Lords Sitting of 1 July 1925

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

GLASGOW CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
Debate resumed (according to Order) on the Amendment, moved yesterday by Lord Balfour of Burleigh, to leave out Paragraph 10 of the Schedule:—
Purchase of tramways by local authorities.
16. The provisions of Section 43 of the Tramways Act, 1870, shall apply to the intended tramways. Provided that in the application of those. provisions the period of forty-two years shall be substituted for the period of twenty-one years therein mentioned.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: My Lords, I understand that the Amendment moved yesterday has been circulated and that the noble Earl, Lord Beauchamp, is satisfied. In the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, I hope, therefore, that the matter will now go through.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

SINGAPORE NAVAL BASE.
LORD THOMSON LORD THOMSON rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether they can give any information as to the proposed base at Singapore; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, on the last occasion when the Singapore base was debated in your Lordships' House I was absent in the United States on purely private business, and therefore could not take part. So, in a way, I owe an apology for taking up the time of your Lordships' House with the Motion that stands in my name. However, as the question is a very complex one and involves all manner of issues, strategical, financial, political and moral, and as, moreover, it is a subject of perennial interest and is likely to be so in the future, I feel justified in returning to the charge, so to speak. I have read all the debates on this subject and will endeavour to avoid vain repetitions, but I am afraid there will be some.
With a view of eliciting information—and that really is my principal object—I have submitted a list of five questions in writing to His Majesty's Government, and with these I will deal first. I will amplify those questions and try, so far as possible, to explain their purport and w hat was in my mind when I put them. In the King's Speech of last November the reference to the Singapore base concludes with the following words:
"to proceed with plans already made for enlarging the naval base at Singapore."
My first question is: Do these plans include a graving dock?—because, in March last, the late Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, replying to this same question, put to him by the noble Viscount, Lord Wimbourne, stated that the question had not yet been settled. As it is a very important point, further information on it is requested.
My second question is: Is it proposed to have both a graving dock and a floating dock, or are these alternative proposals? On the provision of the floating dock a good deal depends. The late Marquess Curzon, dealing with this point in the same debate, said: "We"—that is, the Committee of Imperial Defence—
"came to the conclusion that at any rate for the purpose of the floating dock there can be no doubt about it that the site on the old Strait is the only possible site."
The Old Strait is some distance from what is commonly associated with the town of Singapore, Keppel Harbour. It is, as you know, situated on that stretch of water which lies between tae Island of Singapore and the mainland of Johore, and if this Old Strait site is going to be utilised then not only, so far as I can see, will the expenditure on the base be greatly increased, but also the area to be defended will be greatly extended. This point is somewhat important and it is for that reason that I have put this question.
My third question is: has His Majesty's Government considered the possibility of enlarging one or more of the existing commercial docks at Singapore so as to render possible the docking in them of capital ships of the largest size There are various reasons for my putting this question, and one of the most important of them is the question of economy. Next in order of importance
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comes my desire to find a sort of middle way between the attitude of the Government and that of the different Parties. In the last debate on this subject the late Marquess Curzon gave as one of the objects of the base, that it was to enable our Fleet to do at less cost what it might otherwise have to return to Europe to effect, and presumably repairs were in his mind. Then again, the noble Marquess, Lord Linlithgow, in the debate of last July, said this:—
"all we ask for in pressing the urgency of the completion of this base is something at Singapore which can do for modern capital ships that which Hong Kong could do for capital ships at the time of which the noble Viscount was speaking. There is nothing new asked for."
That was when the Labour Government was in office, and we were being urged to reconsider our decision. I would point out that up to 1910 our battleships were berthed in a commercial dock in Hong Kong. It seems to me that by enlarging the commercial docks at Singapore we shall not only meet the requirements of the Marquess Curzon, which I have already quoted, but we shall also meet those of the noble Marquess, Lord Linlithgow, by providing an effective substitute for Hong Kong in pre-war days. There are other advantages, I imagine, also. I can hardly conceive that the initial outlay involved would not be considerably less, and in time of peace, if this dock were a commercial dock, some revenue would be coming in to meet current expenditure.
Another most important point, in my opinion, is that the area to be defended would not be extended. I will deal with this point later, but I wish to make it now while I am on the particular question of the commercial dock. Admittedly a large naval establishment, reserved exclusively for naval uses, is preferred by the Navy, and offers conditions far more ideal. But a large establishment of that kind would be reserved exclusively for the emergency of a future war, and I think, by general admission, that contingency is remote. The base that I suggest, though it would undoubtedly supply what is wanted at Singapore at present—namely, facilities for the repair of our largest ships—could not be regarded, even by the most captious of our critics abroad or at home, as an unreasonable provision
My fourth question deals with cost, and it is this: Has any comprehensive estimate yet been made of the cost of this new base? By "comprehensive" I mean one which includes the cost of barracks, hospitals, new coast defences and arrangements to meet air attack. The sum of £10,000,000 has frequently been quoted as the sum approximately correct, and I submit that the nation has a right to know the full amount to which it will be committed. In some matters it is necessary to go ahead at any cost. In others it is inure prudent, as the noble Earl, Lord Oxford and Asquith, reminded us on Monday, to cut ones coat according to one's cloth. There is, in addition, the question of current expenditure to be considered. This, in any case, will be considerable; but it will vary with the form of defence employed. It is probable that the first attack on this base at Singapore will be from the air. I admit that for the moment such an attack is not feasible, but aviation is making astounding strides. Aerial aircraft carriers—that is to say, airships capable of carrying aeroplanes, and thereby conferring on the aeroplane a far larger radius of action—are developments, if not of the immediate, at any rate of the near future. And I understand that this base will not be completed before the year 1937.
When I was talking about the commercial dock I referred to the size of the target and the necessity for avoiding any increase in the size of that target, simply because of its exposure to air attack. The target is large enough already. Not only have the docks, the camps and the forts to be defended, but there are the town and its suburbs also. And during the weeks that must elapse before the arrival of our Fleet at its Far Eastern base Singapore will require the same sort of defence as London required during the World War. After all, no security from air attack will exist until the enemy air fleet has been annihilated. If we are going to rely for the defence of Singapore on the presence of a large body of troops in that locality, hundreds of acres of cantonments will be needed for their accommodation. Thousands of soldiers will be exposed to the effects of an unhealthy climate in time of peace, and a large target will be offered to the enemy bombing aeroplanes in time of war. As for expense, as an old soldier who has had something to do with estimates in
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his time, if my experience is any guide for the future, more than twice ten millions sterling will be spent in the process.
My fifth question refers to a rather minor point. The late Marquess Curzon, in his speech last March, informed your Lordships that Hong Kong and the Straits Settlements had offered, respectively, gifts of £250,000 in cash and a piece of land worth £146,000 to His Majesty's Government for the prosecution of the enlargement of the base at Singapore. He added that these generous gifts had been gratefully accepted. He had previously announced that the total expenditure on the base for the current year would be £204,000 and implied that that would be more than covered by the gift of money from Hong Kong. What I want to know is whether these gifts are unconditional, or whether any future Government which suspends or modifies this scheme will be obliged to give them back. It would, indeed, be the irony of fate if a future Labour or Liberal Government had to vote money for, so to speak, the redemption of this scheme, in view of the emphatic protests which both Opposition Parties have launched against its initiation.
There is just one other point. The late Marquess Curzon laid great stress on the small expenditure which would be incurred during the first three years. Nothing can alter the total sum to be expended, except a radical modification of this scheme. The less money that is spent in the early stages the more that will have to be spent in the last seven or eight years. It is obvious that even et the lowest estimate the annual charge, during that latter period, for Singapore will be at least £1,000,000 per annum. There will be, in addition, the cost of maintenance. I mention this because, presumably, from the moment work is started at the Old Strait some measures will have to be taken for defending that locality.
Those are my questions, and I will now turn to the more general aspect of the matter. So far as the change of policy is concerned, and its effects in other lands, there is little left to say. I think it is indisputable that much anxious comment has been aroused in Japan, not only in peace societies or in

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the Japanese branch of the League of Nations, but among perfectly sober-minded people with no particular axe to grind. Most reasonable newspapers have commented in very anxious language on this situation. I do not think any well-informed person questions our right to build this base and certainly no one questions our good faith at Washington—no one who is well informed and knows the facts. I think am not exaggerating when I say that there has been considerable bewilderment in Japan at the revival of this plan—an old plan, on the admission of the late Marquess Curzon, who said that it had been for long in the minds of His Majesty's advisers. How long? From before 1902 or since 1922, because in the intervening period the Japanese were our Allies during a time of dreadful stress and anxiety and, indeed, Japanese sailors and marines assisted us to repress a mutiny at Singapore itself.
I am putting myself for the moment in the position of a Japanese naval officer, and I think he might say this to himself: "What are these British at? They are hard up and yet they are spending all this money. This battleship base in the Far East can have no meaning unless it means that the British are aiming at naval supremacy in the Pacific. This base requires subsidiary bases. Where are they? At Hong Kong or the Phillipines? Is an alliance against us contemplated, because a base so far distant from home waters and the Mediterranean is surely incompatible with the one-Power standard?" That may seem unimportant. It may seem merely a revelation of the military mind. Mens militaris res mirabilis; but that mind exists in all countries and it creates an atmosphere in which doubts and suspicions flourish and in which only one industry prospers—that of armaments. That is the very sort of atmosphere which the late Government endeavoured to dispel by its policy in this matter. I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that there is not a Japanese war game played to-day, nor yet a Japanese naval mess, where these questions are not being put and answered in the way that I suggest. And these are grave dangers in the situation. We have also, I think, by our conduct in this matter, caused considerable discouragement throughout the world on the part of well-wishers of the League of
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Nations. We are, after all, a leading Member of that League and yet it would appear that we take for granted that another war, or a war of sorts, will take place in the Far East in 1937 or soon after. We seem to these people to be preparing, in a spirit of cool foresightedness, for that contingency.
As regards the Washington Pact we have, of course, observed the letter of the Pact, but I wonder if we have not departed a little from the spirit that it was hoped would inspire the Washington Conference, whose main object was to limit armaments. Given the will, to arm and the belief that security depends on, force, there is nothing so easy as the evasion of the limitation of armaments. Any country with a. highly developed industrial system can equip itself with modern and more formidable weapons of offence and defence and, without infringing a single clause of any Treaty, the race of armaments can be commenced. There is the danger.
I have been at considerable pains to study what are the purposes of this base in the mind of His Majesty's Government. Various definitions have been given by different members of that Government. The right hon. Gentleman who is now Secretary of State for the Colonies and was at one time First Lord of the Admiralty, is reported to have said that the Singapore base was a piece of pure strategy unconnected with policy. Students at the Staff College are taught that strategy should be in harmony with policy. Experience often teaches that this is seldom the case, but it should be. Strategy and policy are, as a rule, an ill-assorted couple. During the War sometimes our policy was, shall I say, mercurial and our strategy somewhat stolid. Anyhow, there was a sort of union between them and not the complete divorce which the right hon. gentleman I have quoted seems to contemplate. Policy is the expression of a purpose, I presume. Strategy s the way of putting that purpose into effect. Very often the purpose is an unattainable ideal.
More often, again, strategy imposes severe restraints on policy, but they have got to work together. It is impossible for Chiefs of Staff to formulate a plan unless they have a policy to work on. Pure strategy, as I understand the expression, would mean that free licence

