Lords Sitting of 5 August 1925

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

WOLVERHAMPT0N CORPORATION BILL.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion that stands in my name. It is in the public interest that the Standing Order be dispensed with.
Moved, That Standing Order No. 143 be considered in order to its being dispensed with in respect of the said Bills, and that the Bills be now road 3a.—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and Bills read 3a accordingly, with the Amendments.
Bills passed and returned to the Commons.

HONOURS (PREVENTION OF ABUSES) BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
ROADS IMPROVEMENT BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments, agreed to.
NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments.

PUBLIC HEALTH BILL.
Returned from the Commons with certain of the Amendments made by the Lords agreed to, and one Amendment disagreed to, for which the Commons assign a Reason.
LORD EMMOTT: With your Lordships' permission I should like to move that the Commons Reason for disagreeing to one Amendment made by your Lordships be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons Reason be now considered.—(Lord Emmott.)
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY): My Lords, that is a Motion which it is quite possible for the noble Lord to make in reference to a Bill of which he is in charge. It is, of course, not the usual practice, because we generally allow an interval of a few hours, at any rate, to intervene, but I think it is for the convenience of your Lordships to take this Motion at once. The matter is a very small one in which the Commons disagree, with your Lordships, and, if your Lordships in every quarter of the House are willing to take it now, we will do so, otherwise it must be put down for to-morrow.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT.
Page 38, line 28, after ("relate"), insert ("Where any parking place is part of a street, regulations may provide for charges to be paid to the local authority in respect of the services of an attendant").
The Commons disagree with this Amendment because they consider it inexpedient to authorise the making of a charge, direct or indirect, for the use of the highway.
LORD EMMOTT: My Lords, I am very grateful to your Lordships for giving permission for this matter to be considered at once. I have now to move that this House doth not insist on its Amendment. The Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed—and it is only one out of about eight pages of Amendments—was that introduced on the Motion of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, to make it possible for a charge to be made for a motor car left on the public highway for the purpose of paying an attendant. The words are:
"Where any parking place is part of a street, regulations may provide for charges to be paid to the local authority in respect of the services of on attendant "
The noble Earl himself was not very keen on the matter; neither, perhaps, was the House. The Reason given by the Commons for disagreeing is that the Commons consider it inexpedient to authorise the making of a charge, direct or indirect, for the use of the highway. I must say that I also was not at all keen on this Amendment, and for these reasons I beg to move that we do not insist upon it.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment.—(Lord Emmott.)
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I think the noble Lord has very accurately stated the situation. I do not think, however, that the noble Earl opposite—although I ought not to speak for him; he has got his own leaders to speak for him—set very great store upon the Amendment. It arose out of a controversy in different quarters in your Lordships' House, and I am in exactly the same position as the noble Lord who has just spoken. I was not at all keen about this particular Amendment. It appeared to me that it would be a considerable departure from established practice to make a charge and, although the proposal was modified in deference to the criticisms in all quarters of your Lordships House, yet it may be very reasonably contended that the changes made do not really remove the vice of the Amendment, which, in effect, proposed to make a charge for the use of a public place to which all His Majesty's subjects have access as of right. Therefore, so far as the Government are concerned, we shall certainly not resist the Motion which the noble Lord has made.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

GREAT YARMOUTH GAS ORDER, 1925.
DEVIZES GAS ORDER, 1925.
GREAT DRIFFIELD GAS ORDER, 1925.
LANGLEY MILL AND HEANOR GAS ORDER, 1925.
THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (VISCOUNT PEEL): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion which appears on the Paper in my name.
Moved, That the draft Special Orders, which were presented on the 15th day of July last, be approved.—(Viscount Peel.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CHINA.
THE EARL OF GOSFORD THE EARL OF GOSFORD had given Notice to call attention to the situation in China, and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I rise with some diffidence to address your Lord ships on so difficult and so complex a question as that of China. The present situation, as will have been apparent to your Lordships from a study of the

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current news, is one of extreme gravity, affecting as it does the security of many of our fellow-countrymen in a distant land, and vast political and material interests of wide Imperial import. I crave the well-known indulgence of your Lordships for one who has not previously had the honour to address this House, and who labours under all the disabilities of prolonged absence from England. All that I can hope to do is to describe the situation in China as I have seen it, after a personal experience of six years' work and travel, during which I have been in constant and direct touch with the notabilities and affairs of China and its neighbouring countries.
China is going through a period of intense political and intellectual disturbance. Civil war has been incessant for the last few years; and now strikes extending over a wide area, and a boycott of British goods, are paralyzing communications, industry, and trade. The China market, which is the one market in the world which could offer a real and immediate outlet for our harassed industries—if only peace and security could be established—is practically dead. Before we can find a remedy for this state of affairs we must understand the underlying causes of unrest. The seat of the trouble lies in the prolonged insecurity and economic losses of the Chinese people. They are an essentially practical folk, hard-working farmers, shopkeepers, merchants, and bankers. During the last few years there have been incessant interferences with their crops, their trade and transport at the hands of irregular troops, brigands and tax-gatherers. There is no security for life or property, there is no incentive to produce, and the channels of credit are drying up. Those are the underlying causes of unrest.
In such circumstances it is easy to stir up trouble. The ground has been prepared for an outbreak of feeling against foreigners, by deflecting attention from the internal dissensions to the foreigner, his Treaties and his privileges, some of which certainly afford a pretext for legitimate grievance and require reconsideration. A very real spirit of nationalism has been growing up in recent years, and it is fed and inflamed by attributing all the ills of China to foreign privilege and foreign influence. In such an atmosphere the most trifling incident may cause a
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nation-wide conflagration. That, indeed, is what has just happened. A strike occurred in a Japanese cotton-mill. The strike led to a demonstration, directed primarily against Japan. The shooting of some of the demonstrators by the Municipal Police Force of the International Settlement at Shanghai directed the agitation against the British, because the handful of police immediately concerned happened to be British subjects. This incident at Shanghai on May 30 was the match which started the conflagration.
The fundamental causes of the present trouble do not lie in anti-foreign feeling, or in Bolshevist propaganda, or in labour unrest. All those factors are involved and have appeared conspicuously upon the surface. But the seat of the trouble lies far deeper—in the sufferings of a great people caused by constant unrest, and in a sense of grievance at the attitude of the Treaty Powers since the Washington Conference. If we are going to help China we must at least understand the real cause of her troubles. The disruptive influences in China have become so acute, and China's administrative machinery is so ill-equipped for action covering the whole of that vast country, that, the situation, both as regards the immediate troubles and the deeper causes, has slipped beyond the control of any Chinese Party. They recognise them selves that friendly help and co-operation from the Powers is essential to any real settlement of the present troubles.
A genuine effort to remedy outstanding grievances in China was made at the Washington Conference in 1922, but the Treaties then concluded have not yet been enforced, partly owing to France's delay in their ratification. In the three intervening years matters have gone from bad to worse, and British interests in China are now in desperate straits. The Treaties, on which the smooth working of foreign trade has long depended, have become a dead letter. The railways, in which large British investments are involved, are in a state of disrepair and chaos and are constantly subjected to military interference; it is almost impossible to get a car on any of the lines without heavy bribes to local military authorities. Taxes are levied on every branch of trade by any military adventurer with a small force behind him. The various provincial Armies spend their time in harrying one another, and the

