Lords Sitting of 20 July 1926

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

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, I rise to ask the noble Marquess the Leader of the House a question of which I have given him private notice—namely, whether he can make any statement as to the course of business in the next few days.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY): My Lords, I am very glad indeed to respond to the question of the noble and learned Viscount. He has been extremely considerate in not pressing me on these matters earlier. The answer which I give cannot in all respects be regarded as conclusive because there are certain doubtful elements still remaining. I shall have to ask his indulgence and the indulgence of your Lordships because, owing to an engagement of official importance, I shall not be present on the closing days of the Session. But to begin with, on Thursday next, I am given to understand, there is a social event of considerable importance of a semi-official character, and it might be convenient to your Lordships in those circumstances, as the business on the Paper is not very heavy, if we met at three o'clock instead of at the usual hour. With your Lordships' consent I shall take steps accordingly.
With regard to the Finance Bill, that will reach us, I believe, in time to take the First Reading on Thursday. It is usual to take the other stages in one discussion, as your Lordships are aware, and with the consent of the House I propose to put the Second Reading and the other stages down for Monday. I hope that will be convenient. Then we come to the principal Bill which remains to be dealt with before the adjournment—the Mining Industry Bill. I had hoped that that would reach your Lordships on Friday and I was going to pro-
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pose that there should be a formal sitting of the House on that day to receive it, and had I been lucky enough to be right in that respect that would have been the course I should have suggested to your Lordships. But I have been given to understand within the last few minutes that it is not likely the Bill will reach us before Monday and in that case, of course, we cannot read it a first time until that day. I hope, nevertheless, that your Lordships will be willing to take the Second Reading on Tuesday.
Of course, if the Bill were received on Friday that would not be out of the question, but undoubtedly, if we receive the Bill only on Monday, to read it a second time on Tuesday is a strong measure. At the same time, the interval between the First and Second Readings of a Bill coming from the Commons is not so important as the subsequent intervals in the passage of the Bill because, although we are not officially seised of the Bill until it reaches us, yet most of us know what the Bill contains and I should think many of your Lordships who take an interest in the subject, which is one of deep importance, have already read the Bill, possibly several times. Therefore it does not amount exactly to the same invasion of your Lordships' privileges to take a short interval between the First and Second Readings as would be the case in the subsequent stages. Supposing I carry the House with me to that extent I should suggest that the Second Reading of the Bill should take place on Tuesday the 27th. I understand that it would be convenient for the Opposition to defer the Committee stage until the following Monday, August 2. I am afraid your Lordships must take your Bank Holiday a little later. But it is usual for us to sit on August Bank Holiday and, therefore, there is no innovation in that respect. I wonder whether I might ask your Lordships to take that course? The subsequent stages it is a little early to anticipate, but I believe it is hoped that the adjournment for the Recess will take place at the end of that week, and your Lordships will of course decide whether you are able to conform to that intention. That is as far as I can go but, even so far, I hope your Lordships will understand that I do not pledge myself. All these arrange-

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ments may have to be modified in order to suit the proceedings in another place. We are familiar with that difficulty. It remains the case on this occasion as on others.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, at the end of the Session we are always crowded as regards events. The Mining Industry Bill, as the noble Marquess has said, has been read by most of us during its passage through the Commons. We know what it is likely to consist of. Therefore I make no objection to taking it upon Tuesday assuming that it be read a first time not later than Monday. Then the Committee stage can be taken on Bank Holiday. We will see later about subsequent arrangements.

SWINDON CORPORATION BILL.
Debate resumed (according to Order) on the Motion, moved by the Chairman of Committees on Wednesday, July 7, 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 Bill be now read 2ª.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE): My Lords, as your Lordships will remember, this debate was adjourned upon an important point raised by my noble friend behind me, Lord Banbury of Southam. He has been good enough to discuss this matter with the promoters and myself and I am aware now that he desires to move an Amendment to the Bill. The course I would suggest to him and to your Lordships as being in my opinion the most convenient is that your Lordships should now allow this Motion to be passed, the Special Order to be dispensed with and the Bill read a second time. It is an unopposed Bill. It will then go to the Committee on Unopposed Bills and I suggest to my noble friend that he can give notice of his Amendment and take the discussion on it on the Third Reading stage. I think that will be the most convenient course and I hope it will commend itself to my noble friend.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: My Lords, I shall be very pleased to fall in with the suggestion made by my noble friend the Lord Chairman and I should like to say now that I propose to move an Amendment on Third Reading. I understand from the Lord Chairman that that is the usual course. This is really a very serious matter and I hope your Lordships will allow me to say a few words upon it. When I objected, rather more than a week ago, to the Sessional Order being suspended I pointed out that the Swindon Corporation had sent down to the local newspaper offices and had removed the fuses, thus preventing the local newspaper from being published, and that was done on the order of the local strike committee. I saw the members of the Swindon Corporation afterwards and they informed me that they had been told that all their men would come out on strike unless they were prepared to prevent the newspaper being published and three or four large manufacturers from carrying on their business.
It would appear that the order to fall in with the request of the strike committee was carried out by the chairman of the committee, or by the committee which deals with electricity, and was not endorsed by the whole Corporation. The Corporation informed me that within a few days—I think it was five days—they reinstated the fuses because they were then in a position to fill the places of the men who struck. The newspaper, however, takes a different line. On behalf of the newspaper it is stated—I am reading from a letter dated July 15, which has been sent to me:—
"The supplies were restored five days later not because by then men had been found to take the place of the strikers (up to that point there had been nothing more tangible than a strike threat at the electricity works), but because the Government insisted on the power being restored.
"Sir Arthur Griffith-Boscawen, who, on behalf of the Government, applied pressure on the Mayor and Town Clerk to this end, personally called upon me at these offices to assure himself that our electric power had been restored, and told me that naval pensioners would, if necessary, see that the supply was maintained."
The writer goes on to say that only one man was actually required to augment

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the ordinary labour available and adds:
"Many members of the Electricity and Tramways Committee were already themselves on strike as affecting their occupations; as such, they were interested in closing down other industries that all work might be brought to a standstill; at least one member of the Committee was also a prominent member of the central strike committee."
In this particular Bill there are fifteen clauses dealing with electricity and the Corporation assure me that they propose to extend their supply and to spend £300,000 on the extension. I think it will be necessary if, in the future, Corporations are to have the power of supplying electricity—I say this of all Corporations and not particularly of Swindon—that some clause should be inserted in an Act of Parliament which would prevent any member who happened to be on strike going to the electricity committee and forcing them to deprive consumers of that which they have a right to obtain. I therefore propose on the Third Reading to move this clause:
"The Corporation shall be liable for all damage or loss that may be sustained by a consumer with whom an agreement to supply current is in force, arising from the Corporation having failed or neglected, without reasonable excuse, or having unlawfully refused to supply current to the consumer. The Corporation shall further be liable in any such case to a penalty not exceeding £50 per day for each day during which the default continues, and such penalty shall be surcharged on the members of the Corporation jointly and severally."
I propose those last words so as to make the people who commit the fault themselves liable out of their own pockets, and not their unfortunate constituents. I thought I ought to inform your Lordships of the reasons which induced me to take the steps I have taken and the further steps I propose to take.
On Question, Motion agreed to, and Bill read 2ª accordingly.

POST OFFICES (SITES) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Bill reported without amendment.

TRADE DISPUTES ACT, 1906 (REPEAL) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: My Lords, I do not think it will be necessary for me to say much in defence of this Bill. You are all aware of what has taken place during the last three months, during which time the peaceful picketing, which was supposed to be one of the reasons why there was no objection to the Trade Disputes Act being passed, has turned out to be the grossest possible intimidation. One man was killed, a Mr. Peachey, who was attacked in a subway under the Thames because he had done his duty during the strike in endeavouring to preserve the food supply of his fellow citizens, and only a day or two ago I read in The Times that in Wales certain miners had returned to work and this so angered other miners who were still out that a large body set out to prevent these men going to work. They were met by the police, who succeeded in breaking them up, but they got at the miners in smaller bodies and the result was that the miners who had resumed work were afraid to continue and again went on strike.
It has been said that when this Act was passed in 1906 the Conservative Opposition in the House of Commons did not oppose it and did not divide on the Third Reading. I was beaten in January, 1906, and I did not return to the House of Commons until May, 1906. In that interval the Second Reading was taken, and there was no Division, but several Amendments were moved in Committee and there were several Divisions. I moved several Amendments—in fact, on looking back into the history of the dispute, I see that I was charged by a Liberal Member of that day with moving wrecking Amendments, and I do not think that he made an incorrect statement. I divided the Committee on those Amendments, and when the Third Reading came I said that I should divide the House, but the then Leader of my Party, the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, whom I am pleased to see in his place, thought that it would not be advisable to divide. We have to remember the situation in which we found ourselves at that time. We had a very small number of members, and there was a fear amongst many of them, in which I never participated and in which I do not think my noble friend Lord Balfour participated, that it was a mistake to divide when our numbers

