Lords Sitting of 9 December 1925

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

GLASGOW BOUNDARIES BILL.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMTTTEES (THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE): My Lords, in reference to this Bill I beg to move that Standing Order No. 143 be considered in order to its being dispensed with and that the Bill be now read a third time. This will expedite, without in any way hindering, public business.
Moved, That Standing Order No. 143 be considered in order to its being dispensed with in respect of the said Bill, and that the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to: Bill, with the Amendments, read 3a accordingly, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA (CIVIL SERVICES) BILL.
LORD OLIVIER: My Lords, I beg leave to make a personal statement with regard to something which fell from the noble and learned Earl, the Secretary of State for India, yesterday evening. I had left the House when my noble friend Lord Lee of Fareham put his Question about the Government of India (Civil Services) Bill, as I was under the impression that he was not going to raise the question at all last evening. In commenting upon Lord Lee's statement the Secretary of State for India said:—
"This is the Bill which my predecessor in office, Lord Olivier, recommended to his colleagues, and which I believe had at least received the formal assent of his colleagues at the time when his Government fell."
That goes a little beyond the substance of the matter. The Bill was not in existence so far as I was concerned when I left office, and although the Bill does not go further than what I had personally recommended to my colleagues, what I had in fact recommended, of which I left a record for my noble friend's
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information, had not actually received their formal assent. I left on record the Minute I had written in order that there might be, so far as possible, continuity in the action of the India Office, and in order that my noble friend might be assured that he would get my support in this House for the Bill. I think the record should be corrected by my statement being placed on the records of the House.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD): My Lords, I am very much indebted to my noble friend. As a matter of fact the OFFICIAL REPORT of last night's proceedings contains a slight error. I did not say, as the OFFICIAL REPORT represents, that this Bill had received the formal assent of the colleagues of the noble Lord. What I did say—and I believe it is correctly reported in The Times and in most of the newspapers, though I have not consulted them all—was that I had reason to believe that it had received the informal assent of the noble Lord's colleagues. But the intervention of the noble Lord is of great value because he has very candidly stated that he left certain recommendations for his colleagues. He was good enough, by a courtesy which I greatly appreciate and with a desire, I have no doubt, to maintain the continuity of Ministerial tradition, to equip me with the recommendations which he had offered for the consideration of his colleagues. He is perfectly right in saying that it was not in the form of a Bill. But I am equally entitled to say that the recommendations of the noble Lord, well conceived and widely conceived, were the foundation of the Bill which I and my colleagues have recommended to Parliament.
The noble Lord had availed himself of the recommendations of the Lee Commission. The noble Lord was obliging enough to convey to me the impressions which he had derived from those recommendations. I availed myself of the recommendations of the noble Lord and, as far as I was able to do so and with the assistance of the draftsman, I translated them into the terms of a Bill. The noble Lord knows as well as I do the Imperial importance of that Bill passing into law in the present Session of Parliament and I would most earnestly entreat the noble

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Lord to use all the influence I know that be possesses with those who belong to his Party in another place to see that, while everything that, is disputable in his proposals and mine is closely canvassed, we shall not run the risk of losing this Bill with its immeasurable Imperial consequences by unreasonable obstruction. I know the noble Lord well enough to know that his influence will be used in that direction.
LORD OLIVIER: My Lords, may I add that I wish to make it perfectly clear that my colleagues are in no way estopped from any action they might take in another place in regard to this Bill by my personal commitments which I left on record. They are not estopped from any action they have taken or may take, either because they think the matter has been presented at the end of the Session and they have not had time to deal with it, or for any other reason.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: My Lords, I think the noble Lord will agree that I am at least entitled to say this to my colleagues in another place, that it is the view of the colleagues of the noble Lord that, reinforced by the high authority of the noble Lord who was then Secretary of State for India, I have presented for their consideration propositions which the noble Lord himself would have presented had he still held my office. That is all I want to say.

IRELAND (CONFIRMATION OF AGREEMENT) BILL.
Brought from the Commons, read 1a, and to be printed.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion of which Notice has been given.
Moved, That Standing Orders Nos. XXI. and XXXIX. be considered in order to their being suspended for this day's sitting so that the Bill may have precedence of the other Notices and Orders of the Day, and that it may be passed through all its stages.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading of the Bill, read.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: My Lords, in rising to move that this Bill be now read a second time I am conscious of many memories which surge upon my mind and which must, I think, be present in the minds of many of your Lordships. When the Irish Treaty was signed some years ago we signed it in an atmosphere which was singularly ill-designed to attain any measure of permanent appeasement. It had been my duty, sitting upon the seat which is occupied by the Lord Chancellor to-day, to defend many acts which were very difficult of defence, to recommend many policies which were very difficult of acceptance and looking back over those troubled years. I can hardly remember any moment which seemed less likely to develop into an atmosphere which was likely to establish a permanent settlement than that in which those of us who at that moment were responsible discussed the terms of the Irish Treaty.
We had hardly emerged from an atmosphere of assassination. We were hardly able to select from those who, directly or indirectly, had been responsible for the campaign against which we ranged ourselves, men with whom we could reasonably attempt a compromise. Yet I think your Lordships will be willing to do us this justice in the difficulties in which we were placed. The nation was exhausted by the efforts of a great War. At the conclusion of that War we found ourselves engaged in hostilities with large sections of the population of Southern Ireland. The tale of casualties, of murders, of losses and of incendiarisms grew day by day and week by week. We had to ask ourselves this question: Will the fortunes, not of England alone but of the British Empire, be better served by continuing these hostilities in an ascending scale, or will they be better served by attempting in reach an accommodation?
I think that all of us—and I speak, believe me, without dogmatism in a situation so difficult as to exclude, in sensible mouths, the use of dogma—were throughout acutely conscious that even if we had mobilised the whole strength of this ration, exhausted as we were, even if we had made up our minds ruthlessly to war down these elements at a cost, as we were advised by the then Chief of the Imperial General Staff, of 200,000 men

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and a contingent expenditure of some £40,000,000 or £50,000,000 (and I think we might even have faced those tasks, incredible as they were in the then condition of the nation) we were confronted even then, had we faced them, by the certain knowledge that after we had warred down, if we had warred down successfully, those who were in arms against us, it would have been necessary to reach some terms of accommodation with them.
It was in an atmosphere, as I have already indicated, little favourable for calm consideration, that those of us who are responsible for the first Irish Treaty approached our task. Whether it was for good or whether it was for bad—and it is no purpose of mine to be controversial to-night—those of us who negotiated that Treaty realised early in the course of its negotiation that we had the advantage of finding opposite to us at the table of No. 10, Downing Street, two men of great courage and of great honesty. I did not examine the antecedents of either of them, just as I would not have invited either of them, in relation to the Irish question, to examine into my antecedents, but what is certain is this: that in Mr. Collins and Mr. Griffith we had the advantage of finding ourselves face to face with two vital and courageous men.
Mr. Collins lost his life in arms, the victim of an ambuscade by extreme forces in Ireland, within a few weeks of the moment when he had signed the Treaty, and I still recall of Mr. Griffith, who died worn out by the burden of exceptional responsibilities, that in the last night of all, and within two hours of the signature of the final Treaty, at the moment when it seemed more likely to me and my colleagues that the Treaty would not be signed than that it would be signed, he said: "I think these terms are fair, and if I sign them alone I will sign them, and I will go back and I will defend my signature before the Dail." He was a man of singular personality and of singular courage, and at the moment when it seems to me—I state the prediction with reserve—that the course we then adopted has been justified by the events, I would pay a tribute to one of the most remarkable men with whom I have ever been engaged in negotiation.
This, at least, is plain. The Bill which went through all its stages without one
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hostile criticism in the House of Commons last night would not have been possible if we had not signed that Treaty. Let no one make the mistake of lightly supposing that those of us who set our names to that instrument assumed that responsibility without a deep sense of the uncertainties which beset our path. We had to measure those anxieties and those uncertainties by the known anxieties and uncertainties of the only alternative, and the only alternative was that we should set ourselves to the gradual destruction in Southern Ireland of everything which had set itself resolutely, and by the methods which were known to all of your Lordships, to destroy the British rule in Ireland. I at least, speaking on behalf of this Government, which has accepted and implemented the decisions of three previous Governments, am entitled to make this plain, that it would not have been possible for mo here to-night, representing the Government, to ask your Lordships to accept this Bill had it not been for the foundations that were darkly and doubtfully and anxiously laid down when the earlier Treaty was signed four years ago.
It has been said, and with great truth and justice, that there were Articles in the earlier Treaty which were so obscure as to be dangerous. Undoubtedly there were. Does any one think so lightly of the capacity of those who signed that Treaty as to imagine that they were not alive to the dangers of Article 12? I state plainly to your Lordships that there was no signatory of that Treaty but knew that in Article 12 there lurked the elements of dynamite. We knew it well. It was forced upon us in this sense, that whether it was for good or for bad that that Treaty should be signed, it never could have been signed, it never would have been signed, without Article 12, and I can tell your Lordships, if we are to refer to the historical psychology of this matter, that we, the English signatories, took a clear view. We thought that, just as we had undertaken great anxieties and great responsibilities, so some anxieties and some responsibilties must be bequeathed to those who came after us. We thought that the atmosphere at that moment was one which made it absolutely impossible to attempt a boundary solution. Supposing that we had proposed to those who sat on the

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other side of the table at No. 10, Downing Street, to stereotype the existing boundary, what do you think the prospects would have been of a settlement? We were bold enough to think that the years would bring appeasement and education. We took the risk of supposing that it might be possible for our successors to approach the determination of the boundary in a calmer spirit, and in an ampler atmosphere.
I myself, in a stormy atmosphere, had to explain Article 12 sitting where the Lord Chancellor sits to-day, or rather in those days, if my memory serves me rightly, I was generally standing on the left of where the learned Lord Chancellor is to-day. I had to defend these proposals in a stormy atmosphere. I was assailed by a great weight of legal authority upon the duo meaning of Article 12. I had taken the individual responsibility of giving a clear and confident opinion to the Government, of which I was a member, as to the legitimate and only meaning of Article 12, properly construed. Never the less high legal authority in this House ranged itself against the advice which I had given. I may be permitted the human weakness, four years afterwards, of pointing to the fact that whatever else may be known or may not be known of the decision of the Boundary Commission, this at least is certain, that they accepted and acted upon the view which I as Lord Chancellor stated and recommended to your Lordships four years ago.
Here it is proper that I should say a word about the "Boundary Commission. A very distinguished Judge, bearing an honoured legal name in this Empire, has consented now for a period of eighteen months, abandoning his own proper judicial duties, to devote himself to the high Imperial duty of attempting to accommodate the difficulties which have arisen between ourselves and the Irish Free State in relation to the boundaries of Ireland. I did not, until yesterday, see the grounds upon which the Commission have founded their conclusions. Indeed, until the day before yesterday I did not even know what conclusions the Commission had reached, and therefore I think it is very necessary that I should say in this House that we are all of us under an enormous debt of gratitude to the learned and distinguished Judge and
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his colleagues for the work which they have done upon that Commission. The extent of our obligation to them is not diminished by the circumstances that, for high public reasons, all the parties concerned have asked the Commission not to publish their award.
Let us reflect for a moment upon the debt which we owe to the distinguished Judge. No man abandons his own special duties and tears up his domestic and his professional life by the roots in order to make a contribution to our Imperial necessities without having the human desire that that which he has done should be valued for its quality. I can only say this, that if we were to publish that to which the learned Judge has devoted his labours for so long a period of time it would immensely increase, high as his reputation is already, the judicial repute, in which he is held. I would say to him, as the Prime Minister said in the House of Commons yesterday and on behalf of the House of Commons—and perhaps in this association I may make myself the mouthpiece of your Lordships—that we all appreciate the efforts he has made, the sacrifices he has undergone and the high quality of public spirit which has led him to acquiesce in the indefinite postponement of any publication of his labours.
The question of the boundaries was, unfortunately, complicated by a most mischievous and unpatriotic publication of what purported to be an advance edition of that which the Boundary Commission was to decide. I should have thought this was at least plain: that upon the highest grounds of Imperial and patriotic interest, it being known that this was a Commission dealing with the most delicate matters, it being also known that when their Report was published action must follow, no newspaper would have thought it proper, for the purposes of what in modern speech is often described as a "newspaper stunt," to attempt to anticipate the decisions of that Commission. I am sorry to say that in this regard there was a gross and lamentable breach of the honourable traditions of British journalism, and it was a breach which I think can only be inadequately defended upon the grounds of a dwindling circulation. Had that temptation not been succumbed to, to re-

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ceive by backstair channels a communication which was known by those who accepted it and published it to be deeply confidential, had not that breach of the ordinary good faith of journalism been committed, Ulster would have received, what I think it would have greatly valued, a unanimous award from a tribunal which would have included a representative of the Irish Free State. All that they had stood for, and let me say all that I have stood for was well founded in the terms of the original Treaty.
We find ourselves to-day in a different atmosphere. The representatives of the Irish Free State insisted a year ago upon Article 12 being implemented. I was not at that time a member of the Government; I was not at all in the counsels of the Irish Free State. Had they consulted me as to whether they should insist upon immediate effect being given to Article 12 I should most strongly have advised them not to take that step, but I suspect that they were not their own masters. I suspect that those extremist forces in Southern Ireland which have always existed and which always will exist, though they may be gradually reduced alike in numbers and in influence, were too strong to make it possible for the Free State Ministers to postpone further their demand that Article 12 should be carried out. And so the demand came, and your Lordships have not forgotten, in the days of the Labour Government here, the crisis which immediately followed. The representatives of Northern Ireland refused to take any part in the proceedings and thereupon this country, by special Act of Parliament, nominated a member, not I believe unacceptable to Northern Ireland, to take the place of their representative.
So the matter proceeded until the moment came when the award was ready. It may be said that they asked for the boundary award, and the boundary award was prepared; that it was valid, whether it was signed by two representatives or by three. What complaint has the Free State Government to make?
A NOBLE LORD: Hear, hear.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: That is a very legitimate question, and let me try to address myself to it. I say plainly that they have no complaint to make, they have no valid complaint to make.
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It is not the task of statesmanship to ask whether a man with whom you are in process of negotiation or controversy has any logical and valid complaint to make. The task of statesmanship is to ask whether, when he makes an invalid, an illogical complaint, what is going to be the result when you have pointed out to him how illogical and invalid it is; and that alone is the question we have to ask ourselves. My noble friend behind me cheered when I put the question: What was the grievance in view of the fact that the Irish Free State themselves had insisted upon this award? Let me counter that cheer by asking plainly what would have happened—because we are dealing with practical politics—supposing we had received an award on the whole favourable to Northern Ireland? Your Lordships will not forget that the terms of the original Treaty produced this consequence in law, that the moment the award was published that which the award determined became ipso facto, automatically, and at that moment, the law of the land. In other words, in every transferred district the post offices, the police and the whole machinery of authority pass from one Government to the other, I do not know whether there is any one here who thinks that the process would have been a particularly smooth one. I am in a position to tell your Lordships that neither the authorities in Northern Ireland nor the authorities in Southern Ireland would have contemplated such an automatic change without feelings of the deepest anxiety and without anticipations of violence in many quarters.
We were offered another alternative, and that was to balance Article 12 against Article 5. Here the criticism may be easily made that Article 12 had no relation to Article 5. That criticism is perfectly well-founded. Article 12 dealt with boundaries and Article 5 dealt with finance. I have never in my experience and recollection of politics discovered that there was anything imponderable, if I may use the expression, between finance and any other subject known to human politics. No one will make the mistake of supposing that a young Government, charged with responsibility for the finances of a young State, can place on one side as an unimportant consideration the question of its financial situation. What did Article 5 do? A

