Lords Sitting of 16 June 1926

Preamble
The House met at a quarter before tour of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
OLDHAM EXTENSION BILL.
Read 2a.
WOLVERHAMPTON CORPORATION BILL.
Read 2a.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 3) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Bill reported without Amendment.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 6) BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Amendments proposed by the Select Committee made.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 7) BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Amendments proposed by the Select Committee made.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 8) BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Amendments proposed by the Select Committee made.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 9) BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Amendments proposed by the Select Committee made.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 10) BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Amendment proposed by the Select Committee made.

NATIONAL DEFENCE.
LORD THOMSON LORD THOMSON rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether they have under consideration the setting up of a Ministry of Defence; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, it is, I think, permissible to say that your Lordships' House is particularly well qualified to discuss the question of a Ministry of Defence. Several noble Lords opposite served on the Sub-Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence presided over by the noble Marquess the Leader of the House which, after an exhaustive inquiry and the hearing of much expert evidence, submitted a most valuable Report on this very point. Moreover, we are fortunate in having as members of this House two ex-Prime Ministers—the absence of one of whom, through indisposition, we all deplore—who as such have been Presidents of the Imperial Committee, and also my noble friend and Leader, Lord Haldane, who has played a leading part in its deliberations for so many years. These, together with certain eminent representatives of the Fighting Services, can speak with exceptional authority and competence on this subject. My own remarks, therefore, will be restricted to a survey of its more general aspects, in the light of personal experience as a staff officer and a brief period as Secretary of State for Air.
Ever since the War, the proposal to create a Ministry of Defence has been widely discussed and has found supporters in the ranks of all three political Parties. This proposal is at first sight most attractive: it appears to promise both efficiency and economy, rare merits in themselves and taken separately, but rarer still in combination. It makes a wide appeal—to some because they think it might facilitate a limitation of our armaments, to others for purely economic reasons. There are quite a number of well-informed persons in this country to-day who are uneasy on the score of
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efficiency, and who do not think that under our present system we are getting full value for the money spent on National and Imperial Defence. The wish being father to the thought, and in this connection very strong, there is a danger that public opinion may be misled on that account into reaching hasty conclusions on a matter which demands the most careful and critical examination. Fortunately, two Committees have reported fully on the main aspects of this proposal. To one of their Reports I have referred already, and for the sake of brevity I will describe it as the Salisbury Report. It deals with general questions of policy and correlation between services and methods of co-ordination. The other Report was drawn up as long ago as January, 1923, but it has only been published recently and is known as the Mond-Weir Report after its successive Chairmen. It deals with what are called "Common Services," that is administrative Services common to the Admiralty, War Office and Air Ministry, and the proposals to amalgamate them.
It is claimed by the partisans of a Ministry of Defence that substantial economies could be effected if the administration of these "common services" were amalgamated and carried out by a single Department. In many instances I think it will be found that this claim is based on the assumption that, under the existing system, there is little or no co-ordination between the three Services. It has been assumed, for example, in another place, that each Department bought supplies, clothing and munitions through separate agencies, did not co-operate with the other two in regard to hospitals, and maintained independent organisations for supplying the religious needs of our fighting men. This is far from being the ease. As a matter of fact there is, and has been for some years, a great deal of co-ordination between the three Fighting Services.
Some critics of the present system may be surprised to learn that the War Office purchases all the food consumed by the Air Force, at home stations; that where one pattern of clothing is used by the three Services, the largest user buys for the other two; that the three Contracts Departments are in continuous touch with a view to avoiding competition in the same market; that naval, military

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and Air Force hospitals are not reserved for the exclusive use of sailors, soldiers and airmen respectively—the returns of admissions to the various hospitals during 1925 furnish convincing proof of this—that a chaplains' co-ordinating committee has been set up, and has worked so successfully in the reduction of expenditure that, according to my calculations, ten shillings is the annual cost to the nation of an airman's soul. Not a large sum, you will agree, for a man who passes perpetually from perils in the air to temptation on the ground.
There are, of course, other common services of equal if not greater importance, such as Intelligence, Transport and Recruiting, which, for technical and other reasons, are more difficult to coordinate. In all these cases Committees have either been set up already or soon will be, with a view to avoiding duplication or triplication, as the case may be. No considerations of sentiment or tradition will be allowed to interfere with their recommendations being applied, and this being so the question I ask myself is: Can the co-ordination everyone desires be established more effectively by means of amalgamation of these common services than under the present system? The only further economy which would result from amalgamation, so far as I can see, would be a reduction of administrative personnel and therefore of expenditure. But here, I submit, we have to proceed with care and circumspection. The "Geddes axe" cut down establishments to what some people thought the bone, not long ago; and there are limits in this direction which it would be neither practical nor prudent to overstep. The internal organisation of each of the three Fighting Services in time of peace cannot be judged by ordinary business standards; it has to provide for rapid expansion on mobilisation with the minimum of friction. Consequently, the first and governing consideration in determining the size and composition of the three staffs is their readiness for smooth transition to a state of war. Any tampering with this might result in serious loss of efficiency.
Personally, I am inclined to think that very little further saving can be effected in this direction in the immediate future; and if it can be, the Department concerned is the only competent authority
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and its decision should be final. In this view I am confirmed by the Report of the Mond-Weir Committee. Owing to delays in publication, it has been impossible to give the detailed study to this Report which it deserves; I think, however, that the extract I am about to read gives its gist. On page 5, in paragraph 9 of that Report, the following is to be found:—
"After careful consideration we came to the conclusion that in existing circumstances the amalgamation of the common services of the three Departments is not advisable; and we doubt if any substantial economies would thereby be effected. The different conditions under which the three Services work, the different duties assigned to them, and the distribution of the armed forces of the Crone in small bodies all over the world alike constitute serious obstacles to the amalgamation of their common services."
Here we have the considered opinion of a Committee successively presided over by two well known and highly successful business men. This opinion is based on Reports by Sub-Committees which dealt in detail with the several common services, and whose final conclusions, in practically every case, were that amalgamation, in present circumstances, was either undesirable or impracticable.
I will now read out one other short extract which follows immediately after the one I have already read:—
"We are of opinion that the amalgamation of the common Services would only be practicable if it formed part of a comprehensive scheme of reorganisation which provided for the establishment of a Ministry to control a defence force in which the identity of the Navy, Army and Air Force had been merged. So far as we are aware, such a revolutionary idea as the merging of the identity of the three Services in one force has never been contemplated."
I would draw your Lordships' attention to the description of the Ministry of Defence as a "revolutionary idea." Perhaps I would not go so far as that, but in my view such a Ministry would not provide an improvement in the present system so far as co-ordination of the common services is concerned. It would inevitably, I believe, have a tendency to sacrifice the parts to the whole, and while making on paper a brave show of economy, so impair the efficiency of three organisms each differing from the other two in function and tradition as to more than set off any hypothetical saving.
This does not, however, dispose of the wider issue of policy. At first hearing,

