COMMITTEE OF CIVIL RESEARCH.

HL Deb 13 July 1925 vol 62 cc3-18

LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY had given Notice to ask whether His Majesty's Government is now in a position to make public the details of the proposed Advisory Colonial Council as announced by the Lord President of the Council on May 20 last; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, on May 20 of this year the noble Earl, the Lord President of the Council, referred, in his speech during the Kenya debate, to a proposal for setting up a Committee analogous in character, though not, of course, in functions, to the Committee of Imperial Defence, to deal with the multifarious topics which arise in the course of the administration of a great Empire. He illustrated his intention by referring to one or two subjects, such as transport, scientific research and other matters of the sort.

In drawing an analogy between the Committee of Imperial Defence and the Committee which it is proposed shall be set up, he pointed out that it would be like the Committee of Imperial Defence in that it would perform no executive action of itself; that it would advise the Cabinet and provide machinery for examining problems with which there was at present no departmental method of dealing; and that it would deal with civil questions as defence and military questions were dealt with by the Committee of Imperial Defence. The noble Earl said it was desirable to have a permanent Committee, though, as I understood, fluctuating in composition, to which should be referred the various problems which might arise, not in one Department alone but in several Departments, and it would exercise co-ordinating functions between the different Departments in regard to such problems. I understand that the proposed Committee could advise the Secretary of the State for the Colonies upon such subjects as research, education, transport, possible economical developments and, possibly, migration.

In making the Motion which stands in my name I desire to ask whether we can have in rather more detail than was possible on May 20 in the Kenya debate the exact functions, the exact position and the exact duties of this proposed Committee. The first thing that strikes me in regard to the analogy between the Committee of Imperial Defence and such a Committee as it is proposed to set up is that the Committee of Imperial Defence, though it advises the War Office, the Admiralty, the Air Department, and so on, has no objective functions and therefore has no control over expenditure. Presumably, then, if this new Committee is set up with a view of carrying out analogous functions in regard to civil matters, it will merely advise and will have no functions of expenditure, though it may devise schemes which will involve expenditure. But there is this great difference between the two Committees. Defence is one of the most expensive functions of government. We have no hesitation in spending, and probably spend wisely, sums running into millions and tens of millions sterling on defence. I imagine that the Committee mentioned by the noble Earl would not, in the advice it gives to the various Departments, approach in lavishness the expenditure advised by the Committee of Imperial Defence. The sums necessary to be spent in connection with advice on the civil side would not, I take it, amount to much more than a few thousand pounds. Transportation is an expensive matter, but it does not compare now, and probably will not for many years to come, with that involved in defending ourselves against material foes for which we have created a War Department, an Admiralty and an Air Department.

One might urge, perhaps, that we should be doing well in concentrating rather more on defending ourselves against the natural enemies of mankind—the insects, the microbes, the invisible animalcules—if that is the right scientific phrase—the ills which take off mankind indiscriminately, rather than spend large sums of money, which only create a rival expenditure on the opposite side of the Channel, or the opposite side of the world, in defending ourselves against enemies who ought not to be enemies but who ought to be co-operators. However, I propose to make no particular point of that, except to urge that if the Government do desire to develop these scientific investigations of our Empire by means of a Committee or by means of public expenditure, such work, such expenditure, will be not only for the benefit of our own selves and our own Empire but will be for the benefit of the world at large, and if we do have rivalry in that expenditure it will be rivalry of a healthy and useful character, whereas the rivalry which we see in the rivalry of armaments of defence is ruinous.

I would like to suggest for the noble Lord's consideration whether, in fact, there is not another Department recently set up which might be perhaps better as an exemplar for this Committee to follow than that of the Committee of Imperial Defence—I refer to the Development Commission that was set up in pre-War days by the Government which I supported when I was in the House of Commons, a Committee which, for the United Kingdom, expended money in various directions for the investigation and development in all its stages, but for the development I think entirely, of industry and enterprise in the United Kingdom. Would it not be possible to extend such Committee's work or to re-create a Committee dealing with Imperial development as the Development Commission dealt with home development. There is already scope for such a Committee to carry out work in regard to entomology. Two very closely inter-related sciences call for intensive investigation in relation to the possibility of carrying disease, putting down and, even more important, destroying the causes of disease. Much has been done in the last twenty or thirty years in that direction. The triumph over malaria and over Malta fever has shown that science, properly applied and with but a humble expenditure, can do a great deal in a way that has improved the condition of the world a thousand-fold. There remain problems similar in character still to be solved. As to the problems of tropical disease some of the causes, indeed, have been discovered, but, others are left unsolved.

