Lords Sitting of 24 March 1927

Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The EARL OF DONOUGHMORE on the Woolsack.

ROYAL ALBERT HALL BILL. [H.L.]
VISCOUNT BURNHAMhad given Notice to move, That Standing Orders Nos. 96 and 97 be considered in order to their being dispensed with and that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I may be allowed in making this Motion, to explain that I wish to make a small Amendment to the words as they appear on the Paper. I wish to add the words, "and that the Committee have leave to hear Counsel and to examine witnesses on oath if they see fit." Far be it from me to-day to argue the case of the Albert Hall on its merits. All I wish to procure is that in determining its future the inquiry shall take place on public and general grounds as well as on private and interested grounds.
As your Lordships know, if the ordinary procedure in the case of a Private Bill were followed only those would be entitled to be heard who had presented Petitions which were allowed. In the case of a public inquiry all interests will be considered, and the Committee will be able to hear any witnesses whom they may see fit to summon. It has been urged that unfair expense might be thereby imposed on the promoters, but I would point out that the Committee need only hear Counsel if they see fit, and in any case I do not consider that this would be true.
Your Lordships need not be concerned as to any want of precedent for the course that I now recommend. In both Houses there have been many instances in which Private Bills have been referred to Select Committees and I believe that in another place the Scottish Railway Bill, which certainly partook of the nature of special interests to a greater extent than the Royal Albert Hall, was so dealt with. My noble friend behind me says that the South Eastern and Chatham Railway Bill was also thus treated. I would only recommend this

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Motion for your Lordships' acceptance because it is admitted that there is a public interest of long standing in the Royal Albert Hall and that it is fit and proper, before there be fresh legislation in regard to its status, that there should be proper inquiry and consideration at your Lordships' hands.
Moved, That Standing Orders Nos. 96 and 97 be considered in order to their being dispensed with and that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee, and that the Committee have leave to hear Counsel and to examine witnesses on oath if they see fit.—(Viscount Burnham.)
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE): My Lords, I think it may save your Lordships' time as we have several important matters for discussion later in the evening, if I say at once that I have been in communication with the representatives of the Royal Albert Hall and that they do not offer any objection to my noble friend's Motion. On the other hand they would, of course, give the Committee every possible assistance they can. I am glad my noble friend has moved this Motion with the additional words, which I think will facilitate the proceedings.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY): My Lords, I do not think it is necessary for me to add anything to what has been said, except to say on behalf of His Majesty's Government that we are very glad to hear of the decision my noble friend has arrived at, and that it is acceptable to the promoters, as has been announced by the Lord Chairman.
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.
The Petition of the Royal Choral Society praying to be heard against the Bill referred to the Select Committee.

PRIVATE AND PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION BILLS.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: My Lords, in moving the Motion that stands in my name next upon the Paper with reference to Private and Provisional Order Confirmation Bills, I ought to say that this is the usual Motion by which we hope to encourage all the Public Departments and others concerned to get
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on with their work expeditiously for the convenience of your Lordships. I should only like to add that I think that this Motion is especially important this year as we have promises and hopes of an earlier termination of the Session than usual. I hope, therefore, that all those concerned will co-operate in conforming with the rules that we are now, as usual, laying down. I beg to move.
Moved, That no Private Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after Tuesday the 28th of June next:
That no Provisional Order Confirmation Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after Tuesday the 28th of June next:
That when a Bill shall have passed this House with Amendments these orders shall not apply to any new Bill sent up from the House of Commons which the Chairman of Committees shall report to the House is substantially the same as the Bill so amended:
That this House will not receive any Petition for a Private Bill later than Tuesday the 3rd of May next, unless such Private Bill shall have been approved by the High Court of Justice; nor any Petition for a Private Bill approved by the High Court of Justice after Thursday the 5th of May next:
That this House will not receive any report from the Judges upon Petitions presented to this House for Private Bills after Thursday the 5th of May next.—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Ordered, That the said Orders be printed and published and affixed on the doors of this House and Westminster Hall.

FORESTRY BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD CLINTON: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. It was passed through all its stages in your Lordships' House last year, but owing to want of Parliamentary time it did not get a Second Reading in the House of Commons. It comes before your Lordships now in a state almost exactly similar to that in which it was passed last year. The only exception is in Clause 1. Formerly it

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was provided that there should be two additional Commissioners appointed, but no particular reason was assigned for their appointment. An Amendment inserted in another place last week states, as will be seen in the clause, that—
"For the purpose of assisting the Forestry Commissioners in promoting employment by increasing the acreage under timber, the number of Forestry Commissioners …. shall be increased from eight to ten."
I do not know that this is a very significant Amendment and the Forestry Commission take no real objection to it, but I think it is probably right to say that from the point of view of the Forestry Commission it is not really an accurate statement of the reason for the appointment of these new Commissioners.
It is not in the power of the Commission to increase employment by increasing the area under timber more than they are doing at the moment because they are confined, by the Act of 1919 and the grants made under that Act, to a certain area that can be planted and while additional employment will certainly expand as the area under timber expands, any increase upon that natural expansion that is laid down under the Act can result only from a change in the policy of His Majesty's Government. One certainly hopes that when the new Forestry Bill comes in, as it will next year, His Majesty's Government may see fit so to increase the natural expansion of our operations that the number of employed may increase with it. At the present moment the maximum number of those employed by us is about 3,500, the minimum being some 800 or 900 less, and for the next few years there will be a natural expansion in accordance with the additional acreage that it is our duty to plant.
The object of this Bill is to increase the number of Commissioners from eight to ten and this is really due to the increased work that has had to be carried out by the Commission since the Act of 1919 was passed. At that date there was no State forestry in this country except what was included in the Crown woods, which were then and for some time after under the control of the Woods and Forests Department. Since that year the Forestry Commission has acquired an area of 374,000 acres of which, up to date,
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90,000 acres have been planted, or will have been planted at the end of this planting season. The estates and acreage that we buy are divided into certain categories. We buy them for the plant-able land upon those estates, but in every case we find that there are other classes of land—agricultural land and, particularly in the Western Highlands of Scotland, a large amount of land that is unplantable owing to high altitude, poverty of soil or something of that kind, making it unsuitable for the growth of trees. The whole of that land has to be managed in some way, and the area coming in for planting has to be let annually so that something may be made out of it. It is generally let as hill grazing, but the agricultural land may remain for a time in its present occupation by farmers, though it is gradually coming into development under our small holdings scheme. Unplantable land has also to be managed in some way. Generally it can be let for summer grazings and, although at present it may appear to be permanently unfit for any other use, experiments are going on now in regard to the planting of peat by which we hope that a considerable area of such land may eventually become available for forestry.
That is the natural expansion of the Commission's work. In addition, since the year 1924, when the Government represented by noble Lords opposite allowed us to start on a scheme of forest workers' homes, we have been permitted to create five holdings per thousand acres, and up to date, in the two years' work, we have already secured and put into occupation 230 of these holdings and there are 170 more in process of being set up. Another very considerable addition to our work is caused by the transfer of the Crown forests. These were transferred to the Commission from the Woods and Forests Department in the year 1924. They extend in all to some 120,000 acres, of which the most important part is the New Forest, which covers 65,000 acres. Of that large area, we have control for planting purposes only of that quantity of land which was enclosed at the time of the New Forest Act, 1877, and which amounts to 16,000 acres. The rest is open forest, commons, sand and gravel pits, building land and a great many other things. The next planted area is in the Forest of Dean. It is 22,000 acres, of which we have been able

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to enclose 11,000. It is of a somewhat similar character to the New Forest and considerable mining rights have to be looked after.
The various areas do represent a very considerable agricultural estate, widely spread from the North of Scotland to the South of England, and they do involve not only a considerable increase of work but considerable problems of management, in which, so far, we have no trained assistance to help us. The extension of the works, the addition of the Crown forests and small holdings schemes are the main reasons why we ask for additional Commissioners. There is also one other reason which I think was placed before your Lordships last year. In the year 1923 it seemed desirable that there should be a representative of the Labour Party upon the Commission and to enable that to be done one of our Commissioners resigned. It has always been desired to find him a place on that Commission again. Directly this measure is passed it is hoped to find a place for Sir John Stirling-Maxwell, who was formerly on the Commission. That is the first part of the Bill—to increase the numbers of the Commissioners.
The second part of the Bill deals with the giving of powers to the Commissioners to make and enforce certain by-laws, particulars of which are found in Clause 2 of this measure:—
"….the Commissioners may make such by-laws with respect to any land, being land vested in them or under their management or control to which the public have or may be permitted to have access, as appear to them to be necessary for the preservation of any trees or timber on the land or of any property of the Commissioners, and for prohibiting or regulating any act or thing tending to injury or disfigurement of the land or the amenities thereof…."
Those we believe are for certain reasons very necessary powers. They will probably be chiefly used in the New Forest and perhaps the Forest of Dean—in those areas in which the public have rights and which are now brought really in close proximity to our centres of population by the more rapid means of transit now in use.
In making these Regulations there is no wish whatever and no intention to restrict any rights. It is rather to regulate the rights which are now possessed and it is, as your Lordships will readily recognise,
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of the utmost importance to preserve for the public and for the country the beautiful features of such grounds as the New Forest. Unfortunately, in this country more than in any other places where people have a public right of access, there is always unthinking and unknowing harm done by those who use them for picnic and other purposes and who leave behind them a great deal of litter of glass, paper and the débris of their feast, which are really a great source of annoyance to other people who enjoy these rights with more regard for their neighbours. I should add that in those districts of the New Forest and Forest of Dean it is not proposed to take any action with regard to these by-laws without consultation with those who have control over those forests, and indeed, in other respects where difficulties may occur with regard to the New Forest, we are appointing an advisory committee of residents and those acquainted with the forest to assist the Commission in carrying out some of the details of their work.
That is so far as the Crown forests are concerned. The position of the Commission's own forests which they have purchased is somewhat different. They are private property and freehold and there is no right of public access at all. The by-laws which we speak of will rather increase than restrict the facilities of the public for visiting those places. Of course it is essential that people should be kept out of enclosed planted areas so long as the trees are in a state of growth. Obviously, considerable injury might unthinkingly be done to these trees at that time, but it is hoped that, by the use of these by-laws, in the later stages many of these Commission's forests will become suitable playgrounds for the public, as are the Crown forests. I might mention that besides the possibility of injury to the trees from public access we are always in the most serious danger from fire. We have not, of course, in this country, fortunately, so far had any experience of great conflagrations such as have occurred in the United States, in Canada and other parts of the world. In the United States alone, it is said, 10,000,000 acres of timber were burnt last year, and in Canada not much less. But we have had experience of fires already. There were 84 outbreaks last year. Fortunately we have a complete system of control, and we are very careful in the burning

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of rubbish, and the outbreaks did not do any serious damage. But the potential danger is there, and it has to be guarded against in the most careful way possible, by reasonable by-laws in this respect.
There are certain provisos in the clause relating to by-laws to which I should like to call your Lordships' attention. For example:—
"No by-laws made under this section shall take away or injuriously affect any estate, interest, right of common, or other right of a profitable or beneficial nature in, over, or affecting any land, except with the consent of the person entitled there to."
I know some of your Lordships are very much interested in the question of common rights. I think it is clear that under this proviso the by-laws will not apply to common rights. Those are the provisions of the Bill to which I need draw your Lordships' attention. The measure does not differ to any significant extent from the Bill which you passed last year, and I hope your Lordships will be good enough to give it a Second Reading.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Clinton.)
EARL DE LA WARR: My Lords, the noble Lord in proposing this Bill told your Lordships that it did not go through the House of Commons last year on account of the shortage of Parliamentary time. That is quite true, but I think we might go a little further than that, and say that the reason why there was not Parliamentary time is that the present position of the Forestry Commission is such as to render it a controversial matter, and that, at the present moment, such is the position of the Forestry Commission that it is extremely difficult to raise any point in regard to it in the House of Commons. We have, therefore, availed ourselves of the opportunity of the introduction of this Bill to make our protest—a protest which I hope, and which I think I am safe in assuring your Lordships, will one day be put into effect when we have the power to do so. On this point it is of interest to note the speech of the Secretary to the Treasury in another place on the occasion of the Second Reading of this Bill. One gathers from is speech that he felt himself completely unable to defend the existing position, and he specifically would not commit himself. He merely
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said that he did not think that the point that I am going to make was relevant to this Bill. What is this point?
Let us first be quite clear. We are all of us agreed on the necessity for developing the afforestation of this country. And we go further than that. One of the chief reasons for the raising of this issue at the very beginning was that members of the Labour Party were not only as keen as members of other Parties, and as members of the Forestry Commission itself, on the development of afforestation, but they were more keen, and they were dissatisfied with the progress that was being made. I am not at this moment going into the merits or demerits of that dissatisfaction; I merely make that point in order that it should be quite clear that we do not oppose this Bill from any motives of opposition to the development of forestry.
Behind the immediate question of dissatisfaction with the progress of afforestation—and I gathered from some of the remarks of the noble Lord himself, when he said that he hoped that next year the Government would find itself in a position to proceed at a greater pace than hitherto, that he also shares that dissatisfaction—behind that lies a very much your more important point, the main point, the constitutional point. The noble Lord may say that here we are raising a merely doctrinaire issue. There I disagree with him entirely. Let him look back into the political history of this country, and see whether the question of Parliamentary control over the spending of public money is a merely doctrinaire point. I venture to suggest that it is a point around which as many great Parliamentary fights have been waged as around any other point. At the present moment you have the Forestry Commission in the position of disposing of public moneys—you may say that they are not of very large amount, and but they are sufficiently large, round about £350,000 a year—without its being possible to raise the question of the conduct of their business on the floor of the House of Commons.
But late developments render this particular question of even more interest than that. While we were discussing this matter the last time this Bill was introduced I suggested to your Lordships that this Forestry Commission was merely one of many Socialistic developments

