Lords Sitting of 21 July 1920

Preamble
The House met at a quarter before four of the clock, the LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (WIDNES EXTENSION) BILL. [H.L.]
Amendments reported (according to Order).
DUNDEE CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order) and passed.
SHEKLETON'S DIVORCE BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed and sent to the Commons.

A FIXED EASTER.
LORD DESBOROUGHrose to draw attention to the inconveniences arising from Easter being a moveable Feast and from an antiquated Calendar; and to move to resolve—
That His Majesty's Government be requested to summon a Conference at the earliest possible opportunity to consider the advisability of (1) the establishment of a fixed date for the celebration of Easter; and of (2) the reform of the calendar.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I should like, in the first place, to apologise to the House for the length of time that this Notice has been on the Paper, but that was not entirely due to me. I had some communication with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and I should like to take this opportunity of acknowledging, with all thanks, his extreme courtesy and kindness in this matter. He asked me to be in no hurry to move this Resolution, as there were coming to this country no fewer than 250 bishops, with whom he would have sonic chance of discussing the matter.
382
I took up this question not from any personal point of view, but rather as the mouthpiece of a very large number of Chambers of Commerce and other mercantile bodies who, for very many years past, have been carrying resolutions in favour of a fixed date for the celebration of Easter. These different congresses of Chambers of Commerce have been held many times during the last ten years, and the London Chamber of Commerce, the Association of Chambers of Commerce of Great Britain, the Chambers of Commerce of the British Empire, of which I happen to be President, and the International Chambers of Commerce, which, at their last conference before the war, represented 37 nationalities, unanimously passed resolutions in favour of a fixed date for the celebration of Easter, and for fixed dates for the great holidays of Easter and Whitsuntide. During last month the congress of the International Chambers of Commerce met in Paris again and unanimously reaffirmed the resolutions to which other Chambers of Commerce had previously arrived.
I do not wish to place any great church reform on the mere ground of Chamber of Commerce opinion. The only satisfactory solution that could be arrived at would be an agreement among the Christian churches for a fixed date. But though the Easter celebration primarily concerns the Church, the inconveniences arising from an indeterminate date for Easter and Whitsuntide are felt by the community at large. Easter is the central Festival of the Church, and upon Easter depends not merely the Festivals and Holy Days of the Church which follow, but also those which precede Easter. Under the present system for the computation of Easter it would be possible for that central festival of the Church to vary no less than 35 days—that is to say, between March 22, which is the earliest possible date after the spring equinox, and April 25. This variation causes a very great deal of inconvenience, to say the least of it, to schools and to universities and it affects law terms and the great national holidays of the people.
There is, I believe, considerable fear that these inconveniences are so severely felt that there may be a lay Easter as distinct from the Ecclesiastical celebration. We have seen instances of that already. Easter happened to be early this year—namely,

383
on April 4—and a great many schools did not break up for their Easter holidays till after Easter Sunday. Next year it will be still earlier—namely, on March 27—Whitsunday being on May 15. It is quite unnecessary to dilate on the great inconvenience to the whole community of this variation from year to year, which upsets the business, economic and social, of the whole community. But it affects also comparative statistics. If you take the financial year from April 6 to April 5, you will find that in the years 1900 to 1920 only six years have one Easter, seven years have two Easters and seven years have no Easter at all. This is very disturbing to those who are concerned with comparative statistics and the national finances.
I am anxious not to be considered as approaching this subject except in a proper and due spirit of reverence. But it is well known that people do not remember the exact day of these great religious festivals. The early Christians and the Apostolic Fathers did not lay stress on any particular date. The words of St. Chrysostom with regard to this are, I think, very beautiful words. He says, "The whole of time is a festival unto Christians because of the excellency of the good things which have been given." To an early Christian, therefore, the whole of the year was a festival. With regard to the date of Christmas, it is well known that in early days it was celebrated on various dates. The Eastern Church, I think, celebrated it on May 20, and also on January 6, which was the date generally adopted by that Church. The date for the celebration of Christians was not fixed until the fourth century. As sometimes happens in connection with the institution of festivals commemorating great events, December 25 was chosen largely because it coincided with the then existing great festival welcoming the return of the sun after the longest night of the year.
In the same way Easter was also made to coincide with an existing festival which, at that time and in pagan times, was celebrated to welcome the advent of spring. Our name Easter is derived from Eostre, the Teutonic goddess of spring. It is most fitting, it seems to me, that the great events of the Christian year should be made to coincide with those great physical facts. At the Council of Nicæa, which was held in 325 A.D., it was decided, so great were the controversies raging at that
384
time, that in determining the date of Easter, whatever happened, Easter should always be celebrated on a Sunday, and that was brought about largely in consequence of the Arian heresy into which I need not go. It was decided by the moon. But the whole question was how to determine the moon. Finally, it was decided in the time of Pope. Gregory XIII, in 1582, to adopt the Metonic system of calculating the moon. It had been discovered that. every nineteen years the new moon fell on the same day, and that is really why, to find the golden number, we have to divide by nineteen, and perform certain other calculations, which, I admit, I have made during some of the less interesting sermons to which I have listened. But though the moon was adopted for the purpose of fixing Easter, it is not the actual moon in the heavens, nor even the moon of astronomers that regulates it, but an altogether imaginary moon.
My point in saying this is to show that there is nothing irreverent in the Church establishing a fixed date for the celebration of Easter, because it is not supposed to be the actual anniversary of an historical event. If it were so, it would be quite impossible for it to vary as much as thirty-five days. It has been very often lamented that the Council of Nicæa did not establish a fixed date for Easter, and also that Pope Gregory XIII did not do so when he reformed the calendar in the year 1582, though his reform was not adopted in this country until the year 1752, which is not so very long ago. I have been told that the opposition to any reform of this character would come from the Churches, but I have reason to doubt whether any Church is now very much opposed to it, and, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to be allowed to read a letter of some importance, which appeared in the Roman Catholic paper, the Tablet. This letter, I may say, is by far the most interesting article on this subject that I have read. It is written by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Salford, and I think it is important as some indication of the views which are held by the Roman Catholic Church, or the See of Rome, in this matter.
I think we should all of us admit that the Holy See, is a very disciplined institution, and that neither the Tablet nor a Bishop would be very likely to adopt a very strong view in this matter unless

385
there were grounds for considering that it was not opposed to the views of the authorities. This is what the Bishop writes—
"I am delighted to see that the Tablet has taken up, and with approval, the idea of a fixed Easter. That is a reform that has long been needed, and now that the system of 'Summer Time' has been internationally accepted, it does seem that there is a hopeful outlook for this reform also. The dogmatic dangers and difficulties of the early centuries involved in a change of the Paschal calculation are no longer existent, and there can surely now be no objection from the theological point of view. Of course, the qua non condition must be that Easter Day should always fall on a Sunday, and that being granted the reform appears to me the simplest thing in the world. We have only got to take our missal and breviary—I presume the Anglican liturgical books agree in this—and we find that in what I may call the normal or typical year there should be just six Sundays after Epiphany, and twenty-four after Pentecost. Surely all that s required is a fiat from competent authority that this normal year shall always be observed, instead of the abnormal irregularity which now prevails, when we may have five, four, three, or even only two Sundays after Epiphany, and have to interpolate them at the other end of the year, before the twenty-fourth after Pentecost (even this cannot always be done; witness the 'fourth Sunday after Epiphany' this year; that had to be kept on a Saturday, January 31). By the very simple and obvious method mentioned above, Easter Sunday would just oscillate. within one week and no more, and could fairly be styled a fixed Easter. No alteration in the calendar would be needed; in fact, everything would be normal. Of course, for the Catholic Church, the Holy See could make the change with a stroke of the pen; but I do not anticipate that there would be any difficulty in negotiations to induce the Governments of the various nations to agree, as the advantages are so very obvious. The name of Benedict XV would deserve to go down to posterity side by side with that of Gregory XIII."
think this letter really shows that the hostility of the Churches—and I was always told that the Roman Catholic Church would be more hostile to any change of this character than any others—is, at all events, exaggerated. As regards the Anglican Church, I have a great many letters from clergymen who strongly support the institution of a fixed date for Easter. I have also had letters from the heads of various universities and colleges, who have submitted the matter to their various synods and councils arid are unanimously in favour of a fixed date being established for Easter.
I think that goes far to show that there is a very widespread feeling, not merely among commercial men, but among the universities and the law. So far as the I am is concerned a committee was appointed
386
to go into the question aril it was practically agreed that the legal holidays should be fixed absolutely irrespective of the Church festivals. It would be very deplorable, indeed, if the secular holidays were absolutely divorced from the great Christian festivals. It is obvious that if this reform was carried out by consent on the part of the two great Churches, the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church, the consent of the other Churches would, I think, necessarily follow. The matter was widely considered before the war by other bodies, though, of course, the intervention of the war prevented any action being taken. The German Reichstag, before the war, passed a resolution in favour of a fixed date for Easter and a reformed calendar. The Swiss Government has intimated its willingness to summon a conference and the Holy Synods of Russia, Rumania, Serbia and Greece, have sympathetically considered the proposition, as also has the Council of the Vatican. After so much consideration has been given to it I trust His Majesty's Government will lend a helping hand and be willing to do what the Swiss Government was prepared to do so as to ascertain the wishes of the Churches in this matter.
I do not propose to say much about the second part of my Motion, which refers to the reform of the calendar. It has been advocated by commercial bodies for a long time, and it is obvious that you will not have an absolutely fixed Easter until the calendar is reformed. I will not go into this complicated matter in detail; it is one for astronomers. Three Bills have been before Parliament on the point, and I have a fourth Bill in my bag. It is a question which can only be settled by competent authorities. But, whenever Easter Sunday be fixed, some heed must be paid to the. fact that a reformed calendar will have some effect upon the date; it will stereotype the date. The Lower House of Convocation of Canterbury considered the matter as long ago as May 5, 1911, and their suggestions can easily be carried out. The committee which was appointed by Convocation to consider this subject made three stipulations, one of which was that in the event of Easter being fixed it should be. a Sunday in the first half of April. That would narrow the date down to either the second or the third Sunday in April.

