Lords Sitting of 8 July 1926

Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
GAS LIGHT AND COKE COMPANY BILL.

  DOVER HARBOUR BILL.
  THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE): My Lords, I beg to move the Resolution which appears in my name on the Paper. I think there are adequate public reasons why your Lordships should accept the Motion.
  Moved, That the Order made on the 25th day of March last, "That no Private Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after Tuesday the 29th of June next," be dispensed with, and that the Bills be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to, and Bills read 2a accordingly.

MID-NOTTINGHAMSHIRE JOINT RAILWAYS BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
RHYMNEY VALLEY WATER BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

BERMONDSEY BOROUGH COUNCIL (STREET TRADING) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.— (The Earl of Donoughmore.)
LORD DANESFORT: My Lords, with the permission of the House I should like to make a few remarks of a general character about this Bill, which is

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strongly opposed by the National Association of Street Traders, a large and important body, and a good many other street traders have signed a petition against it. It is only fair to say that a considerable number of street traders signed a petition in its favour. As your Lordships are well aware these street traders are not a wealthy body and it is entirely beyond their power financially to enter a formal Petition against a Bill or to incur the heavy expense of employing Parliamentary Agents and Counsel to oppose the Bill. Therefore, it was necessarily considered in the Committee of the House of Commons without their having an opportunity of being heard by the Committee or of putting their views forward.
I need hardly remind your Lordships that, as a class, street traders are an industrious and hard-working portion of the community, who do a valuable service by keeping down the price of foodstuffs and other articles, especially in the poorer neighbourhoods of London, and it has been found by a Parliamentary Committee which sat to consider the matter of street trading in 1922 and published an important Report, that these street traders supply an important public want, particularly in the poorer neighbourhoods to which I have already referred. I need only add that since the War their numbers have been largely increased from the ranks of ex-Service men, who, for various reasons, have been unable to return to their original employment.
There are many provisions in this Bill to which the street traders take objection. I do not propose to trouble your Lordships with the details of those objections because the main and chief objection to the Bill, as I think, is that, while it cannot be disputed that proper control of street trading is necessary, it is absolutely essential in the interests of the public and of the street traders themselves that, subject to some local variations, there should be uniformity throughout the twenty-eight London Boroughs. There ought not to be a large number of separate Boroughs bringing forward Bills, of which the present Bill is the first instalment, dealing piecemeal and in a varied fashion with street trading in each Borough separately. I confess I shudder at the thought of the expense that would be thrown upon the
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funds of these Boroughs if a dozen Borough Council Bills, dealing piecemeal with this subject and possibly in a, manner inconsistent with each other, were brought into Parliament, entailing the enormous expense of each Bill being promoted and carried through Parliament separately.
The question of the desirability of uniformity was considered by a very
strong Departmental Committee appointed by the Home Office. That Committee reported in 1922 and decided that, broadly speaking, uniformity was necessary. The Committee sat for thirty-three days and examined fifty-two witnesses, including representatives of different Government Departments, the Police, the Borough Councils and street and other traders, and they made a series of recommendations of which I will mention only one or two. They recommended unanimously that a general code of Regulations governing street trading, a draft of which they submitted at the end of their Report, should be made by the Home Secretary to apply to the whole of the Metropolitan Police District. And they went on to recommend that the different local authorities should be given statutory powers (and this is of importance) subject to the-approval of the Commissioner of Police, to do various things each in their own Borough, such as, for instance, to select the places for street trading within the Borough, taking care not to disturb any existing street market; to issue licences to street traders and to exact a small fee for them; to allow particular pitches for a limited period, and to make by-laws not inconsistent with the general Regulations.
This Bill, to a large extent, ignores and violates the recommendations I have mentioned, more particularly that which advises the formation of a general code of Regulations for London. On this I need refer only to one further point. There is now, as I understand it, before the General Purposes Committee of the Standing Joint Committee of the London Boroughs a resolution which was passed by the Lambeth Borough Council, urging that a Bill should be promoted on the lines suggested by the Departmental Committee applying to all London Boroughs. I am informed and I believe that it is correct, that this proposal is likely to receive favourable considera-

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tion. When I am told, as I gather from some of the evidence given before the Committee of the House of Commons, that eighteen of the London Boroughs have expressed approval of this Bill, the importance of their action is gravely diminished by the fact to which I have just refered. In those circumstances there appear to be considerable reasons for not passing this Bill into law.
On the other hand, it would, perhaps, seem a somewhat drastic step to ask your Lordships to take to reject this Bill or Third Reading after the promoters have been put to the expense of passing it through Committee of the House of Commons. Your Lordships will not forget what I have already mentioned—namely, that the street traders who objected had, owing to poverty, no opportunity of bringing forward their objections and making their voice heard. Nevertheless, I think it would be a strong measure to ask your Lordships to reject the Bill on Third Reading now. There is one other point and it is this. The promoters are willing, in pursuance of a pledge which was given on their behalf in the House of Commons on May 13 last when the Bill was being discussed, to accept the insertion in the Bill of the clause which stands in my name on the Order Paper. That clause indicates a general approval of the principle of uniformity in dealing with this matter. That being so and in those circumstances I do not propose to ask the House to oppose the Third Reading, and if the Third Reading be passed I shall move the new clause standing in my name.
LORD JESSEL: My Lords, I am somewhat astonished at the speech of the noble Lord who has just sat down, because in the first place he advocated the rights of street traders and rather argued against their being dealt with at all.
LORD DANESFORT: No.
LORD JESSEL: Well, my noble friend said that they had had no opportunity of being heard and that they were a deserving body of men who were going to be harmed by this Bill. Now it appears that the noble Lord objects to this Bill not so much because it may harm street traders but on account of
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want of uniformity of legislation for London as a whole. Therefore the noble Lord wants to penalise the street traders not only in one Borough but in the whole of London. I do not think that is a reason for throwing out this Bill. May I point out that it has been the invariable rule and practice in London for many years for separate Boroughs to bring in separate Bills, not on questions affecting London as a whole, but on matters that affect their own localities. Only this Session the big Borough of Hackney brought forward a Bill, which was seven days in Committee in another place and which had many provisions that might or might not be adapted to the rest of London. When it came to this House not one word was said against it and it received the Royal Assent.
Why is Bermondsey singled out? Bermondsey has only followed the usual procedure, which, as I say, has been practised for many years. Westminster has done it on two occasions. Bermondsey, however, is singled out for chastisement. Why? Bermondsey is not a Borough for which, from a political point of view, I have any great regard. It is represented by the members of the Party opposite and its Borough Council is as Red as these Benches. May I point out further that this Bill has received the blessing of eighteen of the Borough Councils of London at the Metropolitan Standing Joint Committee. As a matter of fact, I think Bermondsey is very much to be congratulated on having brought this thorny question to a head. In the first place, the Metropolitan Borough Councils asked the London County Council to bring in a Bill and I recall that in this House my noble friend Lord Onslow brought in a Bill dealing with street trading on behalf of the Government. That Bill was dropped.
Now, at last, Bermondsey has made an arrangement with its street traders which has lasted for the past nine months and under that agreement they consider that the whole system of street trading in the Borough has worked in a very satisfactory manner. Yet, because Bermondsey has had the temerity to lead in the van of progress in this matter, it is to be penalised. I cannot see any harm in this Bill. What is the position? Here we have a great congeries of big cities. Bermondsey itself has a population of

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120,000 inhabitants and a rateable value of more than £1,000,000. My noble friend who led the attack on this Bill represented a very important City for many years—with a slight lapse on one occasion, which we: all regretted—with a population of 84,000, yet he comes forward and denies to these immense Boroughs, these immense cities, the right which they have had since 1899 of promoting legislation on their own behalf.
LORD DANESFORT: May I interrupt my noble friend for a moment? I am really doing nothing of the kind. I do not deny in any shape or form the right of a Borough Council to legislate in a proper manner for itself. The point that I made was that street trading is something which extends to every part of London and that there should be uniformity in legislation.
LORD JESSEL: I dare say, but the Bermondsey Council have agreed that when the London County Council introduce their Bill these powers shall lapse in a General Bill. For twenty-five years or more this question of street trading has been agitated in London. When a Bill was brought forward on the question of combined drainage and when Hackney presented their solution, why did not my noble friend come forward and say that the limitations in the clause which he is going to move should be applicable to Hackney? There are certain things required in Westminster that are not required in other Boroughs. My point is that these Boroughs have done very great service in bringing these matters forward. They are not averse, and never have been averse, when general legislation is passed from falling into line with it, and I do protest against the idea that a Borough is to be penalised because it has been able to find a method of solving a great problem and has been enterprising enough to be in the van of progress, which is for the benefit of London. I think the House would be well advised to give a Third Reading to this Bill.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: My Lords, this is an important matter and I am glad that the noble Lord has drawn attention to it. At the same time, I am equally glad that he has not put down a Motion for rejection of the Bill on Third Reading. The noble Lord speaks
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on behalf of many street traders who, he tells us, are opposed to this Bill, but it is fair to say that they did not deposit a Petition against the Bill cither in the House of Commons or in your Lordships' House, no doubt for the reason which the noble Lord gave. Therefore, this Bill, so far as the Committee Stage is concerned, passed through both Houses as an unopposed Bill, subject, of course, to the usual criticism from Government Departments, with whose procedure all your Lordships are familiar. The noble Lord laid stress on the desirability of uniformity. I agree with him and I am glad that the Amendment of which he has given Notice is accepted by the promoters, as being as satisfactory to them as it is to the noble Lord.
Having said that, I would only add one sentence. In one way I think this is an ideal piece of private legislation. Your Lordships will realise what has happened. The Bermondsey Borough Conned, realising that here was a problem to be dealt with, got into touch with their street traders and initiated a system without any Parliamentary authority by agreement with all concerned. That system has been at work for some months in Bermondsey and has been found to be a success. The Borough Council, therefore, have come to Parliament to put it on a much more powerful footing—to give it legal sanction by being authorised by law. I think that if all parties all over the kingdom did that a little more often we should get through our work much better and more expeditiously.
On Question, Bill read 3a.
LORD DANESFORT LORD DANESFORT moved, after Clause 22, to insert the following new clause:—
". If within five years from the passing of this Act an Act shall be passed (in this section referred to as 'the general Act') embodying general legislation dealing with the control of street trading for all the Metropolitan Boroughs or all the Metropolitan Boroughs other than the City of London the provisions of this Act shall cease to have effect on and from the date on which the provisions of the general Act become operative and the general Act shall have effect in the borough Provided that any licences granted under the provisions of this Act and in force at the said date shall notwithstanding anything contained in this section continue to be valid until the expiration of the period for which such licences were granted or renewed and shall

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for the purposes of the general Act be deemed to have been granted or renewed under that. Act Provided also that any by-laws made by the Council under the provisions of this Act and in force at the said date shall continue to have effect and be enforceable until the expiration of three months after the general Act shall become operative but no longer."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, after all I have said already, I do not think it will be necessary to add anything in explanation of the clause which I now move. That clause has been agreed to between the Borough Council and myself. They very properly, if I may be allowed to say so, gave me a pledge to accept it. Perhaps I ought to read the clause:—
"If within five years from the passing of this Act an Act shall be passed (in this section referred to as 'the general Act') embodying general legislation dealing with the control of street trading for all the Metropolitan Boroughs or all the Metropolitan Boroughs other than the City of London—"
which, as your Lordships know, is in a special position—
"the provisions of this Act shall cease to have effect on and from the date on which the provisions of the general Act become operative and the general Act shall have effect in the borough—"
That is the Borough of Bermondsey—
"Provided that any licences granted under the provisions of this Act and in force at the said date shall notwithstanding anything contained in this section continue to be valid until the expiration of the period for which such licences were granted or renewed and shall for the purposes of the general Act be deemed to have been granted or renewed under that Act provided also that any by-laws made by the Council under the provisions of this Act and in force at the said date shall continue to have effect and be enforceable until the expiration of three months after the general Act shall become operative but no longer."
The object of this proviso is to avoid having a gap between the time when this Act ceases to be operative and the time when the General Act is passed and becomes operative.
Amendment moved—
Clause 22, page 8, line 32, after Clause 22, insert the said new clause.—(Lord Danesfort)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Bill passed, and returned, to the Commons.

TEIGNMOUTH ELECTRICITY (EXTEN SION) SPECIAL ORDER, 1926.

  SOUTH YORKSHIRE ELECTRICITY (EXTENSION) SPECIAL ORDER, 1926.
  THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Viscount Peel, I beg to move that these Orders be approved.
  Moved, That the Special Orders which were presented on the 8th of June last be approved.—(The Earl of Lucan.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

MILLOM ELECTRICITY SPECIAL ORDER, 1926.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Viscount Peel, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Special Order which was presented on the 10th of June last be approved.—(The Earl of Lucan.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 11) BILL.
Amendments reported (according to Order).

