Lords Sitting of 3 June 1924

Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

SEDITIOUS AND BLASPHEMOUS TEACHING TO CHILDREN BILL. [H.L.]
LORD DANESFORT: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to prevent the teaching of seditious and blasphemous doctrines and methods to children, and for other purposes connected therewith; and to move that it be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Lord Danesfort.)
On Question, Bill read 1a; and to be printed.

LONDON AND NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODON: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Grey of Fallodon.)
EARL STANHOPE EARL STANHOPE had given Notice to move, as an Amendment, That this Bill be read 2a this day six months. The noble Earl said: My Lords, if this was a Public Bill I would not ask your Lordships to oppose it on Second Reading but to amend it in Committee. It is a Bill of 83 Clauses, but there is only one Clause—Clause 61—to which I desire to draw your attention. Your Lordships would, no doubt, approve generally of the provisions were it not for the fact that amongst the clauses is one to set aside to the advantage of the railway company one of the general laws of the country. When it is desired to set aside the general law of England in some special case your Lordships would probably have no objection if sufficient reasons were adduced, but I submit that when it is desired to set aside the general law of the country the proper way is in a Public Bill and not in a private measure.
Under the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act of 1845 land which was acquired by an undertaking and found to be superfluous for that undertaking had to be sold and a right of pre-emption was given to the original owner. In a famous case in 1868 between Lord Beauchamp's father and the Great Western Railway Company it was decided that where land was used for any other purpose than that of a railway company a right of pre-emption existed. By subsequent Private Bills this right of pre-emption has been to some extent modified. A company is now allowed to hold its superfluous land beyond the period originally laid down in the Act by which that land was acquired and to dispose of it if it so desires, but the right of pre-emption, although postponed, still exists and has not been abrogated.
The clause to which I desire to draw your attention goes a good deal further than anything to which I have so far referred. If this clause becomes law this railway company and others who are preparing to follow suit will be allowed to erect "shops, chambers, flats, offices, or any other similar buildings"—a very wide phrase—not only on land which they may hereafter acquire but on land of which they are already possessed; in fact, on all land which they may now possess or at any time acquire. Indeed, the power asked for goes further because it is retrospective, a matter which I think your Lordships have always treated with great suspicion not only in Private Bills but in Public Bills as well. You will find that the company asks to be deemed always to have had the power to erect buildings, and so on. They also ask for power to dispose on lease of any superfluous land for any purpose whatever. I must point out that a railway company has the power to erect buildings in order to house its own employees. That obviously is part of the undertaking of a railway company, but I doubt whether any noble Lord who may speak for a railway company will contend that under present day conditions a railway company is likely to erect workmen's cottages for anybody but its own employees, for which it has already the power.
Let me point out what may be the effect of this clause. A railway company has the right to acquire land compulsorily, but when it desires to do so it is com-

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pelled to notify each individual owner and to give him an opportunity of appearing before a. Committee; of your Lordships' House, stating his case, and putting forward any objections he may have. He may also appear when a railway company desires to alter or repeal any express statutory provision which exists for his protection. Under a general clause such as this the landowner gets no such notice. Under the Standing Orders of your Lordships' House all that a railway company is required to do is to produce an abridged notice in one issue of the London Gazette, a full copy of the Bill in one London newspaper, which must appear on one day in two subsequent weeks, and a similar notice in a county newspaper. I do not know whether your Lordships are in the habit of reading all the Loudon newspapers from cover to cover, and all your country newspapers as well, but my impression is that I shall not be over stating the case when I say that a notice such as this probably does not come before five per cent. of the landowners who may be affected by this clause.
A statement has been circulated to your Lordships by the railway company in which it is pointed out that shops and offices are built over underground railway stations under powers which have been already acquired, and it is suggested that this is a typical example of the intention of this clause. Perhaps I may be allowed to give other instances not quite so favourable from the point of view of the railway company. The railway company would be entitled to erect a large and unsightly block of tenements or flats in the midst of a garden city. Such an erection would obviously destroy to a large extent the æsthetic amenities of the neighbourhood and the value of much of the property. Your Lordships are well aware that in many of these garden cities small owners are in process of buying their houses under the instalment principle. These owners would be just as much hit as any large landowner, and would object perhaps even more strongly because they have nowhere else to go. In the same way under this clause the railway company would be allowed to lease land for, let us say, the purposes of a soap or candle factory in the middle of a residential neighbourhood, or to erect an oil stores close to a timber yard, or, as in a case which actually occurred a few
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years ago, to demand power to lease fifty acres of land for the erection of four large blast furnaces. This clause did not then exist and that power was successfully opposed. I think I shall have the support of my noble friend Lord Newton in regard to the smoke nuisance in view of the powers that may be acquired under this clause to erect large chimneys belching forth smoke.
It may be argued that railway companies, having paid in full for their land, should be allowed to use it for any purpose they desire. Under the law compensation is paid to the owner for any land which is compulsorily acquired on this basis: Where damage is occasioned the compensation shall be determined—I quote the words of the Act—" by the exercise of the powers of this or the Special Act or any Act incorporated therewith." The clause of the Bill which is now before your Lordships proposes, without further compensation, largely to extend those powers. Even if I were prepared, for the purpose of argument, to admit that land had invariably been paid for in full, I submit that this general clause, which obviously has not been seen by every owner who may be affected thereby, does not give such owners any chance of appearing before the Committee of your Lordships' House and stating his case, for the simple reason that he probably has never heard of it.
I am aware that a limiting proviso affecting this clause has been inserted in another place, by which the company is not absolved from any covenant or condition in a deed of sale and consequently is not able to override it, but I must point out that the company was limited in its powers and the landowner further had the protection of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act. It is very improbable that many deeds contain the conditions necessary to protect the interests of the landowner. Moreover, there are many people who have bought land or houses, or are in process of doing so, under the instalment principle, who felt when they entered into their bargain that they were safeguarded by the fact that the neighbouring land was available only for railway purposes, and for no other. If this clause becomes law they will find that this land may be used for any purpose whatever.
I must frankly confess to your Lordships that this is not the first occasion on which a clause of this character has appeared before your Lordships' House. Last year the Great Western Railway Company succeeded in getting a clause of this character with even wider powers, and I understand the London and South Western Railway Company also succeeded in doing so in 1913. I believe that in both cases no opposition whatever was offered by either House of Parliament, either on the floor of the House or upstairs, and I have very little doubt that it was for the reason which I have suggested—that the clause was entirely unknown to the ordinary landowner—that no opposition was made in either case. May I make a further confession? I do not own a single yard of land alongside any railway which is ever likely to be developed or to have surplus land for sale, and I may further add that I am not a railway director. I see railway directors to right of me and to left of me prepared to volley and thunder, but at any rate I can claim that in bringing this matter before your Lordships I am doing so as an entirely disinterested person.
I submit that a general and retrospective, clause of this character inserted into an omnibus Bill gives no opportunity for legitimate objections being heard by your Lordships' Committee for the reason that owners know nothing whatever about a clause of this character. I further submit that to attempt in a Private Bill to destroy piecemeal a Public General Act—in this case the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act—is a practice which Parliament ought to resist. I am unable to move that this clause should be omitted from the Bill, and therefore, failing an undertaking that it shall be omitted when it goes upstairs before your Lordships' Committee, I have no alternative but to propose that the Bill be read a second time this day six months. I beg, therefore, to move the Amendment which stands in my name.
Amendment moved—
Leave out ("now") and at the end of Motion insert ("this day six months").—(Earl Stanhope.)
VISCOUUNT GREY OF FALLODON: My Lords, the noble Earl who has just sat down said that he saw railway directors all around him prepared to volley and thunder. I am speaking as a railway
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director on behalf of the London and North-Eastern Railway Company, and I will endeavour to make my thunder as short as possible, and also as fair as possible to the noble Earl's case. It has been my duty, in the interests of the railway company with which I am associated, to read through the speech made by counsel on behalf of this clause before the Committee of the House of Commons. It was a very able speech, though I found the subject somewhat dry and lengthy. The proceedings before that Committee of the House of Commons persuaded it to pass this clause. That is no reason why it should be assumed that the Committee of your Lordships' House, or your Lordships, will be prepared to pass the clause. They will approach it independently and de novo, but I would submit to your Lordships that you ought not to come to a decision on this clause without having given the railway company the same opportunity of stating their case as they had in another place. They do not ask more than an opportunity of stating their case in relation to this long, technical and somewhat dry subject.
I will not attempt to go over the whole ground, but I should like to put one or two points to your Lordships. In the first place, the point at issue under this Bill is not, as the noble Earl argued, a large point; it is a small one. It is not the London and North-Eastern Railway Company which is coming for the first time and asking for a modification of the Lands Clauses Act, 1845. That has been done again and again already. It is argued against this clause that if it is passed the railway company will have power to erect buildings on superfluous land not required for railway purposes. At the present moment the principal railway companies have power to sell or lease superfluous land for buildings to be erected, and the difference which will be made by this clause is not that they will have power to sell or lease land for building for the first time, but that they will have power to do on their superfluous lands the things for which they now have power to sell or lease lands for other people to do. That, as I understand, is the size of the point at issue.
The noble Earl says that the London and North Eastern Railway Company are promoting this Bill and asking for this power, and that, if they succeed in getting

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it, other companies will follow suit. As appeared from the noble Earl's own speech the thing really is the other way round. Other companies have this power and the North Eastern Railway Company are following suit. The London and South Western Railway Company got this power in 1913. The Great Western Railway Company got the same power in 1923. The London Midland and Scottish Railway Company are asking for this power this year in a Bill which your Lordships have already allowed to pass through Second Reading and go upstairs in the usual way. Therefore, I submit to your Lordships the point really is this: Why is the London and North Eastern Railway Company to receive less favourable treatment on this clause than has already been given to the other three great railway companies? I can only suggest one possible reason for meting out different treatment in this case to the London and North Eastern Railway Company, and it is that there are landowners owning lands adjoining that of the company who are in a special position, and that, therefore, you ought not to be satisfied with the treatment with which landowners adjoining the land of other railways have already been satisfied or with which Parliament has decided they should be satisfied.
AS to the particular circumstances of those petitioning against the Bill I know nothing, but if there is any reason why the landowners who petition against the Bill should be treated differently from those who own lands adjoining the land of other railway companies, I submit that that is a point for the Committee to go into. If ever there was a Committee point that, surely, is one, and if your Lordships say that that point is to be settled on the floor of this House and not by Committee, I think you might as well abolish Committees on Private Bills altogether.
I have only one or two further observations to make. The noble Earl said that if this power had been given to other railway companies, it was probably because landowners interested had been unaware of what was being done, I understood from his argument that the Standing Orders, in his opinion, did not provide sufficient notice to landowners. The railway company in this case have complied with all the Standing Orders. I ask you to consider what it would mean
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if, before a railway company promoted a Bill in Parliament, it had to ascertain the names of the owners of all land adjoining its system—a more enormous task than ever now that the railway companies have been amalgamated—and send them separate notices of what was being proposed. It would make it impossible for railway companies to introduce Bills at all. I submit that what has hitherto been considered sufficient in the Standing Orders should be regarded as sufficient for the purpose of this Bill. If the Standing Orders are not considered sufficient, that is a matter which should be taken up by your Lordships, not on the case of an individual Bill like this but as a general question affecting the whole scope of the Standing Orders
If the Standing Orders are altered to meet the noble Earl's point, it would make the promotion of Bills by railway companies impossible. The noble Earl said he would oppose the Second Reading of this Bill unless the railway company withdrew this clause. It is not, I think, fair to the railway company to ask them to withdraw this clause without being heard by counsel before the Committee, and we ask for the opportunities your Lordships usually afford railway companies of being heard before a Committee. It is not reasonable to ask us to withdraw this clause without having had an opportunity of stating our case.
The rejection of the Bill would be a serious matter. Under the Bill powers are taken to carry out work on which between £2,000,000 and £3,000,000 will be spent. The railway companies, like other great institutions, have been urged by successive Governments, in the public interest, to push on their works in order to find employment at this very critical time. If you reject this Bill it will mean that these works will be held up, and that the railway company, which has been asked in common with others to do all it can to expedite work, will have those works exceptionally delayed. On the ground of public policy I submit that that would be very undesirable action for your Lordships to take. I am sure your Lordships would not wish to undertake action of that kind, on so small a point as that which the noble Earl has raised in moving the rejection of the Bill. I therefore ask your Lordships, on the general ground of public interest and from the point of view