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clear appreciation of this is very important and, indeed, is essential to an understanding of the whole situation.
Article 5, if I may summarise in popular language its effect, said this: An arbitrator shall make an estimate of what, in relation to the War commitments of the British nation, the Irish Free State ought to pay. But it also used language which I shall not subject to precise technical examination but which made it possible for the Free State to put forward any counter-claim in which they believed; and it contained further a phrase to the effect that they should pay or deduct what was "fair and equitable." I shall not argue here to-night (it is not worth while) as to what was the true meaning of that limitation "fair and equitable" in the construction of Article 5 as a whole. I myself have always held a clear view, and I so advised the Government of the day, that it, did not mean that you could raise as between the two countries every single issue over a period of two or three hundred years which involved the conceptions either of fairness or of equitable-ness. I took the view, and I am sure, as a lawyer, that I was right, that the meaning of the terms "fair and equitable" was closely defined and governed by the words that follow.
But the matter could undoubtedly have been disputed. Your Lordships know that the Childers Commission. I suppose some twenty-five years ago, by an award which has never been assented to by any considerable opinion in this country, and which to me has always seemed frankly absurd, decided that in the whole balance of history we were indebted in as immense sum of millions to the Irish people. I am not suggesting that such a contention could have been sustained before the arbitrator. It is quite certain that such a contention would have been brought forward, and it is also very materiel] to notice that, in this arbitration of, I should think, infinite length and, I should imagine, so costly that it would have absorbed before it was concluded any monies that were involved in it, they would equally have been entitled to demand an examination of the proportion which ought to be paid to Ireland in respect of our Reparation claims from our Allies and the whole of the varied and complicated financial machinery of the War.
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How much in the end we should obtain from this arbitration I do not know. I believe that our claim would have been roughly in the region of £150,000,000 They, of course, with the vivid imagination which is one of their most engaging qualities, put their claim at about £200,000,000. I am not suggesting to you that any arbitrator in the possession of his senses would have failed, on the balance, to award a very large sum of money to this country. I have no doubt that such would have been the result, and I myself have always thought, taking, as one must take in these matters, a rough estimate, that probably the result of the award would be a figure of some £40,000,000 or £50,000,000 in favour of this country.
Let us assume that I am not either too sanguine or too pessimistic in this view. Let us assume that the result of the arbitration would be to establish an award of £50,000,000 in favour of this country. May I ask this question: Where was that money to come from? Is it seriously suggested that there is available in Ireland to-day any sum of money which, whether capitalised or distributed over a period of sixty years, would afford £50,000,000 to this country? The expectation is extravagant. Let us for one moment examine the contemporary situation in Ireland. At the present moment the total Revenue of Ireland is about £26,000,000.
LORD CARSON: Is that in the Free State?
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: The Free State, of course.
LORD CARSON: You said "Ireland."
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: The noble and learned Lord will not misunderstand me. I am dealing only with the question between ourselves and the Irish Free State. The finances of Northern Ireland, of which I will say a word in a moment, are in a wholly different and well-understood class. I am dealing, of course, with the Irish Free State, and the total Revenue of the Irish Free State amounts to about £26,000,000. They have not, if you attempt a true financial analysis of their position, balanced their Budget: in the present year, and it is extremely doubtful, I am advised whether in the next

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three years they will be successful in balancing their Budget. What charges are at present imposed on a national Revenue of £26,000,000? If you take that which they pay towards Irish landlords and towards local loan annuities and that which they pay in pensions to police and to civilians, you arrive at the astonishing figure that, out of a Revenue of £26,000,000, they are paying nearly £5,000,000 out of the country to-day, leaving them a sum of some £21,000,000 to deal with all their national necessities.
If anybody says to me: How did you, then, who were one of the signatories to the Treaty, ever come to make yourself a party to Article 5? the answer, I think, is not particularly difficult. At the time we signed Article 5 two considerations were present to our minds and the first may serve as a reminder how fallible is human anticipation. I and my co-signatories were so little able to anticipate the future with accuracy that we thought that unless Article 5 were included in the Treaty there might come a moment in which the immunity of Ireland in relation to and comparison with the taxation in this country might possibly attract British capital and British factories to establish themselves in Ireland to the prejudice of the commerce of this country. We were most greatly deceived in this apprehension. We were so much deceived that it is the fact to-day that taxation in Ireland is even greater than in this country and therefore one of the principal reasons which led us to insist on Article 5 has completely disappeared in the economic development of the history of the two countries.
We ought, I think, also to notice this. We left in Ireland a scale of establishment, possible to them under our tutelage, wholly extravagant to them the moment that tutelage was withdrawn. Let me make a general observation upon this point. I have never varied in my view that those in the South of Ireland would have been well advised if they had adhered to the British connection with all that the British connection meant. I have never varied in my view that all their social services would have been more resourcefully administered had they attuned continuously their fortunes and ours. They took a different decision. They are, I think, even to-day, beginning
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to suffer from the consequences of that decision. This, be it observed, does not affect the wisdom or unwisdom of the decision taken when we signed the Treaty, because we had to deal with the psychology of a nation. We had not to deal with a nation necessarily wisely informed, and I have never felt the slightest inconsistency between support of the Treaty and a profound conviction that those who insisted upon the separation of Southern Ireland had reached a decision calamitous for themselves, and a calamity which would one day certainly be realised.
What was, in fact, the financial result? They succeeded to a scale of Pensions, to almost every conceivable form of social service, the financial terms of which were sound in relation to the resources of a mighty Empire but which were wholly unsuited to the resources of a comparatively impoverished agricultural community. Paying, as they must pay, nearly £5,000,000 a year to people who do not reside in Ireland, and who spend no portion of the money in Ireland, reducing, as in the calculation you must reduce, the Revenue from £26,000,000 to £21,000,000, what is the prospect that we could ever have obtained from this country any real contribution to our war indebtedness? Were we to make them bankrupt? Is it really suggested, as a new stage in the economic development of this Empire, that any prospect that we entertain of gradually re-establishing the prosperity of the whole would be advanced by having at our doors a bankrupt Ireland—I am speaking, as my noble and learned friend behind me will understand, of the Free State—an Ireland which would be all the time rightly accounting its bankruptcy to the terms we were exacting from it?
I have heard it said that we were being blackmailed, and that the concession which we were proposing to make by the substitution for Article 5 of a very modest provision, was one which would be induced by illegitimate menaces. I do not recognise the justice of this charge. We have had to deal with France; we have had to deal with Italy; we have had to deal with Czecho-Slovakia, and with Servia and Roumania, in terms of War Loan. Not one of those countries, though some of them are extremely wealthy, and though some of them are taxed less than

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our citizens, and none of them is suffering from our burden of unemployment—there is no one case in which we are not contemplating immense modifications of that which, in the letter of the law, they owe to us. Is it really to be suggested that it is so wrong to attempt a comparable on even a greater modification in respect of an island which, however great and however bitter the differences between us and them have been, has nevertheless played a large part in our Island history, and has been, alike with us, not a Dominion but a parent State, and whose economic union with us is vital in the years largely to follow?
I do not believe there is a single one of your Lordships who, had he been placed in the position of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, would not have reached the conclusion which this Chancellor of the Exchequer, of all others, has reached. I say "of all others" because there has never been a Chancellor of the Exchequer more deeply concerned to explore and exploit every conceivable source of revenue. I do not believe there is one of your Lordships who, had he occupied the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer, would have said: Whatever other sources of revenue are open, I am going to a nation with a net revenue of £21,000,000, and ask them to pay us phantom millions, of which they are not the masters and will not be the masters in any ascertain able period.
There was a charge which it seemed to me was very proper to be supported by the Irish Free State, and that was in respect of the damages inflicted upon the properties of Irish loyalists. Very many moving and poignant debates have taken place in this House upon the subject of the wrongs sustained by loyalists in Ireland. I was never happy when I sat in the seat of the Lord Chancellor and it was my duty over those anxious years to reply on Irish subjects. I was never happy when those topics were raised before your Lordships; I do not know that the Duke of Devonshire who answered for them in later years was happier than I was. They were a class who deserved well of your Lordships' House and of the country. Though, amid great difficulties, I did the best with my humble powers that I could for them, they were a class of whom even now it
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must be said that they have not in my judgment received their just compensation.
We have, at least, made this arrangement with the authorities of the Irish Free State. The amount which we, the British Government, have already paid in compensation is, in round figures—I am dealing in round figures only—the sum of £5,000,000. The Irish Free State have charged themselves with that responsibility. In addition, for post-truce injuries they have bound themselves to issue bonds, which will place them in the position to give a 10 per cent, increase of the compensation which has hitherto been established. It is proposed that they shall make an initial and immediate payment of £150,000 with that object, and that thereafter, for a period of sixty years, they shall contribute £250,000 a year. It was our obligation to pay a sum of £900,000 in the next year to the Irish Free State, and it is contemplated that that £900,000 shall inure in part payment of these liabilities. To me I confess there is something entirely satisfactory in the fact that these losses and damages should be made good, not by us but by the Irish Free State Government. Not that since the Treaty those who have been responsible for that Government have been responsible for these losses, but, after all they are the legatees of all that went before. They have inherited the political conditions; it seems to me that they are, and ought to be, the heirs of the responsibility.
I have this only to add upon the subject of the financial settlement which I recommend to your Lordships. At the time when we signed that Treaty it seemed to us altogether reasonable that the Irish Free State should pay something to the cost of the War. We did not suspect the burden to which they themselves would be subjected. In the course of the three years which followed the Treaty they found themselves involved in a civil war—in a civil war which meant the maintenance of a great Army, and which in three years cost this impoverished State a sum of no less than £20,000,000. I think there are many now listening to me who, if they had been told at the time the Treaty was signed that within six months the forces of the Irish Free State would have been found besieging the Four Courts, putting down

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their opponents by the sword, and executing the leader of that revolutionary movement, Rory O'Connor—I think if your Lordships had been told at the time of the signing of the Treaty that the conception which was taken of the responsibilities of those who had entered into this Treaty was of that character, that many of our responsibilities might have been removed. Let us, at least, remember this. It did not fall upon us, haying regard to the settlement that was achieved, to put down that civil war. They put down that civil war. There is no civil war to-day in Ireland, and they put it down at a cost of £20,000,000.
I should be misleading the House if I affected to claim that now for all time we have attained a settlement of our Irish difficulties. I make no such claim. I never have made such a claim. Vainglorious indeed would one generation be in English politics who made a claim that we had once for all resolved difficulties which have bankrupted statesmanship in this country now for a period of hundreds of years. But I say this, that just as there succeeded to the Treaty made in Paris Conferences at Genoa, at Cologne, in Switzerland, and I know not where else—just as there was a culminating point in those negotiations which has led us to the Treaty of Locarno, so I, not dogmatically but hopefully, discern some real note of progress in the Bill which I recommend to your Lordships to-night.
And how far back this controversy goes! I must be allowed to make this claim, even if only that I may retain some shred of political consistency. I always opposed all the Home Rule Bills which were brought forward when I was in Parliament, because they contained the mad and ignorant determination to coerce the Northern Province of Ireland. That is my defence for all I ever said and all I ever did and every word which I spoke against those Home Rule Bills. You may ransack every speech I made on the platform or in Parliament, you will never find a speech in which I argued against, the right of the South of Ireland, the moment they excluded the North of Ireland, to arrive at a conclusion which would give them self-government. The controversy is, indeed, old. It has assumed formidable dimensions, and at some of the most critical periods in our
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history. I remember that just before the War a Conference, took place at Buckingham Palace. I think my noble friend (Lord Carson) was one of the negotiators. It broke down on this very question of the boundary. And now at last, at the price—if I may say so without giving offence to any one now—at the price of waiving a doubtful debt, we are afforded the opportunity of obtaining a settlement which in my judgment would have been gladly accepted at the time of the Buckingham Conference.
It may be that it is true that this is not the last word. I cannot measure what are the difficulties which the present Government of the Free State have to face in the Dail. I believe that they will survive those difficulties. If they were defeated in the Dail I am certain they would appeal to the country. I am sanguine enough to believe that they would not appeal in vain. If they appealed in vain we should be confronted with a new situation, and that situation again, in its turn, it would be our duty to face, and we should not shrink from it. But I do not anticipate so melancholy a conclusion. I found myself upon the fact that, for the first time so far as I know, in the history of Irish affairs there has been promulgated an instrument which has affirmed the conjoint good will of England, of Northern Ireland, and of Southern Ireland. And I know this, that there was established in the course of these discussions a degree of personal confidence between those who spoke for the North and those who spoke for the South which had not hitherto been known in this bitter and age-long controversy.
I have this to add. Ulster has been involved, naturally, reasonably and inevitably, in great charges as long as this boundary question was unsettled, for the maintenance of forces in the neighbourhood of 30,000 men who were prepared for any contingency upon the border. The early and harassed history which followed immediately upon the Treaty did not make it easy for them to abandon the scale of this semi-military establishment. Yet it plainly and entirely exceeded the scale of their own resources and, therefore, this country formed the conception of its own responsibilities in this matter which has led it to make a very great contribution towards the expenses of this constabulary force. Sir

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James Craig has informed the Government that in view of a settlement in which he entirely concurs it will be possible for him immediately, or almost immediately, to disband this force. One last contribution, which, I think, will be gladly paid, is due from this country towards the cost of that force and towards the cost of its disbandment. It is a sum, I believe, of £1,200,000 which will be included in the Estimates after Christmas. Apart from that, which was already in honour due and which must have been paid, there has been no financial consideration of any kind paid to Northern Ireland in respect of this settlement.
I observed in Punch to-day a cartoon of great humour which represented John Bull, with a placid and suffering expression upon his paternal face and with a large pocket upon each side of his traditional coat. In the pocket upon one side were placed the hands of Sir James Craig and in the pocket on the other side the hands of President Cosgrave. We are as a nation deeply affected to-day by financial burdens and anxieties; nevertheless we are a great, wealthy and resilient nation. In dealing in terms of finance with those whom, we are so deeply concerned to conciliate now and ultimately to bring together, we must think always in terms of our relative resources. The resources of these countries in relation to our own, even at a moment when we are so deeply pressed, are negligible, and no nation has ever permanently occupied a great place in history who could not subordinate questions of finance, however embarrassed its finances might be to considerations of high policy.
As I stand here to-night recommending the Second Reading of this Bill I am reminded of an occasion a few years ago, when I recommended the Second Reading of that Treaty which was the necessary substratum of this proposal and without which this proposal could not have come into being. I remember with deep emotion that one of my dearest friends felt it his duty with bitterness to attack that which we then proposed. Of all the circumstances which render that an unhappy memory to me it is the circumstance that my old friend both in the law and in politics—Lord Carson—should have taken at that moment a view so unfavourable of that which I was
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proposing. The differences between the noble and learned Lord and myself have long since been composed. It is a happiness to me to recall that our friendship has been completely re-established and whether we were right or whether we ware wrong in proposing the original Treaty—and I always admitted it was disputable whether we were right or whether we were wrong—this is the necessary consequence of that Treaty. This, my Lords, believe me, affords a richer promise of hope than that Treaty, fashioned in a moment of hatred, ever afforded or ever could afford. Let us go forward to the future in hope.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Birkenhead.)
LORD ARNOLD: My Lords, I do not propose to follow the noble and learned Earl through the long historical survey or the apologia which formed the major portion of his speech. In the comparatively-brief observations I intend to offer I will address myself rather more directly to the Bill which is before your Lordships' House. The noble and learned Earl claimed that this Bill would not have been possible without the Treaty of the Coalition Government. I may, therefore, I trust, be permitted to claim that the Bill would not have been possible and that this Irish settlement could not have been effected had it not been for the action of the Labour Government last year. What do I mean by that? It was in October, 1924, that the Labour Government, as its last act, passed through your Lordships' House the Bill which set up the Boundary Commission for Ulster. As a result of that, this settlement has indirectly, though in effect, come about. At any rate, it could not have been done without it.
I am not criticising the settlement. I and my colleagues on this Bench support it, and, looking at it as a whole, we think it should be fully approved. I shall have certain points to raise and some, questions to ask; but looking at matters as a whole, we think that this settlement is one which should receive the unchallenged assent of your Lordships' House. May I be allowed to say, though, that the action of the late Government last year was not a very easy one to take. It would have suited the late Government better from the Party point of view to have

