Lords Sitting of 5 July 1922

Preamble
The House met at a quarter before four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
LORD FORRES.
The Rt. Hon. Sir Archibald Williamson, Bart., having been created Baron FORRES of Glenogil, in the County of Forfar—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
GLASGOW CORPORATION ORDER CON FIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a (according to Order).
TRAMWAYS PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order) and passed.

AUSTRIAN PROPERTY CLAIM.
LORD PARMOOR LORD PARMOOR rose to call attention to a claim made to the Department for the administration of Austrian property by a lady who has acquired Czecho-Slovak nationality; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, my Question draws attention to a case of what appears to me to be a particular hardship. I have supplied to the representatives of the Government and the Board of Trade the information which induces me to bring the matter before your Lordships, so that I can deal with the facts shortly as I know that they have all the information which I have myself. I hope that, having that information, they will be able to offer some prospect of a remedy in this case.
Before I come to this special instance I should like to refer to the general question in connection with the Interim Report of Lord Justice Younger's Committee, and that not for the sake of raising any matter of controversy; indeed, for the purpose of avoiding it. My aim is to show that in the operation of Article 297 of the Peace Treaty (the Article with which we are dealing in this case) admittedly great hardships do arise. I should like to quote a passage in the Report which puts what I want to say in a very convenient form:—
"The result—"

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that is, the result of the conditions as they are—
"reflected in the recent discussion in the House of Lords—has been a growing suspicion and dislike of these clauses in their actual operation, accentuated by the fact, which now seems certain, that in the final result they will operate with the greatest degree of harshness in the cases in which it would be either the desire or to the interest of this country that they should not operate at all."
I think that when I have stated the facts of the present case your Lordships will see that this is an instance where the present provision operates "with the greatest degree of harshness" when "it would be either the desire or to the interest" of all fair-minded people that the particular Article should not operate at all.
As this is a matter connected with Austria there is one further quotation I should like to make. The Report states generally that the Article of the Treaty has not been so effective as to make forthcoming the compensation which the Government of enemy nationals has agreed to make them, and it points out subsequently that in the only case where there has been any compensation—namely, in the case of Germany—it has been quite fractional in amount. Then, Lord Justice Younger goes on to make this statement about Austria, which is important having regard to the present case:
"That this should have been the Austrian experience might perhaps have been anticipated. The Austrian Government has probably never been in a position to make immediate or any compensation to anybody."
That means, at any rate in the case of Austrian nationals who have been deprived of their property, that it really has been what we call confiscation. I do not rely particularly on the terms because any question of obtaining a remedy as against the Austrian Government is wholly impossible. That, of course, is due to the bankrupt condition of Austria and the Austrian Government.
The Report also says (and this includes the German case, which is better to a certain extent than the Austrian)
"That only a fraction of the total amount credited on the account of any national is received by him is not doubtful."
That is to say, in the best cases, in the cases which act most fairly, there is only a fraction of the total amount credited, and in all other cases there is an absolute total
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loss. Perhaps it is no wonder that the Committee say—
"This state of things, although this country is in no way directly responsible for it, is highly injurious to its international financial reputation."
One understands that. When one is dealing with matters of this kind one really looks to what has been done, rather than to the hopes held out, or to the paper safeguards, which, indeed, have been found to be of no value at all.
That being how the matter operates, particularly as regards an Austrian subject, I will proceed to read a letter written to me. I will leave out names except that of the actual claimant, because it is better to do so in cases of this sort. The writer says:—
"Some time ago it was stated by someone who called on me"—
and I am sure this authority is entitled to all respect—
"that an old governess, who had been for many years in a family, named Fräulein Antonie Kurz, held 50 United Steel common shares, dated December 13, 1906, which represented practically the total savings of her lifetime."
I may explain that the Question I am now asking arises in connection with the claim of this old governess no these fifty shares.
Then, my informant says—
"From the papers which have been forwarded to me and which I enclose for your information it seems clear that the request of Fräulein Kurz for the return of these steel shares, which were sequestrated, was refused on the ground that her application was not received in time, and could, therefore, not be considered."
I shall have to trouble your Lordships later on the question of the terms of the Treaty, because I think the reference in the letter is to an Article which does not affect the present case at all. That may be a matter of misunderstanding. The letter goes on—
"It is unnecessary to point out that it was not likely that an old governess would receive information as to the time within which her application for restitution of the property should be sent in, and it is certainly exceedingly hard that an old lady who, moreover, appears to be of Czechoslovak nationality"—
that is, the nationality of a friendly alien—
"should be deprived of her only means of support on account of an error of this kind."
Therefore, the only allegation was that she had not made her claim in time, and I think the answer made in this letter is very

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just, for a poor elderly governess somewhere in Central Europe is not likely to hear much of rules and regulations of this character.
The next letter I want to call attention to is one referring to her claim. Her claim, made by an agent in her behalf in this country, included certificates of her nationality that she was a Czecho-Slovak and a statement of account as regards the actual shares which she was claiming. That, of course, was merely a document identifying the shares and saying when she purchased them. This is the last letter and it was written from the Department for the Administration of Austrian Property:—
"With reference to your letter dated 23rd ultimo addressed to the Public Trustee, which has been passed to this Department for reply, I am directed by the Administrator of Austrian Property to inform you that if, as is understood to be the case, Miss Kurz was formerly of Austrian nationality under the Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, her application is now out of date and cannot be considered."
I will mention in passing that she did not make her claim for nationality under the Treaty. She thought that, so far as her nationality was concerned, it was dependent on the two certificates which she produced and which had not been questioned.
The letter continues—
"All such applications should have been submitted within six months of the publication of the Treaty, in accordance with Article 249 (b), and as no notification within the prescribed time on Miss Kurz's behalf can be traced in this Department, it appears that the securities to which you refer must remain at the disposal of the Administrator."
May I pause there to summarise the position. A poor governess, of friendly alien nationality, and dependent on this very small sum—that is the position—makes her claim. I do not think there is any term in the Treaty which in any way makes it possible for this country to take the property of a friendly alien of Czecho-Slovakian nationality, nor is that alleged. The only allegation is that the application was made out of time. That is very natural; but it does not give us any claim, as I understand it, to take for any purpose whatever the property of a friendly alien. I cannot understand how a principle of that kind can be maintained.
The head of the Department concerned refers to Article 249 (b) of the Austrian Treaty, which certainly has no application to this case, and, perhaps, I may tell your Lordships why I say that. I do not say
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it for any controversial purpose, because I hope that the Government will meet a claim of this kind in a friendly spirit. Still, the matter stands in this way, that if, under Article 70 of the St. Germain Treaty or under one of certain later Articles, of which those from 72 to 76 are the most important, you wish to make a claim as regards your nationality—that is to say, you claim to be a Czecho-Slovak, whereas in old days all Czecho-Slovaks were nationals of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy—you should make it within a given time. There is no order that you should, but it says that if you make it within a given time you will not be considered as an Austrian national. In other words, if within the time mentioned in the Treaty you make it clear, you cannot for any purpose after that be considered as an Austrian national. That is the whole purpose of the Article; but it does not say, on the other hand, that a Czecho-Slovak lady is in any way to be prejudiced in that her property may be taken under a misapprehension, if you like to call it so. There is nothing in that Article which says that unless the claim is made within a certain time Czecho-Slovak property can be taken under the Treaty. That is a very important matter, and is also in accordance with good sense and justice.
As I said, I do not want to be controversial, and I think that the Department has made a mistake. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Gorell, who has had the matter in hand and knows the circumstances, will be able to give such an answer that harshness and injustice shall not be done in a case of this kind, and I am sure there is ample opportunity and ample power for the Government to allow this poor lady to have her small savings. I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name, and to move for Papers.
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR AIR (LORD GORELL): My Lords, I must thank the noble and learned Lord for having given the Government very exact particulars of the claim to which he has drawn attention. From the Question on the Paper it was a little bit difficult to follow what he had in mind, but he has been good enough to inform the Department responsible, so that I am able to give him an answer which I hope he will consider satisfactory. The noble and learned Lord began his speech by a more general reference to the question of ex-enemy property. He will forgive me if,

