Lords Sitting of 18 May 1927

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

FARNHAM ELECTRICITY (EXTENSIONETC.) ORDER, 1927.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend, Viscount Peel, I beg to move that this Order be approved.
Moved, That the Special Order which was presented on the 29th of March last he approved.—(The Earl of Plymouth.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LUDLOW ELECTRICITY ORDER, 1927.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Special Order which was presented on the 12th of April last be approved.—(The Earl of Plymouth.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No.2) BILL.
Read 2a (according to Order).
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (HOVE EXTENSION) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a (according to Order).

NAVAL CADETS.
THE DUKE OF MONTROSE THE DUKE OF MONTROSE rose to call attention to the different methods adopted by the Admiralty in entering naval cadets; and to move for Papers. The noble Duke said: My Lords, in rising to move the Motion which stands in my name I would like to begin by saying that my remarks will not be in criticism of the Service itself or against the officers serving in the Royal Navy. A quarter of a century's intimate association with the Royal Navy such as I have

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had makes it impossible for any one to find it in his heart to say anything or do anything likely to be prejudicial to the Royal Navy, but one's love for the Service ought not to debar one from offering criticism upon some of its methods or making suggestions which may be for the ultimate benefit of the Service itself. Therefore I want to draw your Lordships' attention this afternoon to the various methods of entry of naval cadets into the Navy, with a view to asking your Lordships to consider whether some change ought not to be made in order to effect advantages to the officers themselves and also with a view to some economy.
At the present moment I am going to refer to Dartmouth College. Dartmouth, as your Lordships know, was founded in 1902 as part of the new naval training scheme which was founded by the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, when he was First Lord of the Admiralty, assisted by that gallant Admiral and great reformer, Lord Fisher, as First Sea Lord. So far is the College is concerned I really have nothing to say. If you judge the College by its palatial buildings, its beautiful grounds, its magnificent class-rooms, its dormitories, its workshops, its chapel, its swimming bath, its gymnasium and so forth, all is as good as money can make it and no money has ever been spared on the place. It is so ideal that an Admiral said to me the other day: "I do not know if you believe in re-incarnation or not, but if ever my turn comes to return to the earth I can pray for nothing better than to begin once more as a cadet at Dartmouth." I agreed with him, but, like all things luxurious and all things ideal, Dartmouth costs a great deal of money.
I will give your Lordships a few figures. I have seen the cost of Dartmouth returned in Admiralty figures as being £158,000. That is large compared with any other public school of the same size, but I quarrel with those figures because they do not include the cost of the ships which are attached to the College—H.M.S. "Erebus" and two mine-lavers—and I say that those ships are an essential part of the training scheme of Dartmouth. Your Lordships will understand that you cannot send a little boy for four years to college and, no matter how many brass buttons he may wear, make a sailor of him, unless
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he is able to get on salt water. The ships, therefore, are maintained as part of the training scheme and constitute part of the cost. If you add the cost of those ships then the cost comes to £250,000 or a quarter of a million pounds before ever those boys are accepted for service in the Navy. Of course the boys' parents contribute something towards that amount. They pay fees and contribute about £68,000, or 27 per cent. The taxpayers have to bear the rest of the burden, £190,000. That is the burden which falls on the already groaning taxpayer in respect of Dartmouth College. I would not quarrel with that expenditure if there was no alternative, but I venture to think that there is an alternative by which officers can be supplied to the Service at a much lower cost.
My Lords, before I turn to that alternative I have another criticism to make about the College, and that is as regards the age of entry. Boys go to the College at twelve and a half years old, before their education has begun really and before their character is formed. They go there and start a specialised training. It stands to reason that a little boy's brain can only absorb a limited amount of knowledge. If you start cramming his head with a mass of technicalities about steam, engineering, electricity, navigation, seamanship, gunnery, torpedo, and drill and so forth, he cannot possibly absorb the same amount of general knowledge as another school-boy. What he gains on the one hand in technicalities is sacrificed on the other hand in general knowledge, and generally speaking these boys leave Dartmouth College with their general knowledge a good deal behind that of other school-boys. At no time was it so important that our naval officers should possess a really good general education. After the War hundreds of officers were asked to leave the Service, and they had the greatest difficulty in being absorbed into other occupations. Then we had the Washington Conference and the Navy shrank to a mere shadow of itself, more officers were asked to leave the Service, and they likewise have had the greatest difficulty in being absorbed into fresh lines of life.
Now we have the Geneva Conference. If that is successful I have no doubt more officers will be asked to leave the

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Navy, and they also will find it difficult to begin life again in a new sphere. The only way to make a new livelihood in a new sphere is by possessing a good sound general education, and therefore, although the Admiralty in entering naval cadets may have no legal obligation to consider what may happen to them in later years of life, I say that there is a moral obligation on the Admiralty to do everything they can to see that naval officers have a good general education. Nowhere is it better known than in the Navy that the education of the cadets when they leave Dartmouth is behind that which they would receive at a public school. For that reason schoolmasters are carried in all the big ships. The result is that naval cadets and midshipmen when they go afloat in the Fleet spend nearly all their mornings in school when they ought to be doing the duties of young naval officers. They are called "half-timers"—half-timers because they are half schoolboys and half officers.
Time and again naval officers of high distinction have protested against the half-timer; they have protested against his doing school work when he ought to be doing the work of a naval officer. In 1870 there was a Committee, upon which a distinguished Admiral served, called the Shadwell Committee. They reported strongly against the half-timer. Years afterwards there was a Committee called the Rice Committee, who also protested against the half-timer; and some time after that there was another Committee, called the Luard Committee, who protested against the half-timer; and many individual officers have done so since. I will go further and say that one of the greatest First Lords of the Admiralty we ever had, the late Viscount Goschen, also knew the disadvantage of the imperfect education and of the half-timer. So it was that he raised the age of entry into the "Britannia" to sixteen years of age instead of twelve, hoping to get boys from the public schools with a better education. But he was disappointed, and why? Because at sixteen boys are getting the very best out of their public schools and do not want to give up and go into the Navy. So it comes to this, that if we are going to get over the disadvantages of the half-timer and the disadvantages of an imperfect education on leaving
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Dartmouth we must take boys to sea when their education is complete at school.
Of course we shall be told—and it is a very common idea—that you cannot do that because it is essential that boys should go to sea young. I venture to say that that is a fallacy and that it is more true in sentiment than it is in fact. In the old days of sailing ships it was necessary, or at least advisable, to go to sea young. Ships were at sea for days, weeks and months and it was necessary to become accustomed to life afloat. Lord Nelson, if I remember aright, only left ship for three hours in thirty months when he was blockading off Toulon. Lord St. Vincent, if I remember aright, kept his ship 103 days on and off the port of Brest. Life on board those ships was hard. Food was bad; biscuits were full of weevils salt junk was ready to jump out of the "salt horse" tub; water was stagnant. There was some reason for sending boys to sea young in order that they might become inured to the hard life afloat before ever they knew of a better life ashore. But in these days life in the Navy is as healthy, as comfortable and as good as in any other profession. There is leave ashore. And I believe that there is nothing which a boy of good sound general education with the right spirit cannot learn as regards modern naval life to-day.
Besides, in the olden times it never really was true that boys went to sea early. Lord Vernon was at Westminster College and then at Cambridge before ever he went to sea. Sir Thomas Cochrane went to sea at 17½. Lord Hood went to sea at 17½. Lord Howe was at Eton before he went to sea—Lord Howe the victor of the glorious first of June. Sir George Tryon was at Eton before he went to sea. Even Admiral Blake commanded an army on shore before he commanded a fleet at sea at the age of fifty-four. When you have Hood, Vernon, Cochrane, Blake, Howe—all bearing names which adorn our naval history—going to sea years after the age at which we consider it necessary to send boys to Dartmouth, it is quite obvious that boys can remain at school and complete their education before they go to sea.
A good sound education is the best foundation upon which to build for a scientific or a specialised career. I have here a memorandum, signed by