387
I hope that in any official reply on behalf of the Government we shall be told that something can be done. I have a somewhat intimate connection with the commercial community as represented by Chambers of Commerce, local and associated, and I can assure your Lordships that the impatience of business men is getting rather acute. It has been working up to a head for the last ten years. Whatever may be said I sincerely trust it will not lead the commercial community, or any other community, to wish to divorce the national holidays of the people from the sacred rites of the Church.
Moved, to resolve "That His Majesty's Government be requested to summon a Conference at the earliest possible opportunity to consider the advisability of (1) the establishment of a fixed date for the celebration of Easter; and of (2) the reform of the calendar."—(Lord Desborough.)
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, the noble Lord has referred to the communications which he has most courteously had with me on this matter and to my request that there should be no hurry in bringing the subject forward. It so happens that this year there is a larger Church gathering in this country of the bishops belonging to the Anglican Church than ever before, and there is at this moment a delegation from the Greek Orthodox Church who have come over in order to confer with the Committee of the Lambeth Conference. I have had an opportunity, which will not occur again for many years, of taking such counsel as may be necessary. I have not thought it desirable to bring the matter before the great assembly of ecclesiastics, but I have had many private conversations with leading men from all parts of the world who are able to speak on behalf of public and ecclesiastical opinion in their own countries.
I will not follow the noble Lord into the ecclesiastical or astronomical portions of his argument. I congratulate him on the care he has taken in searching out the rather obscure and difficult historical records. The astronomical calculations were always beyond me; and they are beyond me now. The practical question is obvious. No one is blind to the inconvenience of the changes (and apparently unmeaning changes from year to year) in the date of Easter and the necessity of looking into ecclesiastical
388
books in order to find out on what date Easter will fall the following year. I may say at once, so far as the ecclesiastics with whom I have been in conference are concerned, that there is no objection at all on their part to the change suggested, provided certain conditions are satisfied. I am speaking now, not on behalf of the Greek Church, but on behalf of the Anglican Church in England, America, Austria, India and elsewhere. We all feel strongly that the holidays should not be divorced from the period of ecclesiastical celebrations. We believe that there are gains in the association which we shall be sorry to lose, and we think it is most important that that should not be ignored in any settlement, if a new settlement be made.
In the next place we think it quite necessary that the Anglican Church throughout the world, in England, America and the Colonies and Dominions of the King, should not be divorced from the other ecclesiastics of Western Christendom—at any rate, that is to say, we should expect. concurrence on the part of the Roman Catholic authorities in any settlement that may be made, and, failing that concurrence, we should have to reconsider our position, because we should not like to have an Easter which differentiated us from other Churches of Western Christendom Further, we should think it to be essential, or very desirable. that the Sunday fixed—of course it must be a Sunday; that goes without saying—should fall within the range of the thirty-five days during which Easter at present falls; it should not be transferred to any other part of the year, although I am not aware that at present there is any such suggestion. It should be upon a fixed Sunday, on which it might. quite naturally fall in any year if no action were taken; that is to say, that within a thirty-five days' range a Sunday should be chosen to which we could agree.
Given those conditions, so far as the Anglican Church is concerned, I have every reason to believe that it would be entirely acceptable to us that Easter Sunday should be a fixed Sunday and not a variable one. That there would be some men with ecclesiastical and archaeological interests who might object to it I do not doubt, but I think they are negligible in number, and not the most authoritative in status or weight of opinion. Therefore, so far as the Church for which I have any right to speak

389
is concerned, either at home or across the seas, I do not think that any opposition should be anticipated to any proposal, if any be made. I say "opposition to be anticipated ". because I hardly think it is the business of the Church to start the matter and to arrange that the thing shall be promoted. We ought to be approached by those who, on practical and business grounds such as were mentioned by the noble Lord, are feeling keenly the inconvenience of the matter, and then they would find, I am sure, the sort of response to which I have alluded.
With regard to the Eastern Church the case is not quite the same. At this moment the calenders of the Eastern and the Western Churches are different, with this peculiar and, to the noble Lord, gratifying fact, that in a formal letter which I have received from the Acting-Patriarch of the Orthodox Church in the East, one of the things which lie said he would desire that we should confer with them about was the obtaining of a reformed calendar. He did not go further and say how it should be reformed, but from private conversation which I have had with distinguished ecclesiastics of the East, I have no reason to anticipate technical opposition to proposals which may he made. But, whether that be so or not, I necessarily do not attach so much importance to concurrence with us on their part as I do to concurrence with us on the part of the Western Church. We mast be identical with the great Church of the West as represented by the Church of Rome. If those conditions which I have specified are met—and they seem to be covered by the noble Lord's observations—I should be disposed to give more titan a willing reply to any suggestion that may be made to us, such as the noble Lord has adumbrated.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, the question which the noble Lord, Lord Desborough, has brought before your Lordships' House this afternoon is one of great interest and of no little importance, and we are indebted to him for the interesting and careful explanation which be has given to us of the history of the manner in which the date of Easter was fixed in the past, both in the able speech which he has just delivered and in the valuable letter which he contributed to The Times of yesterday. I think that we are all of us agreed that the incon-
390
veniences of a moveable date for an important festival like Easter are obvious, and that if all the various interests and opinions were agreed as to a policy, it would be of general advantage if steps could be taken with a view to carrying that policy into effect.
I am, however, somewhat doubtful whether the course recommended by the noble Lord to-day is one which His Majesty's Government could usefully adopt, at any rate at the present moment. Lord Des-borough has told us that at the meeting of the International Chambers of Commerce, held in Paris in June, a resolution in favour of securing a fixed date for Easter was passed unanimously, and that this motion reaffirmed resolutions passed in former years by many Congresses of Chambers of Commerce, both national and international. Thus we may accept the fact, I think, that the views of the commercial community in a large number of countries are in favour of the proposed change. As Lord Desborough pointed out in his letter and this afternoon, the matter is one primarily for the Christian Churches—Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox. Here we have no such definite pronouncement of opinion, as has been passed by the International Chambers of Commerce, but we have had very valuable evidence both from the noble Lord, Lord Desborough, and from the most reverend Primate that the reform would not receive unfavourable consideration from many communions; for instance, the Catholic Church. Lord Desborough has quoted an interesting statement by the Bishop of Salford to that effect.
As regards the Anglican Church he has told us that the Lower House of the Convocation of Canterbury were inclined in 1911 to regard the proposal with a certain degree of favour, and the most reverend Primate pronounced most definitely this afternoon that the change would be favourably regarded on certain conditions. As regards the Orthodox Church, I gather that there is cause to think that the idea might not be regarded at all unfavourably but we have not heard how the proposal is viewed by other branches of Protestant opinion, such as the Scottish Church, the various Nonconformist Churches in this country and elsewhere, the Protestant Churches of France and Switzerland, and the Lutheran Church. Nor have we any knowledge of the views