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brigands are left free to harass the farmers and traders. Six weeks ago it looked as if there was no coherence in China, no hope of unity or agreement on any single issue.
But the unexpected often happens in China, and the incident at Shanghai—the collision between the students and the police has created a sudden unanimity of thought and emotion throughout the country. This incident must be investigated and settled, promptly, publicly and impartially, before we can hope for the restoration of tranquillity, a stoppage of the strikes and boycotts and the rehabilitation of our good name in China. As soon as this incident is closed we must settle down in earnest to the task of dealing with China's outstanding problems. The special Conference promised at Washington in 1922 must be convened without delay, with extended and, indeed, the fullest possible powers to help China and to re-establish foreign prestige.
There is one initial difficulty to negotiation—the refusal of the various factions in China to recognise, to support and to stand by the decisions of the central Government. But that is their own affair. We cannot dictate what body of men in China shall speak with the responsible voice of the, Chinese people. But, if we announce our readiness to negotiate, experience suggests that the real forces in China will find some way of making their voice heard, and of securing representation on the body which will be gathered together to meet our delegates. We are bound to recognise the body which is put forward, by the Chinese themselves as their chosen representatives. Should such a body fail to materialise we must, of course, be guided by events. But it is not safe to assume that no responsible Government will be forthcoming. There is, indeed, every hope that the good sense of the Chinese will prevail and force them to sink their minor differences, when once they are convinced that we are approaching them in good faith and good will.
As soon as we are in touch with a recognised and responsible body we should hold ourselves ready to co-operate with them in any way they may desire. It is greatly to be hoped that they will speedily regain and maintain effective control of the national railways, which
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are a most important factor in the situation, for, on the one hand, the railways facilitate the constant military operations, and, on the other, they help or hinder vitally the orderly processes of trade. The special Conference will be empowered to arrange an increase in the Customs Tariff in such a way as to justify the abolition of all illegal taxation on trade in the interior. The question of the unsecured Debt, the domestic loans, and all outstanding foreign loans and debts for railway and other Government material, should be dealt with in a spirit of equity. They are a separate issue, entirely distinct from and outside of the question of trade. China can well afford, and will certainly wish, to deal with them in an honourable way, but it would be most impolitic to meet such obligations from the Customs revenue and the taxation of trade.
His Majesty's Government have expended an immense amount of trouble and energy in trying to help British industries and to foster British trade with the Dominions overseas, with Central Europe and with Russia; but it is only too clear that each of these markets is capable of showing only a slow response to their efforts. China stands waiting, the greatest producer of raw material and the greatest potential customer for manufactured articles of any market in the world—rich, productive, enterprising and eager for development.
Your Lordships may ask how the assembling of the Special Conference promised under the Washington Treaties can possibly help to settle the political troubles of China. This is a difficult question, but I will try to answer it. China had existed for thousands of years as a group of practically independent provinces, held together very lightly by a super-imposed Court, a theocracy, speaking with divine authority through the Emperor, the Son of Heaven. Theocracy exists with difficulty under modern conditions of thought and education, and China's theocracy has recently collapsed together with many others. As a result China has been thrown back upon her fundamental form of governing machinery—the family, the village and the province; that machinery, fortunately, remains more or less intact.
But nations cannot exist nowadays without some centralised Government. There are problems of national communications, national revenue and expenditure to be dealt with, and national defence and foreign relations must be cared for. And so, ever since the Revolution of 1911, the Chinese provincial leaders have been struggling among themselves for the supreme power, for the creation of a national government in which each hopes to play a dominant part. But the country is so big that unification is practically impossible. The first object of our policy is to co-operate with the forces of law and order in China, so far as they may desire our co-operation, in re-establishing such conditions as will bring about a peaceable situation in that country. An increased Customs revenue, provided that it is apportioned in such a way as to give a square deal to each Province, will help a good deal. Peace on the railways will help quite as much. Both revenues and railways are a vital concern of all trade, both Chinese and foreign, and therefore fit subjects for a Conference. We promised a Conference three years ago, and we ought to show our good faith by getting to work without further delay.
Will your Lordships bear with me if I say one word about labour in China? A considerable and very natural interest has been shown in this country in regard to the attitude of Chinese labour to the present trouble, and the effect of investing British capital in the development of Chinese industries. It has even been suggested that one of the root causes of the present trouble, lies in the fact that Chinese labour, especially in the Treaty Ports, is subject to such unfair treatment that it was bound to rise in revolt against the inhuman conditions of modern industry in China. And it has been argued that the use of British capital for the development of Chinese industries is contrary to the best interests of our own workers. I believe that these arguments are based on a misconception of the facts and the issues.
It cannot be denied that labour conditions in China are not good and that they call for the most careful consideration at the hands of all employers of labour in that country. A vast and undigested mass of workers has drifted into the great industrial centres, and has
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thus become divorced from the restraining influences of family and village life, which are the real governing forces in China. The tendency of the Chinese is always directed towards the formation of guilds and societies for mutual protection; and the industrial workers are forming such organizations at every centre of industrial activity. Such organizations have received sympathetic support from British employers when they have concerned themselves with industrial problems. It is regrettable that they have occasionally been used for political purposes and have worked with purely political ends, to the detriment of the workers' interests. Those organizations have established themselves as a power in the land.
We cannot overlook the fact that labour conditions are bad in some factories in China, that children are sometimes unduly exploited, and that conditions of work and pay are sometimes bad. But I can assure you that in the large majority of British factories in China labour is very well cared for. You have only to watch the stream of workers, men, women and children, emerging from their shifts to see that they are happy, well-fed and well-clothed, and that their general condition compares favourably with that of the industrial worker in any country.
But the Chinese are essentially an agricultural people. The Chinese industrial workers miss their traditional village life, and they hanker after the life of the field—with its intense pressure at periods of seed-time and harvest, but with its long rests. Every Chinese has a real sense of the quiet pleasures of life, for which no material, well-being entirely compensates him. But I could name many factories, both under British and Chinese control, in which the welfare of the Chinese is as well cared for as in any English factory, and in which conditions of work and relative conditions of pay are quite as good as they are in England. The real burden on the worker occurs in the small factories in the interior, which are far removed from the limelight and the competition and the public opinion of the larger centres. The burden on the children must be sought in social conditions over which it is often difficult to exercise any control. In many parts of the country the women refuse to be separated from their children, and insist on bringing them to the factories. These

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problems are receiving the most earnest Attention from British employers in China. But it is not just to attack general industrial conditions in China on humanitarian grounds, or to attribute to them an undue influence in a political struggle in which they have actually taken little part.
Let me now turn to the economic side of the Chinese labour problem. There are indications in the papers that have come under my notice that labour in this country feels a certain resentment at the development of industry in China with British capital. On the face of it there may appear to be something to be said for this argument. But I do not think that it goes to the heart of things. The products of industry in China do not now compete, and in my opinion will never be in any real competition, with the industrial products of this country. It is, on the other hand, of the greatest importance to British industry that China should be encouraged to produce such articles as she can produce with relative economy and efficiency. She must have something to sell if she is going to buy from us. Undue insistence upon the hardships of labour in China will not help the Chinese; it ambarrasses both employer and employee. I can assure your Lordships from experience that, in the majority of recent strikes, the workers have left their work with the greatest reluctance, and that they have generally gone back gladly and without any pressure for material changes. They have admitted in almost every instance that strikes have been caused not by economic but by political pressure.
Labour in this country has a vast interest in the welfare of China. If peace could be restored in China that market would offer the greatest and the quickest conceivable outlet for the products of British industry. It is the one market in the world which could offer an immediate solution for our unemployment problem. China can absorb, she wants and she can pay for, an immense volume of cotton goods, steel work, railway material, bridges, electric plant, and practically every type of article which is produced in bulk in this country. British labour has one real interest in the Chinese problem and should play a leading part in impressing upon our Government the need for the greatest possible effort in restoring peace in China, in opening the
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channels of trade, and in developing a market such as is unparalleled in the history of the world. If once it were realised how immense an outlook for our industries and our trade would be available if only we could help China to get on to her feet again, it would be clear that the solution of the China problem is one of the greatest problems of British statesmanship of our day. That realisation can only be brought about if the political and industrial and commercial interests in England face the situation with a strong and united front, and insist on decisive action, not in the interests of international finance, but in the interests of China, which are, fortunately, concurrent with the interest of British trade and industry.
Our fellow-countrymen in China are faced with a grave situation. The Chinese have been inflamed by an insidious propaganda and, as so often happens in nervous crises, the brunt of bitterness has been directed against China's best friends. For we are friends of China and I believe that they have the fullest recognition of that fact. Our people have been in the closest relations with them in every sort of business enterprise; we have learned to work with them on a basis of real co operation; and millions of Chinese now enjoy an amazing prosperity and security in those countries adjoining China that are under the British flag.
But, whilst recognising that the Chinese as a people are far from unfriendly to the British, we cannot overlook the fact that, for one reason or another, the present attack is directed primarily against Great Britain. The interests of the British in China are conspicuous, and therefore apt to bear the brunt of any sudden agitation. And British policy will decide the issue. The rights and wrongs of the actual shooting incident at Shanghai can only be decided by impartial investigation; but whatever the results, every Englishman, whether in China or elsewhere, will deeply deplore the loss of life that occurred at a moment of intense nervous pressure on both sides. We must convince the Chinese that we are determined that the actual incident shall be decided on a basis of strict justice. But we must equally convince them that we cannot permit reckless interference with the security of our people. On the quiet

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sanity of our policy at this moment of crisis depends the health of all our future relations with China.
We have now been forced into a position in which we must declare ourselves openly and firmly on the side of the forces of law and order. It is impossible to ignore the disastrous effects of the propaganda issuing from the headquarters of the Soviet at Peking. But that is, after all, only a side issue, an irritating factor; the main problem is a Chinese problem and must be dealt with as such. China herself must deal with Bolshevism, and she will do so in her own way, as soon as she is on her feet again. We can help her to gain that strength by insisting on the personal responsibility of each and every Chinese authority for the safety of the British lives and property within their zone of influence. We must aid them to fulfil that responsibility by the co-operation of adequate naval patrols. And we must make it clear that those patrols are protective, not aggressive. We are fortunate in having able and experienced representatives, not only in Pekin but in the consulates which are established at every vital point in China. Our consuls speak Chinese, and are in intimate touch with all the Chinese leaders. I doubt indeed whether there is any country in the world where we have such good official representation as we have in China. If our representatives on the spot are assured of solid backing from home, they can exercise considerable moral influence in the interest of order, through co-operation with the Chinese authorities. Every recognised Chinese authority would welcome co-operation and support on such lines. Chaos is just as harrowing to them as to us.
The Chinese authorities, however, have not the strength in the present situation to cope with troubles such as now exist, especially when they are aggravated from outside. It is unthinkable that we should attempt to intervene in Chinese internal affairs, and we have maintained the view, consistently and wisely, that it would be impolitic to back one Chinese leader or one Chinese Party against another; in their Party struggles they must work out their own salvation. But we can and must stand solid behind each responsible authority to the extent of insisting that they protect effectively the lives, the
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property and the interests of our people. Protection of our interests means incidentally the protection of Chinese interests, and security for all.
This may sound too simple to be true, but I am convinced that the simple policy of open justice and an insistence on security will go a very long way towards settling the immediate trouble in China. And the immediate crisis, this orgy of intimidation and boycott, must be settled before we can deal with the greater problems now outstanding by the normal processes of negotiation; though we can well afford to take the broad and generous line of proclaiming even now our readiness to proceed with preparations for negotiation. Before I leave the story of the crisis I should like to pay my tribute to our countrymen and countrywomen on the spot. In the full ardour of a tropical summer they are standing to their task of maintaining order, and doing their work in their communities with a devotion, self-sacrifice and courage which is beyond all praise and worthy of the best tradition of our race. Their good-natured tolerance has averted worse disaster and won the admiration of all the better thinking classes in China. But they cannot hold out indefinitely. We must come to their support without hesitation and without delay.
It will restore confidence if the Chinese know that we are pushing forward the fulfilment of the promises made at Washington. Our good faith has been brought in question; and our good faith must be unquestioned if we are going to succeed. We should appoint immediately our representatives to a Conference in China, and we should proclaim our readiness to clear up all outstanding difficulties generously, and with a determination to meet legitimate grievances. The Chinese are asking for increased revenue from the Tariff; it is a legitimate demand. They are asking also for a square deal, and discussion on a basis of frankness and equality in regard to all outstanding Treaty problems. They ask for the removal of abuse of privilege—in the method of interpreting our extra-territorial rights, in municipal representation and in the control of the Mixed Court at Shanghai. They are a reasonable people; they know as well as we do that Treaty privilege when not abused acts as much in their

