Lords Sitting of 4 March 1919

Preamble
Several Lords—Took the Oath.
SHERINGHAM GAS AND WATER BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a.

UNION OF BENEFICES BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH: My Lords, I rise to ask that you will consent to give a Second Reading to this little Bill. It is in almost every respect the same Bill that passed your Lordships' House last July, and in view of the importance of the discussions that are coming on later in the afternoon you will probably be glad that I should not speak with quite the same elaboration as that with which I attempted to support the Bill six months ago. And in truth the circumstances are very much now as they were then. Those circumstances include the absence of a very large number of chaplains on foreign service. They are still abroad and still doing a noble and a gallant work, which perhaps is as useful as ever in these duller times at the Front when the men have more time to respond to what is done for them by the chaplains. This makes this Bill, as it was last July, still a kind of appendage to war legislation. I urged that argument in its support last July.
You will remember, my Lords, that about the year before last an Act was passed to make it easier to liberate some of the clergy from their parochial duties in order that they might take up work as chaplains at the Front. That Act is still in force, and under it we have been able in some of our country dioceses to unite, during the period of the war, some parishes in such a way as to make an economy of the clerical forces of the country. What we are doing now at any rate shows the possibility of working—and I think fairly satisfactorily—with a smaller staff of clergy in our small country parishes. What we have done successfully during the war I believe that we ought to attempt to do in the days of peace.
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But I think that in one respect, perhaps, the situation has altered since last I had the honour of addressing your Lordships on this point. I believe that the poverty of the clergy has been more fully recognised by the public at large. Not very long ago, in a leading article in The Times, it was said that—
"Not only many an incumbent but most curates have to struggle to meet the increased cost of living on earnings which were never more than barely adequate—if that—and are now hopelessly below the subsistence line. The poverty of too many of the clergy is nothing new, though we fear that the laity have tacitly joined in a conspiracy of silence about it, founded on the proud reticence of the men who have had to suffer it. What the Church has lost in the broken spirit of those who have found the struggle too much for them it would be difficult to say; but it is certain that it has lost even more in the resentment of men and women who have been brought up as the children of wretchedly paid clergymen. That reproach the war has at least made so intolerable that silence can be kept about it no longer."
The high prices of these times hit the clergy quite as hardly as the small professional men. Only the other day one of my right rev. brothers used the phrase that the clergy could not strike and they could not beg. They were enduring their straitness with wonderful courage and contentment, which, he thought, was an example to many people in this country who were discontented and clamouring for higher wages.
It is true that many of the country clergy are receiving more from tithe than was the ease at this time last year, but any one who has looked into the subject is perfectly well aware that the rise in tithe has certainly not in the least kept pace with the rise in prices. Recently there was a short debate in your Lordships' House on the subject of the inadequate payment of the clergy, and I would ask you, my Lords, to be kind enough to bear that in mind without my going over all that was said on that occasion by various members of this House who took part in the debate. But there are more lofty grounds than the grounds of the mere poverty of the clergy to be thought of. In the sad position of a clergyman ministering to a very small flock with a very small remuneration, the situation tells against the efficiency of his work, when he is, perhaps, not in a position to secure a pony or even a bicycle so that he might come in contact with the companionship and the cultured association of men like himself.

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Again, there is the question of the general economy of spiritual forces. On all sides we hear, and we rightly hear, that, our nation wishes its man-power to be used to the best advantage, and so it is with the Church. There is a great shortage of clergy at home, and there is a great shortage of clergy in the foreign field. We rejoice to know that the number of men coming forward who are at present in the Army is very large, and we are still more pleased to know that the type of man is a very excellent one; but the shortage in the last years has been so great that if we ordained all these men, or even a larger number than those offering to come forward, we should still be under-staffed both at home and abroad. They will only just fill the gaps, and we have to remember that when the war is over probably many resignations on the part of the older clergy that have hitherto been postponed will take effect. It would be a disastrous thing for the Church to be compelled to maintain what I would call the archaic methods that belonged to a day long gone by. And it is hard upon the Church to be unwillingly tied to those methods from which it would wish to be released.
Many criticisms are raised against the Church at the present time, and here is a very just one: the Church does not use its man-power to the best advantage. But that is not because it is the Church's wish to go on in this inappropriate way. The Church itself is most anxious to be relieved from an obsolete piece of organisation, and to make its methods more up-to-date in the way that is contemplated in this little Bill. May I be allowed to illustrate very briefly from the docese of Norwich the kind of thing that is in my mind. In the City of Norwich the number of parishes is beyond the present requirements of the population living where many of the churches stand—namely, in the business quarters of the city. It is very much like the City of London in that respect. There are about 600 parishes in the diocese of Norwich. The population of 200 of these is actually under the figure of 200 persons; 100 of these parishes out of the 600 are already united with other parishes; some 25 more are held in plurality. Certainly there is plenty of scope in the diocese of Norwich for the operation of this Bill, if it ever becomes an Act.
For a man can do very much more than care for the spiritual and material needs of
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a population of 100 or 200 souls. Do not forget that he is tied to that parish. I do not wish to represent the clergy at all as being wilfully idle, for they are tied to the parish to which they belong, and all of us know how very much we owe to the clergy in faithful discharge of their duties among their small flocks, and not less to the family of the clergyman and to all the good influences that emanate from the parsonage. But all this depends on the love and goodness and the accessibility of the clergyman and not upon his having too little to do. Sometimes, of course, we hear of disasters occurring, and often we know that the first beginning of the lapse of a good man comes from the fact that he had not quite enough to do to fill up his mind and keep his attention fixed upon his duty.
The plan that this Bill indicates is, I do not question, as a rule locally unpopular. People will praise it in general, but when it comes to be applied to their own parish it is usual for those concerned to find some special reason why, though appropriate to all the other parishes in the country, it happens to be inappropriate to the one under discussion. But I believe that it is our duty to correct such a tendency to selfishness and to look beyond the present generation of critics. We want a larger vision and one that is not confined to the limits of one tiny parish and its prejudices. It seems to me as if it were something like the selfishness of which we should be guilty if we had some very efficient doctor to whom we owed a great deal in his attendance upon us, and we said, "We must keep that doctor entirely for ourselves and not share him with others."
It would, of course, be wrong to rearrange parishes if it, meant taking away the endowments of one parish and leaving the parish from which they were taken un-provided for in spiritual needs. But adequate provision does not necessarily mean continuing all the arrangements of a distant past. There is a great difference between principle and custom in a matter of this kind, and the parishioners do not stand to lose if the union of the two benefices tends to attract to the work a better man than could be secured if the benefices were still left ununited.
This Bill introduces no new plan. It is possible, and has long been possible, to unite benefices together, and if this Bill is rejected it will still be possible to unite

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benefices together. It only attempts to improve the method. I would venture to indicate two or three points in which this Bill would alter the existing law. First of all, it alters qualifications in regard to benefices eligible for union—that is to say, it does not demand that two benefices, for example, have to be actually adjacent to one another. Only the other day I heard of a parish in the North of England where there are four householders and a population of twenty-three persons, but, owing to the distance between the church in that parish and the adjacent parish, no union could be effected. Then there is to be a preliminary inquiry on the spot, which I regard as of the greatest importance, and at which people who have anything to say on the strength of their local knowledge would be heard. The tribunal will weigh up the matter, having access to the best information.
The necessary consents are reduced: the consent of the bishop as the supreme spiritual authority is maintained, but the patron loses his veto. On the other hand, the patron is represented on the tribunal because the patron's position in regard to the parish, of course, is exceptional. An advowson represents property with trust, and the patron's representative on the tribunal will be able, taking him at his best—and we know how very many good patrons there are—carefully to weigh what is really desirable in the interests of the parish. This Bill also alters the event on which union is to take place. That is to be prescribed in the final decision. That is an important point. Then it is possible to divide the income, and there are new ways of dealing with churches and parsonages, and this will be considered on the spot to meet local requirements.
I cannot for a moment imagine that if this Bill becomes law there will be anything like a wholesale attack made upon our country churches. An unnecessary parsonage, I suppose, would in most cases be sold for the benefit of the benefice, and it would be very rare that there would be any occasion to pull down the parsonage, and I suppose the pulling down of a church would be exceedingly rare. One can be sure that in the country districts where such unions take place, though the benefice will be one, the two parishes will still go on existing side by side. All that it would mean would be that when a sound case for union is made out it would not be checked
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by any unreasonable prejudice and ignored simply through the indifference of a patron, or through his unwillingness to take a wide view of all the interests that are involved.
There is also a section dealing with expenses, and a new section that was not in the Bill last summer, but it is of very small importance. It is the last one, and it provides that if any local Acts are made regarding special places this Bill shall not over-ride them, while the Bill does override any common law procedure which may be in existence under which benefices at present can be united. That is a somewhat obscure subject. I ought to call your Lordships' attention to the fact that there is an appeal in the last resort if the scheme as made appears to be unjust. That you will find in Clause 5.
I repeat that the plan introduces no new principles; it is only a small measure to facilitate procedure, and to prevent a union, which in the judgment of reasonable people must be held to be desirable, from being kept back through indifference or mere parochialism. Lastly, I should add that the Houses of Convocation approved of the principle and practically of the details of this Bill before it was introduced last year, and the same may be said of the House of Laymen of Canterbury. It has also been approved by the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty, and by the Ecclesiastical Commission. If I am not supported by a larger number of right rev. Prelates on this Bench, I think the reason is that they have expressed themselves on those more ecclesiastical bodies—Queen Anne's Bounty and the Ecclesiastical Commission—and, having approved of the proposal there, they have not thought it necessary to go one step further and to approve it here.
I hope I have said enough, and that I have not said too much. I am afraid on the one hand of being rather a bore to those who heard me speak on the same Bill last July. On the other hand, I hesitate to leave any word unsaid that would induce your Lordships to give what I consider to be an important little Bill its Second Reading. In my humble opinion the case seems to be a good one, and I hope your Lordships will be of the same opinion and consent to read the Bill a second time. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Bishop of Norwich.)
VISCOUNT BRYCE: My Lords, those of your Lordships who have had practical experience, not only of the difficulties in which the clergy are placed in many parts of the country by their poverty, which has been referred to by the right rev. Prelate, but also of the extreme difficulty which exists under the present law of effecting the union of small benefices, will welcome the Bill which the right rev. Prelate has introduced. Although a layman, I desire to express my strong sense of the need for some legislation of the kind which the present Bill contains. A good many years ago, when I was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, I had to deal with a number of questions with regard to the union of benefices, and it is impossible to exaggerate the number of petty difficulties that one found arising in applying the law to the union of benefices even in a case which seemed to have the maximum of advantage in its favour.
When you touch—it is an instance, in some respects a laudable instance, of the extremestrength of local feeling in England—any local affair, when you try to move the parish pump, or to alter the line of a pathway, an amount of local feeling is evoked quite surprising to a person who contemplates what is supposed to be the usual placidity and monotony of local life. I remember cases in which there was every reason for uniting benefices, but where nevertheless difficulties arose which required a great deal of time and tact to remove. I would therefore express hearty concurrence with all that has been said by the right rev. Prelate, and add the hope that your Lordships will favourably entertain the Bill; because there is really very great need in our rural districts, to some extent in our cities also, but much more, of course, in our rural districts, for effecting the unions that have been standing over for a long time.
There are two small points in the present Bill to which I would ask the attention of your Lordships, and particularly that of the right rev. Prelate. One of them is in Clause 7, and relates to the parsonage. It is provided that every scheme under the Act shall determine, where there is a parsonage house in each parish, which shall be the parsonage house of the united benefice. In many cases it will turn out that a curate will be wanted, and it would certainly seem desirable rather than pull down a parsonage house to see whether it
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could not be allotted to the curate. But apart from that there is, as your Lordships know, in a very large number of parishes a great need for some house or some group of rooms which can be turned to the benefit of the parish, where you could put a small library or where in some way or other you could provide a place where people could meet; and in many cases it would be found desirable to turn the unused parsonage house to that purpose. I hope, therefore—without moving an Amendment—that the right rev. Prelate will consider whether it would be desirable to introduce some provision of that kind, or at any rate whether he would give some assurance that as far as he is concerned a case of that kind will be considered.
Similarly in Clause 8 it is provided that a scheme shall, if more than one church be left standing, determine which church shall be the parish church, but if only one church be left standing it should be the parish church of the united parish. I was glad to hear the right rev. Prelate observe that he thought it highly unlikely that any church would be pulled down. I earnestly trust that churches will not be pulled down. One has that feeling most strongly, of course, in a case where the church is of antiquity, or of architectural value. In fact, if you can say it is of reasonable antiquity—that is to say, more than two and a-half or three centuries old—it is certain to have some architectural value. One cannot have a church as old as the fifteenth century or the middle of the sixteenth century without its having an architectural value of some kind. But apart from that, even if the church has no great architectural value, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred there will be some useful local purpose to which it can be turned. I hope, therefore, that the case of pulling down a church will in practice not arise at all. There are already far too few places in our country parishes to which people can resort. There is too little social intercourse, and too little done to provide places where such intercourse can go on. Consequently I would express the hope that some provision will be made in the case of an unused church—by that I mean where there is not even an occasional service—and that some method will be devised of retaining the church in that case for whatever local public purpose may be proved to be most serviceable. I can only say, in conclusion, that I am sure that the improvements and simplifications of method which

