Lords Sitting of 1 March 1923

Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The LORD CHANCHLLOR on the Woolsack.
MID KENT WATER BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a.
GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY (ADDITIONAL POWERS) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS (SHEFFIELD WATER CHARGES) CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a (according to Order).
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS CONFIRMATION (NO. 1) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a (according to Order).

PUBLIC SERVICES IN INDIA.
LORD ISLINGTON LORD ISLINGTON rose to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he will inform the House of the reasons that have influenced him in deciding to appoint a Royal Commission on the Public Services in India; whether he will specify what subjects connected with the Public Services it is proposed that the Royal Commission on the Public Services which reported in 1915; whether he can give an estimate of the cost that will be incurred by this Commission; and whether the whole cost is to be borne on the Indian Exchequer.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the object which I have in view in putting this Question on the Paper is, I will admit at the start, to make an earnest appeal to my noble friend to reconsider, if he will, the decision to which he has come to appoint a Royal Commission on the public Services in India. Speaking
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with some claim to familiarity with this subject and its bearing on the situation to-day with reference to the new legislative reform schemes, I hope that the House and my noble friend will exonerate me, in whatever I may say, from any personal bias in the matter, because I raise the Question solely on public grounds.
The appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into, and report on, the public Services in India is really not necessary at the present time, I suggest; indeed, the present time is a very inappropriate one for an Inquiry. It was only in August of 1915 that a Royal Commission reported on this subject. It dealt very exhaustively with practically every phase and aspect of the public Services in India. It sat practically continuously in this country and in India for two and a half years, and during that period it dealt with all the different aspects of no fewer than twenty-four Services which go to make up the administrative system in India. It dealt with the organisation and the whole of the arrangements of the Imperial and provincial Services both in regard to the European and the Indian elements. It dealt with the various methods of recruitment from both races, for their training and their probation. It dealt with the salaries in every Service and in regard to every grade in each of the Services. It dealt with leave and travelling allowances and with the whole subject of pensions for the officers in the Service. It also dealt with the proportion that should gradually develop as between Europeans and Indians in the Service, and it made many recommendations, long overdue, to remove anomalies and injustices as between the two races in the different source of chronic discontent in India at the time.
In short, I venture to say, not a single branch of the whole of this great subject was really omitted by the Royal Commission of 1915. The Commission laid down principles to guide the future arrangements of the Services and—I would refer this to the sympathetic attention of my noble friend—those principles hold good to-day under the altered conditions brought about by the new reform scheme just as they held good

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hitherto. Where they may require modification and adjustment, that can easily be effected to meet the requirements of those new conditions.
I speak with some intimate experience when I say that the work attached to a Royal Commission dealing with a subject like the public Services in India is very laborious. The Inquiry is a very protracted one, and it is a very costly business. I think that my noble friend will find, if he adheres to his decision to appoint a new Royal Commission, that it will be almost impossible to limit the scope of the activity of a Commission of this character. The geographical extent of India is so great, and the various and divergent conditions that, prevail in the eight provinces of India are such, that it will be found impossible to limit to any serious extent the scope of an Inquiry of this character. Again, the Commission will have to be of a thoroughly representative character, as representative in this country as it will be representative in India, and I think it will be found, even more to-day than it was six years ago, that, so constituted, it will be no more harmonious than it was at that time. I think I am right in saying that the cost to the Indian taxpayer of the Royal Commission of 1915 exceeded £50,000, if you take everything into account.
I should not have raised this Question unless I were fortified by a certain knowledge both of the public Services and of the scheme and working of the new reforms in India. I have no doubt that the ground that influenced my noble friend in coming to a decision to appoint a Royal Commission is that conditions have so changed, owing to the advent of a Parliamentary system of government in the Provinces and an entirely developed system of Central Government, that the findings of this, though recent, Royal Commission do not hold good to-day. It will be alleged, I have no doubt, and with truth, that the salaries in many branches of the Service, especially the Imperial branches, to-day are quite inadequate and that the conditions are unsatisfactory. The cost of living in India as elsewhere, as a result of the war and other conditions, has largely increased. As to that I would say that the principles upon which all these salaries were based in the recommendations of the late Commission are of such a character that they can
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easily be made adaptable to any changes of that description. Material is available to the hand of my noble friend in his own office and in the offices of the Government of India and the Provincial Governments, upon which, without any further elaborate Inquiry, to make adjustment to those altered conditions. Undoubtedly, if salaries are found to be totally inadequate to meet the demands of the present time, those salaries can be raised with much greater promptitude by executive order, based on the material in the hands of the authorities, than by the somewhat slower methods of a Royal Commission.
Then it may be said, and, again, truly—and this, of course, is one of the most grave of the problems which face my noble friend and all who are associated with the Government of India to-day—that the conditions under which civil servants are working in India are very unsatisfactory. As to that, I think that the whole of that great category of questions comes within the scope of what may be regarded as a political problem. They are very difficult questions. I do not believe that they will be found to be insuperable, but I cannot believe that they are susceptible of further solution as the result of prolonged inquiry by a Royal Commission. Then, again, it may be said that the whole system of recruitment is a very difficult one. I have no doubt that my noble friend will say, with truth, that he is at his wit's end to know how to obtain recruits for the Imperial Services, the Indian Medical Service, and so on. There cannot really be any very great advance or improvement upon the method of recruitment laid down as a result of the findings of the Royal Commission of 1915.
As provincial autonomy develops, as it undoubtedly will in the years to come, there will be considerable variations; but those very variations in recruitment were to a peculiar degree anticipated in the Report of that Royal Commission. It was laid down in the Report that nearly all the technical Services in India, those which are now the Transferred services, should by a steady process become Indian Services, and the sole participation and co-operation of European assistance would in future come from selected posts being reserved for men of eminence in these particular technical subjects, who

