Lords Sitting of 25 May 1922

Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
BRISTOL TRAMWAYS BILL.
Read 2a, and committed.
STAFFORDSHIRE POTTERIES WATER BILL.
Read 2a, and committed.
STOCK CONVERSION AND INVESTMENT TRUST LIMITED (NORTH WESTERN TRUST) BILL.
Read 2a, and committed.

DARTMOUTH HARBOUR COMMISSIONERS (RECONSTITUTION) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
NORTHAMPTON CORPORATION BILL.
SUNDERLAND AND SOUTH SHIELDS WATER BILL.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE): My Lords, I beg to make the Motion standing in my name with regard to these Bills. I think it is reasonable in the circumstances.
Moved, That Standing Order No. 143 be considered in order to its being dispensed with in respect of the said Bills, and that the Bills be now read 3a.—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to: Bills read 3a accordingly, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

GOVERNMENT OF THE SOUDAN LOAN (AMENDMENT) BILL.
Brought from the Commons, read 1a, and to be printed.

SITUATION IN IRELAND.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, with reference to the conversation which passed yesterday, your Lordships will remember that the Government
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suggested that one day, early next week, should be allotted to an Irish discussion—I do not mean to say that the Irish discussion should take the whole of the sitting, but that it should take place on an early day next week—but a certain ambiguity was left as to which day it should be. I do not know whether my noble friend who is leading the House can now inform us which day he would prefer. Personally, I think the general convenience would seem to indicate Tuesday of next week as the better day. It must be either Monday or Tuesday, and Tuesday would not interfere with the other arrangements of the Government.
THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (THE EARL OF CRAWFORD): My Lords, we are entirely in your Lordships' hands in this matter, and only desire to serve the general convenience of the House. If I may express a preference, it is strongly that your Lordships should follow the programme adumbrated by the noble Marquess. It is understood, I believe, that a statement on Irish affairs will be made in another place on Monday, and your Lordships, if you discuss the subject on Tuesday, will have the advantage of reading what has passed elsewhere on the previous day. It would also have a very great advantage in that it would not unduly congest the latest stages of the Allotments Bill. I take it, therefore, that, if your Lordships generally agree, we will settle the programme as follows:—Monday, the Report stage of the Allotments Bill; Tuesday, the first or a very early occasion for discussing Irish matters; Wednesday, the final stages of the Allotments Bill. I have a Motion lower down on the Paper which deals with business, but which I do not think would in any way interfere with that programme.

MELVILLE TRUST ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
Read 3a, and passed.
KILMARNOCK WATER PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
Read 3a, and passed.
AYR BURGH (TRAMWAYS, ETC.) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
Read 3a, and passed.
PILOTAGE PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

NAVAL DISCIPLINE BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (LORD LEE OF FAREHAM): My Lords, this is, I believe, an entirely non-contentious measure. There are really only two matters of importance with which it deals—(1) the discipline of the Royal Navy personnel when serving in Dominion naval ships or establishments, and (2) an increase in the compulsory deduction from the pay of ratings for the maintenance of wife, or children, or illegitimate children. The remaining provisions of the Bill are entirely formal, or comparatively unimportant.
Clause 1 merely brings the law so far as the Naval Discipline Act is concerned into harmony with the ordinary law of the land applicable to all other Courts competent to award penal servitude by permitting a sentence of three years' penal servitude to be inflicted instead of a minimum of five years. Clause 2 merely regularises the position under which lieutenant-commanders can sit on Courts-Martial. At the time the Naval Discipline Act was passed there was no such rank as lieutenant-commander and it is necessary to insert it in the Act. Clause 3 is merely a matter of convenience. Under the present Naval Discipline Act Courts-Martial have to sit de die in diem. This permits the Court at its discretion to adjourn for a period not exceeding six days, if it is desirable to do so in the interests of justice.
Clause 4, again, merely brings the Naval Discipline Act into conformity with the provisions of the Criminal Lunatics Act of 1884, under which a person imprisoned in England can only be transferred to a lunatic asylum by the order of the Home Secretary. It is thought desirable that that should be embodied in the Naval Discipline Act. Clause 5 redresses an anomaly which has been caused by a new nomenclature of naval ranks. Under the existing Act a naval warrant officer counts as an officer, whilst a marine warrant officer does not count as an officer. It is thought desirable, as they both proceed to
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sea under similar conditions, that they should be in the same boat. This clause, therefore, regularises their position, and provides that marine warrant officers, class 1, shall rank as officers.
The most important clause is Clause 6, dealing with the, status of personnel of the Royal Navy serving under a Dominion, or in a Dominion naval establishment. Under the existing law they are not automatically liable to the Naval Discipline Act of the particular Dominion which they are serving; that is to say, to the law of the Dominion in which they are serving. This has been represented to the Admiralty frequently, particularly by the Canadian authorities, and it is thought desirable that both officers and men—who, after all, volunteer for these services and have the position explained to them quite clearly before they so volunteer—should come under the provisions of the Naval Discipline Acts of the different Dominions in which they are serving.
Clause 7 deals with the payment of maintenance allowances. The scale of deductions which may be made, and which were computed in pre-war times, are obviously quite inappropriate either to the circumstances and needs of the beneficiaries or to the much higher rate of pay which the naval personnel receives. This same problem has been dealt with both by the War Office and by the Air Ministry in the Army and Air Force (Annual) Act, 1921, and all that is contemplated in this case is to bring the Navy into line with the scales adopted in the cases of the Army and the Air Force, and to make them more appropriate to the changed conditions which have resulted since the war. There is one provision which is inserted for the protection of the naval ratings themselves. Under the existing law if there are any arrears of payment when a man leaves the Service, he is liable to arrest by a civil Court because those arrears are unpaid, or until they are paid. It is now provided that a naval rating shall not be imprisoned for arrears unless the Court is satisfied that since he left the Navy he has had a reasonable opportunity of paying up what he owes. This is procedure which has been adopted by the other two fighting Services, and it has been given Parliamentary approval in the Army and Air Force (Annual) Act, 1921. In this case, therefore, we are again only bringing the Navy into line with the other two Services.

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The last clause, the printing clause, is entirely formal. It enables the main Naval Discipline Act to be officially reprinted, as amended by the present Bill or by subsequent Bills. It is a matter merely of convenience, and we thought it desirable to deal with it once for all in the new measure. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Lee of Fareham.)
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, this Bill seems to me to be a thoroughly reasonable measure. There is one question of principle which I should like to ask. It refers to Clause 6, which provides that the officers and seamen in ships of self-governed Dominions are to be under the laws of the particular Dominion, "provided such ship is not at the time placed at the disposal of the Admiralty." The point is as to the choice of those words. One sees the good sense of it, and I think it is probably what the Dominions would agree to and wish to observe when those ships are the King's ships under the Dominion Minister and Dominion laws. "Placed at the disposal of the Admiralty" is, perhaps, not enough to take them out of that category. If the Dominion Governments have assented to these words, or raised no objection to them, then it is right enough. It is certainly legislation under the powers of the Imperial Parliament, but coming in and trenching upon Dominion powers. It may well be that this has been found the most convenient way of doing it, and that the Dominions have raised no objection. If so, it is all right. Otherwise, it is using the powers of the Imperial Parliament to trench upon a matter which might come under the Dominions.
LORD LEE OF FAREHAM: In reply to the noble and learned Viscount, I can only say that this provision has been drawn up in close conversation with the Dominions. It applies, after all, only to Royal Naval ratings, and if the ship in which they serve is no longer for the time being under the control of the Dominion concerned but under the Admiralty, it is surplus.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: The difficulty is the words "placed at the disposal." You may put a ship at the disposal of the Admiralty quite well, and yet it might still remain a Canadian ship.
LORD LEE OF FAREHAM: Quite.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: If the noble Lord says that the words have been discussed with the Dominions I should take it that they have said, as they did in reference to the Copyright Act, "We welcome Imperial legislation as putting everything on a sensible footing."
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

MERCHANDISE MARKS BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.

CHILD MURDER (TRIAL) BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Parmoor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]
Clause 1:
Conviction for manslaughter in certain cases.
1. Where a woman is charged with the murder of her infant child, and upon the trial evidence is given that at the time the offence was committed the woman had not fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to the child, the jury may convict her of manslaughter instead of murder.
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE LORD MUIR MACKENZIE had given Notice to move, at the beginning of the clause, to leave out, "Where a woman" and insert "A woman who." The noble Lord said: This Amendment is not one of any particular importance in itself, but is the first of a number of Amendments that I have placed on the Paper, and I should like to say a word in explanation of the position in which I find myself in regard to them. Had the Bill come on in the ordinary course last Tuesday my Amendments would have been the only ones before the House, but at the last moment the noble and learned Lord in charge of the Bill postponed it until to-day, and in the interval the situation has very greatly changed, because the noble and learned