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the argument is plausible that since the three Services exist for a common purpose—defence—that purpose can be best attained by a single Ministry of Defence, which would substitute one Cabinet Minister for three, who may or may not waste a lot of time in inter-departmental wrangles. Here, in the realms of policy and thought, it would appear that amalgamation should ensure co-ordination. One brain would direct the thinking of the three Departments, whose points of view would be put forward by a subordinate of the Minister of Defence, who, himself, would survey the whole field, coordinate the activities of the Admiralty, War Office and Air Ministry, reconcile conflicting policies and distribute the multifarious duties connected with national and Imperial defence so that each Service should function to the best advantage in theatres where sea, land or air forces could most appropriately be employed.
In theory, this arrangement is ideal; it would, I believe, enable substantial economies to be effected. Undoubtedly there is some overlapping between the three Services, both at home and abroad, not so much in administration as in function. But in practice, I see many grave objections to amalgamation as the remedy. When one reflects on the amount of co-ordination that is required inside any one of the three Departments, to multiply it by three would produce a total of staggering proportions. It may be argued that the Minister of Defence would not concern himself with details and would reserve his energies for the higher tasks of co-ordination and framing policy. The short answer to that is that no man could express an authoritative opinion or reach a decision of any weight who was not in personal touch with the organisation of each Service and its very human elements. The Service Departments are riot machines, each of them represents a large fraction of the community, they are essentially individual in their characteristics, and between them there exists a spirit of emulation which serves not only as a stimulus to effort but enables the Treasury to exert some check on extravagance. I know at least one Chancellor of the Exchequer who has played the three Services off against each other in order to effect economies. It is perfectly true that the Service Departments will, if they can, put efficiency before economy,
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but surely that is a fault in the right direction, and it is the duty of the political chief of the Department to redress the balance. We maintain these Services in time of peace because they cannot be improvised in a hurry; to amalgamate them under one bureaucratic direction would kill a spirit that is most precious, and cripple their activities in time of war.
If I read history aright, the Germans did something of the sort in the later stages of the World War. The great General Staff attempted to control both the Army and the Navy; and being unversed in naval strategy and tradition did not employ the latter to the best advantage, with the result that the Fleet was the first German institution to be infected with a revolutionary spirit, and I have heard it stated by most competent authorities in Germany itself that it was due to the enforced inaction on the part of the Fleet that this formidable weapon which Germany had forged turned out in the end a failure. We took a very different course. We went so far as to establish an Air Ministry and an independent Air Force during the crisis of the War. Thereby I think we acted rightly. We recognised that the Services are separate entities, which should and can be co-ordinated in their action, but cannot yet be mixed. A time may conic when, through the development of aviation, Fleets will be lifted from the sea, and Armies will not be earthbound, and the air may become the principal if not the sole arena. But it has not conic yet. In 1922, it was stated in the House of Commons that although a Ministry of Defence might be desirable, it was not possible to create one at that time, nor would it be for a considerable time to come. Four years have elapsed since then, four years during which the problems presented by each of the three Services have increased in complexity and number.
No doubt there are men of exceptional ability and experience who could shoulder the gigantic burden involved by the office of Minister of Defence; there are many others, without experience, who think they could—the valour of ignorance is proverbial. But the more experienced the Minister the more diffident he will be as to his own capacity to undertake the onerous duties of such a

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post. A man in this position would have to possess the patience of Job, the impartial judgment of a Solomon, the mental equipment of a Francis Bacon, the patient organising power of a Cardwell. He would hear much advice and have to do a lot of talking, but I doubt whether he would have a moment's spare time to see things for himself. He would have to combine in a single person the energies of three Cabinet Ministers. I believe that in the end he would become a kind of Buddha, a profoundly pessimistic person "taking the middle path." I can see him walking down Whitehall between the Admiralty and the War Office, making occasional excursions into Kingsway, and muttering to himself as he went along his own version of the Athanasian Creed—"There are not three Departments but one Department, not three policies but one policy and that is mine." But, unfortunately, there are three policies, as different in character as earth and sea and air. In the end and in duty bound the Defence Minister would have to produce a plan. It would be an omnibus affair upon whose outcome tremendous consequences might depend. It would have to take into account the protection of a vast net-work of communications through narrow waters, across the Seven Seas and over deserts; including the defence of India, overseas bases, refuelling stations and widely scattered sources of supply. A man responsible for all that would have to think in three dimensions and ponder some of the most complicated problems of high strategy on land, blue water and in the upper air, all of which tend to become more and not less complicated by the development of mechanical appliances and their application to war.
After months of consultation and reflection, this Defence Minister would submit his plan and unless it realised considerable economies, the disappointment, would be great. Yet the Defence Minister might well reply to the complaints of his colleagues—"Take it or leave it; I cannot explain, either verbally or within the compass of a memorandum, the conclusions I have reached after the pain and labour of the past six months." Nor would it be reasonable to expect any man who had made such a gigantic intellectual effort to be able to explain himself. I am afraid that that plan
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would become an obsession to its author, and I am sure it would be agreed that the ideal plan for National and Imperial Defence is one which is elastic and susceptible of continuous re-adjustment. As regards economy, I believe the Chancellor of the Exchequer would find it harder to check and control the Estimates submitted by a single Department than he does now in dealing with the separate Estimates of the three Departments. The very complexity of the array of figures which would be put before him would dismay the stoutest and most parsimonious economist.
It is perfectly true that the salaries of two Cabinet Ministers might be saved. But the Minister of Defence would have to be lodged somewhere and have a staff. It would cost something and tend to increase in cost. At first the Defence Minister might be content with quarters in Whitehall Gardens; but I cannot help thinking that soon he would need a place of refuge of larger dimensions. The cost of the Ministry of Defence, worked out in detail according to the suggestions that have been made in various Press reports that one sees, would, I believe, amount to a great deal more than the present system.
I have dealt only with the position of a Minister of Defence in time of peace. In time of war his task would he enormously increased. Modern war involves a national effort. During the last conflict the Ministry of Munitions and another Ministry of Man Power had to be set up. I suppose that, under the system of a Minister of Defence, these two Departments would he included in his Department. It comes to this: that we are really discussing a system which places on one pair of shoulders a stupendous burden in time of peace, and doubles it when war occurs. It is idle to suppose that such a system could create efficiency or good work. The Report of the Salisbury Sub-Committee definitely rejected a. Ministry of Defence as the best means of achieving coordination between the three fighting Services. It did so after hearing the evidence of many distinguished experts, two of whom, and only two, Sir Eric Geddes and Major-General Sir Frederick Sykes, were in favour of such a Ministry although they contemplated its formation by different methods. Sir Eric