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would go out to assist those Services. Probably that will be the process which will cake place with the progress of provincial autonomy in the future.
In a recent Despatch, my noble friend told the people of India that he was not prepared to disturb the present order, but that he adhered to the principle laid down in the Act, and strongly confirmed by the joint Committee on Indian affairs, not to disturb the present order of things for the next ten years. I think he was wise in that decision, and that there is a very big scope for Indian development under the Reform Act. At least for ten years we can watch its development, and it will be quite time enough, at the conclusion of those ten years, for a Royal Commission to go out to India and report as to whether there should be modifications and extensions. That decision on the part of my noble friend appears to me to be a very strong argument against disturbing the existing system, which prevails as the result of the findings of the Royal Commission of 1915. It would only mean a new Royal Commission, and I am convinced that it would mean going over a great deal of old ground and, to a very large extent, coming to similar conclusions.
The process—again I speak with considerable personal experience—is bound to raise a great deal of racial animosity. No matter how firm or tactful a Chairman you have of a body of this character, composed as it is, with the witnesses whoever they may be, he will be unable to control questions being put and answers made which will be immediately seized upon by the extremist Press and the extremist agitators. It will be found very difficult, if not impossible, to avoid that kind of thing, and it would be a great misfortune if that were to take place now to revive embitterments which have shown very satisfactory signs, during the period of office of my noble friend, of subsiding.
My noble friend must realise by now that this proposal is not a popular one in India. I hear it condemned on all sides. It is said—and there may be some reason for it—that whilst retrenchment committees have been working during the year in each of the provinces to reduce the staffs and salaries of Indian officials in the Provincial Service, at the same moment the British Government appoints a Commission to report on the salaries
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and the conditions of the European Imperial Services. I cannot believe that that will prove to be a successful method, in the present atmosphere of India, of securing an improvement of the conditions of those in India whom we all desire to see secure an improvement. In what I have said, I do not for a moment wish to give the impression that I underrate in the smallest degree the very great difficulties that beset my noble friend in his task in India. He finds himself in the gravest difficulty as regards both the securing of officers and dealing with very serious political questions. I would say that few of those questions are susceptible of a really satisfactory solution through the instrument of a Royal Commission. They require very great care, tact, and sympathy, which I am sure will be always exhibited by my noble friend at the head of the India Office. They require also the same qualities in the Governors of the provinces, and in all those in executive rank who work below them. You have to deal with a great change in the Civil Service, which has worked for years under what we may call an autocratic system and now has to work under a developing Parliamentary system. Only time and those qualities which I have mentioned are going gradually to mitigate, and I hope eventually to solve, the difficulties.
The financial position in India, as my noble friend knows a great deal better than I do, is to-day a very serious one. The Central and Provincial Exchequers are in a very grave condition. It may be found necessary, in order satisfactorily to adjust the Revenues both for the Central Government and for the Provinces, to have an impartial Committee to inquire into the matter. Perhaps—although this stands outside my Question, and I shall quite understand if my noble friend is not in a position to answer me—I may ask if he could give any information to the House in regard to that subject, and as to whether there is a Committee sitting in India, or whether he contemplates the appointment of a Committee to readjust those Exchequers, and to place them as near as possible upon a firm and solvent basis.
In conclusion, in regard to the Royal Commission for the Public Services contemplated by my noble friend, I would urge upon him most earnestly before he appoints that Royal Commission to con-

