Lords Sitting of 29 April 1931

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

THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (LORD PARMOOR): My Lords, I rise to move the Resolution which stands in my name on the Order Paper, for the appointment of Lord Onslow as Chairman of Committees. Yesterday we had finally to accept the resignation of our late Chairman of Committees, Lord Donoughmore; to-day we have to appoint his successor. I only want to say that it is an appointment entirely in the hands of your Lordships' House without any interference from outside, either from the Government or any other Party. Therefore I thought it right, and the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and the noble Earl, Lord Beauchamp, agreed with me, that we should meet together and consult as to the best appointee that we could suggest to take over the onerous duties of our Chairman of Committees, who is largely responsible for the regularity and order of our business in this House, and more particularly of our private business—which I regard as a very important part indeed of our legislative duties.
As your Lordships will see on the Paper we were all agreed in suggesting that the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, he appointed to the office of Lord Chairman. Lord Onslow, of course, has had a large experience of business in this House. He first came here more than twenty years ago in succession to his father and he has occupied a series of offices during the time that he has been a member of this House—I do not think I need enumerate them—and showed in all of those offices a keen business power and appreciation of the duties and privileges which this House possesses. Without further words, therefore, I propose the Resolution which stands in my name, asking the two noble Lords to whom I have referred to express, if they desire to do so, their feeling that we have met in order to bring before the House the best candidate whom we could propose at the present time.
Moved, That the Earl of Onslow be appointed to take the Chair in all Committees of this House for the remainder of the Session:
That the Earl of Onslow do take the Chair in all Committees of the Whole House, unless where it shall have been otherwise directed by the House:
That the Earl of Onslow do also take the Chair in all Committees upon Private Bills and other matters, unless where it shall have been otherwise directed by the House.—(Lord Parmoor.)
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I am very glad that the noble and learned Lord the Leader of the House has seen his way to make the suggestion which is contained in the Motion now before this House. It has been well said by the noble Earl the Leader of the Liberal Party, that the difficulty in selecting a suitable person to fill the office of Chairman of Committees in this House lies rather in the wealth of material from which we have to select than in any difficulty in finding; a suitable person; but I am quite sure that in the suggestion which this Motion contains a very wise and, I hope, a very fortunate choice has been made. My noble friend Lord Onslow will bring to his office, if he is selected, a very long experience of public service. He has been repeatedly a Chairman of Royal Commissions and of various Committees, and he has a knowledge of the intricacies of local government which will stand him in good stead in the duties which he is, I hope, about to perform.
I am sure that we on this side of the House entirely concur in the expression of opinion to which the noble and learned Lord the Leader of the House gave expression, that this is a matter, not for the Government or for any Party leader, but for the House as a, whole. But I hope that if the choice of the House should fall upon my noble friend Lord Onslow, your Lordships will find in him one who will worthily fill the high office to which he is called and who will maintain those traditions and those standards which your Lordships are accustomed to find in the Chairmen of Committees whom it has selected in the past.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: My Lords, in an hereditary House it is particularly suitable that we should appoint to succeed
934
the noble Earl, Lord Donoughmore, a noble Earl whose ancestry has been connected with this kind of business in the past. I cannot but remember that in the sixteenth, the seventeenth and, I think, the eighteenth century there have been either ancestors or collateral ancestors of Lord Onslow who have been occupied with duties of this kind, either as Speakers in another place or in similar offices in the Elizabethan period, in the Stuart period and also in the Hanoverian period. It therefore is particularly suitable that we should ask the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, to take the Chair in your Lordships' House. Further, may I say that, since I have been a member of your Lordships' House, I remember very well how his father was a most acceptable Chairman of Committees, whom everybody in this House used to respect, and for whose conspicuous fairness we had great admiration. I am quite sure I may say that the noble Earl himself can have no higher ambition than to fulfil the duties of the office as well as his father was able to do.