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were small. That fear was the chief reason why we did not divide.
I have looked up the OFFICIAL REPORT of that time and I think that one of the reasons why we did not divide was that it was then held by the Liberals of that day—and, so far as I can gather, this consideration affected my noble friend Lord Balfour—that the Taff Vale Judgment, upon which the whole thing turned, would, if it were allowed to remain law, affect the benefit funds of the trade unions, and that the proper course to pursue was to separate the benefit funds from the other funds. I have looked up the Taff Vale Judgment and I see that Lord Macnaghten said this—
"If you take up the Report of the Royal Commission on Trade Unions, and turn to the statement accompanying the Minority Report to which Mr. Haldane referred, you will see that there was nothing on which the advocates of trade unions insisted more strongly than on the right of unions to employ the whole of their funds for the purposes of strikes and in connection therewith. At present, say the authors of that statement, the strength of the union and the confidence of its members simply consists in this, that it can, if so disposed, employ the whole of its funds in support of the trade ends. Enforced separation of the funds would paralyse the efficiency of the institution."
Accordingly I venture to say that it is perfectly clear that the trade unions merely put that forward as an excuse. They never intended to separate their funds, they never have separated their funds, and they never will separate their funds unless they are compelled to do so by an Act of Parliament.
On looking back over the years that have passed, I think that in all probability the Conservative Opposition in the House of Commons did a wise thing at that time. If we had divided on the Third Reading, and if your Lordships had thrown the Bill out, we should have been told that we had endeavoured to prevent the members of the trade unions receiving the benefits to which they had subscribed and which were due to them when they were old, and we should have been told that the idea of any employment of violence in trade disputes was foreign to the whole spirit of the Bill and to the spirit of trade unionism. It was thought that we had much better let people see what the effect of the Act really was. They know it now. They know that the effect of the Act is to
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allow a majority to go down to an unfortunate man and threaten to kill him or break his head if he ventures to do what I say he has a perfect right to do—namely, to employ his labour in any way that he thinks fit. Not only so but they go to his house and intimidate his wife and children and make their lives a burden.
I do not say that the repeal of this particular Act is the only thing that is necessary to be done. I think that other things are needed, such as a secret ballot before a strike and also that the funds of the union should be divided; but those things must be done by an Act of Parliament. I propose, as a first step, the repeal of this particular Act. I put this Bill down some two months ago but, in deference to the Leader of the House, I have postponed it on various occasions. I quite agree that the proper course is for the Government to bring in a Bill dealing with this matter, but the Government, so far as I know, have taken no step to do so. If this is not done now it will never be done at all. You have to take advantage of the situation when the facts are fresh in the memory of the country. If you are going to leave it and appoint a Committee—I do not care whether it is a Cabinet Committee or a Royal Commission or any other means of shelving the matter—and wait until next year or the year after, what will be the inevitable result? Members of the House of Commons will say: "We must be careful what we do; there will be an Election very shortly and we must not do anything to offend anybody." I was a member of the House of Commons for many years and I know what they say. The consequence will be that the opportunity will be missed; and therefore I have pleasure in moving the Second Reading of this Bill.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(Lord Banbury of Southam.)
LORD TEMPLEMORE: My Lords, I beg to move that the debate on this Bill be now adjourned. It is with very real regret that I find myself in opposition to my noble friend on this question. The noble Lord has been in one or other House of Parliament for a great many more years than I have months, and have, as I think he well knows, a great respect for him, both personally and on account of his Parliamentary experience,

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and I should like to be guided by what he says and does. But in this case I cannot be so guided because I think that he is taking a mistaken course, not so much in regard to what he wants as in the means by which he proposes to get it. May I say to begin with that I agree with almost everything that my noble friend said about the iniquities of the present Act? I have been reading the debates of twenty years ago. I was struck with two things and I am not quite sure which of them surprised me more. The first is how such a monstrous Act of Parliament ever got on to the Statute Book; and the second is the extraordinary optimism with which it was apparently assumed by people in those days that all would be for the best in the best of trade union worlds. The whole history of the Act is peculiar. I do not understand at all how it was that certain Amendments were accepted by the Liberal Government in another place with its enormous independent majority, and how the Bill came to be passed by this House without amendment is a thing which it is not given to me, I am afraid, to understand.
My noble friend just now expressed a fear that the Government would not take action on this matter until too late. I am not afraid of that personally, and I hope it is not true, because I say quite plainly to the noble Marquess and to His Majesty's Government that we on this side of the House and vast numbers of the electorate, including vast numbers of trade unionists, do expect some action in this matter. In the opinion of a great many people action in this matter is due, or overdue, but I think the point is this, that any action which is taken in this important matter cannot be action initiated by a private member. It must be Government action, taken after full consideration, with Cabinet responsibility. Also, I do not think that this House is a suitable place in which to start legislation of this kind. I think that such legislation must be started in another place. When legislation comes, I think it will probably not consist of a simple Repeal Bill like this measure of my noble friend. It is very easy to pass an Act of Parliament, but not always very easy to repeal one. There are many measures on the Statute Book which are unpopular with us. That masterpiece of legislation called the Parliament Act is not
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altogether popular with noble Lords on this side of the House, but does my noble friend, or any noble Lord, imagine that you can solve the problem of the relations between this House and the other House by a simple repeal of the Parliament Act?
For one moment I would like to consider the attitude of this House towards this Bill. A fortnight ago, in the debate on the Coal Mines Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Arnold, uttered a threat against this House of the loss of all its powers. That was not a very pleasant threat, but it did not alarm me greatly, and I hope it did not frighten your Lordships overmuch, because, if I may say so, with due respect to the noble Lord, it does not matter what he or any other noble Lords think of this House, but what the people in the country think of it. I go about to a certain extent in the county in which I live, and in other parts of the country, and I talk about these things. I am convinced that most of the people of this country do not look upon this House as a monstrous, obstructive, survival of the Middle Ages, and that your Lordships are not nearly so unpopular in the country as some people make out, and, as I am afraid, some of your Lordships are inclined to believe.
In my opinion this House has made two mistakes in the last twenty years: The first the one I have already referred to, when they passed this Act which is causing all the trouble; and the second, five years later, when they surrendered to what I shall always consider to be a most gigantic piece of bluff. But although some of us on this side of the House would like to see this House stronger, yet I maintain that on the whole it does its work remarkably well. We are not obstructive, we move with the times, and we are quite ready, if noble Lords opposite wish it, to meet any threats either in this House or in the country. If, however, you want to find a method by which you would forfeit this good opinion, and be written down as a set of irresponsible partisans, I can imagine no better method by which you can attain this object than by even starting to discuss a Bill such as this, proposed by a private member.
In our debate last Wednesday the noble Earl, Lord Beauchamp, in what, if he will allow me to say so, I thought was a very happy phrase, referred to himself

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as a "House of Lords man." In a very minor way I hope I may call myself a House of Lords man, too, as regards my affection for this House, for its atmosphere and its traditions. It is because I value those traditions, and because I believe in the future of this House and its power for good in legislation, that I take the line which I have adopted this afternoon. I hope that in the circumstances this House will consider it the correct course to take. I beg to move.
Moved, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Lord Templemore.)
VISCOUNT DUNEDIN: My Lords, twenty-three years ago, when I was Lord Advocate for Scotland and when the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, was Prime Minister and Leader of the House of Commons, he appointed a Commission to inquire into trade disputes, of which Commission I was Chairman. The subject was intricate and complicated, and its history is not easy to follow, as, indeed, I think the noble Lord who has just sat down confessed. I was not anxious to intrude upon your Lordships, but I took counsel with the noble Marquess the Leader of the House and he indicated to me that, having the advantage of a certain amount of knowledge of the subject, I should really help your Lordships if I told you the story of the legislation, so that you might see exactly how the matter stands and how it would stand if this Bill were passed.
The other members of that Commission were Mr. Arthur Cohen, Sir Godfrey Lushington, Mr. Sidney Webb, and Sir William Lewis. I regret to say that Mr. Sidney Webb and myself are the only survivors. Mr. Arthur Cohen was a very distinguished lawyer, Sir Godfrey Lushington was an old servant of the Home Office, and Mr. Sidney Webb was the historian of trade unionism. Sir William Lewis was associated with many trade disputes, and I cannot help thinking, looking back, that my noble friend may have cause to regret that Sir William Lewis was ever appointed. He may have thought that trade unionism was properly and sufficiently represented by Mr. Sidney Webb, but for some reason trade unionists would not accept Mr. Sidney Webb as their representative. Whether they thought that so mild mannered a person would not cope properly with such
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an antagonist as Sir William Lewis know not, but I think Mr. Sidney Webb had the idea that all this was in the wrong direction, that the proper direction of the inquiry was to see if you could not have some general arbitration court to settle all disputes. The result was this: The Commission was appointed in June, and in the following autumn the representative body of the trade unions—I do not know whether I shall be right in calling them the Trade Union Council—met and passed a resolution that no member of a trade union should give evidence before our Commission; in fact, they boycotted us. One regretted it, but we were not really hampered, because, after all, we knew perfectly what the trade unionists wished. They had made many speeches in different parts of the country, and they had introduced in successive Sessions of Parliament a good many Bills.
We sat for a long time, and at last we gave a Report which is before me now. It is a document of 172 pages, without any evidence; it is tough reading for anybody, and dull reading for most people. The Report was a Majority Report of Mr. Cohen, Mr. Webb and myself, but I want to do justice to Mr. Webb. He only signed the Report because he said that he agreed with the recommendations, as far as they went, and, as I say, his general idea was rather in another direction. And therefore in anything that I say I am not going to try to pin Mr. Webb down to any approval of what we did. Sir William Lewis gave a separate Report which was, of course, strictly antagonistic to the trade unions. With regard to Sir Godfrey Lushington, I speak with all respect of a very valuable public servant, but he was a man who not only had his own opinions but, if he found that other people had the same opinions, he did not like those other opinions unless they were expressed in exactly the same way that he expressed them. And therefore he also wrote a Minority Report, which practically agreed with the Majority Report, though it was put in the way in which he thought it ought to be put.
That Report was presented on January 15, 1906, but in the meantime there had been a General Election and the other Party had come into power. Let me remind those of your Lordships—and there are many—who have sat in

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another place of what happens about the First Reading of Bills. Any private member who wishes to present a Bill, unless there is something very peculiar about it, gets the First Reading of it as a matter of course, and accordingly, in the very early days of the Session of 1906, there was presented a Bill on behalf of the trade unions, with the name of Mr. Whittaker and other members on the back of it, which was precisely the same Bill which Mr. Whittaker had presented in 1905, and therefore was perfectly well known to the Commission. The Government had, indeed, mentioned in the King's Speech that they were going to present a Bill dealing with this subject. I do not know whether the procedure is the same in another place now, but in my time a Government Bill, if considered important, was introduced in such a way as to allow a debate on the First Reading. Accordingly, on March 28 the Government Bill was introduced and for the first time saw the light in the House of Commons. At the same time the text of the trade unions' Bill was there. The trade unions' Bill went a good deal further in three points. It was subversive of the Government Bill on one—namely, as to the liability of trade union funds, and the Attorney-General, Sir J. Lawson Walton, in his speech asking leave to introduce the Government Bill, was most eloquent upon that distinction.
What happened was this. By the luck of the ballot, on March 30—or only two days after the Government Bill had been introduced—the trade union Bill came up for Second Reading. What, of course, was expected was that the Government would say: "We have got our own Bill, and therefore it is quite unnecessary for you to go on with yours. We are dealing with the subject." But when the Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, came to speak, to the surprise of everybody and the dismay of the Conservative members of the Opposition, he suddenly said that he would vote for the Second Reading of the trade union Bill. The result of that was—and that is really the reason which my noble friend Lord Banbury was seeking for—that when they came to the question of the Second Reading of the Government Bill there had already been a Second Reading of the Bill which the Government had accepted.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: I was not in the House then.
VISCOUNT DUNEDIN: After that a new clause was brought up so as to incorporate in the Government Bill the really far-reaching clause of the trade union Bill, and the trade union Bill was dropped and the Government Bill went through its stages. Although it was, of course, opposed in many ways, it was finally passed. I think your Lordships will realise that to a full understanding of the situation you have to consider several things. You have to consider, first, the status quo ante, the state of the law, as it was before anything was done. Next you have to consider what were the recommendations of our Report. Then you have to consider the original Bill of the Government, then the trade union Bill, then the Government's amending Bill, and finally the Act.
In all these considerations it is easy and at the same time advisable to remember that there were three great divisions of the subject. There was the question of the liability of trade union funds; there was the question of the conduct of trade unions as regards picketing and as regards what they could persuade and what they could not persuade; and then there was the question of the law of conspiracy as applicable to the trade unions. First, as to the status quo ante. The trade unions, after a long struggle against the legal doctrine of illegal association, which made it impossible for them to do anything, had finally obtained recognition. The form of recognition raised for them a dilemma. They wanted very much not to have any litigation, if they could help it; and they wanted not to be sued by their own members for not doing as they promised, in the same way as a company can be sued by its members. But at the same time they had been troubled with embezzlement. Even a trade union official may sometimes not be an angel and they had been very much troubled with the embezzlement of funds in the past and then they were helpless to prosecute. So they had a rather peculiar form of enfranchisement.
At the time I am speaking of, the charter of trade unionism was the Trades Unions Act of 1871. It is a fairly long Act, but I need only trouble you with