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Viscount on the Woolsack has put down a most comprehensive Amendment. It is, of course, a most valuable thing that your Lordships should have that aspect of the case presented by the Lord Chancellor rather than by a modest and insignificant person. But I hope there will be some opportunity, later on, of saying something upon the merits of his Amendment. He may not have noticed that it covers, with a great deal more, all the points to which I had wished to call the attention of the House. That being so, it seems likely that I shall not have to trouble your Lordships with my Amendments.
I rather wished to make a sort of apology, if it was not patent on the facts what the state of things was, for putting Town a lot of Amendments, and ending, perhaps, by not moving them. I have no real knowledge of the view of the position taken by my noble and learned friend, and I do not know whether I ant entitled at this stage to say anything about it. Though it is a little anticipating what is coming before the House, I should like to say how glad I am that the Lord Chancellor's Amendment appears to be entirely sympathetic to the Bill; in fact, that he looks upon it exactly as I do—that the case of Hetty in "Adam Bede" is no longer to be treated as being exactly the same as that of Bill Sykes in "Oliver Twist." I will make my Motion pro forum.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 6, leave out ("Where a woman") ant insert ("A woman who").—(Lord Muir Mackenzie.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT BIRKENHEAD): I think the noble Lord is quite right in saying that the substance of his Amendment is proposed to be dealt with by a slightly different method in the Amendment that stands in my name. I understand he is not adverse to my Amendment, and it will be the more convenient course, perhaps, that he should withdraw his.
LORD PARMOOR: I think that would be the more convenient course. I very much appreciate Lord Muir Mackenzie's friendly attitude towards the Bill, but I am bound to say that I think it would be better to take the discussion on the Lord Chancellor's Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to omit all words after "Where a woman" and insert—
"Unlawfully by any direct means intentionally causes the death of her newly born child, but at the time when she so caused its death she had not fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to such child, and by reason thereof the balance of her mind was then disturbed, she shall, notwithstanding that the circumstances were such that but for this Act the offence would have amounted to murder, be guilty of felony, to wit of infanticide, and may for such offence be punished as if she had been guilty of the offence of manslaughter of such child.
"(2) Where upon the trial of a woman for the murder of her newly born child, the jury are of opinion that she unlawfully by any direct means intentionally caused its death, but that at the time when she so caused its death she had not fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to such child, and that by reason thereof the balance of her mind was then disturbed, the jury may, notwithstanding that the circumstances were such that but for the provisions of this Act they might have returned a verdict of murder, return in lieu thereof a verdict of infanticide.
"(3) Nothing in this Act shall limit the power of the jury upon an indictment for murder to return a verdict of manslaughter, or a verdict of guilty but insane, or a verdict of concealment of birth, in pursuance of section 60 of the Offences against the Person Act, 1861."
The noble and learned Viscount said: I have had to place on the Paper an Amendment of considerable length, but the importance of the subject and the Parliamentary vicissitudes through which successive proposals have passed are, perhaps, a sufficient excuse. One would have thought that the mischief which has been aimed at now for a period of some twenty or twenty-five years in various legislative proposals was a very simple one to comprehend, and not a very difficult one to deal with by process of legislation. But the actual history of the successive attempts has disproved an anticipation which would have occurred to most of us. One proposal after another has been brought forward, supported by the weight of great apparent legal authority, and has then succumbed to the criticisms with which it has been met either here or in another place.
The mischief, of course, is a very simple one. It is that, under the existing law, if a woman has given birth to a child under the circumstances contemplated by this Bill and its predecessors, and has, it has ultimately been determined, not been completely mistress of her faculties, but has been distraught in the period immediately following on the birth of the child and has done it to death, there exist no means

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which would avoid the necessity of imposing upon her in open Court the death sentence, which, in fact, never was carried out, which all those who listened to it in Court with its dreadful paraphernalia knew quite well would not be carried out. It has been felt by generations of lawyers and a long succession of distinguished Judges who have had to go through this form that it ought to be corrected.
As I have already indicated, a series of efforts has been made and none of them has been so fortunate as to meet with the approval of this House, of another place, and of the legal profession generally, and the noble and learned Lord has made a praiseworthy attempt to step into the breach with a practical proposal. I do not know whether I am right because the history of this matter is a little obscure, but I believe that this proposal was originally fathered by the noble and learned Lord with the assistance of the very high authority of the late Lord James of Hereford and the late Lord Alverstone. I do not know whether I am right in that, but I have been told that it is so.
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE: Lord James of Hereford.
LORD PHILLIMORE: Not Lord Alverstone, but Lord James of Hereford.
LORD PARMOOR: I think the Lord Chancellor is right. It was Lord Alverstone, and corrected by Lord James of Hereford. They were both interested in it.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I thought so. However, it is sufficient for me to say that it can be affiliated to very respectable judicial authority. I am still, none the less, in the position I occupy, bound to exercise my own judgment upon these proposals, however respectable is the authority upon which they depend, and must say quite plainly that in the form in which this proposal comes before the House I am not prepared to make myself responsible for it, or to recommend it to the House. The more I sympathise with the object of the noble and learned Lord, the more apprehensive I become of the exact form of his proposal.
May I ask the House for a moment to look at the language of Clause 1:—
"Where a woman is charged with the murder of her infant, child, and upon the trial evidence is given that at the time the offence was committed the woman had not fully recovered from
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the effect of giving birth to the child, the jury may convict her of manslaughter instead of murder."
The generality of that language, the lack of particularity, is really almost terrifying to one who has had much experience of criminal trials. My noble and learned friend, Lord Parmoor, was so extraordinarily fortunate in the practice of our common profession that he began to make an enormous fortune in civil matters at a time when most of us were confined to criminal matters at Sessions, and I do not think he was ever particularly tempted to prosecute the criminal side of our profession.
I shudder when I think of the vagueness of his language. What does it mean? It means that if a woman is charged with the murder of her infant child, and anybody comes forward to give evidence that at the time the offence was committed the woman was not fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to the child, the jury may convict her of manslaughter. I pretend to no particular authority on obstetrical questions, but I think it may be laid down in an average case that for a month or five weeks you could produce a doctor who could very reasonably give it as his opinion that the woman had not fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to the child, and, except among savage tribes, I am informed that it would be true in nineteen cases out of twenty that within four or five weeks the woman had not recovered, but non constat that the fact that she is not physically completely recovered—there may, for instance, be puerperal fever—would produce the slightest effect upon her mind which ought to have the result of excusing her from the consequences of what she has done.
I cannot help believing that the noble and learned Lord desires, and those with whom he has been so honourably associated in this matter desire, that if you get a case where, taking all the circumstances of the birth, taking the immense emotional and physical strain in combination under these circumstances, those elements in the human mind which lead to action at its decisive moment have been so deranged that there is not a free decision as between the forces of right and the forces of wrong, then that case ought to be dealt with in the way suggested in this Bill. I am sure that is what the noble and learned Lord means, but it is very difficult to put these things into any Act of Parliament.

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I do not pretend that I have completely succeeded, but at least the words which I have placed on the Paper do represent, in the first place, my own individual contribution, such as it is. I then submitted it for the consideration of the Public Prosecutor who, as your Lordships know, has an unrivalled experience in this branch of the law, and it has been since submitted to the judgment of the Law Officers of the Crown. They all concur in accepting the draft which I have made as a reasonable method of attempting to carry out the object of the noble and learned Lord.
Perhaps your Lordships will be good enough to allow me to read it. I propose that—
"(1) Where a woman unlawfully by any direct means intentionally causes the death of her newly born child, but at the time when she so caused its death she had not fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to such child, and by reason thereof the balance of her mind was then disturbed, she shall, notwithstanding that the circumstances were such that but for this Act the offence would have amounted to murder, be guilty of felony, to wit of infanticide, and may for such offence be punished as if she had been guilty of the offence of manslaughter of such child.
"(2) Where upon the trial of a woman for the murder of her newly born child, the jury are of opinion that she unlawfully by any direct means intentionally caused its death, but that at the time when she so caused its death she had not fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to such child, and that by reason thereof the balance of her mind was then disturbed, the jury may, notwithstanding that the circumstances were such that but for the provisions of this Act they might have returned a verdict of murder, return in lieu thereof a verdict of infanticide.
"(3) Nothing in this Act shall limit the power of the jury upon an indictment for murder to return a verdict of manslaughter, or a verdict of guilty but insane, or a verdict of concealment of birth, in pursuance of section 60 of the Offences against the Person Act, 1861."
I think the noble and learned Lord who is responsible for this Bill will not disagree with the effect of subsection (3) as being a proper protection against misunderstanding.
It really conies to this. In the proposal which I make the remedy conceived of by the Bill comes into operation when it appears that by reason of the non-recovery of the woman the balance of her mind was disturbed, and the only criticism, I think, which can reasonably be made—and it is quite a reasonable criticism—of the words I have prepared is that they are new words. They are not terms of art. I very deeply considered that possible objection, and I came to the conclusion that there was more
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reason for misunderstanding by attempting to use the language which had been appropriated by prescriptive usage to insanity proper and to mental derangement produced by drunkenness, and that it was better to attempt a formula which might be the subject of reasonable judicial decision, and which seemed to give effect to that which I believe to be the intention of the noble and learned Lord and all those who have preceded him in this particular path of legal reform.
I can assure the noble and learned Lord who is responsible for the Bill in its present form that in its present form we can offer him no encouragement and no help in another place, and I must take the responsibility of saying that quite plainly. On the other hand, in the form which I suggest, if it commends itself by way of amendment to the noble and learned Lord, I cannot, of course, in the evident circumstances of the Parliamentary situation give him any distinct pledge, but I can at least go so far as to say to him it would be the desire of the Government that the Bill should become law, and that if a reasonable Parliamentary opportunity presents itself of carrying that decision into effect they will certainly not neglect it. I would suggest to the noble and learned Lord that he might very usefully consider whether these words do not carry out his real object, and may not place him in respect of a very helpful branch of our law among those who have made effective contributions to its reform. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, lines 6 to 11, leave out from ("woman") to end of clause, and insert the said words.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD PARMOOR: I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for the sympathetic way in which he has approached what is really a very difficult question, and also a very important one in the administration of our Criminal Law. I am afraid he was unduly complimentary to myself in one respect. The drafting of this Bill as presented to your Lordships is not to be placed either to my credit or discredit. In its present form it has already passed the House of Commons, and comes from the House of Commons, having gone through Grand Committee with the acceptance of the Home Secretary.
Then as regards this House. In 1909 a Bill was accepted after discussion in