The noble Earl, in speaking on May 20, referred to the tsetse fly, a devastating though minute influence throughout the whole, or practically the whole, of tropical Africa. If you could only get rid of the tsetse fly you would re-create economic possibilities in Central Africa which would add enormously to the resources of our Empire, and well would it be if such a Committee as the noble Earl suggests could devise or discover a method by which that one economic evil could be destroyed, even though the Committee did no more than that alone. There are, one might say, hundreds of other fruitful channels which might be investigated. Only last week we debated in this House on the problem of transport in Uganda. We were told by those who were acquainted with the economic problems of that country that the whole transport system of Uganda is out of date, inefficient, and very irritating and disastrous to traders. I have no doubt that entered the mind of the noble Earl when he moved on this subject. There, again, such a Committee as he proposes might deal fruitfully and wisely with the question.

A week ago I had the honour to be a member of a deputation to the Colonial Minister on the subject of a school of tropical agriculture. The deputation was moderate in its demands. It put forward, it seemed to me, a case of great urgency for practical agricultural investigation and asked for a small sum as things go now, a very small subsidy of £25,000, to enable the college to be continued in the West Indies. We received a favourable reply from the Secretary of State—as favourable as any Secretary of Stale can give, having in view the possibility of the Chancellor of the Exchequer looming behind his chair. But there was no promise that anything definite would be done. All we got was an undertaking from the Secretary of State that he would represent the case as strongly as he could to his colleague the Chancellor of the Exchequer and that he hoped to be able to persuade him.

I do not know if it is proper, I do not know that it is wise, that the possibilities of economic development and economic research should be dependent year by year on the good will of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It might well be that as a sum of money was annually voted for the Development Commission in the old days (I am not quite certain whether that sum of money is still voted) a sum might be given to an Imperial Development Commission, a Committee of Imperial Development, rather than a Committee of Imperial Defence—I would not say "rather than" but in addition to a Committee of Imperial Defence—and to that Commission might be assigned within the limits of its function a substantial grant, not such a grant as we give to our Army and Navy but such a grant as would produce very fruitful results indeed.

So far I have dealt with subjects which cannot be considered by any one to be within the realm of political controversy and, perhaps, it might be well to form the Commission in such a way that it should have the support of men of public Parties of all kinds and not introduce the more burning questions which involve differences of opinion between different schools of political thought. Yet such a Committee, if it were merely confined to scientific investigation, would, I think, not be fulfilling all its objects. There are two closely inter-related subjects which might also be made topics of inquiry and investigation by such a Committee—migration and the relations of different races settled in different parts of the Empire. We have been discussing migration throughout the Empire for the last four or five years and the results from the various Acts passed have not been equal to the expectations raised when those Acs were first brought forward. No doubt migration is a plant of slow growth and, having been checked or absolutely stopped during the War by other more urgent calls upon the young men of the country, it has been difficult to re-establish it. But those who are acquainted with the problems of migration between the Mother Country and the daughter nations of the Empire must be aware that the emigration movement from England to Australia, New Zealand or Canada during the past five years has not come up to what we expected, and has not satisfied either the Dominions or ourselves. It certainly has not relieved the over-burdened population which exists in this country.