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three provisions. The first is Section 2, which says:—
"The purposes of any trade union shall not, by reason merely that they are in restraint of trade, be deemed to be unlawful so as to render any member of such trade union liable to criminal prosecution for conspiracy or otherwise."
The next is Section 3, which says:—
"The purposes of any trade union shall not, by reason merely that they are in restraint of trade, be unlawful so as to render void or voidable any agreement or trust."
Then there was Section 9, a long section which I need not read, because it gave them power to prosecute their own embezzling officials
There was another Act which dealt with what I might call their behaviour, and that was the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act passed on August 13, 1875. Of that Statute I need only read two sections. Section 3 says:—
"An agreement or combination by two or more persons to do or procure to be done any act in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute between employers and workmen shall not be indictable as a conspiracy if such act committed by one person would not be punishable as a crime."
Section 7 says:—
"Every person who, with a view to compel any other person to abstain from doing or to do any act which such other person has a legal right to do or abstain from doing, wrongfully and without legal authority, uses violence"—
and so on. Then I go to paragraph 4, which says:—
"Watches or besets the house or other place where such other person resides, or work, or carries on business or happens to be, or the approach to such house or place."
shall, on conviction, be liable to a certain penalty. To that there is the following proviso:—
"Attending at or near the house or place where a person resides, or works, or carries on business, or happens to be, or the approach to such house or place, in order merely to obtain or communicate information, shall not be deemed a watching or besetting within the meaning of this section."
That was the state of the law.
But the trade union community had been greatly perturbed and excited by three cases which had come before the Courts. Those cases are the Taff Vale case, the case of Quinn versus Leathern and the case of Lyons versus Wilkins.
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The Taff Vale case settled that trade union funds were liable to be taken in in execution for any tort which had been committed by the authority of a trade union. I do not pause to tell your Lordships how that, was. You will find it in the report of the case. The history is a very long one, but it is a history which shows that there is nothing to be surprised at when I say that the decision came as rather a bombshell to the trade unions, because for very technical reasons, which I need not now go into, they had been immune to a great extent from prosecution. Then Quinn versus Leathem settled that, although the Act of which I have already read a section dealt with criminal conspiracy, it did not deal with civil conspiracy, and, accordingly, an action for damages based upon civil conspiracy would lie. Lyons versus Wilkins, which was a decision of the Court of Appeal, which was finally approved of by your Lordships' House in Allen versus Flood, gave what I might call a very strict interpretation of the section 1 read a little while ago about watching and besetting. That was the state of the law.
I come now to the Bills. There is no particular order about the sections and, therefore, for the sake of clarity I will take the order in which the sections originally stood in the Act. The first section of the Government Bill was:—
"The following paragraph shall be added as a new paragraph after the first paragraph of section three of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act: 'an act done in pursuance of agreement or combination by two or more persons shall if done in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute not be actionable unless the act if done without such agreement or combination would be actionable.'"
That section is really tantamount to Recommendation No. 9 of our Commission, which was:
"To enact to the effect that an agreement or combination of two or more persons to do or procure to be done any act in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute shall not be the ground of a civil action unless the agreement or combination is indictable as a conspiracy notwithstanding the terms of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, 1875."
That section was practically in the first Government. Bill. It was very much the same, though with a little change of phraseology, in the trade union Bill. It was the same in the amended Bill and finally found its place in the Act as Section 1 which I have read. So

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there is not much to be said against it if you agree with the views of the Commission.
But when you come to the other sections you will find, I think, that although there was a Government Bill, each clause of the trade union Bill, like Moses' serpent, swallowed a clause of the Government Bill and finally got into the Act. Section 2 of the Act is as follows:—
"(1) It shall be lawful for one or more persons, acting on their own behalf or on behalf of a trade union or of an individual employer or firm in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute, to attend at or near a house or place where a person resides or works or carries on business or happens to be, if they so attend merely for the purpose of peacefully obtaining or communicating information, or of peacefully persuading any person to work or abstain from working.
"(2) Section 7 of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, 1875, is hereby repealed from? attending at or near" to the end of the section."
The history of this is really very peculiar. As far as our Report is concerned that corresponds to our Section 8.
In the Report itself we went at great length into the abuse of picketing and we advised:
"To alter the 7th Section of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, 1875, by repealing subsection (4) and the proviso, and in lieu thereof enacting as a new subsection (which would also supersede subsection (1)): 'Acts in such manner as to cause a reasonable apprehension in the mind of any person that violence will be used to him or his family, or damage be done to his property.'"
In the original Bill the following provision appears:
"It shall be lawful for one or more persons, acting on their own behalf or on behalf of a trade union in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute."—
I draw the particular attention of your Lordships to this—
"to attend, peaceably and in a reasonable manner, at or near a house or place.…if they so attend merely for the purpose of obtaining or communicating information."
The trade union Bill made a little change which I will indicate to your Lordships. In the amended Bill the Government at first stuck to their original suggestion, but if your Lordships remember the words I have just read, you will observe the change. It is no longer "to attend peaceably." but
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"to attend merely for the purpose of peacefully obtaining or communicating information."
Although it seems to be only a matter of words it is really an alteration of the very gravest importance. In the first words that were used, if you go with a great posse comitatus, such as a congeries of persons gathered for this purpose, it is not peaceably attending. But under the Act as it now stands you may go with any number of people and you may frighten a person as much as you like, provided that you go with the object of peacefully persuading him. That is the history of that section.
We come next to the third section:
"An act done by a person in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute shall not be actionable on the ground only that it induces some other person to break a contract of employment or that it is an interference with the trade, business, or employment of some other person.…"
First of all as regards the Report: there really are two recommendations in the Report and they are these—
"To declare that an individual shall not be liable for doing any act not in itself an actionable tort only on the ground that it is an interference with another person's trade, business, or employment,"
and
"to declare that to persuade to strike i.e., to desist from working, apart from procuring breach of contract, is not illegal."
But the trade union Bill at once added "the breaking of a contract," and the Government Bill was even more explicit in words than the trade union Bill, so that it finally found its way into the Statute Book that to persuade another man to break a contract (which had always before been held to be a tortious and an illegal act) was not illegal.
We now come to what is really the most important part of all and that is the fourth section. As regards that section our recommendation in the Report was in these words:—
"To provide means whereby the central authorities of a union may protect themselves against the unauthorised and immediately disavowed acts of branch agents."
The Government Bill went in for rather elaborate provisions on the matter of agency. It provided for the appointment of a committee, and then that actions should not lie unless the act was committed by the committee or some person acting under authority, but no counten-

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ance was given to the idea of trade unions being entirely immune. We had, as a matter of fact, dealt with the matter in no uncertain way. We had said that there is no rule of law so elementary, so universal and so indispensable as the rule that the wrongdoer should be made to redress his wrong. Afterwards we said—
"On what grounds can such a claim [to be immune] be supported? Trade unions which originally were looked upon as illegal combinations have made out their claim to enfranchisement and existence. But having done so they cannot put their claims higher than to say that they are institutions which are beneficial to the community as a whole. But so are many other institutions—banks, railways, insurance companies and so on. It may have been right to provide, as has been done, that the Courts shall not have power directly to enforce agreements between trade unions and their members in the same mariner as they can in the case of shareholders.… But when trade unions come in contact by reason of their own actions with outsiders and ex hypothesi wrong those outsiders, there can be no more reason that they should be beyond the reach of the law than any other individual, partnership or institution. Such a claim has indeed in former times been made by the spiritual as against the civil authority, and has been consistently disallowed. What was denied to religion ought not in our judgment to be conceded to trade unionism."
So far as those words went, they are not a bit stronger than what the Attorney-General, Sir Lawson Walton said in his speech introducing the Government Bill. He said—
"But let me ask the House to face that proposition. The proposition, I understand, is that, however great and ruinous the loss that may be suffered by an individual, however unjustifiable the conduct of the union which may occasion that loss, even in the case of that conduct having been carried out by means of the use of the funds which are controlled by the union, yet those funds, the property of the union, are not to be made liable to redress the claim consequent on that loss."
Later on in his speech he said:—
"But are you not proposing class privileges? In the old days of our law these immunities of class existed. They were the privileges of the aristocracy and they have been abolished. Do not let us create a privilege for the proletariat, and give a sort of benefit of clergy to trade unions analogous to the benefit of clergy which was formerly enjoyed and which created an immunity against actions in favour of certain sections of the population."
Then came the trade union Bill. The trade union Bill, of course, went the whole
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way and said simply that there should be no action against the trade union. That is the proposition to which Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman gave adherence. I should like to apply an epithet to his speech, but no one likes to use an epithet against a dead man, especially a dead man who has still many friends, among whom I may, indeed, include myself. I shall content myself by saying this, that when Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman came to think over his speeches I do not think he could have been very proud of this one. I say that for this reason. If he had suggested: "Two days ago my Attorney-General (making a speech in favour of the Bill which I have approved of) used those strong words, and during those two days I have been converted and therefore I have changed;" or if he had said, "On trying to find out what is the position with my Party I find that my Party has been too strong for me and I must give way to the people who support me," I do not think anything more could have been said. But he did not do that.
He made a speech in which he tried to make out that this change was merely a Committee point. He said: "Oh, you are all agreed on three parts of the Bill. There is a fourth. Well, it is a very little thing. We will settle that in Committee." He must have known that this was in reality a most far-reaching thing to do and that it absolutely changed the Bill. Finally it found its way to the Statute Book and found its way in this very simple form—
"An action against a trade union, whether of workmen or masters, or against any members or officials thereof on behalf of themselves and all other members of the trade union in respect of any tortious act alleged to have been committed by or on behalf of the trade union, shall not be entertained by any court."
During the progress of the Bill the trade unionists seemed to have awakened to the fact that if they left that alone it was really dangerous to themselves. Accordingly there was a proviso put in the Section which only appeared during the progress of the Bill, stating:—
"Nothing in this section shall affect the liability of the trustees of a trade union to be sued in the events provided for by the Trades Union Act, 1871, section nine, except in respect of any tortious act committed by or on behalf of the union in contemplation or in furtherance of a trade dispute."

