Lords Sitting of 23 July 1929

Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
The Lord Derwent—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his uncle.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (LORD PARMOOR): My Lords, I beg to move the Resolution which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That Standing Order No. XXXIX be considered in order to its being dispensed with for this day's sitting, for the purpose of passing the Arbitration (Foreign Awards) Bill [H.L.], the Irish Free State (Confirmation of Agreement) Bill and the Unemployment Insurance Bill through their remaining stages.—(Lord Parmoor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.
LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, I propose to put down to-morrow a Motion that Standing Order No. XXXIX be considered in order to its being dispensed with until the adjournment of the House for the Recess. That is, of course, only for two days, as we adjourn on Friday.
AXMINSTER, CHARD AND DISTRICT ELECTRICITY (EXTENSION) ORDER, 1929.
BROMYARD AND LEDBURY RURAL ELECTRICITY ORDER, 1929.
KINGSTON-UPON-HULL ELECTRICITY (EXTENSION, ETC.) ORDER, 1929.
MISTERTON RURAL DISTRICT ELECTRICITY ORDER, 1929.
WEAR VALLEY ELECTRICITY ORDER, 1929.
POLESWORTH AND DISTRICT ELECTRICITY ORDER, 1929.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (EARL RUSSELL): My Lords, I beg

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to move that the Special Orders as reported from the Special Orders Committee on Thursday last be approved.
Moved, That the Special Orders as reported from the Special Orders Committee on Thursday last be approved.—(Earl Russell.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

DUNFERMLINE AND DISTRICT TRACTION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD MUIR MACKENZIE: My Lords, this is one of a set of Bills that come up under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, and are very seldom, if ever, interfered with in your Lordships' House. I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Muir Mackenzie.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899) deemed to have been reported from the Committee.

DARLINGTON CORPORATION TROLLEY VEHICLES (ADDITIONAL ROUTES) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDERS BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 7) BILL.
Read 2a (according to Order).
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 9) BILL.
Read 2a (according to Order).
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 8) BILL.
Read 2a (according to Order).
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 10) BILL.
Read 2a (according to Order).

ARBITRATION (FOREIGN AWARDS) BIIL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, in moving that the House do resolve itself into Committee on the Bill, it would be convenient if I were to state that the matter very properly raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Atkin, on the last occasion, has been settled and a form of draft has been agreed between us. He very kindly came to see me about it, and we were enabled to settle a draft which runs in this way:—
Page 2, line 4, leave out from the second "of" to the end of line 6 and insert "such powers as His Majesty being satisfied that reciprocal provisions have been made may by Order in Council declare to be parties to the said Convention."
In the same way in the proposed new paragraph (c), after the words "in one of such territories as His Majesty," there will be inserted: "being satisfied that reciprocal provisions have been made." Paragraphs (b) and (c) will then read in this way:—
" (b) between persons each of whom is subject to the jurisdiction of one or other of such Powers as His Majesty, being satisfied that reciprocal provisions have been made, may by Order in Council declare to be parties to the said Convention; and
(c) in one of such territories as His Majesty, being satisfied that reciprocal provisions have been made, may by Order in Council declare to be territories to which the said Convention applies."
That really meets, I think, the two points which were discussed.
It is right that the clause I am referring to should be applied both to Powers and territories. As has been pointed out by the Foreign Office, it does not necessarily mean that those are identical. For instance a Power might be France, and Madagascar might not be a territory which came within the reciprocal provisions. I hope that your Lordships will accept this. I think it is a matter that ought to have been settled and it has been settled between the noble and learned Lord, Lord Atkin, and myself.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Parmoor.)
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Am I to understand that the noble and learned Lord is going to move these Amendments in Committee directly?
LORD PARMOOR: Yes.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: They are Amendments which do not appear on the Paper? They are in manuscript?
LORD PARMOOR: They do appear upon the Paper, but the terms of the agreement which I have come to with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Atkin, would not, of course, appear upon the Paper.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I mean that the form which the noble and learned Lord has read out does not appear on the Paper.
LORD PARMOOR: No.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I only desire to call your Lordships' attention to the fact that though that is a very reasonable method of procedure, in ordinary circumstances, generally speaking, your Lordships have an opportunity during the discussion at the remaining stages of the Bill to see that no mistake has been made. It is very unlikely the noble and learned Lord, Lord Atkin, or the noble and learned Lord, the Leader of the House, would make a mistake, but in case they did make a mistake your Lordships would, in the ordinary course, have an opportunity of looking into it on the subsequent stages of the Bill. On the present occasion, however, I understand that the Government propose to take all the remaining stages of the Bill this afternoon.
LORD PARMOOR: Yes, the Standing Order has been suspended.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The Government take a grave responsibility in doing that. They put a manuscript Amendment into the Bill, and then they withdraw it from the cognisance of your Lordships' House without giving your Lordships the opportunity of seeing it in print. I cannot say that I approve of that method of legislation, and if the Government could see their way to allow the Bill to be reprinted and the remaining stages to be taken to-morrow instead of to-day, I think that would be far more suitable.
LORD PARMOOR: I feel very much what the noble Marquess has said; but when we discussed this matter the other night the noble and learned Viscount (Viscount Hailsham) said he had nothing further to say on the clauses, and the only outstanding matter was a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Atkin, as regards reciprocity—a very proper question to raise, as I stated at the time. Lord Atkin having raised that particular question, and it being agreed to, what we have done is to suspend the Standing Order with a view to the Bill being passed to-night. It would have passed through all its stages last Thursday but for the point raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Atkin. I think it is a matter about which the noble Marquess need not have any anxiety. The Bill will have to go through the other House, and it is a matter which we fully discussed on a former occasion and the words have been agreed to between us.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL OF DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]
Clause 1:
Application of Part I.
1.—(1) This Part of this Act applies to any award made after the twenty-eighth day of July, nineteen hundred and twenty-four—

(a)in pursuance of an agreement for arbitration to which the protocol set out in the Schedule to the Arbitration Clauses (Protocol) Act, 1924, applies; and

(b) between persons each of whom is subject to the jurisdiction of one or other of the governments to which this Part of this Act applies; and

(c) in the territory of such a government;

and an award to which this Part of this Act applies is in this Act referred to as "a foreign award."
(2) The governments to which this Part of this Act applies are those governments in respect of which His Majesty may by Order in Council declare the said Convention to be in force.
(3) His Majesty may by a subsequent Order in Council vary or revoke any Order previously made under this section.
LORD PARMOOR LORD PARMOOR moved to omit the words "the Governments to which this Part of this Act applies; and" in paragraph (b) of subsection (1), and also paragraph (c), and to insert:—

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" such powers as His Majesty, being satisfied that reciprocal provisions have been made, may by Order in Council declare to be parties to the said Convention; and
" (c) in one of such territories as His Majesty, being satisfied that reciprocal provisions have been made, may by Order in Council declare to be territories to which the said Convention applies."
The noble and learned Lord said: I move this in the form which I have handed in. The, only difference from the form as it appears on the Paper is that the words "being satisfied that reciprocal provisions have been made" are inserted in each paragraph. It was, I understand, the general view that a provision to that effect should be inserted.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 4, lease out from the second (" of ") to the end of line 6 and insert the said words.—(Lord Parmoor.)
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I am not prepared to resist the Government Amendments, because they are no doubt very carefully advised by competent officials as to the wording and they have also had the very great assistance of the noble Lord, Lord Atkin, in the matter. I understand that by this modification of the words it is not intended to make any change in substance, but that it is merely a matter of getting the drafting in an accurate form. Is that so?
LORD PARMOOR: Yes—I do not want to mislead the noble Marquess—to this extent. I think I assented the other day to what was called by Lord Atkin reciprocity, and the words which we have added are words which will, I think, carry out quite correctly and accurately what is desired. They have been very carefully studied by the Departments concerned.
LORD ATKIN: I may be allowed to say this. I did put a carefully framed Amendment on the Paper with a view to carrying out the idea which, I think, commended itself to all parts of the House—namely, that it should be made clear that in taking power to enforce foreign awards here it would be based upon a principle of reciprocity, and that we should not be obliged to enforce here awards made in a foreign territory unless the foreign Government to which that territory appertains gave reciprocal advantages to us. I put an Amendment on the Paper to carry that out. The Lord President told me this morning he was prepared to put in the words he has
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mentioned. To my mind they carry out the object of my Amendment. I am bound to say I prefer my own drafting, as one probably naturally would do, but I cannot conceive that these words, properly construed, would have any other effect than would be the effect of the Amendment I put on the Paper. I was very pleased to agree with the Lord President and not to dispute what, after all, would be a mere question of words.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD PARMOOR LORD PARMOOR moved to leave out subsection (2).
Amendment moved—
Line 9, leave out subsection (2).—(Lord Parmoor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 2 to 6 agreed to.
Clause 7 [Application to Scotland and Northern Ireland]:
LORD PARMOOR: This Amendment and the following one are merely to correct misprints.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 16, leave out "(2)" and insert "(3)".—(Lord Parmoor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 17, leave out "(2)" and insert "(3)".—(Lord Parmoor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 7, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
Schedule agreed to.
House resumed.
Then (Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended) Amendments reported: Bill read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DOMINION AFFAIRS AND THE COLONIES (LORD PASSFIELD): My Lords, in moving the Second Reading of this Bill I should like, at the outset, to express the satisfaction of my colleagues and especially of myself at the manner and spirit in which this Bill has been

