Lords Sitting of 9 July 1925

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

BRADFORD CORPORATION BILL.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE): My Lords, with reference to this Bill I beg to move the Motion which stands in my name on the Paper.
Moved, That the Order made on the 10th day of April last, "That no Private Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a Second time after Tuesday, the 30th of June next," be dispensed with in respect of the Bradford Corporation Bill, and that the Bill be now read 2a.— (The Earl of Donoughmore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and Bill read 2a accordingly.

FIRE BRIGADE PENSIONS BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Desborough.)
EARL BEAUCHAMP: My Lords, the noble Lord who has moved that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill may remember that on the Second Reading I asked him a question. I do not know whether he is now in a position to give the House the information for which I asked, but I shall be very glad if he can do so.
LORD DESBOROUGH: My Lords, with regard to the question put to me by my noble friend, I did on the last occasion undertake, so far as I was able, to arrive at some sort of estimate of the extra expense to which the local authorities were likely to be put if this Bill passed your Lordships' House and became an Act. The whole cost under the Bill to the local authorities with regard to pensions will be less than the pensions which they already give in most instances at the present time. I do not know whether my
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noble friend would like to bear the calculations that have been made with regard to the question which he so properly asked. If so, I can give them; but I think I ought to add that it is very difficult to give any actual estimate of the cost of the scheme as it stands, partly because no actual data are available as to the existing rates of pay of the firemen who will benefit from the Bill, and partly because the value of the pension rights under the amended scheme has not yet been actuarially calculated since the various alterations were introduced into the Bill.
Approximate figures, however, can be given on certain assumptions. As regards the rates of pay, we may assume that the full scale of pay for firemen—that is to say, 70 s. a week, rising to 90 s. a week—is in operation in all cases, and, as a round figure, £200 per annum might be taken as the average. The actuarial value of the present scheme can probably be put at from twelve to fourteen per cent. of the pay. That is to say, a contribution at that percentage rate during a fireman's service, if invested at four per cent., would be sufficient on the average to meet the cost of his prospective pension. Out of this twelve to fourteen per cent. the fireman is required under the Bill to contribute five per cent., thus leaving from seven to nine per cent. to be met by the local authority from the rates. On this basis a contribution of from £14 to £18 per annum during a fireman's service would suffice to cover the cost of his pension. In a brigade of ten professional firemen the necessary contribution from the local authority would be only from £140 to £180 per annum, while the aggregate amount to cover all firemen who would benefit by the Bill—understood to be from 700 to 800, spread over a large number of local authorities—would be only £12,000 to £16,000 per annum. There are, I think, some fifty local authorities who would be affected by this Bill, and they would only have to deal with some two or three, or perhaps only one or two, men apiece, and so, if you divide the whole cost of £12,000 to £16,000 by fifty you do not impose any very large additional burden.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I am much obliged to the noble Lord.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL OF DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 to 23 agreed to.
Clause 24:
Act to supersede other Acts, etc.
(1) The provisions of this Act shall have effect notwithstanding anything in any other Act, general or local, or charter, to the contrary, and as from the commencement of this Act all other provisions for the grant of pensions, allowances, or gratuities on the retirement or death of professional firemen shall cease to have effect as respects such firemen, subject however as follows:—
(a) Nothing in this Act shall affect the statutory provisions relating to the grant of any pension, allowance, or gratuity on the retirement or death of a member of the London Fire Brigade, excepting the provisions contained in Section six of this Act which shall apply;
VISCOUNT FALMOUTH VISCOUNT FALMOUTH moved, in subsection (1), to leave out paragraph (a) and insert the following new paragraph:
"(a) None of the provisions of this Act excepting the provisions contained in Section seven and subsections (2) and (3) of Section eight shall apply to members of the London Fire Brigade, and Section seven shall apply to a professional fireman removing to or from the London Fire Brigade;"
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, this Amendment is in the nature of a drafting Amendment. If the Bill goes through as printed considerable inconvenience will be experienced by the London Fire Brigade, who have their own pensions scheme, and it was the intention, I believe, of the framers of the Bill that the London Fire Brigade should be left out of the Bill, with the exception of Clause 7 and Clause 8, subsections (2) and (3). I sincerely hope that the noble Lord in charge of the Bill will see his way to accept the Amendment, which in no way runs contrary to the general object of the Bill.
Amendment moved—
Clause 24, page 17, lines 31 to 36, leave out paragraph (a) and insert the said new paragraph.—(Viscount Falmouth.)
LORD DESBOROUGH: My Lords, the objection which I have to this Amendment, speaking on behalf of the Home Office, is that it might possibly, if it is carried, imperil the success of the Bill in another place, because, if it goes down
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to them as an amended Bill, there are certain difficulties after 11 o'clock. I quite agree, however, with my noble friend that the intention of the Bill is in no way altered, and it may be made a little bit clearer by the Amendment moved, and so I do not oppose it.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 24, as amended, agreed to
Remaining clauses agreed to.
Schedule agreed to

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA (CIVIL SERVICES) BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: The first question which I have to put on this Bill is that the Amendments made in the Standing Committee be now considered.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD): My Lords, I am extremely sorry that, having afforded myself the assistance of the very experienced Joint Committee of both Houses, my first and mast ungrateful task is to invite your Lordships to leave out a riot unimportant paragraph and a very important subsection which the Joint Committee has advised me to accept Your Lordships will remember the general object of this Bill. It is to carry out in the interests of the Indian Civil Services the recommendations of the Lee Commission's Report. The object of the Joint Committee is to add—and, I am bound to say, outside the scope of the Bill—to the number of those who would be in a position to avail themselves of its beneficial provisions. It is always undesirable to depart from the scope of a Bill when that Bill is founded upon the report of a Commission, and the real truth is that the difference of opinion which has arisen between the Government of India and my Office and noble Lords who have taken a different view is that they, reasonably enough if it were really practicable in the method they propose, wish to extend somewhat the number and range of the beneficiaries.
Now, my Lords, the plain truth is that the moral case goes far beyond the recommendations made by the Commis-

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sion. The moral case is this, that there is a claim to be alleged by everyone, whoever he may be, whether he be a member of what is called the Superior Civil Services or not, who was affected by the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms. It is, of course, notorious that these reforms involved the transfer of many important spheres of government work to the newly-elected Governments. The number of those so affected is very considerable indeed, and it was not the policy of Parliament so transferring them that all of them should receive the same benefits which are the subject-matter of the recommendations of the Lee Commission's Report. The Amendments that are actually proposed by the Joint Committee do not receive the support of the Government of India. They do not receive the support of the India Office, and I am bound to take the responsibility of telling your Lordships that in my judgment they are quite unworkable.
The Committee, not, I believe, if I may be allowed to say so, without a considerable difference of opinion, reached the conclusion which I am now trying to alter. Unfortunately, some two months' expenditure of time has been involved in these discussions. It has been found impossible now to do what I had originally hoped—to put the Bill upon the Statute Book in the earlier part of this Session, and if this controversy were very consideraby protracted it might be at least open to anxiety as to whether, with the congestion of Parliamentary business which awaits us in the autumn, this very valuable reform, on which the whole Indian Civil Service has set its heart, and which that Service had been promised this autumn, might not he exposed, at any rate to some slight risk of even further postponement.
Let me shortly explain the measure. Clause 1 of the Bill, as I presented it to the House, removed from the Votes the salaries and pensions of persons appointed before April 1, 1924, by the Governor-General in Council or by a Local Government to services or posts classified by rules under this Bill as superior services or posts. That was at least intelligible. The persons who were so defined were known to everybody who was familiar with the constitution of the hierarchy of the Indian Civil Services. To this paragraph the Joint Committee
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have added the following paragraph which, with great respect to them, I am advising your Lordships to withdraw:—
"Certain named persons appointed before the first day of April, nineteen hundred and twenty-four, by the Governor-General in Council or by a Local Government, or by the High Court or Chief Court of a Province in respect of whom the Secretary of State in Council shall have certified that exemption is justified by the circumstances of their original appointment."
The general effect of the change is to extend the protection far beyond the classes contemplated by the original Bill. I contemplated in the original Bill, as the Lee Commissioners had contemplated, officers of the class for whom they had, in terms very readily recognisable, proposed concessions.
The addition male by the Joint Committee, if I may say so with the deepest respect for the members of that body, is extremely objectionable to me of all people, because it leaves a discretion to certify officers by name to the Secretary of State, without the slightest indication of the grounds on which he is to certify, except that they are to be grounds connected with the circumstances of the officer's original appointment. I say quite plainly that such a duty is wholly unacceptable to me. It is not a duty which in any circumstances ought to be imposed upon the Secretary of State. Indeed, I can illustrate it in this way. There is absolutely nothing in the Amendment to prevent me from certifying anyone I like and, what is more important, it makes it possible—I do not say it invidiously, but I may perhaps say it—for Members of Parliament and others to bring pressure to bear for the certification of particular persons on the ground that the power is, as it is, absolutely unrestricted. Moreover, there is the practical difficulty that it is very unlikely that the Government records will ever show anything exceptional in the circumstances of appointment, even where there were special reasons. When I appoint an officer to a position I might have a special reason for appointing him to that position. But I do not leave a note in the Department saying, "I appointed him for a special reason, and here is that special reason." The only Minute, as everybody who has had administrative responsibility knows, that in the ordinary case is preserved in

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a Department is: "We recommend that A or B shall be appointed to this particular position."
Apart from the administrative difficulty of working, and the invidious responsibility in which this proposed new paragraph would involve the Secretary of State, the clause of the Joint Committee is open to very considerable objections of substance. It is true that it purports to be non-racial. But, if we are to speak candidly to one another in this House, I imagine there can be no doubt that the officers whom the Joint Committee desire to protect are European officers, who are supposed to have been recruited for services admittedly not superior, in the technical phrase, but because European qualifications were held to be necessary. This ingenuous—I must use the word quite plainly—legislation in the form proposed would become apparent when the list of persons certified by name was published. I doubt if any single member of the Joint Committee had in mind a specific Indian case. Indeed, I do not think I am, speaking from memory, doing any injustice to the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Ampthill, on an earlier occasion in our debates when I say that I think he made it plain that the cases he had in mind were English cases. If that is so, if it be true, as I believe it to be true, and as I am advised it is true, that no Indian in the Provincial Service has ever moved a finger to obtain protection on the ground of the circumstances of his original appointment, then I am invited by name to publish lists of English members of the services as to whose position, unless we admit a racial discrimination, which I certainly will not admit in this matter, it will be made perfectly plain that the advantage of these proposals is to enure exclusively or almost exclusively in favour of Europeans.
If the argument is put forward that European qualifications have nothing to do with the matter, but that the discrimination is to be meritorious, then I must ask leave to point out that special circumstances of appointment will be proportionately at least as numerous among Indians as among Europeans. I would like to ask whether that is contemplated. Upon this view what it means is that the number of officers, most of them Indians, who would be withdrawn from the financial control of the Councils
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would be so large as quite evidently to constitute a substantial reduction of the powers given to them in 1919; and that it would be gravely resented, and I think reasonably resented, I entertain not the slightest doubt.
It ought to be remembered in this connection that the good will of the Councils will be valuable and, indeed, indispensable in carrying into effect some of the Lee Commission's proposals, and I regard it as of the highest importance that they should be given no reasonable ground for complaint. I am advised that the acceptance of this Amendment will make the task of the Government in the Councils very much more difficult, and even if Englishmen alone are considered the Joint Committee, according to my advisers both in India and in this country, are certainly wrong in thinking that the number of claims to certification under that clause is small. I doubt, and I am founding myself here largely upon the speech made earlier in the Session by the noble Lord, Lord Ampthill, if they have in mind more than a few officers in two or three Bombay and Madras services, but if the real criterion is appointment on account of European qualifications it would be impossible to certify a junior officer, for instance, in the Bombay Salt Department, and to refuse certification to a British sergeant-major of police. In Bihar alone there are over 50 British sergeants and sergeant-majors, and the number in Provinces with large towns is indisputably very much greater. The problem before us is not, therefore, of a score of officers, but hundreds, and if the Joint Committee wish to controvert this they will have to define much more precisely the class they have in mind. I doubt if they can do this. If this view is correct, and the Secretary of State nevertheless limits his certification to a very few officials, he will no doubt remove their sense of grievance, but at the cost of giving a new grievance, and one quite unanswerable logically, to the large number of equally meritorious officials who have, morally at least, as strong a claim.
If I may sum up the objections which have led me most reluctantly, but very clearly in my own mind, to ask your Lordships to take this course in regard to this clause, they will be these. In the first part, beyond all question, it