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that were taking place, and were going to take place, in the organisation of the industry of this country, and further that it was a Socialistic development in a particular form which was likely to be very largely copied—namely, a non-political Commission of experts. When I put that before your Lordships I had no idea what justification that point was going to receive, but since then we have seen this Conservative Government going forward with regard to two great industries in this country in precisely that direction—the Electricity Commission and the Broadcasting Corporation. It does, therefore, become of vital importance to settle on what basis we are going to make these experiments.
There is also a further point. At least with the Electricity Commission and the Broadcasting Corporation you have got your Commission—and, mark you, they are answerable to Parliament very much more than the Forestry Commission—you have your Commission almost entirely composed of totally disinterested persons. That is not so with the Forestry Commission. I do not make any charge whatsoever against any member of the Commission; I see no reason to do so. But, quite apart from the conduct of existing members of that Commission, is it not highly undesirable that you should have a great Commission like this handling large sums of public money without public control when it is composed very largely of interested parties? Out of the existing eight Commissioners—the number is going to be increased, I know—but, out of the existing eight, six of the Commissioners are landowners, dealing in land, buying land from landowners, and making grants of public money, in the form of subsidies for planting, to landowners.
It is not in the least a question of whether they have abused their position, but it is a question of whether that is a desirable situation, and I believe that there are a good many noble Lords in all parts of the House—for it is not a Party question—who will have to admit that that is not a desirable position. I would appeal to the Government to realise that this is an issue that has to be faced. Further, I would appeal to the Forestry Commission to come forward and help the Government to face that issue, and help us to get this matter adjusted. I speak
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as one who is as keen on afforestation as any one, and I would appeal to the Forestry Commission to realise that this is a canker that has to be removed. I know that it is essential that the Forestry Commission should be kept apart from Party politics, but nothing will make afforestation in this country more a Party and controversial issue than a failure to meet this particular point.
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH: My Lords, with regard to afforestation operations—personally I should prefer to call them planting operations—I should like to ask why the noble Earl opposite who has just spoken and his Party try to make this a political question. I have taken the trouble to read through certain speeches that were delivered in the course of a debate on this subject in the House of Commons and in some cases they do not show a very great knowledge of the subject. Your Lordships have heard to-night a re-hash of those speeches, but this is the first occasion, I think, on which it has been suggested that this is either a political or a Tory measure. I think it was originally suggested by a Committee presided over by Mr. Acland, as he then was, a very strong Liberal, and his recommendations were accepted. What does the noble Earl's suggestion come down to? What it really comes down to, if it is taken in its ordinary meaning, is that this is another political job to provide an appointment for some member of the Government.
I would point out that there is just as much control over the financial operations of the Forestry Commission to-day as there is over the operations of any Government Department. At the present time the Secretary to the Treasury or any other Minister can perfectly well answer these questions and it would be a pure wast of public money that there should be some Government official appointed, I presume at a high salary and with a large staff, to answer questions that can be perfectly well answered by officials already existing. I recently listened to a speech made from the Bench opposite by the noble Earl, Lord Oxford and Asquith, pleading for a reduction of Departments, and with that plea I am in agreement. There is no argument in saying that if you are going to make a new appointment and put some supporter

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of the Government into the Forestry Commission the question is being turned into a political question. I cannot see how any one can possibly say that is the case. The noble Earl suggested that the Secretary to the Treasury, in the speech he made in the House of Commons, somewhat agreed with him, but he was careful not to quote from that speech. I have read through the speech of the Secretary to the Treasury and I was quite unable to see anywhere in it that any remarks he made bore out the statement of the noble Earl.
EARL DE LA WARR: I never said he agreed with me. I merely said he was extremely non-committal.
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH: The noble Earl insinuated that he was but was careful not to quote what he did say. This Bill, in itself, has nothing to do with any political question. It is solely a question of appointing two extra Commissioners. Whether that is reasonable or not it is not for me to say, but as long as Parliament is not asked for the salary of these extra Commissioners I do not see why they should not be appointed. The country has been very fortunate in having a large body of men of very great experience in afforestation, who have spent a considerable amount of money themselves on experiments in planting and whose knowledge is generally admitted to be great. The noble Earl opposite described them as interested persons. I suppose that is the view he and some of his colleagues take of the matter. They seem to be unaware that a man who gives his services to the country can do so without getting something out of it for himself. But I really do not think that the charge of the noble Earl is worth going into and I think, on reflection, he will be sorry that he made it.
There is something that might be a much more effective criticism of this Bill and that is in regard to the question of by-laws, but, as far as I can see, precautions are taken so that the public rights will not be infringed. As to the increased amount of land that will be planted with trees, the area can be kept either as it is or largely increased in accordance with the view of the Government of the day. I do not pretend to have the knowledge which some other noble Lords possess, but I have had over
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forty years' experience in work of this kind and I can assure noble Lords that it is not quite so easy to plant huge areas and turn on to them the unemployed, as was suggested in the other House, without some training and preparation. You require to have a staff with considerable knowledge, first to purchase the land and then to advise how it should be laid out. It takes a year or two sometimes to grow the plants before you can put them into the ground. There are many other intricate questions and many other expensive items which have to be considered. Having engaged in this industry myself I can say that it is a most interesting pastime though it is one in which you are very often disappointed.
It has been said that there is a danger of there being a great shortage of wood and that, therefore, all afforestation and tree planting will be very profitable. I sincerely hope that that will be so, but as far as my experience goes I doubt it. I have heard ever since I can remember of this great shortage of wood that is to take place and the great profits that are going to be made, but I am sorry to say that during the last few years my outgoings have been larger than any incomings. One thing that has to be considered in the sale of old timber is the cost of railway carriage. It not unfrequently happens that the railway carriage, even over short distances, will exceed the amount that is paid for the timber. I know one particular case. A merchant in the South of Scotland was sending pit timber into Yorkshire and the carriage from Archangel was only a few shillings a ton higher, including both the cost of sea and rail carriage, than it was from the South of Scotland, while the sea and railway carriage from Leningrad was only something like three shillings a ton higher. That is one of our difficulties.
I think a great deal could be done for afforestation and therefore I hope your Lordships will give this Bill a Second Reading, but we must not assume that afforestation is going to be a mine of gold. Nor will it solve the unemployment question at the present time. The numbers who can be employed will for some years be limited, but I hope in future we shall be able to rear and keep on the soil a population of the very highest

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class. In country districts it is more important that such a class should be retained there for the benefit of the country even than it is to have some temporary relief of our very formidable unemployment problem. And I appeal to noble Lords opposite not to make this a Party question. It may be, and probably is, the fact that a large number of Commissioners are landowners. Why? Because they are the only people who know anything about this subject. Certain others have been brought on to the Commission, very wisely, who have not the same practical knowledge but who will be able to learn much from other members. I assure noble Lords opposite and others that this is not done in order to exploit certain individuals. As regards this being a political body, I do not see how it is any more political than any other body which is not composed of active members of the Government.
There are of course these questions of buying land and, if you buy land, you have got to buy it from a landowner because nobody else has it, but I think they are cautious in these matters. My information from Scotland is that, instead of their paying too high a price, people will not sell to them because they will only give half what the land is worth. There are other ways in which they are doing good. They are collecting at the present time a great deal of information. It is said of this country that, although our officials in the past knew less about forestry and planting than officials in most of the Continental countries, there has always been a great deal more knowledge among landowners and landed proprietors here about the planting and growing of trees than in any other country in the world. It would be a great pity if use was not made of some of these gentlemen who have sat upon this Commission, simply because they happen to be landowners. Having a separate Department for this matter is a pure waste of public money and would lead to less instead of more efficiency.
I have noticed that the Chairman of the Commission has got another appointment and so, I presume, will shortly vacate his post. I would like to express, as one who has taken an interest in this matter although I have nothing to do with the Commission, the thanks which the country owes to him for the
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way he started this Commission and for the lines upon which it is run. I feel perfectly sure that, although he has many able colleagues working with him, there is no one in this country who could have run it on such able lines and with such enthusiasm. If this Commission is going to be a great success in the future and its result is going to be a great advantage to the country, it will be very largely owing to the initial efforts of the present Chairman of the Forestry Commission.
LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, I would like to say a word in order to prevent a misapprehension. The noble Earl who spoke raised not a Party question but a constitutional question. It is quite obvious that on that ground there may be different views—the views expressed by the noble Earl and the views expressed by the noble Duke. I do not want to embark on that topic at all; I only want to say one or two words on the subject of afforestation. The noble Lord, Lord Clinton, will know, from his own experience, that in the country where I live we have experience both of woods and of afforestation. It is a country in which it is very difficult to make afforestation in any way a profitable undertaking. Not only is it costly in itself at the start, but it must be a large number of years before any profit is obtained, and the difficulty of going forward without the assistance of the Forestry Commission is almost insuperable. I would like to express, from my own experience, my thanks for the assistance we have received in my country from the Forestry Commission and the noble Lord himself, Lord Clinton.
There is another point on which I would like to say a word and on which the noble Duke touched. It appears to me that there is in the proviso to which the noble Lord referred no protection at all for the public rights. I can find no words at all which would protect the ordinary public rights which exist to a very large extent over these unoccupied lands. I will give an illustration. About thirty years ago I was engaged in an inquiry in the New Forest, where the War Office was seeking to obtain a rifle range for exercise purposes. The verderers appeared and ultimately the scheme was not allowed to proceed. Have the verderers at the

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present time power to make by-laws in the New Forest and, if so, to what extent can those powers be exercised? Is it the intention of this Bill to give powers to the Forestry Commission beyond those which the verderers have at the present time? Further, can the noble Lord point to any words in his proviso which really protect the public rights? I take again the case of the New Forest, which consists of two parts—the enclosures made under statutory rights but limited in acreage and amount, and the ordinary outside forest which is used for the enjoyment of the public at large. Are additional powers to be granted, as regards the enjoyment of the public at large, beyond those which are vested in the verderers at the present time?
There is another point which I would ask the noble Lord and I am not now taking the case of the New Forest or the Forest of Dean, where the verderers are responsible, but I am taking the case of an ordinary common. Would it be possible for the Forestry Commission under this Bill, in accordance with the powers which they are seeking to obtain, to make special by-laws as regards ordinary commons or to utilise them for afforestation purposes? In the country where I live, on the Chiltern Hills, there is a very large acreage of land still under common rights and subject to common usage and it is a matter of great importance to us whether those are preserved or not. In conclusion, may I say that I thoroughly assent to this Bill? I believe the Forestry Commission have done and are doing a great public work and it is an advantage that they should have the powers which they are now seeking.
LORD CLINTON: My Lords, may I reply to some of the points which have been raised? I am very glad indeed to have heard my noble friend opposite express his approval of the work that is going on, because many of your Lordships know both of the interest which the noble Lord himself takes in the afforestation work and of the fact that he has given close personal supervision to his own beautiful beechwoods in Buckinghamshire, which I hope will turn out to be practically successful. He has done a great deal of work in this matter. He asked, first of all, as to the rights of commons. Now those by-laws are for the purpose of dealing with lands which are
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under our control. Of course the Commission, as such, has no control over commons. It cannot purchase any common land for the purpose of afforestation. It is in the same position as any other individual in that respect. But there are certain common lands in connection with Crown forests. It may be to those that the noble Lord refers. I gather that they are safeguarded by the first proviso in Clause 2. That proviso reads:—
"No by-laws made under this section shall take away or injuriously affect any estate, interest, right of common …."
Is not that sufficient to meet my noble friend's point?
LORD PARMOOR: The public right is not really a right of common.
EARL RUSSELL: Nor is it a right at all.
LORD PARMOOR: As my noble friend reminds me, neither is it a right at all. There is, however, practical usage and custom.
LORD CLINTON: There is no legal right at all so far as I learn.
LORD PARMOOR: I think you are right there.
LORD CLINTON: There is no right of wandering, but there is a right of public access.
LORD PARMOOR: It is because I agree with the noble Lord that there is no public right but that as a matter of fact there is a great deal of public usage, that I wanted to know whether that public usage would be preserved. As regards any public right it is a very vague matter, if it exists at all.
LORD CLINTON: In regard to the forests which are under the control of the Commissioners, there is land over which from time to time the public have wandered. When it is first planted that land will have to be closed and for a time there will be no access, but as the trees grow and pass the early stages, the dangerous stages, then the very existence of these by-laws will show that we intend under proper regulations to allow access to the land. It is rather enlarging the powers of the public than restricting them. Of course, there are cases—I think the noble Lord has mentioned this point—where there is a doubt whether plantations on the lower slopes