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In other words: "Leave us our old power of sueing our own dishonest officials."
Now let me turn for a moment to what would happen if this Bill passed. Of course you would revert to the exact state of affairs with which we, as a Committee, had to grapple, and what would be the effect? I do not suppose that my noble friend thinks there is much chance of a Bill introduced by a private member passing in the other place. And what would be the result? Why, throughout the country it would be said that the Lords are out to destroy trade unions. Our Report dealt with each and every branch, and any Bill which destroyed the Act of 1906 would properly have to deal with each and every branch, but this Bill deals with none. I do not want to say much about my Report. There was a chorus of approval at the time and I will not say anything about the very kind words that Lord Balfour used. After all, he was only blessing his own children, but when Sir John Lawson Walton introduced the Government Bill he said that it really only went a little further than we did, and Sir William Robson, on the Second Reading, claimed that the first three sections of the Bill were our Report and nothing but our Report. I hope I have shown your Lordships that that is scarcely so, but at any rate they said nothing against our Report.
I would like to read what was said by Sir Edward Carson, now Lord Carson, when the Government Bill was debated in the House of Commons. He said:—
"I do not think anybody can deny that it is absolutely necessary for the Government to bring in some Bill dealing with trade union disputes. The matter has now been before the House for several years and, as we were reminded by the hon. gentleman who spoke below the gangway, Bills somewhat on the lines of the Bill adumbrated by my hon. and learned friend the Attorney-General passed on more than one occasion the Second Reading in the last Parliament."
Then he said:—
"I go further, and I say that it is important that if a Bill of this kind is to be passed at all it should be passed by the Government on their own responsibility and not upon the introduction of a private member."
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: Does the noble Viscount remember what Lord Carson said later? He said, in effect: "Why bring in a long Bill of
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this sort? Why not bring in a simple Bill: The King can do no wrong, neither can a trade union?"
VISCOUNT DUNEDIN: I do not remember that, but I have no doubt Lord Carson said it. He was obviously disgusted with the law passed on behalf of the Government. What I read was what he said when the Bill was brought in—that it was his view that such a Bill ought to be dealt with by the Government and by nobody else. I think that on that point his opinion still stands. I have dealt—I am afraid at some length—with this, and I think I have kept my promise that I would not intrude any of my own views upon you, but I would like to say one thing further. I would say with all earnestness, because I feel very strongly, that it would be a great pity at this juncture if any words were used which could be twisted into meaning that there was hostility to trade unions. As far as my own character is concerned I take my stand on my Report, and I defy anybody to read that Report and find in it any internal evidence which would justify saying that I have hostility to trade unions. But I wish to say one thing—and I would be very glad indeed if it could find an echo in the breasts of the noble Lords who are in Opposition—that I think the future of this question depends enormously, I may say almost altogether, upon the trade unions themselves.
If the trade unions choose to stick to their proper work of safeguarding workmen, of trying to get the best terms they can for them, of maintaining the standard of life of the workers, of improving that standard of life if they can, then hostility to trade unions will be quite wrong and I do not believe any such hostility will be shown. But if trade unions so conduct themselves as to show that it is not really that which they want but that they want to govern the country, then I say it is the absolute duty of the Government to look into the law and see if by the law they have not been put into a false position which enables them to maintain such an aim. In the days when the Government do so I think they ought to do it not only because of the instinct of self-preservation—a feeling that is shared by the meanest of created creatures—but also because of the feeling of liberty. Here I turn to all those

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who face the Government. They have always said they were champions of liberty. In the past we have wrested liberty from the autocracy of Kings and the oligarchy of aristocrats. Why should we surrender it to a trade union association even if it calls itself a proletariat? That situation may or may not arise. If it does arise the Government, I have no doubt, will have a difficult and thorny path, but it is a path which I think they will be bound to tread, and it is a path only to be trodden by the Government and not by a private member. Therefore I shall vote for my noble friend's Motion for the adjournment of the debate.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT CAVE): My Lords, we have all listened with interest to the speech of my noble and learned friend who has an intimate knowledge of this branch of the law and an unrivalled recollection of the history of the different Statutes which have been passed. If I do not follow him into every part of his speech it will be for two reasons, both of which I think he will understand. One is that I have really no quarrel with any part of the speech of my noble and learned friend. He knows the history of the matter, and he has given the facts, to the best of my recollection, with complete accuracy. The second reason is this: that I am going to invite your Lordships not, on this particular occasion, fully to discuss the matter which is raised by this Bill, but for reasons which I will give, to accept the Motion for adjournment moved by my noble friend Lord Templemore. I do that for two reasons. One is that this matter is of very grave importance and it cannot really be dealt with on a Bill which contains nothing but one crude proposal—namely, to repeal the Act of 1906. The Bill goes in some respects too far, in other respects not far enough, as I hope I shall show in a few moments. The other reason is that a matter of this importance ought to be dealt with on the responsibility of the Government of the day.
I do not say that—I know my noble friend Lord Banbury will believe me—for the purpose of putting off a decision. The Government have taken this question into their careful consideration. A Committee has now been sitting on the matter for some weeks. It is on the
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point of making its recommendations to the Cabinet. I do not doubt that the Cabinet, will consider them at an early date, and I think—though, of course, as to this I can give no absolute promise until the Cabinet has made its decision—that it will find it necessary to propose legislation at an early date. Having said that, I think this House will see that it is, in the first place, impossible to have a complete discussion to-day, and in the second place undesirable to have a partial discussion. If you are going to legislate you must surely have not two Bills but one Bill dealing with the whole matter.
As to this Bill I have said that in some respects it goes too far. I think that the speech of my noble friend Lord Dunedin has proved that up to the hilt. The proposal is to repeal the whole Act, including the first section of the Act, a section which permits combinations among workmen and which is at the root of the whole theory and existence of trade unions. Now no one to-day, or no one in his senses, wishes to make a general attack on trade unions. The right of workmen to combine was won by a long struggle. It has been fully tried. It has resulted, I believe, in the betterment of the conditions of the workers in many respects, and it would be, it seems to me, both unwise and unjust to attempt to-day to make an attack upon the general system of trade unions. I am sure that the Government, at all events, have no such desire. But if you repeal Section 1 of the Act of 1906 you do take an important step towards that end. Then there is the second section, which deals with picketing, upon which my noble friend Lord Banbury called attention to cases, as he said, of Intimidation. By repealing the second section you do not destroy picketing, which rests upon earlier law; still less do you destroy intimidation, because that already is criminal if only proof can be obtained.
There are two points which do want consideration, but careful consideration, on the question of picketing. One is the circumstance that the pickets, sometimes few in number, are accompanied by a large crowd of people who come there as lookers-on but whose presence must have the effect of influencing the action of the men who wish to work. In the second place, the

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practice of picketing, or rather of visiting, men at their own homes and in the presence of their wives is also a practice which at all events deserves consideration, and I think that, when the House comes to consider this question, they will desire to look into that point as well as into the others. I will not go through all the sections of the Act. I agree that Sections 3 and 4 want very careful consideration and, when the time comes, the House will have to consider whether they can be maintained in their entirety. But that is not a matter which we can deal with to-day. In these respects this Bill, as I have said, goes too far.
In another respect it does not go far enough, because it does not touch some of the questions that have been raised in all our minds by recent events. Let me mention one or two of them, simply as matters that must be considered when a Bill dealing with this question is introduced. First, it is necessary to formulate the position as to movements like the late General Strike. It is not very long since the General Strike took place and collapsed, but it raised—I think everybody will agree with me here—serious questions, and Parliament may have to consider whether some provision should be passed which would make it impossible for those who might be so disposed to penalise men who have refused to take part in an illegal strike. It may be necessary to legislate for that, and possibly to provide, for men upon whom such an attack is made, some remedy more simple and less expensive than an action at law.
There is another point which arises out of recent events. I refer to the question of the ballot. I know, of course, that many unions have provisions in their rules which forbid the executive to declare a strike without a previous ballot, but those unions are in the minority and even where that rule is found, it is not always observed and, indeed, in the General Strike it was openly disobeyed. Upon that question of the ballot, too, I cannot, of course, pronounce to-day, but I think it is a matter which wants careful consideration and it clearly is not dealt with by the Bill which my noble friend has brought before us. There is a third point, which I mention only as one to be
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considered, and that is the position of civil servants in connection with trade unionism. The servants of the State stand in a special relation towards the State and towards the public, and it may at least be doubted whether it should be open to them to become simply factors in the general body of trade unionism, though, of course, no one desires to prevent them from entering into a proper combination for their own protection. I believe that civil servants would be the first to agree with what I have said and to consent to their position being investigated.
There are, or may be, other matters for debate, but it is not necessary to go into them to-day. I do not say that all the dangers and abuses that have been recently discovered can be at once dealt with. It may require the consideration of more than one Bill in different Sessions. But I do say that, if it be the fact, as I believe it is, that some measure is necessary, and necessary at a very early date, then it would be a great mistake if my noble friend or others pressed for the consideration of the matters raised by this Bill, and I hope that, for the reasons that I have given, my noble friend will consent to have the debate adjourned. I will only add this general observation, arising out of that which my noble and learned friend Lord Dunedin said a few moments ago. I entirely agree with him that in a matter of this gravity you should be very careful what legislation you propose and pass. The only object which all of us have at heart is, first; to protect the public as a whole against attack; and secondly, to protect the workers themselves and their dependents from illegal or intimidating acts. I think our proposals should be limited to dealing with abuses of that kind, and I am sure that the House will be satisfied that nothing that we propose can be said, except by gross misrepresentation, to involve an attack upon the trade union system.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: I think I understood the noble and learned Viscount to ask me if I would consent to an adjournment of the debate. After that which the noble and learned Viscount has said, I should certainly he willing to do so.
On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly sine die.