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goes beyond the general and express purpose of the Bill. Its intention is not clear, its drafting is painfully obscure, and it will be most difficult and most embarrassing to administer. In the third place, it either involves racial discrimination, or the withdrawal of officers from the control of the Councils to an extent that cannot be justified; and in the fourth place, in my expectation and the expectation of those of great experience who have advised me, it will create more grievances than it removes. On all these grounds I move the Motion which stands in my name.
Moved, That the Amendments made in the Standing Committee be now considered.—(The Earl of Birkenhead.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Amendment of ss. 67A and 72D of Government of India Act.
1. Sections sixty-seven A and seventy-two D of the Government of India Act shall as from and after the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and twenty-four, have effect as though the following amendments were made therein:—
(1) In subsection (3) of the said Section sixty-seven A (which relates to proposals for the appropriation of money which are not to be submitted to the vote of the Legislative Assembly) there shall be substituted for paragraphs (iii) and (iv) the following paragraphs:—
"(iii) Salaries and pensions payable to or to the dependants of—

(a) persons appointed by or with the approval of His Majesty or by the Secretary of State in Council;

(b) chief commissioners and judicial commissioners; and

(c) persons appointed before the first day of April, nineteen hundred and twenty-four, by the Governor-General in Council or by a local government to services or posts classified by rules under this Act as superior services or posts."

(2) In subsection (3) of the said Section seventy-two D (which relates to proposals for the appropriation of money which are not to be submitted to governor's legislative councils) there shall be substituted for paragraphs (iv) and (v) the following paragraphs:
"(iv) Salaries and pensions payable to or to the dependants of—

(a) persons appointed by or with the approval of His Majesty or by the Secretary of State in Council;

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(b) judges of the high court of the Province;

(c) the Advocate-General; and

(d) persons appointed before the first day of April, nineteen hundred and twenty-four, by the Governor-General in Council or by a local government to services or posts classified by rules under this Act as superior services or posts."

AMENDMENT PROPOSED BY THE STANDING JOINT COMMITTEE.
Page 2, Clause 1, after line 16 to insert the following new paragraph:—
("(d) Certain named persons appointed before the first day of April, nineteen hundred and twenty-four, by the Governor-General in Council or by a local government, or by the High Court or Chief Court of a Province in respect of whom the Secretary of State in Council shall have certified that exemption is justified by the circumstances of their original appointment.")
THE LORD CHAIRMAN: The most convenient form of Question will be this: That the Amendment proposed by the Joint Committee to page 2, Clause 1, line 16, be disagreed to.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: I beg to move.
Moved, That the Amendment to page 2, Clause 1, line 16, proposed by the Standing Joint Committee on Indian Affairs he disagreed to.—(The Earl of Birkenhead.)
LORD OLIVIER: I want to put a preliminary inquiry to the noble Earl in order to clear the ground. First of all, I may explain that I was not in the Joint Committee when this clause was fixed upon, and it is in a form with which I could not agree for precisely the reasons I expressed in the former debate, and which have been expressed, or some of them at all events, by the noble Earl this afternoon. But I understand from the debate, and also from the White Paper that was handed to us, that it might be possible to arrive at some formula which would remove from the Secretary of State the invidious task of certifying by name a number of individuals. The India Office thought that some formula might be found which would cover the cases of the officers whom the noble Lord, Lord Ampthill, desires to protect. I would

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like to know whether the noble Earl is prepared to make any suggestion, or whether he intends to oppose the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Ampthill, altogether.
I would also like, if I may, to ask a question which I hope the noble Earl will not find impertinent. He took up the position he has indicated in support of the Government of India and the India Office. I presume he means that he does it with the concurrence of his Council—the Secretary of State for India in Council. I do not know if that is a question that I ought to ask the noble Earl.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: If it was my statutory obligation to reach this conclusion after consulting my Council did so. My recollection is that I did, and I think it is a statutory obligation. Undoubtedly, they had the whole of all these reforms before them. As to the other matter, I believe that at one stage the suggestion which the noble Lord has referred to was proposed, but it was not found acceptable to those who took the non-official view. The observations that I have made will show that, upon more mature reflection, and apart from the utterly indefensible course, as I think it, of placing the matter upon the shoulders of the Secretary of State, with no clearly defined course of guidance for him—and on plain broad merits the proposal ought not to be accepted. There is no stage for which my Office can accept this responsibility.
LORD MESTON: As chairman of the Standing Joint Committee perhaps I may ask your Lordships' indulgence while I explain the reasons which induced the Committee to insert these Amendments in the Bill. The details are complex and obscure, but the main issue is simple. By the Act of 1919 certain classes of public officials in India had their salaries removed from the Vote of the Legislatures having jurisdiction over them. As a result of the Inquiry conducted by the Committee over which Lord Lee presided, and also partly, it is not unfair to say, as a result of the attitude which has been taken during the last few years by certain sections in the Legislature to deserving public servants, it became necessary to extend the list of officials whose salaries should be protected in the way that I
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have mentioned. That is what this Bill purports to do. It is what His Majesty's Government has regarded as essential, and it is cordially endorsed by the Standing Joint Committee.
The Standing Joint Committee, however, after they had studied the facts that were laid before them, came to the conclusion that it was necessary to make the protection more definite. The last thing they intended was to go outside the scope of the Bill. What they attempted was to make the Bill effective in carrying out the purposes for which presumably it was brought into existence. They wished to make it a Bill sufficiently wide to cover all those public servants in India whom recent experience has shown required and deserved the protection which the Bill intends for them. The Government of India were nervous about the departure which this Bill marked from the spirit of the legislation of 1919. The legislation of 1919 certainly meant to leave the handling of public officials, more especially in the Transferred Departments, very largely to the Indian Legislature. It is certainly not our fault that a departure has been made; this is not the time to allocate the fault; but that a departure had to be made is a fact accepted by His Majesty's Government, and all the Standing Joint Committee asked was that this departure should be made effective and made once for all.
We were convinced that the Bill as it was originally framed was in a form which left certain officials in a state in which the Secretary of State will find himself unable to protect them when the time Comes, as it will come, when he desires that they should be protected. Why did we fear this? We feared it because the Bill, as it was originally drafted, proposed to exempt from presentation to the Legislature the salaries of certain persons at a certain date in certain posts which are to be classified as "superior." We have no quarrel with the proposed classification of posts or even of services into superior and, I suppose, inferior. There are many purposes which such a classification would serve, hut our point was this, that when you have finished this classification, and have labelled all the services in India as superior or inferior, you will still find certain individual officers filling posts

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that it may not be possible or even proper to classify as superior, who yet, at the time of their appointment, had reason to expect the protection, and under the conditions of their appointment have a right to the protection which this Bill is intended to give to the holders of superior posts. The noble Earl tells us that some criterion of superior posts was necessary. We cordially agree with that; but is the criterion as to whether a particular post is superior or inferior to be the personal qualifications of the man who happened to hold it in March, 1924? To protect any individual by giving an artificial label to the appointment de happened to hold at a particular time seemed to us a tortuous and ineffectual way of carrying out the protection we desire to see extended. We may not have achieved perfection in regard to it. That is a question that must he left to the Government draftsmen, but we have heard no alternative suggestion. We never intended that the scheme should have any racial intention. The proposal is simply—
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: The racial question is of some importance. Does the noble Lord contemplate that the benefit of this Amendment will in fact enure equally to the benefit of Indians or not?
LORD MESTON: We have cases in which this benefit, if it is extended, will enure to certain Indians.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: Why should it apply in the greater number of cases to Europeans? Why should not an Indian who is in a post seek to have the same benefit?
LORD MESTON: It is impossible to say what will happen when the time comes. The question of discriminating between claims which are just and unjust which are reasonable and unreasonable, is one for the Secretary of State, and we hope that the Secretary of State will be good enough to exercise that discretion.
LORD AMPTHILL: Your Lordships will recognise that the course adopted by the Secretary of State is a very strong measure, that is to say, to reject absolutely the recommendations which have been proposed by the Standing
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Joint Committee on Indian Affairs, a Committee composed of twenty-four members, twelve from each House of Parliament, of men selected for their presumed knowledge of India, whose recommendations have received unusually prolonged and careful consideration.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: Was there not a great difference of opinion on the Committee as to the merits of the proposal as to whether it should be adopted or not?
LORD AMPTHILL: I am coming to that point. The Secretary of State says he has heard that there was considerable difference of opinion. The fact is that no member of the Committee—if my recollection is wrong I hope any noble Lord present will correct me—voted against these recommendations. The late Secretary of State, Lord Olivier, had a little doubt as to the phrasing, but nobody voted against the recommendations. The Secretary of State has used all his unequalled forensic talents in order to make the speech of a prosecuting advocate, and that is, I submit, hardly appropriate to a case of this kind.
I am obliged to follow the various points he has made. He told us that these Amendments are outside the scope of the Bill. I ask your Lordships to consider what an opening that gives to a Government for resisting any Amendment in any legislation. It would be possible to say that any mortal Amendment proposed is outside the scope of the Bill on the same grounds which have been adopted by the Secretary of State this afternoon. But in this case I submit that our recommendations are not outside the scope but very relevant to the Bill. What are they in effect? The Bill deals with the recommendations of the Lee Commission, which recommended that certain officers should be classified as superior and get the protection of the Secretary of State. But the Lee Commission, owing to pressure of time and other circumstances, omitted to make recommendations on behalf of a certain number of officers of exactly the same class, exactly the same type, and with exactly the same claims as those who have now been classed as superior.
The object of the Standing Joint Committee was to remedy that omission, and

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include them in the Bill. In making that recommendation we have based ourselves on a very definite recommendation made in the Report of the Lee Commission, that officers of this class should be treated in the same way. The Secretary of State says that there is a moral case, by which he means that there are many others who should also have the benefit of the protection of the Secretary of State. We quite agree, but we felt that it was outside the scope of the Bill to deal with cases of that kind. We confined our attention to the officers of non-Asiatic domicile who were appointed before the. Reforms, who, in 1921, by the action of the Secretary of State, were separated into different categories generally for the convenience of administration. Some were posted to the All-India Services, some to the Central Services and some, without their consent and against their consent, to the Provincial Services. All those officers formed part of the minimum indispensable for efficient administration, and, therefore, they are entitled to be treated in the same way and receive the same measure of justice.
The Secretary of State tells us that these proposals are unworkable, objectionable, invidious, utterly indefensible and disingenuous, and he holds out a threat of postponing this necessary legislation. Let us consider this argument. The Secretary of State says they are objectionable, with all the emphasis he is able to put on a term of that kind, because he has to certify by name. The phrase "named persons" already exists in the Government of India Act, and we adopted it on that ground. But does anybody suppose that the Secretary of State would act without the advice of the Local Governments in India, the Government of India, and his Council. Our Amendment provides that it shall not be the Secretary of State individually, but the Secretary of State in Council. Then again, there is the limitation of the paragraph itself. The Secretary of State suggested that, armed with this power, he might give anybody exemption according to his own free will. That is not so; he is limited to the persons who were appointed in a certain way before a certain date, as your Lordships will see if you look at the Amendment.
I now come to the point as to whether these recommendations involve racial discrimination or not. That was our
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great difficulty. We were fold when this question was raised in this House earlier in the year that the one thing which neither the Imperial Government nor the Government of India could possibly admit was a racial discrimination. We accepted that view. The difficulty of finding a formula which does not suggest racial administration, when your object is to protect your own fellow-countrymen, is enormous, but in seeking for a formula and finally arriving at that which we submit to your Lordships in this amended Bill we found to our satisfaction that it would make it possible for a certain number of Indian officials to enjoy the same benefits as those provincial officials for whom we endeavoured to make provision. The Secretary of State asked me if we had in mind a single specific Indian case. I answer frankly "No," but we were advised that such officers existed, and would be included in the benefits.
It would be unreasonable to expect your Lordships to remember my explanation of this matter which was made in April. Your Lordships will no doubt recollect that the Secretary of State, in replying to me, retained an open mind, and promised consideration of this plea on behalf of the provincial officers. In the speech which he has just made there is no suggestion that anything will be done to accord them the protection to which they are not only entitled, but without which it is impossible for them to render us efficient service. I hope that I have said enough to make it clear that we are only trying to repair the omission of the Lee Commission and give the Secretary of State the power to accord his protection to officers of precisely the same class and with precisely the same claims as those to whom he is giving it already.
It only remains for me to ask your Lordships to consider very carefully what the consequences will be if you reject these recommendations. It will, of course, be a very serious blow to the handful of provincial officers who are concerned, officers who have been playing the game, who have been doing their best to make the Reforms scheme workable, and who have been particularly concerned in that desirable object, as they have been training the Indians who are to take their places. It

