knows, that it is difficult to deal with the discharged men, and that it is quite different during the war when men are merely discharged from hospital. That difficulty must be got over, or we shall have centres of infection established all over the country. He said, perfectly truly, that it has been difficult to establish clinics for the want of doctors, but doctors are now being released, and more could be relieved, from the Front. I hope, therefore, these fresh clinics will be able to find staffs to work them, but the most important thing of all is that there should be the fullest co-operation between the Local Government Board and the Naval and Military authorities.

INDIAN CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS.
LORD SYDENHAM LORD SYDENHAM rose to ask the Under-Secretary of State for India whether the dissent of Sir Reginald Craddock to the proposals of the Government of India in 1916, any Minutes recorded by Members of the Councils of the Secretary of State and the Viceroy, and the opinions of the Heads of Provinces and their Councils will be made available to Parliament before the Report of the Viceroy and Secretary of State is complete and ready for examination.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I think I am fully justified in asking this Question by what has actually happened. There have been evident attempts to keep back

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opinions adverse to the Report of the Secretary of State and the Viceroy, and some irregular methods have been resorted to. The Report itself did not even allude to a large mass of adverse opinion contained in memoranda and resolutions by the lower castes of India, who form an enormous majority of the population. The Report ignored the startling revelations of the Rowlatt Committee, although the finding of that Committee had been in the hands of the Secretary of State for some time before his Report was issued. There was some reluctance, which it is very difficult to understand, in making public the important Report of the Rowlatt Committee.
I have asked to-day for the production of the opinion of Sir Reginald Craddock for special reasons. Sir Reginald Craddock was an excellent Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces, and an excellent Home member of the Viceroy's Council. He is now Lieutenant-Governor of Burma, and is one of the too few men in high places in India who have shown fearlessness and independence of judgment. His opinion, in my view, is far more valuable than that of some other persons who have simply followed the lead of superior authority. Sir Reginald Craddock, probably because of the Minute, which I hope will be produced, was never invited to the conference of the Heads of Provinces which was held to discuss reforms in India. It is no explanation to saw that he was in Burma, or that Burma is to be excluded from the operation of those reforms. He has spent his whole life in India proper, and Burma is probably the most educated of the Provinces under the control of the Government of India. Therefore it is very difficult to know why Burma is excluded from the operation of the reforms.
When the Report was published in this country there was the extraordinary spectacle of a member of the Secretary of State's Council, and a member of the Council of the Government of Bengal, both getting up, either encouraged or permitted, to give public support to the Report of the Secretary of State. Why were these Indian officials permitted or encouraged to do what would be absolutely denied to their British colleagues? I ask this question because when Parliament meets and is called upon to approve of measures upon which the fate of India will depend, it would be really monstrous to withhold any
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information because it is adverse to the opinion of the Secretary of State. The fate of India is far too serious a matter to the Empire as a whole to be made the subject of any wire-pulling, or to be decided without the fullest production of the opinions on both sides freely given.
This morning I received a very long telegram from the South Indian Non-Brahmin Confederation. At this hour I will not read it to your Lordships, but it ends in this way—
"Solemnly resolving to decline appearing before or co-operating Reform Committees unless non-Brahmin representatives appointed each Committee."
That is very unfortunate. These are important people, representing a very large majority of the people of Southern India, and they feel, as I said some time ago they would feel, that they have been entirely left out of the composition of the Committees now dealing with reforms in India. They feel that those Committees, as is the case, have been packed with men entirely in favour of the Report of the Secretary of State. I hope the noble Lord will agree that the information for which I ask may be made available for the information of Parliament before the Report is submitted for examination.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (LORD ISLINGTON): My Lords, the noble Lord asks for the publication of a set of Papers which, as I will endeavour to show to your Lordships, come properly within that period of the discussion in regard to these constitutional reforms which must be regarded as confidential. I particularly refer, in this connection, to my noble friend's Question, in which he asks for the publication of a Minute of Dissent by Sir Reginald Craddock to the original Dispatch of the Government of India. I am bound to say that as that was in its fullest sense a document of the most confidential character, I cannot understand how the existence of such a document can have come to my noble friend's attention.
In order to answer satisfactorily my noble friend I must, if the House will allow me for a few monents, explain the various stages in connection with this great consideration of the reform of Indian Government, as we have seen it during the past year. It is surely indisputable that, in the preliminary stages of a discussion of

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such an important character, the correspondence which must pass between the authorities here in England and the authorities in India, though they may be in a sense formal and official in character, must be regarded as highly confidential, and they cannot be published with advantage to the public interest. Your Lordships will remember that Lord Chelmsford took over the Governor-Generalship from Lord Hardinge at a time when the Government of India was considering, in consultation with the heads of Provincial Governments, the future development of the Indian system of Government. Lord Chelmsford's Government at the end of 1916 sent a confidential Despatch to the Secretary of State. Had Mr. Chamberlain found himself able, with the approval of the Government, to accept the suggestions made in that Despatch, as they stood, and proposed legislation to carry them into effect, there would obviously have been no difficulty in publishing this Despatch, but some of the proposals in that original Despatch were felt to require in a large measure considerable further discussion, and that discussion took place at the time.
The first result of the new proposal was the announcement of policy, which fell to Mr. Montagu, the present Secretary of State, to make on behalf of His Majesty's Government on August 20, 1917. That announcement was made with the full concurrence of the Government of India. It was made after telegraphic correspondence in regard to the actual phrasing to be adopted, and which had to some extent superseded the terms of the original Despatch by the Government of India. The announcement made it clear to the public that personal consultations between the Secretary of State and all Local Governments was considered desirable by His Majesty's Government, and that they should take place before any definite proposals should be framed with a view to the formulation of a Bill for constitutional development. As a result of this personal discussion in India the Reforms Report was drawn up, and has been published for criticism. The noble Lord says that criticism of that Report has been suppressed. I must remind the House that there is now a public document which embraces the deputations and the memorials from all parts of India, showing those in favour of the Report and those opposed to it, and therefore it really cannot be said with any truth that those who are opposed to the
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proposals of this Report have in any way been suppressed.
With the publication of the Report a new chapter in the history of this question was opened. I quite agree—I have already said so in a previous debate in this House—that the opinions of Local Governments upon the Report, and in regard to all the proposals in that Report, in so far, of course, as they do not contain confidential matter which it would be against the public interest to make public, should be published. We have not yet received in the India Office—I do not know whether the Government of India have, but we certainly have not—the Reports from Local Governments upon the Reforms Report, but, without pledging myself to the publication in their entirety of those Reports, I will repeat what I said on a previous occasion—that all the material which will be of use in the discussion of this matter will in due course be published.
I would remind your Lordships that the course now being followed in regard to these Reforms is essentially the same as that which was adopted in the case of the Morley-Minto reforms. Of course, in introducing this as an analogy—and I hope that your Lordships, after I have described it, will agree that it is a fair analogy—there are obvious differences that must be taken into account, due to the fact that on the present occasion the Secretary of State went to India, and that he and the Viceroy produced a Report as the result of their discussions. The Report embraces conclusions which, had the present Secretary of State, like Lord Morley, who was then Secretary of State, remained in England, would have been presented in the form of an interchange of Despatches. This is, of course, an obvious and necessary difference in the procedure in the two cases; but aside from this difference, I venture to say that the proposed procedure is essentially the same to-day as that adopted on that occasion. The process leading up to the Morley-Minto scheme began with a confidential Despatch from the Government of India early in the year 1907. In that Despatch the whole position was reviewed, and all the various possibilities discussed. That Despatch was considered by the Secretary of State in the India Office, and a comprehensive reply was sent. Neither of those Despatches to which I have just alluded was either at that time or has since been published, but as a result of the secret correspondence a tentative scheme