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sider the matter further. I do not believe it will advance the solution of the problem. It will cost a great deal of money and will, I have no doubt, meet with very strenuous opposition from the unofficial elements in the General Assembly in India. It will also, I believe, make the task of the moderate Indian element—increasing as it is, I am glad to say, every day—more difficult, becoming more so as the Election draws near. I think that what I have said will show my noble friend that I raise this Question in no hostile spirit to the Government or to him, but in the sincere belief that a Royal Commission is neither necessary nor expedient at the present moment.
LORD SYDENHAM: My Lords, I think my noble friend was not in the House when I pleaded for all I was worth that this Inquiry should take place, and I received a very sympathetic reply from the Secretary of State, who told us that he was at that very time considering the instituting of an Inquiry of this kind. I cannot help thinking that that would have been a proper time for my noble friend to have raised his protest, and not after the Secretary of State had announced clearly to India and to us at home that this Commission was to be appointed. The situation has totally changed since the days of the Commission to which my noble friend has referred. This Commission made, it is true, a most exhaustive and most valuable Report dealing with the circumstances of that time. But everything has changed. The great public Services of India are now visibly crumbling away, as I ventured to point out must happen about four years ago. I well remember that in those days, which now seem far distant, the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, speaking with his great authority, said that he feared that the Civil Service would be done to death politically. That is exactly what is now occurring.
The public Services are now in such a state that it is absolutely essential that something should be done to stop the decay, if, indeed, it is not already too late. Facts about the conditions of the Services have lately been embodied in a Memorandum submitted by the public Services of Bombay, which I have in my hand. This body states:—
"We believe that it is no longer necessary to adduce argument to show your
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Lordship that many classes of European Government servants have not for some tune been able to live on their pay, and have no prospect of being able to do so. This has been officially admitted and is no longer denied in any responsible quarter."
That is a very grave statement. It explains the position of these public servants, who are our own fellow countrymen serving and working intensely hard in the heat of India and who were the subject of a disgraceful attack by an hon. and gallant Member in another place only last Tuesday.
It is a popular delusion—I do not know whether my noble friend shares it—that an Indian administration of the Services would be a cheap administration. That is an absolute delusion: nothing of the kind. Already the expenses of the administration have gone up, and in my opinion they will increase more and more. This is what the memorial says on that point:—
"We feel bound to point out that one factor which operates to postpone an improvement in the pay of European Government servants is the extravagant pay now given to Indians in the higher branches of Government service. My association speaks with some diffidence of the rates of pay proper to Indians, but it cannot but observe that Indian States are able to get Indians of the same calibre and qualifications as those in Government service at little more than half the rates, while the same Indian States, when they require a European officer, can only obtain him at rates higher than those paid by Government."
I believe that statement is absolutely correct; it was happening in my time, which now seems so long ago.
The association sums up the present position in these words:—
"Europeans in Government service are now for the most part seriously embarrassed and many are ill dire distress: and our council is perhaps in a better position than your Lordship to realise how seriously these conditions are already affecting the Indian administration, and how soon they must, if they are allowed to continue, result in real disaster. Our council earnestly request for measures of immediate relief, and ask your Lordship to bear in mind that European Government servants are now so heavily in debt that considerable retrospective effect must be given to these measures."
I am sure your Lordships will feel, as I know the Secretary of State does, that this position must be altered without delay, and you will, I am sure, realise that it is a totally different position from that which was faced by my noble friend more than ten years ago.
LORD ISLINGTON: No, less than seven.
LORD SYDENHAM: I am sorry if I was incorrect. I do not know what the noble Viscount has decided with regard to the terms of reference to his Commission, but I am quite clear as to what kind of investigation is required. We need, first of all, to ascertain how the Services now stand as regards resignations and recruitment. Those are matters of simple fact and can easily be ascertained. Then we want a decision from the Government as to the numbers of British public servants they mean to retain until such time as the present Constitution is reviewed after ten years of its operation. Having fixed these figures the next thing is to decide what steps must be taken to restore confidence and contentment in the Services, which have been rudely shaken, by the proceedings of the Government of India and especially by the notorious O'Donnell circular. We have to make sure that we can provide the minimum number of public servants required and that they shall be men of the right type, which is the only type worth while sending out to India. We also need a clear statement showing the increase of all kinds of crime and corruption which has been brought about since the new régime began. The Reports of local Governments will give that information.
Those are, I think, the main points as to which inquiry is vitally necessary at the present moment. I believe that this Inquiry might be held in London. The noble Viscount, I know, thinks otherwise, and he has much more knowledge than I can possess. In any case, I cannot see any reason whatever for such a prolonged and expensive Inquiry as that which took place more than ten years ago. The work of the new Commission will differ in essential particulars from that which my noble friend carried out. I am sure that the noble Viscount will remove any apprehensions on the part of the noble Lord and will show that the procedure he now contemplates differs in essential respects from the procedure which my noble friend so ably carried out some years ago. I hope the noble Viscount will not for a moment think of withdrawing from the purpose he has already announced.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (VISCOUNT PEEL): My Lords, I
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do not for one moment suggest that there is any hostile intention on the part of the noble Lord in asking this Question about India. I am sure he is the last man, on so serious a subject as our relations with India, to attempt any criticism of a hostile or Party kind. He has had far too much experience of the administration himself. Rut the issue between us is absolutely clear. The Government and myself are supporting a Commission of Inquiry. The noble Lord is against it, and I should like to deal with one or two of the reasons he gave for dissenting from the proposal.
I think his view is to some extent based on his own Commission. It was conceived on a magnificent scale. It was a large and representative Commission, and my noble friend proceeded to his work with an almost, Oriental indifference to the passage of time. No Mogul could have laid out his work on a more stupendous scale. It began in 1912. It reported, after four years of strenuous work, in 1915, but I understand that the results of its labours, for causes over which my noble friend had no responsibility, were not laid on the Table of the House until 1917. Generalising on all Royal Commissions from this single instance, my noble friend Lord Islington thinks of a Commission which takes something like seven or eight years from the time it begins before it reports. No such Commission, laid out on these broad lines, ever suggested itself to me or to the Government.
Another consideration also occurs to me. The noble Lord thinks, and not unnaturally, because the work done by his Commission was of great value—I am the last to undervalue it; I have studied it with a humble and worshipful sense of its superiority—that there should be no other Commission in India. His Commission has worked for all time; it has dealt with the whole subject; it has exhausted it, and he looks upon it as almost irreverent that there should be any subjects connected with these Services which another Commission might have to investigate. I am ready to pay a tribute to my noble friend's work on that Commission. It was extremely valuable, and a large portion of its recommendations have been carried into effect. I do not wonder, therefore, that the noble Lord plumes himself on that Commission, because he

