Lords Sitting of 22 December 1919

Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

DISTRESS IN AUSTRIA.
VISCOUNT BRYCE VISCOUNT BRYCE rose to call attention to the poverty, disease, and suffering that now prevail in Austria due to the scarcity of food and the extreme depreciation of the currency; and to ask His Majesty's Government what steps it is proposed to take to avert the impending danger of a terrible famine in that country.
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, most of your Lordships are so familiar with the state of misery and destitution which prevails in large parts of Central Europe that I need say but little in addressing this Question to His Majesty's Government and bespeaking their earnest consideration of a matter which has now become fraught with danger. The condition of some parts of Central Europe, and particularly the condition of the countries to which I specially wish to call your Lordships' attention—Austria, and Austria-Hungary, and Poland—is now in some respects worse than it was during the war. During the war there was, in all these parts of the world which are now suffering most acutely, at any rate excitement, suspense, and hope—hope for a better state of things after the war—which occupied men's minds and to some extent distracted them from the sufferings of the moment. But now that state of things is passed, the hopes have not been realised, the sky is as dark as it was before the war and in some respects darker, for to that excitement and suspense there have now succeeded lassitude, apathy, and despair. The people in these regions have been so demoralised by suffering that they are scarcely able to work, even if the raw materials could be obtained. There are many parts of Europe to which what I have said applies, but it applies with particular force to Hungary and to Austria, and to-night I desire to call your Lordships' attention to Austria in particular.
I have very few figures with which to trouble your Lordships, but I may give one short set which will help you to realise the
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state of things at this moment. In 1916 the rations on which the people of Vienna were living were these: 2½ lbs. of bread, 1 lb. of flour, ½ lb. of dried vegetables, and 2 ounces of fat per week, and once a fortnight 5 ounces of meat. This is what they were trying to support life upon in 1916, of course sinking deeper and deeper physically under the suffering which these scant rations inflicted. In those days they had for fuel 2¼ lbs. of coal per week and 2¼ lbs. of wood, with which they had both to warm and cook for themselves. Now the rations are one-half of what they were then. That which was not enough properly to support life three years ago is reduced by one-half, and those rations, according to the latest information received from Vienna, are very often not forthcoming, and after January 8 next my information goes to show that there is no more food in sight and that unless help is given very speedily the people will be faced with absolute starvation. The stocks, such as they are now, will probably be exhausted unless supplies come in.
With such tiny rations your Lordships will not be surprised to hear that the state of misery is frightful over what is left of the ancient Austrian Monarchy. The case of Vienna is the worst, but other towns such as Innsbruck and Salzburg are scarcely less bad, and things have got to this pitch, that I know of one family in particular, the head of which is one of the most distinguished men in Europe in his own particular line of study, and which is now barely kept alive; and when that is the case with a family in that position in life, your Lordships may realise what are the sufferings of the poor. The emaciated bodies of the workpeople are scarcely any longer able to work, even if they had materials to work with or markets in which to sell. The cold is terrible. Well-to-do-people in Vienna are burning their furniture in stoves to keep themselves warm. Disease is frightfully prevalent. The hospitals are full, and they have to turn away patients every day. Medical aid is insufficient, and there is a hick of drugs. The case is particularly bad as regards the children, who are dying at a terrible rate. The percentage is very large in Hungary, and I think it is worse in Austria. In Hungary it is one-fourth. Then an enormous number of the children in the hospitals are affected with rickets, a disease which will probably leave them only half fit for work for the rest of their lives. Tuberculosis, as always happens

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when food and physical condition are reduced, is growing apace and will carry off its victims during the next few months or years. Of hunger I have already spoken. Now take the addition of cold. One of those from whom I have received a report says, "You can just stand hunger alone and cold alone, but you cannot bear up against cold and hunger together. You lose all hope of trying to save yourself when you are suffering physically from both these causes." Hunger and cold combined must be expected, as has often happened before, to drive men to suicide or violence.
The causes which have brought about this terrible state of things are pretty well known to your Lordships. In the first place there are no crops. The only part of Austria which provides enough food at home for its people is the Arch-Duchy of Upper Austria. The rest of the Austrian Sate—Lower Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Tyrol—do not provide enough food. Food has to be imported. Austria in time of peace used to derive the chief part of its wheat from Hungary, which, as your Lordships know, is a very rich corn-growing country. Now there is nothing to come from it. The Rumanian armies were unfortunately permitted to advance through Transylvania and through Hungary into Budapest itself, and when they retired they swept the country bare. They carried off everything. They looted the country right and left, taking away with them the furniture and the very blankets from the hospitals. They carried off also all the railway stock and locomotives, and there is nothing to be now obtained I from Hungary. This, along with the other results of the war, has left the railways practically paralysed, and even where there is food there is at present no means of conveying it. Transportation has come to an end. There is coal in Bohemia, but whether owing to the want of transport or whether because it is supposed to be needed there, there is no coal coming into Vienna, and the want of fuel is such that the people are going out into that beautiful forest country which lies south-west of Vienna trying to cut wood for themselves and carrying it in on their backs to get a little warmth. Austria, in fact, has been practically blockaded as regards both fuel and food for many months, and the only quarter from which any food arrives is Italy, whence some wheat and maize are brought to Innsbruck.
To add to all these things there is a tremendous depreciation of the currency.
The Austrian krone, which was worth before the war tenpence, has now sunk to 3 per cent. of its face value, and is worth no more than a farthing, so that even where there is a trifle of food to buy there are very few people who can afford to buy it. It is very hard to understand how such a fall in the currency could not have been foreseen. How comes it that so little foresight or so little insight was shown in the framing of the Peace Treaty and its imposition upon Austria when the result of it has been to impose an intolerable load upon that country, which the Peace Treaty has already made bankrupt. Everybody saw when that Treaty was published that its only result would be to ruin the country. Now Austria is bankrupt, and yet it has this tremendous load of indemnities to support—indemnities which even a prosperous State carrying on its industries, having an abundance of raw material and a population fit to work, would not be able to discharge.
It is an astonishing thing to us to feel that famine, which we used to think of as a thing that had disappeared from civilised countries, which we read of with pity but with wonder and strangeness when we had reports of it from the Far East and other countries in which there is a meagre population and deficient means, should come to stalk through the centre of Europe, through once civilised countries, and should even descend upon a city like Vienna, which we remember as a centre of gaiety and luxury. And behind the starvation, there is the grim spectre of violence and anarchy. May I read a few words from a recent speech of Sir William Goode, our Director of Relief, in which he refers in passing to that subject. He says—
"When I was in Vienna I felt as if I had been spending ten days in a condemned cell. It seems to me you cannot trifle with starvation and privation in Central Europe such as prevail there to-day without running the risk of a carnival of Bolshevism which would probably not be confined to this Continent. Anyone with half an eye in his head must realise that if, as a result of apparently legitimate grievances, the forces of unrest are loosed in the heart of Europe, the whole world—the United States as well as ourselves—will be menaced."
In such a state of things England cannot stand aside. A fund is being raised by private subscription under the presidency of Sir Frederick Jackson, whose name is well known to you all, and already I am glad to say that private liberality is responding to this fund. But private

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liberality will not be enough. British generosity has already done much for Central Europe, and the Government, I frankly acknowledge, has done a great deal. The private liberality of the United States, too, has been abundantly forthcoming for the alleviation of suffering in Europe and in other parts of the world. But that is not enough. I earnestly hope that His Majesty's Government realises, as I believe they do realise, the gravity and urgency of this matter, and that they will represent it in the clearest and strongest way to the Allied and Associated Powers. It is not for me to suggest to the Government the particular means by which they should proceed or the particular conditions or methods that are best fitted to meet the emergency, but I trust the Government will proceed at once to examine them, for there is no time to lose. I believe also that when the matter is brought to the knowledge of the Allied and the Associated Powers they also will realise how serious is the emergency.
Were this the time for dwelling on the resultant economic evils which lie in the background, I could say much. Britain and her Allies will have to consider what must be done to bring about a freer interchange of commodities between parts of the now vanished Austro-Hungarian Monarchy which have hitherto been inter-dependent, where the things required by one were supplied by the others, but in each of which artificial barriers are now being set up that act to the injury of all. But that is a large question upon which I do not ask your Lordships to enter now. Such barriers aggravate the present situation, and need to be removed, but for the moment I pass by those economic difficulties, present and future, in order to make this appeal in the name of humanity and of compassion.
THE EARL OF READING: My Lords, I am sure that we are indebted to my noble friend for the Question that he has addressed to His Majesty's Government and in particular for the facts which he has brought before your Lordships. I interpose only for one brief moment with the object of impressing, if I may, upon the Government the necessity for taking not only urgent steps but steps of a. particular kind. In the very early part of this year, as my noble friend the Leader of the House will know, I represented His Majesty's Government in the Economic
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Council in Paris. This, among other matters, was before us, and was discussed at considerable length. I do not mean that at that particular moment we foresaw the state of distress and famine into which Austria-Hungary would be plunged at the end of this year, but it was realised that the situation throughout Europe was very grave, and required measures to be adopted by the Allied Powers in order that relief and alleviation might be given. I had the opportunity of discussing these matters with His Majesty's Government, and in case I should be misunderstood I desire to say that I am not seeking to impute blame at all to His Majesty's Government. What I wish to impress upon the Government is that by putting off the day of finding the relief which is necessary the catastrophe has become so grave as to be almost past saving at the present moment.
I am well aware of the difficulties that occurred even during the short time that I was still in Paris before I went to America. I know that the difficulty of coming to an agreement with the various Powers concerned was very serious, and that there have been other very large and most important matters with which the Governments have had to deal. But at the present moment all I wish to say is this. I beg of the Government not to allow the time to pass in discussing with the Allies what particular steps are to be taken, but to take steps immediately in order to relieve the country as far as we possibly can. I know that it is a very large burden for us to take, more especially in the condition in which we find ourselves financially. Notwithstanding that, I do not believe that this country, even with the difficulties that confront us financially, will hesitate to find such money as may be necessary—and, after all, it is not so much money as commodities, and food, and articles which are necessary—in order that we may relieve the immediate distress. One knows very well that if discussions have to take place with the various Governments, time must necessarily elapse. It is not easy to arrive at an agreement. Ministers in the various countries have to discuss among themselves what steps they shall take. Then these results have to be discussed again with Ministers of other countries, and in that way inevitably time must pass.
At this moment we cannot allow time to pass. We must, for the sake of humanity, and indeed for the sake of the responsibility

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which rests upon us—only a responsibility for humanity—do our utmost at this moment, and the Government should do all that it can in order to bring relief to Austria-Hungary as soon as it possibly can be done. Ships, transport, besides the commodities themselves, are of the utmost importance, and it is really only the Government that can provide what is required. Even if money is subscribed by the public in much larger sums than can be expected at this moment it is not sufficient. It is the Government alone that can act with the promptitude and the vigour that is necessary in an emergency of this character.
With such experience as I have had, I would suggest for the consideration of His Majesty's Government that the best way of dealing quickly with a problem of this kind is to appoint a suitable man, to give him the power of the Government, with the limitations which the Government think right to impose, so that he may not have the need at every moment to consult either a number of Ministers or the Allies, but that he may go forward to do what is necessary at this moment, limited, as I can quite readily conceive it must be limited, only to the extent that will enable the Government to do all that is necessary within the next few weeks, otherwise a catastrophe appalling in its character will befall Europe and cannot fail to affect us.
LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, I do not know whether I might intervene for a moment, because I have been connected with an association which, during the last year and ever since the Armistice, has been in close connection with Austria and the distressed districts, and which I can assure your Lordships already has been instrumental in sending something like £1,000,000 in immediate aid of distress. I need hardly say to your Lordships that relief of that kind is necessarily wholly inadequate to the needs that exist in Austria at the present moment.
The noble Viscount has referred to the conditions of the hospitals. Dr. Wenkebach, the great Dutch scientist, who has given his life to superintending one of the great Viennese hospitals, came over here not long ago and stated in most appalling terms the conditions of the hospitals of Vienna—namely, that they wanted every condition which would enable them to carry out their duties as hospitals in refer-
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ence to the wants of the population. I do not wish unnecessarily to emphasise this, because I believe that His Majesty's Government are aware of the grievous conditions in Austria and, as the noble Earl has pointed out, it is a question rather of remedies than of emphasising existing conditions.
Again, as regards the currency and the difficulty of getting commodities in Austria, the other day Dr. Hertz was over here from Austria, and, in explaining the extraordinary want of fuel, said that owing to the depreciation in the currency of Austria he had had to pay £300 for a single ton of coal. That connotes an impossible condition. That is paid for hospital purposes, but really it is impossible under those conditions to get necessary fuel for winter conditions in Austria.
I think I may summarise the position in this way, that the sheer physical suffering owing to the lack of fuel, food, clothing among millions is appalling. The word "appalling" is not my epithet. I took it from an expression used by a very responsible Minister in this country—namely, the Minister of Food Supplies. I will not call your attention to what Sir William Goode said, as that has already been done, and his speech, which was of very recent occurrence, must be in the minds of your Lordships. But let me take a summary from Professor Starling's Report. He reported as a representative of the Government, and his report has been corroborated, I may say, by independent investigation made from private sources. What does it reveal? It reveals, amongst other things, a chronic under-feeding of children so widespread that tuberculosis, rickets, and associated diseases have increased to an incredible extent.
I dare say your Lordships are aware that even in peace times before the war the proportion of tuberculosis in Austria was about double that of most other large town populations, but at the present time it is absolutely appalling "This means lifelong ill health"—I am quoting a summary of Professor Starling's Report—"to millions of the coming generation. In some districts diseases like famine ædema are common." Might I also emphasise the position by quoting what was said by Mr. Hoover, to whom reference is often made in these matters. He stated, according to Le Matin of August 7 this year—
"Europe and the world are actually in the face of one of the gravest dangers which have ever overtaken mankind."