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interest as in our own. But they know as well as we do that there are abuses. We have promised to remedy them and we should do so without delay. The promised Conference in China offers the best possible machinery for such an effort. It will afford an opportunity to examine and solve outstanding problems, not only with the Chinese, but with our American and Japanese and other friends who have interests in China similar to our own—security and freedom on their lawful occasions.
If I have stressed unduly the material interests of our country in China it is not because I underestimate the deeper interests that link the two great civilisations, the two great political entities of Great Britain and China. If I have underestimated the difficulties of the settlement it is not because I have been sheltered from personal experience of those difficulties. But all my experience impresses me with the need for common sense and sympathy in dealing with the immediate and critical situation. The immediate problem is the stoppage of the strikes and the boycott. That can only be accomplished if we realise that boycotts and strikes are the Chinese method of making a protest against what are, in their view, remediable grievances. The Chinese will stop boycotts and strikes if we can convince them of our good faith and our desire to meet them in a spirit of justice and equity. After that will come the major effort, the readjustment of the conditions under which we live and trade in China. To meet that major situation we need a new attitude of mind in regard to China, a fuller appreciation of their point of view. If once we can convince them that we do appreciate their point of view, that we have a sincere desire to meet them in a spirit of comradeship and fair dealing, we shall find them a reasonable and kindly people, equally alive to our common difficulties and equally desirous of living together on neighbourly terms.
If I may add one last word it is this. It is not possible to over-estimate the value of personality in China. Personality will count above all things at the coming Conference. If I have succeeded in convincing your Lordships that this country and our Empire have a vast interest at stake in China, I trust that the influence of this House will be exercised to ensure that British representation on that Conference
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is entrusted to a statesman of the very highest standing, ability and reputation, to one who can speak with full authority, and who can bear the full weight of the reputation of our country and our race. Prestige is strength in China, and strength is greater than force. At this moment of crisis, when our problems in Asia are undergoing reconstruction, we owe it to the Chinese, we owe it to ourselves, to convince China that this is no Party question in England, that every Party, every class in England stands united in a determination that justice shall be done in China, and a desire to re-establish our relations on a basis satisfactory to both sides and thus holding some hope of permanence. I beg to move.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE EARL OF BALFOUR): My Lords, I am quite sure that you have all listened to the speech of my noble friend with the greatest sympathy and much admiration. Not only has he spoken well, but he has spoken with all the authority of an observer who has had many years intimate experience of the problems about which he speaks. He comes here fresh from China and intimately acquainted with the feelings of our countrymen in China, and he has shown a very sympathetic comprehension of the feelings in China towards our own country and other countries concerned in trade with that ancient and mysterious civilisation. I have frankly to admit that, while I listened to my noble friend's speech with great admiration, with great sympathy, and I will add with a very large measure of agreement, I could not help feeling that he was more successful, perhaps, in explaining to your Lordships in what the difficulties of the Chinese problem consisted than in giving us a clear lead as to the path that he would see pursued in order to extricate the Treaty Powers from the difficulties in which the Chinese position has inevitably placed them.
I do not blame my noble friend for not finding that which, perhaps, is not to be found, for not pointing out a way which, perhaps, does not exist, but if there was any undertone of criticism of His Majesty's Government in the speech that he delivered—and I thought that here and there I did detect such an undertone—I am not sure that if it were appropriate I could not, from his own

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speech, point out what are the reasons for any comparative failure or delay in settling the Chinese question and how little any mere generalities about China are likely to get us out of these difficulties. The noble Earl himself made it perfectly clear, in a very able and interesting part of his speech, that the fundamental problem of China arises from the fact that at this moment that vast population and that ancient civilisation has no Central Government capable of carrying out the duties which, in all other countries, are supposed to devolve and do devolve upon the Central Government. His speech, indeed, clearly showed, I think, that in the sense in which we use the phrase Central Government there is no Central Government in China.
He pointed out that this strange, anomalous and, at the present time, most unfortunate condition of affairs really dates from an immemorial antiquity. I think he used some such description as this: that China had never, from ancient historic times, been a closely organised community, but has always consisted of Provinces very loosely strung together upon the prestige of the divinely inspired at Pekin. In the present state of China we can hardly describe these Provinces as being even loosely connected. It would be more accurate, in some cases at least, to say that they are hardly connected at all, and that each of these military chiefs within his own district is carrying out in his own fashion his own ideas of government, with the unhappy result that security has vanished, that illegal taxation is prevalent, that brigandage goes unchecked and that the very elements of good government, the very elements of a stable society, seem, over large areas and in most important respects, almost to have vanished from the horizon of Chinese politics.
That is a most unfortunate state of things, both for China and for those who have commercial or other relations with China, and it is a state of things with which it is almost impossible, if not quite impossible, for those who are not Chinese to deal in any substantial fashion, or to offer any satisfactory remedy, but I would point out that whatever blunders, or worse than blunders, might have been committed in the long historic past with regard to China, this condition of things that I have attempted to describe, and
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that my noble friend himself described in admirable terms, is not due, so far as I know, to foreign action of any kind. China is not the victim of invasions which have shattered her fabric of government. There has been no attempt on the part of foreign nations to impose an alien civilisation or an alien creed upon the Chinese. Certainly, throughout the whole period with which we need concern ourselves this afternoon, they have been masters in their own house, and if in the course of their national development they have reached the unhappy path which my noble friend has so admirably described, I do not think that any substantial part of the responsibility for that state of affairs really falls upon foreign countries.
I am quite sure it does not fall upon any of the successive Governments who have held power in this country. How, indeed, is it possible for us to deal with what my noble friend described as the "fundamental difficulty of the situation"—namely, the chaotic condition of Chinese politics? I believe the Chinese themselves describe the present Government of China as a Provisional Government. Even as a Provisional Government its powers extend for many purposes very little beyond the walls of Pekin, and there is no diplomatic difficulty so great as that which arises from the impossibility of negotiations between countries which have and countries which have not anything which deserves to be called a Central Government. That my noble friend has himself described as the central difficulty of the present position, but my noble friend, while he described that central difficulty, pointed out no way by which we could seriously mitigate it and was himself quite loud and clear in his pronouncement that it would be sheer insanity for us to attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of China. Your Lordships will see that in my view, at all events, there is no clear policy before this country, or before any country which has relations with China, which can directly go to the root of the evil. China, and China alone, can bring about that change in her present political situation which may give promise of happier relations between herself and the rest of the world in future. All we can do is to do our best to mitigate the situation whose essential character it does not, unfortunately, rest with us permanently to modify.

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There were certain parts of the speech of my noble friend—very interesting parts—on which I do not propose to say anything. I mean the condition of labour in China and the general industrial state of things where Chinese labour works, if left alone, apparently quite harmoniously with foreign capital. He speaks with personal know ledge of that subject. I have no personal knowledge, but I am quite ready to believe his statement that, at all events in the British managed factories, the condition of native labour is satisfactory and that where it is unsatisfactory great efforts are being made to improve it. I perfectly believe it and it makes me—if I may make a parenthetical observation all the more indignant at the flood of absolutely unfounded calumny poured upon our country, perhaps from ignorance and perhaps from prejudice, but I fear also from deeper pretexts intended not to benefit the Chinese but to injure the British. I will content myself with the aspects of the present Chinese situation which more directly concerns the diplomacy of His Majesty s Government, and there I find myself in the closest harmony with the observations of my noble friend.
There are two points on which he laid stress, and it so happens that those are also points on which His Majesty's Government have a clear policy, which they are endeavouring to the best of their ability to carry out. The first of those relates to the trouble in Shanghai. An unhappy incident has been poisoned by the political methods to which I have just referred, but I do not mean to go back upon the incident of May 30, and I do not mean to say a single word upon the merits of either side in that controversy, for a reason which I am sure will directly appeal to your Lordships. I mean for the reason that in the view of His Majesty's Government there ought, to be a judicial inquiry, there ought to be a public inquiry, and it ought to be an inquiry of a kind which will command the confidence, not merely of other countries, but of China itself. That is the policy and that is the desire of His Majesty's Government. If all the arrangements are not as yet made it is because this is a subject on which all the Treaty Powers have a right to express their opinion.
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People sometimes talk as if we were the solitary Power concerned with China and as if it were our responsibility that things do not move rapidly and precisely in the direction which we should desire. Your Lordships are not likely to make that mistake. You know perfectly well that we are but one of many Treaty Powers, that, we have to carry with us in any course we want to take the free assent of many different Governments, with whom negotiations have to be undertaken in order to arrive at a common agreement, with all the delays which such diplomatic negotiations unfortunately always involve. But what we desire to do, and what we are endeavouring to do, in the matter of Shanghai is perfectly simple and perfectly plain. We desire that there should be a judicial inquiry, that it should be public, and that it should take place as soon as possible.
The other quest on relates to the Treaty of Washington. There were phrases occasionally dropped by my noble friend in the course of his speech which almost seemed to indicate that His Majesty's Government should have moved earlier in the direction of carrying out the views of the Washington Conference with regard to a further Conference which was to take place upon matters in which the Chinese people and Government are specially interested. I do not know whether my noble friend really expressed his settled opinion when he suggested that His Majesty's Government were open to criticism in that respect, but if he will allow me to say so I do not think that if he did intend to criticise them he criticised them with justice. The Washington Conference, of which I had personal experience, provided that certain questions connected with Customs and connected with extra-territoriality should be dealt with at a Conference within three months after the ratification of the Treaties. I hope it will take place within three months after the ratification of the Treaty, and no doubt my noble friend is perfectly right in saying that the common view was, after the Washington Treaty, that the three months would begin to run from a period very close to the arrangement of that Treaty.
The wording of the Treaty, if I remember rightly, was that it should take place within three months after ratification. Ratification has only just taken place.