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 5) BILL.
Order of the Day read for the House to be put into Committee on re-commitment of the Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Viscount Gage.)
On Question, Motion agreed to. House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL OF DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.].
The Amendment proposed by the Committee made.
VISCOUNT GAGE VISCOUNT GAGE moved, after Article 12, to insert the following new Article:—
For protection of London Midland and Scottish Railway Company.
13. The provisions of sub-divisions (1) to (8) and (12) of the Article of this order of which the marginal note is "For protection

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of London and North Eastern Railway Company and Midland and North Eastern Railways Joint Committee" shall also extend and apply for the protection of the London Midland and Scottish Railway Company as if the word "Company" where used in the said sub-divisions included the London Midland and Scottish Railway Company.
The noble Viscount said: This clause was agreed to after the meeting of the Select Committee and I understand that it is entirely acceptable to all parties, including the Government. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 14, after Article 12, insert the said new Article.—(Viscount Gage.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

UNIVERSITY OF LONDON BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Earl of Balfour.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL OF DONOUGHHORE in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 to 5 agreed to.
Clause 6:
Power to amend and supplement statutes.
(2) The provisions contained in this Act with respect to the making of statutes by the Commissioners and to the proceedings to be taken with respect to the making and approval thereof in connection with statutes made by the Commissioners, and, subject as may be provided by any statutes made by the Commissioners, to the effect thereof after approval shall, with the necessary substitutions, apply to the making of statutes by the University and to the proceedings to be taken in connection with, and, subject as aforesaid, to the effect of, such statutes
THE EARL OF AIRLIE THE EARL OF AIRLIE moved, in subsection (2), to leave out "with respect to the making and approval" and to insert "after the making", and, near the end of the clause, before "and, subject as aforesaid ", to insert "Statutes made by the University." The noble Earl said: These two Amendments that stand on the Paper in the name of my noble friend the Earl of Balfour are purely drafting Amendments. They in no way affect the substance of the clause or of
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the Bill. If these Amendments are accepted subsection (2) of Clause 6 will follow as closely as possible the wording of Section 7 (3) of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge Act, 1923, which dealt with these matters in relation to those Universities. It is thought that these Amendments will make the clause a little clearer.
Amendments moved—
Clause 6, page 4, lines 36 and 37 leave out ("with respect to the making and approval") and insert ("after the making").
Clause 6, page 5, line 1, after ("with") insert (" Statutes made by the University ").—(The Earl of Airlie.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 7:
Provisions as to incorporation of colleges and schools in the University.
7.—(1) No statute, made under this Act shall alter the incorporation in the University of the colleges known respectively as University of London, University College, and University of London, King's College, or the vesting, disposition, or management of any emoluments, endowments, trusts, foundations, gifts, offices, or institutions in or connected with either of those colleges so far as those matters are or have been regulated respectively by or under the University College, London (Transfer) Act, 1905, or the King's College, London (Transfer) Act, 1908 and no such statute shall provide for the incorporation in the University of any school of the University or other college, school, or institution; but if at any time it is agreed between the University and the governing body of either of the first mentioned colleges that it is expedient that as respects that college any such alteration as aforesaid should he made, or if at any time it is agreed between the University and the governing body of any school of the University or other college, school or institution that it is expedient that provision should he made for the incorporation thereof in the University, then, in any such case, it shall be lawful for the University and the governing body jointly to make application to His Majesty in Council for a charter in that behalf, and any charter which His Majesty in Council is pleased to grant upon any such application shall have full effect notwithstanding anything in any Act of Parliament or in any previous charter, deed or other instrument whatsoever.
EARL BEAUCHAMP EARL BEAUCHAMP moved, after subsection (1), to insert the following new subsection:
"(2) Provided always that no Statute may be made under this Bill affecting any institution which was existing on 1st January, 1925, except with the consent of its governing body."
The noble Earl said: The noble Earl, the Lord President of the Council, was good enough on Second Reading to say he would consider the point which I have raised and I have put down this Amendment with a view to carrying out what I understood to be his wishes as expressed in the debate on the Second Reading. Your Lordships will see that it will exclude existing colleges from the operation of this Bill and it follows as closely as may be the words which were used by the noble Earl himself. In these circumstances I hope His Majesty's Government will accept it.
Amendment moved—
Clause 7, page 5, line 31, at end insert the said new subsection.—(Earl Beauchamp.)
LORD ASKWITH: I desire to associate myself with my noble friend who has moved this Amendment. This Bill is founded upon the Report of the Committee which dealt with the University as a whole and also in certain respects with the incorporated colleges and schools. I happen to be Chairman of the Governors of the Royal Holloway College and we viewed with some apprehension what might happen under this Bill with regard to our privileges and position. Clause 7 deals with certain colleges of the University and says that Statutes affecting them shall not be altered at all. That is perfectly reasonable. If any Statutes are to be altered it should only be by agreement with the particular colleges. In other respects the clause also applies to new colleges and they may only be incorporated by agreement. But what about colleges already existing? There is certainly in Clause 4 a provision with regard to them, but that clause is confined to cases where Statutes were made not being Statutes of the University. There seems to be a gap, for Statutes might be made which would affect the colleges and schools. I am aware that the noble Earl the Lord President, on a previous occasion, said that this Act will not affect existing colleges and I hope he will repeat that assurance.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE EARL OF BALFOUR): I am not quite sure that the two noble Lords who have spoken on this Amendment have been dealing with the same subject-matter. As I understood
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the noble Earl who moved the Amendment, he was anxious about the internal status of the theological colleges and in defence of his Amendment, he made an appeal to the Government, based, as I understood him, largely upon some words that I used in reply to the most rev. Primate on the subject of these theological colleges. But I think my statement must have been misunderstood. What I pointed out was that the Committee were dealing in that section of their Report with the future additions to the University. There was nothing in the recommendations to which the noble Earl referred that, so far as I am aware, could possibly be interpreted as involving a threat or the possibility of a threat to the theological colleges that now exist. If noble Lords who have the Report in their hands will look at page 56 they will see that paragraph 10, which was the paragraph relied upon both by the most rev. Primate and by the noble Earl opposite, refers only to the admission or read-mission of an institution as a school of the University. It deliberately excludes, therefore, from its purview any of these subordinate institutions in the University that are already in existence. Their rights, so far as I can see, are in no way touched or threatened by anything in the Report or by anything in the Bill.
I need not remind your Lordships that the whole tradition of the University of London is to leave questions of religious controversy severely on one side. The University, as such, has nothing whatever to do with any theological question. It is not prejudiced against theology, but it does not conceive it to be part of its duty to deal with any particular religious denomination and, through all its history, it has never dons so. The theory and the practice have been in absolute conformity one with the other, and I cannot believe, that there is the slightest danger that the whole of this long tradition, rooted as it is in the history of the University, will suffer any change by any legislation that is likely to be proposed by the Commission. There is nothing either in the constitution of the Commission or in the history of the institution with which the Commission has to deal that suggests that they are suddenly going to take up a hostile attitude towards the religious teaching in the colleges and schools which are part

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of the University and which are themselves devoted to a particular form of denominational religious teaching.
That is the broad theory. If you look at the actual words of the Report, you will see that the powers given to the University of making conditions with regard to these matters are distinctly excluded with regard to existing schools. Where, then, I ask the noble Earl opposite, is the changer against which he desires to guard? There is no suggestion of any such danger and there is nothing in the constitution of the Commission which would suggest that the danger is a real one. I cannot help thinking that this is a wholly illusory danger to which your Lordships need not pay any anxious attention. If it is really felt that, with regard to the future of the colleges or with regard to any of the present colleges, some safeguard in regard to religion is required, I need hardly say that His Majesty's Government have no objection to it. The words proposed by the noble Earl are, as I think he will see, quite inadmissible. They run as follows:—
"Provided always that no Statute may be made under this Hill affecting any institution which was existing on 1st January, 1925, except with the consent of its governing body."
That would in practice entirely paralyse any recommendation the Commission might make with regard to the reform of the University.
If you deal with the institutions of the University you must inevitably have some effect, direct or indirect, upon the fate of the constituent colleges. The whole object of this Bill is to improve the position of the constituent bodies. They do the teaching work of the University and it is their prosperity which is chiefly necessary if the internal side of the University is to carry out the functions which we all desire to see it exercise. The notion that you are going to reform the University without in any way affecting the constituent colleges is evidently illusory. It means that anything that may be proposed by the Statutory Commission will have to run the gauntlet of every one of the colleges and receive their approval, because everything you do for the University as a whole must have some influence upon the educational elements, of which the University is composed. In
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those circumstances I am sure that the noble Earl will not press the Amendment in its present form, but if he seriously thinks that there is any possibility of the Statutory Commission, either now or hereafter, dealing in an inimical spirit or, indeed, dealing at all with the internal affairs of the religious colleges, I shall be very glad to consult with him as to the means by which that, as I think, wholly illusory and imaginary danger can be avoided.
That, of course, is quite a different question from the question raised by the noble Lord who spoke last. That question regarded a particular college which fears that its position—not its existing position, but its future position —may be less favourable than they would like to see it under the new Bill. I suggest to the House that you must leave to the Commission the determination of which of these schools of the University are or are not to have direct representation. The schools of the University number thirty-eight. It is quite impossible, of course, that the thirty-eight could all be represented. It may be that the number contemplated by the Report of the Committee is too small and that, without making the representation too large and unwieldy to work in practice, some other college may properly be added to the number already suggested by the Report of the Departmental Committee. On that I offer no opinion. It seems to be emphatically a thing within the discretion of the Statutory Commission, and I think your Lordships would not be well advised if you were to take into consideration Amendments to the Bill dealing with particular institutions, adding here and there some alteration in the general scheme of the Departmental Committee, seeing that the Statutory Commissioners, who have to draw up the constitution of the new University, have ample power to obtain the necessary information, to weigh the necessary information, and to come to a decision, so long as they keep within the general scope of the Departmental Report.
In these circumstances I would suggest to my noble friend who spoke last that the interests of Holloway College are sure of a fair hearing, and that he would not be well advised, in my judgment, if he were to try to decide a question on the floor of this House which is plainly more properly to be left to the Statutory Com-

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mission which this Bill asks the House to appoint. I think I have dealt adequately with these two distinct lines of, I will not say attack but commentary and criticism, and in these circumstances I hope that the Amendment will not be pressed on your Lordships' attention.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: I rise only for a moment to say that I entirely agree with what the noble Earl has just said. I speak with pretty long experience of London University Statutes, and also as head of one of the existing institutions in question and a-s visitor of another, and I should be very sorry indeed if this clause went forward as it stands. It would paralyse the work of the Commissioners, and make it impossible for them to do a number of things for which we are looking. I think it would be infintely better to take the Bill as it stands, which restricts the powers of the Commissioners to the substance of the plan in the Report, and enables them to survey the whole field and to deal with it in the only way in which it can be dealt with. As to what outside colleges should come in, that is a question only to be decided by the Commissioners after examining the evidence, and it is impossible to decide the question of Holloway College on the floor of this House. It will be difficult enough for the Commissioners to decide it and I should be sorry to take upon myself the task of anticipating what their decision should be.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: Those for whom I am speaking will be grateful to the noble Earl, the Lord President, for the sympathetic way in which he has replied. I can see clearly that there has been a misunderstanding in the matter. In the debate on the Second Reading the noble Earl said:—
"So far as existing interests are concerned, I am quite unable to see how the least peril threatens any of the institutions on whose behalf the most rev. Primate and the noble Earl have spoken."
In those circumstances it is quite clear, on the surface at any rate, that the Amendment which I move goes no further than those words, but in view of what has been said by the noble Earl I will not press those words, but will withdraw them, and I shall be very glad if I may have an opportunity of consulting with the noble Earl, the Lord
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President, as to some other form of words which will completely cover the point. I can assure him that if he will be good enough to consult me he will not find me at all difficult to deal with, but ready to accept any form of words which really meets the point he suggests.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: I am very much obliged to the noble Earl, but I should much regret to leave either him or the House under a misapprehension as to what really did happen on the Second Reading. I think that if he will look at the OFFICIAL REPORT he will see that the most rev. Primate based his appeal to me entirely, or mainly—I thought entirely on paragraph 10, on page 56 of the Committee's Report. I think if he will look at my speech he will then see that I deliberately based my reply on paragraph 10. I dealt, in other words, only with "the conditions governing the admission or re-admission of an institution as a school of the University." It was a question as to admission or re-admission. It was those conditions which raised the fear of the most rev. Primate and, I thought, raised the fears of Earl Beauchamp. I attempted to allay those fears then and I again do so, by pointing out that paragraph 10 referred only to the conditions governing schools which came into the University in the future.
Therefore it had no reference to the numerous important and very valuable religious institutions which I think the noble Earl on that occasion enumerated to your Lordships, in which the interests of various Christian denominations are dealt with. I think it really is a total misapprehension of what I said. Obviously it is, if he will consult the OFFICIAL REPORT. He will see that I was not touching upon the existing religious institutions, but I was pointing out that paragraph 10 only dealt with the future, and that there was nothing in it which could imperil in the slightest degree, or need cause the faintest tinge of anxiety to, any of those interested in the maintenance of existing institutions. I think there is no room for apprehension on their part, and I beg the noble Earl, though it is a matter of personal inconsistency, which really is of no importance, that before he makes suggestions that there is any change required in my reply

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to-night as compared with my reply on the Second Reading, he would carefully read what I said on the occasion of the Second Reading.
LORD ERNLE: As I was the first Chairman of the Committee on whose Report this Bill is founded and was actually in the Chair when Holloway College came and gave evidence, I should like to point out that I think the whole of this discussion is founded on a misapprehension. There are two things. There is incorporation in the University and there is admission of a school or college to the University. The whole of Clause 7 refers to incorporation. There are two colleges at present incorporated in the University and it is to the incorporation of any other school or college which wishes to be in closer relation with the University that the whole of Clause 7 applies. To put in there this very much wider Amendment which is proposed by the noble Earl and supported by the noble Lord, is to put it in a place where it has no real connection, and as far as I know there has never been any question of refusing to continue the admission of Holloway College and its inclusion among the constituent bodies of the University. Holloway College has never asked, and is never likely to ask, for incorporation, which is the whole subject-matter of Section 7.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 7 agreed to.
Clause 8 agreed to.
Schedule agreed to.

FERTILISERS AND FEEDING STUFFS BILL. [H.L.]
Amendments reported (according to Order).
Clause 12 [.Powers of entry and sampling]:
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (LORD BLEDISLOE)THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (LORD BLEDISLOE) moved, in the proviso in subsection (1), to leave out ''thereof," and to insert "of the county or county borough in which the said premises are situate." The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is a purely drafting Amendment in order to make the meaning clearer.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 15, leave out ("thereof") and insert the said words.—(Lord Bledisloe.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 16:
Prohibition against disclosures.
16. If any inspector or official sampler discloses, except for the purposes of proceedings for alleged offences, any information obtained by him in or in connection with the exercise of his powers under this Act, he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds.
LORD BLEDISLOE LORD BLEDISLOE moved to leave out "or official sampler." The noble Lord said: My Lords, this clause, I may remind you, is intended to afford some protection to manufacturers against a public officer making use of information, acquired during his visit to a manufacturer's premises, to disclose trade secrets to the detriment of the manufacturer and for the benefit of his rivals. I propose to leave out the words "or official sampler" because, in fact, no official sampler has any right of entry on the premises of a manufacturer.
Amendment moved—
Page 11, line 29, leave out ("or official sampler ").—(Lord Bledisloe.)
LORD PARMOOR: IS the noble Lord quite certain that the omission of these words will not affect the protection which he says it is intended to afford? Is this the only place in the Bill where the words "official sampler" occur?
LORD BLEDISLOE: No, they occur in many different parts of the Bill. This is a very simple point indeed. An inspector has the right to enter a manufacturer's premises for the purposes of this Bill, but an official sampler has no such right. It was by inadvertence that these words were originally included.
EARL RUSSELL: But would it do any harm to leave them in? Is it not a fact that the official sampler may become possessed of knowledge which it is undesirable that he should divulge?
LORD BLEDISLOE: I should like to look into that between now and the Third Reading, but I think as a matter of fact that the fears of the noble Earl are not well founded. However, if the