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received in the other place. I am sure it will obtain the same consideration from your Lordships. The Bill as it emerges from the other House is, to all intents and purposes, the same as it was on its introduction, except for one or two Amendments to which I shall refer later, but which in my judgment only make more explicit some of the objects in view. Your Lordships will perhaps allow me to remind you that the principal motive for the introduction of this measure is connected with the lamentable condition of employment in this country, and this is an attempt to stimulate the British export trade, a desire with which I am sure that your Lordships will have every sympathy.
It falls to my lot to bring the Bill forward in this House especially from the standpoint of the Colonies and the Dependencies. The Lord Privy Seal has already made known elsewhere the extent and character of the trade which exists between the Colonies and the Dependencies and this country, which is greater, I think, than many people imagine. Apart from the Dominions, with their enormous trade, the Colonies themselves and the Protected Territories and Dependencies have in the aggregate a very large trade with this country and, what is very relevant in this connection, take a very large and varied selection of goods from this country. If we can in any way encourage and accelerate the development of the vast undeveloped territories which lie within these Colonies and Protectorates, we can in the ordinary course expect that their purchases from this country will be increased. We have there a potential market, we have, at any rate, good will and we have what may be called an established connection which it would be folly, to say the least of it, to ignore at a time when His Majesty's Government are endeavouring in all possible ways to promote an increase of trade. The object of this measure is, by supplying a little money in a way which I shall describe, to accelerate, as far as possible, the development of the Crown Colonies, Protectorates and Dependencies, distinctly with a view—among other objects—of causing an increase in our export trade in a way which we think to be legitimate and economically justified.
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I want to forestall a possible objection. Your Lordships will realise that, in our desire to accelerate the development of these areas, we must not unwittingly place a burden upon the future finances of the Colonies. We must not let them in for expensive schemes of improvement which will take, to put it mildly, a long time to return a sufficient interest. There are limits to what a Colonial Administration can undertake if it is confined to its own resources. Some of these Administrations have a whole series of developments and improvements which they wish to undertake, ranging from projected railways where surveys have been made and there is every reason to suppose that they will be very quickly remunerative—projects which have had to be postponed for the present because of more urgent needs—to the other end of the scale, the shadowy conceptions and ideals for the future which might be undertaken if resources were available, but which cannot be regarded as even approximately within the range of economic utility. If we are to ask these Colonial Administrations to accelerate their programmes, to undertake, now rather than later, some of the schemes which are ripe for execution and which can be justified before an expert business committee as tangible and valuable improvements, I am afraid that the only way to induce them to increase their commitments in regard to interest, sinking fund and the additional expenses of administration is that this country should come to their assistance and make it worth their while to undertake for our advantage, at a time when they would not themselves be able to undertake them, some of these works.
The view taken is that the partnership which ought to exist, and which does exist, between these Crown Colonies and His Majesty's Government in this country, might very well take the form, in the first instance, of a grant of part or all of the interest which is involved during the first few years of the execution of these works, which in hardly any case can be expected to be yielded by the work itself during those first few years and which it is quite common in ordinary commercial life to regard as part of the capital expenses of the undertaking. In that and other ways we can hasten the normal course of development in these

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Colonies and, as we think, do a great deal, not only to promote their welfare and the welfare of millions of people in them, but also, incidentally—and I do not disguise from your Lordships that this is the immediate object of the Government—to give a stimulus to our export trade in this country which would have its effect upon the number of unemployed.
If your Lordships will allow me, I should like to point out that there are Colonies which fall into another class. There are places which are isolated from the world and unable to find a ready market for some of the commodities which they already produce. Let me adduce, as an example, the territory in Central Africa which is known now as Nyasaland. That is a country where there is a reasonable amount of population and a great deal of cultivation, but there are at present almost insuperable difficulties in bringing the products down to the sea or to any place from which they can be exported. There are areas of Nyasaland, as we are credibly informed, where what is really wanted is an alteration in the method of cultivation and the substitution of a rotation of crops. When I remind your Lordships that the crop which it is proposed to use as an alternative crop is cotton, in the development of which within the British Empire we have such very great interest, your Lordships will see that there is something to be said for enabling this alternative crop to be produced and marketed. They do not want cotton in Nyasaland. They will have to bring it down to the sea and put it on board ship for the world market, and in particular for Lancashire, and at the present time that is an impossibility. What stands in the way is the need for a through railway route, which means the construction of a very big bridge across the Zambesi River. That is a project which has long been under consideration and has been repeatedly recommended, but it cannot be expected to pay for itself within the first few years. That is the sort of thing that we can do by this measure. We can enable Nyasaland to get rid of its produce in that way, whereas at the present time the conditions render it absolutely impossible to do so.
There are other Colonies which, at the present moment and from time to time,
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are stricken by calamity of one sort or another, either through the visitation of disease in one of their staple crops or through a more subtle disease, afflicting a whole Colony, when for some reason the world price of their commodity goes down temporarily and the Colony is apt to find one of its principal industries in a state of ruin. The production of sugar at the present time is one of those industries which has been brought very near to being ruined by the cheapness of the product, and it is very difficult to know how we are to stand up against such a calamity in some of these places. Probably it may be necessary to help them to change their cultivation and to introduce new industries. What is much more likely and proximate is that we must help them to reorganise their existing industries and to substitute for some processes which are, perhaps, a little antiquated and not quite up to date, new processes which will reduce the cost of production and enable them to stand up in the world market. That involves considerable expenditure of capital which bankrupt industries in a depressed Colony cannot furnish alone. It may be possible for the Government, out of this Colonial Development Fund, to enable some of the sugar producing Colonies to make headway against what seems to them a great calamity by enabling them to get on their feet again through improvement in their processes and in the organisation of their industry.
All these things, your Lordships will see, require either money or credit. These smaller Crown Colonies about which I have been speaking have, comparatively speaking, little money and not very good credit, especially at the time when they are depressed. We in this country, relatively, have some money and a great deal of credit. The partnership would be that, under proper conditions and with very careful safeguards which the Treasury would see to, we should place that money and credit in particular instances and to a limited extent at the disposal of our weaker brethren. I cannot describe to your Lordships, except in the most general terms, without anticipating the work of the committee which it is proposed to set up, exactly the projects which will be taken up under this scheme. In fact we do not know at the present time which

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of the projects that will be available this committee, which will be an independent committee of business men, will consider sufficiently sound to recommend to the Treasury. Therefore it would be vain for me to attempt to enumerate them.
But we do know that there are considerable areas of these Crown Colonies and Protectorates where there are potential producers of much more of the raw material, and of the food stuffs even, which this country and other old countries want, and that we can help them more or less to increase their production and therefore to supply our needs and help our industry if we are able to supply them with a little money and a little credit. Everywhere almost throughout Africa there is need for a measure which would help the cultivator to till more land and to till it in a better way, or, I should say, in a more productive way. The hoe is not the last word in cultivation. I speak as a Londoner, but I can believe that something more could be done if we could substitute for the hoe as an instrument of cultivation some more up-to-date method. That can be done—to what extent I will not venture to say—but it can be done to some extent and we hope it will be done. Then there are ports not so well equipped as they might be, and your Lordships will know that delay in the handling of ships in ports is a very vital part of the cost of production of the commodity which is dealt with. If we can help those ports to improve their equipment, sometimes in a large way, sometimes in quite small ways, that will all co-operate to the same end.
What the measure proposes is that the sum of one million pounds per annum should be set aside out of money provided by Parliament from which assistance can be given to projects of development which are approved by the expert committee which will be set up to examine all the various schemes which will be submitted by the Colonial Office at the instance of or in consultation with the Colonial Governors, and that committee will itself decide as an independent body which of the schemes it can recommend to the Treasury for assistance. The Treasury will be the final arbiter as to whether the schemes are sound enough for assistance. I hope we shall not find the committee or the Treasury taking
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a too restrictive view and expecting a scheme to be of a gilt-edged nature returning 5 per cent. in its first year. Such schemes do not need assistance. It is schemes which are not of that nature but are yet sufficiently removed from the wild cat department that we want, to help. We do not want this committee and the Treasury to confine our help to those schemes which can do without us. We shall not attempt to control the committee, and your Lordships know that nobody can control the Treasury; but I am only expressing the feeling with which the Government brings for ward this measure when I say that we hope that the committee and the Treasury, if I may fall into a colloquialism, will play the game. The method will be either by way of payment of interest in whole or part for a certain number of years, the first few years of the life of the work, or it may be by way of a definite loan from the Fund, or by way of a definite grant from the Fund. We must leave that to the committee and, ultimately, to the Treasury to sort out.
That is all I think I need trouble your Lordships with in regard to that part of the measure; but there are two almost technical amendments which are included in the Bill because they will, we believe, co-operate very potently in the work which the Bill is intended to do. It is proposed to widen the scope of the Colonial Stock Acts so as to make it possible to bring within their scope certain territories which are, I think almost as a matter of the drafting of the Acts, now excluded. They are confined at present to the Colonies. Since the date of the Colonial Stock Acts the Colonies have, so to speak, proliferated into various other kinds of government. There are Protectorates, there are Protected States, there are Mandated Territories, which are, to all intents and purposes, the same thing for this purpose as those areas which are dealt with in the Colonial Stock Acts. They are under the control of the Secretary of State for the Colonies in the same way and to the same extent. There is no reason why the Federated Malay States, for instance, which we always think of as if it were a Colony, but which is technically outside the Colonial Stock Acts at present, should have to pay a higher rate of interest when it has to borrow money in the City than if it were