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taken another course. But we did not do that. We introduced the Bill to which I have referred. It is true that in your Lordships' House we did not receive very much appreciation or support for the course which we then took. In fact, it was only with difficulty that the Bill was passed; but it was passed, and I repeat that that Bill paved the way for the present settlement.
This settlement has four main provisions. I propose to say a word or two about two of them only, because I desire to address my remarks in the main to certain aspects of the financial matters arising out of this Bill and out of the Agreement made last week. The noble and learned Earl has dealt at length with the boundary question. All I will say about that is that this disturbing and discordant factor which has so embarrassed and weakened both Governments in Ireland is now, we hope and believe, removed from the area of controversy, and that in itself is an enormous and incalculable gain. There is a very important provision in this Bill to which the noble and learned Earl did not refer at all. It is in subsection (2) of Clause 1. That is the provision which sets up machinery for meetings between the Government of Northern Ireland and the Government of the Irish Free State. It may well prove as time goes on that this is the most important clause in the Bill. Only the future can show. It is impossible yet to say what will come of it, but I would fain hope that it may pave the way for most beneficial conferences between both the Governments and may lead to unity, which seemed a short time ago scarcely attainable.
Having said that about those two provisions of the settlement—and they are most important—I pass on to consider some of the financial matters upon which the noble and learned Earl spoke at considerable length, I do not think, if I may say so, at too great a length having regard to the importance of the matter. The noble and learned Earl spoke at considerable length about the provision in this Bill which abrogates Article 5 of the original. Treaty and relieves the Irish Free State from liability in respect of a contribution to our National Debt and in respect of a contribution to the cost of War Pensions. My col-
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leagues and I agree with the noble and learned Earl that the abrogation of this Article is in all the circumstances a wise proceeding. This matter, when you come to the figures, has been, is and I suppose now always will be, one of controversy and difference of opinion. The noble and learned Earl gave certain figures to your Lordships bearing upon it. He pointed out that, whereas everything was very indefinite, a certain very preliminary and tentative claim had been framed—and the Prime Minister said this yesterday—by the British Government, amounting to £128,000,000 of capital and £27,000,000 of interest, a total of £155,000,000. He observed, and of course very properly, that there were certain deductions to be made from that quite apart from the main counter-claim of the Free State Government. Those deductions would be on account of monies which might be received by us from the Allies in respect of Debt due to us. The noble and learned Earl spoke of Reparations from Allies, but, of course, he meant Debts from the Allies. Such Reparations as are expected will come from some of our late enemies and, of course, certain items with reference to those will have to be taken into account.
Then we come to the question of the counter-claim and the noble and learned Earl spoke about it at some length. He said it had been put at £200,000,000. As a matter of fact the late Colonial Secretary, speaking in another place yesterday, said it had been put as high as £280,000,000 when he was in office. He saw figures which purported to arrive at some such total as that. If any such figure were sustainable it is quite clear that the prospect before this country in respect of contributions under this clause would not be a very encouraging one. But for my part I do not attach very much importance to any of those figures. They will be matters of controversy and, no doubt, great interest for many years to come, but of academic interest. All I will say is that I have always regarded any contribution from the Free State to our National Debt as a doubtful asset.
Still, the Article was there and it has undoubtedly been a certain handicap to the Free State. Its abrogation is a real gain to the financial credit and stability of the Free State because nobody could tell how eventually the matter might have

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worked out. It might have been, as the noble and learned Earl has suggested, that some figure would have been arrived at by arbitrators, but here I think, if I may say so with respect, he did not quite sufficiently elaborate the difficulty. I heard him say there wag no such sum of money as £60,000,000 in the Free State. Of course there is not in the sense that money could be transferred here. The point I want to make is this—it is a point which the Prime Minister dealt with yesterday—I think that even if a sum had been arrived at finally that sum would have had to be paid to this country in goods. The noble Earl said that the amount which the Free State at the present time has to transmit abroad is about £5,000,000 a year. That is not what the Prime Minister said yesterday. He said it was between £3,000,000 and £4,000,000.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: £4,600,000 he said.
LORD ARNOLD: I have his words here. He said:—
"The point I wish to impress upon the House is this, that between £3,000,000 and £4,000,000 of that amount is being paid annually and will be paid outside the country …."
And if you look at it in another way it comes to a smaller figure because if the Revenue is about £26,000,000, one-tenth of that, to which reference was made by the Prime Minister, reduces the amount to £2,600,000. However, this is not very germane to the subject, but it is a little difficult to deal with when members of the Government do not agree. I think the noble and learned Earl will find that I am perfectly correct because I took the trouble to take out the figures before I came here.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: I do not think the noble Lord is quite right. I think the Prime Minister ignored, as a Minister reasonably may, some small amounts. The noble Lord will see that on columns 314 and 315 of the OFFICIAL REPORT he says:
"The Free State Government are collecting the land purchase and local loans annuities, which will continue for many years under past legislation, to an amount in round figures of about £3,000,000 a year and are paying pensions to police and civil servants retired from public service in that State to an amount of over £1,600,000."
That is the £4,600,000 which I had in my mind.
LORD ARNOLD: The noble and learned Earl does not appreciate the point I was making. The point I was making was that between £3,000,000 and £4,000,000 had to be transmitted abroad by the Free State. How is the noble and learned Earl's statement to be reconciled with the further statement of the Prime Minister of what is calculated at not less, and may be rather more, than one-tenth of the Revenue?
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: The noble Lord will forgive me. I think that my right hon. friend the Prime Minister was misstating the proportion. I should have stated a different one. I will only deal with the figures given to us by the Free State representatives. They would add about £250,000 more to the £4,600,000. Of course some of that is spent in the Irish Free State, but the proportion of that is so very small that it is not worth arguing about.
LORD ARNOLD: As I was observing it is not really an important matter, and I do not propose to pursue it further. I took the words of the Prime Minister, but of course I dc not know what he may have meant. What I have given to your Lordships are the words that he used. The last point I wish to make about it is this. In all the circumstances we agree that it is a wise thing to have abrogated that Article, and I think that the effect which this may have upon the financial stability and the credit of the Free State should be beneficial.
Then we come to the more detailed financial matters. The noble and learned Earl explained, and it is down in the Bill, that the Free State has undertaken to repay to the British Government the monies already paid by the British Government in respect of damage done for malicious injury since July, 1919, and also they have undertaken to promote legislation to increase by 10 per cent. the compensation awards made under the Act of 1923 for damage done between July, 1921, and May, 1923. There are two or three questions that I should like to ask about these provisions. I presume this 10 per cent. increase is a flat-rate increase, and I gather it applies not only to awards which have been made, but also to ex-gratia payments that have been paid. If that is not so, why should ex-gratia

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payments be omitted? I want to ask what is the precise position in respect of this 10 per cent. increase and future awards. Has it any relation at all to future awards? Are they going to be increased by 10 per cent.? A little information on this point would be very valuable. If this is not meant as regards the future, what does it mean?
I now desire to raise a point which I think is very relevant in regard to this ten per cent. increase. The noble and learned Earl has referred to the debates which have taken place in your Lordships' House on many occasions. I have only been a member of your Lordships' House for rather less than two years and I can remember five debates in connection with injuries suffered by Irish loyalists in Southern Ireland and the compensation paid to them in one way and another for the damage done to their properties. As a result of two debates which were held in your Lordships' House last July the Government agreed to set up a Committee to investigate this matter and see whether any further compensation should be paid to the loyalists for damage done to their property. I was very surprised to see in the Press some four months after this Committee had been agreed to, a statement to the effect that no meetings of the Committee had been held. I should like to know I whether this information is correct. I was, however, still more surprised to see in the report of what took place in the House of Commons yesterday that Colonel Gretton said that even yet, in the middle of December, no meeting of this Committee had been held.
It seems to me to be a most singular state of things. In July last we were told that these various matters were urgent, to use no stronger word, and the demand for the appointment of this Committee was so clamant and insistent that the Government had to yield and agree to the appointment. What has happened? What are those members of your Lordships' House who are on this Committee doing in the matter? They told us there were great grievances, a great deal of distress, that the matter was urgent, and yet here we are five months after the Committee was appointed and not one single meeting of it has yet been held. The position calls for some explanation.
LORD CARSON: The noble Lord must remember that there is a Conservative Government in power.
LORD ARNOLD: That is true, and it is, of course, responsible for a great many things. That may be the explanation. If it is let us have it, because I think your Lordships are entitled to some explanation. The debate of last July was adjourned, the Question is still on the Paper, and I think this House should have some explanation of this extraordinary state of things. In the next place I want to ask—and in view of this Bill it is only right that your Lordships should be informed—how this matter of the Committee stands in relation to the future? So far the Committee has not met, but I suppose it is going to function some day. Very well. Does the Government still contemplate, in addition to this 10 per cent. increase to compensation awards under the Act of 1923, to bring about which the Free State has agreed to promote legislation, giving to the Irish loyalists in certain cases further compensation which will, of course, be given at the expense of the British taxpayer? The noble and learned Earl said that it was a great satisfaction to him to know that all the damage which had been done would be paid for by the Irish Free State.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: I did not say "all the damage."
LORD ARNOLD: I am sorry if I misunderstood the noble and learned Earl. But this Committee is in existence and I think we are entitled to some information on this point. The Prime Minister, in another place, yesterday, said this:
"This agreement makes no change of any sort, or kind in the obligations .… which the British Government have undertaken towards those who have suffered injury to person or property in the Irish Free State."
That statement requires a little amplification, otherwise there might be some misunderstanding. If the Prime Minister is referring to what he has just been saying it is all right, but if it is taken to refer to what he goes on to say then I think a certain discrepancy arises. What is the position? A Committee is appointed to go into the question of compensation and see whether in certain cases more compensation should be given.

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Later on the Free State Government agree to increase the compensation awards by ten per cent. There is, therefore, a change in the position; and it does make a difference. Is not this to come under the purview of this Committee? Are they still going to proceed as though the ten per cent. had not been given? Taken literally that might be the interpretation put upon it.
I would like to ask, although I am afraid I shall not get any reply—it is an important matter seeing that the Committee has not yet met—whether the Government can give us any estimate of the burden which is likely to be placed upon the British Exchequer in respect of the working of this Committee if, and when, it gets to work? That is an important matter, and I should appreciate some information on it, more particularly because the plan of getting out of their difficulties which has been resorted to more than once by His Majesty's present advisers, by means of a large cash payment, is an expensive plan. It may be comparatively easy for the Government but it is expensive for the taxpayer, and we are entitled to some information as to what liability will ultimately come upon the British Exchequer, particularly having regard to the fact that the compensation has been increased by ten per cent.
I have finished, but I respectfully submit that these questions are quite relevant to this Bill and to this discussion. At the same time I agree with the spirit of the concluding observation of the noble and learned Earl. I am not content that the matters of which I have spoken should interfere or impede the settlement that has been made. I am not content with that. On the contrary, I repeat that so far as we are concerned we think the settlement, looking at it broadly, is a good one. We think it should go through. We wish it well, and we hope it will be of great and lasting benefit to the Irish people.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: My Lords, the Bill which is now before your Lordships' House and to which you are asked to give a Second Reading is so entirely in harmony with what has been said so often by noble friends of mine from this Bench that it is quite unnecessary for me to detain your Lordships for any length of time this evening. Still less
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do I feel it necessary to follow the noble Lord who has just spoken in the somewhat severe and unnecessary criticisms which he has offered on various details in the Bill. This is a time when it is necessary that men of good will should combine together in order to assist this settlement and enable it, at this critical moment, to pass with ease and without any disturbance. It is most unfortunate that criticisms of that kind should be offered in your Lordships' House.
I should like, however, to offer my congratulations to the noble and learned Earl, who has left the House, upon the fact that it has fallen to his lot to move the Second Reading of this Bill. It must have been a matter of no small satisfaction to him, having been so largely responsible for the Irish policy of the Coalition Government, to find himself in the position of moving this Bill this afternoon and so putting the culminating point to a policy for which he was so largely responsible. I will not elaborate that point in his absence.
What I should like to do is to utter a gentle lamentation upon the cost, which will undoubtedly follow from this Bill, to the unfortunate British taxpayer. It does look as if nowadays, whenever anybody disputes about anything, they always expect to be compensated by the British taxpayer—whether it is coal or Ireland, it is always the unfortunate British taxpayer—and everything is made easy by being paid for out of our pockets. One of the best features of this Bill, I think, is that the large sum of money which has been paid for eight years for the Ulster special constables will be no longer payable; this, at any rate, will be something in the pockets of the people of this country. Not unnaturally the noble and learned Earl who introduced this Bill referred to Locarno. It is the "stunt" word of the moment, and I would say, as has been said about Locarno, that I hope that this measure is not the end but that it is only the beginning of fresh measures of conciliation and of good will amongst the people of Ireland. I rejoice especially to think that, as one result of this Bill, there will be re-established the Council of All Ireland.
A NOBLE LORD: No.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I understood that it would be re-established, and hoped

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that it would be re-established, and that, as a result, people from every part of Ireland would have been able to meet together to discuss matters of common interest and matters upon which they disagreed. For myself, I hope I shall be forgiven if I venture to quote from the speech which I made on this very subject on October 8 last year, and in which I ended by saying:—
"I believe that in this matter our chief hope lies in bringing public opinion in this country to bear on the controversy in Ireland and impressing upon Irishmen the desire we have that they should, by themselves, settle their own disputes."
I am happy to think that this is exactly what has happened with regard to this matter. Irishmen have come together and they have settled this matter in accordance with their own wishes. I hope that this is the beginning of a new era in this connection, that what they have done in relation to this matter will always be the course that will be followed by Irishmen in the future, and that they will be able in the same way to settle any other matters of dispute which may arise between them.
LORD CARSON: My Lords, I desire to offer only a very few observations to your Lordships upon the very important Bill that has been brought before you to-day. At parts of the speech of the noble and learned Earl who moved the Second Reading of the Bill I felt from time to time inclined to be controversial, but I am saved from becoming so because I think that when the noble Earl's speech is examined it will be found that one of the great features of it is the bold condemnation that he himself made of the greater part of the Treaty of 1921, which he brought about, and of all that resulted from that Treaty. One is always disarmed on finding a frankness of that kind—on finding, for instance, the statement that what immediately followed the Treaty was a war that cost the Irish Free State £20,000,000 in money, and I cannot say how much in material damage—I have heard it estimated at £50,000,000 or £70,000,000—or how much in the lives of Irishmen, many of them shot, I do not say wrongly under the law, by the Free State Government whose colleagues and friends they had been in the outrages which had led up to the Treaty in 1921. I might follow out the line that the noble Earl felt it necessary to take to-night,
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but I think it is such a candid confession of a great deal that might otherwise have to be said that I do not intend to pursue any controversial line whatsoever beyond that which I have already indicated.
I have the disadvantage of being an Irishman and therefore I know something about Ireland. I have lived there for a great part of my life and I have never ceased to take an interest in Ireland. Consequently, when I speak upon Ireland now, I speak with no undue optimism nor, I hope, on an occasion like the present, shall I speak, in the few words that I have to say, with undue pessimism. But I cannot but feel gratified in the part that I, at all events, have played in the politics of my own country, and by the fact that from start to finish one thing that this Bill shows and demonstrates is that Ulster in her claim has been right. I go back, as the noble and learned Earl did, to the Buckingham Palace Conference. Heaven knows, I remember the responsibilities that were upon my own shoulders at that time! The claim of Ulster then was that the six counties should be left out and should not be handed over to the Government of the other twenty-six counties, and it was upon that matter of the boundary that the Buckingham Palace Conference, presided over by His Majesty on the first day, broke off on the very eve of the War.
I cast my mind back to 1916, not very long before the Battle of the Somme, in which the Ulster Division lost 6,000 men in fighting your battles and their own. I then spent several weeks in Ulster trying to get the Ulster people to agree that the six-county boundary should again be accepted, as it was thought that it would help to win the War to set up Home Rule in the middle of the War with a view to obtaining more sympathy from the United States, who had not then come in. I remember the patriotism with which these men, bearing much that was sorrowful for them and being separated from their fellow countrymen and co-religionists of the other counties, passed a resolution saying that they would be willing in the interests of the War to agree to the six counties, but unfortunately all that went for nothing through the greater wisdom of your politicians over here. Then, when the Act of 1920 was brought in the same

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contest arose, and there I thought—I am wiser now—the boundary was finally settled by the solemn Act of the two Houses of Parliament, signed by the King, and that the six counties had to be handed over for good or ill to the people of Northern Ireland. The Bill had hardly become an Act, and the King had hardly opened the Parliament of Ulster, when there came into the foreground for your political purposes an entire upsetting of the whole of that arrangement.
The Treaty, which was so fully described by the noble Earl, and which was the product of an outbreak in the Free State and of outrages which have been so eloquently discussed to-day, was made. What did it do? Once more behind the back of Ulster, at midnight in Downing Street, you put in a provision which might lead to the greatest possible disasters — a provision once more challenging what you had settled in 1920—this unfortunate provision about the Boundary Commission, which has kept Ulster, during all these years of difficulty and unemployment, in a state of uncertainty which nobody in this House, unless he happens to understand Ulster, can possibly appreciate. It has led to outbreaks along the border which I thank Heaven are becoming less every day. It has led to disappointment in people on both sides of the border—some who might be put in and some who might be put out. Then, only last year when Ulster, who had no hand or part in any of its terms, refused to take part in having her own boundaries judged after she had accepted the Act of 1920, the Government of the day and the Houses of Parliament passed an Act entirely altering the Treaty and rendering it compulsory for Ulster to have her case judged without any representative of her on the Commission. For a whole year we have had this Commission going round, the result being an Election, which became necessary in the North of Ireland in the early part of last year, in order that the hands of the Prime Minister might be strengthened — an Election upon this question of the boundary, in which he was returned again by a large majority.
All this time you have had, as my noble friend the Earl of Birkenhead said, practically under arms, 38,000 Ulstermen kept upon the borders—what I think are called
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"Specials"—at an enormous cost. I rejoice, to-day, that that situation is at an end. But if I am optimistic that that may lead to good between the North and South, I am pessimistic for other reasons. In the first place I trust no British Government in relation to Ulster, and I do not know whether this country will now cease the unfortunate policy, which she has pursued on all these occasions to which I have referred, in her dealings with the Free State, of making Ulster a mere pawn in the political game and the political policy this country has carried on. I hope it may be so. I hope, and I beg that at all ex tints for some years to come this country will see what Ulster has gone through, that she will see how right Ulster has been all through, that she will see that this very day is the vindication of the position which Ulster took up, and that she will take care that never again will Ulster become a pawn in the negotiations between Great Britain and the Free State.
That is probably all I need say upon that point. If the settlement of the boundary leads to better relations between the North and South, I think great advantages may accrue from this Bill. For my own part I have always hoped, and always longed, that the very best relations should subsist between the North and South of Ireland—I am a Southerner myself—but so long as you had a question like this open it was almost impossible for the North and South to come together.
The greater part of the speech of the noble Earl was taken up with the question of finance. Except as an English taxpayer I am not really concerned with it, but I have this additional advantage, that I never was in the least taken in by this question of what is called Article 5, under which you were to get large contributions from the Irish Free State. I knew from the start, when the Treaty was signed and that Article was put in, that it never would be put into force, and I have been made the more certain of that because four years have elapsed, and no attempt has been made even to set up the Committee of Arbitration provided for by the Article. Now the Article is cut out. Why was it put in? It was put in because the then Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George, had made one speech after another saying that, in any settlement as

