Lords Sitting of 20 May 1924

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

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (TRAMWAYS AND IMPROVEMENTS) BILL.
The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed, the Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
LORD DENMAN LORD DENMAN had given Notice to move, in the event of the Bill being committed, That it be an instruction to the Committee on the London County Council (Tramways and Improvements) Bill to strike out from the Bill all powers relating to Tramway No. 4. The noble Lord said: My Lords, it will be noticed that I have placed a Motion on the Paper to omit Tramway No. 4 from the scope of this Bill, and I will state very briefly why I have done so. Provision is made in this Bill for tram lines to be laid along the Waterloo-road. In that road stands the Royal Waterloo Hospital, a hospital of considerable size for the treatment of women and children. It does admittedly good work in that district of South London where it is situate. A well known member of your Lordships' House, the Earl of Athlone, was for some years Chairman of our board at the hospital until he took up his appointment in South Africa the other day. As I happen to be the only other member of your Lordships' House who is a member of the board of the hospital, I have undertaken to put their case this afternoon.
The hospital authorities fear the noise that will be caused by the tramway and its injurious effect on the patients of the hospital. I think your Lordships will agree that of all noises caused by road traffic that made by tramcars is the most penetrating. It is bad enough in the clay time, but it is infinitely worse at night. Some idea of what would happen to the

495
Waterloo Hospital can be formed from the experience of St. Thomas's Hospital, not far from this House on the opposite side of the river. The authorities there know how injurious are the effects of this noise on their patients, and the medical staff and the clerical staff and all connected with that hospital would say the same thing. If this Bill passes into law unaltered the position of the Waterloo Hosptal will he worse than that of St. Thomas's for two reasons.
The first is that St. Thomas's is situated on a wide roadway and there is a broad space of several yards between the kerb and the tram lines. The Waterloo Hospital has a much narrower road in front. There will be only two or three feet, as I understand, between the tram lines and the pavement, and the trams will run right under the windows of the hospital. Secondly, as your Lordships probably know, St. Thomas's has a wide river frontage where, no doubt, the worst cases can be put; but the Waterloo Hospital, unfortunately, is a very narrow building and every ward faces the Waterloo Bridge-road. The worst of the noises occur at night when the roads are clear and trams accelerate their pace. They then cause vibration and lead to humming or rumbling noises which, as your Lordships must realise, have a very injurious effect upon the patients. The secretary of St. Thomas's Hospital, who was kind enough to see me yesterday, told me that on several occasions he had approached the tramway authority of the London County Council, and they assured him that they would see that these trams should run more slowly past the hospital. For a day or two after he made his protest that was the case, but afterwards the drivers reverted to their former practice, and came swinging past the hospital at a great pace, with consequent disturbance to the patients. These tramways cause a noise which I think would disturb the sleep of any healthy person, and to any one whose chances of recovery, as is sometimes the case, depend upon getting, a good night's rest, the consequence of disturbance of this kind may easily prove fatal. Furthermore, the hospital authorities fear that this noise would seriously retard the recovery of convalescent patients.
One other point that I would venture to bring before your Lordships is this.
496
This is not a very important length of tramway. I think it is 631 yards, or about a third of a mile, in length. I understand that the London County Council have entrusted their case to the able advocacy of my noble friend Lord Monk Bretton. My noble friend will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe I am right in stating that this particular scheme, or a similar scheme, has come before Parliament on five occasions, and on each of those five occasions Parliament has rejected it. I hope this will be the sixth occasion on which that will happen.
There is also this peculiar circumstance which I would ask your Lordships to consider. The proposed tramway line is to terminate at the south end of Waterloo Bridge. As your Lordships are aware, that bridge has recently subsided, is now closed to traffic, and is to undergo reconstruction. Building, and particularly any public building in this country, is rather a lengthy business and judging, for example, by the time that it takes to build houses—a process which I am bound to say shows no signs of acceleration under a Labour Government—it will take a long time to rebuild this bridge. Obviously it will be a matter at least of months, and probably of years. I suggest therefore that it would be no hardship in this case for the London County Council to wait until the work of rebuilding the bridge has been, completed, or is near completion. They could then come to Parliament with the scheme which they now propose.
And there is the further point of traffic congestion. I am not an authority on traffic questions, but I believe it to be the case that many people who know a great deal more about these things than I do consider that before long a limit will be placed to tramway construction in this country on account of the fact that motor transport supplies an equally cheap, at least an equally convenient, and a swifter means of conveyance for the public. Trams are inconvenient on account of the space which they occupy and on account of their rigidity, and, as your Lordships know, they add to the congestion of traffic, particularly in narrow thoroughfares. A few years hence it may well be that more convenient methods of transport will be in existence. I believe there

497
are a good number of means of transport already in existence for the purpose of linking up North and South London. That, I submit, is an additional reason why your Lordships should not include this scheme in the Bill.
Perhaps my noble friend Lord Monk Bretton will tell me, and the Lord Chairman may say, that this is really a matter for Committee, that it is a matter which should be thrashed out before a Committee upstairs. With that I would agree, but we are placed in this unfortunate position. Like many hospitals, we are seriously in debt at the moment, and the board of the hospital do not consider that they would be justified in expending the money which is now needed for their day to day expenditure, in briefing counsel and opposing this matter in Committee upstairs. It is on that account that I have ventured to raise this question on the floor of the House. I feel that I owe an apology to your Lordships for so doing, but I trust you will agree that this is a matter which does merit your consideration; and I would earnestly plead for your sympathy and support. I beg to move.
Moved, That it be an instruction to the Committee on the London County Council (Tramways and Improvements) Bill to strike out from the Bill all powers relating to Tramway No. 4.—(Lord Denman.)
LORD MONK BRETTON: My Lords, in the first place I will try to answer the questions which have been addressed to me by the noble Lord. It is true that this particular part of the Bill has been before Parliament before, I believe on three, not on five, occasions. A great many tramway undertakings, and many other bodies who promote Private Bills, have to try a number of times before they get them on the Statute Book, and after they have got them upon the Statute Book the schemes to which the Bills relate are not found to be so dangerous as was anticipated. I have been a member of your Lordships' House long enough to remember a celebrated Division that took place on the question of whether the tramways should be brought along the Embankment. On the Motion of the noble Viscount, the late Lord Ridley, the Tramway Bill was thrown out, but within a very short period it reappeared, and the
498
tramways were sanctioned, and are now a part of the ordinary life of London.
I want to say one word about tramways in general. Neither in the City of London nor in the West End of London do I want to see tramways, but it is quite different in the suburbs. I have a London County Council constituency in the suburbs, and I know what the trams mean to the people who dwell there. I know what a great convenience is a large vehicle running at a good speed on the wide roads of the suburbs, and how helpful it is in bringing workers to their business. You may dislike trams, but £16,000,000 has been invested in these trams, and £6,000,000 has been repaid, leaving £10,000,000 of public money still invested in the trams. In the opinion of the Tramways Committee of the London County Council it is important that everything should be done to make the trams as paying a proposition as possible. The noble Lord asks you to turn down a particular part of this Bill because of the disadvantage to one hospital. This is a Bill which has passed through the House of Commons. All of us must have a great deal of sympathy with hospitals in this matter; we want to keep the patients as quiet as they can be kept. I wish the noble Lord would bring what he has said about St. Thomas's Hospital to the notice of the tramways manager, and of the London County Council. If he does so, I am sure the matter will be attended to.
The public need for transportation is paramount. In London there are ten large hospitals. In addition to a great number of smaller homes and institutions of the same character, which have tramways running alongside them. It is therefore unreasonable for the noble Lord to come here this evening and ask that a Bill which has passed through the House of Commons, a Bill which is promoted by all parties on the London County Council, and notably by the Progressive Party with which the noble Lord ought to have sympathy, and one which is proposed in order to enable workers in South London to get to their place of occupation, should be rejected. It is true that Waterloo Bridge is temporarily shut, but the powers in this Bill extend for seven years and we hope something will be done before then to get over the river at that spot. This Bill was