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knows how rare it is for the recommendations of a Commission to be carried into practical effect.
It is a melancholy thing that I should find that the noble Lord is against me on this subject, but I have the consolation that the great authorities are divided. The noble Lord was associated, when he was at the India Office, with Mr. Montagu, and though the noble Lord is against the Commission, his chief at that time, Mr. Montagu, is in favour of it. Although the noble Lord has fallen by the way, I can claim at any rate the support of Mr. Montagu in favour of this Commission. It so happens that my predecessor wrote a certain number of letters to The Times at the end of last year advocating the Commission. No doubt the noble Lord read them and studied them, but apparently he has not been convinced by their argument. I have also this to lament on the part of the noble Lord, that though he objects to the Royal Commission, he does not seem to suggest any other method by which we can arrive at the conclusions at which I hope to arrive through the work of this Commission.
He was barren in suggestions, except that I suppose I ought to infer that a further perusal of the almost inspired text of his own Report would give me all the suggestions I could want for dealing with the present situation. I was impressed by this lacuna, perhaps I might even say this error, in the speech of the noble Lord. He seemed to me to take little account of the vast changes that have taken place in India and in the Government of India during the last two years. No one who approaches this subject from the point of view of the position in the years before the war, and ignores what has happened in the years since the war, can possibly form an opinion of any value on the position of the Civil Services and their relation to the Government of India.
There are two other points which I should like to mention before I answer the specific Question put to me by the noble Lord. He was good enough to say that he agreed with a Despatch that I sent some months ago to the Government of India about the future of constitutional development. He is of opinion, apparently, that this Commission may to some extent impinge upon these constitutional questions, and that by suggesting
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it I am to some extent derogating from the value of that Despatch. This Commission will not, of course, deal with constitutional questions. On the contrary, I regard it merely as a corollary of the Act of 1919 and of the reforms that were then instituted. It is proposed to establish what will certainly be a small Commission, and not a large representative Commission, such as would certainly be necessary to go into constitutional questions. It should be quite clear that such an inquiry would involve a very different procedure from this establishment of a much smaller Commission, with a limited scope, to inquire into one or two specific points.
It is true that the noble Lord did attempt to drive me away from the proposal by suggesting that the establishment of a Royal Commission of that kind would set up a good deal of racial feeling, would be severely criticised in the extremist Press, and would give some material to agitators. I think it is very likely that it will. There is hardly any action of the Government of India during the last few years that has not given material to agitators, and if the noble Lord had now, as he had at one time, the duty that I have of reading the perpetual attacks on the Government poured out in the vernacular Press, I do not think he would attribute the same importance to them as, to judge from the speech he has just delivered, he attributes at present. I think that it would be extremely foolish to be driven from a course which one thinks wise—an attempt to establish the position of these Services—by the mere fact that the course which one advocates may be criticised by the extremist Press and by a number of agitators.
LORD ISLINGTON: I did not confine my remarks to agitators.
VISCOUNT PEEL: You spoke of extremists.
LORD ISLINGTON: If I did so, I meant to suggest, as I do now suggest, that people of the highest standing, both European and Indian, are strongly opposed to this proposal.
VISCOUNT PEEL: This is a new testimony, which I am very much interested to hear. I was going to say, in addition,

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that, if the noble Lord comes to a wider field, it is admitted by the wiser schools of political thought in India that it is necessary, not only that there should be substantial recruitment for many years to come from this country, but also that the Services themselves should be placed in a satisfactory and contented position.
In answer to the noble Lord's point concerning expense, may I add that no doubt his Commission was an expensive one? I rather admired, in those pre-war days, the magnificent lavishness of the noble Lord's expenditure, but I am far too well aware of the present financial condition of India to suggest anything in imitation of the noble Lord in that respect. Any expenditure that there will be on this Commission will, happily, be small, because it will be a small Commission—of course, there will be Indian members upon it—and I am quite sure that a very few mouths, not years, will be sufficient time to enable the Commission to report. I must give this credit to the noble Lord, that so much of the spade work, shall I say, has been done by the noble Lord's Commission, so much historical work and so on, that it will not, I think, be necessary to go into any of the past history of the Services. We shall be able to deal with the immediate facts of the day.
The specific Question that I have been asked is: What are the facts that induced the Government and myself to appoint a Royal Commission? There are very definite and very specific facts, very grave facts, some of which I desire to lay before your Lordships. I am not, of course, basing myself merely on these particular facts, or on figures. I am basing myself also on innumerable representations from a great many persons thoroughly competent to speak about the position of the Services in India, and also on a large number of memorials which have reached me from different sections of those Services in India. If your Lordships will allow me, I intend to trouble you with one or two figures. First of all, there are two difficulties. One is that there is a great deficiency of recruitment, both at this end and also at the other, in India. We get a large number of persons from these Services who are retiring on what, as the noble Lord well knows, are proportionate pensions.
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I should like, first of all, to deal with the figures of the shortage of European candidates. As the noble Lord and others of your Lordships know—particularly my noble friend Lord Mac-Donnell, who was Chairman of a small Committee to inquire and advise me on this particular subject—great difficulty is experienced in securing Europeans of proper quality for the Indian Services. When my noble friend Lord Islington reported, and during the time in which he was at work, no difficulty of this kind had arisen. It had not arisen, in fact, in the year 1915, when the Report was finally written. These difficulties of recruitment have been due largely to the uncertainty of recruits, and also of their relatives, as to their future prospects. I will not say that the situation has arisen yet, but it might very easily arise, in which there would be very serious danger that the administrative machinery in India might be impaired unless the whole subject was examined into and dealt with. It is very important, in view of this shortage, that some outlines of the career, at any rate, should be laid clown, which might be offered to the right type of recruit.
Now let me mention one or two of these figures. I will take first the question of the recruits that have come forward for the Indian Civil Service for the years before the war and for the years after the war. Of course, the different Services are suffering, as the noble Lord knows. I mention the Civil Service because that is the largest and the most important of these Indian Services, but I want to give one or two examples, such as the Police Service, where the wastage has been considerable. I am taking now the candidates. In the year 1913 the number of Europeans was 138, and of non-Europeans 25, making a total of 163. In the year 1914 there were 157 European candidates and 26 non-Europeans, making a total of 183. Those are the two years before the war. I omit the years immediately after the war, because, of course, they are, not comparable. I take the years 1921 and 1922. In those years you have respectively 16 Europeans and 57 non-Europeans, making a total of 73, and 18 Europeans and 52 non-Europeans, making a total of 70—a deplorable comparison, as will be seen, with the numbers for the years 1913 and 1914.