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Geddes' plan laid down that the Minister of Defence would have to obtain the endorsement of the Committee of Imperial Defence "before his Estimates or his provisions were taken to the Cabinet." I can hardly see him doing that; his office would be a miniature committee of Imperial Defence, and if he did, it seems to me to be an unnecessary duplication. Sir Frederick Sykes considered that the real solution lay in "definite, unified, supreme control by a Defence Ministry with the Prime Minister as independent chairman and a joint staff which could really think out defence as a whole." This means, I imagine, that the Prime Minister would be the Minister of Defence, and he is notoriously the most overworked man in the kingdom and possibly, in the world at the present time. This seems to be a. most unnecessary and cruel addition to his duties. But Sir Frederick Sykes admitted that this was a "policy of perfection" and, failing it, recommended the strengthening of the mandate and constitution of the Committee of Imperial Defence.With this I do agree.
On the other hand, all the other experts recommended that closer coordination, on the need for which everyone laid stress, should be effected by the Committee of Imperial Defence alone. My last point, therefore, is concerned with the composition and powers of that Committee. There are many people who regard the Committee of Imperial Defence with suspicion; they believe that the Chiefs of Staff have too much influence on its deliberations and that these officials are ingrained and unrepentant militarists. Any one with the least experience of the Committee knows how unjust are such suspicions, and that most Chiefs of Staff are the reverse of fire-eaters. Their attitude has never varied; they want to know what they are expected to perform, to avoid being asked to execute the impossible, and, when their task has been finally determined, to be left alone to do it. Of course, in practice it is not so easy to draw a clear line of demarcation between policy and strategy. In the higher flights of action the two have frequently been confounded. Frederick the Great and Napoleon dealt with both and had a
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great advantage for that reason over opponents less gifted and less fortunately situated. But although we may have had unrecognised Napoleons and still be entertaining them unawares, we have had to devise a system which can be worked by ordinary men, and the Committee of Imperial Defence is the result. I need hardly remind your Lordships that this Committee is a Prime Minister's Committee, its members are nominated by the Prime Minister of the day, it includes as a rule the three Chiefs of Staff as members, but it has no executive power at all.
Although this system has worked excellently, up to a point, it contains certain flaws. For example, no less an authority than Field-Marshal Sir William Robertson has suggested that the three Chiefs of Staff should attend the Committee, or Council as he terms it, in an advisory capacity only and not as members, but that three senior officers (unemployed), one from each Service, should be members. While respectfully differing from the latter part of this suggestion, it formed the subject of a famous controversy in India, and from what I know of the Field-Marshal, he would not have stood an interloper of this sort for five minutes when he himself was Chief of the Imperial Staff. I do agree with the first part and also with recommendation (f) of the Salisbury Report which reads as follows:—
"On the other hand, the existing system of co-ordination by the Committee of Imperial Defence is not sufficient to secure full initiative and responsibility for defence as a whole, and requires to be defined and strengthened."
Personally, I am inclined to think that the way to strengthen the Committee of imperial Defence is to give it greater executive power in regard to policy; I should like it to be a Cabinet Committee, and not a Prime Minister's Committee as at present.
My reasons are very clearly set forth in conclusions (g) and (h) of the Salisbury Report, which I will read:—
"(g) Under the existing system the Committee of Imperial Defence, an advisory and consultative body, inquires into and makes recommendations in regard to the issues of defence policy and organisation which are brought before it. The power of initiative lies with the Government Departments and with the Prime Minister."

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"(h) This system, though invaluable up to a point, does not make any authority, except the Prime Minister, who call only devote a small part of his time and attention to defence questions, directly responsible for the initiation of a consistent line of policy directing the common action of the three or any two of the three Services, taking account of the reactions of the three Services upon one another."
I will not, read conclusions (i) and (j), because with them I am in partial disagreement. My own view is that the presence of the Chiefs of Staff or of any permanent officials as members interferes with what I regard as the primary function of the Committee of Imperial Defence—the determination of policy, for which the Cabinet and the Cabinet alone is responsible. Of course, all the Chiefs of Staff, and any other professional assistance that was needed, would be constantly available to advise this Cabinet Committee. The advice given might be taken or left, but should invariably he recorded. There is a vast difference, however, I submit, between this arrangement and one whereby they are present also when questions of policy are decided.
There is very general agreement as to which Cabinet Ministers should be members of the Committee of Imperial Defence. They are the Prime Minister or his Deputy as Chairman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs, the Colonies, India, War, and Air and the First Lord of the Admiralty. There are eight men who are sufficiently representative to deal with all questions concerning National and imperial Defence, and sufficiently powerful to say "You shall" to the three Departments through their political chiefs. In time of war they would form a suitable nucleus for a War Cabinet, thus ensuring continuity. Their Departments cover the whole range of our national and Imperial responsibilities for defence; they are in close touch with world movements, the menace of war abroad and preparations for it, the counter-precautions that are being taken and the hopeful labours of those who work for peace. In all the world, there are no eight people better fitted or more competent to exercise wide powers in regard to successive policies of defence, and to give to the three executive Service Departments clear and authoritative instructions on which to base their plans.
I am aware that that is something like the Committee of Imperial Defence at this moment. Obviously it is, but what does upset a great many people is the fact that that Committee includes professional and expert advisers who, however innocent they may be of the charges brought against them, do, from the very fact of their profession, excite a certain amount of suspicion. I am aware that there are many objections to my proposal, not the least of which may be that of the Dominions to executive control by the Committee of Imperial Defence. I am also aware that on this point some noble Lords with far greater experience than my own have expressed contrary opinions. I have read for many years the speeches of the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, who is the parent of that institution, and who, in August, 1904, declared—
"In truth, I think that one of the great merits of the Committee is that it has no executive power at all."
The noble Earl, Lord Oxford, in 1909, defined the functions of the Committee of imperial Defence as "advisory and not executive." My noble friend Lord Haldane has stated that
"the scope of the Committee must be sufficiently elastic to admit of the co-operation within it of distinguished experts at the head of very different Services."
My temerity has been great, but I submit that much has happened since anyhow two of the utterances I have quoted were made.
That, word "advisory" may sometimes cloak a certain amount of woolliness and cause delay when prompt decisions have to be taken. We are now faced with an insistent demand for economy, and economy is never real unless coupled with efficiency. I cannot see how real economy can be effected by amalgamating the three Services under a Ministry of Defence; but I do believe that substantial economies could be realised by further co-ordination in the field of policy and, above all, by redistribution. I suggest that the only competent authority in a matter of this kind is the Cabinet, working through a Committee of its members constituted somewhat on the lines I have suggested. I make this suggestion tentatively and with great diffidence, and I would like to stress that it is only the expression of my personal opinion. Like everyone who has studied this question