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that no really essential point has been raised by the noble Earl, to pass the Second Reading and allow the Bill to go to Committee in the usual way.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE): My Lords, I have often asked your Lordships to allow a Bill to go to Committee upstairs, as has been suggested by the noble Viscount who has just sat down, but I have never done so with less hesitation than on the present occasion. The noble Earl who moved the rejection of the Bill claimed that in doing so he was adopting his only remedy. He evidently was not present a fortnight ago. I quote this precedent with some reluctance as your Lordships on that occasion voted in such a way that I voted in the minority. Only a fortnight ago your Lordships decided that a clause should be struck out of a Bill, after allowing that Bill to go to a Second Reading. If the noble Earl wants to take action that is his proper action, instead of moving the rejection of a Bill of eighty-three clauses, when he says frankly that he has no objection to any of them except Clause 61. It is obvious from the speech of the noble Viscount that it is a Committee point. The noble Earl says that landowners do not get sufficient notice. In this matter the Standing Orders of the two Houses are practically the same, and at any rate twenty-six landowners opposed this clause in the House of Commons. That fact entitles me to say that a considerable number of them, at least, had notice of the clause, and, as has been made clear in the debate; twenty-four of them have been satisfied by the Amendments which were made in another place. The remaining two have deposited Petitions in your Lordships' House. I think I may quite fairly argue from that' that they, at any rate, would not be displeased if this Bill went to a Committee and their cases were heard there.
I really do not feel that I need say another word upon the subject. It is a small point—I admit an important point—but it is a point in accordance with precedent. It is nothing revolutionary. And if the landowners who have lodged Petitions in your Lordships' House are in an exceptional position, compared with the other landowners who have appeared, they can make their case in the Committee in the usual way by
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giving evidence. This is obviously a point that we cannot decide in a Second Reading debate, and I hope that your Lordships will allow the Bill to be read a second time.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, like the noble Earl who moved the rejection of this Bill, I approach the question from an unprejudiced standpoint. I am not a railway director, and not even a landowner, and I am solely interested in this Bill from having had considerable experience of Private Bill legislation. I confess that I view with great surprise the attitude of my noble friend. I always looked upon him as a solid, substantial member of this House, who had a strong sense of responsibility. But what has he asked the House to do? Here is a Bill, an omnibus Bill of a far-reaching character, involving the expenditure of several millions of money. That Bill has been fought at considerable length in the House of Commons, where twenty-six landowners appeared, in addition to the Land Union. Of those landowners twenty-four were satisfied, and even the Land Union were satisfied, and withdrew their opposition. I should have thought that my noble friend might have had sufficient confidence in that institution to realise that there was nothing very revolutionary about this Bill.
My noble friend dwelt on the awful consequences that might ensue if the Bill were passed. What consequences have-ensued from powers that have been given to the railways already quoted? Can my noble friend quote any instance in which the London and South Western Railway, or the Tubes, or the Southern Railway have perpetrated any of the atrocities which he contemplates as a possibility? The only evidence of the kind that I know of is that in certain of the London Tube stations there are a few shops, and I am not aware that they do any harm to anybody. If the rejection of an omnibus Bill is to be moved because certain people object to one clause it really is rendering the whole practice of Private Bill legislation little better than a farce. We have on several occasions lately, I think, acted with rather doubtful wisdom in imposing restrictions upon Committees. I cannot help thinking that, if this House has not got confidence in its own Private Bill

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Committees, it cannot have confidence in anything at all. It is for that reason that I submit that the objections ought not to be entertained by the House. The point raised is a purely Committee point. The noble Duke and the other noble Lord concerned can appear before the Committee, and they are just as likely, if rot more likely, to get full consideration from a Committee of this House as they are from any tribunal in the country.
LORD DYNEVOR: My Lords, reference has been made in this debate, and in the printed statement issued by the promoters of this Bill, to the Land Union. When this Bill was brought forward the Land Union took up with the railway companies certain points, especially Clause 61 which had been brought to the notice of the Land Union. The railway companies met the Land Union's wishes most courteously, and a provision has been inserted in this Bill, Clause 61 (4), embodying our agreement. There may be other points to which some people may take objection, but we were satisfied that our definite points had been met. My noble friend Lord Stanhope referred to the Great Western Railway Company's Bill of last year, and I should like, to point out that that company obtained powers to alter the Land's Clauses Acts, but when the Land Union this year were agreeing their clause with the other railway companies, the Great Western Railway Company very generously decided to fall into line with the other railway companies and to give up the power they obtained last year. They put into this year's Bill, which is now before the, House of Commons, Clause 60, waiving their previous power. I should like to express to the Great Western Railway Company my sincere thanks for the way in which they have met the Land Union.
On the other hand, I agree with my noble friend Lord Stanhope that the Standing Orders require to be looked into. It should not be possible for a Private Bill like this to upset public Acts of Parliament, without due notice being given of what the intentions of the Bill are. My noble friend Lord Stanhope pointed out that notice has merely to be given in the newspapers. If you look at the title of this Bill you will find it is an Act to empower the London and North Eastern Railway Company to con-
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struct new railways, widenings, etc., and for other purposes. Nobody reading that notice in a newspaper—even supposing that they saw it—would imagine that the Lands Clauses Act was going to be altered in a Private Bill. The title ought to have been: "London and North Eastern Railway Company Bill, and a Bill to amend the Lands Clauses Act." If people had seen that in the newspaper their attention would have been drawn to it much more forcibly. I should like to see a Committee set up to inquire into the Standing Orders, and to make the Standing Orders insist that in future a proper title should be given to every Bill. While, however, I. support the proposal for a Committee, I consider that this Bill should be allowed to proceed, and not be delayed while a Committee is sitting to inquire into the matter.
On Question, Amendment negatived, and Bill read 2a.

SUNDERLAND CORPORATION BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
HARROGATE CORPORATION BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendment, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
SUTTON HARBOUR BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
SOUTHEND WATER BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
MANCHESTER CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (WATFORD EXTENSION) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (STRATFORD-UPON-AVON EXTENSION) BILL. [H.L.]
Amendment reported (according to Order).

GUARDIANSHIP OF INFANTS BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT HALDANE): My Lords, I can tell your Lordships very shortly what this Bill contains, but may I first say a few sentences about the law as it stands which is proposed to be amended? The Common Law of this country puts the father in the position which was the outcome of the general principle of the Roman law, under which he was the head of the unit called the family. He controlled that unit, and he had tremendous power not only over his wife, but also over his children. Over the children he had complete disposition so far as their nurture and upbringing were concerned. In the year 1886 your Lordships passed an Act called the Guardianship of Infants Act. By that Act the power of the father was put under a considerable measure of control.
To-day, it is proposed by this Bill to apply a very simple principle; that is, that the care and interest of the child shall be the first consideration. No Common Law provision as to the father's right is any longer to prevent the Court interfering if the infant is maltreated in any way. That principle is connected with another—namely, that the status of women has very much changed in the last twenty-five years. Recently it has been so changed that the woman has almost the same status as the man. She has not altogether the same status, because it is
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necessary to preserve the position of the family as a unit, and if you have a unit there must be a head to that unit. When you come to the interest of the child it is recognised as most important that the mother should be able to intervene and take care of the child with a power of doing good and preventing evil equal to that possessed by the father.
There came a time when there were various Bills before Parliament. There was one introduced by a member of your Lordships' House, which proposed to give various powers to the mother. That and other Bills raised the broad question, and the result was that the matter was referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses which was presided over by my noble friend Lord Wemyss. That Committee went into the subject and presently it became clear that all sorts of difficulties would emerge unless the simple principle which I have mentioned, or something akin to it, was accepted. It was impossible to determine the details and to say what the Court should do in the event of this and that quarrel between husband and wife without preventing the desired result, and in the end the Committee presided over by Lord Wemyss was unable to come to complete agreement. But a great deal of valuable information was brought to light in the course if its inquiries.
Next came the Bill proposed by Mrs. Wintringham, in the House of Commons. That was a very valuable Bill because of its simplicity. But there again the resort to the Court was made more extensive than seemed to be safe, in view of the circumstances which Lord Wemyss' Committee had brought to light. The consequence was that the Government, while strongly approving the principles of the Bill, invited Mrs. Wintringham to come into consultation with a view of shaping a Bill. The result of those consultations is this Bill, which is the outcome of prolonged conversations with various persons interested in the subject.
The Bill is a very simple one. It does not go into detail, but it lays down the principle which governs the detail. The principle is that the interest of the child is to be paramount. Your Lordships will find that in Clause 1, which provides that the Court, in deciding the question as to the custody or upbringing of an infant, or the administration of any property

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belonging to or held on trust for an infant, or the application of the income thereof, shall have regard solely to the welfare of the infant and shall not take into consideration whether, from any other point of view, the claim of the father, or the right at Common Law possessed by the father, in respect of such custody, upbringing, administration or application is superior to that of the mother, or the claim of the mother is superior to that of the father. That is the principle, and it is an advance on the principle of the Act of 1886, which left to the Court a very vaguely worded discretion in dealing with these things.
Under Clause 2 the mother has, of course, the same power of applying to the Court in respect of any matter affecting the infant as the father. Then Clause 3 provides that—
"The power of the Court. … to make an order as to the custody of an infant and the right of access thereto may be exercised notwithstanding that the mother of the infant is then residing with the father of the infant."
At Common Law the father could bar the mother from such action altogether if she was living with him. Subsection (2) says:
"Where the Court under the said section as so amended makes an order giving the custody of the infant to the mother, then, whether or not the mother is then residing with the father, the Court may further order that the father shall pay to the mother towards the maintenance of the infant such weekly or other periodical sum as the Court, having regard to the means of the father, may think reasonable."
Then there is this provision in subsection
(3)—
"Where at the time when any such order whether for custody or maintenance is made the mother is residing with the father of the infant, the order shall not be enforceable whilst she so continues to reside with him."
Therein lies the difference between this Bill and the Bill brought before the House of Commons by Mrs. Wintringham.
Under Mrs. Wintringham's Bill, if the father was supporting the mother and was not giving her enough for the purpose, she could come before the Court and ask for an order to be made enabling his wages to be attached, if necessary. In the circumstances the husband could probably get round the order. The way it worked out in the negotiations was this. It was said that it is quite right
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that the mother should be able to apply to a Court so that the Court may say what is a proper sum to be awarded for maintenance, but it does not follow if the mother chooses to continue to reside with the father that she ought to be able to enforce that law. Therefore, it is provided that that order should not be enforced while they are living together. If things get so bad that the wife is bound to leave her husband then she has an order ready, and the question of the custody of the children is in the discretion of the Court, which is to have regard to all the circumstances in deciding who should have the custody of the children.
The Bill may be said to do four things. In the first place, it lays down general principles and leaves the Court to work out the details in accordance with the circumstances of each individual case. In the second place, there is no power actually to apportion the husband's income while the husband and wife are living together, but a principle is laid down under which an order can be made that will take effect if the wife thinks it necessary to leave the husband. In the third place, the interest of the infant is to be looked at exclusively in judging what is right to be done; and, in the fourth place, there is given to the wife what I think is quite right—the husband already has it—namely, power to appoint a guardian by will. If she does that then that guardian will be guardian jointly with the father, and if they do not agree the Court will settle who is to prevail. That is the whole Bill. I am far from saying that it is a Bill which someone might not be able to make better. It is too difficult a subject for any one to say that a better Bill might not be made, but with this difficult subject those of us who have been concerned in the matter, after exercising all the ingenuity and skill we could bring to bear, have come to the conclusion that this is the simplest way of dealing with the matter. We think this is a measure that will work, one that will remove a great injustice, and one that will tend to satisfy public opinion. On those grounds I venture to commend it to your Lordships' consideration, and I now move that the Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
THE EARL OF WEMYSS: My Lords, having been Chairman of two Joint Parliamentary Committees which dealt with the question of the guardianship of infants, and having listened to a large amount of evidence, most of it twice over, I hope your Lordships will allow me to say a few words on the Bill which the noble Viscount has introduced. I may say that the two Joint Parliamentary Committees over which I presided showed considerably more vitality than the Parliaments which appointed them, because the first Committee had not concluded its evidence when the Parliament that appointed it expired, and the second Parliamentary Committee had listened to the evidence and was bringing up its Report when the second Dissolution of Parliament came about. But, as the noble Viscount has told your Lordships, our labours were not altogether in vain. It would be idle to deny, I think, that the first Bill which we considered was frankly impossible. Had it been introduced to this House it would have been riddled with ridicule and killed at once. The second Bill was a great improvement on the first. It is a fact that the promoters of that Bill showed a very reasonable spirit and a great anxiety to meet difficulties and to come to a compromise. Although the grievances complained of were mainly sentimental, there undoubtedly were a good many instances of real grievances, and, of course, these might have been increased.
These were the reasons which impelled me to be anxious to see whether the Committee could not arrive at some practical scheme which might carry out as far as possible the wishes of the promoters. I, therefore, drafted a Report which I had hoped might meet with the approval of the Committee. I am sorry to say that it did not. but after a conference with Lord Askwith—and I hope he will allow me to say that he never showed more conspicuously those qualities of skilful negotiation and conciliation for which he is notable than he did on that occasion—I came to the conclusion that our differences were more apparent than real, and that we might easily have built a bridge over which we could have unitedly walked to the other side, and passed all that was good in the Bill. But it so happened that Parliament came to an end and the Bill could not go on.
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I think I may say, however, that our labours were not in vain, because this Bill practically embodies the compromise that we should have arrived at, and really carries out, in the main, the recommendations in my draft Report. The Bill of the Government does away, in my humble opinion, with all the objectionable features of the original measure. It removes all those fertile opportunities for domestic differences with which both the other Bills bristled. It gives to the Courts the power of deciding questions solely in the interest of the child. The differences between the parents do not affect the Court. What they have to decide is what is the interest of the child, and it is that which we all agree is desirable.
It carries on that parental jurisdiction over the children which the Chancery Courts have always carried on, and, as far as possible, it extends it to the inferior courts. The Lord Chancellor did not tell us how far the Chancery Judges are reconciled to this Bill. Mr. Justice P. O. Lawrence, whom we heard, was very much against the Bill, and most of his colleagues, I think, were also; but I really think, although I have had no opportunity of conferring with him, that most of his objections are met by the Bill. Then again, the Stipendiary Magistrates, and Sir Chartres Biron in particular, were very much against the Bill, though it is only fair to say that Mr. Chapman was very much in its favour. Still, the large majority of the Magistrates were against it, and I should have liked to have heard that, their opposition had been removed.
There is one very important matter to which the noble Viscount alluded, and that is the question of granting maintenance allowance when parents are living together. Orders may not be enforced when they are living together. Sir Ernley Blackwell, who represented the Home Office before us, drew a very lurid picture of what had happened, and what might happen. He told us that a very large proportion of the murder cases that had been tried had to do with the separation laws, that if many of them were not caused by those laws, at all events the question of separation was a factor in them, and he drew a most alarming picture of what might happen if this were extended to maintenance, implying rather that there might be a general massacre of wives if this were