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regards Ireland, the one thing he would take care of was that Irishmen should never be allowed to pay less towards the cost of the War than were their fellow-citizens in this country. The provision put in was mere window-dressing. It was to avoid the criticism at the time of the breaking up of the United Kingdom that you were foregoing the whole debt.
What did they forego? At the time of the Union Ireland was in a state of bankruptcy. The joint Exchequer of the two countries took over the whole of the Debts. They have gone on increasing that Debt ever since. The whole of the War Debt was incurred as much for the benefit of Ireland as for the benefit of this country, and the whole thing is wiped out. Of course it is, and I quite agree with the noble and learned Earl that it would have been utterly impossible ever to get paid. How could you? You have run away out of Ireland, not even taking care to preserve the lives and the properties of those who were your loyal fellow-countrymen over there. You had not time even to do that. And then you tell me that you are solemnly going to demand from the Free State—what was it, £220,000,000 or £150,000,000? Well, it is very easy to calculate it. This House passed a Bill in 1920, which said that the proper contribution from the Free State was £10,000,000 a year. Take that at twenty years purchase, that would be £200,000,000. How were you going to get it? Were you going to send a gunboat up the Liffey? Why, you had been beaten out of the country already. Were you going to blow up the Custom House—which had already been blown up by the Free Staters? The whole thing was ridiculous.
Do not bother yourselves about Article 5. Do not worry your hearts out that you are going to pay a single penny the more. There is no money in it. It is what I believe they call in the City "paper"—and bad paper. Of course, in a Treaty like this it sounds well. I am quite willing to take it, if you like, that it was an act of great generosity, but I do not think that was the way the noble and learned Earl put it. I think he said it was a bad debt, and so it was, and it was never meant to be anything else. So I do not stop for a moment to consider the other provisions as regards
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finance, though I suppose it is my Irish sense of humour which gives me some sort of pleasure in contemplating the substitution for £200,000,000 of some £4,000,000.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: £150,000,000, less deductions.
LORD CARSON: Yes, I know, but I am taking it as settled by the Act of 1920, and substituting something like £4,000,000, which is to be spread over sixty years. £250,000 a year instead of £10,000,000! It is really almost as good as a play to put that into the Treaty at all. It was not worth while. And the first part of it is to be paid by the Government retaining £900,000 that they have promised to pay—for what? As compensation to men whose property had been damaged when they were manufacturing bombs and other implements of war for the purpose of blowing up British troops.
My Lords, do not trouble about finance. Concentrate on the reality. There is always a great deal in reality in these matters where England and Ireland are entering into arrangements of this kind. Concentrate on the reality. The reality is that the boundary has been settled. That is a greater reality than many people who have not followed events might know. Far better settle the boundary as it is even than have a better boundary under the award of the Commission. To turn men out from under the Government that they are under is a far more difficult and dangerous process than turning men in under another Government, and it is far better that men should stay in as they are than that you should raise new grievances, by including people who do not want to be included and excluding people who do not want to be excluded. Therefore, so far as I am concerned—and it is the main point, after all, of this Bill—this is a great advantage.
I hope that Ulster will be left alone for sometime. I cannot read without some anxiety the news from Ireland to-day, because I see that a majority of the Dail, including those who do not go to the Dail because they refuse to take the Oath, are apparently opposed to this settlement. That is one of those matters which make one who looks for peace rather anxious, and I hope the difficulties

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may be overcome in some way or other. It is very little use passing a Bill in the Dail if the majority of the Dail are not really in favour of the Bill. But I hope wiser counsel from day to day may prevail in Ireland. So far as I am concerned I hope that those whose interests I have always attempted during my long public career to champion in the South and West of Ireland, as well as in the North of Ireland, will throw in the whole weight of their endeavour and influence in supporting this Treaty, and in aiding and helping not only the Government of Northern Ireland under Sir James Craig, but also the Government of the South and West of Ireland under Mr. Cosgrave.
LORD DANESFORT: My Lord, I hope that you will allow me, as one who since he first entered Parliament some thirty-three years ago has been deeply concerned with the affairs of Ireland, to offer a few words on this Bill. There are two subjects of great satisfaction in connection with this Agreement. The first is that now at long last the Government of Northern Ireland has been allowed to retain that which it always contended it should retain, that is, the Six Counties.
The noble and learned Lord who has just spoken described the deplorable results which followed from the insertion of Article 12 in the Treaty, and if any stronger condemnation could be given to that clause you would find it in the words of the Prime Minister himself yesterday in the House of Commons, in which he pointed out that it was quite impossible that under that Article there could be any report which would not lead to the gravest danger and unsettlement. His words were these:
"I am clear that neither that Report (of the Commission) nor any Report would have become effective without leading, at the best, to a prolonged unsettlement along the border, and very possibly to trouble of a kind which we should be most reluctant to contemplate."
We wonder why, in view of that fact, this Article ever got inserted into the Treaty at all.
The noble and learned Earl gave us his account of it, and he told us that those who negotiated for Great Britain clearly foresaw the grave dangers of this Article 12. I think he described it as likely to produce results such as a charge
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of dynamite would produce. He then went on to tell us that the Free State negotiators insisted upon the Article being inserted; in other words, he threw the whole blame for inserting that Article upon the Free State and, I suppose, by inference, the Free State was really responsible. But I leave the noble and learned Earl to settle with his Free State friends whether he and his colleagues or the Free State were most responsible. My noble and learned friend Lord Carson, who has just spoken, has told us some of the consequences which have followed—perpetual unrest—
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: Does not the noble Lord realise that if Article 12 had not been inserted in the original Treaty this settlement would have been impossible?
LORD DANESFORT: I realise that this settlement would have been unnecessary.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: Unnecessary?
LORD DANESFORT: Unnecessary if this Article had not been inserted. I know that the noble and learned Earl is anxious to understand any legitimate criticism so may I point out to him that he said that we objected to inserting this Article because we looked upon it as a sort of charge of dynamite, but the Free State insisted upon its being in and we had to give in. Therefore, I repeat that the noble and learned Earl throws all the blame for the insertion of this Article in the Treaty on the Free State negotiators.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: If I am not embarrassing the noble Lord, may I ask him whether he would rather sacrifice the Treaty than have Article 12 in it? That is the question, and he must make his decision.
LORD DANESFORT: The noble and learned Earl really does not appear to apprehend what I have been saying.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: I apprehend it very clearly.
LORD DANESFORT: He says that he is not responsible for Article 12.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: No, I did not.
LORD DANESFORT: He said, at any rate, that he looked upon it as a source of the greatest danger, as a charge of dynamite which must lead to disastrous or dangerous results. If he did that, I think it would not have been put into the Treaty unless he was forced to put it in. He tells us, as I understand him, that he was forced to put it in by the Free State negotiators. Therefore I think I am not carrying the argument too far when I say that the noble and learned Earl throws the blame for this Article upon the Free State negotiators, and I say that is a dispute between him and the Free State which I leave him to clear up.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: I will clear it up. The noble Lord need not worry about that.
LORD DANESFORT: I am glad to think that I have done something to help the noble and learned Earl. I really do not want to go into the question of the disastrous results of this Article. They are patent on the face of them. They led to unsettlement, uneasiness and anxiety in the Northern parts of Ireland. What we are concerned with now is that this disastrous Article is put an end to once and, as I hope, for all.
The other cause for satisfaction which arises out of this Agreement is that the Prime Minister made it plain yesterday that all the obligations undertaken by the British Government for relieving the terrible sufferings of the Southern Irish loyalists would be carried out to the very letter and that this Agreement would in no way affect those obligations. That has given very great satisfaction, I think, to Irish loyalists. May I remind your Lordships of what the Prime Minister said:—
"… this Agreement makes no change of any sort or kind in the obligations … which the British Government have undertaken towards those who have suffered injury in person or property in the Free State either before or after the truce …. The Irish Grants Committee continues in being, and the Committee which the Government recently promised to set up will operate as though the Agreement had never been made."
The noble Lord, Lord Arnold, wanted to know whether this Committee was operating. I can assure him that it is operating and I hope it will operate satisfactorily. I am glad to be able to give
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him that assurance and, no doubt, the noble and learned Earl, in his reply upon the debate, will inform him further exactly what has been done.
But while expressing satisfaction that the British Government have not abandoned their obligations to the Southern Irish loyalists, I cannot but feel deep regret that this opportunity, the last perhaps that will be afforded to us, was not taken to get some better terms from the Free State Government to make amends to the Southern Irish loyalists for the terrible sufferings to which they have been subjected. I understand that an additional 10 per cent. has been promised to the paltry compensation given under the Act of 1923, making up, I think, the value of the depreciated Free State bonds which were issued at par. But had more pressure been brought to bear upon the Free State Government in this settlement, I believe they would have done something more to make amends for the terrible losses sustained by the Southern Irish loyalists.
Having said that there are those two elements of satisfaction, may I for one moment touch upon a question which it seems to me has been entirely neglected in this settlement? I refer to the question of justice to the British taxpayer. I entirely agree with the noble Earl, Lord Beauchamp, that it has become too much the custom, when any trouble arises in this country or elsewhere, to call upon the British taxpayer to put his hand in his pocket and pay millions of money. Trouble arises, there is a demand for peace or a hope of peace, and the remedy that is almost invariably tried is to ask the British Government for some millions of money. Under entirely different conditions from those now existing it might sometimes be a just demand. But the British taxpayer is groaning under the burdens he has now to bear, British industry is paralysed in many cases by the taxes, and this is the time chosen totally to neglect, as I think, in this settlement the interests of the taxpayer.
Let us see how the matter stands. Article 5 is abrogated. I will not read it again. We all know that the Free State solemnly promised to pay to the British Government their share of the National Debt and the cost of Pensions. It was a deliberate act on the part of the British Government to ask for, and it was

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a deliberate act on the part of the Free State Government to give, this promise, and I think it would be insulting to both Governments to suggest that when the Free State promised to make this contribution they really never meant it at all or that when the British Government inserted Article 5 in the Treaty they never intended to enforce it. I know that my noble and learned friend Lord Carson, who has just spoken, took a rather gloomy view of Article 5 and, possibly, was not particularly complimentary either to the British Government who demanded it or to the Free State Government who acceded to the demand. I assume, therefore, that Article 5 was put in with the intention on the part of the Free State Government to honour their obligation and on the part of the British Government to enforce it. Indeed, I observe that as recently as March last His Majesty's present Government regarded that obligation as enforceable, because they actually formulated a demand upon the Free State for £155,000,000 which they thought a just sum. Therefore when the noble and learned Earl tells us it is absurd to regard it as impossible, perhaps he will explain why. In the early part of this year so far were we from regarding it as impossible that we actually formulated a claim.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: I will explain that. At that time it was assumed that an arbitration was going forward. It was known that the Free State claim was in the neighbourhood of £180,000,000. We put forward a fighting claim. The noble Lord, as a Chancery lawyer, will understand why we did so.
LORD DANESFORT: I do not as a Chancery lawyer in the least understand it. I do not wish to be acrimonious if I can help it, but the attitude of the noble and learned Earl challenges me. The point that I was endeavouring to make, which I have no doubt the noble Earl will appreciate, is this. He now says that this Article is not and, as I gather from him, never was enforceable. What I say is that if it is his attitude now that the Article is not enforceable, and that the claim cannot be pressed, why did he or the British Government in April or March last put forward a claim of £155,000,000? That is the question.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: That is what I have told you.
LORD DANESFORT: The noble and learned Earl said something about having gone to arbitration. That is not, if I may venture to say so, my point at all. My point is this: If you have a claim which you say is not enforceable, what is the good of putting it forward, and telling the world there is a claim for £150,000,000? I will leave that to the noble and learned! Earl to explain, and he may be able to do so. It was put forward as a claim of £150,000,000 as late as April last, and I cannot imagine that any respectable Government would go to another Government which owes them money and say: "We claim £150,000,000," knowing all the time in their hearts that they could not get a farthing of it. It certainly is a strange action. Let me for one moment see what we do under this Agreement, and what we get. We give up a claim of £150,000,000 put forward by us. It is true, as the noble and learned Earl says, that that is subject to abatements. Your Lordships will notice that the amount has never been suggested—
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: It was suggested in the Childers Commission.
LORD DANESFORT: The Childers Commission had no such question under their consideration at all.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: I say this was the basis of the Irish counterclaim put forward in public. The noble Lord either knows of it or ought to know of it.
LORD DANESFORT: I am quite aware, possibly as well aware as the noble and learned Earl. I think that his attitude is rather provoking, and is making my manner rather more combative than I intended. I will endeavour to avoid that. Of course I know about the Childers Commission, and of course I know there is a possible, or would be a possible, claim for abatement. What that would have amounted to is a totally different thing. The noble and learned Earl suggests that it would have reduced our claim to £50,000,000. May I remind the noble and learned! Earl that an Irish Nationalist paper in the North of Ireland, the Irish News, said that the claim of

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the British Government under Article 5 could not amount to a less sum than £60,000,000, and they are not likely to put the claim at a higher figure than was reasonable, so that according to the Irish Nationalists the claim could not be less than £60,000,000, and our claim was £155,000,000. But whether it be £155,000,000 or £60,000,000 or £50,000,000, to me it matters not if we give it up without adequate reason. Why did we give it up? Because we have got a promise of the Free State to repay us £50,000,000 in the course of sixty years, and that is what we have got in exchange for our claim of £155,000,000. The noble and learned Earl said in substance, and I am not at all sure that the Free State will thank him for it, that the Free State could not pay a penny. I gather from him—he will correct me if I am wrong—that they cannot balance their Budget, and will not for several years to come, and in fact, I understand, he puts forward a claim to bankruptcy.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: Really the noble Lord must observe some contact with facts. He says I have suggested the Irish Free State cannot pay a penny. I never said anything of the kind. I stated in my speech that they were going to pay £150,000 down, and £250,000 for fifty years. Let us have a little contact with facts.
LORD DANESFORT: I understood from the noble Earl that he said they could not balance their Budget.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: I did not say they could not pay a penny; that is what you say I said.
LORD DANESFORT: The noble and learned Earl said they could not possibly pay anything like the sum claimed, even the lower sum of £50,000,000. I do not think the Free State Government will thank the noble and learned Earl for putting it forward that they are in such a deplorable financial position.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: Are you their mouthpiece?
LORD DANESFORT: Certainly not. I put forward my own opinion, that if I were in the position of the Free State I should not thank the noble Earl for putting forward my financial position as
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of so deplorable a character as he represents. Therefore I do say, as regards the Agreement, that the interests of the British taxpayer have not been regarded. I greatly regret that this matter has been so hurried through both Houses of Parliament that the public at large, and I think even members of your Lordships' House and the House of Commons, have not had time to consider it in all its aspects. I realise, however, that this Agreement has been signed and comes before your Lordships to recognise it, whether you approve of it or not. It is impossible to vote against it, but I think it is quite reasonable to criticise some of the provisions of the Agreement that we are asked to ratify. My last word is this. The advantages of this Agreement in getting a settlement—as I hope, a final settlement—as regards the boundary question in Ulster are enormous. It is hoped that the settlement of the question will lead to a better feeling between the North and South of Ireland. In that hope I most cordially agree. Therefore I shall vote, if it is necessary to vote, for this Bill in the fervent hope that it may mark and will mark a new era in the long period of unsettlement and disorder and will in Ireland, and will lead to a reconciliation.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Arnold, asked one or two questions which I think I may answer. In the first place, I may say that the ten per cent. increase is a flat rate. It applies to reports as well as to awards, and it applies to future reports and awards as well as to past. The noble Lord was well entitled to ask me about the delay in the meeting of the Committee. There has been a delay—I think a regrettable delay—which was largely due to the fact that the noble Lords concerned, including, I may say, Lord Selborne, the mover, were away from London until the end of November and it was impossible to collect the Committee. Lord Selborne, Lord Danesfort and the Duke of Northumberland have now preferred the list of typical cases, which are now being examined with a view to an early meeting. The Committee will now proceed in its deliberations. If the Committee recommend payments over and above the compensation payable under the Act, and if the