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closely, I have discovered its great complexity and the extent of my own ignorance. There are many people in the same frame of mind as myself and they are looking for light, and leading. I did not put down the Motion which stands in my name merely to have an opportunity of making a speech, but because I also want light and leading, and I feel sure that there is no better source for both than your Lordships' House. I beg to move.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE EARL OF BALFOUR): My Lords, I think all of you who have listened to the speech of the noble Lord who has just sat down must feel that it is the result of very careful thought and considerable experience and of a most sincere desire irrespective of any public controversy to give the best views in his power to your Lordships' House, and to survey in the most impartial fashion what has been done and is being done by successive Governments in this country. With almost the whole of his speech I am in hearty agreement, but, as he is well aware, there is one point on which differences exist between us, differences of considerable importance. That one point was dwelt Upon by the noble Lord at the end of his speech in which he expressed diffidently, and in a manner which certainly must conciliate all opposition, his own view that the Committee of Imperial Defence should be an executive body.
He made a quotation from something that I said many years ago—more than twenty years ago—and he made another quotation from the present Leader of the Liberal Party in which we were agreed, while differing on so many public questions, in saying that the merit, or one of the great merits, of the Committee of Imperial Defence was that it had no executive powers. I do not know whether I shall have time or opportunity before this debate concludes to argue this proposition at any length, but before leaving the only part of the noble Lord's speech from which I differ I must emphatically reiterate my own strong impression that one of the main advantages of the Committee of Imperial Defence is that every Department feels that it has in that Committee a body which is out to help it, not to order it,
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and I am perfectly certain that directly the various Departments of the State, with all their traditions, all their natural susceptibilities, felt that this was a method by which they were to be ordered by a body which was other than the Cabinet, differently organised from the Cabinet, with a separate Secretariat—directly they were put under the orders of such a body as that they would instinctively put themselves in a position of hostility and opposition.
That is avoided, and wholly avoided, by the present arrangement. I must personally express to your Lordships my opinion that it can be avoided by no other arrangement whatever. Such a change would, I fear, be disastrous, but I do not propose to argue it at greater length on the present occasion. I think that your Lordships will feel that the line of thought that I have suggested is one which, if pursued, will persuade most people—I admit that there are difficulties—that the organisation of the Committee of Imperial Defence on its present exceptional basis—I admit that it is unlike any other organisation that I know of in the world—requires as an essential element the fact that, while it has every power to examine, to initiate and to advise, it has no power to order, no power to command.
Perhaps it would be convenient to your Lordships and to the public if I were to deal first with some of the actual, specific cases in which, with the help of the Committee of Imperial Defence and under Cabinet direction, co-ordination has been and is being pursued at this moment. Before I sit down I shall turn to the specific proposal of a Ministry of Defence, but before I approach that point I think I ought to say to your Lordships that everybody of course desires co-ordination; they desire it on the score of economy, they desire it on the score of efficiency; and there would not be a single dissentient from the broad proposition that, war being one, the more you can coordinate the Services which minister to war the greater economy you will acquire and the greater efficiency you will obtain. Every one, to whatever Party he may belong, whatever his views may be, would agree with that broad abstract proposition.
Under the existing system I think a degree of co-ordination has already been

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obtained and is being pursued far in excess of any of which our forefathers ever dreamed. On the administrative side I may mention co-ordination of the medical departments of the Services, and co-ordination of all questions connected with chaplains and important considerations of that kind; and, on the economic side, far greater co-ordination in all questions of the purchase of supplies, of going into the market and obtaining what is required, of having common standards for the commodities that are demanded and greater co-ordination in dealing with transport and research. All those things are capable of greater co-ordination than was possible or thought of sonic years ago. I do not say that the process is as yet completed, but I do say that most careful and competent examination is being exercised with regard to each one of the departments that I have mentioned with, so far as I am able to judge, the happiest results. There is one other field of co-ordination which does not so intimately concern your Lordships' House but which I think it desirable that I should mention. I understand that it is the intention of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer that there should be a debate as a matter of course on the question of defence, treated as a whole, as a sort of preliminary to dealing with the Estimates of the different Services in their turn. I think that this will probably produce valuable results and, if it does, I am sure that there is no body in this Kingdom which will be more delighted by those results than your Lordships' House.
This brief enumeration is perhaps all that I need say upon what I may call the administrative side of our present efforts towards co-ordination. On the military side I have some points of importance that I should like to state to your Lordships. The first is that we are in process of establishing a College of imperial Defence. I do not suppose that the result of the tuition which that or any other institution can give to ordinary human beings will be to turn out a number of gentlemen equally competent to take command of an Army, of a Fleet or of an air expedition, but it is all-important, as the history of these matters in this country shows, that soldiers, sailors and airmen should, as a
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matter of course, understand something of what their colleagues in the other two Services can and cannot do. My experience in these discussions goes back for more years than I care to think of, but I remember, when the Committee of Imperial Defence was first started and when the members of the two Fighting Services—there were then, of course, only two—were brought around the table with members of the Cabinet and their civilian colleagues, the want of comprehension on the part of very eminent members of one profession with regard to the difficulties and the powers of the other Service was sometimes really quite surprising. In those circumstances cooperation was obviously much more difficult than it would be if the expert Army authority and the expert naval authority knew enough about the professional and technical side of the other Service to enable them to meet together and to discuss with sympathy as well as with intelligence the common objects which both of them must have in view. I hope that the Imperial College of Defence will do something towards that great end.
I have been referring, of course, to what is merely an educational matter, and you will say to me with truth that educational matters, from the nature of the case, must be many years in bringing forth all the fruits of which they are capable. Your Lordships' House would, I am sure, like to know what is being done immediately to co-ordinate more closely the military side of the three Fighting Services. The policy of His Majesty's Government is quite clearly expressed in the Report of the Commission over which my noble friend so admirably presided two or three years ago. It is stated there quite unequivocally that the Chiefs of the Staffs ought to meet together in consultation, to form, as it were, a committee of their own in which they should have, in the phrase which I think was used by my noble friend, responsibilities, individual and collective, for the advice which they propose to give to the Cabinet. I am sure that can be done. I am sure that the actual existing heads of the three Staffs have already become accustomed to working together sympathetically and with a great anxiety to bring their separate technical knowledge into the common stock with a view to coming to a common opinion which they can lay