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Committee, and in Standing Committee, by the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Loreburn, the then Lord Chief Justice, Lord Alverstone, Lord James of Hereford, Lord Cross, and Lord Ashburne, and as I read the discussion in your Lordships' House the objection raised to the Bill was not that it went too far but that it did not go far enough in the direction of remedying the evils to which the Lord Chancellor has referred. It is true, as the Lord Chancellor has said, that I have not been closely connected with the Criminal Law, but for nearly thirty years I have sat as Chairman of Quarter Sessions, and although we do not deal with murder cases it gives a considerable experience as regards the general administration of the Criminal Law.
I do not propose to object to the Amendment which the Lord Chancellor has introduced. I agree that it is of the utmost importance in matters of this kind not only that the Lord Chancellor, as the head of our legal system, should be approached for advice but also that his advice should be followed, unless there is any good reason to the contrary. May I offer some observations on the form of the Lord Chancellor's Amendment. He says: "unlawfully by any direct means intentionally causes the death." I do not know what the words "by any direct means intentionally" really mean; "unlawfully causes," I think, is the ordinary form. There may be something in the additional words, but I have not been able to understand how they carry the matter further than "unlawfully causes the death."
The Lord Chancellor has pointed out what are the crucial words of his proposal. They are: "by reason thereof the balance of her mind was then disturbed." I agree that it is important in a Bill of this kind to avoid phrases which may have some technical meaning, particularly in our Criminal Law. There are two objections to the phrase "the balance of her mind was then disturbed." It would necessitate consideration of medical evidence, perhaps conflicting expert medical evidence, as regards the "balance of her mind," which should be avoided if possible. A poor woman does not want to get into the midst of a technical discussion of that kind. The Lord Chancellor talked of the physical strain; perhaps he would agree to some such words as these—
"From the effect of giving birth to such child by reason of the physical and mental strain her mind has thereby been disturbed."
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It is difficult to say that the "balance of her mind is disturbed."
That is a technical point, but what I have in my mind is that the physical and mental conditions are such that the poor woman, in these circumstances, is not completely mistress of her own actions. It appears to me that the words are too limiting and there would be a difficulty in their application. Perhaps the Lord Chancellor will consider my suggestion between now and Report. I do not think it is part of my duty, honestly desiring that the Bill should pass, to put myself in opposition to the Lord Chancellor on this matter. I know he has not only taken the trouble to consider the question very carefully himself, but he has also had the advice of Sir Archibald Bodkin, one of our best authorities on criminal matters.
May I also comment on the phrase "would have amounted to murder, be guilty of felony, to wit of infanticide." It seems to me a rather clumsy phrase, and I do not think it is necessary. Under a recent Act, I think the Criminal Law Amendment Act, the distinction between felony and misdemeanour has gone. I have no further criticism to offer. I shall not oppose an Amendment of this kind introduced on the authority of the Lord Chancellor, and I accept gratefully his assurances with regard to another place. If the Bill had not been altered at all, if the form in which it was presented to your Lordships had been preserved, it need not have gone to another place. It would have passed automatically. But I think the wiser plan is for me to accept the Amendment, reserving to myself the right, on Report stage, to bring forward again an alteration to his Amendment, which perhaps he will consider in the meantime.
LORD CARSON: I need hardly say that I have followed the administration of the Criminal Law in this country for many years and I should be sorry if it was thought that the law in these cases had ever been exercised in any inhuman way. My experience has been that in cases of the kind contemplated by the Bill juries have been only too willing to reduce the crime to manslaughter, or guilty but insane, or even to concealment of birth, the three matters to which the Lord Chancellor refers in his Amendment. It is quite right to make it perfectly clear that under particular conditions not only should it not be a mere matter of the humanity of

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the jury but of direct law, and I am very glad the Lord Chancellor has proposed his Amendment in the form he has.
Your Lordships must always take care in these cases that you are not led away by feelings of tender compassion, aroused by a certain class of case, into passing slipshod legislation which may lead to great harm. We have to take carp that no woman should be allowed to be under any impression that the law mitigates her crime merely because she has gone through the process of giving birth to a child. Nothing could be worse. One knows that there is a great deal of infantile mortality which could probably, by care, be avoided, and to let a woman imagine for a moment that the law said that, because she was undergoing the infirmities resulting from having had a child, that would be in any sense, as it would be under the Bill as it was brought in here, a defence to the intentional killing of the child, would, I think, be a great calamity.
There must be some evidence—I hope the Lord Chancellor will not in any wise moderate the language that he has used—there must be and ought to be evidence that the crime when committed was the result of the balance of her mind having been disturbed. If that is shown, it is perfectly right; but to make the language more general, and to allow it to be thought that the mere natural infirmity should be allowed as a defence would, I think, be a calamity.
LORD PHILLIMORE: The great matter is that this legislation should go through. It has been wanted now for a great many years, and it was, I think, only an unfortunate accident that prevented the Bill which Lord Alverstone introduced in one form, and Lord James of Hereford converted into another form—not perfect, but not far from being perfect—passing into law in 1909. If the Lord Chancellor, who is a master of legions, will get his Bill (for it is a new one) through the House of Commons, which has passed the other Bill, that is so much to be desired that one does not want to make any unnecessary difficulties.
There are, however, two passages in this Amendment which I should like your Lordships and the Lord Chancellor to think more upon—
"Where a woman unlawfully by any direct means intentionally."
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I do not know how these words have been arrived at, but it seems to me that it would be possible to say that a woman caused the death of her child by indirect means, and was guilty of murder, and, in that case, this enabling and saving section will not apply to her. I have been considering what words to substitute, and it has occurred to me, and perhaps the Lord Chancellor would be good enough to consider them, that the words
"Unlawfully and feloniously causes"
would perhaps meet the case. They seem to me to be wider, and therefore safer for the woman. Otherwise, it might happen that this very clause would not apply to the particular case to which, perhaps, of all others, one means it to apply. I do not know the phrase "by ally direct means intentionally," except as some kind of paraphrase in some text-book of the law, and I confess that I think some such words as I have suggested would he much better.
Next, I deprecate very strongly the introduction of a new crime—infanticide. What is infanticide? The slaying of a child. But you are going to use it only in a case when a mother kills her child. You suggest that there is a lower class of murder, infanticide, and somebody may come along a few years hence, and say "Be logical; you have made infanticide a lower class." I think that is really the objection which wrecked Lord Lord-burn's original Bill—that you put an infant in certain circumstances in an unprotected class or one only partially protected. I think I see the reason why it has been put in. It is not logical, perhaps, to call it "manslaughter," and therefore, instead of the Bill standing as it left the other House with the word "manslaughter," it is to be treated as a felony, punished like manslaughter. There, again, I would suggest that if it is necessary to avoid making it manslaughter you should use some such words as
"Be guilty of a felony under this statute."
And when you come to the second subsection, where you have something like the present provision with regard to "guilty but insane"—
"The jury shall find the special verdict warranted by the statute"
or
"The jury may, notwithstanding that circumstance, return in lieu thereof a special verdict to the effect of this statute"—

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or some such words as that. I do deprecate, for the reasons which I have given, the introduction of the new crime of infanticide.
As regards the third subsection, it was outlined by the Lord Chancellor in his speech on the Second Reading. I am still of opinion that it is not necessary, but on the other hand I am quite sure that there is no harm in it. If anybody thinks it is desirable, it had much better be left in, and consequently I will give my support to it. If the Bill is to be amended in order that it may then have the support of the Government, I shall be quite content to accept the Lord Chancellor's Amendments. But I trust that, if not now, at any rate on Report, the two objections which I have mentioned, to which I have given a good deal of thought and upon which I feel very strongly, should be considered.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The short discussion which has taken place has been entirely helpful. With reference to the words "by any direct means," I tell your Lordships frankly that they were not in my original draft. They were inserted by the Public Prosecutor, and my general understanding is that they were founded upon some dictum in a case which, he considered, if not dealt with, might cause difficulty, but before the Report stage I will address myself much snore closely to the explanation of words which I did not myself draft.
With regard to the other observation or objection made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillimore, I do not think that the effect of my Amendment is to put infanticide in a lower grade of murder. The Amendment reads in this way:
"notwithstanding that the circumstances were such that, but for the provisions of this Act, they might have returned a verdict of murder, return in lieu thereof a verdict of infanticide."
It is, of course, the very purpose of this Bill, and of all the legislative proposals which have preceded this Bill, enacted by the reformers who have preceded the noble and learned Lord, that infanticide shall be treated as a lower grade of criminal offence.
LORD PHILLIMORE: I quite agree, only I would not call it infanticide. That is what I mean.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I will consider that, too. I see the noble and
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learned Lord's point. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Carson, has called attention to a point of greater substance, and I do not think that the progress of this debate has really obscured what I conceive to be a point of real difference. I am not prepared—and that was the object of my Amendment—to say in the case of a normal healthy woman, who has given birth to a child and who kills that child, that the mere fact that she has gone through the ordinary physical suffering of a woman in childbirth, aggravated by such additional mental suffering as a woman who has an illegitimate child may be supposed to entertain—I am not prepared to go to the length of saying that those circumstances alone constitute a ground for introducing an exception to the ordinary basis of responsibility for criminal acts, and I think the noble and learned Lord, Lord Parmoor, is in agreement with this view.
You must establish some exceptional derangement and disturbance, and the precise words in which that derangement and disturbance are to be defined are undoubtedly a matter of difficulty, having regard to the obvious expediency of not using words which acquire a different atmosphere and intention in the Law Courts. I will consider, between now and Report, whether the words I have suggested can be improved in relation to the criticisms which have been made. I think the word I have used, "disturbance," is on the whole the best that can be adopted, but I will give further attention to the point.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHAIRMAN: Lord Muir Mackenzie does not move his Amendments to this clause?
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE: I do not move.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2:
Short title and extent.
2.—(1) This Act may be cited as the Child Murder (Trial) Act, 1922.
(2) This Act shall not extend to Scotland or Ireland.
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE: I think, my Lords, having in view the discussion that has taken place over the word "infanticide," that it would be better not to

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move my Amendment—to leave out "child murder" and insert "infanticide"—at this stage. If the Lord Chancellor's Bill were going to stand exactly as it is now it seems to me it would be the proper title, but, if the House will allow me, I will not move that Amendment at present.
Clause 2 agreed to.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: Perhaps the noble Lord (Lord Parmoor) will allow me to suggest to him that there would be come convenience if a little interval elapsed between Committee and the next stage of the Bill. The title requires consideration, and I should also like to consider the various Amendments made. I suggest that it should stand over till after Whitsuntide.
LORD PARMOOR: Of course, I accept that suggestion, and will put the Report stage down for shortly after Whitsuntide, on a day convenient to the Lord Chancellor.