391
of the Armenian Church—a not inconsiderable body of opinion both in the Old World and the New—and there are various other communions, who perhaps may be less in numbers than those I have mentioned but whose agreement would be none the less of importance.
It is plain that although there is strong cause for belief that whilst many, if not all, Churches would be inclined to give favourable consideration to the proposal, there is no evidence of unanimity such as obtains in the case of the Chambers of Commerce. I therefore think that before any steps are taken in the direction advocated in the Resolution, it would be desirable that the views of the Churches should be ascertained more definitely. This is a matter which would seem to be one more for the Churches themselves than for His Majesty's Government to undertake. Even, however, were the views of the Churches to be as unanimous as those expressed by the Chambers of Commerce, His Majesty's Government would still be obliged to ascertain how the majority of the community of the British Empire would consider the alterations. A change in the date of Easter would, of course, affect the holidays both at Easter and at Whitsuntide, and it would be necessary for His Majesty's Government to inform themselves of public opinion, and especially industrial opinion, on the point. I am not by any means saying that such opinion is hostile to the principle, but it would be necessary to make quite sure that it is favourable before any definite steps were taken in the direction advocated by the noble Lord.
Let us grant, for the sake of argument, that the Churches had expressed themselves as unanimously as the Chambers of Commerce, and that public opinion here was entirely in favour of the change, and definite and unmistakable voice had been given to that opinion. There are still difficulties in the way of following the suggestion of the noble Lord at the present time. I would ask your Lordships if the present is quite the time to consider a change of this kind? Look at the political condition of the world, especially in Eastern Europe. Would it be possible now to summon a really representative Conference, or to arrive at a satisfactory decision on this point to-day? I feel sure that until times are more settled and more normal it would be scarcely be possible to
392
hope for any satisfactory result of an international character from a special Conference summoned to deal with this question.
I hope the noble Lord will not think that I am unduly throwing cold water on his proposal, for I can assure him that we are not unsympathetic to it, and I may perhaps quote to him the action of the Government in 1911 as an illustration. In that year the Swiss Government invited His Majesty's Government, among other Governments, to a Conference to discuss the two questions of the reform of the Gregorian calendar and the date of Easter. His Majesty's Government agreed to take part, provided that other important Powers were represented, but although the Conference was adumbrated in 1911, down to August, 1914, when war broke out, no information had been received by His Majesty's Government as to what Powers had accepted the invitation, and the Conference has never been held. If difficulties were experienced in calling a Conference between 1911 and 1914, I think it is obvious that the difficulties at the present moment would be much greater. I must express my regret to the noble Lord that His Majesty's Government are unable to accept his Motion, which they feel bound to do, not from want of sympathy with the idea which is in his mind, but rather because they regard the method that he suggests as one which at the present time presents difficulties of such a character as to render the proposal impracticable for them to carry out.
LORD DESBOROUGH: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Earl for what he has said. He has alluded to the action of the Swiss Government in 1911, and I may say that the want of diligence of the Swiss Government induced me to. put down the Motion that now appears on the Paper. I am much obliged to the noble Earl for the sympathetic words he has used with reference to this Motion. I rather doubt myself whether it is necessary to consult the very large number of churches he has mentioned. I think it will only require two Churches to fix the conference again, as was done previously. I am still more grateful to the right rev. Primate for the very sympathetic manner in which he spoke of this Motion, and I hope I may have some opportunity of consultation with him as to the manner in which he would most prefer the Churches

393
to be approached. I have done a good deal in the matter, and I have no doubt that I shall be able to do a little more, with his sympathy. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

UNIVERSITY FINANCE.
EARL GREYrose to draw the attention of His Majesty's Government to university finance. The noble Earl said: My Lords, my object in putting this Motion upon the Paper was two-fold. Firstly, I had intended to ask His Majesty's Government whether they would consider the total remission of the Excess Profits Duty as applied to funds subscribed to universities, in order to benefit the universities; and, secondly, because I thought that unless some such remission or facility was granted the universities would very shortly find themselves in such. a position that a very great financial burden would be thrown upon the Government in order to prevent universities coming to grief financially.
Since I put the Motion upon the Paper, a discussion has taken place on an analogous Resolution in another place. In the Committee Stage of the Finance Bill an Amendment was moved that 5 per cent. of a citizen's income should be free from taxation if applied to certain charitable purposes, and it was pointed out by the mover of that Amendment that it was not altogether a new suggestion inasmuch as in the United States of America 15 per cent. of a citizen's income is already so freed. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, I am afraid, was not able to give any sympathy to that request, in so far as it affected Income Tax and Super Tax. Although I could find it quite easy to sympathise with him in not seeing his way to meet the request on the point, of Income Tax and Super-Tax, yet I was very sorry to see the reasons that he gave for his refusal. They were two—firstly, that such a request had always been consistently refused by his predecessors, and, secondly, that it would be a very unfair thing to do because a rich man who made a subscription to a university or a hospital would be given a much larger proportion of remitted tax than a poor man who was taxed at a lower rate. I do not think that is at all a wise point of view. Suggestions for the remission of taxation on subscriptions to charit-
394
able objects are not made in order to assist the individual who makes the contribution, but it seems to me that they are made in order to assist the institution which is to receive the subscription.
Universities differ, if I may say so, from other charitable institutions, such as hospitals, in that they already receive very large subventions from the Exchequer, and the relief which would be afforded to universities would really relieve the Exchequer itself from having to make good deficits at the end of the year, as is the present custom. Therefore, the case of universities stands upon a totally different footing from the case of hospitals.
When the Chancellor of the Exchequer come to deal with the situation of a remission of Excess Profits Duty, to some extent he conceded the principle of the request; but, I am afraid, to a very small extent. The actual words of the new clause which he moved, and which was adopted without discussion in Committee in order to be further discussed on Report, are not very dear as I read them, but the noble Earl will correct rue if I misinterpret them. As I read it, the concession that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is prepared to give is as follows: Supposing a firm made £200,000 profits, of which £100,000 was liable to Excess Profits Duty, they would be allowed to withdraw £5,000 out of that £100,000, hut only on the assumption that they added to that £5,000 a sum of £20,000 out of the first £100,000 which was not liable to Excess Profits Duty. The contribution which was freed from Excess Profits was not to exceed 20 per cent. of their total contribution.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: The deduction must not exceed 20 per cent. But I will deal with that later, if the noble Earl will allow me.
EARL GREY: The deduction, as long as Excess Profits Duty is as much as 60 per cent., would not, I am afraid, alter the total proportion very much. Apparently my figures are a little, too severe, but, as I have worked them out, it seemed to me that three-fifths of one-fifth would be the remission which would be given as long as the Excess Profits Duty stands at 60 per cent.; in other words, that 12 per cent. of a firm's total contribution might be withdrawn. I do not think that 12 per cent. of a firm's contribution is a sufficiently large inducement to be worth anything at