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Government accepts this recommendation, the cost will, of course, fall on the British Government, but, naturally, the additional ten per cent. payable under the Agreement will be taken into account by the Government if not by the Committee. I think that fairly answers the questions asked by Lord Arnold.
Now I must say a word on the debate, which has been, on the whole, fairly harmonious, except that everybody has differed from everybody else. Lord Beauchamp has expressed his regret for the British taxpayer, but Lord Beauchamp was answered by Lord Carson, because the noble and learned Lord said that in no event would anything have been recoverable. This was a claim, not an established liability, and if the noble and learned Lord is right on this point—on some points I must say, with great respect to him, I think he was wrong—then it was an answer to Lord Beauchamp. If it is the fact that the resources of the Irish Free State are such as I have stated them, then there can be no doubt that the noble and learned Lord is absolutely right and the noble Earl on this point has expressed undue apprehension. We have given nothing away, because there is nothing to give.
Now I address myself to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Danesfort. I have listened to many foolish speeches in this House. I have made some myself, but never in all the years during which I have been a member of this House have I listened to a speech so foolish. Let me test his observations and make an examination as to whom the noble Lord stands for. Does he represent Sir James Craig in this House? Sir James Craig has gone home to Northern Ireland expressing thanksgiving for this settlement. He has gone home and is received with acclamation by his Parliament and by every public body in the North of Ireland. I do not know whether the noble Lord has any claim at all to speak for Northern Ireland, but if so let him decide his differences with Sir James Craig. Sir James Craig has spoken to me on this subject and if he had listened to the maddening recriminations of the noble Lord, I know what Sir James Craig would have said about him.
But the noble Lord, realising that he is on rather a slippery foothold in profess-
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ing to speak for Northern Ireland, was good enough to say that he was deeply concerned on behalf of the Irish Free State because he considered that what I had said might reflect on their financial solvency. Let the noble Lord wait until the Irish Free State invite him to become their mouthpiece in this House before he comments in this way on a statement which I made on the word of a high financial authority from the Free State itself. I will take the liberty to assure him that it was the Irish Free State Minister of Finance. The criticisms of the noble Lord are not helpful to anybody. They are not helpful to Ulster. They are not helpful to the Irish Free State. They are not helpful to this House, and they are not helpful to the British Empire.
At the end came a peroration which I think was the only considered part of his speech because it was the only sensible part of the speech. In his peroration he said he hoped this settlement would be received as an ultimate settlement, that there were great advantages involved if it was attained and that he entertained the fervent hope that it might be attained. Has he done much to establish his "fervent hope" by the speech he made to-night? If there had been forty people in this House holding this "fervent hope" of the noble Lord there would have been great prospects of this Bill becoming law! The noble Lord asked a question as to why we ever assented to this article. I have already told him why, and if he had done me the honour to listen with ordinary intelligence to what I said he would have known that I said we knew the day would come when in a milder spirit we could address ourselves to this topic. That day has come, and it is by reason of the risks we ran in the earlier Treaty that you are to-day reaching the stage when Ulster is protected and with a safe boundary. We did that. What contribution did the noble Lord make four years ago when the decision was taken which alone has safeguarded the boundaries of Ulster? If it had not been for the decision we took then there would not have been this settlement to-day, and the noble Lord would still have been here maundering the same imbecilities and giving the same advice.
We, at least, have adhered to a consistent policy. We have been conscious

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of the risks we ran. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Carson, though he disapproved of various stages in our journey, has recognised that in the event we have been able, assisted much by the spirit of Ulster herself, to secure for her a boundary which she, considered indispensable to her. It is surely no small matter in asking for the Second Reading of this Bill that I am able to claim that the Irish Free State desires it, in spite of Lord Danesfort; that Ulster desires it, in spite of Lord Danesfort; that the British Government recommends it, in spite of Lord Danesfort; and I cordially invite your Lordships to support the House of Commons and give a unanimous vote in support of the Bill.
On Question, Bill read 2a.
Then (Standing Order No. XXXIX. having been suspended) House resolved itself into Committee: Bill reported without amendment.
Bill read 3a, and passed.

NORTHAMPTON 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 Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of the Northampton Gaslight Company, which was presented on the 17th June and published, be approved subject to the following addition:—
After Clause 11 insert the following clause:
For the protection of the Northamptonshire County Council.
"The following provision for the protection of the Northamptonshire County Council (in this section referred to as 'the County Council') shall, unless otherwise agreed upon in writing between the Company and the County Council, apply and have effect (that is to say):—
"Section 8 of the Gasworks Clauses Act, 1847, incorporated with this Order, shall be read and have effect as if in respect of any street, bridge, sewer, drain or tunnel, under the control or management of the County Council, the period of fourteen clear days were inserted therein instead of the period of three clear days in the said section mentioned, and the notice therein
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mentioned shall be given to the surveyor of the County Council: Provided that this subsection shall not apply in the case of any opening or breaking up for the purpose of laying, connecting or repairing consumers' service pipes."—(Viscount Peel.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

VICTORIA DOCKS ROAD SCHEME.
EARL RUSSELL EARL RUSSELL had given Notice to call attention to a deputation to the Minister of Transport in March, 1924, when he stated that the scheme for the Victoria Docks Road had been under consideration by the Ministry of Transport for several years, and to ask His Majesty's Government whether it is proposed to promote a Bill in connection with this matter, what would be the total estimated cost of the scheme, whether the Ministry would contribute and how much, and what contributions, if any, have been arranged from local authorities; and to move for Papers.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I invite your Lordships to descend from the heated atmosphere and the negotiations of high contracting parties to a matter mainly of local interest, although of some national importance. This Question is not in the least controversial. It is asked merely for the purpose of obtaining information and for the purpose, which is often very useful, of stimulating a little the authority concerned. The scheme to which the Question refers is generally known as the Victoria Docks Road scheme, and the district to which it refers is that which lies cast of the River Lea and is known for the most part as Silvertown. Since it contains very important docks it is occupied also by large factories, which all give rise to busy traffic, and the flow of vehicles to and from the docks and the traffic delays there are considerable for obvious reasons, not only on account of the width of the streets but because, in addition, there is a level crossing called White Gates, known, I believe, very unfavourably to those who use that locality, which causes constant delay. Your Lordships will hardly wonder at this when I tell you that the level crossing is used in 24 hours by 2,852 vehicles and, out of those 24 hours, it has to be closed for a period exceeding nine hours to allow trains to pass. Your Lordships can imagine the

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congestion, which is cumulative, because the level crossing is followed by bridges which have to be opened and shut and which shut vehicles in between these points.
This matter has been discussed now, together with the scheme for a new road, for a very long time. In fact, it was originally raised many years ago, and this particular scheme, I think, has been under consideration for a very considerable period. A deputation last year visited the then Minister of Transport., Mr. Gosling, and raised the question of when the scheme would be proceeded with, and he stated, in the words which your Lordships will find in my Question, that it had been under consideration by the Ministry of Transport for several years. It is the object of my Question to expedite that consideration. This is a large scheme and an expensive one, but it is important for this reason, that the traffic to which it refers is traffic going to and from a very important part of the docks of this City and affects very vitally the commerce of London. The delays which occur all add to the expense and it is very important that they should be ended from the point of view of commerce.
I do not wish, in view of the unexpected business that came before this Question and the business that has to follow, to delay the House to-night, and therefore I propose, having stated shortly to your Lordships that this is a scheme for a large new road in this district—of which I have been furnished with a picture and which is going to cost a good deal—to limit myself simply to asking the noble Viscount who is going to reply whether any further result has followed the several years' consideration by the Ministry of Transport; whether they have yet arrived at any scheme—one reason for delay was the setting up of the London Traffic Advisory Committee, which is now in existence and which can now be consulted on the subject and, I believe, has powers which might be useful; whether they propose to promote, if necessary, a Bill or whatever other measure is needed to authorise this scheme; what the total estimated cost of the scheme will be; whether the Ministry will contribute; and what contributions, if any, have been arranged from local authorities. I suppose that this is a scheme to which the Road Fund might
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properly contribute if the noble Viscount's colleague does not raid it for other and less legitimate purposes. I do not know whether the Government themselves are prepared to contribute. I can quite understand that at the moment they may say that economy comes first. So long as they will carry that out, and not raid monies which are devoted to other purposes, perhaps it will not be necessary for them to contribute from public funds, but I should be glad to know what the position of the scheme is, and if there are any Papers in connection with the matter which the noble Viscount would lay upon the Table—any Report from the Ministry or anything of that sort, showing what has been going on—I should like to move for them. I beg to move.
LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU: My Lords, I rise to support the noble Earl, at any rate in the main point that he has put before the House. There is no doubt that this is a very much needed improvement to the East End of this City. This is a road which I personally have known for some years. I have always been struck by the great congestion of all kinds of traffic on it and the necessity of doing something to ease that congestion. I think that it was so long ago as 1912 or 1913, when I was a member of the Road Board, that we first had this subject in our view. Even in those days, it was known to be a very bad case of congestion of traffic and a sore point in the general traffic in the East End of London. The noble Earl referred to a possible contribution from the Road Board. I am glad that he said that they should contribute to, not pay for, the scheme because, in this kind of improvement, it is not fair to call upon the Road Fund to contribute the whole cost, or even a large proportion of it. That Fund has already been bled too severely for schemes which were really not in the nature of improving the roads so much as providing for unemployment and for objects quite unconnected with the original purposes for which it was established.
I do not think that any of your Lordships could imagine without going there the danger and difficulty of entering traffic at this point. It is rather a curious feature of this traffic that it is largely horse-drawn, short journeys being made between the Victoria Docks and various

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warehouses, and it is quite different in character from much of the traffic in the East End. I understand that at the present moment the Treasury have something like £16,000,000 of savings or hoardings, if I may put it in that way, from motor taxation, some of which, no doubt, could be used for this purpose, and there are other bodies, including the London County Council and certain local authorities who, I think, should contribute. Those directly interested are the County Borough of West Ham, the County Borough of East Ham, the London County Council, which certainly should help in this matter, the Essex County Council, the Corporation of the City of London, which is interested in trade, and the Port of London Authority, which is obviously interested in the traffic backwards and forwards between the docks and warehouses being made as easy as possible.
I do not intend to detain the House at this late hour, but I should be very glad if the noble Viscount, even if he cannot give an altogether satisfactory reply too night, would impress upon the Ministry that this is one of the most urgent cases for improvement in London. When I was on the Road Board the cost was estimated at about £2,500,000. That has now risen to between £3,000,000 and £4,660,000—it is impossible to say exactly what it would be. Some of the worst features of this road to the Victoria Docks could be remedied for far less than that and it might be possible to recommend that though the whole scheme cannot be carried out at once, the difficulty caused by the level crossing which is known as the White Gates could be remedied and a great deal of trouble removed. One point that should not be forgotten is that the working people of that part of London, who have to keep what is known as "time" at their factories, often get delayed for considerable periods, as the noble Earl has already foreshadowed to the House, by this level crossing. They lose time and, in consequence, they lose part of their wages. This is a very urgent ease, and I do hope that the noble Viscount who will answer for the Government will be able to give us some hope that it may be taken in hand by the Ministry of Transport at an early date.
VISCOUNT PEEL: My Lords, I hardly think the noble Earl will expect me to
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admit that the Ministry of Transport requires any stimulus in carrying out its arduous and complicated duties, and although I have no doubt he is anxious as to the future of this proposed road, I could not help suspecting that there was also something in the nature of a desire to find out what might be the design of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in connection with the Road Fund. I dare say he, will allow me not to make any statement on these Budget matters. As regards the whole question, of course it is generally admitted that this proposed road would be a very important improvement, giving fresh access to the docks, and I do not think my noble friend Lord Montagu of Beaulieu has spoken too strongly of the advantages which would be obtained. I have to say, however, that the scheme itself, as the noble Lord has intimated, is one of great magnitude and also of great complexity. It involves, for instance, the destruction of a great deal of house property, and also the preparation of a housing scheme to provide alternative accommodation for the people who would be displaced.
In the last year or two, I think, the proposal has been examined very carefully—not ten years ago, but in the last year—and preliminary surveys, drawings and models have been prepared; but until the matter has been gone into in a good deal further detail, I understand that it is not possible to give an estimate of the cost of this great scheme. The scheme was before the Minister of Transport earlier in the year and he referred it to the London Traffic Advisory Committee. They reported that in their opinion it was one of the most urgently required improvements in the area of Greater London. As to the question of finance, I understand that no steps have been taken at present to arrive at an allocation of the cost, in the event of the project being undertaken, and so it is very difficult at the present moment to express any opinion as to the time when the matter may be proceeded with, but presumably when the allocation and distribution of the finance has been settled, and details have been worked out, it is for the local authorities and not the Minister of Transport to promote a Bill.
The only other question is that of laying Papers. I am afraid there are no Papers to produce. I should hesitate

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to call the noble Earl's attention to the Administration of the Road Fund, 1923–24, in which the scheme, or what is involved in the scheme, is set out in considerable detail. If I did not know that he had studied the matter deeply I might advise him to read some of the paragraphs of that Report, but I know that in his case that is unnecessary.
EARL RUSSELL: I thank the noble Viscount for his reply, and if there are no Papers I will withdraw my Motion. Although the noble Viscount says that the Minister of Transport requires no stimulus, I am sure he will not be surprised if I remind him again of this matter in the course of, say, six months.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL OF DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]
Clause 1:
Probation officers.
(2) The probation committee of a probation area may pay such sums by way of salary or remuneration to the probation officers appointed for the area and to any persons, not being probation officers, named in probation orders made by any court of summary jurisdiction sitting within the area or by any court of assize or quarter sessions in respect of persons who have been committed for trial by examining justices sitting within the area, and such sums on account of expenses incurred by those officers and persons in the performance of their duties, as may be agreed upon between the committee and the local authority liable to defray that salary, or, failing agreement, as may be determined by the Secretary of State with the approval of the Treasury.
LORD DESBOROUGH LORD DESBOROUGH moved, in subsection (2), after "duties, as," to insert "subject to the provisions of this Part of this Act with respect to scales of salaries, remuneration and expenses." The noble Lord said: I think this and the following amendments to Clause 1
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are practically drafting. The Home Office is advised that as the Bill stands there is a possible inconsistency between Clause 1 (2) as amended and Clause 8, and the Amendment on the Paper is required to make the situation quite clear.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 2, after ("as") insert ("subject to the provisions of this Part of this Act with respect to scales of salaries, remuneration and expenses").—(Lord Desborough.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Amendments moved—
Page 2, line 4, leave out ("defray that salary") and insert ("make the payment")
Page 2, line 4, leave out ("as")
Page 2, lines 5 and 6, leave out ("with the approval of the Treasury").—(Lord Desborough.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 2 to 10 agreed to.
Clause 11:
Venue in indictable offences.
11.—(1) A person charged with any indictable offence may be proceeded against, indicted, tried and punished in any county or place in which he was apprehended, or is in custody on a charge for the offence, or has appeared in answer to a summons lawfully issued charging the offence, as if the offence had been committed in that county or place, and the offence shall, for all purposes incidental to or consequential on the prosecution, trial or punishment thereof, be deemed to have been committed in that county or place:
Provided that, if at any time it appears to any examining justices during the course of any proceedings taken against any person before them in pursuance of this subsection that the accused would suffer hardship if he were indicted and tried in the county or place aforesaid, the examining justices shall forthwith (but without prejudice to their powers under Section twenty-two of the Indictable Offences Act, 1848), cease to proceed further in the matter under this subsection.
EARL RUSSELL EARL RUSSELL moved, at the beginning of subsection (1), after "A person charged with any indictable offence," to insert "committed in England or Wales." The noble Earl said: You may remember that on the Second Reading I raised a question on this clause, whether the language was not so wide as to include the possibility of