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nominally a Crown Colony. It is proposed by this Bill to make it possible for His Majesty by Order in Council in suitable eases to apply the Acts to future loans raised by any territory which is under His Majesty's protection, or in respect of which a Mandate on behalf of the League of Nations has been accepted by His Majesty and is being exercised by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom.
The process will not be automatic. They will not come by virtue of this Bill under the Colonial Stock Acts automatically. In each case His Majesty will have to issue an Order in Council and before that Order in Council is issued the Government will of course scrutinise the resources of the territory applying for this privilege and the security which it can offer to the lender. No such Order in Council will be passed unless the Government of the day is satisfied that the stock holder is as adequately secured from every point of view, political and financial, for the period of the loan as he is under the existing provisions of the Colonial Stock Acts. If any additional safeguard is required I may add that it is provided that the Order in Council must be laid before Parliament for twenty days before it becomes operative.
There is also an amendment which is included in this Bill of an analogous nature. The Palestine and East Africa Guaranteed Loans Act, 1926, which was passed for the express purpose of enabling Palestine and East Africa to raise, loans on the best possible terms, did not, as it, proved, permit interest to be paid out of capital on the works which it was intended to promote under that Act. Consequently the amendment will allow interest on loans for schemes to be paid out of capital for a period not exceeding five years from the initiation, and also to increase in suitable cases the period for repayment of the loans from forty to sixty years. I think those are very moderate amendments and they will admit schemes which I am advised cannot be executed if the unfortunate Colony or Dependency has to provide interest on capital out of revenue from the moment the work is initiated.
In particular that is required to enable this Zambesi bridge to be made. The negotiations for the bridge are now well
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forward, and, subject to final arrangements being made with the Portuguese Government—which it is hoped will shortly be concluded—we ought to be able to start the project in the very near future. The bridge will cost about £2,250,000. It will be a very big bridge, not that the river is so extensive, but the scheme involves also making approaches to the river. The bridge itself will not cost more than £1,000,000 or £1,100,000, but the approaches and the necessary improvement of the railway line on each side, and even a steamer to connect up, will raise the expenditure to £2,250,000 or so.
I will now mention the Amendments which have been made in another place. They are really very small. I mention them because they are improvements of the measure as it was introduced. I do not know that they were necessary, but they are improvements because they say explicitly some things which were only implicit. The production, distribution and supply of electricity, and public health, are included as objects which are to be aided under this measure. I think those objects might have been aided before, but it is just as well to have it stated. There are a great many other activities which I should like to see aided under this measure, but after all it is a measure very definitely limited, with the object of dealing with unemployment and increasing the trade of the country. Therefore many other things, like education, are not included in this measure. It is a measure strictly confined to one object, and does not purport to make a new heaven and a new earth in any of these Colonies and Dependencies. The most important Amendment added is that to Clause 1, in order to ensure both that the Secretary of State shall satisfy himself as to the conditions of labour on any works undertaken under this Bill, and that the community as a whole shall, as far as practicable, get some share of the benefit which may accrue as one of the results of the operation of the measure. The Amendment goes as far as possible to attain that object, and I can only say that the Government, or at any rate myself as long as I have the honour to hold this office, will undertake to see that the objects aimed at are carried out in the spirit as well as according to the letter. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Passfield.)
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: My Lords, I rise to intervene in this debate for a very few minutes only. I need, I think, hardly say that we warmly welcome the broad principle upon which this measure is based—a principle which the noble Lord has explained to us very clearly. We welcome this Bill in the first place because if passed it will put into operation a policy which took a prominent place in the programme of our Party at the last Election, and, perhaps what is much more important still, we welcome it because it gives us an assurance that there will be continuity of policy so far as our Colonies and their development are concerned. It is intended by this Bill to set aside annually a sum not exceeding £1,000,000, with the object of helping the agricultural and industrial development of the Colonies, Mandated Territories and Protectorates, with the important hope and object of assisting the unemployment situation here at home.
I think it is generally agreed that it is a point of controversy and argument as to how considerable and appreciable an effect money spent on large schemes in the various parts of our Colonial Empire will have upon the employment situation here at home; but the experience of the past clearly shows us that a very large proportion of the imports of the Colonies, Protectorates and Mandated Territories come from the United Kingdom, and we have some justification, I think, for concluding that the United Kingdom would derive benefits in the same large degree from any schemes which may be instituted as a result of this measure. At any rate, whether or not the passage of this Bill is going to have early and direct results, or whether or not it is going to make any considerable impression upon our unemployment figures—and I sincerely hope it will—it is quite clear that in view of the fact of the enormous trade which we do in the United Kingdom with other parts of the Empire, nothing but good can come from a policy which is calculated to develop the resources of our Colonial Empire, and to improve the standard of living and the purchasing power of the people who live in those countries. Indeed I think one is justified in saying
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that it is more than probable that the ultimate development to the full of the vast and almost inexhaustible resources of the Colonies and the Empire as a whole will, in the long run, have more influence upon our industrial position here at home than any other factor we can think of at the moment.
When we look at the provisions of the Bill, at the means by which it will be permissible to achieve the objects in view, I think that it is very satisfactory to note that these means are drawn up on broad lines, and that there are no unnecessary limiting restrictions with regard to their scope. A specially pleasing feature is the prominence which has been given to the promotion of scientific research. On this point I speak with a good deal of timidity, because there are others who can speak with much more authority than I can, but I imagine that there is no way in which more can be done to help the Colonies than by the practical application in them of the knowledge of science and scientific discoveries in general. Another pleasing feature is one to which the noble Lord has already alluded in his opening speech—namely, the proposal to extend the provisions of the Colonial Stock Acts to the Protectorates and Mandated Territories. I can see no valid reason for refraining from doing so, and I think the proposal may be of very considerable use.
I only want to say a word or two about the sum that it is intended to spend with these various objects in view. I imagine that for the present the £1,000,000 set aside annually will be a sufficient sum, and I dare say it is very doubtful whether that sum will all be spent in the first year; but I do think that it might have been preferable if this sum had been paid over to the Fund as a definite grant to be carried over from year to year if any balance remained. I feel this for various reasons. In the first place I think that it would have given greater freedom, and it would have facilitated the maintenance of continuity in the development of different parts of the Colonial Empire. I think it is one of the first objects of the Government to get things going as soon as possible, and I honestly believe that the method which I have indicated would achieve that object more quickly than the method adopted by the Government. We must remember

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that the method adopted by the Government entails very strict Treasury control indeed, in fact almost complete Treasury control; and, speaking from my short experience at the Overseas Settlement Department, I would confidently assert that constant Treasury interference at every step must of necessity entail considerable delay and add to what are already great difficulties in negotiating with the different parts of the Empire.
We naturally wish to avoid any form of extravagance or waste, but I venture to say that the committee which it is intended to set up under this Bill, and on whose recommendations grants are to be made under the Bill, should, if properly constituted, prove an effectual guarantee against wild and uneconomic projects being embarked upon. It would have been interesting, I think, if the noble Lord had been able to say something to us about the composition and constitution of this committee. I have no doubt that it is not possible for him to do so to-day, but I would express the hope that it will be strong enough and of such a character as to be able to push on the work as rapidly as possible. There is no other comment that I have to make at the present moment. I would only conclude by assuring the Government again that we on this side view this measure with complete sympathy, and we shall be prepared to do everything that we can to facilitate its passage through your Lordships' House.
LORD BLEDISLOE: My Lords, I should like for my part to offer a warm welcome to this Bill, and I do so more particularly because it refers expressly to "the promotion of scientific research, instruction and experiments in the science, methods and practice of agriculture." I had the interesting experience, and indeed the privilege, of presiding over the Imperial Agricultural Research Conference in Westminster Hall in October and November, 1927; and there was expressed at that Conference the very strong opinion that the oversea Dominions and the Colonies alike were best assisted, so far as the development of their agriculture was concerned, by encouraging agricultural science and research, and more particularly by the application to local requirements of the results of agricultural research, wherever conducted throughout the world.
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I should like to urge upon my noble friend opposite, Lord Passfield, that so far as possible overlapping should be avoided in this connection, because, as we discovered then, and many of us had known as the result of travelling in various parts of the world, there is an enormous amount of the same kind of fundamental agricultural research going on in various parts of the world and in various parts of our own Empire, the results of which are in no way communicated to other parts of the Empire; with the result that there is not only a loss of mutuality of benefit but, of course, a very great waste of public money, expended on exactly the same work conducted in different parts of the world, and being in effect a surplusage of effort.
On that occasion eighteen months ago there were certain centres which were selected for agricultural research in different parts of the Empire, most of them being selected in the Mother Country, and mainly because most of our Dominions and Colonies had not yet sufficiently developed their scientific organisation to provide what was wanted. In one notable respect, on which great emphasis will be placed during the next month in South Africa, where the British Association is now assembled, we had all of us to admit that Great Britain did not provide the facilities for research which were to be found in that particular part of the world, that is, in the matter of veterinary research as carried on in South Africa, which we all admitted was superior, so far as we could judge, to anything of the sort being conducted at our research stations here. What I do want very much to emphasise is that in giving grants towards localised scientific research every effort should be made to avoid duplication not only of Colonial effort with effort of the same kind being carried on in this country, but of similar effort in any particular direction being carried on in the Colonies themselves.
There is another matter which arises out of the same paragraph, paragraph (l) of Clause 1 (1). I notice that it is contemplated to apply money towards the organisation of co-operation. All of us who know anything about the effect of co-operation upon the success of agricultural methods in the countries of the world know perfectly well that co-operation is an indispensable element of

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successful agriculture in any part of the world, particularly where it is carried on over small areas and in small units of industrial or economic organisation. Wherever in the world agricultural organisation or co-operation is being successfully carried on it is not as the result of State action or of State subsidies, but as the result of effective effort on the part of individuals cooperating in the agricultural industry itself. I venture to suggest that if there is any attempt to use Government organisation or Government funds to prop up agricultural co-operation it is probably calculated to fail. Agricultural co-operation can only be a successful growth if it is the result of individual effort on the part of the co-operating agriculturists. I hope that in applying this money to the development of agriculture and industry in our Colonies the attitude of our own Government will not be too grandmotherly, because I am quite certain that, at least as regards agriculture, it is most desirable to maintain independence, resourcefulness, and business capacity, and I am inclined to think that all are to some extent impaired when the State comes with a heavy grandmotherly hand in order to promote what individuals ought to do for themselves.
One word about sugar. I notice that the noble Lord opposite referred to sugar, which of course as an industry is in a somewhat depressed condition in some of our Colonies. I had the experience of being what was called Sugar Controller during part of the War, and we discovered that there was enormous scope for doing just what the noble Lord opposite mentioned, which was to encourage better methods of production and primary refining among sugar producers in some of our Colonies, notably, of course, the British West Indies. Certainly at that time—I cannot say what is the case now because I believe great improvements have been effected—it would have been a waste of money to attempt to bring some of our West Indian Colonies in this respect into effective competition with the sugar producers of countries like Java, Cuba and even our own Mauritius, simply because it would have put a premium upon a continuance of somewhat reactionary methods of cultivation and conversion
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which, of course, it was most desirable in their own interests that they should supersede by something more progressive and up-to-date. For my part, I heartily wish success to this Bill. I only wish to repeat what I said just now—let it not be carried out in too grandmotherly a spirit.
LORD PASSFIELD: My Lords, if no other noble Lord has any comment to make I might be allowed to thank the noble Earl, Lord Plymouth, for his kindly welcome to this measure and to explain that, as I dare say he has already appreciated, the decision as to the technical form of the grant of one million pounds and the procedure which the Treasury would adopt with regard to that grant are a little too complicated for me to try to explain. It was, I think we may say, insisted on by the Treasury. It is fair to say that there are two views—as to whether it is better to have a fixed grant which you are allowed to accumulate if it is not spent, or, as is the form in some cases, a grant which is only issued from the Treasury in proportion to the amount which is really required within the year. It is not that the Colonial Development Fund will be required to surrender any unexpended balance at the end of the year. The Treasury will only issue the amount of money that is required during the year. The idea that any unspent balance will have to be surrendered sometimes leads to extravagance, and it is for this reason that it is held that there ought not to be any unspent balance. The way which is preferred by the Treasury may on the whole be better even for the interests of the measure. But, as I have suggested, that was really a financial matter which we had to accept.
The noble Lord, Lord Bledisloe, put his finger upon a real difficulty; that is, the possible overlapping of research in these matters in so large an area with so many varied places. We are going to take every possible means not only to prevent duplication of research, but, as far as it is possible, to take care that such research as is instituted shall be, if I may use a common word, coordinated. Genius cannot very well be drilled. We must let them go ahead to some extent in the way they feel inclined. But we can take care that no research is instituted without full knowledge