GUARDIANSHIP, ETC., OF INFANTS BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Askwith.)
LORD ASKWITH LORD ASKWITH had given Notice, that on this Motion he would move, That the Bill be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament. The noble Lord said: The Bill received its Second Reading on March 1 last, and upon the debate the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, who was in charge for the Government, expressed his sympathy with the movement but pointed out numerous legal difficulties. He added that "a small Committee of the Cabinet has been formed to consider the whole of this question, and it has been suggested that the noble Lord who introduced the Bill might meet that Committee, and confer with them with a view to seeing if a solution of the question cannot be arrived at"; and Lord Haldane, who supported the Bill, said he was wholly in accord with it, but that matters of detail required looking into.
The conference there suggested has taken place, and a suggestion was made that this Bill should be referred to a Select Committee of both Houses. There are,
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undoubtedly, some legal difficulties in the matter, and as there is no chance of the Bill going through this session, with the consent of those supporting it, and on the advice of the Cabinet, I move that the Bill be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses. I understand that a Motion of agreement will be made in another place.
Amendment moved—
Leave out all words after ("That") and insert ("it is desirable that the Bill be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament").—(Lord Askwith.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to: Ordered, That, a Message be sent to the Commons to communicate this Resolution and to desire their concurrence.

EMPIRE SETTLEMENT BILL.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, I beg to make the Motion of which Notice has been given in reference to the Empire Settlement Bill. This is a measure which was in the charge of my noble friend, the Duke of Sutherland. He has been called to Scotland to perform public duties, and, accordingly, I put the Bill down for Second Reading after your Lordships reassemble after Whitsuntide; but I have been approached from so many quarters to press this Bill forward, that I am venturing to ask that the Second Reading and, if possible, the subsequent stages, should be taken before the House adjourns for the recess. Otherwise, anything from two to three weeks will elapse before the Bill can become operative. It has already passed through the House of Commons with a very great measure of public approval.
Everything is awaiting the Royal Assent to the Bill, to allow this movement of people to the Dominions and Colonies Overseas. Pressure is coming from this country of persons who wish to go, and likewise from responsible authorities overseas who wish to receive these men, at the earliest possible moment. I, therefore, earnestly ask your Lordships to pass this Motion, and to give what co-operation you think fit in securing the passage of the Bill and the Royal Assent at the earliest moment. I beg to move.
Moved, That the permission of the House be given to advance the Motion for the Second Reading of the Bill (now standing for the first day after the recess at Whitsuntide) to Monday next.—(The Earl of Crawford.)
EARL STANHOPE: Do I understand that the noble Earl proposes that the Bill should go through all its stages before Whitsuntide?
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: That is my desire, or at any rate, that the House should give as many stages before Whitsuntide as it is prepared to grant. I want to make as much progress as I can.
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

CHURCH AND STATE IN RUSSIA.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I wish to ask His Majesty's Government whether they can give any information respecting the alleged arrest of the Patriarch of the Russian Church and the threatened execution of bishops and priests. The matter to which I call the attention of the Government is a grave and anxious one—more so, perhaps, than is apparent to all who have not gone through the history of what has been happening in this particular matter. A very few facts as to the past will, I think, make clear to your Lordships both the significance and the importance of the particular incident to which I am calling attention.
During the war, in the hurly-burly and the excitement which then existed all over Europe, matters ecclesiastical naturally were put in the background, and did not receive much public attention or consideration, and it came about that an ecclesiastical change of the first magnitude took place in the constitution of the Russian branch of the Eastern Church, which may have very far-reaching consequences hereafter. In the last months of 1917, or four and a half years ago, the constitution of the Russian Church was completely altered, or rather made to revert to what had been its constitution some three hundred years before.
In the time of Peter the Great, or just after, the old constitution of the Russian Church was altered, and a plan was started which gave a different character to that Church. In 1917 the people of Russia, quite apart from any question of revolution and race, decided to go back again to the old system whereby there was a Patriarch of All Russia, presiding over the whole Sobor of the nation in its ecclesiastical aspect, and that change was brought
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about with the minimum of friction and opposition. The Patriarchate which existed for centuries before the time of Peter the Great was restored, and the man elected to the Patriarchate was the Metropolitan Tikhon, who holds the position to-day.
The Patriarch Tikhon, as he now is, is a remarkable man. He is fifty-six years old; a great scholar, a great theologian, a great teacher, a missionary of remarkable success and influence, and, by popular consent, a saint in the truest sense of that word. He is a man who holds, to the people of Russia as well as to the Church of Russia, a position of a very remarkable kind. He is in touch with much with which Russian ecclesiastics have not always been in touch, and he lived for some years in the United States. He is familiar with English literature and English modes of thought, and it was of no small advantage to Christendom generally, and above all to the relations which the Church of the West—our Church and other branches of the Western Church—might have to the Church of the East when in 1917 he was elected Metropolitan of Moscow, and when, as soon as the Patriarchate was restored, he was elected by acclamation to be the Patriarch of All Russia.
I was in frequent communication with the newly appointed Patriarch at that time. Communications which passed between us were made public, and all who read what he wrote and said at that time must have been struck alike by the dignity of his attitude in circumstances of extraordinary difficulty and by the wisdom of some of the things that he said. His relation to the Bolshevist Government was obviously one of extreme difficulty, and a few months after his accession to the Patriarchate he thought it right to issue a grave manifesto denouncing the lawlessness of some of the Bolshevist principles, pointing out how far they departed from the larger and truer ideals which he existed, like other Christian prelates and leaders, to set forth, and ending his manifesto with the words, "They that take the sword shall perish by the sword."
But, having thus delivered himself as to the large principles upon which he desired as far as possible that Russia and the Russian Church should be governed, he withheld himself absolutely from political strife; he abstained from intervening in matters in which his intervention would

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undoubtedly have been possible, though, as he thought, it might have been mischievous. He deprecated an attack by any of us upon the Bolshevist Government as such, in relation particularly to its dealings with the Church, and he acquiesced in and practically recognised the Soviet Government as the Government de facto and the Government in power, to whom he and others owed in a large sense an element of allegiance. His position was compared, and rightly compared, to that which was taken in the earliest days of the Church, when the Apostles spoke of the powers that be, who were ordained of God, being constituted at that moment in the Emperor Nero. None the less they were authorities to whom deference was due as such. And that is the line throughout—this point is important—which the Patriarch has taken. He issued a pastoral letter in September, 1919, in which the central phrase was, "The establishment of one or other form of government is not a matter of the Church but of the people," and therefore, as he went on to say, all possible obedience must be paid to the powers that be in the land, though he had already shown what he felt about the principles underlying their régime.
During these years I have tried, difficult and even impossible as it has often been, to follow as closely as might be the story of the relation of the Bolshevist Government to the Church in Russia. The contradiction of statements that have been made public, the variety of incidents and relationship between Church and State in the different parts of Russia has been marked, and the whole thing has been shrouded in the confusion that has attended all recent history in Russia. As far as I can judge, there were different modes of treatment of the Church in different places. There were different modes according to who might be the ruling power or authority, the ruling individual or leader, and it would be difficult to generalise about Russia as a whole in any accurate manner.
Whatever allowances may be made for exaggerations or difficulties in this place or that, however, the fact remains that the Bolshevist authorities themselves have admitted the doing to death el at least 1,700 priests. There is no question about that. At least 1,700 priests have been done to death by the Bolshevist authorities during that time. The bishops and Metropolitans in different places in Russia and on
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the borders of Russia have again and again communicated with myself during these years, owing to the position I hold in the Church in this country, and telegrams have passed frequently. Some of them it was thought undesirable to publish in the public interest, and my answers have been duly published. But the Patriarch Tikhon has never appealed to me during that time, at least for the kind of aid that others have asked for. His original letter stood, but he has never appealed to me or, as far as I know, outside Russia, or within Russia at that time.
But it goes further than that. In the communications which I have had with the Patriarch—I will not say exactly by what means, but means which were absolutely trustworthy—he has expressed on more than one occasion his hope that, as things were going, I and others with me would not try to raise agitation on the subject, for the sake of Russia as a whole. He believed it to be undesirable. I accordingly have acted on what I knew to be his wish. Then there came a space during the year 1920 and part of 1921 when, as far as I know, there was no very special persecution of the Church in Russia, although undoubtedly there were grave wrongs in different places. Then came the famine. What effect did that have on the situation? In July, 1921, the Patriarch made an appeal. The form of his appeal was a telegram addressed to myself. As a matter of fact, that telegram did not reach me; at least, it did not reach me until months after it had been sent; but it found its way into the Press, both on the Continent and in England. So far as I know, it was the first document which revealed the real extent and gravity, and the ultimate danger, of the Russian famine. It was a document carefully balanced and worded, appealing for aid for the sufferers under the famine and promising the help, the guidance, the protection which would be gladly given by the Church in Russia in any distribution of funds which might be forthcoming.
Besides that, the Patriarch resolved at that time to do his utmost to make an appeal within Russia himself. When the All Russian Committee, as it was called—formed under Maxim Gorki in 1921 to make an appeal to meet Russian necessities—was set up, the Patriarch desired to take a full share on the Church's behalf in its action, with the one condition that representatives