499
considered by a Committee in another place under the Chairmanship of Mr. Ormsby-Gore, a very competent Chairman. They had the evidence of the police, who did not disapprove of the tramway, but only asked that one detail should be altered and it was altered. It is said that the Ministry of Transport is in favour of the measure and I can be corrected in that statement if I am wrong. There was a representative of the trades unions representing 150,000 workers south of the Thames, who asked that the tramway should be constructed. The Members of Parliament for Lambeth and South-wark also attended the Committee. In the result they unanimously approved of the Bill.
Can you consider the details of this matter on the floor of the House? Can yon understand these questions unless you have counsel and maps and so forth, as you have in the case of a Private Bill? Is not your Committee upstairs strong enough to hold its own opinion and reverse the judgment of the Committee of the other House if it thinks it is wrong? It has been clone again and again, and I ask your Lordships to rely on the Committee of your own House and be assured that the best and most expedient tiling will be done.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: My Lords, I am sure we are all indebted to the two noble Lords for the clearness with which they have stated their case this afternoon. I do not feel inclind to go into the merits of the question, although both noble Lords have not lost sight of that side of the subject. I merely desire to advise your Lordships on what is the most convenient course to follow in dealing with a question which obviously requires some consideration. Lord Den-man was quite frank in saying—I am using my own phrase—that this is a very ordinary case. It is the case of the promotion of a tramway by a big public authority opposed by a frontager. It is the kind of ease that is heard upstairs every day, and I suggest that this is the convenient course in all these cases. My noble friend made an appeal with which I am sure everyone who has anything to do with the finances of a hospital will sympathise. He said that his board felt the disadvantage of having to brief counsel and appear before a Committee of your Lordships' House. But if that matter came up before the small and not
500
very rich hospital of which I am treasurer, I should feel no alternative but to accept it as one of the disadvantages of my situation. I should not feel justified in asking your Lordships not to follow the usual course by rejecting a scheme like this on Second Reading merely because I felt the difficulty of providing sufficient funds to state my case upstairs.
If I had had to address your Lordships on this subject last year I should have argued that instructions to a Committee were very unusual things, but the precedent of last year in the case of the Whitgift Hospital at Croydon laid down a rather different practice. It is, however, fair to say that the Whitgift Hospital and the present case cannot be compared. In the one instance it was the case of an ancient monument, a beautiful old building, to which your Lordships lightly attached great sentimental value, and the attack on it excited a great deal of public interest which your Lordships rightly interpreted in the decision to which you came. But this is not the case of an ancient monument or a building of great historic value. To be perfectly frank, if the worst really came to the worst I take it that the work of this hospital could be just as well carried on somewhere else by moving the hospital. I do not wish to be misunderstood. I do not suggest that I have been into the merits of the case, and that it is a case in which the Waterloo Hospital ought to move. But if there is that side of the question, them it is the kind of question which comes up when you are considering the matter of compensation, and that can be best considered by the Committee upstairs and not in the course of a Second Beading debate in your Lordships' House. I hope my noble friend will be satisfied by having drawn special attention to this matter. I say unhesitatingly that he is justified in doing so, but I hope he will allow (he normal course to be followed, and that a Committee of this House will consider the matter in the usual way when he and those with whom he is associated can put forward proposals for rejecting the scheme.
LORD BUCKMASTER: My Lords, when the noble Earl asks your Lordships not to interfere with this Bill because it is contrary to the usual practice of the House, I have great sympathy with his

501
argument, but he did not base his case on very sound ground when he said that the only case made by Lord Denman was in the nature of a complaint by a frontager who objected to the passage of the trams. It is nothing of the kind. It is the objection of a small hospital for women and children which is notoriously insufficiently provided with funds to enable it to appear before the Committee. It certainly does not correspond to the ordinary position of a frontager. Another thing was said more than once with which I find it difficult to agree, and that is that this instruction is a rejection of the Bill. Surely it is nothing whatever of the kind. It is simply an instruction to the Committee to exclude a certain part of the tramway system from the operation of the measure. That is a different thing altogether. Finally, I was rather impressed by the fact that Lord Monk Bretton did not deal with what seemed to me to be a very important fact, and that is that this particular tramway is only 651 yards in extent. If that is right, then we are not interfering in any way either with swift or cheap transit. We are merely making a person walk about two-thirds of a mile, and this inconvenience cannot be measured against the misery and suffering which must undoubtedly be endured by the inhabitants of this small hospital.
The noble Earl suggested that they should move the hospital. Yes, but how? Moving a hospital is not a very cheap process. It will cost money, and the funds of this hospital are already depleted. I cannot help thinking that this is a matter which deserves a little further argument here before we decide our attitude to this Bill. The facts, as we have heard them, are that this tramway is only 651 yards long, that it runs through a comparatively narrow street I and that it runs close to a hospital, which will undoubtedly suffer grave inconvenience, and its patients great suffering, if this scheme is permitted to continue. Upon those facts it seems to me that good reason is made out for saying that this particular portion of the Bill ought not to be pursued.
Finally, I should like to say a word upon a point which I think needs consideration. The provision of cheap and swift transport is undoubtedly one of the greatest and most urgent needs of
502
this city. It is essential for the benefit of the poor and for the maintenance of our commercial life. It is always assumed that this is best effected by the construction of innumerable tramways. I am not satisfied that this is so. I am not by any means sure that we are not clinging, as progressive people frequently cling, to an archaic system, under the impression that it represents the last word in progress. I say nothing about that now, because it is obviously rather a matter for discussion elsewhere. I only desire to add that, unless the statement made by the noble Lord, Lord Denman, receives some more conclusive contradiction than that which we have hitherto heard, I shall feel compelled to vote with him if he takes this matter to a Division.
LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU: My Lords, I rise for one moment to support the views of the last speaker and of my noble friend below me, whose position I know very well. I cannot help thinking that, in these days, to build more tramways in already congested streets is to increase their congestion. The present position is that the people who now use the tramways have to change so many hundred yards south of Waterloo Bridge into another class of conveyance namely, a motor omnibus—or else walk. If this were a scheme to take the tramway right across to the Strand, there might be something to be said for it, but, as it is intended to stop short of the bridge, the passengers in each tramcar will have to change in any case. I think Parliament has hitherto been wise on previous occasions in rejecting the extension of this tramway.
I agree with that which fell from the noble and learned Lord about the need of better transport in London, but to encumber our streets with small railways, which is what tramways really are, is not to assist the locomotion of London. I may remind your Lordships also that there is every prospect of a London transport authority being constituted. This is the very kind of subject with which they ought to deal and, I hope, will be capable of dealing. In view of that prospect, considering the merits of the case and in view of the fact that tramways are not really so efficient in conveying passengers through narrow

503
streets to distant places as are other forms of locomotion, I shall unhesitatingly give my vote to the noble Lord who brought forward this Motion.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I should like to say a word upon this matter. I think that those of your Lordships who heard Lord Penman's speech must have heard it with great sympathy. We all feel very acutely the necessity of treating with every indulgence the exigencies of hospitals and the welfare of the patients in them. When I heard the noble Lord's speech I was very strongly inclined to vote with him. But I think your Lordships must proceed in this matter with great care, for we are liable to be setting a very awkward precedent, as I shall venture to point out in a moment, if we strike out this provision at the present stage and do not allow it to go to a Committee. I think it is quite evident that the points made by my noble friend who has just sat down are either an argument against tramways altogether, in which case he ought to reject the Bill, or else they are Committee points as to particular sections of the tramway, and ought to be argued in Committee. That was admitted by my noble and learned friend Lord Buck-master, just now, when he said, quite candidly, at the end of his speech, that the argument in respect of tramways generally was a Committee matter.
Why should we take this matter out of the hands of a Committee of your Lordships' House? I think it is clear from the arguments which have been submitted to the House that it would go to the Committee without difficulty but for one consideration. It is clear that details as to where people ought to change or ought not to change, and all that sort of thing, can be properly considered when we are in Committee. They are pure Committee points. I agree with the noble and learned Lord that to say that a hospital is a mere frontager is an exaggeration. It is much more than an ordinary frontager. Nevertheless, the point is a pure Committee point. Why should it not go to Committee? The obvious reason is that the hospital shrinks from the expense of appearing before the Committee. That appears to be the only solid reason why the matter should not go before a Committee.
504
The question that arises, then, is whether we are to say that, whenever an institution approaches us on the ground that it is not very well off, we ought to take decisions out of the hands of the Committee of your Lordships' House and settle them in the House itself. That is a tremendous doctrine that would carry us very far indeed. I agree, and have always thought, that one of the great abuses of our system is that you cannot get justice in this country unless you are fairly well off. That is true not only in relation to Committees of your Lordships' House but as regards the Courts themselves. It is very difficult to go before the Courts unless you employ good counsel, and so forth, at great expense. But that is part of our system, and if we are going to lay it down that wherever the expense is very great, the matter should be taken out of the hands of the Committee and decided on the Moor of the. House, it will be a very dangerous doctrine which I think your Lordships ought to hesitate before accepting.
I believe that every member of this House would agree with mo that this matter should be considered by the Committee if we were quite certain that it would be thoroughly thrashed out before the Committee. I believe that would satisfy Lord Denman himself. I cannot help believing that, after this debate in your Lordships' House, the Committee will take every care in considering it. Probably several members of the Committee are themselves present here and have heard the debate. I should shrink from voting with my noble friend Lord Denman, because I think we should be setting a precedent which would give rise to great difficulties in the future.
LORD HEMPHILL: My Lords, as a past Chairman of the Highways Committee, I have been asked to support the noble Lord, Lord Monk Bretton, who is opposed to this instruction. Your Lordships will feel, with the noble Lord who moved the instruction, great sympathy for this hospital. We all feel great sympathy with hospitals, but I would remind your Lordships that this is not a very large hospital. It has only about 106 beds in it, and there are a great number of larger hospitals in London alongside which tramways have run without causing great inconvenience. After all, if we are going to sympathise