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of what is going on elsewhere, in order, if possible, to avoid any sort of duplication.
With regard to co-operation, experience has shown that co-operation in agriculture can best go on if it is independent and spontaneous. On the other hand, I think the noble Lord was a little pessimistic. One may remind him of the case of India, where the Government has rendered very great assistance and there is a large amount of agricultural co-operation which, it is said, would not have come without the Government rendering that assistance; and it is said in places like Africa that a little Government assistance may be the right course. There is the homely analogy of the old-fashioned pump. You have to put a little water into the pump in order to make it draw. It is possible that in some of these dry areas is may be necessary to do that. In view of the nearness of the Recess and the fact that your Lordships have suspended the Standing Order, I do not know whether we might be allowed to take the Committee stage and the other stage of this Bill to-day. That is entirely for your Lordships to say.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: I suppose the noble Lord could not give us any information about the composition of the committee, could he?
LORD PASSFIELD: I beg the noble Earl's pardon. As the noble Earl will know, with a committee of this kind you have to ask everybody whether he is willing to serve and to wait until you have received the last reply. It is very difficult to say. All I can say is that the committee will be of a character which will satisfy every criticism. It will be an absolutely impartial committee, a business committee on which finance will be represented and there will be no attempt to make it in any case even a Treasury or a Colonial Office Committee. The only connection of the Colonial Office will be that that Department will supply the secretary. I am sorry that I cannot give the names. I have not even got them myself, and it will take a few more days before we get the replies.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I am under the impression that the noble and learned Lord, the Leader of the House, has not suspended the
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Standing Order in respect of this Bill. That will not happen till to-morrow.
LORD PARMOOR: That is so.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

PROTECTION OF ANIMALS (AMENDMENT) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: My Lords, this Bill ought to have come on before the noble Lord opposite dealt with his Bill, but owing to a mistake it was not called and I did not like to interrupt him. Your Lordships may remember that I introduced last Session a Bill to amend the Protection of Animals Act, 1911. On the Report Stage two new clauses were inserted, and on Third Reading the noble and learned Lord, Lord Atkin, who had given me some assistance before, objected to those two clauses. I have now left out those two clauses. Therefore, the Bill is now a small and simple Bill of one clause which, I think I have his leave to say, has the approval of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Atkin, whom I am glad to see in his place. There was some little discussion by my noble friend Lord Salisbury as to whether or not there were any instances of cruelty to dogs which made a Bill of this kind advisable. I have in my pocket a large number of cases. I think I sent him two or three which occurred after the last Session was over. It is not necessary, I think, for me to read them unless they are disputed. The Bill can do no harm. It may do some little good. With those few words I beg to move that it be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Banbury of Southam.)
EARL RUSSELL: My Lords, this Bill or a Bill rather like it was, as your Lordships will remember, before the House last Session. I then expressed my sympathy with the objects of the noble Lord. I am still quite prepared to express my sympathy with his objects; but I am afraid the objection that was taken by the Home Office last year still survives in spite of the modified form of his Bill. It is perfectly true that it has now been

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reduced to only one clause. But there is still the difficulty, first, as to the Bill being effective and, secondly, as to the desirability of creating a new offence if you are merely thereby expressing a point of view.
The Bill provides that the Court may prohibit the owner who has been convicted of cruelty from having a licence to keep a dog. The object of the noble Lord, with which I am sure all your Lordships sympathise, is that a man who has been cruel to a dog should not have a chance of being cruel to another or the same dog. That is an object with which we all sympathise, but it is a provision which it will be impossible to enforce. That is the view of the Home Office. There are 12,000 places, I am told, where dog licences can be obtained, and if a man moved to another part of the country, unless he was an extremely prominent and well-known person, he would be quite easily able to obtain a licence there, and no ordinary means at the disposal of the police—nothing but special roving and constant inquiries by detectives—would enable them to know he had taken out a new licence in another part of the country. Further than that, even supposing he did not move and desired to go on keeping the same dog, there would be nothing to prevent his wife, or his daughter, or any servant of his taking out a licence and the dog continuing to be kept in the same house. The police will then go to the house, one assumes, if they are anxious to enforce the provisions of this Bill, and will challenge the authority under which that dog is kept. They will be met by the licence held by the wife or servant, as the case may be, and they will be powerless. The original owner of the dog has committed no offence; the new holder of the licence has committed no offence; and, therefore, the clause will be entirely nugatory.
The view taken by the Home Office is that it is very undesirable to create new criminal offences unless they really serve some useful purpose, and are likely to be effective. The view they ask me to put before your Lordships this afternoon is that it would be unwise to pass a Bill of this sort which would be bound to fail in being effective, which would put a duty upon the police that it would be almost impossible for them to fulfil effectively, and which could be evaded with the
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utmost ease. It is not, as the noble Lord who has moved the Bill well knows, any want of personal sympathy on my part with the object he has in view, nor is it any want of sympathy on the part of your Lordships that makes me ask your Lordships to say that it would not be wise for this House to read this Bill a second time because it would fail to effect the object which is aimed at. I ought to add, should your Lordships think fit to pass it, that it is not very convenient in any case to introduce in this very short series of sittings, that we are having now, a Private Bill of this disputed character; but, even if your Lordships should think fit to pass it, I could not hold out the slightest hope of its succeeding elsewhere. In all those circumstances, unless the noble Lord really thinks and believes that this is going to serve some useful purpose, I hope he will see his way to withdraw his Motion for the Second Reading, and, if not, I hope your Lordships will think it wise not to proceed further with the measure. Those views are felt very strongly by the Home Office, and I have been asked to put them before your Lordships.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: My Lords, I have heard with very considerable astonishment the speech of the noble Lord opposite, because he voted with me only last Session. The noble Earl being a person of very strong character, I do not understand how it is he has so very suddenly changed his views. Not only did he vote with me last Session, but only last week, when I told him I had dropped the two clauses to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Atkin, objected, the noble Earl said—
EARL RUSSELL: I think the noble Lord had better not refer to that conversation if he does not mind.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: If the noble Earl objects I of course do not wish to say anything, but his vote was not private, and, unless I am very much mistaken—I have not referred to the OFFICIAL REPORT—the noble Earl, last Session, not only voted but spoke in favour of the Bill. That was not a private conversation and, therefore, I think I am justified in referring to it. Now the old arguments are repeated that a man might get his wife or his servant