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will not end there. Their disappointment will be felt by the whole of the Services in India. I cannot emphasise too strongly that our fellow-countrymen who are doing the work of Empire there look to the Imperial Parliament for protection, and we have had it from a former Prime Minister and a former Secretary of State, Lord Peel, that their present difficulties are owing to the action of the, Imperial Parliament, and that the Imperial Parliament is responsible. If the Services in India feel now that there is no hope of their being supported by the imperial Parliament their present state of anxiety—and very grave it is—and despondency will be very much increased.
It will go further than that. Rightly or wrongly, there is an impression throughout India at the present time that England is more ready to conciliate her enemies than to preserve her friends, and the inevitable result is that our friends are rapidly diminishing in number. Loyal Indians, no less than officials in India, are looking to see if Parliament is going to stand up for our fellow-countrymen and friends in India. If they see we are not going to, they will know to which side to go. If there is one thing that an Indian understands more than anything else it is the principle of standing up for your own friends.
I cannot tell you how deeply I deplore the course adopted by the Secretary of State, or how very real is the anxiety that I feel about the possible consequences if your Lordships should accept his advice. The Secretary of State had the opportunity of doing something to improve conditions in India in that direction, which he himself said was more vital and important than any other—namely, to restore confidence in such a way that we should be able to recruit the right kind of Englishman to man the services in future. If he had done that, all through India they would have recognised that we are now going to stand up for our friends. He has chosen to reject that course. I say, and I say deliberately, that if the Secretary of State had accepted our recommendations he would have clone more good than he would have done by ten such speeches its he made on Tuesday last. It is for your Lordships to decide what to do, but I am quite certain that, if you had attended the prolonged meetings of the Standing Joint Committee
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and heard the whole case argued, you would have supported these recommendations. Unfortunately, it is impossible in the circumstances in which we meet for our business here for the whole case to be argued again. Therefore it rests with your Lordships either to act as you are advised by the Secretary of State or to support the recommendations made in the most conscientious and careful manner by those who were selected for their supposed knowledge of Indian affairs.
LORD SYDENHAM: I can add nothing to what has been said so clearly and emphatically by my noble friend. I can only say this, that the men for whom he has pleaded so eloquently are a very small body, part of the great machine of government in India. Upon their work depends in a great measure the prosperity and happiness of the people of India. It is a very small number.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: It is not a small number. That statement has been made repeatedly in the course of these debates. I hoped that I had made it clear that it is a very considerable number.
LORD SYDENHAM: If it is a considerable number the case is made even stronger.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: That may be, but let us have one argument at a time.
LORD SYDENHAM: The fact is that there is throughout the Services in India a feeling of want of support. That support, I know, the noble Earl wants to give. When I heard his speech in April last I gathered that he promised to look into this question, and give it his sympathetic consideration. I do not know what induced him to change his mind, but it is a very strong measure to throw over the practically unanimous opinion of a strong Committee of twenty-four members, and the effect will be to decrease the confidence which our fellow-citizens in India feel at the present time. The only thing I think I can add is this. This case is not altogether dissimilar—if one may compare small things with great—with the abandonment of the loyalists in Ireland, which we discussed on Tuesday. I think our honour is as much bound up in supporting these men and

1175
giving them protection as it is with the defence of the loyalists who suffered so terribly in Ireland in late years.
THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (VISCOUNT PEEL): I am sure that none of your Lordships will accuse me either of being wanting in respect to the very important Committee of both Houses which considered this matter or of being lacking in sympathy for those officers in India about whom both the noble Lords have been speaking. I know very well the extent of the close investigation and sympathy which my noble friend has applied to the consideration of this question, but, though I listened very carefully to the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Meston, and of the noble Lord, Lord Ampthill, it did not seem to me that they addressed themselves very closely to the arguments that had been used by my noble friend behind me. Those arguments were dismissed, I think rather summarily, by Lord Ampthill as being those of an advocate, which is not always a sufficient reply to arguments brought forward in this House. Nor have they, I think, addressed themselves to the very great practical difficulties which are imminent in this question.
It is perfectly true, as I said on a previous occasion, that Parliament, having passed the Act of 1919, has a great responsibility for the position in which these different sections of the Indian Civil Services are placed it is equally true that, since they are in such a position, it becomes necessary for us very carefully to consider whether a particular course of action will improve, or will not improve, their situation. So far as the discussion has gone at present, I do not think that either of the noble Lords who have spoken has shown full appreciation of the fact that the proposals of my noble friend really go a good deal further than the proposals of the Lee Commission. I should like to remind your Lordships what those proposals were. The Lee Commission reported, in Paragraph (57):—
"We consider that in principle the concessions proposed for members of the All-India Services should mutatis mutandis be granted to all European officers in the Central Services appointed by the Secretary of State."
This proposal goes beyond that, because these proposals apply not only to officers
1176
in the Central Services but also to those in the Provincial Services as well who discharge services in the Provinces analogous to the services performed by the holders of posts in the All-India Services. Consequently these proposals go a great deal beyond the proposals of the Lee Commission. It is perfectly true that, so far as they apply to officials working in the Provinces in the Transferred Services, they do to some extent derogate from the powers which, under the Act of 1919, have been given to Ministers in the Provinces.
I do not think that either of the noble Lords who spoke has dealt with the very necessary and difficult dilemma which was put before them by my noble friend the Secretary of State. After all, in considering the position of these men, you have to consider what will be most to their benefit, and whether any action that may be taken will not really do them more harm than good. You have, on the one side, the difficulty of describing them by name or limiting them in a way which involves a danger of that racial discrimination and racial difficulty of which we have heard so much during the last few years and which we hoped was to some extent dying out. It is a very difficult and dangerous thing for the Secretary of State himself, in an Act of Parliament, to reintroduce a racial distinction which may again give rise to much of that racial ill-feeling which it has been the object of our administrators in India to soothe and pacify as far as they could. On the other side, if, as has been pointed out, those privileges are to be extended to a class of Indians as well as of Englishmen, you may go so far, in extending these rights and privileges, as to derogate very severely and very largely from the rights which were granted under the Act of 1919 to those Provinces.
We have further to consider that we have relied very largely on those Provincial Councils in the carrying out of some of the effects of the recommendations of the Lee Commission. The noble Lord, Lord Ampthill, talked about sympathising with our enemies—I do not know who are our enemies—and deserting our friends. I think that is a very serious statement to make—to suggest that those who may differ from our particular political view in India are our enemies—and I should like to give it here the most emphatic

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denial for my part and to assert, since the noble Lord seems to suggest that our only friends in India are particular officials of British blood, that this is really so great a travesty of our position in India, of the strength of our position in India and of the forces on which our rule in India rests, that I think it very unfortunate that a member of this Joint Committee should have permitted himself any observation of that kind.
LORD AMPTHILL: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Viscount, but what is he denying? He is giving that as my opinion. I said that there was a very widespread impression in India that the accusation was that England was more ready to conciliate her enemies than to preserve her friends. Does the noble Viscount deny that that impression exists? If so, I can give him abundant documentary proof of it in the shape of hundreds of letters and articles.
VISCOUNT PEEL: I gathered from the way in which the noble Lord made that statement that he endorsed it himself. If he disagrees with it entirely, I do not quite know why he founded an argument upon it. I am very glad indeed to note from the noble Lord's silence that he disagrees entirely with the statement.
LORD AMPTHILL: I do not disagree, if you impute anything to my silence.
VISCOUNT PEEL: If the noble Lord does not disagree with it, I do not quite see why he interrupted me just now.
LORD AMPTHILL: You cannot have it both ways.
VISCOUNT PEEL: Apart from that, I do urge that it is of the utmost importance, in a very difficult matter of this kind, when we are met with this difficult alternative of either stirring up, through racial discrimination, some additional racial feeling or of so enlarging the area of our proposals that we derogate from the powers and duties that have bean conferred upon these Councils by the Act of 1919, that we should be very careful and pause long before we indulge in such action. After all, it is no good conferring benefits on some persons and setting up a grievance amongst others, and, in considering what you can do for these
1178
officials in India, you have to consider nowadays what may be the effect on the public opinion of those upon whose good will you rely, and whether you are going to take a course which may do more harm than good to these officials. I think that they would not thank my noble friend Lord Ampthill for his advocacy if, as the result of that advocacy, they were to find themselves in a more difficult position than they are in at present.
LORD OLIVIER: I was obliged to the Secretary of State for the reply that he gave to my inquiry. I should like to say a few more words on this question. The noble Lord, Lord Ampthill—I really must say this on my own behalf, and on behalf of some of those with whom I was associated—was mistaken in saying that there was no difference of opinion in the Committee. I have verified that point by a reference to the Chairman. It is true that, when the Report was brought in, it was accepted without a Division. But differences of opinion had occurred before then, and, as regards myself, I must say that as the Bill stands at present, and as the Amendments stand at present, I could not personally vote for any one of them; but I was a little disappointed that the Secretary of State has not been able to find some intermediate formula that would cover certain hard cases which we were all convinced might exist. I do very much deprecate the club held over our heads by Lord Ampthill, telling us that now the whole of the Indian Civil Services will see that they have no hope of being supported in the Imperial Parliament. I think that is making a great deal too much of the matter.
There are, I believe, a certain number of hard cases, just as there are, and have been repeatedly, a certain number of hard cases in the Imperial Civil Service, when offices are retrenched and the legitimate chances of promotion, upon the strength of which officers were induced to enter the service, are taken away. But what is done in that case in England? It is regarded as the honourable duty of the Government, of the Minister, of the Treasury, to find some alternative scope of promotion for any particular officer who may have had that misfortune, and to see that really in the long run he does not suffer. All of us who go into the