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But one has to examine not merely the number of candidates, but those who were accepted. In the open competition for 1921 the numbers of probationers selected for appointments in the Indian Civil Service were three Europeans and thirteen Indians, a total of sixteen. In 1922 the numbers were six Europeans and ten Indians selected, a total of sixteen. Now the comparable figures in the year 1913 were forty-two Europeans and two Indians, a total of forty-four. Those are one or two figures showing the shortage of recruits at this end of the scale. But the other end of the story is perhaps even more unfortunate, that is to say, the number of those retiring on proportionate pensions. Up to now—I think the period is from November, 1921, to nearly the end of February, 1923, so that the figures are almost up-to-date—the number of applications for retirement on proportionate pensions is 227, and the number of applications already sanctioned is 217. No fewer than fifty have been sanctioned from the Indian Civil Service. From the police the number is larger, namely, eighty-one, and in the Public Works Department, thirty-three.
Therefore we have, as it were, a drain at both ends, which has to be met somehow. Not only have we to face the actual arrears of recruitment that have accumulated since the war put an end to all recruitment, but also the fact, which is the most serious aspect of the case, that although the universities are returning to normal conditions, European recruits from those universities are not forthcoming in anything like sufficient numbers. This point is all the more serious because we have to cope not only with the normal wastage in ordinary times, due to casualties and retirements, but with the abnormal wastage due to those premature retirements on proportionate pensions of which I have given the figures. But the case, I think, is even worse than this, because even with the normal wastage we should not have been able to make up the full number required, in spite of special recruitment of ex-Service candidates under the Indian Civil Service (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1915, and in spite, further, of the reduced demand for Europeans owing to the increasing number of Indians, based very largely on the proposals of Lord Islington and his Commission.
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If the retirements on proportionate pensions continue, it is obvious that that fact will add to the difficulty of obtaining the requisite proportion of European recruits. Indeed, already the numbers of Indian recruits taken have increased beyond the proportions laid down in 1920, and, I think, in excess of those laid down by Lord Islington, because of the small number of European recruits coming forward. I am dealing with this matter not merely from the point of view of the Services themselves, but from the point of view of Indian administration, because it is generally recognised, and recognised by so many wise Indians in India, that it is essential that the two elements in these services—Indian and British—should work together.
Let me diverge for a moment to the Police Service, which is an extremely important service in the different provinces. I have already given the number of retirements on proportionate pensions which have been sanctioned. There is not quite the same difficulty in getting recruits for that purpose. The difficulty is rather that there is a large number of retirements among the senior officers. The position, from the points of view of recruiting and premature retirement, is therefore a very unsatisfactory one indeed.
The second point which very largely operated upon our minds in proposing the Royal Commission, was one which could not have been considered by the Commission of 1915, because it is due to the totally new state of facts which has arisen under the working of the Act of 1919. It was this:—This Act, as those who follow Indian affairs know perfectly well, has totally altered the whole position of the different Services, and it is absolutely essential, in the opinion of the Government, that the position and functions of those Services should be fully considered in the light of the altered circumstances. The last thing which I like to do is to criticise one's predecessors. I know the very great difficulty under which they worked. I think, however, that it might have been better, and more logical, if an Inquiry of this kind had been gone into at the time when these reforms were instituted, and the necessary results of these reforms upon these Services had been fully considered. But I agree that it is perhaps easier to do this at the present moment, after three or four years

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experience of the working of the reforms and of their effects upon the different Services, and that we are in a far better position, not merely to speculate upon but actually to investigate the effects which have produced this altered position.
The only other point with which I need deal is this. My noble friend rather suggested that we had in hand a great deal of information which we might have made use of ourselves. I think he suggested that one might, perhaps by a stroke of the pen, have improved the position of the different Services financially. It is true that the Services are placed by the Alt of 1919 in a special relation to the Secretary of State in Council. It is true also—though, of course, there is some difficulty about the question of allowances—that the salaries of these Services are placed among the non-votable expenditure, and therefore specially under the charge of the Secretary of State in Council. But, after all, I think it would be very much better that, if anything whatever can be done in this way, it should be done, not by what may be called an autocratic stroke of the pen by the Secretary of State in Council, but after a full, yet brief, investigation, which would bring, I hope, conviction to those people who are interested in this subject in India. There are many suggestions that might be made, but I do not think it would be wise or prudent to come to a hasty decision on these different points until they have been thoroughly investigated and advised upon by a competent Commission.
Because I know the great interest of the Services in this particular matter, I should like to say that the last thing I contemplate is that a great deal of time should elapse before the Commission reports. I see no reason why, with the material before it, this Commission should not report rapidly. It may quite well be that it will issue interim Reports. I say nothing on that, because it is a matter on which the Chairman should use his own discretion. But the last thing, certainly, that I intend, in making any suggestion for the Commission, is that there should be delay, or that these matters of the Civil Service should not be dealt with as rapidly as possible.
Finally, I do not want it to be suggested that this is merely a Commission
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in the interests of the Services. It is a Commission in the interests of good administration in India, and I need hardly say that there are many questions connected with the Indian Civil Service, as well as with British representatives in the Services, which want careful investigation. I hope I have satisfied my noble friend that, in spite of his magnificent labours, there is still room for this small Commission, and that some, points have arisen since his time which need careful investigation and advice by a Royal Commission.
LORD ISLINGTON: My Lords, I am very much obliged to my noble friend for the ample reply which he has given. I am afraid I am not so sanguine as he is that he will find expedition and fullness to be compatible qualities in the investigations of this Commission. I doubt very much whether what he has said will bring any more conviction to the minds of those in India who are concerned than it has to me.