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trying offences committed anywhere, and the noble Viscount on the Woolsack was good enough to state that he would consider it. I have put down an Amendment intended to meet the point, but if the noble and learned Viscount has considered the matter I should be glad to know what is his view.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 41, after ("offence") insert ("committed in England or Wales").—(Earl Russell.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT CAVE): I am much obliged to the noble Earl for the manner in which he has put this point. I am quite satisfied that under no conditions could an offence committed out of England and Wales, not now triable in our Courts, be tried under this Bill, which in no way extends the jurisdiction of our Criminal Courts. If this Amendment were inserted it might create uncertainty as to the other clauses of the Bill.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD PHILLIMORE LORD PHILLIMORE moved, in the proviso to subsection (1) after "justices," where that word first occurs, to insert "or to a Judge of the High Court of Justice." The noble and learned Lord said: On the Second Reading I pointed out that it seemed possible, under the clause as it stood, that a man might be tried in a place where there would be great difficulty for him to get his witnesses, and far away from the place where the crime was supposed to have been committed. I could not at the moment see any particular object in the clause. The Lord Chancellor explained that the object was to save occasionally transporting people from one place to another, and so that a man might be tried where he was arrested. I can see possibly some small advantage from the point of money and of convenience if that is done, and I do not want to interfere in any way with the action of the Executive or the police in such matters, but I do still think there is a danger that in times of stress or excitement, or with a justice who is not very discreet, the clause might be worked to the disadvantage of a prisoner. I have accordingly suggested that there should be a power of appealing from the discretion of a justice to a Judge of the High Court of Justice, just as there is at this
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moment a power of appealing, in matters of bail, where undue bail has been asked for or bail has been refused, to a Judge of the High Court of Justice sitting in Chambers. Probably it is very rarely that the power would be used, but the existence of that power would have a steadying effect upon the police and justices, and when it is required to be used it can be done very simply. I am in great hopes that the Government will see their way to accept this Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 10, after ("justices") insert ("or to a Judge of the High Court of Justice").—(Lord Phillimore.)
LORD PARMOOR: I do not like this proviso at all, and in a subsequent Amendment I have tried to introduce words which I think might, or ought to, limit its application. I think it would tell hardly, particularly in the case of poor prisoners. I certainly hope that the Amendment of the noble Lord will be accepted.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am afraid that if effect could be given to this Amendment it would have to be re-drafted so as to give a clear power of appeal. But, in any case, I hope that the Amendment will not be pressed. The whole object of the proviso is to assist and expedite the administration of justice. The main part of the clause is to the effect that if a man is apprehended in a particular county, or a summons is issued against him in that county, and he appears, then the hearing may, if the examining justices think it right, take place in that county. That, of course, is to save the transport of people from place to place, to facilitate a quick hearing, and to enable the hearing to take place in most cases where the offender is found. The proviso makes it clear that if the justices think that any hardship would accrue to the accused by reason of their taking that course then they shall not proceed.
I agree that that leaves the discretion with them, but I have always found—and I am sure the noble Lord has always found—that magistrates are careful in using their powers. I think that this discretion may be trusted to them, and I feel some difficulty in imagining a case where, in sonic small charge, the prisoner during the course of the proceedings—for that is the expression—would be allowed to delay the whole matter until

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he went to a High Court Judge and asked the opinion of that Judge upon the question of the more convenient jurisdiction. If the noble Lord presses it I will certainly think it over once more between now and the Report stage, but my present view is that it would only complicate matters and minimise the value of the clause.
LORD PHILLIMORE: I am afraid that I have not made my point clear. The earlier part of the clause enables the justices to enter into the examination of a prisoner at the place where he is arrested, though the crime may have been committed far away. If the charge is a charge against a man residing in some particular part of the country but happening to be arrested in another part, it may be very difficult for him, particularly if he is a poor man, to get the local witnesses who are required. No doubt the proviso is prepared in order to meet that case. But what I want the proviso to say is
"Provided that if at any time it appears to any examining justices or to a Judge of the High Court of Justice during the course of any proceedings …"
that the accused will suffer hardship, then he should obtain the benefit of the proviso. I do feel that it is not right that a single justice should be given the power to determine the venue where a man is to be tried, it being a non-natural venue.
I do not myself see the objection to the form of the words I have proposed, but I am perfectly prepared to accept any other Amendment. I hope that the Government will see their way to allow this power of appeal. It is not only in small cases that it would apply. These may be very serious charges indeed—charges of serious sexual offences, and you might easily have a charge of murder tried under this clause. I hope the Government will allow the natural and simple course of an appeal being taken to a High Court Judge who would decide the matter summarily and at once, at no serious expense or trouble to anybody. I think there ought to be some concession on this point.
EARL RUSSELL: A strong point is that made by the noble Lord about the non-natural venue. I do not much like this change in the law at all, and I do not see any particular reason given in the
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clause why it should take place. It is quite a new theory that you try a man where you happen to catch him, and if you are going to do that it is surely not for the purposes of justice, but for the purposes of administrative convenience. If it is to be done it should be surrounded with all possible safeguards.
LORD PARMOOR: If it is a question of drafting there should be no difficulty about it.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I will consider it very seriously.
LORD PHILLIMORE: I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD PARMOOR LORD PARMOOR moved, in the proviso in subsection (1), after "hardship," to insert "or be put to additional expense." The noble Lord said: This is an Amendment on the same proviso. The clause is not to be put into operation
"if at any time it appears to any examining justices during the course of any proceedings taken against any person before them in pursuance of this subsection that the accused would suffer hardship …"
in the circumstances specified. That appears to me to be a very wide expression, and I desire to protect a poor person who has been charged with a criminal offence against his being put to any additional expense. I know from my own experience in Quarter Sessions that that is a very important point. It may be said that the amount of expense is small, but I do not think that answers my objection. I do not think the prisoner ought to be put to any additional expense. Directly you raise the question of the amount of additional expense you give the whole discretion to the justices.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 12, after ("hardship") insert ("or be put to additional expense").—(Lord Parmoor.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I really do not think this Amendment is necessary. The effect of it would be that if it would cost the accused an extra shilling to be tried in one Court rather than the other the whole machinery of the clause is to fall to the ground. Surely, if any substantial extra expense should be caused that would be "hardship," which a magistrate would be willing to consider,

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but to say that if it caused any extra expense the whole thing should go would I submit, be somewhat absurd. This Amendment comes rather badly from my noble friend, because in the Bill as his Government introduced it the clause was only operative if there were "undue hardship" caused to the prisoner. So he appears to consider a certain amount of hardship to be due to the prisoner.
LORD PARMOOR: I do not want to go into personal matters, but I happened to be away at Geneva at the particular time, and there were many matters that I should have objected to. It is quite true that the word "undue" has now been eliminated, because I put down originally an Amendment to take out the word "undue." But it has been very properly eliminated. I do feel, however, on the question of expense, that no expense in a matter of this kind should be put on a poor prisoner by a change of venue from what I might call the natural venue to a place where he might be separated from the surroundings with which he is conversant. However, I do not wish to put the House to the trouble of dividing and, as the noble and learned Viscount does not see his way to accept my words, I will not press them.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 11 agreed to.
Clause 12:
Provisions as to taking of depositions and caution to and statement of accused on proceedings before examining justices.
The evidence which may be given by the accused or his witnesses under this section shall be such evidence only as is material for the purpose of enabling the justices to determine whether the accused ought or ought not to be committed for trial, and, if so committed, for what offence.
LORD PARMOOR LORD PARMOOR moved to omit this paragraph from subsection (5). The noble Lord said: The words I propose to omit are:
"The evidence which may be given by the accused or his witneses under this section"—
that is the section we are considering and which deals with the change of venue—
"shall be such evidence only as is material for the purpose of enabling the justices to determine whether the accused ought or ought not to be committed for trial, and, if so committed, for what offence."
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That is to say, that the whole case cannot be heard but only a portion of it, for the purpose of enabling the justices to determine whether the accused ought or ought not to be committed for trial. I suggest that it is impossible to determine that point without hearing the whole ease. One of the most material witnesses at the end of the case is the person charged, if he desires to make his own statement. I very much object to the notion that at this period and for this purpose any individual charged with an offence should not be at liberty to put forward his whole case for the defence, but that he should be limited to one particular only. I am moving that the whole paragraph be left out.
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 23, leave out lines 23 to 28.—(Lord Parmoor.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I do not wonder that the noble and learned Lord desired an explanation of this paragraph because, to those who are less familiar than he with the practice of petty sessional courts, it seems rather strange The fact is that this is a consolidating Bill and it is intended to give effect to the practice as it obtains to-day. This paragraph represents the practice to-day, which has been determined by the Courts to be the proper practice. That is really the case. The justices have to consider whether they will commit the accused for trial or not, and they are carefully warned by everyone that it is not their business to try the case but that when they come to the conclusion that there Should be a committal for trial it is better, not only for the prosecution but for the accused, that the evidence should not proceed further than is necessary to determine that point. So it has been held that they have the right, indeed they have often been told it is their duty, not to try the whole case out.
Take a case of criminal libel. The magistrates may say that the case ought really to be tried. But the accused may say: "No, I want to justify the libel here in this petty sessional court. I want to call all my witnesses and prove that the libel was true." You may have a trial going on for days on an issue which the magistrates really have to right to determine when all the evidence is over. If they have made up their minds that they ought to commit, it is

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better that they should say so and let the evidence be directed entirely to the question as to whether there shall or shall not be a committal for trial and not to the other question, which in that case will not arise in that Court, as to whether there should be a conviction. I am told, and I believe it is true, that this represents the practice to-day. If so, I do not think that noble Lords mould wish to alter it.
EARL RUSSELL: Is that a quite exhaustive description of what might happen? Criminal libel, of course, is a very peculiar thing and there is no doubt that you cannot justify it before the magistrate. But supposing you are charged with an ordinary felony or theft and your defence is not so much to traverse the evidence of the prosecution as something in the nature of an alibi: that is a thing your may be allowed to put forward and which must be put forward in the police court.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Certainly.
EARL RUSSELL: Because it is not evidence as to whether there is a prima facie case made out against you, which is rather a point for committal. It is evidence, that, where there is a prima facie case made nit, there is a complete answer which, if the justices believe, disposes of it then and there.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Clearly in that case such a course would be followed.
EARL RUSSELL: I am not sure that it could be under this. Is it necessary to put this paragraph in? Will not the rules of evidence govern the matter without there being any thing statutory about it?
LORD PHILLIMORE: I think the Lord Chancellor is right and I think it is for the advantage of the accused. The magistrate is not to try the case and, therefore, it is not necessary for the accused to produce all his witnesses. One of the most telling arguments against the defence is: "Why did you not raise it before?" It is a very fair argument against the prisoner that he has a chance of making his statement before the magistrates and has not done so. It is a little hard upon him if, when he brings
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some witnesses to the trial which he was not conveniently able to bring before, it is said to him: "You could have brought these witnesses before the magistrates but you did not," and, therefore, they are discredited. I think it is to the advantage of the prisoner or the person accused teat he should not be able to bring his whole case forward before the magistrates because it will save him from having the reflection made upon him later that he has not done it. I think most people accustomed to defending prisoners would tell your Lordships' House that on the whole this provision is for the benefit of the prisoner.
LORD PARMOOR: I am sorry I cannot agree with Lord Phillimore and with the Lord Chancellor. The comments which Lord Phillimore has mentioned are undoubtedly made. But I have sat very often in petty sessions and Quarter Sessions, and I know of no such practice as that referred to by the Lord Chancellor. Let me take an illustration—I am not quite certain that I have it accurately and I should be very sorry if it were not accurate. But take the Poor Prisoners Act under which a prisoner asks and ought to be allowed to have counsel to defend him. He is not entitled to it unless he has already disclosed at the preliminary inquiry what is the nature of his defence.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: He must disclose it, but he need not prove it.
LORD PARMOOR: Yes; but that is a very fine distinction, if I may so put it, to ask any magistrate to make, and it may put the accused in a very serious position indeed, because it will be said at once that disclosure was made as to the nature of the defence but no evidence was given which supported it in any way. So far as the Poor Prisoners Act is concerned, I think that would reduce it to a nullity. I am sorry to say that I take the other view and, if necessary, I shall have to ask your Lordships to divide.
LORD CHARNWOOD: I am very reluctant to interpose, but looking at it, like Lord Phillimore, from the point of view of the poor prisoner and assuming, unlike Lord Phillimore, that I happened to be innocent, it is surely a great

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advantage to me when I come to be tried that I should tell, through myself and my witnesses, precisely the story I told in the first instance before the magistrates. Upon that ground I hope that the interests of the innocent prisoner in this respect will be preserved.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I do not want to have a Division at this early stage, and as the noble and learned Lord feels strongly about this I will think this over before the Report stage and, perhaps, the noble and learned Lord will put it down again.
EARL RUSSELL: Will not the Lord Chancellor accept it now?
LORD PARMOOR: I do not want to controvert the Lord Chancellor. I know there are difficulties about a Division and I do not want to be obstructive in any case. But might I ask that this paragraph should be deleted now? I am willing to consider before the Report stage any matter he brings forward. That, surely, is the proper course.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I do not like taking things out of a Bill and putting them in again, and as I have behind me the experience of Lord Phillimore I could not do that to-day.
LORD PARMOOR: I do not want to go to a Division, but I am afraid in that case I shall have to do so.
EARL RUSSELL: What do you expect an honest prisoner to do? You expect a man who is wrongly accused to disclose his whole defence the moment he comes before the magistrates. He says: "I am an innocent man, and I am wrongfully accused. What I actually did say was so and so, and I told my story at the earliest possible moment." You could have no stronger testimony in his favour when he comes to trial than that. I hope the noble and learned Viscount will accept this Amendment.
LORD PHILLIMORE: I think noble Lords are under a misconception. This does not prevent a prisoner from stating fully what his case is, and swearing to it. It does not prevent a prisoner from calling witnesses. It only says that the magistrates are not, after a certain point, to be compelled to hear all the
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witnesses out, and to try out the case. I can assure the noble Lord, as the learned Lord Chancellor has said—and my experience as a Judge in the Crown Court confirms it—that it is to the advantage of the accused.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I am very reluctant to intervene in the debate, which I have very imperfectly heard, and which is being conducted by noble and learned Lords, in whose profession I have great confidence but no great capacity to mingle. I should venture to think that the offer which has been made by my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor is one which ought to be accepted. He has said that in consequence of the observations which have been made by noble and learned Lords he is quite willing to consider this question between now and Report. I have heard that offer made thousands of times, and I suggest to the noble and learned Lord that it should be accepted. It is not an easy thing for a Leader of the House in this particular period of the year and at this period of the evening to get through public business, and if the result of a Division were to show—I do not think it will show—that there were not sufficient noble Lords present to carry on the business, then I do not think that would be in the interests of all concerned. Although I am responsible for the Bill being put clown for this evening, I do not think it was my fault that it was postponed till the later stages of our proceedings. Your Lordships are all aware that the Irish-Bill came upon us like a thunderclap, and had to be dealt with. In these circumstances I would ask noble Lords opposite to try to co-operate, with us in carrying on the business. It will be a very reasonable thing to allow this matter—a delicate matter of Quarter Sessions procedure—to stand over until the next stage of the Bill, and I rather hope that will be done.
LORD PARMOOR: I appreciate the nature of the appeal which has been made by the noble Marquess, and I am not unprepared to assent to it as regards my Amendment. On the other hand, sometimes leaving these matters over for consideration is a convenient way of getting rid of them. I am speaking quite frankly. To my mind this is a very important matter regarding the fair trial of prisoners.