1179
public service go in with less risk than is run by any individual who enters any other profession, but we go in, nevertheless, with that risk. We have to take it, and to rely upon our superiors to see that the risk is mitigated and moderated as far as possible. I am sure the Secretary of State and his Council, and the India Office, and the Government, have fully considered the question of hardships which may arise, and if they have done so, and the Secretary of State says that nevertheless they propose to rule out these Amendments, I see not the slightest necessity for us to make ourselves more royalist than the Government.
It is often charged against the India Office and the Secretary of State that they are unduly favourable to the claims of European officers. While not supporting that charge, I am bound to say for the India Office, and the Council of the Secretary of State, which examines these cases, that they are very careful to leave no possible loophole for injustice, and consequently, if these cases have been fully considered by the Secretary of State, as they have been, I think we may take it that we are safe in supporting his judgment, believing that the Government will see that no remediable hardship shall occur in those few cases for which exemption is legitimately claimed. In my view it is impossible to charge the Secretary of State with the duty of making a long nominal schedule. I have looked with some entertainment at the fact that almost daily the Secretary of State is made the beneficiary of long homilies and objurgations in the traditional journal of his own Party, and I expect that to-morrow morning he will be told that he has aimed a violent blow against the heart of the Empire. Such charges were continually brought against me, and I think that the Secretary of State, supported as he has been by Viscount Peel, may be sure that this matter has been dealt with with full regard to the equities of the situation. As the Secretary of State has not seen his way to find a formula which will meet those cases I think we may rely upon him to see that those eases will be given every possible consideration.
LORD HARRIS: My Lords, I only wish to intervene for one moment. As the Secretary of State and two ex-Secretaries of State have spoken so strongly
1180
against the proposal of the Standing Committee, your Lordships would naturally be disposed to infer that the Committee had little justification for the proposals which it made. I should only like to read you a few lines from a Memorandum which was drafted for the purposes of the Committee, and which considerably influenced its opinion, just to show that there are two sides to this case. It is as follows:—
"There are appointments, here and there, which it would be difficult, or even improper, to classify as superior, but which are yet held at present by persons who were originally appointed in circumstances which gave them the right to expect, and which in fact entitle them to, the same measure of protection as will extend to members of the new superior services. Such cases, it is anticipated, will be extremely rare."
That is where the Committee is virtually contradicted by the Secretary of State, and I cannot imagine that his information is not superior to that of the Joint Committee. In the Joint Committee we were never definitely advised as to how many oases would be covered by these Amendments. At first the number was about 100, and finally I heard rumours of 200, but it may be that the Secretary of State, with his superior information, is aware of a good many more than that. The Memorandum proceeds:—
"They raise no racial question, as the proposed privilege will be open to all public servants alike,…"
I think that is a rather strong point.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: May I ask what Memorandum it is?
LORD HARRIS: It was supplied to the members of the Committee.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: Not by my Office.
LORD HARRIS: Oh, no.
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD: By Lord Ampthill?
LORD HARRIS: I do not know who drafted it. There is no necessity for me to commit myself as to the author, but it was accepted by the Committee. The Secretary of State must realise this, that it is a very severe rebuff to a Joint Committee solemnly appointed by Parliament for the consideration of questions of very great moment, upon that most difficult

1181
question of the government of India, and it is a very severe rebuff to a body appointed for the purpose of advising the Secretary of State, when asked to do so, upon matters referred to it. The Memorandum proceeds:—
"and the Secretary of State will not exercise his power of individual exemption without investigating the particular conditions under whch each claimant was appointed. The number of officers thus privileged will steadily diminish, and the Committee do not regard the concession as constituting any appreciable derogation from the powers of the Legislatures, while it will remove any sense of grievance from a few meritorious officials."
I only read that to show your Lordships that there are two sides to the question, and whilst I recognise that, with the opposition presented by a Secretary of State and two ex-Secretaries of State, it is hardly possible to expect your Lordships to agree with the Committee, I think it is well to point out that there are two sides to the question.
Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.
LORD AMPTHILL: I am sure my noble friend, Lord Olivier, would not like anything inaccurate left on the records, but I think his memory is at fault. There were no Divisions on the two first Amendments before the Committee, and, whatever the rights of the proposal, the noble Lord agreed to them.
LORD OLIVIER: I did not say that there was a Division, but the Chairman of the Committee will confirm me when I say that the draft Report of the Committee stated that the third Amendment was carried by a majority, and that, he cut that phrase out because he did not think it necessary to come down to this House and say that the action of the Committee had been taken by a majority.
On Question, Whether the Amendment proposed by the Joint Committee shall be disagreed to?—
Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 55; Not-Contents, 29.

CONTENTS.

Cave, V. (L. Chancellor.)

Mayo, E.

Biddulph, L.

Morton, E.

Bledisloe, L.

Sutherland, D.

Plymouth, E. [Teller.]

Cable, L.

Yarborough, E.

Danesfort, L.

Exeter, M.

Desborough, L.

Zetland, M.

Bertie of Thame, V.

Ernle, L.

Cecil of Chelwood, V.

Erskine, L.

Shaftesbury, E. (L. Steward.)

Chaplin, V.

Gage, L. (V. Gage.)

Churchill, V.

Jessel, L.

Cromer, E. (L. Chamberlain.)

FitzAlan of Derwent, V.

Merrivale, L.

Haldane, V.

O'Hagan, L.

Birkenhead, E.

Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore)

Olivier, L.

Bradford, E.

Oriel, L. (V. Massereene.)

Clarendon, E.

Peel, V.

Oxenfoord, L. (E. Stair.)

De La Warr, E.

Plunket, L.

Eldon, E.

Southwark, L. Bp.

Ritchie of Dundee, L.

Harewood, E.

St. Levan, L.

Leicester, E.

Annesley, L. (V. Valentia.)

Sinclair, L.

Lucun, E. [Teller.]

Askwith, L.

Somers, L.

Malmesbury, E.

Atkinson, L.

Stuart of Wortley, L.

Manvers, E.

Balfour of Burleigh, L.

Thomson, L.

Wharton, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Lincolnshire, M. (L. Great Chamberlain.)

Ullswater, V.

Meston, L. [Teller.]

Monk Bretton, L.

Ampthill, L. [Teller.]

Raglan, L.

Bathurst, E.

Channing of Wellingborough, L.

Redesdale, L.

Beauchamp, E.

Ruthven of Gowrie, L.

Chesterfield, E.

Elgin, L. (E. Elgin and Kincardine.)

Sandys, L.

Denbigh, E.

Shandon, L.

Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.)

Emmott, L.

Southwark, L.

Harris, L.

Stanmore, L.

Strafford, E.

Hatherton, L.

Strachie, L.

Lamington, L.

Sudley, L. (E. Arran.)

Allendale, V.

Lawrence of Kingsgate, L.

Sydenham, L.

AMENDMENT PROPOSED BY THE STANDING JOINT COMMITTEE:—
Page 3, Clause 1, after line 4 to insert the following new paragraph:—
("(e) Certain named persons appointed before the first day of April, nineteen hundred and twenty-four, by the Governor-General in Council or by a local government, or by the High Court or Chief Court of a Province in respect of whom the Secretary of State in Council shall have certified that exemption is justified by the circumstances of their original appointment.")
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD moved that the Amendment be disagreed to. The noble Earl said: I think your Lordships will agree that this is a consequential Amendment, and I beg to move.
Moved, That the Amendment proposed by the Standing Joint Committee on page 3, Clause 1, after line 4, be disagreed to.—(The Earl of Birkenhead.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.
Clause 2:
Amendment of s. 96B of Government of India Act.
2. At the end of Section ninety-six B of the Government of India Act (which relates to the civil services in India) there shall be inserted the following subsection:—
"(5) No rules or other provisions made or confirmed under this section shall be construed to limit or abridge the power of the Secretary of State in Council to deal with the ease of any person in the civil service of the Crown in India in such manner as may appear to him to be just and equitable, and any rules made by the Secretary of State in Council under subsection (2) of this section delegating the power of making rules may provide for dispensing with or relaxing the requirements of such rules to such extent and in such manner as may be prescribed:
Provided that where any such rule or provision is applicable to the case of any person, the case shall not be dealt with in any manner less favourable to him than that provided by the rule or provision."

AMENDMENT PROPOSED BY THE STANDING JOINT COMMITTEE.
Page 3, Clause 2, after line 45 to insert the following new subsection:—
("(6) Every person whose salary and I pension is, in accordance with the provisions of Section sixty-seven A and Section seventy-two D of this Act, not submitted to the vote of the Legislative Councils
1184
shall be deemed to be a person appointed by the Secretary of State in Council for the purposes of this section.")
THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD moved that the Amendment made by the Standing Joint Committee be disagreed to. The noble Earl said: It is no longer my duty or, indeed, my right to offer legal advice to this House, and it has never been my habit in life to offer it gratuitously. But I am bound to make it plain that my confident opinion is that this is out of order, as being entirely outside the whole scope of the Bill, the purposes of which, in relation to Section 96 (b), to which the Committee's subsection is an Amendment, is described in the long title as being "to enable rules made under the said Act relating to the Civil Services of the Crown in India to be dispensed with or relaxed in certain cases." The object of the Committee's Amendment is obviously different. I do not really know whether your Lordships would desire me to deal with the matter on the merits, or whether those who proposed this Amendment had sufficiently considered the technical objection to it, which, I have no hesitation in putting to your Lordships, is an overwhelming one. I do not know whether the noble Lord, or any other noble Lord, can inform me whether he proposes to resist the view that technically this is out of order.
I will say a word upon the merits if it is desired that I should do so. Upon its merits it is open to considerable objection. If the Committee's first Amendment had been adopted the adoption of this further Amendment would have given many rights to the persons it affected, amongst others to the persons scheduled under the first Amendment. It would have given in the first place a right of appeal to the Governor; in the second place a right to retain all their existing and accruing rights, and to claim compensation for the loss of them; and in the third place security from dismissal by any authority other than by the Secretary of State. Perhaps it is not necessary for me to say that they already have the first under existing statutory rules in every case in respect of which an appeal lies to any authority under the appeal rules.
The Amendment is, therefore, in this respect absolutely, from any point of

1185
view, superfluous. To give the other rights on grounds which must be racial to persons not appointed by the Secretary of State, and not classified as superior, would be to open the whole question of the classification of the Services, and the distribution of control over them which has been effected on the basis of the Act of 1919. I must also be allowed to add, that to give such rights to an undefined class which might easily include a police sergeant, or at any rate some police sergeants, would be a source of very great administrative embarrassment. I have only this to add. In my judgment, for the reason I have given, the Amendment is technically inadmissible, and it is open to the charge of great inconvenience upon its merits.
I will take this opportunity of disabusing the mind of any noble Lord who thinks that I have in some way been unable to carry out the assurance. I gave that I would most carefully consider the original case made by the noble Lord in this House, in order to determine whether or not I could give him some degree of satisfaction. If he could make inquiries in my Office, he would learn that day by day and week by week I have gone into the question, seeing every one in the Office who was in the least likely to be able to afford me guidance or accurate information, and I have been in constant touch upon the same point with the Government of India, and have discussed it with the Governor-General. It is not in our power on any such general proposals as this to give the assistance desired without finding ourselves in greater embarrassment than that in which we are to-day. Such help as can be given must be given by dealing as indulgently and generously as one can with the individual cases when those individual cases present themselves. As to the noble Lord's references to my forensic advocacy, I do not desire to enter into any controversy. Every man who puts a case in this House or anywhere else with the hope and intention of persuading other people is an advocate. He may be a good advocate, or he may be a bad one, but he is equally an advocate whether his education in these matters was commenced in the Inns of Courts or not.
Moved, That the Amendment proposed by the Joint Committee on page 3,
1186
Clause 2, after line 45 be disagreed to.—(The Earl of Birkenhead.)
LORD AMPTHILL: It is not much use taking up your Lordships' time in arguing this matter, because this Amendment depended upon, and was, in fact, in a sense consequential to, the Amendment which your Lordships have already decided against, and therefore the matter is settled.
On Question, Motion agreed to, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.
THE LORD CHAIRMAN: There is one other Amendment which, I understand, the Secretary of State accepts, on page 3, after Clause 2, to insert the new Clause 3, as printed.

AMENDMENT PROPOSED BY THE STANDING JOINT COMMITTEE.
Amendment of s. 97 of Government of India Act.
Page 3, after Clause, 2 to insert the following new clause:—
("3. In subsection (6) of Section ninety-seven of the Government of India Act (which relates to the appointment to the Indian Civil Service of persons domiciled in India) the words 'in Council' shall be inserted after the words 'Secretary of State' where those words first occur.")
Moved, that this Amendment be agreed to.—(The Earl of Birkenhead.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.