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of hills would affect the right of access to the higher points. Every care is taken to give proper access through new plantations so that people may get to the higher points to which they wish to climb.
With regard to the powers of the verderers they are laid down in the New Forest Act of 1877. I have not studied them very carefully, but I do not think that they have powers which we desire to exercise now. I think not, otherwise we should not have asked for the powers. But it is quite clear that we are going to issue no by-laws except after consultation with the verderers both of the New Forest and of the Forest of Dean. That is in the third proviso.
There were one or two points raised by the noble Earl with which I might deal. The noble Duke answered a good many. The noble Earl first of all complained of the progress made by the Forestry Commission. I do not think that the noble Earl has any right to suggest that the progress made by the Commissioners is not as great as they were able to make. He must recollect that we are acting under the powers of 1919. We are empowered to plant a number of acres and we are given a grant for the purpose in the first ten years. We shall just about complete, or very nearly complete, planting that amount of land.
EARL DE LA WARR: I was not going to discuss the merits or demerits of dissatisfaction, but I said it existed.
LORD CLINTON: There is no ground for dissatisfaction with the progress which the Forestry Commission have made with regard to the area they have been allowed to plant. He made, I think, a misstatement with regard to the number of landowners on the Commission. The point is not of very great importance, but as a matter of fact they number half the Commission and not six out of eight. A more important point probably is with regard to the control of public money. He accused me rather in advance of a crime I have not committed—that I regarded all control over public money as rather a deterrent point. As a matter of fact under the Act of 1919 Parliament laid down that in the course of ten years the Commission should spend a sum of £3,500,000, but the amount which they are allowed to
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spend each year is first of all controlled by the Treasury and then submitted to the House of Commons.
I do not know that you can get any more effective control over the spending of public money than that, though I admit that there is dissatisfaction in another place because they have not got there a Minister responsible for the expenditure of this money whose salary they can attack. It is really a matter for another place and not for your Lordships' House. On the general question, which has been thrashed out over and over again, it was considered to be entirely against the interests of the progress of forestry in this country that the Commission should be put under a Minister. It was clearly decided when the Act of 1919 was passed, and I am sorry to hear that the noble Earl's Party when it gets into power proposes to make an alteration.
LORD OLIVIER: My Lords, I do not think the noble Lord has very fully disposed of the point raised by my noble friend Lord Parmoor. There are certain presumptive residual rights of the public and it is understood they are at present safeguarded by the Ministry of Agriculture. We shall probably raise that point about the residual rights of the public on the Committee stage.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

POLICE DISTRICTS (SCOTLAND) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (THE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND): My Lords, this Bill empowers County Councils in Scotland to abolish police districts formed under Section 58 of the Police (Scotland) Act, 1857. Section 58 of this Act provides that where police districts have been formed, their extent may be altered; but the Secretary of State has been advised that there is at present no power to abolish police districts or reabsorb them in the county. It has been represented that it is desirable that such power should be conferred upon county councils because the continuance of certain police districts is no longer required

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and leads to unnecessary work and expenditure in connection with police accounting. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Duke of Sutherland.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

POOR LAW EMERGENCY PROVISIONS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

BANKS AND THEIR EMPLOYEES.
LORD STRATHSPEY LORD STRATHSPEY rose to ask His Majesty's Government if it will suggest to the heads of the banks whether they can see their way to give a lead to the general desire of the country to achieve permanent industrial peace by recognising the national association of employees in their own profession (the Bank Officers Guild), as such recognition of an association which has justly made a name in England and Wales for sanity and idealism would be an example that might have great effect in the cause of peace in industry.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Question which stands in my name is one of great importance. I wish particularly to point out that this Bank Officers Guild embraces the whole of England and Wales but does not include Scotland or Ireland as they come under a different constitution. The membership of this Guild is approximately 23,000, and all we are asking for now is that the Guild should be properly and legally recognised as a trade union. After all, a properly constituted union is of more value and of greater safety to the country than a number of disconnected units. I would point out also that this Guild is non-political, and embraces within its ranks members of all the Parties. In support of this request I wish to emphasise that peace in industry is an essential thing. To these workers, whether by hand or brain, there must be given some practical and earnest response to this cry for peace. What is required at the moment is a frank gesture by some great industry which will at once focus the eyes of all the belligerent
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parties and show the way towards a better state of things. The banking industry, by reason of its overwhelming importance and its intimate connections with the Treasury, which, of course, are likely to increase rather than decrease, offers just that material for an example to industry and the nation which I feel that it is the duty of His Majesty's Government to foster and encourage in every way possible.
I find that the Bank Officers Guild has been actuated in its finances both by the interests of the clerks themselves and of banking generally. It has undoubtedly done a great deal to raise the financial rewards of the bank clerk. Those rewards, before the birth of the Guild, were not such as to do the directors of banks any great credit. It appears that it has been sought to take steps to set up a joint national Whitley Council, but so far the first step towards the accomplishment of this worthy aim—namely, the recognition of the Guild by the banks—has not been granted. I earnestly suggest to your Lordships that it is the duty of this House and of His Majesty's Government to do all that is in their power to persuade the banks that it is in the interests of all that such a powerful industry as the banking industry should lead the way.
I notice from the remarks made by the various Chairmen of the banks in their annual speeches to their shareholders that they express the fervent hope that peace may come this year. Let them lead the way. I am, of course, aware that the suggestion may possibly be met with the answer that in their own particular banks associations have been set up whereby employees may ventilate their grievances, but with due respect I suggest that this is only begging the question. Industrial peace will never be secured by a sectional organisation of employees and a national organisation of employers. On the face of it the scales are weighted against the employees. The bankers have a powerful organisation of directors, the British Bankers Association, and, if they are really in earnest on this question, they will give frank recognition to the national association of employees in banks.
The bank clerk, as we all know, is a reasonable, sane and, for the most part, a naturally conservative person, and his association is a reflex of that spirit. The Bank Officers Guild has cultural as well as economic aims, and its vision may be gauged by the fact that during the deplorable industrial strike of last year it brought to the attention of the Prime Minister definite and constructive proposals for the establishment of industrial peace. On all these grounds I would suggest most earnestly that the great banks should give recognition to the employees' national association and demonstrate in practice to the industrial world the true relationship that exists, or should exist, between enlightened employers and their staffs. This need is emphasised by the fact that in the House of Commons in 1917 it was declared by a very large majority that organisations of professional workers ought to be recognised by their employers, and time and again the Bank Officers Guild was cited as an argument in favour of this recognition.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: My Lords, the noble Lord who has just sat down commenced his speech by saying that the Bank Officers Guild should be legally recognised. I do not know exactly what he means by legal recognition, or how the banks can do anything to bring in a Bill for legally recognising a particular trade union. This Guild is a trade union managed by paid officials. I do not propose to say anything either for or against such an organisation. The clerks have a perfect right, if they like to organise themselves into any body that they may choose, and the bankers have a perfect right to do the same. But there is one thing which certainly ought not to be done, and that is for the Government to interfere. It has nothing to do with the Government. This is a matter between employers and employed. What would the noble Lord say if I came down and asked the Government to represent to the Bank Officers Guild that the best thing that they could do would be to dissolve? If the noble Lord would object to that, what right has he to come down and ask that the Government should take sides in the question and say to the employers: "We order you, or we suggest to you, to do this and that"?
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The noble Lord, judging from his Question, seems to think that the recognition of the Bank Officers Guild would have a great effect on peace in industry. What have the banks to do with industry? They are financial undertakings. There are in London five great banks. Assuming for the sake of argument that they were to recognise the Guild, what effect would that have upon the coal mines in Wales or in Scotland, or upon any other great industry? It would have no effect at all. Has the intervention of the Government, which, I am sorry to say, has taken place on one or two occasions, ever had any good results? I was present in 1907 when Mr. Lloyd George, to whom we owe most of our calamities, asked the Railway Chairmen to meet him. For some reason known to himself he included me—I was then a railway director, but not a chairman—amongst the Railway Chairmen. We had a meeting at which Mr. Lloyd George told us that we were all very fine fellows, that before he had become President of the Board of Trade he had held a very different view but that since occupying that office he had been converted to thinking that there were no more competent or more honest or more efficient people than the Railway Chairmen. Naturally those Railway Chairmen who did not know Mr. Lloyd George were extremely pleased.
Then Mr. Lloyd George suggested that we should go to luncheon, and after luncheon he suggested that we should appoint from our body six Chairmen to consult with him. The result was, unfortunately, than these six Chairmen, having been threatened by Mr. Lloyd George with legislation, agreed to the appointment of a certain Chairman who would discuss the question of wages with the men. This was supposed to be a great triumph that would lead to peace in industry. What did it do? It led to a strike. We had a strike in 1911, and then Mr. Lloyd George gave way again, I suppose with the idea of leading to peace in industry. What happened then? If the War had not broken out there would have been a strike, and the moment the War was over there was a strike, in 1919. Hardly two years ago we had evidence of what happened when the Government interfered. At the threat of a strike in the coal industry the Government