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The delay, therefore, however regrettable, is certainly not due to His Majesty's Government. We ratified immediately after the Conference, and if all the Powers concerned did not ratify that was not through any lâches of ours. But now that the Treaty has been ratified, now that it has for the first time become operative in this connection, I do not think that so far as we are concerned any delay has taken place in our desire to see the Conference brought together and the great problems which are to be entrusted to it freely discussed by the representatives of the Treaty Powers. Of course, it is impossible not to feel that that Conference, when it meets, which I hope will be very soon, will meet, so far as we can see, under circumstances not very promising for a rapid and happy solution.
We come back here to the topic upon which my noble friend dilated and to which I have already referred: I mean the hopelessly chaotic position of China at the present moment. One of the great objects of the Conference is at the same time to increase the amount of money available by the Chinese Government out of the Customs Duties and to put an end to those unfortunate, irregular and, I imagine, frequently illegal methods of internal taxation which do so much to hamper the trade both of China and of China's customers. Well, but how can any reform of that sort be carried out so long as China is effectively divided between these War Lords, each supreme in his own Province, each dealing with taxation in his own way, each carrying out his own views of law and order? The negotiations must take place directly not with any of those War Lords but with the nominal Government—nominal from many points of view—at Pekin. I hope that in spite of those difficulties the Conference will be fruitful in good results. It is impossible to speak with confidence. It is impossible to speak with confidence of the result of negotiations carried on in such exceptional circumstances and in circumstances so ill-contrived to make a difficult negotiation easy to carry through or, when it is carried through, effective in its actual application.
We must hope for the best, but in the meanwhile I entirely agree with my noble friend that, be the circumstances favourable in China or unfavourable, be it true or be it untrue that it is almost hopeless
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to expect that an arrangement Binding on all China can be made with the Chinese Government in existing circumstances—in spite of all that, after what passed at Washington, after what was embodied in the Washington Treaty, it is impossible for us to delay carrying out the obligations into which we then entered—namely, to give China, if China as a single entity can be said to exist, the full benefit of this international discussion with a view of relieving and modifying the old Treaty engagements in such a manner as, if properly used, will be of infinite benefit to China and, I hope and believe, no small benefit to China's friends and Allies.
That is really all that I have to say. My noble friend has dwelt, wisely dwelt I think, upon the value and importance of the Chinese markets to European trade and most of all, perhaps, to the trade of this country. But he was careful, I notice, not to put the appeal he made to your Lordships on too low a key. It is not merely as exporters and importers, it is not merely as representing a public which desires from China raw materials and other products of China and desires to sell to China the results of their labours—it is not from that point of view alone, as my noble friend was careful to point out, that he spoke, and that I desire to speak. It is impossible not to look at the condition of that enormous territory and that huge population without sympathy and good will. Everything that we can in reason do to help them to help themselves, I quite agree, should be done, but we Have to recognise, as I think my noble friend did fully recognise, that, if ever there was a case in which, if salvation is to be attained, it must be worked out by a people themselves, it is the case in China at this moment. China must, in the familiar phrase, pull herself together, China must be able to obtain for herself and for others a vigorous and centralised Government which will secure the ordinary requisites of civilisation, and it is not till it succeeds in effectually carrying out that end that anything we can do, anything that the Washington Conference can do, anything that the Treaty Powers can do, will really produce a great or permanent effect. I am sure that your Lordships, in the first place, will desire to help the Government so far as you can

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in carrying out the immediate policy which I have endeavoured to sketch, and are prepared to express and to show your great sympathy with the troubles in which China has allowed herself to fall and to express your hopes that she, by her own efforts, will be able to extricate herself, not merely to our advantage, but, still more, to the advantage of the innumerable millions which make up that ancient nation.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, it is my duty to put before your Lordships the view of this question which those whom I represent in this House entertain. I listened with great sympathy to the concluding words of the noble Earl who has just spoken. From the policy which he there shadowed I have not the least inclination to dissent. My criticism goes a little deeper. It comes to this. How did we get ourselves into this situation and how did China get herself into this situation? I was among the audience of the noble Earl who opened this debate. I thought, in admirable taste and with a great knowledge of facts which he had acquired on the spot. I listened to what he said, but his speech, like the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, suffered from this—that neither was able to suggest any immediate remedy in which he seemed to have any hope. In fact, I have rarely listened to a more pessimistic debate than the debate which has taken place this afternoon on the affairs of China.
What is wrong with China? In the first place, it is an enormous nation of some 300,000,000 persons, who are quite different from us in the West. They are not fond of government. I should say of the Chinese, so far as I have been able to study and read about them, that they like as little government as they can possibly do with. That is, perhaps, the reason why they have so readily split up. It is quite true that they had for a time a Central Government, and nominally have it now, which was, as the noble Earl who moved the Motion said, a theocracy—a government embodied in the tradition of the Manchus. That has shrunk to very small dimensions. When I heard the noble Earl say that we should have to negotiate with what remains of it in Pekin, I own it did not give me very great comfort for the influence of those negotiations over the
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whole of China. It is true, as the noble Earl who moved the Motion said, that China has broken itself up into a multitude of Governments which I should call local were they not, relatively to those to which we are accustomed in the West, enormous in extent. But these are very imperfect Governments. They are military. They are not organised. The result of that state of things is a great deal of disorder.
What must be our attitude in that condition of things? I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, that we cannot hope to put it right quickly; but this we can do—we can study a little more closely than we have done what has been our relation towards China in the past and we can draw some lessons of wisdom from that study. We have produced some of those very remarkable personalities of whom the noble Earl who moved the Motion spoke. We have had great Englishmen in China who understood the Chinese, got on with them, worked with them, and inspired them with new ideas. Some of our influence in things like the organisation of the Customs there has been very valuable. But we are too apt always and as a nation when things go smoothly for a little to leave them alone in the faith that they will continue to go smoothly. I am not suggesting that we are alone in that. I think the other nations who have been associated with us in this contact with the Chinese problem have been no better. But the point is that we have not taken the trouble to deal with the Chinese in that spirit which, if we had moved in it, would have had at least the chance of inspiring them with a sense of our sympathy and helpfulness. I am not suggesting that it is an easy thing to do. I am not suggesting that you could write out instructions to the Minister at Pekin or Hong Kong saying just exactly what he is to do. It is a matter of personality, as the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, said.
It is no new question. It is a defect of our nation that we have too little consciousness of what troubles the other nations with whom we are dealing. In certain admirable essays published by Matthew Arnold between thirty and forty years ago, he dwells upon this fact and illustrates it from the case of Ireland in a fashion the truth of which is well exemplified to-day. It has taken us a

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long time to get away from the sins, the unconscious sins, which Matthew Arnold pointed out to us then. What was true of Ireland, and has been true of other countries with which we have been dealing, is true of China, too. Our middle-class outlook, our tendency to confine ourselves to trade, commerce and industry has prevented us from recognising other traits in a people with whom we have been dealing, who themselves have traits which have to be taken into account if one is to get anything like peaceful or stable government.
I am not the only person who has said this. A very strange person—because he was himself the very exemplification of the middle-class spirit of which I have spoken—Mr. Cobden, said it a great many years ago. He denounced our action in China. He said we made it merely an affair of trade and missions. Although well disposed to both of them, he did not think that the intervention of traders or missionaries was very helpful in China. There are, no doubt, admirable people in the ranks of both, but there are also people who are not admirable. The result is that people among them have called for assistance and the help of force for the preservation of law and order, and the Chinese, wrongly or rightly, get extremely to dislike the people who set these things going. When I heard the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, saying that the things that are going on and the disorderly risings which were taking place in China must be dealt with by sufficient force, I did not dissent from him. It is necessary to preserve law and order; but remember when you are a foreigner in another country, however well you may think of yourself and however entitled you may be to think well of yourself, you have to go with extreme caution in applying force to put down even local disturbances such as that at Shanghai the other day.
In that condition of things the moral I draw from the whole matter is that in the past China has not been a sufficient subject of study to our diplomats and to our Governments generally. What to do with China is a very difficult question. It is a question that requires the most full information and facts. It is a question that requires close conference with other nations. When the noble Earl said that we were not guilty of any lâches in respect of the Washing-
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ton Conference, because as soon as it was ratified we got ready to conduct our negotiations about China, I thought he gave his case very much away. Why should we have delayed? Why should we not have made an immediate arrangement with Washington at the time the Conference took place, by which the first thing that was to happen—which was a Conference and nothing else—should be this conference upon the affairs of China. I am sure that was not diplomatically impossible and I think the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, could have accomplished it had he thought of it, and had realised that it was as urgent a matter as it has turned out to be. But all that simply shows the necessity of our taking counsel with other nations and addressing our minds to what the programme of China is going to be in the future.
For the past we are responsible and we cannot divest ourselves of the responsibility and blame. The blame lies more in the past than in the present, but I would have our Government realise that they have been to blame in the past in their treatment of the Chinese. The Chinese are not a people like our own. They are very sensitive to interference and it is no good to try to project European methods into their midst. I would certainly like to have an assurance that the closest consideration is being given to the future of China in the spirit of which I have spoken. I am sure it is a very great problem. I am sure it is a problem that will not only give us great trouble but must lose us a great deal of our trade if we are not careful about it. Therefore I would have your Lordships proceed to the study of China in a spirit more thorough than that in which in the past you proceeded to the study of Ireland. There is a great analogy between the two cases and the more you avoid in the one case the mistakes you made in the other the less you will suffer from it in the end.
Having said so much by way of criticism, I should like to add this. I am deeply impressed by the enormous difficulties which the Government have to encounter at the present time. I am deeply impressed by the little that it is in their power to do effectively. All I can say is that I hope they will proceed in that spirit of great caution which is inspired by the consciousness that they are dealing with a race different from