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many great authorities and by noble Lords known to most of you, on the value of a good education. It was written in May, 1916, and was signed by Lord Bryce, Lord Cromer, Lord Curzon of Kedleston, Lord Esher, Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, Sir Archibald Geikie, Mr. Hopkinson and Sir Frederic Kenyon—all distinguished authorities on education. They say:—
"Some of the most distinguished educational representatives have strongly insisted that early specialisation is injurious to the professional interests they have at heart, and that the best preparation for a scientific pursuit is a general training which includes some study of language, literature, and history. Such a training gives width of view and flexibility of intellect."
Nobody could pretend that to send little boys of 12½ to college and cram their heads with technicalities is a way of giving width of view or flexibility of intellect. In America they have begun to realise the value of taking boys to sea later in life. The Government there have now come to an arrangement with the five great Colleges, including Harvard and Yale, to form a cadet corps of 200 cadets, which will supply cadets for the Navy. In Germany before the War all the officers had college training; and nobody—least of all our own naval officers—would ever say that the Germans proved themselves incompetent seamen. They proved themselves very competent indeed. So, then, I think I may say I have given sufficient proof that it is possible successfully to complete; boys' education at school and then send them to sea to make sailors of them.
The next quest ion is: Have we any experience of that in our own Navy? Yes, we have. In 1913 the Admiralty were short of cadets, and they started what was supposed to be a temporary measure, a scheme for taking boys from public schools at 17½ and 18½. That temporary measure has been continued ever since, and we now have, under the special entry system, something like 800 boys who have entered the Navy. I was interested to see that in the last half-year the Admiralty took fifty-three boys from Dartmouth, and thirty-six boys under the special entry system; which goes to show that the Admiralty themselves admit that the public school boys are a success. From all reports which I have seen boys taken under the special
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entry system have done remarkably well. If you judge them by their examinations—and I have seen some figures of the intermediate examinations for sub-lieutenants—you will find by analysis of those figures that the marks under the different subjects gained by the public school boys are quite equal to the marks gained by the Dartmouth boys, even in subjects like mathematics and applied mechanics, which are specialised in at Dartmouth. If you take the results obtained in the courses for lieutenants' examinations, you will find that quite a number of the public school boys have obtained five firsts, which is the highest number of marks possible, and they have thereby gained in seniority from five to eleven months. To-day some of these public school boys who have been accepted as special entrants are in command of destroyers. That alone testifies to their efficiency as naval officers.
The next question is this: What about the supply? Will the supply of these boys from the public schools be adequate? I venture to think that if the Navy obtained the same amount of propaganda as the Army does in the public schools the supply would be ample. I do not know what steps the Admiralty have taken to confer with the headmasters, but I do know that the headmasters of our great public schools are very anxious indeed to do everything they can to assist the Navy. For the Army they have a great means of propaganda through the Officers Training Corps. Through this Corps every school boy who has the slightest inclination for military service is brought into touch with the Army and the military history of the country, and the Army has got thousands of officers through the Officers Training Corps, which is the connecting link between the Army and the public schools. It is a curious thing, my Lords, that in this country, supposed to be a great maritime nation dependent on the sea for its existence, all the schools in the country have this connection with the Army, while there is not one school which has a connecting link of the same sort with the Navy. If the Navy had the same propaganda, the same advertisement and the same connecting link as the Army in the public schools I am confident that the supply of cadets would be assured.
This brings me to another possible source of getting a few officers. In the Army, as we all know, there are a certain number of the rank and file who, by reason of their knowledge, character, and merits, can get Commissions and can rise to the highest commands. In the Navy Commissions to the lower ranks are unknown, or at all events are so rare as to be practically unknown. This year, from January 1 up to date, the Army have given 157 Commissions to the ranks in Woolwich and Sandhurst. Considering the improved education given to all boys on the lower deck in the Navy it surely can only be a question of time before we shall have to give to the lower deck ratings similar opportunities to obtain Commissions when they can prove themselves worthy and to reach the highest command. I know that some men in the ranks, such as mates, can get Commissions, but they are so old and of such seniority when they get those Commissions that it is impossible for them to reach the high commands.
That raises the point that if we are going to lean on public schools and if we are going to look to the lower deck for a few Commissions, then we must make a cut in the number supplied from Dartmouth, because the Navy can only absorb a certain number of young officers in a year. The First Lord of the Admiralty, speaking in another place, said that if the restriction on the number of boys taken from the public schools was removed and there was a reduction of those taken from Dartmouth the cost of the latter place would become excessive. It comes about, therefore, that the restriction of the number taken from public schools is the "booster" which is maintained to keep up Dartmouth.
I move this Motion in the interests of economy. We shall be told that if we sacrifice Dartmouth we shall waste all the money that has been spent upon it. But that money need not be wasted. Why not turn Dartmouth into another public school foundation? We know that all the public schools in this country are fill to overflowing; even the latest and the newest, public school, Stowe College, in Buckingham, is booked up to 1934. There never was a time so good as this to start a new college. I have heard that
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people resident in the Dominions are very anxious to hind a public school to which they can send their sons to obtain a public school education. Why not make Dartmouth an ordinary public school with a particular Imperial and naval bias and with a Naval Officers Training Corps? The money that has been spent upon it would not then be wasted.
If you are looking for economy (and economy is essential in these days), then I think some change in the direction that I have indicated must be made. I have no doubt the Admiralty will say: "Economy! You save £190,000! What is that? It is a mere bagatelle when the Naval Estimates reach £58,000,000." I would remind your Lordships that the total saving on the whole of the Navy last year was only £100,000 and here I am proposing something which, under one head alone, will save as much as that and half again. Economy is imperative and we cannot afford luxuries, however ideal they may be, but if we are going to leave economy to the initiative of those within the great offices we shall have to wait a long time before we get it. Economy, if it is to come, must, I feel, come by action from outside, from the action of those who, like myself, are free from all trammels. I beg to move.
VISCOUNT CHELMSFORD: My Lords, think the Board of Admiralty should be grateful to the noble Duke for bringing forward this question. It is a very important one, it is a very difficult one and it is well worth examination from every point of view. The speech that the noble Duke has made is one which merits all consideration by the Board, but I feel that I cannot go quite so far as he did. At one time I was a little uncertain as to whether he was going for the absolute abolition of Dartmouth, but I think the concluding passages of his speech made it quite clear that he proposes the abolition of Dartmouth as a method of economy and therefore it is clear that he regards a source of recruitment through Dartmouth as a source of recruitment that ought to be put an end to.
When I was at the Admiralty this matter was very much before my mind because at that moment, for various causes (I think chiefly because of the uncertainty felt generally on the subject of the future of the naval officer), the number of officers had fallen off to a

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most alarming extent, and I made a point whenever I could of questioning senior naval officers with regard to the special entry class to which the noble Duke has made allusion. To the best of my recollection I can say that the evidence which they gave with regard to that class was uniformly favourable. They were very much struck by the qualities and the readiness to take responsibility which those boys who entered through the special entry had shown during their service. That evidence is more valuable from the fact that their experience was war experience and they were able to see those boys at work under the conditions of war service. But if those same senior naval officers had been asked whether they would substitute the special entry as the sole source of entry into the Navy, or with the addition of entries from the lower ranks as the noble Duke suggests, and the elimination of Dartmouth altogether, I doubt very much whether they would have been in favour of the course proposed.
There is one point which I should like to emphasise, because I did something with regard to it myself when I was at the Admiralty, and that is that if you are to get a really good stamp of boy from the public schools and get the public schools interested in this recruitment for the Navy from amongst their boys, you must give them a certainty of a number of vacancies for an assured period of years ahead. You cannot expect the public schools to interest themselves if, all of a sudden, the Admiralty publishes an advertisement that, say, six months ahead they want. 30 boys for the special entry. Therefore, when I was there I did announce that there would be 30 special entries a year for the next three years. I think this is the last year, or the proposal may have expired last year. I do not know whether the noble Earl when he replies will be able to say whether that assurance is given, not only to boys but to their parents and to the masters, that this career is open to boys through the public schools. Of course, that is an offer which is made with assurance by the Army, and that is why when a boy goes to school and has leanings in the direction of the Army he maps out his career to get into the Army.
At the present moment I doubt whether it would be worth any boy's while on going to a public school to say:
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"I am going into the Navy," because there has been too little certainty about vacancies being offered when he came to the period at which his examination would come forward. I am very doubtful myself whether it would be possible to rely upon the special entry as a method of recruitment for the Navy. I am afraid I am not very conversant with the statistics relating to the Army at the present moment, but I do not think the numbers of candidates are too encouraging to those who would seek a source of recruitment by the same methods at the same time for the Navy. At that moment we should not be merely recruiting for ourselves but our recruitment would be in direct competition with the Army. For that reason I should deprecate suggesting, as I think the noble Duke has suggested, that the special entry will be a good source of recruitment for the Navy in the future.
On this question of Dartmouth I should like to join issue with him on one or two points. I am afraid I cannot claim sufficient knowledge of Dartmouth or sufficient experience of its work to dogmatise in any way upon the education that is given there. I only paid one visit—it was a most interesting and most delightful day that I spent there—but I did form certain very definite impressions, and those impressions were not exactly those which the noble Duke has put before your Lordships. In the first place, I was very much impressed with the quality of the teaching. I went through a great number of classrooms and heard the instruction given, and I must say, looking back to my own time at public school, that I felt that the methods which were adopted were infinitely more interesting than those which prevailed thirty odd years ago. I presume that is probably the experience everywhere to-day, that the science of teaching has certainly progressed and that lessons are made more interesting to boys to-day than they were made to us in the old days. But the point on which I wish to join issue with the noble Duke is that what struck me—it may have been a wrong impression—about the curriculum at Dartmouth was that, considering that the boys there were being trained to be specialists in future, the curriculum generally was very broad. I should say that when you came to offer an examination to Dartmouth boys at 16 and to ordinary public school boys at 16