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the Bill contains will be found very useful, and I earnestly trust, it may carry out what the right rev. Prelate desires.
VISCOUNT CHAPLIN: My Lords, I am very sensible of the importance of the business which is to follow this debate; therefore I shall not detain the House for a moment longer than I can help. But I speak in connection with this subject as a patron of various livings, and I am not sufficiently satisfied with the statement of the right rev. Prelate to feel justified in allowing this Bill to be read a second time altogether sub silentio. I know of cases where great hardship and injustice might be done to patrons unless some alteration, some amendment, is made in the Bill; and I will give a case in point before I sit down. May I add that I am perfectly sensible of the poverty of many of the clergy at the present time, and I dare say I would go as far as any member of your Lordships' House in trying to improve their position in that respect.
The right rev. Prelate spoke of the position of the patrons under this Bill. But what is their position under the machinery which is provided in the Bill? I am sorry to say that I did not hear the debate last year, but I will not go over the ground of the machinery further than to say this—that three commissioners are to be appointed. One is to be the Bishop of the diocese, or the Bishops if the livings are in two separate dioceses; then there is to be the patron, and the third is to be appointed by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and is to be chairman of the commission. As far, therefore, as the position of the patrons is concerned, the representative of the patron will always be in a minority, the representatives of the Church will always be in a majority. That is part of the Bill. I have read it carefully and submitted it to a draftsman, and I am speaking with his information also before me.
In Clause 3 a whole variety of drastic regulations are to be made; and then we come to Clause 4, which says—
"The Bishop receiving a report under this Act—"
The Commissioners are to report to him when they have made their inquiry and decided upon the course they are about to recommend—
"shall cause the same, or a copy thereof, to be transmitted to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners,
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who shall, if the report shall recommend a union, and if the Bishop of the diocese or the Bishops of the dioceses affected shall signify in writing his or their approval of the report, but not otherwise, cause to be prepared a scheme."
I venture to think that the words "but not otherwise" ought to be included as regards the patrons. The onus probandi for the necessity and the justice of the changes that might be recommended would then be thrown upon those who proposed to make them—namely, the representatives of the Church, and I do not think that that is too much to suggest as an alteration in the Bill when we come to Committee.
I said just now that I would give a case. I know of one, and it is this. There are two parishes now adjoining. I may say that they were parishes both belonging to myself. One of them during my time was extra-parochial altogether. The other was a parish with a very good living and a very old church. The time came when I thought it was desirable that the means of religious worship and education should be provided in the parish which originally was extra-parochial altogether, and there I built a small church and a school, and not only that but I endowed a living, and there it is at the present moment. I nominated for it a clergyman, and I believe he has always given complete satisfaction from that day to this. The adjoining parish contains a church of the old-fashioned description, which was much more common in my younger days than it is now. It was a very good living, and I took upon myself to restore the church, almost entirely at my own expense, and to erect a new parsonage. In those circumstances, suppose a report was presented by somebody or other to the commissioners asking for an inquiry, and suppose a recommendation was made that a considerable portion of the income of one living should be taken away to be given to the other. Am I not to have any voice whatever in the matter? It is true that I may make representations, but I am appealing to a tribunal on which, as I have said, the patron is always in a minority.
In these circumstances I do not think I am making an unfair or wrong suggestion if I say that when we come to consider the Bill in Committee I think it would be only fair and right that, if the patron objects in the first instance, his objection should hold good, and that it shall then rest upon those who wish to make the change, and think it right, to prove their own case,

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instead of leaving the patron to fight his own case, as I say, against a majority, who if they chose to do so could always be in a position to refuse his request.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, the points which the noble Viscount, Lord Chaplin has raised are exactly points which can well be dealt with in Committee. I venture to think that if the noble Viscount had been able to hear the debate last year, or if he had read the report of what then took place, he would have found that these points were really dealt with then. Perhaps the noble Viscount will look at the report of last year's debate, and see whether those points were dealt with. If they were not, then he can raise them again in Committee, if necessary. I do not understand what he means by saying that the patron will always be in a minority. There are to be three representatives on the commission—one of the patron, one of the Bishop, and one of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. He is in a minority in this sense, that one man must always be in a minority if there are three people.
VISCOUNT CHAPLIN: I said that the representative of the patron would be in a minority because the representatives of the Church would always be in a majority on the commission.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: I am afraid that I do not even now quite understand the noble Viscount's contention. What does he mean by representatives of the Church? The Church is represented as to one part by the patron, as to another by the Bishop, and as to the third part by the Ecclesiastical Commissioner. Of course, one man must be in a minority if there are three, but as far as I can judge in no other sense will the representative of the patron be in a minority. If I have missed the point, I hope that the noble Viscount will bring it forward in Committee. I venture to think that Lord Chaplin does to some extent judge of these cases by imagining that parishes generally are as fortunately circumstanced as those of which he is patron; that is to say, parishes in which the patron takes a personal interest in its I affairs and is ready not only to show generosity but to take an active part in the management of the parish. The difficulty that arises is in cases where the patron
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really cares nothing about the parish, and there are in England an enormous number of patrons who are perhaps absent from the country, perhaps men who care nothing for any of these things and who will not disturb themselves to take any interest in these matters, but who are allowed to be here represented and indeed to over-ride, if need be—by the merely ignorant and perhaps even selfish opposition of a patron—the public interests, against the whole parishioners and ecclesiastical life of the neighbourhood and the wishes of the diocese. It has sometimes happened that the patron has been able to prevent good things being done which everybody else desired, but that was not in the least the kind of case of which the noble Viscount spoke. It is, however, a case with which many of us have to do.
As one greatly interested in the Bill, I can say for certain that if the noble Viscount will place on the Notice Paper any Amendment of the clause which will bring out the point he suggests, not only will it be carefully considered but we should be anxious to meet him if it were possible. As things now stand, I believe that the point has already been met, and that he will find that is so on looking into it carefully. I am absolutely sure on the general question that the Bill is necessary. I speak from a wide and long experience not merely of a diocese but of a province as a whole. The Bill is really needed for facilitating unions of tiny parishes where enormous difficulties arise from local feeling or from apathy which it is desirable in the public interest should be overridden after proper inquiry, with adequate means given to all concerned to express their vews. I hope, in the public interest, and in the interest of the Church and of the nation, that this Bill will be read a second time.
LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, I should like to say a few words about the Bill. As the right rev. Prelate has pointed out, the Bill was carefully considered, not only in principle but in detail, by the House of Laymen of the province of Canterbury. It was unanimously accepted and adopted by that house in its present form. The objection which has been raised by the noble Viscount (Lord Chaplin) comes to this. He desires that the patron should have a veto. That any patron should exercise his veto would really put an end to what is the object and desire of the Bill

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—namely, the union of these small benefices.
VISCOUNT CHAPLIN: No, no; not put an end.
LORD PARMOOR: Well, have a veto. I think it would be undesirable that the patron should be allowed a veto of that kind. As it is, I should like the Bill to be further simplified as regards machinery and provision. If we look at the particular clause to which the noble Viscount called attention I really do not think there is any question of what he calls the "patron's interest" being overlooked in any way. You have commissioners consisting of three persons—the representative of the Bishop, the representative of the patron, and one who has to act really in a judicial capacity and as chairman—namely, the representative of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. There is no real reason whatever why the representative of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners should side with the Bishop as against the patron, and there is not the slightest suggestion that I can see that the interests of the patron should in any way be overlooked under the commission which the Bill proposes to constitute for the purpose of carrying out its provisions.
As regards the question raised by my noble friend Lord Bryce, I agree with him that protection should be given against the demolition of fabrics, particularly fabrics of interest which are being used as churches. I think the right rev. Prelate pointed out that there is not—and I certainly did not find in the terms of the Bill itself—any suggestion that the fabrics, either of the churches or of the old parsonage houses, should in any way be pulled down. The question of their utilisation is another matter. This may raise certain questions of difficulty which I need not discuss now. If further provision is required in the Bill in order to make sure that no fabric of any historic interest shall be interfered with, I feel certain that the right rev. Prelate would not object to the introduction of a provision of that kind.
I think the right rev. Prelate was right when he put the main case for the Bill on the question of the efficiency of the spiritual life of the Church. I think that many of our benefices are too small, and there is a danger because the clergymen in some country parishes have not sufficient to do. I have always opposed any move-
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ment in the direction of reducing the size of our parishes, holding a strong opinion that the larger the parish and the greater the responsibilities the more likely are you to have a competent clergyman and good administration. I think that this is a very important point as regards the spiritual life and service of the Church. As regards the adequate pay of the clergyman, that subject was discussed only a few days ago in your Lordships' House, and it is extremely important that these very small benefices (many of them with inadequate remuneration for educated men) should join together where possible in order that you may have an adequate salary combined with adequate work. By that means you will get the most efficient service. I do not wish to say more now, but I heartily hope that a Second Reading will be given to this Bill and that the measure may pass into an Act during the present session.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD BIRKENHEAD): My Lords, I have been asked—and I will do it almost in a sentence—to state that the Government readily assent to the principle of the Bill introduced by the right rev. Prelate. Even I have been a patron long enough to appreciate the present practice, which does not make it possible to effect the union of parishes where it is desirable in many cases that that union should be effected. As your Lordships know, the present practice is that where the assent of the patron is procured the Bishop makes a representation which, in the last resort, goes to the most rev. Primate. In many cases, where neither the population nor the resources of parishes are large enough to maintain two rectors, it has been found impracticable to obtain the consent of the patron. This Bill deals with that case, and I sincerely trust that your Lordships will not only give it a Second Reading but will send it, with or without amendment, to another place, where I hope its career may be more fortunate than it was last year.
I may, perhaps, make one suggestion which the right rev. Prelate may think it useful to consider before the Committee stage. I have not had time to examine the Bill as attentively as I could have desired from the point of view of the Committee, but I think the method of selecting one of the commissioners which is adopted in favour of the patron is perhaps capable of some slight objection. I observe that the Bill as drafted at present

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proposes that one of the commissioners should be nominated by the patron, or, where there are two patrons, by the patrons jointly. It is obvious that in the ordinary case there would be two patrons, and it is also obvious that the interests of the patrons would not always be convergent. I rather suspect they would be divergent, and perhaps the right rev. Prelate will consider it worth while to consider whether this is a convenient or likely to be a smooth method of selecting that commissioner.
There is one further point only to which I should like to refer. The right rev. Prelate assured your Lordships that the Bill provides for an appeal. It is quite true that Clause 5 contains a reference to an appeal, but I do not detect the machinery in the Bill that makes the appeal effective, and I rather think there is a considerable hiatus which should be corrected before the Committee stage if it is desired to maintain the appeal. I throw out the suggestion that, having regard to the very great care taken in appointing commissioners and insisting on obtaining the sanction of the Bishop, and to the further reference to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, it might not be adequate if in dealing with that. stage of the matter the subsisting decision of the most rev. Primate were not maintained to enable him without the formality of an appeal to consider all the papers in the case. Perhaps the right rev. Prelate will be good enough to consider these points before the Committee stage.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

INDIA
LORD SYDENHAM LORD SYDENHAM had the following Questions on the Paper—
To ask the Under-Secretary of State for India—

1. If he can say when the opinions of the Provincial Governments in India on the Report of the Viceroy and Secretary of State will be made available for the information of Parliament and the public.