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after the several debates we have had in your Lordships' House, I do not follow him into his remarks on Article 297 of the Treaty, which is not really in question in this particular case. With reference to his more general remarks, I can only emphasise that, throughout, the Government has expressed itself anxious to mitigate in every possible way, in so far as it could do so without interfering with the rights of British nationals, the hardships to which the noble and learned Lord drew attention and the anomalies which have been pointed out in Lord Justice Younger's Report.
This particular case seems to arise, under Article 249 (b) of the Treaty with Austria. The noble and learned Lord pointed out that it was quite possible that a mistake had arisen. I need not go into that in any great detail for reasons which I can give in a moment, but under that Article it is laid down that any one who shows, within six months of July 16, 1920, that he has acquired the nationality of an Allied or Associated Power will not have his property subjected to the Articles which the noble Lord has described as confiscating Articles. It is true that it does not say that those who do not show that come under the limitations of time. At the same time, I think most of your Lordships will agree that there must be some limitation of time in order to enable this process of a clearing house system to be conducted at all. And I must remind your Lordships that, owing to the delay in the ratification of the Treaty, the time specified—namely, July 16, 1920—was extended, and the close time, so to speak, did not begin until the beginning of 1921. Further, I should say that the Government, recognising that it might be difficult for people, especially those resident abroad, to fill in all the particulars within that given time, have relaxed their requirements and have not insisted that full proof of nationality should be made within that time, but only that the application should be lodged together with particulars of the property.
In this particular case, the lady referred to by the noble Lord applied in September, 1921—that is to say, seven months after the time specified—for the release of fifty United Steel common shares, on the ground that she had acquired Czecho-Slovakian nationality. It is true that in the first instance, as the noble and learned Lord
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informed your Lordships, she received the answer that her application was too late. It might have been possible to go into the argument that, as she was a Czecho-slovak, at no time was her property subject and, therefore, the provision could not have applied to her. But I do not think it is necessary to go into that because, in view of the further details with which the noble Lord has supplied the Government, a decision has been reached, and the Administrator of Austrian property will release the property in question provided that the lady will produce evidence, first, identifying the shares as her own property, and, secondly, proving that she has acquired Czecho-Slovakian nationality. I rather understood from the noble and learned Lord that she had already produced evidence in both particulars, in which case the whole matter will, I hope, be cleared up satisfactorily.
LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, I am very much obliged to the noble Lord for the answer he has given. I am sure that the evidence of those two factors can be supplied, and I need hardly say that I ask leave to withdraw my Motion, having regard to the answer the noble Lord has given.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

SUBVERSIVE PROPAGANDA.
LORD SYDENHAM: My Lords, I desire to ask His Majesty's Government whether, in the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown, organised associations, working to subvert the Constitution and suggesting violent measures, are lawful bodies in this country. When I first drew attention in this House to this subject the noble Marquess who leads the House fully admitted its importance, and said that it was occupying the attention of His Majesty's Government. Again on June 15 of last year I asked if powers existed in this country to prevent the importation of either money or valuables to be used for the purposes of subversive propaganda, and the noble Earl who represents the Ministry of Health replied, and said, on the authority of Lord Halsbury's classic work, that
"broadly speaking, it is illegal to attempt to influence the Government of this country by any violent means, or to incite others to do so. Thus, it would certainly be seditious to carry on a propaganda with the object of throwing the deliberations of Parliament into confusion."

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He added that "the dissemination of any views is not illegal unless it is accompanied by incitements to enforce those views by violence." He also said that the Government was at that time considering the introduction of legislation to prevent foreign funds from being brought into this country.
More than a year has passed since then. There has been no legislation, and nothing effective has been done, though there has been, in the meantime, a great increase of revolutionary activity with the object not of throwing the deliberations of Parliament into confusion, but of destroying Parliament and setting up a Communist Government of a Bolshevist type. Individuals here and there have been arrested for particularly seditious utterances, but some worse speeches have passed quite immune. There has been no attempt to deal with organised associations working to promote revolution, and, apparently, freely provided with funds. It is not the individual revolutionary that matters nearly so much as the factory which trains him and pays him, and which issues subversive literature in large quantities. It would take at least an hour to give even a general view of the activities of the revolutionaries in this country since the Armistice, but I can assure your Lordships that I am not going to inflict so much upon you. I will be as brief as possible.
Since the Armistice there have been currents and counter-currents, new combinations and affiliations, splits and fresh groupings, and also several quite new organisations have been started. The whole proceedings, the more you try to study them, are astonishingly complicated, but so far as I can judge one tendency has been for the so-called Socialists, who have done so much to popularise revolution and to render it respectable, to become alarmed at the action of the more violent bodies. At the recent Labour Conference at Edinburgh, though there was a great deal of revolutionary language, affiliation with the Third Internationale was rejected, as your Lordships know, by an overwhelming majority. That I consider a very significant sign.
Further, the intellectuals of the Second Internationale, among whom Mr. Ramsay Macdonald is a prominent person, have been much exercised of late because of the treatment of the Social Democrats by Bolsheviks in Russia. These persons were
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not greatly moved by the murder of 1,243 bishops and clergy, 193,000 workmen, and 815,000 peasants, according to the Bolsheviks' own statistics. I need not say that those figures are quite incomplete, and do not include the millions of peasants who perished from famine and disease directly due to Communism in Russia. But when it was evident that the Social Democrats were either being murdered or were in danger of being murdered, then the moderate revolutionaries began to feel misgivings, as well they might. That is one tendency.
The other is a marked increase of the activities of the Communist organisations under inspiration from Moscow, and apparently provided with funds, either from Russia or Germany, or from both. What was the British Socialist Party in this country has now become the Communist Party, and that Party is active in very many forms, such as Labour colleges, the Plebs League, Socialist and proletarian Sunday schools, efforts to raise the nucleus of a Red Army, and subversive movements in our Universities, of which I could say a great deal. The Young Communist League works with the Communist Party, and under instructions from Moscow it has lately been developing an intensive campaign with a view to corrupting the youth of this country. The main objects of the Communist Party, as explained by themselves, is to link up all extreme sections, to co-operate with the Sinn Feiners and with the Irish Republican Brotherhood which, as your Lordships know, is an American asssociation, and also with the Irish Self-Determination League here. At the same time, they seek to penetrate and control the Trade Unions, and they have been mainly responsible for the disastrous strikes since the Armistice which, combined with the crushing taxation from which we suffer, have tended to produce the present deplorable unemployment. They have helped to produce unemployment, and they have then exploited the distress so far as they could for subversive purposes.
Three notorious aliens have been deported by His Majesty's Government, most wisely, from this country, after they had done a great deal of harm. Chicherin is a Russian of very ill-balanced mind, and his exploits in this country were explained by the noble Marquess the Leader of the House. He was in prison in Brixton goal, and then he was deported.