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ourselves, and I hope they will lose no opportunity of taking the closest counsel with those friendly Powers with whom we are in a position to take counsel and whom it is our duty to consult about the situation in that difficult country.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: My Lords, I hope the Lord President will not think that in any remarks that I propose to make I shall be in any way criticising His Majesty's Government. The reason is obvious. The present situation which has so unfortunately arisen in China is in no way due to any action or any step which has been taken by His Majesty's Government. Whatever Government had been in office in this country the same situation would have arisen. Therefore it is that I hope the noble Earl will allow me to make one or two suggestions in regard to what might be done in the future. Perhaps he will allow me at the outset, to say that the fact that he has already spoken may relieve him of the embarrassment of offering any criticism, whether in the way of approval or disapproval, of the various suggestions which I shall venture to make. I heard with the greatest pleasure that he had no wish to intervene in the internal affairs of China.
May I turn to the admirable speech of the noble Earl who introduced this matter? It was a fresh proof of a thesis which I always maintain, that there is no subject which is ever debated in this House upon which we do not possess an expert, in one quarter or another, and we are fortunate indeed to have had the matter introduced to us this afternoon by the noble Earl, who is so well acquainted with the affairs of China. We all realise the extraordinary difficulty of the situation, and I am glad to think how fully all the speakers this afternoon have recognised the hereditary, friendly attitude of this country towards China. The noble Earl spoke of the special Conference and of the delay which unfortunately has taken place in the ratification of the Treaty, and expressed the hope, which I heartily share, that the Conference will now be held without any delay.
The possibility that China may have fresh money is, I think, a happy augury. Contrary to what I think is the experience of most other countries, we have the curious fact that in China if you want to
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disperse an army you must find some money to pay it. As I understand it, armies in China are often kept together in the hope of receiving money. So long as a Central Government or Generals have not enough money to pay their armies, those armies keep together. Therefore, the best hope that there is for the dispersal of those armies in China is that there should be enough money provided to pay them and enable them to go home satisfied with what they have received.
The boycott which has been referred to is, of course, most unfortunate, but it is a symptom of something which is really a great deal worse. It is a symptom of the misunderstanding which has grown up between this country and China. It is a symptom of the most unfortunate distrust, which I am sorry to think they feel for the foreign policy towards China at this moment. The air is full of a number of intangibilities created by subtle minds which it is most difficult for anybody to controvert. It is difficult, I think, to point to any definite thing which has been done by these foreign Powers which really has justified the sudden and violent outbreak which has occurred in Shanghai. That unfortunate outbreak is a matter upon which I would venture to make one or two remarks. It is quite evident that the judicial inquiry which is about to be held is one which, as the noble. Earl, the Lord President, said, must command the general confidence, not only of the foreign nations, but also of China. It is to be held, I am glad to think the noble Earl told us, soon, and it is to be a public inquiry in Shanghai. I would venture to suggest to the noble Earl the possibility of adding to the judicial body which is inquiring into this matter a Chinese Judge, whose presence on that body would certainly cause it to receive an immense amount of Chinese confidence.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: His Majesty's Government are in favour of that policy.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I am delighted to hear that. It seems to me to be of the happiest augury for the success of that inquiry. Then I would venture, having met with success in that regard, to make yet another suggestion, and it is this—whether it would be possible for His Majesty's Government to offer some small sum of money to assist the compensation which might be awarded by this judicial

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inquiry to the relatives of the people who were murdered in the course of the Shanghai riot. It is no very large sum of money which would be wanted, nor should not be made directly by His Majesty's Government. But I think a sum of something like £5,000 might well be offered to the Shanghai Municipal Council, not, of course, directly from His Majesty's Government to the sufferers, but offered by His Majesty's Government to the Shanghai Municipal Council to aid them in any compensation which they think fit to make. A small sum of money of that kind would go far to create a new feeling of confidence in this country by the people in China. It is one of those small things which might go far to meet that in tangible, difficult situation of distrust in which we find ourselves at this moment.
I shall venture to suggest one or two other things which seem to me might very well be done. The first suggestion I would make concerns a matter which is not one upon which His Majesty's Government could be expected to give a decision immediately. It is whether it might not be possible in the future to secure that there should be some representatives of China upon the Municipal Council of Shanghai. That would, I think, go far to mitigate the hostility which is felt by a certain number of Chinese against the administration of that Council. Your Lordships, of course, realise that that hostility very often exists, however little justification there may be for its existence. The Council may do admirable work, but it will receive a great deal more confidence from the Chinese if there are two or three Chinese on that body. I should like to hear that it is possible to say something of the same kind with regard to the Mixed Court which, since the War in 1914, has, of course, assumed an entirely different character.
I turn now to the question of the Boxer Indemnity, a subject on which I rather expected to hear the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Haldane, expatiate. His Majesty's Government have changed the composition of the Committee which is sitting in this country to consider the best way of using the Boxer Indemnity for the benefit of Great Britain and China. The suggestion I make is that an inquiry should be made by the Committee itself, or by emissaries from the Committee, in China as to how that money can best be
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used. I feel sure that if the Committee itself were to send representatives in order to make inquiries in China the result of their recommendations would be more likely to receive the approval of the people in China.
There is another matter to which I desire to refer. At the time of the Washington Conference, February 2, 1922, a statement was issued—I do not know whether it was an inspired statement or not—as to a consideration of the relations of this country and China in regard to Wei-Hei-Wei. Anything which could be said further on that subject would be welcomed, I think, by the people of China. May I venture to make yet another suggestion? It is one which I hope will appeal to the noble Earl and also to the noble Marquess the Leader of the House. Would he consider the precedent which exists with regard to the way in which this country treated Japan in the matter of extra-territoriality? That precedent was set by the father of the noble Marquess and so admirably was the matter treated with Japan at that time that it laid the foundation for the firm friendship between Japan and this country in which we all rejoice to-day. It would be a matter of satisfaction to the Lord President of the Council and also to the noble Marquess if, by a similar act of statesmanship to-day, they were able to repeat the great success made by the noble Marquess's father on that occasion.
Finally, I throw out another suggestion, not indeed to be realised immediately, not perhaps for some two or three years to come, but still as an ultimate possibility. It is that there should be between China and this country a new instrument drawn up after free consultation between the two countries. At the present moment many of the Treaties which have regularised the position are not the result of equal discussion between two parties, but are rather in the nature of terms almost imposed by conquerors on the vanquished and those terms, even if they are good, do not naturally commend themselves to the vanquished party. I think a new instrument, drawn up after free discussion, although it might contain very much the same terms as a great many of the Treaties, would, from the mere fact that it was produced as the result of a discussion between two nations treating on equal footing, go far to relieve the sore-

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ness which undoubtedly exists with regard to the specially privileged position extended to foreigners at the present moment.
I hope that, with His Majesty's Government proceeding on the lines which they have themselves outlined this afternoon and adopting, perhaps, some of the suggestions I have ventured to make, we may before very long see the disappearance of the fooling of restlessness, the feeling of distrust, in China and that in its place we may see a restoration of that state of traditional friendship between that country and this to which I have already referred.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, the noble Earl, the Lord President of the Council, in the opening words of his very interesting speech spoke of the mysterious nature of the country to which the debate referred. I am certain that it is only when we have tried to realise the mystery that belongs to almost every question connected with this country that we are able to deal in a reasonable and open-minded manner with the great problems with which the Government are at this moment faced. Some of us have been trying for years to understand the facts about China, educationally, philosophically, historically and socially and also religiously, and again and again we have found ourselves baffled by the appearance of quite contradictory conditions, varying conditions which follow quickly one upon another, which seem to be absolutely contradictory but both of which ultimately we have found to be true.
Let mo give you an example of what I mean. We have been referring this afternoon to a movement which is said to be connected with the students in China. The word "student" may puzzle some of us, having regard to our Western use of the term, but in China the student class acts with an independence to which the student class in this country is not accustomed. Undoubtedly, at this moment the principal actors and spokesmen for good or ill in China seem to be of the student class. And we ask ourselves. What do these young men and young women think to do with regard to the present conditions? The moment I tried to look at this problem I at once
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recalled what happened not many months ago when that remarkable orator, M. Koo—I do not know where he exactly stands in the present controversy in China—a remarkable orator and a remarkable man, told us that at that moment the hunger of Chinese students for a better understanding of Western philosophy, both in its social and religious aspects, was so great that they were prepared to go almost any lengths, and would do anything to further any endeavours we in this country could make, to enable spokesmen of Western thought to go out to China—I am not speaking of any attempt to convert people from one religion to another—and expound to the Chinese Universities Western ideas and Western philosophy. They were prepared to make all kinds of efforts to facilitate the advent of such a messenger, even to preparing halls and translating documents and books, which he might wish to use, before he himself arrived in the country. They were prepared to see that everything was ready to his hand.
These are the people who, a few months later, we read of as now calling for the expulsion of the foreigner from China, getting rid of that influence altogether, and contending that the last thing on earth they want is to have Western influence or thought or agencies. One applies to those who are best conversant with China and its life—and I have done so—for an answer. They say that both are perfectly true. The students did think so that moment, and a great many of them want it still. Many of them do not. A great flood of feeling, however, creates this condition, that people who a short time ago desired the assimilation of Western knowledge, which they thought might be of advantage to them, are now making these other efforts and taking a line which is causing such despair to lovers of China when they look on the country as it now stands. The moral of that seems to me to be that if both these facts are true, if there is an underlying friendly side of the Chinese attitude which is prepared to take so very tangible and even expensive a form as has been shown, we have no more right to neglect that side when we are considering what opinions we are to bring to bear upon the Chinese problem as it stands to-day and what kind of process we can follow in commending to China that which we believe