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interfered. They spent £23,000,000, and what happened? Was there industrial peace? Not at all. There was a disastrous strike, and any interference by the Government, either on one side or the other, is sure to lead to trouble. The duty of the Government, and I hope my noble friend Lord Peel will kindly represent this to the Cabinet at its next meeting, is to maintain law and order, and do nothing else—not to interfere in any kind of way between employer and employed—not to take the side of the employer, and not to take the side of the employed, but to leave them to fight out their own battle. That is the only way in which peace in industry will be secured, and the only way in which, perhaps, if we are lucky, we may eventually regain that prosperity which we enjoyed before the War.
LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, we know the ability and vigour of the noble Lord opposite when he brings forward what has always been known as the policy of administrative nihilism. I thought it had disappeared, and that it had come to be admitted that the policy of administrative nihilism was an impossibility in these days. But I understand him to say that in his view there should be no public interference by the Government in any industry whatever. The noble Lord was Chairman, and a very well-known Chairman, of a railway company. Railway companies are subject to every sort of official control, and are subject to very minute statutory regulations, which are entirely out of accord with what the noble Lord said as regards his doctrine of administrative nihilism.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: Not at all.
LORD PARMOOR: But the fact is so.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: I am sorry to interrupt the noble and learned Lord. Is he referring to the regulations of the Board of Trade as to signals and points, and a variety of things of that sort? They are totally different. My point is that there should be no interference between employer and employed.
LORD PARMOOR: In my opinion you cannot separate the two. For instance, to give another illustration, I should like to ask the noble Lord, whose opinion is
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valuable upon these matters, to take the case of ships. There is the Plimsoll load-line for the protection of sailors, which has had an enormous influence in protecting them and giving them greater safety. Would he say that is an interference by the Government which no civilised person ought to permit? You are obliged in these matters to interfere. What Herbert Spencer once called administrative nihilism is absolutely impossible nowadays. The period for it has gone by, and in no industry is it more absolutely impossible than in the banking industry, which has come into the hands of a few people, and which really affects the whole industrial position and credit of this country.
I do not know whether the noble Lord has turned his mind to the actual words of the Question before the House. It only suggests Government interference in this sense, that it asks that the Government should suggest to the organisers and heads of banks recognition of this Guild. That is all that is needed, and all that is said. There is no suggestion whatever of Government interference in the ordinary everyday business of the bank, but it simply asks whether the Government will suggest to the heads of these great institutions that they should recognise a national association of the employees in their own profession. Does the noble Lord regard that as an illegitimate suggestion?
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: It is no business of the Government. It is nothing to do with the Government.
LORD PARMOOR: I would suggest two authorities, to which I think the noble Lord will pay considerable attention. The first is Lord Cecil of Chelwood, who says of this association:
"My best wishes for the success of your organisation. From what I know of it I believe it is working on sound lines for an admirable object."
Let us take again what was said by the Speaker of the House of Commons:
"I have noticed with much interest the progress of the movement amongst bank officers to build up an organisation which may enable them to join with the bank directors in the establishment of a joint council for the banking profession. The movement seems to be inspired by the true spirit of constructive co-operation, and if this is maintained, I anticipate much good for the profession and all those engaged in it, as well as for the national service. I trust that the directors will look at it in the same light."
VISCOUNT PEEL: Is that the present Speaker?
LORD PARMOOR: Yes, I think so. The date is November 13, 1919. Is it in the opinion of the noble Lord a disadvantage that this national association of employees should be constituted in connection with the banking business? That is the real fundamental proposition which one has to decide one way or another. I am entirely in accord with what was said by the noble Lord who asked the Question. We constantly hear talk, and quite rightly, of the enormous importance of friendly association between employers and employed. I believe that that is the very first necessity in anything like industrial progress or industrial stability. Why should it not be encouraged? I put on one side what has been said about Government suggestion. Let us come to the real thing: ought we to encourage the formation of a national association of employees? I think it is of the utmost importance that it should be done, and I am certainly prepared to support the noble Lord opposite, Lord Strathspey, in every possible way. There are many noble Lords who have spoken from the Front Bench opposite, and elsewhere in the House, almost in the same words as those which I am using.
It is of the utmost importance that there should be a co-operative understanding and although you may not be able to get the position of partnership you may get a very long way towards having a national association of employees, which may lead to understanding and co-operation between employer and employed. Unfortunately it is certain that there will be difficulties in the future in these industrial matters. We have to consider the best way of ensuring, first of all, that if possible they shall be avoided, and secondly, if they do arise, that they shall be met and dealt with in the most friendly possible spirit? I do not think that the noble Viscount will dispute either of those propositions. If that is so, how can you promote a friendly spirit better than by having constituted a national association of this kind? Putting out of sight altogether the question of Government interference, the fundamental decision here is whether such an association ought to be encouraged. I am glad to see the noble Marquess (Lord Salisbury)
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enter the House, for on several occasions he has in admirable language expressed the advantage of a thorough understanding between employers and employed, in order to get rid of trouble. I have always entirely agreed with him and it is in that direction that this association will, in my belief, have a beneficial influence. For that reason I strongly support what the noble Lord who asked the Question has said.
THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (VISCOUNT PEEL): My Lords, I think it is a very interesting example of the great ingenuity of my noble friend behind me and of the magnificent laxity of our Rules that on a simple Question of some Bank Officers Guild my noble friend should be able to raise the vast question of the interference of Government in industry. I would suggest, if he wants to test his proposition that the Government should do nothing but preserve law and order and keep its hands entirely off industry, that he should put down a Resolution on the Paper, and thus test the feeling of your Lordships, because that would strengthen my hands considerably if I were to follow his invitation and to raise the whole question of whether the Government should have anything to do with industry or not. But I really should not like to do it on my own responsibility.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: I should be delighted to help you.
VISCOUNT PEEL: Thank you, but not if you were in a minority of one. This Question, I am afraid, has been misunderstood by the noble Lord opposite. He gave us two interesting quotations, one from the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil of Chelwood, and the other from the Speaker of the House of Commons, but they do not bear at all on the Question that I am asked. It is not at all a question of whether it is a good or a bad thing that these leagues should be formed, and I dare say many of your Lordships have written admirable letters, couched in even more enthusiastic language than that which we have listened to this afternoon, about the benefit of these associations for producing peace in industry. But the question is quite a different one. The question is whether in this particular case the Government shall intervene as a Government, and shall say to these persons, both employees

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and employers, that they shall or shall not recognise some particular union.
That is the only proposition that I need refer to this afternoon. And I may say that it is a matter of interest, I think, that as far as that Guild is concerned, it certainly, at least recently, has not approached the Ministry of Labour with the idea of forming any joint industrial council; nor have the bankers themselves invited the interference of the Government in this question. From neither side, therefore, has this request been put forward to the Ministry of Labour. No doubt my noble friend's proposal is a very interesting one; but it is worth noticing that it is not supported either by the bankers or their employees.
I am not quite certain, considering the nature of the banking business and particularly the distribution of the employees in the banks, whether it would be very easy to set up so universal an association as has been suggested. I am not quite sure, either, whether it would be very valuable from another point of view. The banking business is very largely concentrated in the hands of five big banks, and persons not conversant with the action of the banks have often complained that there is not enough competition between them, and that the public in that way suffer. Indeed, it has been said, very ignorantly, that they are not sufficiently kind as regards agricultural properties, and to farmers, and so on. But, as a matter of fact, as I know from personal experience, having been a member of one of them for some years, there is the very keenest competition between these great banks in every part of the country, and if, in a particular locality where these branches of the different banks are situated, you had all the officials gathered together in one association, meeting together constantly, I am not at all sure whether it would really conduce to a keener and more active competition than exists at the present time
Of course, I do not say that any exception can be taken to this particular institution or its aims, but I ought to point out that it does not include half of the banking officials. My noble friend, I think, gave the number as 23,000. The figures I was given are rather larger—about 27,000—but the total number of banking officials is about 55,000. But it would be a very
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great mistake to suppose that there are no other associations than this particular one in the banking world. On the contrary, most of these big banks have associations—I do not call them Whitley Councils, or anything of that kind, but anyhow they have committees of officials, who meet the directors constantly, and discuss with them all questions connected with the position of the employees. That is very satisfactory both to the employees and to the bankers very often. And therefore there does not seem any reason why the Government should go to these banks, and say: "Oh, you must not have these particular associations of your own banks, you must do all that you can to persuade your officials to go into this particular Guild." The Government does not feel that that is its duty. It has not been asked to do it, and it is a matter on which the Government ought to allow employees and bankers to manage their own affairs in their own way.
There is another distinction between some industrial companies and banks—namely, that the bank clerks are nearly all well educated and intelligent men and women, and extremely capable of putting their own case to their directors and managers. They really do not need to go to outside associations for the purpose of getting a spokesman. That may be necessary in some businesses, but I think it is less so in the banking world than in almost any other. I should like to refer to the hope expressed by the noble Lord that the recognition of such an association might be an example which would have a great effect in the cause of peace in industry. I am bound to say I think he is very sanguine if he thinks that the recognition, brought about by the Government, of this particular association of bank officials would really have a very great influence in putting an end to disputes in some of the great industries of the country.

THE CASH-ON-DELIVERY SYSTEM.
THE EARL OF DENBIGH THE EARL OF DENBIGH had given notice to call attention to the need of further extending the system of Postal "Cash on Delivery" as established a year ago, by making it available for articles sent by letter post, thereby increasing its convenience to the public as

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in other countries, besides encouraging trade and bringing more business and revenue to the Post Office; also to ask why the C.O.D. system cannot be made better known by a cancelling stamp on letters in the same way as was practised for a period for the purpose of urging a wider use of the telephone; and to ask for figures showing the progress of C.O.D.; and to move for Papers.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, about a year ago the system which is known as the Cash-on-Delivery system was adopted by His Majesty's Post Office after a very considerable amount of strenuous and what is regarded as rather ill-informed opposition, and I think it would be very interesting to know a little more about its working. The opposition was rather curious and rather contradictory. We had the big mail order stores—a product of our civilisation, which has been worked out to great perfection in the United States—objecting to it, I think largely because they have their own organisations for delivering goods and collecting cash, and they were very jealous of the smaller traders being put into a position of greater facility for competing with them by the help of Post Office facilities. Then we have opposition on the part of the retail organisations, mostly in the provincial towns, which are to a very large extent dominated by the larger stores. They took up the cry that with cash on delivery orders would go past the retailers of the towns to the big mail advertising shops. I suggest to your Lordships that those two lines of argument are mutually destructive, but I will not say anything more about that.
I want to impress upon the House that those who have been advocating this system and urging its extension have no axes of their own to grind, although a great deal of trouble has been taken in trying to inform the public on the question. That has been done solely with a view to trying to help the interests of trade and under the conviction that any arrangement which legitimately tends to bring purchasers and vendors more closely together is all to the advantage of trade. Trade, after all, is merely an exchange a money for commodities and providing people have money to spend, the more you tempt them and encourage them to spend the more commodities are
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bought and the more lively trade becomes. Therefore I maintain that it is all in the interest of trade to make it easier for people to go shopping and spend their money, if they have it.
It is quite extraordinary how in this country we have lagged behind other nations in this matter. I think we were almost the only important nation which had not adopted some system such as this. Germany has had it for the last 52 years. In the year 1913, the last normal year before the War, about 74,000,000 parcels of a general aggregate value of £78,000,000 were handled in Germany through the Post Office under this system. I do not know what the figures are in this country up to date and I am looking forward to hearing them from the noble Lord who will answer this question. I note that up to the end of the year—that is, Christmas—the results that were shown were quite encouraging and amounted to something well over a million a year. Considering the fact that there was a most extraordinary ignorance in the country—and there still is extraordinary ignorance in the country—I think that result is fairly satisfactory. But we are sure that when the general conveniences of this system become better known, not only amongst the public but amongst traders themselves, there will be a steady increase in the number of parcels sent through the Post Office under this system. What we particularly ask is that it should be extended to the letter post.
The system also should be of considerable use to small holders, as I pointed out last year. I have seen in the daily papers quite a number of advertisements from time to time offering what they call C.O.D. trading; for example, advertisements as to sending poultry and other produce direct to consumers in the towns. I imagine the prices show a very great improvement over the very excessive ones which are sometimes charged in the retail shops of the West End. I will give another example of a trade that ought to benefit considerably from this system. There is a very large business done nowadays by dyers and cleaners of garments of all sorts. The big houses in the cities have their motor organisations for delivering goods and collecting the money, but in the country it is quite different. The individual there, when the garments

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are ready to be sent off, has to send the money by post before the dyers and cleaners will deal with and return the goods, unless the sender has a regular running account with them. There are very few garments nowadays, very few ladies' garments at all events, that will not go by parcel post; I should think a good many of them would very likely go by letter post. I am certain that a very large business would be done in this way if the system were more generally known. With regard to books, medicines, small spare parts for motor-cars and machinery of every description, things you want in a hurry, the C.O.D. system offers enormous conveniences.
The worst of it is that people do not realise the conveniences of this system and the whole thing wants advertising. I am sure that the Postmaster-General would largely increase the C.O.D. figures if he were to advertise in the same way as he advertised the telephones when we saw "Say it by telephone" stamped on envelopes. If he would say "Shop by C.O.D." you would have people inquiring: "What is C.O.D.?" They would start inquiring in the same way as, not very long ago, they started inquiring as to what on earth the Mustard Club was. I am not sure that the Postmaster-General might not get some quite useful information by sending some of his representatives to learn the gentle art of advertising from the manufacturers of mustard. I am perfectly certain that the public at the present moment does not realise what the conveniences of this system are. If they were better known prejudices would very largely disappear, especially amongst women, who now resent paying the charge of fourpence which is made for carrying out the transaction. They would realise that they are not worse off but rather better off by resorting to the C.O D. system. They overlook the fact that when they carry out a transaction in the ordinary way and send a cheque, that costs them two-pence and then they have to put a three-halfpenny stamp on the letter to send off the cheque—bang goes threepence halfpenny! It costs only one halfpenny more to resort to the C.O.D. system which gives in return very great conveniences.
They would also realise, I think, that shopping by C.O.D. is a very great check on what is known as profiteering and the
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charging of excessive prices. It gives them a much wider range of purchase; it does not limit them to their local traders, who are very often inclined to charge more than they would if they felt there was a wider competition. I think traders also would realise the manner in which this system eliminates bad debts. It is quite extraordinary how small sums mount up and how difficult it is very often to get those small sums paid. I do not know why it is but it is a fact that traders who are owed small sums constantly have to expend quite a considerable amount in postage in trying to get them paid by people who would not think anything of paying a very much larger sum, but who put the bills for these small sums on one side and do not think anything more of them. For small holders not to be paid the small sums due to them is very often a great inconvenience. I am certain that if this system were better known it would be more appreciated both by the public and the traders themselves.
We think that an extension of it to letter post is very necessary. There are hundreds of small articles which people resent paying 6d. for in order to have the article come by parcel post. At the present moment, one cannot take advantage of the C.O.D. system unless you get articles by parcel post. How often do we send our spectacles or eyeglasses to be mended? How often do articles of jewellery or ladies' sewing silks which they send to be matched, or ribbons, laces and various small articles in constant use, go by letter post? People resent using the C.O.D. system for them because they do not want to pay the rate charged for a heavy parcel. Therefore I strongly suggest that the Postmaster-General, after his year's experience of the present regulations, which were admittedly only experimental, should now go a little further and extend the system. That would result in increased business and, I believe, in increased profit to the Post Office. I beg to ask for this information and to move for Papers.
THE LORD SPEAKER: My Lords, I have no anxiety to join in the debate but, in the interest of order, I desire to make a most sincere protest. I Have no right to raise points of order any more than any other member of your Lordships'