395
all. Presumably, in making even that concession—which I admit is one of some value—the Chancellor of the Exchequer must have realised the real need for making a concession. Therefore, I am sorry that he was not able to go far enough to make the concession he was willing to offer a real one. If I am right that it amounts to only 12 per cent., I think it is also true to say that it would not always amount even to so much as that. For instance, on a falling market it would not necessarily amount to that; because what is paid in one year in Excess Profits Duty can be reclaimed in the following year, if there is a falling off and a loss is suffered instead of a profit made.
There is another reason why I am not prepared to admit that to sacrifice some portion of the temporary Excess Profits Duty is a real sacrifice. Unfortunately, we all know numberless instances of what I am afraid must be called great extravagance, which the nature of the Excess Profits Duty has induced many firms to adopt. I dare say several of your Lordships have received advertisements, printed on the best hand-made paper, with wonderful engravings—cost no object—which would never have been issued unless the firms concerned had been able to do it out of Excess Profits. I know of one case where a firm employed a lawyer to fight in the Courts a case which went on for two years, and which they knew they had no chance of winning. Their reason was that they wished to give employment to a particular lawyer, and, the Excess Profits being at that time at a very high figure, the State, and not themselves, was paying for that lawyer. We all know of numberless cases of really extravagant expenditure—firms, as it is frequently described, looking about to see how they can spend money rather than pay it in Excess Profits Duty.
Therefore, if the result of making a real concession as regards contributions to universities being free from liability to Excess Profits Duty, did bring about a certain proportion of that money going to the universities instead of being wasted on other objects, I believe it would be not only a great primary gain to the universities but also an indirect gain in that the deficit, for which the universities expected to be reimbursed—and are to be reimbursed at the end of the year—would not be so large as it will otherwise be. I should say that any remarks I make about universities are
396
made to apply only to provincial universities in England, in which the case is entirely different from that of Oxford and Cambridge, and, I regret to say, also different from that of Scottish universities, which are so much better looked after by the noble Lord whom I see here. The expenses that fall upon provincial universities are, to a very large extent, forced upon them by the educational policy of the Government. They are the coping-stone to a great building of which the foundations have been laid by the Government; and you cannot broaden the foundations and at the same time narrow the roof you put upon it. Therefore, if the great extension of primary and secondary education, which is the accepted policy of the Government, is carried through—as I hope it will be—it is impossible to accuse universities of extravagant plans if they are forced to develop at the same time.
The Armstrong College, which is the Newcastle branch of Durham University (a body with which I am connected) received a letter from the Chairman of the University Grants Committee, in May last, in which he 'quoted the average percentages of the various sources from which the incomes of the English universities are drawn. The Parliamentary grants account for 39 per cent., the local authority grants for 14 per cent., the endowment incomes for 12 per cent., leaving fees and miscellaneous sources to supply the other 35 per cent. I give those figures in order to remind your Lordships that a very large proportion of the existing expense is already borne by the Exchequer. In a letter that I received no later than yesterday from the distinguished principal of Sheffield University, he said—
"I have talked over the matter with my colleagues in other universities, and I am afraid that we shall all have this year a pretty heavy deficit."
I do not know to what extent it is true to say that the Government is always pledged to meet those deficits; but, as a matter of practice, so long as the Government is satisfied that these universities have done their best to meet their own burdens, those deficits are, as a matter of fact, borne out of Parliamentary grants.
Why is it that these difficulties are arising to-day? The answer is really very simple. The value of money has halved, and the number of students

397
seeking admission to universities has doubled. There is not a university in the country which has not been forced to create a waiting list, to turn people away; even ex-Service students, whose university career is to be financed by the State, are not able to obtain immediate admission. I suggest to your Lordships that that congestion is not a temporary phenomenon. It is not a phenomenon solely due to the war. It is, no doubt, accentuated by the war, but I do not think it is fair to say that it is primarily due to the war. Public schools and secondary schools are just as crowded, and that, at all events, cannot be said to be a result of the war. I think it is also true to say that the Education Act of 1918 is not responsible for that congestion. That Act is only a sign. It would not have passed through as easily as it did if there had not been a very wide demand for increased facilities for education, and it is a sign of the permanent increased demand, the difficulty to meet which we have to face to-day. When that Act comes into operation the present congestion will be further increased. A very much larger number of men and women will go through a course of education which will take them up to matriculation standard, and a large proportion of them will be of a calibre which is fitted to make the utmost use of university teaching.
An answer was given in another place, the day before yesterday, as to the yearly sum we are spending on education. The amount was, I think, upwards of £45,000,000. That is bound to be an increasing sum. Yesterday I received from the secretary of the County Education Committee in Northumberland his estimate of what it will cost to put the 1918 Act into operation in the county of Northumberland. It is not a complete estimate. For several items,—evening class instruction, and university education, for example—he puts down no figures. The estimate is deferred; he cannot tell me yet what it will cost. But in the County of Northumberland, which has no really large towns, his estimate of the capital expenditure for bringing that Act into operation is over £700,000, and of-the annual expenditure, £280,000. Half the annual expenditure, I know, is to be borne by the State, but the other half means an additional county rate of over 1s. in the £ on the top of all the other increases from which we are suffering at present, and it
398
is very difficult to over-rate the gravity of those figures. Practically it means that provincial universities will not be able to look for any considerable amount of help from municipal rates. Such heavy educational burdens are already being thrown upon municipal rates by the Act of 1918 that it is very doubtful—until, at all events, we have some rearrangement of local and Imperial taxation—whether the universities will be able to receive any help additional to that which they receive now from that source.
At the same time it is unthinkable, if you embark upon such an enormous scheme for progress in education, costing so much, that you are going to turn round when you come to the final stage, which many people would say is the most paying stage of all, and the one most worth while persisting in, and say to would-be students, "Well, we are very sorry. It is quite true that we should like to give you this education, but we simply have not got the funds with which to do it." The extent of the demand, if they are to have funds to do it, is really very great. It comes under three headings, first the heading of salaries. The existing salaries are wofully inadequate, and not only so, but if you double the number of your students you cannot expect not to increase the size of your staff. The Principal of Sheffield University, in the same
letter that I have already mentioned, says—
"The other day we Advertised a junior lecture ship in physics at £300. If we had advertised it before the war at £200 we should have got a score of applicants. This time we got one, which was so insufficient that we had to withdraw the advertisement and start afresh at a higher figure."
The increase in the number of students, which is the result partly of a national awakening and a wish for education, intensified as it will be by the operation of the 1918 Act, forces the hands of those who are in charge of our universities.
They have to do what they can to extend. It is not a matter of choice with them; they are bound to increase their staffs, and if they are to retain professors and teachers and lecturers who are qualified to give the high class instruction which the provincial universities have been so famed for giving in the past, the salaries themselves will have to be very much increased. Not only that, but on the science side an increase of students means not only an increase of staff, it means also an increase

399
of equipment. It is not like the art side, where you can perhaps cram eighty students into a classroom which before was meant to hold forty. On the science side an increase of students must mean more building and more equipment. Already, at all the universities, lectures are being given in relief. The same lecturer has to give his lecture to two, or even more, classes in order to fill the room by reliefs, because it is impossible to deal with them all at once. That, again, puts a very great strain upon the professors themselves.
Lastly, another very great need with which they are faced is the need for hostels and playing fields. No doubt to some extent hostels are a counsel of perfection, but if you are going in for university teaching at all it seems to me a thousand pities that you should have to cut off the provincial universities from giving what is probably the most valuable feature of all the valuable features to be got at the old universities of Oxford and Cambridge. It is in the corporate life outside the classroom where a great deal of the best education and interchange of thought take place. Therefore, I hope that the Government will consider very seriously whether they cannot go rather further than they now propose in order to induce the private benefactor to make larger subscriptions.
As regards the Excess Profits Duty, we still believe that it is only a temporary tax, and if, at the cost of some remission of a temporary tax, you can encourage firms to get into the habit of making real, substantial contributions to their local universities yon will have achieved a very great deal, and you will have given real relief to the Exchequer; because, when that tax is withdrawn, the habit of contributing to provincial universities will remain, and the more you encourage that habit of contributing, the smaller will he the deficit which the Exchequer is called upon to meet at the end of the year. I, therefore, urge upon the Government to look upon this question of the universities, and the question of hospitals and other charitable institutions in a different light, and, if they cannot meet them in the way that has been suggested, at all events to devise some other way of encouraging private benevolence.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, I think that the noble Earl who has just sat down has rendered a public service in bring-
400
ing this question before the House. It is a question which is too much neglected. We hear, on all hands, of other phases of education, but the serious situation as regards the future of the universities is one which is commonly overlooked. I agree with the noble Earl in thinking that the concession which has been made, for which those of us who are interested in the universities are grateful, is one which will not go far towards solving the problem which we have to face. But it is a good sign that, since the noble Earl first gave notice of his Motion, the Government have moved in this direction even to the extent of making this concession.
I have lived in close communion with these young provincial universities since their birth. I am Chancellor of one. I know their difficulties; I know their financial struggles, and I know the almost desperate condition of their finances. But it is not only to the new universities that my sympathies extend. Oxford and Cambridge are fulfilling great national missions; so are the Scottish universities; and they are all in need, partly for the reason to which the noble Earl alluded—that there is a great influx of students and a great demand for further teaching—and partly for the still more deep-seated reason that, there has been, as the result of the war, an immense increase in the demand for higher knowledge. I call it the higher knowledge to indicate the learning of the university type as distinguished from the learning of the school type.
As I shall point out in a moment, I do not think we have got to the end of that demand. If the demand is to be met, it means spending money, and I am one of those who have shared the national concern about the increase of expenditure. There is, however, a certain amount of expenditure which you cannot avoid. If you wish to raise a crop, you cannot avoid spending money on preparing your fields, and that is what you do when you start your educational institutions. Whether you are starving them or not, depends upon the necessities which they have to meet. If we are to produce more in this country, if we are to keep up to the level which international, competition is demanding of us, if we are to respond to the demand of our own people for the spread of that knowledge which is one of the most tranquillising influences, not only in the relations of Labour and Capital but in almost every