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—I put aside scholars—the Dartmouth boy would be far ahead of the public school boy in general education. I was very much surprised to hear the attack made by the noble Duke on the curriculum at Dartmouth.
There is, however, one matter in which I think Dartmouth falls behind the public school. It is a debatable point, and I may be wrong about it, but what struck me was that the boy who goes to Dartmouth is shepherded from the moment he leaves his bed in the morning to the moment when he goes to bed in the evening. He is always under a teacher, or—I forget what they call those lieutenants at Dartmouth.
EARL STANHOPE: I think naval instructors.
VISCOUNT CHELMSFORD: Naval instructors, or even under, I think, petty officers. There is not that freedom which is the distinguishing mark of a public school and which gives to a boy the opportunity of thinking for himself and of acquiring those habits of taking responsibility which in my opinion can only be won by freedom and cannot be won where a boy is shepherded from beginning to end. I will not weary your Lordships further, but I should like to say that I think we cannot afford at the present moment to discard Dartmouth as one of the sources of equipment of our Navy. The noble Duke has said something about expense. May I say that it is expensive. Parents at the present moment only pay something like 27 per cent., but even the fees which those parents have to pay debar a great number of parents from being able to afford to send their boys to Dartmouth. The Treasury does give the First Lord a certain discretion to remit fees, but it is within very definite limits. I always used to take these cases myself and to take responsibility wish regard to them. I had some very sad cases of parents who were obviously the sort of parents whose boys ought to be naval officers but who were not able to afford to take the advantages which Dartmouth offered them because I could not give sufficient remission of fees to enable them to keep their boys at Dartmouth.
One last word I wish to say. It is that I was impressed with a feeling of confidence that the place itself is an immense
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inspiration to the boys who live within its walls and that the ideal of the brotherhood of the Service which is driven into those boys in their earliest days will be of incalculable benefit to the Service when you have generations coming out after each other with that ideal of the brotherhood of the Service as part of themselves. Of course the public school-boy has his ideals of service, but I very much doubt if you were to rely on the public school-boy, coming in with his affection for his old school strong in him, making acquaintance for the first time with his new brother officers and yet not having grown up and been educated along with them, whether such entry would not impair that great ideal of the brotherhood of the Service which I am confident that Dartmouth does instil into those boys who go through it at the present time.
THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (EARL STANHOPE): My Lords, I should like to associate myself with that which the noble Viscount opposite has said in welcoming this debate in your Lordships House and thanking the noble Duke for having put this Motion upon the Paper. In these days when taxes fall heavily upon everyone it is only right that the public should be satisfied that the heavy cost of the defensive Services is money well spent and that a due return is made for that expenditure. I rejoice therefore that your Lordships should have an opportunity of going into the question of whether the money expended on the training of officers for the Navy is expended rightly and in a manner of which you can approve.
The method of entering boys into the Navy is not one that has been hidebound over a large number of years. It has developed over a comparatively short period. It is only 60 or 70 years ago that the "Britannia" was instituted and boys went on board that vessel for training instead of going direct to sea in seagoing ships. In 1903, as my noble friend behind me has said, when the institution of common entry was started, the "Britannia" was done away with and, first, Osborne and then Dartmouth were put in its place. Finally, in 1913, owing, as my noble friend has pointed out, to what was then thought to be a temporary shortage of officers in the Navy, the system of special entry was

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instituted by which boys were taken direct from the public schools. At the same time promotion was instituted from the lower deck by what is called the mate scheme. The mate scheme really comes outside the terms of the Motion upon the Paper, and accordingly I do not wish to go into it at any length. But I should like to say that my noble friend is quite wrong in thinking that practically no one is promoted from the lower deck. There are two schemes of promotion from the lower deck. One is by warrant rank, which is more or less the reward for long service; and the other is the mate scheme, which enables boys from the lower deck who are found to be suitable to be selected and given an opportunity of getting a Commission. It is possible for a mate in the executive branch to become a Lieutenant at a little over 23 years of age, which is the average for a special entry cadet. I think I am right in saying that already one of these boys has reached the rank of Commander, which is the highest that he could possibly have attained in view of the fact that the scheme was instituted only in 1913.
Reverting to the system of training cadets for the Navy, I may explain the present arrangement. A boy joins Dartmouth at the age of 13½. He serves there for three years and eight months, and then goes to sea, not in the "Erebus," as my noble friend stated, but on one of the bigger ships of the Fleet, where he performs professional duties, first as a cadet and, after eight months, as a midshipman. The only scholastic instruction that he gets there is purely technical. His education is not continued from the literary point of view, but it is an education which, of course, goes on throughout the whole of his service as an officer—the natural improvement in his professional qualifications and his professional knowledge—and that education on board the ship is given to midshipmen entirely by naval officers. The schoolmasters who are carried on board His Majesty's ships are not there to instruct either cadets or midshipmen, but to instruct the lower deck. The boy who comes from Dartmouth becomes a midshipman somewhere about the age of 18. The special entry boy is allowed to come up from the public schools for examination between the ages of 17½ and 18½. These boys then serve on the "Erebus," to which my noble friend
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referred. This is a reserve ship, used entirely as a hulk. The boy serves them for a year, going to sea for short cruises on the two tenders that are attached to the ship. Both the boy who enters from Dartmouth and the boy who serves on the "Erebus," after the completion of their training, either remain at sea as executive officers or go to Keyham for a four years course in engineering before becoming engineer officers.
As regards the cost, it is true that Dartmouth is an expensive institution. It costs the taxpayer, not £190,000, as the noble Duke said, but exactly £100,000 less than that figure. It costs £90,000 a year. My noble friend was wrong in his figures because he included the "Erebus" as part of the cost of the training given to boys who go to Dartmouth. As I have tried to show your Lordships, the "Erebus" is solely for the training of the special entry; the Dartmouth boys do not go near the ship at all. Accordingly the cost of Dartmouth to the taxpayer, after the fees have been paid by parents, is £90,000, not £190,000. The special entry, which goes to the "Erebus," costs £35,000, which is the cost of the ship and her tenders. Accordingly the present system costs altogether £125,000 a year. This figure includes the total cost to the taxpayer, apart from the provision of Dartmouth in the first instance and the interest on the capital that was then expended and apart also from the cost of providing the "Erebus" and her tenders.
The noble Duke claims that if a scheme of special entry were instituted the cost would be a great deal less. I venture to think that the cost would certainly not be less and might be a very great deal more. If we took the whole of our 200 cadets through the special entry scheme, we should have to have either a battleship employed as a hulk or two or three smaller ships. Probably the cheapest method would be to take a battleship and to use her entirely as a hulk. I understand that the cost of running a battleship—that is to say, of maintaining her from year to year once she has been converted to her purpose and turned into a suitable hulk for the training of cadets—is, not £125,000, but £135,000 a year. If, instead of the battleship, you had three monitors with their two sea-going

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tenders, the cost would be rather more—namely, £170,000 a year. If your battleship were to go to sea, the cost would be very considerably increased and would be somewhere about £250,000.
But even that is not really the whole story. It was my duty last year to serve on a Committee that was considering how we should find provision for men joining the Navy on the lower deck. We found that one of our hulks was getting past its best and we thought that we were going to be faced with the very heavy cost of providing another to take its place. I will only tell your Lordships that, when we began to go into the question, we found that the ships of to-day are far more difficult to convert into living quarters for cadets or boys of the lower deck than they were in old days. It costs a great deal more to fit and work them suitably, even if one were available—and I think that at the moment it is not—and the upkeep of a floating establishment is infinitely higher both in repairs and in the number of training personnel who are required to look after the boys than in the case of a shore establishment. I am glad to state that, so far as the lower deck is concerned, we have been able to go on as at present, and we hope that we may continue to do so for a number of years, but I must say that, had we found it necessary to provide either a hulk or a shore establishment, the taxpayer of this country would have had to rue the day.
The cost is not the only objection, nor is it, I think, the main objection. After all, in spending this vast sum on the Navy, with ships costing up to £7,000,000 each, I think your Lordships will agree that it is advisable to see that the officers are trained to the highest point of efficiency possible. Therefore, even if it does cost £90,000 or £100,000, that money is well spent when you are spending these vast sums on ships. But the real objection, the main objection, is this: we think it is more than doubtful whether we shall be able to get the number of officers required for the Navy we if we rely on one system only. At the present time of the numbers entering each year 150 come from Dartmouth and 60 to 70 by special entry. That, I think, answers the question of the noble Viscount. This year the number was 64.
VISCOUNT CHELMSFORD: Can you promise that for so many years that number will be offered to public schoolboys?
EARL STANHOPE: I think it is perfectly safe to put it at 50, but I should certainly think the figure will be 60 rather than 50.
VISCOUNT CHELMSFORD: It is important that public schools should know about what number of vacancies will be offered to their boys.
EARL STANHOPE: I agree, and that is the view of the Board, too. We are anxious to get as far as possible a fairly definite number each year, so that schoolmasters shall realise there are vacancies for boys through the special entry method. I think the noble Duke rather took his view as to the possibility of special entry from our experiences during the War. That really is not quite a fair way of coming to a conclusion. During the War perhaps the quickest way of getting into one of the fighting Services, and I think also the way in which a boy could get in at the earliest age, was by joining the Navy as a special entry. Therefore, during the War we got the cream of the boys of the public schools trying their best to get into the Navy by special entry. Unfortunately, that no longer exists.
The Board, so far from being antagonistic to the special entry, sent a specially selected omcer round the public schools last year—an officer with a very fine War record—to talk to the boys and headmasters and try to encourage more boys to compete for special entry. I am sorry to say that so far as the figures for the next examination next month are concerned that experiment has not been as successful as was hoped. In fact, so far from there being an increase in numbers there has been a decrease in the number of entries for the next examination. The Board feels that a very large number of boys who are keen on the Navy when they are between twelve and thirteen years of age would very possibly not be prepared to go into the Navy if they had to wait until they were eighteen. Your Lordships all know how boys are inclined to follow each other, and if it became a habit for a large number of boys to go into the Navy, no doubt we should be able to get continuity of numbers, but the Navy is