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was given to the strategist. In so doing any country embarks on a perilous and expensive course. Your Lordships will forgive a reminiscence. I remember once, in the Balkans, seeing pure strategy at work. The armies of the Balkan bloc outpaced the plans of statesmen. They conquered the Turks far more quickly and thoroughly than their statesmen ever thought they would, and the Balkan Premiers found, at the end of 1912, a thing that they had dreaded and hated for decades broken in their hands. They did not know what to do with it, and in spite of the frantic efforts of the noble Viscount, Lord Grey, here in London, the victors fell out over the division of the spoil, and a peace ensued eventually which, if it was not one of the causes of the World War, was at least a powerful factor in making that war unpreventible. It is almost unthinkable that there should be such a thing as pure strategy in a country under a democratic form of Government. Yet here is this statement on record on the part of one of His Majesty's present Government.
The noble Earl, Lord Balfour, in the first speech he made on this subject in my hearing, said this, in reference to the expenditure on the Singapore base:—
"this money, though spent on armaments, though spent on a naval base, is not only not spent for aggressive purposes, cannot be used for an aggressive purpose, and is incapable of being an instrument of oppression and aggression."
There is no one who is not ready to admit the sincerity of those remarks, but I question seriously whether they represent the views of the Admiralty in regard to the uses of a naval base. Admittedy this is a repairing base. The site has been selected expressly because it is far distant from the expected theatre of operations, but it is none the less a strategical focus—and has been so described by a writer on this subject—for a number of operational bases in the Far East, and it is difficult to describe a place of this kind as wholly non-aggressive when it exists to render possible, and to facilitate, offensive action. Strategy, policy and tactics in times of tension all inhabit a vague borderland; it is difficult to say where one begins and the other ends, and one never knows what will happen. But I think the definition I have given of this base must be admitted as a reasonable one.
Later, the noble Earl spoke of the British Empire as one of the great securities of world peace. Personally I entirely agree with him. I will go further. I will say that I, as a Britisher, knowing the intentions of most leading British statesmen of any Party to-day, am quite prepared to admit that if we built this base at Singapore we should use it honestly and fairly to maintain the balance in the Far East and, in fact, to act as peace preservers. But while I think that, I think it is only reasonable to expect that other nations may take a different point of view. There is a new conception as to how peace shall be maintained to-day. We have entered into that conception as a Member of the League of Nations, and if we arrogate, to ourselves the right of being policemen there are mischief-making people in all other countries who may do exactly what they would do in this country, urge their Governments to follow our example and themselves start building bases. I should like to think that a base of this kind would act as a deterrent, but I greatly fear that it will not. Warlike preparations incite more often than they deter. That is not only the lesson of history just before the last War, it is the lesson of every war. War like preparations do not deter. Armaments are procreators of other armaments. Their evolution is prodigious in the number and variety of types produced.
The late Marquess Curzon of Kedleston justified the new base on the ground that it was necessary for our Fleet to possess sufficient mobility to keep open trade routes, protect our Dominions and vindicate the honour of our Flag. I will, with your permission, take these points seriatim. First, as to trade routes. I suppose it is indisputable that in the event of war in the Far East, with the only possible enemy in that quarter, our trade north of Hong Kong would cease automatically on the day war broke out, just as automatically and completely as our trade in the Baltic ceased during the last War. What the value of that trade is it is difficult to estimate. Our trade south of Hong Kong would, or could, I am told, be maintained precariously, but still maintained. Again it is difficult to estimate the value of that trade. Our Colonial trade, that is to say

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the trade from Australia and New Zealand, does not for the most part pass through the Straits of Singapore, and what little of it that does could easily be diverted to a more southerly route round the Cape of Good Hope.
Before, our Fleet could reach this base eight weeks would have to elapse, and before it could take the open sea and fight an engagement against the only possible enemy, another four weeks would have to elapse. During that period of at least three months it is difficult to see how a base at Singapore could either mitigate the loss or increase the proportion of protected trade, and when our Fleet had won the war, when the fleet action had been fought after the first three months, if trade is the only consideration then there is at least one certain result, and that is that our best customer would have been ruined. Many figures have been given as to the value of this trade. For example, in another place an honourable and gallant Member stated that its value was £1,000,000,000 sterling annually, and that the £10,000,000 to be spent on the base at Singapore was only one-tenth of one per cent. of that amount, which was a cheap rate of insurance. I neither follow the arithmetic nor do I accept the. figures given as even approximately accurate. In the first place, £10,000,000 is not one-tenth of one per cent. of £1,000,000,000 but one per cent.; and in the second place, these figures are all misleading because what one really has to calculate is the amount of trade that would be jeopardised as the result of a war in the Far East. That is to say one has to deduct from the total amount of trade that part which could be diverted and that which could be maintained precariously.
I will now pass to the question of the defence of our Dominions, and I should like to put a question which is not among the original questions, but I am sure the noble Earl who is going to reply will forgive me for that. How can Japan or any country out there invade Australia? I am taking Japan because it is the nearest. When noble Lords opposite are claiming an innocuous and wholly non-aggressive character for this base they quote the distance from Singapore to Japan—about 3,000 miles. The distance from Yokohama to Thursday Island, the nearest point in Australia, is more than
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3,000 miles and to Sydney it is 5,000 miles. How could, let us say, the Japanese undertake the invasion of Australia? The nearest Dominion has been selected and the nearest possible enemy in those waters. To do so they would first have to have an advance base either in the neighbourhood of the Dutch East Indies or of the Philippines. I am told that Jaluit, their place in the Marshall Islands, is only a coral atoll, and that immense preparations would have to be made before it could become a large base. Moreover, Japan, before it could possibly think of invading Australia, would have to possess, either by previous conquest or by an alliance, far greater resources in fuel oil and other necessities of naval warfare than it has at the present time. This is an international problem, and, I hope, one of the dim and distant future, but I really fail to see how the construction of this base can facilitate the solution of this distant problem, and I do see how it can import into it a new cause of suspicion and irritation.
As for the vindication of the honour of our flag, I am entirely in favour of that, but I ask myself whether to defend it by force is the only way, because, carried to its logical conclusion, that would mean that we must possess a naval strength superior to that of any other combination that could be brought against us in all seas. Not only is the expense prohibitive, but it is against all our commitments both to the League of Nations and to the Washington Conference.
My last point is an old point which has been frequently debated here, and has been replied to The noble Viscount, Lord Wimborne, raised it in the debate on his Motion. He asked whether the base could indeed be utilised, in the event of the circumstances which would render it necessary to us. At the time the noble Marquess, Lord Curzon, said that the Admiralty were satisfied that we should be able to utilise the base at Singapore. With all respect and with the utmost diffidence I still entertain some doubt. After all, the Admiralty is not the only party to be considered. There is such a thing as public opinion, and I wonder whether, in the event of a war in the Far East—a remote contingency we all agree, but a remote contingency which would bring with it a strong pro-

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bability that the war would extend and become another world war—I wonder whether, at a time like that, any Government or any Board of Admiralty would like to see three-quarters of our Fleet going to a far-distant base several thousand miles away. I have a theory that defence, like charity, begins at home, that the British taxpayer pays £55,000,000 annually for the Fleet to defend the heart of the British Empire and that, if he were told that that defence, or three-quarters of it, was going as far away as Singapore, either he would demand a one and three-quarter power standard at any cost or else a lot of people in this country would point out that we could economise, since it would appear that one-quarter of our present Fleet was sufficient for home defence. I have tried to examine this matter fairly and squarely. I did not want to bring this point into my speech at all, and it is only because I have a profound conviction on the subject that I have referred to it. That conviction is that Singapore either requires an increase in our naval forces or will not be utilised when the crisis comes.
In conclusion I want to indicate a policy. I venture to do so for this reason. Surely a matter like Singapore should not be one for constant change of policy, Governments succeeding each other and reversing the decisions of their predecessors. That is a most undesirable state of affairs for various reasons, in addition to that small reason that I gave regarding the Estimates. I believe that there could be reached a very general measure of agreement over a policy which, stated in its broadest terms would be this: that we were determined to insist on the protection of our vital interests in the Far East, and notably of our food supplies. That is a policy which will find approval in every political Party. We have to do this, and that policy, as I see the matter, has to be reconciled with three considerations. The first is our membership of the League of Nations; the second, our commitments at Washington; and the third, the situation at home.
As regards the first, as I said just now the problem is an international one. It affects other countries—France, Holland, as well as Japan and America. Of those four countries three are, like ourselves, Members of the League of Nations.
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Surely, in approaching this matter, we should consult with them, because people look to us for an example. As regards our commitments under the Washington Conference, I repeat that we have acted in perfect conformity with the letter of the Pact. The spirit of that Conference also, I repeat, was the limitation and reduction of armaments. If we approach the Singapore base in conformity with that spirit, I think we shall see more clearly the manifold dangers we run of making other people arm.
Lastly, there is the situation at home and we have got to think of that. Today we are in the presence of a very serious situation. The pinch of poverty is cruel among large sections of the working classes. Is this a time to embark upon what, at the lowest estimate, is a vast expenditure abroad, and for entirely unproductive purposes? It is a vast expenditure. Later on it will fall with a heavy weight upon the people of this country, not only in the annual charge for building but in those tremendous charges which grow in connection with so vast an establishment as appears to be contemplated. Unless there are overwhelming reasons for the construction of this base, surely economy should be the first consideration.
Supposing there were an agreed policy, what would be the method of putting it into effect? I should like to say what my noble friend, Lord Haldane, suggested some years ago in this House in regard to matters generally—defence, and so on. He said that he invited this House to see that requisite study should be devoted to certain contingencies lest they should possibly mature and we should find ourselves unprepared in the face of what we had not thought out. That to me, as an old General Staff Officer, is the gospel. I would like to see personally a thorough investigation of this matter. I would like to see it studied from all points of view and that the people in this country should know what they are defending by this expenditure, against whom they are defending, and why, and how. I will be the first to admit that while expert naval opinion consider mammoth warships as essential to defence it is a most unsatisfactory state of affairs that we should not be able to dock our capital ships in the Far East, but for that surely an easier remedy can be found than this great base.
It is planned, as I understand it, on a gigantic scale. It is an old plan, dating before 1902 perhaps. It is an old plan in a new world with new conceptions. It is a case of putting old wine into new bottles, or new wine into old bottles. I do not know which applies best, but in any case the result is bound to be unfortunate. This base will not be completed for eleven years. When one looks back over that period, when one reflects on the number of warships that have been scrapped and the ruthless suppression of old types, on the advances made in the design of submarines and more especially in aviation, and when one reflects that His Majesty's Government propose, in accordance with the Resolution of the last Imperial Conference, to proceed. with plans already made for enlarging the naval base at Singapore, I submit that there is some ground for anxiety. Frankly, what I fear is this: That we are embarking upon a programme which will be at once costly, and far more costly than most of us realise to some extent futile—to what extent I am unable to say, but I have a feeling that it is to a large extent so out-of-date as to be liable to be futile—and a programme which, if not provocative, not consciously provocative, is at any rate disturbing. No public-minded man, reading the Press to-day of Japan or any other country, can deny that this programme is disturbing, and disturbing at such a time in our history.
I suggest, on the other hand, that by modification of this scheme, such as the enlargement of one or more of the commercial docks at Singapore—by means of a subsidy, if you will, as is being done at present, I understand, in the case of a dock at Auckland, New Zealand—a plan could be worked out by the three Chiefs of Staff which would satisfy all that our Imperial and national security requires with a minimum of irritation and at a far lower cost. That is a suggestion which I put forward with great diffidence, as I have said before. I have not put these questions in the spirit of Party politics, but in order to elicit information on a question of vital import- to the nation, to the Empire and, I think l may say without exaggeration, to the. world. I beg to move.
THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (EARL STANHOPE): My Lords, the question of a naval base at Singapore has been so often debated in this House that, I fear I have very little that can be new, or of interest, to say to your Lordships this afternoon. I am very grateful, therefore, to the noble and gallant Lord for having sent me notice of some of the main points which he has put to the Government, to-day, and I propose principally to confine myself to the specific questions he has asked. He asked me, first of all, whether any decision has been reached in regard to a graving dock. The scale and development of the naval base is still under consideration by His Majesty's Government and no decision has yet been reached in regard to a graving dock. I may add that, as I think the noble and gallant Lord will realise, a great many preliminary measures have been taken before it is possible to get so far as to draw up detailed drawings and a possible contract. For instance, borings have to be made to discover the depth of various strata and I may say, in passing, that from the bore holes which were made when the base was under consideration by the last Conservative Government we have reason to believe that the strata in the Old Strait will be suitable and will not prove so expensive as has been thought by some other noble Lords in this House. We have reason to believe that there is a granite formation at no very great depth which will make possible foundations if they are required.
LORD THOMSON: For a graving dock.
EARL STANHOPE: For the graving dock and for any scheme which His Majesty's Government may eventually decide upon carrying out. Of course there are preliminary things which will take a good many months, and at any rate nothing whatever is likely to occur within twelve months from now. The provision for that is already in the Estimate which has been passed by another place and is included in the figures that were given to this house by the noble Marquess, the late Lord Curzon. Another point which is being dealt with at once is to reinstitute the anti-malarial work which was dropped when the last Government decided not to proceed with the base at Singapore. I think your Lordships will agree that the drainage work and the clearance of brushwood, and so on, and of