401
other social relation, then we have to meet what is asked of us. And the worst thing we can do is to attempt to economise, or stint money, in the provision of what is necessary for the attainment of these great sources of the national life.
I have not risen to reproach the Government on this head at all. On the contrary, I think this Government, in the matter of the care of the universities, has been a very good Government. I am not alluding, to the little concession mentioned just now, although it is a good sign, but I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer on this and still more on other occasions, has shown himself really conscious of the magnitude of the problem, and the importance of attention to it. Not only have the grants to the universities been increased in recent years, but the whole system of administration has been put upon a better footing. The Government has a very efficient body of advisers in the Treasury Committee, and in the personality of Sir William M'Cormick, who is unique in his knowledge of the necessities of the universities, also, I think, of how to provide them with what they require, in a manner which is as efficient as it is frugal. The Government have responded, and the question is what ought the Government to do now in the national interest. There are new demands, but the demands to which the noble Earl referred are not the only demands which we shall have to face in the near future.
Hitherto, the higher leaning, as I have called it, has been the monopoly of the well-to-do classes. It is quite true that through the Workers' Educational Association, through summer schools, and in fashions of that kind, you have been able to extend something to those who work with their hands, but only a fragment, only a fraction, of what is necessary. What has been done has, at least, had this extremely valuable result, that it has proved that if you use the best quality of university knowledge and bring it to bear, it has a marvellous effect and is received with marvellous appreciation by the working classes. The success of men like Mr. Albert Mansbridge and the school which he has founded, in extending university education to those who toil in the pit and the factory, who will come miles at night to work, only shows that there is a great field which we have to cultivate and which, if adequately cultivated, will probably result in great
402
fruits. We are in the happy position in this country of having been pioneers even in that small experiment. The matter has been taken up here as it has not been taken up elsewhere, although the interest in it is growing all over the world, especially in parts of the British Empire. Still, we are in a position of being able to keep well in front, and I think it is desirable that we should keep in front.
Speaking for myself, I see the time approaching when the State will recognise the duty of educating its democracy. In the year 1870 the State assumed the responsibility for the education of our youth, and for seeing that youth was compulsorily educated. A new duty looms in front of the State, and that is the duty of making adequate provision whereby the adult, who cannot have, and has not had, the opportunity of entering the walls of a university, may yet have brought to him that higher education from which circumstances have shut him out. Circumstances have shut him out, Yes; and thereby produced the class consciousness which is one of the most disturbing things in this country at the present time. It is that class consciousness—the division between a small class that has had a full opportunity of getting the higher learning, making the best of its leisure, coming into communion with the great minds of the past, and the vast and less fortunate majority who are shut out by hard necessity from all these things—which is the source, I am satisfied, of a great deal of the want of tranquility at the moment. Whether the State takes it up, as its deliberate policy or not, I am quite certain that it will be forced to contemplate the necessity of assuming in these early years of the twentieth century a duty analogous to, that which it undertook in 1870 when they made themselves responsible for providing adequate education for youth.
it is not so large a matter as it seems. After all the higher learning can only be the possession of what you may call the élite. We send our sons and daughters to the universities, but even those who go (and by no means the whole of them) do not get the best; they do not get what they need in very large numbers. Consequently, those who go to the universities will always be a comparatively small class of the population, simply because they are a class which is limited

403
by a capacity to take these things in. But then it is this small class which is the very salt of the earth. It is from those who form it that the leaders in thought and in action come. Where should we have been in the war hut for the thinkers from the universities who added greatly to the strength of our Army and Navy? I am not suggesting that you should contemplate the time when the working man will enter the walls of the university. He will do so, I hope, but he cannot do so in more than small numbers. I am contemplating the time when if Mahomet does not come to the mountain, the mountain will go to Mahomet. I am looking forward to the universities, through extra-mural work, reaching every district that requires it, training a new class of university tutor and, armed with that organisation, extending their beneficent work to the colliery districts, the pottery districts, and the factory districts all over the country Until you do that you will not have completed your system of giving educational opportunities, nor will you have laid the foundations of that tranquillity which you can only attain when you have got rid of class consciousness.
It probably is not a very expensive business, but it will require a certain amount of money. It will require the universities to be put in such a position that they can contemplate and begin to lay the foundations of the system. They are not even equipped for the work they have to do now. They are not able to carry through the business of preparing and organising the education of the limited class which now goes to them. How much less are they able to contemplate these larger duties which I am sure are going to come upon them at a period not very remote. If that be so then the Government, which has been much alive in this matter and has done a good deal to prepare the way, will have a problem before them which I think will necessitate the spending of money, and the best thing that can be done in the interests of the State will be for them to face the situation and deal with it.
I know it is making a very formidable appeal to the Government to ask them to spend money directly, but I am sure it is much better than relying on the contributions which come by chance from benevolently-minded firms. It is easy to get rid of the Excess Profits Tax. It is a system I never liked, but, if the State is
404
going to take excess profits, the State should make sure that it gets its share and then apply the money to the purpose for which the money was designed. It is only by a system of this kind that the universities will get that steady increase of their income which is required if they are to do this work efficiently. While I welcome the concession I hope it does not preclude altogether, or in a substantial measure, the contribution of a more satisfactory kind such as would put the universities on a more assured footing for the work they have to do at present and also strengthen them for those further functions which I feel certain they will have to fulfil.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: My Lords, I should like to refer, briefly, to the higher elementary schools which now have to give a larger number of free scholarships. The Minister of Education is asking these schools to give these additional scholarships and only allowing them to raise the fees of the other scholars by such an infinitesimal amount that many of them are going to lose even more money than formerly. As a member of the East Riding Education Committee I should like to appeal to the Government to allow the fees in these higher elementary schools to be raised more in proportion to the increased expenses of to-day. We have heard from two noble Lords the difficulties in large counties like Northumberland in which there are no big towns. My county, the East Riding, is in a similar position, and the financial situation is viewed by members of the Education Committee most gravely. It is quite right to give everybody the best education possible, but as the country is so hard up I hope the Government will allow us to raise the fees in order to try to meet the increasing expenses.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (THE EARL OF CRAWFORD): The last point raised by my noble friend Lord Nunburnholme is not quite relevant to the Question asked by the noble Earl and I hope he will, therefore, excuse me from giving an answer at the present moment, beyond saying that the matter is one of importance and is, naturally, engaging the attention of the Board of Education. For the moment I hope he will not press me to give any further reply.
Now I start by conceding everything that Lord Grey has said, and most of what Lord Haldane has repeated, about the hardships