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Such investigations as the association with which I am connected is able to make—and we have sent out several investigators—corroborate in every particular what is stated by Professor Starling. Then he further said this in The Times of August 13—
"Unless productivity can be rapidly increased there can be nothing but political, moral, and economic chaos interpreting itself in loss of life hitherto undreamed of."
As your Lordships are aware, Mr. Hoover pointed out more than once, as also did other investigators, that practically no country in Europe (with the exception of Rumania and Russia) is self-supporting. Previous to the war they were dependent on imports from outside. More especially is that true of a country in the position of Austria, because the sources of supply from Bohemia (which is now Czecho-Slovakia) and from Yugo-Slavia have been cut off at the present time. In fact, one of the great difficulties of Austria is—whatever the reason may be, and I do not want to introduce any political element into my speech—that it was not allowed to join up with Germany; on the other hand, no provision was made in order to protect the conditions of the commercial union by which Austria was supplied under the Hapsburg Dynasty.
There is one other quotation I should like to make. This is the result of the investigation of a conference attended by Mr. Keynes, who is very well known to the Government and who is one of the advisers of the Economic Council in Paris, by Sir George Paish of the Treasury, and by Sir William Beveridge.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Sir George Paish was not an official representative.
LORD PARMOOR: I thought he was at the beginning of the war.
THE EARL OF READING: He was at one time.
LORD PARMOOR: What I have here is this: "Sir George Paish, late financial adviser to the Treasury." That, I think, was his position at the commencement of the war; but if the noble Earl will allow me to say so, I do not want to become controversial on questions of that kind. This is what was said with regard to relief
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measures, though I agree that something immediate must be done—
"The situation is one which cannot be solved merely by measures of relief, by the mere distribution of food to populations that cannot pay for it. There is only one adequate measure which will meet the menace of the situation and that is to re-establish all the processes of normal economic life among the populations concerned. They must be enabled to get back to normal work and support themselves. No other solution can be adequate."
I admit that, when we come to that place in the argument, the solution is an extremely difficult one, but it is a solution we should all try to aid in every possible manner. I myself believe that nothing can restore the normal economic conditions of Europe except something in the nature of credit obtained by a large international loan. Every one must be aware of the difficulties connected with any financial operation of that kind; they have been hinted at by the noble Earl who spoke before me, and I should be the last person to desire to suggest what the remedy should be under conditions of this kind; but I feel in the strongest possible manner that some immediate steps must be taken to avoid the greatest catastrophe of which we know in the history of the human race. Mr. Hoover said that there were 100,000,000 people in Europe for whom food could not be obtained unless we got back to the normal conditions of productivity. However that may be, Austria is now in a state of famine; children and women are dying of starvation in Vienna to-day; and I saw only this afternoon in an evening paper that the last statistics showed that the population of Vienna in a single year had decreased by over 120,000. My only object is to emphasise, and to bring home if I possibly can, the terrible conditions which exist. I believe that His Majesty's Government are aware of them, and I sincerely hope that an immediate and effective remedy may be found for this terrible catastrophe.
LORD WEARDALE: My Lords, before the noble Earl gives us, as I am sure he will, a sympathetic answer to the speech of my noble friend, I should like to be permitted to say a few words in connection with a branch of this all-important subject with which I am more particularly associated—namely, the saving of child life in Central Europe. The Motion of my noble friend has, of course, particular reference to Austria, and we must all admit that Austria is very painfully situated. I am

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not going to discuss the reasons why Austria finds herself isolated (as it were) from all her original sources of supply. The hinterland from which she derived most of her produce for her economic existence has been separated for political reasons, and above all—this is the point on which I think a little stress must be laid—CzechoSlovakia, from which coal and milk were largely derived, I regret to say has taken up an intensely unsympathetic attitude towards the sufferings of the people of Austria. Until a short time ago—I do not know whether any relaxation has recently taken place—they have closed their frontiers and refused to allow any coal, or milk and things of that sort, to be given to the starving population of their former ally and associate, Austria. That has rendered the situation of Vienna particularly distressing.
In Vienna there are something like 500,000 children, and according to the last information received from that city at least 60 per cent. of those children, if not more, are really in want of ordinary food. They are also without clothing; and, as every one knows, Austria is a country in which it is not possible to go about ill-clad in winter because of the cold. The unfortunate little ones are without shoes, and they will have to go through the snow to school if the schools are still only. May I give one painful and deplorable illustration of the situation in Vienna? A friend of mine who left there a few days ago, and who was connected there with a Commission on the part of the Government, told me that he was returning home late one evening and on his way he had to pass down a street which is known to every one acquainted with Vienna—the Kärthnerstrasse—the Bond-street of Vienna. Whilst passing down this street he came across two dead children. What would be said in this country if we came across two dead children in Bond-street? That is a fair parallel to what is occurring in Vienna. I am very conscious that I am pleading now for only one branch of this question in regard to which I am glad to say, thanks to the kindly aid of the leaders of the great religious bodies in this country, private charity is being copiously afforded, but even that is not sufficient for the particular purposes of the children.
Behind this looms the larger question of the people of Austria as a whole, and with regard to them it is essential that the
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Governments collectively should intervene for the purpose of furnishing with the least possible delay every conceivable necessary of life in order to preserve their lives. Otherwise, I think we shall hear of the most appalling events within a few days from now. I am well aware that the people of America, through the efforts of Mr. Hoover, are coming forward with their ordinary generosity. I should be sorry to place any particular limit upon the amount of money which is being given by the different charitable agencies in America for the purposes of relieving this distress, but from the last communication from Mr. Hoover I think I am right in saying that it would amount to something approaching £15,000,000 or £18,000,000 if continued for the whole year. Yet even that immense sum is not enough; it has, after all, to be distributed between the 100,000,000 people whom Mr. Hoover recognises are in imminent danger of famine in different parts of Europe. In this particular instance of Austria, however—to which the noble Viscount has so ably called attention—it is, I think, of the utmost importance that not a moment should be lost, and that the Governments collectively—I hope the British Government will take the lead in a matter of this kind—should intervene with all material assistance in order to save us from the discredit and disgrace, after being victorious in the great war, of seeing the victims of that war dying from starvation.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON): My Lords, speaking on be-half of His Majesty's Government I think it a very proper and desirable thing that a discussion should have taken place on this most important subject before the House rises for the recess, and I am certain that no Peer in your Lordships' House, and certainly not I myself, would grudge one minute of the time that has been spent, or that might have been spent even had the debate lasted twice as long, in dealing sympathetically and authoritatively, as the speeches have so far dealt, with the subject that has been brought under our notice.
The four noble Lords who have addressed us have all spoken from ample information, with authority derived from personal contact with the problem in some form or another, and with an earnest desire not in any way to impede, but to facilitate and encourage, the action of the Government.

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I am personally grateful to them for the attitude that they assumed. The picture which they have drawn of the condition of affairs in Central Europe—in Austria especially, and in Vienna particularly in Austria—is confirmed by everything that has come to my knowledge. In fact, noble Lords have only to read—and they have had the opportunity of doing so—the speech of Sir William Goode, from which a quotation was made by the noble Viscount, Lord Bryce, to derive an accurate knowledge of the condition of affairs that is not unjustly described by the epithet "appalling" which was more than once applied to it.
It is the case undoubtedly that we are confronted in the whole of Central Europe with a position of economic chaos. The Allied Powers are striving there to build up a new political structure on the shattered remains of an old system, and there has been, I will not say no attempt, but there has not been time, to reorganise this new system on the economic lines which are essential to its durability. Throughout this area we observe everywhere the same symptoms—diminished production, shortage of coal and food supplies, collapse of railway traffic, depreciation of currency, a complete breakdown of exchange; and the result is, as the noble Viscount said, not only to produce a disorganisation which is shocking, but to engender an attitude of lifeless misery and despair among the populations affected.
I turn more particularly to Austria and to Vienna, upon which our attention has been in the main concentrated this afternoon. In Vienna the position is undoubtedly very serious and very sad. I was reading only yesterday a description of life as it exists in Vienna at this moment—at the top, strange and paradoxical as it may seem, a profusion, a luxury, and an extravagance that are scarcely possible to imagine; midway down, the middle classes in a state of poverty and destitution; and at the bottom, a peasantry or a proletariat on the verge of famine. Vienna is a town which, before the war, numbered something like two millions of people. And here again, though it may seem a paradox, it is the case that the population, so far from having been diminished by the process or the consequences of the war, has been largely increased. This is due to the enormous number of refugees that have either fled or have been expelled from
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surrounding territories, and at the present moment you have a population in Vienna which, I am told, is something like two and a half millions of persons. Thus, you have a capital almost as large as Paris situated in a State almost as small as Switzerland.
One can imagine the economic difficulties that arise from a situation of that description. The features of life in Vienna have been this afternoon quite correctly described. There is a great shortage of milk arising from the depletion in the number of mulch cows, due in this case in the main to the scarcity of fodder; the supplies of milk that used to come in from the surrounding States have largely stopped; and, if I may add to the figures quoted by the noble Viscount yet another, I may mention that since January, 1919, the average delivery of milk in Vienna, which used to be, from the surrounding areas, nine hundred thousand litres per day, has fallen to thirty thousand. You can imagine what an effect that has upon the juvenile classes of the population. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Weardale, who spoke with great sympathy and knowledge upon that point. The children are indeed suffering from a lamentable mortality. The spectacle which he drew of the two corpses of children lying in the street—necessarily sad, but not an uncommon one in Vienna at this moment—was one that must have appealed to every heart in your Lordships' House.
The position in the hospitals is equally bad, not merely because they are, as one noble Lord remarked, filled with cases of tubercular disease, of rickets and other enfeebling complaints, but because there is a shocking dearth in medical staff qualified to attend the patients and in the supplies which are necessary for their operations. However, I need not labour that side of the case. I need not add any more colours to a palette already sufficiently painted with details of horror and distress. Much more important is it for me—and that is why I am called upon to speak—to endeavour to state to your Lordships what the Government have done, what they are doing, and what it is possible for them to do. And here let me endorse the very powerful plea that fell from the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice, speaking not only with exceptional authority but with a force that appealed to us all. He asked His Majesty's Government to act. He asked them to cast aside