MENTAL DEFICIENCY (AMENDMENT) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD MONK BRETTON: My Lords, this is a very short one-clause Bill which, I hope, will not detain your Lordships long. It is intended to amend a defect in the Mental Deficiency Act, 1913. It may be remembered that that Act established a judicial authority which could make an order to put a mentally deficient person into an institution of detention or under guardianship. That was a judicial authority given to the County Court Judge or Stipendiary Magistrate. The Act further provided that where an order had been made placing a mentally defective person under guardianship, the judicial authority could make another order, if necessary, to transfer the person from guardianship to the greater restriction of detention. What the Act did not

1187
do was this: it did not provide that the judicial authority should make an order to transfer the other way, from detention to guardianship. In the working of this Act it has been found that many of these unfortunate persons, after they have been in detention for some time, are so much improved in health that they might with advantage be transferred to guardianship, though they are not well enough to be liberated. That is what this Bill is intended to do.
I believe there are many cases of that kind, and it is desirable that this power should be given to the judicial authority. It will enable many of these poor people to lead happier lives under guardianship than they at present may do under detention, and it has the additional advantage to the local authority, which is interested on the score of expense, that it is an economical matter, because guardianship is very much cheaper to arrange for than is detention. This Bill has the approval of the Central Association for Mental Welfare. It has passed the other House of Parliament without amendment, and, I believe, without any opposition whatever. It is a one-clause measure. If your Lordships wish to object to it in any way you can do so as well in Committee as you can now: therefore I hope your Lordships will at once give it a second reading. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Monk Bretton.)
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, I do not see why this Bill should not be passed. When an unfortunate person can be safely taken from the institution to which he has been committed, it is an improvement to put him under guardianship. All that is in accordance with the tendency of the time. The Bill has passed the other House, it has been approved, at any rate, by substantial authority, and unless the Government see some special reason for objecting to it I think it is a measure that might very well be passed.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: My Lords, on behalf of the Ministry of Health I need only say that they accept this Bill. They look upon it as a rectification of the omission in the Act of 1913. It is entirely uncontroversial from other points of view, and the Government are therefore prepared to accept it.
On Question, Bill read 2a; and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

THEATRICAL EMPLOYERS REGISTRATION BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to he put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Danesfort.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL OF DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 to 4 agreed to.
Clause 5.
Offences under the Act.
5. Any theatrical employer shall be guilty of an offence under this Act—
(a) Who during the course of theatrical touring engagement abandons the theatrical performers;
(e) Who on the hearing of any charge under this Act fails to produce to the court his certificate (if any) of registration without lawful excuse, or produces a false certificate.
LORD DANESFORT LORD DANESFORT moved, in subsection (1) (a), to leave out "touring." The noble Lord said: The reason for this Amendment is this. It has been pointed out that the class of bogus managers against whom this Bill is directed includes those who engage theatrical performers not only for touring engagements but for what are called non-touring engagements. This Amendment has the approval of the authorised representatives of the managers on the one side and, on the other, of the performers. They agree that the Amendment is a right one.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 32, leave out ("touring").—(Lord Danesfort.)
LORD DESBOROUGH: The Home Office is quite in favour of this Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DESBOROUGH LORD DESBOROUGH moved, in subsection (1) (e), to leave out "lawful" and to insert "reasonable." The noble

1189
Lord said: I must apologise for the number of Amendments which stand in my name, but the fact is that an ardent supporter of the Bill moved the Third Reading in another place after eleven o'clock, and while negotiations were going on with the Home Office. These Amendments would have been moved in another place, but for this somewhat premature action. With regard to this Amendment, your Lordships adopted a similar proposal in regard to the Performing Animals Act, considering that "reasonable" is a more appropriate word than "lawful."
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 7, leave out ("lawful") and insert ("reasonable").—(Lord Desborough.)
LORD DANESFORT: I accept the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DESBOROUCH LORD DESBOROUCH moved, in subsection (1), to insert the following new paragraph:—
("(f) who being a company or a firm, of which any person whose registration has been cancelled or is suspended, is a director or manager, or by any other means has control, or is a partner, as the case may be, applies to be registered as a theatrical employer.")
The noble Lord said: Clause 6 (1) (a) gives the Court power to order the certificate of any registered theatrical employer to be delivered up and the registration cancelled, but there is nothing to prevent a man whose registration has been so cancelled from forming himself into a company and applying for registration in the name of the company. This Amendment has been drafted in order to meet that point.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 8, at end insert the said new paragraph.—(Lord Desborough.)
LORD DANESFORT: With regard to this Amendment and to all the other Amendments in the name of the noble Lord, may I say, on behalf of the promoters of the Bill, that I am prepared to accept them, and in so doing I have the approval of the employers on the one side and the theatrical performers on the other.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 6:
Punishment for offences under the Act.
6.—(1) Any offence under this Act shall render the person committing the same liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds with or without imprisonment for a period not exceeding three months, and in addition to any other penalty the court may in its discretion:—

(a) Order the certificate of any registered theatrical employer to be delivered up and the registration to be cancelled;

(b) Order the certificate of any registered theatrical employer to be delivered up and the registration to be suspended for such a period as the court may deem meet;

(c) Order the person convicted to pay the whole or any part of the costs of the prosecution.

Any person sheeted by an order made under this section may appeal against the order to a court of quarter sessions.
LORD DANESFORT LORD DANESFORT moved, at the end of subsection (1), to insert "in the manner prescribed by the Summary Jurisdiction Acts."
"(2) An order made under this Act shall not come into force until seven days after it is made, or if an appeal has been entered within that period until the determination of the appeal."
The noble Lord said: The object of this Amendment is to give a person who is convicted before a court of summary jurisdiction under this Bill the opportunity of appealing to Quarter Sessions, as the Bill provides. The Amendment gives him seven days in which to make up his mind whether he will appeal or not, and if he does then the order of the magistrates does not become operative until the appeal has been disposed of. In a recent Bill before your Lordships, the Performing Animals Bill, an Amendment of this kind was introduced at the instance of the Home Office. In this case also I have the approval of the association of managers and the performers.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 35, at end insert the said words.—(Lord Danesfort.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
LORD DESBOROUGH LORD DESBOROUGH moved, after Clause 6, to insert as a new clause:
". Where a court of summary jurisdiction is satisfied that a theatrical employer

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has failed to pay any money due to be paid by him to theatrical performers, and that in the opinion of the court such failure was due to a deliberate intention on the part of the employer to avoid the terms of any contract made between him and the performers, the court may make an order under paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of Section six of this Act in respect of that employer."
The noble Lord said: This is to meet the case which was brought up in another place, where a manager will not pay fees which he ought to pay to those employed by him. It was suggested it should be made a criminal offence. The view of the Home Office is that it is unnecessary to make it a new criminal offence not to pay wages, and they think the situation would be met by the power to strike such a manager off the register.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 6 insert the said new clause.—(Lord Desborough.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 7:
Cancelled and suspended certificates.
7.—(1) Any registered theatrical employer whose registration has been ordered to be cancelled or suspended as aforesaid shall forthwith deliver up his certificate to the clerk of the court by which the order has been made, and the clerk of the court shall endorse the certificate with a record of the order for cancellation or suspension, as the case may be, and shall forward the said certificate so endorsed to the registration authority by which the said certificate was issued, and the said registration authority shall thereupon cause entry of such cancellation or suspension to be made in the register of theatrical employers, and in the case of suspension shall, when the period of suspension has expired, return the certificate to the employer at the address entered on the certificate, and in the case of cancellation shall retain the said certificate.
LORD DANESFORT LORD DANESFORT moved, in subsection (1), after "shall," where that word secondly occurs, to insert "as soon as the order comes into force": The noble Lord said: This is merely a drafting Amendment, consequential upon the Amendment I proposed last.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 5, after ("shall") insert ("as soon as the order comes into force").—(Lord Danesfort.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 7, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 8 agreed to.
Clause 9:
Certain convicted persons not to act as servants or agents for theatrical employers.
9. Any person whose registration as a theatrical employer is cancelled shall be guilty of an offence under this Act if at any time while he remains unregistered he acts as servant (except as a theatrical performer) of or as agent for a theatrical employer. For the purpose of this section a director or similar officer of a corporation shall be deemed to be a servant of such corporation.
LORD DESBOROUGH LORD DESBOROUGH moved to leave out "servant (except as a theatrical performer) of or as," and to leave out "For the purpose of this section a director or similar officer of a corporation shall be deemed to be a servant of such corporation." The noble Lord said: The Bill as drafted is rather too stringent and would cause hardships to those who might otherwise be legitimately employed.
Amendments moved—
Page 4, line 36, leave out ("servant (except as a theatrical performer) of or as");
Page 4, line 37, leave out from ("employer") to the end of the clause.—(Lord Desborough.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 9, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 10:
Application.
10. This Act shall not apply—
(a) To any person or corporation who, or whose agent, nominee or representative on his or its behalf, holds a licence to produce stage plays or a licence for music and dancing from any person or authority in Great Britain lawfully entitled to grant such a licence but only so long as such licence remains in force:
LORD DESBOROUGH LORD DESBOROUGH moved, in paragraph (a), to omit "or corporation who, or whose agent, nominee or representative on his or its behalf, holds a licence to produce stage plays or a licence for music and dancing from any person or authority in Great Britain lawfully entitled to grant such a licence," and to insert "to whom, or to whose agent, a licence under section seven of the Theatres Act, 1843, or a licence for music and dancing has been granted." The noble Lord said: This is practically a drafting Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 41, leave out from ("person") to ("but") in page 5, line 3, and insert the said words.—(Lord Desborough.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD MONK BRETTON LORD MONK BRETTON moved, at the end of paragraph (a), to insert "and only so far as relates to theatrical performers employed at the premises in respect of which such licence is granted." The noble Lord said: Clause 10 excludes from the operation of the Act a person holding a licence either to produce stage plays or a licence for music and dancing, who has obtained a licence from any person or authority in Great Britain that is lawfuly entitled to give it. If he has got it he escapes responsibility under the new Act. A bad theatrical manager might get a licence in some small place of entertainment from John o' Groats or Land's End, and, having got that licence, he might come to London and engage in those malpractices which this Bill is intended to prevent. It is with that object that this Amendment is framed to tie him down to the theatrical performers in the house where he gets a licence. What we want to prevent is evasion of the Act in the way I have described. It might be worth while for a man who is going to engage in these practices to have some sort of bogus house in some very small place in order to have his licence and get away from the Act.
I propose this Amendment at the instigation of the London County Council. There is no local authority in England which is more brought into touch with, and more cognisant of, some of the knaves who have to be dealt with under this Bill than the London County Council through its committees. They know a great deal about the matter, and I hope the noble Lord will accept this Amendment. I think he said on another Amendment that the Bill was very fully discussed in another place. Up to a point it was, but there are one or two points which were omitted. This matter was raised in the Standing Committee, and then, for some reason, it was not considered, nor was it considered on the Report stage, when it was expected that it would be considered. It is an Amendment of substance, and one which would make the noble Lord's Bill a more efficient instrument.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 4, at end insert the said words.—(Lord Monk Bretton.)
LORD DANESFORT: The noble Lord has very truly said that this Bill was very fully considered in the House of Commons in the interests of all parties concerned, and it comes up here, subject to the Amendments accepted by the Home Office, as a practically agreed Bill. I do not say that to suggest that your Lordships cannot amend it, but I do not think this Amendment is a right one. I cannot accept it, and I will tell the noble Lord why. There was a certain class of theatrical managers who were, by the consent of all parties, deliberately excluded from the obligations of the Bill, in other words, from the obligation to register themselves. Those were the persons who had obtained a licence, and the reason that they were excluded was that they would not obtain their licence unless they were persons of recognised responsibility, position and, I should add, respectability. It was on that ground, and on that ground only, that they were excluded, because the fact of their having a licence gave them, as it were, a certificate of responsibility. The noble Lords Amendment would entirely destroy the ground on which they were exempted.
Let me work it out. A man might get a licence to perform a play at the Hay-market. He would then be exempted from the operation of the Bill, but if he were to take a company to Hammersmith temporarily he would immediately have to go and register. Surely that is not reasonable. He has already got his certificate, as it were, of respectability, which already exempts him from registering, and it is suggested that because he engages a company elsewhere he should immediately have that privilege taken away from him. I ask your Lordships to say that this is not only an unnecessary but an improper Amendment, because it cuts into the principle deliberately accepted by all parties in the House of Commons—namely, that once a man gets his licence he must be considered sufficiently respectable to make it unnecessary for him to register, and on those grounds I hope your Lordships will not accept the Amendment. I say that with the fullest sympathy for its object, because I can assure my noble friend that those who promote