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Litvinoff is a Jew of the name of Finckel-stein, and he was in active co-operation with the Sinn Feiners and with the Irish Republican Brotherhood when he was here. Kameneff is a Jew named Rosenfeld, and he was deeply engaged in intrigues with the revolutionaries in this country. On his advice, the Council of Action was set up, and Soviets were detailed in many of our large towns. All these three deported revolutionaries appeared at Genoa as the representatives of the Russian people, whom they have ruined, and I believe all of them enjoyed the hospitality of the Prime Minister. That, my Lords, is the new diplomacy in full operation. Finckelstein is now masquerading as a Russian at The Hague, and making, as your Lordships have seen, the most ridiculous demands.
The Third Internationale is managed by Lenin, and the two Jews Trotsky (Bronstein) and Zinovieff (Apfelbaum). That has a branch here in the Red Internationale of Trades Unions, which has its office and its subsidies. The Scottish Workers Committee made a report to Moscow not long ago, and it was published in the Socialist newspaper. This Committee summed up its activities as follows:
"Above all, the mapping up of the district from the strategic point of view, and the secret arming and drilling of carefully selected workers—that is, roughly our policy."
I think your Lordships will agree that that statement suggests violence in the plainest possible way. The Young Communist newspaper gives some very interesting details of the great progress of the Young Communist League. I need not trouble the House with them. Speaking at Manchester on November 4, 1920, a Mr. Leckie explained his objects. He said:—
"I might as well tell you my greatest ambition is the destruction of the British Empire. … Sinn Fein and Communism will smash up the British Empire, so I say, Up Irishmen. Up the Irish Republic."
Of course, the ambitions of Mr. Leckie are not of the slightest consequence, but we can see his policy in full operation all round us to-day.
A secret Communist Conference was held at St. Pancras Town Hall very recently, and the Communist newspaper reported what went on:—
"From this conference the Communist Party goes forward no longer formally united but welded into a homogeneous whole—one body, and that a revolutionary body."
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It went on to point out that in India, Egypt, Ireland and South and East Africa the authority of Britain was being broken by revolt. This shows the aims of the Communist Party to which I have referred. In the Communist of December 31 last the executive of the Party is reported to have declared:—
"We join with cur comrades in Ireland in repudiating this Treaty—"
That was the Treaty so stoutly defended in this House—
"Where the men of Easter week stood, Ireland still stands. Workers of Britain, workers of Ireland, unite your forces in unfaltering hostility to Britain and Irish imperialism."
This was at least prophetic. The Third Internationale is now financing an international union of unemployed in London, which organises the processions and demonstrations against boards of guardians, of which we have had several examples.
I have only touched the fringe of this subject and I am most anxious not to weary your Lordships. The points I wish to emphasise are two. First, the propaganda now carried on is enormous in extent and poisonous in kind. The effects, culminating in the state of Ireland and in the foul murder of a great soldier whom the Empire can very ill spare at this moment, have been visible for some time. All this, and more, has been arranged by associations which have local habitations, paid officials, and all the paraphernalia necessary for organised operation The headquarters of all these bodies are known to the police, but the police have never, apparently, been permitted to take action until some great crime has occurred. In the second place, to a great extent all this is the work of aliens, and money is provided from foreign sources, as Mr. J. H Thomas stated in the Law Courts the other day. Some of the literature, which is very cleverly written, is printed in Berlin, and aliens are freely employed as officials, paid agents and speakers.
Most earnestly do I beg His Majesty's Government to see if they can put a stop to this wholesale corruption by foreigners of our own good people, and especially the demoralisation of our children, to which I tried to draw the attention of the House some time ago. In a democratic country like this, where nearly every adult has a vote, it cannot be necessary to permit organised subversive movements which have already had the most grave conse-

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quences. Surely, it is our clear duty to protect our people, and especially to protect our helpless children, against a moral poison which is more deadly than the products of the chemist. No one can tell how far this poison has spread, but its effects and the influence of this horde of undesirable aliens, which is helping to destroy some of the best characteristics of our national life, are painfully visible in many directions. I beg the Government to do something, and if they have not the power, as I believe they have, to take that power. There has been legislation in America of rather a drastic kind. I believe also there has been legislation in France, and I feel certain that the Government would have the support of the great body of out manual workers who do not wish their young men to be corrupted by foreign influences, or their little children to be taught atheism and Communistic immorality. All your Lordships who have seen what is taught in Socialist Sunday schools will quite well understand what that means.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT BIRKENHEAD): My Lords, the noble Lord has ranged with active pinion over a wide sociological field. I may perhaps call your attention to the more limited terms of his Question. It is:
"To ask His Majesty's Government whether, in the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown, organised associations, working to subvert the Constitution and suggesting violent measures, are lawful bodies in this country."
The noble Lord is a man of many activities and wide experience, but, I do not know that a considerable study of the law has been one of his activities, and the difficulty the Law Officers of the Crown find is in the lack of terms of precision in his Question. It is as though I may be putting a long question on the subject of appendicitis to a specialist, with such power as an unassisted personal acquaintance with appendicitis might give, as to its origin and pathological circumstances. My learned friends, the Law Officers of the Crown, find great difficulty in answering this Question.
The noble Lord asks whether in the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown organised associations are lawful bodies in this country? What are "organised associations"? The language is general. What is an association? I suppose an association is a collection of people who are working together. What do you add
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to it by using the word "organised"? You add this to it: that their working together is not the result of accident. If a man dropped from an aeroplane on to a steamer it would be an association, but not an organised association. The addition of the word "organised" implies that the association is the result of endeavour. Almost all associations are the result of endeavour. There are many organised associations in this country. The independent Peers in this House, over whom Lord Salisbury presides and who cause so much trouble to His Majesty's Government, are absolutely an organised association.
But the noble Lord continues, and uses these words "working to subvert the Constitution." They are most menacing words, and no well-equipped member of this House could give any countenance or encouragement to those who they were satisfied were "working to subvert the Constitution." Here we find ourselves in the dubious language of debatable controversy. When the Parliament Act was being passed in this House I certainly was most clearly of the opinion that those who organised that association—I see many noble Lords present who were members of it—were working to "subvert the Constitution," and when you put a question to the Law Officers as to the proper view to be taken of "organised associations, working to subvert the Constitution," we become convinced of the extreme importance of using precise language which has received the imprimatur of high legal authority.
The noble Lord also adds the words: "suggesting violent measures." "Suggesting" is a vague word. I do not like it. It has no precise meaning at all. What does he mean when he says "suggesting violent measures"? If he means openly teaching and advocating that the authority of the lawful Government of this country should be violently subverted by revolution, of course even the Law Officers would have no difficulty in making an answer to that question. But what are "violent measures"? For instance, those who banded themselves together in an organised association to secure the passing of the Parliament Act, certainly, in my judgment, and on a reasonable construction, suggested violent measures. They suggested the creation of an enormous number of Peers. I should regard that as a violent suggestion.

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We have had recently a debate regarding the creation of one or two Peers, but on that occasion there were ninety or a hundred ready to start the moment the flag fell in order to add to the numbers of your Lordships' House. I should consider that an attempt to subvert the Constitution by violent measures.
So far as the Question itself is concerned—I will add a word or two as to its merits later—I would really give a word of very friendly advice to the noble Lord. That is, that it really is not worth while submitting a question for the consideration of lawyers of great experience, unless you think it worth while to take advice so as to put your question in terms which are intelligible. It is exactly the same as if, knowing nothing about pathology, you put a question of intimate medical interest to a specialist, addressing him with the I unassisted knowledge of a layman. The question will not be helpful, and the answer will be even less so. So much for the noble Lord's Question.
As to the merits of the case which the noble Lord has raised, I cannot help saying, in this connection, that it is always helpful if grave matters dealing with grave events are put before the Government, so that anxiety and apprehension, if they exist, may, if possible, be allayed; but I cannot help thinking that the noble Lord has I not, perhaps, been extremely happy in the moment that he has selected for making public the great and growing apprehensions which, I can see, are harassing his mind and engaging his attention. The noble Lord, in this connection, really does remind me—if I may say so with very great respect, and, of course, I mean only intellectually—of the Fat Boy in Pickwick Papers, because he is always attempting to make our flesh creep. I do not think he is happy in the particular moment he has selected, though, like every other reasonable person, all of us are really appreciative of anything which excites apprehension. Aristotle long ago noted that the feeling of apprehension was really agreeable to human nature, if it was not associated with the imminence of too great a personal peril, and, in that sense, all of us like listening to the narration of horrors, but this moment is surely a very unfavourable one to treat us to this Bolshevist peril.
The noble Lord has spoken with great evidence of enjoyment of the fact that
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many persons whose names he mentioned were Jews. He added with unction, if I may say so, in reciting the names of those who particularly excited his apprehension: "And ho is a Jew." I did not happen to be born a Jew, but it is a thing that might happen to any one. It has happened to many distinguished persons to be born Jews, and I cannot feel that it adds anything to an indictment, though it may contribute something to an identification, to say of any one whom you have mentioned that he is a Jew. I am by no means sure that it was not the object of my noble friend, not so much to contribute to an identification, as to add a specific count to an indictment.
Let us see where we stand in relation to this Bolshevist peril. We have now gone through nearly four years since the Armistice. I will not conceal from your Lordships that there have been moments of grave anxiety in those four years. I will not conceal that the propaganda of which the noble Lord has spoken had many opportunities in which, if they were really, in the true sense of the word, formidable, must have borne poisonous fruit. We have had in that period unrest in the Army. There was never unrest so long as there was fighting to be done; unrest and discontent arose only the moment that peace was to be endured. We have had unrest in the Army, and, what is not less formidable—perhaps, it was even more formidable—great unrest, and even a strike, among the police. When you are faced, in this old, stable and organised country, with active strikes, dissensions and discontent in the armed forces of the Crown and in the police services, then, indeed, there is occasion for legitimate anxiety, even among persons who are not prone to premature despair. But those difficulties were most completely surmounted. Today, there is no more loyal and admirable and contented force in any country of the world than the police, both in the Metropolis and in the provinces, and to-day every noble Lord knows the complete reliance which we may justly place on the historic loyalty of the armed forces of the Crown.
Observe, also, that in the last few years we have gone, through crises greater almost than any which our history supplies, unless you go back to the troubled five years which followed the battle of Waterloo. We have had strikes, and immense and