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not big enough to give a chance to all the public schools to put in a large number of boys. Therefore, boys are inclined to go where those with whom they have been living at school are going—either to Sandhurst or to the Air Force at Cranwell, or to one of the Universities—and we feel that boys who at twelve and thirteen would be prepared to enter the Navy would, when they came to eighteen, have lost some of their enthusiasm for the senior Service, and go elsewhere—not that they would not regret it afterwards, when it was too late.
There is this further point to which the noble Viscount referred. If the Navy took the whole of its officers at eighteen we should be competing more seriously with the Army and Air Force than at present. The examinations are held for the three Services and the boys put down their preferences, one, two or three, to fill the vacancies offered, and if we took the whole of the 200 cadets per year through the special entry I doubt whether the Army or Air Force would thank us for doing so. There has been a suggestion—I think the noble Duke made it during a lecture on the subject, for, as your Lordships know, he takes a great interest in this matter—that Dartmouth should be sold and turned into a college something like Wellington, but with a naval atmosphere instead of an Army atmosphere. If you take the record of Wellington—a very fine one—you will find that out of 600 boys at Wellington (as compared with 550 at Dartmouth) only 60 go into the Army annually out of the 460 which the Army annually requires, and if the same figures were attained at Dartmouth in private hands we should only get 60 instead of 150 as at present every year. Obviously, if the figure were largely exceeded you would have the same sort of thing as at present—namely, a school entirely naval in atmosphere and not a school where those who were going into the Navy would be rubbing shoulders with other boys. If we did get the required number by special entry we have grave doubts whether we should get the right number of suitable candidates. It is a gamble which we think we have no right to take.
I have said nothing about efficiency and, after, all, after adequate numbers efficiency must be an over-riding con-
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sideration. I entirely disagree with the noble Duke in many of his criticisms of Dartmouth. Perhaps the fact that will bring Dartmouth and the value of Dartmouth to your Lordships' mind better than anything else is that parents are only too anxious to have their sons go there, and that we have found it essential and necessary that every parent shall sign a certificate to say that if his son is admitted into Dartmouth he shall then go into the Navy and not be sent to any other profession for a given number of years. That shows that parents, if they could, would send their sons to Dartmouth for the education which Dartmouth gives even if they had no intention of putting them into the Navy afterwards.
I do not want to be led into a discussion as to the advantages or disadvantages of a classical education. Of course, Dartmouth does not teach either Latin or Greek, but it does teach many other things which have only a general bearing on the Navy, and certainly could not be called technicalities. The time of a boy at Dartmouth is divided about equally between the sciences and the humanities; that is to say, that at Dartmouth rather more time is given to the sciences than is given at the school which gives an ordinary modern education. A good deal of time is given to English,, English literature, and the teaching of French and history, including, of course, naval history, but not confined by any means to naval history. In addition, naval officers give instruction in technical subjects, such as seamanship, and they also teach the boys physical training and drill. That specialised instruction occupies rather more than four hours per week, but only half of it is vocational, and I think that in public schools that time would very largely be given up either to leisure or to extras, taking the form of music or of drawing or of the Officers' Training Corps. I venture to think that the syllabus is by no means unduly specialised. I frankly admit that it is intended, of course, for training officers for the Navy, but I do maintain at the same time that it by no means unfits them for other professions.
We have further advantages in the Dartmouth scheme. In the first place, the association of naval and civilian instructors, we find, has a good effect

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on both classes, and keeps them both up to the mark, keeps them keen, and is of real benefit to the cadets. Secondly, the College being in the hands of the Admiralty, we are able to modify the syllabus and the conditions in order to meet the ever-changing conditions and needs of the Navy. Thirdly, inasmuch as it is a Government institution, it is open to criticism, and it gets it; and we think that that is thoroughly wholesome for the College. Perhaps I should raise opposition it I said that I had been to the best school of all, but I sometimes wish, nevertheless, that the school to which I had the honour to belong at one time were open to criticism and reform in minor matters, which is possible at Dartmouth but is not possible at the school at which I was. There is this real advantage from the Navy point of view. There is no idea of cramming. The object of Dartmouth is to produce a boy who is fit to become an efficient naval officer, and therefore it is no object to us or to the instructors at Dartmouth to get some boys of exceptional capacity trained to a very high state of efficiency at the expense of the others. Our desire is to get a really high standard for all the boys who go through Dartmouth, and I think most parents would agree—and I think naval officers would agree—that that standard is a high one, and it is achieved. The boys are really keen, and they have to work very hard, and, as they do everything at a run, there is very little time lost between one thing and another in the course of their day.
There are one or two other points to which the noble Duke referred. In regard to half-timers, as I have pointed out, boys who have left Dartmouth and have gone to sea become cadets and then midshipmen, and their training then is purely technical, and they are not doing ordinary school work when they are on board ship. As regards the comparison between boys who go through Dartmouth and boys who join the Navy by the special entry scheme, I frankly admit that the boys who go through the special entry scheme have done extremely well at examinations, and I think there is very little to choose between the Dartmouth boy and the special entry boy when it comes to examinations. There is this to be said on behalf of the Dartmouth boy, that he is fifteen months
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Younger when he takes his examination than is the boy who goes through the special entry.
To sum up, the Board of Admiralty feel that all three systems of entry into the Navy are necessary, and that Dartmouth must be maintained with its ordinary numbers of 550, sending annually somewhere about 150 cadets into the Navy, less the small shrinkage which comes in the course of the three and a half years that they are there. We feel, in addition, that we ought to have boys coming in by the special entry method, which enables a contact to be kept with the public schools, and is also a check upon Dartmouth itself. But we feel that in keeping Dartmouth, we catch boys young and we imbue them with the tradition of the Navv—a tradition about which I cannot speak adequately, but your Lordships know it as well as I do. We catch them at an age when that tradition soaks right in. We should be sorry if boys came in at a later age to Dartmouth when they are not so receptive of traditions and of all that can be taught at Dartmouth on the history and the past of that great Service. We say quite frankly that we want to have Dartmouth boys and we also want to have special entry boys: and the third system which, of course, will be maintained, is the promotion from the lower deck, which is working extremely well, and which we hope will continue and do the fine service to the Navy which it has done in the past.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, I have listened with particular interest to this debate, and the reason is that I had the honour to be Chairman of the Committee which was appointed four years ago to enquire into the best means of getting more officers, and of better quality, for the Army. That Committee contained various distinguished officers, including General Du Cane and others of much experience on the question, and we came to a unanimous conclusion which was rather in the direction of the noble Duke's principle, that if you are going to get more officers you must make the career a more attractive one, and you can make it a more attractive one by making it a more difficult one. The result was that we put forward a scheme of reforms which I believe has now been