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to take out a licence. As I said before, it does not at all follow that a man can get his wife to do certain things. In all probability the mere fact that a man asked his wife to take out a licence would result in her refusing to do so. The people who are likely to be affected by this Bill are not people with servants but are people who live in a humble way and have no servants; but, even supposing they had servants, I do not think it is at all likely—at all events there is no certainty about it—that a servant would take out a licence when his employer asked him to do so, if he did not think it was right. The sympathy of the servant is very often with an animal that is badly treated.
The Bill has been challenged. Let me quote from The Times of May 17, 1929:—
" When Cecil Smith, described as a ' canine and feline expert ' was fined £2, and ordered to pay costs, at Bristol on Wednesday, it was stated that although he promised to put a terrier to death by chloroform for a fee paid by the owner, he threw it on the soft mud bank of the River Avon, and left it to drown. When the tide came in the animal struggled out and returned to the owner's house in a very distressed condition. Smith said that he first chloroformed the dog."
Why should that man be allowed to keep a dog merely because the Home Office, or some official of the Home Office, says that in his opinion the law can be evaded?
EARL RUSSELL: He was not keeping the dog.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: Can the noble Earl tell me what law cannot be evaded? The noble and learned Lord, Lord Atkin, who is in his place now, stated that many laws can be evaded. We know perfectly well that they can. If a person living in the country is convicted by the justices, and they refuse to allow him to take out a licence for a given period, that person, if he goes to London, for instance, may be able to take out a licence there and the police may not know of him. But it remains that a man is not likely to go and leave his house and his employment, etc., and if he remains at home the police know perfectly well what is going on and who has or who has not the right to take out a licence.
May I quote from another report in The Times of May 30, this year:—
" At Rye yesterday, Tom Barton, a hawker, was fined £1 for causing unnecessary
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suffering to a dog by attempting to kill it improperly. Evidence was given by a farm labourer of finding the dog in some hushes with its four legs tied together. He heard it howling for three hours. Barton said the animal was run over. He had held it in a pond for fifteen minutes and thought it was dead before he put it in the bushes."
Surely for the sake of some small technical objection on the part of some official of the Home Office a man of that sort ought not to be given the opportunity of keeping a dog? Not to deprive him of the opportunity of keeping a dog seems to me to be utterly incomprehensible. By the way, that was a hawker. I do not think hawkers as a rule keep servants, but possibly, under the administration of a Socialist Government, hawkers will have servants.
EARL RUSSELL: They may at least have wives.
LORD BANBURY OK SOUTHAM: He may or may not have a wife; I am not sure, for I have not the pleasure of his acquaintance. There is one other case I should like to quote to your Lordships. This is from The Times of April 6 this year:—
" Henry J. Clarke and Jennie Clarke, his wife, of Culver's Way, Carshalton, were summoned at the Croydon County Police Court on Wednesday, for neglecting a whippet dog…the dog was kept out of doors in a roughly-made, draughty kennel, and was found dead and frozen stiff from exposure."
In this case there is a wife, and as she also was brought before the Court she would be prevented from keeping a dog if the magistrate thought it right to enforce a prohibition. Therefore the wife in such a case could not assist her husband to evade the law. I have other cases, but I will not weary your Lordships with them. I will merely add that last Session there was no Division on this Bill until the Third Reading. Then, on Third Reading, if I had agreed to the Bill being postponed in order to have these two clauses left out, I should have got the Bill. I thought I would have them left out in the Commons, and consequently I lost the Bill by a very small majority. I have now done all I can to meet your Lordships. I have left out the two clauses to which the noble and learned Lord objected, and the Bill is now a simple one which can do no harm and may do good.
LORD ATKIN: My Lords, since my name has been mentioned and I seem in some way to have been brought into the position of having a sort of foster-father's relation to this proposal, perhaps I may be allowed to say a few words. As I understand the proposal of my noble friend, it corresponds to the provision of a good many Acts of Parliament—namely, that where a person can keep a chattel or animal only by licence, if he misuses the licence it can be suspended. We are very familiar with this in the case of a motor car. A man has to have a licence to keep a motor car and, if he misuses the motor car in relation to the public, his licence can be suspended. That seems a very simple proposition, and I should have thought that it was an a fortiori proposition in the case of a dog, which is the only animal for which you have to have a licence, partly, no doubt, for revenue purposes and partly to keep down the number of dogs. Why should not this proposal be carried out? What is there objectionable in saying that a person who is the owner of a dog and can keep it only if he has a licence, and who is really cruel to that dog, should for a certain time have his licence suspended and should be deemed incapable of keeping a dog? I venture to think that your Lordships would be putting yourselves in rather a difficult position in relation to the public and to those numerous people—I am glad to say that the feeling is almost universal—who have a detestation of cruelty to animals and to dogs in particular, if you rejected a very simple proposal of this kind without some really sufficient ground for doing so.
I agree that this proposal, like other provisions as to licences, passports and so on, can be evaded. The fact that it can be evaded is, I suggest, no reason why you should reject the proposal if it is capable of being made effective to some extent. If a person owning a dog goes to another locality after having a conviction recorded against him for cruelty to a dog he may be able to evade it, but in the vast majority of cases, in the country districts where this kind of offence arises, there is no difficulty at all. I venture to say, speaking from a small experience as Chairman of a bench of magistrates, that in our district in Wales it would be known to everybody, if a man had had a licence
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taken away from him, whether he was keeping a dog without one. The suggestion that the provision can be evaded by a wife taking out a licence raises a pure question of fact as to whether she is, in fact, keeping the dog or whether the husband is still keeping it. If it were the case that the husband had kept a dog for months or years and then suddenly the wife professes to be keeping it, it would not be very difficult to draw the inference that it was really the man who was still keeping it. These are perfectly easy matters to deal with. I venture to think that Lord Banbury has put before the House a humane proposal, a reasonable proposal and a useful addition to the weapons which magistrates have against a very detestable offence. I venture to think that your Lordships should give this Bill at any rate a Second Reading. It can do no harm and, as I say, I think it may in certain cases do very substantial good.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME: My Lords, the noble Earl is not quite correct when he says that this Bill creates a new offence. It is simply making a new penalty for a very old offence.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: My Lords, I had not intended to inflict a maiden speech upon the House for some months to come, but, as this Bill has come before the House and as I was responsible as Home Secretary for the opposition which I gave the Bill through my officials on the last occasion, I feel that I ought to accept the responsibility for that advice. The noble Earl opposite has mentioned to-day that the Home Office is opposed to the Bill. I do not know the views of the present Home Secretary, but as Home Secretary in the last Government I accept the fullest responsibility for the opposition that we made to the Bill on the last occasion. I cannot help feeling that my noble friend, who, I know, is keenly opposed to any form of cruelty—and I am quite sure that he will accept my statement that I am as much opposed to any form of cruelty to dogs or any other animals as he is—is going rather too far in this Bill. It seems to me that under the present law there is ample punishment for a man who is convicted of cruelty to a dog or any other animal. He may now be fined £25 or sentenced to three months imprisonment with hard labour.

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Before my noble friend can convince the House that this Bill should be passed, he must show the need for additional penalties. His intention is to prevent a man of this sort from keeping a dog. He must convince the House that his proposed penalty of preventing a man from keeping a dog is a necessary addition to the present law. His method of preventing a man from holding a licence is only another way of saying that no man convicted of this offence shall be allowed, for a definite period, to keep a dog. The licence, if I may say so without offence, is only dragged in as a means of making the matter easier and is a simple way of providing that no man so convicted shall keep a dog for the period laid down by the bench. Is this penalty as likely to have the effect of preventing cruelty as the penalties already provided by the law? At the present time cruelty to any animal may be punished, by the same bench of magistrates to whom my noble friend desires to give these additional powers, with a fine of £25 or three months imprisonment. I suggest to my noble friend that this is really the stronger penalty of the two and is likely to be far more effective in preventing a man from being cruel to his dog.
There is a further objection to the Bill. I will not deal with the difficulties of the police, because the noble Earl opposite has dealt with them; but I cannot for the life of me see why cruelty to a dog, though very distressing to lovers of dogs, should be put in a different category from cruelty to a horse, a cow or any other animal.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: You do not take out a licence for them.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: That will not quite do, if I may say so with respect. My noble friend has assented to the position that the withholding of the licence is merely a form, and that his real object is to prevent a man keeping a dog if he has been convicted of cruelty to it. He has brought in the licence merely as an easy way of preventing such a man from keeping a dog again. That is my noble friend's admission. I want to know why he thinks it right to make this new and additional offence of keeping a dog after a conviction for cruelty without applying it to horses, cows or any other animals. You find just as many instances of cruelty to horses. One of the instances
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that my noble friend read was clearly not the case of a man who had a licence for the dog. It was somebody who had been paid to put a dog to death and who attempted to do so by very cruel means. This Bill would not affect him at all.
I felt bound to make this statement to your Lordships, because I did not want the Government, and particularly the present Home Secretary, in opposing this Bill to feel that I was ashamed of the position I had taken up on the last occasion, though I was not then, of course, in this House. I concur in the appeal which the noble Earl opposite has made to my noble friend not to press this Bill, though he might, if he liked, consider whether the principle of the Bill could not quite rightly be extended to all animals. I cannot see how you can logically and reasonably say that because a man is convicted of cruelty to a dog he should not be allowed to have a licence and in effect not be allowed to keep a dog, while at the same time a man guilty of the most fiendish cruelty to a horse is to have no additional penalty of this kind placed upon him. I was certainly advised in the earlier part of the year by my legal advisers and the police that it would be exceedingly difficult to enforce this provision. It creates a new crime unknown to the law at present and I should have thought my noble friend, with whom I worked many years in another place, would be the last man to desire to do that. I think he might rest content with the penalties which the law now places upon those guilty of cruelty to dogs. As my noble and learned friend has pointed out, the magistrates have in their hands a much more effective way of stopping cruelty by sentencing a man to two or three months imprisonment.
LORD CHARNWOOD: My Lords, I wish that the noble Viscount whom we are so pleased to listen to in this House had had the opportunity of making his maiden speech upon a theme which appealed more to our sympathies. I only rise for the purpose of making two observations with regard to the subject. He told us that under the existing law it is possible for magistrates to deal with this offence by inflicting as much as three months imprisonment. It is not proposed by the Bill to do away with that power. It is not suggested that an alternative

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penalty to imprisonment or fine should be introduced, but that in addition to what can properly be called the penalty for the man a measure of protection for the dog should be put in the hands of the magistrates. I say that because the noble Viscount might have created the impression that in some way or other the Bill weakened the hands of the magistrates, which I submit it manifestly does not do. The main argument of the noble Viscount took the form of a question: "You do this for the protection of dogs, why not for horses?" I think the answer to that is very simple. It is easy to do it in the case of horses. It is a good thing, and it is a thing which can be done, then why not do it? But when you propose to extend it to horses it is almost manifest that cases of great difficulty might arise. I think most of us here have been magistrates and we must be aware that sometimes in cases of cruelty to horses, lamentable as they are, we are dealing with a poor

IRISH FREE STATE (CONFIRMATION OF AGREEMENT) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.
Then (Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended) Bill read 3a, and passed.

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.
man whose horse is necessary to his living. Therefore, apart from the mere fact of the licence, there is a distinction between the case of the dog and the case of the horse. It does not in the least affect the hatefulness of cruelty or our desire to punish and prevent it, but in fact if a similar proposal were made for the protection of horses it might meet with a good deal of practical difficulty, whereas in the case of a dog there must appear to most of your Lordships who have heard this discussion absolutely no difficulty whatsoever in making the proposals really effective. I earnestly hope your Lordships will give your approval to this Bill, in spite of the fact that there are directions in which we might like to carry our dislike of cruelty to animals further, but for the moment cannot.
On Question, Whether the Bill shall be read 2a?—
Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 10; Not-Contents, 22.

CONTENTS.

Morton, E.

Alvingham, L.

Charnwood, L.

Powis, E.

Atkin, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Banbury of Southam, L. [Teller.]

Greenway, L.

Bertie of Thame, V. [Teller.]

Stanmore, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Sankey, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Midleton, E.

Southwark, L. Bp.

Parmoor, L. (L. President.)

Munster, E.

Plymouth, E.

Arnold, L.

Linlithgow, M.

Russell, E. [Teller.]

Clwyd, L.

Salisbury, M.

Hay, L. (E. Kinnoull.)

Brentford, V.

Marks, L.

Beauchamp, E.

Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.)

Muir Mackenzie, L.

De La Warr, E. [Teller.]

Passfield, L.

Lucan, E.

Templemore, L.

Thomson, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Motion disagreed to accordingly.

Then (Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended) Bill read 3a, and passed.