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Amendment is accepted now, we can, if necessary, reinstate the words on the Third Reading.
EARL RUSSELL: In that case I will not oppose the Amendment now.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD BLEDISLOE LORD BLEDISLOE moved, after "except," to insert "to persons acting in the execution of this Act or". The noble Lord said: My Lords, there is, I think, a little more substance in this Amendment. On reconsideration of this clause it is considered that it possibly goes a little further than was originally intended. I am moving to insert these words for this reason. There are a certain number of public officers who have the right to enter trade premises for other purposes than for those of contemplated legal proceedings. By way of illustration, I may mention that an officer might be asked by the Ministry of Agriculture to inspect a register of marks, such as is provided for in lieu of the detailed description under Clause 4 of this Bill, in order to ascertain whether that register contains an accurate definition of the trade mark. Obviously he should be entitled to do that without any risk of being fined for doing so, it being in the ordinary course of his official duties.
Amendment moved—
Page 11, line 30, after ("except") insert ("to persons acting in the execution of this Act or")—(Lord Bledisloe.)
LORD PARMOOR: I think the noble Lord is quite right in saying that this goes far beyond any drafting Amendment. Personally I am not satisfied with the explanation he has given. I think the words which he proposes are altogether too general, and I hope the noble Lord will not press the Amendment. If, before the Third Reading, any special case such as he has suggested can be brought forward I should not object to putting such words in to meet the case. But if the words are once put in in this general form the protection which it is intended to give the manufacturer as regards nondisclosure may very easily become a dead letter. I am sure the noble Lord does not desire that.
LORD BLEDISLOE: I understand from the noble Lord that he feels that these
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words go further than is necessary in order to secure the purpose in view. If that is so, perhaps he will allow me to consult with him before the next stage of the Bill, and in the meantime, with the leave of the House, I will withdraw the Amendment.
LORD PARMOOR: That is quite satisfactory.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 21:
General provisions as to legal proceedings.
(3) A prosecution for an offence under this Act may, subject to the provisions of this Act as to the consent of the Minister, be instituted by the person aggrieved or by the council of a county or county borough, and in any case where a sample has been taken by an inspector appointed by the Minister, may be instituted by the Minister.
LORD STRACHIE LORD STRACHIE moved, in subsection (3), after "county borough," to insert "or with the consent of such council by an inspector appointed by such council." The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment provides for a third person being authorised to prosecute. As the clause stands it is only the aggrieved person, or the county council, or county borough who may institute these proceedings. I propose to ask your Lordships to permit such prosecution to be instituted by an inspector appointed by such council. It will be very cumbersome and expensive if in all cases—and some of them may be very trifling—it is necessary for the county council to take proceedings either through their clerk or through a solicitor to deal with these matters. It would be much easier to allow the county council to prosecute through one of their own inspectors who has been properly authorised by the county council. The whole responsibility of the county council would be retained, and there could be no objection to such an official acting. I am sure that members of your Lordships' House who are members of county councils will agree with me that this is a very necessary Amendment in order to make the procedure simpler and less expensive for the county council.
Amendment moved—
Page 14, line 6, at end insert the said words.—(Lord Strachie.)
LORD BLEDISLOE: My Lords, I understand from my noble friend that the County Councils Association feels rather strongly on this matter. Personally I see no objection to the words he proposes to insert, and therefore I am prepared to accept them.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD BLEDISLOE LORD BLEDISLOE moved, after Clause 26, to insert as a new clause: —
"Application to Northern Ireland.
.—(1) This Act shall apply to Northern Ireland subject to the following modifications:

(a) The regulations made by the Minister and the Board of Agriculture for Scotland shall apply to Great Britain only:

(b) References to the Minister, and to the Minister and the Board of Agriculture for Scotland acting jointly shall be construed as references to the Ministry of Agriculture for Northern Ireland: Provided that the Ministry of Agriculture for Northern Ireland in-lieu of appointing; a separate advisory committee may in making regulations to be laid before the Parliament of Northern Ireland, act on the advice of the advisory committee appointed for Great Britain:

(c) References to the Treasury shall be construed as references to the Ministry of Finance for Northern Ireland:

(d) References to the Government Chemist shall be construed as references to the Chief Agricultural Analyst, for Northern Ireland:

(e) The reference to the Local Government Act, 1888, shall be construed as a reference to article thirty-eight of the schedule to the Local Government (Application of Enactments) Order 1898:

(f) The expenses of a council incurred in the execution of this Act shall be defrayed, in the case of a county council, out of the county fund as a county at largo charge, and in the case of a county borough, council, out of any rate or fund applicable to the purposes of the Public Health (Ireland) Acts, 1878 to 1913:

(g) References to Parliament and to His Majesty shall be construed respectively as references to the Parliament and to the Governor of Northern Ireland, and the reference to twenty-one days, occurring in relation to regulations laid before Parliament, shall be construed as a reference to the period prescribed by subsection (1) of section 4 of the Rules Publication Act (Northern Ireland), 1925.

(2) For the purpose of section six of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, this Act, in its application to Northern Ireland, shall
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be treated as if it had been an Act passed before the appointed day for the commencement of that section."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the object of this clause is to make this Bill applicable to Northern Ireland. The Government of Northern Ireland have particularly asked that this Bill shall apply to Northern Ireland and have agreed this particular clause with the Home Office. I ought, perhaps, to explain that in one sense it raises something in the nature of a constitutional question. This is a purely domestic matter and being a domestic matter it is not a Reserved Service under the Government of Ireland Act, 1920. But there is a special reason here for departing from the usual practice. The bulk of the fertilisers and feeding stuffs used in Northern Ireland are either imported direct from England or else are controlled by selling agencies whose headquarters are in London, and it is obviously desirable that there should be some uniformity of regulations as between the farmers, let us say, on the other side of St. George's Channel and the manufacturers and agents on this side. This is the main reason why we are taking this somewhat unusual course in asking you, with the consent of the Government of Northern Ireland, to accept a clause which deals with a non-reserved Service under the Government of Ireland Act.
I ought to point out that this clause substitutes for the specified British authorities corresponding authorities in Northern Ireland and I would particularly draw attention to subsection (1) (b), which provides that instead of appointing a separate Advisory Committee who shall advise the Government in making Regulations for Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland may accept the advice of the Advisory Committee set up under this Bill for the purposes of Great Britain. The main object, of course, is to avoid expense and to secure the uniformity to which I have referred. I ought, perhaps, to refer to subsection (2) because Section 6 of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, provides that the Parliament of Northern Ireland shall not have power to repeal or alter the provisions of any Act passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom after the appointed day, and your Lordships will notice that this sub-section provides that, for the purposes of this section in the

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Government of Ireland Act in its application to Northern Ireland this measure shall be treated as if it had been an Act passed before the appointed day for the commencement of the section. The whole object of that is to enable the Government of Northern Ireland to repeal this measure if they think fit to do so in future in order to meet their own domestic requirements. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 35, at end insert the said new clause.—(Lord Bledisloe.)
EARL RUSSELL: My Lords, the noble Lord has made an explanation and has informed your Lordships that he is taking a sort of constitutional leap, I gather, in imposing this Bill upon Northern Ireland. He has got the consent of the Government of Northern Ireland, but even that seems to me to be a little dangerous because Governments in power do not always permanently represent the electorate and I do not quite know whether, if you get the consent of a Government to the Bills we might pass in this country, that would always involve the consent of the people. The point I want to make is this. As this Bill is a good and useful one cannot the noble Lord obtain the consent of the Free State as well and make the Bill applicable to Ireland as a whole? It seems to me the noble Lord would create a very useful precedent if he could get the Free State to consent. Perhaps he will consider that.
LORD BLEDISLOE: My Lords, I am afraid the noble Earl is suggesting something which is absolutely beyond my competence. But may I remind him that under the Government of Ireland Act it is clearly within the competence of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to pass an Act or even to insert a provision in another Act applying to Northern Ireland without any right on their part to object to it. In this particular case they have approved, and we have left them a loophole to repeal this provision by their own domestic legislation if they so desire.
LORD CARSON: My Lords, I am very glad that the noble Lord has given your Lordships this explanation because I should be extremely sorry if the slightest doubt was ever raised that Northern Ireland was still part of the United King-
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dom and subject to the laws that may be imposed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, if it thinks proper. Your Lordships need only be reminded of one fact to see how clear that is. Northern Ireland sends representatives to the Imperial Parliament and is very proud of sending them there. So far as I can see; it will be a very great advantage to Northern Ireland to have exactly the same law in relation to these matters as this country, and I have not the faintest doubt that this step will be welcomed by the Government of Northern Ireland.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 27:
Short title, commencement, repeal and extent.
(4) This Act shall not apply to Northern Ireland.
LORD BLEDISLOE LORD BLEDISLOE moved to omit subsection (4) of Clause 27. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have to ask the indulgence of the House to move a manuscript Amendment. By an inadvertence the words still remain at the end of the Bill: "This Act shall not apply to Northern Ireland." In order to be consistent I ask your Lordships to permit me to move the omission of those words.
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 6, leave out subsection (4). —(Lord Bledisloe.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.

SECRETARIES OF STATE BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order); Bill reported without amendment.

RE-ELECTION OF MINISTERS BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Earl of Clarendon.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL OF DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]
Clause 1:
Amendment of law as to necessity of re-election of Ministers.
1.—(1) In subsection (1) of section one of the Re-election of Ministers Act, 1919, the

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words "and if such acceptance has taken place-within nine mouths after the issue of a proclamation summoning a new Parliament" shall be deleted and the said section shall, as from the passing of this Act, have effect as if the said words did not form part of the said section.
(2) The enactments mentioned in the Schedule to this Act are hereby repealed to the extent specified in the third column of that Schedule.
LORD BUCKMASTER LORD BUCKMASTER moved, to leave out "as" ["as from the passing of this Act"] and also "the passing of this Act "and to insert" and after the next General Election." The noble and learned Lord said: The Amendment that stands in my name is designed to give effect to an objection which some of your Lordships may remember I took when the Bill passed its Second Reading in this House. I expressed my approval of the principle of the Bill, but I pointed out that it appeared to me extremely undesirable that the Bill should be made applicable to the present Parliament, and that objection, I think, is founded upon a principle which I hope will find favour with your Lordships. As it is, the Bill is obviously intended to grant relief to Members of Parliament who are elected to the Government. I have always thought that it was a very sound and very salutary rule that Parliament should never pass remedial measures affecting the members who themselves vote upon them.
This is not a Bill that affects people outside, except in so far as they know that their representatives will be able to become Ministers without going to the country again. This Parliament was elected with the certain knowledge that, except within the limited period of nine months after the General Election, every person who was promoted would be compelled to submit himself again to the electorate. The Bill takes away that right from the electorate and confers upon all members of the House of Commons the privilege of entering the Government without passing through the ordeal of a by-election. I submit that that is wrong. It is perfectly true that on one occasion—I think it was with regard to payment of Members—the House of Commons did pass very important remedial legislation in its own favour. I do not think it was right. I think the right course would have been to have
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passed the provision and made it applicable only to all subsequent Parliaments. I believe the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, thinks that I was a party to it, but he will find out that he is wrong and that I was not a party to it.
I remember that I have always been greatly impressed with the argument brought forward by Sir Edward Clarke that, apart from the merits of the thing, the rule should be in force and should remain. All rules, however strong and however beneficial, sometimes necessitate exceptions. I want to know what is the reason for the exception in this particular case. Why is it that the Government is so anxious to persist in their Bill of granting relief to the present Members of Parliament? I suggested on the Second Heading that there were occasions in the life of every Parliament when there were secessions from one side to the other and that that occasion had undoubtedly arisen at the present time. Some secessions have taken place and it may even be possible that others are contemplated, because I notice that at least four or five people who profess and call themselves Liberals, but who certainly have not been led in the way of truth, invariably vote with the Government when any question arises on which the House is dividing. Supposing that these people seek to regularise their position and to do what I think they ought to do—go straight over to the other side—and the reward of their fidelity is some small place in the Government, which at any rate may encourage others—
LORD WITTENHAM: Plenty more are coming over.
LORD BUCKMASTER: That may be so, but the more there are coming over the more important my Amendment will be. I trust the noble Lord appreciates that, otherwise he would not have interfered. That being so, I submit that there is special reason at the present time why you should not protect people who go into the Ministry from the ordeal of facing their constituents. It is a very different thing when you have a member of a Party who has been returned to support that Party entering the Ministry of that Party. After all, ho can say: "My people have returned me as a Conser-

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vative and as a Conservative I am now promoted." But when you cross over to the other side and say: "I am entitled to be made a Minister without facing the electorate," I think that is unfair.
The noble Viscount may very well say: "But that is what will happen in future Parliaments.'' I agree, but that is no reason why this Parliament should confer upon itself this protection. You may think that this is a small precedent, but small precedents, if followed, very often lead to great evils. You cannot be sure that you are always going to have Governments as steady as the present one in charge of affairs in this country. If you have others who are voting themselves protection and privileges, what answer are you going to make when they say: "But you did the very thing in your Bill and that notwithstanding the fact that it was objected to and that people pointed out that it was contrary to constitutional practice." I am utterly unable to understand why the Government are insisting on maintaining the Bill in its present form and not doing what would cause them no difficulty whatever—accepting my Amendment and saying: "Well, we do not think that this should apply to the present Parliament and we are prepared so to legislate." I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 11, leave out the first ("as") and leave out ("the passing of this Act") and insert ("and after the next General Election").—(Lord Buckmaster.)
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE MAEQUESS OF SALISBURY): The noble and learned Lord who moved this Amendment has expressed his wonder why the Government resist it. He asks: What would they lose by accepting the Amendment? He does not seem to think that the Government are ever moved by any motive except what they may gain or lose by a particular course. I am sure he does not really think so. We are governed in this particular matter by the principle involved, but before I say a word or two upon the principle, may I make one or two observations upon the precedent? The noble and learned Lord has most candidly admitted—and he is always most candid in debate—that there are precedents and he reminded your Lordships of the case of the Payment of Members Bill.
LORD CARSON: It was not a Bill; it was a Resolution.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: It ended in an Act of Parliament which gave it force. I suppose it was in the Appropriation Bill; at any rate it was a legislative act. The noble and learned Lord says that he does not approve of it. I shall show in a moment that that Act stands on a very different footing to the present proposal. I would remind him that it is not the only precedent and that there is a precedent directly in point. There is the Act of 1919 under which, for the first nine months of a Parliament, the rule does not apply and Members becoming Ministers have not to seek re-election. In point of fact that Act was originally introduced to cover as wide a ground as the present Bill, but it was modified in its passage through Parliament, as your Lordships were reminded on the Second Reading. But, although it was modified, the fact remains that that Parliament enacted that for the first nine months Members who accepted office should not have to seek re-election.
That is the very principle which, according to the noble and learned Lord, was a great breach of constitutional practice, because it made a change in the conditions binding Members of Parliament that applied to that Parliament itself. That consideration did not, however, restrain the Parliament of that day from passing that Act, which deals with precisely the very subject-matter that your Lordships are dealing with this evening. It is a precedent directly in point. I have not looked at the debate, but I should be very much surprised to find that the noble and learned Lord raised the point which he now makes when the Bill was going through. I forget whether he was a member of this House or of the other House at the time; he has been a member of both Houses and he has always, I know, commanded the greatest attention when he has arisen to address either House of Parliament. I do not think he made any protest and yet, according to him now, this was a gross breach of constitutional practice. The precedents are dead against the noble and learned Lord, as well as the principles.
What else did the noble and learned Lord say? He said there was a very