505
with this hospital, as we all will, why should we not sympathise with the numerous people who use the tramways? There are 106 beds in the hospital, and tens of thousands of people using the tramways.
I do not know whether your Lordships exactly understand the position of this tramway at the present time. It now stops just short of Waterloo Station, and the proposal is to bring it up to the foot of Waterloo Bridge. One may perhaps hope that when Waterloo Bridge is reconstructed, it will be brought across the bridge into Wellington-street, so that it will bring people right up to the Strand. The terminus of this tramline going to the foot of Waterloo Bridge will be about 300 yards beyond the hospital. The total length of the extension is about three-eighths of a mile. I would like to point out to your Lordships that Waterloo-road is not a particularly narrow thoroughfare, but, on the contrary, as roads go in London, is rather a wide thoroughfare and one of the noisiest. A large amount of traffic passes over it, including lorries, wagons and so forth, and the addition of a tramline will make very little difference to the noise.
It has been proved on many occasions before Committees of both Houses that tramlines do not make more noise than other means of traction. Time after time, when the statement has been made that tramways made more noise, the Committees have been convinced that the statement was not true. And of course the point which is made, that there may be better means of locomotion, and cheaper and more rapid means, is certainly a matter for argument before a Committee. It cannot be argued in this House, It has been argued time after time against tramways, but yet on each occasion the tramways have been approved by Committees. I need not deal with what has been said with regard to the desirability of this going before a Committee, because that is obvious, but I venture to hope that your Lordships will give the promoters a fair chance of having this question considered by a Committee upstairs.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (LORD PARMOOR): My Lords, I think the only matter involved here is not a matter of merit but of whether a
506
question of this kind can be more properly debated on the floor of this House than in a Committee room upstairs, and I was struck with the speech of Lord Buckmaster, who put the case in the strongest possible way for dealing with the matter now and not in Committee upstairs. In the old days, as many of your Lordships know, I had considerable experience of Committee work, both in this House and in the other House, and it appears to me that the question now before your Lordships is eminently one which ought to be dealt with in Committee upstairs. No general principle is involved in it, and I should regret that anybody in the position of a hospital should be put to expense. That is what affects me most nearly, but I do not think there is any reason for departing, as the Lord Chairman said, from the ordinary practice of sending these matters to a Committee upstairs, where all the various considerations which we have heard addressed to your Lordships can be fully considered in detail.
VISCOUNT YOUNGER OF LECKIE: My Lords, may I say that I do not think the hospital committee has lodged any Petition against this Bill, and therefore it would not be competent for it to go before the Committee?
LORD PARMOOR: Oh yes, it would have locus standi.
LORD DENMAN: My Lords, I do not want to trouble you any longer, but I only wish to say that, in my view, this is the last chance which the hospital has. It is all very well for the noble Marquess and Lord Parmoor to say that this might be argued in Committee, but we have carefully considered the matter, and it is a very expensive business to fight these things in Committee upstairs. Lord Monk Bretton said that your Lordships were not fully seized of the points, and were therefore unable to give your decision upon them, after listening to his speech and mine. I should not have said that after listening to his speech. I think your Lordships are very fully seized of the arguments for the proposal in the Bill. The Lord Chairman spoke of compensation, but he was the only person who mentioned that matter at all. Lord Monk Bretton never said a

507
word about it, and that being so I must trouble your Lordships to go to a Division.
Resolved in the affirmative, and Motion agreed to accordingly.

SPENCER SETTLED CHATTELS BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a and passed, and sent to the Commons.
PACIFIC CABLE BOARD BILL.
Brought from the Commons, read 1a; and to be printed.
LONDON STREET ACCIDENTS.

  PERSONAL EXPLANATION BY LORD NEWTON.
  LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I hope I may be permitted to take this opportunity
  On Question, Whether the Motion be agreed to?
  There Lordships divided: Contents, 57; Not-Contents,35.

  CONTENTS.

  Aberdeen and Temair, M.

  Banbury of Southam, L.[Teller.]

  Phillimore, L.

  Lansdowne, M.

  Ponsonby, L.(E. Bess-borough.)

  Buckmaster, L.

  Beauchamp, E.

  Carson, L.

  Powerscourt, L. (V. Powers-court.)

  Buxton, E.

  Clanwilliam, L. (E. Clan-william.)

  Chesterfield, E.

  Raglan, L.

  Clarendon, E.

  Cochrane of Cults, L.

  Rathereedan, L.

  Liverpool, E.

  Danesfort, L.

  Rayleigh, L.

  Lucan, E.

  Darling, L.

  Saye and Sele, L.

  Midleton, E.

  de Mauley, L.

  Sempill, L.

  Denman, L.[Teller.]

  Shandon, L.

  Burnham, V.

  Ernle, L.

  Southwark, L.

  Cave, V.

  Fairfax of Cameron, L.

  Stanmore, L.

  Chilston, V.

  Faringdon, L.

  Stewart of Garlies, L.(E. Galloxmy.)

  Inchcape, V.

  Gainford, L.

  Long, V.

  Glenarthur, L.

  Strachie, L.

  Younger of Leckie, V.

  Kilmarnock, L.(E. Erroll.)

  Stuart of Wortley, L.

  Kylsant, L.

  Sudeley, L.

  Southwark, L. Bp.

  Lambourne, L.

  Sudley, L. (E. Arran.)

  Lawrence of Kingsgate, L.

  Sumner, L.

  Annesley, L. (V. Valentia.)

  Monckton, L. (V. Galway.)

  Swaythling, L.

  Balfour of Burleigh, L.

  Montagu of Beaulieu, L.

  Wemyss, L.(E. Wemyss.)

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Haldane, V.(L. Chancellor.)

  Strafford, E.

  Hemphill, L. [Teller.]

  Hylton, L.

  Parmoor, L. (L. President.)

  Bertie of Thame, V.

  Jessel, L.

  Chelmsford, V.

  Lawrence, L.

  Curzon of Kedleston, M.

  Esher, V.

  MacDonnell, L.

  Salisbury, M.

  Hutchinson, V.(E. Donoughmore.)

  Monk Bretton, L. [Teller.]

  Monkswell, L.

  Grey, E.

  Lee of Fareham, V.

  Muir Mackenzie, L.

  Lovelace, E.

  Newton, L.

  Malmesburv, E.

  Arnold, L.

  Southborough, L.

  Mayo, E.

  Avebury, L.

  Thomson, L.

  Northbrook, E.

  Cawley, L.

  Wharton, L.

  Russell, E.

  Dynevor, L.

  Wyfold, L.

  Selborne, E.

  Hardinge of Penshurst, L.

  to make a short personal explanation. One day last week there was a debate in this House on the dangers of motor traffic in London, and I and other noble Lords made some observations with regard to a member of the House of Commons, who will easily be identified by the name of Lord Curzon. Since then I have ascertained that the case in question is still sub judice, and I desire to express my regret that I made any allusion to the noble Lord, because the last thing I wish to do is to interfere with the course of justice. Perhaps I may be permitted to add that, whilst in no way modifying my opinions with regard to furious motor driving, I bear no animus whatsoever against this gentleman; on the contrary, I have considerable respect for him as a courageous and energetic member of the Party to which I belong.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS(No.1) BILL.
Read 2a (according to Order).
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No.2) BILL.
Read 2a (according to Order).
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (STRATFORD - UPON - AVON EXTENSION BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a (according to Order).
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (WATFORD EXTENSION) BILL.
Read 2a (according to Order).

THERAPEUTIC SUBSTANCES BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
EARL DE LA WARR: My Lords, in regard to this Bill I should like to ask permission to postpone the Committee stage until Thursday. There are a few Government Amendments to be put down, and, for some reason or other, they have not been put into circulation among your Lordships. If Thursday is a convenient day, therefore, we should like to postpone the Committee stage until that day.
Order discharged: House to be in Committee on Thursday next.

PREVENTION OF EVICTION BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT HALDANE): My Lords, I rise to move the Second Reading of this Bill. It is a short Bill, but I am afraid that, on the face of it, it will not be very intelligible. That is not the fault of those who have drafted it, but it is the inevitable outcome of the state of legislation on this subject. There is a Code, which consists of a long series of provisions, and this
510
is an amendment of a particular provision in that Code. I hope, however, to make the Bill intelligible to your Lordships. It has been my duty, as your Lordships' adviser on legal and constitutional matters, to wade through all the Acts of Parliament relating to the subject, and, what is rather worse, the numerous debates which have taken place on the subject, particularly in the other House.
Before I tell your Lordships what the substance of the Bill is I should like to say something of its genesis. Much of what is implied in the Bill is due to the legislation which was introduced into this House by my noble friend Lord Onslow, who was also Chairman of the Committee which devoted so much minute investigation to the whole subject. The bulk of what he accomplished we leave intact in this Bill. There is only one Act which we propose to amend. That amendment comes from another source. It is due to the exertions of a very able member of the other House, Mr. E. D. Simon, the Member for Withington. Mr. Simon has been Lord Mayor of the City of Manchester, and has given much attention to the question which this Bill raises, and to the housing question generally, with very fruitful results, because there was a series of Bills before the House of Commons, all of which involved the point with which the present Bill deals, but none of which found favour.
The floor of the House of Commons in this matter is like a battlefield. It is covered with the corpses of slain Bills. The Bill of my right hon. friend Mr. Wheatley perished, as your Lordships will remember. But it dealt with a wholly different matter; it dealt with the eviction of persons who had not paid their rent because they were unemployed. The view taken was that that was a burden which should fall upon the community rather than upon the landlord and, acting on that principle, the Bill was thrown out in another place. This Bill has nothing whatever to do with that. There was another Bill which perished, that of Mr. Gardner. It perished in Grand Committee. There are two other Bills dealing with the question which is before your Lordships, which may or may not come up. There is Mr. Wedgwood Benn's Bill and another in the name of Mr. Trevelyan Thomson.