For myself and for the noble Lords who are good enough to act with me, I would venture to say that we offer him our most cordial support, and that we shall be anxious to do our very best to help him. As in regard to his predecessor, Lord Donoughmore, in relation to the private business of this House I am very anxious to put my conscience in the care of the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, if he is good enough to accept this position, and to promise him on our behalf every support we can possibly give him.
THE EARL OF WEMYSS: My Lords, perhaps as what I may call the doyen of those who habitually serve as Chairmen of your Committees, I may be allowed not only to congratulate the noble Earl on his appointment but to express our confident belief that in the difficult task of succeeding Lord Donoughmore, whose resignation and its cause we all so deeply deplore, Lord Onslow will achieve a success which will fully vindicate the discrimination of your Lordships in appointing him to the honourable post of Lord Chairman. I would only add that if in the course of our service on your Committees we have gained any experience and if at any time we can offer to the

935
noble Earl our assistance and support, it will be entirely at his service whenever he may like to avail himself of it.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD) SANKEY): My Lords, I should like to be permitted as Lord Chancellor to support this Motion. I am sure the House is fortunate in obtaining the services as Lord Chairman of Committees of the noble Earl, whose ancestors have so often and so well exhibited in both Houses of Parliament and with great advantage to the country the qualities necessary for the proper discharge of this high office. The appointment of the noble Earl, who has had great experience in this class of work, will be welcome to every member of your Lordships' House. May I be permitted to congratulate him upon what I know will be the result of this Motion?
On Question, Motion agreed to nemine contradicente and ordered accordingly.

GUILDFORD GAS AND CRANLEIGH ELECTRICITY BILL.
Read 2a, and committed.
MID SOUTHERN DISTRICT UTILITY BILL.
Read 2a, and committed.
ROTHERHAM RURAL DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
BIRMINGHAM CANAL BILL.
Read 3a, and passed.

ALEXANDER SCOTT'S HOSPITAL PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMA TION BILL. [H.L.]
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD MARLEY): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to confirm a Provisional Order relating to Alexander Scott's Hospital; and to move that it be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Lord Marley.)
On Question, Bill read 1a; to be printed; and (pursuant to Section 7 of
936
the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899) deemed to have been read 2a and reported from the Committee.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (EAST ELLOE JOINT WATER SUPPLY DISTRICT) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Amendments proposed by the Committee made.

THE ROUSE CASE.
LORD DARLING LORD DARLING rose to call attention to the fact that certain newspapers published comments on the case of one Arthur Rouse, a man then under judgment of death, who had lodged an appeal against his conviction and sentence; to inquire whether His Majesty's Government is aware that certain newspapers published what they alleged were confessions, made, whilst in prison, by that convict; to ask whether His Majesty's Government intends to take any action to prevent a recurrence of such conduct; to call attention to the publication by newspapers of the evidence given before the justices in the case of Arthur Rouse, and to suggest the advisability of restricting such publication in the case of charges of the commission of indictable offences; and to move for Papers.
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, the House will probably pardon me for taking advantage of its procedure, more liberal in regard to such matters than that of another place, to call attention to a matter which appears to me, and I think will appear to your Lordships, to be of grave public importance. Your Lordships can hardly be ignorant that lately a case engaged much of the public attention—a case peculiar in its circumstances and involving the trial for murder of a man named Rouse, who was convicted and executed. That case took considerable time and many comments were made in the newspapers during the course of the proceedings from first to last. I cannot help thinking that it will appear when I have read some of these to your Lordships, that in the case of certain newspapers undoubtedly there was committed what the law calls contempt of court. Nowadays that may

937
appear not the most felicitous way of describing what took place. But this offence dates from a time when contempt meant not merely the mental process which it generally indicates now, but when it took the form not only of malicious or improper comment but often of acts of deliberate violence. It may mean both. Of course, as the Middle Ages passed away, those who wished to interfere with the process of justice did not do so by force of arms so much as by using writing to express their wishes and to injure those in their claims before the Law Courts in cases where they were opposed to them. There can be no doubt, I think, that this offence of contempt of court is a most grave one, and that the law is perfectly right in taking the sternest means at its disposal to put a stop to it.