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House, but I have the same right as any other member. It is perfectly well known that certain Benches in this House are earmarked for the Episcopal Bench, that it is out of order for members of the Episcopal Bench to address the House from any other Benches, and for any layman to address the House from the Episcopal Benches. The noble Earl has made his speech from the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury. I cannot imagine anyone among the laymen more suited to be a Bishop than my noble friend, but I must point out that until he is a Bishop we must listen to him from elsewhere. I must therefore make a very sincere protest against a grave breach of order.
THE EARL OF DENBIGH: My Lords, I can only offer my apologies to the House.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, as the noble Earl said, it is a convenient time to ask for an account of the Cash-on-Delivery service, which has now been in operation for a year. It was brought in a year ago and the system is straightforward and effective. The sender has only to fill in a form, hand it with the parcel over the counter at a money order office, and he receives his remittance by a crossed money order payable through his bank. The total number of parcels posted since the introduction of the service is now over 1,000,000 and the present rate of posting exceeds 1,200,000 per annum. The Post Office is constantly in touch with the business community and any suggestions for improvements have been given prompt and careful consideration. The Post Office have received a number of unsolicited testimonials as to the efficiency and promptness of the service and as to the absence of "red tape."
The use made of the service for the transmission of agricultural produce has been very limited. It is not practicable to determine precisely the number of agricultural parcels sent by this service, but it is certainly small, the reason being that the value of most agricultural produce is low in relation to its bulk and weight, so that the Cash-on-Delivery system can only be used commercially for the more expensive produce, such as eggs, cream, honey and poultry, in fairly heavy consignments. The system, however, has been of great service to certain other trades, particularly those dealing in motor parts and drapery. It
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has been particularly useful for small consignments, the average value per parcel being about £1.
As regards advertising, the Postmaster-General, having provided the service, considers it the duty of the Post Office to bring the service to the notice of the public, but he does not consider it either obligatory or legitimate for the Post Office to urge the public to take advantage of it in preference to other forms of purchase and remittance. It is not for the Post Office to endeavour to bias people in favour of Cash-on-Delivery as against other alternatives. It received wide publicity in the Press and elsewhere on its introduction and the extent to which it is already used suggests that its existence is well known to those who are likely to take advantage of it. As regards the extension of it to the letter post, the Postmaster-General is aware that the extension of the Cash-on-Delivery system to letters would be of value to some commercial interests, but there are practical difficulties in the way of such an extension. He quite appreciates that it would be valued in certain quarters and he will give the question his close consideration.
THE EARL OF DENBIGH: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Earl for the information he has given and I am glad to realise that the results are encouraging. I hope due consideration will be given to the point with regard to letter post. There has been one objection urged against it, that it might perhaps be made use of to obtain payment of unpaid bills. If there was a stringent regulation made that it was an offence to make any use whatever of the C.O.D. system for bills not requested to be sent in that way, or for articles not ordered, there would, I think, be no objection. I can only hope that the Postmaster-General will see his way to extend the system. I beg to ask leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

THE TERRITORIAL ARMY.
Debate resumed (according to Order) on the Motion, moved by Lord O'Hagan on Thursday last, for Papers relating to economies to be effected in respect of the Territorial Army.
LORD DENMAN: My Lords, I rise to resume the discussion which took place last week on Lord O'Hagan's Motion in regard to the Territorial Army. Your Lordships will recollect that Lord O'Hagan severely criticised the action of the War Office in the withdrawal of the bounty from the Territorial Army and that the noble Earl the Under-Secretary of State, while profuse in expressions of admiration and esteem for the Territorial Army, said nothing to encourage us in the hope that the Secretary of State would reconsider his decision. I am afraid, therefore, that there is little doubt that this cut in the pay will be a severe blow to the Territorial Army to-day. Indeed, as I listened to the speech of the noble Earl the Under-Secretary of State, there occurred to my mind the verse of an eighteenth century poet:
"When first I attempted your pity to move,
Why seemed you so deaf to my prayers?
Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love,
But—why did you kick me downstairs?"
It is all very well for him to say it was only a slight kick, or unintentional, or that it will not do much damage to the Territorial Army. The recipient of the kick will know best how much damage it has done and is likely to do. There is a general consensus of opinion that this particular blow will do a great deal of harm.
I do not propose to go into detail, but I will briefly summarise what I conceive to be the charge against the War Office in this matter. It is a two-fold charge. In the first place it is said that it will affect recruiting for the Territorial Army and the efficiency of the Force, and in the second place that it was done in a manner which was somewhat discourteous to those responsible for the administration of the Territorial Force and that inadequate time was given to the Territorial Association for discussion and opportunity to lay alternative proposals before the War Office. The matter of recruiting, of course, must be a question of opinion, but those connected with the Territorial Force think the effect on recruiting will be very bad indeed.
Now I will say a word on the question of efficiency. The bounty is given, or was given, only to those men who attended a certain number of
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parades and attained a certain standard of efficiency. Therefore it gave officers a chance of offering some inducement to their men to become efficient. Now that inducement goes and the efficiency of the Force is likely to suffer accordingly. Originally, I think, the object in giving this bounty was to induce the Territorial Force to accept liability for foreign service. Now the bounty goes, but the liability for foreign service remains. I put it to your Lordships that that is scarcely a fair way of dealing with the Territorial Force. A further object was to compensate men for the out-of-pocket expenses to which they are put in attending drills and so forth. Very often a man attending drills incurs some expense; it may be a train fare or a 'bus fare, something very small no doubt, but it is incurred every time a man attends drill and a great many drills are held during training. It is rather hard that these expenses should come out of a man's pocket. Some units, it is true, are comparatively well off and will not feel the effect of this so much, but others are recruited considerably from the artisan and working classes. It will be extremely difficult for men in those classes to enlist in the Force or remain in the Force without incurring some personal sacrifice which it is scarcely fair or reasonable that we should expect of them.
I will not again traverse the ground or make the point made by my noble friend Lord O'Hagan as to the opportunity given to the Territorial Association or their Council to put forward alternative economies, but alternative economies may, I think, be fairly discussed. My noble friend pointed out that there was a question of standing camps and the possibility of saving money over the water supply of camps and things of that kind. There is another point which I now put forward, and that is the question of brigade staffs. There are 44 Infantry brigades and 14 Artillery brigades, each costing about £1,000 a year. The greater part of them are commanded by officers drawing regular rates of pay. Let me say that I do not imply that these officers are not doing excellent work or are not entitled to the pay they receive, but if a cut is so urgently necessary I suggest it would be better made by reducing the pay of these officers or getting officers to do this work for nothing at all. I believe

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it would be quite possible to do so. The work might not be so well done, but it might be possible to make a reduction of many thousands of pounds a year in this way.
Then there is a political aspect to this question which I think is worth the attention of your Lordships. The Territorial Force has hitherto been kept entirely outside the maelstrom of Party politics, and I hope it always will be so. It was, as your Lordships will recollect, the creation of a Liberal Government. It has been administered by successive Coalition and Conservative Governments and when the Labour Government was in office, so far as I am aware, they were entirely friendly to it. It is out of the question that the Territorial Force could be used in the case of civil disturbance or a General Strike, for the simple reason that it is a citizen force composed of all Parties in the State, but I do not think the severest critic of the Territorial Force could deny that each Territorial unit—Infantry, Yeomanry or Artillery—is a centre of loyalty and good will in this country to-day. Now, as we all know, there are extremists to-day—and some of them not without influence—who are openly preaching sedition, confiscation, the recrudescence of the General Strike and so forth. I put it to your Lordships: Is it wise when there is all this inflammable material lying about to bring discouragement and disappointment to those men who, often at considerable personal sacrifice, are doing their best to keep these centres of loyalty and good will in being? To have done so—this is an additional charge I bring against the government—appears to me a very grave political blunder.
I am going to say one word as to the responsibility for this decision which the War Office have recently promulgated. In this House there is the noble Earl the Under-Secretary of State for War. I think he is in a peculiarly responsible position because I think I am right in saying that he is the administrative head of the Territorial Force. I have no doubt that the noble Earl has been in a position of considerable difficulty in the matter and I can imagine it has not been a very congenial task to him to have to defend this reduction of pay in your Lordships' House. I did notice, by the
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way, that there was one ray of hope in the speech which the noble Earl made in this House last week. He said this:—
"I should like, however, to say that if the abolition of the bounty really has that disastrous effect upon recruiting which the more extreme pessimists predict, then we must take steps to counteract it."
I do not know whether any Member of the Government is going to speak this evening, but I would ask whether my noble friend Viscount Peel has anything more to say or can hold out any more hope on that point
I would respectfully urge upon the Government that if they are going to do anything to mitigate the severity of their recent action they should do it quickly, indeed, let them do it at once, Let them do something to restore the confidence which has been so rudely shattered. There is, of course, a Secretary of State for War, and he is more responsible than the noble Lord, Lord Onslow. No doubt he also has been in a difficult position in this matter. But I hope that in future if questions of this kind arise where a political issue is involved—as I claim it is involved in this case—the Secretary of State will not rely entirely upon the advice of his professional colleagues.
Then there is the Army Council. Certainly there is an impression abroad in the Territorial Force that the Army Council is not very sympathetically disposed towards them. That is a matter of long standing. It dates back before the War. I do not want to go into that again now. It does exist. The Chairman of the Territorial Force Association in his letter to The Times asked: "Does the Army Council want to destroy the Territorial Army?" and he ended a very cogent and reasoned letter by concluding that it did. The noble Earl, Lord Dartmouth, also wrote in The Times of the incredible action of the War Office, and a leading article in The Times spoke of the policy of slights and pinpricks extended towards the Territorial Force. Let me conclude by expressing the hope that, unless the Army Council wish to become thoroughly unpopular, they will refrain from the policy of emasculating the Territorial Force in this country.
LORD HORNE: My Lords, the noble Lord who moved the Motion now under discussion presented for your consideration

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two main points: first, the manner in which the reductions in the Territorial Army have been introduced; and, in the second place, the effect of those reductions upon the Territorial Army. I think that far too much is being made of the first point. I should be the last man in the world to suggest for one moment that patriotic bodies of loyal citizens like our Territorial Force Association should be treated with anything but the very greatest consideration and respect. I do not think that any responsible Minister or, indeed, any man in his senses would disagree with me. They have done and are doing splendid work, and they deserve every encouragement. But I think we ought to look at the matter in its proper perspective.
What is the status of a Territorial association? The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Haldane, whom I am sorry not to see present to-day, has been very justly termed the parent of the Territorial Army, and I can assure your Lordships that he is looked upon very much in that capacity by all of us soldiers who have taken and still take an interest in the Territorial Army and also in the organisation of the Army generally. We have the greatest respect for the work that was done by the noble and learned Viscount, and we wish that he had received greater credit and a greater measure of gratitude for all that he accomplished. When the noble and learned Viscount introduced the Territorial and Reserve Forces Bill in the House of Commons on March 4, 1907, he said:—
"This Bill does not confer any powers directly on the associations, but it provides machinery for designing and transferring powers and duties to them, either at once or by degrees and not necessarily all at the same time, and always subject to revocation if necessary. In short, the military committees of the county associations will be, as it were, incorporated administrative officers acting under the directions of the Army Council."
I take it, therefore, that the Territorial associations have no authority by Statute except that which is conferred by the Secretary of State acting through the Army Council.
The duties of the Territorial associations, as I see them, are to organise, to administer and to recruit; but not to decide policy. I submit to your Lordships that it is impossible that they should
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decide policy without disastrous results. Surely the policy of the Territorial Army is wrapped up in the general policy of national defence. Can we have outside bodies interfering in that? Is it not for the Government to decide and, once the Government has decided, is it not for an organisation in the position of the Territorial associations to support loyally and to the very best of their ability the decisions that have been arrived at by the Government?
Coming now to the second point to which I have referred, the effect of these reductions on the Territorial Army, I would ask for what purpose the Territorial Army exists. Here again I would refer to a speech of Lord Haldane, in which he said:—
"The Army we propose for the Second Line is not an Army to be used on ordinary occasions. It is to be called on only in time of great emergency. Essentially a Home Defence Force, it will be so organised that, should a time of stress come and the Empire be in danger and the spirit of the people roused to meet the emergency, it may be capable of great expansion."
Such was the purpose of the Territorial Army in 1907, and such, I submit, is its purpose to-day. That the Territorial Army was able to fulfil this purpose was proved up to the hilt during the War. Its obligations are, roughly, home defence and a capacity of great expansion.
How best, having regard to the economy that is essential at the moment, can the Territorial Army meet those obligations? Its capacity for home defence has been largely increased by the fact that it is now liable for service overseas. History will tell us that we never have defended and never will defend the British Isles by fighting on our own soil. Our defence lies in fighting elsewhere. The Territorial Army must be capable of rapid and great expansion, and to effect that rapid and great expansion we must have a trained nucleus of sufficient strength to provide the officers, non-commissioned officers and experts who will be required to train and instruct those who join up in the case of emergency and to officer and provide the personnel for the new units that may be created. What we really want are: (1) a force large enough to give training facilities to such a number of officers and non-commissioned officers as would be required immediately on expansion; (2) a sufficiently