2. If he can give any information as to the riots at Katarpur last year when, it is stated, a mob of 3,000 Hindus murdered a number of Mahomedans, burning some of them alive, and destroyed their village.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, among the most important proposals in the Report of the Viceroy and Secretary of State for India were those which contemplated the establishment in all the Provincial Governments of a diarchical system. That system is quite unknown to past history and government, and I confess I regard it myself as impracticable and fantastic. It has now been carefully considered by the responsible Governments who would have to carry it out, and I feel sure your Lordships will agree with me that their opinions should be made known as soon as possible to Parliament and to the public. These opinions, I believe, have now been at the India Office for several weeks, and what I urge is that they should be given to us as soon as possible. There is another set of Papers which are not mentioned in my Question but on which I gave private notice to the noble Lord. I hope he will undertake to make public the evidence given before Lord Southborough's Committees, which I believe have now finished their work. If this is not done I assure the noble Lord that there will be the greatest dissatisfaction among the non-Brahmin communities in India, which, as your Lordships well know, compose the vast majority of the Indian people. These communities already bitterly resent the fact that two Indians were appointed to the Committees both of whom had pronounced publicly against communal representation, to which they attach the greatest importance. In the debate of last August the noble Earl the Leader of the House said there were "many persons in India very suspicious of what is called Brahminical rule, who are entitled to be heard. "That is most true, but the strong opinions of these persons was ignored in the Report of the Viceroy and Secretary of State, and I think it is only just to them that their views should be made known now. In the past there really has been too much reluctance to publish opinions that did not coincide with those which the Secretary of State, perhaps too hastily, had adopted, and I hope the noble Lord will agree that complete frankness is essential having regard to the very serious issues which will shortly come up for decision in Parliament.
LORD ISLINGTON: My Lords, before the noble Lord answers for the Government I would like to say a word in addition to what has already been said by Lord Sydenham. Perhaps I may be permitted

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to seize this opportunity of offering a very warm expression of congratulation to my noble friend the Under-Secretary on his first assumption of active work as the representative of the India Office. I have had the privilege of close and intimate association with Lord Sinha in public work both in India and in this country during recent years, and therefore I, along with other noble Lords present, can readily understand how it has come about that Lord Sinha has occupied posts of the very highest distinction and responsibility both in connection with India and the Empire during the past ten years. The post he now fills is one that to every Englishman is perfectly easy and simple, as your Lordships are well aware. But the post occupied, and occupied for the first time under the new movement of Imperial evolution, by an Indian like my noble friend will present difficulties, in rnany instances serious difficulties, and I feel sure that those who know India best will realise what I mean when I say that. Nobody will realise it better than my noble friend himself, and I feel that it is an act of characteristic public spirit on his part in assuming the position. I feel sure his high qualities will enable him to overcome those difficulties in the same way as he has successfully overcome difficulties in other posts, but he will find it difficult to attain complete success unless he can be assured—as I confidently hope he may be—during the whole term of his office, of the wholehearted and sincere support and cooperation of his fellow-subjects in India, whether they be European or Indian. That he will receive the sympathy and support of your Lordships during the time he is in office he can, I am certain, be assured.
The Question asked by Lord Sydenham—the first on the Paper—is an important one. He asks that the Reports of the Local Governments on the Secretary of State's and Viceroy's Report should be published at as early a date as possible, and that full time should be given to Parliament and the public to study and consider that Report. Later on, undoubtedly, the report of Lord Southborough's Committees will be available for Parliament and the public, but these Local Government Reports stand rather apart from those because they have been considered and drafted by Local Governments mainly in the light of proposals embodied in the Report of the Viceroy and Secretary of State, and, as such, must constitute an
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important part of the groundwork of any scheme which is ultimately adopted in connection with constitutional reform. in particular, the views of Local Governments will be of the greatest possible importance as to the extent to which Local Governments in future are to be released from the central control of the Government of India. This is an important and extremely urgent question.
I am confident that a very liberal and definite policy is necessary in this connection. Discontent, which undoubtedly has been rife in many parts of India during recent years is, I believe, to be attributable in no small measure to the fact that the Provincial Governments have been unduly checked and controlled by the distant Central Government. I feel that, whatever shape constitutional reform may take as the result of discussion in Parliament, if it is to be effective it must be coupled with provincial decentralisation, and that should be on a thorough and comprehensive scale. That is a question which will require very careful study both as regards the opinions and experience of the Central Government and also, equally, as regards the opinions and experience of Local Governments.
There is one other Report which was not alluded to by Lord Sydenham, and on which I should be grateful if the noble Lord could give us some information. It is the Report of the Indian Industrial Commission. This again is a question of absolutely first-class importance in India, not excepting even constitutional reform, because future prosperity must in a large measure depend on the extent to which her vast native resources can be manufactured and dealt with by her own people effectively and profitably. The past record of Government in India in this connection cannot, I think, he characterised as progressive, and I hope that the result of this Report will give a very strong stimulus in the direction of industrial enterprise This Commission has sat for two years—during the years 1916 and 1917—and has published its Report, but I am not sure whether it has been circulated in India. I would ask my noble friend whether this Report can now be made available to Parliament and the public in England. The matter is one of such vital importance that I would also ask this further question—that no new scheme should be adopted or given effect to by the Government of India until this Report has been studied by Parliament, and

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Parliament has had an opportunity of expressing its opinion upon it.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (LORD SINHA): My Lords, it is with considerable diffidence that I rise this evening to address your Lordships, and I hope I may be not altogether out of order if I begin by thanking my noble friend Lord Islington, from whom I have in the past had a great deal of courtesy and consideration, for the more than generous terms with which he has been pleased to refer to me; and I thank your Lordships also for the very kind reception you gave to the remarks.
With regard to the Question on the Paper by the noble Lord, Lord Sydenham, my task is comparatively easy, because I have only to draw your Lordships' attention to what has been already promised as early as November last by Lord Islington himself and also last month—on February 17 and 19—by the Secretary of State for India in another place. The first set of Papers which Lord Sydenham asked should be published refers to the opinions by the Local Governments on the great scheme known at the Montagu-Chelmsford scheme for constitutional reforms in India. Replying in the House of Commons to a Question put on February 17 and 19 respectively, the Secretary of State said—
"I have at present seen only advance copies of the opinions of Provincial Governments as to the proposals for constitutional reforms, but I expect before long to receive them officially from the Government of India, together with the Government's considered views on the whole subject, and of course they will be presented to Parliament, though I cannot at present specify a date."
Then, as early as November last, Lord Islington, speaking in your Lordships' House, said this—
"The Reports from the Local Governments on the Reforms Report, and all the material which will be of use in the discussion of this matter, in so far of course as they do not contain confidential matter, will in due course, and without unnecessary delay, be published."
I repeat that assurance, but I cannot add anything further to it. The Government of India's Despatch giving their views on the opinions of the Local Governments has not yet been received, though it is expected that it will not be very long in arriving, probably not later than the end of this month. The Report of the Government of India should then be in the hands of the Secretary of State. As soon as it
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is received and has been considered by the Secretary of State it will be placed before Parliament.
There is another set of Papers for which the noble Lord asked—the Reports of the two Committees over which Lord Southborough presided in India, and also the evidence which may have been recorded by those Committees. As regards the Reports themselves, the Secretary of State has definitely pledged himself to place them before Parliament. The Reports, so far as we know, have not yet been signed—at least, our information is that it is only one Report of the Committee, that to determine the electorates, that has been signed. We have no information regarding the others. Lord Southborough and the members of his Committees are, I believe, already on their way back from India, and the Reports will be in the hands of the Secretary of State I hope before the end of the present month. As soon as they are received they will be placed before your Lordships' House. As to the evidence, all that I am in a position to tell your Lordships at present is that the procedure to regulate the proceedings of these Committees was left entirely to the discretion of Lord Southborough and the members of the Committee. It is not known whether they have recorded evidence with a view to publication, and in any case until the return of Lord Southborough and the receipt of the Committee's Reports it is not possible to give any information on the subject, or to publish any evidence that may have been given.
May I take this opportunity of expressing my entire concurrence with what fell from the noble Lord, Lord Sydenham. I also consider that absolute frankness is essential in the consideration of these most important matters; and so far as the Secretary of State is concerned, and so far as I myself am concerned, I hope that there will be no occasion on the part of your Lordships to complain in that respect. With regard to the documents to which my noble friend Lord Islington referred—namely, the Report of the Indian Industrial Commission—may I remind your Lordships that it was formally laid before your Lordships' House on February 19 last, and on inquiry of the printers it has been ascertained that copies will be available for circulation on Thursday next by noon. Therefore copies will be available both for your Lordships' House and to

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the public on Thursday next. I entirely agree, if I may say so, with Lord Islington as to the importance of this Report, and also with regard to the complaint which he has made—though perhaps it is not for me to urge it now—that the Government of India, before this Commission was appointed, could hardly be accused of having been too progressive in industrial matters. It is the earnest hope of all who are concerned in the Government of India, as well as of the Indian people themselves, that effect may be given to the recommendations of this Commission as soon as they have been considered by the Government of India in the first place, by the Secretary of State and by Parliament. I can assure my noble friend that, so far as any action on this Report is concerned, the Secretary of State has already intimated to the Viceroy that no action should be taken until the opinions of the Local Governments on the Report, as well as the considered opinion of the Government of India, had been received by him, and there will be ample opportunity given to the members of your Lordships' House to study and consider this Report, and, if need be, to raise any discussion upon it before any action is taken in regard to it. That is, I think, all that I need say at this stage with regard to the first Question on the Paper.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, I cannot deny myself the pleasure of adding one word to the very full tribute to the services in the past of my noble friend who has just sat down, and of expressing the high hopes we all entertain of the work which he is going to do here in the future. I also have had the pleasure of being associated with my noble friend in the past, and I know very well what the value of his services is; and I think that your Lordships here, from observing the easy mastery with which he replied to the Question of the noble Lord on the cross-benches, and the manner in which he developed the various points which arose out of that Question, will agree that we can look forward with the utmost confidence to his conduct of the very important measures of which he will no doubt have charge in the future in your Lordships' House.
NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: I have practically nothing to add, except to
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express my great satisfaction at the phrase which fell from the noble Lord opposite regarding the necessity of complete frankness and openness in displaying all the facts which may come from India to this country; and I feel certain, therefore, that he and the Secretary of State will put the narrowest possible construction on the word "confidential" when he stated that it would be only confidential matter which would be excluded from publication in regard to these Provincial Reports. I can quite believe that those Provincial Reports, or some of them, contain things which, from the mere point of view of promoting a particular policy, the India Office would just as soon should not be placed on the Table of the two Houses for discussion, possibly with the result of supplying arguments to those who may oppose the policy of His Majesty's Government. But I am quite certain that the India Office will not in any way succumb to a temptation to set aside, or not to reveal, any such statements that may come; and as a matter of fact, knowing what the general line of the policy of His Majesty's Government is, I think we may confidently assume that much general approbation in this matter of devolution, of which Lord Islington spoke, is certain to come from all the different Provincial Governments. We can look forward with great interest to the appearance of these Reports, and I sincerely hope that their advent will not be much longer delayed.
LORD SYDENHAM: I beg to thank the noble Lord for the answer he has given me, and especially for his promise—which I know he will carry out—that there shall be greater frankness on the part of the India Office in future. I have now to ask the Under-Secretary of State the second Question standing in my name—Whether he can give any information as to the riots at Katarpur last year when, it is stated, a mob of 3,000 Hindus murdered a number of Mahomedans, burning some of them alive, and destroyed their village.
There is a very great difficulty at the present moment in watching events in India. I do not know whether the Censor is still at work, but I see in private letters allusions to happenings which never appear in our public Press, and it does seem to me as if we were not quite sufficiently informed as to what is going on in India. Since it was known that the Secretary of State would make large concessions to Home Rulers there have been certain