HOUSING (REVISION OF CONTRIBUTIONS) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (LORD ARNOLD): My Lords, this Bill is the first step in the Government housing policy. It is a modest measure, but in our opinion a very necessary measure. The effect of the Bill is to retain the subsidy so far as what are known as the Wheatley houses are concerned. The reduction was decided upon by the

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late Government, and was to have come into operation on the 30th September next. Happily it is not yet in operation, and the effect of this Bill will be to keep the subsidy at its present level. Before proceeding to the details of the measure I think perhaps it would be as well if I reminded your Lordships what is the position in regard to housing subsidies. Apart from the Addison subsidy of 1919, which is now ancient history, the housing subsidies have been of two kinds, which have come to be known, after their authors, as the Chamberlain and Wheatley subsidies. The Acts governing those subsidies are dated 1923 and 1924 respectively. The Chamberlain subsidy dates from 1923, and the Wheatley subsidy from 1924.
I would further call your Lordships' attention to the fact that the Chamberlain subsidy has in the main provided houses for sale, whereas the Wheatley subsidy was definitely intended to encourage the construction of houses to be let. The Chamberlain subsidy was, by the action of the late Government—the same action as governed the whole of these subsidies—to come to an end after September 30 next in England and Wales. It was to remain in force on a reduced scale in Scotland. The present Government concur so far as the Chamberlain subsidy is concerned, and therefore that subsidy will come to an end at the latest on September 30 next, except in Scotland, where it will continue in force at a reduced rate. The position with regard to the Wheatley subsidy is different. The most urgent need is for small houses to let, and the Wheatley subsidy encourages the construction of these houses, and the Government holds that it is its paramount duty to take every reasonable step to help forward the construction of small houses to be let. The Labour Party was strongly opposed to the reduction of the subsidy, which was enacted in December of last year to come into operation after September 30 next. Therefore nobody can be surprised that one of the first acts of the present Government is to reverse engines in this matter, and to retain the subsidy at the existing level.
In order to make clear what has been happening, and will happen, with regard to the Wheatley subsidy, I will venture to give your Lordships a very few figures. This is the subsidy under the Act of 1924.
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At that time the Wheatley subsidy was to be £9 per house for a period of forty years, except in respect of agricultural houses in agricultural parishes. There the subsidy was to be higher—namely, £12 10s. per house for forty years. It was enacted in the 1924 Act that these subsidies should come up for revision every two years, and therefore the first revision was at the end of 1926, and then the subsidy was reduced from £9 per house to £7 10 s. per house for forty years, and in the case of agricultural houses the subsidy was reduced from £12 10 s. to fill per house. Then we come to the revision of last December, because that was the next two years' revision. The subsidy was to have been reduced from £7 10 s. to £6, and in the case of agricultural houses from £11 to £9 10 s. It is with this reduction that the Bill is mainly concerned.
The figures for Scotland are a little different, but I need not refer to them, because I am dealing only with England and Wales. It is with this reduction, which was to have come into force at the end of September next, that this Bill is mainly concerned. The Bill cancels that reduction, and the effect of the Bill will be that the subsidy will not be reduced but will remain at £7 10 s., and the agricultural subsidy at £11, as at present. That is the main effect of the Bill, and it is significant that this Bill passed through another place without a Division. I do not say without discussion or criticism, but there was no Division. The fact is that there is an overwhelming case, as I hold, for this Bill. Indeed, when it is remembered that the Wheatley houses are almost entirely constructed by local authorities, and that the local authorities of the country were unanimous in opposition to the reduction of the subsidy, I think it is clear that there is a very strong case for the Bill.
Now that is what the Bill does, and I want to come to a few of the arguments that have been used against it. The controversy about this Bill, so far as there is controversy, turns chiefly upon the view which is taken of the effect of the subsidy on prices. The position of the late Government, as stated by Mr. Neville Chamberlain, was that a reduction of the subsidy lowered the price of houses, and therefore to reduce the subsidy was a good thing to do. The price of houses has fallen somewhat during the last few

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years, and Mr. Neville Chamberlain appears to contend that the fall is due to the reduction of the subsidy in 1927, and perhaps (though this was not very clear) to the intended reduction which was to have come into force on October 1 next. But Mr. Neville Chamberlain, so far as I read his utterances, appears to give no weight to the fact—a very relevant and very important fact—that there has been a considerable general fall in prices during the last few years. I cannot see that referred to in his arguments; he seems to base them upon the fact that there has been a reduction of the subsidy. He does not prove anything; he asserts that it is so. I submit that those who favour reduction in the subsidy put their case too high. It really will not do to argue, as they appear to do, that a fall in prices is due to a reduction of the subsidy, and that that is the only factor of importance which is operating in this matter. It will not do to ignore the general fall in prices which has taken place, and which surely must affect the cost of houses, just as it affects the cost of all other commodities.
What at any rate is certain is that the reduction of the subsidy in 1927 led to a very unhealthy and undesirable state of things. The building industry was dislocated. A very undesirable state of things came about both before the reduction of the subsidy and afterwards. I can prove this with a very few figures. Before the reduction of the subsidy, at the end of September, 1926, when things were going more or less normally, the number of subsidised houses under construction was 102,976. The reduction of the subsidy took place on September 30, and almost at once the number of houses under construction rose considerably, and at any rate great efforts were made to push forward with houses which were already under construction in order to get the advantage of the subsidy before it was reduced on September 30. And whereas, as I have said, in September, 1926, the number of houses under construction was 102,976 it had risen by May, 1927, to 119,005 and actually in the month of September, 1927, there were brought to completion 52,261 houses. Then the crucial date was past. What happened? The number of houses under construction—not being brought to completion—in October, 1927, was 48,212 against somewhere about 100,000 in October of the
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previous year. And in the whole of 1928 the number of subsidised houses under construction, never reached so high a figure as 60,000 at one time. I think those are very remarkable figures.
The effect on unemployment was equally striking. Take plasterers. In October, 1926, the proportion of unemployed among plasterers was 1.8 per cent.; in October, 1927, it was 7.5 per cent., or about four times as much; in November, 1926, it was 2.9 per cent., and in November, 1927, it went up to 11.4 per cent.; then in December, 1926, it was 4.1 per cent., and it went up to 17.8 per cent. in December, 1927, or rather more than four times as much. That, of course, is a very un desirable state of things. I think it is a clear case of cause and effect. The experience of this cut in the subsidy was a great rush to build before the date when the subsidy terminated, and then after the axe had fallen the ordinary development of building was broken. That is clearly what it came to: great activity before the subsidy was reduced, after wards serious unemployment in the building industry. And history was repeating itself—I do not say to the same extent—this summer in regard to the intended cut in the subsidy next September 30, now fortunately cancelled. The present Government has come in and has reversed this policy, has introduced this Bill, which should rapidly produce, and I believe is producing, a steadier and healthier state of things altogether. There was a great rush prior to the General Election in order to get houses finished so as to get the subsidy before it was reduced next September 30, and every possible device was being used to urge on the completion of houses before that date; and after that date, had it not been for the fact that we now propose to retain the subsidy at its existing level, I have no doubt there would have been a great slump in building, as there was in 1927.
I submit with great confidence that really what is needed in this matter, so far as it can he ensured, is greater continuity and steadiness. Feverish scrambles like those which I have been describing are not good: they are not good for the building trade, they are certainly not good for the workers, and they are not in the interests of good housing. It is the general opinion of local authorities—and these Wheatley houses are nearly

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all of them built by local authorities—that these violent changes should be avoided, and the Government has received assurances from a very important body representing local authorities that with the passage of this Bill their programmes will be continued without hiatus. I do maintain that the attitude of the Party represented by noble Lords opposite in regard to these housing subsidies is not tenable. We do not agree with this contention about the effect of subsidies on prices, and we hold that the policy of the late Government has been to dislocate the building trade and to reduce most seriously the number of houses being constructed.
In a word, the direct outcome of the policy of reducing the subsidy is that tens of thousands of people who now might be occupying rented houses are not occupying them because they do not exist, whereas they might have existed. That is no over-statement. It is, I hold, a very trenchant argument for this measure. Within reasonable limits the governing consideration in this matter is the production of houses; it is houses we want. Noble Lords opposite appear sometimes to be more occupied with other considerations than the production of houses, and certainly the experience of the last few years and the figures of the number of houses under construction prove that, despite the admitted great need, the late Government did not pay sufficient regard to the importance of maintaining an adequate house-building programme. I do not think I need say more at this stage, beyond emphasising that this is only the first step in the Government's house-building policy. It is a necessary step, but the Bill does not profess to be in any way a large measure. It will keep things moving for the time being. It will give the Government time to turn round. The whole matter of housing and slums is receiving the most earnest and constant attention of the Government, and in due course our plans for housing and slum clearance will be made known. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Arnold.)
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, I do not want to raise any complaint against what has occurred because exactly the same thing occurred during the time
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I had the privilege of sitting on the opposite Bench. This Bill was only brought to your Lordships' House at 9 o'clock last night and copies were not circulated this morning; at least, I did not get one. I think it as well to mention such things when they occur in the hope that possibly on another occasion they will not happen. I do not wish to complain about it; no doubt it could not be helped.
We had a discussion the other day on the business of the House and the noble and learned Lord who leads the House told us that a great many of the Bills which were coming from another place were non-contentious and that some of them were Money Bills. He did not say so, but he seemed to infer that a Money Bill could pass through your Lordships' House without any prolonged consideration or discussion. I do not think that view would be shared by any of your Lordships. If it was the view of the noble and learned Lord I am sure it was not shared by my noble friend Lord Beauchamp, who leads the Liberal Party, because he invariably criticises Money Bills when they come before your Lordships' House. It is, I think, a right and proper practice for those Bills to be discussed, although, of course, the functions of your Lordships' House do not permit such measures to be taken with them in the way of amendment as may be taken in another place. Still, they should be adequately discussed in your Lordships' House.
That is more especially the case when a Money Bill that is before your Lordships happens to be a bad Money Bill. With the very greatest respect to my noble friends opposite I venture to suggest that this is a bad Money Bill. It is a very different Bill from what we were led to expect originally. It is a very much smaller Bill. When, on a somewhat celebrated occasion the Prime Minister, under the auspices of the Secretary of State for Air, flew to attend a Socialist Party meeting at Durham, he used these words in the speech which he addressed to that meeting:—
" As soon as they got the King's Speech they would introduce a Bill to put back the subsidy for housing which was contained in the 1924 Act."
I am told that a different announcement was made in another place. Still, I do not think anybody will deny that that