PLEDGES TO THE ARAB PEOPLES.
LORD SYDENHAM LORD SYDENHAM had the following Notice on the Parer:—
To draw attention to the pledges given to the Arab peoples, and to ask His Majesty's Government whether they will lay on the Table the correspondence in 1915 between Sir Henry McMahon and the Sherif of Mecca, now King Hussein, on which their predecessors based the claim that Palestine is geographically excluded from those pledges.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, His Majesty's late Government always refused to publish this important correspondence, because on it depends the whole of our pledges to the Arab peoples which were made in the year 1915. Ever since then the Arabs have consistently maintained that we have not fulfilled our solemn pledges made to them at, that time. Surely it is only right and just that we should know exactly how our national obligations stand in this respect. As so often happens in cases of this kind, a version of this correspondence, containing the crucial parts relating to the pledges, has been made public. I am informed that this version is correct, and I hope that His Majesty's Government will say

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whether the portions which I quote are correct or not. I will quote only such portions as are relevant to the case which I wish to lay before the House.
On July 14, 1915, the Sherif of Mecca wrote to Sir Henry McMahon defining the boundaries within which, as he said, "Great Britain will acknowledge the independence of the Arab countries." On August 30 Sir Henry McMahon demurred, quite naturally, to any discussion of the boundaries until the war came to an end. But the Sherif stuck to his guns, and His Majesty's Government, which was at the time in very great need of his assistance, gave way.
On October 25 Sir Henry McMahon accepted the Sherif's boundaries, but with the following reservations:—
"The district of Mersina and Alexandretta, and portions of Syria, lying to the west of Damascus, Homs, Hama, and Aleppo cannot be said to be purely Arab, and should therefore be excluded from the desired boundaries, With these modifications. … we accept these boundaries, and, as regards those portions of the territories in which Great Britain is free to act without detriment to the interests of her Ally France, I am empowered, in the name of the Government of Great Britain, to enter into the following covenant."
Then follow the words which I consider constitute the pledges:—
"Subject to the above modifications. Great Britain is prepared to recognise and support the independence of the Arabs within the territories included in the limits and boundaries proposed by the Sherif of Mecca."
And Sir Henry McMahon went on to say—
"On the other hand, it is understood that the Arabs have decided to seek the advice and guidance of Great Britain only, and that such European advisers and officials as may be required for the formation of a sound administration will be British."
If only the Rent Restrictions Act had been as clear as that seems to me to be, what an immense amount of trouble and valuable Parliamentary time would have been saved!
On November 5 the Sherif held out for the inclusion of the provinces of Beirut and Aleppo, which, he said at the time, were purely Arab, but on December 14 Sir Henry McMahon was unable to agree as regards these territories, because, as he said most reasonably, "the interests of our Ally France are involved." The
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Sherif on January 1, 1916, accepted these conditions, with the proviso that he might raise the question of the territories in which France had an interest when the war came to an end. Sir Henry McMahon now decided to clinch the bargain, and there the bargain stands, I think, at the present time.
But this is not all. Early in 1918 the Sherif reported to His Majesty's Government that the Turks were offering to make a Treaty with the Arabs, and very significantly informed them that this Treaty would be guaranteed by the Kaiser as the Protector of Islam. When this was reported to the Foreign Office, the Secretary of State at once informed the Sherif that
"His Britannic Majesty's Government, in agreement with the Allied Powers, confirms its previous pledges respecting the recognition of the independence of the Arab countries."
If the extracts which I have quoted can be relied upon as authentic then it is perfectly clear that Palestine is included among those countries which are to be independent and subject to the advice and guidance of this country.
The excluded territory is defined, as I have stated, as the portions of Syria lying to the west of Damascus, Homs, Hama, and Aleppo. Palestine is, of course, a country in which France has no special interest whatever. Damascus is well north of Palestine, and the other towns mentioned lie almost on a bee line further north of Damascus. Mr. Churchill, therefore, had to invent a theory of the existence of a vilayet of Damascus which contained in its ambit the province of Trans-Jordania. Unfortunately, there was no vilayet of Damascus, and Trans-Jordania had never had any administrative connection with Damascus. I understand, therefore, that this distinct "terminological inexactitude" has now been officially abandoned, though I am afraid it served its purpose for a time.
Your Lordships will, I think, see that the pledge to Palestine to be an independent country, subject only to British advice, is really 8.s clear as daylight. This same pledge was almost textually repeated by General Allenby in a formal Proclamation to the people of Palestine, which he made on November 14, 1918. That pledge was further implicitly con-