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of reforms was published in this country and India in August 1907, and criticism was invited. As a result of the criticism offered in India there was ultimately presented to Parliament two very large volumes dealing with all that took place on that occasion.
The Government of India, eighteen months after the inauguration of the proposal, addressed their definite proposals to the Secretary of State, who, in turn, answered them in the November of 1908. Both these Despatches were presented to Parliament in connection with the Bill that afterwards became the India Council Act of 1909. As I have already said, general criticisms containing preliminary discussions, while proposals of this great importance and magnitude are still in what can be described as the fluid state, was not then, and I contend should not be now, made public in the form of a published document. I think, my Lords, that what I have said in regard to the Morley-Minto scheme is a fair analogy of what has taken place in regard to the reforms that are at present embraced in what is known as the Montagu-Chelmsford Report, and the discussions that took place in India during the visit are closely allied to the unpublished correspondence that took place at that time between Lord Morley's Government and Lord Minto, who was then the Viceroy.
The necessity—and I would venture to say this in the public interest—for maintaining secrecy in preliminary correspondence should I think be obvious to all, and especially to all those who have been associated with Indian government. Had there been present here this evening noble Lords such as Lord Lansdowne, or Lord Crewe, or Lord Midleton, or Lord Morley, I feel sure that I could claim from them support and agreement upon this general proposition. They, in their turns, have occupied the highest positions in regard to Indian government, and I feel sure that they would be the first to agree and to admit that in their time they had to employ a similar form of secret procedure in regard to matters of high State interest discussed between themselves and their officers.
As to the future, as I have already said on a previous occasion, the object of real interest and upon which criticism will focus—and will focus properly—will be the Bill that in due course will be formulated and
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considered, and eventually accepted by the Cabinet and presented to Parliament. Both the Reforms Report and all the correspondence, which I venture to say must necessarily remain secret, and the discussion upon it and the criticisms upon the Report, will be superseded by the Bill when it is before the public, and the Reforms Report as such, with all the matters surrounding it, will then fade into the background. I would, therefore, suggest that my noble friend and the House should await the arrival of that Bill, when there will be no lack of opportunity both in this House and in another place and throughout the country of giving it the fullest possible criticism.
LORD SYDENHAM: My Lords, I am afraid that my noble friend's speech does not quite satisfy me, because I see no possibility now of getting Sir Reginald Craddock's opinion before the country. I was always under the impression that the right of making dissents in Council was given in order that the dissents might be produced when the time arose. I do not know that that rule has been abrogated, but that was the view I took when I was in India, and that was the view which I think all the members of my Council held. I am afraid that I cannot agree that there is any real analogy between the proceedings in the Morley-Minto reforms and in these, because in the case of the Morley-Minto reforms it was all done here, and in this case the Secretary of State went roaming about India taking opinions from all sorts of persons. I am glad to know that the dissentient opinions given in India are about to appear, but I must remind my noble friend that I pressed for them very strongly in this House, and I did think at first that he was not very anxious to produce them.

IMMIGRATION OF GERMANS.
LORD WITTENHAM LORD WITTENHAM rose to ask His Majesty's Government what steps it is proposed to take in order to prevent or regulate an influx of Germans into this country on the declaration of peace.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, to show the intense interest that your Lordships' House has taken in this and the cognate subject of the influx of aliens generally after the war, I need only mention that this is the third time in the present week that these subjects have been before your

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Lordships' House. On Monday, on the Motion of my noble and gallant friend Lord Beresford, a Resolution was readily—I might almost say eagerly—accepted by the House that in future only British-born subjects should be employed in the Army, the Navy, and the Civil Service. When my memory runs back to the early days of August, when we were discussing certain amendments to an Aliens Bill, I feel that we have travelled fast and far, because I doubt if your Lordships would have gulped down then what was so readily accepted last Monday.
Yesterday we were engaged upon a topic of tremendous importance—namely, emigration and the immigration of aliens generally. The noble Lord, the late Home Secretary, explained with his accustomed lucidity the steps that are proposed to be taken by His Majesty's Government. He said that a new Aliens Bill will be taken as soon as possible in the new Parliament, to set up a barrier against an incursion of aliens from any country on a large scale, which must undoubtedly occur if the present Aliens Act, under which the Government are now proceeding, came to an end at the termination of the war, which I understood from the noble Viscount it would.
There is an enormous difference, to my mind, between the influx of aliens generally and the influx of Germans. One feels as regards friendly aliens, those who have fought with us side by side through these four and a quarter years of terrific war, that we must grapple them to our souls with hooks of steel so far as we possibly can—considering our own people, naturally, first of all. In the difficult months, perhaps in the difficult years, that are before us, we shall not be able, even in the matter of friendly aliens, to be as generous as we should like to be, because we must consider our own people first. It is no good talking with one side of our mouth about the new heaven and the new earth if, on the other hand, we are going to allow an incursion, friendly or otherwise, in immense numbers, of foreigners, with whom we shall not be able to deal economically.
We know the Germans now. Before the war we did not. I need only quote to your Lordships a sentence of the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Arthur Balfour, who is not given to using excessive language, and whose language, even when criticising in
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a most hostile sense, is always well within bounds. He said "Brutes the Germans were at the beginning of the war, and brutes they are to-day." Before the war we did not know they were brutes, but now not a man, woman, or child can say anything but that they are brutes. Before the war we knew they were everywhere—in the street, in the lanes of the country, in the shop, in the banking house, in large businesses, in small businesses, living on our coasts, spying in our naval yards, spying in the great seaports where our navies were assembled, spying in our barracks, spying in our palaces, spying in our cottages. We know it all. Are these the people that we are going to have back again after the war? Economically are we going to have them back, because while they were spying they were working for low wages? They were able to work for low wages for the very easy and patent reason that they were nationally subsidised from home. The Fatherland was looking after them. They came with a good, fat sum in marks from the Fatherland. They were able to work for low wages and undercut our own people, while at the same time performing the offices for which they came, to spy upon us in our business and in our pleasures.
For that reason and for that reason alone—and they will do it again!—does anybody suppose that their hearts are changed? Does anybody, however much he or she may wish to think their hearts are changed, think their hearts really are changed? The man-eating tiger does not change his stripes as soon as all that. In the evolution of nature it would take many and many a generation for a man-eating tiger to become a lamb, and not a tiger. The souls of men, once they have become impregnated with guilt in the way that the whole German nation has become impregnated, and having been dyed crimson, are not going to be whiter than snow to-day, or to-morrow, or the next day, or the next generation. Are you going to have the Germans back with that certainty in view?
After the long struggle with France—when we were fighting a chivalrous foe and not a nation of devils—it was found necessary to pass an Aliens Act. In 1816 such an Act was passed to prevent, amongst other things, our then enemies from coming to our shores. It was an Act that was prolonged each two years—it was drawn I think only for two years—until 1826, and then a permanent Act dealing with the