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before the Defence Committee. It is already being done, but we think this is so important that it will be desirable to give every possible emphasis to the policy recommended by my noble friend and whole-heartedly accepted by the present Cabinet.
It is therefore proposed that there should be a special Warrant by the Prime Minister, couched in the stately language of a by-gone age, in which the duties of the three Chiefs-of-Staff shall be enumerated and shall be given every emphasis. The whole point, if I may repeat myself, is that these three distinguished officers should meet together, not with a view to each fighting his own corner, each dealing with his own aspect of the question, not only with the natural duty of working harmoniously with his colleagues, but with a specific command embodied in this Warrant that they are singly and collectively responsible for the policy which they recommend. I hope and believe that, although such a Warrant as I have described will make no change in what is now going on, it will perpetuate the present state of things and make every man who accepts the position of Chief of Staff in the Army or First Sea Lord in the Admiralty or Chief of Staff in the Air Force do so with the full consciousness that one of their duties, as clear a duty as any other thrown upon them by their office, is individually and collectively to work to the common end I have endeavoured to describe.
That is no doubt in its effects the most important step towards co-operation between the three Services which I have to bring before your Lordships' attention, but it may be worth while my saying that among the immense mass of subjects which, by its Sub-Committees, is dealt with by the Committee of Imperial Defence I may mention a Standing Committee dealing with man-power, a Standing Committee called the Principal Supply Officers Committee, which I think the noble and learned Viscount opposite knows intimately, and Committees dealing with the whole question of air raids, of censorship, oil supplies, insurance and Imperial communications. I only mention these as some among the most important of the various activities of the Sub-Committees of the Committee of Imperial Defence. The number of these
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Sub-Committees and the amount of work they have done and are doing and the vast range over which their investigations travel are, I think, little known to the public. I am not quite sure of my figures, but I think that at this moment there are thirty Committees sitting, doing the most laborious work with the same secretariat and under conditions which make the co-ordination of their labours not merely a something that may be done but a question of something that must be done in the ordinary routine of the Committee of Imperial Defence work.
I do not think anybody can describe the sort of system which I have indicated as being deficient in co-ordination. I do not at all say that that co-ordination cannot be improved—there are few human institutions with regard to which such a eulogy can be uttered—but I do clearly and confidently say that the process of co-ordination is already accomplished or in process of being accomplished, and I think it is with that conclusion in your minds that you should approach the question of the revolutionary change which is proposed by some high authorities and is, technically, the central subject of our debate this afternoon: I mean the Minister of Defence.
My criticism of the proposal to add to the three existing Cabinet Ministers, or to substitute one Minister for the three existing Cabinet Ministers at the head of the Fighting Services, can briefly be stated. It is that you ask this new Minister to do more than any Minister can possibly accomplish, but you do not ask him to do enough, if among his duties you count the co-ordination of all the energies of a country for warlike purposes. It doubly fails. The instrument is not sufficient to carry out what you want it to carry out—namely, co-ordination of the three Fighting Services. No human being is capable of doing the work which would be thrown upon him, and if he were capable of doing it he would still leave the most important elements in modern preparation for war quite outside his sphere of activities. You ask him to do too much, but you do not ask him to do enough.
That is my broad proposition. May I develop it a little? The whole tendency of modern warlike preparation is in the direction of rapid change and extreme complexity. If, for example, you will

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cast back your minds to the naval history of this country you might, I think, say that from, the Armada down to the invention of steam the vital changes in the mode of fighting at sea and in the armaments by which fighting was carried on suffered no essential change. You may take, at the end of the sixteenth century, the Armada. At the end of the seventeenth century you may take the Battle of La Hogue. At the end of the eighteenth century you may take the Battle of the Nile, or, going a few years later, the Battle of Trafalgar. No doubt there were controversies about the proper tactics to be used in fleet actions, but, broadly speaking, manœuvring his ship and fighting his guns was what had to be done by the sailor, and it was all that had to be clone by the sailor. Of course the arrangement of your fleet—whether you should cut the enemy's line, or whether you should form line ahead, or whatever it was—is a question of high tactics. But the actual way in which the fighting was carried on did not differ during the two centuries and a half to which I have referred—centuries gkirious in the annals of our Navy, but centuries in which very different machinery was used for keeping the command of the sea.
Compare the present state of things with the two centuries and a half to which I have referred. Instead of its being merely a matter of bringing the ships alongside, pouring in broadsides out of smooth-bore cannons as fast as you can into the enemy's ships, you now require an amount of different. technical training for all your sailors of which our forefathers had no notion at all. Long range guns, torpedoes, submarines, air fighting, mines, mine-sweepers—all require a different training, all require different knowledge, all require a technical apparatus which not only varies infinitely at the same time, but varies from year to year, changes and develops with every new invention, with many scientific discoveries, with all sorts of mechanical contrivances.
I presume that the one duty of the political head of the Admiralty is to put himself in sympathy with all these various activities. They look to him to help them in all matters connected with Parliament, connected with the Cabinet, and indeed connected with their special policy. Are you going to ask any man to make himself adequately acquainted
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with all the intricate complexities of modern naval war, with modern land war and modern war in the air—all the changing picture of these inventions in which one scheme of destruction, of offence or defence, follows another with bewildering rapidity? Are you going to ask one man adequately to master that vast field of operations, and at the same time to carry on all his duties as a Cabinet Minister, as a Member of Parliament, and no doubt as an agitator through the country? Really it seems to me almost grotesque to suggest such a scheme as that.
I cannot even imagine anybody who has had any training in public affairs thinking for a moment that it is practicable. The unfortunate bearer of all these responsibilities goes to a Cabinet one clay, presides over the Army Council another day, over the Board of Admiralty on a third day, over the Council of the Air Force on a fourth day. What opportunity has he got of getting to know the spirit of any one of the three Services, of making himself acquainted with their personnel, of in any sense sharing their life? He will become, as far as I can see, perfectly over-loaded with responsibility, wielding in name and on paper infinite powers but, as a matter of fact, far more impotent for any purpose of practical utility than if you gave him a third of the work to do, instead of that with which you would overload him.
Is not the whole experience of mankind against it? There is not a State in the world that counts in these matters—unless the evanescent episode to which the noble Lord opposite referred in the case of the German Navy is to be taken as an example, which I hardly think it is—there is not a State in the world which mixes up its Admiralty and its War Office. If military and naval historians are to be believed, even Napoleon was not successful in grasping all the broad possibilities both of the Army and of the Navy. He knew all that could be taught about armies, but his ignorance of navies, if historians are to be believed, was profound, and had a very disastrous effect upon his whole policy. Well, where Napoleon failed you are not going to get the ordinary politician to succeed. Where the labours of these gentlemen are as much as any ordinary man can bear it really is madness to multiply them by three.