511
That brings me at once to Mr. Simon's Bill. It was impossible to make progress with a matter which was urgent and which had hitherto been unfortunate because it was mixed up with questions of non-payment of rent and unemployment. Mr. Simon was fortunate enough to put before the other House a proposition so simple that it commended itself to that House. His Bill was unanimously agreed to on Second Heading by all Parties. It went upstairs to Committee, fathered now by the Government. It went through Grand Committee where it was thoroughly sifted but not materially altered. It came clown to the House of Commons where it was again sifted on Report but not materially altered. Then it was unanimously accepted by the House of Commons.
The last great Act upon this subject was the Act passed by the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, which carried out the policy of restricting evictions by landlords. That was done only within carefully defined limits and I will tell your Lordships why. At the beginning of the war there was a moratorium, and under that moratorium people could not be called upon to pay their debts and could not be called upon to submit to being turned out by the owners of property of which they were tenants. In the very early days of the war a discretion was given to the Courts under one of the emergency provisions which were necessary at the time but have since come to an end. Then an Act was passed in 1915 which began to make greater inroads into the rights of landlords. That Act placed restrictions on landlords in cases where they would not cause hardship. The Act of 1920, which remained in force for three years, interfered very much with landlords. It was followed by efforts to get more houses built and it was hoped that those efforts would make the necessity of restrictions much less than had been the case. Those efforts culminated in the Act of 1923.
This is a Bill which does not amend the whole Act of 1923 but seeks to amend one part of it and that a minor part. I will tell your Lordships what the position of a landlord of a house, will be if this Bill passes. First of all, I would say that it would apply only to cases where the rent is not more than £105 per annum. Secondly, the Act will only modify the general law for the period of another year. It may be necessary to
512
extend it still further. That depends on whether the evil this Bill is introduced to remedy continues unabated. What would be the position of the landlord if this Bill were passed? He will have, in the first place, a number of the rights which he already possesses under Lord Onslow's Act. He may evict for non-payment of rent, or for breach of covenant, or for nuisance, or because the house is required for those who have served in the war or who are needed for agricultural services. All these things are provided for in the Act of 1923 and are not interfered with by this Bill.
The Act of 1923 did something more. By Section 4 it enabled the landlord of a house, who became the owner before. 1922, to turn out a tenant if he wanted the house for himself or for his son or daughter over 18 years of age. By a subsequent provision of Section 4 it was provided that the landlord who did not become the owner before 1922 and who wanted the property for himself, for his own residence, or for the residence of a son or daughter, could claim possession in certain circumstances if there was no hardship. In other words, the landlord was let quite loose in these cases if he bought the house before 1922.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: Before June 30, 1922.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am obliged to the noble Earl; I am speaking from memory. Then a remarkable thing took place. It was thought that the best way of getting houses then was through private, enterprise. When builders construct houses they do not build them as philanthropists. They build them in the vast majority of cases to make a profit, and if they build them for profit their purpose is to get the highest price they can by selling to the highest bidder. That proved to be so to an extraordinary degree. Immediately after the passing of the Act of 1923 the number of eviction orders went up to an almost inconceivable extent. In the course of the ensuing eight months they were 50 per cent, above the total for the previous year. They rose to the astonishing figure of nearly 20,000. Part of those evictions were due to nonpayment of rent, and no one will complain of evictions on that score, but 15,000 were due to other causes. They were due

513
to landlords being determined to get possession either for themselves or for members of their own families.
I do not think you can combine freedom in private building with complete control. The safest course is to let the new houses be built by a public authority, and that is what the new Bill will propose to do. When you have built a sufficiency of houses you will not then need control. The effort to build houses without control, free from restriction, which the Act of 1023 gave, was followed by this number of 15,000 evictions in the ensuing eight months. I have taken eight months because that is the figure for the period during which investigations were made. As the head of the judiciary in this country it is within my power to get the statistics, and I called for them from County Court Judges. They are now given in the form of a Return which shows beyond question (hat the effect of decontrol under paragraphs (iv) and (v), subsection (1) of the substituted Section 5 of the 1923 Act was as I have stated. It gave rise to a great many orders for possession. Owing to the provisions of those paragraphs (iv) and (v), and to the absence of houses built by public authorities, the figure of evictions went up to 15,000. In addition to that, many people, through fear of eviction, went out without any orders actually being obtained against them, and if the number of these people were known the figure of 15,000 would be considerably augmented.
The result is that the effect of decontrol, brought about by the Act of 1923, was very greatly to increase the number of evictions. This was not in substance controverted in the other House. Questions were raised about the number of orders actually enforced by the officers of the Courts, but there was no doubt in the minds of the members of the House of Commons that we were in the presence of a great social evil, an evil which must be mitigated if tranquillity is to be restored to the country. Never has it been demonstrated more clearly than to-day that if industrial unrest is to be minimised and tranquillity brought about, adequate provision must be made for housing the workers and their families. Human nature is human nature, and if a man feels that he can get a larger profit by letting a house to another tenant, or by occupying it himself and letting a
514
portion of it, he is very apt to evict the person who is there as tenant already, and to evict him without considering the hardship that will be experienced by that tenant. That is the reason for this Bill, and that is the reason why the other House passed it unanimously.
Now I come to what this Bill does. It proceeds to deal with paragraphs (iv) and (v) of subsection (1) of the substituted Section 5 which was placed in that Act instead of the Section 5 in the principal Act, so far as they enable the landlord, either for his own purposes or for the purpose of putting in a son or daughter, to turn out the existing tenant without any regard to the questions of alternative accommodation or hardship. So far as that is concerned, this is a single-clause Bill. I do not think your Lordships will be troubled with the second clause, because it is mere machinery to give effect to the Bill. The Bill provides that
" Where the dwelling-house is reasonably required by the landlord (not being a landlord who has become owner by purchase of the dwelling-house after the fifth day of May, nineteen hundred and twenty-four for occupation as a residence for himself and the court is satisfied, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, including any alternative accommodation available for the landlord or the tenant "—
both are taken into account— "that greater hardship would be caused by refusing to grant an order or judgment for possession than by granting it,"
then the landlord may be given possession. If the landlord does not bring himself within that provision—if he cannot show that he reasonably requires the residence, and the circumstances are such that greater hardship would be caused to the tenant, than would be caused to the landlord, having regard to all the circumstances of the ease, including any alternative accommodation available—then the landlord will not be given an order for possession. That is the restriction in this Bill, and that is the, restriction which the House of Commons accepted as one which would reasonably meet the urgent necessities of the present situation.
I hope I have made the substance of the Bill clear. It is a one-clause Bill. It could not have been drafted so as to set out the whole situation without re-enacting or reproducing all the other clauses of the noble Earl's Bill. It con fines itself to dealing with the change

515
which that Bill made, leaves the landlord tree in all ordinary cases, but says that when he requires the premises for himself he must satisfy the Court that he is not inflicting greater hardship than should be inflicted upon the tenant whom he is seeking to turn out, and that there is alternative accommodation available. There have been eases of people turned out into the street and having to shelter where they could; cases of great hardship. The volume of testimony from all quarters which came into the other House in the speeches made by members of that House was overwhelming. This is a Bill which is strongly supported by some Conservative members of the other House. It is supported by Liberals and by the Labour Government. The Bill does not cover the whole field, but it is a measure upon which all Parties in a co-operative spirit are agreed in order to meet an urgent and pressing social evil. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
VISCOUNT CAVE: My Lords, I do not think it is necessary for me to go through the somewhat complicated history given by the Lord Chancellor as to the attempts at legislation by the Government which have not hitherto borne fruit. This is the, first Bill which has come to this House, and it is a Bill not produced by the Government but by a private member of the other House. The Government have taken it up and we have to deal with it as it is. I want to advert at once to a point which appears to me to be of interest. I understood the Lord Chancellor to say that after the Act of 1923 there had been an enormous increase of evictions. As I understood him he said there had been 15,000 evictions.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Orders.
VISCOUNT CAVE: That is quite a different thing. All of us know that when the rent of a house is unpaid, as unfortunately it often is, the landlord has to go to the county court and obtain an order for eviction as the only method of getting his rent. But in far the greater number of eases the Judge, while he may make the order if he thinks it reasonable, suspends its operation with a view of allowing the tenant to remedy his default before actual eviction occurs,
516
and in far the greater number of the 15,000 cases in which orders for eviction were made no eviction at all ensued, obviously because the tenant, although late in the day, paid his rent and retained possession of the house. I am not saying this on my own authority. A Return has been made as a White Paper and it shows that the orders made were something like 15,000, but the total number of warrants executed—that is, evictions—amounted in all to 2,431 throughout the whole, of England. Most of us know, I know perfectly well, that in many cases the orders have to be made. There are many cases in which a man has saved enough to buy a house in which he hopes to spend the latter part of his days, but when the time comes and ho wants occupation he cannot get it because some other tenant is there. In those cases the Judge has a right to consider whether possession is reasonably required. It is only if he thinks it is reasonably required that he makes an order at all, and no noble Lord will be ready to say that there are not in the whole of England at least 2,000 cases where eviction is reasonably asked for and reasonably granted. It is only those cases with which your Lordships have to deal.
Let us look at this Bill for a moment. I think it needs a little careful consideration. I understand the meaning of the Bill. I have gone through the process which the Lord Chancellor has gone through, and I know something about the existing law and the effect of this Bill upon it. Take first the man who wants to get possession of his own house for his own occupation. That is the simplest case. As the law stands to-day that person, if he bought before June, 1922, cannot get possession without showing that there is alternative accommodation available for the tenant. If he bought after June, 1922, he has to show something more. He has to satisfy the County Court Judge that there would be greater hardship in keeping him out than to the tenant in turning the tenant out. As to that case, the effect of the Bill is that in every case where the owner bought before May, 1924, he has to prove that element of greater hardship. That is to say, it extends to people who bought before June, 1922, the law which now applies to people who bought after June, 1922. He must satisfy the Judge that he wants the