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matter was passed into law. If that were necessary then, surely ten thousand times more is it necessary to-day. It is necessary not only economically but morally. Do we want our people to be infected with this malign foreign influence which not only does not care to distinguish good from bad but revels in the bad and despises the good? The late Crown Prince said that, "they (meaning the Germans) would never be gentlemen and that we should always be fools." Well, we have a chance in the days that are coming to show that we can still be gentlemen and yet that we are not going to be fools. We have been fools enough and long enough.
What a great many of us have felt—and that is why we regard the future with anxiety amounting almost to dismay—is that all through this war, when we have been fighting for our lives, there has been a nucleus—perhaps a small one—of malign influence that has never allowed the powers-that-be to deal with the German menace in our midst (as it has been, and as it is) as it would have been dealt with if the powers-that-be had had free hands. That malign influence may be as impalpable as the air, but we feel and know that it is there. Now, if that malign influence is going to direct our policy in the time that is coming, I ask this question confidently. We are on the eve of the most tremendous, the most momentous, probably the most far-reaching in its results, General Election that has ever taken place in the history of this country, and there is one matter which this huge electorate, immensely enlarged, understands perfectly clearly, and I say has absolutely made up its mind upon. What are you going to do with the Germans; the Germans who are here, and the Germans who are coming unless you stop them? Ask the 3,000,000 soldiers who are still at the Front and who have been fighting with the barbarous foe all these years whether when they come back they want to find Germans—fresh Germans, and ever fresh Germans—in active competition with them for work. And ask those at home. Ask the widows and the daughters of the men who have died whether they want to see the Germans here, whether they want to shake that ensanguined hand, and to listen to the cry "Kamerad, Kamerad," when this war is over. I hope that the Government, on the eve of this Election, will be able to tell us their policy; because that is the meaning of my Question. I want to know their
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policy in regard to the Germans. On that policy largely depends, I believe, the issue of the General Election. I am perfectly certain that in nineteen constituencies out of twenty this will be made one of the great outstanding questions—Is it going to be Britain for the British, or Britain for the Germans?
Every noble Lord present in this House to-night will remember the Election of 1906, called the "Chinese Slavery Election," and the notorious Radical poster which then helped to sweep the country. Undoubtedly it was a very powerful poster, although in the circumstances, in my opinion, a very dishonest one. It consisted of a number of Chinamen in chains, and, in the background, spectres of British soldiers standing looking at the Chinamen in chains, and one of them asking, "Is that what we died for?" What a poster you could frame for this General Election if you are going to have the Germans back again: Germans in the foreground of the poster taking all the best billets, under-cutting us as before, spying as before, permeating us as before; and, in the background, the ghosts of British soldiers asking, "Bill, is that what we died for?" The General Election will be decided upon that issue.
No, the heart of the German is not changed. The Government may have changed on the face of it; Germany may have put on a new garment for the moment. The Government has changed with the ex-Kaiser just over the border ready to come back. What do you see with the change of Government? Do you see any amelioration of the cruel heart? No; it remains as cruel as ever before. We read with bleeding hearts and with streaming eyes the accounts of the thousands of our prisoners flowing across from Germany into the friendly country of France, scantily clothed—and even when they are clothed it is only in rags of German uniforms—three-quarters starved, dying by the way, hardly able to reach our ranks, and in many cases not able to do so. That is Germany with a new heart! That is the Germany with which you are dealing to-day, and that is the Germany you have to deal with after the war. Therefore I pray His Majesty's Government with all the earnestness that my poor, humble, feeble, insignificant voice may possess, to take their resolution in both hands—it will not want much resolution considering that the whole of the people of the country are at their backs—and if there is a German

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influence, put it behind them as they would Satan. Think of your own people and say. "No more of this. Britain for the Britons first. The Empire for those who have made it, and not for the Germans." If the Conclave of Nations is to be a real peace table for us and for our Allies who have fought this terrible conflict for four and a quarter years, let it be a case of "down and out" with the Germans.
LORD BERESFORD: My Lords, I should like to support my noble friend Lord Wittenham in his effort to get more information from the Government as to what is to be done to prevent the influx of Germans into this country after the war. There is no doubt they will use every effort to come back here after the war. My noble friend Viscount Cave yesterday gave us some information of a most valuable character. He first of all told us that the Alien Immigration Bill was not of much use as it is, and he intends to propose that it shall be strengthened very drastically. He had very great difficulties in his position, owing principally, I believe, to one of his predecessors, who naturalised Germans, I think, to the number of 127 after the war, one of the notorious cases being that of Baron Schröder; and I think that at this moment there are something like 227 or 230 Germans who have been naturalised since the war started.
I called attention the other day in your Lordships' House to the Prime Minister's promise that he would stop "dumping," and I said that the real dumping to stop is the dumping of undesirable aliens into this country. It has affected our health, our morals, our lives altogether, and I do hope that steps will be taken after the war to stop these people coming into this country, and more particularly Germans. Last year I called your Lordships' attention to the fact that I once saw at a wharf two large liners. One was taking out of this country a large number of our best artisans; I think most of them came from Woolwich, when the number of men was being reduced there. The liner which was lying astern was putting into this country hundreds of the most undesirable people from all parts of Europe. That is what we have suffered from, and I hope the Government will see that we shall not suffer from it again.
With regard to this dumping, I was to-day sent a paper which showed what has happened. This paper is called Stubbs'
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Weekly Gazette, and the date is November 13. In it I find some twenty-three German-named people who have changed their names for English names, and most of them did so in September and October of this year. All of them have been allowed to change them this year by what is called Deed Poll. This is a very serious matter. I may be told that these are British subjects, but they are Germans. I do not know how many of them were naturalised after the war started; probably a good number. But anyway they are Germans, and if your Lordships will allow me I will show by their names that they must be Germans. There is a man call Braunchtein, who changed his name to Lloyd. Another was called Guggenheim; he changed his name to Guest—very satisfactory for the Whip in the other House! A man called McIlquham changed his name to Marshall; Sherer to Ward; Schlesinger to Owen; and Wagenhuizen to Wallace. I think those names are not Irish or English, and it is a very great danger to the State that these things should have happended this year, only a few months or weeks back.
I ask my noble friend if he will see that this is stopped for the future. I do not think the British public will at all take to the plea that these people are British subjects. They are British subjects, I know, but it should be impossible for men to change their names wholesale, as can be done now if a man can claim that he is a naturalised British subject. It may be said that some of the Royal Princes have changed their names. But certainly they have not been naturalised in the last two or three months. Therefore that is not an argument which would apply. I have had so many letters about the Royal Princes who have the honour of being in your Lordships' House that, though it does not seem to be a line of argument, I would like to take the opportunity of stating, in reference to the Duke of Cumberland and the Duke of Albany, that the circumstances of their being in your Lordships' House have been examined by a Committee, and that Committee reported in favour of their expulsion; and the Paper laid on the Table of the House has to lie there forty days. Unfortunately, the forty days will be up on Saturday after the Prorogation, so it will be another forty days before their names are expunged from the records of this House. It is necessary that the public should know this; anyway, it is necessary