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passed. I do not know how far his opposition has been met, but I think that so long as the women's societies are unanimously in favour of this clause, as they are, knowing and having had pointed out to them the perils they may incur under it, and if they are still prepared to face those perils, then we ought to allow them to do so. Therefore I shall support that clause.
I do not think there is very much else in the Bill to which I need allude. Personally, I am in favour of the measure. So far as I can see it does not require very much alteration. After all, we must remember that we have given equal rights to women in most respects. We have given them the Parliamentary franchise, and if what I hear is true they will in a short time have such a majority of votes that if they organise we shall be under their control. If that is the case, it is surely straining at a gnat to try to refuse them the right of joint control over their children—a right that nature and, I think, reason urges. Really we ought to be grateful to them that in their strength they are merciful, and, although having a majority of numbers, do not claim full control over their children. I am glad, as the Chairman of the Committee, that our labours have not been in vain. I hope this Bill may pass into law and remove grievances which, although they have been exaggerated, undoubtedly do exist and might otherwise continue to exist.
LORD ASKWITH: My Lords, the principle of this Bill is like an egg which your Lordships have been trying to hatch for two or three years. Twice in the case of analogous Bills which I introduced this House has agreed to the Second Reading and sent the Bill to a Joint Committee. Twice has that Joint Committee heard evidence at enormous length; it had to be gone through over again because the members of the other House are not so permanent as members of this House. When probably another meeting might have led to an arrangement there came the Dissolution of Parliament. Finally, a Bill was introduced in another place. It was discussed at considerable length by the promoters hero and in another place, and by the officials of at least five Departments under the Solicitor-General. This Bill is the result of these Conferences. I endorse the view of the noble Earl who has just spoken and of the Lord Chan-
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cellor, and hope that it will pass into law. The noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack alluded to the Guardianship of Infants Bill, 1886, as being a great alteration in the opinion of that time. Undoubtedly it was, but if it is read carefully it will be seen from the tone of it that there was an atmosphere of distrust as to what could be allowed to a woman in regard to her own children, and in regard to her power over her child after her death.
This Bill proposes to give a wife the power to name a guardian by will, not provisionally only but as a right, in the same way as it was given to the father under the Bill of 1886. But the Bill of 1886, although it made a considerable change in favour of women, confined it to certain classes of the community who alone could afford the expense of going to the High Court of Justice. Children are under the Equity jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery. This was extended in 1886 so as to give it to the County Courts. But the County Courts have not the facilities for hearing these cases and, in fact, as far as the County Courts are concerned the Bill of 1886 was a dead letter. The present Bill proposes to give powers, and also powers under the Act of 1886, not only to the High Court of Justice and with revised conditions, to the County Courts, but, under certain limitations, to courts of summary jurisdiction. For the first time it gives to the masses of the women of this country the power to have something to say in regard to the welfare of their children. That is perhaps the greatest and most important innovation in the measure.
The principle of the Bill is this: that the question has to be determined when it comes into the Courts solely by consideration of the welfare of the child, and that in any evidence that is given no superiority is to be attributed to the father over the mother in the weight which that evidence is to have on the opinion of the Court. Further, whenever the father can apply to the Court in regard to anything relating to the custody or maintenance of his child, the mother is to have an equal right. There are clauses in regard to the registry of marriages with which the promoters of the Bill are not interested, but which I understand do take away a considerable hardship that existed.

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Another alteration of an important character does get rid of a considerable hardship. At the present time an order for custody cannot be applied for by a woman unless she is separated from her husband. She cannot possibly obtain the custody of her children unless she leaves her home and from that distant point tries to obtain power over her children. Under this Bill she will have the right to apply for custody while she is still living with her husband, and the Court can determine what maintenance the husband ought to give towards the child, according to his means, if she leaves him. But that order is not to be enforceable as long as she stays under his roof. That is a compromise by which an endeavour is made to get rid of a dual authority which was considered to be one of the chief difficulties of previous Bills.
Some alteration is surely required in the law in regard to the principle from which it looks at the father and mother. The question has arisen in a great many cases. I am not going to trouble your Lordships with many legal cases, but I have one instance which shows that this is a grievance which should be considered. A case came up quite recently, and was decided by the House of Lords on May 6 last. It arose in the North of Ireland and was a question of religion. A man and woman were married and had three children. From an early time the father, a Catholic, gave way to habits of intemperance, and treated his wife with cruelty. He was dismissed from his employment as a traveller in Allsopp's Brewery, owing to his intemperate habits. He was found to be an habitual drunkard, and on several occasions the wife was compelled to take the children with her and seek protection in her parents' house. For many years she supported herself and the children without any financial assistance from her husband. At last, in June, 1920, she left him and took her children with her.
He took no further interest in them until his death in October, 1920, when he left a will in which he left a small amount of property and expressed a wish that his children should be brought up as Roman Catholics. The children had resided with the wife until May, 1923, but in April, 1923, the husband's sister, the aunt of the children, applied for a Writ of Habeas Corpus to bring the children up before the Court. The Lord Chief Justice of
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Northern Ireland and another Judge decided that only the eldest child should remain in the religion of her mother, and that the two other children were to be taken away, to be under the care of the paternal aunt and brought up as Roman Catholics. Under presumption of law consideration was not given to the welfare of the children so much as to the wish of the father as stated in this will, dated three years before this decision was arrived at, although the father had taken no interest in or care of his children up to the time of his death.
The mother appealed, and the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland reversed the decision as regards the two youngest children, and affirmed it with regard to the eldest child. A further appeal—and consider the cost of all this!—was made to your Lordships' House, and my noble and learned friend Viscount Cave, in a judgment with every word of which I agree, affirmed the opinion which the Court of Appeal in Ireland had stated, that under the circumstances the welfare of the children ought to be paramount, that the girls ought not to be separated and brought up in different religions and different households, and that the welfare of the children was the rule by which this case ought to have been decided, although he had to say that in certain circumstances the law still was that the wishes of the father should have a paramount position. Under this Bill the father's wish or the mother's wish would have had an equal weight in the hearing, the Court would have looked at the matter from the point of view of the children only, and the case would have been decided solely in regard to the welfare of the children. I need not refer to the expense of a case of this kind going through three Courts and finally having to be decided by your Lordships' House. I think that this Bill will remove many causes of hardship, that it will bring the possibility of justice to a vast number of people who have suffered injustice, and that it might well receive the assent of your Lordships.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: My Lords, it has been stated by the noble Earl that the Judges in the Court of Chancery and most of the Stipendiary Magistrates of London were against the Bill. He also said that women's societies were in favour of it, which, to

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my mind, does not carry very great weight.
THE EARL OF WEMYSS: Will the noble Lord allow me? I did not say that the Magistrates were opposed to this Bill, but only that they were opposed to the Bill which we considered, which is an entirely different matter.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: Do I understand that the Judges are in favour of this Bill?
THE EARL OF WEMYSS: That I cannot tell you.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: Then the Judges were opposed to the original Bill, and so were the Magistrates?
THE EARL OF WEMYSS: Some of the Magistrates. Mr. Chapman was very much in its favour.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: So far as I remember what took place in the House of Commons on that occasion, there was one Magistrate, Mr. Chapman, who was in favour of it. So far, then, the Judges and the Magistrates have not pronounced an opinion on this Bill, but the women's societies are in favour of it. To my mind, the fact that the women's societies are in favour of it goes against the Bill. I have never known them to be right, in anything that they did. Most of them, I think, are composed of spinsters, and therefore they do not know very much about married life. The noble Lord who hats just sat down gave a case of great hardship, but I might point out to your Lordships that the result was a right one. The Judges gave the proper decision, and I do not think that it is desirable to alter the present law merely because there happens to be one hard case, and that in Ireland, where hard cases arise very often.
There is a clause in this Bill which does strike me as being an extremely bad one. I should like to say to your Lordships, first of all, that I quite recognise that there are a great many bad fathers in this world. There are also a great many bad mothers. So far as I can see, a mother who is not on good terms with her husband, and who may be quite wrong in the method by which she desires to bring up the children, might declare in her will that a certain person is to be the guardian of her children, and, if this Bill becomes law, the father cannot have the
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management of his own children. He must consult with the guardian appointed by his wife, with whom perhaps he did not get on and who may have been a foolish woman, and his control of his own children is taken away from him. I have always understood that family life is a great thing to maintain, that there should be a head of the family, and that the head should be the father. I hope that if this Bill receives a Second Reading, as no doubt it will, your Lordships will be careful, at any rate, to amend some of its worst features in Committee.
LORD TERRINGTON: My Lords, as a member of the two Committees which sat in two different Parliaments and were presided over by the noble Earl, Lord Wemyss, I should like to say that I thoroughly welcome this Bill as a compromise with regard to the difficulties which we then felt, but I would bring to your Lordships' notice, as has already been done, subsection (3) of Clause 3. The same difficulties still arise on this clause—namely that, although under this Bill the mother can obtain a custody and maintenance order whilst living with the husband, she cannot enforce it while she is living with him, and has therefore to leave him to obtain enforcement. That was one of the great troubles which were brought before the Committee in the last two Parliaments. Sir Ernley Blackwell, as has been mentioned, was brought in, I think at the instance of the Home Office, and he pictured the terrible results which would follow if the scope of separation orders were increased, but when it came to cross-examination—and I had the pleasure and honour of cross-examining him a great deal—I think he came down to about two instances to which wife murder could be traced in twenty or thirty years. I think that this clause should be given further consideration.
LORD PHILLIMORE: My Lords, I welcome Clauses 1, 2 and 4 of this measure, but I should like to say, as a Judge who for many years had to administer the law in the High Court, that I regard Clause 1 as only stating the law as it at present stands, and as I had occasion, as a Judge in the King's Bench Division, to administer it. I look upon Clause 3 as comical; there is no other word to use about it. The father and mother are to live in the same

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house, and the mother is to go round to a Police Magistrate and to see that she has the custody of the child. What does that mean, when they are both in the house? Does it mean that she is the only person to take it out walking, or to shut it up in a room if it is naughty? What can it mean? But notwithstanding that she gets an order that the father should pay for maintenance, she is not to be able to enforce it. As I say, I regard (he clause as comical as it is at present balanced. If it was unbalanced by taking away subsection (4) then I should regard it as mischievous. As it stands I think it may well be allowed to remain on the Statute Book, until it is found to have no effect and is repealed in some Statute Law Revision Act.
I would remind your Lordships that you are putting some difficulty in the way of marriages by Clause 8. At present, a child under age can be married by consent of the father, or, if the father is absent, under an order of the Court by consent of the mother. You are now requiring, if both parents are living together, the consent of both, and are thus putting further difficulty in the way of a minor child's marrying. It may be right, but I think your Lordships should consider the point. Then I beg your Lordships to reject paragraph (b) of subsection (3) of Clause 8, which gives to the registrar of the County Court the power of deciding these very delicate questions. Up to comparatively recently either the Lord Chancellor himself, or at least a Judge of the superior Courts, was the only person who could determine such delicate questions. If they are to go to the County Courts, so be it, although I think it is quite unnecessary, but if they are do not delegate them to a subordinate official such as the registrar, because if there is an appeal from the registrar there will be reluctance on the part of the Judge to vary his decision, when it is on a matter of discretion. I hope the registrar will not be given this power.
The noble Lord, Lord Askwith, spoke as if unless you went to the County Courts you could not bring this matter to the ordinary people of the country. I think he is entirely mistaken. As a Judge in Chambers I have had applications in this matter from the poorest people, many of whom have lived at some distance from London. I think there is no neces-
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sity for the County Court or the court of summary jurisdiction to have this jurisdiction, but at any rate do not give jurisdiction to the registrar.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, we are in some difficulty in dealing with this subject, for the reason that, as Lord Wemyss explained to you, the Report upon which this legislation is founded, which really would give a guidance to us in the matter, is not in existence. Owing to the exigencies of the political crisis of the time the Report was never agreed to. I do not know whether the evidence which the two important Committees collected was ever laid before Parliament, but I gather that it was not. That is a very considerable handicap in arriving at a just conclusion upon the details of the Bill. But there are one or two principles contained in the Bill, to which, but for the speech of the noble and learned Lord, I should have thought we should all have agreed.
In the first place the interest of the child should be the predominant matter considered. That, the noble and learned Lord says, is already provided by the law. The other point is the element in the Bill that rich and poor should be placed upon absolute equality in access to proper judicial authority for the purpose of deciding what the interests and welfare of the children demand. The noble and learned Lord thinks that that is achieved already by leaving it in the hands of a Judge of the High Court. Lord Askwith takes a different view and thinks that unless the lesser Courts are allowed to have jurisdiction there is, in fact, a denial of justice in this matter to the poorer classes. I hardly like to express an opinion of my own, but I confess my feeling is rather with Lord Askwith in this matter. I do not believe that poor people living in all parts of the country have the knowledge, or the courage, or the enterprise, to approach the High Court in these smaller matters, and if you confine jurisdiction to the High Courts you do, in effect, deny them justice.
There are other intricate matters contained in the Bill. The guardianship clause strikes one, at first, as containing a rather strong doctrine. I should not like to express any opinion upon that at the moment. However, I think your Lordships are agreed, at any rate we on

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this Bench are agreed, that this Bill should be lead a second time, but I ask the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack to give us a little time between the Second Heading and the Committee stage. The noble and learned Lord opposite suggested that there is an absurdity in one of the clauses, and that comment shows how carefully the Bill ought to be scrutinised. Obviously it is a compromise, and compromises do sometimes lead to rather ridiculous results. I understand from a movement of the Lord Chancellor's wig that he agrees to my suggestion, and I do not think that we should put any further obstacle in the way of this Bill being read a second time.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am not able to make any statement at present but we shall not take the Committee stage before Whitsuntide, and I propose to leave the date for the Committee over until we see what Amendments come in.
THE MARQESS OF SALISBURY: I am obliged to the noble and learned Viscount.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

PREVENTION OF EVICTION BILL
Amendments reported (according to Order).
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I do not put down any further Amendment In this Bill. As your Lordships remember, we had a rather heated controversy over a certain proposal relating to aliens, which some of us thought infringed existing Treaties. I propose simply to let the Bill go through in the form in which your Lordships amended it, and then we shall see what view is taken in another place.