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the bonds of precedent or tradition, and to realise that new formulæ had to be invented and fresh action taken in the face of a crisis of unparalleled magnitude. I will endeavour to respond to his appeal in the course of my remarks.
What has been done since this situation began to assume serious shape? In December, 1918, soon after the Armistice was declared, an Inter-Allied Commission was sent out to investigate the needs of the Austrian Empire in particular, and to provide measures for its relief. Later on a permanent Allied Commission was sent out by the Supreme Economic Council of Paris. It was in the beginning of the present year that the British, French, American, and Italian sections of this Commission arrived in Austria. They started at once and arranged for the despatch of cereals and foodstuffs from the Italian ports. Then came what has always been, and remains now, the pivot of the whole question—namely, the provision of credits. No noble Lord has yet paid to the United States Government the compliment of mentioning, as we ought to do, the fact that they made a loan to the Allied Governments of a sum of $48,000,000 to cover the consignments that were made to suffering Austria. From February to the beginning of October of the present year the Allied Relief Commission have provided, and distributed to the Austrians, 300,000 tons of foodstuffs. They have also provided for the import of cereals, meat, and sugar from the neighbouring States.
Attention has been drawn by more than one noble Lord to the difficulties that arise from the disintegration of the old Austria-Hungary into a number of separate, discordant, and often warring communities, and I can hardly exaggerate the complicated nature and the magnitude of the economic difficulties that have arisen, with all these States round about with their different frontiers, their different currencies, their different degrees of depreciation of currency, and all animated in the background by feelings in too many cases the reverse of sympathetic or friendly. That has been a difficulty that we all acknowledge, and I may say that every week, every day that passes we are in communication with these Governments, Czecho-Slovakia, Yugo Slavia, and the others, in the endeavour to mitigate the particular obstacles to which I have referred.
I said just now that no mention had been made of the American loan. No mention
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either has been made of the £12,500,000 which was the contribution made by this country for the relief of this distressing situation—not, of course, in Austria alone but in all the countries suffering from the effects of war throughout the European Continent. Out of this sum, as I gather, over £4,000,000 has been spent upon Austria, and within the last few days a sum of £250,000 has been released for the provision of fats, whilst at this moment the organisation is proceeding for the dispatch of a number of cargoes of coal from this country to Austria.
There is a remedy of which no mention has been made, but which is now in course of being applied, and that is the attempt to release for the purposes of the relief which is so urgent what I may describe as the liquid assets of the Austrian State. For instance, the Allies have waived their lien on the tobacco monopoly, and they have authorised the Austrian Government to raise a loan on that security for the purchase of food stuffs and of coal. A Dutch group have already made an offer which is under consideration to take over that particular security. I might mention this with reference to the dates that were given. More than one noble Lord spoke of the situation as reaching a crisis that might be disastrous within a few weeks from now, or within at any rate a month from now. I am told that the provision which I have just mentioned will enable the Austrian Government, if it is successfully carried through, as I think will be the case, to carry on for another four months.
Another point. Great Britain and France have proposed, and the United States have agreed—you will see in a moment why the United States are involved—to realise the foreign securities that are held in Austria of which a tentative list has been drawn up, amounting, I believe, to about £3,000,000—and I think that that is below the mark—these securities being now held as security for the United States loan to which I referred just now. The Allied Governments have agreed to the release of those securities for the purchase of food; and the great pictures, which are held in such numbers in Austria and which there is every reason to fear they might be tempted to dispose of in other and illegitimate ways, are being substituted as a security. I should like you to understand that the pictures are not to be taken for I sale; they are being held as a security, and

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this is being done upon the advice of a Board to which I myself have the honour to belong—the Board of the Trustees of the National Gallery here. There has been placed upon these pictures a valuation which certainly does not err on the side of moderation. Your Lordships would be astonished at the valuation which has been placed on some of these treasures; and they are being taken, if this agreement goes through, as a form of security in order to avoid the sale which must almost inevitably otherwise take place at knock-down prices. That would not only be injurious to the Austrian Government, but it would be a scandal to the art-loving world. I hope, therefore, that something in this nature may be effectually done. Further, the unexpended balance of the American loan of $48,000,000 of which I spoke, is now being expended on the provision of 30,000 tons of bread stuffs which are in course of being sent up from Trieste to relieve the immediate necessities of the hour. So much for the action that is in course of being carried out by Government.
I should not like, standing here, to omit to say a word of cordial and respectful admiration for the relief work that is being carried on by other countries and by other agencies. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Weardale, who alluded to the magnificent contribution that has been made by America and to the splendid personal activities of Mr. Hoover in particular. I had no knowledge that the American contribution had reached the sum to which the noble Lord referred, and I was not quite certain, as he was speaking, how much of that related to Austria—I conclude a very considerable proportion.
LORD WEARDALE: I have only seen a telegram on the subject from Mr. Hoover, in which he stated that he hoped that a monthly contribution of $7,500,000 would be made. It is not stated in that telegram how it is to be applied. I assume it is to be applied in all the various famine districts of Europe. I cannot tell to what extent it is to be applied in Austria.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I only hope that Austria will get its share, and a very good share too. But the Americans do not stand alone. Let me inform your Lordships that in addition to the Reparations Sub-Commission which has been sitting at Vienna there has been an International Sub-Commission dealing
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specially with the difficulties connected with the regulation of the railway systems. There are Allied Railway Missions in Austria now, there is the British Relief Mission, and an immense amount is also being done—pray do not let us in any way depreciate this—by private charity. There are the various funds, appeals for which you see in the newspapers. There is the Relief Fund started a few days ago in a letter signed by a number of very important names, and I understand that in a very short time, in a few days time, there is going to be an appeal addressed with the highest authority from all the pulpits throughout the country. I certainly am not quoting these by way of suggesting that they can cover the whole ground, still less do they relieve Government of any responsibility. I am merely saying it out of fairness, pointing out what the public is doing, in order to show their appreciation of this tremendous issue.
In his Question the noble Viscount (Lord Bryce) said that the situation in Austria is largely due to the extreme depreciation of the currency, and it is true that it is that depreciation which is in the main responsible for the economic paralysis that we are discussing. As long as the Austrian krone is worth about 500 to the £ sterling it can hardly be expected that coal will flow readily from Czecho-Slovakia to Austria or food from Yugo-Slavia. Political difficulties, no doubt, impede the flow, but they are as nothing compared to the hard facts of cash difficulties. Currency disorganisation and the disappearance of the relation between money and commodities, on which the economic organisation of the world was based before the war, entail the perpetuation of Custom barriers. For instance, if German Austria wishes to buy goods from Czecho-Slovakia she has to buy stamped Czecho-Slovakian kronen, on which the premium is over 200 per cent. Another phenomenon is here alluded to, and that is the system of stamping notes. The stamping of the notes was started by the Serbs as they hoped by this means to reduce their responsibility for the share of the currency which has been, and was still being, issued by Austria-Hungary. Once started in Yugo Slavia and Hungary the movement spread to Czecho-Slovakia, and as a matter of self protection was instituted in Austria. The mere stamping of notes mean the severance of commercial relations for a considerable time, because in order to get the necessary returns the frontiers had

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to be closed. This is a very lamentable consequence of currency disorganisation, and of itself makes a return of international exchange exceedingly difficult.
I have spoken of the attempts that are being made by Governments, by societies, and by individuals to cope with this period of strain, but there is no remark that has fallen from any lips this afternoon with which I more cordially agree than that a situation like this is not to be dealt with by doles alone. A series of doles are, in the first place, an uneconomical method of spending money. They fail to promote in any way the recovery of initiative within the State itself that you are helping and which you want to engender, and you cannot go on making them indefinitely. The only solution, as the House has correctly seen, is the organisation of credits for food and raw materials on a large scale, and the export of manufactures from the countries which are receiving the credits to which I refer. Calculations have been made which show that about $40,000,000 are required for the raw materials to re-start the industries of these countries, and $100,000,000 are required for food and additional coal to carry on the populations over the period until next harvest. The critical time, as I have remarked, is not so much in the winter that lies immediately before us as the interval between the close of the winter and next September when the new harvest begins.
THE EARL OF READING: Does the noble Earl mean that the critical time is not coming in Austria until then?
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: My information is that the steps that I said we are taking earlier in the day will so far relieve the situation that the urgency is not what it has been described in this debate or in the newspapers, but that the real crisis will arise (assuming these steps to be successful) when they come to an end and you will be separated by about four months from the next harvest. With regard to the question of credits, the noble and learned Earl spoke as if this was a question that either rested with the Government, one Minister consulting another Minister, or one Department consulting another Department—in the background the Treasury is the Department he had in view—or one Ally consulting another Ally. I do not dispute that proposition. But let me point out that the question lies not so much here
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in this country or in Europe as in the lap of America. No one wish his profound experience of America is better acquainted with that than the noble and learned Earl.
I need not enlarge here upon our own difficulties. I do not say we are an impoverished nation, but we are a nation that has been hard hit—harder hit than many people allow—and is heavily overburdened by the war. Full of reasonable and honourable sympathy we may be, but we have to look to ourselves a little, and I think that the Prime Minister said nothing truer in his speech in the House of Commons the other night than when he said that the recovery of Great Britain from exhaustion was a vital element in the recovery of the world. We are almost the one stable element that stands and survives, and any shock given to our system here, quite apart from its effect upon our own well-being and prosperity, would have a wide reaction.
The matter, as I say, rests in the main with America. We cannot act alone. We certainly cannot act effectively alone. No credit scheme on a large scale is possible without the co-operation of the United States. The Sub-Commission of the Reparations Commission at Vienna have drawn up a scheme for the provision of credits for the reconstruction of Austria on a large scale, and that is now being considered at Washington. There lies the solution of this problem. If America, out of her abundance—and she certainly has abundance relatively to the rest of the world—is disposed to help, she will find no grudging or reluctant spirit on our part. I can imagine nothing more to the taste of the country or the Government than that we should be able to co-operate with them in some great scheme of credit for the relief of these suffering territories. The fact that the noble and learned Lord has spoken this afternoon in the manner he has will, I am certain, have great influence, not only amongst his own countrymen, but on the other side of the Atlantic where he won so great and well deserved a reputation.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I should just like to add a few words to what the Leader of the House has just said. We are all grateful to him for having pointed out how far reaching is this question. It is not a mere matter of giving doles; it affects the larger question of credits and policy in the future. I should like to say

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a word about what has already been alluded to—namely, the enlistment of the agencies of Ecclesiastical Organisations for obtaining immediate relief for the needs that are crying out for help. I have had recent communications which led me to suppose that a great many people think that what has been done has been rather spasmodic and casual. The very reverse is the case. I have a long experience in dealing with the centralisation of appeal work carried on through religious organisations, and I have never known a case in which so much care has been taken to see that we were acting together and not overlapping unnecessarily; and also to see that every power and agency was being enlisted.
It is not an ordinary thing in the life of England that the Primate should be in communication with the Vatican about these matters, but in this case the Pope has been in communication with myself and others in England in order to see not merely that we were all making appeals but that we were making them at the same time, for the same object, and that it should be identified as far as possible as a corporate act. By a remarkable coincidence Sunday next happens to be the Festival of the Innocents, and throughout the whole of the Roman Church under the direction of the Pope and throughout the whole of the Anglican Community under the direction of the heads of our community, in the United States and in the Colonies, an appeal will be made.
I need hardly say that equal energy is being shown by the heads of the non-Episcopal bodies in this country. The Moderators of the General Assemblies in Scotland, both the Church of Scotland and the United Free, and no doubt in the Free Church too, and the Free Church Council, and the representatives of the various Free Churches in England; but besides I have been in touch with the Primate of Canada and all the other Metropolitans of our Church throughout the world, and so far as I have received replies, and I have from most of them, they have all been to the effect that an organised effort will be made on Sunday next.
Besides that, I have been in touch—it is almost unique, but not quite without precedent—with the Metropolitans of the Eastern Church, who obviously would not be appealed to from the Vatican, and although it is not certain how far they will be able to help us substantially, I have received replies assuring us of their active
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co-operation, I have received replies from the Acting Patriarch of Constantinople, the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Jerusalem, the Metropolitans of Athens, Montenegro, and Bucharest, and the Archbishop of Cyprus, representing the Eastern forces, which, whatever may be their power to contribute largely—which will vary in individual cases—show to a remarkable degree their co-operation in a determined effort on Sunday next, which shall be a marked day in the story of Christian benefaction for those who are suffering most severely. I think that when the detail of what has been accomplished is made public it will show that the effort has been productive of a very great deal of gain and good.
The difficulty at this moment is to know in what way and through what channel the money collected can be best and most effectively combined for distribution, and about that I am at this moment in hourly conference with some of those who are best qualified to give advice. I repeat that on Sunday next throughout Christendom an appeal is being made under the auspices of all the ecclesiastical authorities, and they are not few, with whom I have been able to be in touch, and I know that the same thing is happening in the Church of Rome throughout the world, and it gives hope if not of relief on a large scale, at least of the immediate relief of immediate needs where it is most needed.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, the noble Viscount on these benches has done good service in introducing this debate and in producing the reply which the noble Earl who leads the House has made. Of course, it is a most dreadful story. Vienna is known to everybody who has been there as the most cheerful city in Europe, more gay and cheerful than Paris, because deep down in Paris there has always been a sense of seriousness and even sometimes of threat which nobody ever recognised in Vienna. The noble Earl has in one respect at any rate given a more hopeful account of the immediate future than most of us who have received any information on this subject had ventured to suppose was possible.
I think it was the noble Viscount who first stated the limit of date by which the whole of the present supplies in Vienna, even the present miserable quarter rations,