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distinctly unpleasant symptoms in India. There were riots in the three great Presidency towns, and in all cases there was some evidence of political inspiration. As to Bengal, the Government of Bengal itself has said so in its resolution as regards the very serious disturbances in Calcutta. As regards the strikes in Bombay it has been denied, but in a private letter from an Indian who was behind the scenes and who also did his utmost to preserve tranquillity, these words occur—
"Home Rulers were abroad in the mill centres, instigating and assisting the strikers, and asking them to hold on."
In Rangoon troubles were planned, but were apparently frustrated by the action of Government. Other disturbances have taken the form of organised attack by Hindus upon Mahomedans. To the worst case of that kind the House has already had its attention drawn. That was in Bihar, when an area of 1,000 square miles was held up by the rioters for several days. Something of the same kind appears to have occurred at Katarpur on the occasion of the last Bakr Id ceremonies. From the little I have heard of that case it does seem as if effective steps were not taken in sufficient time, but that impression may be wrong, and, if so, doubtless the noble Lord will correct it.
In other cases disturbances which might have been serious have been averted by the prompt action of British officers. There is some significance to be attached to these happenings, and that significance must not be ignored. The number of Indians who really understand what Home Rule means is, in proportion to the population of India, very small, as the Report of the Viceroy and the Secretary of State admitted. But there is not a bazaar in all India where stories that Government is weakening or that Government is afraid would not be understood and would not be believed. That, I am afraid, is what is going on, and in a telegram from Delhi which The Times published yesterday there are these words—
"The Extremists appear to be animated by blind hatred of the Civil Service, which constantly finds expression on the platform and in the Press. The existence of this rancorous sentiment accentuates the difficulties of the political situation."
I fear that the gross calumnies against the Government of India and against everything British which are rife at the present time are becoming a source of growing danger to the peace of India.
LORD SINHA: My Lords, with regard to the second Question on the Paper, in so far as information has been asked for by my noble friend I shall proceed to give that information at once. As regards comments, with your Lordships' leave I will reserve them until I have given the narrative of facts. This Question relates to riots which undoubtedly took place in a village called Katarpur in September last. The information which has
hitherto been received by the India Office from the Government of India has been by cable, and is therefore necessarily meagre. I would have contented myself with giving your Lordships the bare facts as received by us by cable from the Government of India, but I thought it would give satisfaction both to the noble Lord who asked the Question and to the members of your Lordships' House if I were able to give a fuller account from any other source that was available, and I have accordingly compiled one from a newspaper account of the opening speech of counsel in the prosecution which has arisen out of this case, in order that your Lordships may have fuller information as regards the facts.
A serious not took place in the village of Katarpur, in the sub-division of Roorkee, in the district of Saharanpore, on September 18 last, and it is alleged that in the not at least thirty Mahomedans were killed sixteen injured, and a large part of the village burnt down. The circumstances which led up to the not extended over a series of some days. The village is one in which, according to the latest census Report, there were 538 Hindus and 238 Mahomedans, and there is a mosque, or idgah as it is called, in the village. The surrounding villages were in the main what might be called Hindu villages, and the town of Kankhal (also chiefly Hindu in population) as well as the great place of pilgrimage, Hurdwar, is also within a few miles of the village of Katarpur.
On September 11, the Bakr Id festival of the Mahomedans being close at hand, the police moved the sub-divisional magistrate to bind over the leading Mahomedan and Hindu villagers to keep the peace during the Bakr Id festival, which extends from September 17 to September 19 inclusive. They did so, inasmuch as there seemed to be a controversy—which is the usual controversy in these cases—as to whether Katarpur was a village in which cow sacrifice at Bakr Id was customary or not, and

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it therefore seemed necessary that precautions should be taken. On September 13, owing to the intercession of local officers, the parties appear to have come to an arrangement by which it was agreed that sacrifices should be quietly performed in the houses of two of the Mahomedans of the village. Later on, however, this agreement is alleged to have been repudiated by the neighbouring Hindus, with the result that on September 17, the first day of the Bakr Id, a crowd numbering thousands arrived at this village armed with big sticks. The local officers tried to get the people to come to some settlement but, failing to do so, wired to the sub-divisional magistrate at Roorkee to come to the place, and he arrived there on September 18, accompanied by a number of police constables. He found an excited crowd moving about in groups. It was when the local magistrate was present in the village that suddenly some cry was raised which seemed to be the signal for a general attack by the Hindus on the Mahomedans, who were fewer in number, and the huts in the Mahomedan quarter were set; on fire by groups of Hindu rioters. The fire stopped in the afternoon, and in the meantime an armed guard had been wired for from Roorkee. This guard arrived, and no further rioting took place. It is said that seventeen corpses were found by the sub-divisional officer, either burnt or partially burnt, and some more corpses were found later inside Mahomedan houses. A number of arrests were made later, and about 100 persons are now on their trial. At the proposal of the Local Government, a special Tribunal, constituted under the Defence of India Act, 1915, presided over by Mr. Justice Tudball, of the Allahabad High Court, was set up for the purpose. The Government of India has promised to telegraph the result of the proceedings as soon as they are finished. Those are the facts with regard to the rioting.
I do not for a moment seek to minimise the significance of these riots; but your Lordships will have noticed that this particular not in any case had nothing whatsoever of a political character about it. Unfortunately it is correct to say that these outbursts of religious fanaticism are still common in India, and on the occasions of these festivals, whether Hindu or Mahomedan, you find rioting taking place between the two factions of those communities. It is confined to the lower and
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poorer classes; and, after all, the real remedy for this state of things is the progressive enlightenment and education of those classes, and the closer co-operation of the educated and wealthier classes in both communities for the purpose of getting rid of or preventing these disturbances. This not had no political significance whatever, as I have already said, and I confess that I am surprised that the noble Lord took this as an occasion to point a moral with regard to the grant of Home Rule, which no one has yet suggested so far as I know, or anything in connection with that. Nor, if I may say so with regard to the three other riots mentioned—in Calcutta, in Bombay, and in Rangoon—is there any reason to suppose they had anything to do with the proposals for constitutional reform, or any reason of a political nature of that kind.
Your Lordships are aware that during the course of the war there has been considerable excitement amongst the Mahomedan population of India, an excitement which has in some cases and in some Provinces been shared by the Hindus. But to say that any of these riots can be justly ascribed either to the proposals for constitutional reform or to the supposed weakening of the Government, is, I submit, saying something which is not borne out by the facts. So far from the Report, of which so much has been said by the noble Lord, ignoring occurrences of this kind, as I read it—and as I believe most of your Lordships will have read it—the Report lays special stress on the fact that these religious dissensions still exist, that these religious riots still occur; and it is for that reason principally that they refuse to allow any control to the Legislative Councils over the departments of government which are concerned with the administration of justice and with the preservation of law and order. Therefore it seems to me at any rate, and I submit it with confidence to your Lordships, that to connect these riots—which have existed I am sorry to say for many years; long before any constitutional reforms were thought of—with the Report, or with the supposed concessions which are alleged to be going to be made, is somewhat far-fetched and unfair, if I may say so with great respect to the noble Lord.
After all, human nature being what it is, outbursts of this kind, however much we may deplore them, will occur from time to time. In countries blessed with one of

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the noblest religions, one of the most civilising and humanising religions known to the world, we find people fighting with each other, and we find them doing so not for any supposed spiritual benefits but for mere material benefits; and, after all, when these Hindus and Mahomedans fight on the occasions of these religious festivals, they are fighting, not for material benefits, but for what they believe to be the interests of their eternal souls. The only remedy is a closer co-operation of the officials with the more educated people for the purpose of spreading enlightenment and education amongst those poorer classes, and the more the people of the country co-operate with the Government and with the officials of the Government the greater will be the checks and safeguards for the prevention of these deplorable occurrences.
Lord SYDENHAM: My Lords, I beg to thank the noble Lord for his full description of what occurred at Katapur. As regards one point I must correct him however. He said that I had drawn attention to the fact that the Report of the Viceroy and Secretary of State ignored these disturbances. I only said that this Report had ignored the strong opinions of the non-Brahmin classes of India, which I am sorry to say is absolutely the fact.

INDUSTRIAL UNREST.
Debate on the Motion of Lord BUCKMASTER—viz., "That there be laid before the House Papers relating to the present industrial and economic conditions"—resumed(according to Order).
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, in rising to say a few words on the fourth day on which this subject has been under discussion, I am anxious not to detain your Lordships at any length, because the whole subject has been threshed out during the three previous days in a manner which, it seems to me, does the highest credit to the debates of your Lordships' House. Indeed, I think it is some time since that any of us could recall a discussion which has been signalised by so many admirable speeches, beginning with the masterly analysis of the situation which my noble and learned friend Lord Buckmaster made three weeks ago.
During that period various changes in the situation have occurred, or, if not
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actual changes of substance, at any rate the pattern of the kaleidoscope has changed several times, and it cannot be said even yet to be set into anything like a definite form. During these three weeks there have been all the agitations connected with the threatened coal strike, with the meeting of what is called the "triple alliance," and also the first attempt at gathering together a great industrial council. Most of the speeches in the debate have tended towards the side of the question of industry rather than that of finance, although the financial aspect of the situation has been by no means entirely neglected. I think that as the debate has begun so it is likely to proceed, and it may well be that at some later period in the session a more regular financial debate will be initiated from one part of the House or another, in which I hope all those noble Lords will take part who are specially competent to deal with financial matters, and, as we know, they are highly distinguished, and not few.
As regards the industrial situation, I think the note of all the speeches that we have heard has been a demand for more light to be thrown on the subject—more information to be acquired, not only by the workers but also, as we have been reminded by some speakers, by ourselves and other members of the capitalist classes generally. Indeed, there were some speakers—my noble and learned friend Lord Haldane, and also Earl Russell—who stated that so far as information was concerned we stood in a good deal more need of it than the Labour Party, or at any rate than many of the workers. In one sense there is no doubt a great deal of truth in those observations. The exertions of such an admirable body as the Workers' Educational Association, of which it is impossible to speak too highly, and the distribution of literature of all kinds, with some of which we might agree, with some of which again we might find ourselves in profound difference—all these things have no doubt produced an amount of knowledge amongst the workers very different from that which obtained fifty or even perhaps twenty-five years ago. But when the demand for more light and information is made, I do not think that it is doctrinaire knowledge or knowledge of the theory of political economy or of the distribution of wealth which is needed. When more light is asked for it is meant that misunderstandings exist regarding