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pervasive unrest in the labour world. We have had almost the reality of a triple alliance of labour. What has happened? I say confidently that the essential stability of the institutions of this country and the fundamental and traditional common sense of the citizens of this country have been vindicated, month by month and year by year, until we are in a position to-day to see these things in their true proportions, and to know that we shall not appeal in vain to that common sense which has been inherent in the British nation now for so many years, which has acted as a steadying force in the world, and which is at this moment in Europe the one bright hope and light which leads us to believe that we need not yet despair of the civilisation of Europe.
Let us, indeed, watch, as the Home Office does most constantly and attentively, the presence and the activities in our midst of undesirable persons, and let us not forget other circumstances not less vital and menacing of which the noble Lord urges consideration. But is it of no importance that the Labour Party, meeting in its annual congress, and after an inflammatory speech by its President, which I am certain did not represent the true opinion of those who attended that conference, should by an overwhelming majority have repelled from among themselves that inconsiderable Communist fragment and segment of which the noble Lord is so unduly apprehensive? It is to the credit of organised labour of this country that they have recognised the spurious philosophy and the insidious danger of these doctrines.
Whether or not they might have been a grave risk in the last four years, I do not too confidently pronounce, but I am too strong a believer in the British character to believe that any danger might have actually arisen with which we could not have successfully dealt. To suppose that the people of this country, in which trained political education has become an ingrained tradition, were likely to be impressed by these crazy doctrines, and, at a moment when they have seen the great Empire of Russia in devastation and in ruin—to suppose that the working classes of this country are to be deceived by these mischievous, new, and pernicious doctrines, is, believe me, to pay far too inattentive a regard to the part which political education and intuitive common sense have played in the history of our country.
LORD SYDENHAM: My Lords, I ask the pardon of the House for the very bad wording of my Question. It is only due to my utter ignorance of legal terms. From the speech of the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack, I should really think that there was no revolution in Ireland, and that there had been no conspiracy leading up to that revolution. One thing I regret in his speech is that he did not hold out any hope of stopping the poisoning of our young children, which is going on, as I am sure he is aware.

THE HEJAZ.
Lord RAGLAN: My Lords, I beg to ask His Majesty's Government what stage the prolonged negotiations with the King of the Hejaz have now reached and whether it is a fact that the Wahhabis are in occupation of portions of the Hejaz. It may be said, I think, without exaggeration that it is notorious to all who take an interest in these matters that the policy of His Majesty's Government with regard to the Hejaz during the last few years has caused great dissatisfaction throughout the Mahomedan world. There are many reasons for this. Two of them are that the majority of Mahomedans regard the Sultan of Turkey as the rightful guardian of the Holy Places, and that the lack of security and general anarchy and mis-government in the Hejaz, and the interruption of the Hejaz Railway, have greatly increased the difficulties of the pilgrimage. What the Government's present policy is with regard to the Hejaz it is difficult to say—it is kept extremely dark—but whatever it is it has not resolved itself into action. The state of the Hejaz is getting gradually worse. According to the latest report the Wahhabis are advancing on Mecca and the King of the Hejaz is a fugitive.
THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (THE EARL OF CRAWFORD): My Lords, I certainly have no information to confirm the last statement made by the noble Lord. The King of the Hejaz, it is true, has displayed uncommonly little anxiety during the last few months to expedite the negotiations connected with the Treaty, to which reference has been made in the course of replies to previous Questions put by Lord Raglan. Matters, so far as I can learn, remain very much as they were. The frontiers of the Hejaz

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are still undefined, with the result that the ownership of certain outlying districts has not as yet been finally decided. Though reports have been received regarding the spread of Wahhabi tenets amongst the tribes to the east of Mecca and Medina, it would be incorrect to say, for the reasons I have just stated, that the Hejaz is partially in the occupation of the followers of the Sultan of Nejd. I repeat what I said to Lord Raglan a few weeks ago, that if a Treaty is concluded it will be laid before Parliament before ratification, should Parliament desire to discuss it.
LORD RAGLAN: May I point out that it was five months ago that I put the Question, and the noble Earl then stated that he hoped and expected that the negotiations would be shortly concluded?
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: If I said so my expectations were entirely wrong, but it is not owing to any delay on the part of the Government.

GOLD COAST HARBOUR WORKS.
LORD RAGLAN: My Lords, I wish to ask His Majesty's Government whether they can give any information with regard to contracts for harbour works recently entered into by the Government of the Gold Coast Colony and whether it is a fact that the contractors are receiving a Government stipend in addition to the usual fees and commission. My information on this Question is to the following effect: The harbour works now being undertaken under the direction of the Government of the Gold Coast are to cost a million and a quarter sterling, but I understand that they will be of little use until the whole scheme is completed, which is to cost £6,000,000, and this will provide the Colony with harbour works which they neither require nor can afford. As regards the second part of my Question, I understand that the unusually favourable terms granted to the contractors have been the subject of much unfavourable local comment.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, this subject has been discussed with the utmost care both by the authorities in London and by the authorities on the Gold Coast, and my answer traverses in substance everything that Lord Raglan has said. No contract for these works has
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been entered into. The work at present being clone on harbours in the Gold Coast consists in the construction of a deep-water harbour at Takoradi, at an estimated cost of £1,600,000, and certain improvements to the existing harbour at Accra, at an estimated cost of £100,000. These works are being carried out by the Public Works Department in the Gold Coast, under the supervision of Messrs. Stewart & Mae-Donnell, who have been appointed consulting engineers to the Gold Coast Government for that purpose. Their remuneration is fixed at £70,000, and will be paid at the rate of £20,000 a year from July 1, 1921, and they receive no other fees or commission of any kind.
The reasons which led to the decision to carry out the works departmentally rather than by putting them out to contract are briefly as follows:—(1) The project was finally approved in June, 1921. In the uncertain conditions then prevailing in the industrial world, there can be little doubt that no contractor would have bound himself to any reasonable figure. (2) Intending tenderers would have required opportunity to make an independent study of conditions and of the locality, which would have involved considerable delay, which it was most undesirable to incur. (3) The present consulting engineers' remuneration is fixed, and they stand to gain nothing (as would be the case were the tenders placed on the usual percentage basis) if the cost were exceeded. The objections to which Lord Raglan referred have been most carefully considered. The Colony considers that it can afford the outlay which is proposed, that the construction of the total work now being undertaken will be extremely profitable to the Colony, will develop its trade, and will in every way be of benefit to that country; and that the works about to be carried out will not in any way prejudice future developments which are expected to be required before many years have passed.
LORD EMMOTT: My Lords, it is extraordinarily difficult on a matter of this kind, when one has very grave doubts as to the course which the Government is pursuing, in face of such a statement as that which we have just heard, to expect that one can impart one's own doubts to your Lordships, and, as it were, overcome the view put forward by the Government. But on this particular case, as the matter