LOCAL AUTHORITIES (EMERGENCY PROVISIONS) BILL.
Amendment reported (according to Order.

INDIA: LORD OLIVIER'S LETTER TO MR. SATYAMURTI.
VISCOUUNT PEEL VISCOUUNT PEEL had the following Notice on the Paper:—
To call the attention of His Majesty's Government to the letter written by the Secretary of State for India to Mr.
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Satyamurti, member of the Madras Legislative Council, and particularly to the statement contained in that letter that the maintenance of the communal system is antagonistic to the possibility of any proper working of democratic institutions in India; and to move for Papers.
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I desire to call the attention of your Lordships, and of His Majesty's Government, to a letter written by the Secretary of State for India to Mr. Satyamurti, and I think I ought to read the letter, which is quite short, before I comment upon it. It runs thus:
"I have been glad to receive your letter, end am strongly disposed to share your confidence that closer contact with the Swaraj Party is very desirable. I am interested to receive your observations on the working of the diarchy in Madras, and your project for forming a non-communal Party. I rather gather from the debates in the Council that this was already the platform the Swarajists desired. It certainly seems, to mo that the maintenance of the communal system is antagonistic to the possibility of any proper working of democratic institutions in India."
I do not know why Mr. Satyamurti was selected by the Secretary of State as the recipient of this important missive. As far as I have been able, to discover the past and the political predilections of this gentleman, he is a member of the Legislative Council of Madras, and is well-known as a non-co-operator and as a strong supporter of the Swaraj movement.
I may say at once that this letter which was addressed by the Secretary of State was not authorised by him to be published, and that, I think, is one of the unfortunate aspects of this incident; because when a private letter is published it gives people the impression that you are really getting at the inner mind of the individual who has so published it. When we express ourselves in public documents or in Despatches, we naturally make use of that dignified solemnity and occasional obscurity of language which is sometimes necessary in that class of communication. But in private, letters we express ourselves with the directness and familiarity which is permitted in those documents. Although this letter, I agree, ought not to have been published, we have to deal with the facts of the case as they are and the effects which that letter may have had.
It is common knowledge that this question of communal representation—that is to say, of representation by religious communities—is, and has long been, a very burning and controversial one in India. It is well known that the abolition of this communal system is the aspiration, and the very natural aspiration, of a large body of Hindu politicians, for the very simple reason that, if that were done, they would get far larger representation in the Assembly and in the Councils, and would have far more political control. I do not know whether this consideration appealed to the mind of the Secretary of State when he addressed the letter to this gentleman. What did he suppose? Did he suppose that this gentleman wa3 going to go about for the rest of his life, all on fire with information which he is bound to suppress, and burdened with a secret which, if delivered to the public, must, of course, give him a natural precedence among his political fellows? The Secretary of State has had a long career. He has had great experience in the Civil Service. He has been a Colonial Governor, and, I believe, head of another great political Department, and I think it argues very well for that simplicity of mind which he has been able to maintain through all the changes of political and official life that he still, no doubt, considered that a politician would not do violence to his own intimate private feelings, and consider that in the public interest he must publish a matter of public import.
I wish to examine this matter from one or two different aspects. What, I ask, is, and what must be, the position of the Viceroy and his Government in face of communications of this kind? Constantly communications, public and private, important and intimate, are passing between the, Secretary of State and the Viceroy, and it is of the highest importance for the good government of India that there should be complete and absolute confidence existing between those two great officials. What must be the opinion or the feelings of a Viceroy—and his position is difficult enough in all conscience in these days—when he does not know, or may feel that he cannot know from moment to moment, what other communications on important subjects are passing, not through the recognised channels of correspondence but through politicians—not even officials—selected at
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will, I suppose, from prominent Swarajists or non-co-operators in various parts of India? His nervousness is bound to be increased, because, even if these declarations or letters are upon the same subjects as those which have been dealt with in correspondence between the Viceroy and the Secretary of State, you may have different versions, differently expressed, of the same policy, and these versions, I can assure your Lordships, are carefully compared, collated, and contrasted by some of the most ingenious minds that you have in the world, by lawyers of great acuteness, by persons who may be said to be the lineal descendants of the old commentators on the Upanishads. They are most skilled in all the intricacies of language, and the danger of communications of this kind is that different inferences will be drawn by these gentlemen as to the policies guiding the minds of the Viceroy and the Secretary of State.
The remarkable thing is that the Secretary of State himself has drawn attention to the danger of any looseness of language. He commented not long ago in your Lordships' House with great severity upon a statement made by Mr. Lloyd George when he was Prime Minister in a well-known speech known as the "steel frame speech." The intention of that speech was perfectly clear. It was intended to give fresh heart to the Services, which were suffering from the situation in which they found themselves, very largely as the result of the new reforms. But he used one loose expression from which at once arose a flood of deduction, of speculation, and of inference, which seemed to suggest that the Prime Minister was going to go back on the declarations of 1917, and the Act of 1919, that the reforms were to be stayed, and that the word of Great Britain was to be imperilled. You may say that these are large buildings to erect either upon a phrase or upon a letter, but that is a characteristic of many of these Indian politicians, and you have to deal with them, indeed, as you find them. And there is no soil in which these seeds of suspicion can grow more rapidly than in the rather heated and inflammable soil of Indian politics.
Perhaps I do some injustice to the noble Lord, because, after all, he is only following the example that has been set him by so many of his colleagues in the

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Labour Government. It has been one of the marked characteristics of this Government that they seem to have a singular aversion from making their first statement on important subjects within the walls cither of another place or of this House. There are many instances in which they have thus spread the light of their countenance, and in which the first beams of some new project has appeared in a newspaper, either in America or elsewhere. Their international sympathies,.I suppose, require some degree of international propaganda. Anyhow, it is, I think, the greatest contribution of the Labour Government—their main contribution in fact—towards constitutional innovation.
Now let me ask what is the exact interpretation of the words of the Secretary of State. First of all, I would observe that in the first portion of the letter he was "strongly disposed to share your confidence that closer contact with the Swaraj Party is very desirable." On that I have only to make one observation—that if it is thought wise that there should be any rapprochement in this connection with the leaders of any Party in India it is far better left to the Viceroy and to his advisers there. After all, they are on the spot and they know the whole situation in a way that the Secretary of State cannot know it. Moreover, they know the individuals there who are to be trusted and those who are not to be trusted.
The latter part of the statement to which I attach more importance—that as to the communal system—is, I think, capable of more than one interpretation. It may, for instance, suggest that communal representation is necessary; that this is incompatible with democratic government, and that until the deep-seated and deep-rooted differences on which communal representation is founded are reconciled, the democratic aspirations of Indian politicians must remain unsatisfied. If it mean that, it is apparently a mild, philosophic rebuke administered by the Secretary of State to Mr. Satyamurti. But, after carefully investigating the evidence, I cannot help coming to the conclusion that this is not the right gloss or interpretation to be placed upon this particular document. You have to regard the general views and sympathies of the Party with which the noble Lord is
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associated, and looking at those associations and sympathies, I think the simplest interpretation (and in textual criticism it is said, I believe, that the simplest explanation is generally the best) is that communal representation is an obstacle to self-government, and that it ought, therefore, to be removed. I remember examining at the General Election many of the Labour declarations and Election addresses with a view to deciding what their policy was. They were certainly based upon the most colossal ignorance of the situation, and their ignorance was only equalled by their colossal self-confidence. But they were all in the same direction—a general feeling that immediate self-government should be granted to India. Therefore, that inclines me to this latter interpretation
Let me say this only about their speeches. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said the other day how valuable a thing it would be if all their pre-Election speeches were to be burned. I am certainly inclined to echo that sentiment. Unfortunately, whatever you may do in this country, there can be no purification by fire of this kind in India. These observations, thrown out casually and carelessly very often, are treasured and made note of in the retentive memory of the Indian politician.
I understand from a letter or statement that I think was published by the noble Lord that he has more than one explanation. It is always useful to have more than one explanation of any particular course one has taken. He says that this is a mere speculation; it is not a declaration of policy. I submit to your Lordships that the mere speculations of the Secretary of State for India ring and reverberate throughout India and that on this matter, though individual Secretaries of State may have their own opinions, if they differ in any sense from the political and public opinions that they are putting forward, for Heaven's sake let them bury them in the remotest safe that they possess in their chambers. Another statement by the noble Lord was that he was only repeating some statement that he had already made to your Lordships on another occasion.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (LORD OLIVIER): What is the noble Viscount quoting from? He referred

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in the previous sentence to something I said. He is now talking of something else that I said, and I want to know where it comes from.
VISCOUNT PEEL: I was quoting from a statement which was stated to have been received from the noble Lord and published in the Daily Telegraph.
LORD OLIVIER: I cannot imagine what the noble Lord is referring to. If he will tell me I shall be very glad.
VISCOUNT PEEL: I will read the exact statement. It was a statement published, I think, in the Daily Telegraph, and it learns—
LORD OLIVIER: Will the noble Viscount read precisely what it is he is quoting? Will he read the whole statement? I do not, know what he is referring to
VISCOUUNT PEEL: I am referring, first of all, to the defences that may be put forward by the noble Lord.
LORD OLIVIER: To the defences that may be put forward?
VISCOUUNT PEEL: Yes.
LORD OLIVIER: I am obliged to the noble Viscount.
VISCOUNT PEEL: I referred, of course, to a statement that was published in the Daily Telegraph, which I presume—if I am wrong, of course, I withdraw it—was issued by the noble Lord, and in any case it is said to be the same as the statement already made in your Lordships' House.
LORD OLIVIER: That is a statement which appears, I believe, as "learned" by Reuter.
VISCOUUNT PEEL: If the noble Lord has nothing to do with it I will not put it forward as his own.
LORD OLIVIER: I had nothing to do with that statement: although I do not repudiate it.
VISCOUNT PEEL: Then may I put it in this way—that it is possible that the noble Lord may contend that this statement has already been made, or words very similar to it uttered, in your Lordships' House? I put it in that form, and the noble Lord does not object to that statement?
LORD OLIVIER: To what statement? Lord Olivier.
VISCOUNT PEEL: To the statement I have just made. I say that it is quite possible that the noble Lord may contend that the statement contained in the letter has been already made in the same or in another form before your Lordships' House.
LORD OLIVIER: I take no objection to that.
VISCOUNT PEEL: The noble Lord takes no objection to that, and I am much obliged to the noble Lord, because I have examined rather carefully and read through the very long statement he made in your Lordships' House in February last, and I cannot see there any statement similar to the one that is contained in this letter. There is, I agree, a statement with reference to affairs in Kenya, but that, of course, is a very different business from India. There is also a general statement about the representation of common interests—
"unless a Parliamentary system is welded together by predominant common interests from its foundation in the electorate upwards no theoretical constitution that may be arrived at by a concordat among leaders of divergent interests … can prevent it from flying asunder."
That is the only passage that I can recall which has any likeness to the passage in the present letter. As your Lordships know the term "communal representation" is a very special term of art meaning a specific thing, and I do not think that any one reading the speech of the noble Lord could have supposed from his observations about common interests that he was really referring to the substitution of a common electoral roll for the communal representation now obtaining in India.
However that may be. I attach no very great importance to that point for this reason—that it all depends, of course, on the circumstances under which the statement is made, on the importance that is given to that statement, and the surrounding conditions and feelings under which the statement is made. At the present moment, as your Lordships know, an investigation is going on into the defects in the working of the Act of 1919. A Committee has been investigating that matter. I understand that a further Committee with unofficial members is also going to deal with these defects. I do not think that the reference to the Committee