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firmed by the late Prime Minister himself in September, 1919. He then said—
"The Arab forces have redeemed the pledges given to Great Britain, and we should redeem our pledges."
In spite of that, I contend that these pledges were violated by His Majesty's late Government. Nearly two years after this formal bargain was sealed and signed there was what I am afraid I must call a disastrous declaration which was made, as your Lordships will remember, in a private letter to Lord Rothschild. That declaration created astonishment and consternation in Palestine and throughout the whole Arab world; but the Palestinians were reassured a year afterwards by General Allenby's very strong Proclamation.
They found themselves a short time afterwards, however, under what I can only describe as a Zionist autocracy, while at the same time a strong stream of Zionists, including a good many undesirables and some Bolsheviks, was steadily setting towards the Holy Land under the protection of British bayonets. Your Lordships have emphatically expressed your opinion upon those proceedings so I will say nothing about them to-day except that they have involved great hardships upon many of the immigrants who are totally unfitted by the climatic conditions for the work they have to carry on in Palestine. As a matter of fact, fourteen of these poor people committed suicide in the course of two months.
My case, which I hope I have made clear, is this. By violating our solemn pledges we have brought upon us a host of unnecessary troubles and we have been involved in quite unnecessary expenditure. That, it seems to me, is the just nemesis of our wrong doing in the Near East. The same nemesis is pursuing us because of the shameful Treaty we made in reference to Ireland, where we abandoned all our friends to murder or to ruin. All over India, in Egypt, in Mesopotamia, in Palestine and throughout Arabia, Turkish propaganda is at the present time hard at work, and the Turks are entitled to say to the Arabs: "We are your real friends. The British people have only deceived you." That is what they are, in fact, saying at the present time. In Palestine, I am ashamed to say, most of the Arabs would now prefer the
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return of Turkish rule to living under the Zionist administration under which they now find themselves. It must be, and I know that it is the case, that the distrust engendered in Palestine extends itself to Mesopotamia, and that our prestige in the Near East and far beyond it has undergone a very dark eclipse.
The position of King Hussein who was our Ally during the Great War has become exceedingly difficult. The Arabs can fairly say to him: "You negotiated with the British. Why did you not make a Treaty with the Turks, who might probably have kept it?" Then, again, owing to a series of what I can only describe as gross blunders, the Turks are now able to pose as triumphant conquerors, which in no sense can they really be said to be. The Arabs, like everybody else, have suffered from some mental disturbance as the result of the war. They cherish dreams of a closer union which might enable them in future to carry on a part which was worthy of the best of their past, and I feel that it should be the primary object of British policy to guide and befriend them in their -wish for onward progress.
We need, it seems to me, an Arab bloc to counterpoise to some extent the vaulting ambitions at Angora, and that was our policy in 1915. That has lately been described, by one of Mr. Lloyd George's late private secretaries, as having teen our policy at that time. If that was the right policy in 1915, why is it not the right policy at the present time?
I hope that the Government will say whether the version of this important and crucial correspondence, of which I have given specimens, is correct or not. If it is correct, then are we not hound in honour to fulfil the pledges which I hope I have succeeded in proving do actually exist? If it is not correct, then I really think that we should have the true version of this correspondence so that we may see exactly how we now stand and be able to judge of the facts for ourselves. The smallest and the most gallant of our Allies to the War, Montenegro, received specific promises of her independence from President Wilson, from Mr. Asquith, from Mr Lloyd George, from M. Poincaré and from M. Pichon, and yet we have allowed Montenegro to be horribly oppressed and practically to be wiped out of the map of Europe. And

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the Arabs, under the inspiration of the Sherif, now King Hussein, rendered us very great services during the war at a very critical time, and they certainly believed that the pledge to which I have referred was a real pledge that we should honour. I maintain that our pledge has been distinctly broken. Before the Armistice I believe that we were universally regarded as a straight-dealing people whose word was their bond, and if His Majesty's Government can restore our tarnished reputation for good faith and can rebuild in the. East the prestige that we have lost since the Armistice, I believe that many of their inherited troubles will melt away in the future. I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name.
LORD LAMINGTON: My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Sydenham, has once again raised this Question for the reasons that he gave at the conclusion of his speech. He quite rightly interpreted the meaning of the now famous Beirut and Aleppo line. It is almost inconceivable to me that when that line was suggested its prolongation was intended southward and not merely northward to Aleppo. Such carelessness as the non-mention of the names of the points which were to form the line of demarcation between Trans-Jordania and those western districts which were to be excluded from any idea of Arab independence, is inconceivable. It would have been quite inconsistent with the whole policy of the Government at that time, or the policy of the Allies, to have treated Syria and Palestine as a single entity. The one claim which has always been made by the Arabs is that there is no racial or geographical division between Syria and Palestine. That contention has always been ignored by His Majesty's Government and by the Allies, particularly France. They have never recognised that what is usually termed Syria is one country. Therefore, if they had intended to differentiate as between Syria and those districts of Syria that lay to the west of that Beirut and Aleppo line and Palestine generally, surely Palestine would have been particularly specified as included in that demarcated area.
It would be a most valuable thing if we could get this correspondence succinctly and fully brought out, because then we should know where we were.
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It may be remembered that these negotiations were all secret, and that they were only brought to light when a new Government got into power in Russia and revealed the nature of these secret Treaties. Whatever may have been the intention of those who negotiated with King Hussein, undoubtedly in 1919 the general understanding was that Palestine should be included in Arab independence. That was the one theme of conversation at the time. It is difficult to reconcile the promises so recklessly made during the war to the Zionists and to the Arabs. It was understood by everyone at the time that Arab independence was naturally supposed to include the whole area of Palestine and also Syria. The Arabs do not know exactly why reservations have been made by His Majesty's Government.
This Question has been raised so often that I agree with my noble friend that every effort should be made to bring to light the exact circumstances and also the precise wording in which these terms or pledges were given to the Arabs. If they were faithful Allies they were to reap a certain reward, and to have complete freedom and independence. Unhappily, we are accused now of having violated those pledges. I therefore associate myself warmly with the request that the Government should publish the whole of the Papers.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE): My Lords, as your Lordships are well aware this is no new controversy. It has, in fact, been raised on many occasions. I am afraid that I am not in a position to satisfy the demands of my noble friends. The correspondence is long and it is inconclusive. I admit that those are not reasons why it should not be published, but there are very strong reasons indeed which show that the publication of the correspondence would be detrimental to the public interest. It is impossible to clear the correspondence of references to a number of subjects which are quite apart from the controversy that we are discussing this afternoon, and the publication of those references to other subjects would, I am confident—and this is also the opinion of my advisers—be detrimental to the public interest.
The reasons for the non-publication of these documents have, I think, been