HORTICULTURAL PRODUCE (SALES ON COMMISSION) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (LORD BLEDISLOE): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. It has been prepared as the result of certain recommendations which were made in the Interim Report on Fruit and Vegetables of the Departmental Committee which was presided over by my noble friend Lord Linlithgow in the year 1923. That Report endorsed and emphasised a view that was expressed in the Fourth Report of the Departmental Committee of the Board of Trade on Wholesale Markets, which was issued in 1921, that the methods adopted by commission salesmen when rendering sales accounts to growers of fruit and vegetables in respect of horticultural produce were unsatisfactory, as the sales accounts did not show in any detail the deductions made by the commission salesmen from the wholesale prices. The result is that the grower has been unable to dissect the deductions which were made in respect of transport charges, the cost of carriage, empties, market tolls and other matters, as well as commission, and he has been unable, therefore, to satisfy himself whether the price actually paid was fair and reasonable. In some instances, indeed, it is the practice to furnish him only with a net return, the actual selling price of his produce not being intimated to him at all.
Perhaps your Lordships will allow me to refer to two paragraphs in the Linlithgow Report in support of this Bill. Referring to what is called the practice of "averaging returns" on the part of commission salesmen, the Departmental Committee, in paragraphs 116 and 117, say this:—
"This practice consists in returning to all consignors, in any one day, the same price for any one quality of produce sold, instead of the actual price realised by each individual consignment. … Reputable firms deny that the practice exists, but there is reason to suppose that, taking the trade as a whole, it is not infrequent. It is certainly illegal. Every grower is entitled to receive the actual price which his produce realises, less the expenses of sale.
"Another practice is that of returning to the grower lower prices than those
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actually realised. We cannot too strongly condemn this practice. It is dishonest. Growers are legally entitled to know, upon demand, the name of the buyer of their goods, and a more extensive use of their rights in this respect would enable them to exercise some measure of control over commission salesmen, though it is naturally difficult for the grower to check any state-merits made by the salesman."
So impressed were the Linlithgow Committee with the disadvantage under which growers laboured through this procedure that they recommended that all commission salesmen in the wholesale fruit and vegetable markets should be licensed, such licences to be issued only under certain conditions governing commission charges and business methods.
The Ministry of Agriculture have very carefully considered this proposal and have found that the difficulties in the way of its adoption are very great. We hope, however, to achieve the object which the Linlithgow Committee had in view by a somewhat different method, which is embodied in this Bill, which will be less unpopular with the trade and which involves no Government control. The Bill provides that salesmen who sell horticultural produce on commission must keep records of the names of all purchasers and of the prices paid by each, and they must render accounts to the consignor showing the actual price paid for the goods, and where there is any variation in price, the number, weight or quantity sold at each price. The accounts must also contain details of charges for commission and for services rendered, and also all amounts paid by the salesman on behalf of the consignor in connection with the sale. If any goods consigned for sale on commission are in fact bought by, or on behalf of, the salesmen, that fact also must be stated in the account.
In support of the clause dealing with that matter may I refer your Lordships to paragraph 118 of the Linlithgow Committee's Report, which says:—
"It has been represented to us that commission salesmen, when prices are rising, sometimes act as merchants, buying and selling on their own account. In practice this operates in the same manner as the making of false returns of prices in account sales. It is illegal for a commission salesman to sell to himself goods he handles on account of a principal. The method adopted is said to be for the salesman to hold the produce pending a rise, the price returned to the grower being the price ruling earlier in the day. It has been suggested to us

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that salesmen should be required to state clearly on each sales account whether they have acted in the capacity of commission salesmen or merchants, and with this proposal we are in agreement."
That is the other main clause of the Bill and that paragraph is, I submit, a sufficient justification. If the salesman fails to comply with the requirements of the Bill, or delivers an account which is false in any material particular, he is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £20 in the case of the first offence, or to a fine not exceeding £100 in the case of each subsequent offence. By Clause 2 a grower is enabled, if he gives written notice within ten days of the receipt of the account, to have the salesman's records examined by a duly qualified accountant nominated by him.
The provisions of the Bill do not apply to the sale of agricultural produce unless the owner or consignor sends to the salesman an advice note specifying the nature and description of the packages consigned and their contents. For the purposes of the Bill all produce consigned for sale is deemed to have been consigned for sale on commission, unless at the time of consignment the consignor sends to the salesman a direction to the contrary. Horticultural produce is defined by Clause 3 as meaning vegetables, fruit, flowers and plants.
In asking your Lordships to agree to the Second Reading of this Bill I think I ought to say that the provisions of the Bill have been discussed by the Horticultural Advisory Council of the Ministry of Agriculture, on which all sections of the industry are represented, and general agreement has been reached. The National Farmers' Union, on behalf of the growers, and the National Federation of Fruit and Potato Trades Associations, on behalf of the wholesalers, have also come to an agreement upon its main points. I think, therefore, that I may claim that the Bill is uncontroversial. I beg to move the Second Reading.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(Lord Bledisloe.)
LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, if I understand what the noble Lord has said, and my recollection of the recommendations of the Linlithgow Committee is correct, their recommendation was that these wholesale commission agents
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should only act as salesmen under licence. I agree that there are difficulties in the way of a provision of that kind, but what occurs to me with regard to this Bill is that if it is the desire of the grower or consignor to obtain the best terms from the commission agent, this Bill throws very considerable expense and expenditure upon the commission agent, and of course as regards these expenses the disadvantage will be as regards the ultimate price which the grower obtains. Do I understand the noble Lord to say that all parties, the commission agents as well as growers, are in favour of this Bill? If they are, then I admit it is a matter for them rather than for any outside person, or even for Lord Linlithgow's Committee. Certainly I do not propose to impede the Second Beading, although some question may arise upon the later stages upon particular clauses by which the proposals are intended to be carried out.
LORD BLEDISLOE: I do not know that I can say much in answer to the noble Lord, except to say that I am instructed that there has been general agreement between the various branches of the trade, including, I am told, the commission agents. I doubt very much whether, in fact, any appreciable expenses will, as a result of the passage of this Bill, be thrown upon the class to whom the noble Lord has referred. The alternative suggestion—that of issuing licences—has many defects, and the main defect is that we shall never get the trade to agree to it, and, as this is an urgent and important matter, which is operating to the great disadvantage of growers of this sort of produce, we want, if possible, to pass what, in effect, is a non-controversial measure at once. Of course, the issue of licences would also involve some cost, at least to the wholesale merchants, and, as I have already pointed out, it would involve a large measure of Government control. As far as our Party is concerned, we are very much opposed to Government control in all its forms, and we do not want to introduce it by a side-wind into this Bill.
THE MARQUESS OF LINCOLNSHIRE: My Lords, I cannot say that I have any great sympathy with commission agents, especially after the revelations which were made in your Lordships' House, but

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I venture to think this is a very useful little Bill. We are grateful to His Majesty's Government for bringing it in, and I hope it will be carried into effect as speedily as possible.
On Question, Bill read 2ª, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

AUCTIONS (BIDDING AGREEMENTS) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD DARLING: My Lords, in asking you to accord a Second Reading to this Bill I cannot but think it is of somewhat happy augury that the Government also have noticed that people who attempt to dispose of their property are met by some persons with means to prevent their receiving the full value of it. This Bill is designed to do for another class of people very much what is being done by the Bill which the noble Lord, Lord Bledisloe, has just asked your Lordships to read a second time, and which has obtained the blessing of the noble Marquess opposite, which I venture to hope I also may share.
This Bill is suggested by the fact that a short time ago an action was brought in the Courts by a person who had exposed for sale some valuable furniture. It was knocked down to a person who bid for it, and the auctioneer refused to deliver the goods to him. It may be that this happened because the goods were in that instance the goods of the auctioneer himself, but he refused to deliver the goods on the ground that the ostensible buyer of them was simply one of a gang or ring, who bought the goods for less than they were worth by means of an agreement with the other members of the gang that they would not bid. It was then an understood thing that, one of them having got the goods, they would have what is called a "knock-out" among themselves, so that the vendor should receive far less than the value of the goods, and that the person who ultimately became entitled to the property should share with the others on whose behalf he was acting. Thus, the goods would be obtained at less than their real value, and all these persons in the ring would receive some sort of benefit or consideration.
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This case having come before a learned Judge quite lately, he held that what was done was not against the law. He said:
"Although I find in the defendant's favour on this point of fact yet it seems to be reasonably clear in law that the existence of a? knock-out? does not of itself afford any answer to this action by the plaintiff."
For some time lawyers were of the contrary opinion, and some very excellent lawyers are of that opinion still. It was decided long ago by Baron Gurney in the case of Levi versus Levi that this practice, against which this Bill is directed, was already an illegal and, indeed, a criminal practice; and Baron Gurney, in a case which was tried at Nisi Prius—it, was not a decision of a court sitting in bane—it was a mere Nisi Prius decision—gave his judgment, and I ask permission to read that decision to your Lordships because it shows not merely what the law was or was not, but it shows the reason why it should be what it has lately been said it ought to be, and what this Bill will make it. He said:—
"Owners of goods have a right to expect at an auction that there will be an open competition from the public, and if a knot of men go to an auction upon an agreement among themselves of the kind that has been described they are guilty of an indictable offence and may be tried for a conspiracy."
That was thought to be the law for a good many years, but at length came a case in which it was held that the law was not what Baron Gurney had supposed and pronounced it to be.
Some little time ago a case was tried before Mr. Justice Shearman. It went to the Court of Appeal and was heard before Lord Justice Bankes, Lord Justice Scrutton and Lord Justice Atkin. It is case called Rowlings's case. In that case Lord Justice Bankes and Lord Justice Atkin held that this system of a ring bidding at an auction and then a "knock-out," by which the whole object of the auction was frustrated and the seller did not receive the real value of his goods, which went into the pockets of those who were described by Baron Gurney as having been guilty of criminal conspiracy, was not illegal. I make no doubt that that is the law, because that is the reason why lay before your Lordships this Bill. But, those two Lords Justices having held that, Lord Justice Scrutton