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carried into effect, and under which officers were sought for from further sources.
I think the noble Earl has shown in his speech—very much in agreement with my noble friend Lord Chelmsford—that it would at least be rash to do away just now with the Dartmouth system of entry. But it will also be agreed that Dartmouth ought not to be the only way of coming in, and that the special entry system is a system which should be kept alive, and might be developed. Nothing was said by the noble Earl about the fourth alternative, which the Army has adopted with considerable success, and that is a system of asking the Universities to get them officers. No doubt these officers come at a later age; on the other hand, they come with a much more thorough education, and with that very tradition instilled into them of which the noble Earl spoke. The Universities to-day have found it worth while to have military teachers of high eminence, and they have the Officers' Training Corps, which, of course, the Navy has not. In that way they instil a very large amount of military tradition into their students, and a proportion of those students come straight to the Army now. Into the details of that I do not propose to go, because it is a speculative matter, but I should like to think that the attention of the Navy was directed to it.
There is no doubt to my mind that the noble Duke was right in saying that it is on the basis of the best general education that you can give him that you make your man most efficient, and Dartmouth, although it has some good teaching in science and other things, does not, I think, give teaching which is at all on the University level. I remember talking with a very distinguished teacher of mathematics at Cambridge on this subject. He said: "My difficulty with the Dartmouth boys is that they have not been put through the mill as they would have been put through the mill if they had gone through a good public school." Mathematics and physics are two subjects taught there and the boys learn a certain amount about them, but not as much as they would in an institution which was devoting itself specially to those subjects and educating for them. The best foundation of all is the foundation of University training. The next
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best is the foundation of a general education which may begin comparatively late but which makes everything easy to learn afterwards. I think it is quite compatible with the object of the Navy and with what they wish to secure that they should still further enlarge their number of special entries and go at least some way towards that ideal of the noble Duke by founding the training of an officer of the Navy on the best general education the country can give.
THE DUKE OF MONTROSE: My Lords, I do not think you will expect me to reply to all the points raised in the debate. I listened with some interest to the words of the noble Earl who replied for the Government and noticed that he gave a réesumé of all the work in which naval officers specialise and referred to the importance of specialisation. My point in regard to that is that officers specialise sane time after they have entered the Navy and that a boy who enters at 17½ with a good sound general education can specialise just as well as any boy who goes through Dartmouth.
Another point was made that it was a good thing for boys to go to Dartmouth at the age of 12 because boys knew their minds at that age. I cannot accept that. Boys do not know their own minds at 12. I have heard little boys after their first ride in a train say they wanted to be engine drivers, and after their first drive in a motor-car that they wanted to be chauffeurs, and after their first day in a boat that they wanted to be sailors. I have even heard one boy say he wanted to be a Bishop. Boys do not know their own minds at 12. And so it happens that there are quite a number of misfits. The parents, of course, like their boys to go to Dartmouth, because they have the advantage there of a State-subsidised education, but I do not think it is fair, when parents find it very difficult to pay for the education of their own sons at public schools such as Wellington and Charterhouse, that they should also have to pay towards the education at Dartmouth of the sons of parents who are in the same station of life as themselves.
A point was made by the noble Viscount about the unity of sentiment in the Service, or the friendly feeling that results from acting in common at Dartmouth. I do not think that the present warfare which is going on between the purple stripe and the curl

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is proof of the unity of sentiment. The Admiralty, I believe, possess the power, if they are short of cadets at Dartmouth who volunteer for engineering, to compel a certain number to become engineers. That is most unpopular. The result is that a good many boys are taken for engineering under the special entry, and if that goes on you will have all the deck cadets coming from Dartmouth and all the engineering officers from another source, the public schools. That will put an end at once to the idea of community of sentiment. I do not propose to press my Motion. I did not expect it would be approved but I am glad to see that it has not been met altogether with a non possumus attitude. I beg leave to withdraw.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

CENSORSHIP OF FILMS.
LORD DANESFORT LORD DANESFORT had given Notice to call attention to the system of censorship of films now existing in this country; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, it would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of this question, whether you view it from the point of view of the numbers of those who attend film exhibitions or of the wide influence which those exhibitions exert upon these who visit them. The numbers who attend these films are startling. It is estimated that something like twenty million people a week in this country attend film exhibitions and those twenty millions include a very large number of children. Indeed, I am informed on what I believe is trustworthy authority that about ninety per cent. of all the children between eight and fourteen who attend the elementary schools of this country attend these film exhibitions more or less regularly.
What do they see there? There are films and films, and while it is undoubted there are many films which are valuable instruments for education or serve the purpose of amusement, it is equally undoubted that there are degrading films which have a very pernicious influence upon those who see them. If those facts and figures are remembered it appears to me that, an effective censorship of the films is absolutely essential. I doubt if any one disputes it and the question is, have we got it? May I for a few moments ask your Lordships' attention
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to the history of this matter? In 1909 the Cinematograph Act was passed. It was generally recognised at that time, certainly it was by the Legislature, that some effective control was necessary over films which were to be exhibited. With that object in view that Act provided that picture halls where films were to be shown should be licensed by county councils, and large powers were given to county councils to impose by the terms of their licences conditions and restrictions under which films should be exhibited. I will refer a little later to the undoubted fact that the county councils have not, speaking generally, exercised any independent supervision or control over the films which are exhibited.
The next step was in 1912. In that year there was a general feeling both in the film trade and among the public at large that there was a growing tendency to exhibit objectionable films. Thereupon a deputation of manufacturers and renters of films waited upon the Home Secretary of the day and suggested to him that the trade should at their own expense appoint and pay a board to act as censors of films before they were publicly exhibited. To that the Home Secretary assented, although he did not assent to the further suggestion they made that an appellant tribunal should be appointed. From that time, 1912, to the present day the system of censorship in operation has been that the trade themselves appoint the President of the Board of Censors, that the President appoints I think it is four others, and that they are all paid fixed salaries paid by the trade out of funds raised by the trade.
The mode in which this fund is levied on the trade strikes me as being curious. It appears that contributions are only levied on the films which are passed and no contributions whatever are levied on the films which are rejected. Prima facie I should have thought that it would be reasonable that films which the censors found so objectionable that they rejected them should have to contribute more to the fund than unobjectionable films. However, the exact reverse is the case. Could there be a more Gilbertian situation? Here you have people coming forward asking that their productions should be examined and adjudicated upon as to

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whether or not they are fit for exhibition, and the very persons whose productions are so put forward are the persons who appoint the judges and pay the judges who examine and adjudicate upon the productions under review‡ One might suggest analogies which would be disagreeable, but I do not propose to do that. I do say, however, that at first blush it appears to be a system which is absolutely strange and unjustifiable.
How does the system work? That there are objectionable films submitted to the censors for their approval or their rejection, as the case may be, is undoubted. In proof of that I need only refer to the reports published by the Board of Censors themselves. The report of the Board of Censors for 1925 gives a list of reasons why exception was taken to certain films which were submitted to the Board. It is no exaggeration to say that that list of reasons given by the censors is an appalling list. Let me give your Lordships some instances. There were six instances of scenes presented of a character either altogether blasphemous or highly offensive to religious sentiment. There were seven instances of scenes being presented of gross indecency in dress, dancing or gesture, or of dissolute revelry. Among the reasons given by the censors for some of these films being objected to is that they showed the nude either actual or in silhouette provocative and sensuous exposure of girls' legs, immodest and suggestive dancing, abdominal contortions in dancing, offensive vulgarity and indecorous gesture, scenes of orgy and dissolute revelry, and numbers of others.
LORD DESBOROUGH: They were not passed.
LORD DANESFORT: They were altered. I am going to say a word about that. In nine instances there were scenes representing criminal assaults on women, scenes of vice, immorality and debauchery, illustrations of the lives of immoral women and other offensive scenes. There were six films of which crime was the sole or principal theme or in which crime was extenuated or held up for sympathy. There was a case of Bolshevist propaganda and cases of scenes bringing discredit on British uniforms and on British officers in India and elsewhere. There was one case, at any rate, of a grossly vulgar and offensive travesty of
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the Great War. That is an amazing list. It is quite proper to say that the report states that the films presenting these disgusting features were altered before they were passed, but I beg leave to doubt, and to doubt very gravely, whether films such as these presenting scenes such as these could possibly be altered so as to make them desirable for presentation to a British audience.
If you look at the result of the censorship of these films in 1925 you find an amazing result. There were 1,885 films submitted in that year. Of these 1,517 were passed without alteration, 361 were passed with alteration, seven, and seven only, were rejected. In other words, 37 per cent. were rejected. In the course of the report interesting information appeared illustrating the difficulties of the censorship under the present system. The Board, for instance, say that they deprecate what seems to be a growing habit with actors of both sexes of divesting themselves of their clothing on slight or no provocation. Again they say that some of the dances, especially in cabaret or similar scenes, are of a nature that cannot be considered decorous or even decent. Further on they say regarding the all-important question of sex, that they wish to call attention to the increasing difficulties caused by the growing tendency shown to treat the subject with a lightness which formerly would not have been countenanced.
These facts which I have stated and which appear in the report of the Board of Censors show two things. They show, in the first place, that a number of films are submitted to the censors which are of a grossly offensive character and, further, that of the total number submitted only an infinitesimal number are rejected and that a large number of films possessing these highly offensive characteristics, instead of being rejected in toto, are modified and passed. I am not going to give illustrations of objectionable films that are now on exhibition, but that there are offensive films on exhibition is a matter of common notoriety. I have seen some myself but, I am glad to say, not many, for I am not a great film-goer. I have had many representations from my friends and others, and I say it is undoubted that to-day films are exhibited in London and