813
which the noble Lord was kind enough to send me would admit of their dealing with this great subject of communal interest, but I suggest that people do not read very carefully terms of references to Committees, and it is very unfortunate that a reference should be made to the mind of the Secretary of State on so important a matter as communal representation just at the moment when an investigation is being conducted into the working of the Constitution; for a suspicion may very easily arise that this, among other subjects, is going to be considered by that particular Committee.
Let me address myself to the real gravity of spreading through India a statement of this kind in the present situation. It suggests, as I have said, that the Secretary of State is in favour of the abolition of communal representation—a great and an immense boon from the political point of view to the Hindu politician, but a great risk and danger to the vast Moslem community, the Sikh community, and the other smaller communities which have separate representation, a representation which they would not be entitled to if merely heads were counted.
This is a very old subject, as the Secretary of State knows. I was looking at the Report signed by Mr. Montagu and Lord Chelmsford on the Indian Constitutional Reforms. They have a paragraph dealing with this case. They express, first of all, as strongly as a Secretary of State can, that communal electorates may be a serious hindrance to the development of a self-governing system, but, after having expressed that opinion, they go on to say, in the strongest way, that they are in favour of communal representation, especially as regards the Moslems. They say that the Mahomedans were given special representation with separate electorates in 1909, and that the Mahomedan regards these reforms as settled facts, and that any attempt to go back on them would raise a storm of bitter protest and put a severe strain on the loyalty of an India which has behaved with conspicuous loyalty during a period of very great difficulty. The Mahomedans, again, regard separate representation and communal electorates as their own adequate safeguards. It is plain from this, and it is plain from
814
other events, that the Moslems have a very strong feeling on this question of communal electorates.
Whatever their feeling may be—whether for home rule for themselves, or whether they would prefer to be under the Government of this country—there is no question that there is one form of Swaraj they do not want, and that is a Hindu Swaraj. Indeed, if self-government were granted to-morrow, if the declarations in many of these Election addresses were put into force to-morrow. I think it is probable that the desire and the determination of Moslem India to have separate communal representation would be even stronger than it, is to-day. But, after all, this political aspect of it is only another aspect of the feeling which is expressed in a common speech. Whereas in this country you may ask whether a man is a Frenchman or an Englishman, in the East you are more inclined to ask: Is he a Moslem, is he a Hindu, or is he a Sikh?
There may be objections from the abstract political point of view to these communal electorates. There is, at the present moment, a very considerable reaction in many quarters in India against the impact of Western ideas. I think it would be very unfortunate, if we strengthened the forces of that reaction by trying to force upon those communities one form of our Western institutions which is not justified by the conditions of the day, and by the political situation. It is very unfortunate, especially at this time and in view of recent history, that there should be any risk of stirring up again Moslem feeling in that country. We know what disturbances were caused by the feeling respecting the tight bonds in which Turkey was tied by the Treaty of Sèvres, but as regards the Treaty of Lausanne which, as your Lordships know, in some quarters of this country met with criticism, then can be no doubt that so far as Indian feeling is concerned the settlement under that Treaty of Lausanne was wholly beneficent. It is very unfortunate when, after that settlement, Moslem feeling is quietening down that it should be stirred up again, and I am afraid, from certain evidence we have seen in the papers, it is being stirred again by the suspicion or the fear that there may be some desire in the mind of the Secretary of State—some sympathy in the mind of the Secretary of State with

815
the suggestion—to go back on that settlement which was reached after so much discussion and examination.
I do not want to go over the whole field of Indian politics, but I should like to add that the same applies in the case of the Sikhs. We know very well that there has been a great disturbance, especially in the Punjab, mainly owing to the Akali movement which, starting as a religious movement, was seized upon by the politicians, and became a very large political movement. It has caused trouble to the successive Governors in the Punjab, but that feeling is quietening down and it would be a thousand pities if a fear that they would be swamped electorally by the surrounding population were to be aroused among the Sikhs by the publication of this letter.
I am going to ask one thing of the Secretary of State. I am going to ask him if he will be good enough—and I hope that he will do it—to state definitely in this House that whatever may have been the statements of the letter, whatever may have been his abstract view as to the relations of the communal system in the electorates to democratic government, yet that he has himself not the slightest intention—that it is far from his thought—of making any disturbance, or of altering in any way the settlement that was then arrived at. Therefore I urge upon him to quench the fire he has kindled before, by the breath of rumour and suspicion, it grows into a mightier conflagration. I beg to move.
LORD OLIVIER: My Lords, I have been wondering for about a week what it was that we were to hear from the noble Viscount this evening; how, upon such an extraordinarily trivial and flimsy foundation as there has been for this Motion, he could venture to make a speech in your Lordships' House which would necessarily impose upon me the duty and the necessity of making you a rather long and serious reply upon a subject totally unworthy of so much attention. The noble Viscount has moved for Papers. I do not know quite what Papers he wants, but I will give him all the Papers that I have in this matter—that is to say, I will give him the history of the whole of this correspondence.
816
There is a gentleman in the Madras Council named Mr. Satyamurti. He is a member of the Swaraj Party. The Swaraj Party means the self-government Party, and it is the most advanced section of the reform movement in India, which is distributed into sections known as the Swarajists, the Independents, the Liberals and the Moderates, all of them aiming at self-government for India, but desiring to pursue a somewhat different pace of acceleration towards its attainment. Mr. Satyamurti had an interview with Mr. Montagu when he was in Office, and consequently I imagine him to be a person of some consideration and, at any rate, of reasonable address. Mr. Ben Spoor, now the Chief Whip of the Labour Party in the House of Commons, was in India some years ago and he formed the acquaintance of Mr. Satyamurti. When the Labour Government came into Office in January last Mr. Satyamurti forthwith addressed a friendly letter to Mr. Ben Spoor expressing his views on certain questions. Mr. Ben Spoor wrote back to Mr. Satyamurti and suggested that anything he wished to say about Indian matters should be addressed to myself.
I then received from Mr. Satyamurti this letter, which I will read:—
"Dear LORD OLIVIER,
"You will kindly excuse the liberty I take in writing to you without having the privilege of your acquaintance. My friend Mr. Ben Spoor has suggested my writing to you, and I am doing so. I may say at once that I quite recognise the limitations of your Party, in Office, and not in power. I may add that I am a Swarajist and I believe fully in our programme, but I want to assure you that we are not political ogres and that we are only waiting for a right gesture on your part. Summon a round-table conference and you will find our leaders reasonable, practical and willing to recognise real Imperial obligations. Naturally, I am particularly interested in Madras. Diarchy has worked havoc here. A purely communal Party, with no political faith or programme, has been put in power and Madras promises to become the Ulster of India. We are just now forming a non-communal Party in the local Council. It is up to Lord Goschen to help us to the extent he can. I shall be glad to sec him and put my point of view before him if he sends for me. I shall be glad to write to you in more detail on hearing from you."
I replied to that letter. I did not mark my letter private.

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Some comment has been made by the noble Viscount as if it was an improper thing on the part of my correspondent to publish that letter. I did not write with the idea or the desire that he should publish it; but when I am writing a letter of an intimate character which I do not want on any account to be published, I mark it private. All my life I have made this my role in ordinary circumstances—that if any person of any political Party whatever, however distant from my own views, whatever reputation he may enjoy among any other Party, writes to me a civil letter expressing certain views, then he will receive from me a civil and frank answer to the best of my ability.
And the answer I gave to this gentleman was a civil and frank answer, and in my opinion a perfectly discreet answer.
I will read it to you again:—
"I have boon glad to receive your letter"—
May I have the noble Viscount's attention, and I hope it will not be interrupted. The noble Viscount said that this letter will be studied by pundits who are careful interpreters of language. I am glad to think that that is so. I wrote as follows:—
"I have been glad to receive your letter of the 3rd instant, and am strongly disposed to share your confidence that a closer contact with the Swaraj party is very desirable"
That was an echo of a statement I made in this House with the authority and consent of His Majesty's Government. Consequently it was not a new pronouncement on my part, but it expressed my sincere feeling and desire.
Let me read the passage to which I refer and as anticipating that communication:
"His Majesty's Government have been impressed by two characteristics in the atmosphere of Indian politics. The first is the intense and, as they are convinced, the greviously mistaken mistrust and the determination of uncompromising intransigence indicated in the election manifesto of the Swaraj party last autumn, and also the dissatisfaction expressed by more moderate advocates of self-government. Secondly, and more recently, an appreciable modification of that hostile and intransigent attitude has been indicated"—
And I may say that Mr. Satyamurti's letter is a very good example of it—
"not only in the recent proceedings in the Legislative Assembly, but in many communi-
818
cations and expressions of opinion which have reached His Majesty's Government, both through official and unofficial channels"—
I had not at that time received Mr. Satyamurti's letter—
"from persons representing weighty and influential opinion who are anxious that by some manner of conference a way forward may be found out of the present difficulties.
"His Majesty's Government … are earnestly desirous of availing themselves in whatever may be found the host possible method of this manifest disposition towards effectual consultation. Various modes of making this approach have been unofficially suggested. The Legislative Assembly have proposed a round-table conference. The Indian National Conference is proposing to send a deputation over, and representatives of Indian interests in his country have suggested a Mission to India. His Majesty's Government, while they are open to consider any practical proposals, are not yet satisfied as to what may be the best means for establishing that closer contact and better understanding that is so manifestly desirable. Some means of arriving at that closer contact must, they are convinced, be sought, and they hope, after due consultation with the Government of India, to be able with the least avoidable delay to decide upon the means they will desire to adopt."
I am repeating that statement because it is precisely the temper in which I wrote and phrased my answer to Mr. Satyamurti.
No one in this House will deny that better contact and a better understanding between members of the Swaraj Party and all other progressive Parties in India who are coming over to England, and sending deputations here to the Secretary of State, cannot but work for the good of India and also for the better understanding of the difficulties with which we have to deal. Can any one take the slightest objection to the suggestion of that reasonable and very necessary resort? That is the first phrase of my letter. The second one is this:—
"I am interested to receive your observations on the working of diarchy in Madras and on your project of forming a non-communal party."
I do not think that phrase can be held to express any declaration of policy. I say
"I am interested." I was.
"I rather gather from reading the debates of the Council that this was already the platform Swarajists desire."
In the Madras Council, owing to the enormous preponderance of non-Brahmins, a

819
wholly non-Brahmin Ministry has been set up, and I noticed a movement in the Madras Council to protest that the interests of minorities were not being properly considered; that is to say, that the communal system, giving an enormous preponderance of non-Brahmin voters in Madras, was, in the opinion of the Swarajists, being somewhat misused.
Now I come to the phrase upon which the noble Viscount has built an enormous edifice:
"Certainly it seems to me that the maintenance of the communal system is antagonistic to the possibility of any proper working of democratic institutions in India."
The word "antagonistic" is a Greek word with the strict significance of which some journalists may not be familiar. To say that in my opinion a certain system is antagonistic to the working of democratic institutions is not, I can assure the noble Viscount, tantamount to saying that I am going to use my powers as Secretary of State immediately to force the Viceroy and his Council, the House of Lords and the House of Commons, to upset the Constitution of India. It expressed an opinion, and that opinion appears to me to be an exceedingly innocent opinion.
I heard in this House with great pleasure, about two or three months ago, a disquisition by the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, in which he surveyed the question as to how far and in what respect the peculiar characteristics of the Indian nation might make them fit for democratic institutions, and. so far as I myself was concerned, I did make, on February 26, the observation which the noble Viscount has quoted regarding the effect of the communal system on the working of democratic institutions. Since the noble Viscount has proposed to raise this question in this House and to challenge me upon it, I have looked up the statements

Mahomedans

Non-Mahomedans (i.e., in effect, Hindus)

Europeans

Anglo-Indians (generally people of mixed race)