405
of the universities. They are suffering from increased cost of staff, of equipment, of superannuation, of pensions. Repairs and maintenance of their fabrics are more costly, especially in the case of the older universities. Students are much more numerous, and, with their increased numbers, they require fresh outlay upon residence and recreation, as well as upon their tutorial necessities. The difficulties, in short, are immense. But I should like at the outset to enter a caveat against some of Lord Haldane's remarks. He always makes speeches, in my Opinion, which balance between optimism and pessimism, with the tendency, perhaps, rather towards pessimism when one hears him, though when one reads his speeches afterwards optimism is rather more apparent. I take him as I heard him, and I must demur to the statement which he made. that our universities are not equipped to deal with the limited class now in attendance. We always say that about ourselves—not about universities alone but about our Army, our Navy, or our Diplomatic Service. We always depreciate our Diplomatic Service all we can in this country, and yet, when one asks or listens to the opinions of foreign countries who find themselves in official relations with it. one hears very different stories indeed. Therefore, I do not want Lord Haldane, who occupies a position of very special responsibility in this matter, owing to his large influence, to over-do the depreciation, which, in itself, is rather agreeable, but which one does not want at the present juncture to be exaggerated.
In two words let me remind your Lordships what the Government have done in this respect. £1,000,000 have been granted, which is administered by the Committee of which Sir William M'Cormick is Chairman, and I rejoice that Lord Haldane should have paid a very just and well deserved tribute to that distinguished man, and to the loyal work performed by his colleagues. In addition, there is a grant of £500,000 for so-called non-recurrent outlay, and furthermore, there is another large liability assumed by the State, which, of course, is not a help to the universities as such, but which none the less is a Government contribution in aid of university education. That is the grant made to ex-Service men, in the nature, I think you might say, of maintenance allowances. Last year that was £2,000,000, and this year it has been put up to £3,000,000. Consequently,
406
although your Lordships may be perfectly clear that the money is no help to the universities as such—in some ways it adds to their difficulties and liabilities—none the less it is a contribution by the taxpayers as a whole towards promoting the wide extension of university education, for which Lord Haldane has just now been pleading.
Now let me refer to what the Government proposes to do, because I have to announce that the Government are going to do their best to increase the outlay upon university education. I came down with some nervousness, bearing in mind that last week your Lordships passed a Vote of Censure upon the Government for spending too much money. Lord Haldane, of course, voted for that, and Lord Crewe also, and I think that Lord Grey, had he been present, would have acted as Teller for it. But university education is a thing apart and next week perhaps some of my noble friends will come here and say you must not spend money on university education, but you must re-establish the old Militia, or you must spend more money in Mesopotamia, and there lay the foundations of a great home for the population of India who desire to occupy a new land, and so on. However, this afternoon I am only in the presence of friends, however critical they may have been last week. in the new clause—I will not bother your Lordships by reading it—Clause 45 of the Finance Bill, as amended (winch I hope will reach your Lordships in ten days or a fortnight) a grant in relief of Excess Profits Duty is given in favour of trades or businesses which make charitable contributions, not, of course, merely for universities or education or scientific research, but also for the relief of the poor or the sick.
I will give to your Lordships a short exposition prepared for me by the Board of Inland Revenue. It does not apply only to universities, and probably universities will not be the chief beneficiaries under this new Clause 45. Let me try to make it clear to Lord Grey how the incidence will arise. It is very complicated I agree, but that is the way with all Finance Acts. In arriving at the excess profits of a trade or business liable to Excess Profits Duty, a contribution, for the purpose of relieving the poor or sick, or for universities or education or scientific research, made after July 16 last—that is the date of the

407
announcement—is allowed as a deduction, subject to the two following limitations—namely (a) the deduction must not be more than 5 per cent. of the profits of the trade or business in the period of account in which the contribution is made; (b) the deduction must not be more than 20 per cent. of the amount of the contribution.
I think, probably, the best way to explain that is to give a concrete example. Lord Grey and I arrive at the same percentage basis, though, so far as I can make out, we entirely differ as to how we reached that point. I am going on the 60 per cent. Excess Profits Duty, and I, or rather the Board, arrive at this conclusion. In the case of a trader who makes a contribution of £10,000 to a university fund, the net result to the Exchequer, provided that the trader in question is liable to Excess Profit Duty, and that condition (a) is satisfied—the condition that the deduction is not to exceed 5 per cent.—is that the trader obtains a deduction of £2,000 (i.e., 20 per cent. of the £10,000) from his excess profits, and his Excess Profits Duty (now charged at 60 per cent.) is thereby reduced by £1,200. Roughly it comes to this, therefore, that while the Excess Profits Duty is charged at 60 per cent., in any such case the State in effect bears 12 per cent. of the charitable contributions made by the trader.
Lord Grey thinks that is a beggarly contribution. I do not. I think it is a very large concession for the Treasury to have made. To bear 12 per cent. of the contributions made by a firm which can allocate money from its excess profits in this way seems to me to be handsome. The Excess Profits Duty is, of course, a temporary tax. It has been re-imposed year after year since its first imposition, and the precise date of its repeal cannot be forecast. But I think it is reasonable to hope that so long as this tax is in operation the allowance now granted in respect of charitable and educational contributions may be expected to continue. This 12 per cent. contribution is an exceptional grant from an exceptional tax, made to great public or quasi-public services which, owing to the war, have met with exceptional obstacles. I give no estimate of the cost of this concession to the Exchequer. I do not feel quite prepared to do so. I have no doubt that it will be a very considerable sum, though in my opinion probably the bulk of it will not find its way to the universities.
EARL GREY: I wish to point out to the noble Earl that, although it is an immediate loss, it will lessen the deficit which comes from the Parliamentary grant at the end of the year, and is not a real loss.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I do not know. That is on the assumption that the Parliamentary grant at the end of the year is to extinguish all deficits. That is a strong assumption to make. It is equally an assumption that, if there is any deficit in addition, Parliament is going to make it up. I do not think we are entitled at the present juncture to assume quite as much as that. However, the Government is not going to-limit itself to this Excess Profits Duty concession. Indeed, so fully does the Government appreciate the importance of this university work in national development, that, quite apart from the recurrent grant in aid and the non-recurrent grant in aid to which I have referred, the Government desires to go still further. I must, however, say at once that under present conditions it is not proposed that any Supplementary Vote should be granted during the present financial year.
A general statement on this subject will shortly be issued by Mr. Chamberlain, but, meanwhile, I should like to say that the urgency of the matter has been very much emphasised in view of the opportunity which now affords itself of stimulating local support and private beneficence. Subject to any over-riding necessities of national finance, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is prepared to submit to Parliament an increase of the present Vote of £1,000,000 to £1,500,000 in the Estimates. for the year 1921–22. The expenditure, of course, must be guarded with care, and the present activity of universities must he secured on a sound footing before extensions and developments can properly be aided from Government funds. In addition to the grant in aid, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is prepared further to consider the advisability of proposing another non-recurrent sum to help universities in meeting the grievance of those of their senior members who are precluded from profiting to the full by the benefits of the university superannuation scheme. I ask your Lordships to take special note of the guarded terms in which I make that announcement on behalf of the Government. No pledge is given in this respect, and the announcement is, therefore, framed in most cautious terms, but it expresses

409
the desire of the Government—the very anxions desire of the Government—to meet grievance which is a real and tremendous personal hardship with which we are fully in sympathy, and which we have every desire to mitigate, if not entirely to remove. The object of what I have just announced—the policy of the Government—is not merely to help the universities such, but to stimulate the benefactions of others. Benefactions, of course, are still most urgently required.
I may perhaps be allowed to express my personal hope that in the relations between universities and the State, which apparently will grow more intimate as time goes on, the maintenance of the individuality, the impress of personality and tradition belonging to each different university, shall be secured. Each university now has its own and its intimate character which should be preserved at all costs. I am one of those who do not believe that uniformity, except in very rare instances, is desirable, and I hear a good deal of talk which makes me think that those who have theories about democratising the universities imagine that this will best be accomplished by making them as uniform as one school is with another under the local education authority of some great city. I should regret that. In my opinion, standardisation is not democracy. There should be the greatest variation of method, and indeed of ideals as well, in our university life, and the present system by which Government grants are made in aid of universities seems to me rightly to safeguard this high principle as much as possible. Notwithstanding the very great difficulties by which these universities are faced, I am confident that with courage and with moderate assistance from the Government, especially if that assistance stimulates private benefactions, their future is secured.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords I am conscious that this debate represents in some respects a contradiction, as the noble Earl opposite did not forget to point out, and as was also mentioned by my noble and learned friend Lord Haldane. It is quite true that we do keep on bombarding the Front Bench opposite with admonitions for economy, and now my noble friend Lord Grey comes down to the House and in a most admirable speech appeals to the Government for further help—that is to say, for further expen-
410
diture. He is supported by my noble and learned friend behind me (Viscount Haldane), and I find myself also giving him unqualified support. It is also quite true that such a demand as this is not the only one. Noble Lords and members of the House of Commons interested in other causes continue to come down and ask the Government to spend more money. It may be upon agriculture; it may be, as the noble Earl said, on some foreign adventure; it may be to assist in the purchase of a famous picture which would otherwise leave the country; it may be for some form of military or naval expenditure. That undoubtedly means that those who come down to Parliament and ask for further expenditure of money have on their shoulders the burden of giving proof of the absolute necessity of their expenditure on national grounds.
I take it that my noble friend Lord Grey is not the least afraid to accept that test, and we all of us feel that it, is not only because we have, or may profess to have, a special interest in culture, that we ask for this expenditure, but because we believe that expenditure on the universities does represent a definite national necessity. My noble friends have spoken of the university needs. First and foremost, I think, come salaries, and, more especially, the salaries in the lower departments on the humbler scale. It is less difficult for a university to pay a substantial salary to a professor, and endowments for special Chairs are more likely to be forthcoming. But the assistant professors, lecturers, demonstrators, and others, paid on a comparatively low scale, are those who have been so desperately hard hit by the rise in the cost of living, and whose case it is absolutely necessary to meet. Then, of course, as Lord Grey also pointed out, the further demand for science teaching in particular means a heavy cost in apparatus and in the materials that are used. The humanities can be taught comparatively cheaply, although I do not agree that they can be reasonably or profitably taught to large classes of 70 or 80 people; and the recognition of the fact that no teaching is of much use unless delivered to small classes has added considerably to the cost of education by making it necessary to employ a larger number of teachers.
We have all listened with deep interest, and also with no little satisfaction, to the extremely important speech which the