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the very thick undergrowth at the north part of Singapore, is an essential preliminary before any base of any kind is proceeded with to any great extent.
Then the noble and gallant Lord asked me whether it is proposed to have both a graving dock and a floating dock, or whether these are alternative proposals. They are not alternative proposals: they are complementary. The noble and gallant Lord raised the question and dealt with it several times in the course of his speech, that instead of making a graving dock in the Old Strait we should enlarge one of the existing commercial docks in Keppel Harbour. I am rather glad that my noble friend, in spite of his expert knowledge, fell into the same error that I did in thinking that it is usually the case that the enlargement of a dock is a cheaper thing than the making of a new one. As a rule it is not. It is a perfectly simple proposition to increase the length of a dock, but when it comes to widening or deepening the dock it is usually found that that is a more expensive operation than making a new dock. I think your Lordships will quite realise why. The moment you widen the dock, you have to strengthen the floor of the dock which. otherwise, is liable to buckle with the increased weight of water and the pressure. Therefore, as soon as you thought of widening a dock, it would be necessary to make a new floor, to widen the dock gates and make a new sill, and this you would have to do with all the existing docks at Singapore, which would have to be both deepened and widened. So that you have not only to break down the outside wall, but the floor as well. I think the House will realise that the moment you begin to deal with things of that kind a very heavy expenditure is incurred, and particularly as a large part of the work has to be done under water. On the whole, therefore, the experience of the Admiralty and their expert advisers is that it is probably cheaper to make a new dock rather than to enlarge an old one when that enlargement means deepening or widening. In the case of the docks at Singapore it would mean both.
There is a further argument against it. I understand that the five commercial docks at Singapore are at present in use practically continuously. An enormous amount of shipping passes
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Singapore every day. I am told that £800,000,000 worth of ships and of freight passes by Singapore in the course of a year. Therefore, if one of the commercial docks is going to be made use of by His Majesty's Navy, it can only be made use of to the extent that it is withdrawn from the use of commercial shipping. If, in addition to that, you begin to enlarge that dock or, as the noble and gallant Lord suggests, several docks, all those docks are withdrawn from operation for any ships while that work is going on: and it is a very lengthy operation to carry through.
Thirdly, it is advisable, apart from construction, on the score of economy, in carrying on the work of repair that you should concentrate your dockyards, and so on, as much as possible. If you have one floating dock at the north end of the island and a graving dock at the other end of the island, you presumably would have to have two sets of workshops and consequently much increased cost in doing your repairs. I think the noble and gallant Lord has got into his mind an entirely erroneous idea of the whole plan of this base, supposing it is carried through as originally proposed. I think he has in mind an establishment somewhat of the size of Portsmouth or Devonport. It is nothing of the kind. All that was proposed in the original instance was one floating dock and one graving dock, and the minimum amount of buildings in the way of workshops, and so on, that were necessary to do the repairs to ships in these docks or tied up alongside the jetties. It would be comparatively a very minor establishment.
The trouble of it is that these works invariably cost a very large sum of money. It is because of that large sum of money that His Majesty's Government are again going through the whole question as to how far it is possible to reduce the original plans, and to bring them more into consonance with what this country is willing and able to afford in these days. That brings out the point that there is no question of the Singapore base being a great base, from which there will be all sorts of advanced bases as well. You could only do that if you had a gigantic base, with all the paraphernalia behind it of great workshops, and so on, which, apparently, the noble Lord has in mind.

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The noble Lord asked me to give him a comprehensive estimate of the whole cost of the base, to include barracks, defences, and so on. As I think he will have realised, that at present is quite impossible. The whole scheme, not only in regard to the docks but in regard to the defences, is still under consideration by the Government, and until many points have been settled it is impossible to give anything like an approximate estimate at all. I may say that the plans that are being considered are not plans dating from 1892, they are plans that are being considered by the three General Staffs concerned. The noble Lord will be glad to hear that the three Services are in very close touch on this question, and that both in regard to air defence and every other point full consideration is being given. The only trouble is that His Majesty's Government have so many points to consider in regard to it, and the cost of all defence is so great that it takes a considerable time to come to the minimum which is likely to be effective.
The noble Lord seemed to suggest that the whole of this question is a very recent one and that we have fell designs on some nation or other in the Pacific. So far from that being the case, I happened to come upon a Paper which is the third Report of the Royal Commission which reported in 1882. As the noble Lord will realise that is considerably before there was any possibility of Japan, or any other nation, coming into the horizon. This is what that Commission said:
"Singapore is, as regards the whole of Your Majesty's Possessions in the East, a position of great military and commercial importance, guarding the southern entrance of the Straits of Malacca—the main entrance to the Indian Ocean from the Eastward—and in some measure controlling the Straits of Sunda, 450 miles distant. It is a base for Your Majesty's ships employed in the protection of trade. Singapore must certainly be placed in a thorough state of defence."
From that I think it will be realised that, entirely apart from the question of a naval base, the defences of Singapore need consideration.
I was somewhat surprised when this matter was debated on a previous occasion in your Lordship's House, that the noble and learned Viscount opposite said that when we made a naval base we should have to provide also oil storage and that this oil storage would require a
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garrison to defend it. We already have oil stored there, and the Government of which the noble and learned Viscount was a member added to that storage during the time they were in office. But, quite apart from the question of a naval base and of the storage of oil fuel, your Lordships will see that the defence of Singapore is essential from many points of view, and in particular its position in regard to the trade that passes its doors.
Finally, the noble Lord asked me in regard to the gift of £250,000 from Hong Kong and of the land that was handed over by the Straits Settlements. In regard to the land, I am informed that the Government of the Straits Settlements have bought the land and that they propose to hand that land over as it is required for a naval base. If it is not so required they will not, of course, hand it over, but will continue to rent it, as I believe they are doing at the present time. As to the generous gift of £250,000 by Hong Kong, that money was given under no conditions except that it was naturally for the development of the base. As year Lordships are aware, we hope to spend the greater part of that sum in this financial year, and, unless the life of the present Government is a great deal shorter than I have any reason to anticipate, I see no reason why there should be any question of its return. Therefore that point hardly arises.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, it is always with reluctance that I take any controversial part in questions of defence. They involve considerations which are never wholly accessible even to Parliament. It is only to a limited extent that we can judge of what is required and what are our obligations. We have often made mistakes about defence in days gone by. In the time of Nelson, and in the days before his greatness, the Navy was much starved, and we suffered in consequence. It was only the genius of our Admirals that got us out of the difficulties which the negligence and parsimony of Parliament had brought about. To-day, I think, things are better, for the simple reason that they are more considered and more adequately understood. At the same time the old difficulty remains, that to some extent we are dependent on the guidance which we get from the Fighting Services—to some extent, but not to the

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whole extent; because into questions of defence questions of policy enter very deeply.
I will not discuss again the general policy of the Singapore naval base. We discussed that at considerable length on previous occasions, and I still adhere to the view which I maintained then, that this is a gesture which goes beyond anything we are wise in making and that, although quite consistent with our Treaty obligations, it is not a good thing to do in the way of promoting the general tranquillity of the world. But I wish to say that in questions of defence there are broad considerations, which are considerations for Parliament and the nation, and which restrict the zeal of even our Fighting Services. There are some parts of the world where, judged merely from the point of view of the Army and the Navy, we are running to-day great theoretical risks, and yet we never talk of them. I will only mention one. It is one that is hardly ever mentioned, though it is one that is very well known. We have a frontier line between Canada and the United States of nearly 4,000 miles long, which is wholly undefended. We never talk of defending that frontier line, not because it is not a great strategic task which would have to be undertaken if strategical considerations alone were to prevail, but because the general outlook has made us relegate that risk to the category of those risks which we are willing to undertake and which we do not fear.
My difficulty about the Singapore base has always been to distinguish it from that category of risks. Why are we undertaking this? If, as the noble Earl in his very clear speech said, we were only dealing with purely commercial questions and making a local provision for the protection of our commerce, the case might be otherwise. But that is not the footing upon which this base has been put forward. It is to be a real base of the Fleet in the East. You have said that, and Australia has said that and has asked for it for its own protection. You have assented to that, and thereupon that most potent body, the Navy, has got the Government fast by the tail and will proceed to twist it still further as it has twisted it a good deal already. I dread the Navy in this connection, not because of any want of confidence in its knowledge, but because of the excess of
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its zeal, and I am quite sure you will hear a great deal more from the Navy before you have finished your plans n regard to the Singapore base.
I listened with great interest to the noble Earl's speech. If I could take it in the way in which he limited it this would be a comparatively small affair. But I have never been able to look upon it in that light, because you have conceded the principle of making a proper base and of making a proper base for the British Fleet in the East, which carries you a good deal further than anything you have put on paper or expressed in words. The first thing that impresses itself very strongly upon me is that if you make this base it will be a base worth having—for other people. If you should get into a great war in the East, which I trust you never will, the first effort that will be made on the part of the Power with which you are at war will be to seize this base, because it will be capable of being used just as much against you as you can use it for yourselves. If that is so, you have to protect this base. You have to protect it by sea, by land and by air.
Your military protection, which would require barracks and guns and ships, is in itself a very substantial item, and with the present size of the British Army I do not know where you are to get troops to do this. You may get them from India, but if you get them from India you will have to pay for them handsomely. As regards the ships, from the beginning I felt that if you made a base which you had to defend by sea and for which the Navy was to be responsible, the Navy would tell you that it must have a sufficiency of ships there. But you have not a sufficiency of ships to defend a large and powerful base like that and at the same time to supply the necessities of the West. Therefore, in the end, I think, this proposal will inevitably lead to an increase of the Fleet.
What is the genesis of this proposal? It was the desire of Australia to feel itself completely defended, not an unnatural desire, but when it first came before the predecessors of this Government—I do not mean the last Government, because my right hon. friend Mr. Snowden was not emotional in these matters, but the previous Ministry—it was listened to, and listened to the more readily because that was not a time of

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the same financial stress as we are under to-day. I venture to say that if this proposition was put forward for the first time to-day, with the financial stress that we are under, it would not be looked at. The spirit in which it would have been approached would have been the spirit of asking: Is this risk outside the category of those resources which we ought to provide for? We are very chary to-day about undertaking the provision of new risks and we look very closely into them to see what they are.
One thing impressed me very much in listening to the speech of the noble Earl, and it was this: that the Government have not got very far with the details of this naval base. Whether it to be a graving dock, or merely a storage dock, apparently has not yet been determined. The form of the naval dock, whether it is to be graving or floating dock, is a matter about which nothing has been said except that there were to be both, but to what extent they are to exist and what are to lie their relations to one another is, to use a classical phrase which the noble Earl used, "still under consideration." In these circumstances I ask anybody how it is possible to give any estimate to the country of what the Singapore proposition involves. It involves taking into account not only the additional troops that will be required, the barracks and the artillery provision, but also the oil provision, because there will be a much greater oil provision if there are large ships out there. It also involves the provision of ships, of which I have spoken, as well as the provision of air defences. It is impossible to say to what this may grow without the closest scrutiny, and the items upon which that scrutiny depends have not been exactly ascertained.
It is, to me, pretty obvious that these things have not been exactly ascertained. I am quite sure that there have been meetings of the most solemn order of the Committee of Imperial Defence upon the subject, but I speak not without practice in estimating the probabilities of keeping within estimates, and I am quite sure, from what the noble Earl said, that the estimates have not been gone into with that minuteness and definiteness of. conception which is necessary to give any reliable opportunity of judging what we have let ourselves in for. The only thing
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that gave me comfort in the noble Earl's speech was that it seemed to me the Government were going very slowly over this business—very slowly indeed. I hope they will continue to go slowly. By all means clear away the malaria and brushwood and do things of that kind. That is good for Singapore as well as for every other purpose, but do not let us embark upon these enormous heads of expenditure without Parliament being told to what exactly it is committing itself. I do not like the plan of putting down a token Vote of £200,000 or £250,000, and then saying how little that is, because it involves something very large to which, in another year or so, the Admiralty will draw your attention, and say it was implied in what you did over this that you would do these other things, too.
I have said all I want to say. I do not believe that this can be a small base. I think that the Admiralty will see to it that it is a very large base before they are done with it, and I think you will find them very difficult to resist, because they will say "You made admissions at the beginning which carry you the whole way, and we, who are responsible for the defence of the country at sea, will not be content unless you do make such a provision as you promised us to make. "If that be so, then I think my noble friend Lord Thomson was well justified in calling attention in his five Questions to the details connected with this matter, and I respectfully ask your Lordships to give it further consideration before we are embarked more deeply on this plan.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE EARL OF BALFOUR): My Lords, the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Thomson, the mover of this Motion, was divided really into two parts, one dealing with what I may call relatively technical details, the other dealing with broad questions of policy. As regards the technical details, I think your Lordships will admit that the speech of my noble friend near me (Earl Stanhope) was a model of clear exposition, and that he dealt with all the questions put to him by the noble Lord opposite in a manner which should satisfy the most ardent inquirer. But no doubt the noble Lord opposite acted in conformity with the general desires of your Lordships' House