517
house for himself, that he bought before May, 1924, and that there would be greater hardship in refusing an order than in granting it.
There may be good reasons for altering the law in that respect, although I doubt whether any strong case has been made for it. I doubt, also, whether one ought to object to all these cases being within the discretion of the County Court Judge. Most of us in a matter of that kind, where the question is whether the landlord or his tenant has the stronger case for possession, would be willing to leave it to the decision of the County Court Judge, or any impartial tribunal, and therefore I am not disposed to quarrel with the proposal that in all these cases where a man bought before May, 1924, the discretion of the County Court Judge should come in.
But the Bill does not stop there. It says that if you buy after May 5, 1924, there shall not be that discretion, and that in all those cases, unless you can find for your tenant some other accommodation, you cannot have possession of your property even for your own use. I think I am right in thus stating the effect of the Bill. Why is that to be so? Mark that the point arises only if you have satisfied the Judge that you reasonably require possession of your own property. But even if you satisfy him of that, you are not allowed to show him, under the provision with which I am now dealing, that it would be a great hardship to keep you out of possession of your property. I do not see why the discretion of the Court should not operate, as much in cases where a man buys after May. 1924, as in cases where he buys before that date. If the exception is made which is involved in certain words in brackets in the first clause of the Bill, it will in a short time apply to many thousands of cases, and it will hereafter be impossible for any man either to buy a house for his own occupation or, having bought a house as an investment, to change, his mind and ask leave to occupy it himself. I am very much disposed to think that in all cases it would be fairer to leave to the Judge the right of saying whether the greater hardship is involved in refusing or in granting an order, and I hope that the matter will receive further consideration in this House.
518
There is a second particular in which the Bill proposes to alter the law. As things stand to-day, if you have a house and want to put your son or your daughter into it, you can do so, subject to the rule concerning "greater hardship" in the case of those who bought after a certain date. The Bill cuts out the son and daughter, and, if it passes, you will no longer be able to get possession of your own house, even if you prove that you reasonably require it for your own son or daughter, and even if you prove that greater hardship is involved in refusing the order than in granting it. I should like to know why that change in the law is proposed, and why a son or daughter is no longer to be the object of any kind of consideration. So much for Clause 1. I think I have said enough to show that the clause wants carefully looking into, and I hope that we shall have, some time in which to consider its details.
I will say only a word or two on the second clause of the Bill, which the noble and learned Viscount describes as mere machinery. I want to point out that the clause says that where an order has already been made before the passing of the Act, and, in the opinion of the Judge, would not have been made had the Act been law, then the Court shall rescind or vary the order. I have great doubts about that word "shall." I am disposed to think that the Judge ought to have a discretion. Take the case, of which we know many instances, where orders have been made and execution has been postponed for some purpose or other, perhaps in order to allow the tenant to find room elsewhere. These are suspended orders, but they are orders made, and therefore they are subject to this obligatory rescission. I do not think that is right. I think that in cases where the Judge has made an order and suspended it for some express purpose, he ought not to be told that, if this Bill passes, he must rescind that order, whether he thinks it just to do so or not, and I should like the Government to consider whether it would not be right, in Clause 2, to leave out the word "shall" on the second page and to substitute the word "may."
There is only one other point which I want to raise, and it concerns orders which have been carried out. As the Bill stands, if an order has been carried out

519
and the owner has possession, he must in certain cases be turned out and possession must be given over again to the tenant. I am not at all sure that this is right. I feel great doubt about it. I think it may be very hard upon a man who has got possession, perhaps after a struggle, under an order of the Court, and who then, because Parliament has altered the Jaw and put in new conditions, may be turned out of the house again. I think that this subsection also wants consideration, and I hope it will receive some attention in this House. Your Lordships will infer from what I have said that I do not propose to object to this Bill being read a second time, but I hope that we shall have a little time in which, to consider what Amendments ought to be made in its different clauses.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: My Lords, those of your Lordships who have followed the course of this Bill since it was first introduced into Parliament will probably not be surprised if I venture to rise in order to supplement the somewhat inadequate account of its tendencies which has been given by the noble and learned Viscount upon the Woolsack. I do not quite know what he considers to be his relationship to this Bill. If he will allow me to say so, it seems to me that he has taken advantage of his high position as Lord Chancellor to seize the position of legal guardian to the Bill, without the consent of any of the relations of the infant concerned. We must, of course, consider this a great compliment to the Bill, as it shows that at last His Majesty's Government have found some method by which they can put themselves before the people of this country as having introduced some measure of social reform.
Amongst the various matters concerned in the history of the Bill the noble and learned Viscount omitted to give the fuller account which I think would have been desirable of the Bill for which His Majesty's Government was responsible in the first place. That Bill would have allowed the unemployed to live rent free at the expense of the landlord, and it included, in addition, the exact provisions of this Bill which is now before your Lordships' House. But so determined were His Majesty's Government to do their best to keep in that first clause that, rather than withdraw it, they preferred
520
to lose the whole of the Bill, and did not see their way to prosecute the original measure, although it would have included the particular clauses which are now before your Lordships' House.
But that is not all. When this Bill was being considered by the Prime Minister, he announced after due consideration that in his opinion it was altogether unsatisfactory. The Bill was then sent to the Standing Committee of another place, where it was very largely altered against the wishes of those who were originally responsible for it. When it returned for the Report stage in another place it was restored to the original condition in which it, first left the floor of the House. We have here, therefore, the original condition of the Bill, as it was introduced by the member responsible, in spite of the fact that His Majesty's Government have done their best to alter it. It is very flattering for the original friends of the' Bill to think that His Majesty's Government have now seen their way to adopt it, but it seems to me that it does enable us to say that His Majesty's Government seem to have been somewhat bankrupt of ideas, as they have no other means of dealing with the matter.
This Bill does not, in fact, by itself and standing as it does, in any sense represent the real policy of His Majesty's Government. I have already ventured to quote the opinion of the Prime Minister concerning it. We have further evidence from the Labour Magazine. That magazine, for May, said of this Bill—
"This measure was drastically amended by Standing Committee C on April 15, from which it emerged bearing little of the original Liberal draft but the title. An article will appear in a future issue of the magazine describing the Bill in its final form."
The final form is the form in which it was originally introduced. The Amendments are of an exceedingly small kind, which I have no doubt the noble and learned Viscount will be able to describe to your Lordships when he replies on the debate.
Those of you who have followed the question know, as the noble and learned Viscount, I think, has half intimated to the House, that this is part of a general scheme which has been presented in various Bills to Parliament, for dealing with the general difficulty in regard to housing. Four Bills have been introduced dealing with evictions, one with

521
the reduction of, rates, one with the unemployed, and another one with control. I hope that other measures introduced by friends of mine will be as fortunate in finding guardians in this House as this Bill dealing with evictions. I hope that this Bill may do something with regard to the education of the noble Lord, the Secretary of State for India. He told us, on the last occasion when this House discussed social reform, that he did not find that my noble friends were so much interested in social reform as the noble Lords who sit on my left, and he based this assertion upon an experience of his own youth, forty years ago, when he had an interview with Lord Randolph Churchill, who took some interest in a measure dealing with the Borough of Paddington. I hope that the noble Lord will now realise that there are other people beside himself who are interested in social reform, and that he will learn, from what has already happened, that other people are able to do more in this direction than the Government of which he is a member.
The noble and learned Viscount referred to evictions, and he quoted from a Return which has been made, but I do not think it is unfair to say that in this matter you cannot only go by the number of actual evictions. A number of people are frightened that there will be orders made against them. They shrink from the cost. In the case of small tenancies the cost may run from £20 to £25, and perhaps even £30, and that is a cost which no man living in one of these houses will willingly run the risk of incurring. Therefore, in addition to the number of evictions quoted, there are a great many cases in which people have been too much frightened lest an order should be made against them, to resist an application that they should leave their houses. Therefore the number of people disturbed is very much larger than the number of cases represented in the White Paper. I confess that I rejoice in the happy prospect which this Bill has of passing this House, and I hope that it will pass without any amendment. Although I cannot, considering the way in which the Bill has been introduced to the House, expect that the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack will accept with pleasure any offer of support from these Benches, I can assure him that it will be
522
at his beck and call if he desires to have it.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: My Lords, the noble Earl who has just sat down has given a very interesting account of what took place on the passage of the Bill in another place, and the noble Viscount said that the Second Heading was passed unanimously. My information is that on a particular evening, the Government having introduced a Bill to say that the landlords could not recover rent, and having refused to withdraw the clause which enacted that, the House of Commons was in such a state of confusion at eleven o'clock—not knowing whether the Government were going to withdraw the clause or not—that when by pure accident, a certain Liberal Member happened to have a Bill down and the Order of the Hay for that Bill was read by the Clerks, the Bill slipped through without anybody knowing what had happened. That is the information—and I think it is correct—given to me by members of the other House.
Whether that is so or not, I would like to point out to your Lordships that this Bill is retrospective. During the years I have had the honour of sitting in another place I have always opposed retrospective legislation of all sorts. In the other place it was said that this Bill is only retrospective to April 15. It is nothing of the sort. It is retrospective possibly to last December and certainly to last January, and for this reason. I do not know what the County Court Judges do, but I know what the magistrates do, when cases come before them on applications for eviction. The notice lies upon the table for three or four, and, in some cases, six months. The result would be that it an order for eviction had been granted in January, and was not to be executed for four months, it would not have been executed on April 15. Consequently the person against whom the order had been granted would be able to go to the magistrates, or County Court Judge, and say: "This order granted last January has not been executed, and therefore I ask you to cancel the order. "Why should that he done? Surely if there is to be an alteration in the law it should only take effect from the time the Bill making the alteration becomes law. That, so far as I can remember, has always been the practice. I do not say it is so, but I