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elsewhere that ought not to be tolerated in a country such as ours.
It may be asked whether the local authorities do not, under the Act of 1909, exercise their powers of examination and inspection before they grant licences, and whether they cannot in that way stop objectionable films. I have made careful inquiries on this point and the answer to that question must be, broadly, No. They appeal to rely almost entirely on the Board of Censors, and I am informed on the highest authority that it is the fact that in recent years local authorities have not made any general attempt to examine before exhibition films that have been passed by the censors. Generally speaking, they have been satisfied with the standard observed by the Board. So far as I have been able to learn—and this, I venture to think, is a point of some importance—there has been no case in recent years of a local licensing authority refusing to allow the exhibition of a film that has been passed by the censors.
There is one other point in connection with the censorship that should be noted. I understand that the censors divide the films that they pass into two classes; one, which they mark "U," is said to be fit for universal exhibition, to children and others; and the other, which they mark "A," is said to be fit to be viewed only by adults. What steps are being taken to-day to see that even this very limited protection for children is carried into effect? Practically none. Exhibitors are not compelled to indicate to the public, either in their advertisements or on the notices outside their cinemas, that the films belong either to the "U" class, which is the large class, or to the restricted "A" class. What they have to do—and I venture to think that it is perfectly useless—is to follow the licensing authority's directions and, before the exhibition actually begins in the hall, to show a certificate from the Board of Censors stating whether the film belongs to the "U" class or the "A" class. What is the use of that? The people are already there, the children are there. Are we to suppose that, when this notice is thrown on the screen and we are told that this is class "A," the children will be taken out because the film is unfit for children to see? Surely the proper course is to
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indicate beforehand to which class the film belongs, so that parents may know whether to take their children or not. I agree that this is not the fault of the Board of Censors, but it does show the paramount necessity of some form of legislation to alter the present system and make effective the intended protection of children from improper films.
Having regard to these facts, I do urge that the present censorship by a board appointed and paid by the trade is wrong in principle and that there should be in this country, as in practically all our Dominions, an official censorship appointed by the State. I have looked into the conditions of censorship in the Dominions. I will not go into them at any length, because I do not want to waste your Lordships' time, but I find on inquiry that the situation in the Dominions is this. There is, so far as I can find out, no Dominion in which such a thing is to be found as a censorship of films by the trade itself. In practically every case censors are appointed either by the Dominion itself or, in the case of Canada and South Africa, I think, by the Provinces of those Dominions, with an appeal in most cases to an appellant tribunal. Let me say a few words about the working of the system in Australia, where the practice of visiting films is very largely followed and where the system of censorship appears to me to be far more effective than in most places. The number of films of strictly foreign production imported into Australia is immense, and there is at this moment a very strong movement, with which I heartily sympathise, for the production and importation into Australia of good British films. There are already in Australia stringent regulations under their Customs Acts as to the general character of the films to be allowed to enter the country, and the Chief Censor of Films is appointed by the Government under the Customs Acts.
Now, as to the results of this film censorship in Australia. In 1925, 6 per cent. of all the films submitted were rejected in toto—a figure which very remarkably contrasts with the one third per cent. that are rejected in this country under our present system. Moreover, in 1925 about one half of the total footage of films examined was censored and had to be altered before it was passed.

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That again contrasts very strangely with the number that were altered in this country by our Board of Censors. Take the figures for 1926. In that year 4½ per cent. of the total films submitted were rejected in toto, but I have not the figures to show how many were altered. It is rather interesting to note, because it shows the great attention paid to this matter by Australia and its Legislature, that in March last there was a debate in the Senate of the Federal Parliament in which strong comments were made on the objectionable character of the American films that were said to be imported into Australia and the necessity for having a proper supply of British films. As a result of this debate a Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Representatives was appointed to investigate the matter.
I have one further point to make to your Lordships. The recent Imperial Conference and our own Legislature have recognised the great importance of the increased production and exhibition of British films in this country and throughout the British Dominions. That aim will, as I believe, be largely helped by a stricter censorship of the objectionable foreign films which are being exhibited in this country, and we shall thereby open a road to the increased production and exhibition of healthy British films. My last word is this. This is a matter, as I think, of grave national importance. It is not merely a question of examining into a particular amusement. It is a matter, as I believe, of concern to all those who view with alarm, and indeed with disgust, the degradation and demoralisation of public taste and the public mind by degrading and demoralising exhibitions. It is a matter of concern to all those who have the interests of the children at heart and who desire to prevent the poisoning of children's minds at an early and impressionable age by objectionable and evil influences. This is a matter in which not one section of the community but the community as a whole is interested, or at least should be interested. It is a matter in which we might ask for the help of the clergy of this country, as well as of every other class who are interested in the welfare of the children and people as a whole. Therefore I do hope I shall get
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some reassuring statement from the Home Office upon the matter. I beg to move.
LORD OLIVIER: My Lords, I have taken great interest in the noble Lord's Motion, because I attend the pictures a good deal. It is the only kind of dramatic entertainment which I can afford to attend. I have done so for many years, and have watched with interest the progress of the industry from the point of view of its becoming an important part of our educational art. The noble Lord has not exaggerated the importance of the industry at the present time, but I was a little disappointed at the manner in which he developed what I expected would be his case—namely, that the present censorship was not exercised in a sufficient or adequate manner. I do not think he gave us any sufficient evidence of that. He made certain general suggestions about bad and demoralising films, but from my personal experience I rather join issue with him upon that. I will come to that point presently.
The noble Lord first dealt with the manner in which the Board of Film Censors is appointed, and said: Is it not ridiculous that the trade itself should pay for and appoint its own film censors? The President of the Board of Censors is the Right Hon. T. P. O'Connor, and I should have said if the Government were going to make an appointment, and appointed him, that they had made an admirable selection. He is a man with great knowledge of the world, of high morality and good taste, and no better selection could have been made by the Government. I do not know whether the Government have not some kind of veto upon the censor. I can only say that the film industry appear to me to have exercised the responsibility placed upon them in a very admirable manner by the appointment of the present film censor. Turning for a moment to a minor point I think I concur with the noble Lord. He said: Is it not monstrous that a man who has presented a film and has had it rejected should not have to pay a fee? I should have supposed that everyone who presented a film for censorship would, as a preliminary matter, pay a fee, say, of a guinea. It is a small matter and I agree that any one who

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presents a film for licence should pay a preliminary fee, and if it is not passed then he should lose his deposit.
Then I come to the substance of the noble Lord's complaint, which is apparently that he believes that the censorship is not exercised in a sufficiently drastic manner. He took one point as a preliminary. He said it is true that discrimination is made between "A." and "U." films—films licensed for adult production and for universal production—and that no effectual working is given to that discrimination. I agree that it is very regrettable, if, as he says, no kind of effect is given to that discrimination. I think it might be made a condition by law, or otherwise, that wherever a film is accepted for presentation by a local authority—an "A." film—it should be a misdemeanour for the promoters of that entertainment to admit children into the hall. If there is anything in the discrimination, then if you are going to exercise any kind of—
LORD DESBOROUGH: The local licensing authorities can do that now. The censors only mark the films.
LORD OLIVIER: That is what I understood, and I said I should agree that it is very desirable that the local authority should exercise discretion. If any strengthening of their powers can be given by the Home Office I think it would be a very good thing if it were done. Now I come to the "U." films—films licensed for universal production. According to the figures given by the noble Lord only six or seven such films were rejected, and a very great number were modified before being allowed to be placed upon the screen. In the first place I do not agree that the fact that more films were rejected in Australia than were rejected in Great Britain shows that a vast mass of very bad films was presented in this country. I think perhaps the Americans may try it on the Australian public more than on the British public, but I do not think, judging from what I have seen on the screens, you can say that a vast mass of very bad films has been attempted to be placed upon the screen. I think the managers of the film industry know their business better than that. They know that bad and indecent films do not draw the vast public of twenty millions a
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week, and that it is better business to put on the screen films which commend themselves to the great mass of family public. Therefore they exercise preliminary caution in approaching the censor at all.
With regard to the films dealt with, I think that the fact that so many were modified shows that considerable vigilance has been exercised by the censor. Speaking from my own experience—I look at matters rather from the point of view of seeing whether there is anything objectionable in a film or not, because I am interested in that part of the question—I have seldom seen anything passed by the present Board of Censorship which would lead me to ask myself: "I wonder if 'T. P.' saw it, and if he passed it?" As a general rule I think that everything which can be said to be specially or particularly objectionable in a film is cut out; and it is much easier to cut out from a film what is objectionable than it is to cut out a particularly objectionable feature or gesture from a variety performance, because on the film you cannot gag. On the whole I think the films are very carefully sifted from that point of view. I have seen German and French films performed in England and abroad, and I have observed that certain details more in keeping with the atmosphere of Continental theatres have been cut out of the British presentation, showing that real discrimination is exercised so far as objectionable details are concerned.
The noble Lord has not given us any details of cases and I am not convinced by his presentation of the matter. I do not think many people accustomed to going to the films would say there was much which was precisely objectionable in the details of the films which are presented. There is a great deal which is very disagreeable, offensive and tiresome in masses of the films which come to this country—because most of these films, as we know, are produced in America, for certain audiences in America. They are produced for rather uninstructed and simple-minded audiences, and also they are produced in a society whose standards of taste in regard to expenditure are not the same as ours, and whose standards of taste as regards pleasure—of what is the best way of having a good time—do not