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when, in addition to those details about which he asked information, he expresed, no doubt adequately, the views of the Party to which he belongs upon the broad question of Singapore. I must say that the treatment which that broad question has received both from the noble Lord and from the noble and learned Viscount who has just sat down seems to me entirely to miss the main point, and to be largely based upon a purely imaginary picture of a vast scheme of extension in the Far East of our naval responsibilities as well as of our naval expenditure. All that seems to me to be based upon a great illusion.
The noble Lord, if I did not misunderstand him, seemed to suggest that this naval base at Singapore was to be the fertile parent of a large number of other naval bases depending upon Singapore—am I not right?—which were to be spread out in the neighbouring oceans. Is not that a most fantastic hypothesis? In the first place, we are forbidden by the Treaty of Washington to have any more naval bases in the Pacific, and if these subsidiary naval bases, which he imagines, are not to be in the Pacific, where does the noble Lord suppose they are going to be erected, and why are those bases going to be brought into existence? The whole force of the attack, in so far as it has force, seems to me entirely to depend upon this dream that what we are doing at Singapore is only the beginning of a vast scheme of naval construction which, in itself, is to involve a large development of naval policy in the Pacific Ocean. There can be no development of naval policy in the Pacific Ocean. The whole object of the Treaty of Washington, in so far as it dealt with that vast sea, was to prevent any further extension within it, to prevent the competition of armaments, to reduce the armaments that. were already there, and to make provision in case there should be any dispute among the naval Powers in the Pacific Ocean for a Conference and the adoption of every precaution to prevent war. I cannot see the justification for this lurid nightmare of a vast expansion in these distant seas.
But because we not only do not wish to carry out, and cannot by Treaty carry out, these great augmentations in the Pacific Ocean, have we, therefore, no
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responsibility in the Pacific Ocean? Have we no great Possessions, no great parts of our Empire which it is our business to defend? The noble Lord who opened this debate used one phrase which, in the connection in which it was used, I listened to, I must confess, with some misgivings. He said that in his opinion defence begins at home. There is a sense, of course, in which defence begins at home. If this country is unable to withstand direct attack it evidently is incapable of defending its outlying Possessions. If the heart of this Empire is not secure then its furthest members are evidently in great peril. But have we no duty towards those distant parts of our Empire? I confess that the frank admissions, or the deliberate statement, of the noble Lord filled me with some misgiving, and that misgiving was not diminished when I heard him, somewhat to my surprise, develop the proposition that if the people of this country, and more especially the working men of this country, realise that our Fleet was to be used anywhere but in the home seas, they would say that we had better cut down our expenditure on the Fleet to a much lower point than it is at the present time. The noble Lord shakes his head and I am sure he will acquit me of any desire to misrepresent him, but I thought, that was the general tenor of that part of his argument.
If it is granted that the British Fleet exists for the defence of the British Empire, does it not require much better arguments than any that have been advanced from the Bench opposite to show why it is to be deprived of those resources by which alone it can defend the British Empire? You are spending, no doubt, a very great sum of money on your Fleet. I do not believe it is too great a sum, and I do not think the Government of which Lord Thomson himself was a member thought that it was too large a sum. He felt, his colleagues felt, as we all feel, that the British Fleet, limited as it is by Treaty, has duties which are not only so onerous but are so far spread that it is impossible to diminish at all the scale on which it is now kept up. And can any worse economy be conceived than spending these vast sums of money on our Fleet and then not spending the additional sum which is required to make the Fleet available

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wherever British Possessions are in peril? That is the fundamental question which I have never heard answered from the Bench opposite, although this is the third occasion on which this debate has been raised by the noble Lords opposite.
If you reduce their arguments to their real substance they come to this. First, there is the dream which I already dealt with, that this is the beginning of a vast naval expansion on the other side of the world, and secondly, that we are giving, I will not say a just cause of offence, but a natural cause of suspicion to friendly nations in the Pacific Ocean. I am perfectly unable to understand that point of view. I am not arguing about people who are ill-informed, who are by nature suspicious, and would draw the most extravagant conclusions from the most innocent operation. But I do argue that we should assume that other nations who have Fleets in the Pacific Ocean exercise a little common sense upon the problems before them. I believe their Governments do, and that the majority of their populations do. I will not answer that this paper or that paper, this member of an Opposition or that critic of a Government, may not use phrases which can be employed by critics in this country to advocate their own views, but I ask the House whether there is the smallest ground for thinking that a base at Singapore can be a menace to any other naval Power in the Pacific Ocean?
The noble Lord drew a picture of members of the Japanese Staff playing the war game, and he said we could depend upon it that whenever they are playing the war game this question of Singapore comes up as a matter of interest and probably of suspicion. How can any human being think that Singapore is a menace to Japan and at the same time not think that Japan is a menace to Australia? The noble Lord, indeed, played this war game in his own fashion. He played the war game in front of your Lordships a few moments ago. He drew a picture of the difficulties that lay in the way or Japan attacking Australia. Are we really to believe that; it is impossible for Japan to attack Australia without not also believing, as I am quite ready to believe, that you cannot attack Japan from Singapore. The distances are practically
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the same; and in Japan there is a vast military force. At Singapore there is no question of there being, either now or in the future, any military forces which could be a menace, from the military point of view, either to Japan or any other Power. It can only be used for defensive purposes. I do not believe that Australia and New Zealand are in any serious peril, because I am a believer that peace is going to prevail, but after all, if you were quite sure that peace is going to prevail, if you could have that happy belief with absolute security, you would riot trouble to spend any money on your Navy at all; and that is really the fallacy of the noble and learned Viscount who has just sat down.
He said this in effect: "Look at the frontier between Canada and the United States of America; are you putting fortifications at the strategic points along that 3,000 miles? Of course, you are not. Nobody in the United States, nobody in Canada, nobody in Great Britain believes that there is going to be a war, or counts a war of that kind within the practical possibilities." I hope that is true. I myself am very much inclined to think that we are at the beginning of a great era of peace. That is, of course, my personal hope, and also my personal belief. But the idea that this country can allow its hopes of peace to make it incapable of defending its own position, if those hopes are disappointed, really is not the way to produce peace. It is the way to lay us open to a war which otherwise would never take place, because those who contemplate, if such there be or when such arise, a war with this country would see that it was a war in which the attackers were destined to fail.
Those are admitted commonplaces with regard to most of the world. Why should they not be accepted with regard to the Pacific Ocean? Here is a point in the geography of the ocean where an enormous amount of tonnage passes daily, east and west. Here is a point which is outside the Pacific Ocean and the fortification of which was always deliberately allowed anti, no doubt, was allowed with the full consciousness that, though it was never going to be turned into the sort of Portsmouth, of which noble Lords opposite speak, it would enable the British Fleet to act in the Pacific and would not keep out practically every

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heavy battleship from being used in that ocean. Here is a point which defends the East, as well as the West. Here is a point from which you can secure that no attack shall be made on India or on Indian trade from the east. Here is a point from which you can be quite sure that, if Australia or New Zealand are menaced, New Zealand and Australia can be adequately defended by the Fleets of the Motherland. And yet the noble Lords opposite exercise their ingenuity in deliberately excluding from the largest ocean in the world the possibility of Fleet action by the Power which, after all, has built up its success upon the ocean and which depends on its future success upon the ocean for the defence not only of its own shores but of the peace of the world.
There are one or two quite simple questions to which I hope the noble Lord, if he is going to reply, will address himself. If you admit, (1), that the Fleets of Great Britain are one of the great engines and instruments of peace; if you believe, (2), that the Fleets of Great Britain are what the whole Empire looks to as defending them against overseas attack; if you think, (3), that, however improbable the danger of overseas attack is, it is yet sufficient to require us to continue to maintain the British Navy—then how can you support the proposition which practically excludes from the activities of that Navy the greatest ocean in the world? All the talk about the waterways of the world, all the talk about the rôle which the British Navy has played in the creation of the British Empire, in the support of the British Empire, in the defence of the British Empire and in the maintenance under modern conditions of peaceful relations between all nations—all that talk seems to me to vanish away if you say that the British Navy, however valuable as an instrument of civilisation, however valuable as an instrument of defence, is to have excluded from the. possibility of its action a theatre of operations where we have immense interests, and where there are Dominions of our own growing up gradually into great and free States. It seems to me that, unless noble Lords will address themselves to those three or four simple questions, all this talk of detail is thrown away and will. I am certain, not convince your Lordships that
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His Majesty's Government have made any mistake in carrying out the unanimous verdict of all the competent authorities that they had the opportunity of consulting upon the subject.
VISCOUNT LEE OF FAREHAM: My Lords, before the noble Lord replies, perhaps he will allow me to say one word. I came down here this afternoon with quite another purpose and, indeed, I had not noticed that this particular subject was coming up for discussion, but as the debate has proceeded I have been filled naturally with a desire to support His Majesty's Government in any matter, and particularly in a matter affecting Imperial defence. But I find myself, after listening to the speeches that have been made, in a difficult case. I venture to think that the spokesman of the Admiralty on this occasion has taken up a much too apologetic tone towards this national and Imperial necessity. He has been at pains to stress the point that we are really doing very little, that we are going as slowly as possible. That is, in effect, the advice given by the noble Viscount opposite—that we should proceed slowly. I venture, on the other hand, to urge with all the force I can command that we should proceed with greater resolution and speed in this matter of providing the essentials of national and Imperial defence.
This is, after all, no new or hastily conceived project. When I occupied the position, which the noble Earl is now occupying, of Civil Lord of the Admiralty, which is now, I think, some twenty-three years ago, I remember that this matter was then under discussion—it is true in a somewhat vague manner, but at any rate we had been studying the question. We have been studying it ever since. When I had the great honour of occupying the position of First Lord of the Admiralty, some four years ago, the matter had received such prolonged consideration that there did not seem to be any excuse for dallying with it any longer, and it was decided to proceed with what I have already called a national necessity, if we are to contemplate the British Fleet ever visiting the Pacific at all for any purpose. I hope that the Government will not be moved by these pleas and counsels proceeding from the other side of your Lordships' House.