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for me to state it, as I get so many letters, and I hope I shall not receive any more on the subject.
I ask my noble friend again what he is going to do about this German food-substitute expert in this country. I asked the question the other day, but I got no reply. In the Press there was a tremendous account of the value of this man. Surely now that the Germans have began to whimper about food we ought to send this man over to them. He will probably give all the people indigestion, but at any rate he should not be in this country; he ought to be over there. I hope that my noble friend Lord Cave will be able to tell us something very definite as to what the Government are going to do to prevent the influx of Germans after the war, because unless very stringent methods are adopted I am certain we shall have a very large number over here. The present state of public opinion about aliens is far stronger than your Lordships know. I think you will see that in every election address there will be a strong clause requiring that these aliens shall go. I think my noble friend told me the other day that the whole of the interned aliens—who must have been there for a crime; some crime must have been proved against them—are going to be repatriated. If that is so, it is a very great move in the right direction. If I am wrong, he will correct me. The first thing for us to do is to take care that these undesirable people are not admitted into this country after the war.
VISCOUNT CAVE: My Lords, this question was, as the noble Lord has said, discussed yesterday, and I then gave what I intended to be a full answer to the questions which were asked. I am not sure that I can add anything very substantial to-day, but I will certainly give such answer as I can. The Government, as I said yesterday, took the whole of this matter into consideration and referred it to a Committee, which reported some months ago. The Government then determined upon their action, and they have since been in process of carrying out the Report of that Committee. It is not always those who talk the loudest who are most effective in action, and I assure the House that we intend, not to talk and not to declaim against Germans with our mouth, but to act when we have marked out our line of action.
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My reply is quite simple. A good many Germans are now interned in this country. Of course, we cannot send them home now, because the interned men are nearly all able-bodied men, who might, if they were sent home, be useful to our enemy. But when the war is over and peace is declared we propose to send those men home. That will be the general rule, and it will take a very strong case to induce the Government to keep any of them here. But it will be of no use to send them home it they can immediately return here. Accordingly we propose, as I said yesterday, to introduce at the earliest possible moment and in good time before the actual ratification of the Peace Treaty, a Bill which will give us the same power of exclusion in time of peace as we have to-day in time of war. That is absolute power of exclusion. We can to-day, if any foreigner proposes to land on our shores, forbid him to land. That, as the House knows, is constantly done, but that is at the moment a war power. We propose to make it a continuing power, exercisable also in time of peace. The method proposed will be to enable an order in Council to be made giving this and other powers to the Government of the day, and, as I also informed the House yesterday, we propose to take power to distinguish between the nationals of one country and the nationals of another, so that we should have the right to lay down special rules with regard to the admission of our enemies or ex-enemies to this country.
I cannot, of course, go further than that It is for the Government of that day to determine exactly what shall be done. I have gone perhaps further than it is usual to go in stating the contents of a Bill not yet introduced. But I am entitled to say that if I had my way I would allow no German to land in this country for a considerable time. That would be my view, and I have every hope that the Government of next year will take the view which I, and I think nearly all of us, take of it. At all events, let there be no ambiguity about my answer. We propose to take power which will enable the Government of the day to go to the full length I have described. I have, I hope, given a frank and full answer to the Question. I need not deal with the other points which my noble friend opposite referred to. He read a list of names. He knows very well how the question of names stands.

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I have always held that the present free power to change your name by mere deed poll is wrong and ought to be limited. I think it is too easy in this country to change your name and take a name—perhaps an honoured name—to which you have no right at all. We could not, of course, make a change in the general law in time of war, but we have made two changes. We have forbidden an alien enemy to change his name at all, and we have forbidden everybody else, not a natural born British subject, to change his name without leave of the Secretary of State. Until now I have not given leave to a single person to change his name under the Regulations. Therefore, the position as it stands is that no one who is not a natural born British subject can change his name by deed poll or in any other way, except by Royal licence. That is the position to-day, and I am quite sure that the names with which my noble friend struggled so valiantly just now, although foreign in sound, must be the names of persons who have the good fortune to have been born in this country and who are, therefore, British subjects. I believe that in this matter a prohibition ought to exist which does not exist to-day, but that is a matter for future legislation.
LORD WITTENHAM: I thank the noble and learned Viscount for his never-failing courtesy in answering my Question, and I welcome above all his unambiguous and absolute declaration that his own opinion—which carries great weight with a large number of people—is that no German should be allowed to land on these shores after the declaration of peace until, at any rate, the Germans are purged of their offences.

ALBANIA.
LORD SYDENHAM,LORD SYDENHAM, on behalf of Lord LAMINGTON, rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether Albanian representatives will be present at the Peace Conference; and if not, what steps will be taken to secure for Albania the right of self-determination as solemnly agreed to by the United Kingdom and the United States on behalf of the smaller nations of Europe.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Lamington asked me to put this Question in his unavoidable absence. In 1913 the existence of an
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independent Albanian State was, I believe for the first time, guaranteed by the Powers. In the secret Treaty of April 26, 1915, an "independent Mahomedan State of Albania" is referred to, and in the distribution of territory which was made under the terms of that Treaty Albania seems to have been deprived of her one good port, Valona, and also of valuable and rich territory in that neighbourhood.
The points that my noble friend wished to press upon the House were two. First, that Albania should be left independent under the ægis of a great Power; secondly, that the territories allotted to her should be sufficient for her free and progressive development. I hope an assurance will be given that the interests of the Albanians will receive the fullest consideration in the coming Peace Conference, and that such arrangements shall be made as will guarantee to them a free and prosperous national life.
THE ASSISTANT UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (LORD NEWTON): My Lords, the question of the representation of the smaller Powers at the Peace Conference has not yet been decided by the Allied Governments, and it is considered to be quite impossible at the present moment to commit His Majesty's Government in any particular instances. As for the assurance asked for by the noble Lord, he may be perfectly well satisfied that the interests and the desires of the Albanian people will receive every consideration.

PRISONERS OF WAR.
LORD BURNHAM LORD BURNHAM rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether there will be any inquiry by Select Committee of this House or Joint Committee of both Houses into the administration of the Prisoners of War Department and the question of their treatment by the Departments of State here.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I make no apology, except because of the clock, for again drawing the attention of your Lordships to a question of which you are going to hear a good deal in the near future, and which, owing to forms of procedure, has not been discussed or considered in another place. It is just as well that these repatriated prisoners of war should know

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that their grievances can be heard at the Bar of this House. We all, of coures, listened with satisfaction—I only heard in when I came in—to the statement made by the Leader of the House. But that does not go to the root of the Question which I am now putting to His Majesty's Government.
At the present moment, this very day, hundreds of prisoners of war are arriving in this country. In the next few weeks, during which Parliament will not be sitting, thousands more will be coming. The iron has entered into their soul, and I feel they are, most of them, coming with a sense of considerable bitterness against those who, in their belief, have neglected their interests. I am going to explain what I mean. I consider the question as I raise it affects the honour and reputation of the civil and military authorities which have been charged with the care of out prisoners of war for remembrance and humanity, and it affects the reputation of both Houses of Parliament as well. The Leader of the House, in moving, I think it was, the Address to the Crown, said that we had felt throughout the most intense sympathy wit those who were condemned to the cruel fate of slavery—for it was slavery, of course—in enemy countries. That was true as individuals. I cannot say I think that, during the first two years of the war, the Houses of Parliament devoted sufficient attention to the interests and to the sufferings of our prisoners.
I do not say it was the fault of the Houses of Parliament. It was due to the sheer ignorance in which the country and Parliament were kept, and owing to which we were dependent on casual stories of individual refugees and escaped men from camps abroad for any account of what was happening. Then, as we know, all was changed. A Committee, sitting under the presidency of an able Judge, who is famous for his fairness of mind and thoroughness of work, investigated the cases, and they have been pouring out week after week reports containing statements which make you sick to read. If these were merely the unsupported statements of prisoners one might fear that, owing to the cruel and humiliating treatment to which they had been subject, exaggeration might have crept in, but I think you can trust Mr. Justice Younger to have thoroughly examined into all these cases and to have sifted the evidence
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as a man of his experience would and could sift it. Thee statements have been abundantly justified. I do not say that all over Germany maltreatment was on the same scale and of the same order, but we know perfectly well that in kommando, in coal and salt mines, Mr. Justice Younger's report showed a uniform level of infamy.
Latterly, indeed, conditions may have been acccutuated by the scarcity of food in Germany, which has made it even worse for these men, especially those working behind the lines who would not receive parcels, because their addresses were not known, to keep up their strength in any way. I am not going to repeat those stories because they are common knowledge and have been common reading. I would, however, say that we are likely to have a fresh supper of horrors when we hear what may be told us by some of those prisoners who are coming back from Turkey, especially the survivors of the Kut Garrison of whom, I am credibly informed, only 12 per cent., or a small percent age, are actually surviving the monstrous barbarity which they have had to endure. These things will be brought very prominently to the front during the coming Election, when Parliament will not be sitting.
I hope, to-night, that we shall hear that the Government is prepared to recommend the new Parliament to appoint a body to investigate the charges, and especially how far our prisoners have had the assistance from the civil and military authorities to which they were entitled, and how far their cry of pain has been harkened to. I am afraid that in the natural resentment and indignation at their foul ill-treatment, in spite of all the conventions drawn up before the war, they may be inclined to assign blame where it is not in the least in place. I am far from saying that we could have done what they expected. Personally, I never was a believer, except in rare cases, in the efficacy of retaliation. I always thought that free and unconditional exchange was the only method by which we could have rescued these men at any time in large numbers, and I am well aware of the military objections, legitimate in their way and to a proper extent, that were advanced against it. What I fear is that scapegoats will be made in public opinion, who certainly do not deserve what has been said and will be said. I refer especially to the noble Lord who is head of