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particular industries, and indeed regarding particular enterprises within those industries, which might be dissipated by a more complete interchange of knowledge between those concerned with them.
Take, for instance, one subject that has been widely discussed throughout our debates—that of the extra profits which have been obtained by some capitalists and regarding which there has no doubt been much ill-feeling created. Very few of us, I think, know very much about those extra profits. We have seen produced in the course of the debate large figures of the sums which have been subjected to excess profit taxes, and some noble Lords, such as Lord Emmott for instance, explained that it would not do to attach too much importance even to that enormous volume of figures, because in practice but a comparatively small fraction of it reaches the pockets of those who in popular belief may be supposed to get it all. It is most highly desirable that the real facts regarding the supposed gigantic profits made by certain capitalists should be known, and it may be hoped that some misapprehension might be removed and some discontent allayed if the actual figures and facts can be published. Of course, it has to be realised that where these large profits arise they are due to a great extent to the necessary inequality of circumstance in certain industries. There is no industry to which that statement is more applicable than that of coal or iron mining. The difference between the profits to be gained from the most advantageous conditions of the industry and the slender profits to be wrung from these concerns which are on the margin of profit, is simply enormous. Something similar, though on a smaller and less dramatic scale, is equally true of the industry of agriculture. We are told in quite general terms of the vast profits supposed to be made by some farmers; but there again, if you examine the whole business and attempt to measure the inequalities of circumstance, you will see how it arises that in a few cases what appears undue profits must necessarily be made.
The real question is, Do the workers seriously desire that all the elements of adventure and of good fortune should be eliminated from the prospect of the capitalist? Perhaps, to some extent, they may, and if they do one cannot be altogether surprised, because those elements, as industry is carried on in this country, are the exclusive property of the capitalists.
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The manual worker has no such chance. He may work under conditions which enable him to earn a somewhat larger wage than the average of his employment, but he has none of the excitement of the gold miner in the early days of California and Australia. He has no chance of striking a vein which will make him a prosperous man at once. Those streaks of good fortune are only open to the capitalist. But I am very far from believing that the manual workers generally would desire to eliminate those prospects of exceptional benefit entirely, if the general condition of their obtaining a definite share in the profits of capital could come into effect. Then, of course, in certain trades the element of skill means something exceptional with regard to the gaining of high or of extra profits. In the colliery-owning business instances may be found of quite solid and hardworking capitalists who have kept a mine going and made it pay sufficiently not to shut it down, and where their places have been taken by persons of exceptional skill and enterprise who have trebled or quadrupled the percentage of gain on the capital involved over a whole series of years. There, again, one has no reason to suppose that workers generally would desire to destroy that element altogether. I do not wish to weary the House by developing this line of argument, except to point out that it has a very definite bearing on schemes for the nationalisation of different industries. It has a very real bearing upon those schemes, although I do not wish to dwell upon it longer at present.
There is a second matter on which I am quite certain that more light is required—not light which can be obtained from text books, from works of political economy, or from leaflets issued by this or that association—I mean the effect on the workers of increased production. As the most rev. Primate the Archbishop of York stated in his speech, to which we all listened with such deep and continuous interest on the last occasion, everything depends on increased production; and, as the most rev. Primate added, it can only be obtained by the good will of the workers. That I believe to be profoundly true; and how are we going to set about persuading the workers as a rule that somehow or other they are not going to lose by increased production? I am certain there is no more difficult task than to hammer into the minds of those engaged in a great many

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industries the belief that it is a pure fallacy to suppose that you must limit the amount of work done or there will not be enough to go round. That is an ingrained belief with a large section of labour and somehow or other that belief has got to be dissipated.
The old-day memories of over-production, of statements all through the Press that there was a glut of this, that, or the other, and the consequent enforcement of short time—these things are fresh in the memories of the workers in many industries, and it will be no easy matter to persuade them generally that arguments in favour of cutting down production are founded on the sand. I remember a rhyme, often repeated in my boyhood, which must have dated I should think from a good many years earlier, back to the days of the Chartists. It ran—
"Eight hours work, eight hours play,
Eight hours bed, and eight shillings a day."
In those times that was regarded as a mere fantastic dream almost too remote from fact to be even amusing. Now the full accomplishment of that ideal presents nothing extraordinary. There are a great many workers who to-day enjoy it and a good deal more; just as, indeed, I may remind your Lordships, practically all the points of the Charter (which in their turn in those days were thought fantastic) have now practically become the law of the land. Therefore, the workers can feel that at any rate from the time of their grandfathers and even of their fathers no small progress has been made; but the plea that further progress is being made and is to be made can undoubtedly only be maintained, as has been already said by more than one speaker in this debate, by the association of Labour with Capital and with the management of the actual conduct of as many businesses as possible. It is no doubt a good thing that there should be a great Industrial Council on which Labour and Capital can sit side by side and discuss all the high problems of industry, but it is in the works themselves, and even in the shops of those works, that there must be perpetual and continual association, both to some extent in control as well as in the share of the profits of capital, if this state of industrial uneasiness is to be abated.
It has to be borne in mind, when we speak of the views of Labour as opposed to the views of Capital, that the views of Labour and of the highly informed and educated persons who speak and write on
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behalf of Labour are by no means identical. There are many warmly and sharply opposed views to be found among those who are ready for the time being to make common cause against the capitalist in certain industries. For instance, when we hear—and one or two noble Lords seem to me to have slightly approached that error—of the possible charm of nationalisation in certain great industries, whether it be mines, railways or shipping, or of the land generally, it has to be borne in mind that there is a very large and important section in the labour world and among the writers and thinkers who support labour to whom nationalisation combined with centralisation possesses very little charm indeed. You only have to see anywhere the keenness of the sort of argument that is carried on between the collectivist socialist pure and simple on the one hand, and what is called the guild socialist on the other, and you will get quite as keen, often acrimonious, an atmosphere of controversy as you could have if an unhappy capitalist was engaged with either. These are matters which have to be borne in mind, because what will have to be done in arriving at final conclusions on all these points will be to balance on the one hand the interests of the particular industry or craft against the interest of the nation as a whole. That is one of the tasks which will be found to be imperative but exceedingly difficult to fulfil by the industrial councils of the future.
It is interesting to ask, when we speak of a further share for labour of the profits of capital, why is it that so large a proportion of the most capable and vocal advocates of the labour cause appear to flout and to reject schemes of co-partnership and profit-sharing? That is a point which deserves the careful consideration of all those who study this subject. It cannot be disputed that these expedients, quite admirable as they appear to many of us, are regarded by many of those who speak for labour as being mere soporifics offered to them to lull them into a state of helpless quietude in order to avoid the approach of the real questions between labour and capital which they would desire to bring forward. I thought, if I may say so, that the most rev. Primate offered us one most valuable comment which is germane to this matter—namely, that it was altogether wrong to suppose that because the personal relations between a good employer and his employees were

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amiable and pleasant, that for that reason those employees were willing to set aside or abandon the particular ideal of improving their conditions which they and their friends hold. That seems to me a most valuable contribution to our discussions.
At the other end of the scale we have what has been described as Bolshevism. Perhaps it is unfortunate that that word has been so freely used in the discussions, not especially here but outside, in the sense of an extreme or anarchic socialist. It is a word which means, I take it, either simply an extremist or simply a member of the socialist majority. I am not a Russian scholar and I do not know much about the word, but, as we hear, it means "most" in Russian, and I have seen it explained in both those ways. The word has obtained an association of bloodshed and horror which naturally make us unwilling to ascribe similar ideals to any of our fellow-countrymen. But there are a certain number of persons in the United Kingdom—I believe them to be very few—who may actually aim at a sanguinary revolution in order to obtain their desires because they think they can obtain them in no other way. I do not doubt that. Nor do I doubt that so far as they exist they ought to be carefully watched. But I do also believe that they are very few in numbers, and that their aims and methods are simply abhorrent to the workers taken as a whole. The word "unrest" has been in everybody's mouth, and it no doubt expresses as well as any other the sort of thunderous condition of the atmosphere which we all feel.
I confess I agree with those who are unwilling to ascribe the unrest entirely, or even mainly, to the war. No doubt it has been coloured by the different circumstances of the war, by the utter dislocation of labour, even to some extent by the high wages, by the diminution of the purchasing power of money; but that it is in the strict sense due to the war—that is to say, but for the war it would not have existed—is I am sure not true. When one looks back to the position of affairs in 1913 and 1914 I cannot help feeling that in some respects if there had been no war this industrial crisis might have taken an even more dangerous course. Party spirit ran very high, class feeling was more acute in some respects and less disposed to be reasonable than it is to-day. After all, during the war, both at the Front and at home, there has been an amount of com-
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radeship and of association between people who would never have come together but for it, which must have a beneficial tendency even in the solution of these difficult questions. Consequently, looking forward, as one tries to do, as hopefully as possible, I cannot join those who say that but for the war this critical position would never have arisen.
I do not want to dwell at all to-night on the financial side of the position except to say that I hope that there also we may continue to receive more light in the way of information than we have received in the immediate past. There have been many departures during this last year or two from the customary procedure of Parliament and the ordinary lines of administration, some of them, as I think, unfortunate and ill-considered, but in the present financial condition of the country I venture to think that there is one departure which ought to be made. I do not believe that we ought now, as regards our general financial position, to be told that we must wait for the Budget speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer before we can receive general information as to our condition, as to our national solvency, if that is not (as I think it is not) too high to put it. Clearly there are certain matters, such as the imposition of particular taxes, or, what we less expect to see, a reduction in others, which must wait, for fiscal reasons, until the actual terms of the Budget are disclosed; but I think that there ought to be something in the nature of a continuous public audit of our finances in the House of Commons or by publication by the Treasury in order that we may know, to an extent which we certainly do not now, how we stand in relation to certain definite facts.
Every now and then, of course, information is obtained. Yesterday Mr. Churchill's statement upon the probable expense of the Army—an exceedingly capable utterance, as one would expect—led us to suppose that the ordinary cost of the Army, when the present situation had somewhat cleared up and demobilisation had taken place, would at present be something like £400,000,000 a year. That is a formidable figure, because many of us had hoped that it might soon have touched half that amount, which, again, we must remember is equal to the entire expenditure of the country immediately before the war. I do feel that it would be a great advantage, and that it is really almost due to us from