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was part of the speech made at Durham by the Prime Minister. So, when we consider the Bill, we see that when the Government come down to realities they are unable to go so far as Mr. MacDonald suggested at Durham, and that all they can do, or dare do, or will do is to propose to leave things in statu quo—to leave things as they are. It is true to say, as the noble Lord said in introducing the Bill, that it is a very modest measure. They are introducing what I may describe as only a small tadpole at present. The noble Lord has promised that they are nurturing another which will grow into a very formidable reptile at some indefinite date. We can only wait and see. But whatever the formidability of the reptile which we shall see introduced by the Government at some indefinite date in the future, it is not going to deal with subsidies. This is the last word of the Government on subsidies. I believe that is the case and it was stated, I think, in another place last night. I am subject to correction, of course, in the reply which the noble Lord will address to the House.
The noble Lord, Lord Arnold, told your Lordships that there was an overwhelming case in favour of this Bill. I venture to think that there is, on the contrary, an overwhelming case against it. It is a mischievous and retrograde measure. It is true, as the noble Lord said, that it will reverse the engine. It will set the clock back; it will not advance it. He told us what were the objects of the Government in the matter of housing. I do not think your Lordships would differ from what he said, that there was an urgent need for plenty of cheap houses. I agree, and we all wish to increase the supply of houses, and of cheap houses. Our objects are the same; our wishes are perhaps the same; but the methods by which we seek to attain those ends are very different indeed. If I understand my noble friend Lord Arnold aright, the contention of the Government is that the reduction of the subsidy does not tend to lower the price, and that the reduction in the subsidy does tend to reduce, the output. Those are the two propositions which I think he put before your Lordships. Let me examine them for a moment. It is a good many years since I first became connected with the Ministry of Health. It was in 1921 that I entered that Department as Parliamentary
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Secretary. At the same time my noble friend Lord Melchett, then Sir Alfred Mond, entered the Ministry as Minister. I wish he was here to-night because he would put the case much better than I can. I remember that what struck us both at that time was the appalling cost of houses under the Addison scheme.
The noble Lord said that there are a great many factors which tend to increase the cost of houses and I would not controvert that statement for a moment. There are also a great many factors which tend to lower the cost of houses, such as the fall in the price of building materials, which he mentioned. But experience and experiment have shown that the subsidy is one of the factors in the cost of building houses. Let me go very shortly through the figures. In July, 1921, just after the time when Sir Alfred Mond and I entered the Ministry, the price of houses under the Addison scheme was £695. I want to state my case perfectly fairly. The price had fallen to a certain extent. It had been £717. Then it rose to £875, and it was at the very high figure of £695 in July, 1921. After that the subsidy was no longer made payable and the result was that the price fell very rapidly and in December, 1922, was down to £346 per house. The next step was the Act of 1923 which gave a subsidy of I think it was £75 per house. That was followed by a rise, and the price went up from £346 to £386. That was the figure at which it stood in January, 1924, when the Government to which the noble Lord opposite belonged came into Office. Then there came the Wheatley Act subsidy which this Bill seeks to continue. The subsidy under that Act was, as the noble Lord has stated, considerably more than that under the Act of 1923. What was the result? The price went up again with a bound by £52 per house, and then it went on more gradually until it reached £451. There it stayed until December, 1926. Then the late Government made the announcement that the reduction of the subsidy would be undertaken and that it would take place in October, 1927. Down came the price from £451 to £339 eventually. That was the lowest price reached; that is to say, there was a reduction in the price of £112 per house.

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From that short summary it is clear, I think, that whatever factors there might be in reducing or increasing the price of houses, one constant factor has existed all through, and the price has regularly risen and fallen as the subsidy rose or fell. There has been that difference always. I contend that if you want cheap houses—houses that the poorest members of the community can afford to pay for—the way to get them has been shown by a reduction of the subsidy. By doing this the last Government reduced the price of houses to £339. That is cheaper than houses have ever been since the War.
I come now to the second proposition, that reduction of the subsidy reduces output. What evidence is there of that? My noble friend Lord Arnold relied on a comparison of the figures of 1927. I do not think he mentioned any other year. Let us go a little more deeply into that. I think I shall be able to show to your Lordships that 1927 was a wholly abnormal year. Let us take the other six years, the figures for which I have before me. The output in 1927 was 212,000 houses built. In 1925 and 1926 the output was respectively 95,000 and 131,000. In 1924 it was only 34,000. Then we come to 1928. I am speaking of State-assisted houses now, and urn giving figures which were given in another place, and I do not think they are subject to contradiction. In 1928 there were 101,000 houses built and the estimate for this year, according to the Ministry of Health, is about 120,000, or 20 per cent. more than were built last year. The average, if you take the six years together, from 1924 to 1929 (estimated), is about 110,000 houses a year. If you take out, as I think it might be fair to take out, the 34,000 built in 1924, you get an average output of 130,000 houses during the course of the five years.
But we must not forget that these figures deal only with assisted houses; there must be considered also those which were built without any subsidy—houses built entirely by private enterprise. In the year 1928, there were no fewer than 65,000 of such houses built, which raised the total from 101,001 to 166,000, or, to be perfectly accurate, to 166,415 altogether in 1928. If you add the estimated number of State-assisted houses for this year, 1929–120,000—and the same proportion
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is maintained of non-assisted houses we ought to get a total this year of something like 200,000 houses. Even granting the fact that increased subsidy means more houses, may there not be this danger, that you will have to put too high prices upon your houses, and you will reach a price which makes it difficult for those for whom the houses are mainly intended, for the poorer members of the community, to pay the rent? That seems to me the great difficulty—that you tend to increase the price of the houses by increasing the subsidy. I maintain that that will occur and has occurred by increases of the subsidy.
Take another point. Is not 200,000 houses per annum all told a very respectable figure, especially when the price is as low as £339 for the smallest house? It is difficult to say, but generally speaking, I think it is admitted that the average wastage—shall I put it?—of houses is about 100,000 houses a year. That is to say, you want every year, without providing any additional houses for the population, 100,000 houses to repair the wastage, to replace old houses and so forth, and if you have double that number it is not so very unsatisfactory. We should like to see more houses provided which will be within the means of the people who want thorn. If you pass this Bill, and of course your Lordships will pass it—I am not going to ask you not to do so—is there any real evidence that the supply of houses is going to be increased by the maintenance of the subsidy? Why should local authorities reduce building if the subsidy is reduced? The reason for reduced building would be that the cost of the houses was increased. By the reduction of the subsidy the cost of houses has not been increased but reduced by £112. Of that £112, £74 10s. is a clear gain to the local authority. I think £25 is the amount of the subsidy, and £12 10s. is the local authority's contribution. There remains, therefore, £74 10s. Why should the local authority, when they can get houses so cheaply, let down their output? I do not think that question has ever been adequately answered. The policy of the late Government was to maintain a high rate of building and at the same time to reduce the cost of building to the lowest point in order that the houses might be readily acceptable to the poorest members of the population. That policy of my right hon.

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friend Mr. Neville Chamberlain and the late Government was, I maintain, eminently successful. The present Government do not agree with that. They say: "We will do better with a new policy," and they propose to change the policy of the late Government. All I can say is that the decision upon that is in the future. We shall see who was right. In the future we shall know whether our policy was right or whether the present Government are right in their policy. With that final observation I leave the matter to your Lordships' decision.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTH-WARK: My Lords, I can join with the noble Earl who has just sat down in paying a tribute to the magnificent work which was done by the late Minister of Health in providing new houses, but there was one point in his policy in which I think he was mistaken and that is the very point which we are considering to-night—namely, the reduction of the subsidy. I know that there are many noble Lords, like the noble Earl opposite who has just spoken, who believe that a reduction in the amount of the subsidy is naturally followed by a reduction in the cost, and it is impossible to deny the fact that the two have gone side by side and that the figure has dropped from £450 to £339 per house. But I think it must be borne in mind that £50 of that reduction is due to the fact that the houses now building are of a rather smaller size, and also—and I think this answer goes more to the root of the matter—that when you have a subsidy local authorities put out a large number of orders. Where there are a large number of orders there is no necessity for the builders and contractors to reduce their prices, for they know that there is work waiting for them. When, however, the subsidy is reduced there comes the element of uncertainty in building. Local authorities do not push forward orders in anything like the same number, and the builders who before found themselves over occupied now have to compete one with another, and in competing they reduce the charges which they put in their tenders for the houses.
That, I think, is another interpretation which may be quite rightly and fairly given to the fact that the reduction in price has accompanied the reduction
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in subsidies; but it does not follow that if there was another reduction in subsidy there would be an equivalent reduction in price. There are many experts who believe that under conditions existing at present the price has reached rock bottom, and that it is unreasonable to expect, unless there is a change in the rate of interest or the method of production that the cost will become lower. But if there is doubt as to how far we can fairly associate the reduction of cost with the reduction of the subsidy, I think there is no doubt whatever that with the reduction of the subsidy there has been a reduction in the number of houses built. I find that I am about to use some of the figures which were used by the noble Earl, but I think that I shall put upon them a somewhat different interpretation and I shall possibly give them in a slightly different order.
In 1924 there were 36,000 subsidised houses built; in 1925 the number went up to 92,000: in 1926 it rose again to 131,000; and in 1927, the abnormal year when the reduction of the subsidy was in sight, the number rose to 212,000. Last year the number of completed houses—I am taking September as the end of the year—dropped to 101,000. This year is, of course, once more an abnormal year, since the subsidy was to come to an end, and the same kind of conditions ought to apply as applied in 1927. But, instead of finding 212,000 houses approaching completion, we are told that in September there will probably be only 120,000. I think those figures show quite plainly that when you reduce the subsidy the number of houses built is also reduced.
Notwithstanding all that has been done upon a splendid scale by the late Government, we have to bear in mind that so far the problem of the slums has not been touched. That problem cannot be touched until you have a sufficient number of houses, let at low rents, to which the people who are now living in the slums can move. The people living in the slums have not, to any large extent, moved out from them, partly because the rent of the new houses is too high—I shall come back to that in a moment—and partly because the new houses are too far from their ordinary places of occupation. Let me give one illustration. There is one of these new districts which