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special reason—he certainly said so on the Second Heading, and I think he also said it just now—why his Amendment ought to be introduced and that was because of the migratory habits of certain Liberal Members of this Parliament. I may tell the noble and learned Lord that there is no sinister conspiracy on the part of my right hon. friend or of any of his colleagues to put any migrant into the Government, it may be that hereafter there may be reasons, of which I am not aware, why some migrant, of whose name I have not the least notion, may be found so adequate and competent a Minister as to call for his appointment to the Government. There is no such prospect as far as I know at the present moment. May I say that it is not a good thing to argue great constitutional changes, whether they are good or bad, upon personal grounds'? Let us leave that out of the question altogether.
I turn to what is after all, the substance of the matter. What the noble and learned Lord is trying to maintain in this particular case—although he joins with us in abandoning it in the general case—is to give the electorate some control over the appointment of Ministers. That is quite wrong. I would beg the noble and learned Lord to realise that it is quite wrong. That, indeed, is a very dangerous precedent. The electorate have supreme power in this country, but they have to exercise it in a particular way. The method
which is laid down by the Constutition is that they should elect Members of Parliament, not that they should elect the Government. That is not their function, as I ventured to point out to your Lordships on Second Reading. The appointment of the Government rests with His Majesty, advised by the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister is indicated by the majority, not of the electorate but of the members of the House of Commons sitting in Parliament. That is the constitutional principle. The noble and learned Lord asked me to approach this subject upon the high ground of principle. That is the principle. The electorate have nothing to do with the appointment of particular persons to be Ministers of the Crown.
I come back to the fundamental reason for the passage of this Bill and I do not think it was better stated, or could be better stated, than by the noble and
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learned Lord himself. The noble and learned Lord, on Second Reading, said:—
"I cannot see why the Prime Minister's judgment should be biased and restrained in considering, not whether a certain man is the best man to appoint, but whether the man that he seeks to appoint has a safe seat."
That has nothing to do with this Parliament or another Parliament. That is a general statement which applies to every Parliament, including this Parliament. Why should the noble and learned Lord think that a Prime Minister in a future Parliament ought not to be restrained but that this particular Prime Minister in this Parliament ought to be restrained? The argument is a general one. If it is good at all it is good universally. I suggest to the noble and learned Lord that he has been a little misled by what I may call the "migrant" argument, and that that was present in his mind so that he forgot that consistency which generally characterises every argument which he submits to your Lordships' House.
I do not think, if I may say so, that the noble and learned Lord has made out a case of any kind whatever. This is not a question of the privileges of Members of Parliament as he suggested to you. The payment of Members was an advantage to Members of Parliament and I agree with the noble and learned Lord that if exception is to be taken on the lines which he has advised, it might very properly have been taken to that particular Act of Parliament. But this has nothing to do with the privilege of Members. The point is, how are we to get the best Government, and if it be true, as we agree, that the existence of this rule does militate against having the best Government, then by all means let the change be made by this Parliament and this Government just as it should be made by a future Government and a future Parliament.
LORD WITTENHAM: The noble and learned Lord, Lord Buckmaster, referred to the payment of Members of Parliament. He was in another place at that time. It was one year when Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was Prime Minister. It came forward on the Estimates. It was not in the form of a Statute at all. I should like to know as a matter of curiosity whether the noble and learned Lord, Mr. Buckmaster, as he then was, voted with his Party, or

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whether he took the view that it ought to be embodied in legislation and postponed perhaps until another Parliament. Leaving that for a moment, I want to explain my own attitude. I voted against the Second Heading of this Bill for two reasons. First of all, I thought it ought to have been a Government Bill, whereas it was brought forward as a Private Member's Bill. For some reason or other it was caught up at a late stage in the House of Commons and turned into a Government Bill and we find it as such in this House. I wondered what was the question of high principle, because I suppose the Government would not have taken it up if it had not been a question of high principle. I have never got to the bottom of that yet.
As I remarked on Second Reading, politics are so much a question of expediency. The noble and learned Lord voted for the Second Reading. He and I were in opposite camps then. To-day he wants to amend the Bill, and I want to make the best of a bad thing. I am not going to pursue my antagonism either by supporting his Amendment or any other Amendment. Having had to gulp down the principle—we were in a small minority on Second Reading—I think we had better try to make the best of it. Why on earth should not this Government, as the noble Marquess has said, have the benefit of this Bill, which, doubtless, will be turned into an Act? I cannot see why not. Why should they wait?
The noble and learned Lord, if he will allow me to say so, has always taken, both in the House of Commons and in this House, in the best sense of the word, a high line. But I am afraid that in this matter he has deviated rather from that high line. It was clear, and he would not deny it himself—here is where policy comes in—that the political motive was uppermost. When friends fall out there are no bitterer enemies. Already that splendid Party, as I remember it in the House of Commons—splendid in strength —has fallen utterly to pieces. There is very little of it left. Those that are left are quarrelling with each other. Now the noble and learned Lord is pursuing with rancour those who have left the torn umbrella of the Liberal Party and found safety with our Party. Why should he
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not let them alone? They have gone away from him; they will never return.
"I shall go to him, but he shall not return to mo."
The noble and learned Lord may follow them. Do let him leave them alone in peace. This is one of the reasons why I disagree with the noble and learned Lord: that instead of putting it on the high motive of Parliamentary propriety he has reduced it rather to a personal question.
EARL RUSSELL: I propose to adopt the advice of the noble Marquess and to avoid as far as possible, as he suggests, any personal question. There is, of course, in this Parliament a very notorious instance of a Member who, having promised his constituents that he would resign if called upon, when called upon to do so did not resign. I am not surprised to learn from the noble Marquess that the Party of the gentlemen of England is not going to welcome that Member into the Cabinet.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I referred to no particular persons.
EARL RUSSELL: I think he said that he would have no migrants, so far as he knew. I am not surprised that his motto is "Non tali auxilio nec non migrantibus istis." So far as that is concerned, that would go a long way to prevent my supporting the Amendment that has been moved. I find myself, not for the first time, shocked by the iconoclastic principles of the noble Marquess opposite and the way in which he is prepared to overthrow long-established constitutional customs. Of course, when a Government has repealed the Statute of Uses I suppose that one must not be astonished if it proposes to repeal a much more modern Statute of Queen Anne, but this has been the law for a long time. I think it is perfectly true that the original reason for which it was passed does not exist any longer, but it is still to some extent the case that it is not unreasonable to give the electorate a chance of saying whether they wish a particular person to be re-elected or not when appointed Minister. Once you have whittled it away with the nine months proposal it is rather difficult to avoid doing the rest, but I am surprised, nevertheless, that the noble Marquess should not accept this Amend-

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ment, because the present Parliament has not a very long time to run and I think it would make the Bill rather more gracious and rather less suspect if it were passed with this Amendment. I should have been glad if he could have seen his way to accept it.
As I say, I am one of these people who very much dislike change and are very much shocked at the changes that are proposed. I suppose that I shall have to try and bear it. The noble Marquess has held out to us a prospect of a Government superior to all possible Governments that we have thought of before, a Government in which an invitation may be extended to any distinguished migrant from any Party at any moment and which, without being a Coalition, is apparently to draw its Cabinet, at any rate, from all Parties; and perhaps the prospect will make up for this Bill. I regret, perhaps more as a matter of sentiment than as a matter of business, that the Act of Queen Anne should be repealed, but I can feel the force of the argument that it is not the best ground for selecting a Minister that he has a large majority rather than that he is the best possible man to select.
LORD BUCKMASTER: I will only say a few words to explain why I cannot accept the explanation of the noble Marquess. I agree as to the precedent, set with regard to the payment of Members. I think it was a bad one. Lord Wittenham suggested that I supported it. I think he will find—though it is difficult now to charge one's memory exactly—that when the Bill was passed I was not in the cold shadows of Opposition but in the cold shadows of the constituencies and was not in the House of Commons at all.
LORD WITTENHAM: I am sorry.
LORD BUCKMASTER: I do not speak with certainty, but that is my recollection. None the leas, it was a bad example and, when the noble Marquess seeks to reinforce it by that which happened
in 1919, I must say that I am a little astonished. I do not want to speak ill of the Government of 1919 because it is dead, and that seems to me to be a good reason and, I may add, the only reason why I should refrain. But I feel quite certain that, if this fact had been present to the minds of the noble Marquess and myself when it was my great pleasure to sit by his side on those Benches and criticise that Government, we should have raised precisely this Amendment. The reason why it was not done was because it was not realised.
I agree entirely that what the noble Marquess calls the personal view is a small ground upon which to base objection to this Bill. I referred to no persons, but only to groups, and I say that nothing has been urged in answer against the main argument that this is a Bill which is intended to give relief to Members of Parliament and that the persons relieved are those who are there to-day. It is very difficult to charge one's memory exactly, but I remember this principle coming up for consideration in a different form atone time or another, either by discussion or Resolution, in another place, and it was always provided that it should not apply to the then existing Parliament. It may have been that this was in order to secure support for it, but at any rate the existing Parliament was excluded. I cannot see why a Bill of this kind should be made to operate for the men who are already there and who, it must be remembered, have been returned to Parliament by the constituencies with the knowledge that if any one of them were appointed to the Ministry his constituency would have the right to consider his re-election. I am sorry that I cannot withdraw my Amendment.
On Question, Whether the word "as" shall stand part of the clause?
Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 79; Not Contents, 25.

CONTENTS.

Cave, V. (L. Chancellor.)

Normanby, M.

Halsbury, E.

Iveagh, E.

Balfour, E. (L. President.)

Shaftesbury, E. (L. Steward.)

Liverpool, E.

Abingdon, E.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Salisbury, M. (L. Privy Seal.)

Airlie, E.

Malmesbury, E.

Bradford, E.

Mar and Kellie, E.

Sutherland, D.

Denbigh, E.

Mayo, E.

Derby, E.

Morton, E.

Exeter, M.

Eldon, E.

Mount Edgcumbe, E.

Lansdowne, M.

Fitzwilliam, E.

Northbrook, E.

Onslow, E.

Bledisloe, L.

Hardinge of Penshurst, L.

Powis, E.

Blythswood, L.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Yarborough, E.

Clanwilliam, L. (E. Clanwilliam.)

Hunsdon of Hunsdon, L.

Jessel, L.

Bertie of Thame, V.

Cochrane of Cults, L.

Joicey, L.

Cecil of Chelwood, V.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Merrivale, L.

Churchill, V.

Danesfort, L.

Merthyr, L.

Haldane, V.

Darling, L.

Monckton, L. (V. Galway.)

Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.)

de Mauley, L.

Monteagle, L. (M. Sligo.)

Desart, L. (E. Desart.)

Newton, L.

Novar, V.

Dynevor, L.

Oriel, L. (V Massereene.)

Sidmouth, V.

Douglas, L. (E. Home.)

Rayleigh, L.

Younger of Leckie, V.

Elphinstone, L.

St. John of Bletso, L.

Ernle, L.

St. Levan, L.

Annaly, L.

Erskine, L.

Saltersford, L. (E. Courtown.)

Armstrong, L.

Fairfax of Cameron, L.

Askwith, L.

Gage, L. (V. Gage.) [Teller.]

Somerleyton, L.

Atkinson, L.

Hampton, L.

Templemore, L.

Banbury of Southam, L.

Hanworth, L.

Wharton, L.

Barnard, L.

Wittenham, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Lincolnshire, M. (L. Great Chamberlain.)

Arnold, L.

Muir Mackenzie, L.

Ashton of Hyde, L.

Parmoor, L.

Balfour of Burleigh, L.

Ponsonby, L. (E. Bessborough.)

Beauchamp, E.

Bethell, L.

Chesterfield, E.

Buckmaster, L. [Teller.]

Redesdale, L.

De La Warr, E.

Carson, L.

Strachie, L.

Russell, E.

Charnwood. L.

Sudley, L. (E. Arran.)

Clwyd, L.

Thomson, L.

Allendale, V. [Teller.]

Emmott, L.

Treowen, L.

Ullswater, V.

Gainford, L.

Resolved in the affirmative accordingly, and Amendment disagreed to.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME moved to add the following new subsection:
"This Act shall not apply in the case of a person appointed a Minister who has changed his Party since he was last elected to Parliament."
The noble Viscount said: I do not think this Amendment requires much explanation. It merely seeks to exclude from the operation of this Bill those persons appointed Ministers who have changed their Party since election. I submit that there is no authority for including them in this Bill. I am sorry that some people seem to think that this Amendment is directed against an individual, but I can assure your Lordships that it is not. "With regard to Lord Darling's suggested Amendment to my Amendment, whereby he proposes to substitute "political principles" for "Party," I submit with great respect that that would be rather too vague. You can ascertain very easily whether a man has changed his Party, but it is not so easy to ascertain whether he has changed his principles. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 15, at end insert the said new subsection. — (Viscount Bertie of Thame.)
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: This is a very different Amendment from the one with which we have just dealt. I voted against Lord Buckmaster's Amendment because I thought it was an Amendment which gave an advantage to the Liberal Party and denied it to the Conservative Party, but I am in favour of this Amendment, and if Lord Bertie goes to a Division I shall certainly support him. Let us see what this Amendment aoes. It deals not with one Party but with all Parties. The Act of Queen Anne was introduced to prevent corruption. Unless we had an Amendment of this sort what would happen? A Government happens to be in power, and in the first nine months it appoints a number of Ministers. After it has been in power a year or a year and a half it does not get on very happily, and it has not a very large number of supporters who are fit for office. It looks around and it sees certain members eager for office, but who happen to hold different political opinions. The Whips go and suggest to those members that if they find, on con-