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this Bill, whether managers or employees, are most anxious to make it as strong as possible in order to remedy what we feel to be a grave evil, which has gone on for a long time, which has been the subject of grave comment in the papers and otherwise, and which affects most seriously the performers who are left abandoned, and most especially the girls and women who are left abandoned in some remote country town.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clause 10, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 11 agreed to.
Clause 12:—
Interpretation.
12. In this Act unless the context otherwise requires—
The expression "theatrical performer" includes any actor, singer, dancer, acrobat or performer of any kind employed to act, sing, dance, play or perform in any theatre, music hall or other place of public entertainment, or to rehearse with a view to so acting singing, dancing, playing or performing, as well as any person employed to take part in the acting or representation of any play, act, event or scene being photographed or otherwise recorded as a picture or pictures or other optical effect suitable or intended for being exhibited by means of a cinematograph or other similar apparatus; and the term theatrical performer shall include all persons employed or engaged for purposes of a chorus or crowd, but shall not include stage hands and members of an orchestra.
LORD RAGLAN LORD RAGLAN moved to leave out "theatre, music hall, or other place of public entertainment," and to insert "public entertainment of a theatrical character." The noble Lord said: The object of this Amendment is to exclude from the scope of this Bill such places of public entertainment as cricket and football grounds.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 26, leave out ("theatre, music hall, or other place of public entertainment") and insert ("public entertainment of a theatrical character").—(Lord Raglan.)
LORD DANESFORT: I am afraid that I cannot possibly accept my noble friend's Amendment. I do not think that it is conceivable that any Court in existence would hold that Hobbs, or, shall we say, Holmes, or any of those honoured and
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familiar names would come under this Bill's definition of a theatrical performer, which runs as follows:—
"The expression theatrical performer' includes any actor, singer, dancer, acrobat or performer of any kind employed to act, sing, dance, play or perform in any theatre, music hall or other place of public entertainment…
That is my reason for opposing the Amendment, and I give the noble Lord my positive assurance that no Court in this country would bring Hobbs or Holmes within the operation of this Bill.
LORD RAGLAN: Might I interrupt the noble Lord? If the Bill says that they are performers they will have to be performers.
LORD DANESFORT: Exactly, but the Bill does not say anything of the sort, and no Court could hold that the Bill brings these people in. With the words as they stand. I am quite positive that it could not do so. The definition of theatrical performer was very carefully considered in the House of Commons by representatives of both sides, and they agreed upon the words as they stand.
Let me tell my noble friend another and very serious objection to his Amendment, which makes it not only wholly unnecessary but, I think, positively mischievous. If this Amendment were carried, such persons as those who act in cinemas, in circuses, and possibly some others, would be deprived of the benefit of this Bill. I am sure that my noble friend does not want that to happen, but if his Amendment were carried there would be serious difficulties in bringing such people within the scope of the Bill. It is not proposed to exclude them, and accordingly I hope that my noble friend will not press his Amendment. In taking this view I believe that I shall have the support of the Home Office, who have gone into this matter very carefully. I hope that the Amendment will not be pressed.
LORD DESBOROUGH: So far as the Home Office is concerned, it is strongly opposed to my noble friend's Amendment. They think that it will make a very big loophole to the prejudice of the employees in the theatrical business, and I understand that it is also very strongly opposed by the profession itself.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 12 agreed to
LORD DESBOROUGH LORD DESBOROUGH moved, after Clause 12, to insert as a new clause:
Application to Scotland.
". This Act shall apply to Scotland, subject to the following modifications—

(1) The expression 'county borough' shall mean a burgh having according to the census of nineteen hundred and twenty-one a population of or exceeding fifty thousand, and all oilier burghs shall for the, purposes of this Act be deemed to be within the county:

(2) The expenses incurred by a town or county council under this Act shall, so far as not met out of fees, be defrayed in the case of a town council out of the burgh genera] or police assessment and in the case of a county council out of the general purposes rate, provided that with respect to every burgh, which is for the purposes of this Act deemed to be within the county, subsections (3) and (4) of Section sixty and Section sixty-six of the Local Government (Scotland) Act. 1989, shall, so far as applicable, have effect as if such expenses were expenditure therein mentioned:

(3) The expression 'court of summary jurisdiction shall mean the sheriff, and the provisions regarding appeal to a court of quarter sessions shall not apply:

(4) The expression 'a licence for music and dancing' shall mean a licence granted under Section three hundred and ninety-five of the Burgh Police (Scotland) Act, 1899."

The noble Lord said: These words are merely formal and are the usual method of applying a Bill to Scotland.
Amendment moved—
Page 6, line 2, at end insert the said new clause.—(Lord Desborough.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.

HONOURS (PREVENTION OF ABUSES) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order) and passed, and sent to the Commons.
STATUTORY GAS COMPANIES (ELECTRICITY SUPPLY POWERS) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order) with the Amendments and passed, and returned to the Commons.

SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE (CONSOLIDATION) BILL. [H.L.]
Amendments reported (according to Order).
Clause 167:
Administration bonds.
167.—(1) Every person to whom a grant of administration is made shall give a bond (in this section referred to "an administration bond") to the senior registrar of the Pro-bate Division by the name of "the principal probate registrar," and, subject to the provisions of this section, if the principal probate registrar, or, where the grant was mace in a district registry, the district probate registrar, so requires, with one or more sureties conditioned for duly collecting, getting in and administering the real and per-oral estate of the deceased.
(6) Nothing in this section shall require the Solicitor for the affairs of His Majesty's Treasury, when applying for or obtaining administration for the use or benefit of His Majesty, to give an administration bond.
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE LORD MUIR MACKENZIE moved, in subsection (6), after "Treasury" to insert "or the Solicitor for the affairs of the Duchy of Lancaster." The noble Lord said: My Lords, the words of this Amendment were omitted by an oversight from one of the Acts which were consolidated with the Supreme Court of Judicature Bill. It is perfectly obvious that those words must be restored, and I beg to move accordingly.
Amendment moved—
Clause 167, page 85, line 26, after ("Treasury") insert ("or the Solicitor for the affairs of the Duchy of Lancaster").(Lord Muir Mackenie.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.

ARABLE CULTIVATION.
LORD HARRIS LORD HARRIS had given Notice to call attention to the Reports of the Agricultural Tribunal of Investigation, and to ask His Majesty's Government what view they take of the conclusion arrived at on page 98, paragraph 271, viz. "The disadvantages attaching to any further considerable decline in the arable area will be so grave that it will be worth while for the country to pay a substantial price for its maintenance. "The noble Lord said: My Lords, I think

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it would be almost better if I were to postpone the Question that I have on the Paper. The House is rapidly thinning, and I know that there were quite 'a number of Peers who wished to speak on this subject. I am afraid that I should be so long that I should leave very little time for them, if the House rises, as it very often does, about eight o'clock, and, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to postpone my Question until Monday, July 27, when I understand from the learned Clerk of the Parliaments that it will probably come on first. Does the noble Lord who represents the Ministry of Agriculture approve of that proposal? I gather that he does not. Very well, I will comply with the noble Lord's wishes and will go on with my Question. I will endeavour to be as quick as I can.
I do not think I need apologise to the House for calling attention to the Report to which I refer, even at this late date—for the Report was published, I believe, early last year. In my opinion it is one of the most important contributions that has recently been made to the vexed question of agriculture and it is the most important comparative analysis of agricultural processes in foreign countries as compared with England that I have ever read. In the first place, it is, I imagine, thoroughly impartial and, in the second place, it ranges over a very wide field, embracing a close study of foreign systems as well as British, and consequently it is very useful comparatively and provides elaborate and, I should say, accurate replies to the vague and unfounded accusations which are continually being levelled against British farmers and British agriculture.
I had prepared these remarks before July 2. On that date I read a speech delivered by the Prime Minister, Mr. Stanley Baldwin, which gave me great delight. So far as I remember, this is the first occasion on which the Report of this Agricultural Tribunal has been referred to officially. I might point out that, when the Minister of Agriculture invited several bodies representative of agriculture to meet him and discuss possibilities, the Farmers' Union declined—I thought very unwisely, because they might quite easily have accepted the invitation, subject to the discussion being based upon this Report. They did not
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do so at that time, but in their final communication to the Minister of a few weeks ago they did include a recommendation that is based upon it. I am not at all sure that I ought not to feel myself complimented, for last autumn at an agricultural meeting I called attention to this Report, and now, whether post hoc or propter hoc I really cannot say, the Farmers' Union takes hold of the Report and brings up a proposal to the Minister. Notwithstanding the Prime Minister's reference to this Report, or to the hook written by Lord Ernie, who I hope may speak on a subject which he understands so well, I think I had better go on with my comments upon the Report, because there are two or three points which the Prime Minister altogether omitted.
In the first place, how did this Tribunal come to be appointed? I think I must ask your Lordships to allow me to read some extracts from its Report because it condenses the argument better than I can do:—
"We were appointed as the result of a debate in the House of Commons, in which use was made of only the summary conclusions of a well-known report on the comparative output of British and German agriculture. Valuable as these conclusions are, as criteria of national self-sufficiency in terms of power to support life and energy, they are misunderstood entirely if the technical nature of the inquiry is not observed. And it is in order to prevent further currency being given to a wrong interpretation of the results … that special attention has been given to a document whose value, when rightly interpreted, has been recognised."
Here is a passage which is very significant:—
"For a pessimism which is too frequent there should be substituted simply a desire to consider by what further measures we may develop the asset of our land, in order to secure results that are worth the outlay. The fundamental difference between British and foreign agriculture is not the efficiency, but the size of this industry in relation to all industries. It is out of this fact that our special problems arise."
That is how they came to be appointed. Who were appointed? I will give your Lordships the names. They are:—Sir William Ashley, Professor W. G. S. Adams and Professor D. H. MacGregor—all persons of very high station in circles of political economy, but I imagine not closely connected with agriculture, and thoroughly impartial. To help them in their agricultural inquiries they had appointed with them as agricultural