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—an extremely important matter. I am sorry that I differ from my noble friend Lord Phillimore, and from the learned Lord Chancellor but if the Lord Chancellor assures us on this aide of the House that this matter will have attention, I am willing to come and talk it over with him, but if the standing of it over is merely a method of getting rid of an immediate difficulty then I do not agree. Having regard to what the noble Marquess the Leader of the House has said I shall not press my Amendment further if the learned Lord Chancellor will understand that I really want to have it considered.
EARL RUSSELL: Before the noble and learned Viscount replies may I say another word? This is, of course, a very important Bill, and the Committee stage is a very important stage. It is not in the least the fault of the noble Marquess, or of anybody, that there is a very thin House for it, but it is very unfortunate. I have an Amendment later about which there will be very diverse opinions in the House, and upon which it would be rather absurd to take a Division in a House of this size. If this is put off, will the noble and learned Lord see that on Third Reading we have some sort of guarantee that it will be taken earlier in the evening and in a full House?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It is only to Report stage and not to. Third Reading that this is put off. I think I may be allowed to say that when I ask for time to consider a point I do consider it. I have had the honour of conducting many Bills through this and the other House, and I make it a point, if I think there is a real matter to be dealt with, of dealing with it, on my own Amendment if need be, on Report, or at any rate giving an Amendment of any noble Lord full consideration. I recognise that this Amendment has received considerable support, and I will consider it with the utmost desire to arrive at the best decision in the public interest.
EARL RUSSELL: Can the noble and learned Viscount make any promise that the other stages will be taken at a rather more reasonable hour?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: We do not expect another Irish Bill in this House. On the Report stage I shall
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certainly ask my noble friend to put down this Bill as the first important Order.
LORD PARMOOR: In those circumstances I withdraw my Amendment for future consideration.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 12 agreed to.
Clause 13 agreed to.
Clause 14 [Power of justices to commit to, and of court to direct re-trial at, convenient assizes or quarter sessions]:
LORD PARMOOR LORD PARMOOR had an Amendment on the Paper to add to paragraph (b) of the proviso to subsection (1), "or be put to additional expense." The noble Lord said: These are the same words as I proposed for insertion before, and I assume that the learned Lord Chancellor takes the same view with regard to them therefore will not move again.
Clause 14 agreed to.
Clauses 15 to 18 agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, after Clause 18, to insert the following new clause:—
Power to dispense with grand jury at quarter sessions where all persons committed have pleaded guilty.
".—(1) If by the fifth day preceding the day appointed for holding any quarter sessions no persons have been committed for trial at the sessions except persons in respect of whom a certificate has been transmitted in pursuance of Section four of the Administration of Justice Act, 1920, stating that they have pleaded guilty or admitted the truth of the charge, there shall be deemed to be no business requiring the attendance of grand jurors at that sessions, and the provisions of the Assizes and Quarter Sessions Act, 1908, shall apply accordingly.
"(2) In any case to which this section applies an indictment against any person for the offence in respect of which he was committed for trial may be presented to the court without having been found by a grand jury, and where an indictment is so presented it shall be proceeded with in the same manner as it would have been proceeded with before the commencement of this Act, and all enactments and rules of law relating to procedure in connection with indictable offences shall have effect accordingly.
"(3) An indictment against any person presented to a court of quarter sessions in pursuance of this section may contain, in addition to the counts for the offences specified in the caption of the depositions, any further counts founded on facts or evidence

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disclosed in any examination or deposition taken before a justice in the presence of the accused.
"A court of quarter sessions may in any case direct any such further counts as aforesaid to be added to any indictment presented to the court.
"(4) Rules may be made under the Indictments Act, 1915, for carrying this section into effect, and in particular for modifying, so far as is necessary for the purpose of this section, any enactment, including any statutory form, and for applying with the necessary modifications the provisions of Section three of the Indictable Offences Act, 1848, relating to certificates of an indictment having been found."
The noble and learned Viscount said: This is an Amendment to which I referred in debate on the Second Reading of the Bill. The other House has, after debate struck out from the Bill the clause which would have abolished grand juries at Quarter Sessions. I, of course, accept that decision, but I would like to take this opportunity of dealing with a small part of that subject. I can put the point in a few minutes. The Administration of Justice Act, 1920, provides that when a defendant pleads guilty before examining justices the clerk to the justices shall forward a certificate to that effect to the clerk of the court of trial, and the grand jury at the court of trial shall, on production of the certificate, return a true without hearing any witnesses. In other words, where the defendant has pleaded guilty at petty sessions and is sent for trial, the grand jury have no function at all to perform except to look at the document to see that it is a certificate that the accused has pleaded guilty, and then to find a true bill.
It does seem to me an outrage to ask twenty-three grand jurymen—with necessary allowance for absentees, usually you summon twice the necessary number of grand jurymen—it does seem to me an outrage to have forty or fifty grand jurymen, most of them busy men, made to come to Quarter Sessions, possibly in some cases from the other end of the county, for the sole purpose of looking at a piece of paper and seeing that the defendant has pleaded guilty and then formally finding a true bill. Some noble Lords may say that never happens. But it does happen. I heard a very distinguished Chairman of Quarter Sessions only a few days ago say that in the last four years it has happened three times in his court. If it happens as often as
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that in other courts, there may be many cases where this waste of time occurs, and. I hope your Lordships will agree to this. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 13, at end insert the said new clause.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD PARMOOR: I have been a consistent supporter of maintaining the principle of grand juries at Quarter Sessions, and I have addressed your Lordships on more than one occasion on the principles of the maintenance of grand juries at Quarter Sessions. I have also myself proposed a clause in order to ensure that they should be so maintained. The present position has been put quite fairly and frankly by the learned Lord Chancellor. On an open vote in another place, where the Whips were taken off, by a considerable majority an Amendment was accepted which re-introduced the principle of summoning grand juries for Quarter Sessions exactly on the same footing as for Assizes. I have heard the Lord Chancellor more than once—and I am not saying this in any antagonistic sense—call attention to the possible loss of time. I do not take that view at all. If there is one matter on which the people of this country are ready to give services for national purposes of the most serious kind it is to assist in the administration of justice. It is said that jurors have to suffer a good deal by reason of the public duty they undertake; but it is a great public duty, and a duty which they are willing to perform and to which they do not take the objection one might anticipate.
I desire that there should be no distinction between Assizes and Quarter Sessions. At Quarter Sessions, if this Bill passes, you will have cases of a very serious kind, and why should the poorer class of prisoner who is probably worse defended at Quarter Sessions than at Assizes be deprived of any advantage of this kind? I will give instances. I have known cases of prisoners who have pleaded guilty, and I have pointed out to the grand jury that, although the prisoner appears to have pleaded guilty, it may well have been under a, misapprehension. I have not the same regard for justices as the Lord Chancellor has, although they do their business extremely well; but on more than one occasion I have

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pointed out to the grand jury that although the prisoner appears to have pleaded guilty they must take an independent view—
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I have not made my point quite clear apparently. In the case covered by this Amendment they cannot do that. They must find the prisoner guilty, and therefore it is useless to talk to the grand jury about what magistrates may have done.
LORD PARMOOR: In a case where a prisoner has pleaded guilty the grand jury may consider the matter.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: No they cannot.
LORD PARMOOR: There is no reason why they should not.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The Act of 1920 says they shall not.
LORD PARMOOR: I looked carefully at the Act of 1920 because that is the Act which excuses jurors from coming to Quarter Sessions under certain conditions.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Oh no, that is another Act.
LORD PARMOOR: I think it is the Act of 1920.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: No, it is not.
LORD PARMOOR: I am not dealing with the 1908 Act but with the Act of 1920. I think it is possible the Lord Chancellor may have in his mind the Act of 1908 which is referred to in his Amendment.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think we are at cross-purposes. The Act of 1920 provides that where an accused has pleaded guilty at petty sessions and is sent for trial the grand jury, on a certificate of that plea being produced to them, must find a true bill, and cannot throw it out. That is the Act to which I refer. This Amendment provides that when that happens, and it is made clear five days before the Quarter Sessions that there is no other case in the list, then the case shall come under the Act of 1908 and the grand jury need not attend at all.
LORD PARMOOR: In connection with that there is a provision for dispensing
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with the grand jury in certain cases. I want to get the principle quite clear. I do not look upon the grand jury as being summoned for criminal purposes only, but as part of our whole jury system which I regard as increasingly important. What does the next part of this Amendment mean in which it says:
"In any case to which this section applies an indictment against any person for the offence in respect of which he was committed for trial may be presented to the court without having been found by a grand jury."
There you contemplate the very provision I refer to. You contemplate the case where a prisoner is tried by Quarter Sessions and has pleaded guilty, his case not having been before the grand jury. If the Lord Chancellor is able to convince me I am wrong I am open to conviction; but those are the words. There is a direct contemplation of a prisoner being tried at Quarter Sessions without his case having been before the grand jury.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: He has pleaded guilty.
LORD PARMOOR: Is it the case that this clause only applies to cases where the prisoner has pleaded guilty?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Most certainly. If the noble and learned Lord would do me the honour of reading the subsection he will see that the whole clause applies to cases where the man has pleaded guilty and the function of the grand jury is purely nominal.
LORD PHILLIMORE: I am anxious to save grand juries at Quarter Sessions, and being anxious to keep grand juries at Quarter Sessions I support the Lord Chancellor. The only chance of keeping grand juries at Quarter Sessions is to avoid their being summoned in cases where the man has already pleaded guilty, and where it is known that the grand jury can have nothing to do.
LORD PARMOOR: I do not want to interfere with business, and therefore for the reasons which have been given I do not propose to divide against this new clause.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 19:
Court of quarter sessions on appeal to state case on point of law.
(3) If a court of quarter sessions is of opinion that an application under this section is frivolous, it may refuse to state a case, and where the court does so it shall, if the applicant so requires, cause the clerk of the peace to deliver to him a certificate of the refusal, and the reasons for the refusal shall be stated in the certificate:
Provided that the court shall not refuse to state a case where the application is made by or on behalf of the Attorney-General.
LORD PARMOOR LORD PARMOOR moved to omit the proviso in subsection (3). The noble and learned Lord said: I do not want the Attorney-General in matters of this kind to have any preferential position. I do not want any distinction made in his favour. I think it is extremely hard on prisoners generally that special privileges should be granted to the Attorney-General that are not in accordance with the ordinary criminal procedure, and I therefore move that the words:
"Provided that the Court shall not refuse to state a case where the application is made by or on behalf of the Attorney-General"
be omitted. I presume that they apply to almost any case, because application might be made on behalf of the Public Prosecutor, for instance, and would then come under the words "by or on behalf of the Attorney-General." It is very unlikely that at Quarter Sessions an application would be made by the Attorney-General himself, it would be made on his behalf. I object very much to any privilege of this kind being given to the Attorney-General, and I therefore move that the words of this proviso be omitted.
Amendment moved—
Page 19, line 7, leave out lines 7 to 9.—(Lord Parmoor.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think that the noble and learned Lord is under a misapprehension. In very few cases does the Attorney-General appear at Quarter Sessions, either in person or through some counsel who represents him. It is only in such cases that this proviso would apply. It would not apply to ordinary cases of prosecutions at Quarter Sessions. Let me add that this proviso is not new. It is the rule and statutory
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as regards the stating of cases at petty sessions and is found in an Act of 1857, which relates to the dealing by justices with cases out of session. There, too, they have to state a, case if the Attorney-General asks for it. After all, the Attorney-General is a public officer who acts in the public interest and it is only in the public interest that he will require a case to be stated, although the justices might be unwilling to do so. It does seem a pity that in this new provision, which for the first time makes it compulsory upon the justices to state a case if required, there should be a clause which makes it impossible for the Attorney-General, if he thinks fit, to get a case stated. I put it, not for a moment on the grounds of privilege for an individual—
LORD PARMOOR: Oh, no, it is the system.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I put it on the grounds of the public interest that where the Attorney-General thinks that a real point of importance is raised he should be entitled to call upon the Court to state a case.
LORD OLIVIER: I should like a little more elucidation, if I may say so, from the noble and learned Viscount. This refusal can be made only if the application is frivolous. Is it part of our constitutional theory that the Attorney-General cannot make a frivolous application?
LORD PHILLIMORE: Really these objections are traversing the whole of the principles on which our procedure rests. The Attorney-General is an officer of justice and as such has always had certain duties, certain liabilities, certain responsibilities and certain privileges given to him, and to say that the justices should be able, when the Attorney-General applies for a case to be stated, to say that his application is frivolous is really to turn matters topsy-turvy.
LORD PARMOOR: I think the noble and learned Lord is quite wrong there. It is not a privilege which the Attorney-General has at the present time. The Lord Chancellor has pointed out quite rightly that it is a privilege which he has before the magistrates—
LORD PHILLIMORE: The noble Lord must forgive me. I was not dealing with this specific point but with the whole class of procedure. He may not have the privilege now, but it is analogous to the privileges that he has.
LORD PARMOOR: I do not want to get into controversy with the noble and learned Lord, but, as a matter of fact, that is the very point. Are we to extend in this direction the privileges which in certain other directions the Attorney-General now possesses? I am not expressing the view that the Attorney-General is likely to act unreasonably. What we are dealing with here are the methods of trial, and what I have in mind is the position of the prisoner. It seems to me that in every clause of this Bill you are bringing in an official element, and one thing that we want preserved is the independence of our Courts from official interference, whether from the Attorney-General or any other official. In those circumstances, why should not the Court of Quarter Sessions be entitled to deal with the Attorney-General or any one who acts on his behalf as they would with counsel in any other case Here we have a provision that, unless the application is frivolous, the Court is to grant a case for the opinion of a superior Court. I agree with the noble Lord beside me that the only outstanding case is the frivolous one. I do not want merely to deal with words, but I do object most strongly to any special privilege of any kind being given to what is really the official element: and the Attorney-General is rather more than an official in this case, because he so often represents the Public Prosecutor. I hope that we shall keep our criminal jurisdiction quite free from any special privilege given to the Attorney-General.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: May I make an appeal to the noble Lord? This clause gives to every one the right to have a case stated—
LORD PARMOOR: Provided it is not frivolous.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I was going on to say that the exception is that, if the magistrates think the application frivolous, they can refuse to state a case. The proviso does assume, as the
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noble Lord opposite suggested, that the Attorney-General is not likely to make a frivolous application. It is founded on that view. It is only if the noble Lord thinks that the Attorney-General is likely to make a frivolous application that his Amendment has any value at all. I am acting in this matter to a great extent on behalf of the Home Office, who promoted this Bill in the other House. They, I know, attach importance to keeping the practice in Quarter Sessions in this respect the same as in petty sessions, and therefore I do not like to give way. I hope that the noble Lord will not press his point, at all events to-night.
LORD PARMOOR: I admit that there is a great difficulty, as has been pointed out, and that it is impossible for the House under present conditions really to deal effectively with Amendments which are, in my opinion, Amendments of great importance. You cannot have Amendments of greater importance than those which deal with the administration of justice. Of course, there may be differences of opinion, and, if this House thinks after consideration that the difficulties which I raise are not real difficulties or are not difficulties which ought to be met by Amendments, there would be an end of the matter. But really it is reducing the Committee stage of an extremely important measure, dealing with the liberty of the subject, to a farce to go on under the condition that there can be no Division without stopping all the business of the House. I personally shall move no farther Amendments. It is utterly useless to proceed with Amendments in conditions of that kind. I move no further Amendments because, in any opinion, it is an utter farce.
THE LORD CHAIRMAN: Do I understand that the noble Lord presses this Amendment?
LORD PARMOOR: I will not press it. It is no use.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 19 agreed to.
Clauses 20 and 21 agreed to.
Clause 22:
Amendment of County of Hertford Acts, 1874 and 1878.
(3) Every court held under this section shall be a court of quarter sessions for the