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has been raised by the noble Lord opposite, I beg leave to say a word or two more. The cost of this harbour scheme has been given by the noble Earl who has replied for the Government as £1,600,000, but the cost of these other schemes for linking up the railways, which will be required to make the harbour scheme effective, will be over £2,000,000 for the Takoradi to Kyea Railway, and £2,250,000 for the Takoradi to Wioso Railway. It is said that without those railways this scheme cannot be effective, but it is also said that the finances of the Colony do not justify such expenditure. Commodities raised in the Colonies now are being exported, and the cost of the present Gold Coast Railway is higher than that of any other railway.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Because the outlet is so bad.
LORD EMMOTT: You are going to add to that by spending immediately another £1,600,000. That expenditure will probably involve, eventually, from £5,000,000 to £6,000,000. The total debt of the Colony will then be something like £13,000,000, and the annual charge over £800,000, whereas in 1913 it was only £90,000, for interest on the Public Debt. In those circumstances I say that the Government is pursuing a highly dangerous course. The noble Earl says that the Colony consents to this, and that the Government consent, but what about these Export Duties which are killing the trade of the Colony, and which, if this is bad finance, will be made permanent. I cannot conceive that these Colonies can go on if you maintain these Export Duties. I believe that schemes such as this will mean that the Public Debt of the Colony will be so large that the export trade and the users of the railway will not be able to pay the cost of the new amount that is being borrowed and that the Gold Coast, which before the war was one of the most promising and progressive parts of the British Empire, will cease to be prosperous at all.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I did not know that more than the bare facts of the case were going to be invited; otherwise, I would have developed considerably more detail. I have exhausted my right to speak and I do not propose to make a further speech, but I will record for the satisfaction of Lord Emmott that this
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thing has not been blindly entered upon. It has been the subject of prolonged and most exhaustive inquiry in the Colony itself. All these points were gone into, including the high cost of the railway. One of the reasons of the high cost of the railway is that it is a bottle-neck; there is no issue from it. No ship can get near the harbour; everything that is loaded or unloaded has to be put into surf boats, which damages the imports and exports. The matter has been gone into in a very thorough and businesslike way, approved by a very strong and representative Committee, and it has the cordial endorsement of the Governor of the Colony.

ALLOTMENTS (SCOTLAND) BILL, [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order).
Clause 4:
Provisions relating to land leased for allotments.
4.—(1) Where land is acquired on lease by a local authority for use as allotments—
(d) If the land acquired on lease shall at any time during the tenancy thereof by the local authority be shown to the satisfaction of the Board to be required by the landlord for the purpose of working the mines, minerals, or surface minerals thereunder, or for feuing for building, or for any road or work to be used in connection with such working or winning or feuing, it shall be lawful for the landlord of such land to resume possession thereof upon giving to the local authority twelve months' previous notice in writing of his intention so to do, and upon such resumption the landlord shall pay to the authority and to the holders of allotments on the land for the time being such compensation for the loss of the land for the purposes of allotments as may be agreed between the landlord and the authority, or in default of agreement determined under and in accordance with the provisions of the Second Schedule to the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1908;
Where land is let to a local authority for the purpose of being sublet for use as allotment gardens, the foregoing provision shall have effect subject to the provisions of this Act relating to the termination of tenancies of allotment gardens and to compensation on removing therefrom, and to determination of questions arising on resumption of land:
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH moved, in subsection 1 (d), after "working," where that word firstly occurs, to insert "and

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winning." The noble Duke said: I should like to thank Lord Stanmore for the Amendments he put down on the Report stage in response to appeals which were made to him during the Second Reading and Committee stages, which Amendments will, in my opinion, make the Bill more simple to those who have to work it, and also more simple in the event of consolidation. I believe that my noble friend agrees to the first Amendment which I have now to move. Clause 4, to which it relates, was not in the original Bill, and was taken from the Local Government Act, 1894.
Amendment moved—
Clause 4, page 5, line 40, after ("working") insert ("and winning").—(The Duke of Buccleuch.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH moved, in subsection 1 (d), to leave out "for the loss of the land for the purposes of allotments," and to insert "for loss sustained by them respectively and arising directly from such resumption." The noble Duke said: I am informed that the words in the Bill are very difficult to understand, and it is desirable that clearer language should be employed for the benefit of anyone who may have to make a decision under this clause. Though it is not likely to be very often used, it provides for the payment of certain compensation.
Amendment moved—
Clause 4, page 6, lines 8 and 9, leave out ("for the loss of the land for the purposes of allotments") and insert ("for loss sustained by them respectively and arising directly from such resumption).—(The Duke of Buccleuch.)
LORD STANMORE: I do not propose to resist this Amendment, but I should like to say that the words, which, as the noble Duke says, were taken from the Act of 1894, have never caused any difficulty, so far as I am aware, in the intervening twenty-eight years.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 7:
Establishment of allotments committee.
7.—(1) The council of any burgh, with a population of ten thousand or upwards shall, unless exempted by the Board from the provisions of this section, establish an allotments committee, and i all matters relating to the exercise and performance by the council of their powers and duties under the Allotments Acts as respects the provision of allotment gardens (except the power of raising a rate or borrowing money) shall stand referred to such committee, and the council before
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exercising any such powers shall, unless in their opinion the matter is urgent, receive and consider the report of the committee with respect to the matter in question, and the council may delegate to the committee, with or without restrictions, any of their said powers except as aforesaid.
(2)An allotments committee established under this section shall comprise persons other than members of the council, representative of the interests of occupiers of allotment gardens in the burgh, and being themselves occupiers of such allotment gardens, provided that the number of such representative members shall be less than one-half but shall not be less than one-third of the total number of the members of the committee.
(3)The accounts of any receipts or payments by or to a committee under powers delegated under this section shall be accounts of the council and made up and audited accordingly.
LORD SALTOUN LORD SALTOUN moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "shall, unless exempted by the Board from the provisions of this section," and to insert "may." The noble Lord said: There is no need for me to go into the arguments which were used the other day on the Report stage, because I understand that my noble friend, Lord Linlithgow, has agreed with the noble Duke (the Duke of Atholl), and I am in agreement with the conclusion to which they have come. The reason I put this Amendment down was that it seemed to mc that to force a compulsory committee on to a body of elected councillors constituted a very serious innovation. The county council or other local authority derives its powers for raising money, rating, and so forth, from the various Local Government Acts under which they operate, and they are elected bodies. An innovation of this kind ought not to be made in a Bill of this sort, but in a Bill for the amendment of those Local Government Acts. Imagine what the London County Council would think if they suddenly had a compulsory committee thrust upon them, and they were obliged to appeal to that committee in any trouble into which they got. They would feel very much aggrieved. The views I have expressed are only those of a layman, but I am very glad to see the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Haldane, sitting here, because he is a very skilled Scottish lawyer and can explain the whole thing.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: I think that probably the noble Lord is moving the first part.
LORD SALTOUN: Yes, the first part.
Amendment moved—
Clause 7, page 8, lines 41 and 42, leave out from ("upwards") in line 41 to ("establish") in line 42, and insert ("may").—(Lord Saltoun.)
THE MARQUESS OF LINLITHGOW: The noble Lord is labouring under two separate delusions. In the first place, he imagines that the original discussion of the clause, which was put down by myself as an Amendment, was on the Report stage of the Bill. In point of fact it was in Committee, and the Amendment embodied in the clause was tabled in the ordinary way and circulated on June 21. The noble Lord has not adduced, and I think has not claimed to adduce, any arguments in opposition to this clause which were not heard by the House at the time when the clause was inserted in the Bill. As regards the merits of the clause, the noble Lord supposes that I am in agreement with the noble Duke in charge of the Bill, but there again he is mistaken, because the noble Duke was inclined to oppose this clause in Committee, and only agreed to insert it without a Division because he saw that the forces in support of the Amendment exceeded those opposed to it, and, like a wise soldier, he withdrew in good time.
I must point out the extreme inconvenience of seeking to eviscerate a clause on the Third Reading stage of a Bill, after that clause has been inserted by the House in Committee. It is, I think, contrary to the practice of your Lordships' House to make any adjustment across the floor of the House, even as regards words, at this stage of the Bill. The noble Lord and other noble Lords who come from Scotland should be the first to appreciate the advantages which accrue from the feeling held by those who have supported an Amendment in Committee that, unless new facts are brought before the House, the Amendment will remain part of the Bill, if it is carried. My noble friend and I are used to coming up from Scotland occasionally to attend the Committee stage of a Bill, and we leave the Report stage and the Third Reading stage to those who happen to find it more convenient to attend the House more regularly than some of us do. But if this practice, which the noble Lord has initiated to-day, becomes the established practice of the House, we shall find it necessary to sit, in anxious and inconvenient incubation, through all the stages of every Bill. On
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the grounds I have mentioned I hope the noble Duke in charge of the Bill will not accept the Amendment.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, the noble Lord who moved this Amendment will, perhaps, have a rather poor opinion of me and will think that I have changed my mind, or that the Government has changed its mind, with regard to this point, because I supported the other day the view's held by the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun. That was because it was a suggestion for bringing in what I might call an entirely new method of dealing with these matters in Scotland. The Government did not desire to rush this matter until they were perfectly certain of what were the considered views of noble Lords opposite and of the House. For that reason I opposed the suggestion. It must be remembered that noble Lords opposite, Lord Saltoun amongst them, have supported Lord Linlithgow's Amendment. Although I tried to make out that the arguments of noble Lords opposite were not, perhaps, so strong as their principles, I agreed at the time to their views and we undertook to accept, possibly with a rather bad grace, the clause of the noble Marquess, Lord Linlithgow. Since then we have found that it is a matter of great joy to associations of allotment holders that we have not been opposed seriously in any way in the House, and in the circumstances we think it is probably better to allow the clause to stand as it is.
I agree with the noble Marquess that if we were to eviscerate the clause in the way suggested, it would be better to do away with it altogether and to insert instead Section 19 of the Land Settlement Act, 1919, which is permissive, and provides that there may be a consultative committee. I think it would have been the better plan to put that section into this Bill, and to have made it compulsory. That, however, is neither here nor there. All I have to say now is that if I accepted this I should not do so because this is a matter of sentiment, as was suggested to me by the noble Marquis and, I think, by the noble Viscount, Lord Haldane, and claim that as it had been passed in England it would be very hard that Scotsmen should not have the benefit of it. That is an argument that leaves me absolutely cold, because it is not a business argument. All I want to do is to obtain for my country the best legislation possible, and I am only