523
cannot remember any case where retrospective legislation has been allowed.
There is another point, and that is that a landlord who has become owner by purchase of a dwelling house after May 5, 1924, may not obtain possession. Now my information is that there was by no means unanimity upon those words. In the Committee stage they were left out, or if it was proposed to put them in the Conservatives and supporters of the Government combined against the Liberals and rejected those words. On the Report stage, however, the Government ate their own words, and, having voted against these particular words in Committee, voted for them on Report. Consequently they were put in. Now, if your Lordships desire, as I am sure the noble and learned Viscount does, that there should be an increase of houses, why put in words of this sort? Who will ever build or buy a house if he knows that he is liable to have legislation passed which says that if you buy a house after a certain date you are not to be able to obtain possession for yourself? If there is anything which will stop private enterprise and discourage people from building houses, it is these particular words in Clause 1.
I understand that the two noble Marquesses whom I have the honour of following in this House do not intend to oppose the Second Reading of the Bill, but I hope that in Committee we shall say that we will not have retrospective legislation. However good a Bill may be, it should not be made retrospective. Once you begin that, you do not know where you are going to end, and there is no earthly reason why a man who buys a house in April, 1924, should be treated differently from a man who buys a house in May, 1924. Personally, I have had some experience in granting orders under the Act of 1923, and I do not believe that any hardships have occurred. But whether that is so or not, I will not go into the question of whether it is advisable to pass the Bill subject to these alterations.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, as I was Chairman of the Committee which went into this matter, I should like to say one word upon the subject of alternative accommodation. We went into it, and took evidence for several days evidence of a very conflicting kind—and we made
524
certain recommendations which were in the main embodied in the Act of last year. I do not think that we really were very successful. Although it is true that we modified the law in respect of alternative accommodation I do not know that we really did very much good. The definition of alternative accommodation in the Act of 1920 was accommodation "reasonably equivalent as regards rent and suitability in all respects." That was found to be so vague that it was practically impossible to put it into force, and the Act of last year altered it to accommodation "reasonably suitable to the means of the tenant and to the needs of the tenant and his family as regards extent, character, and proximity to place of work."
But really I think that in practice it has been admitted that this question of alternative accommodation makes it impossible for a landlord to get possession at all in a very large number of cases. If a tenant wants to obstruct he simply makes objections—he cannot do this, and he will not accept that and something else occurs. The result is that the alternative house or lodging is snapped up, and the landlord who wants to get possession is unable to provide any alternative accommodation at all. It does not matter, I am afraid, how you define "alternative accommodation," because it is in the power of the tenant to obstruct and raise difficulties, and so to make it practically impossible for the owner to get hold of his house. I think it has been said that the building of houses will be encouraged by this provision, which makes it necessary for a landlord who wishes to enter into a house bought after May 5 last to provide alternative accommodation for the tenant. But if there are two people who are anxious to occupy a, house, and one of those, persons, either landlord or tenant, is adjudged by the County Court to suffer greater hardship than the other in not being allowed to occupy that house, why should he, if ho is a landlord—and because he is a landlord—be debarred from occupying the house when it is a greater hardship for him than for the tenant not to do so, merely because ho bought the after May 5? And why should he be compelled to provide alternative accommodation, which it is practically impossible for him to do?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the noble Earl who has just sat down has very truly pointed out the complication and difficulty of this kind of legislation and the uncertainty as to whether you have hit the mark in the Bills which you project. He and I have become experienced in those things. But I cannot conceal from myself that in the discussion which has taken place there has been a good deal of ignoring of what the real case for this Bill is. If it was a question of how to get people to build houses, and of that only, I should be prepared to concede to my noble friend Lord Banbury of Southam that there was a great deal to be said for his plan, which is to leave landlords alone and let them do what they like with their property, and get as much as they can out of it; then they will build, if it is a good business proposition.
But, unfortunately, that is not the question before us. We cannot rely upon that method of getting houses, because what we require is to provide accommodation for people who are in urgent need of it, and who are in very large numbers. And if you are to get that you must have control. There are too few houses to go round, and unless you control the way in which the owners of those houses make use of them, and prevent them turning people out when there are circumstances of hardship, and when no other accommodation can be got, then you will not solve the social problem. If you institute control you spoil the business of house building, and the only result is that the building of these houses must be provided for by public authorities. That is why the Government have adopted the policy which they have in the Bill which Mr. Wheatley is shortly going to put before Parliament. The real reason for this Bill is a very great and terrible social evil which is upon us at the present time. Houses have not been built, houses have fallen into disrepair, there is a tremendous demand for them, not as luxuries but as necessities of life, and, unless the State steps in and controls, as it has been doing in different forms since the war, then you have a population full of misery and discontent, and, I am afraid, not friendly to either of the two Parties in the State other than the one to which I belong.
Various criticisms have been made upon this Bill. One was made by Lord Banbury of Southam, who said that it was
526
very extraordinary that provisions of this kind should be made retrospective. But it was done by a Conservative Government. I know that my noble friend is a great purist, and is not satisfied even with a Conservative Government. But I find in Lord Onslow's Bill a provision in Section 4 (3) which is almost precisely the same as the so-called retrospective provision which we have here, excepting that the word was "may" and not "shall." I concede that there is that difference. Still, the county court was enabled, in cases where there had been a purchase before the Act came into operation, to set aside a judgment.
VISCOUNT CAVE: Not where there have been executions.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Well, I am not quite sure about that. The subsection says:
"Where any order or judgment has been made or given before the passage of this Act but not executed, and, in the opinion of the court, the order or judgment would not have been made or given if this Act had been in force at the time when such order or judgment was made or given, the court may, on application by the tenant, rescind or vary such order or judgment in such manner as the Court may think fit for the purpose of giving effect to this Act,"
Is there much difference, for the purposes of the particular question which is engaging us, between a judgment given and the execution following on it? If the order has been made the legal rights have been given. Parliament, as long ago as 1923, enacted that what has been loosely called retrospective legislation should apply, and the rights given by the order might be modified if the Judge thought fit.
Then the noble Earl, Lord Beauchamp, quite truly pointed out that the figure of 15,000 orders was one which related only to orders, not to the executions. In the majority of cases people do not wait for executions, they go out on the orders; and I pointed out that they go very often before any order has been made at all, in terror of being haled before the Courts and mulcted in costs. So that it is impossible to say that the extent of the evil with which we are trying to deal is limited by those 15,000 cases. The number has obviously been very large indeed, from the volume of testimony which came before us. It amounted to a social evil of great magnitude, and what

527
your Lordships are dealing with just now is not the ordinary law, but a question so difficult, and in which the existing law is so harsh, that it is essential that something should be done if there is to be tranquillity in the State.
On the question of "shall" or "may," your Lordships will hear more of that on subsequent stages of the Bill. But by the insertion of the word "shall" it was intended that, in cases where what had been done would not have been done had this Bill been in force, the County Court Judge should be able to vary or rescind it. The state of the law when such order was made was that if the landlord wanted the premises for himself or for his son or daughter he could get them, provided the tenant was not treated harshly and there was alternative accommodation. That is the effect of the provision of the section we are seeking to amend. On the question of discretion, County Court Judges have said: "If these matters were left to our discretion we could administer justice very well; but they are not so left." It is necessary, therefore, to give them a clear indication of the principle on which they should proceed.
Then I was a little surprised that, my noble friend Lord Beauchamp should have thought that there was any non-recognition of the part which the Liberal Party played in this matter in the House of Commons. But he will admit, I think, that I tried to be as nice as I could.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: May I ask the noble and learned Viscount when he proposes that the Bill should be considered in Committee?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I should like to consult the convenience of the House and of the noble Marquess. Would Thursday week be a convenient date?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Yes.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Then let us say Thursday week.

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA (LEAVE OF ABSENCE) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Olivier.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL OF DONOUGHMOKE in the Chair.]
Clause 1:
Amendment of ss. 86 and 87 of the Government of India Act.
1.—(1) For Sections eighty-six and eighty-seven of the Government of India Act there shall be substituted the following sections:
Power to grant leave of absence to Governor-General, etc.
86.—(1) Subject to such conditions and limitations as may be prescribed by rules made under Section ninety-four of this Act, the Secretary of State in Council may grant to the Governor-General, and on the application of the Governor-General in Council may grant to the Commander-in-Chief and a Governor, leave of absence for such period, not exceeding the period allowed by such rules, as be may think fit.
(2) Subject as aforesaid, the Governor-General in Council may grant to any members of his executive council, other than the Commander-in-Chief, and a Governor in Council and a Lieutenant-Governor in Council may grant to any member of his executive council, leave of absence for such period, not exceeding the period allowed by such rules, as he may think fit.
(3) Where the Governor-General, or the Commander-in-Chief, or a governor or a member of an executive council obtains leave of absence in pursuance of this section, he shall retain his office during his absence, but if his absence exceeds the period for which leave is granted his office shall become vacant.
Acting appointments during the absence of the Governor-General, etc., on leave.
87.—(l) Where leave is granted in pursuance of the foregoing section to the Governor-General, or to the Commander-in-Chief, or to a Governor, a person shall be appointed in his place during his absence, and the appointment shall be made by His Majesty by warrant under the Royal Sign Manual. The person so appointed during the absence of the Commander-in-Chief may, if the Commander-in-Chief was a member of the Executive Council of the Governor-General, be also appointed by the Governor-General in Council to be a temporary member of that Council.
(2) The person so appointed shall, until the return to duty of the permanent holder of the office, or, if he does not return, until a successor arrives, hold and execute the office to which he has been appointed and shall have and may exercise all the rights and powers thereof and shall be entitled to receive the emoluments and advantages appertaining to the office, forgoing the