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Nor, I must confess, have my views on the subject been shaken at all by the strategic authority of the noble Lord who moved for these Papers. Like him, I was at one time a General Staff Officer—I forget whether it was Grade 1 or Grade 2—but it never occurred to me that, in a matter of this kind, I should, in your Lordships' House, set up my strategic opinion against those of the combined General Staffs, expressed not only recently but over a long period of years, that this base was an absolute necessity. The noble Viscount went further. He said that if we create a base we shall be inciting somebody to attack it, and that we should not run that risk. If that were carried to its legitimate conclusion you would never have a naval base anywhere, at Portsmouth, Plymouth, Rosyth or anywhere else, because it would merely constitute a point of attack for this nation or that, and therefore would be in themselves dangerous and reprehensible.
The arguments used by the noble Earl who has just addressed the Rouse are surely irrefutable and final in this matter. I do not want to argue the case again, but I do venture to press upon His Majesty's Government the necessity for no longer confining themselves to the control of malaria at Singapore and other interesting preliminaries, but to carry out what I believe to be the considered opinion of all naval and military authorities and of the Committee of Imperial Defence, which brings in political considerations as well, and treat this as a chose jugée, and press on with this base with all possible speed.
LORD THOMSON: My Lords, I have been invited to reply to the points raised by Lord Balfour and before I do so I should like to thank the noble Earl, Lord Stanhope, for the very full answers which he has given to my questions. While expressing gratitude I should like to say how gratified I ant because, taking his account of what the Government propose as their future course of conduct with respect to the Singapore base, it nearly meets what I myself have ventured to suggest. This base, apparently, is not going to be a great base. It is not going to be a base laid down in accordance with plans already made. Apparently, those plans are not yet made. Apparently, so vital a question as the graving dock has not yet been settled. Yet in the
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gracious Speech from the Throne we were told that the Government proposed to proceed in accordance with plans already made.
I agree that it is difficult to give full answers to questions like these and I am the first to recognise the many technical difficulties in the way, but the general impression left upon my mind by the remarks of the noble Earl are most encouraging. This base is going to be quite a small affair and whether it will include the Old Strait site or not I do not know, but it seems to me that some extra cost must be incurred thereby. I should like to express my amazement that the conversion of a dock should be more expensive than the making of a new dock. Of course, accept the statement and I was prepared for it, because I had already gone into the matter myself, but I am still amazed.
When I was listening to the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, I rather thought that I was hearing two different points of view. Parts of his speech made me feel this: Why have a base there at all? Why have anything if our intentions are so innocuous, and the prospects of peace so assured, and this can do nothing, and is intended to do nothing, in the way of menace? Other parts of his speech made me feel this: If we are really building a base at Singapore which is intended to protect so vast an ocean as the Pacific, why not have a really big base and not the modified thing which Lord Stanhope conveyed to our imaginations to-day?
EARL STANHOPE: I do not want to give the noble and gallant Lord any false impression. There is no question whatever at the present moment of dropping the original scheme. All that I wished to convey was that the scheme was being reconsidered by the Government. It may be modified, parts of it may be dropped, but there is no question of modifying the original estimate, which appeared in the Naval Estimates, of £11,000,000.
LORD THOMSON: I think the Estimates expressly covered a graving dock, a floating dock, and a few shops. The general impression left on my mind by the statement of the noble Earl was that it was going to be quite a small affair and as cheap as possible; in fact, more or less in accordance with the suggestions

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which I ventured to make, because I am afraid that the scheme in accordance with the plans already made is going to cost far more than £10,000,000 or £11,000,000 and something like £20,000,000 or £30,000,000. The noble Earl, Lord Balfour, asked me whether I admitted that the Fleets of Great Britain were engines of peace. I was at particular pains in the course of my remarks to say that I did think so, but I questioned whether other people could be expected to take the same view.
Then he asked me whether I agreed that the British Empire looked to the Fleet for its defence. I quite agree with that; it does. But what I was trying to make as a point in my remarks was the proportion of our trade that would be menaced and which we should be defending with, it may be, three-quarters of our Fleet. In a time of very great crisis, when we may be involved at home in a war which may extend to a world war, I am informed that only 1 to 2 per cent. of our trade might be involved in that part of the world.
His third question was whether the danger of attack justified our maintaining a Navy. For the moment I am prepared to admit that it may, but it is a question of the use of the Navy in time of emergency that I am a little anxious about. I really do not want to detain your Lordships any longer than is necessary, and my last remark is this: If I and my noble friend Lord Haldane indulge in lurid terms about the character of this base, and the intention behind it, I think in common justice that noble Lords opposite should impute the blame where it properly lies. I would recommend them, if they have not already done so, to read the articles which have appeared in the Press, and the statements made in another place by members of their own Party. This they should do, because the pacific motives attributed to this base by the Government in this House are not shared by some of the writers in the Press or by some of the speakers in another place on their own side in politics. Those writings and speeches have not been characterised by diplomatic reticence, and they are quoted very largely in Japan. That is all that I have to say for the moment, and I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

LONDON TRAFFIC REGULATIONS.
LORD RATHCREEDAN LORD RATHCREEDAN had given Notice to ask his Majesty's Government what steps, if any, have been taken, in accordance with the London Traffic Act, in order to comply with the Act and to enforce the regulations for traffic; what public authorities have been consulted on the subject; whether it is proposed to lay any Papers on the subject; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have raised this Question because, some time ago, when the subject was before your Lordships' House, there was considerable difference of opinion amongst noble Lords, more especially those who are acknowledged to be experts on this subject, and they expressed doubt as to whether the Bill, which was then before Committee, when it came into operation would prove successful. My noble friend Earl Buxton was of opinion that the area selected, twenty-five miles from the centre, was too large. He seemed to think that county councils and other public bodies, at that distance from the centre, would not be likely to take very deep interest in, or a friendly view of, the position as regards the pressure of traffic at the centre.
When the Bill was in Committee before your Lordships' House, I pointed out that the origin of this Bill was the great strike which occurred between the employees on the omnibuses and the tramways and the great syndicate which controlled the tubes, some of the underground railways, certain sections of the tramways and practically the whole of the omnibus traffic. At that time the number of omnibuses on the streets of London was 5,000 and the General Omnibus Company owned no fewer than 4,500, the other 500 being in the hands of some 200 private owners. I contended that the public would, in all probability, be placed at the mercy either of the syndicate on the one hand or of the strikers on the other.
It seems to me that under the Bill we are practically in the same position, inasmuch as too much power has been given on the Advisory Committee to trade interests. No fewer than three members are appointed to represent and watch over the interests of those who work on these great lines and no fewer than four members are allocated to those who

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control those lines. If a strike occurs we must be in the hands of a monopoly. I contend that since this monopoly has been given to a great body we ought, at least, to have for what we have given some financial value in return for this concession, as is the case in Paris and in New York, because your Lordships must admit that competition is now eliminated, seeing that the number of omnibuses on certain streets has been stabilised. I do not say whether that is right or wrong. Probably in the interests of traffic it is quite right, but it gives control to the monopoly and shuts out competition.
What is the cause of the congestion? The cause of the congestion is the development of motor traffic. Latterly motor traffic in this country has been increasing at the rate of 20 per cent. per annum; consequently, in five years we shall have that motor traffic doubled. But the probabilities are that it will be much more than doubled, for we know that it is computed that in the United States of America there is one car to every seven or eight of the population, whereas in this country at present it is only one car to from 35 to 45 of the population. Therefore, in view of the tremendous development of motor cars, the probability is that motor traffic will be doubled in two or three years. I contend that the surface of the ground, if I may so put it, has been allocated and if we are to do anything for the reduction of traffic we must seek a remedy by going underground.
I should like to say a word about the tramways. I have heard it said that tramways ought to be swept away. I concur that the tramways are very troublesome, to the omnibus and the omnibuses on the tramway routes ought to be stabilised. They are a great inconvenience to omnibuses and a positive nuisance to private motor cars. Again, it is said that tramways do not pay. It is true that during the past few years the tramways have not paid, but there are many reasons for that, into which I will not enter. Owing to physical considerations, however, the large proportion of men and women who work in the Metropolis are obliged to live in the outskirts, and they must be, conveyed to their work every morning and returned to their homes every night, and at the "peak" hours of the morning and the evening
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these tramways are an absolute necessity to the community at large. I naturally take a great interest in what are known as the "daily breaders" because I had the honour to represent a constituency for a quarter of a century in another place. The majority of my constituents were "daily breaders," and it is in a great measure owing to their confidence in me that I have the honour of speaking in your Lordships' House. But even if the tramways were swept away and replaced by motor omnibuses, these alone would not cure the present congestion of traffic. There are at the present time two or three points in the West End of London alone where the current of cross traffic is so great that it cannot be dealt with over-ground, and I suggest that tunnels should be made for the purpose of relieving that traffic.
I now come to the question of the breaking up of the streets. At the present time there are some half a dozen authorities who have what I may call access to the streets. There are the road contractor and the authorities for water, gas, electric light, telephones, and telegraphs, all of whom have power to break up the streets. I suggest to the Government that if it were possible to get these various authorities to co-operate in a friendly spirit—I am not speaking now of accidental breaking up of the streets, which must often occur, but I am speaking of their programmes—there is no reason why their programmes should not be forecast, not for weeks or months, but possibly for a year. If that were done the breaking up of the streets would be reduced by 50 percent. I hope the time is not far distant when three or four great underground thoroughfares, in the shape of tubes, will reach out from London into the furthest suburbs, and that will tend to diminish the difficulty of traffic. I was much struck by a remark made by a noble Earl opposite in our last debate, when he pointed out that it is not sufficient to deal with the traffic at the centre alone, but you must deal win it at its probable sources. It was for that reason that my noble friend Lord Buxton contended, more especially as this was acknowledged to be an experimental measure, that we should deal with the smaller or more confined areas. Of course, that is no longer possible owing to the Bill having become law.
I note with satisfaction that the noble Lord, Lord Lamington, is about to deal with one aspect of this question, which hitherto has been ignored in your Lordships' House, but which nevertheless is of supreme importance. The year before list there were some 600 fatal traffic accidents in London. Your Lordships will realise that London is worse in this respect than any town in the United Kingdom. Last year the number was 800, or an increase in one year of 200 fatal traffic accidents in the area of the County of London; and, whereas other accidents the year before last were 31,000, they reached 36,000 last year, or an increase of 5,000. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Lamington, will develop this point because it is a terrible thing to think of the sorrow, the suffering and the loss of labour that is due to these nearly 40,000 accidents which happen every year in the area of the County of London.
There is one other point I should like to place. before your Lordships and that is what I call the physical point—the fact that in certain parts of London there are currents of traffic which converge and impinge upon one another. I shall probably be told from the Front Bench opposite that such a question cannot be dealt with, that it is a matter of town planning and that to deal with it would mean an exorbitant expenditure. But I should like to direct attention to the fact that many years ago when civilisation had not advanced to the point it has now reached, and when the difficulties were correspondingly greater, under the rule of Napoleon III, in Paris Baron Hausmann carried out such a scheme and as a boy in Paris I saw the continuation of his policy. I was told recently by members of the Paris Municipality that, enormous as the expenditure was, they were glad to-day that it had been made because, directly nod indirectly, they had actually benefited by it.
I hope it will not be thought that my desire in raising this question is to embarrass the Government. It is the reverse. I am eager to do everything and anything in my humble capacity to assist them. I recognise that the time at the disposal of the Traffic Minister has been very short and that the difficulties have been tremendous. I would like to give him credit for what has already been done in the direction of
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parking motor cars and the institution of one-way streets. I suggest that it would be to the advantage of the Government if they could see their way to bringing those officials who are responsible for that great duty in this country into conference with those who are responsible for it in the City of New York, where they have had much greater difficulties to contend with and have managed it with signal success. I recognise all the difficulties which confront the Government and that if they could appoint an angel from Heaven as Traffic Minister, that angel would have all his work cut out for him. I beg to move.
LORD LAMINGTON LORD LAMINGTON had given Notice to ask His Majesty's Government whether, following on the debate that took place last year, the London Traffic Advisory Committee have taken steps to try to reduce the number of street accidents in London. The noble Lord said: My Lords, it would be more convenient, I think, though the Motion which my noble friend opposite has made covers a far wider field than my Question, that I should ask my Question now and perhaps shorten the discussion by so doing. Last year I had a somewhat similar Question upon the Paper. It provoked a. considerable amount of discussion and many noble Lords recited their personal hair-breadth escapes. But one and all bore testimony to the danger there is to pedestrians and those who go about the streets of London from motor traffic.
Three main points emerged from that discussion, possibly the most important of them being the announcement of the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, who replied for the Government, that the London Traffic Advisory Committee was to be appointed and that when that Committee had got to work it was hoped there would be a considerable reduction in the number of street accidents. The figures given by the noble Lord, Lord Rathcreeden, show what has occurred during the last twelve months in comparison with what happened in 1923. In the latter year there were 668 fatal accidents in the Metropolitan area and 16 in the City. In the period ending December, 1924, those 668 fatal accidents in the Metropolitan area had gone up to 884 and the 16 in the City had increased to 22; an increase of about 33 per cent. In drawing a comparison