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differed from them. If either of them had agreed with Lord Justice Scrutton I should not have needed to trouble you with this Bill; but as there were two of them who pronounced that the law is what I would have it not be, and Lord Justice Scrutton gave judgment to the contrary effect, I desire to make the law what Lord Justice Scrutton said—vainly and ineffectively said—that it is.
What he said was this—I quote from the Law Reports:
"The effect on the public or the community (of such agreements) was that free competition at auctions, affording a ready market for realizing goods, was restrained, and the property of any member of the public selling goods might be sold below its true value."
Lord Justice Scrutton continued:—
"I cannot believe that, if the parties to an agreement for a 'knock-out' came to the Court for an injunction to restrain one of their members from bidding at the auction contrary to his agreement, the Court would grant the injunction. The Court would refuse it in my view, because the agreement was contrary to public policy, as a restraint of trade contrary to the interests of the public."
That is the argument which I would ask your Lordships to adopt in order to give a Second Reading to this Bill.
This case came before Mr. Justice Shearman and the learned Judge gave a judgment in which he first of all referred to a section in the Sale of Goods Act, 1893. I would venture to trouble your Lordships with that section because it is in order to have clarity as to the right both of buyer and seller that I submit this Bill to your Lordship. Section 58 of the Sale of Goods Act, 1893, is as follows:—
"Where a sale by auction is not notified to be subject to a right to bid on behalf of a seller, it shall not be lawful for the seller to bid himself or to employ any person to bid at such sale, or for the auctioneer knowingly to take any bid from the seller or any such person. Any sale contravening this rule may be treated as fraudulent by the buyer. … Where a right to bid is expressly reserved, but not otherwise, the seller, or any person on his behalf, may bid at the auction."
Your Lordships know what the object of the seller is. He wants to get the best price for his goods. These people who go to auctions wish to give the lowest price they can for them. The seller is not allowed to employ someone else to bid on his behalf. He may put a reserve
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upon the articles, but that section carefully regulates how that may be done.
Having referred to that section, Mr. Justice Shearman made the following remarks in the course of his judgment in the case to which I have referred:—
"If the employment of a puffer for the purpose of raising the price without disclosing the fact will render a contract of sale unenforceable it is difficult to see why a combination by purchasers to keep the price down should not equally be illegal."
That is all I ask your Lordships to say that it is. The Sale of Goods Act deprives the seller of any outside means of raising the price of his goods by making those at the auction think that more people want them than is actually the fact, and I would ask your Lordships to allow this Bill to be read at any rate a second time so that there may be a full discussion as to whether the seller at an auction should be put in any worse position than the purchaser is in.
Since I gave notice of my wish to introduce this Bill I have received a good many letters from people who tell me that in almost every auction in the big rooms in London, where very valuable articles are sold, as well as in smaller auctions up and down the country, this pernicious system of swindling is rife and is well known to large numbers of people. I dare say it is not unknown to your Lordships that it goes on. But I would only trouble your Lordships with two of the letters I have received. One is from the Secretary of the Auctioneers' and Estate Agents' Institute of the United Kingdom whose offices are in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Writing on behalf of the society, he says:ߞ
"I think I may say without the slightest hesitation that the principle underlying the proposed Bill is one which will have the whole-hearted support of all reputable members of the auctioneering profession, but I thought I would take the liberty of drawing your Lordship's attention to the reason, namely, the difficulty of proof which has always debarred the Council of this Institute from promoting such legislation as is contemplated. Possibly your Lordship may see some way round this difficulty."
The other letter is from the Secretary of the Incorporated Society of Auctioneers and Landed Property Agents, whose offices are at 26, Finsbury Square. He writes thoroughly approving of the introduction of this Bill, and making some suggestions as to how it might be

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improved. I am conscious that it can be improved, and I hope it will be improved. He says this particularly:—
"To the above suggestions I would add that this society strongly approves of your Lordship's efforts to do away with these 'knock-outs' and 'rings' which are alike harmful to producer and consumer."
The Bill as I have ventured to introduce it to your Lordships says this, in Clause 1:—
"Any agreement made with reference to a sale by auction not to bid at the sale in competition with any other person with intent that the property offered for sale shall be afterwards acquired by the person making the agreement or some other person from the purchaser of the property at the sale shall be void, and the sale of property in pursuance of any such agreement shall also he void."
That would render void agreements between members of the ring to buy property so purchased. It would certainly render void subsequent purchase at what is called the "knock-out" by persons who have acquired it with the object that one of them should get it and the others should share in what may be made. Perhaps it does not render void the sale at the auction to a member of the ring so that the property would not pass. I think that it does, though it might not. Therefore, the Bill might be amended in Committee if your Lordships allow it to go forward.
I think it would render the sale void, for the reason that Clause 1 concludes in the following manner—
"Any person who enters into any such agreement shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds"—
that is to say, he might be brought before a magistrate and, upon proof that he had entered into a contract of this kind, which Baron Gurney said was illegal and indictable, he might be fined anything up to £50 at the discretion of the magistrate. But the clause goes on to say—
"and on conviction on indictment"—
one contemplates that some of these people make a regular business of this practice and if they are convicted once or twice before a magistrate it might be well to have them tried at Sessions or Assizes—
"shall be liable to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds or to imprisonment not exceeding six months or to both such fine and imprisonment."
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If your Lordships allow this Bill to go before a Committee those matters would be entirely in the hands of the Committee and need not have anything like the shape they have in the Bill as it stands.
But I cannot help thinking that we are in the presence of a cruel wrong done to people who are unable at present to, protect themselves. The law it seems to me should be what great lawyers in the past imagined it to be and declared it to be. When one thinks of the kind of people who suffer at the hands of these combinations, I cannot help thinking that your Lordships will be anxious to do something to protect them. A sale by auction is not like a sale in a shop where newly manufactured goods are laid before people to take them or leave them at the price which is asked. A sale by auction often comes to a family which has just suffered by the death of some member of it who has been its support, or it comes at the end of some disaster which has compelled the sale. It may be the sale of an ancestral property, it may be the very home in which people have been born and have lived; or it may be that they have to part with a number of things to pay Death Duties, or to find money that the family greatly needs at the moment. Sometimes the sales take place in a large auction room in London and sometimes at some little country village where, perhaps, the Rectory contents or something of that kind are sold.
These sales often take place in order to provide the necessary sum of money to send some member of the family out into the world or to put the family on its legs. It does appear to me that people in these cruel circumstances should be protected from being set upon, as it is well known they are, by organised gangs who live by these illicit transactions. I think that this House would be well occupied, therefore, in protecting people against that kind of thing and I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(Lord Darling.)
LORD DESBOROUGH: My Lords, I rise to express to your Lordships in a few words the opinion of the Home Office on this Bill. They realise as fully as does the noble Lord who has moved the Second Reading that a very great evil does exist with regard to what is called

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"knock-outs" at auctions. I dare say many of your Lordships have experienced it yourselves. Cases have come frequently before the Courts in which it appeared that dealers had combined together not to give more than a certain sum for valuable articles and then that they had sold those articles at a good price and divided the proceeds among themselves—exactly how, no one quite knows. The Home Office have had several cases brought to their notice and they have had inquiries made through the police, but not in one single instance have they been able to get anything in the nature of legal evidence that would enable them to secure a conviction. At the same time the Home Office have no objections to offer from their point of view to the Second Reading of this Bill and they only hope that its provisions may prove successful.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, the noble Lord has given a somewhat doleful account of the prospects of proceedings under this Bill and I do not differ from him. I think convictions will be extremely difficult to obtain because the proof of these agreements is itself a matter of great difficulty. I would remind him, however, that Sir Edward Fry's Act for the prevention of corruption by giving illegal commissions and taking them has produced some effect. There, again, the proof of the offence has always been the great difficulty, but the fact that it is on the Statute Book that such proceedings are contrary to law has been in itself beneficial and has done something towards restraining the evil. Therefore I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Desborough, proposes to offer no difficulty in the way of the passing of the Bill brought in by the noble and learned Lord opposite. I am sure it cannot but be to the public advantage that the law should be declared and put on the Statute Book in the sense argued by the noble and learned Lord. I am sure also that it is well to get rid of those decisions which have said that "knock-outs" are not contrary to the law. For those reasons I am glad the Government have taken the course they have and I wish a safe passage to the Bill.
On Question, Bill read 2ª, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

LAND DRAINAGE BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day read for the consideration of Commons Amendments.
LORD BLEDISLOE: My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Amendments he now considered.
Moved, That the Commons Amendments be now considered.—(Lord Bledisloe.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENT.
[The reference is to Bill No. 41.]
Clause 2, page 2, line 22, at the beginning, insert as a new subsection:
("—(1) Where any drain within the meaning of this section is in such a condition that the proper flow of water is impeded, then unless the condition of the drain is attributable to the subsidence of surface due to mining operations, it shall be the duty of the person having control of the drain, or of the part thereof where the impediment occurs, to put the drain or such part thereof in proper order if by reason of such impediment agricultural land belonging to or in the occupation of some other person is injured by water, or in danger of being so injured.")
LORD BLEDISLOE: My Lords, I desire to draw your Lordships' attention to the first Amendment on the Paper and to move that this House agrees with the Commons in the said Amendment. I may remind your Lordships that Clause 2 of this Bill provides for the maintenance of drains by one person so as not to cause damage or loss to another. When the Bill was under discussion in Committee in your Lordships' House it was proposed to insert the word "omission" in this clause in order to cover all cases where a landowner might conceivably cause loss or damage to a neighbour by failing to keep his drains open. As there appeared to be some doubt on the part of your Lordships as to the precise meaning and effect of this word "omission". I withdrew the Amendment.
As the Bill left this House the clause gave power to serve a notice upon a person by whose act or default the unsatisfactory condition of the drain was due, but unless something was actually done by a person which caused the flow of water to be impeded, or unless he failed to carry out some legal obligation imposed by an award or as a condition of tenure, there was no power to prevent agricultural land becoming thus injuriously affected. There might be