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sideration, that they rather agree with the principles of the Party in power, instead of the principles in support of which they were returned, they can have office.
By this Bill as it stands you are going to facilitate that sort of thing. You are going to allow a man who is returned as a Liberal to become a Conservative and to take office under a Conservative Government, or a man returned as a Conservative to become a Labour Member and gain a place in a Labour Government. If the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Bertie is accepted it would be necessary for the member in question to go back to his constituency. I sincerely hope that the Government will accept the Amendment.
LORD DARLING LORD DARLING had on the Paper an Amendment to substitute "political principles" for "Party" in the proposed Amendment. The noble and learned Lord said: It seems to me that this Amendment itself requires some amendment before it should receive your Lordships' approbation. To me it appears that the mere fact that a person deserts his Party may be nothing against him. I should be sorry if it were, because I know so many people—at least I have seen them—who have done it. But there are occasions when a Party deserts all its avowed principles, and the Party remains, and, if there be only one person left true to his principles, why should he not change that Party? He is described in those beeautiful words
''Among the faithless, faithful only he."
He really is a kind of minor Athanasius. Why should he be selected for persecution? It has been written in a book—I do not know whether it is in your Lordships' library—that
"In affairs none are consistent except tins dishonest."
That may be an over-statement, but the apparently inconsistent may be thoroughly honest, although not transparently so.
It would take me too long if I were to attempt to give, even from recent history, instances of thoroughly inconsistent politicians. But I will not condemn them; in fact, the maxim that I have ventured to quote to your Lordships is their justification. I would therefore deal very tenderly with people who
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change their Party—not because I have changed my own, or mean to. I would try to ascertain whether these people who are regarded as aspirants for immediate office are people who should be trusted because they have not really changed their political principles, although they have changed the benches on which they sit. I think my noble friend is too severe. Here are these people and they have left the Inferno of Opposition and would desire to enter the Paradiso of office. My noble friend says: "No, before you can do that there is the Purgatorio; you must go into that and stew there for the duration of the Parliament." That seems to me to take an unduly severe view of what is, after all, a, very venial fault, and may be, in fact, a virtue.
It is not so long since, by a sort of decree of Olympian Jove himself, the Socialist Party was told to take office. I can imagine, when he heard this, the attitude of the noble and learned Viscount opposite. It recalls to my mind at once the words:
"Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken,
Or like stout Cortes when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific, and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise."
And then they settled down on the Treasury Bench. Should we regard them as men who have changed their principles? No. I decline to regard them as anything of the sort. Their political principles were there all the time, but they had concealed them. There are those who say we should not regard with favour wolves in sheep's clothing. No,
but the proper time to condemn the wolf is not when he takes off sheep's clothing and reveals himself to be really a wolf. I have a respect for him myself, and say that he has not changed his political principles, he has not changed his nature. He has only thrown off something which became inconvenient in the particular circumstances. And therefore why should these people be debarred from taking office unless they have really changed not only their Party, which they may have done for excellent and estimable reasons, but their political principles, too?
I am aware that it would be a difficult investigation on which, if my Amendment were passed, somebody would have to embark. How the Prime Minister

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would find out whether a person who has just crossed the floor of the House has changed his political principles, how he would find out whether he had any principles at all—I confess I cannot tell. But this is a great assembly, and I would only ask your Lordships to accept this Amendment to my noble friend's Amendment, and then let the Prime Minister, when he is considering whom to appoint, solve this question, perhaps with the help of a Committee of both Houses. Before I move the Amendment, however, I will ascertain whether it is acceptable to the House.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I gather that my noble and learned friend does not move the Amendment, and I am not altogether surprised.
LORD DARLING: Unless the Government really desire it.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My noble and learned friend is a very humorous person, and also a very poetical person. I am afraid I cannot compete with him in poetry, and I do not propose to try to compete with him in this particular vein of humour, which seems to me to take up a good deal of your Lordships' time. I am afraid that when I saw the Amendment on the Paper in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Bertie, I did not really approach it in perhaps as serious a vein as I ought to have done. I do not know whether your Lordships really wish me to deal seriously with it.
It is very evident that if you put in an Amendment of this kind you would have to define what a political Party was, and I think in these days that would be extremely difficult. For instance, I see opposite my noble friends of the Liberal persuasion, if I may use that ambiguous phrase. I do not know whether they have got one Party or two now. And then there are the noble Lords opposite. Quite recently the noble and learned Viscount (Lord Haldane) was drummed out of the Labour Party by his friends in the House of Commons. I did not notice that he looked very depressed afterwards, but undoubtedly that was the case, and I am quite sure that it would be very difficult to say whether Mr. Wheatley and Mr. Thomas belonged to the same political Party. They certainly agree on hardly anything, and I imagine that the
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task of definition would be beyond the skill of even our most accomplished Parliamentary draftsman.
If this Amendment had any operation at all the only thing it would do would be to promote the practice of government by Coalition. That would bring everybody in and a man need not even be a migrant to be absorbed into a Coalition Government. I am sitting on a Bench next to one of my most distinguished colleagues who was also a most distinguished member of a Coalition Government and, therefore, I shall not say what I think about Coalitions, though I imagine your Lordships know pretty well. We have spent, I think, almost enough time on this Amendment and I am afraid the Government cannot accept it.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME: After what the noble Marquess has said and his having threatened us with a Coalition Government, I do not desire to persist in my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.
Schedule agreed to.
Bill reported without Amendment.

POST OFFICE (SITES) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Heading read.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, the Bill to which I am asking your Lordships to give a Second Reading is promoted by the Post Office with the object of empowering them to acquire lands and erect buildings in three different Boroughs—Blackpool, Swansea and Doncaster. The reason why the Post Office wishes to obtain these powers is that these boroughs have developed so much of late and show such signs of developing still further in the future that the powers are necessary to enable the Post Office to increase the postal and telephone facilities in those places. At this late hour and with other business still awaiting your Lordships' attention I will not go into the details of the measure, but if any noble Lord desires further information I have full particulars as to how these powers are going to be used and I shall be happy to

961
tell him what I can. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Lucan.)
LORD ARNOLD: My Lords, I should be obliged to the noble Earl who moved the Second Reading of this Bill if he would make a somewhat fuller statement and give us some idea, if he can, of the amounts which are likely to be involved in compensation under this Bill.
EARL RUSSELL: My Lords, I should like to call the attention of the noble Earl who moved the Second Reading of this Bill to Clause 3, which provides that there shall be no extra allowance for any improvement or alteration made after November 20, 1925. Was this Bill deposited as a Private Bill with plans and notices of the property proposed to be acquired, or what is the reason for that particular date? Otherwise, the date seems now to be rather far back.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: That is a Committee point, surely.
EARL RUSSELL: It is hardly a Committee point, is it? I want to know the reason for that date at this stage.
LORD ARNOLD: I am sorry to intervene again, but might I ask the noble Earl for a reply I Mine certainly was not a Committee point but a point of great principle.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, this Bill has been to the Examiners and has followed the usual course of a hybrid Bill. I think noble Lords may be quite satisfied that there is nothing irregular about it. If the noble Earl wishes to ask a special question as to the reason for the appearance of this particular date in the Bill I will see that the information is given him at the next stage of the Bill.
EARL RUSSELL: It started as a Private Bill, I suppose.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Yes, it is a hybrid Bill.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, among the particulars with which I have been furnished there is nothing as to the amount of compensation. I understand,
962
however, that all Petitions in opposition to the Bill—and I believe it was opposed in its passage through another place—have been withdrawn and that agreements have been arrived at between the Post Office and all those who opposed it. I understand that there is now no opposition and that the Bill will probably be referred to the Committee on Unopposed Bills; otherwise it would go to a Select Committee of your Lordships House.
LORD ARNOLD: My Lords, that is not the point. I want to know what sums are involved, and that is the question which I put. I am sorry the noble Earl is not able to give us any information on that head. It seems to me to be very germane to the subject.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD): My Lords, I do not know the exact procedure but this Bill follows, in fact, the course of a Private Bill. In another part of my life I have opposed Bills of this kind. They come before a Private Bill Committee in the ordinary way, and the question of cost is never discussed there because it evidently would be very prejudicial to the subsequent procedure if there was any discussion as to what amount of money the Government were likely to have to give for sites which they were trying to purchase. I am sure we should be happy to give any information we could, but it would evidently be very difficult to furnish any kind of sum without giving an indication to the parties from whom we are going to buy land what amount we are going to give for it.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: My Lords, I was Chairman of the Estimates Committee in another place, and it was my experience that the Post Office was extremely extravagant. On a great many occasions I have objected to Post Office Sites Rills because the Post Office generally gave a great deal too much in compensation and spent a great deal too much on buildings. Therefore, I hope that later on we shall have some explanation which will assure us that the money will be spent with some regard for the taxpayer.
On Question, Bill read 2a.

COAL MINES BILL.
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, if those with whom I am associated on this Bench have not placed a Motion on the Paper for the rejection of this Bill on Third Reading it is not because of any want of strength in the opinions they entertain about it. We set down such an Amendment on the Motion for Second Reading and there we discussed the reasons which make us object to the Bill in its entirety. I will not recapitulate those reasons, but I am going to draw attention to a circumstance of gravity in its bearing on this Bill which emerged during the discussion and which led the Government itself to pause and, I think, to get into a mood of considerable nervousness. The intimation came that the Yorkshire coal owners would not conform to the standard scales of wages which were supposed to have been accepted by the rest of the coal owners. Very properly that was a matter which came as a shock to the Government and the Government actually put off the stages which they had intended to ask for as regards the Bill in order that that might be cleared up. Has it been cleared up? So far as the Yorkshire coal owners are concerned, I do not doubt that they will carry out what they have said, but that docs not touch the real difficulty—the difficulty which we indicated in our speeches on the Second Reading and which I will indicate now.
The Government certainly ought, as soon as they found that that was a real source of danger—and, indeed, they ought, to have done it, as we indicated, before—to have taken the Bill out of the category of being a Bill which was to come into operation whether the miners liked it or not, which was to send them back to the old eight-and-a-half-hour system which they used to have before 1919. The Government should have taken power to suspend the operation of this measure by Order in Council, or in any other way they liked, so long as it gave them control over the proceedings in each mine and
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group of mines as well as in the mines as a whole. I say that with the greater emphasis after the incident to which I have referred. But what occurred? The Government are gambling. The Government are playing for the miners going in. Frankly I do not know whether they will or not. I am certainly not in a position to say they will and I am not in a position to say they will not. They know themselves and the Government do not know. According to the newspapers there is not the least indication of the miners accepting the Bill and the situation which it creates at the present time.
In these circumstances, with the Bill in the form that it is now in—a Bill reserving to the Government no control over the situation, not enabling them to deal with the coal owner who is acting unjustly, not putting it in the Government's power to deal with groups of mines in particular districts, still less with the mines as a whole—what is the position that the Government may have to face? We may have a series of sporadic strikes—strikes not in every mine, strikes where the men feel themselves, wrongly or rightly, outraged by terms which may be put upon them. And what assurance have we that that will not happen? I have looked at the announcements of the coal owners. They have announced wages for three months ahead, sometimes for six months, but generally for the shorter period. When that time elapses, what then? The men are at their mercy. It is very easy to talk of a coal strike as a thing that passes away quickly, but it does not come without inflicting immense damage on the industries of the country and it is not a thing as to which you can predict what its duration will be. I say that in those circumstances the Government have been very wrong in not keeping in their hands power by means of which they could control the action of the coal owners in the future, if coal owners act in an unreasonable way.
Coal owners are only human. They are not there for philanthropy; they are there for profit; and so long as they make their profit in a reasonable way all is well. But sometimes they do not make their profit in a reasonable way, and that is what has led to a good deal of the disturbance that there is at the present time. Here we have this Bill, by your Lordships' fiat about to pass

965
into law, with all the consequences which it may entail, with the perils, industrial and social, which it may well bring with it, and with no instrument in the Government's hands by which in the future they can control the situation. It is not easy to go back on a measure of this kind after you have once passed it. It is not easy to deal with a situation for which you have made no provision. I can only say, speaking with the deepest seriousness, that I do not think I have been present on an occasion which I more regret than this, when the Government, despite the warning they have had, despite the situation which has sprung into view, have failed to keep in their bands any power by which they might deal with what may be lying immediately before them.
LORD THOMSON: My Lords, I submit, with all respect to your Lordships' House, that since the Second Reading of this Bill a new situation has arisen which calls for some discussion. It cannot be discussed in another place, and your Lordships' House is the only place where it can be discussed. That new situation is, of course, this incident in the Yorkshire coalfield. Even before the Bill was on the Statute Book certain mine owners posted rates of wages which were described by two members of the Government as "profoundly unsatisfactory." That was done before this Bill had passed through your Lordships' House. It was an anticipatory measure on the part of the coal owners. If such things happen in the green leaf, what is going to happen in the future? After all this Bill, though advocated as temporary as well as permissive, is going to operate for a period of five years. I think it may be claimed for the Labour Party that it not only foresaw but it also foretold something of this kind, though I do not believe anybody in that Party ever expected that what has happened would happen quite so soon.
When I heard the decision of His Majesty's Government the other night in this House I must say I was profoundly gratified. I felt like a man who has been standing by watching a conflict between the powers of darkness and the powers of light within a certain body and from that announcement it looked to me as if the powers of light had won a victory. It seemed to me a magnificent
966
move on the part of the Government to hold up the Bill. They exerted thereby a pressure on the owners which dismayed them and, so far as I can see, they did perhaps the finest thing a Government can do—insisted so far as possible on justice being done to both sides in a controversy. I was lost in admiration of the Government and I did hope that they would persist, I did not put their action on the low ground of Party politics. Not at all. I cannot better describe their action than as a victory for the powers of light. The threat that this Bill would not pass brought the coal owners in the West Yorkshire field to their senses. I doubt if there has ever been a more sulky letter than the letter of those owners saying that they would come into line.
The noble Viscount who has been piloting this Bill through your Lordships' House declared, if indeed he did not complain, that the Government could not insist upon conditions as between the two parties in this coal dispute, that the Government could only act as a mediator, could only suggest methods of compromise, could try and bring the two parties together, but in point of fact had no real power at all. That, unfortunately, will be the case when this Bill is passed. I submit that while this Bill is in a state of suspense the Government can do what the noble Viscount regretted they were unable to do—at least I gather that he regretted it. He declared that the Government were impotent and that is, surely, a very disagreeable confession in a matter so vital to the national welfare as this. He said, "We have no power." I submit that the Government have a very real power at this moment, but if this Bill passes for the period of five years, Heaven only knows what will happen in the minefields this day nine months, what conditions will be imposed, and then the Government, having forged this weapon, will find themselves impotent to prevent one party to this controversy using it.
I listened with the greatest attention to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, on this subject. It seemed to me that if some modification of the Government's programme was possible, it was on those lines that it could best be made. I also agree with