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The noble Lord referred to another point which illustrates the thesis I am endeavouring to press upon your Lordships. He reminded you that directly war breaks out every country finds it absolutely necessary to multiply its offices. This reform, if it is to be counted a reform, is going to substitute one office for three. Directly you go to war you will find yourselves compelled to have, not three offices, but a great many more. We in this country, if I remember rightly, had ten offices by the end of the War. The French had nine. And if in war the complexities of modern operations and modern matériel compel you to multiply the number of your offices, what indication is there that in time of peace the true line of progress is that of diminishing their number? It seems to be a wild and quite indefensible paradox. For that reason, and only considering that reason, I hold myself that the idea of substituting a Minister of Defence for the three heads of the three Departments is not a scheme that any practical assembly ought to endorse.
But I have another point, which I have already indicated. While you ask this unhappy Minister of Defence to do a great deal more than any man can do, you do not ask him to do enough to coordinate all your efforts in war or in preparation for war. Modern war, as the noble Lord pointed out, differs entirely from the wars with which in history we are familiar, in that every single sphere of activity is called upon to serve the great single purpose of winning the victory. In the great wars of the eighteenth century, for example, in which Europe and America were sometimes all engaged—they were almost world wars—the ordinary life of the country went on very much as it did before. Industry, society, the general course of social life, went on with no violent change. The war of to-day is utterly different and is utterly different largely for the reason that we have brought in science and mechanical invention to aid us in these terrible conflicts. In the eighteenth century you might read the Parliamentary debates, the novels representing the social life of the time, the newspapers, and you would feel at once that while the anxiety might be great there was no vital change in the direction in which human energy was employed. It is
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utterly different now. You mobilise science, you mobilise invention you turn your factories to purposes for which they were never intended, all your industries go in new channels, and the consequence is that the civilian side of war bears a much greater proportion to the whole energies of war than it ever did before.
The military side is but a part—I had almost been tempted to say it is not the greatest part of it. There is at this moment sitting a Committee looking into man power, to ascertain how man power is to be utilised with the least inconvenience to the civil population. In the eighteenth century you had a press gang, and that was all. You sent out a body of sailors, and they stole from the merchant ships a great many other sailors, and turned them into fighting men. That is all primitive and past; it all belongs to an utterly bygone state of things. Now you have to consider questions of man power, questions of matérial, you have to mobilise all the intellectual resources of your country in so far as they are engaged upon science or the applications of science, your transport, your finance, your insurance—all these have to be brought in and, without them, where would your Minister of Defence be? Your Minister of Defence depends upon them, and yet he has no control over them at all under this scheme. The idea that the Minister of Defence is a man who is responsible for all the activities which converge upon defence is to deceive yourself as to what happens when war occurs.
Was it not of Lord St. Vincent that this story was told? He went about always with a pocketful of acorns and, wherever he could see a good opportunity, he put an acorn into the ground, flattering himself that in war, if other people followed his example, England would never find itself deficient in the material for building her ships on which her safety depended. The oaks that Lord St. Vincent planted had not nearly reached their prime when an oak became the most useless thing in the world for all purposes of defence. We had substituted for oaks the most elaborate resources—the manufacture of every kind of steel, every kind of alloy, every kind of new weapon. Except for the bravery, the energy, the enterprise and the strategic capacity which are common to

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successful fighters in all ages, nothing could be more different than the conditions under which we fight now and the conditions which prevailed in our forefathers' times. The difference is that you bring in the civilian in a way that you never brought him in before.
Surely the forgetfulness of that fact—the omission of any consideration of that fact—entirely condemns the suggestion that you should put under one responsible head all the fighting forces of the country and that by that form of organisation you would obtain that co-operation without which success is impossible. I think the argument is overwhelming. I cannot see for myself what possible gain there would be in introducing this Minister if you left the Committee of Imperial Defence as it is, because the Committee of Imperial Defence can do, and does, the co-ordination of which your Minister would be quite incapable. The Committee of Imperial Defence does that work which no Minister of Defence could do. It can do the work, and is doing the work, of coordinating the civil resources of the country as well as what I call the military resources. That institution has been tried in peace and it has been tried in war. It is an institution which never, from its character, can become rigid. It is an institution which can never become bureaucratic. It is capable, as no other institution can be, of covering the whole ground by its Committees, dealing with questions the most disparate and the most complicated, and belonging to the most different spheres of activity. It is capable of doing all that and it is doing all that, and it seems to me that to do anything which will lessen its utility, to do anything which will overshadow it, is to run straight counter to the avowed object of giving us co-ordination. Co-ordination is being given us, may more and more be given us, by the Committee of Imperial Defence, and I earnestly hope that with the fundamental characteristics of that body neither your Lordships' House nor the other House will ever desire to interfere.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, it is not often that one rises from the Opposition Benches, as I find myself rising at this moment, in such complete agreement with a speech that has been made expository of the policy of the Government. And the reason is not that I am indisposed to criticise the policy of
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the Government when an opportunity affords itself, within legitimate limits, but that the noble Earl has come to his conclusion by a path which seems to me the only right path. I shall have criticisms to make on the present arrangements of the Committee of Imperial Defence before I sit down, but they will be of a minor character. The noble Earl was the founder of that Committee. He not only founded it, but he lived with it. He has presided over it and worked with it for a longer period than anybody alive. Not only that, but he has seen it grow. The Committee of Imperial Defence is definitely a body with an unwritten constitution. No Statute has imposed on it a rigid framework. It has been able to change and adapt itself from time to time and it has changed and adapted itself very much even in the period of my own observation. The noble Earl has worked with it and watched over it and to-clay, for example, he has given us at least two new developments which he has announced.
The first is the proposal that the Chiefs of Staff—who already met under tint constitution of the Committee as recommended by Lord Salisbury's Report and in Lord Salisbury's time when lie was Chairman of the Committee of Imperial Defence—should, by the Prime Minister's Warrant, have imposed upon them the duty of consulting not merely from the point of view of their own Department but of the common defence of the Empire. I think that they tried to do that latterly, but it was a duty that grew on them and it was unfamiliar. Now that it is looked upon as part of their formal duty there will be a stimulus to that part of the unwritten constitution.
The other part of the announcement to which I attach great importance is the announcement that there is to be an Imperial War College for the training of the super-staffs, the higher elements of the staffs in the three Services, which should consider the principles of strategy from a larger point of view than has been possible in any of the colleges of the Services up till now. To me that is of very great importance. Every nation has its methods of defence of a different order from those of any other nation. Our methods of defence, our methods of making war, are primarily on the sea. On the sea our Fleet has to do two things,