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too glad if, being the best, it happens to tally with what noble Lords have passed for England. I am sorry that I cannot accept the Amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun.
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH: I have considerable sympathy with my noble friend, Lord Saltoun, in this matter; but, as my noble friend, Lord Linlithgow, said, this is not quite the right time to move it. This clause was moved in Committee and it would have been possible, perhaps, to amend it on Report. I agree with the noble Marquess that if new questions are to be brought up on Third Reading, it will be extremely awkward for noble Lords who live a long way from London and are not able to be present in your Lordships' House except at great personal inconvenience. As the noble Duke is not going to accept the Amendment, I will make no further reference to the matter.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
LORD SALTOUN LORD SALTOUN had on the Paper an Amendment, in subsection (2), to omit "shall be less than one-half but." The noble Lord said: I am sorry that I did not bring forward my arguments in support of the previous Amendment, but I was trying to save the time of the House. In the second part of Clause 7, 49 per cent, of the representation is given to this body of gentlemen who are not members of the council. The committee is really a very small body; it is not, I think, a very important body, and the proportion suggested is a very great deal too large. It ought to be reduced to not more than one-third and not less than one-fifth, and that is the object of the Amendment that I have placed on the Paper.
THE MARQUESS OF LINLITHGOW: My Lords, the Amendment, as it stands on the Paper, does not quite give effect to what, I understand, are the intentions of the noble Lord. If the Amendment is inserted as printed, there will be no minimum number, but merely a maximum number. It is easy to see that these allotment holders are anxious for a statutory minimum representation, although they are willing to limit that representation by a statutory maximum.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: I am prepared to accept the Amendment which has been
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moved by Lord Saltoun, subject to this. Had your Lordships accepted the previous Amendment and made the Bill permissive I should have held cut for the 49 per cent., because town councils would then have done it with their eyes open. Now, however, that town councils are compelled to set up these committees, the position is very different. I agree that 49 per cent, is a very high proportion of co-opted members, who have very full powers of spending and may, if they have the Chairman with them, be equal in voting power to the people elected by the constituents. Therefore, I think it is a wise suggestion that the number should be reduced and, as the noble Marquess agrees, I trust there will be no difficulty.
THE MARQUESS OF LINLITHGOW: Subject to some minimum.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: Yes. I would suggest that the noble Lord should move his Amendment in this form: "Shall not be more than one-third or less than one-sixth of the total number of members of the committee." I think that would probably please all parties.
LORD SALTOUN: I quite agree to the noble Duke's suggestion, and I beg to move my Amendment in that form.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 17, leave out from ("members") to ("of") in line 18, and insert ("shall not be more than one-third or less than one-sixth").—(Lord Saltoun.)
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH: Is not this procedure against the rules and practice of your Lordships' House? I understood that on Third Reading no Amendment could be moved unless it was on the printed Paper.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: Notice was given of this Amendment. It is an alteration, and I think it is all right.
THE EAEL OF SELBORNE: It is an Amendment to an Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Amendments (privilege) made: The King's consent signified: Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

THE MILITIA.
LORD AMPTHILL LORD AMPTHILL had given Notice to ask His Majesty's Government—

1. What has delayed the reconstitution of the Militia;

2. What financial provision has been made for the same;

3. When the appointment of commanding officers and permanent staff will be made;

4. When the Militia will be open to recruiting;

5. Whether any official announcement as to the manner in which the Militia will be reconstituted may shortly be expected.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, in putting the Questions which stand in my name I need only say that the information for which I ask was promised long ago, and that the fulfilment of that promise is long overdue. The information is being anxiously and impatiently awaited by a large number of people not only among those who are directly concerned with the Militia, but also among those who recognise that without the old constitutional force it will be impossible for us in the future to maintain a Regular Army on a voluntary basis. I beg to ask the Questions.
LORD GORELL: My Lords, the noble Lord very courteously informed me that he had no intention of making a lengthy speech upon the subject, but that his object in putting down these five specific points was to endeavour to elicit some authoritative information. I thank him for the courtesy with which he gave me notice of his intention. I think that he is using a rather strong word when he speaks of having received a promise that this information would be given some time ago. To the best of my recollection it was the expression of a strong hope, and not a definite promise. Though I will endeavour not to evade any of the points he has put down, I am afraid I am not in a position to give any very definite information in reply to his Questions.
The noble Lord first asks: "What has delayed the reconstitution of the Militia?" The answer to that is that it is impossible to reconstitute the Militia until the size and composition of the peace strength and the war strength of the Regular Army
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have finally been settled. In the last debate, on the Territorial Army and Militia Bill, in August of last year, some difference of opinion was expressed by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Haldane, and the noble Lord who has asked these Questions as to what precisely the functions of the Militia should be. At any rate, I think one may say that its primary function is to provide the necessary units and personnel, and in particular that necessary for completing to establishment the technical arms, required by the Expeditionary Force on mobilisation, and to make good the wastage which would be incurred during the first months of a war. The Militia, I think, must be regarded as strictly complementary to the first line of the Regular Army. The description given by the noble Lord was, I think, that the Militia had "always been the ante-chamber of the Regular Army," and it must be apparent that until the final plans for the architecture of the whole building have been completed it would not be possible to design the ante-chamber without running the risk of getting it out of proportion to the whole building. That is the cause of the delay and the answer to the first point.
The second Question is: "What financial provision has been made for the Militia?" To that it is possible to give the quite definite answer that a provisional sum of £1,000,000 has been included in the current year's Estimates, so that the reconstitution of the Militia can be started as soon as circumstances permit. The third Question is: "When will the appointment of commanding officers and permanent staff be made?" To that I am afraid it is not possible to say much more than I did in answer to the first point. It is obvious that it must await decision as to the position and establishment of the Militia itself, and those questions are awaiting the final decisions in regard to the Regular Army. I except, of course, those appointments which are already covered by the infantry depot staffs.
The fourth point is as to when recruiting will be open for the Militia. I should hesitate to give any exact date. I am aware that this has been an expression of strong hope on more than one occasion, dating over a certain length of time, but it is hoped—I am afraid I must again use the same word—that recruiting will be open for some branches of the Militia at any rate during the present financial year.