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assessor Mr. C. S. Orwin. Nov what were the terms of reference?
"A Tribunal of Investigation to inquire into the methods which have been adopted in other countries during the last 50 years to increase the prosperity of agriculture and to secure the fullest possible use of the land for the production of food and the employment of labour at a living wage, and to advise as to the methods by which those results can be achieved in this country."
The terms of reference almost beg the question. They almost assume that the agricultural worker does not receive a living wage in this country, and I venture to assure you personally that that is entirely a mistake.
Those being the gentlemen appointed, and those being the terms of reference, I think I shall be able to show your Lordships how the Report of this Inquiry flatly contradicts the erroneous complaints of inefficiency recklessly spread abroad by persons who know very little about agriculture. I should like especially to refer to speeches made on March 27, in a debate in another place, in which the subject of agriculture came up for discussion, and in which Mr. Snowden and Mr. Lloyd George spoke. Mr. Snowden, in one of those vitriolic speeches in which he indulges, said this:
"Take the land question. Agricultural authorities stated that ours was the worst- farmed country in the world, and the main reason was that no other country in the world had to hear the burden of an idle landlordism, as this country had to-day."
I wonder where the idle landlords are. I do not see them. I see an enormous amount of work, magisterial and administrative, being done by landlords without any pay. Personally I do net know of any idle landlords in my neighbourhood.
Then we know that Mr. Lloyd George cannot touch the subject of the land or of agriculture without making a blunder, and so one expects it of him, and this is what he says:
"There was no doubt that the agricultural produce of this country could be doubled."
That, my Lords, is the grossest plagiarism. Jack Cade was saying it 300 or 400 years ago, and may have said it in the neighbourhood of Limehouse, but this Tribunal will not admit for a moment that there is any justification for these adverse criticisms. I should like to read row something which they say, which I think is very apposite. They say:—
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"The facts do not show that there is ground for depreciation of British agriculture as a whole. It pays wages that are high as compared with those in other European countries; the yield of the area which is under the chief crops compares favourably with that of the areas under the same crops abroad; while the actual decline of the agricultural population, as tested by male persons employed, has not over the whole length of our period of reference been so startling as is often supposed, or so rapid as that of other important European countries. Farmers are not responsible for the natural conditions or the national policies which have affected the form of cultivation that is most profitable; subject to the conditions, the cultivation of the land in Britain cannot be described as inefficient. Considered as a craft, British farming has in its time taught a great deal to other countries; considered as an industrial organisation, it may now learn something in return."
My Lords, what has happened? In the years over which the Commission was directed to inquire—something like 75 years—a complete revolution in agriculture has taken place, as your Lordships know. The competition of new countries came in, and Europe had to do something to protect itself. Certain European States did that. They resorted to Protection, and that is all the difference between a good many of them and Great Britain. I will read your Lordships something which is said in the Report as regards the comparison between England and Germany, because Germany, of course, was the comparative basis of this Report. They say this:
"The upshot of the whole matter, however, is that Germany managed with, the help of its tariff—without asserting, of course, that tariffs were the only cause—not only to maintain its agriculture unimpaired, but to strengthen it in its productive capacity.… It is unmistakably clear that Germany did succeed in keeping its peasants on the land. And to this end it is the consensus of opinion among agricultural economists that the tariff did, in fact, greatly contribute".
That is the difference, of course, between this country and Germany, and it is a vital difference.
I should like to read to your Lord ships what Professor MacGregor has to say upon that point. As your Lordships are aware, Denmark is constantly thrust down our throats as a superlative example of the ideal in agriculture, and as something that we should follow. Professor MacGregor says this in paragraph 3, on page 100, of the Report:—

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"With regard to produce, it is important to observe that great misconception exists as to the nature and results of what is known as the 'Middleton Report.' A careless use has frequently been made of the summarised results of this inquiry, so that discussion of the agricultural question has been turned on to wrong lines. These results do not refer to farming efficiencies, but to degrees of national self-sufficiency between two countries, one of which has Free Trade, while the other is strongly protected on all agricultural produce."
That is Germany.
"If the method of inquiry is applied to the two Free Trade countries of Britain and Denmark, no difference is shown between them.… With regard to wages, British agriculture has nothing to lose by comparison with other European countries and in most cases it has much to rain."
And they tell us that France is in very much the same position as Germany in regard to Protection.
Turning now to the question of wages, the Tribunal express the following opinion:—
in paragraph 264 on page 96 of the Report:—
"Although our inquiries serve to show that the wages and the hours of the agricultural labourer in this country compare favourably with the conditions in foreign countries, we do not consider that this in any way weakens the case for the establishment of wages boards in this country."
The Government have established wages boards: but I am very much afraid they will not find that those hoards are instrumental in increasing the arable area or in encouraging the cultivation of wheat. There are many farmers of poor farms, and even of medium farms, who, as I am sure my noble friend is aware, are unable to pay for any length of time the wages they are at present paying.
There is a further reference to the same subject on page 164 of the Report:—
"Agricultural wages in Germany during the last part of the 19th century were relatively much lower than in Britain, and the wage-paying large farmer of the former country appears to have had a considerable advantage in being able to secure both cheap and efficient labour."
And after making a comparison of the earnings of agricultural and forest labourers in Germany, the Report continues:—
"These figures at least justify the statement made in our First Interim Report that British agricultural wages are as good as any paid in Europe and better then in most countries"
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I commend that statement to my noble friend the noble Marquess below the gangway.
Then, in regard to the numbers employed upon the land, which is, of course, an important point, and has been made a point of very great importance in all the criticisms that have been directed at agriculture in England, a very close inquiry was made by the Tribunal, the results of which are set forth in the following terms, on page 174:—
"Two results follow from this study of agricultural employment in European countries. First, the problem of preventing an absolute, as well as a relative agricultural decline, has not been peculiar to Britain, but has been a feature of the economy of nations—such as France, Germany and Belgium—which have, like Britain, the conditions of great industrial development; and even considerable restriction on the import of foodstuffs has not been able to maintain the size of the home industry in terms of employment"
in other countries as well as Britain. The Report goes on:—
"… The decline of agricultural employment in Britain is to be spoken of in percentages that are less than is often supposed."
It also points out that the agricultural industry in Britain is, by comparison with all other industries, a smaller part of the national life than in the other countries of Europe.
Now, upon all those points—the produce of the land, the wages paid, and the numbers employed—I submit that the methods of comparison which have been applied by the Tribunal, result in the conclusion I have already quoted to your Lordships, which is to the effect that this country need not fear comparison with Western European countries.
There remains, however, the method adopted in the Middleton Report, which was not one of produce per acre but of the number of calories which the produce per acre happened to include. The calory, of course, is a hypothetical estimate from a ration composed of various products of the land which that ration happens to include and which would suffice, it is held, for the maintenance of a man. As I have already said, Denmark is always held up to us as an example, and the Commissioners report that it has been estimated that the number of persons fed per hundred acres of Danish farmed land in the period 1909 to 1913 was from 45 to 62,

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whereas during the same period the number in England was 49 to 50. There you have a comparison of two Free Trade countries, and you do not find any very great difference, and Denmark is only able to obtain that small difference between 52 and 50 if the concession is made to her of female and child labour. In Germany it is true that half as many more people were supported before the War than either in Denmark or Great Britain; but that was only done by employing twice as much, and much cheaper, labour on the land, with, of course, Protection as a help. The backbone of the agricultural system in Germany was the use of imported fertilisers. That system worked well for so long as Germany was at peace; but when the stress of war came in 1916 and it was no longer possible for her to import fertilisers, the system broke down and it became impossible to supply a full ration. On the other hand, this much decried country of ours, with its contemptible system of agriculture, had in reserve the unexhausted fertility of its grass lands, and a supply of female labour. The Tribunal, therefore, came to the conclusion that farming efficiency roust not be tested by production as expressed in calories. Subject to the differences in soil, climate, and fiscal policy, they consider it safer to test efficiency in farming by the methods to which I have already referred.
So much for the past. In regard to the future, at the beginning of his term of office Mr. Wood invited the three classes connected with agriculture to meet him and discuss how best the arable area could be extended by 1,000,000 acres. His object was to increase the arable area to that extent. At present our arable area is, or it was when this Report was written, about 45 per cent. of the area under cultivation, and the Tribunal was advised that under no possible circumstances was it likely, or at any rate probable, that the arable area would fall below 12,000,000 acres for Britain. That would be about 37½ per cent. as compared with 45½ per cent. of cultivated area, but it would mean a decline of 2,500,000 acres. There are two alternatives. On the one hand you get a responsible person, the Minister of Agriculture, holding out to the country the possibility (and inviting people to help him) of increasing the arable area by 1,000,000 acres; and, on the other hand,
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you have the Report of these gentlemen who, from a study of all the circumstances and conditions affecting agriculture, warn us that there may be a falling off of something like 2,500,000 acres, with, of course, a consequent decrease in employment on the land.
With those two figures before us, the latter of which is of course vitally important in these days of depressed employment, I submit that I am justified in now asking the Government what is their policy. The Tribunal find that the decline in the arable area has been persistent since 1871—that is, over Europe as well as England—so persistent that it is only in Germany, where they have Protection for every item of agricultural produce, that they have been able to maintain their arable area. If you take Belgium (only partially protected), you find that she has not been able to maintain her arable area any more than has England. As regards a tariff, successive Governments have warned the farmer that it is a delusion if he thinks he is ever likely to get a tariff. I noticed a few clays ago the Prime Minister repeated that warning the Tribunal makes this observation:
"Under a Free Trade system Great Britain can only maintain its tilled areas by going over to arable stock farming. This, under English conditions, British farmers have no inducement to do."
The Tribunal has no doubt that the British farmer can, as a general rule, make his business pay, but not with arable cultivation. By degrees more and more land will have to go down to grass, with a consequent falling off in the employment of labour. In the interests of a Free Trade policy they suggest that it should be the policy of the Government to prove that arable stock-farming can pay, and to do, so it will be necessary for the Government to carry out experiments on a large scale, because there is no inducement to the professional farmer to do it. I venture to claim that have proved my case to this extent, that the Report of this Tribunal holds the field, and that it is up to those who are contemptuously describing the British farmer as a fool, and British agriculture as decadent, to produce facts to controvert the findings of this Tribunal whose Reports are based upon facts.
In those circumstances I submit that it is a legitimate question to put to the Government: What did they mean when they allowed the Minister of Agriculture to say that their policy was to increase the acreage of arable land by 1,000,000 acres? The Minister must have consulted the Cabinet before he committed himself to an invitation of that kind. What had he in his mind when he made this statement with the Report before him which warned him that the British farmer was not likely to go in for arable stock-farming, and with the warning that in no Western country with anything like our fiscal system had they been able to keep up their arable labour? What had be in his mind when he invited the country to think it was possible to increase our arable area by 1,000,000 acres? Had the Government in their mind an intention to help farmers by a direct subsidy? I wonder. The Prime Minister has been talking a good deal, rather vaguely I think, about subsidies, and yesterday he told us that a Committee was going to be appointed to inquire very closely into what subsidies might mean. I wonder whether he is going to ask that Committee to consider whether they would recommend a subsidy for agriculture, or whether the Government have an intention by means of experiments to prove to the British farmer that arable stock-farming can be made to pay. That is the challenge which is thrown oat by the Farmers' Union in their most recent communication to my noble friend (Lord Bledisloe) and his chief. Are they going in for some experimental farming to show the British farmer that arable stock-farming can pay? I hope they are.
But I submit, whatever their policy he, they ought to tell us what it is as soon as they can. We are within a month of the rising of Parliament, and before Parliament reassembles the lay-out of farms will have been decided on. From my information, of course only local, I am very much afraid that a great deal more land is going down to grass, and, consequently, there will be less employment for agricultural labourers. That is the danger. It is not disputed that the natural tendency of our system of agriculture, as labour gets more expensive, is to dispense with it. And it is getting more expensive on the poor lands and the medium lands.
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The rich lands can always look after themselves. On the poor lands and medium lands the farmers in many cases are quite unable to pay the rates which they have at present to pay. This must come to an end. These farmers must, therefore, put their land down to grass, and employ less labour. That is not disputed. I submit that I have been justified in calling attention to this Report which, I think, is a most valuable one, and has received far less attention than it ought to have done. It deals fully with all the conditions affecting British agriculture as compared with agriculture in Western Europe, which is always being held up to us as far more intelligent and far more capable than is our own. I therefore ask the Government by what process they hope to achieve an increase in the acreage under wheat, and what view they take of the conclusion as expressed in my Question on the Paper.
LORD CLINTON: My Lords, I am sure my noble friend need make no excuse for bringing the question of the position of agriculture before your Lordships. He has given us an admirable survey of the Report of the Agricultural Tribunal, a Report which in itself is the most valuable statement of agricultural policy since the time of the Selborne Report. The evidence which is put before the nation in this Report confirms completely the very strong conclusion at which the Tribunal have arrived that the loss of tillage in this country is disastrous for the nation. That loss has been going on for some fifty years, and there is no doubt that under present conditions it must continue. In the earlier part of that period the change from tillage to grass was due to low prices; in the latter period, that is, during recent years, it was clue largely to increased costs. There were reasons which brought about this state of things—reasons larger than either of those to which the noble Lord has referred.
First of all, there have been the great changes in monetary values, which always affect agriculture in the highest degree. The beginning of this 50-year period was the time when the agricultural produce of the old world found itself faced with the produce of the new world, and it was seen that our older methods of cultivation and management could not face the cheap grain which