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to command the sea in time of war and to protect our trade. The second is sometimes a little overlooked, but it is a matter of vast importance, involving vast study and a great deal of technical knowledge. Our Fleet can only carry out its duties in co-operation with an Army, an Expeditionary Force which is so called because it is an expeditionary force. Being professional it can be mobilised at a moment's notice and sent off in ships to protect the outlying parts of the Empire. Then there is the Air Force, which is becoming more and more a necessity to the other Services.
The principles of strategy are just what they were in the time of Hannibal but, though they are the same principles, the modifications of their application are infinite and it requires a highly trained military mind to bring those principles into modern life and to apply them in the way they should be applied. I thought for a long time that we wanted a super-staff college to bring a common outlook into the minds of the three Services. The anouncement of the noble Earl is therefore very welcome.
It is not over those things, however, that I wish to pause. The noble Earl has had a longer experience of the Committee of Imperial Defence than any other living person, but I rather think I come next to him in that respect. I first became connected with it in 1905 and I was very closely connected. I looked after it for a good while. Then Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and Lord Oxford and Asquith began to take a more active part in its deliberations and continued to do so, but I was always as busy as I could be there and except for an interval of two or three years I remained closely connected with it even when I occupied the Woolsack. Of late, by the desire of the Government, who have graciously wished it, I have been brought closely in touch, not of course with its political side, but with the technical Committees of which, as has been said, there are thirty, some of them dealing with very technical matters indeed. I have knowledge of them from inside as well as outside. Like the noble Marquess I was Chairman of the Committee during the last Government. My noble and learned friend Lord Cave very kindly took over the bulk of my judicial work and I used to spend two or three hours a day
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regularly at Whitehall Gardens with the Committee of Imperial Defence.
I watched it developing itself and expanding itself and by degrees I came to very clear conclusions, which are substantially the same as those of the noble Earl. I think it is impossible to work this unwritten organisation, this developing organisation, by putting it under a Minister of Defence. There is one reason against it which has not been mentioned. Like the noble Earl it has fallen to me to negotiate with the Dominions over Imperial Defence. The Dominions like the Committee of Imperial Defence because, at any rate in the case of the Army, the General Staff is now Imperial and in the case of the Navy the Naval Staff is in the closest connection with the Dominions, and so is the Air Staff. Consequently it became most natural that the Committee of Imperial Defence should be really an Imperial Committee; that is, a Committee containing in itself representatives of the Dominions.
But at first the Dominions were a little suspicious of it on two grounds. First, they feared lest it should have executive authority and, secondly, they feared lest it should somehow put them under British Ministers. By the constitution of the Committee of Imperial Defence, which is purely advisory and which is under nobody except the Prime Minister, the Dominions have their fears obviated, and it is possible for their staff representatives freely to take part in its deliberations when they are summoned to it. There is a great advantage to them in an organisation for the Empire which is a unity and for that reason alone I should be very averse from putting it under a British Minister about whom there would at once be questions put in the Dominions such as: "Why should be not come from the Dominions?" That is one thing, and the other thing is that it is really unnecessary.
The noble Earl has said that the functions of the Committee were advisory. I agree with him that they are advisory. I go further than my noble friend Lord Thomson who, in an admirable speech in which he described the working of the Committee and the advantages of its working with great sympathy, still thought, though he did not want a Minister of Defence, that the Defence

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Committee should be more under the Cabinet. I am afraid I have not that faith. It is very seldom that any question of executive action arises. When there is full knowledge the problems are generally eliminated and are reduced to something very simple. I agree with my noble friend and with other people in thinking that executive action should be taken by the Government of the day, by which I mean the Cabinet, and I think the Cabinet is the only body entitled to take executive action. But my purpose in having a Committee of Imperial Defence is to reduce the necessity for making decisions about executive action within as narrow limits as possible. There will be occasions for executive action, but they are infinitely different from asking the Cabinet to decide on a multitude of technical matters about which it knows nothing.
Take, for example, two cases that come into my mind as I stand here, and I have no doubt that the noble Earl has many more in his mind. There is a question of the relationships between the Air Force and the Navy over the question of who should control carriers. I am not going into technical details, but I can say that it took me weeks and months of very hard work and all the diplomacy I could summon up to enable me to get them to come together. They did at last come together, but only after a great deal of such peaceable talk as I think only a civilian could have administered. Again, when we come to other questions which arise, the work of the Minister who goes in there is essentially the work of conciliation. He is not there to impose his views. He is there for the purpose of getting them to realise that they do not know as much as they think they know and to go into the case a little more closely. My experience is that soldiers and sailors and Air Marshals do that when you ask them in the right way, but to put them under the supreme authority of some body is to take the wrong way.
In my experience of six and a half years at the War Office, which is as long, I think, as anybody has had, I found that the only true way of getting economy was to ask the soldiers themselves to make economy. I found from bitter experience that they were the only people who could. They were the only people who controlled the vast staffs under them and it was
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those vast staffs under them who were responsible for waste. When you have the soldiers really on your own side then they become extraordinarily good at making economies, particularly if it is a question of economy in each other's Departments.
It is true that the Committee of Imperial Defence is essentially a body for getting knowledge and getting knowledge in a concrete form. Very often you require science, and high science, to get at the truth. You may require mathematicians, physicists, chemists, physiologists, and what impresses me so much is that the heads of the staffs and the technical people on the staff are getting to know so much that they are becoming almost as scientific as the scientific people themselves. That bears out what the noble Lord has said that war is becoming more and more a scientific matter and the more scientific we make our people the better.
If that be so, then the question comes to be: What is it best to do with the Committee of Imperial Defence? Certainly not a Ministry of Defence. That would be a retrograde step and would lead to difficulties in the way I have already indicated. Certainly not to put the work of the Committee of Imperial Defence more under the control of the Cabinet. The right person to be at the head of the Committee of Imperial Defence is the Prime Minister and such other Ministers as he may call in, and when they have got their minds filled and informed they will go to the Cabinet and the Cabinet will take the executive decision with the full knowledge which it requires for guidance in taking it. But to set the Cabinet to stray about in regions in which they are not in the least interested and for which some of them, I fear, have but little aptitude is not the way to get the work of the Committee of Imperial Defence efficiently done.
Still, my Lords, there is something more wanted. The Committee of Imperial Defence works admirably because it has got a very admirable staff which knows its business very thoroughly. It has grown and developed, but it does need somebody to take an interest in it. It does need, I think, a Chairman. I am speaking from what I have observed under the constitution as it stood when the noble Marquess was Chairman of the