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would be altogether exhausted—namely, January 18—after which, as I was informed, Vienna would be absolutely starving. If even now, as we are told, scenes occur in Vienna which can only be compared with what we have heard of the Indian famines before famine relief became as complete as it is, or of the Irish famine of seventy years ago, the prospect after three weeks from now appeared almost too terrible to contemplate, particularly as it seemed to me that the reports that were given of the hospitals led one to fear the very worst. After all, a hospital is usually kept going with such comforts as exist longer than any other place. I am told of hospitals in Vienna where there is now no hot water at all, and a hospital without hot water cannot be conducted even with the cleanliness of an ordinary house. I have been told of a hospital where the necessary ordinary supply of linen is 2,000 pieces, and where there are now only fifty-six.
Whether it is conceivable that gaps of that kind can be filled within the next month or two I really do not know, and I only trust that the noble Earl was not too sanguine in supposing that the forthcoming supplies during the next three or four weeks would stave off this appalling calamity, of which there has been evidence supplied from many different quarters to many different people, on authority which we have believed to be sound. I have been told for one thing that unless all the food which comes into Vienna is guarded by armed escorts it is certain to be snatched by starving persons. That is an index of what the condition of the city must be. I quite agree that it is of no use speaking about the past, and even if there were material for recriminations against anybody, this would not be the time to make them.
I cannot help feeling, as I think my noble friend Lord Reading felt, that the need of international sanction for everything must have done something to hamper the work of relief, of which the necessity, after all, has been now known for a year, or certainly for half a year. Many of us were told, and I have no doubt the Government were told, as long ago as July last that this particular state of things which has occurred would occur now indeed we were told in the summer that unless supplies could be poured into Austria Vienna would be starved to death by Christmas. I am far from supposing
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that good-will and charity have not done all that they could, but it is hard to believe that even with all the difficulties of supplying actual commodities, and still more with the difficulties of transport, the state of things of which we are now told was in fact altogether unavoidable if all had been done that could be done.
The figures of the credits which have been offered for the relief of starving Europe are no doubt impressive. We must all feel that the United States, in offering a credit. of between £9,000,000 and £10,000,000, have played their part well; and considering the condition of our own finances, I do not think that Europe can say that this country, by offering credits of over £12,000,000 I think the noble Earl said, of which some £4,000,000 have gone to the relief of Austria, has lagged behindhand. We all agree that once this question of immediate relief can be met that the subject of the economic future has to be taken in hand. I do not want to attempt to discuss what the noble Earl said, and we must all agree, things being as they are, that it is to America for the rehabilitation of Austria, and indeed of the greater part of Europe generally, that we must look. The difficulty there, I take it, is that Austria as it now exists has not been in the main a great producing country, and that the main trade of Austria-Hungary proceeded from what are now independent States—independent and not in every sense friendly States. But that great question of the future of what has been described as German-Austria must no doubt be faced.
For the moment, however, I am certain that we must consider this question of, the immediate need of the starving population, and I repeat that I fervently hope that the noble Earl has not been too sanguine in speaking of a four months relief as though that was immediately forthcoming, and that it would really meet the case during those months. He, himself, I take it, was impressed by the difficulty of the following months until the next harvest, for which I understand some altogether fresh arrangement will have to be made, which we shall have the opportunity of discussing before it becomes imminent. We can only hope that those who are almost in despair, even in this country, about the result of the next few weeks may be able to be reassured by what the noble Earl has told us.

CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (THE EARL OF CRAWFORD): Your Lordships will observe that there is a Pensions Bill on the Paper which will involve the House going into Committee. I beg leave, therefore, to move that the Earl of Kintore be appointed to take the Chair in all Committees this day.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

INCREASE OF RENT, ETC. (AMENDMENT) BILL. [H.L.]
  REGIMENTAL DEBTS (DEPOSIT OF WILLS) (SCOTLAND) BILL. [H.L.]
  Returned from the Commons agreed to.

NURSES REGISTRATION (No. 2) BILL.
NURSES REGISTRATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA BILL.
PUBLIC LIBRARIES BILL.
Returned from the Commons with the Amendments agreed to.

NURSES REGISTRATION (IRELAND) BILL.
Returned from the Commons with the Amendments made by the Lords agreed to, with a consequential Amendment.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: My Lords, there is a consequential Amendment in the Schedule to this Bill. It is consequent upon an Amendment made in this House. The Amendment made in this House on which this is consequential makes the total number of the Council fifteen instead of ten. I beg to move that the Commons Amendment be agreed to.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Viscount Sandhurst.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ALIENS RESTRICTION BILL.
Returned from the Commons with an intimation that the Commons do not insist upon their disagreement with the Amendments made by the Lords, and upon which the Lords insisted.
MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES BILL.
Returned from the Commons with certain of the Lords Amendments agreed to, with one of the Lords Amendments agreed to with an Amendment, and one of the Lords Amendments disagreed to.

LAND SETTLEMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Returned from the Commons with certain of the Amendments made by the Lords agreed to, with a consequential Amendment: Certain others disagreed to, but Amendments made in lieu thereof: One other Amendment disagreed to, with a reason for such disagreement.
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH: Before we proceed to consider the Amendments, I have a Question to put to my noble and learned friend. During the debate on this Bill I think that there was a misapprehension. Your Lordships are aware that in Part I of the Bill the acquisition of land by purchase takes place, and I think it was generally understood that by far the greater part of the ex-Service men would be settled under that portion of the Bill in small holding colonies, and that only a comparatively small number would be settled under Part II, or rather under the Act of 1911 which is amended by Part II of this Bill. Certain of your Lordships, after hearing or reading speeches by the noble and learned Lord and by the Secretary for Scotland, seem to have got an impression that only a very small number of men would be settled under Part I, and that the greater number would be settled under Part II. I do not myself share that view. I certainly thought that the opposite was the case. But there are some noble Lords who were somewhat apprehensive, and I think that probably they must have misunderstood the speech of my noble and learned friend. Perhaps he would state what the Government policy is.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD BIRKENHEAD): The noble Duke, I think, is entirely right in the relative importance which he attributed to Part I of the Bill, and I believe that the only reason for the misapprehension which he imagines to have arisen from the speech either of the Secretary for Scotland in another place or from my observations here, is to be found in the fact that we were both of us in the main

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replying to criticims which were made upon Part II. But I assent completely to what the noble Duke has stated to the House is his impression of the part which Part I is intended to bear in the general working out of the scheme.
Moved, that the Commons Reasons be now considered.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
[NOTE.—The references are to Bill (240) as first printed for the House of Lords.]

LORDS AMENDMENT.
Clause 9, page 4, line 39, at end insert:
("Provided that, in considering the relative suitability of land, the Board shall have regard to the probable effect of a scheme upon the burden of rates in the locality concerned.")
The Commons disagree with the Amendment for the following reason:
Because the Board might be hampered in their selection of suitable land.

LORDS AMENDMENTS.
Page 6, line 36 to 41 inclusive, leave out:
("(ii) any compensation for injury done to or depreciation in the selling value of the land comprised in the scheme, or of any estate whereof such land forms part, except in so far as the same arises from injury done to or depreciation in the letting value of the land or estate; or ")
Page 7, line 6, at end insert:
("(iii) any compensation for injury done to or depreciation in the selling value of the remainder of the estate of which the land comprised in the scheme forms part, except in so far as the same arises from injury done to or depreciation in the letting value of such remainder").
The Commons disagree with these Amendments, but propose the following Amendments to the Bill in lieu thereof, viz.:—
Clause 6, page 3, line 35, after ("shall") insert ("in the first instance")
Clause 9, page 8, line 9, at end insert ("(g) Where any landlord interested represents to the Secretary for Scotland that a prepared scheme ought not to be confirmed, the Secretary may, before giving his consent to the scheme, refer the same to the Land Court for inquiry and report").
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, it might perhaps be convenient, first of all, to get rid of the small points, and then your Lordships can consider the main point of disagreement with another place. In
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Clause 9, on page 4, in line 39, your Lordships inserted the words—
"Provided that, in considering the relative suitability of land, the Board shall have regard to the probable effect of a scheme upon the burden of rates in the locality concerned."
I saw no particular objection to that, and I see no particular objection to it now, though I do not think it serves any very useful purpose. But it was pointed out in the House of Commons that it is not very artistic to select one thing which everybody sees must be taken into consideration, particularly when you do not select the point which is necessarily the most important. The reasons given by the House of Commons are briefly that the effect of this scheme on rating must, as every one will see, be considered in every case, and to give an express direction on one and not necessarily the most important of these points is not very happy. I do not gather from those of your Lordships who speak with knowledge of Scottish subjects, that this was necessarily a point to which much importance was attached by them, and I shall therefore move that your Lordships do not insist upon your Amendment. In making this Motion I might remind your Lordships that this is the only case of all the Amendments that were made by this House to which the Commons have returned an explicit negative, and I hope your Lordships will assent to this course.
Moved, That this House doth not insist upon the said Amendment.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
THE EARL OF KINTORE: In view of the urgency for this measure, I doubt if any of the noble Lords from Scotland will desire further to press their objections to what they and I consider to be the vicious principle now sought to reembody in Clause 9. We are, indeed, much too anxious to see those of our men to whom the country owes everything and who desire to be placed upon the laud speedily settled upon it, to wish to do anything to wreck this Bill or to imperil its passage, however keenly we may and do regret that, in that part of it which deals with compensation and kindred matters, the Scottish landowners, in our opinion, are not treated with ordinary fairness. We have endeavoured to explain the reason of our dissatisfaction. We have made the only protest possible in this House, and I think we must leave it at that.