411
noble Earl, Lord Crawford, has made; and I join with all that has been said in recognising not merely the good intentions but the good work that has actually been done by His Majesty's Government through the Ministry of Education. I desire to join in a special tribute to Mr. Fishier, and also, as my noble friend opposite did, to Sir William M'Cormick, with the details of whsse work I am well acquainted. We heard with satisfaction that in addition to the £1,000,000 already provided, and to the other grants, it is proposed to apply £500,000 more to the needs of universities, although without calling on Parliament to pass a Supplementary Vote for that purpose. Did I understand the noble Earl aright?
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I should like to be very exact. No Supplementary Vote will be presented during the present financial year, but, unless over-riding financial necessities make it impossible, an extra £500,000 will be put down in the next financial year.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: Now I am quite clear. I hope and believe that we need not be too greatly alarmed by the use of the phrase "over-riding financial necessities." That phrase represents only, I take it, the habitual precaution proper to the Treasury; and we may take it also, I think, that unless some cataclysm, of which we have no conceivable alarm at this moment, should occur, in the next year this £500,000 will be forthcoming. I noticed also that a word of caution is presented by the Department—namely, that it is hoped that this assistance will not be employed for works of extension and development., but rather for the perfecting of the existing branches of different universities. That caution, again, I take it, may be read in a reasonable sense rather as cautioning universities not to break out, on the strength of that further grant, into large extensions which would involve recurring expenditure in the future; and that, I have no doubt, as a general principle, will be accepted.
Personally I do not find myself differing from the noble Earl in hoping that this further Government assistance will prove to be an encouragement to private donors and benefactors. I thought that my noble and learned friend went a little far in his suggestion that the proper course was for universities to depend for assistance rather upon the Taxes than upon such assistance
412
as private donors might be encouraged to provide by the remission of taxation. I confess that so long as the money is forthcoming from private sources, I should not be particular to make too many inquiries as to the motives from which it is given. The only doubt, I think, about this 12 per cent. remission which the noble Earl explained so clearly, exceedingly difficult and technical as the point is, is as to whether the psychological effect—which, after all, is what matters—upon the minds of the firms which make the excess profits, will be sufficient. And that, I think, is all that either Lord Grey or Lord Haldane meant when speaking somewhat doubtfully about it. The concession undoubtedly means a definite sacrifice on the part of the, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and, as such, merits all our gratitude. The doubts that have been expressed simply mean that it does not seem quite certain whether the scale will be such as to attract people to make benefactions which they would not otherwise have made.
In conclusion, I should like to say a word or two about the point which was raised by my noble friend Lord Haldane and also dwelt upon by the noble Earl opposite. This is much more than a mere question of assisting the education of a certain number of young men and young women to do their work in life. It is one of the widest and deepest of our national problems. My noble friend spoke of the feeling of the mass of workers on this subject of university education. It was said fifty years ago, when the franchise was first further extended after the great Reform Bill, that "we must educate our masters," and I have no doubt that there is much education which the wisest members of the Labour Party and of the workers desire to see diffused among those whom they represent. Nobody supposes that all workers can be turned into dry economists, but we want the workers of the nation to understand that the Government is not possessed of a bottomless purse with which it can meet all the claims that are made upon it. We want the workers to realise that wages must bear some relation to the profits made in any industry, whether that industry is carried on by the Government or carried on for private profit.
So far as I am able to judge the demand of the Labour Party, and of those who are entitled to speak for the workers in this matter of education, is moderate and reasonable. I do not believe that they

413
desire that complete standardisation of higher education of which Lord Crawford—and I entirely agree with him—spoke deprecatingly. So far as I know, they fully understand that there must be, and will continue to be, different types of schools, colleges, and universities. But what they really demand is that there should be, not merely nominally but in fact, an equal chance to both the picked and average boy and girl, from whatever class they may come. That does not mean that they expect every boy to have the chance or the desire to go to Eton, or every girl to have the chance of going to Girton. But they do desire that there should be no form of the finest and highest education—by no means only technical, but also literary and humane—which it is not possible for any capable boy or girl to enjoy. And I believe there is no reason why, in the course of years, that should not be done.
As has been well said, the system of education, which was formerly spoken of as a ladder, and has been preferably spoken of later as a highway, ought to be a broad road along which everybody can travel, with extra opportunities from which those specially fitted may profit. And it being the case that the universities are, as we all know, the crown of our national system of education, it must be that we look to them for the attainment, if not at once, in years to come of that perfect system of national education for which my noble and learned friend hopes. I will not go into the very interesting suggestions which he made on the possibility of universities stretching out tentacles, so to speak, all over the country. Something has already been done in that way, and I have no doubt more may be done. Meantime, I merely desire once more to express our gratitude to His Majesty's Government for the further assistance which they have given, without attempting to ask the noble Earl opposite or His Majesty's Government to believe that we may not one of these days come and suggest that still further assistance may be necessary.

KARACHI TROOP TRAIN INCIDENT.
LORD AMPTHILL LORD AMPTHILL rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether there is any truth in the following statements made in the telegram of the Government
414
of India, dated 30th July, 1916, respecting the action taken by General Shaw with regard to the despatch of troops from Karachi on the 5th June, 1916—namely,—(1) That he knew responsible members of his Staff with one exception were inexperienced; (2) that he took no steps nor gave any orders to see that the safety or comfort of the troops was provided for.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the answer to that Question is "No, there is no truth in either statement." But that is not the answer that the noble and learned Lord will give me. I feel sure that if I approached the noble and learned Lord privately, and asked him as man to man to tell me in confidence. whether or not there was any truth in those statements, he would reply, "No, there is no truth in them." He will not be allowed to give that answer here, because he is not speaking as an individual, but as the mouthpiece of a Department, and the deplorable thing is that, in the present system of politics and Parliamentary procedure, you cannot get a straight answer to a straight question. Those of your Lordships who are interested as students of politics in the present. development of affairs; arid find opportunities for admiration in the skill and dexterity with which answers are avoided in Parliament, and the high degree of ingenuity which is developed by our well-trained bureaucracy in the arts of Parliamentary equivocation, will, no doubt, be interested to see what answer is given to this perfectly plain Question, as to whether or no there is truth in these two statements.
It only remains for me to prove that there is no truth in them at all, and the proof is to be found in the evidence given before the Court. of Inquiry. In the first, place, let me say that all the officers on General Shaw's staff, numbering five, were, with one exception, well-experienced officers. The one exception was the medical officer, who, at that time, had held his post on the embarkation staff for over three months. The rest had been constantly on embarkation duty since the commencement of the war in August, 1914, and they have all been promoted, except Colonel Macnamara, who was General Shaw's Assistant Director of Medical Services and had thirty-one years' service in India. I do not know what the noble Lord is going to say. I know he cannot say that there is