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the Prisoners of War Department. We know perfectly well that he has devoted himself with single-minded zeal from the first to the welfare of these prisoners. If he will allow me to say so, he has a sharp tongue and does not suffer ignorance gladly, and sometimes what he has said may have given a slightly wrong impression to the public, not only of what is in his heart, which is uniformly most benevolent towards the prisoners, but of the action of his hand. It is only fair to him that it should be known, as I believe it will be, that he had many obstacles to struggle against and many official snubbings to put up with. He ought to have the chance of making clear to those men who are now returning, that he is in no way responsible for the fact that they have not been rescued sooner from the cruel fate that they have had to endure. The whole truth ought to be known to the public. Otherwise, not only now, but even in history, names may be gibbeted which on the contrary in my opinion ought to meet with honour for public services rendered in this respect during this war.
Therefore I confidently ask for a public inquiry. I want it to be a Parliamentary inquiry, because it beseems Parliament to take these matters up and show in that way that it is the real focus of public opinion. Such a Committee would naturally have power to hear witnesses and examine on oath, and no body of person, officers or men, ought to be prevented from free access to a hearing. I am sure that the military authorities would not desire that they should be prevented. When the truth comes out I do not fear for the reputation of any member of this House, but I say that without such an inquiry there is a grave danger that the public will be deceived and misled as to the real course of events. May I say this, too, though it does not strictly relate to the Question on the Paper. I hope that every endeavour will be made by the military authorities to welcome back those men who have suffered so much—much more in many cases than those who come home as casualties from wounds. I hear that owing to the miscarrying of orders it has not been done in all cases and there is a feeling of indignation in regard to certain cases which I can give to my noble friend, without mentioning them here. I am certain that nothing would so much tend to allay that bitterness and soreness of spirit of which I have spoken, as every attempt not only to profess
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sympathy and admiration but to show and display it in the most public way possible in the days that are coming. In that spirit and purpose I have put the Question which stands on the Paper.
VISCOUNT BRYCE: My Lords, I desire to say a few words in support of what has been said by my noble friend with regard to the desirability of having the fullest possible inquiry into the treatment of prisoners in those countries with regard to which we have not received full information. In particular, I desire to support and confirm what he has said with regard to the treatment of prisoners in Turkey. It has been in its way quite as abominable and in human as the treatment of prisoners in Germany, and it has reduced the unfortunate men who were taken, particularly at Kut, to a very small percentage. Many of them ultimately arrived at their destination practically unable to stand. They had become mere skin and bone, and I hope that not only will efforts be made to get at all the facts, but, if possible, to get some of the people punished who were guilty of these acts. One person was named to me—I will not give his name now, but I will give it to the noble Lord—as having been guilty not only of the greatest possible cruelty but of unmentionable crimes in regard to some of those prisoners, and if he were caught and punished it would be a good example to other malefactors in those countries.
I would like also to say that I hope that when the details are ascertained which show what were the inconceivable sufferings our prisoners have had to undergo, some attempt will be made to express our thanks to those charitable people who endeavoured to succour them when they arrived at the coast in a state of the utmost starvation and misery. I know that in Smyrna, in particular, there were some British subjects, and some members of the American Mission, who exerted themselves to save, and did save, people who were on the point of death from the sufferings that they had undergone, and I hope, when His Majesty's Government have arrived at the facts, that they will give some recognition to those who came in at the last moment to save these unfortunate remnants from perishing. As regards those who illtreated the prisoners, it is right to ascertain forthwith who are the people particularly guilty. No care could be clearer for

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inflicting punishment if the culprits can be discovered.
LORD GAINFORD: My Lords, I should like to make one point, and it is that this inquiry should be as broad as possible, not only in regard to the action of the Government and the people of this country, but also in regard to the treatment that prisoners have suffered in Germany, and especially in the working camps. It was only on Friday last that two of these poor miserable men came into Valenciennes from one of these working camps, having had to walk day by day along the roads without food. They told me that they were only two out of 500, and so far as they knew they alone had landed in the British lines. It was all that they could do to walk across the room when I asked them to come and see me, and tell me some of the facts in regard to their conditions. I wish to pay this tribute, if I may, to the Department in this country which has been engaged in sending parcels out to feed these men in Germany, that had it not been for the parcels having been regularly sent, instead of the death rate being large as it is, it would have been enormous, and very few of these men would ever have come back into this country. The men to whom spoke admitted that it was only the parcels which had kept them alive, and they said further that they could not have tramped the many kilometres of Belgium that they had traversed if it had not been for the fact that they had a little soap left out of their parcels, and they had used it in order to purchase bread to keep them alive on their walk to the frontier. When one sees these things at first hand, they perhaps impress one more even than when one reads them in the newspapers. I feel that there is cause for an investigation and a thorough Parliamentary inquiry, and I am very grateful to the noble Lord for having taken up this question, and hope that the Government will respond to his request.
THE EARL OF MAYO: My Lords, I do wish to make a speech, but I should like to support Lord Burnham in his request for a Committee of both Houses to investigate these outrages. There is, however, one point that I should like to make which the noble Viscount below me referred to. It is that the men who committed these cruelties on our prisoners in Germane should be brought to punishment. I know, and the noble Lord who is going to answer
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knows, perfectly well that there is a long list of these men, and I think that the country will demand that some punishment should be meted out to them. It is of no use enlarging upon the cruelties that our poor men have gone through. I have spoken to some of them when they have come home, and it is terrible to hear what they have suffered. If we do not take some means to punish these Germans—officers, commandants, non-commissioned officers, and others—there will be a terrible feeling in this country, and somebody will be brought to a reckoning. I have spoken many times in this House upon this subject, and I wish now to say that nay noble friend Lord Newton has done his very best in this matter. I might almost say that he initiated the question of repatriation of these prisoners, and I wish to thank him personally for what he has done. I know that he has been abused, but I do not think that he minds that very much. I have said before, and I say again, that it would be a proper thing if this Committee which Lord Burnham has suggested were set up, for it would clear up a great many matters which have been dealt with in the Press, and in regard to which the public have been misled in many ways.
VISCOUNT DEVONPORT: My Lords, I endorse the appeal of Lord Burnham that the Government should consent to some Committee being set up to inquire into the policy that has actuated the Government, or successive Governments, throughout the duration of the war in relation to their action towards British prisoners interned abroad. I take it that is the motive of Lord Burnham's Question.
LORD BURNHAM: Yes.
VISCOUNT DEVONPORT: I feel that is necessary, and at the same time I should like to take the opportunity of expressing my agreement with the noble Lord in saying that repeatedly blame has been assigned in a quarter where we know in this House—and we are probably the only people who do appreciate it—that it is not deserved, and never has been deserved. I have had the closest relationship with Lord Newton in regard to the question of certain prisoners in whom I had an interest, and I testify whole-heartedly that he has always been sympathetic, and has been miles ahead of the Government of which he has been a member. That is where the lack of