It is a thorny question, it is a question full of difficulties, it is a question where feelings are very often aroused and hot words passed; yet it is a question of urgent importance, not only to this country but to every Dominion throughout the British Empire, and it might be that the question of furthering the matter and making more effective the money we spend on migration might be referred to such a Committee and such a Committee might be of service in bringing together the various interests. There it would more closely resemble the Committee of Imperial Defence in bringing together the Departments, not merely of this country but of the self-governing Dominions across the sea. There is no doubt that such a Committee would have to be purely an advisory one. You could not put upon any Committee of this country the duty of settling the policy of the Dominions. Such a course, though it may be logically argued, is politically impossible. I should not for a moment suggest that such a Committee could have anything more than a co-ordinating and unifying influence on the Departments concerned. But such a Committee would act as a very effective link—and we are all searching for links—between the Mother Country and the Dominions.

More difficult perhaps is the problem of coloured race migration within the Empire—the problem of how to deal with your Indian population which is moving out from India into the various self-governing Dominions and Colonies and which is a source of constant irritation to a large section of public opinion in India and, equally, a source of irritation to a large section of public opinion in the Dominions and the Colonies. We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that at present there are difficulties which have not been overcome in dealing with the problem of Indian migration within the Empire. There is also the problem of the coloured races within the Dominions, and fiat is a subject which might well be investigated by the Committee. Again, the dangers and difficulties are so great that I, for one, should prefer to be excused attendance on the Committee when this subject was under discussion.

I do not need to enlarge upon the various duties which such a Committee might undertake. I have given one or two examples, and it would be perfectly easy to multiply them. But in asking the Lord President of the Council to enlarge a little the sketch which he made some six weeks ago, I am asking him to give us this information not in any captious spirit, not with any desire to create embarrassment—I do not think any single word of mine can be said to be dictated by any political or Party prejudice—but with a real desire to know, in this country and also in the Dominions, what is proposed. I believe there are great possibilities in the suggestion made by the noble Earl, and I should like to see the sketch filled in.

Like all constitutional and political developments in this country we begin with one idea, one political idea, and it develops perhaps in a very different way to that which we expected. It grows by use into something newer, perhaps something better, and I therefore welcome the announcement which has been made that such a Committee may be set up. I trust it will be set up very soon and will have functions assigned to it of real importance, functions the exercise of which will do something to improve the condition of the people of this Empire, enable trade to be developed and the producing power of our Colonies to be greatly extended. It is with this object in view that I put the Question which stands in my name, and I trust the noble Earl will be able to give us full information on the subject, as it will be of real interest, not ony to members of this House, but to the Empire as a whole. I beg to move.

LORD RAGLAN

My Lords, I hope one of the tasks which will be given to this Committee will be that of attempting to co-ordinate the different systems of administration which are now in force in British Colonies. I propose to deal with the question of Central Africa. Our Colonies in the Tropics extend from the Sudan to Rhodesia and from the Gambia to British East Africa, and, broadly speaking, they are all inhabited by the same kind of people living the same kind of life. Nevertheless the systems of government in force in these Colonies are astonishingly different. In some of them the legislatures are elected by the people; in others the people have no voice in the government whatever. In some of them all the executive officials are British; in others there are no British executive officials. In some of them the Chiefs have unlimited power; in others the Chiefs have no power whatever. In some of them no European may own land; in others no native may own land. In the same way, in the administration of the law, there is every possible confusion of British law, Indian Mahomedan law, and tribal law.

What has happened is that these systems have grown up more or less haphazard, and they appear to be like the laws of the Merles and Persians, for the attitude taken up by the Colonial Office is that whatever system happens to be in force in any particular district is not only the best possible system but the only possible system, and any criticism of it amounts almost to blasphemy. It may be wrong, it may be right, it may be wise—

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

The noble Lord will forgive me. I do not make a practice of rising to a point of order, but I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he really thinks this is relevant to the question of this particular Research Committee? The noble Lord is discussing at length the method of government in the African Colonies of the British Empire.

LORD RAGLAN

I did so in order to suggest that these various systems should be discussed by this Committee which it is proposed to set up. I suggest that if the Committee could employ itself in co-ordinating these various systems it would perform an extremely useful task.

THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE EARL OF BALFOUR)

My Lords, I am a little puzzled with regard to the Question that has been asked and the observations of the noble Lord who has just sat down. He seems to think, or at least I gathered from his example that he does, that any question which can by any possibility come before the Committee of Civil Research might be dis- cussed on its merits on the question as to the constitution and purpose of the Committee. But I think he will feel that that would extend the bounds of the Question beyond any reasonable limit and that your Lordships could not conveniently be asked to discuss on their merits questions which might be submitted to the Committee of Civil Research. I think the particular example he chose is not very felicitous even from that point of view. He seemed to think that it would be the business of this Committee to co-ordinate the British Empire; that only one system of government and one system of law should be applied throughout its wide extent to every race, to every stage of culture, to every tradition of history to which every part of the Empire has been subjected.

I think he will feel—at least I should feel—that, in the first place, that was a topic far beyond the scope even of the most flexible and far-reaching Committee; and, in the second place, the object that my noble friend has in view, which is that of securing that the British Empire, with all the varieties of race, religion and geographical position that I have indicated, should be brought under one simple law, a law evolved by one particular race in that vast Empire, with institutions which, as he truly said, vary enormously from area to area and from continent to continent, but which in all cases have some relation to the historic continuity of the districts with which they deal—I do not know that it would be wise for any Committee to undertake such an object. I am not sure that it is an object at which we should aim, and, in any case, my noble friend seemed to me to be wholly irrelevant to the particular Question put to me by the noble Lord who initiated this discussion.

If I turn now to the speech of the noble Lord, he seemed to be rather afraid that I should regard his observations as being of a Party or partisan character and should criticise the spirit in which he put the Question to the Government. That is very far from being my view. I think nobody could complain of the spirit of the noble Lord, and nobody could complain of his objects or of the tone and temper of his observations. If I have a cause of complaint against the noble Lord it is of a very different kind. It is that he has not made himself acquainted with the debates in your Lordships' House which have already taken place upon this subject. He was good enough to send me a very courteously worded letter with regard to his Question. The tenor of that letter a little surprised me, but I imagined that when he spoke he would elucidate the problem which, I confess, in his letter itself was left unsolved. But his speech has not helped me more than his letter for, so far as I can make out from what he said, he has never even heard of the debate of June 30.

Every observation that he made related, so far as I could see, to some incidental observations—I do not say unimportant observations, but incidental observations—that I made with regard to the Report on the British Dominions in Central Africa in a debate which took place in May. That was, no doubt, the first indication made in public of the intentions of His Majesty's Government. It was incomplete, it was necessarily incomplete, it was deliberately incomplete, but the noble and learned Viscount opposite—I am sorry to have to remind your Lordships of an event which occurred so very recently, but I think it is unknown to the noble Lord who asked me the Question, so for his sake, if not for anybody else's, I feel bound to refer to it—the noble and learned Viscount who leads the Opposition, with a view of expressing his own very valuable views upon this subject and eliciting from the Government a more complete account of their views, initiated a debate upon this new Committee, and the result was a discussion of considerable interest which. I should have thought, answered every one of the questions and dealt with every one of the topics upon which the noble Lord who asks the Question desires information.

He will find that the debate, which took place on June 30, begins in column 872 of Volume 61 of the OFFICIAL REPORT. That is the column on which the noble and learned Viscount opposite explains his views on the subject, and, if the noble Lord wants to know my views, he will find them set out in column 879 and succeeding columns of the same volume. I really believe that there is not a single sub-question which the noble Lord has asked which does not find its answer in the speech which I then had the honour to make to your Lordships. The noble Lord has himself more or less misconceived the character and objects of the Committee. I think he would not have misconceived that character and those objects if he had read these speeches. For example, he suggested that the Committee of Civil Research should be a Committee endowed with a large sum of money which it would be its business to allocate among the different Imperial and domestic questions which it might think worth considering. Anything more utterly antagonistic to the whole character, object, purpose and constitution of the Committee I can hardly conceive. The noble Lord thinks that the, Chancellor of the Exchequer should, for certain purposes, be dispossessed of his authority by this Committee, that it should not be left to the Treasury and Cabinet to deal with these problems, that they should be relieved of some of the most difficult of their functions and that those functions should be handed over to the new Committee, amply endowed out of public funds. As I have repeated, I think almost to weariness, this Committee is to have no executive functions, least of all the function of saying authoritatively what sums are to be spent out of public monies on what objects. That is not the object of the Committee, and the Committee is wholly unfitted to carry out such an object.