Sikhs

Indian Christians

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of other authorities upon this subject, other critics of Indian Government and Indian institutions, and I have found, as I expected, that they are one and ail of exactly the same opinion as myself, including the noble Viscount—I will quote the noble Viscount—that the working of this system is antagonistic to democratic institutions.
Before I pass to that point, however, I should like to give your Lordships a sketch of that which is called the communal organisation of politics in India, and I think that when I have given it your Lordships will admit that it is rather in the nature of a crazy quilt, liable to produce nightmare in any of those who have to administer the Constitution under it. The rules made under the Government of India Act prescribe, inter alia, "the qualifications of electors, the constitution of constituencies and the method of election for. … Councils, including the number of members to be elected by communal and other electorates," and "the qualification for being and for being nominated or elected a member of any such Council." The rules framed under these provisions classify electorates as general and special, and the general constituencies are on a territorial basis—that is to say, each covers a defined territorial area consisting, in the case of certain constituencies, of a single town or a group of towns, and in the case of rural constituencies of a district or group of districts, and in a few cases of a whole Province. With the single exception of Burma, general constituencies are communal; that is to say, a given area in a Province forms several constituencies, which consist of the qualified electors of a particular community resident in the area.
Communities for which their own general constituencies thus exist are:
In all Provinces, except Burma.
In all Provinces, except Burma.
In all provinces, except Assam. (In the Punjab and the Central Provinces, by nomination.)
In Madras, Bengal and Burma. (In Bombay, the United Provinces and the Central Provinces, by nomination.)
In the Punjab.
In Madras. (In Bombay, Bengal, the United Provinces, the Punjab and Bihar, by nomination.)
In all these cases the electors must be of the community specified, and members of one community cannot vote in the electorate of any other community. In all cases also the candidate must be of the same community as that of the electorate for which he sits, except in Assam and the United Provinces where this restriction on candidatures does not (in theory) apply. In Burma the bulk of the general constituencies are non-communal, but there are constituencies set apart for Europeans, Anglo-Indians and Karens and Indians, who, if they live in areas which form these constituencies, can vote only for candidates of their own race.
The special constituencies are of the following kinds, to give special representation to the interests denoted by the names: to landholders, in all Provinces; to Universities—that is an anomaly of which we are still suffering the presence—in all Provinces: to commerce and industry, in all Provinces except Bihar; to planters, in Madras, Bihar and Assam; and to mining in Bihar and the Central Provinces. These are instances of the special representation of classes or communities. Besides communal electorates, provision exists in the rules for the special representation of certain classes or communities by nomination, that is, by earmarking for them one or more of the seats which the Governor fills by nomination. These are:—(1) Depressed classes—in all Provinces but the Punjab and Assam: (2) inhabitants of "backward tracts"—in Madras and Assam; (3) the labouring classes—in Bombay, Bengal, Bihar, Assam and Burma; (4) the cotton trades—in Bombay; (5) Punjabi officers and soldiers—in the Punjab; (6) aborigines—in Bihar; (7) Bengali domiciled community—in Bihar; (8) industrial interests—in Bihar; (6) Indian commerce—in Burma. It will thus be seen that the special provision by nomination partakes of the character in some cases of general (communal) constituencies and in others of special constituencies. It is made in cases in which the nature of the interest or community in question is such as to make the provision of electoral facilities difficult or impossible. In Madras and Bombay twenty-eight and six seats respectively in certain plural-member non-Mahomedan constituencies are reserved for non-Brahmins by an arrange-
822
ment which ensures that, if there is a non-Brahmin candidate for one of these seats, he secures it whatever his position at the poll.
Those are the electoral arrangements which resulted from the attempt to put into force the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms under the best system possible at the present time. With regard to the statements of my noble friend Lord Chelmsford and of Mr. Montagu, the noble Viscount has given a very garbled extract; that is to say, he took out one particular sentence of what they wrote. I am going to read to your Lordships what is practically the more important part of what they wrote, indicating the place where the reservation which the noble Viscount made comes in. First of all they say, under a heading to the effect that communal electorates are opposed to the teaching of history:—
"The crucial test to which, as we conceive, ah proposals should be brought is whether they will or will not help to carry India towards responsible government. … But when we consider what responsible government implies and how it was developed in the world we cannot take this view. We find it in its earliest beginnings resting on an effective sense of the common interests, a bond compounded of community of race, religion and language."
The noble Viscount quoted me as saying—and I am much obliged to him for quoting it, for it will save me the trouble—that one of the great difficulties of establishing democracy in India was that the community was so divided by divergent racial and temperamental interests, and His Majestys Government did not believe that until those divergent interests and temperaments had been consolidated into a common public purpose you could have stable institutions in India. That he quoted from me, and I am obliged to him for doing so.
The Report continued:—
"In the earlier form which it assumed in Europe it appeared only when the territorial principle had vanquished the tribal principle, and blood and religion had ceased to assert a rival claim with the State to a citizen's allegiance; and throughout its development in Western countries, even in eases where special reasons to the contrary were present, it has rested consistently on the same root principle. … We conclude unhesitatingly that the history of self-government among the nations who developed it, and spread it through the world is decisively against the admission by the State of any divided allegiance; against the

823
State's arranging its members in any way which encourages them to think of themselves primarily as citizens of any smaller unit than itself.
"Indian lovers of their country would he the first to admit that India generally has not yet acquired the citizen spirit, and if we are really to lead her to self-government, we must do all that we possibly can to call it forth in her people. Division by creeds and classes means the creation of political camps organised against each other, and teaches men to think as partisans and not as citizens; and it is difficult to see how the change from this system to national representation is, ever to occur. The British Government is often accused of dividing men in order to govern them. But if it unnecessarily divides them at the very moment when it professes to start them on the road to governing themselves, it will find it difficult to meet the charge of being hypocritical or short sighted.
"There is another important point. A minority which is given special representation owing to its weak and backward state, is positively encouraged to settle down into a feeling of satisfied security; it is under no inducement to educate and qualify itself to make good the ground which it has lost compared with the stronger majority. On the other hand, the latter will be tempted to feel that they have done all they need do for their weaker fellow countrymen and that they are free to use their power for their own purposes. The give-and-take which is the essence of political life is lacking. There is no inducement to the one side to forbear, or to the other to exert itself. The communal system stereotypes existing relations.
"We regard any system of communal electorates, therefore, as a very serious hindrance to the development of the self-governing principle. The evils of any extension of the system are plain. …"
Then the writers of the Report refer to the fact that communal representation had been necessarily granted to the Moslems, and that there was no question of recommending its being withdrawn. They also went on to say that communal representations of the Sikhs was suggested. The Report goes on:—
"At the same time we must face the hard facts. The Mahomedans were given special representation with separate electorates in 1909. … We have been pressed to extend the concession to other communities. Some have based their claim on their back-ward, others on their advanced condition. Thus the Sikhs in the Punjab, the non-Brahmins in Madras (although in that Presidency these actually constitute a majority), the Indian Christians, the Anglo-Indians, the Europeans, and the Lingayat community in Bombay have all asked for communal representation. The large landowning classes also generally desire representation in an electorate of their own. … Any general extension of the communal
824
system, however, would only encourage still further demands, and would in our deliberate opinion be fatal to that development of representation upon a national basis in which alone a system of responsible government can possibly be rooted.
A very able and distinguished Committee was appointed on that Report under the Chairmanship of Lord South-borough, to make recommendations with regard to the franchise and electoral districts. They were appointed to advise on arranging a system of representation, and this is what they say:—
"The Joint Report recognises the necessity for the communal representation of Mahomedans in Provinces where they do not form a majority of electors. The evidence received by us and the opinions of local Governments concerned were almost unanimous in favour of this course. In the Punjab we have recommended a separate electoral roll and separate constituencies for the Sikhs. The other communities for which we recommend separate communal electorates are Indian Christians, Europeans and Anglo-Indians. … In recommending communal representation for these and other communities, we have done so in the hope that it will be possible at no very distant date to merge all communities into one general electorate."
Those are the recommendations of Lord Southborough's Committee. Not, as the Daily Telegraph puts it, the recommendations of regrettable doctrinaires, but of sober English and Indian opinion, public officials and statesmen of long experience. Their opinion coincides exactly with my own.
Then there is the Government of India's Despatch on the above Report, No. 4, dated April 23, 1919, and it is as follows:—
"In the event, communal electorates are now proposed not only for Moslems everywhere and for Sikhs in the Punjab, but also for Indian Christians in Madras, Anglo-Indians in Madras and Bengal and Europeans in the three Presidencies, the United Provinces and Bihar and Orissa. We feel the objections of principle to the communal system as strongly as the authors of the Reforms Report but see no advantage at this stage in reiterating them. India is not prepared to take the first steps forward towards responsible government upon any other road. The road does not lead directly to that goal, and we can only echo the hope expressed by the Committee that 'it will he possible at no very distant date to merge all communities in one general electorate.'"
Now, I will read to your Lordships one or two extracts from speeches in Parliament. In the House of Commons, during the debate in Committee on the Government

825
of India Bill on December 3, 1919. Mr. Montagu said:—
"Nobody objects more than I do to communal representation. I believe it to be a great mistake, but there is one mistake which would, be greater and that is to get Legislative Councils in India that are not properly representative of all classes; and if communal elections are provided for temporarily in order to ensure that, I believe they are well worth having."
Then, in the House of Lords, during the debate on the Second Heading of the Government of India Bill on December 12, 1919, Viscount Midleton said:—
"I do not suppose under any circumstances in this country could it occur that we should be placed in the position in which the members of the Committee were placed, of having a remonstrance addressed to us most fervently, and continuously pressed home, that we should carry out the communal system of representation, described by Lord Sydenham, in such a way that although the non-Brahmin population in Madras is 27,000,000 and the Brahmin population 1,000,000 we should give, quite a different representation to the Brahmins, in order to preserve the great influence of the small minority. That is a state of affairs which shows that you have to deal with India in a different spirit from that in which you would deal with any electorate in this country.
Again, in the House of Commons, during the debate on the Rules under the Government of India Act on July 23, 1920, Mr. Montagu said:—
"I would welcome the disappearance of communal representation in India, but it can only be done at the request of the community itself and at a far Infer stage of development."
Then Mr. Ormsby-Gore said these words to the same effect:—
"The vast majority of the radian Christians in Madras do for the present wart this communal representation. I quite agree that the sooner we can get rid of it in India altogether the better."
Finally, I come to the noble Viscount. In the debate on the communal franchise in Kenya, on July 26, 1923, the noble Viscount spoke as follows:—
"Let me allude to one or two points in the White Paper. My noble friend Lord Selborne made a most eloquent defence of the communal system. It was so eloquent and earnest that I thought that he, as Chairman of the Joint Committee, must have been the author of it. I am sure it will interest him to know that, although that system in many ways has prevailed in India, there is in the Assembly and in the Council of State a very strong feeling against it.
826
"Although the noble Earl says it is an Indian invention they do not seem to be so proud of their own offspring. They say: 'We do not look upon it as a great invention. We think that where it can be avoided it should be avoided.'"
I should have thought that I was entitled to quote what the noble Viscount said as evidence of his own feelings, but I gather-that he rather objects.
VISCOUNT PEEL: I was expressing there not my view. I was trying to express in this House the view prevailing in certain political circles in the Assembly and in the Council of State. I did not say it was my view.
LORD OLIVIER: I am satisfied to leave it at that, and to say that that view prevailed in the Council of State, in which ease I cannot be accused of being extremely subversive of the Indian Government by saying that that is also my opinion. But, the noble Viscount having demurred to my quoting him. on the ground that he was speaking of Kenya, I will not press that argument.
Those, then, are the views of the Government of Indian in Council, of high Government officials, and of members of all Parties in this country, to the effect that the communal system of representation is antagonistic to the progress of democratic institutions. As I said, not everybody appears to understand what the word "antagonistic" means. It means that it militates against the progress of democratic institutions. That appears to be an obvious truism, and I do not believe there is anybody in this House who has given any attention to political philosophy who would for a moment question it, or would attempt to traverse the very strong arguments that were put forward in the Montagu Chelmsford Report to that effect, all of which I have not read. It must be a political truism that to have a mosaic of communal constituencies, all of which are exacerbating their own differences, is antagonistic to the progress of democratic institutions; and no possible exception can be taken to that.
I want to refer to some of the comments that have been made upon this letter of mine, because I think the attitude which has been taken up towards this episode evidences a temper and a habit of judgment which are extremely antagonistic to

827
the public interest, and I want to comment upon it rather freely. We get first this statement in a telegram from Calcutta:
"The fear that the Labour Government, despite the assurances to the contrary which have been given in statements in Parliament, its inclined to seek a compromise with the Indian extremists is likely to be increased by the wording of a remarkable letter which has been received—"
Then the letter is quoted, and this ominous paragraph follows:
"The Secretary of State's explanation as to how he reconciles these sentiments with his recent public pronouncements, is awaited with eager interest in India."
I have pointed out already that this letter is exactly in accordance with what I stated in your Lordships' House.
Another paper says this:
"An extraordinary story circulated by an Indian news agency last night purporting to quote a letter from Lord Olivier to Mr. S. Satyamurti, the well-known Swarajist and member of the Madras Legislative Council, was temporarily suppressed by the papers here in response to a request from the issuing agency."
You observe the way in which a newspaper sensation is being worked up. The next day the following telegram appeared:
"The alacrity with which Mr. S. Satyamurti, the Swarajist member of the Madras Legislative Council, agreed to accept full responsibility for the publication of Lord Olivier's letter is a strong piece of evidence favouring the widely held opinion in India that the Secretary of State has been trapped into a carefully prepared plot by the Swarajists. … To say that Lord Olivier's letter, though carefully worded, is regarded here as a grave error of judgment, is putting the case very mildly, and it is felt that some official pronouncement is called for immediately."
My official pronouncement would be that His Majesty's Government consider that improved contact and understanding between the Government and the Swaraj and other advanced Parties in India is not only desirable, but that the Viceroy is considering with His Majesty's Government the best means by which that contact can be established, and is taking means towards that end. Also, I am of opinion that communal representative institutions are antagonistic to the progress of sound democracy. That is the statement which I have to make.
The newspaper quotes from the Statesman:
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"Private advices from England indicate that a determined attempt is being made to stampede public opinion and the Labour Government into a hasty, ill-considered action with regard to the reforms. Among other points upon which these attacks are converging is the question of communal representation, to which the extremist politicians and, to some extent, the Hindus, are generally opposed because they consider the earmarking of certain constituencies for certain communities is likely to prejudice their interests.. … It is evident from Lord Olivier's letter that the politicians who are now pressing the claims of India to a fuller measure of autonomy have placed the communal system in the forefront of their case and it is only too clear that they receive a sympathetic hearing. Unless, therefore, wise counsels prevail, there is reason to fear that the proposed amendment to the Government of India Act will force India a long step further on the path towards tyranny. … India, alas! seems doomed to suffer from the dreams of the doctrinaire"—
such as the noble Lord, Lord South-borough, and the Council of India and Lord Chelmsford—
"and it is a grave disappointment to learn that a man of Lord Olivier's experience is powerless to shake himself free from the influence of preconceived opinion."
The whole of that is a mare's nest, so far, at any rate, as either I myself or, so far as I am aware, any members of the Government are concerned.
I have had conversations, as it was proper for me to do, with the representatives of all shades of opinion in India, beginning with ex-Governors, members of the European community, members of the mercantile community, Indians of almost all shades of opinion, including Mr. Rangachariar, who is now on an official mission to this country, deputed by the Government of India, and Mr. Sastri, a member of the Liberal Party. Curiously enough, I had myself, without having been previously "entrapped," expressed that view to Mr. Satyamurti, but not a single, one of any of the Indians who have spoken to me has as much as raised or mentioned the question of commuunal representation, except Mr. Sastri, who criticised it in respect of its operation in Madras. Mr. Sastri has made to me no official representations on behalf of the Independent Party which he represents. I understand that the Independent Party propose at a later date to approach the Prime Minister or myself by a deputation to put before us their views. But there has been no shadow of an indication on the part of these deeply-plotting