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default, on the contrary, by an owner if he created a nuisance by flooding land as the result of blocking a drain, but there could be no legal liability until the nuisance had been actually caused.
When the Bill was in another place it was felt that the clause as amended did not cover the whole ground and the Amendment standing on the Paper was accordingly inserted in order to make it dear that it shall be the duty of the person who has control of a drain—I would ask your Lordships particularly to notice those words—where the impediment occurs to the detriment or possible detriment of agricultural land belonging to some other person, to put that drain in proper order. I do not know whether I have made the point sufficiently clear to my noble friend Lord Dynevor, who had some observations to make when the Amendment was moved in its original form, but I trust your Lordships will, after this explanation, agree to this Amendment, particularly bearing in mind that it is only the person having control of a drain upon his own land and failing to put it in proper order and causing damage to his neighbour, who will be dealt with under this clause. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Bledisloe.)
LORD DYNEVOR: My Lords, I am much obliged to my noble friend Lord Bledisloe for explaining the meaning of the first Amendment of the Commons, but I am not quite sure that he has really cleared up the whole matter. When I read this Amendment through I had the greatest difficulty in making out to what it referred and what was the object of the Amendment. My noble friend evidently thinks that this Amendment must be read with the first subsection of Clause 2 of the Bill as it stands, but it seems to me this is a subsection which stands by itself.
LORD BLEDISLOE: It does.
LORD DYNEVOR: Then there is no machinery for working it. Under this Amendment who is to give the necessary notice? Suppose A. has land on which there is a drain which becomes blocked and which floods B's land? What is B to do? He does not then have to give
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any notice to A., and if he wants to compel A. to do something to what Court has he to go? Is it to the County Court, or is it the High Court? What steps is he to take? The Bill as it stands says that where the council of a county are of opinion that a drain is impeded they may serve upon the person responsible for it a notice to put the drain in proper order, and when we look at the Bill we find that it is all subject to a notice having been served. Then the aggrieved person has all kinds of excuses given him why he is not liable for the drain being choked and he may get off on those grounds. It seems to me that this Amendment requires explanation and lacks a good deal of machinery. I will leave it to my noble friend to give an explanation.
LORD BLEDISLOE: My Lords, this matter has been very carefully examined by the legal advisers to my Department. They tell me it reads quite consecutively and that as it is now drafted it is the business of the council of the county or county borough to give notice to such persons who, by neglect, cause damage by flood to a neighbour. The ordinary machinery of the Bill will then operate. The ordinary machinery, so far as legal proceedings are concerned, is set out in the subsequent clauses of the Bill. I should like to assure my noble friend that the utmost care has been taken in the drafting of the Bill, and I am advised that it is watertight.
LORD DYNEVOR: My Lords, if I may be allowed to say a few words in reply, I should like to say that I am very much obliged to my noble friend for the explanation he has given, but that I have also taken legal advice on this question, and it seems to me there are evidently two legal opinions on the matter. I think the new clause is fairly harmless, but it may lead to litigation in order to find out what really is the legal rendering of this Amendment and how it works in with the Bill. I shall not, however, oppose it.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: My Lords, I read this clause and I could not make head or tail of it, but on looking at it a second time I came to the conclusion that it means nothing at all. Therefore I have no objection to it.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENT.
Page 2, line 24, leave out from ("any") to ("is") in line 25 and insert ("such drain within the county or county borough").
LORD BLEDISLOE: My Lords, the next Amendment on the Paper is for the omission of the words in the third and fourth lines of Clause 2, "any drain within the meaning of this Act," and the substitution of the words "such drain within the county or county borough." The object of this Amendment is to make it clear that it is the place where the obstruction occurs, and not the place where the resulting damage occurs, which must be within the area of the objecting authority in order to justify such authority in giving notice that the drain must be put in proper order. It is in fact, a drafting amendment.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Bledisloe.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENT.
Page 2, lines 27 and 28, leave out ("within the county or county borough").
LORD BLEDISLOE: My Lords, the next Amendment is purely consequential. It is to leave out, in lines 27 and 28, the words "within the county or county borough." I beg to move that your Lordships agree with the Amendment.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Bledisloe.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENT.
Clause 3, page 5, line 33, after ("Act") insert ("and the agricultural committee may delegate with or without restrictions to a sub-committee of the said agricultural committee any of their powers and duties under this Act").
LORD BLEDISLOE: My Lords, the last Amendment introduced in another place is to enable the agricultural committee of a council to delegate to its land drainage committee, if it has one, or to another appropriate committee its duties under this Bill. It is proposed to add at the end of subsection (3) of Clause 3 these words: "and the agricultural committee may delegate with or without restriction to a sub-
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committee of the said agricultural committee any of their powers and duties under this Act." I beg to move that your Lordships agree with this Amendment.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Bledisloe.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

HOME COUNTIES (MUSIC AND DANCING) LICENSING BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD O'HAGAN: My Lords, I will be very brief in moving the Second Reading of this Bill. The object of the Bill is to improve the machinery for the granting of music and dancing licences in those areas of Kent, Essex, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire which are within a twenty-mile limit from the City of London or of Westminster, whichever is the nearer to the County in question. The Bill also extends to the County Boroughs of East Ham and West Ham. At the present time these matters are dealt with in the rest of the country, speaking generally, under the Public Health Act of 1890, but the parts of the Home Counties which I have described rely at present on an Act passed in 1751, which is entitled the Disorderly Houses Act. Under that Act licences can only be given for these purposes at one particular time of the year, which now means at the October meeting of the county council. None of these licences can be transferred, and it is definitely laid down that licences cannot be granted at any other time during the twelve months except the particular period I have mentioned.
The process of dealing with offences under that Act, dating as it does from the eighteenth-century, is hardly applicable to the present time. It is very cumbersome. The position with regard to these licences has proved so unsatisfactory that the Counties of Middlesex and Surrey have both been granted Acts of Parliament of their own for dealing with the matter. That for Middlesex was passed in 1894 and that for Surrey only last year. The introduction of a similar measure to this last year resulted

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in the Home Secretary calling a conference of local authorities within the area I have indicated, and this Bill is, practically speaking, the outcome of that conference. The effect of this Bill is to bring this area into line with the other counties, and, as I have said, to improve the machinery for dealing with these matters. I do not wish to weary your Lordships by going into the details of the Bill, which I understand is not opposed in any part of the House, but I think I should mention Clause 3 which corrects faults—if I may call them faults—in the previous Act by giving the councils of counties and county boroughs power to grant those licences at any time during the year, subject of course to notice being given in accordance with the provisions of the Bill and also according to the regulations which the various councils are empowered to, make with regard to this matter. Further, the councils are enabled to transfer these licences from one person to another and also to delegate their authority to certain large urban district councils. With regard to offences under the Act, a much simpler process has been laid down, similar to that pursued in other directions and in conformity with the practice of the present time.
This Bill comes to your Lordships from the other House as an unopposed measure, it is backed by members representative of all Parties in that House and it has been most carefully scrutinised, as may be readily understood from that which I have already said, by the Home Office. It was at the instance, practically speaking, of the Home Office that in Committee in another place a number of Amendments and modifications were introduced into the Bill. I think, if I may venture to say so, that your Lordships will be well advised to give this Bill a Second Reading. It is a small Bill, but it will effect a very useful purpose, for it improves administration with regard to these licences and will undoubtedly benefit the citizens who are affected by it.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(Lord O'Hagan.)
LORD DESBOROUGH: My Lords, as regards the view of the Home Office on this little Bill, they regard it as a very useful measure. It will bring those parts of Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire and Kent that are inside the twenty-mile
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radius into the same regulations that have been found so useful for those parts of Surrey and Middlesex which already receive the benefits of the provisions of this Bill. The Bill was introduced into the House of Commons by a private member. It is viewed with great favour by the Home Office, which took a great deal of interest in the matter, interviewed all the local authorities concerned at the Ironic Office and suggested some Amendments to the Bill, which was unopposed on the Second Reading. I hope that it will meet the same fate in your Lordships' House.
EARL RUSSELL: My Lords, I do not wish to raise any kind of objection to the Second Reading of this Bill, which, no doubt, is an excellent measure, but I should like to put one question, for my own information, to the noble Lord who has moved the Second Reading. Is it a fact that a publican, let us say, who has a wireless receiving apparatus with a loud speaker, has to take out a music licence because of the music transmitted through that apparatus? I can understand that, where dance music is used in a dance hall and people dance, it may be very proper that he should take out a licence for dancing: but if he has in any part of the licensed premises an ordinary receiving apparatus with a loud speaker, is he compelled now to take out a music licence? If so, that seems to me to be rather a hardship.
LORD O'HAGAN: I am afraid that I cannot answer the question addressed to me, but I will make it my business to inquire. I do not know if the noble Lord who represents the Home Office can throw any light on that question.
On Question, Bill read 2ª, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

INCOME TAX APPEALS
LORD HARRIS LORD HARRIS rose to draw attention to the hardship imposed on taxpayers by the practice of the Crown of appealing against decisions of the Commissioners of Income Tax and making the taxpayer liable for costs both in the High Court and Court of Appeal, and to a statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the subject. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I should not pre-

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sume to detain your Lordships at any great length upon this subject, though it is undeniably important and has attracted a good deal of attention, but I wish to bring before your notice a particular case which I think illustrates as clearly as possible the very great hardship which some taxpayers suffer in consequence of the action of the Government in taking cases from Court to Court. It is unnecessary for me to detain your Lordships at any length, because on March 12 Mr. Winston Churchill received a deputation representing a number of bodies, including the Income Tax Payers Protection Society, who appealed to him that the Crown should be liable for costs when it was necessary to interpret the law—that is to say, when the Crown appealed to the higher Courts for a wider decision where the Commissioners had in the first instance decided in favour of the taxpayer.
I will take leave to detain your Lordships a few moments while I tell you what. Mr. Churchill said on that occasion. He rather deprecated the Crown undertaking to pay the costs because, for one thing, he was afraid that it would encourage litigation. At the conclusion of the interview he said that he was unable to accept the contention that the Crown should pay the costs in Revenue cases when the Crown's view of the law was upheld by the Courts, and where accordingly its appeal from the decision of the Commissioners had been justified. At the same time he pointed out that in exceptional cases, where a new and important principle was at stake, the practice of the Crown was already to pay, as a matter of grace, the costs of both sides, and he was prepared to consider whether there were in this practice the elements of an arrangement which would meet the wishes of the deputation. I think I shall be able to show your Lordships that the promise made by Mr. Winston Churchill has not been carried out in the case that I shall use as an illustration.
The case is that of a very worthy man not in a very high grade of society—a professional cricketer. It is the practice amongst the higher grades in that profession that they should receive once in a lifetime—almost invariably it is only once—a benefit provided from the donations of admirers and friends, and more
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particularly from the gate-money received at some match which is played for the benefit of a particular cricketer. In this case the cricketer to whom I am referring received from the gate-money, after paying the costs, a net amount of £935. You will understand that this is the reward for a lifetime of service in first-class cricket. It may be after ten years, or twenty years, or even longer, but it is as a rule the one substantial sum which he receives over and beyond his ordinary three days' pay. This particular cricketer received about £935.
The Crown endeavoured to tax it. He appealed to the Commissioners and the Commissioners discharged the assessment. At the request of the Crown a case was stated to the High Court—it was heard by Mr. Justice Rowlatt—as to whether this sum was a profit derived from his profession within the meaning of Rule 1 of the Rules applicable to Schedule E or, alternatively, whether it should be regarded as a profit or gain within the meaning of Schedule D (1) (b). Mr. Justice Rowlatt upheld the Commissioners—so that the taxpayer had won in two Courts; before the Commissioners and before the High Court—and dismissed the appeal with costs. Then the Crown proceeded to appeal to the Court of Appeal. It is not the taxpayer who is the litigant in this case; it is the Crown that is the litigant. The appeal was tried before three Judges, two of whom were against the taxpayer, while one was of the same opinion as Mr. Justice Rowlatt. So that up to that point the taxpayer had won his case in two Courts and before two High Court Judges, and lost it in one Court.
Surely if ever there was a case where it is necessary to get a clear interpretation of what the words of the Act really mean it is this case, and I submit to your Lordships that in a case of that kind it is rather for the State to prove what is the law, than compel the unfortunate taxpayer to go on from Court to Court, in order to get a final decision, which may possibly be against him. In this particular case that is the position. This man is now waiting for an opinion from counsel as to whether or not it will be wise to go to the House of Lords. If the advice is that he should not go to the House of Lords, the costs and counsel's