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will be for the good of China and for the world as a whole, than we have to neglect that other side upon which, perhaps, more emphasis has been laid.
I believe that what we want at this moment in all our relations with China is not merely that firmness that has been spoken of and of which I entirely approve, that determination to protect our fellow-countrymen and others, if need be, from wrong, riot and disorder, but also that in that very act we may show a friendliness and a confidence in the better side of China's public life and especially of student thought. The contrast that I have tried to draw between the Chinese student, as represented a few months ago, revealing that welcoming spirit of to-day, and the other side of Chinese thought is a matter which we must recognise. The two attitudes co-exist and require some attitude on our part which will not forget either of them. The danger will necessarily be that in our desire for firmness we may forget the other side and ignore the wide, well-ploughed receptive soil that awaits any effort that we may make to show that fraternity and fellowship in these matters to which we may expect a response in China. We must not forget that side of the question if we are to try to understand how to meet the requirements which are finding expression to-day.
I rejoice to hear—though the announcement has not surprised me—that the attitude of His Majesty's Government in regard to the various Commissions, Conferences and Courts which have now to find a place in China's life, in connection both with long-standing problems and with those which have immediately arisen, is in the direction of allowing China to be trusted by us to play her own part judicially in some of these questions along with ourselves, in trying to deal with them and to right wrongs which the best part of the Chinese spirit regrets and deplores as much as we do. There are quite a number of these inquiries. There is, first of all, the Court which is to inquire into the Shanghai disturbances. The noble Earl told us to-night that His Majesty's Government is in favour of a Chinese Judge taking part in that investigation, that it is not only not to be left to foreigners to defend themselves against Chinese attack, but that the
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Chinese people themselves are to be properly represented.
Then there is, I suppose, the larger Conference that is impending, in which I trust that it will again be found practicable to give to China no small voice in dealing with the problems that are at issue. Again—and this was a point concerning which I do not think we heard anything to-night from His Majesty's Government—there is the question, to which Lord Beauchamp referred a few moments ago, of the Boxer Indemnity. There, too, I am hopeful that in pursuance of what was adumbrated in the debate on this subject some little while ago we shall find that Chinese help is going to be enlisted in the proper arrangement, control and allotment of the moneys which are at our disposal and at the disposal of China in this matter.
The point that I wanted simply to make, taking as a keynote that which the noble Earl said as to the mysteriousness of China, is that we must not forget the other side when we are speaking of the disorderly, troublous, antagonistic and violent elements, that we must remember the side that has asserted itself so markedly, and that, I believe, will be found to justify in a very high degree the confidence that we hope to be able to show, and will permit us to go forward with far greater help than we should enjoy if we were acting as critics from outside, or superior guides helping those who could not help themselves. If we enlist that spirit on our side, we shall find that we can go forward for the benefit of China and, therefore, of other countries as well.
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

SCHOOLS FOR THE BLIND.
LORD GORELL LORD GORELL rose to call attention to the Board of Education Circular 1297 relating to special schools, and to ask His Majesty's Government if they will not now modify the requirements therein set out as to the size of classes of blind children. The noble Lord said: My Lords, compared with the affairs of China

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the Question that I have placed upon the Paper is extremely simple. It does not affect an enormously large number of people, though it does affect a consider able number, but, quite apart from the question of numbers, it affects a class with whom the fullest possible sympathy should be shared—namely, the children in the schools for the blind. The point that I wish to make can be stated most clearly by referring, first of all, to the Regulations which were in force up to January 29, 1923. By Section 21 (c) of the former Regulations it was laid down that the teaching staff should not, as a rule, be regarded as sufficient unless there were at least one full-time teacher for every fifteen children in average attendance at a school for the blind.
That provision in the Regulations has been altered by what is known as Circular 1297, the object of which, as specifically stated in the circular, was to reduce the cost of these special schools. The circular contains words recognising that in these cases much more individual treatment and highly specialised teaching are necessary than in the ordinary schools—a proposition so obvious that it need hardly have been stated—and then goes on, in subsection (4) of Section 2, to call upon the local education authorities to take every opportunity of reducing the number of teachers employed, by the simple expedient of not appointing another teacher when a vacancy occurs, with the object of fulfilling the third clause of this circular, in which it is stated that the Board will be satisfied if the staffing of special schools conforms to the standard of one full-time teacher for every twenty children in average attendance at a school for the blind. That is to say, they substitute in a sentence the figure twenty as the normal size of a class for blind children for the former number of fifteen.
The point of my Question is to press His Majesty's Government to restore the smaller figure. I would mention that this is a case in which every teacher of the blind, without any exception whatever, is convinced that if this latter figure of twenty in a class is maintained it will be impossible for teachers to do their duty by the children in their charge. Upon that point they are absolutely unanimous, without any exception. Moreover, they have at various times since the issue of that circular made representations in
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that sense to the Board of Education. The College and Association of Teachers of the Blind, the British Medical Association and the National Union of Teachers have one and all made representations to that effect to the Board of Education, and they have not met with any success. I therefore feel it my duty, as I happen to be chairman of the council of the teaching profession, in which the teachers of the blind take their part with all the other classes of teachers, to bring the matter to your Lordships' attention.
It is further my information that wherever this Regulation has been enforced it has had a very detrimental effect upon the training of blind children. I am informed that in a number of cases where this has been so the head teachers have written to the Board of Education testifying to that fact. Now, the reason why every teacher of the blind in this country gives it as his or her conviction that it is not possible to deal with more than fifteen in a class satisfactorily, is that it is impossible to treat a class of blind children as a whole, except in purely oral instruction which does not play by any means the greatest part in their education. Wherever it is necessary to teach the blind child to use its hands instead of its eyes the child cannot be taught orally but has to be actually shown, and in such subjects as geography, natural history and elementary science the teaching must be individual. Most of all, in the important subject of handcraft one of the primary objects is to teach children to use their hands to take the place of sight so as to enable them to become self-supporting citizens. It must be perfectly obvious that if the result of this provision, originating solely from economy, is to send out children inefficiently trained, as the price of a very little direct economy the nation is going to have to bear a much larger indirect cost, because the children will not be so self-supporting as before.
I am given to understand that the noble Lord who is going to reply on behalf of the Government has been making investigations on the subject from medical authorities, and I have no doubt that if he thinks fit he will detail the result to your Lordships. That is not the point which I make at all. I am not attempting to challenge anything to do with the health of the children, or

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whether twenty in a properly ventilated and properly sized class room will not be as healthy as a class of fifteen. I am taking the point that this is a small direct economy leading to a much larger indirect expenditure, and that from the point of view, not merely of the most humane and generous treatment of the children who have lost their sight or never had it, but also from the point of view of economy, this provision in Circular 1297 ought to be modified or rescinded altogether.
I have said that it is the unanimous opinion of every single person who is engaged in teaching blind children that it should be done if they are to carry out their work satisfactorily. That is a testimony which it seems to me deserves very serious attention, because if the Regulation of twenty in a class for the blind is preserved it means that you are asking a large number of people to do work under conditions under which they are satisfied they cannot do their work properly. This request is not put forward in the interest of the teachers. I have been among them and talked with them and I am satisfied that they would all be perfectly willing to conduct classes of twenty, even if it meant harder work for themselves, if they felt that they could really give the children the education which they require. It is put forward distinctly in the interests of these blind children. I mentioned the date of the Circular—namely, January, 1923—and that is not unimportant. I think it might have been urged at a time when economic pressure was so great that the experiment might be tried of slightly increasing the size of the classes. It has been tried now for more than two years and I think, in view of the evidence which I have endeavoured to represent to your Lordships, it is perfectly apparent that the experiment has failed. Therefore, I ask the Government whether they cannot see their way to replacing the provision of the circular so far as the teaching of the blind is concerned by the old provision.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, I want first of all to sympathise with the noble Lord who has asked this Question in not having a direct representative of the Ministry here to answer his Question. I know perfectly well that this is a matter in which he has taken a great deal of interest, that it is a matter about which
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he knows a great deal and which he has very much at heart. Therefore I must apologise, although it is no fault of my own, that it is only a matter of five or six days which I have been able to give to searching out the feelings of the Ministry and trying to get some of the-facts sufficiently in order to enable me to answer the Question. It might possibly be assumed by your Lordships, from the Question as asked by Lord Gorell, that the number of children usually in classes for the blind is twenty, as mentioned in the circular to which the noble Lord has referred. I cannot say this on my own authority, but on the information which I have been able to get it appears that in very few cases are twenty blind children taught by one teacher, and I would like to point out that under Section 3 of the Circular 1297, referred to by the noble Lord, the maximum number of children who are to be taught, or can be taught, by one teacher is twenty. That is the maximum, and this particular circular merely lays it down as a guide. In no case is the number of twenty to be exceeded, and as a matter of fact I am informed that in most cases the classes are very much smaller than twenty. However, that is a matter with which I have no doubt the noble Lord is as familiar as I am.
It is the question of principle, I am certain, on which he wishes the opinion of the Government. Of course the Question deals almost entirely with blind children, but, on the other hand, the special schools have to deal with a great many other unfortunate children as well. Various schools deal with the mentally deficient, and I could enumerate other unfortunate classes of children who have to be dealt with in this way. Naturally, the expense of their education is very heavy, and particularly so, I think I am right in saying, in the case of blind children. Blind children, in the nature of things, must be residential scholars and the consequence is that the cost of the schooling in their case is specially heavy. I suppose, if one went through the length and breadth of this country with one's eyes open, one would probably find, taking the mentally or physically deficient children as a whole, that there are four children outside the scope of these schools for every one in the schools themselves. That being the case, it is a

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question whether it is best to concentrate on one particular class of deficient child so as to bring the education of That child up to the highest pitch possible or, on the other hand, to be satisfied with what is possibly not the best education and to bring the particular form of education to a wider field than would otherwise be possible considering the expenditure entailed. That, I think, is really the question. At present the opinion of His Majesty's Government is that until they have the money—they have the will, I know—to enable them to cover the whole ground of the education of deficient children they must be satisfied with a certain standard—a standard which probably does not come up to the ideal which the noble Lord sets himself. On the other hand, under these conditions more children are getting the benefits of education than would under the very special treatment which the noble Lord indicated in his Question.
I have before me the Questions asked and the answers given, both here and in another place, by the present Government, the last Government and the Government before—Questions raised by those who are anxious that everything possible should be done for the best education of blind or otherwise deficient children. The answers have always, I think, been extremely sympathetic, but they have always, I am afraid, had to be the same. His Majesty's Government would do everything in their power to make this education the best possible education under the economic considerations that govern them. I do not think, even in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Banbury of Southam, I should be wrong in saying that the economic stress of to-day is not very much less than it was in 1923, when this particular circular was published.
I hope I have given the noble Lord an indication of what the Government feel about this matter. I am given to understand that the Minister himself will be only too delighted if the noble Lord would address any question personally to him; he would give him an interview, and be able to tell him anything further which I have been unable to explain. Every case indicated by the noble Lord, in which the teacher has not been satisfied with the way in which the class had been carried on, has been investigated by the Department in order to see whether the objec-
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tions raised really amounted to anything very important, or whether they arose merely from the wishes of the teachers from an ideal point of view to get better results from classes as small as that desired by the noble Lord instead of twenty as indicated in the circular. I hope I have said enough to show that the Government sympathises with the noble Lord and under any other circumstances would reduce the number in a class to fifteen.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, I think my noble friend Lord Gorell has rendered a useful service in raising this question because he has got a very fair answer from the noble Lord who has spoken for the Board of Education. They too, it is evident, do not like the number of twenty which has been substituted for the number of fifteen, and all they have got to say about it is, first, that they have no money, and, secondly, that the classes do not number twenty in practice. It was reassuring to hear from the noble Lord that most of the classes at any rate do not exceed fifteen in the case of blind children.
LORD SOMERS: I did not actually say fifteen; I said they were not up to the full number of twenty.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: That is satisfactory as far as it goes. I would remind the noble Lord that the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself said recently that upon education we could not afford to economise, and the reason is that, if yon do not educate, you have such a flood of after expense on the other side of the account from those who have been defectively educated. This point has been brought out. It is plain that the Board of Education do not think that you can educate more than fifteen children in these classes. It is plain that they would go back to the fifteen standard if they only had enough money to do it, and I think it is valuable that in your Lordships' House my noble friend's Question should have brought out so much agreement and so much indication that at least the question is one which will not escape future attention.
LORD GORELL: I fully recognise the courtesy with which the noble Lord has answered me and I recognise also that in view of the fact that he is not himself personally responsible for the Department