829
Swarajists in England, or India, or elsewhere, so far, that they want to stampede the Labour Government or to entrap them into any kind of promise that they are going to abolish the communal representation, and if the noble Viscount wants any assurance from me that His Majesty's Government have not taken into consideration for a moment up to the present the question of any modification of the communal representation he has it, and he has no ground whatever for assuming from anything that I wrote in my letter that either His Majesty's Government or I had any intention of doing so.
I will go on now with a few more of these choice extracts. The determined effort to stampede is again referred to. Then there is a further comment—
"While the official statement from London that Lord Olivier's letter to Mr. Satyamurti contained nothing that the Secretary of State had not already said, may be literally accurate"—
That statement was made by Mr. Richards in Parliament in reply to a Question, and it had my authority. The letter was not written with a desire for it to be published, and the letter contained nothing, as I said, that I have not already given expression to. This comment, however, is made—
"While the official statement … that Lord Olivier's letter … contained nothing that the Secretary of State had not already said, may be literally accurate, his expression of desire for closer contact with the Swaraj Party, being made to a notoriously anti-British politician, is a big advance on Mr. Richards' House of Commons statement of April 15 that the Government desired to establish contact with those Indians who were prepared to co-operate."
That brings me really to the close of what I wanted to say. These Press extracts, culminating in that statement that I had expressed the desire for closer contact with a notoriously anti-British politician, indicate throughout the temper in which the Party in India who resist all progress habitually approach these matters. That is a very mischievous temper. I have no ground whatever, and I do not suppose that anybody has any ground whatever, for saying that Mr. Satyamurti is an anti-British politician. His letter to me contradicts it. He says that he is not an anti-British politician. He desires to maintain the union and association of India with Great Britain.
VISCOUNT PEEL: I did not say so.
LORD OLIVIER: The noble Viscount did not, but this is the quotation from a Calcutta correspondent and the whole of this Press "stunt" is inspired, it is perfectly clear, by what one may call a suppressed complex of suspicion, first of all, of the Labour Government and, secondly, of that particular Party in Indian politics who are called the Swarajists. That is to say, it is immediately assumed that when the Labour Party come into office they are prepared to be stampeded, and it is immediately assumed that the Swarajists are prepared to entrap and stampede them. It is also indicated that it is something disloyal or improper or strange on the part of the Secretary of Slate that he should address a civil letter to an elected politician. You have that sort of feeling reflected in the supplementary Questions that were asked in the House of Commons the other evening.
Lieut. Colonel Howard-Bury asked this supplementary Question—
"Is this an example of the new methods of the Government for communicating Cabinet decisions to the people of India?"
A frivolous question! Then Viscount Curzon asked—
"Are we to understand that the Government view with approval the action of the Secretary of State in communicating direct with this extremist leader in Indian?"
I wonder in what sort of political world I am living when that kind of question can be put in all seriousness in the House of Commons of this country. Because a man happens to be a member of the Cabinet he is not to write such a civil letter as. I wrote to a man who is a representative, and a constitutionally appointed representative, of a considerable Party in India!
The Swaraj Party, the Home Rule Party, are, as I have said, the most advanced cohort of the entire Indian national movement. They have at present a considerable majority in two or three of the Councils, and altogether they have the strongest representation of any political Party in the Councils and in the Assembly in India. They have a constitutional position and a constitutional right to be recognised as enjoying the privileges, the confidence and the credit attaching to their constitutional position which your Lordships have created for them. You have no business whatever to

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say that any one should have any more prejudice against a Swarajist than against a Moderate, or an Independent or a Liberal. They are all of them elected representatives in their various Councils, and they are entitled to be regarded without prejudice either by the Government of India or by the Government of this country. I repudiate entirely the theory that because the Swarajists are giving the Government of India a certain amount of trouble, as I have said, because they are pursuing their perfectly constitutional aim in what we consider to be a factious and mistaken manner, they are to be regarded as a kind of political outcastes and as antagonists and enemies of Great Britain, and that we are to he asked: "Why do you write civilly to these people? If you write civilly to them you at once discourage the Moderates and the Independents who would be your backers."
We desire, by arriving at an understanding with all Parties, to get as much backing as we can on all political questions from all Parties, and we have said that again and again. I have said it in this House, and my right hon. friend has said it in another place. It is not the fact that the Swaraj Party are at the present time entirely non-cooperating. At the present moment there is being discussed in the Legislative Assembly in India a Tariff Bill for the protection of steel. That was referred by the Assembly to a Select Committee. That Select Committee included members of the Swaraj Party. Those members of the Swaraj Party are dealing with it without any prejudice, simply on its merits as a political question. They are not saying: "This is a Bill of the Government of India and we are going to hamper it and to sabotage it." They are dealing with it on its merits. That is an advance, at any rate, to that kind of co-operation which the Swarajists can perfectly well undertake without in the slightest degree prejudicing their political programme, and in my opinion they will very much strengthen their chance of advancing towards that programme by adopting that line of action. I do most entirely protest against the attitude which is too often taken up, and I am sorry to say I see it in some of the Reports which I get from the Government of India, regarding the Swaraj Party, simply because of their constitutional
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agitation, as being persons who are to be discriminated against as distinguished from other politicians.
On February 26 the noble Marquess, Lord Curzon, made a comment upon one of the matters to which I referred—namely, the handling by the Government of India of the Jaito disturbance, and he expressed very bodly the opinion that "there must have been regrettable mismanagement somewhere to have brought about a state of affairs in which you have bodies of Sikh fanatics marching about the country," and so on. That is the sort of criticism of the Government of India which, if I had made it, would have meant at once a tremendous attack upon me for belittling the Government of India.
THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I said that there must have been mismanagement somewhere. I did not attack the Government of India. I did not attack anybody. I alluded to a deplorable situation, to a state of affairs which has grown up in India with the explanation of which I was not acquainted, but which, evidently, did indicate some gross mismanagement on the part of some persons. Then the noble Lord gets up and says I am making an attack on the Government of India.
LORD OLIVIER: I do not think I used the word "attack." The noble Marquess said there must have been grave mis management somewhere. Who was responsible for managing the affair if not the Government of India? The noble Marquess went on to say that he thought things would be put right when we got. Sir Malcolm Hailey as Governor of the Punjab. If he could manage it right, who could manage it wrong? The noble Marquess said that he made no direct attack. No, he made a criticism. When I want to steal a horse I shall get the noble Marquess to do it, and I shall turn my back to the hedge carefully. I should not have dared to say so much in disparagement of the management of India as the noble Marquess clearly and definitely said in those words.
I say this further, that I, unfortunately, see in the reports which I receive from districts and otherwise that there is a constant tendency on the part of officers of the Government rather to hold them selves justified in regarding the Swarajists

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as treasonable persons and to treat them in a somewhat objectionable manner, subjecting them to pin-pricks, to disparagement, and special treatment, regarding the Swarajist Party as we used to regard the Home Rule Party in Ireland, as a Party with which no respectable politician could possibly associate or have anything to do. That is unfortunate. This Press "stunt," which has come from Calcutta and elsewhere, is an indication of the miserable temper of supposing that the Swarajists are traitorous people, that they are worse than other politicians, and want to entrap and bamboozle the Secretary of State and the Labour Party, as if the Labour Party were capable of being stampeded by them. The policy of the Labour Party has been stated to your Lordships' House, and it is proceeding.
Having regard to the complaints that have been made as to the working of the present Constitution in India, the Government of India has established a Committee with a view to finding out what amendments, if any, are required in the Act by rules or otherwise. First of all, that Committee was appointed as an official Committee. It has now been enlarged, and I have given the noble Viscount the reference to it. Only yesterday the Government of India proceeded on these lines which I indicated that His Majesty's Government would be glad that they should proceed, and are adding unofficial members to that Committee with a view to seeing whether we shall receive from unofficial critics representations with regard to the working of the Government of India Act. That is an advance towards greater and better contact, and if, by perhaps harmless letters and such harmless correspondence as has passed between myself and Mr. Satyamurti, any kind of better contact or understanding can be established between ourselves and those advanced politicians in India, I shall be exceedingly glad, and I shall not for a moment be ashamed of what I have done.
I do hope that no one of your Lordships who is to follow me will say that you have received any relief or satisfaction from what I have told you. What I have told you with regard to the policy of His Majesty's Government has been told you already. The policy of His Majesty's Government has not been altered or modified or departed from. I must; say
834
that, on the whole, I am grateful to the noble Viscount for having given me this opportunity of expressing myself on the subject and of making this protest. I beg him to believe that, while I should myself have considered it too trivial a matter for so serious notice to be taken of it, I am not at all sure that it has not been, on the whole, in the public interest that some discussion should have taken place.
THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTOIN: My Lords, I do not think the speech which the noble Lord, the Secretary of State for India, has just delivered is one of which, if he reads it in print to-morrow morning, he will have any particular occasion to be proud. Of one thing I am sure he has not convinced your Lordships, and that is that this matter is as trivial as he led your Lordships to think, and that, to quote the words with which he opened, it was quite unworthy of the attention of your Lordships' House. If that were his view he would not have spent fifty-five minutes in attempting to demonstrate the contrary. He evidently regarded it as a matter of very serious importance, so important indeed that, having dealt with the charge, to which matter I will confine myself, he thought, it necessary to attach to his argument a discussion of almost every other aspect of the Indian question, and to indulge in observations with reference to the political position in India, and to those who criticised him, and so on, the greater part of which was wholly irrelevant to the comparatively narrow, though important, point that was raised by my noble friend Lord Peel.
The chief reflection that was borne in upon me as I listened to the rambling remarks of the noble Lord was this, that His Majesty's Ministers are really the most inexperienced, the most ignorant, and the most sensitive body of men who ever sat upon that Bench. They make the most astonishing speeches, and are surprised when they are asked to explain them. But whatever you may think of their speeches, their letters are positively amazing. We never know from day to day with what new situation we are going to be confronted. One day it is the Home Secretary who, although a politician of some experience, plunges unasked into the maelstrom of European

835
politics, and has to be disowned by his chief. The same Home Secretary, only daring the last week, has made another divagation into the field of South African politics. Subordinate members of the Ministry cannot keep quiet for a week. Now the noble Lord, whom I have hitherto regarded as a rather quiet and stable sort of person, seems to me to be the worst offender. And the worst part of it is, he is wholly unconscious of his error, and has spent the greater part of an hour this afternoon in pointing out to your Lordships' House that he is a most innocent person, and that everybody else in the world is carrying on a "stunt," to use his classic phrase, of which he himself especially is the quite unmerited victim.
Let us deal with the case. The noble Lord has written a letter. The terms of that letter were read by my noble friend. What is the defence of the noble Lord in reply? He says, in the first place, that his letter was written to a highly respectable Indian politician who was a friend of Mr. Montagu's. I do not desire to say one word against the gentleman referred to. He seems to me, if I may say so, to have been, on the evidence of the noble Lord, an exceedingly shrewd person, and to know pretty well the sort of conditions under which Labour Ministers can be approached. He said, in the first place, that he was aware of the limitations under which a Labour Government rests. He did not know how easy a Labour Government finds it to relax those limitations, at any rate in speech and in letters. He said, in the second place, that he was expecting some sort of gesture—"right gesture" I think the phrase was—from His Majesty's advisers.
Now we will take the gesture itself. The noble Lord seemed to think it was an adequate defence to say that when a civil communication is sent to him he ought to return a civil reply—a civil and frank reply. I do the noble Lord the justice of believing that he is incapable of returning any other reply. But this is not a case of the ordinary exchange of civil letters between a correspondent and a gentleman who chooses to address him in England. This is the case of correspondence between an Indian politician of admittedly advanced views and a Secretary of State. The noble Lord then says, in self-defence, that all he expressed was an innocent and a philosophical opinion. I agree with the
836
noble Lord as to his innocence. It is almost incredible. But as for his philosophy it is not the business of Secretaries of State to be philosophers. If the noble Lord desires to make philosophical statements about Indian politics let him do it in the silence of his own chamber. Do not let him do it in letters which are published to the world. Indian Secretaries of State are not abstract persons who can indulge in abstract generalities They are concrete individuals charged with great responsibilities whose words pre circulated throughout India and whose opinions carry an importance which the noble Lord seemed quite unable to appreciate.
The third defence which the noble Lord offered for his action was that he was merely expressing in his letter opinions to which he had already given utterance in your Lordships' House. That is not so. I do not say anything about the first part of the letter, his general sympathy with Swarajist aims, because I have not sufficient time in which to deal with it. But the second part of the letter, which is the real gravamen of the charge brought by my noble friend—namely, that "the maintenance of the communal system is antagonistic to the possibility of any proper working of democratic institutions in India"—is certainly not what the noble Lord has said on previous occasions, and it is a point of view which he admitted in the concluding sentences of his speech is not shared as regards action by the Government of India or even by His Majesty's Government at home.
Why is it that a statement by the noble Lord, even couched in abstract and philosophic form, upon this question is unwise? I think I would put it as follows. In the first place, it can only produce, and it has already produced as is obvious from the quotations which the noble Lord gave, considerable excitement and unrest in India. He seemed to confine himself to the disparaging remarks about himself that have emanated from the European Press. I do not attach any particular importance to them. What I look to are the sentiments that have been expressed by those communities in India whose security consists in the retention of the communal system. I look to the feelings of Mahomedans, to whom the noble Viscount called attention, and such in-