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appear to be exactly the same as ours, although to some extent they have been imported into England in recent years. The furniture and the taste of wealthy houses, the manner in which the inhabitants amuse themselves, the excitements of New York life in the cabarets and elsewhere do not appeal to our æsthetic sensibilities, and, in fact, they appear to us very gross and very offensive in many cases. It may be possible, as the noble Lord seems to fear, that some of the rising generation are being trained up to regard the methods of dancing and dissipation, and the institution of petting parties, and other trans-Atlantic amusements as being part of civilisation which is admirable. But I do not think that the present generation of boys and girls, as I come in contact with them, is being in the mass more demoralised than the girls and boys of my own generation were.
I sometimes go on Saturday afternoon into the cinema theatre at Oxford, where they have fourpenny seats, which are full of little boys and girls. They always cheer the moral, and hoot and hiss the immoral, in most approved music hall fashion; showing that they do discriminate as the simple moralists of the film mean them to discriminate. These film moralists are extremely simple. They show you the rich and wicked person and intend you to detest him, and they show you the good and virtuous poor person and they intend you to admire him. And these tendencies are shown among the young people of our cinema audiences just as much as they ever were. We cannot, of course, exclude the American films, because there is an immense amount of local colour and scenario which is extremely interesting and stimulating and which you cannot get anywhere else. You have magnificent scenarios and backgrounds in American films, and mixed up with that you must get a certain amount of American civilisation, which I do not think is very demoralising to us.
We have now being considered in another place a Bill for instituting further sifting of films. We all know that during the War, and since the War, American producers got a tremendous start over our producers, and we know also that our own films, from the point of view of scenario, photography, and
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acting, were very inferior to the American work that was being done. Many of our most distinguished actors when first they acted for the films seemed to think that the way to act for the film was to pull a face and strike an attitude. The film has a special technique which was developed by degrees, and which our English actors are now learning, and for which we have to get most of the talent from America and elsewhere. I have watched our British films with very great interest. They are steadily improving in all respects. The photography is admirable, the production is admirable, and the acting is admirable—really very much more so than they were two or three years ago.
The noble Lord referred to some British films which are being produced. I think they are called educational films, and some of them are extremely good. I saw the other night a first-rate example of a good ordinary film. There are certain enormous spectacular films such as "Ben Hur," which are the super-films, but as regards the ordinary first-class film you would not see a better example than one which is now running called "Palaver." That is a film exhibiting administrative and native life in Northern Nigeria. It is educational in a sense as to what is going on in that part of our Empire, but as a work of art, as a production, or as a story, it is also a first-rate film, and just as good a film as anybody would want to see upon the screen. I look to the growing advance of films, done in this country by our own artists and to suit our own taste, to eliminate the objectionable qualities which you see in American and other films, and I have little hope of achieving that object through the censor, because I cannot imagine that any Board of Censorship is ever likely to scrap an enormous number of films which the ordinary grown man or woman would see no reason whatever for scrapping, because the ordinary grown man or woman is perfectly able to stand anything in them, knowing that these things happen, and are part of life.
We cannot expect the censor to eliminate those things; but you can expect the artist, the producer, and the public more and more to eliminate what is objectionable and to build up and approve what is to our minds admirable. That is what the Bill now under con-

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sideration in another place aims at. I do not know what the opinions of the noble Lords on the Government Benches are, but, knowing what I do of the censorship of the stage, and having observed the way in which the censorship of the films is exercised, I cannot conceive that a better or more stringent censorship than we have exercised now by the trade would effect the purpose of the noble Lord, which we all of us desire to see effected.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK: My Lords, I intervene for a moment only to give some qualified support to the noble Lord who has brought this matter before your Lordships' House. He has, indeed, brought up a subject of the very greatest importance to the whole nation, for of the educational influences which are having their effect on the life of young people to-day I suppose that broadcasting and the cinema are the two greatest. We have only to walk about in any part of our great towns, especially the poorer parts, and almost at any time of the afternoon or evening, wet or fine, we shall find large crowds of people waiting to enter the cinemas. They are crowded, especially the smaller ones, almost every day, crowded to the door, frequently for one house after another. They are quite extraordinarily popular, especially among children, and I think it is difficult to exaggerate the influence which these cinemas have, especially upon the young. There they very often get their first real ideas of life, and if they get false ideas of life those impressions may have on them an influence which will be deleterious for years and years to come.
But if I am asked whether I think that the cinema to-day is, on the whole, demoralising, I am quite unable to agree with that opinion. On the whole, I think the cinema has been beneficial. It has brought a great deal of interest to many lives which otherwise would be dull and drab. The pictures have been the
". … magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn"
to large numbers of people who otherwise would have their imaginations entirely cramped, and there would be real interest taken out of life for these people if our cinemas were now largely reduced in number. When I have said that, how-
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ever, I am bound to agree with almost everything that has been said, both today and on other occasions, about the utter stupidity and fatuous sentimentalism of a great deal that is shown on the films. I have not the intimate personal experience of the films which the noble Lord opposite has, but I have gone to them from time to time, and I hear a good deal about them, and the objection I have to them is not that they are, as a rule, demoralising, but that they are as a rule, the smaller films especially, extremely stupid. But after all, they meet the need of the public. The public, consisting frequently of tired people, are not anxious to have anything which is over-intellectual for their amusement.
The noble Lord has raised the question as to whether the censorship is satisfactory or not. I am not convinced that the present censorship has failed. I think we must all have noticed that of the quotations he gave of demoralising films all of them came, I believe, from films which had been rejected by the censorship or which the censorship had ordered to be altered. I did not hear in his speech any very strong evidence that the present censorship had to a large degree allowed immoral films to pass through. There are undoubtedly some films which are objectionable. I think it is quite impossible to deny that, and I would join with him in asking the Home Office to give us some information as to how the censorship acts and as to whether in any way it is possible for the censorship to scrutinise perhaps rather more strictly than it does some of the films which are presented to it. Only quite recently I heard on very good authority of certain films which, I think, might very well come under the description of "demoralising." I could give the names of the films to the noble Lord, but I have not actually seen them myself.
I would urge that something more should be done to protect the children. I think it is recognised that there are films which are not demoralising to older people but which children ought not to attend. There is not sufficient discrimination. I think it is of real importance to the future of the nation that every safeguard should be invented and insisted upon to prevent the children from attending films which might harm

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their minds. Children, as a matter of fact, are perfectly happy with really sensible films. At one time, when I was vicar of a parish, I had dreams of starting a cinema in the parish for children, only with good films—nature films and so on. We made inquiries from a very large number of children as to the kind of film that interested them most. Of course they liked some of the real thrillers, but there was intense interest in those films which we should describe as educational, on subjects connected with travel or history and especially with nature.
Lastly, I wish the Home Office in some way could induce local authorities, where it is necessary, to use their powers against halls in which undesirable films are shown. I am told that it is very rarely that any local authorities use those powers. As a matter of fact the manager of a cinema is, I believe, extremely sensitive to public opinion. I remember on one occasion seeing a very ghastly picture outside a cinema. I wrote at once to the manager and protested against it. By return of post he told me he had withdrawn the picture and that in future he would send to me any pictures which he thought were indecent so as to have my judgment upon them before he exhibited them. That was a censorship which I did not accept with any alacrity. But I believe our local authorities could use a good deal more influence than they are exerting at the present time. I am not, therefore, at all prepared to join either in condemning the present censorship or in a general condemnation of films to-day, but I think there is some real reason for believing that the censorship might in some ways be wisely strengthened and made stricter.
LORD DESBOROUGH: My Lords, I rise to answer very briefly my noble friend behind me (Lord Danesfort). I am grateful to my noble friend opposite, who is obviously a film expert, for having answered a great many of the points made by the noble Lord. I should first like to say that the Government is very grateful to my noble friend for having raised this important subject and they fully realise what has been so well expressed by the right rev. Prelate. The Government are most anxious to do everything they can to protect all those who go to films and
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especially young people. This debate really centres round the point of censorship. My noble friend Lord Danesfort said that it was almost iniquitous that the films should be censored by those who were interested in the production of films.
LORD DANESFORT: My adjective was "Gilbertian."
LORD DESBOROUGH: The history of the film censorship may be briefly stated. In 1912 there was a deputation of film producers to the Home Office. They were very anxious for their own sakes and for the sake of the public that there should be some form of censorship, and they said that they were willing to undertake this duty and to be responsible for the payment of the Board of Censorship. This Board would be entirely independent. Nobody interested in film production or film licences would be nominated to a seat on the Board. They would pay the expenses of the Board, but the Board itself would be entirely independent. They also did suggest to the Home Office at that time—and I think that this is a rather important matter, though my noble friend did not allude to it—that besides this Board of Film Censors, who would be experts, the Home Office itself should set up an appellant board.
LORD DANESFORT: I mentioned that.
LORD DESBOROUGH: But the noble Lord did not lay stress upon it. That Board would be set up by the Government and would be independent of anybody at all interested in film production. This suggestion did not meet with the acceptance of the Home Office at that time. Mr. McKenna, then Home Secretary, suggested to the deputation that they should get some sort of sanction for their Board of Censors and should co-operate with the licensees of the films. Under the Act of 1909 the people who can licence a production are the county councils. They have power under that Act either to appoint a committee of their own, or to delegate their powers to the district councils, or to act through justices in petty session. That is very frequently done now. The point is that the Board of Censors do not licence the plays. They have not the legal power to do so. The legal power is in the hands of the county councils.