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of the Church should be privy to the disposition of the money that was raised. He thought that those whom he could influence to produce the money should be assured, and that he should be in a position to assure them, that the money would be properly expended; therefore, they must have access to the authorities with regard to the manner of its distribution. The request that he might do that was absolutely refused. No such appeal was allowed to be issued; no document was permitted to appear under the Patriarch's authority, or under the authority of the Church, or with his name attached to it. Public notices with the Patriarch's name upon them were not allowed to be made, and his request was absolutely declined.
Some little time passed, and in the autumn of last year the Patriarch again asked leave to make an appeal, not in conjunction with the appeal which Maxim Gorki had made and which at that time had either been withdrawn or dropped, but under the auspices of the Church far and near, for money to aid Russia in its terrible distress. Again he did not wish to mix it up with the Gorki plan which at that moment was not to the fore, but to do it independently. He also undertook, as before, that supervision should be given by the Church authorities to the manner in which the money was disposed of and that an account of it should be rendered. His request was absolutely refused. He was told that he must not do it and that nothing of the kind would be allowed.
Then, in March of the present year, the Bolshevist authorities ordered the Patriarch in a peremptory manner to issue an ecclesiastical edict bidding the bishops and clergy of the Russian Church to surrender the Church treasures throughout the country, for, as they put it, the famine, but without any kind of undertaking or even any suggestion that anyone but the Soviet authority was to be told what was done with the money which was procured by the seizure and sale or disposal in some fashion of such treasures. The Patriarch made the grave answer that he and his colleagues were forbidden by their sacred promises, by their oaths, and by the canons of the Church, to dispose of the property of the Church, which was and had been devoted from time immemorial to sacred purposes. He did not say that it could not by any means be disposed of, but that
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it could not be disposed of in a reckless manner or without the Church knowing exactly what was done with it, and who was going to deal with it; that the danger of sacrilege would certainly arise, and that he was not, therefore, in a position, without violating his oath, to do what was requested.
But he went on to say: "We are prepared on behalf of the Church to undertake to raise the very money you think you will get by the sale of these treasures, and to be responsible for seeing that the money so raised goes to the famine areas, if you will leave the treasures where they are and allow us to deal with them as seems to us to be consistent with the oaths we have taken and the promises we have made." I do not know in detail what the intention of the Church was, but presumably it was something in the way of allowing the treasures of the Church to be placed in trusted hands, who would see that there was no danger of their use for sacriligious purposes, and the raising of the money by the mortgage of the vessels, and so on. I do not know what the intention was, but the Patriarch said: "We are ready to find the money provided you will allow us to hold to our oaths. We cannot voluntarily consent to the giving up of these sacred things."
The answer came immediately: "We decline absolutely to allow any such arrangement to be made"; and the Commissars were ordered to go into the Churches, to tear down the ornaments, some of them, as your Lordships know, of extraordinary interest, antiquity, and beauty—ikons, vessels, books, hangings, and so on—to take them in defiance of their custodians, the priests of the Church, and to allow no interference at all. That process is going on now. Certain inflammatory accounts have appeared, for which I accept no responsibility, as to the horrible violence and roughness with which this has been done, violence which has sometimes provoked the resistance of the people, who in Russia put much value on these treasures, and are naturally provoked by what is going on. I do not know what has become of the money, said to be an enormous sum, which has already been secured by the taking away from the Churches of hangings, books, ikons, ornaments, and sacred vessels. The protest of the Patriarch against the violence that has been shown is the only means of any

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knowledge that I have as to what has actually happened in the Churches, but the Patriarch has renewed his endeavour to persuade the authorities to allow the money to be raised in the way that he would desire to raise it.
What has happened now? I have a letter here, which I received a week ago from a Russian ecclesiastic of high authority, the Metropolitan Eulogius, who is the Russian Prelate who looks after congregations of Russians outside of Russia in Europe. He writes from Berlin, and his letter is dated May 11. In it he says:
"To-day's paper brought us the sad news of All Russia's Patriarch Tikhon's arrest by the Moscow Soviet authorities, who will not fail undoubtedly to inflict on him the severest penalty. The only accusation brought against him is his obedience to a sense of duty in refusing to submit to the theft of Church property, of sacred vessels, and relics, and all needed for holy services.
"In the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ we appeal to you and to all the Episcopalian members of the Church of England to lift your voice in protest of this act of unheard-of violence and illegality, directed against the highest representative of the Russian clergy. We implore you to use your influence to alleviate as much as possible Patriarch Tikhon's undeserved chastisement.
"With a feeling of deep reverence and brotherly love in Christ."
On the receipt of that letter I proceeded to verify the statements by such means as are possible, though I have not been able to do it independently, and I am looking for the answer that the Government may be able to give me as to the facts regarding the Patriarch's arrest and present condition.
I ask now to be told what information is forthcoming here as to what seems to me to be a very grave outrage in Christendom. We are accustomed to the thought of grave outrages in connection with Russian affairs at the present time, but hitherto there has been a certain absence of this kind of direct and open attack upon the great ecclesiastical possessions, forces and influences in Russia. Now that attitude, so to say, seems to have come to an end, and if the accounts that are published are true— I have no means of knowing—the Patriarch has not only been arrested but removed from his ordinary home in Moscow and interned elsewhere in what is euphemistically described in a telegram from Russia to-day as "another monastery"—but to what is practically a prison. He was removed; he is gone, and that merely means that his arrest has taken place.
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I no longer feel that I am under the pledge that I have felt myself to be under hitherto not to make the appeal, or to make public the needs, as it seems to me, of the Russian Church for at least the sympathy and the knowledge of the Christians of Europe generally as to what is now taking place. It is necessary to make some statement, for this reason: It is now being said with brazen effrontery and falsehood that the Church is being punished because she declined in the beginning to be helpful in respect to the famine. I have pointed out to your Lordships that on three or four separate occasions the Church had undertaken, in the fullest possible manner that it could officially do so, to raise larger sums of money than anybody was likely to have raised in any other manner; to see to it that the money so raised should be properly administered, and to help in every possible way. Those offers have been absolutely refused, and the man who has throughout with extraordinary public spirit, with reticence, with dignity, and with power, held himself in restraint during these years is now apparently under arrest, and perhaps in danger of death.
We are told that both bishops and clergy have not only been arrested but have already been done to death. It is on behalf of the Church in Russia that I appeal for information so that we may know how things stand. I am not asking, at this moment, for more than information about it. A great scholar, a great teacher, a great leader, with his followers, is now suffering in the way I have tried to describe, and is being maligned in a perfectly shameful manner for not doing the very thing which, throughout this time, he and his friends have been endeavouring to do. I do not think we, as Christians, can look on unmoved at such an incident as that, and I feel that I am fully justified, on behalf of the Church to which I belong, in raising this matter here.
LORD EMMOTT: My Lords, before the noble Earl replies on behalf of the Government, may I add a few words to what the most rev. Primate has said? For the last two years the greater part of my time has been taken up in connection with Russia, in presiding over a Committee which the noble Marquess, the Leader of the House, asked me to take in hand, investigating the political and economic conditions of Russia, and, during the last six months, in connection with the Russian famine.

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The subject raised by the most rev. Primate is, I think, one of very great importance, and I desire respectfully to associate myself with what he has said. I think that in the famine conditions of Russia and in the extreme poverty from which Russia suffers at the present time, there was a decided claim on the Russian Church to do what she could, but the most rev. Primate has made it perfectly clear that offer after offer of help was made, and that an agreement was made to submit to great sacrifices on behalf of the Church provided the funds raised by the Church were either administered by themselves or at any rate were administered by a committee on which the Church was represented. But this was not accepted. I say that that is a perfectly proper condition to lay down. From the very little I know of Russia I would not trust money, without conditions, to the tender mercies of the Russian Government. That was a perfectly proper stipulation to make.
Apparently, no agreement was come to in regard to this matter, and two months ago, as the most rev. Primate has said, the Decree confiscating the treasures of the Church was promulgated. There were riots. In some places priests were arraigned before the Extraordinary Commission and eight or nine of them lie in prison condemned to death. I sincerely hope they will not be executed. If the noble Earl can tell us anything about that matter to relieve our anxiety we should be very glad. I would even go further than the most rev. Primate. I would appeal to the Government to give a most emphatic warning to the Soviet Government that if any extreme measures be taken against either the Patriarch or his priests that would have the most deplorable results in this country upon the relief work in connection with the famine and also in regard to the wider question—a question of enormous importance—the general reconstruction of Russia.
We must always remember in regard to Russia that there is a struggle going on at the present time—I mean in Government circles—between moderates and extremists. The Government was founded by, and is based on, what are called class-conscious Communists, but they differ among themselves, as, indeed, other Governments in their time have differed, and the danger that I fear is that the extremists will gain the day. There are a good many other
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signs, besides this particular incident which the most rev. Primate has brought before your Lordships' notice, which make me uneasy in regard to Russia. Not only is there the question of these priests, but there is also the question of the Social Revolutionaries who are to be tried, and in whose defence members of the Labour Party in this country are going to Russia.
Certain difficulties—I think my noble friend, Lord Weardale, will not object to my mentioning this—have arisen, particularly in regard to his own organisation, as to the personnel of the workers sent out to administer the relief subscribed for by people in this country. There are great difficulties about visas for perfectly proper people proposed by the Save the Children Fund to go out and administer this famine relief. After all, people at the present time do not go out to administer famine relief in Russia for the sake of their health, but only because they feel it is a sacred duty. How far this is due to Mr. Eiduck, who is head of the Commission in regard to the famine, I do not know, but this Mr. Eiduck was head of the special department of the Extraordinary Commission dealing with the counter-revolution. He is not a suitable man for his post in any way, and either he or the Government at the present time are making unnecessary difficulties about this question of visas. That is another of those signs that the extremists are gaining the upper hand in Soviet Russia.
Again, I am informed that the extremists have been making attempts, and with some success, to remove moderate Bolsheviks from Moscow to distant provinces. A very distingished man named Mr. Martens was recently ordered to go to South Russia. Whether his protests have availed, and he has not been sent, I am not sure, but he was not only a member of the Presidium but was assistant-President of the Presidium of the Supreme Economic Council. Sending him away from Moscow is not only a degradation, but it is a getting rid of a moderate element, and is another of those signs which I do not like. I do not want to weary your Lordships, but I would mention, in conclusion, that the official paper, the Pravda, has carried on all through the Genoa Conference a campaign of general abuse of the Conference as an attempt on the part of the capitalist power to crush the revolution in Russia. Those attacks have been