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long period of training for these officers and non-commissioned officers; and (3)—and this is very important—a definite scheme for expansion, well thought out and communicated to those who would have to put it into practice. So far as I know, the third of these requirements is not in existence.
I come now to the question of the bounty. I disagree with a great deal that has been said on this matter. I do not believe that the Territorial soldier that we require ever joined for the bounty. I give him credit for much higher ideals than that. Men joined, in my experience, some of them because they liked soldiering and could not get it in any other way, some from a sense of patriotism or a sense of duty and others for social reasons, but I do not believe that any number of them joined for the bounty, and I feel bound to add that when the bounty was introduced after the War the effect of the £5 at that time was to invite into the ranks of the Territorial Army a certain number of men who were in no way fitted, qualified or suitable for service in that Force and whom it eventually became necessary to get rid of again. I say that the bounty does not attract them, and if you can save money on the bounty it ought to be put into some form of proficiency pay. This point was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe. It is a most important one. We want a large number of highly trained men, and we must encourage them to qualify themselves. A man, to gain the standard of proficiency and efficiency, must spend a certain amount of his own money, and we want to give him proficiency pay in order to recoup him when he is out of pocket.
I would like now to refer to what was said by the noble Viscount, Lord Haldane. He seemed to assume that there still existed, on the part of the Regular officer and Regular soldier, an idea that the Territorial was much beneath them. I can assure the noble Viscount that whatever feeling of that sort existed at the commencement of the War had entirely disappeared within two months. I would almost say to the noble Viscount that he shared with us the opinion that the Territorial would take a certain period to qualify himself as an efficient
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soldier. I think, if I speak from recollection of the rules laid down, it was thought that the Territorial Army would take six months in which to prepare itself. Within two months or so many of those units were fighting on Belgian soil in the first Battle of Ypres, and those reinforcements were not only welcomed, but, I venture to believe, they did much to enable us to get through that very trying period. I stand by the Territorial through thick and thin. I have a very high opinion of him, and I think that the majority of them would say to me, as many of them have said, that any feeling between the Territorial officer and soldier and the Regular officer and soldier that ever did exist, has completely gone to-day. They meet on the best of terms and are true comrades.
There is only one other point to which I am anxious to refer. I do not agree at all with the suggestion that the Director-General of the Territorial Army should have a seat on the Army Council. I do not think it would tend to efficiency. I think, on the other hand, it would tend to a separation of the interests of the Territorial Army and of the Regular Army. What we do require is that the Director-General of the Territorial Army should be brought under the Chief of the Imperial General Staff. This would bring about real co-ordination between the Territorial Army and the Regular Army. Lord Haldane said that the Director-General is under the Adjutant-General. That is not the case. He is under the Under-Secretary of State for War, and so is prevented from direct access to the military members of the Council. That is not a sound arrangement.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: My Lords, this debate comes at a peculiarly inopportune moment after the debate which was initiated by the noble Earl, Lord Beauchamp. It proves, if proof were needed, that the way of the economist is a difficult one. He asked for economies, but the moment you touch anything in which any one is interested the cry at once goes up that it is a most monstrous proposal, and you should begin saving in some other direction. That is only natural, but all the same I think we owe a debt of gratitude to Lord O'Hagan

787
for raising this question, and I think we should congratulate him upon having raised a debate of such great interest. The noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, and a good many of the noble Lords who followed him, have devoted a certain amount of time to the alleged bad treatment, or otherwise, of the Territorial associations by the War Office. I am not going into that matter. It has already been dealt with by my noble friend the Under-Secretary for War.
I propose to devote the few remarks which I intend to make to the vexed question of the abolition of the bounty, and the effect which I think it will have upon the Territorial Army. I do not think that the noble Lord, if he will allow me to say so, or other speakers, have quite done justice to the difficult position in which the War Office was placed. As I understand the position, they suddenly had a demand for certain large economies. The abolition of the bounty means a saving of about £64,000 this year, rising to about £332,000 in a few years' time. How is the money to be saved? Of course the War Office might have said that the Territorial Army is to bear none of this saving at all. In that case I do not really see how they could have raised this sum of money without the abolition or amalgamation of certain Regular Cavalry and Infantry units, which I do not think would have given pleasure to a certain number of noble Lords on this side of the House. Or they might have said that the Territorial Army was to bear its share of the economies.
Various suggestions have been thrown out as to what economies might have been made. Lord O'Hagan had a suggestion to reduce the period for training camps. He said that it was no longer absolutely vetoed by the military advisers. Speaking as a Territorial officer, I say that the Territorial Army would view with dissatisfaction anything of the kind. I do not think the noble Lord is still serving as a Territorial officer, but I can tell him that the period of training is now all too short for the very technical and varied training which the modern soldier has to undergo. Then we had a proposal from the noble Lord who resumed the debate, Lord Denman, that you might either do away with the Brigadiers or get officers to do their work for less pay. The position is that there are,
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I think, 42 Infantry Brigadiers, 14 C.R.As., and 14 C.R.Es.B. These Brigadiers receive, I believe, £940 per annum, out of which they have to pay the expenses of their office. They are all of the rank of full Colonel, they are highly trained, and I think it is necessary you should have them and should not reduce their pay. If you had retired officers to do their work for less pay, I think the training would suffer. I do not think it would be a good economy.
What economies, then, were to be made? As I see it, the War Office had three courses which they might have taken. They might have abolished or amalgamated the units, or they might have reduced the establishments of Infantry battalions, or they might, as they did, have taken away the bounty. Speaking as a Territorial officer I think the course pursued was the best one, and I do not think that about ten per cent., which is the share which the Territorial Army has to bear of these economies, is an undue proportion to ask from it. As to the effect that this abolition of the bounty is likely to have, about three weeks ago there was a debate in another place on the matter in which a great many officers in close touch with the Territorial Army took part and various opinions were expressed. Some officers were very pessimistic; others went perhaps to the other extreme. But I was exceedingly struck by a speech by the hon. and gallant Member for Kingston-upon-Hull, Colonel Lambert Ward, in which he said that he did not think this proposal would do much harm, and that, as regards his own unit, he did not think he would lose a single man by it
As some of your Lordships may know, Colonel Lambert Ward commands the Honourable Artillery Company, and it may be said—and I rather agree—that that is not a typical Territorial unit. But the hon. and gallant Member went on to say something else which is much more important. He said that the question whether this reduction was loyally accepted or not depended almost entirely on the attitude of commanding and other officers. In this I heartily agree with him. I belong to a battalion in the Hampshire Infantry Brigade, and I imagine that that, with the other three battalions of the Brigade, is probably a fair specimen of a Territorial Infantry unit. I think that this proposal probably

789
at first will do a certain amount of harm in recruiting and probably more in re-engagement; but I am perfectly convinced, as was said in another place, that the harm that the proposals will do or otherwise depends, as so many things in the Army do depend, on the attitude of the officers. If they go about encouraging their men to think that they have got a grievance against the War Office then the situation will be very serious indeed. If, on the other hand, they do, as I am sure they will do, point out that a man joins the Territorial Army as a patriotic duty, and not for what he can get out of it, then I think the effect will be very largely minimised.
I am quite aware that in every unit there is probably a certain percentage of men who join for what they can get out of the Territorial Army, but I do not think they are in the majority. The average man joins the Territorial Army because he thinks he is performing a patriotic duty, and he re-engages because he likes his battalion, and likes the time in camp. In this connection I should like to quote some words of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Haldane, who, I see, is not in his place, which he used in the debate on July 22, 1925, when he said that the working classes of this country were much like anybody else, and were moved by patriotism and high feeling. In this I absolutely agree with him, and I think it will be found to be the case in this particular matter.
I should like to refer to one matter which I think is of great importance, and that is the feeling between the War Office, the Regular Army and the Territorials. It has been hinted, and, indeed, I think more than hinted in another place, that the officers of the Regular Army dislike or are indifferent to the Territorial Army. I should like to join the noble and gallant Lord on the Cross Benches (Lord Horne) in saying that I absolutely disagree with that view. When I spoke in this House on December 1 last I said how well I thought the War Office had treated my unit during our last training in camp, in the way they sent people to instruct us. I think, if a feeling of this kind gets about, it does incalculable harm, and I should like to make my strongest protest and say that I do not think any feeling of the kind exists. I am sure that in the War Office there is no feeling of dislike
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of or indifference towards the Territorial Army. It is recognised now that you have to treat the Territorial Army as a serious Force, and I am quite sure that this is realised not only by the Army Council and the responsible officers in the War Office, but also by the Generals in the Commands and the junior officers of the Army.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, while not minimising in the least the very serious effects of this abolition of the bounty, I agree with the noble Lord on the Cross Benches, and I am sufficiently optimistic not to take such a gloomy view of its effects on the Territorial Force and upon recruiting for it as some speakers, and many people outside who have written in the newspapers, have taken. When the bounty was instituted on the reconstitution of the Territorial Force in 1920 many of us doubted the wisdom of it: there had not been a bounty before. In 1922 it was cut down from £5 to £3 and the same fears were expressed that this would have a fatal effect, but nothing very adverse happened. Now that it is going to be taken away altogether I grant that there will be some reaction and it may temporarily affect recruiting, but I do not think that it will for long.
I have been for nearly twenty-seven years closely connected with Volunteers and Territorials, and I can hardly recollect any change during that time that has been brought in by the War Office about which a prophecy has not been made that it would be very detrimental to the Territorial Force. The Force, however, has survived, in spite of it, and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Templemore, that when you consider that the Regular Army has been cut to the bone we Territorials have got off lightly, seeing that the cut is only £96,000 out of £1,000,000—I believe the total War Office cut comes to £1,000,000. One tenth is not an undue proportion for the Territorial Force to bear in these hard times, when there is not enough money to go round. I agree with some noble Lord who said that if there is money available at any time it would be most advantageous if the War Office could restore the £1 for proficiency pay, which was in existence before the War. If there were money available I am sure it would be well worth the Secretary of State's