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His Majesty's Government, that there should be a continuous stream of financial information proceeding from the Treasury, and, if necessary, from the different Departments.
One or two noble Lords seemed to assume that the original Motion represented something like an attack on His Majesty's Government, and appeared to resent some of the comments which my noble and learned friend Lord Buckmaster made. I thought some of those complaints were exaggerated. It is true that in certain points my noble and learned friend thought that the negotiations of the Government had not been altogether happily conducted, but it appears to me that he was quite within his rights in saying so, holding the views that he did. In fact, I think that His Majesty's Government have to some extent their more injudicious friends and supporters to thank for what they considered to be the undue criticisms of my noble and learned friend. In some degree also those criticisms are the consequence of certain declarations of their own, especially during the General Election, but more I think are they due to the character which has been ascribed to them by some of their supporters on the platform and in the Press. They have had ascribed to them the quality of perpetually dealing with emergencies by happy strokes of intuition rather than by the results of solid study and thought. It is quite clear that great industrial problems of this kind can only be settled by close study and by anxious thought, such as the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack stated His Majesty's Government were giving and were prepared to go on giving to them, and in arriving at such solutions His Majesty's Government can undoubtedly rely upon the support of all persons both in your Lordships' House and elsewhere. We certainly do not expect that solutions can be reached by happy coups de main. They are bound to be the result of anxious examination and sometimes of what must be a hesitating advance. Therefore I, for one, am not at all inclined to complain or to blame His Majesty's Government if they do not come down every morning with a fresh solution of a great industrial problem.
It appears to me that there are two objects, if our public life is to regain its solidity, which we have to attain. In the first place, I think that His Majesty's
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Government have to set themselves to obtain in the country the same confidence in their stability of thought and general solidity as the country has already in their energy and in their resource. In the second place, I venture to think that Parliament has to regain its position as the "grand inquest" of the country. There is a tendency to conduct inquiries and to arrive at solutions outside Parliament. I hope that His Majesty's Government will not be tempted to have too frequent recourse to expedients of that kind, carrying out a series of petty inquests instead of the "grand inquest of the nation." Because I feel sure that extra-Parliamentary inquiry and the direction of affairs by those who are not responsible to Parliament must in the long run tempt others to extra-Parliamentary action of all kinds. That is, perhaps, the most serious prospect that could befall this country if it came to be generally believed that things could better be done outside Parliament than in—whether it be the conduct of an inquiry or the obtaining of an advantage for industry by what people are pleased to call "direct action" rather than through legislation or the administration of Departments which are subject to Parliament. Those, I think, are the two objects which His Majesty's Government ought to have before their eyes in connection with these industrial questions; and if they pursue that path I firmly believe that we shall in due course find our way out of the somewhat dense thicket in which we are now involved.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: My Lords, I think we are all agreed that this has been a very remarkable debate, and I hope that when I sit clown I shall be able to obtain from your Lordships the verdict that I have said nothing that has been already said in this debate. But I feel that we can make a real contribution to the "grand inquest of the nation" on its social order by saying with perfect frankness what we think ought to be said and by making our protests against any want of publicity or any of the methods of secret diplomacy in dealing with this question, with which is bound up the very life and existence of the nation.
In the speech to which we listened with so much interest from the most rev. Primate a few nights ago, he summed up the position somewhat thus—that what the great mass of what are called the working classes are after is not pay but status. We cannot conceal from ourselves that the

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thoughts of a great many of these men towards this House and those whom we represent are unkindly. But this debate, I hope, will show those who study it that there is no reciprocation in this House of any such feeling. Quite the contrary. I say without any fear of contradiction that the general sentiment of this House and of those classes whom we specially represent is wholly and whole-heartedly with the workers in their desire for improvement of status. More than that, we have a most profound belief in our fellow-countrymen—in their common sense, in their sense of justice, and in their capacity to deal with questions. The only thing we are afraid of is lest they should try and deal with very complex questions too hastily and expect a realisation of their hopes without the essential preparation.
We have heard a lot in this debate about profiteering, but we have never had any definition of profiteering. Profiteering cannot mean that a man is better off after the war than he was before the war, because, if that was the definition of the profiteer, then a very large proportion of the working classes would be profiteers. The definition of a profiteer must be somebody who has become to an undue degree better off after the war than he was before the war. I wonder how many members of the organised unions realise that, while they are actually better off to-day than they were before the war, vast numbers of their fellow-countrymen whom they are accustomed to think of as more fortunate than themselves are very much worse off now after the war than they were before the war. Take that great mass of the population which is embraced within the general term of the middle classes—the agricultural landowners, the professional classes, many of the smaller tradesmen. In respect to them, all people with fixed incomes or with incomes flexible to a very small degree, it is true to say that they are paying at the present moment anything from 33 to 50 per cent. of their income in Imperial and local taxation, and that as to the remainder of their income which they are not so paying their expenses have doubled, even after they have made all possible economy. Therefore that great mass of their fellow-countrymen are relatively much worse off at the end of the war than they were before the war, and in respect to them the members of the trades unions have relatively greatly improved their position. I doubt very much whether
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any consideration of that kind is often present to those who take part in the debates of the trade unions. Of many members of your Lordships' House it would be true to say that they are paying in Imperial and local taxation half their incomes, and that their expenditure is double in respect to the other half.
The particular occasion of this debate and of the national anxiety arose from the demands particularly of the Miners' Federation—demands for wages, for hours, and for the nationalisation of the industry. It was wholly reasonable that the Federation should put forward those demands if they thought these were questions that required investigation; but what was really wholly unreasonable was the expectation that such a complicated question could be answered quite shortly and simply; and it was still more unreasonable—I think this ought to be said—to put forward those demands at a moment when the heads of the Government were absolutely immersed in the most critical negotiations at Versailles. It was absolutely impossible—and those who put forward these demands must have known it was impossible—for the principal members of the Government to give their attention at the same time to the question of the peace of the world, to the League of Nations, and to these industrial demands; and I do not think there was any justification for putting them forward at that moment. I am very glad that the Prime Minister and his colleagues did not abandon their work on the League of Nations but pursued that for the moment to the end at that particular stage and then came over here. They really ought not to have been put in the position of having to consider two such sets of questions at the same moment. There is no body in this country more loud or honest in their profession of attachment to the principle of the League of Nations than organised Labour at the Trade Union Congress. But what an extraordinary inconsistency is it that, at the moment when we are trying to get the nations of the world to put to the arbitration of some Court questions affecting their vital interest, this should be the moment chosen by those great trade union organisations to present an ultimatum—because it was an ultimatum—and to rattle the sabre in the scabbard.
How is it possible to expect nations to follow the way of arbitration and of law as long as trade unions refuse arbitration

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or law, and resort to the old discredited methods of the ultimatum and of the threat? Surely it is impossible to expect the realisation of our hopes about the League of Nations unless these great industrial questions can also be submitted to some kind of arbitration or some system of law. The inconsistency is so great that I hope the members of the trade unions will consider whether there is not some justice in my criticism. What is it that we hope the nations will do? We hope that the nations will consent to abandon what may be declared as their selfish claims for the sake of the good of mankind as a whole. That is exactly the problem which confronts the trade unions. The nation is greater than the trade union; and unless and until trade unionists will admit—as a great many of them, like Mr. Thomas, have again and again admitted—that the nation is more important than the trade union, it is impossible that they can be in the right frame of mind to approach the solution of these questions.
Nothing has been more common than the accusation that in past days when they had the power the landowners used their power for their selfish interests, or that the manufacturing classes used their power for their selfish interest; and I think the accusation up to a certain point was true. The fact is that selfishness of that kind is almost always unconscious; it arises from a want of imagination. The class in question does not put itself into the position of other classes, or realise what effect the policy is going to have on others who are at the moment less powerful to make their voices heard. But to-day it is no longer the landowner or the manufacturer, it is the trade unionist who is the governing class in that sense; and surely we may hope that he will benefit by the example of the past and the criticism that he himself has made, and that in dealing with these questions he will remember that it is not his own class alone which he has to consider but the effect of his proposals on the nation as a whole.
This leads me to draw attention to another aspect of the question—lightly touched upon by my noble friend Lord Crewe—which is to my mind one of great importance, and really of great peril, namely, the tendency to establish alongside the National Government another Government that is sectional, an imperium in imperio. I do not think it is any ex-
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aggeration to say that there is a tendency in that direction. Hitherto all classes in this country have only looked up to one Government to which they owed allegiance, the King's Government, the Government that is reposing in the last resort on the will of the majority of the people of this country who for the moment have the vote. But at the present time that people is a very large proportion of the country. There are 17,000,000 electors on the Register. A Government elected once every five years by those people must be held to be the only Government in the country entitled to the national allegiance. To put up alongside of that a Government with no constitutional position, but to which a section of the population, two or three or four millions, render their allegiance in preference to the National Government, is the sure road to national disintegration. Remember also that the Labour Party are themselves likely to be the King's Government within a few years. If we live I have no doubt that we shall see a Party in power which is neither Conservative nor Liberal nor Coalition, but the Labour Party. Surely it is unwise, with that prospect before them, that they should encourage this tendency to establish a rival Government which the Constitution knows not and which only represents a section of the people.
With that tendency there is also the tendency to take out of Parliament, to some outside authority, the decision of questions which can only be decided in Parliament. That, again, is a disruptive tendency, leading I know not whither, and in that connection I have only two more suggestions to make to your Lordships. The first is that there is a constitutional aspect of this problem which was lightly touched upon by my friend Lord Brassev the other night, and which may be referred to tomorrow night. It must be evident to all of us that the Parliamentary machine has hopelessly broken down, and that unless we can mend it in time this great and irreparable misfortune may occur, that the great masses of the people will lose faith in the machine and in the form of Government. It is in that connection that I want to ask organised labour if they have really realised what nationalisation means as applied to our system of Government. To nationalise the railways, or the mines, or land, may be a wise or unwise thing, but I say it is absolutely incompatible with our Parliamentary system of Government.

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I go back to the observation which I made at the beginning of my remarks, as to how extremely unreasonable it was on the part of the Miners' Federation to expect a prompt and indeed immediate answer to their demand for nationalisation. I have seen it stated even in the organs of the Press which are not the organs of the Labour Party, "Oh! why could not the Government say they were in favour of nationalisation in principle." I can conceive of nothing more dangerous and unwise. It might mean half a dozen things. Lord Haldane said that if you go to the top end of Tothill-street you can obtain literature dealing with all these things. I have no doubt you can find at least half-dozen schemes dealing with nationalisation, and for the Government to accept it in principle would be a certain forerunner of misunderstanding. As Lord Crewe said, a Socialist and a Syndicalist have totally different views of what nationalisation means, and they are not the only people who have different ideas on the subject.
I wish to drive this point home—that, whatever form it may take, nationalisation is quite incompatible with our Parliamentary system. Consider the railways, the mines, the transport services, and the land, in addition to the post-offices, the dockyards, and the police, as Government institutions. Every Member of Parliament when a candidate would be subjected to a series of questions from the representatives of each of these industries and all their branches, asking hint to pledge himself, when he went to the House of Commons, to vote for improvements in wages or other conditions of employment. It is bad enough to-day with the few dockyard constituencies and with the Post Office, but what would it be when all the great industries were nationalised? The House of Commons would become nothing but a wage auction. It would be the total and absolute destruction of the House of Commons and of our present system of Government. When I see this question of nationalisation mooted in the Labour Press, or by Labour speakers, I never see that side of the question even alluded to; vet nobody who has had experience of the House of Commons, or been a candidate for Parliament, can possibly say that I am uttering an unnecessary or futile warning. Therefore, my Lords, I have endeavoured to put these points forward, because I do not think any of them have really been touched upon in this
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debate. What we have tried to do in this debate is to put our contribution forward towards the solution of this question. The struggle, as the most rev. Primate said, is status. Status can only be surely founded by taking into account all these facts, which cannot be ignored, and if ignored will defeat the attempt to improve conditions.
VISCOUNT WIMBORNE: My Lords, I do not rise at this late period of the debate with the object of adding to or attempting to restate the general propositions stated by previous speakers. My object is a different one. I do not think that there has been great difference of opinion between the various speakers on the main fundamental broad propositions. The Government have stated their attitude, which we also gathered from the Speech from the Throne and from Ministerial utterances. They seemed to me to indicate that the programme of the Government is both comprehensive and bold and well-deserving. The analysis to which they have submitted the present condition of unrest seems to me to be both sympathetic and penetrating, and their determination to redress inequalities on the one hand and to resist the dictations of any section of the community on the other is at once sincere and statesmanlike. I think that on the main propositions we are all more or less agreed; therefore it is only on the application of those general propositions that I think further emphasis may be laid with some advantage.
In dealing with the present situation two instruments lie to the hands of the Government. The one is legislative and the other administrative. Legislation, however well conceived and however beneficial in its ultimate results, must necessarily be deferred, whereas administrative action can be immediate. I do not think the urgency of the present situation is in dispute. Therefore it seems to me that it is to administrative action that we must look for redress and for improvement. Indeed, my Lords, one of the objects of the Coalition, so far as domestic affairs are concerned, and the reason which obtained it a very large measure of support at the General Election, was that there should be in existence at this time an Administration in which there was the general confidence of all Parties and of all classes; and I think the result of the Election did in fact produce that very state of affairs.