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But, my Lords, in one matter satisfaction was not denied us. We were afforded an opportunity, of which there have been several previous ones, of admiring the versatility and nimbleness which the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack displayed in his conduct of a somewhat contentious Bill in the Committee stage, at a time when, by his own admission, he was only imperfectly aware of the contents and scope of that Bill. In one respect his task was easy. When he implored us to agree that the proceedings and methods of the Scottish Land Courts were capable of improvement, we eagerly responded, for the simple and sufficient reason that in the beginning and for some time afterwards nothing by any accident could have been worse. In another regard the noble and learned Lord's task was so difficult that, so far as I remember, he did not essay it; it was to give some adequate explanation of the reasons for any differentiation in the law as between English landowners and Scottish landowners to the serious disadvantage of the latter. In view of the fair promises given both by the Prime Minister and by Mr. Bonar Law, this is somewhat of a disagreeable lesson to us. But it is mitigated in this instance, I am glad to think, by the reflection that if we are to suffer, we are to suffer in a good cause. For that reason and on that ground only, to the Question put I, for my part, shall say "Content."
THE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND: My Lords, there are two alternatives before the House to-night: either to insist upon your Amendments or to pass the Bill with those Amendments that have been accepted by the House of Commons. Let us consider for a moment what would be the result of the first alternative. The Bill will be wrecked and thrown away, the pledges of the Prime Minister to the ex-Service men cannot be kept, and land settlement in Scotland will be left in a most unsatisfactory condition. It is extremely dangerous at the present moment to obtain such a result in such a manner. It would be most ill-advised to cause the death of this Bill which is eagerly awaited by all the people of Scotland. Great indignation would be created in the country north of the Tweed by the rejection of this measure. It is a most undesirable moment to effect such a result when unity between all classes is essential. It could be easily twisted to show how landlords scheme to fill their pockets at the expense of ex-Service men
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and to prevent them getting the land they have fought for so nobly.
It has been said that, having sold my land, I am not interested in this Bill. But, my Lords, that is not the case. I still retain nearly 300,000 acres of Highland property, and therefore I think I am as fully interested in this measure as other landlords. None the less I intend to support the measure in its present form as it has returned from the House of Commons. The alternative is that it would be thrown away and the people of Scotland would suffer. The Secretary for Scotland in the House of Commons has already accepted several considerable and important Amendments, and I do not think we could expect him to go further than he has gone.
The main Amendment with which the House of Commons has disagreed is that regarding compensation for loss of capital value, and I do not think it would be possible, were this Amendment allowed, to settle many ex-Service men on the land. The cost of the land would be so great that the necessary amount of land would not be obtained to carry out schemes on a large and generous scale. The proviso inserted in place of this Amendment is, I think, a very reasonable one. Let me read to your Lordships some statements made by Mr. Smillie in the speech he delivered at Newcastle on Saturday night, in his campaign for the nationalisation of mines. Mr. Smillie said—
"The claim of the nation should be for the land as well as for the coal. There had been promises of providing land for ex-soldiers who wished to settle on it, and arrangements were made to settle ex-soldiers on land in Canada, New Zealand, and any place on God's earth except their own native land."
My Lords, by passing this Bill to-night you will successfully repudiate such remarks from such people.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: In calling your Lordships' attention to the next and only other point upon which difference arises, we are concerned with page 6, Clause 9, lines 36 to 41 inclusive, and your Lordships consequentially moved there to leave out the sub-clause between those lines. Your Lordships inserted at the end of line 6 "(iii) any compensation for injury done to or depreciation in the selling value of the remainder of the estate of which the land comprised in the scheme forms part, except in so far as the same

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arises from injury done to or depreciation in the letting value of such remainder." The Commons, as your Lordships will see, have disagreed with those Amendments and propose the following Amendment to the Bill in lieu thereof: Clause 6, page 3, line 35, after "shall" insert "in the first instance;" Clause 9, page 8, line 9, at end insert" (g) Where any landlord interested represents to the Secretary for Scotland that a prepared scheme ought not to be confirmed, the Secretary may, before giving his consent to the scheme, refer the same to the Land Court for inquiry and report."
As I anticipated when the matter was under discussion in your Lordships' House, this Amendment was moved at the instance of the noble Duke to draw attention to what he conceived to be a matter in respect of which he and his friends thought there were grounds of complaint. If I am right in supposing that this was the perfectly legitimate object the noble Duke had in mind, he has satisfied that object, though his purpose has not been found practicable of attainment. The matter has been made the subject of discussion in this House, and it was discussed recently in the House of Commons. There was no division even upon the immediate point which is now under discussion, and Sir George Younger—who has great experience in these matters, as noble Lords know, and who is certainly not out of sympathy with the point expressed by noble Lords in this House—speaking on the same debate in the House of Commons said—
"The whole difficulty has arisen because of the blunder of the Board of Agriculture in putting small holders in unsuitable places and refusing offers of land which was suitable for small holdings. We do not want to see these mistakes made again. I hope the present Amendment will be disagreed with and that the Amendment of my right hon. friend will be accepted."
No Scottish Member in the House of Commons expressed dissent from the Motion made on behalf of the Government by the Secretary for Scotland, and I for one should feel very great surprise if, after having attained the principal object of getting a discussion upon these matters, any noble Lord would be prepared to risk a Bill of such enormous public importance on lines which would revive a difference between the two Houses.
Moved, That this House doth not insist upon the said Amendment.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH: In regard to what the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has said, there was no intention whatever of jeopardising this Bill. Lord Kintore has pointed out our objections, and I agree with what he has said.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the Amendment inserted by the Commons has been put in the Bill in the hope that it may supply some alleviation in cases where anxiety is genuinely felt that a scheme will affect injuriously the position of a landlord. If any interested landlord goes to the Secretary for Scotland and says that on the merits—general or particular—this scheme ought not to be confirmed, the Secretary before giving his consent may in his discretion refer the matter to the Land Court for inquiry and report. As your Lordships know, in all these cases where functions are committed to the Secretary it is contemplated that if a noble Lord makes a case which genuinely raises doubt as to whether he is being reasonably and fairly treated, a case which distinguishes it from the ordinary case, the Secretary would be desirous, as we must all admit, to inquire into the matter. I hope your Lordships will take the view that this Amendment affords some security that no landlord in Scotland will be made the victim of ill-considered or arduous schemes.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES BILL.
The Amendments made by the Commons to the Amendments made by the Lords and the Commons reasons for disagreeing to an Amendment made by the Lords considered (according to Order.)
LORD LEE OF FAREHAM: With reference to the first Commons Amendment, your Lordships will remember that the Amendment inserted here was a manuscript one and I take the blame for not having observed that it really would make the clause more or less unworkable. The words "when requested" which were inserted are obviously superfluous to the first part of the clause and contradictory to the second part. I therefore have to move that your Lordships do not insist upon your Amendment.
Moved, That this House doth not insist upon the said Amendment.—(Lord Lee of Fareham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
LORD LEE OF FAREHAM: With regard to the second Commons Amendment, I have to move that your Lordships do not insist on your Amendment and that you agree with the Commons Amendment. This is in effect only a drafting Amendment; it involves no alteration in the principle agreed to by your Lordships.
Moved, That this House doth not insist upon the said Amendment.—(Lord Lee of Fareham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Moved, That this House doth agree to the Commons Amendment in substitution for the Lords Amendment.—(Lord Lee of Fareham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

OLD AGE PENSIONS BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD HYLTON: My Lords, in asking your Lordships to pass this Bill through all its stages this evening, I do not think, looking at the state of the House, that those of your Lordships who are present will expect me to go into the whole history of the legislation with regard to old age pensions. Your Lordships will remember that the existing legislation is based upon an Act passed in the year 1908 under which, roughly speaking, the main provisions were that any person who attained the age of seventy and could prove that his income was less than a certain very small amount was entitled to a pension of 5s. weekly. Certain persons were disqualified for the receipt of that pension notwithstanding the fulfilment of the statutory conditions, and those exceptions, if you glance at the Act of 1908, your Lordships will see there specified. Three years later, in 1911, there was another Act of Parliament, as the result of experience gained in administration, under which certain not very important changes were introduced into the legislation with regard to old age pensions, and I need not, perhaps, dwell upon those this evening.
The next important step that was taken was in the year 1916, and it was followed by another step in 1917, by which old age pensions in certain circumstances were increased by 2s. 6d. a week. That was not done by legislation but by the wave of the
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administrative pen, and in the measure which is brought to your Lordships' notice this evening you will see that the position, which was intended only to last during the war, is now regularised. It is notorious, of course, that the cost of living has not diminished since the Armistice. So far as I am aware, "has rather increased, and the 5s. a week to which the old age pensioners were entitled under the Act of 1908 would, perhaps, be barely represented by the 10 s. which it is proposed to give them under the new legislation.
This state of affairs was pressed upon the notice of the Government for some months and, in consequence, the Chancellor of the Exchequer appointed, I think in the month of April, a strong Committee to consider the whole question. The terms of reference to this Committee were as follows—
"To consider and report what, alterations, if any, as regards rates of pensions or qualification, should be made in the existing scheme of old age pensions."
That Committee had a number of meetings and the Report was presented to Parliament last month. When I say "Report," as a matter of fact there were two Reports, the Majority Report and the Minority Report, the former signed by ten members and the latter by seven, while there were various reservations, also printed and presented to your Lordships, made by certain members both of the majority and the minority. The Cabinet, having considered the Reports, introduced the Bill which is now before your Lordships. The main proposal of the Bill, as your Lordships will see, is to increase the maximum rate of the old age pension from the present figure of 7s. 6d.—that is to say, as I explained just now, the 5s. pension originally given, plus the addition of 2s. 6d. granted during the war—to 10 s. Your Lordships will find that this sum was recommended in both the Majority and the Minority Reports of the Departmental Committee on Old Age Pensions, on the ground that 10 s. was barely the equivalent of the pre-War pensions of 5s., and that the increase was necessary to prevent severe hardship to the poorest pensioners who were living on the margin of subsistence. This is effected by Clause 1 and the First Schedule of the Bill.
It is also proposed, for similar reasons, to increase the existing means limit for pensions. This at present runs, in steps of 1s., from 8s. per week, which entitles to

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the maximum pension of 5s., to 12 s. a week which entitles to the minimum pension. When the income is 1s. above that figure no pension is granted. The new scale runs, in steps of 2s., from 10 s. per week, which will entitle the claimant to the maximum pension of 10 s. to 18 s., and then, by 1s., to 19 s., at which figure the minimum pension of 1s. will be given, bringing the total income of the pensioner up to £1 a week. The Majority Report, your Lordships will find, recommended the complete abolition of the means limit, which would involve, it has been calculated, an additional cost to the State of over £23,000,000 a year. In fact, the Report of the Majority recommended that everybody in this country, on attaining the age of seventy, whatever his means, should be entitled to an old age pension. The Minority Report recommended that the existing means limit should be doubled—that is, that the new scale should run from 16 s. to 24 s. per week. The adoption of this recommendation would have entailed an additional expenditure of over £14,000,000 per annum, and the Government were unable to recommend so large an increase.
They have, accordingly, adopted the lower scale set out in the Schedule of the Bill which, it is estimated, will involve an additional expenditure of about £10,353,000 a year, bringing up the total expenditure on old age pensions, which now stands at £17,650,000, to about £28,000,000. The addition is made up in the following way—the increase of existing pensions will amount to about £6,000,000, and the new pensions and minor concessions will cost about £4,350,000, making a total of £10,350,000. It is estimated, though I must inform your Lordships that the estimate is a very conjectural one, that the new means scale and other changes which are proposed will add about 220,000 new pensioners to the existing number of 920,000. In this connection the Government have adopted the proposal in the Minority Report with regard to the calculation of means. It is designed, on the one hand, to limit the amount of capital that may be possessed by the old age pensioners and, on the other, to ease the conditions with regard to poorer pensioners and to obviate friction in the application of the means limit.
Your Lordships will see that it is proposed to substitute for the present flat rate of 5 per cent. on capital value a sliding
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scale under which the first £25 will be disregarded; the next £375 will be calculated at 5 per cent. and the balance at 10 per cent., which is roughly the annuity value. The maximum capital value of the property of a pensioner entitled to minimum pension of 1s. will be about £710, as compared with £630 at present. It is also proposed to exclude temporary sick pay, to exclude from the calculation sick pay received during six months, and to exclude any furniture or personal effects which may belong to the old age pensioner. The Bill has adopted the remaining proposals in which the Committee were unanimous.
Although there was, as I have said, both the Majority and the Minority Reports, it is a fact that there were certain recommendations to which the whole of the members of the Committee agreed; and with regard to those to which I am about to allude, the Committee were unanimous. The most important proposal is the removal of the poor law disqualification as regards outdoor relief, which will enable additional assistance to be given from local funds in case of hardship, without the pension being forfeited. This is proposed in view of the fact that the Government have adopted in principle the Report known as the Maclean Report, which was the Report of the Committee on the Poor Law presided over by Sir Donald Maclean, I think last year. That Report recommends the substitution in such cases of home assistance free from the pauper taint. That is an expression which, I confess, was new to me, but I am told it is an expression meaning in old days what was known as outdoor relief. The existing disqualification is maintained as regards indoor relief but a pensioner who has entered the workhouse for medical or surgical treatment may continue to draw his pension for three months. This, I am told, is virtually the practice under the existing Acts, but, the legal position being at present obscure, it is thought well to define it in this Bill.
It is proposed also to abolish the existing disqualification for failure to work. Under the old Acts (I think I am correct in stating) it was possible to refuse to pay a pension to a man who was otherwise qualifield if, in the opinion of the officials in charge of the case, it could be held that the pensioner was able to work, and that work was within his reach, and he declined to avail himself of this possibility of work