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I know well. When building started in it three or four years ago quite a number of people came to it from the slums. I was in that district only a few days ago and I made very careful inquiries as to how many people now in that district had actually come from the slums. I was told that practically all those who had once come from the slums had moved back again, not because they disliked their new houses, not because they disliked their new surroundings, but because they could not afford the rent and they could not day by day undertake the expense and the loss of time of the journey to and from their work. We shall never deal with the slum problem adequately unless new houses in very large numbers and at a low rent are erected at a reasonable distance from the work in which these people are engaged.
Now I turn to the problem of rent. I think it is generally recognised by all housing experts that the ideal standard house for a man and his family is one with three bedrooms and a superficial area of 750 square feet. Such a house, under present conditions, cannot cost less than £400, and in that I am including the £50 usually estimated for land and drainage. If you are to build a house at that price, how are you going to bring the rent within reasonable reach of the man in the slum whom you desire to see occupy it? Many of these men can afford only 11 s. a week. You cannot possibly reduce the rent to that amount unless you have a subsidy. No practical suggestion has been advanced as to how you are to reduce the cost of building under present conditions so as to enable a man to pay a rent of 11 s. a week. A subsidy now is inevitable unless house-building for these poorer people is to stop. There are many of these people—I am thinking of unskilled labourers with families—who cannot afford more, than 7s. 6d. a week. The noble Earl who has just spoken said that he hoped that this was the last word in subsidies. I wish I could say that I thought that it was going to be the last word in subsidies, but I am quite convinced that you will never be able to supply decent houses for these poorer people unless later on you increase the subsidy so as to make it possible for them to go to a house for which they can pay a rent of 7s. 6d. a week.
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I am not arguing that this subsidy should be at a level rate, so that everyone dwelling in these houses should share in it, but I believe that, if the problem is to be solved, you will be driven back upon a policy of giving special rent allowances for children to those who are living in these houses. I know that there are a number of economic and other objections that can be rightly urged against that policy, but the alternative is to allow these people to continue living in the slums without any hope of redress or change. I know that any scheme for dealing with the slums will cost large sums of money. That is quite inevitable. But when you realise the kind of condition under which people are living in those slums you will feel that almost any expenditure is worth while.
I do not know if any of your Lordships have seen the survey which was issued quite recently by what is called the Westminster Survey Group, dealing with the housing conditions in the Metropolitan Borough of Southwark. That survey was carefully carried out by competent and experienced investigators, and they describe a state of things which is nothing less than horrible. In street after street they found people living in conditions of darkness, dampness, and overcrowding, and in houses in which there was vermin. Sometimes a man and his wife and children were living in basements which have long ago been condemned as unfit for habitation. They quote the fact that the Medical Officer of Health for Southwark said that in one year there were ten thousand houses in Southwark alone that were not in a state reasonably fit in all respects for human habitation. When we are brought into personal contact with conditions like this, we feel that it is worth almost any subsidy to try to remove them. I feel it most unjust to blame the authorities of a poor borough like Southwark for the present conditions of affairs. The matter is far too large for any borough, or any medical officer of health or any individual to deal with. It is a problem which must be dealt with by the nation as a whole. I am glad that the Government have decided not to reduce the present subsidy. The measure before us is extremely simple. It simply means that the subsidy now existing is to be continued. It will give the Government time to prepare their plans for a measure

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dealing with the slums which, I hope, will be both comprehensive and courageous.
LORD ARNOLD: My Lords, the right rev. Prelate, by his intervention in the debate, has very much lessened the task that will devolve upon me in endeavouring to say something in reply to the observations of the noble Earl opposite. I very much appreciate the speech of the right rev. Prelate. As your Lordships are aware, he takes a very deep, consistent and persistent interest in this matter of housing, particularly the housing of the very poorest, of whom he has so many in his diocese, and I am sure that I express the opinion of all your Lordships in saying that we always listen to him on this matter, as on other matters, with great advantage. I wish to say a very few words. I do not want to make debating points against the noble Earl who, if I may be allowed to say so, made an extremely interesting speech, which I have endeavoured to follow as closely as I could. He used a great many figures, as is perhaps inevitable in this matter. Let me take one or two of his points. He complained that the Bill was not circulated. I do not know how that happened.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: I am not complaining.
LORD ARNOLD: It ought not to have been so. I am sorry that it was so, and I will make inquiries. In regard to the general position it is true, of course, that there is a congestion of business this week, but what I may describe as more or less an agreement was come to about the course of business. When the noble and learned Lord said that Bills were more or less non-contentious, the noble Marquess the leader of the Opposition called attention to this Bill as an important Bill. Therefore, that point was not lost sight of in the general discussion. I found it a little difficult to follow the adjectives of the noble Earl, having regard to what happened in another place. He first said the Bill was a bad Bill and then, warming to his subject, that it was a mischievous Bill. Yet this Bill to which he applies these adjectives was not divided against by his Party elsewhere, and was not very seriously opposed; so I think he rather overstated the position. Despite
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these rather alarming adjectives he said a little later that the Bill was a very modest Bill and all it did was to leave things as they are. I submit that the noble Earl cannot have it both ways.
The right rev. Prelate proved quite clearly that the subsidy had increased the production of houses over a course of years and that the reduction of the subsidy has decreased the production of houses. I think that is not now a matter of controversy; it is a matter of statistical fact. That is one reason why the Government in view of the urgent need of small houses feel that this Bill is a right Bill. I do not want to make this a point against the noble Earl, but if the subsidy is so harmful—I do not think that is putting it too high in view of what he said—may I ask why the late Government did not take steps to bring it to a speedy end? I would like to put before your Lordships a few figures on the relationship between subsidy and prices. The noble Earl gave some figures, so we shall not quarrel about where I begin. I admit that in these matters of statistical comparison as between prices and subsidies a good deal may depend upon where you begin and where you end. Some years ago, of course, there were abnormal influences at work. The noble Earl said with some show of triumph that owing, as I understood the argument, to the action taken by the late Government prices are lower than they have been since the War. In reference to that I would suggest that the price of nearly everything else is lower.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: Hear, hear!
LORD ARNOLD: Prices have come down, as we all know. He said that in December, 1922, the price of the non-parlour house was £346. That I believe is correct. In the first quarter of this year it was £339, and of that £339 the capitalised value of the subsidy was estimated to be £187. That brings it down to the figure of £152. If there were no subsidy could you construct a house for £152? Of course you could do nothing of the sort. I think it is perfectly clear that if you are going to produce houses at a price which will enable them to be rented by the poorer classes of the community—and they are the people who are

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most concerned—you must keep the subsidy in being. The right rev. Prelate referred to this vital matter of rent and these figures mean that the actual charge so far as interest and sinking fund are concerned is only £152 because the rest is subsidy. I am not going into five places of decimals, but broadly what I have said is true. Then again, it is well-known that conditions which obtain in England differ from conditions which obtain in Scotland. The subsidy was reduced in England, but it was not reduced to the same extent in Scotland. According to the noble Earl prices in Scotland ought to have remained the same, but they have come down.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: I did not make any argument about Scotland.
LORD ARNOLD: I do not say that prices came down to the same extent, but prices did come down to some extent, proving clearly that the effect of the subsidy in these matters can be greatly exaggerated. I do not think I need go into further figures. No doubt this is a matter which could be argued backwards and forwards for a considerable time, but I think the main points from both sides have been put, and I feel myself—although perhaps I am not quite unprejudiced—that the balance of argument is strongly in favour of the continuance of the subsidy. That is what this Bill secures and I hope your Lordships will assent to its being read a second time.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES.
Order of the Day read for the consideration of the First Report by the Select Committee.
The Committee reported as follows:—
1. RE-APPOINTMENT OF SUB-COMMITTEES.
The Sub-Committee on the Library was re-appointed, consisting of the following Lords:—

The Marquess of Crewe,

the Earl of Ilchester,

the Lord Wigan (Earl of Crawford),

the Lord Hylton,

the Lord Colebrooke,

the Lord Ernle,

the Lord Darling,

with the Clerk of the Parliaments.
The Sub-Commitree on the Refreshment Department was re-appointed, consisting of the following Lords:—

The Earl of Clarendon,

the Earl of Lucan,

the Lord Stanmore,

the Lord Muir Mackenzie,

the Lord Thomson,

with the Lord Great Chamberlain, and the Clerk of the Parliaments.
2. RETIREMENT OF SIR THOMAS DACRES BUTIEK, K.C.V.O.
The Committee heard with sincere regret of the impending retirement on the 31st instant of Sir Thomas Dacres Butler, Yeoman Usher of the Black Rod and Secretary to the Lord Great Chamberlain, who has given thirty-seven years' service to the House, and they desire to record their appreciation of the valuable service which he has rendered to the House.
They authorised the payment of a pension to him, based on his combined salaries of £500 per annum, plus the value of his official quarters, which is estimated at £400 per annum. This pension amounts to £555, together with a supplement (subject to quarterly revision) of £105 17 s. 6d., calculated on the current rate of bonus, making a total of £660 17 s. 6d.
The Lord Great Chamberlain and the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod informed the Committee that they propose to fill the vacancy thus created by the appointment of Lord Esmé Gordon Lennox, as from the 1st of August, 1929.
Owing to the work on the Parliament buildings now being carried out by the Office of Works, it will not be possible for Sir Thomas Butler's residence to be occupied by Lord Esmé Gordon Lennox for a considerable period. The Treasury have authorised the payment of compensation by way of House allowance to Lord Esmé and are desirous that the payment should be made from the House of Lords Vote.
3. RETIREMENT OF HEAD MESSENGER IN THE PARLIAMENT OFFICE.
The Committee were informed that Mr. G. O. Mills, the head messenger in the Parliament Office, will retire on the 28th of August next, having completed twenty-two years' service.
The Committee sanctioned a pension amounting to £59 12 s. per annum, together with a supplement of £27 17 s. 10 d. (subject to quarterly revision), calculated on the current bonus, and also a gratuity calculated on the usual basis under the Superannuation Act, 1909, of £212 17s.
4. APPLICATION FOR INCREASES OF SALARY AND PAY.
The Committee considered a Report by the Sub-Committee appointed on the 14th of March, 1929, to consider applications for increases of salary and pay submitted by certain doorkeepers, coal porters and others.
They sanctioned a recommendation by the Sub-Committee that in future a special uniform allowance of £10 should be given to every doorkeeper on appointment.
They also approved an increase of pay of two shillings per week to the coal porters with the exception of the head coal porter whom they considered was at present well provided for.
5. HOUSEKEEPER'S SALARY.
The Committee approved the payment of a sum of 3s. per week for extra duties to the Housekeeper lately appointed, as part of her salary, as in the case of her predecessor.
6. ANNUAL ACCOUNT OF THE FEE FUND.
The Account of the Fee Fund of the House of Lords for the year ending 31st March, 1929, was laid before the Committee.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE): My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now considered and adopted.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

DEVELOPMENT (LOAN GUARANTEES AND GRANTS) BILL.
Brought from the Commons, read 1a; and to be printed.
House adjourned at five minutes before seven o'clock.