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The fifth Question is really a resume of the preceding four, and enquires when an official announcement as to the manner in which the Militia will be reconstituted may be expected. I am afraid that with the best will in the world it is not possible to name a date.
LORD AMPTHILL: If the noble Lord will excuse me for interrupting him, the Question is not "when," but "whether" any official announcement may be expected.
LORD GORELL: I beg the noble Lord's pardon. I think I may say that there certainly will be an announcement, but I cannot hold out any prospect to the noble Lord of its being made at an early date. I hope I have made it clear that the delay, which one must admit, does not proceed from any indifference on the part of the War Office to the functions of the Militia, or to the glorious record which it had during the war, or to the functions which it performed, but is solely due to the difficulty of arriving at finality as to the Regular Army at a time when, owing to economical conditions and other circumstances, it is a matter of the greatest difficulty to reach anything approaching finality on the primary decision upon which the reconstitution of the Militia must rest. I am sorry I am not able to give the noble Lord a more definite answer, but I have tried not to evade the five points he has put down.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, I listened with some relief to the statement of the noble Lord opposite, but with a certain amount of misgiving also, because he seems to treat it as an open question whether, to some extent, what the noble Lord calls the old constitutional force may be restored. I think it would be a disaster to attempt to restore the old constitutional force and I will tell the House why. It has become an anachronism. It was a second line Army, but it could not call itself an Army. It had no transport; it had no administrative service; it had no medical service; it could not mobilise; it could not take the field. Its real use was to furnish drafts for the battalions of the Expeditionary Force, and its drawback was that there was no power to call upon the Militia to send drafts into that Expeditionary Force. It was a purely voluntary organisation, and sometimes it was very difficult to get militiamen to join.
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If the noble Lord will ask trained officers who had to do with the mobilisation of the Expeditionary Force they will all tell him, or a great majority will tell him, the same thing. If we had not abolished the Militia organisation, if we had left it where it was, if we had relied on the old constitutional force, we could not have mobilised for months on the Continent. We could not possibly have had any part of the Expeditionary Force in Flanders within a fortnight, nor could we have replaced the casualties at the, battle of the Marne which gave Lord French, in effect, a new Army to bring against the Germans, who, through not understanding the effect of the new Special Reserve, thought his Army was broken up, and that they were dealing only with scattered remnants instead of with battalions which had been filled up from the new sources of the Special Reserve. To go back to an organisation in which the Militia stood outside the first Regular line and could not be called upon to fill it up is to go back to disaster from the point of view of mobilisation and strength. I cannot conceive anything worse.
I should like to have heard something that would have given me some comfort—that these things had been really seriously considered. There are grave problems in front of us. We do not know what contingency may emerge in the future, and all we can do is to prepare such a nucleus Army as can be expanded for these various contingencies. That requires an immense amount of consideration. A great deal too little consideration is being given to it. Take the Air Force. The Air Force is very important. It is expensive, but it is necessary. I am far from satisfied that Cavalry are necessary in the same way, and Cavalry eat up a great deal of money. I would like to substitute for the expense of the Cavalry a provision which would put the Air Force on a better footing than it has to-day. In the same way, we must keep tanks, for they have taken the place of Cavalry in a large measure.
I should like an assurance which I could believe that these things are being scrutinised and gone into in the minute, way they used to be; that the objects for which we might go into war may be defined, and close consideration given to the means to which we shall have to resort if we are to attain those objects. That is work which can only be done by a highly competent General

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Staff, and I am not sure that in the Army or in the Navy the importance of—
LORD AMPTHILL: Clear thinking.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: Yes, clear thinking is vital, and it is because the noble Lord does not give himself the pains to think clearly that he sets up the idea of restoring the old constitutional force. You may call it Special Reserve or Militia, as you like. I do not like it; it is a confusion of names, which leads to a confusion of ideas, but as it has been done I suppose we cannot go back upon it. I hope the announcement for which the noble Lord has asked will be a long time in coming. I did not gather that any definite time was suggested by the noble Lord who replied, but before any such grave step is taken, which may mean ruin to our mobilisation arrangements, these things should be considered in a way in which they are not considered in popular debates such as we have had this afternoon.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: My Lords, no one proposes to reconstitute the Militia as it was twenty years ago, and I cannot imagine why the noble and learned Viscount should set up that bogey for the mere purpose of knocking it down. I have always agreed with him in thinking that the Militia is to act as a draft for the line troops, but I have never understood why that should preclude the possibility of sending out a battalion as a unit when it could be done conveniently and with advantage, and as, in fact, it was done during the late war. The main function of the Militia is, of course, to act as a reserve for the Regular Army. Being in entire accord with the noble and learned Viscount, I have never been able to understand what he must allow me to call his constantly ungracious attitude towards the Militia. He has never said a good word in their favour. It is true that when he was at the War Office there were many shortcomings in the force, but may I say, as an old Militia man, that they were entirely due to the neglect of the War Office. They never gave the Militia a chance; they never took any interest in it except as a means of recruitment for the line. The position is quite different now, and when we urge the reconstruction of the Militia I understand it to be as a reserve for the Regular Army.
When you come to the name I have always thought it was very inconsistent with clear thinking and the historical
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philosophy of the noble and learned Viscount that he should destroy the name of many centuries in order to put on a new label which nobody understood. The force can fulfil its functions as a reserve for the Army just as well if you call it the Militia as if you call it the Special Reserve, and I should have thought that one so imbued with the sense of historical tradition and the value of continuity as the noble and learned Viscount would have appreciated more than he does how the force resented being suddenly deprived of the name of which they were so proud and called by an emtirely different one. I suspect human nature came into play, and that the opposition to his scheme arose, to a great extent, from this wholly unnecessary change of the name.
I have one question to ask the noble Lord who replied on behalf of the Government. He told us quite clearly that the date of the reconstitution of the Militia as a reserve for the Regular Army depends on the decision as to the exact constitution and strength of the Regular Army itself. Can he give us any kind of indication as to when finality will be reached in that matter? I cordially agree with Lord Haldane that never in the whole history of the British Army has there been more occasion for the clearest thinking and the best staff work in order to use our comparatively restricted means to the best advantage in the organisation of our future fighting force. Four years have passed since the Armistice. The commitments of the Army throughout the world are gradually decreasing, and we are approaching more nearly to normal conditions. Therefore, I had hoped— although the last thing I recommend is any hasty decision or undue interruption of that study which the situation so obviously demands—that during the course of this financial year we might have learnt where we stood.
LORD RAGLAN: The noble Lord, in his reply to the fourth Question of my noble friend, used the expression "certain branches of the Militia." Can he say whether that includes the engineers?
LORD GORELL: My Lords, I am not able to give any further particulars in answer to that Question of the noble Lord. My noble friend, Lord Haldane, spoke as though I had said something to indicate the character of the reconstitution. I was not aware that I went into that question

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at all; I did not intend to do so. I was not asked that question, and I had no intention at all of saying anything which should prejudge a very important point. I can only say that the very important considerations mentioned by the noble and learned Viscount will receive the fullest consideration. In reply to the Question asked me by the noble Earl, I must point out that it is only fairly recently that the results of the investigation into the whole of the Services by the Geddes Committee have been able to be fully considered, and that it is possible, therefore, that the final decisions, which, some little time ago, might have been in doubt, may be taken at an earlier date than if that investigation had not been pursued, but I am afraid I am not able to give him any assurance as to the exact date, or even as to an early date.

INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE.
LORD DYNEVOR: My Lords, I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he can now make any statement regarding the modification of the terms already announced for retirement from Indian services on proportionate pensions; and whether any decision has now been arrived at as was promised in the orders issued in November last as to the conditions upon which the commutation of proportionate pensions will be allowed.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (VISCOUNT PEEL): My Lords, as to the second point raised by my noble friend Lord Dynevor, I think I can answer that quite shortly. I have decided that officers awarded proportionate pensions will ordinarily be permitted to commute for a capital sum, which shall be calculated on the basis of the life table used by the Treasury, a portion of their pension not exceeding one-third of the whole. This restriction as to the amount which may be commuted is universally applied to the commutation of Indian pensions. I have drawn up detailed regulations on this matter, and, as these are very technical, I do not wish to trouble your Lordships j with them at present. They will be published almost at once.
As to the first part of my noble friend's Question, I should like to give your Lordships the exact text of the announcement I wish to make. It has been framed after careful and prolonged consideration with
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the Government of India, and I have authorised the Government of India to publish it to-day. I ought to explain to your Lordships that the discussion of these particular points was initiated by my I predecessor, and that the decisions which have since emerged have come as the result of prolonged discussions which were started when he was Secretary of State for India. Perhaps your Lordships will allow me to read to you the most important part of the announcement:—
"1. The orders in question at present give to members of the Services to which they relate, who I arrived in India for the first time on a date antecedent to 1st January, 1920, an option of retiring which expires on 31st March, 1924. The Secretary of State in Council has decided that the option, instead of expiring on 31st March, 1924, shall continue in force and may be exercised until the action proposed to be taken on the Report of the Parliamentary Commission provided for by the Government of India Act is known, when the whole position will necessarily be reviewed.
"2. It follows from this decision that the restriction that leave taken in anticipation of retirement must be completed before 31st March, 1924, is also removed. Officers proposing to retire prematurely, provided that they have submitted a definite application for permission to retire, accompanied by the prescribed form of declaration, will ordinarily be allowed, before their retirement takes effect, to avail themselves of the full amount of leave which is due to them, and which may be granted to them at one time under the regulations for the time being in force and applicable to them otherwise than on medical certificate. A mere intimation of a possible intention to retire will not entitle an officer to have his application for leave dealt with under these Rules.
"An officer who has submitted an application to retire, supported by a declaration, and has obtained leave on the basis of it, will not be permitted to cancel his application and to return to duty without the consent of his Local Government.
"An officer on leave will be at liberty to submit an application to retire with the prescribed declaration and will then, unless the Local Government considers his return necessary, be placed in the same position as an officer who has submitted his application in India.
"3. The following form of declaration is substituted for that required by the present Rules:—'In view of the changes in the conditions of my service occasioned by the Government of India Act of 1919, I desire to retire on the terms set forth in the orders relating to premature retirement.'"
The rest of the announcement deals with subsidiary points as to employment during leave, and so on, and I will not trouble your Lordships with them now though these details will, of course, be published with the statement.

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I should like to add a few general words as to the effect of the Rules, and the Rules which they replaced, because there has unfortunately been a considerable amount of very regrettable misunderstanding upon the subject. There are two main rumours to which I should like to allude. The first was that officers who did not retire before this date in 1924 would, whatever subsequent changes might be introduced into the Constitution, have no further opportunity of retiring. I need hardly say that at no time was that the intention of the notice that had been put forward. The second misunderstanding was that some idea had got about that the Government of India and His Majesty's Government did not want any longer to retain the services of these officers. This was a most, unfortunate misunderstanding, and I have no idea at all what gave rise to such a rumour.
I should like, to say most emphatically that the last thing which the Government desire, as the result of this retirement scheme, is that advantage should be taken of it on a large scale. Our hope is the exact opposite, and, while we have endeavoured to make it as easy as possible for officers who honourably feel that they cannot stay to obtain release on terms which are as generous as they could be made, without being either unduly attractive or unduly unfair to those who wish to continue in the Service, we hope that the proportion of men who take these pensions and cut short their careers will be a very small minority of the whole. It was with this desire and with this hope that I was led to remove the time limit of March, 1924, as it was originally imposed.
Your Lordships will readily understand that a decision of this kind could not be lightly taken, and am sure that, on reflection, you will consider that the original imposition of the time limit was not in itself at all unreasonable. It was felt-that, while it was most undesirable in the interests of all concerned to enforce the retention of unwilling public servants in India, it was at the same time most undesirable that the mutual adjustment to the new conditions of all parties affected by them should be secured as soon as possible, and that it was prima facie difficult to expect such an adjustment so long as the Services were unsettled by doubts as to whether they should go or stay. Your Lordships will equally recognise that it creates a very drastic change in the Service
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conditions and in the fundamental basis of Service discipline when it is open to members of the Service practically to demand their release at short notice at any time, but, on the whole, the Government are of opinion, and I have come to the conclusion, that the best hope of smooth working lies in the direction of the solution that I have just announced. Indeed, I am not without hope that, so far from increasing the number of applications, some of these amounting, in all for the eight Services concerned, to about 120, which have already been put in, but most of which have not yet become effective, may be withdrawn.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: My Lords, I hope my noble friend will allow me to express my great appreciation of the spirit in which he has approached this most difficult and delicate though most important question—a spirit which is exactly that in which the Joint Select Committee over which I had the honour to preside three years ago hoped that the matter would be approached by the authorities in India and at the India Office. I do not wish to make any comment now on what my noble friend has said, because I understand from him that Papers will be laid upon the Table.
VISCOUNT PEEL: At once.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: And no doubt we shall have an opportunity of further debate on the subject after those Papers have been laid.
LORD SOUTHBOROUGH: My Lords, I should like to ask the noble Viscount whether he thinks it necessary, as the time is going to be extended, to earmark all the applications for permission to retire as being in consequence of the Reform Act. He read, as I understood him, the headlines of a notice to be given by the applicant to retire. Would it not be better that the application to retire should be sent in without any reference to the Act, and merely as an application to retire.
VISCOUNT PEEL: I need hardly say that this is a matter which has been considered again and again, and, on the whole—of course, there are great difficulties connected with it—we came to the conclusion that probably it was the best form in which the matter could be put.
LORD AMPTH1LL: My Lords, my noble friend the Secretary of State for India spoke of an unfortunate rumour to the effect that members of the Public Services in India had got a notion that the Government wished to get rid of them, and, in a manner which was no doubt entirely innocent, he professed inability to account for such a feeling as that. Perhaps he will allow me to tell him the reason. It was not a case of anybody starting a rumour from any foul design. There was nothing artificial about it, but it was the natural and inevitable consequence of what is generally and popularly known as the Montagu-Chelmsford policy. When Englishmen in India found themselves placed, or about to be placed, in a position to which no Act of Parliament will ever make an ordinary Englishman submit, whatever his condition and degree, they naturally thought, that the Government was wishing to get rid of them, and when, over and above that, they found that they were not being supported by the Government in their attempt to discharge their duties and preserve law and order, the impression that they were not wanted was naturally confirmed. I know this from hundreds of cases. Let me, therefore, assure my noble friend that there is nothing mysterious about it, but that it is merely the natural consequence of what has been done in India in the last few years.
LORD SYDENHAM: I wish to offer my congratulations to the noble Viscount upon the extension of tie time in which applications may be made and upon changing that form of declaration against which I have protested in this House. I am sure that the announcement he has made to-day will have considerable effect in making members of the Services in India reconsider their decision.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, before the House adjourns may I take the opportunity to give Notice that I propose to postpone the Motion standing in my name, with respect to the grant of Peerages, from July 10 to July 17, the Monday following, the reason being that that is the date fixed in the House of Commons for their debate on the same subject, and it has been thought the better plan that the two debates should be simultaneous.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I should also like to state that I am inviting Lord Strachie to postpone the Question which he has placed on the Paper for Monday next with reference to milk charges, as it is impossible to give an answer on that date.
House adjourned at five minutes before six o'clock.