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What, then, is the duty of the Administration at the present time? There seem to me to be two salient facts in the industrial situation, both of them, I admit, presenting very formidable difficulties. One is the vicious circle that exists in regard to wages and the cost of living. Cost of living goes up, and that constitutes a ground for a demand for additional wages. The granting of that demand in its turn forces up the cost of living further, and provides another ground for additional wages. There is also the equally vicious anomaly of unemployment on the one hand and a shortage of commodities and services on the other. It is to break this vicious circle of ever-hardening irreconcilability which forms the administrative problem at the present moment. The question is where to begin. Where can the most effective blow be struck, and a return to more normal and more wholesome conditions be begun? It is a curious fact that food—which certainly played a very important part in bringing the war to an end, and which still is, I believe, one of the most formidable weapons in the Allied armoury for bringing about the peace which we are determined to have—should be again the key to our national difficulty; because it is the price of food which more than anything governs the cost of living. It forms by far the most important part in the ordinary working man's budget, and, as we all know, the price of food to-day is at least double what it was before the war.
A very interesting and instructive debate took place in your Lordships' Chamber last week. I wish it lad been better attended. It was raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Devonport, on the question of food prices. He speaks with all the knowledge and authority of a Minister who has been Food Controller. He went most exhaustively and in great detail into a great many of the staple articles of food, tracing their origin, showing the cost they were to the Government and the retail price at which the Government dole them out to the retailer. As far as I can summarise that statement, it amounted to this—that the Government had been, and indeed for all I know may be to-day, in the practice of making something between 20 and 30 per cent. profit on many staple articles of food—meat, sugar, and several other articles. That statement on his part has not been contradicted or challenged. The noble Earl the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in reply, relied
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mainly for his defence upon what I think is a rather curious point. He thought that in the interests of the efficiency of the public service the Government were entitled to make what he called an "honourable profit" out of the transaction. It is not very difficult to make such an honourable profit when you happen, in the first place, to be a monopolist and, in the second place, to be armed with such authority as the Government have for fixing prices. But I feel, my Lords, that to take that attitude in view of present conditions is really quite unjustifiable. It is all very well for the Treasury, as no doubt they do, to say, "We have to set off this profit against loss." I do not know how far that theory can be carried. It really is to utilise the distribution of food as a means of raising money, and it surely could not be contended that other public services should be paid for out of the profits derived from the food transactions.
But I go a great deal further. I say that not only are the Government unwise in making a profit on food, but they ought to be prepared, if necessary, even to incur a loss; and if I am accused of encouraging further expenditure on the part of the State, let me draw your Lordships' attention to this. Only the other day, in response to the original demand of the miners, the Cabinet proposed to grant an addition of 6s. per week to the miners' pay on the very ground that the cost of living had gone up by that amount since the last arrangement had been come to. I am sure your Lordships will not deny that to add even 6s. to the miners' wages must add to the price of coal, and that, of course, is nothing less than a tax on the community and a tax on industry which must come back to the general consumer. It is the most vicious form of taxation possible. Even if you were to incur a loss by adopting my suggestion, you are incurring a burden in the other direction. It would be far more satisfactory to reduce the general cost of living and to get back to a more normal condition than to increase the illusory inflation of wages.
Let us consider the second question—that of unemployment and of shortage of commodities and shortage of services. Unemployment is considerable, and may indeed rise to very serious proportions. There is a great deal of inevitable dislocation, and this has threatened the country with something like stagnation.

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Business has not revived as we had hoped it would, and the labour market is not absorbing as many of the men coming back from munition work and from the Army as one would have hoped. But it is not entirely the fault of industry. Industry is faced with great difficulties. There is a lack of raw material; there are falling markets, which discourage the early and prompt resumption of business; and, further, there is the uncertainty with regard to conditions of labour and with regard to taxation. I have no doubt that this state of things may slowly right itself, but there is a gap which must be bridged, and so far as I can see it can only be bridged by State action. If ever there was a case for public works of a reproductive and remunerative kind the case exists to-day. If we look across the Channel we see that the French authorities are proposing to put into execution the long-contemplated plan for razing the fortifications and bringing the land into profitable use. That is in the nature of a public work to tide over the present difficulty until trade and industry are restored. I do not say we need go so far as to contemplate anything of that kind.
But take the public services. They are depleted, and that is bad for the public services and for business generally. For instance, our railway service might be restored to something like its pre-war condition. That would give employment. Then nobody can pretend that the postal, telegraph, and telephone services are at anything like full strength. Delay is notorious, and I cannot help feeling that these services are depleted. Then there are other public works. There are roads, which in many districts are in a deplorable condition. Surely work might be instituted on roads. Then, with regard to the housing scheme which we are promised, I quite believe there may be difficulties in getting it started; but could not something be done in the direction of assembling materials for that purpose? My point is that anything of that kind would be better than having a million people out of work, as we are informed is the case to-day, and paying something like £1,000,000 a week on unemployed benefits to those who are not working.
Let me come to my third point with regard to taxation. What I think is needed is a clear pronouncement on the future of the Excess Profits Tax. That
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would go a long way to restore confidence on the part of manufacturers and labour. Speaking in this House the other day Lord Emmott claimed that profiteering had been immensely exaggerated in the public mind, and I agree with him in what he said. It is quite true that most of us are much poorer as the result of the war than we were before. On the other hand, there is no doubt that profiteering has occurred on the part of a few, and it has produced a very bad impression in labour circles. With regard to the fact that labour itself has received some eight or ten times more profit than capital it must be remembered that all wage profiteering has to a great extent been discountenanced by the increased cost of living. I think a statement on that subject would go a long way to reassure labour that excess profits were not going to be countenanced, and it would also enable manufacturers to know what amount of liabilities they may have to meet. The three points I have tried to make are in the first place, that it is necessary to reduce the cost of food, and that even though it cost you money it would be the cheapest in the long run; secondly, that you should give employment and not doles; and, in the third place, that you should attempt to define the liabilities which manufacturers will have to meet. I think those three points would constitute a sensible advance in dealing with the practical issues which lie before us at the present moment.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (VISCOUNT PEEL): Probably your Lordships will forgive me if at this hour I do not make a complete attempt to answer every point that has been raised in this widely-ranging debate. I should like to make this observation, that I cordially agree with that was said by Lord Selborne. He said that throughout this debate there was shown the utmost sympathy with the desire of the working classes for an improvement of their status. Anyone who knows this House will consider that that was the case, but it is perhaps as well that this statement and feeling should be recorded and reiterated as it has been through all the speeches during this debate.
Many of your Lordships—more particularly the most rev. Primate, Lord Russell, and others—have rather told us not to look at the temporary causes of this industrial

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unrest, but rather to consider that it is more a revival in a different form of all those causes of disturbance in the industrial world which have gone on for many years before the war, and which would perhaps have appeared in a much stronger form if there had been no war. No one contests that as a general proposition, but I am one of those who would like to lay some stress on the actual causes of unrest due to the war itself, because I believe that a good deal of the special form of impatience shown is due to special causes arising out of the war itself. When one talks about industrial unrest it is difficult to limit the causes of the unrest. There is a state of unrest everywhere. We are all in a state of unrest, and some of the symptoms exhibited by the working classes are only part of a more general disturbance which has agitated us all.
I had rather special opportunities at the Ministry of National Service of observing the movement of industry, the disturbance of trade and of labour, which went on during the last two years of the war. One saw an elaborate process, described as selection, dilution, substitution, and many other phrases of that kind, by which labour was drawn from all sorts of industries and poured into the Army. You saw all these industries running with greater and greater difficulty, and making greater efforts to cope with decreased production and suddenly increasing charges. That was done slowly. As the war progressed your industries became either war industries or gradually diminished in force and volume. When you had almost a condition of atrophy in industry the reverse takes place, and you have to fill the old veins of industry with this rapidly returning labour. That task of adjustment is enormous, and supposing there existed no feeling between Capital or Labour, or any of these troubles, it would alone in my own opinion account for a great deal of the existing disturbance. Here we were during these years of war as one nation braced for this tremendous and single effort of dealing with the war and beating Germany. Suddenly that pressure is relaxed and at once we are thrown on the thousand distracting and disturbing aims which beset us the moment we get back again into ordinary civil life. There are so many little matters, physiological causes, which one ought to note. There is the question of food, and the curious substitutes we have been living on; the restrictions in drink, and the changes in
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drink. All these matters are quite enough to produce a disturbance in temper, and possibly promote physiological changes in us of which we are hardly conscious, but which issue in disturbance and unrest.
This debate has taken a wide range. In some ways the Government have been almost ignored and forgotten. There has been, I think, some appeal to the Government to act in certain ways, and a little criticism. I think it was Lord Buckmaster who was one of the few who suggested the shadow of a criticism on the Government. I think his objection was that these difficulties were enhanced by the Government because they were rather apt to wait until a strike took place and then merely to act under the pressure of necessity. Of course, there have been some cases where no doubt a strike and the action taken by the Government were so nearly contemporaneous that it did suggest a sequence of cause and effect, but those cases, after all, were very few, and gave a very unfair picture of the Government's general activity. The noble Lord ignores those hundreds of cases—I think I am justified in saying that—where these disturbances were settled without any great announcement in the Press, without matters being discussed in Parliament, but settled by the action of the Department, or by the action of those industries acting collectively among themselves. There must in a time of war be a lack of adjustment between the Government machine and the movements in industry. One is going rapidly, and the other can hardly adjust itself in a moment to the different requirements which arise, and which arise from so many causes that the keenest administrator and the sharpest officials are unable to keep track with them all. I think we have known cases where such matters as honours and positions have been granted, not always to the most worthy persons but to those who have been most active in pressing their own claims.
The noble Lord referred to the question of Election promises, and seemed to suggest that an abundance of Election promises had produced rather a larger measure of discontent. In the course of the Election I read a considerable number of election addresses from persons on many sides, and professing many views. I am bound to say that many of them were written with a certain breadth and largeness, and a profusion of detail, which suggested that the war had broadened the view of many of these gentlemen. May