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ing. As a matter of fact, I am told that this disqualification was practically inoperative. It turned out to be extremely difficult to get any legal proof that the man or woman refused to do work that was within his or her power, and I think last year—I should not like to bind myself absolutely to these figures without verifying them—but I think I am right in saving that last year out of the great number of old age pensions that were granted only something like fifty were refused in the first instance—I do not know that even those fifty were refused eventually—on the ground that the applicant had declined to avail himself or herself of the opportunity to work. Consequently it is proposed to abolish this disqualification really on the ground that it has proved inoperative.
It is further proposed to abolish the disqualification for periods following a term of imprisonment. The argument, I think, in favour of the abolition of that disqualification is that it involves a double penalty for the same offence. There are some minor alterations also proposed as regards nationality and residence which your Lordships will find in Clause 2. It is further provided that in future pensions or increase of pensions shall run from the date when the claim is made, not from the date, as has hitherto been the practice, when the claim was decided. It appears that deferring the grant of the pension until the day when the claim was decided sometimes involved a considerable period of waiting. There is another provision under Clause 5 that pensions shall be inalienable as against the pensioners' creditors. The remaining provisions of the Bill, I think, are merely machinery, Clause 8 being designed to expedite the increase of existing pensions. It is proposed, if your Lordships think proper to pass this Bill, that it shall come into operation on January 2, but, in view of the amount of administrative work involved, it will not be possible, I am told, actually to pay the new increased pensions until about the middle of February, though they will then be paid with effect from the earlier date. If any of your Lordships desire any further information with regard to the clauses I will do my best to answer any questions that are put to me. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Hylton.)
LORD BUCKMASTER: My Lords, it is, of course, impossible that in the circumstances in which this House now finds itself your Lordships could deny passage to this Bill. Nor does it seem to me that it is proper or right for us to postpone its consideration. But it does appear to me that this House has every right to protest against the manner in which its judgment is asked upon an important measure such as this at this stage of the session. For what is it that has occurred? There has been a Committee sitting since April. Its Report, so the noble Lord who introduced this measure tells us, was in the possession of the Government last month. And a day or two ago this Bill was introduced into the House of Commons and passed through it without consideration, and it is now brought before your Lordships' House and we are asked this afternoon to pass it, with the necessary consequence that we cannot consider, or discuss, or amend any of the provisions that it contains. Of course we shall be told that it is open to us to move Amendments. No doubt it is, but it is impossible for us to consider this Bill as it deserves to be considered, and to see whether or not it might not be desirable in some respect or another to improve its provisions. That does seem to me to be a very serious matter.
There is another thing not less serious. This Bill will undoubtedly add at least £10,000,000 a year to our expenditure in perpetuity. That is the estimated sum. If the amount is kept within that estimate it will be about the first time in Parliamentary experience when an estimate made as to the expense of a Bill at the time of its introduction was ever found justified by practice. But it is not the expense in this connection that troubles me, because I think every one of us must realise that when the Government once started on the system of finance which was based upon inflated currency and which necessarily involved the raising of the salaries of all the people under their control and the gifts of war bonuses, even to salaried servants at the very highest rates—£2,000 a year and upwards—from that moment it was completely impossible to deny the people at the very bottom of the scale a corresponding relief. And therefore the £10,000,000 had to be spent. But it ought to have been spent at an earlier moment in the year, so that the rest of the expenditure might have been made to agree with it. For only so late as autumn of this year, when

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in another place an attempt was being made to give a more rosy and optimistic view of our financial position than that which had been justified by the grave statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer just before the House adjourned, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in order to show that he might be able at the present time, with our present prospects of revenue, to meet our normal expenditure without further taxation, prepared an imaginary balance sheet, and in that balance sheet there is not one single farthing to be found for this £10,000,000—and yet it was upon that balance sheet alone that the Chancellor of the Exchequer justified our continuing at our present rate of taxation.
What has happened since then? There have been at least two increases. The estimated increase in the War Pensions has been found to be exceeded, and something more has happened. A statement was made that suggested a decrease in the War Office estimates of £12,500,000. It really is impossible to understand the finance of this Government. The proposed decrease was effected by transferring from the Air Service the cost of the liquidation of the existing contracts of the Air Ministry and putting them on to the Ministry of Munitions. You simply take £12,500,000 from one Department and add it to another and say the estimates are down by £12,500,000. If you put this sum into its proper place you will find, in fact, the estimates of the Air Service have still been increased; not by a large sum, but by £500,000 or £750,000.
VISCOUNT PEEL: The Secretary of State for War made it quite clear in the other House.
LORD BUCKMASTER: It is unfortunate that this information is not made clear in the public Press. In the White Paper that was issued in regard to this matter it required careful and close investigation to make this out. I should be glad to know whether the responsible Minister in the House of Commons explained that in fact the Air Ministry estimates had increased.
VISCOUNT PEEL: I think he explained the whole matter in detail.
LORD BUCKMASTER: I should like to know whether he explained that the estimates for the Air Service had increased. This is a point you have to consider. All
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these estimates are not going down, they are increasing. Now we have a further £10,000,000 added on. This £10,000,000, and the money spent on war pensions, are so far as I can recollect the only justifiable items of increased expenditure we have been asked to consider throughout the whole of this session. The whole of the rest of the increases should have been postponed. I do not say they were not right in themselves, but I say that they are brought forward and add to the burden on this country at a moment when the most sagacious financier is unable to explain how we can justify the burden we have to bear.
This matter demands far more grave and careful attention than the Government gives to it. It is no use trying to repair a tottering and broken structure by putting new storeys on the top. The only way to restore it is by rebuilding the foundations. The Government ought not to have commenced by putting forward all these schemes without any attempt to stabilise and strengthen the foundations of our social structure. They should have begun that first and then brought forward their schemes afterwards. In regard to the Housing scheme no one can measure the expense in connection with it or say that it will ever be brought to fruition. The electricity scheme, thanks to your Lordships' House, has for the moment been postponed. But one expenditure after another is brought forward for your Lordships' consideration and although from time to time protests are heard in this House and requests are made that the Government should tell us what are the means by which they propose to meet the expense, no answer is ever returned. On the last occasion I took some pains, I fear I wearied your Lordships, to examine in detail what were the actual minimum expenses to which we were committed, and I pointed out that, even after allowing a return of income tax in excess of that which Viscount Milner estimated at a penny in the £, the flat rate of income tax required for the expenditure necessary is between 9s. and 10 s.. in the £. No answer was made to it; and there never has been any answer excepting this, that Viscount Milner said I was wrong in assuming that we were not going to get some payment from Germany and that we were not going to get payments from France.
Since I made that speech elections have taken place in France. I know that elec-

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tion speeches are not necessarily the place to which you look for careful and scientific analysis of a financial position, but the Minister for Reconstruction in France (he was Minister of Munitions) is reported in responsible papers in this country in a speech at Lille as saying that the only way in which the French would be able to meet their financial position was that the Allies, I suppose he meant England, should guarantee the German debt to them. That is the position, not by an irresponsible person but by a person who knows; and yet I am told that, in not relying upon a speedy return from France of payments in respect of the debt she owes us, I am overlooking an asset on which we have to rely.
The other thing is the payment by Germany. It is no use discussing that matter again. Everybody knows that the hope of getting money out of Germany gets less and less as the days go by, and it really would be a profitable piece of self-justification if the Government would give some information to the country as to the authority upon which they base their extravagant claims that Germany is capable of paying £24,000,000,000, and that we might look to 5 per cent. a year upon that as the proper sum they would pay. That has all gone away like the leaves of last year, and we are placed in this position, that the only suggested alteration in the figures I gave are an alteration due to the payments from these foreign countries, and there is nobody who will say that you can look to these for immediate relief in respect of our immediate expenses.
The position is that this £10,000,000 is added on to our previous burdens and no provision is made for its payment. It can only be met in one proper way, and it should be honestly met in that way. The Government should do what an honest man does when incurring expenditure which he cannot meet. He reduces his own expenditure on other items in order to bring his expenditure within his normal budget. If we are going to keep ourselves on the side of financial safety we ought to increase taxation. Not because any one wants to be taxed, but we do want to pay our way; and unless we pay our way there is something before us that is far worse than the loss of individual fortunes. That is comparatively a small loss. There is the loss of our social stability and social organisation which has taken centuries to build up.
VISCOUNT BRYCE: My Lords, I do not propose to enter into the merits of this Bill in any way. I desire only to say a few words upon the circumstances in which it comes to us and the method by which it has been passed in the other House. The rules and usages of the House of Commons, which is the ruling power and the driving wheel of our constitution, are really a part of the constitution. They are among its most vital parts, and it is from the constitutional point of view that I want to say some words. Those rules and usages are the result of prudent care and of thought given to them by great men in the past. Prudence suggested them, and experience has approved them. They ought not lightly to be set aside. They have furnished a most valuable safeguard for centuries against hasty and imprudent legislation and against any action which might be thought to have something approaching a demagogic character.
It is not for me to presume to criticise in this place the action taken in another place. But I may say a word about the way in which this Bill comes to us. I may be permitted, I hope, as having sat in the other House of Parliament for twenty-seven years and given a good deal of attention to questions of Parliamentary procedure, to express astonishment at what has been done there in respect of this Bill. It is a Bill which not only adds £10,000,000 to our expenditure, but which makes, as your Lordships will have gathered from the explanation given by the noble Lord who brought it forward, far-reaching changes in our laws—momentous changes which will have a great effect on the character of our population—changes about which the economists of the last generation thought and wrote much, and which require most careful consideration before they are made. To do all this—not only to add this expenditure, but suddenly to make these changes in the law, and to set aside the ancient rules by suspending the ordinary practice of the House of Commons—is a new thing and it sets a precedent—
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Oh, no!
VISCOUNT BRYCE: I cannot think of a case quite like this, but if there is such a case I shall be glad to hear of it. Of course there have been cases of grave urgency when rules have been suspended. I remember how once in the House of Commons we were delighted to do this

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in passing a Bill dealing with the Dynamite outrages, but that was a case of extraordinary urgency, and here is a matter which might just as well have been done at any time during the last session.
LORD HYLTON: Not at any time during the last session, because the Committee's Report is only dated November 7, and it could not have been considered by the Cabinet till some time after that.
VISCOUNT BRYCE: The Cabinet, of course, could not have considered the Report until it was made, but if the matter was so urgent a Committee could have been appointed sooner, or it might have reported more quickly. At any rate the thing might have been done sooner, and here in the last days of the session, without any opportunity of debate, this change is proposed, a change which seems to me to set a precedent in the working of our Constitution which may have very formidable consequences; and it is because this will be regarded as a precedent which is likely to be followed hereafter, in cases which it is not pleasant to contemplate, that I venture to express my astonishment and regret at what has been done.
VISCOUNT BURNHAM: I do not rise to oppose this Bill, for I honestly believe it is fully justified on social and humane grounds. I hardly think we required the Report of a Select Committee to convince us that those who have suffered most from the enormous rise in prices are the pensioners of both sexes. But in common with those who have just spoken I wish to register my protest against the unparliamentary methods by which this measure is being passed into law in both Houses. I do not think that it is good for the commonwealth to become used to lightning legislation, and whatever precedent in emergency there may be, I cannot help thinking that this particular method of procedure is of sinister augury.
My object in rising, however, is to point out to the Government that the increase in pensions cannot stop with the increase of Old Age Pensions under the various Acts which the noble Lord enumerated. It is quite true that these particular pensioners, persons of the industrial class, have suffered most, because they have been the poorest, and they have not been able to increase their earnings in proportion to the cost of living; and although the figures of the
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Board of Trade always seem to be highly misleading, because they consider the individual and not the family as the industrial unit, and do not allow sufficiently for the operation of the Restriction of Rent Act, still it is the Old Age Pensioners who come under this Bill who have undoubtedly suffered more than any other class in the community. They are, however, a comprehensive class. They include those who deserve well of the State and those who do not. They include those who have been the recipients of Poor Law relief, and those who have suffered imprisonment for offences against the law. What are you going to do for those who have been the servants of the State? We all know of the "New Poor," and of the plight of the professional man, and I sympathise particularly with the men who have been in the various professions, and have served the State, not only in any salaried posts in the Army and the Navy and the Civil Service, and in the Police, and members of the teaching profession. The hardships which those people are enduring on pensions which were fixed at pre-war rates are difficult to estimate, and yet you are going to deal, and no warning is given, with one class of pensioners only, and leave the other pensioners untouched. In another place a direct refusal was made to amend in any particulars their scales of pension.
I do not think that policy can be persisted in when this Bill has passed into law and you have doubled the rates under this Bill, because you will have to deal with the scales of pension for those who have deserved well of the State and who are now finding it so difficult to meet the increased cost of living, which falls upon them far more severely than it does upon the industrial classes generally, because they are not always protected by the Restriction of Rent Act. Has that been thought of? I do not think that in another place any mention was made of it, and I venture to give a warning, because "Consequences," as a great writer said, are "unpitying." You cannot expect people who are suffering, because their pensions are halved for all effective purposes, to acquiesce without protest in the continuance of such a state of things.
I have received many letters from those who have received pensions on the old scale, and I can tell the noble Lord who is in charge of the Bill that their impatience is giving way to indignation, and that it is