That, perhaps, is all that I need say as relevant to this particular inquiry, but I may remind the noble Lord opposite that there are already bodies in existence which have done and are doing most admirable work in relation to disease, to the development of medicine and to other great causes upon which the noble Lord dwelt with great eloquence and great sincerity and on which, I am sure, he carried the sympathies of the House. But, in the first place, they have nothing whatever—as he put the Question—to do with this Committee; and, in the second place, there are already, as I have said, institutions in existence which carry out much of the work which he desires to see carried out. Of course, I do not mean that the Committee of Civil Research is not to deal, in its own way and under its own limitations, with these problems. Take the tsetse fly, which was mentioned by the noble Lord and which figured so largely in the first debate—the debate which the noble Lord has read—upon the subject of the Committee of Civil Research. This would be enough to show that disease is, of course, one of the subjects which may well come under its purview, which is coming under its purview.

The reason is quite plain. This Committee of Civil Research is, as I have said, an addition to our administrative machinery specially required to deal with problems with which more than one Department is concerned, and certainly these problems of tropical disease come under that category. They certainly may do and, I hope, will do and, indeed, are already setting to work to do really valuable service in advising the Cabinet upon these administrative problems, but it would be, and is, a complete misinterpretation of the functions of the Committee to suppose that they are an independent or semi-independent body of fixed constitution, endowed with large sums of money which they are to spend even on the most admirable objects in accordance with their own sweet will and pleasure. That is not the business of the Committee; that is not the sort of work its constitution fits it to do; and it involves a complete misapprehension of its character and its functions to suppose otherwise. I am certain that if the noble Lord will take the trouble to read the speeches—not very long speeches as speeches go—delivered by my noble and learned friend opposite and by myself, on behalf of the Government, in the last debate on the subject, he will feel that all his points have really been dealt with. In particular, I was amazed to hear him say that one of the defects which he would like to see removed in this new Committee was that it should include the self-governing Dominions. If he will take the trouble to look at column 882 of the OFFICIAL REPORT, he will see that the participation of the Dominions in any inquiry which concerns them is provided for by the machinery of the new Committee and is one of the objects for which the new Committee has been set up.

In these circumstances I really hardly think that it is necessary that I should further detain your Lordships on this matter. The noble Lord gave a list of the subjects with which he thought the Committee ought to deal and with which, as I understood him, he thought that with its present constitution it could not deal. The noble Lord's list was a long one, but surely it was far shorter than a list of the subjects that may be looked into and may deserve to be looked into. All that can be dealt with under the constitution of the Committee. The flexibility of this Committee, which differentiates it from all other such Committees, except the Committee of Imperial Defence, gives it a latitude which will enable it, whenever the Government of the day desires it to take into account all these considerations, to call in all the experts it desires and the heads of all the Departments, and to bring the whole of the administrative machinery of the country into consultation and thereupon and thereafter to advise the Cabinet as to the course which it will be desirable to pursue.

I hope that the noble Lord will not think that I have at all ignored his Question or that I have endeavoured to evade any of the problems he put before me, but I do assure him that if he will take the trouble to go through the speeches which, however wearisome, certainly were not long, delivered on the occasion to which I have more than once referred, he will, I believe, find all his misconceptions removed. He will obtain a real view of what the work of the Committee is, what its instruments for carrying it out are, what relation it bears to the Executive of the country, and I hope and believe that when he has made himself acquainted through the ordinary sources of information with all these facts he will find that the Committee is nearer to his ideal than apparently it seems to him to be at the present moment.

VISCOUNT HALDANE

My Lords, I cannot differ from the noble Earl in his criticism of the terms of the Motion and the grounds on which it has been supported. At the same time I should like to say this, which I think he, in effect, said also, that we have reason to congratulate ourselves when a noble Lord takes so much interest in science and in knowledge of this kind as to bring the matter to the attention of the House and open up a discussion upon it. Having said that, I am bound to agree with the noble Earl opposite that there really was no question which needed putting. There is not only the debate of June 30 last in which the noble Earl explained everything in a way that left, so far as I can see, no ambiguity; there is this in addition—I am speaking from memory but I am nearly certain—that on June 13 last a Treasury Memorandum was circulated to Parliament and laid upon the Table of this House in which the whole thing was explained quite shortly and definitely. In these circumstances it is strange that, so little is the interest in the machinery of government in this country, that the debate and the Memorandum could both have been overlooked in connection with this Motion.