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sympathy has been. I do not want to say unkind things, and I will withdraw the words "lack of sympathy." but the outstanding fact is that it has been the policy of the Government, and not of this Government merely but of all Governments from the Asquith Government onwards, deliberately to oppose any question of exchange. That is why it is these men have been left to fend for themselves.
The noble Lord opposite (Lord Newton) has been singled out for attack, but if I had any criticism to offer against the character of his speeches, I should endorse that submitted to us more than once by the most rev. Primate, that he was always an apologist, and was desirous of asserting that he was not responsible for the policy that he enunciated here, and that he had no share in the making or unmaking of it. That aspect of the question was taken up in a marked way by the most rev. Primate, who very properly reminded the noble Lord that all these questions which gave rise to almost innumerable debates were addressed to His Majesty's Government, and that therefore the spokesman of that Government ought not to be an apologist, and ought not to say "This is not my policy; I do not agree with this; I disagree with it." That really has been the attitude of the noble Lord all the way through, and in spite of the knowledge that we here have that he has always been desirous of taking what we have deemed to be the right course, he has been estopped from so doing by those who had the power which, as he frequently told us, he did not possess. There is one outstanding feature of all these debates to which I think I am entitled to direct attention—namely, that on no single occasion has a Minister on that Bench of Cabinet standing taken part in our discussions. We have always been left to the tender mercies if I may say so—I do not say it offensively—of Lord Newton. It seems to me in an all-important matter affecting the lives and the happiness and conditions of our gallant men, we might have had a word of sympathy from that Bench occasionally. We have never had it. Certainly the other day the noble Lord who leads this House delivered a great oration and said, as regards the prisoners that they had had the tender regard of this House during the last four years. That is quite true as regards this House in the bulk; they have had it in a marked degree, but they have not had the tender
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regard of the successive Governments that have ruled us.
I fear that unless some steps are taken to make a whole-hearted confession through the agency of a Committee as to the shortcomings of those who have the power to mitigate the sufferings of these men and have failed to utilise it, there will be such a gathering of angry protest on the part of those who have come back, endorsed by the whole population of this country, that it is difficulty to contemplate what may arise from it. And as soon as the new Parliament meets no doubt we shall make an occasion to go into the whole Question from the beginning to the end, and when the evidence is produced that I can produce, and have ready with me at this moment, it is the post sorry chapter of the clean abandonment of these men on the part of the various Governments to which I just now referred. I will say no more now beyond expressing the hope that the noble Lord will be able to give us some assurance that an investigation such as is indicated in my noble friend's Question will be consented to.
LORD FORESTER: My Lord, I rise to support the request of my noble friend Lord Burnham for an Inquiry, in common fairness to the noble Lord who has so well looked after the interests of the prisoners. I saw an officer this afternoon who is just back from Holland, and it is as Lord Burnham says. The whole of the blame for what has happened to these prisoners of war in Germany is put on to my noble friend opposite. Officers, non-commissioned officers, and men think he is responsible for the whole of the sufferings that they have undergone, and in common fairness to him I hope that an exhaustive inquiry will be made into the subject.
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE LORD MUIR MACKENZIE had the following Question on the Paper—
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will set up an inquiry into the conduct during the war of matters affecting the treatment and conditions of the British prisoners of war, and the steps taken to ameliorate their condition.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Question which I have on the Paper is to the same effect as that which has already been put. I agree with every word that has been said by Lord Burnham. I have only one contribution to make to the

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debate upon a matter which is, perhaps, not known to the rest of your Lordships. I am sorry that Lord Gainford has left the House, because he and I sat together on a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament which was set up three years ago in order to inquire into the allegations that were then made about the maladministration in the business of sending parcels and other comforts to prisoners in Germany. It is a good precedent for what is now proposed that I think that there is no doubt that the results of the sitting of that committee was to remove misapprehension which had been formed to the prejudice of the very people who were doing most in the matter.
The particular thing which I wish to mention is this, that from the very beginning of our investigations—which were very close, as anybody may know who reads our Report which is on the Table—we came across the name of Lord Newton. He was the man who, we found was already working at the very beginning of this affair. And it so went on. And there can be no question that he has devoted his life to a great extent during the years of the war to doing the very thing which it is said in the most public manner that he has not done. There can be no question about it.
In this House he has been in the difficult position which we so constantly witness on the Front Bench when anything is dealt with not by the Minister at the Head of the Department, and when the spokesman of the Government has to give answers which are administered to him, and he is in a position which, I think, was once described by a noble Lord opposite as being that of a gramophone. Perhaps one of the characteristic things upon these occasions has been that the noble Lord has very often really not disguised that his answers were no more satisfactory to him than in almost every case they have been unsatisfactory to the House. After what has happened in this House, in the other House, and in public it seems to me that it is only the merest justice to him and to others in his Department who have been connected with this matter that there should be an Inquiry, and that we should know what is the truth and the whole truth about this matter. I earnestly hope that the Government will see their way to appoint a Committee such as has been recommended by my noble friend Lord Burnham.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, the Questions on the Paper relate only to the suggestion that there should be an inquiry of some sort into the whole administration of the Prisoners of War Department, and I do not think the House will expect me to enter into a laboured defence of the whole policy of His Majesty's Government with regard to the interests of British prisoners. As far as my Department is concerned I need hardly say, as I have already said here, that I should welcome an Inquiry. Naturally I cannot speak for other Departments. Various speakers have been good enough to express appreciation, probably too high an appreciation of such services as I have been able to render, and it would be ridiculous to make a personal question of attacks of this kind. I am perfectly well satisfied in my own mind that anybody who occupied the position that I have occupied for the last two and a-half years would have been subjected to exactly the same kind of attacks, and I find it difficult to believe that anybody would have made a success of this particular office. It is one of those offices in which the occupant is bound to be found fault with all round. But, as I say, it is not a personal question at all.
The charges which are made against the Government are, however, I must point out, of a vest vague and general character. Broadly speaking, they amount to this, that the interests of British prisoners have been systematically neglected by His Majesty's Government; and to this is occasionally added the astonishing accusation that, owing to the secret and occult influence of the German Government here, justice has been denied to British prisoners in Germany. I cannot help thinking that if an Inquiry is to be held it would have to be held on some rather more definite charge than that. I am unable to say what course the Government propose to adopt, but it is perfectly obvious that a Parliamentary Committee at this moment is out of the question. But I suppose that I am justified in assuming that the speeches which have been made here this afternoon—all of a moderate character—are speeches which ought to be treated by the Government with a great deal of consideration, yet what precise effect they will have I do not know.
There is one small circumstance which I should like to point out, and which seems to be generally forgotten—namely, that in these allegations and accusations against His Majesty's Government of indifference