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fees will come to very nearly half of the capital sum which he has received from his benefit—the capital sum which the Crown is endeavouring to tax. Having won in two Courts out of three, the costs are all given against him—both sides' costs. Mr. Churchill says that in exceptional cases, where a new and important principle is at stake—and this is the first case of the kind attempted by the Income Tax authorities—the practice of the Crown was already, as a matter of grace, to pay the costs of both sides. The Crown have been asked whether they will pay the costs in this case, and they have refused. They have been asked whether they will pay their own costs, and have refused. Therefore the whole of the costs have been thrown upon this unfortunate man.
Supposing he goes to the House of Lords, and supposing he loses there. Practically the whole of the capital sum which they are endeavouring to tax will go in costs. I venture to submit to your Lordships that that is a very grievous case, and that it is not fair that the obligation should be thrown upon the taxpayer of endeavouring to prove what the law means by the words that are used. The Courts are all at loggerheads about it, and it is for the House of Lords to decide what is the meaning of the words. Why should it he thrown upon this unfortunate man to prove what they do mean, at the risk of losing the whole of the capital sum which he has earned after a lifetime of industry and success at his particular profession. I have concluded with no Motion. That would probably be a breach of privilege. I have not put down any Question, because it is a matter which is sub judice to some extent, but what I ask the noble Lord who is charged with the duty of replying to my Notice, is to say whether the Government will be so good as to call the attention of Mr. Winston Churchill to this case, and to submit my prayer that he may consider whether this is not legitimately one of those cases which he describes in his reply to the deputation which I have quoted.
LORD OLIVIER, who had given Notice to draw attention to the uncompensated labour and expense imposed on taxpayers by the perverse prosecution of unjustifiable and disproved claims for
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Income Tax subsequently abandoned without litigation, said: My Lords, I have a Notice on the Paper of a somewhat similar character, although it does not cover quite the same ground. I had intended to develop that Notice at some length, but I think at this late hour it would be rather trespassing upon your Lordships' patience if I attempted to do so, and in view of that fact I propose not to proceed further in the matter.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I have to reply to the Question put by the noble Lord, Lord Harris. I notice he puts his Question in this form: "To draw attention to the hardship imposed on taxpayers by the practice of the Crown of appealing against decisions of the Commissioners of Income Tax and making the taxpayer liable for costs both in the High Court and Court of Appeal." I do not think the noble Lord really means to complain of the Crown for appealing against decisions which they think are wrong. It is, of course, their duty to appeal. The decision in a particular case may be a small matter, but it is taken as a precedent and applies not only to the particular taxpayer but to many hundreds or thousands of other people, and in order to protect the general interest of the public the Crown must appeal against a decision which they believe to be wrong.
I think what the noble Lord really complains of is that when the Commissioners of Inland Revenue appeal, and win their appeal, they usually ask for costs against the unsuccessful party, and the Court, in its discretion, usually makes an order for those costs against the unsuccessful party. The suggestion of the noble Lord is that where the Inland Revenue appeals they shall pay the costs of both sides, whether they win or lose. Now, of course, that does not apply to other litigants. It is a very useful check on litigation that people who go to Court and lose their case pay the costs of both sides, and therefore it would not be wise to adopt a different rule as regards appeals by the Inland Revenue. The charges upon other taxpayers would, of course, be exceedingly heavy, and if a taxpayer knew that whatever happened, win or lose, he would get his costs, he would not be likely to be very economical in the way in which he

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conducted his case. So on general principles I think the noble Lord will not disagree with what I have said.
As to the particular case, of course I know what case it is he refers to, and equally, of course, I am not going to say a word about the merits of the case, because I might have the painful duty of deciding upon those merits in another capacity. I do not hesitate to say that I regret that a charge of this kind should fall upon a professional cricketer. I think, however, that what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said to the deputation was this—that where there was a new case, and a doubtful point, then the Inland Revenue did very often agree to pay the cost of both sides, whatever happened to the appeal, and he said that that practice would be maintained, but, of course, it must be for him or for his advisers to say whether a particular case falls within that rule. What I am told in this case is that the point was really an old one—that it is not a new case, but a mere question of fact, as to whether a particular benefit came within the definition of "income" on which tax was payable, and the Inland Revenue did not think they could remit the order for costs in this case.
There is this further observation, that if a taxpayer against whom an appeal is lodged desires to have the mitigation referred to be ought to ask for it before the appeal comes on, and before large expense is incurred. He ought to say to the Revenue: "Well, you have appealed against a decision of the Commission in which I have an interest. It is a new and doubtful point. Will you pay the costs of both sides whatever the event of the appeal?" And he will get an answer then and there, and know whether he goes on at his own risk.
LORD HARRIS: He got his answer.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: No, he made no application, I understand, until after the decision against him. He ought to have made it before the matter came on for hearing, and he would then have been told whether his costs would be paid or not. These are observations which I think are justified, and which the noble Lord ought to take into account. I will conclude by saying that I will most willingly bring to the notice of my right hon. friend what he has said, and, of course, he will give his decision.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, I cannot think that the answer given by the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack is a wholly satisfactory one. It happens in a large number of cases that an important question like this arises on a very small amount, and then perhaps the Crown wins in this House, and the respondent has to pay the whole of the costs here and in the Courts below. There are cases in which the respondent ought to pay, where he has wilfully withheld something, his liability to which raises no question of principle. There are other cases in which very clearly the Crown ought to pay, and that is when the Crown is seeking to have decided some great question of principle affecting the Revenue, arising in a particular case.
But, unfortunately, there has arisen a custom in the Courts and among the Judges of saying "Vae victis"—those conquered must pay the costs. Far better than leaving the matter in the discretion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Revenue authorities would be to call on the Judges to deal with these cases, and to deal with these cases in the way of either not awarding costs, or directing that they should be paid in proper cases by the victorious party. In the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council where we have another large class of public, cases of this kind, when questions arise between a Dominion and one of its Provinces, or between the Crown and a subject, there is a constant practice of saying: "This raises an important question of law, and there certainly should be no costs." I have known cases where we have only given leave to appeal on the footing that the Crown should pay the costs of the person who is complaining against it, because a real question was being raised.
I think the root of the whole difficulty here is the somewhat insufficient and unmodern view taken by the authorities about costs, and I should like to see the law so altered that the Judges would be able to deal with this matter with a very much larger discretion. I have known cases in this House, too, in which, if the Judges had been free, even when the Crown was successful, they would have said the Crown ought to bear the costs because there was a real question of principle, and the case was brought not for the small amount of £100 or so, but

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in order to get the law settled and the question of principle determined by the Judges, who can best judge the particular circumstances of the case. I cannot pronounce on the example which the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has given; it sounds a very hard case, but I should require to know what were the circumstances and what was urged before the Commissioners.
LORD HARRIS: There is no precedent. It is the first case.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: The noble Lord will permit me. I dare say there was no case in which a cricket association had collected £935 for the benefit of a meritorious player—
LORD HARRIS: Raised in a particular way.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: —and given it to him, and the question arose whether it was income or not; but whether it was part of his income or not may have been a very difficult question, and it may have been highly desirable that the Crown should get it settled. But the whole matter wants looking into, and whether by empowering the Judges to exercise a wider discretion and, if necessary, ordering the Crown to pay the costs, even where successful, or whether by introducing some intermediate practice, by which the question of liability for costs would be determined at a very much earlier stage, as it is sometimes done on questions of leave to appeal to the Privy Council, I do not wish to commit myself. But I am sure that we shall not get any satisfactory solution of this matter merely by making representations to the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the authorities. They follow tradition and precedent, and they are very reluctant to depart from them.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: My Lords, I think the noble and learned Viscount is perfectly right. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is an interested party. It should be left to the discretion of someone who is not an interested party, and who can give a fair decision. I should like to point out again the difficulty in which the ordinary person is. I am an Income Tax Commissioner, and certain cases have constantly come before
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me. I do not say that in any one of the cases which have come before me what I am going to state now has occurred—I do not think it has—but undoubtedly there are surveyors of Income Tax who do say to a man who is not very well off, or to a man who is fairly well off: "If you do not agree to what we have done we shall go to the Court of Appeal, and it, will cost you more to go to the Court than to pay the particular sum we are now asking you to pay." That ought not to be. There ought to be in this case some protection for the Income Tax payer, so that if he desires to decide an intricate point of law, which has not been settled before, he shall have the opportunity of doing it without being put to the vast expense which is entailed by going first to an ordinary court of law, then to the Court of Appeal, and finally to the House of Lords. There can be no doubt, I think, that the fear of the expense to which he would be put, if he does that, does in a certain number of cases compel a man to pay what, if he went to law, he probably would not be compelled to pay.
LORD HARRIS: I am much obliged to the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack for his promise to speak to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the subject.
[From Minutes of July 19.]

SEAFORD AND NEWHAVEN ELECTRICITY SPECIAL ORDER, 1926.
Special Order in respect of the urban districts of Seaford and Newhaven, and part of the rural district of Newhaven, all in the administrative county of East Sussex:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) and referred to the Special Orders Committee.
PAIGNTON URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL.
TEIGNMOUTH AND SHALDON BRIDGE BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments, agreed to.

CHORLEY CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments: The said Amendments considered, and agreed to.

KIDDERMINSTER AND STOURPORT TRAMWAYS BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments.
House adjourned at seven o'clock.