There are many Committees already in existence and I have no doubt there will be many more. They deal with many subjects; they are invested with more or less authority. One with a great deal of authority is the Development Commission to which my noble friend referred. The Development Commission is a very different body to the one we are discussing and, indeed, to any other of the kind that I know. It took its origin in the fact that the Departments kept putting in demands to the Treasury for money for agriculture, for development of roads, and so on. The Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day discussed it and got the Government to appoint a Committee of experts, containing representatives of different kinds of knowledge, who should sit together and should definitely recommend what grants should be made and in what proportions. They sit and make very careful inquiries and the policy of the Treasury in distributing money among the different Departments is largely based on the recommendations of the Development Commission.

That is a very different body from the one we are discussing. That is a body with very nearly executive functions. But in this case the Committee of Civil Research will not have a single executive function. My noble friend seemed to think that the Committee of Imperial Defence had to deal with large sums—

LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY

I said it advised on subjects which involved large expenditure. That is a different thing.

VISCOUNT HALDANE

It advises on subjects involving large expenditure, but on the sums it never advises. It keeps itself clear of finance. So, in this case, the new Committee of Civil Research is clearly analogous. It has not to go into the sort of exact details with which a committee that was to advise the Government as to how much money they were to spend on this or that, would be concerned. It is, in effect, a Committee to give knowledge to Ministers and to give knowledge, in particular, to the Cabinet. Cabinet Ministers, a most worthy body of people, bring up propositions which occasionally are not based on much exact knowledge or very exhaustive research, and there is no way at the present time of getting them the overhauling which is necessary unless by the appointment of a special Committee, which may be very difficult to appoint. I myself have seen millions and millions wasted because of the want of accurate knowledge on the part of the government of the day.

Well, this is a new instrument of government, under which the Cabinet, when a question of that kind comes up to it, will be able to say from the lips of the Prime Minister, who is president of the new Committee: "This is surely a matter which should go for research to the new civilian Committee." The new civilian Committee will be under his eye, and in the end will devolve its functions to a sub-committee of experts, if it follows the analogy of the Committee of Imperial Defence. When the new Committee has assembled then there will come up a Report—a Report, the progress of which and the collection of material for which have been assisted by the services of the members of the secretarial staff of the Cabinet, who are there to guide it and to keep the Prime Minister in intimate acquaintance with what is going on.

In that way, and through the Chairman of the new Committee of Imperial Research, you will have an organised body, the function of which is solely and entirely to provide Ministers with an amount and a kind of knowledge which they do not get at the present time. That is the whole object of this Committee. It has had a predecessor of the same kind in the Committee of Imperial Defence, which has entirely succeeded, and now the same method is going to be applied in another direction. Thinking costs nothing, and that is a maxim that is very often forgotten in government, and which has been too much forgotten by our- selves. Now, I hope, we shall have more of it. We cannot have too much. If that be so, my noble friend will see that, however right he is in the views he has put forward, he is not right about this body, which is not directed to any of the purposes of which he spoke, but is directed solely to informing the minds of the Cabinet.

LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY

My Lords, in withdrawing the Motion which I have put before the House, I have only to apologise to the noble Earl for having, as he has rightly discerned, missed his speech of June 30. I must plead guilty of having been unaware of that speech. It is my own fault, but my attention was not called to it. May I suggest that when the noble Earl's secretary asked me for information as to what the Question was about he might perhaps, if he had thought of it, have called my attention to the debate of June 30, and thus have saved your Lordships' time in the moving of this unnecessary Motion? I have to throw myself on the mercy of the House, therefore, for having wasted the time of the House.

THE EARL OF BALFOUR

Not at all; you have not wasted our time.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.