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officially allowed, and very possibly officially prompted, because nothing can be published in Russia except by consent of the Government. These things all make me very uneasy, and more uneasy about this particular incident than I should have been otherwise. That this incident should occur now between Genoa and the Conference at The Hague is, I think, a very disquieting symptom.
If I may add one or two words it would be on the rather wider question, and I hope your Lordships will forgive me for touching upon this. So far as I am concerned, I can take no part in attacking the objects aimed at by the Genoa Conference. I believe that the great mass of non-Bolskevik Russians—this is information given to me by Englishmen who have recently been in Russia, who speak the Russian language, and who communicated with the people—looked with hope to the Genoa Conference. Personally, I think that what I have done shows I have every wish to help Russia, and there is nothing that I desire more than to see her included in the comity of nations. But such matters as have been brought before your Lordships this afternoon by the most rev. Primate endanger that. Political matters in Russia are inextricably mixed up obviously with economic matters, and I have great doubt whether Europe is treating Russia on the right lines at the present time.
In The Times to-day there is an extract from a speech by Dr. Benes, one of the notable figures at the Genoa Conference, and a distinguished European statesman. In this he says:
"Real agreement with Russia was only possible by the open abandonment by the Soviet of the strict Communistic standpoint, and by its making a compromise not only in international policy but also in its home policy toward the non-Communistic population of Russia."
If that is the fundamental minimum, and I think it is, I wonder whether we are going the right way to bring anything of the kind about. I suggest that discussions would be far better carried on in Moscow than elsewhere in Europe. I should have had much more hope of the Hague Conference if there was some delay, and if there was some attempt at discussions of these political and economic questions in the meantime, not in the limelight of a European Conference, but quietly by suitable negotiators, who could really talk matters out with the Russians. I apologise if I have
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opened up rather large questions, and I cannot expect the noble Earl who is to reply for the Foreign Office to deal with them this afternoon. But the subject raised by the most rev. Primate is part of these larger questions, and I entertain some little doubt as to whether we are dealing with Russia on quite the right lines.
LORD WEARDALE: My Lords, I should not have intervened in this debate had it not been for the fact that my noble friend has made some reference to the particular fund with which I am associated. I confirm frankly and openly in some respects the account he has given of the difficulties we have encountered with regard to our agents in Russia. It must be understood that our fund and, I believe, all the other funds have adopted as a principle that they will only employ British subjects, of course, men intimately acquainted with the Russian tongue, for the administration of their relief in Russia. In order to obtain suitable men for that purpose there is rather a limited choice. There are a great number of men who are not, unfortunately, qualified for this particular office. When you consider the claims of these men it is almost impossible to find any of them who, in some form or other, have not been interested in action of some kind in Russia since the Revolutionary period. Although many of them have not been engaged in any actual warlike expedition, still the mere fact of their having been in Russia at all is regarded with suspicion by the Soviet authorities, who make it an excuse for refusing to accord them a visa.
I have been informed in recent correspondence that there is at this moment a change of sentiment on the part of the Soviet authorities with regard to visas, and it has taken place simultaneously with the Genoa Conference. What the impression conveyed by the Genoa Conference on the Moscow authorities may have been, I do not know, but it has had a bad effect on their action in according facilities for our work in Russia. That is a fact we have to deplore. On the other hand, our action has not been impeded by the Soviet authorities. It is going on with regularity, and I am glad to say that our supplies are arriving with much greater rapidity and regularity than before. In that respect we have praise rather than criticism to offer, and I hope the particular

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difficulty, which I trust is only momentary, with regard to the visas, will be overcome and that we shall arrive at a more reasonable situation.
May I also say, with regard to visas, that there has been a little misunderstanding as to the exact way they should be obtained. All the societies are working in Russia under what is known as the Nansen Agreement, and the Soviet authorities argue that all visas should be obtained exclusively through the representatives of Dr. Nansen. I think there have been cases in which visas have been applied for without recourse to the assistance of Dr. Nansen's representatives, and that may have been the cause of certain embarrassment. I wish to make this explanation, which I fear is not very clear, with regard to the difficulties we have encountered, because I should be extremely sorry if it were popularly supposed that these difficulties are seriously interfering with our relief work.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, the announcement which has just been made by Lord Weardale will give widespread gratification. I acknowledge that he and his friends are subjected to these worries, annoyances and obstructions in carrying out the work they have undertaken. But, notwithstanding the difficulty of which the noble Lord has spoken, the fundamental fact remains that the work is progressing well, and, what is still more satisfactory—a fact which Lord Weardale confirms, and more than confirms, to-day—that recently there has been a material improvement in the transport arrangements upon which the whole efficacy of these relief movements depends. I am glad the noble Lord has made that statement, because I am afraid it is the only consoling statement your Lordships are likely to hear this afternoon.
Lord Emmott was very far from hopeful. He referred to the general uneasiness which prevails and recommended an attitude of severity on the part of the British Government as contrasted from what he regards as the rather benevolent attitude which prevailed in the Genoa Conference. I am not qualified to discuss that question. I merely content myself by saying that the central and governing idea of the Government in promoting that Conference, and in carrying it through, was the profound hope and conviction that
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a broad attitude of pacification, or at any rate of non-aggression, affords the only sure basis upon which economic peace, quite apart from other advantages, can be secured to Europe as a whole. The attitude may have been right, or it may have been wrong; but it may be argued that an attitude of severity, of aloofness, towards Russia would have made that country more sensitive to the views which prevail over Western Europe.
LORD EMMOTT: If I gave the impression that I was advocating an attitude of severity towards Russia it was far from my intention. My criticism, so far as it was a criticism, was rather to the fact that I believe quiet conversations without so much limelight, where matters could be discussed without the attention of the Press, would be more likely to achieve results than the conditions which are necessary in the case of great European Conferences.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I hope the noble Lord will acquit me of intentionally misrepresenting him. I agree with his sentiment. I abominate limelight, but if you have a number of countries, twenty or thirty, represented in a single town is it not impossible to prevent anyone who has the right and power to play the limelight on their proceedings from doing so? Is it possible, assuming that a Conference of ten or twenty or thirty Powers is necessary in order to discuss things in a free and, moreover, in a rapid manner—is it possible to say that limelight and all the abominations that it involves can be excluded? I am afraid not. I am afraid that we have to recognise the fact that, if Conferences take place, if anything takes place, and limelight is a source of amusement to the public, limelight will be provided.
Let me turn to the very much narrower but intensely important Question raised by the most rev. Primate. I will inform him in brief of the whole of the information which is at the disposal of Lord Curzon. Your Lordships will see from my reply that the Lord Archbishop has special means of access to information which is not at the disposal of the Diplomatic Service, but all the knowledge at the disposal of the Foreign Office confirms, and more than confirms, His Grace's tribute to the personality, distinction, and high character of the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church. I will recount very briefly what has passed so far as our official knowledge goes.

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The recent Decree of the Soviet Government, ordering the confiscation of all Church valuables in the interests of the famine, led to riots in various parts of Russia when the valuables were being taken from the churches. Sa far as His Majesty's Government are aware, these riots, to which the Archbishop referred, were spontaneous outbreaks, and there is no evidence to show that they formed part of a conspiracy in which either the Patriarch or the responsible representatives of the Russian Church were implicated. It is understood that a number of people were arrested in connection with these outbreaks and, amongst others, eight priests, as Lord Emmott has just said, were condemned to be shot. Sentence has not yet been carried out, but there is reason to believe that the Soviet Government does not at present intend to reverse the decision.
During the trial of these priests, the Patriarch was summoned to give evidence, and was accused of having used his influence to frustrate the execution of the Soviet Decree for the confiscation of Church property. As the Lord Archbishop has recounted, the Patriarch, in his defence, maintained that he had never opposed the principle that the Church should contribute to the utmost of its capacity to the relief of the famine-stricken, but that he claimed the right, as trustee of the property of the Church, to have some control over the distribution of the supplies obtained from the sale or mortgage of Church property. The attitude adopted by the Patriarch led to his arrest and to his removal to the Donskoi monastery, where he is now being kept in close confinement. It is understood that he is shortly to be tried, but it is not clear when and exactly on what charge the trial is to be carried out.
Lord Curzon's attention has been called to reports appearing in the Soviet Press to the effect that the action taken by the Patriarch has caused a division amongst the bishops of the Russian Church, and that he has in consequence resigned his office. I understand that these reports are not correct; that, though considerable pressure has been brought to bear upon him, he has refused to resign; and that his resignation would not be considered valid without the consent of Conclave. In conclusion it is naturally not within the province of His Majesty's Government to pass judgment on the issues involved in the trial of the Patriarch, but it is a well-
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known fact that the Patriarch, as already outlined to your Lordships, has shown great sympathy towards the population of the famine area since the outbreak of the famine last year.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Does the noble Earl, or do the Government, propose to take any steps, in conformity with the suggestion of the most reverend Primate and of the noble Lord below the gangway, to make representations to the Russian Government on this matter?
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: If the Foreign Office had thought that representations of this kind would at the present moment be profitable, I should have made the announcement to your Lordships.