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perfectly certain that a claim will be made upon the State to which I do not think this House or the other House can turn a deaf ear. It is the case of people who positively deserve well of the State, and yet nothing is being done for them in any particular. What will that mean as an addition to the burdens of the State? It will mean £25,000,000 a year increase, and rightly so, for that purpose. I have drawn the attention of the Government to this because this Bill is class legislation, it is legislation for the benefit of a particular class, and it leaves unredressed the hardships and grievances of those who have a far greater claim upon the House and upon the community than those for whom we are now providing. I do not deny the justice of this Bill, but I say that it is partial and one-sided justice, and that it cannot endure for very long.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Lord Burnham, I think, is more inclined to blame the Government for what they have not put into the Bill than is Lord Bryce for the unconstitutional manner in which they have presented the Bill. I readily acknowledge that this Bill only deals with one section of pensioners, and it has produced considerable criticism owing to the circumstances and nature of its introduction. I do not know what would have been said if the amount proposed to be added to the burdens of the Exchequer had been twice or perhaps three times as large as the Bill proposes. Lord Burnham, I think, understands that this Bill is based on the Report of a Committee which was only directed to inquire into what we familiarly know as Old Age Pensions, irrespective of the pensions of sailors and soldiers which are dealt with under a different group of statutes, and, of course, it has nothing whatever to do with teachers' pensions, which are largely paid by the local authorities. But I am more concerned to answer what Lord Bryce, and indeed what the noble and learned Lord opposite (Lord Buckmaster) said, as to the unconstitutional action of the Government. It is irregular—admittedly so—that a Bill which requires six or eight different stages in the House of Commons should have gone through at a single sitting. It is most unusual, if not unparalleled, as Lord Bryce indicated, that a Bill of this magnitude should pass through your Lordships' House in a single sitting, but I do not think that the matter can be so simply dismissed,
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because the circumstances are unusual and because they have involved a large suspension of Parliamentary procedure. I would remind your Lordships that this Committee has been sitting since some time in the early summer—April I think—but the Report was only published on November 12 last. Lord Bryce says that legislation could have been just as well introduced soon after this Committee was appointed to inquire into this matter. One could no doubt have anticipated the Report of the Committee, but that scarcely would have been wise, especially as the Committee itself was by no means unanimous, for it had to conduct inquiries into one of the most complicated matters which really cannot be dealt with offhand, as Lord Bryce seemed to indicate.
VISCOUNT BRYCE: I was far from thinking that it could be dealt with offhand. My regret is that neither the House of Commons nor this House seems to have given it more than the briefest possible consideration.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: No, that is the point. The noble Lord said that this is not an urgent affair. As I was saying, the Report was published on November 12, and it was not unanimous. It dealt with highly complicated matters which had to be assessed by the Treasury actuaries in the most meticulous manner. The Report was carefully examined. The Bill was not ready till December 19. Lord Bryce says that it could have been dealt with later. That is the whole issue between us. How much later? How much later does Lord Bryce think in order to preserve the critical functions of Parliament this Bill should have been postponed? Parliament is going to rise now. Speaking personally I think it desirable that Parliament should rise. Perhaps Lord Bryce thinks that we should have sat on for another week or fortnight, but in my view it is not merely for the convenience of Ministers that it is desirable that Parliament should rise now. When Parliament is sitting anything from 200 to 500 Questions are asked per day in the House of Commons. The strain that that puts upon the Civil Service is enormous, gigantic, and very often overwhelming. Quite apart, therefore, from the perso al convenience of Ministers I think that it is in the interests of good Government by the State to give some relief to Public Departments.

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I understand that Parliament is to rise to-morrow until early in February. When Parliament meets in February there is a debate on the Address. I see a number of Peers present who have been in the House of Commons. The debate on the Address has to be followed by a Motion getting the Speaker out of the Chair on this, that, and the other estimate. There may, indeed, be supplementary estimates, though I hope not, and by postponing this Bill you might have to postpone the granting of these old age pensions certainly for two and perhaps for three months. That would not have mattered so much if the months in question had been May, June or July, but when they are December, January and February, I think that circumstance must be taken as a real mitigation of the blame attributed to the Government for pushing this Bill through at such short notice and at such an inconvenient time. That on the whole is a consideration which must be taken into account when judging or criticising the Government for the brief time offered to Parliament for taking this Bill. It is a Bill to relieve a class who have been specially hard hit by reason of the social and economic conditions of this country, and if Parliament had not been willing to submit to this unconstitutional (as Lord Bryce calls it) manner of dealing with this, very worthy people would have suffered seriously.
On Question, Bill read 2a; Committee negatived. Then (Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended) Bill read 3a, and passed.

TRAINING FOR DISABLED MEN.
LORD ISLINGTON LORD ISLINGTON rose to ask His Majesty's Government to state what progress has been made to provide training for disabled soldiers and sailors; how many have applied, and how many are now being afforded such training; what arrangements are being made to secure disabled men when trained appropriate and permanent occupations.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, before my noble friend replies on behalf of the Government, I would ask your Lordships to allow me to make one or two brief observations by way of indicating the reasons that have influenced me in placing this Question on the Paper. From information that I have received from many people who are
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and have been connected with the various War Pensions Committees, I hear that it has been alleged that in many parts of the country large numbers of disabled soldiers and sailors who have applied for training facilities in industries appropriate to their impaired state of health have received no reply to that application, and it is further said that this lack of response on the part of the Government to the application is causing great discouragement, mingled to no small extent, and naturally so, with discontent to those concerned, their relations and their friends. Many of the applications that have been made by disabled soldiers and sailors date back as far as April and May in this year. I cannot, of course vouch—and I do not suggest for a moment that I do—for the accuracy of these statements that are made, except in so far as the reliability of the source from which I have been able to obtain them.
These Pension Committees until April of this year were the official bodies to whom all applications were made, and, as your Lordships probably are aware, on May I the whole of this subject of dealing with the training and subsequent occupation of the disabled soldiers and sailors was transferred from the Ministry of Pensions to the Ministry of Labour, and with that the Pensions Committees ceased also to be the bodies to whom applications were made. I have been told, and this is one of the chief reasons why I have put the question down, that during the immediate previous months very large numbers of these applicants to the War Pensions Committees for training continued to go and ask, and that no reply has been made to them. This undoubtedly points to the fact that many of these cases have not been dealt with throughout the country. It is, therefore, of the Ministry of Labour that I now ask this question, and I hope that my noble friend may have been furnished with so precise a reply that it may give satisfaction to a very large circle of the public who are interested in this subject.
In the first place, I would ask how many in all have applied for such training; how many have had their applications considered; and also what steps are now being taken to inquire into those who have applied and have not yet been replied to? I venture to say it is a matter of very great importance on the ground of humanity and of natural gratitude in the first place, and, in the second place, on grounds of policy,

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that no effort should be spared to deal, with attention and sympathy, with each individual case of an injured man who applies for training. After all, these men constitute a first charge on the State in regard to care and attention. They have suffered seriously, and many of them have suffered permanently in the defence of the country. Undoubtedly, nobody has recognised this more than the Government, who have emphasised it by urging and inviting every disabled man to seek their assistance.
The matter is so important that I would read one of many circulars that have been issued and circulated broadcast throughout the country and undoubtedly have been read and imbibed by all those who are in this condition. This is the concluding paragraph of a circular issued by the Director of Training, Major Robert Mitchell, in the year 1917 and this, I understand, has been published in the Press so that all have had an opportunity of seeing it and reading it—
"That is the root of the whole matter. It is no good for you when you are discharged to seek out the first job you come across. It may have good pay for a time when labour is restricted, but you must look ahead. When the war is over and the labour market becomes crowded, men with temporary jobs and the unskilled labourer will be shouldered out. It is the man who has had training, who has a trade at his fingers' end, who will then have the best chance of keeping his situation. So do not be attracted by the first job that offers good pay, but make up your mind to prepare for the future. All sections of the community want to help you. Many of the trade unions are ready to welcome you—the employers' associations are offering to employ you—willing helpers are waiting to teach you, and the nation is offering to support you during training."
My Lords, these men have seen and read many circulars similar to this, and it is due, undoubtedly, to these appeals eloquently urging men to apply for assistance that masses of applications have been made for training to local War Pensions Committees.
On November 5 a question of this character was asked in another place, and the Minister of Labour, in the course of his reply, gave the number of disabled men now in training, the number that had completed training, and the number that are awaiting training. But in answering the question which was put to him as to the number who had applied, he said the total number of applicants under the first head was not available, and he went on to say "12,000 disabled men are now in training, 20,000
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have completed training, and 20,000 are awaiting training." That in all, being about 52,000, is on the face of it but a fraction of those throughout the country who have been injured in their different degrees, and have applied for training and for assistance in some appropriate occupation. I hope that the Ministry of Labour will be in a position to give a return of the numbers who have so applied throughout the country for the provision of training, and also the prospect that there is in the immediate future of providing training for those who have not yet been provided with it. It may be said by my noble friend, on behalf of the Ministry of Labour, that the transfer only took place in May from the Ministry of Pensions to that Department, and that it is difficult, therefore, to estimate the number. I venture to say that a departmental answer of that character will be of very little satisfaction to these men throughout the country who have been so urgently invited, with such emphasis, to come to the Government for assistance and to obtain such training.
There is one other point I would like to ask, and that is in regard to the facilities that are being established and arranged for after-employment when the men have been trained. I hope that my noble friend has been furnished with sufficient information on this important subject to state the general trend of policy of the Ministry of Labour in regard to this question. Are these men being placed in their proper categories? I would like to ask, as I know there is deep concern in the country, to what extent facilities are being granted, in the first place, to those whose disablement is not sufficiently severe to prevent their taking an economic part in the profession they have been trained for? That is, of course, the easiest category. Then there is the second point—to what extent facilities for training and for after-occupation have been provided for those whose disablement is so serious and permanent that they can only hope hereafter to take an incomplete part in the profession they are found capable of engaging in. I understand, as regards the second category I have mentioned, that it represents 60 per cent. of the men on the books of the Disabled Soldiers' Department of the Employment Exchange. These are the men on the Pensions Disability List ranging from 20 to 70 per cent. of disability.
It would be of advantage also if my noble friend could indicate to the House and to