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last, year between 1922 and 1923 my noble friend pointed out that there had been an increase of something like 20 per cent. As there is now an increase of approximately 33 per cent. it is very desirable to know what has been done by this new Traffic Committee and whether they have any views about what they may be able to do in future to reduce this appalling daily slaughter that takes place in London.
That is the main point of my Question; but I should like to refer to two others which arose in the course of the debate last year. I asked the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, whether he could say in what part of the Metropolis these accidents chiefly occurred, whether it was in the congested parts of the West End, or in the more outlying and less busy thoroughfares. He rather declined to offer any definite opinion and said that it would cost a great deal of labour on the part of the police authorities to obtain any information on the point. But it came out in the course of discussion that the majority of these accidents occurred in the less busy streets. That is borne out by the fact that there were only sixteen fatal accidents in the City in 1923 as compared with 668 in the rest of the Metropolis in 1923, and twenty-two as compared with 884 in 1924. One deduction might therefore be made—that for the most part. these accidents occur owing to the extreme speed at which vehicles are driven in the Metropolis.
I understand that a speed limit of twenty miles an hour is supposed to be in force and it ought to be enforced more strictly. I should have thought it would have been possible, without any very great expenditure of money or labour, to prepare a chart showing where fatal accidents occurred in the different parts of the Metropolis, just as the Board of Trade produces a chart of the wrecks which take place at sea. It ought not, at any rate, to be a very expensive task. It is generally said, in regard to the matter of speed: "Do not let us have any speed limit throughout the country generally." On the other hand, there is no doubt, from what was said in the debate in your Lordships' House on the last occasion, that motor cars travel at a considerable speed. My noble friend Lord Banbury said that one can often see motor cars going not at thirty or forty
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miles an hour but at fifty miles an hour, when the drivers think the streets are not very crowded.
Another point which arose in the course of the debate was that the police have power now to stop anybody driving a motor car without regard to the exact number of miles per hour he may be travelling if they are of opinion that the driving is dangerous to the public, and that a policeman can exercise his own judgment in the matter. I asked the noble Earl who replied on that occasion, whether that fact could be stated publicly and a warning issued throughout the Metropolis to drivers, that if they knowingly or unwittingly drove to the public danger they were likely to be stopped by the police. I think that would have a great effect. The noble Earl declined to have this action taken. I do not know why it should not be taken, because I am certain it would he a deterrent to those who drive to the danger of the public. A rather new point was brought out when it was stated that the police have this power of acting on their own judgment.
I trust the noble Viscount who is to reply will be able to give us some information to show that it may be possible in the future to prevent this frightful amount of slaughtering that goes On day by day. It is a psychological curiosity that if a railway accident occurs and three or four people are killed the papers are filled with columns of detail, an inquiry is held and a report is issued, but if four or five persons are killed in an omnibus accident there is a paragraph in the papers and practically no notice is taken. We have got into a state of things in which an average of two and a half persons are killed daily in our streets.
I have not put down a question on the matter, but I hope the noble Viscount in reply will be able to give us the number of pedestrians included in the total number of killed. In the year 1923, out of 668 fatal accidents 455 were to pedestrians. The noble Earl, Lord De La Warr referred unsympathetically to that fact. He said that many of these fatal accidents to pedestrians were caused by the pedestrians' own negligence. The late lamented Marquess Curzon of Kedleston criticised that statement as rather unfeeling. After all, pedestrians have to cross the streets at times. These accidents do not take place

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chiefly in the congested areas where policemen supervise the traffic, but in the outer districts. It is all very fine to say that it is the pedestrians' fault, but if you are crossing a street which is about fifteen yards wide and there is nothing in sight you are surely entitled to do so, although while you are crossing a car may come down upon you travelling at ten or twelve times the speed at which you are walking. The statement that people are careless I deny altogether. It is quite legitimate for you to cross the street and to think that you can do so safely when you can see nothing coming from either side. Some of these very fast cars undoubtedly do cause terrible accidents. I should like to know how many of the unfortunate people who have to go on foot are sufferers from this state of affairs. I beg to ask my Question.
LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU: My Lords, the subject which the two noble Lords have brought up this afternoon is one which has been debated fairly often in this House and was discussed at great length last year when the London Traffic Bill was before your Lordships. That Bill was intended to deal with what the noble Lord who spoke first referred to as the congestion of London traffic. A traffic Advisory Committee, consisting of nineteen people and a Chairman, was set up. When it was proposed that that Committee should be appointed I stated in this House, as did other noble Lords, that we must not expect too much from a Committee of that size, especially as it was really not representative of the various interests involved and that there was likely to be a division in the Committee itself. That is exactly what has happened. Within a few months of the Committee being set up the representative of the independent omnibus owners resigned on account of grievances he thought he had at the decisions of the Committee, and the Committee to-day is practically only representative of the bigger omnibus interests—what is known as the "Combine"—with a certain number of officials appointed by the Ministry of Transport and other Government Departments, who, naturally, will take the official view—a view which very often is quite correct, but is not always very practicable.
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I have always thought that you cannot cure the congestion of London traffic by Acts of Parliament or by regulations, however good they may be. The fact is in London we are always trying to put a quart into a pint pot. There is too much traffic for the streets which are main thoroughfares, and in my view the congestion will become worse as years go on, no matter what regulations you make. The noble Lord opposite (Lord Rathcreedan) suggested that underground roads should be made to carry through traffic across London; at least, I understood him to make that suggestion. I entirely agree with him. I have always held that to take the through traffic from the centre of London to the outskirts where the new arterial roads commence was the best thing to do, and that we must build viaducts over the traffic and over the houses to do that, or create underground roads. That is the only method of solving the problem, because the cost of widening existing thoroughfares would be so prohibitive that it would he practically impossible to carry out improvement on those lines. I once made a calculation, which I published in The Times, of the cost of widening Oxford Street from the Marble Arch to the Mansion House. It came out, if my memory is correct, in the neighbourhood of £15,000,000 for one side of Oxford Street only. That is obviously a figure from which we must all shrink.
The congestion of London traffic, had as it is to-day, is certain to become worse. In this country we only have now one motor vehicle for every 34 or 35 persons. whereas in the United States there are over 17,000,000 motor vehicles, in other words, a motor vehicle for every six people; while in some States this has been exceeded very largely. I am told that in the State of California there is one vehicle for every four people. I do not say that we shall come to an average of that kind, but I say definitely—and here I agree with the noble Lord—that every year you will have an addition of between 200,000 and 300,000 vehicles in this country, a considerable proportion of which will use the streets of London. In my opinion, it is no good tinkering with this subject much longer. We have to do something definite and drastic, and the only solution that I can think of at the moment is to increase the facilities for

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the flow of traffic by the construction of overhead or underground roads to take that traffic.
In regard to the Advisory Committee, I have already said, in common with other noble Lords, that I never expected that Committee to produce very satisfactory results, at any rate for some time, but there are certain points which do not appear to me to have received sufficient attention. We all know, for instance, that a serious amount of congestion is produced in our streets by the nonobservance of the rule of the road. How often have we all been stopped, whether in motor omnibuses or in taxicabs, by a horse-drawn vehicle which, instead of being near the kerb, is wandering about in the middle of the road, or, at any rate, in a position to prevent the free flow of traffic down the centre. Then there is another form of obstruction which leads to congestion in streets which are too narrow for the traffic, and this is caused by slow-moving horse vehicles. Any one who has tried to drive into the City during the crush hours in the morning, or out again in the evening, knows that in Queen Victoria Street, for instance, you are more often than not stopped by a horse-drawn vehicle moving at three or four miles an hour which holds up hundreds of vehicles. That is something which has not yet received the attention that it deserves.
Another cause of congestion is the frequent breaking-up of the streets. When I spoke in this House last August I told your Lordships that I went out and counted a number of street works going on, and found that between Hyde Park Corner and Hammersmith Broadway, on the main line of traffic to the West of England, there were no fewer than thirty-three breaks in the roadway. To-day you see these breaks all over London, and I am inclined to agree with the definition of the school-boy who, when asked to define a street, said "It is a place where pipes are laid." There is a great deal of truth in that answer. There is, however, one feature of the situation which I think we must all admit to be satisfactory. The police, as a whole, manage the traffic very well. Here and there there may be criticisms, but on the whole they manage the traffic of London exceedingly well, at least that is my opinion. If you compare the way the
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traffic is managed in, say, Paris and Vienna, you must admire the way in which it is managed in. London, with the minimum of friction to the people involved. I think Scotland Yard should receive a meed of praise for the way they manage the traffic.
With regard to the future I can only suggest one or two ways by which the congestion may be removed. Much congestion is caused by cab ranks and the way parking of cars is carried on at present. We must have proper parking spaces. In the United States already there are many devices for the parking of cars by business people and shopping people. They have great buildings as high as twenty and twenty-four floors, each floor holding from thirty to forty cars, where motor cars can be parked. I do not want to see sky-scrapers introduced in London; but that is the way they do it in America. Then there are, in some of the parks of London, many empty roads very little used by the people between the hours of ten in the morning and four in the afternoon, where cars could be parked. I think a good many cars could be accommodated on these little used roads in our parks.
The question of parking is bound up closely with that of the congestion on the streets, and I would suggest that we might use some of our quite unused London squares. I know there will be protests from many people that these squares are of great value for recreation purposes to those residents who live around them, but if your Lordships will observe some of these squares you will find that it is very rarely anything is seen, say, in a square like St. James' Square, except cats. There are other squares which could be used for this purpose as the use made of them by the residents around is practically infinitesimal. If you threw down the railings and gave access to them, you might park hundreds of cars away from the streets, and thus relieve the congestion; and to do this it is, of course, not necessary to cut down the trees in the squares. No one would think of doing that at his own place. We sometimes leave our car under a tree. But whether the Government like it or not, whatever course the Minister of Transport takes, I am certain that the situation and public opinion will before long compel the authorities to