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my noble Leader, Lord Haldane, that something in the way of amendment which would give the Government powers of discrimination hereafter is absolutely essential for the just working of this Bill. It is not too late to remedy this evil. We have had a sharp lesson during the last few days. We have seen what might happen and what I am much afraid will happen if this Bill becomes law as it stands. This is an age-long conflict between owners and men. It is a conflict; it is no good disguising the fact. Everybody knows that certain owners are very popular with their men, even beloved by them, but radically and fundamentally there is strife between these two parties and it is likely to go on in a far more bitter form. I give the Government every credit for the best intentions when they first brought in this Bill, but, to go back to my first point, I submit that in the last few days we have had a lesson which has absolutely transformed the situation and that in common justice to the men, with this lesson before our eyes, we should amend the Bill both on the lines suggested by my noble friend Lord Haldane and with due regard to the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, before the noble Viscount makes his reply on behalf of the Government I would like to say one word. In the first place, I would like to thank the noble Viscount for the kind and courteous way in which he dealt with the suggestion I made on Second Reading. One of the objects which I had in mind in making that suggestion was that the impartiality of the Government should be made patent by a proof which could not be contradicted. It so happens that that object has been achieved in a rather different way by the events of the last few days. The intervention of the Government in the matter of wages has gone a long way to make it clear, if proof were needed, that they are holding the scales level.
But it possibly may also have had another consequence. I was very glad to hear the noble Lord opposite describe that intervention as a victory for the light, but unfortunately all the noble Lords on that Bench, perhaps, are not quite of the same opinion. Some of them
968
at all events have rather suspicious minds. I refer to the comment of the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, on the suggestion I made on Second Reading. I believe that suspicious minds throughout the country have made the suggestion that this intervention in the matter of wages is evidence that the Government have, in fact, some kind of responsibility for the wages which have been offered in the coalfields by the owners. My understanding of the situation is different. As I see it the Government are merely doing their best to act as umpire and have no responsibility whatever for the terms which may have been proposed. It is simply because I think it is highly-desirable that we should know where we stand in that matter that I venture to ask the noble Viscount if he can throw-any light on that point.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: My Lords, I venture to think there has been a little misapprehension about this incident of the Yorkshire owners. The point is simply this: that the Yorkshire owners—I am not judging them, or saying whether they were right or wrong, or had any justification for what they did—made an entirely fresh proposal which was not one which had been discussed or considered—namely, that the ratio of division of proceeds should be varied from that which had been settled, I think it was in 1924. That is to say, instead of the proceeds being divided in the ratio of 87 to the miner and 13 to the employer it should be 85 and 15. The Government did feel that it was a very unfortunate thing that an entirely new suggestion of that kind should be made at the last moment. It was with reference to that proposal, and that proposal only, that the Government thought it right to say that they desired further time to consider the situation if that proposal was going to be persisted in. The moment that matter was brought to the attention of the owners they said, in the letter which was read in your Lordships' House, that they recognised in the circumstances that it would be right not to persist in that proposal.
But in taking that action, I venture to say quite definitely to my noble friend behind me, the Government did not propose to accept any responsibility one way or the other for the general rate of

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wages that was going to be offered. That is a matter which they think must be settled between the parties, as it always has been settled, and it is quite impossible for the Government to fix rates of wages either in that or in any other industry. That is not the purpose or the object of the action which the Government took. I confess I am a little, startled that there should be any suggestion that the Government should take any such action as that. I have always understood that the Labour Party were vehemently opposed to compulsory arbitration in wage disputes. That may be right or wrong, but if there is to be compulsory arbitration it is evident there must be compulsion on both sides. The noble Lord now speaks as if it were right that there should be some means of compulsion on the owners, but quite wrong that there should be any means of compulsion on the miners. I do not think that he will consider, on reflection, that that is a fair suggestion to put forward.
I venture very respectfully to protest against the line of argument which noble Lords have adopted. The noble and learned Viscount said that this was a gambling proceeding. I really do not quite know what he means. This is an effort to bring the coal dispute to an end. It is an offer, a suggestion of a further means which may be tried for that purpose. We have tried every other means—
LORD ARNOLD: No.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: Well, that is our view. We have made every other suggestion that we could make for three months past and, having made these suggestions and all of them having failed, we thought it right that this new avenue should be opened towards a solution. I do not know why that should be called a gamble. That is the whole object of the Government's action. It is not taken in the least with a view to coercing this side or that, but merely with a view to opening one further method of bringing this dispute to an end. I know that it is the, practice outside, but I regret that it should be so in this House, to treat these people, as the noble Lord who has just spoken treated them, as being essentially opposed to one another and enemies of one another. There is no hope of industrial peace on those lines. The
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coal owner may be, as the enemy of Mr. Briggs said, "a very devil"; but coal owners are not perfect fools and they cannot desire a perpetual continuance of strife with their employees. Of course it is madness and destructive of the whole of their interests if it is to be thought thru they are moved by no other or higher motive than that. They all desire peace and it is a matter of profound regret that, both sides desiring peace, as I cannot doubt that they do, they should yet be unable to come to terms and make peace for themselves.
All that the Government can do is to help in every way towards that end. I do not think that we should be helping if we were to assume that one side or the other was going to act unfairly and that therefore we were to retain or reserve some means of coercing one side, particularly as it would be an entirely one-sided operation. I beg noble Lords opposite to try to get into a better state of mind, to try and assume that this is going to lead to peace, and to use their influence with those who pay attention to them, if the miners pay attention to anybody, to preserve a peaceful attitude and to come to a settlement of this dispute. The Government are prepared to use all their influence with all sides and all parties with that object, and I venture to think that the best thing to be done now is to pass this Bill without further delay and to see whether this avenue will load to peace, though the other avenues unfortunately have not done so.
THE EARL OF MAYO: My Lords, I always listen with the greatest respect to the noble and learned Viscount opposite. He told us that this was a gamble on the part of the Government, and that he did not know whether the miners were going in or staying out. That has been pretty well hinted at by the noble Lord who spoke just before the noble Viscount who is in charge of the Bill. The noble Viscount spoke of perils. Yes, there are perils, serious perils, and I wonder if the Labour Party and its representatives on that Bench have thought of the perils that this country has to go through in the industrial districts where there is no coal; if they have thought of the miserable conditions in Middlesbrough and other places of which we have heard. Let me add this.

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All the speeches that we have heard from the other Benches lead only to one thought in my mind, and that is that so long as they support the miners in their attitude and encourage them to stop out they are encouraging a system of anarchy. It has been stated quite clearly in another place that they are out for that. I am sorry to say that I have seen anarchy at work and it is a terrible thing. I do not think that your Lordships realise what living in a state of anarchy is. I have lived under it and seen it in practice; it is the most horrible thing that you can ever see. We all know that, whatever the Labour Party may say in another place, it is what they say outside that really matters to the people whom they address. They wish to create confusion in this country, and there is no use in blinking that prospect, The hand of peace has been held out by the Prime Minister throughout, and the noble Viscount has appealed to noble Lords on the other side of the House to bring about peace if they possibly can.
Let me draw attention to a pronouncement issued the other day by the Labour Party. It consists of twenty-three instructions issued by the Third International of Moscow to the British Communists, and the twenty-third and last of these instructions runs as follows:—
"Agitate for a change of Government Demand 'Down with Baldwin, the defender of capitalists Long live a real Labour Government.'"
This has never been denied by anybody, even by the late Labour Prime Minister, and I wish to know if noble Lords opposite agree with this exhortation which was issued two or three weeks ago by the Labour Party. I am not going to trouble your Lordships any longer, but I hope that I may make one suggestion to those gentlemen and noble Lords who own coal mines. Let them got out in the open and speak to the miners themselves. Do not take a hall and speak to them there, but go out and speak to them and tell them exactly what the state of affairs is, what their leaders want them to do and what it will lead to. That will have a great deal more effect then any inside meetings, and the best time to do it is at the luncheon hour. If they do that they will be listened to with respect and with care. Your Lordships may think it
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rather impudent of me to make such a suggestion, but I have had to do it myself and to talk even to men who were a great deal more wicked than the English miners. They have gradually come to the conclusion that order is the best thing and that anarchy is a bad thing.
EARL RUSSELL: My Lords, I hope that your Lordships will be as patient with me as we draw near the dinner hour as the noble Lord's friends are at the luncheon hour. I was very glad to hear from the Bench opposite some statement at least as to their view of the present situation. I have not said anything on this Bill before. It is not because I have not felt very strongly about it, however, and I should like first to tell the House what is my own view of the Bill and its effect, and, in the second place, to say a word upon what I understand to he the view and the belief of noble Lords opposite, and to make an appeal to them. The noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, said that this Bill is a gesture and an offer of peace by the Government. It is the most ill-received offer of peace that I have ever known of, for from the moment that this suggestion was made opinion among the miners has hardened in every possible way, and the strike has been embittered.
I think it is fair to say that up to that moment the head of the Government, Mr. Baldwin, was looked upon as a man who really was passionately in favour of industrial peace, and passionately doing his best to achieve it. Rightly or wrongly, the moment this decision as to hours was adopted the view taken by the miners, and by the rest of the labour world, was that Mr. Baldwin had come down on the side of the owners. Whether that view is rightly taken or not, it does not make for peace, and will not make for a shortening of the struggle. It is suggested that the effect of this Bill is to give another opportunity for arriving at a settlement by an extension of hours instead of a reduction of wages, or a smaller reduction of wages. That may be perfectly true, but there was no demand for that solution on the part of one of the parties. Only the owners demanded, and clamorously demanded, that solution, and the Government would, I think, have had their good intentions more credited, and more believed in outside, if they had coupled with what is really a concession

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to the owners' demand those steps towards the reorganisation and improvement of the coalfields which are recommended by the Coal Commission.
The Government said at one stage that they accepted the Report of the Commission; that is, if the other parties accepted it. I am not saying for a moment that the miners' conduct has been at all wise in this matter, or that they have always adopted the best method for arriving at a compromise or negotiation, or indeed that they have not sometimes asked the impossible; but I am inclined to think that it would have been possible to get the acceptance by both parties of the Report of the Commission if the matter had been approached reasonably. There was a remark made by Mr. Baldwin during the passage of the Bill in another place which was seized upon as suggesting, and apparently meaning, that that possibility was still open. Unfortunately that was not developed, and the Bill has been hurried on, and I rather understand that we are now asked to believe that the expression was merely one of good will and not one of desire to go back to the Report of the Coal Commission.
It has been said that the Bill is permissive. There never was such an abuse of words. You are saying to the men, "The law will not prevent your working more than seven hours," but the terms which the owners are going to present to the men are terms of eight hours, and what it means is this: "if you do not accept those terms you do not get any work." That is hardly permissive. It is permissive to the extent that if the owners do not ask for eight hours the men can work seven, but if they ask for eight hours the Bill is only permissive in the sense that you say to the men: "You either take the job or you starve." It is also said that the Bill is going to help the miners because the actual money wage which they will receive is going to be less reduced. I do not profess to understand the finance of the coal-mines, but it does appear to be the fact—I think all speakers admit that it is the fact—that a large number of the coal-mines, as at present run, are uneconomical and do not pay.
One remedy, of course, is longer hours or lower wages. Another remedy is reorganisation. Well, what I under-
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stand is suggested by the Royal Commission is that both remedies should be tried concurrently—that sacrifices should be made by the men on the understanding that the owners put their house in order. Yesterday, when the Bill was being discussed, I heard a speech from a mine owner on the other side, who addressed the occupants of this Bench and said the mine owners were tired of being told how to manage their own business. We have no wish to interfere with the business of the mine owners, but it has been presented to us time after time by industrial disputes and by strike disturbances, because, apparently, they cannot manage their own business, and to complain because the country and the Government have been at last compelled to intervene seems to be a little audacious. They got short shrift from the Royal Commission, and they appear to get rather short shrift from the Prime Minister in some of the correspondence. I do not think they can come here and say: "Here we are, commercial people, running a commercial enterprise so extremely well that it is impertinent for you to talk about it." Such a line is indefensible.
Those are my feelings about this Bill, and I want in conclusion to make an appeal to the Government. Lord Cecil of Chelwood said it was not for the Government to fix wages. Be it so. But the Government do apparently consider that they have some right, and even some duty, to put pressure upon the owners in certain circumstances, as to the terms to be offered. So apparently some sort of responsibility is admitted. How were they able to put that pressure upon the owners? By the very fact that this Bill was not upon the Statute Book. When this Bill passes will they not have sacrificed, once and for all, that weapon? If the Government are serious—and I credit them with the best intentions, and with really believing the case they put forward—if they are serious in saying that they want to hold the balance fairly and do not want the owners to change the percentages or other conditions of work in a way which is unexpected and unlooked for—if they are prepared to intervene and prevent that, will they not insert an Amendment in the Bill to retain that power? That is a question which really requires an answer.

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If the Government thought proper during the passage of this Bill to impose terms upon certain Yorkshire coal owners, why have they not the right to keep that power in their hands? I am not prepared to think so meanly of the Government as to suppose that their only reason is that they cannot afford a few days' delay in the passage of this Bill. That would hardly be a reason creditable to a Government which says, and I suppose thinks, it is doing all it can for industrial peace in this matter. I therefore ask the noble Marquess, the Leader of this House, whether the Government will not even at this last moment propose an Amendment of that character to this Bill. It would go a considerable way to restore faith in the Government, which has been entirely destroyed by the course taken in this matter, and it is perfectly obvious that their intervention, advice and suggestions cannot be useful and fruitful if one side has entirely lost faith in them.
Your Lordships know perfectly well that, rightly or wrongly, the miners are convinced that the Government have come down on the side of the owners, and mostly I cannot blame them for thinking that. I am sure the noble Marquess does not take that view, and I am sure that that is not in his mind, but it is the feeling which exists, and therefore I ask the Government: Cannot you do something to remedy it by putting an Amendment in the Bill and retaining some power in your hands? Let them consider the position. The Bill passes, and is put upon the Statute Book, giving what you are pleased to call a permissive eight-hour day. Terms have already been posted in some of the coalfields, as if this Bill had already passed, and with complete contempt for this House and its power of revision. At the end of the comparatively short period fixed in those terms what will the coal owners be free to do? They will be free to impose longer hours with shorter wages, and there is nothing to stop it except a fresh strike.
We are all concerned. The last noble Lord who spoke read some extracts from Moscow, which I confess did not interest me. It is not a source from which I take my inspiration—or my terrors. What are we all concerned with? We are all concerned with industrial peace and prosperity in this country. It is not only His Majesty's Government who have
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that in their concern. Very few of us, and I think none of us in this House, are out for revolution. Of course, the noble Marquess would be the last person to taunt us with anything of that sort. But we are honestly trying to help His Majesty's Government not to go too far wrong and to make the situation too impossible. I do appeal to what a noble Lord has called the better feelings of His Majesty's Government. I ask them to think over this matter and see whether at this moment they will not insert an Amendment which will give them some control over the future of this Bill rather than have to introduce another Bill to suspend it.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I do not intend at this late hour, when your Lordships are anxious to come to a decision, to make a speech, but it would not be courteous to a noble Earl for whom I have a great regard if I did not respond to the appeal which has just been addressed to me. The noble Earl has tried to impose upon the Government the responsibility of fixing all the conditions of employment in the coal industry—because that is what his speech really amounted to. There is a tremendous difference between an intervention such as took place in the course of the passage of this Bill, where conditions were sought to be imposed which were profoundly unsatisfactory, in the opinion of the Government, and taking the responsibility of all the details of the conditions of the industry and of the wages in the industry. We cannot, of course, accept any such responsibility.
I should have thought, however, that the fact of that intervention to which the noble Earl (has referred would have restored his confidence, and the confidence of the miners, in the complete impartiality of His Majesty's Government. I hoped—not that that was the reason of our action—that one of its consequences would have been that men of good will, like the noble Earl, would have been convinced of our good faith. He must trust the Government. I know he does not agree with us but that is the Constitution of our country—he must trust the Government, and the Government have the power always to propose to Parliament any measures which they think fit. That is the ultimate resource