MURDER OF DEAN FINLAY.
LORD CARSON: My Lords, I beg to ask His Majesty's Government whether any person has been brought to justice for the murder in June last of the very reverend John Finlay, aged 80, formerly Dean of Leighlin, who was foully murdered in his residence in the City of Cavan; and whether any, and if so, what efforts have been made to secure the punishment of his murderers.
I understand that yesterday the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack rather deprecated my asking the Question which I have put on the Paper, on account of the general discussion regarding Ireland which it is proposed to take next Tuesday. But I can promise the noble Viscount that I will not enlarge it into a general discussion of any kind; I will solely and entirely confine myself to the facts of the particular case.
May I say perfectly frankly to your Lordships that I was prompted to put down this Question when I saw the question of the Archbishop of Canterbury? The Archbishop of Canterbury very naturally takes a great and wide interest in this persecuted divine and in other divines of the Russian Church, and in the threats which are now being made against the whole of the Church in that country. I cannot tell your Lordships how often I have been twitted by those with whom I was brought up in Ireland, and who are now refugees in this country, with the utter absence of any interest on the part of the bench of Bishops in the persecution of Irish Protestants. This sort of thing is

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often said to me: "I see there is a large subscription being raised in England, fostered in the City and fostered by the Church, on behalf of the starving victims of the Soviet, on behalf of the Church in Russia, on behalf of Armenians who have been persecuted by Turks, on behalf of the Greek Church, and other matters of that kind; but nobody seems to take the slightest interest in what is happening or going to happen to your Protestant fellow-countrymen in Ireland." Never since I came into this House have I heard one word of sympathy from the bench of Bishops regarding what is happening to these people in Ireland.
I have promised, however, not to raise the wider question. This case of the very rev. John Finlay is one of the most pathetic out of all the horrible crimes that have been committed during the last two or three years in Ireland, and one which I should have thought would have awakened some feeling among the bench of Bishops, who are so devoted to religion in this country. This rev. gentleman, eighty years of age, at one time Dean of Leighlin, and at one time chaplain to the Lord-Lieutenant in Ireland, always a man entirely removed from politics and much beloved by everybody who had ever come across him, had retired some little time before to this small property which he had in the County of Cavan, and was leading with his aged wife an ordinary simple life of retirement, having done his work in the Church of which he was a great ornament. His house was raided by gunmen, not for any political reason so far as one can make out, not at a time when the Provisional Government had been set up, but when the country was under the control of His Majesty's Government. Coming downstairs, with his wife following him, he was pulled out on to the steps, riddled with bullets, and after he had been shot dead his head was battered in by a blunt instrument. That was not all. These scoundrels then proceeded into the house, where his wife was, set fire to the house, and burnt the whole place to the ground. That is the case of the very rev. John Finlay.
I have put this Question down really in the hope of arousing some interest in what a man like the rev. John Finlay has had to go through, after the kind of life I have described. I do not know whether His Majesty's Government can give me any information. I have never heard that anybody has ever been arrested for this
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murder, or has been brought to justice, but as His Majesty's Government handed over the control of this County, among others, to the Provisional Government, I should like to ask whether any terms or conditions were made with them that they were to attempt to bring these murderers to justice. If I may ask one more question, which is not on the Paper, I should like to know whether any compensation has been given for the burning of his house, or any other compensation to his poor wife, who was a witness of this dreadful affair.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: Before an answer is made to the noble and learned Lord's Question, I should like to reply to what he has said with regard to the lack of sympathy with which he imagines the bishops in England view the position of affairs in Ireland. I would ask the noble and learned Lord to believe that I am in closest touch with three of the most prominent ecclesiastics in Ireland, namely, the Archbishop of Armagh, the Archbishop of Dublin and the late Archbishop, now Provost of Trinity College. If he will consult them, I am sure he will find that there has been no lack of constant and frequent intercourse with them as to the difficulty and complications of the whole matter, and no lack of sympathy on our part, or of desire to assist them.
LORD CARSON: I quite accept what the most reverend Primate says, but I was referring to the public action which the Churches of this country have taken in aid of other Churches, and never so far as I know has there been any public action for the assistance of the Protestant Church in Ireland.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I appreciate the purpose of the noble and learned Lord in confining this debate within narrow limits, and I think in doing so he has adopted a convenient course, having regard to the fact that there must be discussion at an early date dealing with more general questions. The noble and learned Lord has spoken about subscriptions for Russian purposes, and made one or two observations. The competitive claims of different objects are always very difficult to appraise, but I confess I think there are cases of hardship among all classes in Ireland, emerging in the last twelve or eighteen months, which would justify a claim upon the assistance of

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the compassionate not inferior to any that can be urged in the case of Russia, nor do I think it would be possible to maintain that in the rapidly deteriorating standards of the sanctity of life there is a very great deal to be learned by one community from the other.
The noble and learned Lord has asked me a question as to what took place nearly a year ago, and the facts in relation to the question he has put to me are as follows:—About 2 a.m. on the morning of June 12 of last year, Dean Finlay was murdered on the lawn outside his house. More than one witness tstated at the Military inquiry that about forty men broke into the house, which they set on fire. Afterwards, the Dean was found on the lawn. He was dead. A few days later nine men were arrested on suspicion and were identified by different witnesses as strangers who had been present on that occasion, and some of them were stated to have carried short iron bars, with which Dean Finlay might have been struck down. No witness came forward who was able to say that he saw the blow delivered. These nine men were in custody awaiting trial at the time of the General Amnesty which followed the signing of the Treaty. They were never brought to trial, and were released from custody in pursuance of the Amnesty extended to persons convicted of, or suspected of having committed, offences from political motives in Ireland. No person has since been brought to justice by the Provisional Government for the murder. As regards the last part of the Question, the restoration and maintenance of law and order in Southern Ireland is now a matter for that Government.
The noble and learned Lord has asked me a further Question, which he himself has pointed out was not in the Question on the Paper. It is with reference to the compensation which might be payable, or ought to be paid, to the widow of the late Dean. I am not in a position to deal with that question without notice, but this I may say, that the claim would appear to be a strong one for compensation and one which, there can be no doubt at all, will be treated as a case in which full compensation should be paid. If the noble and learned Lord will allow me, after having obtained specific information I will communicate with him privately and inform him what course has been adopted.
There are general issues involved, but as he stated the facts disclosed by the 790
particular Question of the noble and learned Lord make it plain that a particularly horrible murder was perpetrated under circumstances of exceptional cowardice, the victim being a blameless and worthy servant of the Church, and a devoted citizen of his country. We must all recognise, each of us drawing what inferences he thinks proper from a recognition which I think must be general, that since that date, more than a year ago, there has been a succession of detestable crimes which I think it would be impossible to match in any comparable period even in the history of that unhappy country. Many noble Lords will probably have views to urge, and inferences to suggest, and facts which I think will not be very greatly controverted in the debate, and I shall perhaps be forgiven if, without in any way under-rating the gravity of the case which the noble and learned Lord has put before the House, I ask leave not to anticipate the observations which I shall make next week.

VOLUNTARY HOSPITALS.
THE EARL OF MALMESBURY THE EARL OF MALMESBURY had given Notice to ask His Majesty's Government—

1. What progress the Voluntary Hospitals Commission has made in appointing local voluntary hospital committees in accordance with the Report of Lord Cave's Committee.

2. What information the Voluntary Hospitals Commission has of the general financial position of the hospitals and how far they have proceeded in the distribution of the Government grant of £500,000.

The noble Earl said: My Lords, the House will shortly rise for the Whitsuntide recess, and I knew there are very large numbers of people, in different parts of the country, who are much interested in this subject and are anxiously awaiting a statement from His Majesty's Government. I ask these Questions in no spirit of captious criticism, because I can say nothing but good of the work which has been done by the Voluntary Hospitals Commission as regards the establishment of committees and other work, and I desire to thank the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, for the enormous amount of devoted personal service which he has put into this business.
The first Question I wish to put is: What is the exact position of the voluntary hospital committees to-day? How many committees remain still to be formed, and has the scheme been generally well responded to throughout the country? The next question is: Can the noble Earl tell me what proportion of the fund has been distributed already, and how much, if any, still remains for further distribution? I know the difficulties that my noble friend has probably had to meet. Hospitals have been very dilatory in sending in their accounts, and I am fully prepared to hear that my noble friend has had many difficulties of that sort to meet. Can my noble friend tell me anything in regard to the form in which these grants are made? I hope that any risk of the well-managed hospitals getting less money than the less well-managed hospitals may be avoided. Some suggestion was put forward that we might possibly give a bonus on good management, but that is a difficult matter.
With regard to further expansion, I take it that, with the present shortage of money, there is no possibility of any funds being available for further expenditure. The sources of hospitals are dried up owing to taxation and the effects of the war, and the demands put on these hospitals have daily increased. The cost of running hospitals is very much higher, the number of persons who expect treatment in them has enormously increased, and you get a different class of patient going into hospitals. Another point, which is a somewhat delicate one, is the question of poor law infirmaries. Naturally, the Poor Law Guardians and the ratepayers are somewhat jealous of their infirmaries being used for ordinary hospital purposes. But I hope that some means may be found whereby there will be a greater exchange of duties between infirmaries and ordinary hospitals, provided that the beds in the infirmaries do not fail to supply the need for which those institutions were established.
The next point I desire to raise is that of voluntary hospital representation on the Commission. Many of your Lordships have taken an interest in hospital work, and no doubt you know that it is impossible to lay down a hard-and-fast line for all hospitals. I hope some means will be found by which some representative of these voluntary hospital committees will be given a place upon the central Commission sitting in London. I think it would be
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to the mutual advantage of both, and very much to the advantage of the voluntary committees themselves. I believe that the King's Fund and several other bodies are already represented on the Commission. I beg to put the Questions standing in my name.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH (THE EARL OF ONSLOW): My Lords, the noble Earl, who is chairman of the Hospital Saturday Fund, is anxious to receive information on this subject. In answer to his first Question on the Paper, it is proposed to constitute, in all, 62 committees throughout England, Scotland, and Wales. Of this number, 52 are already formed, and are actually functioning; six will very soon be ready. The only reason why they have not actually commenced work is that all the nominations have not been completed. In two cases, one in England, the other in Scotland, no committees are to be formed because the local conditions are such that it is not necessary; there is only one hospital in one county, and it would be obviously unnecessary to appoint a committee. In two others no decision has been reached.
Some of these committees have been in existence for a considerable time, but the majority have only begun to work in the last few months. We asked them all to send in a report as to the actual situation in their area, and many of them have sent in valuable reports, though we have not, of course, received sufficient information about all the small areas to be able to make a comprehensive survey of an authoritative nature of the situation throughout the country. We have had very good reports from Devon, Cornwall, Warwickshire, Bristol, Derbyshire, Wiltshire, Sheffield, and others I might mention.
With reference to a point to which the noble Earl referred at the end of his speech—namely, the question of the representation of local committees on the Voluntary Hospitals Commission—as your Lordships are aware, that Commission was formed on the recommendation of Lord Cave's Committee, with the addition of a representative for Wales. Of the representatives on that Commission, five are appointed by the Ministry of Health, one by the Secretary for Scotland, and seven by various bodies connected with the hospitals—the Royal Colleges of Surgeons and Physicians, the Order of St. John and the British Red