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clearly stated on two separate occasions by my predecessors. In the White Paper issued last June a clear statement was made which, with your Lordships' permission, I will read. It is this:
"It is not the case, as has been represented by the Arab Delegation, that during, the war His Majesty's Government gave an undertaking that an independent national Government should be at once established in Palestine. This representation mainly rests upon a letter dated the 24th October, 1915, from Sir Henry McMahon, then His Majesty's High Commissioner in Egypt, to the Sherif of Mecca, now King Hussein of the kingdom of the Hejaz. That letter is quoted as convoying the promise to the Sherif of Mecca to recognise and support the independence of the Arabs within the territories proposed by him. But this promise was given subject to a reservation made in the same letter, which excluded from its scope among other territories, the portions of Syria lying to the west of the district of Damascus. This reservation has always been regarded by His Majesty's Government as covering the vilayet of Beirut and the independent Sanjak of Jerusalem. The whole of Palestine west of the Jordan was thus excluded from Sir H. McMahon's pledge."
Your Lordships will also be familiar with the published reply given in the House of Commons by the late Colonial Secretary, in which he dealt on similar lines with statements that have been made in the White Paper.
I have not been content merely to accept those statements as they appeared, bat since I have been at the Colonial Office I have, to the best of my ability and power, most carefully investigated the subject for myself', and I certainly see no reason, on broad grounds, to dissent from the interpretation which the late Government has placed upon the promises. Whether they were expressed in the best terms or not, it is perhaps not for me to say, but undoubtedly there never was any intention, when the pledge was given, to recognise the independence of the Arabs so as to include Palestine. I think that is perfectly clear, and in my own mind I am certain of it. Although the terms may not have been expressed in the clearest possible language, I think it was the intention of both Sir H. McMahon and the Government, at the time, when those pledges were given, that Palestine should not be included. I am afraid, therefore, for those reasons, that it is impossible for me, much as I
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regret it, to accede to the request of my noble friend and allow publication of the correspondence.
LORD RAGLAN: My Lords, there is only one point to which I wish to draw your Lordships' attention. Certain areas east of the Jordan, which were formerly not included either in the vilayet of Beirut or in the Sanjak of Jerusalem, have now been included in Palestine. These areas are not very large, but it is believed locally that they have been so included solely for the convenience of Mr. Eaten-berg, and that has given rise to a great deal of feeling.
LORD SYDENHAM: My Lords, I beg to thank the noble Duke for his reply, though I cannot say it satisfies me in any way. Would it not be possible to separate in the correspondence those parts that deal with the pledges from the rest, and exclude any which might deal with military movements at the time? It would be very undesirable that they should be made public. But it is really very difficult to understand why those parts in which our promise is stated by the Arabs to reside should not be made public. There is one other point. General Allenby's Proclamation was made in every village in Palestine, and I ask the noble Duke whether he does not consider that that promise, made in the most formal way just after the conquest of Palestine, does not include the independence of Palestine?
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: My Lords, so far as publishing any portion of the correspondence is concerned, my noble friend is fully aware of what I believe is a Standing Order of the House, or which certainly is a well recognised Parliamentary custom, that no portion of a correspondence can be published unless the whole is published. I do not wish to shelter myself under any technicalities, and, as it has been impossible for me to publish the whole, I will consider whether it would be in accordance with the traditions and with the Orders of the House that any portion of the correspondence should be published. I certainly should not like to give an answer upon that now, but I will consider the point.
LORD SYDENHAM: I thank the noble Duke.
[From Minutes of February 28.]

GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY (SWANSEA HARBOUR VESTING) BILL. [H.L.]
Committed: The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
CROYDON CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
  PLYMOUTH CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
  To be read 2a on Thursday, March 8 next.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE BILL. [H.L.]
House to be in Committee on Thursday, March 8.
INDUSTRIAL ASSURANCE BILL. [H.L.]
Report of Amendments (which stands appointed for Thursday next) put off to Tuesday next.

PETROLEUM BILL. [H.L.]
To be read 2a on Tuesday next.
House adjourned at twenty minutes before six o'clock.