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and that is the only resource to which the noble Earl can appeal, or which the Government can use.
There is one other observation of the noble Earl's to which I should like to make reference. He said that ho was convinced that if an effort had been made the parties could have been got to accept the Report. Why does the noble Earl think so We tried our hardest. The Prime Minister did everything he could. As a matter of fact, I myself was present at what may have been the last effort which was made, and I heard the actual question put to the Labour leaders—"Will you accept the Report, including its effect upon wages, whatever that may be?'" "No." What more could we do? We did out utmost, and now we are still trying our best to restore peace, and, as my noble friend behind me has said, this is another effort so that no opportunity shall be missed, no effort spared, that lies in the power of His Majesty's Government to produce peace in the coal industry.
LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, I entirely agree with one remark of the noble Marquess, and that is that the one object I hope we all have is the restoration of peace. It is only from that point of view that I wish to say a few words. As the Bill now stands, and having regard to what happened in the Yorkshire coalfield, is it in the least probable that the miners will consider the Bill as a kind of olive branch which might possibly lead to a peaceful solution? I am perfectly certain that the noble Marquess himself would come to the conclusion, if he thought it over, that that is not really in accordance with either human nature or human probability. I very much sympathise with the view that if you want a friendly feeling you might get it in the same sort of way that you get it at Geneva, that is to say, you might have a peace policy and a League policy, as was pointed out by Mr. Clynes the other day, in order to bring these industrial disputes to a peaceful end. Is it possible that you could expect a movement in that direction by pressing forward a Bill of this kind in its present form? Everyone knows that the Government are pressing forward this Bill in its present form without any provision whatever for the protection of the miners.
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It is just the sort of Bill that is likely to raise the maximum of antagonism and friction and to give the least chance of a settlement.
What took place in South Yorkshire the other day showed—and I do not blame the Government in the least for it—that there was no security under the terms of this Bill that the only alteration would be in the hours of labour. My own view is that that is a tremendously serious matter, which goes down very deep into the social standards of the workers. But what we are asking for now is that, having knowledge and notice of an act of this kind, the Government should assent to the proposition that, if their intentions and desires as regards this Bill, as expressed constantly in this House, are not carried out, they should provide themselves with a suspensory power. What is the objection to that? I do not hold the view, to which the noble Marquess referred, that any Government can interfere in all the details of a business transaction. That is a matter between employers and employees. I presume that on a subsequent occasion we shall have the opportunity of discussing what their ideas of reorganisation are.
How does this Bill stand? What guarantee have the miners of peace if they assent to these prolonged hours of labour Nothing can be more terrible than unduly prolonged hours of labour in such an industry as that in which the miners are carrying on their daily work. I have often noticed in the noble Marquess's speeches, both in this House and outside, that he has very properly dwelt on the necessity of creating a good feeling. I look upon that as more or less the kernel of the whole business. If you are to have satisfactory conditions you must in the long run depend on the good feeling between employer and employed. The noble Marquess himself has pointed out, very soundly and properly, that in many country districts where you do not have the industrial conditions that exist in the mining industry, it has been possible to create a feeling of that kind, which has gone a long way to solve working class difficulties. In the same way the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil of Chelwood, has pointed out one or two directions, particularly in the direction of co-

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partnership, along which, if you have good feeling, you could probably carry out a peaceful arrangement as between the miners on one side and the mine owners on the other. You cannot do that under this Bill as it stands, and I think that is admitted all round.
But why should not there be a suspensory clause, so that the miners should be protected against this Bill being used to their detriment, except so far as they come to agreements on the question of the number of hours? If the noble Marquess himself was attempting in any way to create good feeling between himself and those in his employment, I am sure he would take the very action that I am urging the Government to adopt in connection with the Bill. Of course he would. He would say: "I do not want to coerce you; it is not my object to force you to do what in your hearts you detest. But I think the longer hours are necessary"—I assume that is part of his case—"and I will see that you are protected against any imposition being placed upon you in other directions by the power which the mine owners will have under a Bill of this kind." I feel sure that that would be his action and that what I say has his sympathy.
I am aware that this is a Government matter. Then why should not the Government bring peace (because that would be the result) into this great industry by retaining a suspensory power which should only be used on occasions when they thought that a wrong use had been made of the provisions of the Bill? That is a very simple question. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Gainford, is in his place at the moment, but I listened with great interest to the speech he made yesterday afternoon. It must have occurred to everyone who heard that speech that the mine owners intend in their own financial interests to run this Bill as far as they can. That is what came out of what he said. That is wrong.
Several NOBLE LORDS: Divide!
LORD PARMOOR: It is very easy to say "Divide"; but on a great social issue of this kind this House ought to listen with the greatest patience. Nothing, I think, can be more derogatory to the dignity of this House than to seek to get an early Division on a
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Bill dealing with a great social question of this kind which affects the whole standard of living of the working classes of this country. We may not be able to convince noble Lords, but surely they will have the decency to listen to what is being said about a great question of this description. I know it is not the view of the noble Marquess. He has not attempted to intervene in an unseemly way, and I am certain that I have his sympathy in what I am saying. I know that he would desire a peaceful solution and we have suggested from our side of the House how that may be brought about. I beg the noble Marquess, if possible, to reconsider the answer he has given and to insert in the Bill a suspensory clause which would further peaceful negotiations in this great national industry.
EARL DE LA WARR: My Lords, I can assure your Lordships that it is only with the greatest diffidence—
Several NOBLE LORDS: Divide !
EARL DE LA WARR: If your Lordships prefer the sounds of your own voices, I am perfectly prepared to stand here and listen to them. It is only with the greatest diffidence that I rise at this late hour to address your Lordships. It is however, because we consider on this side of the House that the Bill which the Government seek to pass is full of the most pregnant meaning for the future of this country that I do so. I cannot help noticing somewhat of a contrast between the attitude of some of your Lordships and the appeal made by the noble Viscount speaking on behalf of the Government. He appealed to noble Lords on this side of the House to assume peace.
Several NOBLE LORDS: Divide!
EARL DE LA WARR: If your Lordships are not even willing to listen to the case of the miners how will it be possible for us on this side of the House to assume peace, and what guarantees have we before us for assuming peace? Are we not being asked to burn our boats by allowing this Bill to go through without further delay? After all, what is it that is offered us in return? Absolutely nothing. We are told that there is a form of agreement between the Government and the mine owners that something

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like 50 per cent. of the districts shall not make any reduction in wages. There is another way of stating that case. If we were feeling rather less charitable towards the Government we might put it that there was an agreement between the mine owners and the Government that on the passage of this Bill there should be a reduction of wages in 50 per cent. of the districts. How, then, can you expect the miners to regard this Bill as anything but a declaration of war?
But it is worse than that. The offers put forward by the mine owners are only temporary offers; they are offers only for three months. So the position is that the miners are to be expected to go back to work on an eight-hour day, 50 per cent. of the districts suffering wages reductions and the other 50 per cent. offering the same wages as before for three months. Then, having got the men back and knowing that it is not always as easy to get men out as to keep them in, the coal owners are doubtless trusting to the hope that they will be able to force whatever terms they wish upon the men.
During the debate on the Second Reading I ventured to ask the noble Viscount who spoke for the Government one or two questions. I was unable to get a reply and, with your Lordships' permission, I shall repeat those questions. I believe they are fundamental to the whole case for this Bill. After all, what is the case for the Bill? As far as I can remember, and I have listened fairly patiently to the debates in your Lordships' House and in another place, there has been hardly any attempt whatsoever on the part of the Government to demonstrate stage by stage by economic argument exactly how it is possible to benefit the industry by reversion to an eight-hour day. Not at all, and that is not the case. The case has been this: "The miners are so hopeless that they will not accept anything; they have no counter proposals to put forward; they will not agree to the Report, and we can only put the Report into operation with the agreement of both sides."
With your Lordships' permission I will attempt to deal as briefly as possible with those three points. With regard to the point that the miners have not accepted the Report, that is made first of all as a charge, and can only be con-
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sidered a charge against the miners if it could be definitely established and proved, as has never been done, that the other two parties to the dispute, the Government and the mine owners, had accepted the Report in all sincerity. The noble Marquess, Lord Londonderry, said with very great heat, interrupting the speech of my noble friend behind me, Lord Arnold, that the mine owners have accepted the Report. Does that statement really bear one moment's analysis? If they accepted the Report why did they, within one week, make an attempt to go outside the Report by endeavouring to go past the Miners' Federation and make arrangements in the districts. That was a direct breach of the Report and even the Government had to admit it. The mine owners departed from the Report further than that. I will ask your Lordships to cast your minds back to the final terms they offered to the Miners' Federation on April 30. What were those terms? I will not give them in detail, but will put them as briefly as I can as it is getting so late. The terms were these: A reduction of wages plus an increase of hours.
For the moment we are not arguing the merits, we are discussing whether the mine owners ever really accepted the Report or whether they did not. What does the Report say on this question?
"We are unable accordingly to recommend the acceptance of the main proposal of the Mining Association for a return to the 8½ hour day."
Then they sum up that chapter of "Hours" in the following words, on page 179:—
"The important objections to an extension of working hours would remain unaffected."—
They have been discussing various suggestions—
"Extension of working hours at this time of depression is not a natural but an unnatural way of reducing costs and meeting the immediate difficulty."
That is very clear—
"Extension of working hours at this time of depression is not a natural but an unnatural way of reducing costs and meeting the immediate difficulty."
Nothing could be clearer than that. They go on—
"On the other hand, looking away from the immediate difficulty to the time when

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the various measures which are proposed for reorganisation of the industry shall have had their effect, we see no reason why the standards of living and leisure already won should not be maintained."
As the main charge against the miner appears to be that he has not accepted the Report, can your Lordships now honestly complain that that really is a charge at all?
On the contrary, admitting that the miners have not accepted the Report, the mine owners are in exactly the same or a very much worse position. And what about the Government? We are told the Government accepted the Report. Will that statement bear analysis? The noble Marquess the Leader of the House referred to certain negotiations that took place on April 30 and to a certain question that was put to the Miners' Federation by, I think, Mr. Baldwin, the Prime Minister. This is a point on which I have endeavoured twice before to obtain an answer from the Government. I can only hope that perhaps I may have more fortune to-night. He asked the Miners' Federation a question. I venture with very great humility to suggest that the version I will give of that conversation is the more correct one. I have always understood that the question that was put to the Miners' Federation was this: "Will you or will you not admit a reduction of wages?" That question may seem perfectly reasonable, but are we quite sure that the Government had any right whatsoever to ask it, and afterwards go on to make it their main charge against the miner and constantly state that one of their main reasons for introducing this Bill was the fact that the miners never accepted the Report?
Let us see what the Report has to say on this matter. I think your Lordships, however prejudiced you may be, will have to admit, when you hear the first part of the recommendations of the Commission, that there is a very good reason why it has been impossible to obtain a reply from the Government on this question. What is it that the Commission say?
"Before any sacrifices are asked from those engaged in the industry, it shall be definitely agreed between them that all practicable means for improving its organisation and increasing its efficiency should be adopted, as speedily as the circumstances in each case allow. The measures to these ends which we consider practicable are
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stated in the preceding chapters of this Report and will be summarised in the chapter that follows."
Your Lordships will have noticed these words:
"Before any sacrifices are asked from those engaged in the industry."
I ask your Lordships to look at this matter in a fair and unprejudiced manner. Can you honestly say—and I challenge the Government to deny it—that the Government did not on that evening of April 30 throw over the Report?
There is another reason which the Government have given for introducing this Bill. They have told the nation repeatedly that they could only apply the Report of the Commission if it was agreed to by both parties to the dispute. Surely that introduces an entirely new conception of Government—that the Government, even when dealing with a great national industry such as the coal industry, are unable to come forward with national proposals and to treat that national industry as a national concern. I do not think that the Government's statement that they could not apply this Report without agreement by both parties will bear analysis any more than their other statements. If agreement is really so very essential, why is it that ten weeks or more after the beginning of the strike they have produced this Bill? If they had sat down in Cabinet Council for a fortnight on end they could not have found a more provoking or more controversial Bill. They knew all along that, whatever the attitude of the Miners' Federation is on wages, it is doubly adamant on hours.
Before I pass on to reorganisation and the steps that we believe should take the place of this Bill, there is one other question which I asked the noble Viscount on the Second Reading to which I should be very grateful to have an answer and not only I. It is a matter, I believe, that is of vital concern to the whole nation. The noble Viscount in his speech on Second Reading referred to the matchless power of sympathy and sincerity of the present Prime Minister. Many of us on this side of the House have felt up till quite lately that, however much we disagreed with the Prime Minister in general views on political questions, we could at least say that we

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regarded his honour as unassailable. There are many of us still willing and anxious to be convinced that we are wrong in having changed our opinion, as we have done, and if the noble Viscount could give me an answer to this question I think it would do much to clear up the feeling of doubt that exists in our minds. The Prime Minister, during the period of the General Strike, was naturally very anxious to obtain the confidence of the workers, to reassure them and to make it quite clear that they were wrong in seeing in this struggle a direct attack on the standard of the life of the miner. He therefore broadcast a certain speech in which he said:—
"I wish to make it as clear as I can that the Government is not fighting to lower the standard of life of the miners or of any other section of the workers."
Would the noble Viscount reconcile that statement with the terms of the Bill which is before your Lordships?
The noble Viscount, in his reply on Second Reading, attacked the noble Earl, Lord Beauchamp, for having blamed the Government first and foremost for having delayed action in dealing with the whole mining dispute that started in April of 1925 until a crisis was forced on the nation, a crisis which could not be dealt with in the space of the few months that the Government thought sufficient; and then said he contradicted himself by making the charge against the Government that this particular step was far too strong a step. The noble Viscount, in effect, said:—"Surely this is a contradiction. The noble Earl first complains that we took no steps whatever and then he complains that we have taken steps." The noble Earl was perfectly right in his contradiction. That is exactly what has happened. The Government did shirk the issue the whole of last year right up to the end of July. It shirked the issue again right up to April 30 of this year, and now at last, driven by panic into taking some sort of action, they commit the folly of taking action that could do nothing but prolong—and prolong, to some of our minds, almost indefinitely—the conditions in which the country finds itself to-day. Now, some of us are making a last-minute attempt, a last-minute appeal to the Government to realise what they are doing, to come to their senses and see
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that there is another way out. But they will not. It has sometimes been said that there is no man so obstinate as the really weak man, and that saying cannot help having an appeal, not only I think to the Labour Party but to many people in the country who have hitherto sympathised with the Government.
There was one further point which the spokesmen for the Government have urged as a reason for introducing this Bill. It was this: that there was no alternative, that there was nothing else to do, and that certainly, the noble Viscount said, no sort of alternative had been proposed from the Labour Benches. He gave us the credit, I remember, of having put forward nationalisation of the coal industry, but he dismissed that as being generally accepted in your Lordships' House to be an inefficient way of dealing with industry. I would like to ask your Lordships this: Do any of you imagine that if the coal industry was being run to-day and had been run during the last few years under Socialism, under national control, that a single one of your Lordships sifting over there would have given that system as many chances as private enterprise has been given in the control of the coal industry? Of course not. In 1919, after the first Inquiry had declared the industry in its business organisation to be scandalously inefficient, there would have been such a protest in your Lordships' House that it would have been difficult for any Conservative Government, at any rate, to have stood up against restoring the coal industry to private enterprise.
What then are our immediate proposals? What would we do if a Labour Government was in office and in power at the present moment? Of course we have to admit that any action that had to be taken now would not be nearly so easy of being brought to a successful conclusion as it was a year or more ago. You cannot for over a year do what the present Government have done, neglect opportunity after opportunity for dealing with the situation, and then expect suddenly to turn round and find exactly the same situation which faced you before, by your handling, you had aroused all the passions that exist to-day. I think one of the saddest things that faces us to-day is that the