529
emoluments and advantages (if any) to which he was entitled at the time of his being appointed to that office.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (LORD OLIVIER)THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (LORD OLIVIER) had on the Paper an Amendment, to omit from subsection (1) the substituted Section 86 and to insert:
Power to grant leave of absence to Governor-General, etc.
"86.—(1) The Secretary of State in Council may grant to the Governor-General and, on the recommendation of the Governor-General in Council, to the Commander-in-Chief, leave of absence for urgent reasons of public interest, or of health or of private affairs.
(2) The Secretary of State in Council may, on the recommendation of the Governor-General in Council, grant to a Governor, and the Governor-General in Council, or a Governor in Council or a Lieutenant-Governor in Council, as the case may be, may grant to any member of his Executive Council (other than the Commander-in-Chief) leave of absence for urgent reasons of health or of private affairs.
(3) Leave of absence shall not be granted to any person in pursuance of this section for any period exceeding four months nor more than once during his tenure of office:
Provided that the Secretary of State in Council may if he thinks fit extend any period of leave so granted beyond four months, but shall in every case publish his reasons for so doing.
(4) Where leave of absence is granted to any person in pursuance of this section ho shall retain his office during the period of leave as originally granted, or, if that period is extended by the Secretary of State in Council, during the period as so extended, but if his absence exceeds that period his office shall be deemed to have become vacant as from the commencement of his absence.
(5) Where a person obtains leave of absence in pursuance of this section he shall be entitled to receive during his absence such leave-allowances as may be prescribed by rules made by the Secretary of State in Council, but, if he does not resume his duties upon the termination of the period of the leave, he shall repay, in such manner as may be so prescribed as aforesaid, any leave-allowance received tinder this subsection.
(6) If the Governor-General or the Commander-in-Chief is granted leave for urgent reasons of public interest, the Secretary of State in Council may, in addition to the leave-allowances to which he is entitled under this section, grant to him such further allowances in respect of travelling expenses as the Secretary of State in Council may think fit.
(7) Rules made under this section shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament as soon as may be after they are made."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, when this Bill was under discussion on the Second Reading a difference of opinion arose between my noble friends on the other side and myself as to the precise form in which the provisions, the purpose and substance of which were generally approved, should be put into the Bill. We proposed to legislate giving power for Rules to be made for leave of absence and for pay. It was contended by noble Lords opposite that it was preferable that all the provisions regulating leave of absence and emolument should be embodied in the Bill. Having been an officer in His Majesty's Service, I rather took exception to the principle of the objection. I think there is a distinction that should be borne in mind.
The noble Marquess and other noble Lords supporting him justly observed that we had got into a very bad habit of enabling Orders in Council to be made for all sorts of matters for which legislation might properly be passed. Orders in Council and Executive Orders dealing with the liberties of the subject are one thing; but Orders and Rules dealing with His Majesty's servants who are servants of the King by title are somewhat different, and, as I pointed out, it has been the habit for the Rides of the public service, whether in the Colonies or in this country, to be made by means of Orders in Council or by Rules of the Secretary of State or the Lords Commissioners of the. Treasury, and if Parliament disapproves of them it shows that disapproval in certain well known ways. But it has not been usual to insert in Acts of Parliament minute provisions and Rules for the leave of absence and pay of those engaged in the public service.
I admit that the position of the Government of India may, perhaps, be regarded as somewhat different. As a matter of fact, the powers of the Governor-General to take leave are at present absolutely directed by law and leave cannot be granted except by law. Similarly, there are other provisions affecting the substance of this Bill which are at present governed by the Government of India Act. In consultation with the noble Marquess, Lord Curzon, and with my noble predecessor, Lord Peel, I have gone through the provisions of the Act and have redrafted them in the fresh form for Clause 1 which

531
I understand meets the views of the noble Marquess and the noble Viscount. We propose now to substitute an entirely new clause for Clause 1 of the Bill.
The first subsection of the proposed clause provides that the Secretary of State in Council may grant to the Governor-General and, on the recommendation of the Governor-General in Council, to the Commander-in-Chief, leave of absence for urgent reasons of public interest, or of health or of private affairs. Those are the three categories suggested by the noble Marquess and which, I entirely agree with him, are the three categories under which leave of absence would probably be granted. We want to put this provision into the Bill and not into Rules.
The second subsection provides that—
"The Secretary of State in Council may, on the recommendation of the Governor-General in Council, grant to a Governor, and the Governor-General in Council, or a Governor in Council or a Lieutenant-Governor in Council, as the case may be "—
there are, at present, no Lieutenant-Governors, but the Act provides for their appointment in certain circumstances and we have to take the necessary powers—
"may grant to any member of his Executive Council (other than the Commander-in-Chief) leave of absence for urgent reasons of health or of private affairs,"
That is to say, we do not allow these subordinate Governors and Executive Councillors to be granted leave for the purpose of consultation with the Secretary of State. That privilege is only to be granted to the Governor-General and the Commander-in-Chief.
Then, in subsection (3), we limit the period during which leave of absence shall be granted to that suggested by the noble Marquess. The subsection provides that leave of absence shall not be granted to any person in pursuance of the section for any period exceeding four months nor more than once during his tenure of office. Upon that I want to make one observation. At the present time Governors may grant to Executive Councillors leave of absence on medical certificate for a period not exceeding six months. Therefore, by limiting the grant of leave of absence that may be given to all these officers to four months, one might appear to be encroaching upon the privilege which is now
532
granted to Executive Councillors. That I do not think is an objection of substance, because the privilege they enjoy is one subject to the control of the Governor and Secretary of State, and I think it may be clearly understood that the Secretary of State would, if any Executive Councillor came on leave of absence on the ground of ill-health for four months, reasonably take into consideration all the circumstances, and, if his health required it, would giant him that further extension of two months which might originally have been granted under the discretion of the Governor before he left India. Therefore we are not really encroaching upon any privilege which Executive Councillors at present enjoy with regard to their health.
I wish slightly to vary the next sentence that is printed on the Amendment Paper so that it will read as follows:
"Provided that the Secretary of State in Council may, if he thinks fit, extend any period of leave so granted, but in any such case the reasons for the extension shall be set forth in a Minute signed by the Secretary of State and laid before both. Houses of Parliament."
Publication was also asked for, and as a form is already provided in another section of the Government of India Act, we thought it would he reasonable to follow the particular form of publication already embodied in that Act. Therefore we have adopted that form rather than the more general word "published."
On the other subsections of the clause I do not think I need make any observations. They have been sot out in the Amendments, and, subject to the alteration which I have handed to the Lord Chairman, I beg leave to move the new clause.
Amendment moved—
Clause 1, page 1, line 8, leave out from the end of line 8 to the end of line 7 on page 2 and insert:—
Power to grant leave of absence to Governor-General, etc.
(" 86.—(1) The Secretary of State in Council may grant to the Governor-General and, on the recommendation of the Governor-General in Council, to the Commander-in-Chief, leave of absence for urgent reasons of public interest, or of health or of private affairs.
(2) The Secretary of State in Council may, on the recommendation of the Governor-General in Council, grant to a Governor, and the Governor-General in Council, or a Governor in Council or a Lieutenant-Governor

533
in Councl, as the case may be, may grant to any member of his Executive Council (other than the Commander-in-Chief) leave of absence for urgent reasons of health or of private affairs.
(3) Leave of absence shall not be granted to any person in pursuance of this section for any period exceeding four months nor more than once during his tenure of office:
Provided that the Secretary of State in Council may if he thinks fit extend any period of leave so granted, but in any such case the reasons for the extension shall be set forth in a. Minute signed by the Secretary of State and laid before both Houses of Parliament.
(4) Where leave of absence is granted to any person in pursuance of this section he shall retain his office during the period of leave as originally granted, or, if that period is extended by the Secretary of State in Council, during the period as so extended, but if his absence exceeds that period his office shall be deemed to have become vacant as from the commencement of his absence.
(5) Where a person obtains leave of absence in pursuance of this section he shall be entitled to receive during his absence such leave-allowances as may be prescribed by rules made by the Secretary of State in Council, but, if he does not resume his duties upon the termination of the period of the leave, he shall repay, in such manner as may be so prescribed as aforesaid, any leave-allowances received under this subsection.
(6) If the Governor-General or the Commander-in-Chief is granted leave for urgent reasons of public interest, the Secretary of State in Council may, in addition to the leave-allowances to which he is entitled under this section, grant to him such further allowances in respect of travelling expenses as the Secretary of State in Council may think fit.
(7) Rules made under this section shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament as soon as may be? after they are made.")(Lord Oliver.)
THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLES-TON: My Lords, those of your Lordships who were present when we discussed this question on Second Reading will remember that several of us on this side of the House, and some noble Lords of the Liberal Party, directed certain criticisms at the Rill in the form in which it had been introduced by the noble Lord, the Secretary of State for India. We have been ourselves, on this side of the House, in general agreement in those criticisms, and at the close of our proceedings, feeling it most desirable that the House should act as far as possible with unanimity in the matter, and that there should be no conflict of opinion between the two sides of the House, I suggested to the noble Lord that he might
534
allow me, as representing those who sit here, to enter into private consultation with him as to the form which Amendments to the Rill as originally proposed might properly take. He was good enough to accede to that wish. As he told your Lordships just now, we have had more than one meeting since, with the result that this rather considerable change in the Bill is now proposed, with full Government responsibility, by him.
I think it is really a little more than he was inclined just now to suggest. He seemed almost to imply that the change was only one of form, and that he would have preferred to deal with the matter in one way, while we, on the other hand, on this side, were more anxious that it should be dealt with in another way. I think it is a little more than that, because now under this Amendment you do get clearly stated in the Bill exactly what you propose to do in each case, the reasons for which you act in each case, the conditions under which leave may be given, and the restrictions under which it ought to be given. That surely is a very much better plan than trusting to those Rules for which the noble Lord has just expressed a sort of academic preference. I am much obliged to him for the courtesy and consideration he has shown in the matter. I think the Amendments which he has just explained and defended really meet every point that we raised two or three weeks ago. I need only, therefore, comment upon one or two.
The first subsection of the new clause which he has read gives, as we urged on the previous occasion, leave of absence, subject to the discretion of the Secretary of State in Council, both to the Governor-General and to the Commander-in-Chief. I think that is right, because I can conceive conditions (indeed I indicated some the other day) in which both of those high officials might—not of course at the same time, but independently—in the course of their term of office be required to come home in order to consult with the Secretary of State here. Let me add now, what I did not say then, that I can well conceive a case in support of my general proposition in which the Governor-General, reluctant himself to take his hand from the plough even for a period of three or four months, might at the same time think it desirable to depute his most important councillor—namely, the Commander-in-Chief