415
no truth in these things, because, if, he does, he gives away the whole of the case on which General Shaw was made a scapegoat, and had placed upon his shoulders the blame for mismanagement, which was due to Army Headquarters in India. That blame was accepted by the Secretary of State for India on a telegram from the Government of India, which has proved to be inaccurate and incorrect on the showing of the Court of Inquiry.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (LORD SINHA): My Lords, perhaps, because I have not had time to become the adept in political equivocation at which my noble friend hinted, my answer will be more satisfactory to him, although it may not be quite so satisfactory as he wishes. Before I answer the two specific Questions which my noble friend has put on the Paper, I should like to make a general statement which, perhaps, will explain my specific answers. In view of the fact that the Court of Inquiry which investigated the occurrences under discussion—the Karachi troop train incident—did not proceed in accordance with the Regulations so far as General Shaw and Colonel Macnamara were concerned, the Secretary of State offered both these officers a fresh Court of Inquiry in India, as my noble friend is aware. The officers concerned have not seen their way to accept the offer under the conditions which the Secretary of State felt bound to impose. In those circumstances, it is now desired to repeat in this House what the Secretary of State has already said in another place—namely, that he considers, and has always considered, that the censure passed upon Major-General Shaw and Colonel Macnamara was not in all respects accurate.
It must be remembered that these incidents happened five years ago, that the censure was passed by another Secretary of State, and that the Military Department of the Government of India has complete changed since the incident happened. In those circumstances it is impossible, at any rate it is most difficult, to review all the, points, and I have, on a previous occasion, informed the House that the Secretary of State does not feel himself competent to review the findings of the Court of Inquiry on this point. Now that another Inquiry, which the Secretary of State always desired, has not proved possible, all I can say on behalf of the Secretary of State is that while dissociating
416
himself from the censure, which requires much modification, he must not be understood to mean that in his opinion, formed on the advice which is available to him, these officers—General Shaw, and his Assistant Director of Medical Services, Colonel Macnamara—acted up to the full scope of their responsibilities. That is as far as the Secretary of State is able to go, on such advice as is available to him. As I have already said, he is not competent and it is impossible for him to review the findings of the Court of Inquiry.
Now I will take those two specific Questions. Firstly, as regards the members of General Shaw's staff, with one exception, being inexperienced, all that is before the Secretary of State is the evidence given before the Court of Inquiry, and from that the only conclusion he can draw is that there was one officer who was certainly experienced and that the others were inexperienced in the matter of military administration. In regard to the second Question, the Secretary of State has already, on more than one occasion, said that the statement that General Shaw took no steps nor gave any orders to see that the safety or comfort of the troops was provided for, is far too sweeping a statement, and, because of that, he offered the fresh Court of Inquiry which circumstances have rendered it impossible for General Shaw to accept. That, my Lords, is my answer to the two specific Questions.
LORD AMPTHILL: I am sorry to trouble the noble Lord again, but what I want to know from the India Office is whether there is any truth in the statement. The fact is that General Shaw exceeded the Regulations in order to provide for the comfort and safety of the troops, and the Secretary of State has all that information before him. He knows that General Shaw, although he was not allowed to do it by the Regulations, provided ice, extra railway carriages, and extra wagons for the kits of the troops so as to make more room. He knows that General Shaw put 120 dozen of mineral waters on the train and provided a coffee shop. He took a great risk in doing so, because he was liable to he held personally responsible and surcharged on account of it. Yet, in face of that, the Government of India say that he took no steps to see that the safety or comfort of the troops was provided for. I want to know whether there is any truth in that statement.
LORD SINHA: I submit that I have answered the question. It would not be correct to state that he took no steps, but it would be incorrect to say that he took all the steps that could have been taken. That is the finding of the Court of Inquiry.
LORD AMPTHILLalso had on the Notice Paper a Question to ask His Majesty's Government whether it is not a fact that the India Office in their letter, No. 10,514, dated 21st March, 1918, stated that the Secretary of State for India in Council had decided that the Court of Inquiry which investigated the Karachi troop train incident, on the findings of which the late Commander-in-Chief and the Government of India decided to remove General Shaw from his command of the Karachi Brigade, had not been constituted to deal with the question as to whether General Shaw could be held responsible for that incident and did not deal with that question; and, if so, why the Under-Secretary of State for India denied this fact in his speech on the 18th May last.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I will not trouble to read to your Lordships the next Question which stands in my name on the Paper. I have the letter mentioned, and your Lordships shall judge for yourselves whether the answer which the Under-Secretary of State gave me on May 18, when I last raised this Question, can be reconciled with it. I said to the noble Lord—
"I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but it was the India Office who said that the Court of Inquiry did not inquire, and was not constituted to inquire, into the conduct of General Shaw."
and Lord Sinha replied:—
"I cannot agree with the noble Lord as to that being the statement of the India Office. The Court of Inquiry was constituted for the purpose of investigating this occurrence, and to consider and report who, if anybody, was responsible for its result."
I am justified in saying that the Under-Secretary of State for India denied the fact to which I referred. I am not blaming him, and let me make it clear that the last thing I wish to suggest is that the noble Lord was intentionally saying anything that was inaccurate. I happen to know that his Department did not fully inform him of the case; and, of course, it occurred long before he took office.
418
The letter, written to General Shaw, is dated March 21, and is as follows—
"The Secretary of State's offer of a fresh Inquiry was intended to afford you an opportunity of vindicating your conduct in regard to the troop train incident, a matter with which, in the opinion of the Secretary of State in Council, the Court which investigated the incident itself and on the findings of which the late Commander-in-Chief of the Army in India decided to remove you from the command of the Karachi Brigade, had not been constituted to deal, and with which it did not deal in the manner prescribed by the Regulations."
I want to ask the noble Lord why he would not admit the accuracy of what I said on the last occasion.
LORD SINHA: My Lords, the very Question of the noble Lord shows that my answer was correct. The letter states that the Court of the Inquiry had not been constituted to deal with the question as to whether General Shaw could be held responsible for the incident, and did not deal with that question. But the words which follow are not quoted in the Question, and were not put by my noble friend on the previous occasion—namely, "did not deal in the manner prescribed by the Regulations." The Court of Inquiry was constituted, as the noble Lord is aware, for the purpose of inquiring into this occurrence and also for reporting—these are the terms of the reference—" upon all errors of omission and commission, and to indicate the individuals responsible for the same." General Shaw was only a witness before the Court, and the Court was not constituted under the Regulations to conduct its procedure, with reference to General Shaw, "in the manner prescribed by the Regulations."
LORD AMPTHILL: That qualification only governs the last phrase.
LORD SINHA: That is a matter of construction. My construction differs from that of the noble Lord; and, what is more, the terms of reference substantiate what I alleged—namely, that one of the things the Court of Inquiry was asked to do was to indicate the persons liable to blame for the occurrence.
EARL BATHURST: My Lords, I rise to ask His Majesty's Government whether it is not a fact that the Court of Inquiry held on the Karachi troop train incident, in their findings, were of opinion that the

419
primary cause for the disaster lay with the Army Head Quarters, in that they—

1. Diverted the Transport "Ballarat" from Bombay to Karachi.

2. Brought the troops through the Sind Desert in June.

3. Did not issue special instructions to G.O.C. at Karachi.

4. Did not consult their Medical Authorities.

5. Did not increase the speed of the train.

Also, whether it was not the opinion of this Court of Inquiry that, whatever precautions had been taken, the troops were liable to cases of heat stroke in the Sind Desert in June, and, if so, why General Shaw and Colonel Macnamara, who were not among the responsible authorities on Army Head Quarter Staff, were held to blame and most severely punished for the disaster.
LORD SINHA: My Lords, with regard to the first Question, the diversion of the transport "Ballarat" from Bombay to Karachi, the Court of Inquiry reported that the primary cause of the occurrence of the heat stroke cases was the long journey of unacclimatised British troops across the Sind desert in the hot season. They also reported that the "Ballarat" was diverted from Bombay to Karachi by orders issued from the Quartermaster-General's Branch at Army Headquarters, and this resulted in the troops having to travel across the Sind Desert. The Court reported that no special orders were issued by the Quartermaster-General's branch dealing with this journey, and also that the. Medical Branch at Army Headquarters was not consulted. The Court considered that the railway expert attached to the Quartermaster-General's Branch should have represented to the Quartermaster-General the unsuitability of the timing of the train and that the Deputy Assistant Director of Railway Traffic at Karachi should have made
420
similar representations to the General Officer Commanding at Karachi. The Court considered that under the conditions of temperature then existing in the Sind Desert, whatever precautions were adopted, the troops were liable to cases of heat stroke. The Court of Inquiry did not restrict blame to Army Headquarters. The responsible officer at Army Headquarters was punished by removal from his appointment.

PUNJAB DISTURBANCES: THE CASE OF GENERAL DYER.
LORD SYDENHAM: My Lords, I beg to ask His Majesty's Government whether the statement of the Secretary of State for India in the House of Commons on the 14th instant, that—
"If the Hon. Member infers that anything I wrote to the Government of India altered or was intended to alter, or was concerned with their judgment on General Dyer, he is under an erroneous impression … I must ask the House to accept my assurance on the subject that I exerted no sort of influence and made no suggestion which could possibly lead to the insinuation that the Government of India formed their views on any suggestion of mine,"
can be reconciled with that made by the Under-Secretary of State on the same day
that—
"There was telegraphic correspondence between the Secretary of State and the Government of India which resulted in certain modifications of the original draft of the two dispatches issued."
LORD SINHA: My Lords, I dealt fully with this matter in the observations I addressed to your Lordships in the debate on the Amritsar case and I submit that there is no conflict between the two answers—between the answer of the Secretary of State in another place and my answer to the noble Lord in this House.
House adjourned at half-past six o'clock.