837
dications as I see lead me to think that the Mahomedans in India are gravely alarmed at the suggestion that the Secretary of State for India disapproves altogether of that which they regard as the main safeguard of their interests and the individuality of their community.
Take again the Sikhs. The noble Lord was quite angry that I had indicated that the recant agitation in the Sikh community was due to mismanagement somewhere. I do not desire to pursue that point, but he will agree that the one thing we want as regards the Sikhs is to get them back into the condition of contentment and loyalty which up to a few years ago they had observed. If you indicate to them that the Secretary of State is opposed to the communal system without which they will be submerged and their voice extinguished, you are going a long way to exaggerate the feelings of distrust that unhappily already exist among that important community.
There is also the point made by the noble Viscount behind me. Did the noble Lord consider, in making that declaration, whether the announcement at the present time would be acceptable to the Government of India and whether it would strengthen their hands? Did he consider whether it was consistent with the general lines of policy we have been pursuing ever since the Montagu-Chelmsford Report took the shape of legislation, which, was passed by your Lordships' House. The noble Lord comforts himself by the statement that it is merely the legitimate expression of opinion to say that "the maintenance of the communal system is antagonistic to the possibility of any proper working of democratic institutions in India," Why should the noble Lord set himself up as a judge of what is the proper working of democratic institutions in India?
LORD OLIVIER: I was humbly following a large number of better qualified judges.
THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTON: Then my remarks are not applicable to the noble Lord alone. Why should any one lay down, of a population of 320 millions, split asunder by every diversity of race, religion, language and creed, that the communal system, introduced by His Majesty's Government themselves, is inconsistent with the development of
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democratic institutions? And are you quite certain that the democratic institutions of which you speak, and the principles which you are advocating, are suitable to the peoples of India at all? Are we wise here in laying it down that because we in Western countries, with centuries of development and experience behind us, have arrived at certain broad principles and conclusions, we are therefore justified in laying them down for, or offering them to, all the diversified communities of India? The answer, of course, is contained in the very document which the noble Lord quoted. To justify himself he referred to the Report signed by Mr. Montagu and Viscount Chelmsford, and he read from that Report passages containing a metaphysical discussion of what responsible self-government really means, or ought to mean. I have read those passages also. From whom they emanated I have no idea, but I can hardly believe that they represent the views of so sensible a man as Lord Chelmsford. They are written in a general philosophical and abstract way.
But after paying this lip service to the real meaning of democracy, what did the Montagu-Chelmsford Report go on to do? It went on at once to provide for the creation and maintenance, of the very communal system which, in theory, they denounced, and which the noble Lord himself proceeded to explain to your Lordships. His speech was the most powerful vindication of the communal system in India that could be desired. What did he tell us? He said not merely do Mahomedans in India require for their due representation to have a system of special, representation of their own, not merely is it necessary for the Sikhs to have an opportunity to have it too, but you have to provide it by the creation of special electorates and nominations for such sections of the community as the planters, the Anglo-Indians, the great landowners, the miners—I might indefinitely extend the list quoted by the noble Lord. Therefore, he himself showed that the Government, which is the author of these reforms which he is defending and desires to extend, finds itself unable to act up to its abstract principles and is compelled in practice to introduce as the whole basis of representation in India a system which he dislikes.

839
That is the position, and I confess that the action of the Secretary of State, from which, as he has told us, he is not going to depart, and from which the Government of which he is a member dare not depart—the action of a Secretary of State who, in an incautious letter to a prominent politician in India, says that he personally dislikes the system thus administered and would like to see it abolished, and that it is not compatible with the principles which he and his colleagues avow—is not only indiscreet, but is deserving of the gravest condemnation at the hands of your Lordships' House. I promised I would be short in my observations, and I will not pursue the matter. I regret that the noble Lord thought it necessary in the latter part of his observations to think that he is the victim of some special and malignant misrepresentation or attack at the hands either of the European community in India or of any body of opinion in this country. That is very far from being the case.
LORD OLIVIER: I did not refer to myself personally, but to the Labour Party.
THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I think the noble Lord did signal out the attacks which have been made upon him personally in newspapers in India, but, whether he was referring to himself or to the Labour Party, I would ask him to disabuse himself of that idea.
LORD OLIVIER: The suggestion was that the Labour Party had been stampeded.
THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I think the noble Lord has really shown undue sensitiveness upon that point. In this House, certainly, every consideration has been shown to him on every occasion when he has addressed your Lordships. I would beg him, therefore, not to pursue that line of argument, and not to be surprised if incautious utterances of his call for the explanation for which the noble Viscount has asked to-night.
It only remains for me, in conclusion, to take note of the fact, and to nail the point to the counter, that the noble Lord, although he has expressed these abstract views of his own, has stated with even greater clearness that the Government of
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which he is a member has no intention of abolishing the communal system, that this pronouncement must not be taken as indicating any change of policy, that it was an utterance on his part, as we think, irresponsible, as he thinks innocent, and that no importance whatever must be attached to it. That it should require a reply of fifty-five minutes' duration on the part of the noble Lord to demonstrate to the House that we need not attach any importance to that which he said is, I think, an extraordinary phenomenon, but at the same time I am prepared to accept it if only for the satisfactory nature of the general declaration with which he has furnished us.
THE LORD SPEAKER (EARL BEAUCHAMP): Does the noble Viscount wish to press the Motion for Papers?
VISCOUNT PEEL: No, I will not ask for Papers.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

INDIAN CIVIL SERVICES COMMISSION.
VISCOUNT PEEL: My Lords, I beg to ask His Majesty's Government whether the Indian Legislative Assembly will be afforded an opportunity of discussing the recommendations of Viscount Lee of Fareham's Commission on the Indian Services during the present short Session, in view of the fact that no further sittings of that Assembly will be held until the month of September.
I can deal with this Question, though it is important in substance, very shortly, but I must in two or three sentences explain the reason why I put it down. On the occasion of the setting up of this Commission, I made a statement in the nature of a pledge as to the opportunity that might be afforded the Legislative Assembly in India to discuss this Report. It was a carefully guarded statement, and I think I ought perhaps to read to your Lordships the actual statement as it was made by the Home Member, Sir Malcolm Hailey, in the Legislative Assembly. He was speaking, I think, in March of this year, and he repeated a statement which he made in July. He said:
"In July last I said: 'We cannot here, either as an Assembly or as a Government

841
of India, limit the constitutional and statutory powers of the Secretary of State in this respect, and, if there are matters pressed upon him by the Royal Commission which require immediate orders, then it will be necessary to recognise his power to take a decision in advance of any discussion by the Assembly. For the rest, we shall be quite prepared to allow the Assembly an opportunity of discussing the main recommendations of the Royal Commission; we shall meet any views it may advance in discussion in the usual way, and shall forward its recommendations to the Secretary of State.'"
That is the quotation which. Sir Malcolm Hailey gave from his own statement.
He went on to say:
"That was a formal declaration made in recognition of the constitutional powers of the Secretary of State. We cannot tie his hands, but I have no doubt that he will endeavour to allow full discussion here before any action is taken on the main recommendations of the Commission."
As the noble Lord, the Secretary of State for India, well knows, the Assembly is at present sitting, but the Session is, I understand, likely to be a short one. No other Session is likely to be called or take place until September, and I am anxious that the proposals made by Viscount Lee of Fareham and his Commission should, if possible, be discussed during the present Session.
I will tell your Lordships why. It is obvious, after the great despatch with which Lord Lee and his colleagues have discharged their very difficult and complicated duties, that it would be very unfair to expect the Secretary of State to wait, before taking decisions upon the Report of that Commission, until September, when the Assembly may have had its discussions. It would also, if I may say so, be very unfortunate for the Services concerned, because, whatever the decisions taken by the Secretary of State on this proposal, it is obvious that they should, in the interest of the Services, be taken as soon as possible, in order that the Services may know exactly where they stand. I was going to ask the noble Lord if the Government of India would not only place no obstacle in the way of, but do what they can to facilitate, a discussion on the Report of Lord Lee's Commission taking place this Session. I should imagine that this would also be to some extent in their own interests, because any representations they may make upon it are likely to carry more weight when the Secretary of State is beginning to deal
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with those changes than when, in September perhaps, he has already made up his mind and may have passed orders carrying out a great many decisions. I beg, therefore, to ask him that specific Question.
LORD OLIVIER: My Lords, it may be of interest to the noble Viscount if I read the text of the announcement which was made on behalf of the Government in both Houses of the Indian Legislature on May 28. It ran as follows:—
"The Report of the Royal Commission on the Superior Services in India is now in the hands of hon. members. When they have had an opportunity of perusing it, they will no doubt observe that the recommendations of the Commission are unanimous in all the main points. They cover a wide held, including Indianisation of the Services, the establishment of a Public Service Commission, the control by Ministers of the Services, which the Report recommends should be recruited provincially in the future, and the remedy of the grievances of the Services. I should point out to the House that the Report is of an urgent character, that its main recommendations are inter-dependent and that this inter-dependence was the basis of its unanimity. The House has already been assured that the Government propose to give an opportunity to the hon. members of expressing their views, but they will no doubt understand that neither the Government of India nor the Secretary of State can suspend the consideration of the Report in the mean while. However, if, after the hon. members have had an opportunity of examining the Report, there is any strong feeling in the House in favour of a discussion during the current Session, the Government will be glad to give an opportunity for this, and will consider what arrangements could be made—"
that is, in the current Session, the May Session—
"although, of course, it will not be possible for them to express their definite views at such short notice. The hon. members will understand that the Provincial Governments are vitally interested in many of the recommendations, and their views must be obtained. While the Government are anxious to obtain the general views of the Assembly at the earliest possible date, it may be necessary for the Secretary of State to take decision on matters of urgency, and, in this connection, I must refer the House to what my predecessor said in July, 1923, and again in March, 1924. We cannot here, either as an Assembly or as a Government of India, limit the constitutional and statutory powers of the Secretary of State in this respect, and if there are matters pressed upon him by the Royal Commission which require immediate orders, then it will be necessary to recognise his power to take a decision in advance of any discussion by the Assembly. For the rest, we shall be quite prepared to allow the Assembly an oppor-

843
tunity of discussing the main recommendations of the Royal Commission. We shall meet any views it may advance in discussion in the usual way and shall forward its recommendations to the Secretary of State. I take this opportunity of announcing that the Secretary of State and the Government of India are of opinion that whatever measures of relief recommended by the Commission may be finally sanctioned should have effect as recommended by the Commission from April 1, 1924."
I hope very much that the Viceroy may find it possible to dispose of the discussion of this Report in the Assembly which is now being held, and I have already pressed upon the Viceroy, as strongly as I can, my sense, and that of my Council, of the urgency of dealing with the matter as quickly as possible, in view of the considerations to which the Viceroy himself has called attention. I have no doubt whatever that Lord Reading will do all he can to secure the earliest possible expression in a sufficient manner of the views of the Assembly. He knows the feeling of His Majesty's Government upon the subject, and he will, subject to the obstacles standing in his way, be disposed to press forward the matter as quickly as possible.
THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTON: My Lords, I will only say in a sentence that those who sit on this Bench have listened with satisfaction to the remarks which have just fallen from the Secretary of State for India. I am glad to learn that not only are the Viceroy and the Government of India anxious to take this matter at once in India, but that those views are shared by the Secretary of State himself. It is obviously extremely desirable that the matter should be taken in hand without delay, both because of the nature of the Deport and the great disadvantage of letting the matter stand over till September, and also because, as the noble
844
Lord pointed out, there may be matters upon which the Government of India think it necessary to act without any delay at all. If so, how desirable it is that any discussion should take place soon. Further, in view of the labours of the Commission, of which Lord Lee of Fareham was Chairman, and the urgent recommendations that the Report should be considered as a whole, that it should be treated and if possible accepted as a whole, and that the changes proposed should be initiated with as little delay as possible, it is only fair to my noble friend and his colleagues that so far as His Majesty's Government can influence that course of affairs they shall do so. Therefore, we are gratified to learn that the Secretary of State for India will exert the whole of his influence in that direction.
[From Minutes of May 29.]

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 4) BILL.

IMPERIAL INSTITUTE BILL. [H.L.]
To be read 2a on Wednesday next.
[From Minutes of Judicial Sitting, June 2.]

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND (PROPERTY AND ENDOWMENTS) BILL. [H.L.]
House to be in Committee on Tuesday, July 1 next.
House adjourned at a quarter before eight o'clock.