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I cannot press him to answer further. But I would point out with regard to the fact that there are not many cases of twenty children in a class at present, that the whole purpose of the circular is to bring that about in the future and my Question was directed to stopping that process. The circular contemplates not filling up vacancies. It says expressly that the Board do not expect that that will immediately come about, and that is the reason why there are not the full number of twenty everywhere.

INDIAN PRISON ADMINISTRATION.
LORD OLIVIER LORD OLIVIER had given Notice to ask the Secretary of State for India—
1.Whether he can give the House any information in supplement of a Report (headed "Inhuman Punjab Jailors") which appeared in the Morning Post newspaper of July 24, of a judgment given in a defamation case brought by an Indian jailor in Multan jail, in which the Judge is stated to have held that grave allegations of inhuman treatment of prisoners were proved, and to have expressed his opinion that two officers of the Jail Department, in giving evidence, showed a bias in favour of the plaintiff;
2. Whether the recommendations of the Indian Jails Committee, 1919–20, with respect to the appointment of unofficial visitors, have been carried out at Multan Jail and other Indian prisons generally;
3. Whether any complaint of ill-treatment of prisoners had been made to any visitors of Multan Jail and reported by them, and, if so, with what outcome; and
4. Whether he will invite the Government of India to make further investigation into the experiences of prisoners in Indian jails:
and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, should like to set before you the text of the 'report out of which my Question arises. I will read a quotation from the Morning Post of July 24, which says:
"Considerable interest has been aroused by the judgment given in a defamation case brought by an Indian jailor in Multan jail, one of the largest in India, with accommodation for 1,400 prisoners, against Lala Lajpat Rai's paper Bande Mataram,
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of Lahore, for publishing an interview with a political prisoner in the jail, alleging that most inhuman treatment was meted out to the prisoners.
"The Judge held that the graver part of the alleged facts was proved. He therefore awarded only nominal damages. The Judge held that it was proved by overwhelming evidence that during the plaintiff's tenure of office prisoners were punished with ear holding' and with shoe beating. It had also been proved that indiscriminate beating with the fists and kicking were practised by the head convicts."
I think the word "convicts" must be a mistake, and I shall give your Lordships my reasons for saying so later.
"Moreover, it had been shown that the jailors extorted money by maltreating the prisoners till they received illegal payments irons the prisoners' relatives.
"The Judge expressed his opinion that Major Trutter"—
whose name should be Truter—
"and Major Wadia, a superintendent in the Jails Department, in giving evidence showed a certain bias in favour of the plaintiff. Lala Lajpat Rai, writing in the Press, declares that the malpractices complained of are not even a fraction of those in vogue in the Punjab jails, and offers his full co-operation to the Government in the task of uprooting such abuses."
I have been able to obtain rather fuller information regarding the actual evidence given by some of the witnesses and I will read to your Lordships a very short extract:—
"Witness C. Ram, ex-prisoner in Multan Jail, deposed that 'Gidar Kut' had been inflicted on him. He explained that 'Gidar Kut' was a punishment in vogue in the jail, in which ten or fifteen convict warders were let loose on a convict and thrashed him indiscriminately. Witness had been thrashed for protesting that the food given was improperly cooked and the bread below weight. Witness had also received another punishment called 'Kan parade,' in which the prisoner was forced to pull his own ears by passing his hands through his legs, and was then thrashed while in this position.
"Another witness corroborated this evidence, and described also how the most unnatural crimes were committed by the warders against the prisoners.
"Another witness said he had 'Gidar Kut' inflicted on him, after which he was kicked and thrown into a refuse tank, where he was forced to remain for half an hour. On his refusing to apologise, the warders again thrashed him. He testified that neither the non-official visitors nor the European officers ever listened to the convicts' grievances."

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There have been many other complaints of Indian prison administration, more especially in regard to the treatment of some of the political prisoners who were imprisoned after the Akali disturbances in the Punjab, but I am not going to deal with the whole of these. I am only putting before your Lordships matters which were given in evidence in the Courts and which the Judge held to be completely proved. Those are incidents, I think your Lordships will agree, which prove how extraordinarily inefficient must be the administration and control in the prison in which they occur.
I have felt myself under some personal obligation to bring this matter to the notice of your Lordships and to urge the noble and learned Earl, the Secretary of State, to make some further inquiry into it. Mr. Lajpat Rai, the editor of the paper against which proceedings were taken, was in England last summer and I saw a good deal of him. I was discussing with him and getting from him his views with regard to the Indian Government and Indian public affairs generally. Towards the end of his stay here he asked me if he might put before me certain points upon which he felt very strongly, which were not political questions but matters in which the Government of India was incurring grave criticism from Indian public opinion, and which he thought might be remedied if attention were called to them in a judicious manner. One of the things to which he called my attention was the treatment of prisoners in jails, with regard to which he gave me many particulars, which I will not rehearse to your Lordships because they are matters of hearsay. But there were particulars with regard to the accommodation, the close and fetid confinement to which political prisoners are subject, and so on, matters of physical experience which could be easily proved by an inspection by unofficial persons, even if they might not be admitted or taken cognisance of by the official people responsible for them.
The facts he put before me so impressed me that there was a case for inquiry that I promised him that I would take means, without publicity, after the Recess, to draw the attention of the Viceroy of India to these representations and to ask him to look into the matter. After the
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Recess I was not in a position to do this, and Mr. Lala Lajpat Rai apparently has taken the alternative course of according publicity in his newspaper to these complaints, or some of them, with the result that a very damaging judgment has been passed upon the administration of Indian prisons and one which, I think your Lordships will agree, calls for some further inquiry and explanation. I am not bringing any kind of general indictment against the Indian prison administration. Indeed, in many respects for many years it was very much better than the prison administration in our own country. But it is a very surprising thing to me that these abuses should exist even if only in one jail—the Multan jail—such a very short time after the very efficient Report which was drawn up by a very strong Committee on the Indian jail system and which reported in the year 1919, only five or six years ago.
I must say that the defect of that Report, as it appeared to me, was that it still proceeded rather too much from the point of view of the official machine; that is to say, what is the best way of administering a prison, what are the best rules, and so on, and not quite sufficiently from the point of view to which all prison reformers are now devoting their attention—what is the psychological effect on the individual prisoners themselves and what are their own experiences in prison. Speaking generally, however, it was a very enlightened and excellent Report, and from it I wish to quote only one passage. The Report says—
"A sufficient number of official and nonofficial visitors should be appointed for every central and district jail and for such subsidiary jails as the Local Government may direct. All Local Governments should consider the question of bringing the number of non-official visitors in their Province up to the Bengal standard, viz, two for subsidiary jails, three for district jails and six for central jails."
Then they go on to say—
"It should be clearly understood (1) that no visitor can be allowed to go round a jail without an escort, which is necessary for his personal safety and should consist of at least two warders.… No prisoner should be punished for any complaint or statement made to a visitor unless that visitor concurs."
It is most unfortunate that this recommendation that no unofficial visitor should go round a jail unless accompanied by two warders should have been of a

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character which inevitably renders the provision of unofficial visitors entirely nugatory.
Even if the unofficial visitor goes round with one warder, he will not get a complaint from any prisoner under normal circumstances in an English jail, and certainly not in an Indian jail, where we are told that the warders are more corrupt than they are in the English jails. He will not get any complaint if there is one warder only and certainly not if there are two, who are in a position to know what the complaint is and will concert together to refute it. I am not surprised to see that the provision for unofficial visitors, so guarded, appears to have been practically, so far as any good effect is concerned, a dead letter. The provision that no prisoner should be punished for any complaint or statement made to a visitor unless that visitor concurs is, again, a provision which is likely to increase the very great suspicion and timidity of prisoners of making any kind of representation on account of which they know that the warders can, and will, get back on them. When I put my Question I asked whether non-official visitors have been appointed. I now see from this further Report that certain nonofficial visitors apparently have been appointed, but it was testified by a witness that neither non-official visitors nor European officers ever listen to the convict's grievances.
So we have two facts. First of all, a very grave and scandalous lack of discipline on the part of the warders in these prisons, and abuse and ill treatment of prisoners are proved. We also have, apparently, proved in evidence that the non-official visitors and the European officers do not pay attention to the representations made by the prisoners to them. The Judge is reported to have expressed his opinion that Major Truter and Major Wadia, a superintendent, in giving evidence, showed a certain bias in favour of the plaintiff. Of course they did. Everybody who has had anything to do with public administration generally in many Departments, and I have had a great deal to do in the way of personal responsibility with prison Departments, knows that, of all public Departments, the Department concerned in the administration of prisons is the most self-righteous and most obscurantist and most confident that no outside person can make any reason-
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able criticism upon its administration, They are so now; they always have been so. They are more so even than the police because the police, although extremely self-righteous and obscurantist, do come from time to time under the healthy discipline of such inquiries as the one which has been proceeding lately with regard to certain occurrences at Vine Street. I do not want to say that these prison officials were sinners above all other prison officials. I myself, as a result of my own experience and responsibility in various grades during my life of prison administration, learnt very thoroughly to sympathise with any responsible prison officer, who is irritated by and resents criticism of prison administration.
The whole system of our prison administration, the whole method by which we attempt to deal with crime and to suppress it, and the systems which have been in force in our prisons and which are only gradually being reformed are so ridiculous, so stupid, so inhuman and so disheartening to any one who has had any kind of responsibility for them, that that branch of administration, to any sensible and reasonable man, is a source of perpetual distress, I might almost say of despair. He has to do with an inefficient and ill-trained staff, a staff for which he cannot get enough money to pay properly, a staff which is imbued with the old traditions of prison administration which are now entirely superseded in the minds of enlightened persons. Having to combat all these things, any person in responsible control of a prison feels very great sympathy with those of his officers under him who are attempting to deal with the difficulties of the prison system. Consequently, it is only to be expected, and it is almost a venial and pardonable phenomenon, that a prison superintendent should show a bias in favour of exonerating his own subordinates, and it is fortunate that from time to time these questions come before a Judge, who is bound to express, simply from the point of view of justice, equity and public interest, what his opinion is of such proceedings as have been disclosed in this case.
What I want to press upon my noble friend the Secretary of State for India is that he will give me answers to the definite questions I have asked him, and also say whether he will invite the