If I might venture to substantiate what I have said, I should like to refer to the words used in a judgment in this House in 1742 by one of the greatest of our Lord Chancellors, Lord Hardwicke. In the St. James's Evening Post case he said:—
"There cannot be anything of greater consequence than to keep the streams of justice clear and pure, that parties may proceed with safety both to themselves and to their characters."
It is a fact that contempt of court is by no means limited to, or is most common in, actions or words which show personal disrespect to the Judge or Judges composing the Court. It generally takes the form—a much worse form really, for the evil is more widespread—of interfering with what Lord Hardwicke calls the flow, pure and unadulterated, of the streams of justice so that those who would profit by them are unable to do so—the ordinary subjects of the Crown, that is to say.
In the case to which I desire to call attention there was, as I have indicated, considerable interference by certain newspapers, and although we must admit, and do admit, that on the whole the freedom of the Press is something which acts for the general good of society in this country, yet freedom, may be abused, and in this ease was abused. The best form of liberty—I should not wonder if most of your Lordships agree with me—is what has well been called the liberty of wise restraint, and those
938
newspapers show the greatest wisdom who, in dealing with matters such as cases pending before the Law Courts, exercise the greatest amount of restraint. Certain newspapers entirely, to my mind, forgot their duty in that respect. They not only published a great deal which it was inexpedient to publish while the case was before the magistrates and was being tried at the Assizes, but, after conviction and after an appeal had been lodged by the convicted man, they published their views, in some cases in unmeasured terms, of what should be considered by the Judges in coming to a conclusion as to allowing or dismissing the appeal.
It may be said, and some people are not slow to say: "Oh, that does not matter; the case is before the Judges and the Judges cannot be influenced." If it were a jury everybody admits that they may be influenced, but it is said: "Oh, no, the Judges proceed upon perfectly different principles; they live upon a perfectly different level." I was myself a Judge, and I never thought myself so far above those human weaknesses as that, and I do not think my fellow Judges did either. If your Lordships would forgive me for a moment I should like to remind you of a story, well-known in the Law Courts but not perhaps here. When the Law Courts in the Strand were about to be opened the Lord Chancellor and Judges of that day prepared an address to Her Majesty Queen Victoria to celebrate the occasion, and the Lord Chancellor of the day read these words in beginning the address:
"Your Majesty, conscious as we are of our own imperfections, we venture "—
And the Master of the Rolls of that day—it was not the present Master, Lord Hanworth—said:
"Lord Chancellor, I cannot agree with that. I am not conscious of any imperfection, and I cannot tell Her Majesty that I am."
There was some discussion, and, after a time, a well-known, most learned and delightful member of your Lordships' House, Lord Bowen, said:
"Lord Chancellor, may I suggest that you amend the words in this way: 'Your Majesty, conscious as we are of one another's imperfections.'"
And I believe it was agreed to in something like that form.
This digression, which I hope your Lordships will excuse, is really to show that even Judges are not absolutely above any kind of influence, and it may be that if there is sufficient of it, comment and advice may deflect even the Judges from doing their duty, as it undoubtedly is supposed to do, and does, if addressed to juries. But this matter of whether comment is improper upon cases only before Judges and not before juries has, I think, been settled by authority, and I will refer your Lordships to it. The authority is contained in a judgment of the King's Bench Division—a judgment of five Judges—delivered in 1902 in the case of King against Tibbits and another. The words used in the judgment to which I desire to call attention are these:
"It would indeed be far fetched to infer that the articles would, in fact, have any effect upon the mind of either magistrate or Judge, but the essence of the offence is conduct calculated to produce, so to speak, an atmosphere of prejudice in the midst of which the proceedings must go on. Publications of that character have been punished over and over again as contempt of court where the legal proceedings pending did not involve trial by jury, and where no one would imagine that the mind of the magistrate or Judges charged with the case would or could be induced thereby to swerve from the straight course. The offence is much worse where trial by jury is about to take place, but it certainly is not confined to such cases."