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adopt some such solution as is suggested by the noble Lord, either underground or overhead routes from the centre of London to the points at which the new arterial roads have been cut. That is the only way in which I think you can get rid of the through traffic congestion on our streets.
It is quite true that cars are driven on the outskirts of London at an excessive speed, and we are all in favour of the rate of speed laid down being observed. But statistics show that it is not only speed which causes accidents. The greater number of accidents are caused by lorries and trade vans which run at a comparatively slow speed. What we shall have to do is to build escalators, such as you see in railway stations, which will take you from one side of the street to the other and thus avoid the risk of crossing the street. As one who has driven a motor car in London for some time and who has hitherto had no accident—perhaps I had better touch wood—I can testify to the extreme carelessness of the average pedestrian. I am relating only my own personal experience. People will step off the pavement looking the wrong way to the traffic or not looking at all. I was driving in a taxicab to the City the other day, and the car nearly collided with a clerk, who was crossing the road and reading a book at the same time. I do not object to his reading a book, but he should not read a hook in the middle of the road. This is one of the most difficult things to deal with, and it is the opinion of the police of almost every great city that many pedestrians hardly look to see, when stepping off the kerb, whether any traffic is coming or not.
In regard to the aggregate number of accidents your Lordships must realise that you are dealing with huge figures. I gave the number of millions of miles that were run last year. They ran into thousands of millions, and there are 7,000,000 people in London at the present time. If the death rate is high—and no one regrets it more than myself—I think it is quite small in proportion to the number of people using the streets and the number of cars of all kinds that are on the streets. But many of these accidents are caused by things which have nothing whatever to do with any carelessness on the part of the driver of the motor cars. Tramcars
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kill a certain number of people every year; so also do big lorries and even horse vehicles. Many of the fatal accidents on the streets are not attributable to motor vehicles, and certainly they cannot always be attributable to speed. There is nothing more dangerous than the best kind of motor-car because it is silent. If any of your Lordships have driven in France you will know that the people there will scowl at you when you pass them by because of the very silence of your car. They have become so accustomed to the noise of the exhaust pipe that they think themselves injured because they have not heard you come up.
Of course accidents are to be deplored, but I am doubtful whether you can do much in that matter by reducing speed, if speed is really a cause of many of the accidents. I doubt whether you can do it for this reason: You cannot have police traps in all the streets of Outer London, and I question whether a magistrate will convict on the evidence of a single constable. I have heard many constables give evidence and it is difficult very often to convict on the evidence of one constable. What actually constitutes driving to the danger of the public is in many cases largely a matter of opinion. I do not stand here, as your Lordships probably know, to defend the reckless driver. We are all against him and we all want him suppressed. I am not here to defend taking any risk even. Although you may not be a dangerous driver you should always remember that the pedestrian has an equal, though not a superior right, to pass and re-pass on the road just as you have. But I honestly do not think that you will get over the question of accidents in central London until you get escalators built under or over the street and tell people that there, and there only, can they cross in safety. Of course they ought to be at very frequent intervals, but in my opinion they are the only cure. I have tried, in putting forward my views, to give your Lordships the benefit of my experience on the subject. I know that this is a very thorny question, but I would ask your Lordships always to remember that, considering the millions of motor vehicles and the millions who use the streets, the total number of accidents is not really half as great as the figures would suggest.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, we have had, as has been remarked, a good many discussions on this subject and nobody can say at all events that we have not had a fresh suggestion put before us to-night. My noble friend who has just sat down apparently desires to turn the squares of the Metropolis into garage yards, equipped, I presume, with pumps and other appliances, and he seems to think that this would meet the difficulty. My noble friend's speech confirmed me in an impression which I have held for a long time. My noble friend is, no doubt; of a benevolent disposition, but obviously to my mind, if he were to say what he really thought, he looks upon the pedestrian as an aggressive character who is a permanent danger to the peaceable motor scorcher. So far as that goes, I am entirely in sympathy with my noble friend who sits beside me, Lord Lamington. We hear a great deal in these discussions about the way in which the motorist is held up by inconsiderate pedestrians and grievances of that kind, but very little is said about the grievances of pedestrians. I am in sympathy with my noble friend Why are the regulations with regard to speed not more carefully enforced in London? Take the Mall. The Mall has become almost an imitation of Brook-lands and is little better than a racing track. I shall be told by my noble friend that when I come down here, if I am unlucky enough to ho run over it is entirely my own fault, owing to my aggressive behaviour in venturing to cross the road.
I have been led into these remarks by my noble friend's unprovoked attack upon the unfortunate pedestrian, but I really rose to make a suggestion that I have constantly made in this House before. Anybody who has studied this question knows perfectly well that a, vast proportion—I cannot give the exact figure—of the accidents which occur to pedestrians are due to our imbecile custom of having two rules of the road, one for vehicular traffic and one for pedestrians. If this authority could be persuaded to look at the question in a common sense manner, and if they would study the proposal that everybody should move in the same direction—that is to say, that everybody should walk on the left—then these accidents would he largely diminished. I have discussed this thing ad nauseam in this House, and
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I have received no support, but, as a matter of fact, whenever the proposal is put before any public body it has invariably been agreed to, and the only person who offered any resistance to it at all was a rigid obstructionist, a City Commissioner of Police, who, I am thankful to say, has now resigned his office. Now that this obstructionist has gone it seems to me that there is some chance of this change being adopted, or at all events considered, and I am absolutely certain in my own mind—I do not care what my noble friend says or anybody else—that, if this rule were adopted it would enormously diminish the number of accidents to pedestrians.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: My Lords, I am very glad that my noble friend Lord Lamington has raised this subject, because there can be no doubt whatever that the increase in the accidents caused by motor lorries and motor cars is appalling, and this not only in the Metropolitan area. Only yesterday I saw in the paper that a motor car driven by a clergyman ran through a railing and found sitting on the other side of the railing a man on the bank of a river. It threw the man into the river, drowned him and went into the river itself. The clergyman was dragged out without being hurt, but the man whom he had knocked into the river and who was sitting on the other side of a railing, where one might have thought that he was entitled to consider, having a railing between himself and the road, that he was in a more or less safe position, was unfortunately drowned because the clergyman driving the motor car went through the railing instead of continuing along the road.
My noble friend Lord Lamington has pointed out that the greater number of accidents to pedestrians in the Metropolis occur in districts where there is no congestion, and I believe, if I may say so, that he is absolutely right. My noble friend Lord Montagu has given the reason. In the My, as my noble friend Lord Lamington pointed out, there are fewer accidents because there are slow-moving vehicles which prevent the motorist driving at break-neck speed. Consequently, you are able to cross the road with some knowledge that the motor car which is near you is not going at a very great rate and that, if it does touch

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you, it will be going so slowly that the force will be comparatively small. That is the reason why there are fewer accidents in the City than in districts where, there not being a very great mass of traffic, motor cars are able to go at anything from forty to fifty miles an hour. Only the other day I was motoring with my daughter, who was driving, and a car passed us and it seemed as if I had been driving along the road and an express train had passed me. I asked my daughter to look at the speedometer and see what speed we were going. We were going at twenty-nine miles an hour. That is too fast, but what must the car have been doing which passed us like a flash then we were going at twenty-nine miles an hour? It must have been going at anything between fifty and sixty miles an hour.
No doubt my noble friend will say—and if he does not, I have heard other motorists say it often enough—that the driver has four brakes and the car can be pulled up within three or four yards. No doubt that is true, provided, first, that the brakes act; secondly, that the person driving knows that he has got to pull up; and thirdly, that he does not lose his head and put his foot on the wrong pedal or pull the wrong handle at his side. But if either of those things happen or if, in passing another motor car, somebody appears suddenly in front of him, he has no time to pull up at the pace at which he is going, and the force with which he strikes anything is so great that a very serious accident is bound to result. The fact of the matter is that the roads were never intended for vehicles travelling at the rate of express trains, and until we say that the roads are to be used by everybody—pedestrians and horses as well as motor cars—there will be no improvement. If a man cares to drive a horse, why should he not drive a horse, even if he gets in front of my noble friend and makes him go at twenty miles an hour for a hundred yards instead of going at forty miles an hour for the whole of his journey? Until motorists understand that other people have a right to the road, and that they must not drive at these excessive speeds, we shall have these accidents.
My noble friend Lord Lamington tells me that there were in 1909, in the Metropolitan area, only 287 accidents, as
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against 880—I think that was the figure—to-day. That shows that all these accidents, or at any rate the great majority of them, must have been caused by the excessive speed at which motor cars are driven. My noble friend Lord Montagu of Beaulieu talks about "congestion." Unfortunately, I am getting an old man, but I have lived in London for fifty years and I never remember the time when there was not congestion. The reason for congestion is the cross-traffic alone. The noble Lord suggested that you should either have something overhead or something underground. I think it would be very difficult to arrange that there should be a tunnel at every cross-street, and I do not know how people would enter or come out of it, and, of course, there would be danger when you were in the tunnel.
My noble friend suggested, as I gathered, that there should be long tunnels or long overhead roads. Who is going to pay all this expense? It is another instance of what we had yesterday. Everybody is in favour of economy, including my noble friend, but if he can have a road on which he can travel at fifty miles an hour at other people's expense then he is in favour of making such a road. Then it is suggested that roads should be widened. Widening will do no good at all, because it is not the fact that the roads are too narrow which causes congestion; it is the cross-traffic, and the cross-traffic alone. I am very glad we have had this debate because I think the number of accidents are so serious, not only in the Metropolis but all over the country. that something has got to be done in order that the roads of the country may be as safe for all classes of people as they were thirty years ago.
THE EARL OF CLANWILLIAM: My Lords, may I say one word before the noble Lord replies? I should like to refer to the Question which Lord Lamington raised. This question of the safety of foot-passengers in London is a serious matter. May I give one instance of what occurred to me quite a short time ago? I live in Belgrave Square, which has recently, so far as I can make out, become one of the most dangerous places in London for anybody to walk about in. I take as much care in cross-

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ing the street as most people, but it became so bad and other residents in the Square complained so much about the danger which pedestrians ran through reckless driving in and round the Square, that I wrote to the Commissioner of Police. I wrote a polite letter and told him that, owing to the reckless and uncontrolled driving in the Square, it was extremely dangerous and that unless you were very active you ran a chance of being rur over whenever you crossed the Square.
The Commissioner of Police replied, acknowledged my letter, and said the matter had been referred to the Westminster Council. Then I got another letter in which it was said that the Westminster Council proposed to erect more refuges in the Square. I replied that I could not see that any extra refuges would stop reckless driving. As a matter of fact, the last person killed in the Square was standing on a refuge when killed. It was not my duty to propose what measures should be taken, but as they apparently had no idea, and could put forward no hope, of relieving this danger, I proposed that they should employ one of the mounted police, who wander about the crowded streets in London, to interfere with the road traffic in. Belgrave Square. That has not been done and dangerous driving is just as bad and as reckless as ever it was. Lord Newton referred to the Mall just now, but Belgrave Square is much worse, and I think it is monstrous that no steps should be taken by the recognised authority—namely, the Commissioner of Police in London—to relieve the distress of the unfortunate foot-passengers who happen to live there.
So far as the danger to foot passengers is concerned, I think that a lot of it conies from the fact that some motor-car drivers imagine that all they have to do if they see a foot-passenger is to blow their horn and it is "up to the pedestrian" to get out of the way. You walk the streets of London and as often as not have almost to break your neck in trying to get out of the way of these drivers who merely blow their horns and do not appear to care whether you are killed or not. Up to the present the law of the land has been that it is the duty of the drivers of motor ears and other vehicles to keep out of the way of
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foot-passengers, and I think it would not be a bad thing to forbid the use of horns in some districts of London; then the drivers would have to take a bit more care.
Then I should like to say a word or two with regard to traffic in general, dealt with in the Question of Lord Rathcreedan. That Question as raised to-day can possibly he divided into two or three' There is the larger question of how we are going to deal with traffic in the future and how we are going to carry the largely increasing number of people who are coming into London. Then there is the question of what you might almost call the ordinary traffic control within the City of London. So far as the larger question is concerned, I have not altered the view which I think I stated on the Third Reading of the Traffic Bill, when I said that I believed that it would be advisable to appoint a committee to consider ways and means. So far as my own opinion goes. I still believe that to cope with the traffic in the future you wilt have to double the underground routes. I think you must aim at eliminating not only the tramways but the omnibuses within certain portions of London.
I quite agree with Lord Rathereedan when he said that tramways are a necessity in certain districts on the outskirts of London, where the traffic is not very congested, and where you have broader roads, but in the congested parts of London, such as Westminster Bridge, the presence of tramways is to my mind a crime. Then, so far as the motor omnibuses are concerned, I would like to see them gradually eliminated from a point such as the Houses of Parliament up to and beyond the Mansion House, where the streets are narrow and where the traffic is very congested. Before you do that, however, you must devise some means of carrying your people who have to come into the City of London every day, and I believe you will have to do that by doubling the underground routes, which will take years before it can be clone, and by that time the traffic will be even greater.
So far as the actual control of traffic in London is concerned, I must say I cannot agree with the noble Lord who said that the police manage the traffic very well. I have had a certain amount