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The Board of Censors ought to be looked upon rather from this point of view, that they are a body of men who, at great sacrifice to themselves in the case of many of them, are willing to go through the very ungrateful task of examining these films and of saying what in their opinion is fit for production and what is not. I think it is a tribute to the successful way in which they have discharged their function that they have won the confidence of both the public and of the licensing magistrates. This Board of Censors would be of no use if the magistrates took no notice of what they said, and if they were an incompetent body and the magistrates set aside their decisions it would not be worth while any of the film producers submitting their productions to them. Certainly I have not seen many films here, but I have seen a number of films abroad. The films I have seen here were entirely unobjectionable, but I should be sorry to have to say the same of those I have seen elsewhere.
The first Chairman of the Board of Film Censors was Mr. Radford. He performed his duties as Chairman of the Board until he fell ill in 1916, I think, and, as my noble friend opposite said, Mr. T. P. O'Connor is now Chairman of the Board. There are three other men members of the Board and one lady. These are quite independent people. They have nothing to do with the trade. Some of them are people devoting themselves to this ungrateful task, not for the small pay which they get, but because of a desire to do some public service and because they are interested in the work. I think the argument that this Board of Film Censors are not to be respected because they are in the pay of the trade is not really founded on fact.
Among the points which have been raised is one regarding films which are marked "U." and films which are marked "A." It has been suggested that certain model rules should be drawn up for the guidance of local licensing authorities so that members of the public may know absolutely when they can take their children to see a film and when it is desirable not to take them. Such instruction has been drawn up and in many cases adopted by local authorities, some of which do not work through the Board of Censors at all. In certain large towns the magistrates themselves conduct the examina- 362
tion of films and everybody who wants to exhibit a film which has to have a licence applies to the licensing magistrates without going to the Board of Censors at all. The Board of Censors is merely a body of men who undertake this duty, but the real power rests with the local authority as to whether and under what conditions films shall be exhibited. It has been settled by Courts of law that, besides licensing plays, licensing bodies have legal power to draw up conditions under which films shall be exhibited. If any alteration is to be made in the law it would require the introduction of a Bill in Parliament. If the Government are asked to set up a Government authority in this matter, the whole of the law with regard to it would have to be altered.
The view of the Home Office is that while they acknowledge the very great importance of the subject they feel that stronger and more sufficient reasons must be shown before they can introduce a Bill to do away with the present authority of the licensing magistrates and set up an entirely new body. At the same time I should like to say that the Home Office are very seriously considering the question of the adult and juvenile aspects of this matter and they would welcome any information, in cases where improper films are being exhibited, which would enable them to call upon the local licensing authorities to exercise the powers they possess with greater stringency than they do at present. I do not think, however, that the case has been proved that films are exhibited here of such a nature that they call for an alteration in the law. At the same time the Home Office will be glad to receive any information on the subject and to consider any representations that may be made to them.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: My Lords, I have only once in my life been to a cinema and I never want to go again. There is no doubt that there have been several cases—I have seen them reported in the newspapers—of children who have been convicted of crime, and their excuse has been that they have done so because of what they have seen on the pictures. Therefore I think there cannot be any question that there have been films exhibited which have a demoralising effect upon children. I may be wrong, and if I am I hope my noble

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friend will correct me, but I understand that the Chairman of the Board of Film Censors—I do not want to mention his name or to make any observations for or against him—is a gentleman who receives a salary. It is not a case, as I understood my noble friend to say, of a man fulfilling an ungrateful task. He is actually being paid for the duties he has to perform and he is being paid by the very people whose action he has to criticise. If that is so, then I do not care who the gentleman in question is, it is a wrong principle, and I hope that the Home Office will see whether it is not possible to remedy that which seems to me to be an admitted wrong.
LORD DANESFORT: My Lords, I confess to a feeling of very deep disappointment at the extraordinarily weak-kneed attitude taken by the Home Office. My noble friend says he himself has not seen objectionable films here. There he is in direct conflict with the right rev. Prelate who spoke in the course of the debate.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK: Oh, no.
LORD DANESFORT: I took down his words. He said there are undoubtedly objectionable films.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK: I have not seen them.
LORD DANESFORT: I accept his testimony that there are objectionable films even if he has not seen them. Before my noble friend Lord Desborough suggests that there are no objectionable films now exhibited, I would suggest with great deference that he should go a little oftener to see films in this country and a little less often to see those demoralising films which he tells us he has seen abroad. I hope that when he gets wider experience he will be able to speak for the Home Office in a more confident voice. My noble friend suggested that the people who are discharging the task of film censorship are pursuing an ungrateful task, that they are highsouled public benefactors giving their whole time and energy to looking at disgusting films, putting them right when they are wrong, and all for no pay.
LORD DESBOROUGH: I did not say they were unpaid.
LORD DANESFORT: But you said they were doing this ungrateful task. May I point out that the Chairman is receiving the very substantial salary, as I understand it, of £1,000 a year. I do not complain of that as being too large, but I do say that the task is certainly not ungrateful. My noble friend has not touched the point which really shows the inherent vice of the system, the point which was touched upon by Lord Banbury of Southam just now, that the men whose productions are impugned, or at any rate have to be judged, are in the position of appointing and paying their own judges. Surely that cannot be right. Is there any other industry in the world where people who have to submit their products to an impartial authority have to appoint and pay the judges who are to try them? I say it is perfectly grotesque. I called it Gilbertian but I think I might have called it by a much stronger name. The noble Lord, Lord Desborough, says he will be glad to receive representations. I should have thought he had received enough representations to show the necessity for altering this absurd and, as I think, impossible method by which censorship is carried on now. Accordingly I hope that the Home Office, instead of merely "seriously considering" this matter, will take a stronger attitude. I am sure that if they do so they will have the gratitude of people throughout the country, both those who want to see decent and respectable films and the parents of children who do not want their children demoralised.
May I say one word to the noble Lord who declared that he had not seen anything objectionable, and that he imagined that the younger generation are offended by some things that do not offend him? I am not testing this matter by the standard of what he can or cannot bear. Some people can stand a good deal more in the way of objectionable matter, whether it be in plays, films or novels, than others. What I do say is that these younger people to whom he refers do very justly resent what they see. And this resentment is not confined to the younger people. I have talked to a great many people of larger and wider experience who resent very greatly going to see a film for an afternoon's amusement and being called upon to

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witness something that grossly offends their moral sense. The right rev. Prelate spoke as if the chief objection against these films was that they are dull. Is that so? Well, twenty million people a week go to see the films, and it is an extraordinary thing that this should be so if their real vice is dulness. Would people spend their money in such numbers on dull and stupid amusements? I do not think that this is the vice under which these films labour, and I do not think that this is the characteristic which causes immense numbers of people to go and see them.
My last word is this. The noble Lord, Lord Olivier, rather complained that I did not give him the names of some of the objectionable films. Apparently he has not seen any. I should be very sorry to give him these names, and more sorry still to advertise objectionable films. I can conceive that there might be people in this country who would like to see these films if I mentioned their names, but I am certainly not going to do so, either now or at any other time. I am relying upon what is practically a
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universal experience that these films are of a demoralising character. The right rev. Prelate objected, quite rightly, that they are not all of this kind. No one suggests that, as a whole and as a regular thing, they are of a demoralising nature. What I do say is that the general sense of everyone with whom I am acquainted who has enquired into this matter is that there are many that are objectionable, and that the present system of censorship has broken down. Consequently I appeal to my noble friend to bring before the Home Office any further facts that he can and to do his utmost to induce them to take steps, if only for the purpose of preventing children from going to see films that even the present censors have declared to be unfit for them.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Does the noble Lord press his Motion for Papers?
LORD DANESFORT: No.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes past six o'clock.