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I remind the noble Lord that, after all, a very large number of the Members of Parliament are new Members without political experience, and no doubt after they have had a little more experience of another Assembly they will have the caution which is generally characteristic of older politicians. But there is one cause, which I do not think has been alluded to in this debate, for the general disturbance, and that is the immense fatigue that many people are suffering, the terrible reaction from all the labours that they have put forth during the war, whether at home or abroad. Certain disturbances—unwillingness to work if you prefer to put it that way—are not really due to sloth but to weariness, and a few months of change no doubt may cure, or largely cure, that defect.
On the question of profiteering, which has been so much discussed, the noble Marquess (Lord Crewe) declared, I think, that it would be a good thing if some inquiry were made to ascertain the extent and nature of the profits that have been made. I was, I confess, rather surprised to hear an observation coming from Lord Russell who admitted that a very large proportion of these profits inured to the Government and were collected in the form of excess profit tax by them, yet said that that did not satisfy the industrial classes. I do not understand that statement. I should have thought that the question whether these profits went to the Government or to private individuals would make an immense difference, and indeed the reason very largely that they were introduced was not only to obtain money but also to satisfy the feeling of the industrial classes against the making of excess profits.
There is another matter which was alluded to the other day by Sir George Askwith in a statement that he made at one of these conferences. The feeling of the working classes that they have had considerable increase in wages, that they have had, many of them for the first time, more money to handle than they have had for years past, and the deadly fear gnawing at their hearts that that might stop and that there might be a large fall in wages, and that they might be in a worse position than they had been during the last few months, explained to a large extent the unrest. Undoubtedly that anxiety exists, and it does account to a large extent for the unrest. My noble friend Lord Lever-
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hulme, took I think, in his speech a very cheerful and rosy view of the whole situation, and rather attributed these disturbances to a general discontent which he was good enough to characterise as divine. No doubt much of the discontent prevailing may be due to the desire, with which we all sympathise, of people to improve their position and status; yet when some of those disturbances result in the sufferings of others and in general annoyance, as in the case of some recent strikes, one is inclined to think that part of this discontent at least arises from a less celestial origin. We can look forward, I think, with perhaps a little more degree of hope than was aroused by some speakers, because, after all, the causes that are sufficient to account for much of the unrest are causes which are passing away as we gradually move from the time of war.
The business outlook, it must be admitted, is difficult enough, even if there were no industrial unrest. We are still a creditor nation. We have not got that pleasant balance of imports which we used to have before the war, and it must be admitted, too, that some of our assets, some of what bankers would call our loans to customers—our loans, for instance, to Russia—will have to be considerably written down before they can be entered in any honest balance sheet. Then the concentration of all our efforts on war industries has necessarily shaken our hold on foreign markets, and there must be a long and tedious effort before we can recover the position which we held before we can recover the position which we held before the outbreak of the war. Not only must we expend great effort before we can begin that task, but we have to spend much time, trouble, and labour in making our industries the profit-earning machines that they were before the war. So much has to be expended in repairs and improvements before the machines of industry will be equal to starting again on their victorious race for production. In addition to that we have those matters that have been already alluded to—the great burdens of taxation, and the question of indemnities. Indemnities are very difficult to assess and take long to collect. Prices of commodities and materials are so high that the working capital for industries has to be more than doubled. Thus there are obstacles necessarily in the way of industry. There are, too, those difficulties alluded to by my noble friend Lord Wimborne—that the Government has large

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stocks of various kinds the sale of which may affect the price of commodities and therefore may be disturbing to those who are trying to base their future calculations on existing prices.
There are difficulties enough in the industrial situation, and if we were all skilled economists, if we were all as well read in Fabian and other essays as the noble Viscount, Lord Haldane, thinks the working classes are, we should, I think, take up this very simple attitude. We should say, "Let us set our industry going, let us do our repairs, let us regain our position in foreign markets, let us put our currency on a new basis, then, when we have got again a large production, let us agree among ourselves as to the division of the profits of industry, as between employer and employed." Unfortunately we are not all political economists in that sense, and the necessity of that vast increase of production so essential to our national life is not fully recognised in many industrial quarters.
One lesson I think of political economy is being appreciated and understood, and that is the proposition, known among economists, of the difference between real wages and money wages. I think that every housewife now understands that a certain amount of money goes less far in the way of purchasing bread and other commodities than it did. It is now realised that when it is a question of increasing, say, the price of coal, it is not only every industry which is affected by it, but every hearth in the country also. That is the difficulty, as my noble friend Lord Wimborne pointed out. You have a rise of wages in a particular industry, and unless that is followed by a rise in other industries the persons working in those other industries are penalised, because they have to pay more for the commodity while their own wages have not risen. Some are bound to be penalised until you have an equilibrium, and when you get that equilibrium you find that it has brought with it an increase in prices all round, and those whose wages have been raised find that they are no better off than they were before. There is, however, this difference—that those who have to live on fixed incomes are much worse off than they were before. The difficulty is that, if one element gains any particular advantage, that has first of all to be shared by the
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others, and then is neutralised when they all share it.
There have been a great many problems touched on during this debate. The Archbishop of York made a very interesting suggestion as to what he called the democratisation of industry. That is a very large phrase and needs some interpretation, according as he means that the workers in a particular industry should have the control of that industry, or partial control of that industry, or simply a share and interest in that industry. There is unfortunately this difficulty as regards the democratisation of industry, that you must have decisions rapidly taken or your industry may disappear. You cannot get decisions rapidly taken in democratic government, because you must consult everybody, and until they are satisfied, or fairly well satisfied, you can take no action. Nobody, for instance, from a business point of view would have dreamt of carrying on the war on a voluntary basis, but you would have put it at once on a compulsory basis and distributed your man-power among your various industries and among your Army. That is a difficulty which we have to take into consideration. With large numbers of people concerned you cannot come to a definite decision quickly and your industries may suffer. It is a very different thing, of course, when you come to giving them an interest in the industry—such an interest that they may understand and realise the difficulty and the risks that are run by manufacturers, merchants, and capitalists; they have then, no doubt, more sympathy and understanding of the way in which business is carried on. The Archbishop of York referred to the possibility of getting the employees interested in the whole business in which they are engaged. Great sympathy on the part of the Ministry of Labour would be shown to them, but of course it must be left to the different industries themselves as to the precise and practical application of this matter.
I had intended to give some slight sketch of the policy followed by the Ministry of Labour before, during, and after the war, but it is difficult at this late hour to deal with it fully. Generally speaking, there was during the war very great control; strikes and lock-outs were made illegal, and arbitration was made compulsory. The Government before had observed the fair wages clause, and taking its cue, as it were, from other industries,

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became during the war a great employer, and therefore it has had to set the rate of wages, making allowance, of course, for extra compensation where high prices of living necessitated it, and leaning somewhat the other way when great demands for labour led to undue inflation in the price of labour. After the war, of course, the whole situation is changing. Then it was necessary to get commodities at any price; now the question of the price at which those commodities can be obtained is again of larger importance. All those arrangements for compulsory arbitration and the forbidding of strikes have now been relaxed, and the Government are reverting as far as they can to the position which obtained before the war and allowing these industries—with certain limitations, of course—to settle their wages and hours of labour.
One of the matters on which the Ministry of Labour lays great stress, and which has been, I think, commended by various speakers in the course of this discussion, is the Whitley Councils—those joint industrial councils formed as the result of the Whitley Report. Great progress has been made in the establishment of those Councils. Something like twenty-four have been already set up in very important trades; another eighteen are in progress of formation, so that you will soon have no less than forty-two of these permanent industrial councils, embracing something like 2,500,000 workpeople, in such trades as building, baking, electrical contracting, furniture, printing, waterworks, and the non-trading services of the municipalities. In addition to that, there are certain other trades where interim industrial councils—a smaller kind of council—has been set up covering some 200,000 workpeople. There is another set of great industries which have organisations of their own, not going so far into detail as the Whitley Council; and the Ministry of Labour are now applying the Whitley Report to the Civil Service, which numbers 230,000 people, and have realised that these Councils are equally applicable to the employments and clerical occupations and professions.
Before the industrial situation absolutely re-establishes itself a great many interim measures have been found to be necessary. There has been first the question of the temporary regulation of wages—maintaining for six months the wages, with the bonus, at the same rate as at the Armistice.
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This is in the case both of men and of women, and elaborate arrangements are made for finding out precisely what the prescribed rate is, and seeing that it is paid. Then, of course, great changes have been made in the matter of hours. The Government gave the lead in the case of the railwaymen with their eight hours day, and then an arrangement was made with the Engineering Federation and the engineers for a forty-seven-hours week. I will sum up the general result by saying that these arrangements for reducing hours have been effected in the case of 3,000,000 workers and are already in progress in the case of 1,000,000. Then the Bill for dealing with the war pledges is in draft and is being considered by the employers and the employees concerned—that is to say, to do away with the changes which were voluntarily agreed to by the trade unions during the war. These mainly affect the distribution of work between skilled and unskilled workers and women. Appeal committees will be set up to deal with any difficulty that may arise.
There is no doubt an impression, which you see reflected in the newspapers, that there is general industrial unrest all over the country. As against that, it is rather remarkable to cite the number of disputes about wages and so on which have been settled without any public announcement and without any blowing of trumpets. In the Courts of Arbitration 292 of these have been settled, 134 by single arbitrations and another six by Courts set up for the purpose. So that besides the disturbances which those who study the newspapers observe in the important trades—the coal trade, for instance, to which I am not now referring—there is an immense amount of quiet settlement of every kind of industrial dispute going on. With regard to the particular industries in which these Whitley Councils have not been set up the Government is very anxious and is pressing that they should be set up, in the hope that by constantly meeting together and by interchange of information there will be a better spirit, less suspicion, and more trust engendered between the employer and employed in those particular industries.
I should like to mention one more point on the question of investigation into the causes of disputes, and publication. No doubt that would be a very valuable thing. The public is marvellously uninstructed as to the causes and issues in many of these

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labour disputes. You have reports in the newspapers not always setting forth with cold, scientific, implacable accuracy a statement of the case; and it would be valuable if you were able to get some neutral body which would examine into the matter and place before the public the exact position of the case and the views of the parties, thus enabling them to form on these matters an impartial judgment. There is no doubt that the Government have before them a gigantic task in dealing with these labour questions, a task which requires all the tact, judgment, and patience that could be demanded from any Government. These are possibly only matters of machinery, but they are a symptom of a much broader spirit in the relations between Capital and Labour; and when this machinery is set up and these industrial councils are in full working order that spirit will be widened, enlarged, and deepened by the fresh sympathy it must engender through masters and men getting a far greater knowledge of each other than they have had an opportunity of obtaining before.
In spite of certain threatening symptoms—which I am bound to say have been very forcibly dealt with by many noble Lords, notably by Lord Emmott, who took, shall I say, a sadder view of the situation than any other speaker—there are nevertheless many hopeful signs. First of all, during the war a great many persons have learned to work very much harder than before. Then we have shown that we had far larger resources of labour of various kinds on which to draw, which have been disclosed to us by the stress of the war. There is also the gradual feeling of relief more and more realised from the perils which we have escaped, and the growing freedom which we are enjoying through the continuous relaxation of Government controls and Orders, in which we were necessarily so much involved during the war that even the most industrious citizen would hardly
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escape the halter. Then I think, in contrast to disturbances in some countries we could name, a very comforting fact is that among all the leaders of Labour there is a strong demand for higher and improved education. I think the great extent to which the status of teachers is being raised in this country is a sign of the greater value that is attached to educational necessities. That desire for education can hardly be consistent with a country which wishes to plunge into the throes of revolution.
Then there is further—this, I think, was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Selborne—a greatly increased sense of responsibility shown by the leaders of the working classes, knowing as they do that they may very likely soon have the government of the country in their hands, and they may be unwilling to start precedents which may have a tendency to re-act upon themselves. Moreover, I think it is incredible, considering the great development of that spirit of co-operation between classes and of comradeship shown in the war between officers and men, that this spirit should not have a reflex effect upon civil struggles and industrial warfare. So that I think many of these cases show that without undue optimism, we need not look upon the future with such comparative gloom as some noble Lords have looked upon it. We have heard of nations beaten in war succumbing to the stress of industrial disturbance and civil commotion, but I do not think you can point to any precedent of a great nation which has sunk into civil struggle after having victoriously emerged from a war. That is a precedent so disastrous that I hope we shall never set it up; and I trust that a country which has so gallantly surmounted the waves of war will not founder in the dismal abyss of internecine broils and civil strife.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
House adjourned at five minutes before eight o'clock.