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the country what attitude the trade unions are taking in regard to these problems, and to what extent and on what terms they are now co-operating with the Exchanges and the Ministry of Labour to provide in their industries for these men in their varying degrees of capacity. The Out-of-Work Donation Fund, according to present instruction, is due to cease in March of next year, and privates in the Army in the category of 20 to 70 per cent. disability pension will only have at their disposal, when the out-of-work donation ceases, an amount ranging from 8s. to 28 s. a week. I think, therefore, that this is a very important point to consider in the arrangements that are being made in regard to finding employment for these men. I sincerely hope that my noble friend may be furnished with a precise statement in regard to this subject, because I am convinced in my own mind that there is an immense amount of anxiety and of unrest in the different pension areas of the country owing to the very large number of men who, upon the direct invitation of the Government, have made their appeals for training and have not hitherto had any response whatever.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: My Lords, I am sure that we shall all agree with the sympathetic tone in the short but pithy speech of my noble friend; nor does the Labour Department or the Government under-rate in any degree the obligation of first importance which we are under to these gallant men. As not infrequently happens, my noble friend has asked me for definite information on three heads in his Question, and in his speech he has travelled over a certain amount of ground. In the course of my reply I will endeavour to follow him in what he has said and to give him such answers as I am able with the information that is before me.
Lord Islington desired information as to what part the trade unions had taken in regard to these training arrangements. As my noble friend knows, every trade union has a central executive and local branches. The central executive was represented on the main trades Advisory Committees for Training, and these Committees drew up the schemes for training. Practically all central executives have shown and given willing co-operation and help, but I cannot say that all the local branches have been equally helpful. My noble friend will agree, in fact I think he asserted it, that it is
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most important to have this trade union co-operation. For instance, our not having it in one particular branch, I think it is the engineering branch—although there are some local committees which have assisted—has prevented us in great measure from training men in engineering. In what I have to say I hope your Lordships will allow me to point out that we have considerable difficulties with which to contend—namely, in providing enough and suitable factories and workshops for this training. There is a great need for instructional factories, because these men require to be well grounded in the trades they are to follow before being engaged in a private workshop or factory, which is run, of course, for production. Every effort is being made to supplement the factories and workshops which exist already, but it is a difficult matter. Certain factories have been taken over from the Ministry of Munitions, but many for a variety of reasons are unsuitable, for instance, as to the position and locality of those which were in use in war time; because, as your Lordships will readily understand, those used for the manufacture of explosives had to be in isolated positions so as not to be dangerous to the general public. I think my memory is correct that great stress was laid upon this in the evidence received before a committee of which Sir George Murray was president, and on which I had the honour of a seat, showing how difficult it was to acquire the necessary factories and workshops.
The classes of men for whom this training is necessary I may divide into three—the agricultural, the professional, and the industrial. On behalf of the Board of Agriculture I have been furnished with a statement and figures which, perhaps, your Lordships will allow me to read. There were 3,197 applications for training received up to the first instant, and these have been dealt with as follows: placed in training, 1,026; approved but not yet placed, 1,206; not approved, 187; withdrawn by applicants, 337; outstanding for interview, 440. Some 900 men are at present in training, the remaining 126 having left on completion of their course or having given up training for other reasons. The normal period of training is one year, but this period is extended, in approved cases, up to a limit of two years. It is the policy of the Board to provide training at "centres" as far as possible, where the men will receive practical training in such

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forms of agriculture as are best suited to their particular needs, and where they will be given lectures, etc., by the County Agricultural Educational Staff. Where specialised forms of training, for example, poultry farming, are required, arrangements are made to place the men with approved farmers. About 50 per cent. of those at present in training are at centres. Twenty-one centres, with accommodation varying from ten to fifty men at each centre, are at present in operation, and further centres are being established as rapidly as possible. The Board have formulated a scheme for the provision of cottage holdings for disabled men who have passed through their training successfully. This scheme has been forwarded to the Ministry of Pensions to be placed before the Treasury.
As regards the professional division, those men are dealt with by the Appointments Committee and the educational departments in England, Wales and Scotland. It is to the industrial division to which my noble friend refers, and for which the Industrial Department of the Ministry of Labour is responsible. The figures quoted by my noble friend are substantially those with which I have been furnished. On the waiting list there are: applications, examined but not disposed of, amounting to 20,000 in England, Scotland and Wales; about 13,000 are in training in private workshops and factories; 20,000 are already trained. That makes about 53,000 in all, of whom 33,000 have been or are being dealt with. As the schemes develop it is estimated that they may receive some 40,000 more applications.
VISCOUNT BURNHAM: How many in technical institutes?
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: I am afraid I cannot tell my noble friend that. As I think I said just now, the delay is due to want of facilities. For instance, it was suggested that use might be made of Gretna for the establishment of training institutions; but you have to consider that if you ask a man to go from the Midlands, or from the South of England, or even, perhaps, from the North of England, to a great distance off, he may not want to go. Then, again, he has to be brought back from the centre to which he goes; and in addition to that, before he can get employment, the would-be employer besides getting his certificates, or what answers to what I
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will call the man's paper value, wants to see the intending employee, and the difficulty of distance accentuates the trouble.
Having said that, I may say that the spirit of employers, as regards employing these men, has been found for the most part to be very good indeed. As to these training centres—perhaps I repeat myself, but I wish to lay stress upon this point—it is extremely difficult to acquire empty buildings which are suitable for these purposes. Every effort, however, has indeed been made, and progress has been made also. For example, 12,800 additional places have been provided since May 1, though they are not vet all thoroughly equipped. Here again we must remember that, as well as getting the factories and the workshops, there is a certain amount of machinery, as noble Lords will understand, and that takes some little time to deliver.
With reference to what my noble friend said about there being no replies to many of these applications, perhaps it is hardly necessary for me to insist upon this—that in this immense organisation a very large number of people have to be engaged on the work. The Pensions Committees had the work in hand until the end of July or beginning of August. Pensions Committees are still responsible for pensions and medical treatment, while the Employment Exchanges are responsible for finding jobs and paying out-of-work denations. These two bodies would refer applicants to the Divisional Director of Training who is responsible for finding the training and arranging with the private employers. In different areas there may be differences of detail in the arrangements. I may add that the Employment Exchanges and the Pensions Committees have had explained to them, and have been directed, what they are to do in regard to applications in order that replies can be given as promptly as possible.
As I have said, while the administrative machinery is there, the factories and other requirements are not yet complete. It is possible that the dissatisfaction to which my noble friend refers may be due, not so much to there being no reply, but there may be disappointment owing to the reasons given why, or the fact that, the immediate action desired cannot be taken, because of the want of accommodation of which I have spoken. As my noble friend knows the training in each staple trade is supervised by a Trade Committee, half of whom are

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employers and half workmen, and the workmen are nominees of the trade unions. There are this Central Committee for each trade and also local Committees of each training centre for that trade. The men cannot be put in training except with the approval of these local Committees.
With regard to the final question on the Paper, as to what arrangements are being made to secure disabled men, when trained, proper and permanent occupation, it is difficult to speak definitely. We rely upon these local Trade Committees plus the Employment Exchanges and their local Committees and the manager of these training centres, whose business it is to interest local employers. I think my noble friend referred to what he called the economic side of the question. I presume by that he meant wages. As my noble friend knows no doubt, when a man goes into an institution he receives a certain maintenance allowance and then gets his pay at an increasing rate in proportion to his increasing proficiency, and to this arrangement the trade unions have agreed. In regard to finding places for these men, I may say that the Royal Proclamation, which was issued a month or two ago, has given very material assistance indeed. Those are the answers that I beg to give to my noble friend's Questions. I can assure him that the Minister for Labour is by no means behind him and your Lordships in his most anxious desire to hasten matters forward and to do all he can to assist by training these gallant and deserving men.

SEA TRAINING.
LORD ISLINGTON: My Lords, in his unavoidable absence my noble friend Lord Downham has asked me to put the Question standing in his name on the Paper—namely, whether His Majesty's Government are in a position to make any statement as to the policy of the Government with regard to the institution of a National Corporation of Sea Training as recommended by the recent Departmental Committee on Sea Training.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, I am afraid I am not in a position to announce any decision as to the policy of the Government on this subject, as this difficult and rather technical matter is still under Departmental treatment. But I think I may say briefly that, having re-
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ceived the Report of the Committee which was directed to prepare a national scheme of training for the Sea Service, the Board of Education has decided that the next step is to hold a conference of the different Government Departments concerned. These are the Board of Trade, the Admiralty, the Scottish Education Department, the Ministry of Shipping, the Treasury and the Home Office. Nominations from these different Departments are now being received, and it is hoped that at a very early date the conference will be held. At that conference it is possible that the Government policy may be definitely defined.

UNION OF BENEFICES BILL.
Commons Amendments considered (according to Order).

COMMONS AMENDMENTS.
Clause 1, page 1, line 14, leave out ("three") and insert ("the")
Clause 1, page 1, line 28, leave out ("three") and insert ("the").
Clause 2, page 2, line 6, after ("affected") insert ("one shall be nominated by the churchwardens (if any) of the benefice or benefices affected or by the major part of them")
Clause 2, line 7, after ("chairman") insert ("and shall have a casting vote in addition to his vote as a commissioner")
Clause 2, line 13, leave out from ("the") to the end of subsection (2) and insert ("patrols or patrons of the other benefice or benefices affected.
"(3) Provided also that if the bishop of the diocese in which each of the benefices or sinecures affected is situate shall be the sole patron of that benefice or sinecure there shall be no commissioner nominated by the patrons")
Clause 2, line 19, after ("patrons") insert ("or the churchwardens or the major part of them")
Clause 2, line 20, leave out from ("shall") to the end of the clause and insert ("lapse, and the commission shall be issued and shall be valid for all purposes notwithstanding any such lapse").
Clause 4, page 3, lines 23 and 24, leave out ("or a majority of the Commissioners")
Clause 4, page 3, line 24, after ("shall") insert ("unanimously or by a majority of votes").
Clause 4, page 5, leave out clause 9.
Clause 13, page 6, line 34, leave out ("three").
Clause 15, page 7, line 30, leave out ("what services (if any) shall") and insert ("that services shall or shall not").
Clause 21, page 9, line 17, leave out ("and shall extend to the Channel Islands")
Clause 15, page 9 line 20, after subsection (2) insert the following new subsection:
("(3) No Commission shall be issued under this Act after the thirty-first day of December nineteen hundred and twenty-one").
THE LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH: My Lords, I ask your Lordships to agree to the Amendments made by the House of Commons to this Bill. At this late hour of the session I think you would prefer me to say as little as possible, and I do not wish to detain the House, though I would be prepared to speak again if there is any noble Lord who takes a contrary view in regard to the Amendments as a whole, or to one or other of them, and to explain any questions involved in greater detail. I may say that in my own opinion the Amendments do not spoil the principle of the Bill. In one or two cases they improve it, and cut away the ground of some criticisms that have been, or might be, levelled against it. Many of the Amendments are of an entirely consequential character. I hope I may not be called upon to speak again, and I take this opportunity of expressing a word of very grateful appreciation to the noble and learned Lord upon the Woolsack, who has done great things in facilitating the progress of this small but really important Bill. There is nothing grand about it, but, both directly and indirectly, it will strengthen the work of the Church.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(The Lord Bishop of Norwich.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, before I put the Question I should like to thank the right rev. Prelate for what he has been good enough to say about the small efforts I have made. I think the House will desire to congratulate the right rev. Prelate on the successful issue of what owing to a very great deal of industry and perseverence on his own part, is an extremely useful measure. When the debates on the Enabling Bill were in progress the most rev. Prelate the Archbishop of York instanced the Union of Benefices Bill as an illustration of the disability under which the Church lay of obtaining the passage of any legislation without the Enabling Bill. I ventured to say then that the ultimate Parliamentary career of this Bill would
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make it necessary to withdraw one argument at least in favour of that Bill.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ELECTRICITY (SUPPLY) BILL.
Returned from the Commons with the Amendments made by the Lords agreed to, with consequential Amendments.
Moved, That the Commons Amendments be now considered.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I move that this House do agree with the Commons in these consequential Amendments.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

HOUSING (ADDITIONAL POWERS) BILL.
Returned from the Commons with certain Amendments made by the Lords agreed to without amendment, with one of the Amendments made by the Lords agreed to with an Amendment, and with a consequential Amendment made to the Bill.
Moved, That the Commons Amendments be now considered.—(Viscount Peel.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
VISCOUNT PEEL: I beg to move that the House do agree with the Commons Amendments.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Viscount Peel.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at half-past seven o'clock, until a quarter to three o'clock to-morrow.