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spirit of war is rampant, not only in the hearts and minds of men who usually call for war but in the minds of those who have always been known to be men of peace.
The road may be more difficult and longer, but still it would be the same road. There is only one road for dealing with this problem, and that is the road of reconstruction and of building up a new industry. To hear some of the most distinguished members of His Majesty's Government speaking and to read their speeches in the country one would almost begin to believe that all this trouble arose from a sort of combination of the natural original sin of the British working man backed up by Russian gold, but I do not think that the more intelligent of your Lordships need reassuring on that point. You know perfectly well that the reason why we are in the present situation is that the men who at present control the industry have failed lamentably to carry on that industry in so efficient a manner as to provide the nation with coal at a decent price or the men who are employed in that industry with a decent standard of livelihood.
We are told that the Labour Party has no constructive proposals. If the proposals of the Labour Party, which have been before the country for years, had been put into operation when they were first asked for, there would have been no crisis to-day. I would ask those of your Lordships who believe that the Labour Party is acting in some spirit of obstruction in opposing this Bill and that they have no other proposals, to buy a small pamphlet entitled "Coal and Common Sense," which summarises the proposals of the Labour Party on this question. We are told that it contains pure theory. Is that fair? If your Lordships go through the constructive-proposals of the Royal Commission you will find that their Report, while omitting many of our suggestions, is based on the Labour Party's proposals. Some of your Lordships, most notably the coal owners, the noble Lords, Lord Joicey and Lord Gainford, who have apparently left the House, told us what they thought of reorganisation. As one listened to the speeches of those coal owners, one began to realise why it is that the coal industry to-day is in a state of turmoil and why it is that it has never been possible either
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for the mine owners or the nation to persuade these men to reorganise the industry. They have no faith in reorganisation and they have told us so.
Let us for a moment admit their contention. There is no need to admit it, for we have the Reports of no less than four national Inquiries behind us in making our contentions. Let us admit that Lord Joicey and Lord Gainford know more about it than do the four national Inquiries and that the miner really does overrate the value of reorganisation. Does that absolve the Government from blame for having thrown over the Report and having given up the problem? No one who has studied the problem seriously would say that their Reorganisation Bill is going to effect anything serious. Does it really justify them on throwing over the Report? As I see it, the Government have told us that it is not their business to interfere and to enforce agreement. Very well; let us admit that they are right. But surely this makes it all the more important for the Government to attempt to remove the psychological barriers to a settlement. They know perfectly well that, rightly or wrongly, the miners are convinced that the whole future of their standard of living is bound up irrevocably with the reorganisation of their industry. Was it not, therefore, the obvious course for the Government to start right away as soon as the Commission reported and say to the two parties: "I do not care what you think. Here we have a national Report for which we paid over £20,000,000. We are going ahead to put it into force and we are not going to insist as a condition of putting that Report into force that the miners admit before entering into negotiations that they will undergo reductions in their standard of living." I think that is the way in which the Labour Party would have attempted to deal with the matter, and that is the way in which I am going to appeal to the Government even now to deal with it.
What are the proposals? There is the nationalisation of royalties. That is a proposal that has been in the Labour Party programme for years and has now been adopted by those who were appointed by the nation to inquire into the industry. It was adopted temporarily by the Government and then thrown over. Then there is amalgamation of the mines

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in the various districts. They are to come together and be organised very much more efficiently from the point of view of production and cutting down overhead expenses. Then there was another point which was dealt with by the Commission, and which perhaps explains why the miners did not jump at its Report as quickly as the Government would have liked. I refer to the unification of the industry on a sound national basis, the better organisation of production, the better use of carbonisation and electricity, better sales, the establishment of a central selling agency for the export trade and the giving of powers to the municipalities at home to sell coal at reasonable prices, thus ensuring that, so far from the price to the consumer being kept up, by keeping up the standard of living for miners, it would actually be reduced by increasing the efficiency of marketing and cutting out countless dealers who stand between the consumer and the producer at the present moment.
After all, this last point is not anything very new. Municipal trading is not a new principle. Every day in your Lordships' House we have before us Bills assenting to various municipalities taking over new trailing powers, but unfortunately the Government, having in their first enthusiasm for the Report pledged themselves to introduce this measure, have now on mature thought decided that it is not necessary. On the question of unification it has been argued or implied that the unification of the coal mines may be all very well as a business proposition, or by itself may be all right for a commercial trust on a profit-making basis, but it will make it easier for a Labour Government to nationalise the coal industry when they come into power. That may be so, and in our opinion it is so, but your Lordships really must face this question and ask yourselves whether you are serious in the contention that all economic progress is to be held up because of the bogey that the Labour Party may use it for the nationalisation of industry. Surely that is a fence which sooner or later your Lordships have got to take. If it is really true that the coal industry of this country by unification would be put into a position to perform greater service to the country, are your Lordships really going to stand out against this necessary reform on the ground that later it may lead to nationalisation?
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We believe that these proposals of ours are practical constructive proposals, able to be put into operation at once. We believe that they would transform the industry and give the miners confidence of prosperity, if not now at any rate in the future, and therefore change his outlook on the present situation profoundly, and also offer a definite practical alternative to the suggestion contained in this Bill. We implore the Government, and we make this last appeal, to go forward in building up this great national asset of a prosperous coal industry, and not to go backwards in the direction of breaking down the advances already made in the social condition of our people. We believe that the Government's policy is at once an economic folly and a moral crime, and that if they persist in adhering to it, it can produce nothing but destruction.
We believe that there is a way out of the present difficulty. Lord Balfour of Burleigh made a suggestion on the Second Heading, and I notice that certain words with which I followed him were taken by a
noble Lord as showing that the Labour Party was not willing to adopt or pay any heed to Lord Balfour of Burleigh's suggestion. I would be very sorry if any words of mine were taken to mean that, because if I were in a position to make a proposition I would make very much the same proposition as Lord Balfour of Burleigh made. But I would want to qualify it and to go further than he did. We do, as he does, ask the Government to delay this Bill until they can approach the Miners' Federation again with an offer of a return to the Report, and not only the Report but the Memorandum which followed. We want more than that. We want them to put into operation all its proposals, and when we say "all" we mean not only the nationalisation of royalties, not only the municipal selling of coal, and other proposals which they have now thrown over, but, what is even more important, that they should no longer insist, as they have clone all along, that the Miners' Federation shall tie their own hands before entering into negotiations.
The first recommendation of the Report, which I have read to your Lordships, admits the fairness of this claim, and until the Government have taken this step I maintain that they can never

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claim that they have ever really accepted the Report in its true sense. Surely the Prime Minister, even at this late hour, can come forward and show us that he is still master in his own Cabinet, and that his idealism is a real factor in the Government of this country. Platitudes such as those to which the country has been treated for the last year or two by the Prime Minister, are no longer of the slightest use. We are up against facts. Let him give us action, and action based on that spirit of peace and good will and conciliation of which, in the past, we have always heard so much. Let him withdraw the Bill or postpone it, and make another attempt to settle this question on the lines of common sense and sanity, and by a real constructive policy.
LORD ARNOLD: My Lords, before this Bill goes to a Division I feel it my duty to put certain considerations before your Lordships, most of which have not yet been raised in regard to the various issues. The situation changes so rapidly from day to day, and from hour to hour, that in many respects it is now completely different from what it was even two short days ago, on the occasion of the Second Reading. A great deal has happened since then which I feel it my duty to put before your Lordships. I also feel it my duty to ensure that it shall be on the records of this House, because in my opinion this is an historical night in the annals of the House of Lords, and we want to have on record certain things which can be quoted in the controversy which we know will come, and is already beginning. We want to be able to say that these things were said and that it is of no use saying that things were not made as clear as they could be in the limited time at our disposal. That is why my colleagues and myself have felt it our duty to make the contribution to the debate which we have made and which we are making.
In the first place, I desire to deal with a very important constitutional point. I am glad that the noble Viscount (Lord Cecil of Chelwood) is coming into the House, because I am really dealing with words that he used in the debate. I do not know whether the noble Viscount will be good enough to give me his attention. Apparently not. Well, so be it. But I
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am going to quote various things. I have given him warning, and it is a matter of indifference to me whether he listens to me or not. But he did lay down on Tuesday a most amazing doctrine. I use that word most advisedly and deliberately.
Let me briefly remind your Lordships of how that came about. I pointed out that there is no mandate for this Bill. There cannot even be the vestige of a mandate, because it was never as much as mentioned on any platform at the last Election, and I say therefore that your Lordships, if you are going to fulfil the usual function associated with a Second Chamber, ought to reject this Bill because there is every reason to believe that, if it were submitted to the people, it would be defeated by a large majority. I quoted the words of the noble Marquess opposite. I must repeat one or two of them in order to make the point quite clear. I pointed out that he had laid down the doctrine that it was the duty of your Lordships' House to ensure that measures which were passed were in accordance with the will of the people, and that if there was doubt about it your Lordships should, in effect, reject them. He said:—
"We have grave economic difficulties, there is great Labour unrest, there is great industrial change, there is great mechanical development, and there is every element which might lead to a momentary majority passing legislation which did not represent the wishes of the people. All that we ask is that by its personnel or its powers—for I am not going to pronounce upon it—or by a combination of both there shall be in the Second Chamber sufficient authority to prevent hasty decisions from doing permanent harm to the country. If people have made up their minds after the matter has really been put to them, after they have had time to consider it, by all means let it be as they desire."
I quoted that, as, of course, I was quite entitled to quote it, because it is so extremely apposite to the present situation. And what did the noble Viscount say in reply? He denounced me in very violent language. Since I came to your Lordships' House I have in various ways been obliged to revise my opinion of it, and that process was carried a step further two days ago. The noble Viscount used astonishing language. He is a distinguished servant of the Crown, he belongs to a family with great political traditions, and he used language in

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regard to the highly proper constitutional argument I had advanced which was more suited to the street corner than to a deliberative Assembly like your Lordships' House. I suggest that it does not conduce to the traditions or to the dignity of the House to use language like that.
He practically suggested that my argument was scarcely worthy of a sane person. He said:—
"The noble Lord stated that my noble friend who lends this House had laid down as a principle for its conduct that it ought to reject any Bill if it is not sure that the country desired that Hill. I am quite sure that my noble friend never said anything of the kind, and I cannot imagine that anyone outside of a lunatic asylum would ever commit himself to such a proposition."
Then he said—
"That is to say that, however well your Lordships think of a. Bill that is before the House, however satisfied you are as to its principles, if you are not satisfied that the country approves of the Bill, that Bill must be rejected. That has never been put forward as a rule of conduct in any quarter of this House. There is only one rule that your Lordships can follow for the advantage of the State and of your Lordships. That is to do what is right with every proposal that is made to you.''
I do not think that that represents the constitutional position.
I have discussed this matter with a great constitutional authority and he tells me—and it certainly agrees with my own view—that that statement is contrary to the doctrine upon which the House of Lords has from time to time
Resolved in the affirmative and Motion agreed to accordingly.
founded its own defence for its actions and for its existence. Just let me analyse what the noble Viscount said, and see what it really means. I am, of course, throughout speaking of Bills of importance. I am not speaking of minor Bills, I am not speaking of Private Bills. There may, for instance, be minor Bills such as a Bill for looking after ancient monuments.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I rise to a point of order. It is quite obvious what the noble Lord and his friends are trying to do. It is an abuse, of the traditions and the privileges of this House. I move that the Question be now put.
Moved, That the Question be now put.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
LORD ARNOLD: I rise to speak on that Motion.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The Question cannot be debated. I have put the Motion, That the Question be now put.
LORD ARNOLD: I protest as strongly as I can against this precedent on this Bill. I have most convincing arguments to advance. I am giving reasons why this Bill should be held up, and I protest as strongly as I can.
On Question, Whether the Question shall be now put?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 44; Not-Contents, 4.

CONTENTS.

Cave, V. (L. Chancellor.)

Bertie of Thame, V.

Elphinstone, L.

Cecil of Chelwood, V.

Erskine, L.

Balfour, E. (L. President.)

Churchill, V.

Gage, L. (V. Gage.) [Teller.]

Salisbury. M. (L. Privy Seal.)

FitzAlan of Derwent, V.

Gainford, L.

Inchcape, V.

Hanworth, L.

Sutherland, D.

Novar, V.

Joicey, L.

Sidmouth, V.

Merrivale, L.

Abingdon, E.

Ullswater, V.

Newton, L.

Airlie, E.

Annaly, L.

O'Hagan, L.

Beauchamp, E.

Banbury of Southam, L.

Ponsonby, L. (E. Bessborough.)

Liverpool, E.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Barnard, L.

St. John of Bletso, L.

Malmesbury, E.

Blythswood, L.

St. Levan, L.

Morton, E.

Cochrane of Cults, L.

Somerleyton, L.

Powis, E.

Darling, L.

Southwark, L.

Dynevor, L.

Treowen, L.

Allendale, V.

Douglas, L. (E. Home.)

NOT-CONTENTS

De La Warr, E. [Teller.]

Arnold, L. [Teller.]

Thomson, L.

Parmoor, L.

On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed.
[* See debate on "Procedure of the House." July 14, 1926, column 1117.]
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

ROYAL COMMISSION.
The Royal Assent was given to the following Bills:—

Criminal Appeal (Scotland),

Execution of Diligence (Scotland),

Coal Mines,

Glasgow Education Authority (Juvenile Delinquency) Order Confirmation,

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Ministry of Health Provisional Order Confirmation (Ilfracombe),

Abertillery and District Water Board,

Connah's Quay Urban District Council Water.

House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.
House adjourned at nine o'clock.