With regard to the particular case of Rouse, he was convicted and he entered an appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal on February 7 of this year, and that appeal was heard on the 23rd of the same month. I put down this Motion first of all because newspaper comment took place during the pendency of that appeal. It was so bad that in some other organs of the Press it was found fault with. I should like to quote words—they are only typical of what appeared elsewhere—from what appeared in the Week End Review of March 21 of this year, in a letter which referred to
"the newspapers which have done their best to degrade British journalism in the last few weeks in connection with the execution of Rouse. For what other object can those sections of the Press have which have been giving the utmost publicity to everything morbidly sensational in regard to Rouse's last hours but to increase their sales? Is it to be expected that newspapers which exploit every sordid incident associated with murder trials and executions for commercial
940
purposes will welcome any effort to rid the country of such a demoralising influence?"
My Lords, that is public comment, and if public comment is to be applauded we must applaud that.
What were the papers which indulged in comments of this kind? As I told your Lordships, the appeal was entered on February 7, and on the very next day, which was a Sunday, the People came out with an article headed "When Rouse was warned of danger," and there was a story of how some stranger had warned him that something was likely to happen to him if he took that particular road—something to his disadvantage. First of all there is a portrait of Rouse himself and then it is described as being "exclusive to the People." Then there is this comment:
"I understand that leave to call new evidence will be asked of the Court of Criminal Appeal when Alfred Arthur Rouse makes his last bid to escape the gallows. Whether or not the Judges will consent to hear that evidence remains to be seen."
Then there comes this:
"Now dominating him in his prison cell, above all, above his wife, his troubles and his other worries, is the outcome of his appeal. He clutches eagerly to the forlorn hope of an acquittal; he will not hear of any possibility of failure."
The phrase "forlorn hope" needs no comment from me. It goes on:
"Time after time he has gone over the details of the case as it will be presented to the Court of Appeal. And each time his optimism convinces him that he has a chance of winning. That optimism is the real reason behind Rouse's attitude to the world; behind his hearty appetite and his bright talks with callers."
Another newspaper on the same day, February 8, dealt with the matter thus. This is the Sunday Dispatch, and it had an article "My doubts about Rouse Conviction. By a Barrister-at-Law." I am told, my Lords—I cannot vouch for it further than it has been told me, and I believe credibly—that this barrister-at-law was a member of the Irish Bar and that a very few days after writing this he died. I regret it, but I cannot for that reason refrain from reading to your Lordships what he published. He published this:
"I set out some of the points on which it appears to me that the case for the prosecution was notably inconclusive:"
It may be said: "Oh, but this is an advocacy of Rouse." But that is not

941
my point. My point is that they have no right to interfere, to criticise the prospects or the rights of an appeal from either side, neither for the prosecution nor for the defence. It is as bad to interfere with the course of justice if you do it on behalf of one party as if you do it on behalf of the other party. In criminal cases the party on one side is the Crown, which means all the people of England, and surely to interfere on the side of anybody, not to allow justice to take its course but to try to divert it against the Crown, is as bad as to try to divert it in favour of the Crown—although, of course, to many it may appear more generous to divert it against the Crown. This article goes on:
"Rouse entered the box to tell his own story heavily handicapped as a self-confessed liar. Let us not forget the shepherd in the fable who cried 'wolf' so often and so falsely that when at last he told the truth he was not believed."
It goes on with many comments. I want to make what I have to say as short as I can, so I will not read it all; but the writer says this:
"There this mysterious and inexplicable Rouse case stands for the present. The Court of Criminal Appeal will review the decision, but to the ordinary lawyer, or perhaps to the ordinary layman, its importance depends on the considerations I have outlined. It is not enough to say that Rouse probably committed the murder. The real issue is: Was there conclusive evidence, amounting to virtual proof, that he did so?"
The next instance to which I must draw your Lordships' attention occurred on the same day, Sunday, February 8. This article appeared in the News of the World on that day. It says:
"Sentenced to death a week ago … he has appealed on grounds not yet disclosed."