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we received from the long-stored-up fertility of that virgin land. Every nation took some steps to meet that situation save Great. Britain. Many of them reverted to Protection and whether in spite of, or in consequence of, that policy the result in those countries has been the maintenance of tillage and the attachment of the local rural population to the soil. But that was not by any means the only thing that foreign Governments did. If your Lordships will study the agricultural history of many European nations from that time onwards, you will find that as a result of the efforts to meet a desperate situation they consolidated very largely their small holding policy, which has attached the peasants to the soil and, as a natural and necessary complement, has created a system of co-operation and agricultural credits.
Up to that time Great Britain had been a pioneer in most agricultural matters, and particularly in education. From that moment foreign countries, so far as agricultural education is concerned, bean to advance in front of us. In their elementary schools they endeavoured, and have succeeded, in bringing into the teaching of the children of the tenderest years some agricultural atmosphere, some bias in favour of agriculture; and in all their rural schools they have been very careful in selecting as their teachers men who are country-bred, who know something of agriculture, and who are competent to teach it. We have teachers in this country who are very highly educated, hut too many of them are town bred, and when they have to do any teaching in any nature study they are barely a page or two in the text books ahead of their class.
While that education has been more competently carried out in other countries than here, we also find that in higher education and scientific research the same thing is taking place. In this country great institutions like that at Rothamsted and others have been pre-eminent in research all over the world, and still continue so, but other countries have done their best to copy them and their methods, and in one direction they have succeeded to a higher degree than we have, because they have been able to do what we have failed to do, and that is to bridge the great gulf which exists between
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educational research in these higher institutions and the ordinary practical farm on the land. In the case of Germany I know that almost the whole success of its new agricultural methods is attributed to the fact that they have direct communication between this higher education and the practical working farmer. There is no reason why we should fail to imitate things which are done better abroad than at home, but at the same time I deprecate, as the noble Lord does, this rather prevalent fashion of holding up for public admiration methods abroad at the expense of our methods at home. I agree that you will find in this country, among our best and most highly skilled farmers, the best agriculturists in the whole world. There are failures no doubt in many cases, both here and abroad, but on the general level think Great Britain still holds it own.
The difficulty of bridging the gulf between higher scientific research and the working man could, I think, be overcome if all counties in this country would follow the example of the more advanced counties and have one or more agricultural organisers—there are several counties without one—and see that they are kept in touch with the centres of research on the one hand, and, by lectures, meetings and demonstrations, with the men who are working on the land on the other. These are among the more permanent methods of improving agriculture which are dealt with in the Report. There are many others in addition. There is one point, however, in the Report to which the noble Lord has scarcely alluded, and that is the remark they make that there ale two main methods of keeping land under tillage in this country. One is Protection, and the other is subsidies; but in view of the difference of opinion in the country upon them they do not think it worth while to go into any detail.
The second part of the Report, however, makes it perfectly clear—it is argued at considerable length—that a subsidy to agriculture is the best method of keeping the land under cultivation. To most minds subsidies are objectionable, but probably for agricultural purposes some justification may be found for them. It is objectionable to advance public money to men who are carrying on individual businesses for a profit for themselves, but

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there is something different in the occupation of agricultural land, because the industry of agriculture is responsible to the whole nation for the safety of the nation in the matter of food in time of oar, and also it is directly and indirectly responsible for practically the whole of the employment in agricultural districts. That, I think, would seem to justify the possibility of the Government giving a subsidy, but I think we may make it quite clear that the farmer himself does not want a subsidy. He does not want a subsidy which will make him adopt a method of farming which he knows will be an unprofitable one for him. He wants to make his living, like any other business man, in his own way. But if the Government decide that a subsidy is uneconomic, that it is difficult to give it to one industry and refuse it to another, and that in the present state of the national finances it is impossible, then no one ought to blame the ordinary farmer because he carries on his business in his own way, which may not be the way that the nation desires. You cannot ask a farmer, out to make his living, to carry on his business in a way that does not suit him.
The alternatives should be quite clearly put before the Government. By a subsidy they might possibly get the land under arable cultivation; without it, it is almost certain that the gradual change from tillage to grass will continue even more rapidly than in the past, and that must take away a great deal of the possibility of keeping on the land the men, horses, implements and machinery which are necessary for cultivation, and which are absolutely necessary to enable the country to switch over to wheat cultivation, which is so important in time of war. In addition to that, with a falling arable cultivation the men must leave the country and add to the congestion in the towns, thus vastly complicating the problems of housing and of unemployment. I am not for one moment asking the Government to grant a subsidy, but I do say that before refusing to adopt that method they must see definitely the alternatives before them.
All the other methods—some of which I have suggested—are methods which in time will undoubtedly improve agriculture, and will, I hope, make arable cultivation more widespread, but they are
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necessarily slow, and it is to tide over tile present position that we put forward these suggestions. In addition to these long-term methods, surely something might be done by relieving the land of unnecessary burdens. Burdens on land, on whomsoever they are levied, must affect the general productive position of the industry. It is two years since a Committee representative of the landowners' organisations, the farmers' organisations and the labourers' organisations met round a table and eventually issued a unanimous Report on the subject of rating. The Government of 1923 took up that Report, adopted methods to some extent, and gave agriculture the greatest boon that any Government has given it in recent years by decreasing the assessment for agricultural purposes down to one-fourth. It is necessary that a man occupying agricultural land, by the very nature of his business, should occupy a much larger amount of rateable property in proportion to his income than any other ratepayer, and consequently it is essential that his rates should be brought down to a reasonable figure. At the time I was satisfied that one-fourth was a fair figure to take, but it still leaves the agricultural ratepayer in a worse position than other men of like income.
Another question is that of Death Duties on land. We have for years made attempts with all Chancellors of the Exchequer to get them to realise the essential difference in the incidence of these duties on land and on other property. We received great sympathy, but we got very little results, until the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, more far-seeing than his predecessors, exempted agricultural land from the last turn of the screw of the Death Duties. While we are exceedingly grateful for that concession and while I hope that the Government realise the difference between landed estate and other forms of property, yet it does not touch the point which we are making, and are always bound to make, that the hardship of these duties on agricultural land is not due to the rates, which is a hardship which we bear in common with everyone else, but to the method of valuation, which makes the charge on agricultural land equivalent to about thirty or forty times its net income value. The ordinary charge

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on personal estates, such as estates in the Funds, is not more than twenty or twenty-two times. That is the real figure. I would ask the Government to consider the points put before them in this debate. I regret that they have failed in getting the conference together to assist them in their ideas, although I have no doubt that my noble friend has had excellent advice from all parties on the matter. I trust that among all his counsellors he will have found some wisdom.
THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY: My Lords, two points have been raised during the remarks that have been made by the noble Lord who initiated the debate and the noble Lord who followed him, on which I would like to say a few words, because I may be able to reassure both the noble Lords on those points. Lord Harris referred to the importance of research work being done on arable and stock fanning. It may reassure him that as a member of the Development Commission, an advisory body of the Treasury, I have lately visited the Harper-Adams College, where a very important experiment has been going on for some years in arable stock farming. They have acquired 400 acres, partly arable, and partly grass, and the valuable information which they have obtained will, I hope, shortly be given to the public.
An important point has also been raised which, curiously enough, was under the consideration of the Development Commission this morning, namely, the channel by which information acquired through research may be brought to the farmer, for whom, after all, the information is intended. It was agreed that, first of all, you must have the information in a printed form. Then it is important that the local authority should have agricultural organisers who are well informed upon all these points that have been printed. There are also advisory officers who are set apart by the Ministry for the purpose of advising and assisting the agricultural organiser. Then, finally, there is the farmer himself.
There are difficulties, I admit, in passing that information on, and my own view is that when all that is done, it will finally be necessary to organise bodies of farmers who will be taken to the centre
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of research and Who will have an opportunity of being eye-witnesses of what is being done, and will thus be given an opportunity of listening to lectures on the methods employed and the results obtained. I rose only to say that those two points are under very careful consideration, and I am sure that the noble Lord who will speak for the Ministry will be able to confirm me.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (LORD BLEDISLOE): My Lords, I understand that there is a desire on the part of several of your Lordships that this debate should be adjourned. If a suitable time could be found for resuming the debate later, I for my part am, of course, quite agreeable, but whether your Lordships would desire that I should reply to the specific Question which my noble friend Lord Harris has put down upon the Paper I cannot say. I would suggest that it might fie more convenient if I were to do so, and then the general question of agricultural policy could be deferred for consideration upon some other day. But, of course, I am in the hands of the House in this matter.
LORD ERNLE: I think, if I may say so, that it will be more convenient to adjourn the debate before the noble Lord makes his reply.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: My Lords, I also, if I may say so, feel that this course would be more convenient, because, if the noble Lord, Lord Bledisloe, were simply to answer the Question, he would preclude himself from speaking again and making a full statement on a subsequent occasion. That, I am sure, would be a pity, for we should like to hear the noble Lord say everything that is in his mind on the subject. I think it would be better if the noble Lord were to move the adjournment now, and he would then he able to take first place, I think, on Monday, July 27, if the debate was adjourned until that date. There will then, I believe, be nothing in front of him.
LORD EMMOTT: If the Government desires some other member of your Lordships' House to move the adjournment, I will do so; not because I intend to speak, but as a matter of convenient.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD): My Lords, I do not think that makes any difference, but I think it would probably be convenient to move the adjournment to a particular day. It is suggested to me that Monday, July 27, would be the best date. Until then the Order Paper is rather crowded, but on that day the debate would, I believe, come on first. If that suggestion meets the convenience of noble Lords, I or my noble friend will move the adjournment of the debate until Monday, July 27. I beg to move that the debate be now adjourned until that date.
Moved, That the debate be now adjourned until Monday, July 27.— (Viscount Cecil of Chelwood.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.
[From Minutes of July 8.]

GLASGOW CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.

STANDARD LIFE ASSURANCE COMPANY BILL. [H.L.]
Commons Amendments considered, and agreed to.
The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, that the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill have not been complied with:
Walsall Corporation.
The same was ordered to lie on the Table.

WALSALL CORPORATION BILL.
Examiners' Certificate of non-compliance with the Standing Orders referred to the Standing Orders Committee on Tuesday next.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 9) BILL. [H.L.]
[OPPOSED ORDER.]
The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn: The Order made on Thursday last in regard to the West Hartlepool Order discharged.

LEEDS CORPORATION BILL.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS CONFIRMATION (BOURNE MOUTH AND LYME REGIS ORDERS) BILL. [H.L.]
MIDDLESEX COUNTY COUNCIL BILL.
NEWPORT CORPORATION BILL.
WOLVERHAMPTON CORPORATION BILL.
Report from the Committee of Selection, That the following Lords be proposed to the House to form the Select Committee for the consideration of the said Bills; (viz.):—

L. Raglan,

L. Loch,

L. Ashton of Hyde,

L. Terrington,

L. Meston (Chairman);

agreed to; and the said Lords appointed accordingly: The Committee to meet on Thursday the 16th instant, at Eleven o'clock; and all Petitions referred to the Committee, with leave to the Petitioners praying to be heard by Counsel against the Bills to be heard as desired, as also Counsel for the Bills.
House adjourned at a quarter past seven o'clock.