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to prisoners and of neglect of their interests, it is not only a question of bringing charges against the Government and against the officials who have been responsible for the policy of the Government, but it also involves very serious charges against the American Government and the Dutch Government to whom our interests have been entrusted and who have exercised the office of protecting Powers. I cannot. help thinking that this is a very regrettable feature, but I can hardly think that it is a sufficient reason of itself for granting an Inquiry. However, as far as I am concerned I can only repeat that I should welcome any Inquiry by a properly constituted body.
I did not intend to say anything upon any other subject, but, as the question has been raised by some noble Lords of the present conditions of prisoners in Germany, the House may be interested to learn that, in view of the information which we have received, the following Message has been sent to the German Government—
"Information reaches His Majesty's Government of shocking lack of organisation in release of British prisoners in German territory, and of their return march on foot, miserably clothed, without food or transport, and with no escort or guides to the Allied lines, with the one result of lamentable suffering and heavy mortality—"
I understand that this message has already been read to your Lordships; therefore I need not read it again.
THE EARL OF MAYO: Please go on; some of us did not hear it read earlier in the evening.
LORD NEWTON: The Message proceeds—
"His Majesty's Government cannot tolerate a continuation of this cruel treatment, and must insist on adequate arrangements being made in all above respects by German authorities with whom responsibility lies; otherwise we shall be compelled to take this into account in any question of revictualling Germany or satisfying the requirements of the German population. His Majesty's Government are ready to lend all available assistance by forwarding food, clothing, and transport to prisoners' camps where they are not otherwise forthcoming, and are addressing Allied Commanders in this sense."
In addition to this, Sir Douglas Haig has been instructed to take every possible step to provide with the utmost rapidity food, clothing, and means of conveyance for the use of our prisoners in Germany; and our Allies have been asked to co-operate in this action. I hope that this announce-
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ment will reassure those of your Lordships who think that His Majesty's Government are failing in their duty towards prisoners.
LORD BERESFORD: My Lords, the noble Lord is not sure whether the Government will grant an Inquiry, but I can assure him that the country will insist upon one. The state of our prisoners has been shocking. I brought the question forward three times in the other House, and I have brought it forward twice in this House. I agree with Lord Devonport that not one word of sympathy or consideration has ever been uttered by a Cabinet Minister from the Front Bench opposite or from the Front Bench in the other House. That is what has irritated the people. My noble friend Lord Newton has frequently expressed his sympathy. His difficulties have been enormous, and, I said the other day, if he had had his way he would have done a great deal more. The only fault I find with Lord Newton is that when his proposals, in such an extreme case as this, were not accepted, he should have asked for another Committee, or resigned. That would have taken the imagination of the public. Perhaps his ideas are better than mine, and, no matter how difficult it was, he was right in remaining in office and doing his best. I am satisfied that the demand made by Lord Burnham will be insisted on by the country, and that there will have to be this Inquiry with regard to the position of our prisoners in Germany and in Turkey.

RELEASED CIVILIAN PRISONERS.
VISCOUNT DEVONPORT VISCOUNT DEVONPORT rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether any arrangements, and if so what, are being taken to administer to the immediate necessities of released civilian prisoners.
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I apologise for trespassing on the indulgence of the House, but as this is the last opportunity we shall have before the Prorogation I feel compelled to put my Question. When I placed it on the Paper I anticipated, as no doubt the Government did, that the prisoners would be returning in well-ordered sequence under direct British supervision. But that has proved unfortunately not to be the case.
My Question refers to civilian prisoners returning to this country. It is a matter of notoriety to the Government and to

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others that among those who have been interned for four years in Ruhleben many are in poor circumstances, and that when they arrive here they will scarcely have what is commonly called "a wing to fly with"; and if they are left to take care of themselves, it is inevitable that there will be a great amount of distress. Referring again to Lord Curzon's speech in which he used words like "tender regard," I am perfectly certain that the Government, at all events in this particular, will take the greatest possible care to see that these returning prisoners are looked after. But what I want to know is how they propose to do it. One thing is quite essential—namely, that whatever they do should be arranged here and now, because these prisoners will be arriving in succession, consequently the organisation should be ready to meet them and the relief in order to be effective must be immediate. No time should elapse for investigations to be made which in the ordinary way would be needed before any assistance can be given. I think there will be many cases where men will not have the price of their fare to get home, and where a pound or two, or three, or four, to carry them along for the first week or fortnight should be granted, during which time proper investigation can be made through accepted agencies; and their future as regards sustentation would depend upon such inquiries.
I suggest that there is an organisation which would command respect and confidence that might be used for this purpose. I refer to the Prisoners of War organisation at Thurloe Place. This organisation is well known to the prisoners at the Ruhleben Camp, because it has been administering to them for a long time. In order to enable this body at once to get into action it would be necessary to place at their disposal both money and clothing; and in addition I hope that they will be ready with advice and a helping hand generally. But the most important thing is that the help should be forthcoming without a moment's delay.
I have seen in the papers that it is contemplated, as released prisoners arrive, to intern them in some sort of prisoners' camp. As regards those that are combatant prisoners, members of the Army, I see no objection to that, because they are under discipline, and so on. But I think the Government will find that if they attempt to intern returned civilians there
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will be the greatest possible resistance to it, and that it will be a most unpopular move. Their great desire will be to get once more to their families, from whom they have been severed for these four dreary years, and I think something different from that should be considered. However, the thing I am interested in knowing is—and that is why I have ventured to make these few observations—whether the Government has any organisation in contemplation, and if so, what organisation it will be.
THE EARL OF SANDWICH: My Lords, perhaps before Lord Newton replies I may be allowed to interpose a few remarks, which will not take up your Lordships' time very long, in meeting the case which Viscount Devonport has put. First, I think we ought to realise that we should do all that is possible for the civilians on returning to this country, give them the heartiest possible welcome, and put them in touch not only with means of subsistence but with obtaining proper employment afterwards. But there is already in existence, I think—the noble Lord will correct me if I am wrong—machinery for dealing with these persons when they arrive. That machinery is worked through the Central Charities Committee and the Local Government Board. The repatriated civilians, as soon as they arrive, are sent to their homes if they have homes to go to, or are housed in excellent hotel accommodation in London if they have no homes to go to; and work is found for them, as far as possible, and their difficulties met.
But at this point it seems to me that something more should be done then is being done at the present time. Many of these men who have lost their businesses are of some standing, and require rather special treatment. And, curiously enough, when the noble Viscount put this Question on the Paper, the Central Prisoners of War Committee, of which I have the honour to be chairman, and which is, as your Lordships know, a sub-Committee of the Red Cross, had this very question in mind, as to whether they could not do something in forming a Committee to meet this demand. That Committee is now in process of formation, and the funds at the disposal of the Red Cross which the Central Prisoners of War Committee have in hand can, I think, be utilised for the purpose. There are also sums of money which will be forthcoming from the Ruhleben Exhibition to