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whole county of Hertford, and shall have power to hear, determine, and dispose of all business accordingly, including any business pending in either of the two divisions of the said county at the date on which this section comes into operation.
(6) This section shall come into operation on the first day of August, nineteen hundred and twenty-five.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I have two Amendments of a formal character on this clause. It is proposed that the clause should come into operation on June 1 next, with most other parts of the Bill and, that being so, certain words are not needed here.
Amendments moved—
Page 20, leave out line 40 and insert ("commencement, of this Act")
Page 21, lines 18 and 19, leave out subsection (6).—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 22, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 23 [Summary trial of indictable offences]:
LORD PARMOOR, who had on the Paper an Amendment to omit paragraph (b) of the proviso in subsection (1), said: I shall not move the Amendment at this stage, but will do so on the Report stage.
Clause 23 agreed to.
Clauses 24 to 30 agreed to.
Clause 31 [Form of documents in criminal proceedings before justice]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The Amendments to this clause are really drafting Amendments which explain themselves.
Amendments moved—
Page 26, leave out lines 30 to 33.
Page 26, line 34, leave out ("Notwithstanding anything in this section")
Page 26, line 38, leave out ("this Act") and insert ("anything in this section continue to").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 31, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 32 [Procedure on charge of offence against corporation]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The Amendments to this clause are drafting, and they follow upon the decision in the other House on the clause relating to grand juries at Quarter Sessions.
Amendments moved—
Page 27, lines 4 and 5, leave out ("to present to the court of")
Page 27, line 11, after ("which") insert ("in the case of an adult")
Page 27, line 39, after ("assizes'') insert ("or Quarter Sessions")
Page 27, line 41, leave out from the beginning to ("the") in line 42.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 32, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 33, 34 and 35 agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, after Clause 35, to insert the following new clause:—
"(1) If any person receives, detains or has in his possession any document to which this section applies as a pledge or a security for a debt or with a view to obtaining payment from the person entitled thereto of a debt due either to himself or to any other person, he shall be liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds, or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or to both such fine and imprisonment.
"(2) This section applies to certificates or official documents evidencing or issued in connection with the right of persons to pensions or allowances payable out of any grant which may be made out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom in pursuance of any Act for civil non-effective services."
The noble and learned Viscount said: I am in your Lordships' hands about proceeding further with this Bill now, but I want proper time to move this Amendment. The effect of the new clause which I am proposing is to put documents relating to Civil Service pensions on the same footing as those relating to Army and Navy pensions. As your Lordships know, no one is allowed to advance money on a pension paper relating to Army and Navy pensions. The object, of course, is to protect people against pledging their livelihood, so far as it depends upon a State pension, in advance. There are Acts securing that in the case of an Army or Navy pension, but no such legal provision exists in the case of Civil Service pensions, and I desire by this Amendment to put Civil Service pensions on the same footing. It follows the same wording as the sections which deal with the Army and Navy, and I think the effect of this clause is to put Civil Service pensions on the same footing.
Amendment moved—
Page 29, line 36, at end, insert the said new clause.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD OLIVIER: It is a provision with which I am very familiar in its present application, and being in receipt of a Civil Service pension I very -sympathetically agree to the new clause.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clauses 36 to 40 agreed to.
VISCOUNT ULLSWATER VISCOUNT ULLSWATER moved, after Clause 40, to insert the following new clause:—
"So much of section fifteen of the Theatres Act, 1843 (which enacts a penalty for acting plays before they have been allowed or after they have been disallowed, by the Lord Chamberlain) as provides that the licence (if any) of a theatre in which an offence under that section is committed shall became absolutely void shall cease to have effect, but the Court dealing with any such case may, in their discretion, in addition to imposing a Pecuniary penalty under that section, order that the licence, if any, of the theatre in which the offence was committed shall become void or shall be suspended for any specified period."
The noble Viscount said: This is a matter which need not occupy your lordships' attention at any length. It is a very minor amendment of the Theatres Act, 1843, which provides that wherever a play is given, or words are spoken, or songs introduced, and so forth, which have not received the licence of the Lord Chamberlain, the persons introducing them are to be liable to conviction and punishment, but the manager of the theatre in which these unlicensed performances are given is subject to the very severe penalty of losing his licence for the theatre altogether. The result has been, as often happens where the punishment does not fit the crime but is excessive, that in several cases where a manager has been summoned before the magistrates for a violation of the Act of 1843, the punishment has seemed to the magistrates to be so severe that they have declined to convict. They had no other alternative except to deprive him of his livelihood by depriving him of his licence.
The clause which I have the honour of submitting to your Lordships gives the magistrates a discretion. The punishment of the offender who has sung the song or spoken the words of the play will
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remain the same as under the old Act, but the magistrates will have discretion in the case of the manager who has permitted the unlicensed performance to take place. They may either fine him pecuniarily, or suspend his licence for such time as may seem good to them, or withdraw his licence altogether. I may say that the various managers interested in this matter held a meeting not long ago, at which representatives of the Society of West End Theatrical Managers, the Theatrical Managers' Association, the Entertainments Protection Association, and the managers' section of the Stage Guild passed a resolution asking that this Section 15 of the Theatres Act, 1843, should be amended in the direction indicated.
Amendment moved—
Page 32, line 10, at end, insert the said new clause.—(Viscount Ullswater.)
THE EARL OF CROMER: At this late hour I hesitate to occupy your Lordships' time, but as I have the privilege of presiding over the Department mainly responsible for administering the Theatres Act of 1843, I would ask leave to say a few words in support of the Amendment. Experience shows that the question of unlicensed material being produced in theatres is more apt to occur in the provinces than in theatres under the Lord Chamberlain's jurisdiction in London. In former days, when companies in the provinces and theatres in the provinces mainly produced stock plays, the question of producing an unlicensed play hardly ever arose. Recently, however, since the introduction of the touring system and the form of entertainment known as revues, various cases have been brought to notice of unlicensed material having been produced.
The result of that has been that on three recent occasions prosecutions have been instituted with the endeavour to put a stop to this offence. In the last three instances the magistrates before whom these eases have come have declined to record a conviction, because of the penalty which would have attached, as my noble friend has explained, of the theatre licence being withdrawn. Therefore I would recommend to your Lordships' favourable consideration the question of an amendment on these lines, in order that when unlicensed material is brought to

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notice, and when prosecutions are instituted, an opportunity may be given to uphold the law and at the same time to redress what is certainly a grievance which the theatre managers had every intention of bringing to the notice of the Home Secretary, as my noble friend mentioned just now. That step on their part would be no longer necessary if your Lordships admit the justice of this Amendment, and recommend it for favourable consideration in another place.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think this would effect a very valuable amendment of the Theatres Act.. Under the law as it stands, if the magistrates convict, the licence is automatically forfeited. That means a very serious loss to the owner of the licence. That is not only a hardship upon some people who have committed an offence without properly realising all the facts, but it leads to the acquittal of people who ought to be convicted. I was afraid it might be the case that sometimes magistrates, knowing that the effect of conviction is to forfeit the licence without any discretion or their part, might be very unwilling to convict even where the evidence rather Pointed in that direction, and what the noble Earl who has such knowledge of these matters has just said proves that in his experience that has actually happened, That is a most undesirable result and I am sure your Lordships would be right in accepting this Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 41 agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, after Clause 41, to insert the following new clause:—
Power to release on bail before charge is accepted.
". The section substituted by Section twenty-two of the Criminal Justice Administration Act, 1914, for Section thirty-eight of the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1879, shall have effect as though the following subsection were added thereto:
(2) If, on a person being so taken into custody as aforesaid, it appears to the superintendent, inspector or other officer aforesaid that the enquiry into the case cannot be completed forthwith, he may discharge the said person on his entering into a recognizance., with or without sureties for a reasonable amount, to appear at such police station and at such time as is named in the recognizance, sinless he previously receives
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notice in writing from the officer of police in charge of that police station that his attendance is not required, and any such recognizance may be enforced as if it were a recognizance conditioned for the appearance of the said person before the court of summary jurisdiction for the place in which the police station named in the recognizance is situate.
The noble and learned Viscount said: This is the clause which was promised in another place with a view to giving effect to one of the recommendations arising out of Mr. Rawlinson's report in connection with what was known as the Sheppard case. It became evident in that case that where a person was taken to a police station with a view to his being charged with an offence the police had no power to grant bail until they actually had charged him with the offence. Now it does sometimes happen that the police want to make further inquiry before lodging a formal charge and it is desirable that they should have time to do that, because it is a pity that a charge should be actually made unless the police intend to go on with it and that the man should be brought before a court simply for the purpose of being discharged. As things now stand the police do not like to delay making the charge because they have to keep the man in custody in the meantime and they cannot allow him to go away on bail. The effect of this clause would be that, even before they make the charge, the police may, if they are satisfied that the man is a responsible person and would come again, or on his finding proper securities, grant him bail, binding him over to appear either at that police station where he is or at some other convenient police station which is a suitable one for the purpose of the charge.
Amendment moved—
Page 32, line 19, at end insert the said new clause.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD OLIVIER: I see in subsection (2) the words:
"he may discharge the said person on his entering into a recognizance, with or without sureties for a reasonable amount, to appear at such police station and at such time as is named in the recognizance, unless he previously receives notice in writing from the officer of police in charge of that police station that his attendance is not required."
It does not say that he is to be required to appear somewhere else.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes, the clause states that he may be bound over "to appear at such police station and at such time as is named in the recognizance." I think those words "as is named in the recognizance" apply to "such police station" as well as to "such time."
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clauses 42 to 44 agreed to.
Clause 45:
Short title, interpretation, extent, repeal and commencement.
45.—(1) This Act may be cited as the Criminal Justice Act, 1925.
(2) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires—

The expression "examining justices" means the justices before whom a charge is made against any person for an indictable offence, and references to examining justices include a reference to a single examining justice:

The expression "quarter sessions" include quarter sessions held by adjournment and intermediate general sessions.

(3) This Act shall not extend to Scotland or Northern Ireland.
(4) The enactments set out in the Third Schedule to this Act are hereby repealed to the extent specified in the third column of that Schedule.
(5) This Act shall, save as therein otherwise expressly provided, come into operation on the first day of January, nineteen hundred and twenty-six.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to add to subsection (3): "and references therein to warrants issued shall not be construed as including warrants issued elsewhere than in England or Wales." The noble and learned Viscount said: This is proposed for the purpose of making clear that the "warrants law-fully issued," referred to in Clause 30, refer only to warrants issued in England and Wales. Some doubts have been expressed.
Amendment moved—
Page 34, line 12, at end insert the said words.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in subsection (5), to leave out "shall, save as therein otherwise expressly provided" and insert "except Part I thereof shall"; and to leave out "January" and insert "June"; and, at the end of
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the clause, to insert "and Part I of this Act shall come into operation on the first day of July nineteen hundred and twenty-six." The noble and learned Viscount said: All these three Amendments deal with the time when the Act will come into operation. The proposal is that the Act as a whole shall be in force as from June 1 next, except that the probation part shall not operate until July 1. July 1 is the natural date for the purpose, and will give time for the probation rules to be drawn up.
Amendments moved—
Page 34, line 16, leave out from ("Act") to ("come") in line 17, and insert ("except Part I thereof shall")
Page 34, line 17, leave out ("January") and insert ("June")
Page 34, line 18, at end insert ("and Part I of this Act shall come into operation on the first day of July, nineteen hundred and twenty-six'').—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 45, as amended, agreed to.
First Schedule:

FIRST SCHEDULE.
Offences triable at Quarter Sessions.
1. Offences under Sections sixteen and seventeen of the Malicious Damage Act, 1861.
4. Offences under Sections fifty to fifty-six of the Post Office Act, 1908.
7. Offences under the following provisions of the Larceny Act, 1916, that is to say, Section twelve, Section eighteen, paragraph (iv) of subsection (1) of Section twenty, Section twenty-four and subsection (2) of Section thirty-three.
LORD PHILLIMORE LORD PHILLIMORE moved to leave out the first clause. The noble and learned Lord said: If I am not vox clamantis in deserto, I am vox clamantis in quasi deserto, and it would be useless to take up your Lordships' time at any length, but I want just to explain and to put on record my view—the view of a Judge who, after all, had sixteen years experience as a Judge of Assize—of these matters. I have chosen out of this Schedule certain cases that I propose to eliminate. They are, all but two, cases where it is possible to give a sentence of penal servitude for life. The charter of Quarter Sessions, an early Act of Queen Victoria, drew the distinction and said

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that no offences punishable with penal servitude—it was transportation for life in those days—should be tried at Quarter Sessions. Parliament, at the instance of Lord Bramwell, made an exception in the case of burglary, which theoretically might result in the sentence of transportation for life. I should correct what I said. Quarter Sessions can try a case where it is a second offence and the second offence entails greater punishment, and may even entail transportation for life, but can never try a case where the original offence warrants transportation for life, except in the case of burglary, and there Lord Bramwell pointed out that the distinction between housebreaking and burglary turned on a certain hour of the clock, and it was rather ridiculous that one should be tried separately from the other
With that exception, I believe I am right in saying that Quarter Sessions have no power to try such cases, and I have proposed to eliminate them all. I have added two classes of offences because they hang together. One of these classes touches setting fire to crops, and the other class touches setting fire to stacks. The latter is punishable by penal servitude for life, the former with only fourteen years, but I thought you could not separate one from the other, and therefore I have introduced crops as well as stacks. And in regard to some of the Post Office offences I have introduced one offence which is coupled up with the others, which does not have so severe a penalty. Practically I have ventured to suggest that it is not right that any but the highest criminal courts should try cases of this great gravity, and I do not think that Quarter Sessions, with all respect to them (and I have sat there myself at times), is the proper court to try cases of such magnitude
The Lord Chancellor will be able to tell your Lordships whether these sections have been submitted to, and approved by, the Judges of the King's Bench Division. If they have, and if the Lord Chief Justice has expressed an opinion—I had hoped to see him in his place here—I can only say that I respectfully disagree. But if they have not expressed an opinion I think they ought to be asked to express an opinion, and at any rate I offer my protest, and I humbly move this Amendment
Amendment moved—
Page 35, leave out lines 4 and 5.—(Lord Phillimore.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: In the case of one of these offences, the matter was dealt with by the Committee over which Mr. Justice Horridge presided
LORD PHILLIMORE: Every one?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: No, one of them—under Section 17 of the Malicious Damage Act, setting fire to stacks of corn and things of that kind. That Committee recommended that it should be made triable at Quarter Sessions as well as at Assizes. I am told that they would have made a similar recommendation as to Section 16 of the same Act
LORD PHILLIMORE: Section 16 is a less serious matter
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It is a less serious matter. There was some mistake and it was thought that Quarter Sessions had power already to deal with the offence; so that Sections 16 and 17 really stand on the same footing. The list has been very carefully considered, and I should like the Bill to remain as it is in reference to those two offences under Sections 16 and 17 of the Malicious Damage Act. I would say the same of the section which deals with sacrilege, for this reason, that very often an offence which is called sacrilege is really a question of stealing money from boxes in a church
LORD PHILLIMORE: Yes
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: And Quarter Sessions is well able to deal with that offence. There remain of the offences to which the Amendment refers only those relating to the Post Office, to put it generally
LORD PHILLIMORE: I think that is so
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: As to those, I should like time to consult again the two Departments concerned. I think the Home Office and the Post Office are not entirely agreed as to whether those charges ought to be triable at Quarter Sessions or at Assizes only. If the noble Lord will give me time, by not pressing

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his Amendment now, I will try to get them in line or to adjudicate between them myself, and then will make my suggestions to your Lordships' House.
LORD PHILLIMORE: I am much obliged to the noble and learned Viscount. I suspect it will be found that the Post Office will prefer that these offences should be tried at the Assizes. Is my conjecture right that at present that is rather the idea?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think that is the present idea
LORD PHILLIMORE: The noble and learned Viscount will know, but I cannot help thinking that those trials are very seldom contested. As a rule, the Post Office have taken such pains and the matter is so clear that it is generally merely a question of discretionary punishment. Therefore, very little time is taken up by these cases going to the Assizes and the benefit is had of the best possible Judge in a matter of discretionary punishment. Where they are really fought cases—I have known two eases very seriously fought—they are generally serious, and I hope the noble and learned Viscount will consider the question further. I do not press my Amendment now, and I understand we shall be told on the Report stage whether the noble and learned Viscount agrees or not
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
First Schedule agreed to
Second Schedule agreed to
Third Schedule [Enactments repealed]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This is the Repeal Schedule, and the Amendments to the Schedule which stand in my name are required to make the Schedule consistent with the remainder of the Bill. I beg to move
Amendments moved
Page 38, line 3, after ("eleven") insert ("except so far as applied by any other provision of the Act, or by any other enactment")
Page 38, line 40, in column 3, at the beginning insert ("As from the first day of July, nineteen hundred and twenty-six")
Page 39, leave out lines 22 to 25.—(The Lord Chancellor)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Third Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

MINING INDUSTRY (WELFARE FUND) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment

BALDOVAN INSTITUTION FOR THE TREATMENT AND EDUCATION OF DEFECTIVES ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill entitled the Baldovan Institution for the Treatment and Education of Defectives Order Confirmation Bill, and to move that it be read a first time
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(The Earl of Plymouth)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn
Moved, That the House do now adjourn.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE: My Lords, on the Motion for the Adjournment, hope the noble Marquess the Leader of the House will forgive me if I comment on what has happened this evening. Throughout the discussion upon the Criminal Justice Bill your Lordships' House has not been in the position in which I think it ought to be when considering important Bills, especially those introduced by the Government. Between now and the close of the Session we know that other important Bills will come before us. We cannot tell that they may not come up later even than tea-time. Something ought to be done to ensure that the House may be in sufficient force to deal adequately with, important measures. There is an Order of your Lordships' House which renders the position particularly difficult and critical. That has been illustrated once or twice this evening. It provides that unless there are not less than thirty members present a noble Lord cannot proceed to a Division upon a question about which he feels very strongly—as was the case in

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regard to my noble friend Lord Parmoor this evening—without running the risk of throwing the whole of the business into confusion. I do not like to make a suggestion about members being present, but I should have thought that out of the innumerable company at his command the noble Marquess the Leader of the House might contrive to keep a House. I cannot offer to give him any assistance as a Whip on this side save in regard to the very limited number of nine in an extreme case; but we certainly will do our share on this side of the House when there is important business to be considered. I cannot help appealing to the noble Marquess to do something to prevent a recurrence of what we have seen this evening
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I am not at all surprised that the noble Lord has called attention to what has passed this evening. I can assure him that it was with the greatest personal regret that I was aware that the Opposition were placed in a difficulty. May I say that I thought they showed great consideration in the circumstances in not using the power which was undoubtedly in their hands to arrest the course of public business? I have already had an opportunity of pointing out to your Lordships how difficult the situation was this evening in consequence of circumstances over which we had practically no control. The very late period of the Session makes
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it of great importance to get on with business
There are two other matters to be thought of. In the first place, noble Lords, although the number is very few, sometimes attend on a particular night because certain business is set down for that night, and if that business is postponed the effort they have made is entirely thrown away. That was actually the case to-night. Two noble Lords, men of considerable position and of great occupation, came up specially to move an Amendment in Committee. They moved that Amendment and your Lordships agreed to it; but had they gone away earlier their time would have been thrown away. The other consideration is that though noble Lords, through their own kindness, may have lost an opportunity of moving Amendments in Committee, they always have the Report stage and the Third Reading stage in which to do so. Therefore, their opportunities are not altogether gone. The noble Lord has made an appeal to me which certainly has not fallen upon deaf ears, and I will do my utmost to prevent a recurrence of what has happened to-night by trying to keep a House adequate to enable noble Lords to divide against the Government if they wish
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at ten minutes past eight o'clock.