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Government of India to make a fresh investigation into the experiences of prisoners in Indian jails. I want those investigations to be made from the point of view of the prisoners themselves. There is at present great conflict between two theories of prison administration. One is the mechanical theory and the other the humanitarian theory, for which we are very largely indebted, as the Indian Prison Commission of 1919 themselves admitted, to the United States of America. The line on which at present reform is now proceeding is to attempt to deal, not so much with the mechanism of the prison and rules for warders, but with the personality of the prisoners or the effect of the prison. It was only when we began to get into our prisons the suffragettes and conscientious objectors that we began to get really reputable testimony as to certain evils which the prison authorities had persistently refused to admit. I must say that the suffragette movement and the conscientious objector movement have done a great deal to fortify public opinion and to promote that tendency to improve our own prison system which, I am glad to say, I now recognise is actuating our Prison Commissioners.
But the same kind of criticism and approach is evidently necessary in India. You ought to approach the question of Indian prison conditions from the point of view of the many political prisoners you have there. Those are people whom you may say are seditious, but they are mostly honourable and humane men and they can give definite and good critical evidence as to the things which go on in the prisons. I want to have the challenge of Lala Lajpat Rai taken up. He declares that the malpractices complained of are not even a fraction of those involved in the Punjab jails and he offers full co-operation to the Government in the task of uprooting such abuses. I want to have that offer taken up. I know him well enough to know that that offer is made in good faith. I know that he and many others are able to give the Government a tale of prison administration which they cannot get from superintendents or from the best meaning prison administrators, who are inclined to look upon the administration of prisons from what I might call the mechanical point of view. It appeared to me when
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I was in office that there was a case for inquiry into the management of Indian jails, not necessarily with publicity.
The publicity has now come. I suggest that such an incident as this gives cause for thought and that there is reason for urging the Government of India to make further inquiries generally, from such unofficial witnesses as they can get, as to what are the conditions of the prisoners in Indian jails, and, further, to take in hand the amendment of the regulations in regard to unofficial visitors so that they may be withdrawn. It is a ridiculous and quite unnecessary provision that every non-official visitor to the prison must be accompanied by two warders. That is bound to render his visit entirely nugatory. I beg leave to put my Questions and to move.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD): My Lords, I have not yet received by mail copies of the judgment and other papers regarding the Multan libel case, but, according to the information which is in my possession, the facts are as follows. An article was published in the Bande Mataram dated 3rd October, 1923, purporting to be an interview with a prisoner recently released from Multan jail, in which allegations were brought against Jamna Das, a first-grade jailer in Multan Central Jail, who has since retired on pension after service in the jail department of more than thirty-five years. These allegations were, in the judgment delivered in the ensuing libel case, as follows: (a), doing things against the rules;(b), shaving the beard and moustache; (c), prisoner caught by the moustache and spat at in the mouth; (d), holding the ear accompanied by shoe-beatingthis— this, I believe, is called the "Kan Parade," to which the noble Lord referred; (e), stopping prisoner's food and drink; (f), subjecting prisoner to "Gidar But"—this is what I believe is known as jackal parade, in which the convict is beaten and kicked by convict warders; (g), ducking prisoner in cistern of dirty water; (h), abusing prisoner.
The Government of the Punjab, on the publication of the article, ordered investigation by the Inspector-General of Prisons, who, after inquiry, reported that the allegations were without foundation and were false. The Government of the Punjab were advised that if the

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facts were as reported by the Inspector-General, the article was libellous, and the jailor, on being consulted, desired to bring a suit which was filed in the Court of the Sub-Judge claiming Rs. 5,100 as damages. The Local Government bore the cost of the suit. A large number of witnesses were examined, and it appears that the evidence was, to a considerable extent, conflicting. Judgment was delivered on July 9, and the conclusion of the Court was that allegations (d) and (f) were substantially true and correct, that is the allegation that the prisoner was held by the ear and beaten with shoes and also indiscriminately beaten by warders. The Court found that the allegations of spitting at the prisoner and withholding food and drink were not substantiated, and for various reasons the Court also discarded the other allegations mentioned.
The Court held that the graver portion of the libel had been proved to be true, and that the portion not proved did not constitute libel of a very grave nature. The Court was of the opinion that the plaintiff was only entitled to claim nominal damages. The damages were therefore fixed at Rs. 100 and half the costs. I have just been informed that the plaintiff jailor, Jamna Das, has asked the Punjab Government to file an appeal on his behalf, and that the Government of the Punjab have decided to give him the same assistance as in the original suit. As an appeal is pending, I am sure that the noble Lord will agree that it is undesirable either to enter into any further discussion of the details of the evidence produced in the case or as to the inferences which may be drawn therefrom.
The noble Lord asks me specific Questions with reference to unofficial visitors. I understand that the recommendation if the Indian Jails Committee of 1919–20, for the appointment of unofficial visitors, has been accepted by the Local Governments in all the Provinces in India, and has been put into effect in most, if not all, of the jails. Multan jail has been visited by unofficial visitors. The Government of the Punjab report that all the notes recorded by unofficial visitors from April 26, 1923, up to date have been carefully examined. Only three suggestions of ill-treatment are recorded. One was of a somewhat indefinite nature regarding hard work, which is not imme-
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diately relevant; the second, on April 27, 1923, mentions that out of all the prisoners one only made complaint, and he alleges that a jail official had beaten him last month but not subsequently. A third note, dated January 21, 1925, records that one convict complained of being beaten by a convict officer; some Akali prisoners supported him in his tale, but others expressed doubt as to its truth. The Government of the Punjab state that none of these reports recorded in the visitors' book indicated any necessity for special inquiries and none were made.
It is obvious that the findings of the Court are disquieting, and whether or not they are materially modified as a result of the appeal, it is clear that the matter requires, and will certainly have, the closest consideration by the Local Government, the Government of India and the Secretary of State in Council. But the noble Lord will not expect me to express any opinion either on the facts or as to any action to be taken by the Government until the result of the pending appeal is known.
The noble Lord referred to one matter which is not specifically raised in his Question, and that is as to the practice of unofficial visitors being accompanied by warders. I am not aware of the facts, but I will be very careful to ascertain them. In a matter in which I have not examined the facts I do not go quite to the length of the noble Lord and dismiss as entirely useless the presence of visitors attended by warders. To me it is plain that either the visitor has been wisely selected or he has not. If the visitor has been wisely selected the idea that the presence of a warder would really in any way disable him from discharging his duties efficiently seems to me not to be reasonable. If I were paying a visit to a prison and a warder walked round with me, or two warders, I should ask myself: "What is the duty I have to discharge? What scheme have I prepared in order to discharge it?" I have to see so many prisoners, and I should not think that the presence of a warder would make any great difference. In some of these jails, where the prisoners are very violent, the task of visiting them and eliciting complaints would not be one to excite great enthusiasm. We might elicit something besides complaints if we went round

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without a warder. However, the noble Lord has made me quite aware of his wishes, and I will make the inquiries which I have promised.
LORD OLIVIER: I am much obliged to the noble Earl for his reply, and I recognise that as the judgment of the Court is under appeal it is difficult for hint to give me a fuller answer at the moment. I should like to say one word with regard to his criticism on the presence of unofficial visitors who are not to go round prisons except accompanied by two warders. I do not suggest that the presence of two warders would paralyse the judgment of the non-official visitor, but it would paralyse communications on the part of prisoners, who are supposed to be able to make complaints. From what I know of prison systems I know that prisoners are afraid of making complaints because of the effect it might have on them.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: I did not understand that to be the noble Lord's point, but I still adhere to my view that there are many cases in which it would be unsafe for unofficial visitors to go round prisons without warders.
LORD OLIVIER: I have known a good many dangerous prisoners, but if you have a well-selected visitor he will be well able to judge whether lie can go round without fear of violence, and I never heard in all my experience of any prisoner, unless he was a lunatic, showing any disposition to assault the non-official prison visitor. And he is still less likely to assault him if he knows that he is a sympathetic man who is prepared to listen to his complaints with consideration.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

SEEDS ACT (1920) AMENDMENT BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

AIR MINISTRY (CATTEWATER SEAPLANE STATION) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of Bill; Amendment proposed by the Committee made.
THE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND: My Lords, with regard to this Bill I think I had better inform you that I propose to put a Motion on the Paper for tomorrow, with which I hope your Lordships will agree, enabling the House to take both the Report Stage and Third Reading to-morrow. This will allow the House of Commons time to consider the small Amendment which has been made in the Bill before Friday, and it will then be possible to give the Royal Assent to the Bill before the Recess.

WIDOWS, ORPHANS AND OLD AGE CONTRIBUTORY PENSIONS BILL.
Bead 3a, with the Amendments (according to Order), and passed, and returned to the Commons.

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
House adjourned at ten minutes before six o'clock.