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Committee of Imperial Defence. Then there was a Chairman who could go there and take the kind of part which I have described, not of constantly inter-meddling but of keeping his mind informed about everything going on and helping, counselling and sympathising at every turn. The most industrious Prime Minister cannot do all that. I only know from rumour but I gather that the present Prime Minister does pay a great deal of attention to the Committee of Imperial Defence. He sees the Secretary daily, and so on. That is very good, but I can only say, speaking from experience, that the Committee of Imperial Defence needs somebody who will go to Whitehall Gardens in the morning and make himself conversant with what is going on and be a medium of communication with the political authorities in a way in which an over-worked Prime Minister cannot do.
What I suggest is a defect in the Committee of Imperial Defence as it stands at present is that the position of Chairman has not, as I understand, been filled up. I do not doubt that the Prime Minister has done admirable work in connection with it but it is too much for any one man to do the work of Prime Minister and of President of the Committee of Imperial Defence without some assistance of a Ministerial kind. I know it is a very delicate thing to get such assistance. Such a man must be a very self-effacing person, not a person who will assert his will unduly or often, but a person who is interested in details and capable of following the questions which arise with keen interest. It is not very easy to find such a person even in a large Cabinet. Still, I think the matter is worth considering, and I therefore put it forward for consideration. The truth is that the Prime Minister, as President of the Committee of Imperial Defence, is rather like what, a Minister of Defence would be. There is too much for one but not enough for two. I do not see how these functions can ever be adequately discharged unless the Prime Minister has a deputy and unless the organisation has got somebody who will take this kind of interest in it.
For the rest I am satisfied, as far as an outsider can be satisfied, that the Committee of Imperial Defence is going very well at the present time. It has not attained to its full fruition. It is a body
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with an unwritten constitution which is developing both its constitution and its activities. That is the beauty of having an unwritten constitution. Therefore I am most reluctant to assent to any of these abstract propositions about it of which we hear so much. We have heard of economies being possible if all the Services were under one Minister. I have had experience of being Minister of War, and I can say that the work is quite enough for one man. As to one Minister being able to do the work of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force I entirely agree with the noble Earl that it is beyond human power to do it. If any human being attempted it he would do it very badly.
Each Service had its own distinctive spirit. There is the spirit of the Navy and a quite different spirit of the Army, and the spirit of the Air Force is different from both. They must produce their own spirit and their own staff officers in their own way, and the utmost that can be done is to get staff officers of sufficiently wide minds to meet together and work together. That is the opportunity which the Committee of Imperial Defence affords and I should be extremely sorry to take that opportunity away. For that reason, although I sympathise with my noble friend Lord Thomson in his desire to effect yet further improvement, I cannot go with him in thinking that the Cabinet should be brought into the business any more than it is at the present time. I think that the Prime Minister, with the assistance I have suggested, is the most fitting person to preside over the Committee of Imperial Defence.
THE EARL OF CAVAN: My Lords, it has been so clearly pointed out already by every noble Lord who has spoken that a Minister of Defence would have to be a superman that I will not detain your Lordships more than two or three minutes, but will ask your permission to give you my experience as a working member of the Chiefs of Staff Sub-Committee. The noble Lord who put this Question objected to the Chiefs of Staff being present when political decisions had to be taken. I agree with him, but political decisions are not taken at the Committee of Imperial Defence. That Committee, as I understand the matter, only advises the Cabinet on a certain line of action. Since January, 1923, there

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have been twenty occasions on which various Governments have referred specific questions to the Chiefs of Staff Sub-Committee. The constitution of that Sub-Committee has not changed in those four years, although the Governments have changed. On nineteen out of those twenty occasions the Chiefs of Staff have submitted to the Committee of Imperial Defence a unanimous opinion, and I have no reason to believe that those opinions were other than acceptable to the Ministers who sit on the Committee of Imperial Defence and to the Cabinet. On the only occasion on which we have not reached agreement it was not at all because we quarrelled amongst ourselves but because we had not time to finish before my time expired. I feel quite sure that when the First Sea Lord, in the course of years, is able to call himself free and to address your Lordships he will tell you that on that twentieth occasion also agreement was reached.
It does seem to me that you have a system that is working smoothly. We have tried and, if I may say so in all humility, tried with a certain amount of success to carry out the spirit of the charter or warrant that. Lord Balfour has foreshadowed. We have tried to make a foundation of working together as the heads of the three Fighting Services. I would simply say, therefore, that if you have a system that is working as smoothly as this, surely you would be extremely ill advised to try to change it. I have only one word to add. The equipping and managing of a national Army—I am speaking now of the Army alone without the other Services—is entirely a whole-time job for a first-class man. Accordingly, I think that it would be absolutely impossible and impracticable for any one man to attempt to take on more than the equipment of a national Army alone and that a Minister of Defence would find it absolutely beyond his power to do justice to a third part of his position.
LORD THOMSON: My Lords, as I have said, I put this Motion down only in order to extract sonic light and leading on the subject. I have extracted light and leading not only for myself but, I am sure, for other people, and I am most grateful
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for the two announcements made on behalf of the Government by the noble Earl. In those circumstances I am glad to withdraw the Motion for Papers that stands in my name.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

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

Bankruptcy (Amendment),

Weights and Measures (Amendment),

Economy (Miscellaneous Provisions),

Local Authorities (Emergency Provisions),

Law of Property (Amendment),

Ayrshire Electricity Order Confirmation,

Helensburgh Gas Order Confirmation,

London, Midland and Scottish Railway Order Confirmation,

Marriages Provisional Order,

Ministry of health Provisional Orders Confirmation (No. 1),

Ministry of Health Provisional Orders Confirmation (No. 2),

Birmingham Canal,

Bristol Water,

Bristol Cemetery,

City of London (Various Powers),

Birkenhead Corporation,

Ascot District Gas and Electricity,

Chatham and District Water,

Darwen Corporation,

Messrs. Hoare Trustees,

Serle Street and Cook's Court Improvement Company,

Hackney Borough Council.

House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.
House adjourned at a quarter before seven o'clock.