535
—to represent views on his behalf, which no one could do with so much authority, to the Secretary of State at home. That, I think, apart from the justification which I indicated the other day, is a reason for giving this privilege to the Commander-in-Chief as well as to the Viceroy.
The noble Lord has been good enough to accept the suggestion which was made from this side the other day, that leave of absence granted under the new provisions should be limited to four months, but he mentioned one reservation, and I think rightly mentioned it. He pointed out that under the existing law members of the Executive Councils in India can, upon the production of a medical certificate, obtain leave of absence during their tenure of office to this country for a period not of four months, but of six months, and he said that we are extending an advantage to those persons which they have never hitherto enjoyed—because we are going in future to let them come home for urgent reasons of private affairs as well as of health, a prerogative they have not hitherto possessed. Therefore, he said we are not only not doing them any injury, but, on the contrary, we are conferring upon them an advantage. At the same time he said we do not want to take away from anybody the statutory privilege which he at present enjoys.
I think there is force in that, but what he did not make quite clear was this—and I ask him if my interpretation is correct. This privilege, which he says depends upon an understanding, will I gather under the new Act apply to those persons who at present enjoy it—that is to say the members of Executive Councils—in the future. But they are far more numerous than they were in my day, when there were only three Governments, the Governments of India, Bombay and Madras. The members of all these Executive; Councils in future are not, as I understand it, going to be put in the exceptional position of having their six months while everybody else has four months. All the noble Lord means is that those who already under the existing law can take advantage of the six months' privilege will not be deprived of it. Perhaps before we conclude he will tell me if I am right in my interpretation of what he has just said.
Then he has introduced in the second part of subsection (3) a condition which,
536
I think, is justified. He proposes that the power of extending the period of leave beyond three months shall be vested in the Secretary of State in Council. I think that is reasonable, not because I anticipate extension will be asked for or given in cases of urgent private affairs, or even in cases of consultation with the Government, but because a case might very well arise in which a man came over under the terms of this Act for reasons of health and the cure which he was going to take in this country might not have been accomplished at the end of four months. It would be only reasonable in such a case to give a certain power of extension to the Secretary of State in Council. That power the noble Lord proposes to take, and in the statement he has just made he proposes to vary the Amendment as it is on the Paper and to substitute for the words "shall in every case publish his reasons for so doing," a formula which he says is much more common and regular—namely, that he shall lay upon the Table of the House a statement of the reasons which have decided him in Council in giving the extension suggested. I have no objection to offer to that proposal, and indeed when I asked for publicity the other day I contemplated something of the sort. The Secretary of State in Council is not the least likely to abuse the privilege which he enjoys under the proposed legislation, but it is only right that Parliament and the public should have an opportunity of knowing the reasons for which on this or that occasion it may be departed from.
Those are the only points to which I need call attention in the substituted section which the noble Lord has proposed, and subject to anything which may be said in any other quarter of the House, I think your Lordships may accept the Amendment in the conviction that the Bill is a better one than in the form in which it was originally introduced.
LORD OLIVIER: My Lords, the noble Marquess has raised one point on which he thinks I should make a further explanation. It is with reference to the power of granting six months' leave to Executive Councillors. As I pointed out this is not a legal right on the part of Executive Councillors, but the Governor-General may grant them six months' leave on a medical certificate. I thought it

537
would be sufficient for us to limit the grant by the Governor to four months and to state publicly that their rights were not impaired because the Secretary of State still has the power to grant them a further extension which is not limited to six months. It may exceed six months.
THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLES-TON: The noble Lord has not quite answered my question. Here is a privilege which has hitherto been enjoyed by certain persons and the noble Lord says, in effect, and not improperly: "I do not want to take away from these people the advantage which they at present enjoy, although we are giving them something in addition." My question was: Will the people who enjoy this privilege in the future be only those who have enjoyed it in the past, or will it be enjoyed by all members of Executive Councils at all times in the future? That is giving them an additional privilege. It is not only giving them the privilege of coming home for six months or four months on urgent private affairs, but an opportunity which no one else is to enjoy of coming home on a medical certificate for six months instead of four.
LORD OLIVIER: I do not think we need make any discrimination, because all that the Governor-General can grant Executive Councillors is four months' leave of absence.
THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLES-TON: That is clear, then?
LORD OLIVIER: That is perfectly clear. All they can get from the Governor-General is four months' leave of absence. If Executive Councillors come home they will have a presumptive claim for special compassion from the Secretary of State because they can say: "If you had not passed this law I should have got six months."
LORD RAGLAN: The Commander-in-Chief in India is a Regular Officer and it is difficult to see, why, when he is on leave, he should be treated as regards his pay differently from any other Regular Officer
LORD OLIVIER: I am afraid that is a conundrum which we shall have to thrash
538
out with the War Office. We can make Rules with regard to his pay, but we have not yet made those Rules.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD OLIVIER: The Amendment in substituted Section 87 (1), after the first" appointed 'to insert "to act," is consequential.
Amendment moved—
Clause 1, page 2, line 11, after (" appointed ") insert ("to act").—(Lord Olivier.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD OLIVIER: The last Amendment to Clause 1 is also consequential.
Amendment moved—
Clause 1, page 2, line 30, at end insert:
("(3) When during the absence on leave of the Governor-General a Governor is appointed to act in his place, the provisions of this section relating to the appointment of a person to act in the place of a Governor to whom leave of absence has been granted in pursuance of the foregoing section shall apply in the same manner as if leave of absence had been so granted to the Governor.")—(Lord Olivier.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2.
Amendment of s.92 of Government of India Act.
2. For subsection (4) of Section ninety-two of the Government of India Act there shall be substituted the following subsections:—
(4) Until the return to duty of the member so incapable or absent, the person temporarily appointed shall hold and execute the office to which he has been appointed, and shall have and may exercise all the rights and powers thereof, and shall be entitled to receive the emoluments and advantages appertaining to the office, forgoing the emoluments and advantages (if any) to which he was entitled at the time of his being appointed to that office.
(4A) When a member of an Executive Council is by infirmity or otherwise rendered incapable of acting or attending to act as such and a temporary member of council is appointed in his place, the absent member shall on resumption of his duty be entitled to receive half his salary for the period of his absence.
LORD OLIVIER: The Amendment to
Clause 2 is purely drafting.
Amendment moved—
Clause 2, page 3, line 5, leave out ("on resumption of his duty").—(Lord Olivier.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining Clauses agreed to.

AGRICULTURAL RETURNS BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.
NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE (COST OF MEDICAL BENEFIT) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

IRISH FREE STATE AND THE UNITED STATES.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE THE EARL OF SELBORNE had given Notice to ask his Majesty's Government—
1. Whether the statement in The Times of May 8 is correct that a Minister representing the Irish Free State will shortly be appointed to Washington, and that His Majesty's Government has raised no objection to such an appointment;
2. Under what clause of the Irish Treaty will this appointment be made;
3. What steps His Majesty's Government propose to take to harmonise the representations of the British Ambassador and of the Free State Minister in respect of matters which concern both Great Britain and Ireland or the whole British Empire;
and to move for Papers.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, His Majesty's Government have asked me to
540
postpone the matters referred to in these Questions, and I have not thought it right to refuse the request put to me, as it was rather forcibly, by the Lord President of the Council. Therefore, I ask leave to put the Questions down again for Wednesday, June 25. On that occasion I shall hope to proceed and endeavour to show the House what grave issues are evoked by a consideration of my third Question particularly.
LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Earl for his remarks. I made him an urgent request not to proceed with his Question to-day, and I thank him for not doing so.

STANDING JOINT COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS.
LORD OLIVIER: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion which appears on the Paper in my name.
Moved, That the Lord MacDonnell be discharged from serving on the Standing Joint Committee, and that the Lord Willingdon be named of the Committee in his place.—(Lord Olivier.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.
House adjourned at twenty minutes before seven o'clock.