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while to think of it, and, I hope, to put it into practice.
I do not quite agree with a noble Lord who spoke before me who considered that the best way of economising would be cutting down the number of days in camp. We know that the fourteen days in camp is considered to be necessary by the General Staff. But this year we hope that there may be more industrial activity in the country, and it may be more convenient for employers and men to have a shorter period in camp. I believe that the cost of the Territorial Army in camp is £50,000 a day. If you could guarantee the Territorial Army a clear seven or eight days in camp, from Saturday to Saturday—because now there is a lot of time wasted in removing—you would make a good saving in money, and I am not at all sure that the training would suffer very much. However, that is a question for the General Staff.
With regard to the controversy between the War Office and the associations, I have been for many years now the Chairman of an association, and my experience is that the War Office have always treated us very well. The noble Earl, Lord Onslow, told us with what great reluctance the Secretary of State and the Army Council had made this cut. Personally, whatever people may write on the subject, I always feel sure that the War Office views the Territorials with the greatest sympathy. The noble and learned Viscount complained also of a want of liaison between the Regulars and the Territorials. I agree with the two previous speakers. In the time that I have been connected with the Territorial Force never have the relations between the two been better. The Artillery and Infantry go into Easter camps and they are welcomed in Aldershot and other places by their kindred units in a way that never happened before the War.
The other point referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Horne, was the question of the Director-General and his position. As he said, some people have proposed that the Director-General should be on the Army Council. I rather think the noble and learned Viscount (Viscount Haldane) expressed approval of that the other night. Personally I agree with Lord Horne as to that. The Directors-General that we have had have always been good
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friends of the Territorials and have worked very much in sympathy with them and our present one, we all agree, is second to none in the way he has thrown himself into the work of the Territorials. We appreciate very much all the interest he has taken in us. Nevertheless, I was going to suggest what some people will think a heresy and that is that the best way to bring about this liaison between the Territorials and the War Office would be to abolish the office of Director-General altogether.
It sounds a very drastic step but it would short-circuit business. It would save the Director-General's Department. Anything that is brought up to the War Office has to be referred there. I have talked to soldiers in high positions in the country and they have told me that it is not impossible. Instead of the Director-General there would be the associations under the Under Secretary of State, the training would be under the General Staff and certain administration under the Adjutant-General, or whatever the appropriate Department was. I merely throw that out as a suggestion, which no doubt is a very radical one, but perhaps the noble Lord on the Front Bench might consider it. Incidentally I might mention that there would be a saving—I believe a quite considerable saving. I think the total vote for the Territorial Directorate is something over £12,000 a year. You would not save all that, but you would save a considerable amount of it. You would also, I think, get greater efficiency and greater liaison between the two.
What I really got up to say was that my association is prepared to make the best of the situation and to do all it can to make it a success. I have had letters and communications from Commanding Officers to the same effect—that this cut will hit different units in different ways, some more heavily than others; but they are all, I am certain, prepared to do their best to make it a success and will only come and complain if they find that it, has broken down. Personally I have sufficient confidence in the men who compose the Territorial Force to be sanguine that they will, in spite of the loss of £3 a year, continue in the future to give the same public-spirited and loyal service to their country as they have given in the past.
LORD HEMPHILL: My Lords, I think the result of this debate will be, on the whole, satisfactory to the Territorials, because they will be relieved of one great fear, which was that the Army Council and Ministers were not entirely in favour of volunteers and were not prepared to assist and support them. If a feeling gets abroad that that is not the case it will be a great advantage. The two points that appear to me to stand out of this debate are, first, the rather abrupt method in which the associations have been treated by the War Office, and, secondly, the question as to whether there was any necessity to make a cut in the very meagre allowance already made to the Territorial Force. There is also a question whether the Territorial Force was not the last body to which you should have gone in order to economise. I belong to the County of London Association, having been a member of that body since its institution. We have always more or less been struggling for money, sometimes we have had it and sometimes we have not, but we have gone on and have been very successful. The County of London is the largest of the associations and I am afraid it is a body that does not agree with the suggestion that has been made about the bounty. They deplore its abolition very much.
I would like to point out to your Lordships that the members of the County of London Territorial Association, in common I think with the members of other Territorial associations, are economists. The association is composed chiefly of people who are greatly interested in reducing taxation, whether they be military or whether they be civil members. They are all employed in some business or profession and I do not think you could get a body which would more economically administer the money that is entrusted to it. For economical administration I do not think you will find any organisation better than the various Territorial associations throughout the country. If, therefore, they complain there must be some ground for their complaint.
With regard to the shortness of the notice I think it is sufficient to say that the first intimation the Chairman of our association got was when he was invited on February 17 to attend a meeting by the courtesy of the Council of the County Associations. On the 23rd he received
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a telegram from the War Office by means of which the notice vas sent out summoning the associations. Then on March 2, which was after the cut had been put into force, the Chairman of the association, Mr. Holland Martin, a distinguished banker, wrote at the request of the association a letter of which I propose to read two paragraphs:—
"At the special meeting referred to I was authorised to acquaint you with the opinion unanimously held and strongly expressed that some intimation of proposals of such vital and far-reaching consequence should, if only in courtesy, have been communicated to this association which administers one tenth of the Territorial Army of the country, at the same time that they were notified to the Council.
"I was also expressly requested by the meeting, to point out in the most emphatic manner possible that though my association realises that no effective protest can be made now that an Army Order has been issued against the decision to abolish the bounty in the case of men enlisting or reengaging, this decision cannot but have a most detrimental and prejudicial effect upon the units administered by this association. It is in the opinion of my association not only unfair to serving personnel, but will seriously hamper Commanding Officers in their efforts to obtain further recruits for their units. In these circumstances my association feels that a serious obstacle has been placed in the way of recruiting and keeping units up to strength for which duties county associations are by Statute held responsible."
That is the view of the County of London Association, which consists of 145 members, including the Mayors of Metropolitan Boroughs, and it expresses very considerably the feeling of the Territorials in London.
It is important that we should realise the position of the Territorials. I do not think, in spite of the speech made by the noble and gallant Lord and by other members here, that the position of the Territorials is quite sufficiently appreciated, but it is no doubt appreciated by the Government and it was a great source of satisfaction to hear the words that were spoken by the Secretary of State for War in the House of Commons when he said:—
"I can assure the Committee that I am not going to take any risk of permanent harm to the Territorial Army, which is our second line of defence. It is the line from which in the last event, in the event of a great national crisis, additional troops would have to be raised and raised in their own Divisions, not as drafts for the Regular Army but as the sole means of increasing the Fighting Forces of the Crown. The

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Government have no intention of doing anything which will interfere, obviously and permanently, with recruiting."
Those words are very important. They reiterate the policy of past Governments and declare the policy of the present Government with regard to such an important Force as the Territorial Army.
If it is the Force that is going to protect the country when the Regular Army is used for other purposes—and the Regular Army is very small at the present time with about 140,000 men and a very small Reserve behind it—then surely the Territorial Army ought to have more consideration devoted to it by the War Office than at present. Take the establishment of the War Office. It costs £869,000 and out of that the Territorial staff costs £13,000. Yet that is the Force which you have got to rely upon in case of emergency. The noble Earl the Under-Secretary of State expressed grief that he had to propose the cut at all on the Territorials. But his Committee was instituted for the purpose of making a reduction. It had nothing else before it and of course it had to make it. The point is whether you should cut down the very small amount of money you already give.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (THE EARL OF ONSLOW): The duty of the Committee to which my noble friend refers was to examine into all possible reductions and to report to the Army Council. It was the Government that took the decision.
LORD HEMPHILL: I agree. Perhaps I misinterpreted the noble Earl. I said it was only with regard to the Territorial Army that his Committee was sitting. It was not sitting to consider the finances of the whole Army or anything else, but only a reduction in the Territorial Army. My point is that it is undesirable to make a reduction at all in the Territorial Army because it has such a small amount of money to deal with. This bounty was given for purposes of efficiency. Nobody got it unless he was efficient, and you take away the inducement which encouraged men to be efficient. I would impress upon the Government that they must do something to encourage the associations and to encourage efficiency. If I might make a suggestion I would say that—no doubt they cannot see their way to reinstate the bounty—they might
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make a grant to each Territorial association to be used, as these associations think fit, in order to encourage efficiency. I hope the noble Viscount will be able to give the Territorial Army some assurance with regard to that point.
LORD SWANSEA: My Lords, I would not venture to intrude in this debate if I did not think that recent experience of the Territorial Force might be of some value. I have had twenty-six years in various branches of the Territorial Force—live years in the old Volunteers, sixteen years in the Yeomanry, and five years in the Infantry. I know something about recruiting for I also had the privilege of re-raising a Territorial battalion after the War and was commanding it at the time when the bounty was reduced. I know something, then, of the effect of the reduction of bounties already existing. I also had served, since the start of the Territorial Force Associations until three years ago, on the Territorial Association of the County of Glamorgan, which has expressed its opinion that this cut in the bounty is bound to have disastrous effects upon recruiting. I know, from my personal experience, that at the time of the reduction from £5 to £3 the men did feel it very much indeed, not because they joined for the bounty but because they felt it was in some way a slight upon them. As a Commanding Officer I know that the bounty is certainly extremely valuable because it is the only hold you have over the men to make them make themselves efficient. It is a mistake to call it a bounty; it is proficiency pay. I hope there always will be some form of proficiency pay in the Territorial Army.
All the speeches which have preceded mine in this debate have been on cuts that might be made by the Department of the Secretary of State for War. I wish to make the point, which has already been admitted in this House, in the debate on National Expenditure, by the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, that the Services of the country are already cut below the safe point. It is the system of insisting upon cuts which is bringing danger to the Territorial Force. The Secretary of State, in another place, said that he was faced with a dilemma. He had to cut the Territorial Army by a large amount last year and he was faced with

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a problem of finding substitute cuts for the present year. He also said it might be necessary in another year to make a further cut by way of reduction of establishment. The Secretary of State is rather in the position, if I might put it in a rather homely simile, of an under-gardener who has an order to do some pruning, which I am perfectly certain he must feel is pruning dangerously near the lowest bud. He knows that, if he is going to prune next year below that bud, he is going to destroy the plant altogether. Meanwhile, the garden in which this valuable plant exists is being choked by plants put in during the War, which are throwing up suckers in all directions and choking out valuable plants. A mention was made in the debate on Expenditure of these new Ministries. There is a plant—let us call it the Ministeria nigra. There is another plant called the Ministeria transportia which might have the common name of the Creeping Traveller's joy. Then there is Ministeria operanda sanguinea. These plants, I think, do not require a knife, they require a spade.
It was said in the course of the debate by the noble Viscount, Lord Haldane, that there was no greater fallacy than to do sums when you were discussing questions of economy. Well, if you did not do sums in business you would very soon have to put up the shutters. The Marquess of Salisbury also deprecated the use of figures, but he did use a certain number of figures which showed that some of the increases were due to the extra work falling on staffs. He referred to the increased percentages which had to be put on for the cost of living and so on. Although he deprecated the use of figures I think he used figures which rather made one think that if it took one man to multiply ten by ten it might take ten men to multiply ten by 100. In business we have had a very large amount of extra work, which is due to insurance and that sort of thing, put on staffs and if the staffs of businesses were increased the businesses would no longer exist. I have taken out some figures, but I will not weary your Lordships with them except to this extent. I have taken out the figures for the last pre-War year, 1913–14, as compared with the last complete year 1925–26, which include Supplementary Estimates, and I find that the Army has increased by 57 per cent., the Navy has
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increased by 24 per cent., and the Territorial Army has increased by 17 per cent.
VISCOUNT PEEL: Is that increase in cost or in numbers?
LORD SWANSEA: Those are estimates of cost. The Navy stands very low, but the Territorial Force is a long way the lowest. If you compare these with the increase in the same period in what are now called the Social Services—for comparison I have excluded the War Pensions and also the large coal mining subsidy—you will find the increase in the Social Services comes to 189 per cent. So you see the Social Services have increased out of all proportion to the Active Services. When it comes to business it is the back areas which should be cut and not the front line. I remember at the end of the War, when I was commanding a battalion, that another battalion before going into line had a draft of 150 bakers sent from Rouen, the bakery having been taken over by women. I mention that to show that when it comes to real business it is the back areas and not the front line or the support line which has to be cut.
At the last General Election there was no demand at all for economy which would affect the Services. There was a very urgent demand for economy in what may be called superfluous bureaucracy. Three main items stood out at the last General Election. One was the demand for freedom from the tyranny of trade unions, the second that there should be freedom from superfluous bureaucracy, and the third that there should be freedom from Communism. I think it will be a very unpopular thing, this cut in the Active Services as against a cut in the Social Services. There is an increasing amount of responsible opinion in this country which looks to this Government to make its cuts in the right place, and which thinks that if this Government cannot do it no Government ever will be able to do it. It is a very disturbing line of thought, and I hope that whatever may be done proficiency pay will be retained and cuts made in the Social Services instead. I put it to His Majesty's Government that they would receive better value for their money if, instead of cutting a bounty which is given to men to make themselves efficient in the service of their country, they cut the bounty so lavishly given for doing nothing at all.
THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (VISCOUNT PEEL): My Lords, there is a certain irony, as my noble friend Lord Templemore observed, in the fact that this debate on the Territorials should be intertwined, as it were, with the general economy debate. We received in the general debate on Expenditure very fine exhortations from such eminent members of the House as the Earl of Oxford and Earl Beauchamp recommending us with all their force and vehemence to make reductions, not in the Social Services as my noble friend suggests but especially in the Defence Services. I thought that when this debate came on the controversial swords of these two eminent men would have leapt from their scabbards to avenge any insult put upon the Government for having tried in some respects to reduce expenditure. But alas! they are silent, they are not even here, and the Government have to bear the burden of economy alone.
I must say that the moment any economy of any kind is suggested, any reduction of Expenditure, we have had in a two days' debate hardly anybody, except one or two like my noble friend behind me, to support the Government. The Government alone have to bear the burden and the odium of any practical application of those sentiments of which we hear so much and which are so freely dispensed in this House and elsewhere. I will be very brief, as time is running out, but I wish to say a few words—because in this matter I have a good deal of personal experience—on the suspected attitude of the War Office to the Territorial Force. Unfortunately, running through this debate there has been suspicion—suspicion reflected in letters sent to newspapers and in other ways—that there is some curious dark hostility between the War Office and the Territorial Force. There was before the War, I will not say hostility but a very different condition of things. I never resented it. I will not say the Territorials were treated as if they were very inferior. I felt as a Territorial that the Regulars regarded us—no doubt justly in their eyes—as mere amateurs. I was a Commanding Officer at the time when War broke out and I did regret what happened then.
We all know what a great man Earl Kitchener was, but he had not great
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experience of the administration of the War Office and I think he was totally ignorant of the Territorial Force. We found our organisation, which had been carefully built up by years and years of work, set aside as if it was of no importance—although on it a new Army could easily have been built up—and a wholly rival organisation competing with us. I speak as a very humble Colonel of a Yeomanry Regiment. I was deliberately hampered in everything I did because I had to meet the competition of a new Army. I could not even get nails for my horses because they were wanted for the new Army, started in competition, when one might well have been founded on the existing organisation. But of course, as the noble Lord who speaks with so much authority has said, the War has changed all that.
I can bear testimony because for three years from the beginning of 1922 I was Under-Secretary of the War Office, in the same position as my noble friend, and I was also Chairman of the Reconstruction Committee which had the duty of building up the whole Territorial Force from the start. Accordingly I am very familiar with all the details and with the attitude of eminent soldiers towards them. I can only say that we received every help, kindness and assistance from the leading soldiers. Their position was that they regarded the Territorial Force as an integral part of the Defence Forces of this country, and I met with none of that depreciation and suspicion that has been alluded to, during all the years that I was in the War Office. After all, the test is: What was done? First of all, as everbody knows, the Territorial Force accepted the obligation for foreign service. They were advanced from the Third Line to the Second Line and, if they went abroad, they were to go, not as drafts, but as units. These things were all assented to and promoted by the eminent soldiers on the Army Council, and it seems to me ludicrous to suggest any feeling of suspicion or depreciation among those great soldiers towards the Territorial Force. So much for that feeling, which, as I say, is non-existent.
Since I am dealing with the War Office organisation, let me add that I have always been strongly opposed to the plan of putting the Director-General on the Army Council, for two very good reasons.