Then it goes on to say—and this is a matter which I believe Rouse to the very end denied that he did—it was one of his chief points:
"Meanwhile, there are some people who profess to believe that Rouse did not commit the murder. Those who were in Court throughout the trial are convinced of his guilt. Like other murderers who have ended their lives on the scaffold, Rouse inches one or two mistakes. After striking his victim with the mallet"—
a thing which he denied even in the Court of Appeal—
"he dropped the implement in order to throw the unfortunate man's body into the car—and forgot it."
942
Then there comes this under the headings, "The Ruthless Lover—Town to Town Trail of Unhappy Women—Rouse recalls a Tattoo on His Victim":
"During the trial Mr. Justice Talbot referred to Rouse as a most facile liar. He is more than facile—he is a cool, crafty, calculating liar, as is proved by his own story of his hectic life of the last ten years."
Then it goes into the cases of some of the wretched women. I think I need read no more of that article.
It is hardly necessary to argue, I should think, that what I have read from these three newspapers was a contempt of court of the most dangerous character, and when he dealt with the appeal of Rouse the Lord Chief Justice, after he had given judgment, made some remarks which are thus reported in The Times of February 24, the next day:
"Later in the day the Lord Chief Justice said that, with reference to the Rouse case, there had been, pending the appeal to that Court, a great deal of improper comment in certain newspapers, and in letters to the members of the Court, including one from a person describing himself as a Member of Parliament. They would have to consider"—
I ask the newspapers to notice this—
"whether proceedings of that kind pending an appeal did not constitute a contempt of Court."
From what I have read to your Lordships already, I think you will come to the conclusion that the Courts will not have very much difficulty in deciding that question when it comes before them.
I put clown this Notice of Motion and, of course, it appeared publicly, and today I received a letter which ends with this paragraph:
"This is an open letter and I have no objection to your stating what are my personal views."
It is written by a member of this House, Lord Rothermere. I have not the pleasure and advantage of Lord Rothermere's acquaintance. I do not think I know him by sight. I have not at all events had the good fortune ever to hear him speak in your Lordships' House, but he wrote me this letter. I shall read three paragraphs from it. I shall not read the others for this reason, that although they deal with matters cognate to what I am now laying before your Lordships, they are not really relevant to the matter now before you, and

943
although they contain some valuable observations I do not think, as they are not to the point in this matter, I ought to read them, especially as they mention a member of this House who is not present. The paragraphs I will read are as follows:
"I am very interested in the subject of debate that your are initiating to-clay, and I wish that my business engagements permitted me to attend. I gather that you are to raise among other questions the increasing tendency of certain newspapers to publish, especially in respect of murder cases, the life story of convicted persons, notwithstanding that an appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal may be pending. Speaking for myself, and I am sure my personal view will be shared by the proprietors of all reputable newspapers, I would welcome an authoritative ruling that matter to the detriment of a convicted person should not be published until the time for lodging an appeal has elapsed."
Your Lordships will see that that goes beyond anything which I have suggested or which I have yet known to be suggested—
"I would welcome an authoritative ruling that matter to the detriment of a convicted person should not be published until the time for lodging an appeal has elapsed, or if an appeal is lodged, not until the appeal has been heard."
That is most valuable to my mind in support of what I have been laying before your Lordships. It is most valuable confirmation that there is nothing to the detriment of reputable newspapers in omitting from publication the kind of thing that I have been laying before your Lordships. There we have the authority of a man with, undoubtedly, great influence in the Press, the owner of several newspapers. There is his opinion, that the law needs strengthening in that direction.
I am sorry to have detained your Lordships so long, but I really think that the noble Earl who brings forward the next Motion will not be altogether ungrateful to me. The other branch of the Motion that I have upon the Paper deals with proceedings before justices. Your Lordships know that if a case of any real notoriety comes into court before the magistrates the newspapers publish the evidence given, in some cases verbatim. They did so day after day in the Rouse case. Of course some things often are given in evidence before the magistrates which on the trial, after objection taken by skilled advocates, are excluded from
944
the knowledge of the jury. That cannot be helped. There is nothing more difficult to my mind than to decide what is and what is not evidence. There are some things so very near the line that the Judges themselves have been known to differ as to whether the matter was evidence or not. It is peculiarly so in the case of motive. It is not necessary to prove motive for any crime, but it is very usual to try to do it, and to prove what may influence a particular human being is a difficult thing, of course. Yet it is often done.