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of practice and experience in traffic, and as I go about the streets of London it is astounding to see the ignorance which is displayed. The day of the Trooping of the Colour I had to go back to Charing Cross. There was a fearful congestion of traffic, and after I had done my business in the bank I stood there for ten minutes and watched the method of controlling the traffic. It was childish, it was ludicrous; I never saw such a thing. If you had taken half a dozen children and put them down in place of the police, they would not have done worse. They had not the vaguest idea what to do. And the same thing happens on other occasions.
I said during the last debate that, one of the things that were necessary to-day was a school where you could train men in the control of traffic. Every day I walk about London I am convinced of that. If you do not teach men how to control the traffic, how can you send them out on the streets to do it? I regret to say I have seen no improvement at all in the method of controlling the traffic by the authorities. The other day I saw a horse and cart in a very crowded street, King William Street, in the City. I saw the man stop the cart, put on the horse's nosebag and chain up the wheel. Fancy chaining up the wheel in King William Street, one of the most crowded thoroughfares in the afternoon! I was aghast. I met a policeman and told him what had happened. He said: "What am I to do?" I said: "I cannot tell you what to do." He said: "What do you think I ought to do?" I replied: "If it were my job I should go and move him on." He said: "Well, I ought not to leave this place." I said: "Well, it has nothing to do with me," and so I went on. I came back half an hour afterwards. The policeman recognised me and said: "Oh, I'm sorry to say I could not do it." I said: "What do you mean—could not do it." He said: "According to the law that man is allowed to stand there for twenty minutes." Well, imagine a horse and cart standing in a crowded street for twenty solid minutes. Either the law is a "hass" which allows such a thing as that, or the policeman was entirely wrong, I do not know which. But that ought not to be possible. What is this Traffic Committee thinking of if it does not stop a thing like that?
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Then there is the very simple cause of endless traffic blocks—motor cars turning round in the streets. Why should a motor car be allowed to turn round in a crowded street? It ought to be sent round the nearest square or the nearest by-road, but you see motor cars turning round in Piccadilly or Oxford Street in the most crowded portions of the day, stopping two lines of traffic. Why is not that stopped by the Committee? They have all the powers in the world which have been granted to them by Parliament. Why do they not, at certain places like Charing Cross, erect towers to control the traffic—places at which no human being in this world could control traffic standing on the ground? Unless you can see traffic coming you have not the least idea of how to control it. If you had a small tower near King Charles's Statue, with a man at the top who knows, he could tell where the greatest traffic is coming from. That is a point on which half a dozen roads centre. These are a few things. There are many more which could be done, but the hour is too late for me to go on now. What I complain of is that nothing seems to be done. Parliament has given tremendous powers in the last Traffic Act and yet nothing seems to be done. With a stroke of the pen half a dozen improvements could be made which would relieve the traffic immensely.
THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (VISCOUNT PEEL): My Lords, I will endeavour very briefly to answer some of the points which have been made by the noble Lord opposite and by Lord Lamington. I hope some of the noble Lords who made a series of brilliant suggestions as to how they would manage the traffic will be content if I do not go very fully into those methods. I regret also that the Department is not under me, or I could no doubt profit more directly than I can by passing the suggestions on to the Minister concerned, but I shall be very glad to do so. The first criticism made on the Traffic Board I think was offered by the noble Lord opposite, who asked if that Traffic Board was a complete success. I think I can hardly answer until the Board has completed its labours, but I should like to point out that the Traffic Board, in my opinion, was a good deal hampered by the fact that it was only appointed for

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three years and that, for various reasons, it took six months before it was set up. I tried to persuade your Lordships that it would be far better to give six years so that there might be some continuity. I was defeated and therefore if the Traffic Board has suffered it, is not the fault of the noble Lord who is at present addressing your Lordships.
The next point was the question of the breaking up of streets. On that a good deal has been done. Road repairs and other street work have been controlled and alternative routes have been provided, so that there is as little inconvenience as possible. Some works have also been speeded up by working day and night, and by using quick drying cement, and other methods. I think the noble Lord has probably observed already that there has been a very great improvement in the streets as regards breaking up, which used to trouble us so much in the past. I am now dealing with what has happened on the advice of the Traffic Advisory Committee, because that was the point that the noble Lord particularly wanted information about. Further, 673 streets have been declared to be restricted streets, and no additional omnibuses have been allowed on them. I will comment later on, when I come to Lord Lamington's Question, on the effect of that on safety and security. Then, as regards regulations for traffic, the Committee have submitted reports which are now being considered by the Ministry of Transport. They are on various subjects—parking places (and I think the activities of the Ministry of Transport in that respect have received the commendation of one of the noble Lords who spoke) the lighting and guarding of street works, broken down vehicles, sandwich-men and advertisement vehicles.
Perhaps the noble Lord will forgive me if I do not at present go into the difficult questions of underground or over ground roads, though I have had a good deal of experience myself of the widening of streets in London, and I know very well indeed of the great cost involved in widening streets. We did make one street wider, and that was Kingsway, and it is difficult for the local authority in London to make more than one of these great efforts in fifteen or twenty years. But some schemes have been considered for the improvement of traffic
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facilities in the more congested areas, including the Victoria Dock Road scheme, which would relieve the congested routes leading to the docks, and also improvements in the Whitechapel High Street. A number of other proposals for traffic regulations are also being considered. Among those are the opening up of routes alternative to certain of the more congested thoroughfares, one-way traffic streets, regulations as to unattended vehicles, vehicles turning round in the more congested streets, slow-moving and stationary vehicles loading and unloading, and vehicles collecting refuse. In fact, I think I should be almost exhausted if I were to enumerate all the activities of the Traffic Advisory Board during the last six months, and I am sure your Lordships would find it rather tedious. I repeat that they have only been at work for six months, because the first six months after the passing of the Act were taken up in constituting the Board.
The next point which the noble Lord raised was as to what public authorities had been consulted. On the Advisory Board itself, of course, a great many of them are represented—the London County Council, the Metropolitan Boroughs, the County Boroughs of Croydon, East Ham and West Ham, the Counties of Kent, Surrey, Middlesex, Essex, Hertford and Buckingham; so those authorities are easily kept in touch with what is done by the Board. I am not now speaking of such authorities as the Home Office, the Commissioners of Police and the City of London. Any authorities affected by these regulations are consulted and any changes are made as the result of consultation which may seem desirable.
I should like make one point in reply to the criticism of the noble Lord that possibly some of the proceedings of the Traffic Committee have been slow. I want to remind your Lordships that besides the fact that the questions they have to deal with—as has, indeed, been displayed by the differences of opinion exhibited to-night by noble Lords—are very intricate and that a great many interests have to be consulted, the Committed is not an Executive Committee but an Advisory Committee, and many of the proposals they make require the assistance of local authorities and there must be inevitable delay when so many local authorities have to be consulted.

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I do not think he pressed for them in his speech, and, if so, I will not say much about the matter, but the noble Lord moved for Papers. I was going to suggest to him that under the Act a Report has to be made once a year and laid on the Table of Parliament. Possibly, if the noble Lord would not press for Papers now, but waited for that Report, he would he more fully satisfied.
Then I come to the very serious question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lamington, and other members of your Lordships' House regarding accidents. Before I deal with the precise figures I should like to say that the London Traffic Advisory Committee are considering the question of these street accidents in order to ascertain whether any measure can be usefully taken which would have the effect of reducing their number. With regard to the point mentioned by my noble friend Lord Newton, the Committee are also considering whether any alteration of the rule of the pavement would really add to the safety of pedestrians.
LORD NEWTON: Hear, hear!
VISCOUNT PEEL: I am glad that has brought balm to the soul of my noble friend.
In regard to the number of street accidents a certain increase was no doubt due, as noble Lords have said, to the very large increase of motor vehicles and of the number of persons who have been conveyed by public service vehicles crossing the London streets. I think there is some comfort, though the figures are very serious, in the fact that the number of street accidents, both fatal and non-fatal, are not increasing in the same proportion as the increase in the number of motor vehicles. One noble Lord bore testimony to the great efficiency of the police in New York and said that we ought to go and take lessons there in the way to manage our traffic. I should like to point out that, though the figures are more general than those of New York, this experience of the relative increase in the accidents as compared with the number of motors is entirely different to the experience in the United States, where the two curves very nearly approximate. I do not say that this proves very much, but it at
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least suggests that our methods in regard to control are probably quite as good as theirs.
The noble Lord referred to some of the figures, and I should like to dwell upon them for the moment. The number of fatal accidents in the Metropolitan Police District, caused by vehicles of all classes, in the year 1915 was 851. That was the highest on record. There possibly may have been special circumstances about that year 1915. Anyhow, in 1922 they were 675. They were less in 1923, 668. Unfortunately, in 1924 the numbers had risen to 844.
LORD LAMINGTON: 884.
VISCOUNT PEEL: The figures I have been given are 844, and 140 of those were riders of pedal bicycles. The noble Lord asked whether it was possible to give a return of the places where these accidents had taken place, and I will certainly ask whether that can be done. The suggestion is also made that, perhaps, a little map might be prepared showing where these fatal accidents happened. I think that the noble Earl opposite, in replying to this question last year, found himself unable to give those figures, but I will certainly ask whether the question has become more practicable to-day.
The number of accidents for 1924 is less than the number for 1915, in spite of the very large increase in the number of motor vehicles. The Ministry of Transport realise the very serious nature and the number of these casualties, and they have asked the London Traffic Advisory Committee to advise them on the subject. Again, inquiries are being made into the causes of street accidents to see whether they are due to a defect in the nature and character of the road or defects in the vehicles themselves. These inquiries have resulted in many very useful improvements being made in the way of cutting off dangerous corners, improving the road surface, and so on. The London Traffic Advisory Committee are further considering what they can do to reduce the congestion in the London streets, and regulations for the control of traffic are continually being considered by the Ministry.
Let me say one word now on the question of the accidents due to the care-

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lessness of pedestrians. I think I am fairly impartial on this subject because I am both a pedestrian and a motorist. I am not so exclusively a motorist as my noble friend Lord Montagu of Beaulieu; but I cannot help saying that I think a certain number of accidents are due, perhaps, to the boldness and rashness of pedestrians. The carelessness of pedestrians is, of course, another matter. As a pedestrian I claim to have a certain amount of carelessness allowed me. I may be crossing the streets and reflecting upon the best way to reform your Lordships' House, and I do not think I need be always tuned up to the extreme accuracy of observation and activity which is necessary, perhaps, to those who are crossing streets. At the same time, there is no doubt that a great deal is due also to the drivers themselves, and this question is being very carefully considered by the Ministry of Transport. They are considering whether severer penalties are not necessary for dangerous driving, and they hope, as soon as the pressure of Parliamentary business allows us, that they may be able to introduce a comprehensive Roads Vehicles Bill which will result in improvement, and will contain some provisions of this character.
The last point I would mention is this. The question of sub-ways has been discussed; in fact, it has been extended into tunnels out of London. So far as there are existing sub-ways already, I understand that the public show a curious reluctance to make use of them, so that if these subterranean ways are extended it will be necessary to educate the public to some extent in order to persuade them to make use of the tunnels. On the general question of risks and dangers, I can assure noble Lords that these matters are being very carefully looked into by the Ministry. The Ministry are fully alive to the difficulties, and they are by no means disposed, in the rather lighthearted way of my noble friend Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, to attribute this number of accidents merely to the carelessness of pedestrians.
LORD LAMINGTON: Has the noble Viscount got the number of pedestrians Killed?
VISCOUNT PEEL: I have asked for that figure, but have not got the figures as to pedestrians separately.
LORD RATHCREEDAN: My Lords, may I say that I am much gratified by the very full and ample reply that the noble Viscount has given to my Question? He has given us ample information of all that the Advisory Board and the Ministry of Transport are doing, and I think we have reason to congratulate the Ministry upon what they have accomplished. What they have done in connection with the parking of motor cars and of one-way streets, if further developed, will help materially to minimise the traffic difficulties. I would like to make one correction. One noble Lord seemed to think that I Is as in favour of a large number of overhead and underground roads. I merely suggested that there were one or two, possibly three, places in the West End of London where there was a tremendous cross-current of traffic, and that it would pay if one or two tunnels were made for the purpose of relieving that traffic at those particular points. In conclusion, I desire to say that I thank the noble Viscount for having given us such a full account of what the Advisory Board are doing, and I beg to withdraw my Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

MERCHANT SHIPPING (INTERNATIONAL LABOUR CONVENTIONS) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day read for the consideration of Commons Amendment.
Moved, That the Commons Amendment be now considered.—(Viscount Peel.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENT.
[The reference is to Bill (No. 58).]
Clause 5, page 5, line 7, leave out ("or pilotage").
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Viscount Peel.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

BISHOPRIC OF LEICESTER MEASURE.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK: I beg to move to resolve, That in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, this House

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do direct that the Bishopric of Leicester Measure, 1925, be presented to His Majesty for the Royal Assent. I need not detain the House for more than one moment upon this matter which is quite non-controversial, and, as far as I know, has met with no opposition in any of its stages. All who know the facts of the ease agree that it is necessary the diocese should be divided for the spiritual efficiency of the Church. It is too large for any Bishop to know intimately his clergy or his parishes, and it is too widely scattered for the clergy and laity to meet together frequently, while the Cathedral is situated in a distant corner of the
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diocese. This measure has met with the enthusiastic support of the diocese concerned, with the approval of the Church Assembly, and is recommended to the Houses of Parliament by the Ecclesiastical Committee. I beg to move.
Moved to resolve, That in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, this House do direct that the Bishopric of Leicester Measure, 1925, be presented to His Majesty for the Royal Assent.—(The Lord Bishop of Southwark.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes past seven o'clock.