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The principal reason is that it entirely cuts through the whole organisation of the Army Council to have one man representing the Territorials, another dealing with armaments, another, the Quartermaster-General, dealing with supplies and another, the Adjutant-General, dealing with discipline. You would have a man representing Territorials and Territorials alone, opposed, as it were, to the other members of the Army Council. He would be bound merely to represent particular views on the Army Council, and would not have, as he would otherwise have, the whole interest and support of the other members. I am equally opposed, if I may say so, to the abolition of the Director-General, because, after all, he is the officer to whom the Territorial Force look as an administrator and to whom they can go when they are in difficulty. I should be very sorry if that post were abolished.
I understand that the suggestion has arisen that the Territorial associations have been treated in this matter with some lack of kindness or courtesy. It has reduced itself, I think, to a question of manners rather than anything more substantial. But I do wish to correct an error of the noble Lord, Lord Hemphill, about the Committee of which Lord Onslow was Chairman. That Committee had not to make any sort of decisions as to reductions in the Territorial Force. They had only to examine the question beforehand, so as to be ready, if anything happened, to say what sort of reductions could possibly be made and in what order they could be made so as to do the least injury to the Territorial Force itself. There was nothing decided and, in consequence, nothing to put before the Territorial associations. I am bound to say, looking at the whole business—and I have done so very carefully—as an outsider, that it seems to me that the influence exercised by the Territorial associations was very considerable. I admit that they had rather a short period in which to discuss these matters, but my noble friend has explained—and anybody who knows how Estimates are prepared will sympathise with the War Office—that it was not until a late stage that it was possible to say what economies would be necessary. The associations had considerable influence, and I understand that it was owing to the pressure that they exercised
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and to appreciation of their arguments by the Secretary of State that any question of the reduction of establishments was put aside. It is impossible for them to suggest that they were flouted and that their views did not receive attention, because in this most important respect, the reduction of establishments, their views were fully met by the Secretary of State.
I have listened very carefully to all the suggestions made. When an economy has to be made everybody has his own economy, everybody says that the suggestions made are directed to the wrong place and that the economy should be made somewhere else. That seems to be a kind of natural law of debates on economy. I have seen all that has been said in another place and in this House, and I will only observe that no two noble Lords and no two Members of Parliament seem to have agreed upon the economy that should be made. If you had had a Committee of these Peers and Members, they would not have agreed for months on the particular economies to be made. I will not go through them, because my noble friend has dealt with them most severely, but supposing that an economy had been suggested in the form of telescoping the two London Divisions and saving £114,000, it is easy to imagine the just indignation with which noble Lords would have risen in this House and asked us to do anything but reduce establishments and telescope Divisions. They would have said: "Take away the bounty if you like, but leave the two great London Divisions intact." That would have been the sort of criticism that we should have heard.
The fact is that all the suggestions made by the county associations and others have been fully examined by the War Office, but all of them, I think, except those terrible suggestions for crushing Divisions together and reducing units, have been shown to be insufficient, because those who made them do not realise that we must have economies which can be realised during three or four years and be set against the large increase of expenditure that will gradually accrue on account of the using up of materials and munitions during the next few years. No economy operating only for one year was of any value. I, for one, as an ex-Territorial—at present, I am afraid, I am only an honorary

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Colonel of Territorials—am glad that it has not been necessary to cut down these units, but is possible to leave them intact, so that it is possible to say that in these times of difficulty the Territorial Army has not been in any way injured or altered. Assuming that economy was necessary—and we all know that some reduction of Expenditure had to be made—we had to find the reduction that would do the least harm. It has been pointed out that there was no injustice as between the Territorials and the Regular Army. I congratulate the War Office, indeed, since they had to make these reductions, on having so nicely balanced them between the Estimates for the Regular Army and for the Territorials, and on the way in which the money taken over was not lost to the Territorials but was returned to them in another way which, we hope, will make them as efficient as, or more efficient than, they were before.
The only point left, I think, is the question of the effect of the abolition of the bounty upon recruiting, and on that we have had, as naturally we expected, a very great difference of opinion. The Colonel of my own unit had very melancholy feelings about it. It is natural that it should be so, and I am bound to say also—I am speaking more particularly from the country side rather than from the town side—that any alteration in terms or allowances or so on, is always bad for the Territorial Force, because it upsets a little, it is a change, and the agricultural mind does not move rapidly in the matter of change. When an alteration is made they generally use language about the War Office which it would not be proper for me to repeat in this House. I entirely agree, however, with what the noble Lord said about recruiting—the motives which induce men to enlist—and if I may speak from my own experience, I should say that while at first some slight shock will be caused by the change, very soon everybody will accommodate themselves to the new conditions. Knowing the influence of Territorial officers, if they throw themselves into the matter and say to their men: "This sacrifice has been called for by the general conditions of the country; you are reasonable and intelligent men, and I am sure you will assist, play up to and work for the Government," then I
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am not very much afraid about anything which may happen to the Territorial Force.
There are just two points more. I was asked whether I could make any statement about any arrangement for proficiency pay, or something in lieu of the bounty. I am not in a position to make any statement, but I know that the question of proficiency pay is occupying the attention of the Secretary of State. I also know very well that there is no part of his duty to which the Secretary of State is more devoted than the question of the Territorial Army, and I do not honestly think—and this may be a comfort to my noble friend who introduced the debate, which has ranged very widely and most thoroughly canvassed the whole question of the Force—that there is introduced any real question of any risk or danger for the Territorial Force. It has shown not only that it has such a number of powerful spokesmen and supporters in this House and in another place, but that it has, as it were, now established itself deep in the national consciousness, and that the people of this country realise that they have in the Territorial Force a magnificent asset. Even if there were destroyers at the War Office, and people were animated by the sort of motive attributed to my noble friend the Under-Secretary for War, I do not think that that would much avail, because the feeling of the country for the Territorials is so strong that it would, I am sure, easily overpower any machinations of my noble friend Lord Onslow, and the country would recognise the vast importance of the Territorial Force to the safety of the country.
LORD O'HAGAN: My Lords, before I ask leave to withdraw my Motion I should like to pay a tribute to the manner in which my noble friend has dealt with this question to-night. He is an old Parliamentary hand, and I only wish that I had that power of placing matters before your Lordships' House which he has displayed in dealing with my Motion. He made great play on the subject of the economy debate which took place in this House two days ago. He also occupied a certain amount of time in dealing with a subject which, I venture to think, in the minds of most who have taken part in this debate, is a matter to which too much attention has not been paid. That

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is with regard to the suggested antagonism between the Regular Army and Regular officers at the War Office and the Territorial Army. I think those of us who have been concerned with the Territorial Army since the War are well aware of the fact that, whether or not something of the sort existed before the War, since the War we have received the greatest possible help from Regular officers up and down the country, and from those serving at the War Office. I should like to say one word with regard to the speech of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Horne. If I may respectfully say so, I should like to emphasise how much those of us who are concerned with the Territorial Army welcome the very clear and encouraging speech which he made this evening. I think it will be a source of strength to many of us who are concerned in raising the Territorial Army if his speech can be quoted up and down the country, to show the position which in his opinion the Territorial Force does and should hold in the country.
My noble friend who spoke last has told us that he is unable to make a statement to-night with regard to the suggestion, put forward not only by myself but by many noble Lords in the course of the debate, as to the possibility of a grant in some form of proficiency pay. I can only hope that the Secretary of State, who he tells us is considering the matter at the present time, will be able to see his way to grant some form of proficiency pay on the lines which have been suggested. But if anything of this sort is to be done I would urge most emphatically upon the Under-Secretary of State that it should be done at once, or at the earliest possible moment. I do not wish at this late hour to go into many of the topics which I feel very tempted to go into, as a result of the speech of Lord Peel, but I would urge that, as a real practical outcome of this debate, if as is clear some form of proficiency pay is still engaging the attention of the Secretary of State—I would urge, with all the emphasis I can, on behalf I think I might almost say of the Council of the Associations, that it should be dealt with quickly and at once. Whatever may be the result of the withdrawal of the bounty on recruiting, whatever may be
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the outcome of the way in which this matter and the associations have been treated, a great deal of the ill-effects, and of the criticisms that have been made up and down the country, will be mitigated if, in the event of anything being done in this direction, it is done at the earliest possible moment.
I can only conclude by saying that the remark made by Lord Lucan, with regard to the attitude of his association towards the carrying on of their duties expresses precisely the attitude which I am convinced every association up and down the country takes in this matter. It is that however much you may feel justified, as I still feel justified, in saying that resentment is felt by the associations at the way in which they have been treated in this matter, the Government may rest assured that, so far as the associations are concerned, they will do their utmost to fulfil the duties that Parliament has placed upon them. I can only hope, as another outcome of this discussion, that my noble friend and the War Office will see their way to correct the impression—which they have told us is a misapprehension—that has arisen as a result of the way the matter has been conducted, that the associations will not be taken into counsel in dealing with important questions such as these concerning the Territorial Army in future.
As we all know, under the Act under which these associations were created they were definitely given the duty of advising the Secretary of State on this matter, and I would suggest that, when he is faced with the necessity of dealing with matters of the complexity and importance of the reductions that are proposed to be effected this year, he should not wait and give only twelve days to consider a matter of this kind, but the broad lines and principles upon which economies are in future to be effected should be arrived at in consultation with the county associations. In that way—and it is perfectly possible to do it, as I am sure my noble friend would admit—you would not give the impression that has been given to the associations, and which has been given expression to in the Press and elsewhere. I can only hope that this debate has been of some use, and that it will lead to two practical results—(1) a closer relation and consultation

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between the county associations, whether through the Central Council or more directly, and the War Office, and (2) and more immediately, that the Secretary of State and the Government will see their way to give some form of proficiency pay to Territorials serving at the present time.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, on the Motion for the adjournment of the House I beg to give notice that on Tuesday I shall move the suspension of the Standing Orders in order that the Consolidated Fund Bill may pass through all its stages in one sitting.
House adjourned at a quarter before eight o'clock