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Cross Society, the British Hospitals Association, the British Medical Association (which has two representatives, one for England and one for Scotland), and King Edward's Fund.
King Edward's Fund has accepted, in accordance with the recommendation of Lord Cave's Committee, the position of voluntary hospitals committee for London; so that in that respect the metropolitan area is directly represented on the Commission. The other committees, of course, were not formed when the Commission was appointed, so that there could be no question about their being represented thereon, but now that they are functioning the question is one of very great importance and has not been lost sight of. I may say that a conference of all members of local committees will meet in London on July 18 and 19, at which a full discussion of this question will be possible. The views of the members of local committees as to whether the Commission would be strengthened by adding representatives drawn from London, and whether they think it desirable in their own interests to be so represented, will be of very great value and importance. How that representation should be made, and so forth, is a matter of interest to all concerned. I wish that the noble Viscount, Lord Cave, had been present because it would be very interesting to hear his views on this point, as he was the originator of the idea and it was on his advice that the Commission was formed. Personally, I think an important thing is to avoid making the Commission so large as to be an unwieldy body, but I do not think that would be a necessary corollary to the proposal.
I now turn to the second part of the Question which deals with finance. The original Government grant was of £500,000. Up to the present we have spent altogether £142,738, which is made up as follows: In London, £103,450, and in the provinces, £339,288. Your Lordships will comment, perhaps, on the fact that London has received so considerable a share of this sum of £142,738, but the difference is due to the fact that London was able to get to work very much more quickly. As I have already observed, King Edward's Fund set to work immediately as the voluntary hospitals committee for London, and therefore the reports and so forth were available much more speedily for London than they were for the provinces. The London
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grants so far have been mainly, in fact, almost entirely, emergency grants; that is to say, grants to hospitals who have exhausted their realisable assets. The grants, therefore, were mostly given before the annual accounts were made up. I am glad to say that these grants have enabled beds in London which were closed to be reopened and have prevented the threatened closure of others.
In reference to the other Question which the noble Earl put to me as to the principle on which the grants have been made, I may say that the Commission have decided as a general principle not to make grants in excess of half the deficit on the ordinary maintenance expenditure for the year ending December 31, 1921, and those grants are to be made £for£ against new money received or in sight. This question of money received or in sight is rather a difficult one to define, and we have had a good many inquiries about it from the hospitals and the voluntary hospital committees. We have explained it to the best of our ability, and we are just issuing a new circular dealing with the whole matter at length, which I trust will put everybody in a position to understand exactly what is meant by the Treasury conditions.
As to the position of the hospital finances I would like to say a word. The Government grant of £500,000 was based on the estimate of Lord Cave's Report that the total deficit on maintenance account for 1921 would be approximately the same as that in 1920—namely, £1,000,000 for the whole country. But it is very gratifying to note that the reports so far almost all show that in all probability the 1921 deficit will be less, and I think and hope that it will be considerably less, than the 1920 deficit. The 1920 deficit in London amounted to £463,000, and the estimate—it is only an estimate yet, but it is a fairly accurate one—is that the deficit for 1921 will be about £140,000 less. The same sort of figures reach us from other localities, and, therefore, I am in great hopes that the deficit for 1921 will show a considerable shrinkage on that for 1920. That being so, we may hope that our finances will allow us to give some assistance in respect of accumulated deficits. I am not able to make any promise on that point, and I cannot say anything really definite about it until we have a complete estimate of the amount of the deficits for 1921 throughout the whole country.

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The noble Earl referred to the fact—and, perhaps, your Lordships will have seen that it is true from the small amount of money that we have already distributed—that the hospitals have been somewhat dilatory in sending in their claims. That is the case. We have written to the hospitals, and have sent a communication to the Press to the same effect, asking them to send in their claims as soon as possible and without any unnecessary delay. I understand, of course, that hospitals have found some difficulty in making up their claims because they do not make up their accounts until the beginning of the year, when the auditors' officers are very busy and it is very difficult to get a proper audit. We are now almost at the end of May, and I hope we shall be able to get our claims in soon so as to be able to proceed with the distribution.
There is another point I should like to mention because it is one which I think hospitals would do well to consider. An arrangement was made with Approved Societies last year for payments to hospitals in respect of their members. We have had representations from the societies that the claims are not coming in from the hospitals. I hope, and the Commission hopes, that all hospitals will ask any patients who come to them whether they belong to a society, and, if so, whether it is one of those societies as to which the hospital has to make a claim; also that the hospitals with as little delay as possible will make the claims they are entitled to make, and which the societies are desirous of meeting, in respect to the treatment of these patients. I hope I have been able to indicate to your Lordships that the position of the hospitals is improving. It must, however, be remembered that the deficits are still very formidable, that no effort must be relaxed and that everything possible should be done to put the hospitals again on to their pre-war footing. Cooperation, I am sure, is the only way in which that may be successfully done—cooperation to reduce expenditure, to increase income, and to prevent overlapping and waste.
I should like to mention one other point in regard to that matter. Certain hospitals are proposing schemes for extension. I feel that these schemes of extension should he very carefully examined. I am sure it is not a wise procedure to build a new wing to your house before you are able to pay
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the weekly bills. Hospitals should not only see that they are paying their way, and able to carry on, as they are at present, their ordinary work, but they should also see that their income is sufficient to pay for any increased expenses of maintenance which the extension will necessitate. That is a matter which should be most carefully examined by all hospital committees. I do not want to say that an extension should not be undertaken. In circumstances of a peculiar nature, even when the maintenance account is somewhat deficient, it may be desirable to have an extension, because sometimes capital expenditure is true economy. But it is a matter which requires careful and serious consideration on the part of those who propose to undertake such developments.
The noble Lord referred to the possibility of utilising poor law infirmaries. The noble Viscount, Lord Burnham, who is not here to-night, raised this point last year. These infirmaries are said to have occasionally vacant beds which could be utilised; I have no doubt that is often the case. Actual co-operation of that kind has been undertaken in certain places; for instance, in Paddington and Wolverhampton. I went to Paddington infirmary. It is an admirable place, and works with the local hospital in a magnificent manner. But one must remember that the poor law infirmaries are the property of the ratepayers, and that you cannot do anything to touch them unless the guardians and the ratepayers come forward and say that they are ready and willing to oc-operate with the voluntary hospitals. Now that local committees have been formed there is an authority which can deal with the voluntary hospital area extension. A local committee can form an idea of what is required in the way of beds, and, if the poor law authorities in the district are willing to meet them, they can come together and perhaps form a scheme which will utilise the beds that are vacant in the infirmaries, if such there be. That will relieve the voluntary hospitals, and may, perhaps, avoid the necessity of considerable extensions in the hospitals. The essential point to remember, however, is that these infirmaries are the property of the poor law authorities, and that only with their consent and cooperation can anything whatever be done. There are many members of boards of guardians who are also members of voluntary

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hospital committees, so that cooperation between the two should not prove a difficult task.
I should like to say one further word upon the question of finance. So far as our information goes income on the whole is well maintained, although in a few cases there has been a falling off, especially in areas where there have been strikes. Speaking generally, the income has kept up in a rather remarkable way, in spite of unemployment and high taxation. Again, expenditure is falling. Food, which is a very large item in hospital expenditure, is coming down considerably, but drugs and dressings are remaining at a rather high figure, and have not fallen in the manner which had been hoped and anticipated.
I would make one comment on the success of the scheme of mass contributions. I do not know whether any of your Lordships are familiar with the Sheffield area, but in that area they have done very remarkable work under this scheme of mass contribution. It is very important for local committees to keep that matter in mind, and to organise schemes wherever they possibly can. Until the Oxford scheme was developed the mass contributions were mainly confined to Northern England, and the success of the scheme at Oxford is worthy of note. The chairman of the hospital committee told me the other day that they raised £16,000 last year by these contributions. This is mainly an agricultural County, and the success of that scheme in Oxford shows that similar efforts might be undertaken elsewhere with success. I believe the noble Lords own County, Hampshire, has made a great success already of the scheme. In Manchester they have made an arrangement with the Hospital Saturday Fund for a combined collection and the organisation of mass contributions. These schemes are of the utmost value, and are to be recommended to the consideration of committees. I may add a word of congratulation to London. I think the London collection yesterday must have been very successful. I hope it will realise all the new money that is necessary to obtain funds from the Commission.
THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: My Lords, I should like to take this opportunity of joining in the tribute which the noble Earl, Lord Malmesbury, paid to the noble Earl at the head of the Commission. I am a member of the Devon local hospital
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committee. We sent in our claims, and within a month received promise of the assistance that we were going to get. I think that is extremely satisfactory, and shows the enormous amount of personal attention that the noble Earl has paid to the matter. I understand that not half of the £500,000 has yet been distributed. I think I am right in saying that, apart from London, something like £100,000 only has been promised.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: I have not the figures by me, but I think £103,000 has been distributed in London, and about £39,000 in the provinces. I trust that there will be considerably more funds for the provinces when w get in the claims. If all the counties were as assiduous as the noble Earl's County of Devon we should have distributed a great deal more to the provinces.
THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: I am grateful to the noble Earl for that statement, and I should like to know whether the claims that the various local committees have sent in are the final claims that they can make?
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: If the noble Earl has any further claims to make the Commission will be only too glad to consider them.
THE EARL OF MALMESBURY: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for the statement he has made, and congratulate him upon the success of the scheme so far.

MANDATE FOR PALESTINE.
LORD ISLINGTON: My Lords, I desire to ask that His Majesty's Government should ensure that the Mandate for Palestine be considered and approved by Parliament prior to ratification by the Council of the League of Nations.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, the Mandate cannot be confirmed, I understand, for some time to come, and the Government would invite Lord Islington, therefore, to select a day soon after the Whitsuntide recess on which he should put down a Motion and raise a discussion on the subject.
House adjourned at ten minutes before seven o'clock until Monday next a quarter past four o'clock.