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be held in January, whose funds will be devoted to that purpose, and further sumsfrom the Savoy Fair, a large undertaking which will be carried out some time before Christmas. So that if the noble Lord will father this Committee to the extent of allowing us to work in touch with the existing organisation, so as not in any way to overlap or counteract the work they are doing, I feel sure that a great deal more can be done than has been done, or it is possible to do under the existing Government Committee, which of course has only limited funds at its disposal. I understand, also, that a certain proportion of men of the Mercantile Marine may have the option of saying whether they wish to be treated as civilians or as military. If they are treated as civilians, as some of them, I believe, wish to be, they will come under the same category of treatment as that of the ordinary civilian.
As regards the membership of this Committee, I hope very much that in addition to such members of our Committee who have been in touch with civilian prisoners in the past, certain well qualified men from Ruhleben who know all about the prisoners will form part of that Committee; and I trust, in addition, that we may be allowed to have some representative of the Local Government Board or the Central Charities Committee; and also, if the noble Lord will agree, some one from the civilian side of his Department, in order that we may keep in touch with one another, and, what is most important perhaps of all, acquire the proper information of the history of these particular cases with which we have to deal from the Departments. We should know their conditions and circumstances, so that in carrying out the work of helping, not only financially but with advice as to employment we may be able to deal properly with the matter.
I should like, in conclusion, to associate myself with what has been said with regard to the work which the noble Lord, Lord Newton, has carried out. Personally speaking, I have had, in consequence of my work, a great deal to do with his Department, and I have always had the utmost consideration, pains, and help in anything that I or my colleagues on my Committee have asked him to undertake.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, all the arrangements with regard to the repatriation and reception of civilians are in the
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hands of the Local Government Board, and I can assure the noble Viscount that all the necessary preparations have already been made. 'The merchant seamen and the fishermen will be treated as combatants unless they express objection. If they elect to be treated as combatants they will, of course, go to the two large rest camps of which I spoke the other day—namely, at Ripon and at Dover; and they will, after being detained there as short a time as possible, be sent to their homes. The intention is to bring all, or at all events as many as possible, of the civilians to Hull in preference to other ports, and it is hoped that as far as possible they will arrive in separate vessels. When they arrive, the Local Government Board will be responsible for their housing, for their feeding, and for any temporary assistance, financial or otherwise, which may he required; and I do not think the noble Viscount need be alarmed at the idea of their being interned in the sense which he meant to convey. These men will be sent to their homes with the least possible delay, and their expenses will be defrayed by the Government. With regard to the destitute, arrangements, as has already been explained by my noble friend opposite, will be made for their welfare by the Committee of the Red Cross, acting in conjunction with the agents of the Local Government Board; and I can assure my noble friend that any suggestions which come from him or his Department will be received by us with the greatest consideration, and every effort will be made to meet their wishes.

HORSE BREEDING.
THE EARL OF VERULAM THE EARL OF VERULAM rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether they can see their way to an immediate repatriation of the best mares of every class suitable for breeding, and now employed on war service abroad, with the view of their being utilised for breeding purposes during the forthcoming season, thus safeguarding the future of our stock of horses, and so making an effort to preserve this invaluable asset.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, the Question speaks for itself. The matter is of extreme urgency, and the time being so near for Proregation, I ask the Government, if they will, to take immediate steps to carry out the idea if they see their way,

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and accept the suggestion put forward in this Question. When I put down the words "best mares," I referred to the most sound, the most healthy, and the most fitted for the purposes of breeding for the stock of the country.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE WAR OFFICE (EARL STANHOPE): My Lords, this question has been receiving the very earnest consideration of the War Office and of the Board of Agriculture for a considerable period. As my noble friend knows, a Committee was set up in 1915 to go into the whole subject of horse-breeding ill this country in relation to Army requirements, and a further Committee was set up last year.
THE EARL OF VERULAM: I refer to all horses, agricultural as well.
EARL STANHOPE: Yes, all; and, of course, the Committee naturally had to go into the, question of all sorts of horses, both riding horses, light draught and heavy draught. They have made three recommendations which, perhaps, it may interest the House to hear. I will give them very briefly. They are (1) that an adegnate and sufficient staff under the Board of Agriculture should be appointed to direct operations in regard to horse breeding; (2) that we should board out light draught horses to civilians on payment; (3) that mares should be distributed for breeding purposes to suitable civilian farms and other places free of charge. Mares for breeding horses of the artillery type would be placed out and the War Office would have a lien the progeny up to October 1 in the year in which the foal or filly becomes three years old. The noble Earl will realise the importance of that, because I am sure he knows that in the old days we used to buy horses of four years and upwards, and these, of course, would be rising four, which would make a very considerable difference to the farmer.
There is a further proposal that fillies should be left out with the farmer, and that if they succeeded in getting a foal farmers should be given £10 bonus before the filly is called up for the Army. Hunter and polo pony mares would, in the first instance, be sent to members of the Hunters' Improvement Society and the Polo Pony Society. There again, there would be no payment. Therefore, the whole question of the breeding of horses in this country for
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Army purposes is receiving the consideration both of the War Office and the Board d of Agriculture at the present time. I may say that the proposals of this Committee have received the general approval of the two Covernment Departments concerned, but they have still to be approved of from the financial point of view.
As regards the bringing back of horses from France, I am afraid at the moment I cannot tell the noble Earl anything very definite. As I had to inform the House yesterday, the requirements in regard to transport are, if anything, rather higher at the present moment than they were before the signing of the Armistice, and the War Office is not at present in a position to know how many horses we are likely to have surplus to Army requirements in the very near future. That, of course, depends on the size of the Army of Occupation which Marshal Foch, commanding the Allied armies, considers that the British ought to keep in that area. Consequently, it is not possible to say now how many horses are surplus to Army requirements or how many mares we can repatriate; but the question of the repatriation of mares has been a subject of careful consideration by the War Office, and we hope that the best mares of all classes surplus to Army requirements will be repatriated at an early date.
I can assure the noble Earl that we are quite as keen about the subject as he or any other member of your Lordships' House can be, and that we shall certainly lose no time in bringing back the best mares—taking the description which he gave of them—for the purpose of breeding in this country. We are able to sell a few horses which are at present in this country in the Army and which are unsuitable for service abroad. By that I do not mean horses which are unsound from a breeding point of view, but horses that would be unable, either from age or perhaps from accident, to undergo the severe conditions which horses have to meet with on active service. The House would, perhaps, wish to be assured that there is no question of their being turned over for unsuitable purposes because any horse which is unfit for work is destroyed, and, as the minimum price for horses sold under these conditions is £15, your Lordships will see that there is no question of the horrors that one used to remember in pre-war days when horses were exported to foreign countries and

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treated in a way of which we all disapproved.
THE EARL OF VERULAM: I beg to thank the noble Earl for his reply.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
LORD SOMERLEYTON: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn until twelve o'clock to-morrow.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[From Minutes of November 19.]

TITHE BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments, agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill have been complied with:
Brent ford Gas.
The same was ordered to lie on the Table.

CRIMINAL LAW AMENDMENT BILL. [H.L.]
  SEXUAL OFFENCES BILL [H.L.]
  Report from the Joint Select Committee (with the Proceedings of the Committee) made, and to be printed. (No. 145.) Minutes of evidence, together with appendices: Laid upon the Table, and to be delivered out.
CRIMINAL LAW AMENDMENT BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the 7th of May last referring the Bill to a Joint Select Committee, discharged.
SEXUAL OFFENCES BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the 7th of May last, referring the Bill to a Joint Select Committee, discharged.
NAVAL AND MILITARY WAR PENSIONS BILL.
  GAS PROVISIONAL ORDERS BILL.

    GAS AND WATER PROVISIONAL ORDERS BILL.
    Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments, agreed to.
    House adjourned at fifteen minutes past eight o'clock.