The newspapers, as I have said, published the evidence here in full. They published some things which were not given in evidence at the Assizes. I should like it to be known, as many people are mistaken as to that, that they were not offered in evidence by the Counsel for the Crown. There was no ruling of the Judge that the things were not evidence, because, in their own discretion, the Counsel appearing for the prosecution did not offer them in evidence. That is not to say that they were not evidence. I have read them and I think many of them, if they had been offered in evidence, would have been admitted and could not have been rightly excluded, but Counsel for the Crown do not take every advantage that Counsel appearing for a client in a civil case take and are entitled to take. It is historic at the Bar that the Counsel for the Crown do not press the case against His Majesty's subjects as the same Counsel would press the case where one subject is making a civil claim against another.
In this case Sir Patrick Hastings appeared for the prisoner on the appeal. Sir Patrick Hastings, whose name is well known to all of us and is very well known on the Bench opposite, because time was when he was one of the Law Officers of the Party which is now in power, said this, which appears in The Times of the 24th February:
"Fortunately, or unfortunately, we now live in a world in which the assistance of a Press is always afforded to make certain that all the more unsavoury elements in a man's life, if disclosed, shall be given the most complete publicity in spite of objection."
That refers, of course, to the reports of what was given in evidence before the magistrates. People have suggested various remedies for this. What I want to make known, as widely as it can be

945
known, is that there is a perfectly legal and a very simple remedy. It was mentioned in regard to this particular case in the Justice of the Peace, a legal newspaper, on February 28 in these words:
"In the Rouse case we have had one more striking illustration that publicity, the great safeguard of justice, can turn into an instrument damaging to justice. The remedy is obvious: the exclusion of the public (including Press reporters) from preliminary investigations into sensational crimes. This is merely an alteration in practice. It requires no new legislation, for it is already law."
That may startle a good many people, but I believe it to be absolutely good law. An article appeared in that same paper on a later date, March 28, written by Mr. Mead, one of the Police Magistrates of the Metropolis, a man of the longest experience. I will not trouble your Lordships with the article, but he gave authority for all that he said; he argued the point and he cited cases. If anybody has an appetite for cases, the case which goes to the root of it all is Boulter's case decided in this House. He concludes his article with these words:
"It is suggested therefore that, in prosecutions of importance, application might be made to the justices that the proceedings should be private."
As I have said, I think there is ample authority for what the Justice of the Peace wrote and for what Mr. Mead wrote in the article he published. The result, I apprehend, of what has been done in this Rouse case and of the licence which replaced liberty in so many of the newspapers will very likely be that in the next case of any great notoriety and importance, where someone is accused of a crime and feels that the widest publicity may be given to it, that sort of publicity of which Sir Patrick Hastings bitterly complained, the defendant will apply that the matter be heard in camera. I believe that the magistrates have the power to grant that and it may well be—and it will be decided then—that the magistrates, where an indictable offence is in question and where they are not a court of summary jurisdiction, will exercise their power to order all the people not concerned in the case out of court and that those people will include the reporters for the Press.
There is one other matter alluded to in the Notice I gave; it is the confessions. After this man was convicted, some of these newspapers published what pur-
946
ported to be confessions of his guilt have several, but I think the worst of them all is what professes to be a facsimile—exclusive to the News of the World—of a letter written by Mrs. Rouse, wife of this condemned man. I shall not read it to your Lordships, but it contains this passage:—
"But I knew I was fighting a lost cause"—
Your Lordships will remember the passage in one of the papers about a forlorn hope—
"for before he went to the Court of Criminal Appeal, he had told me that the jury's verdict was the correct one, and he was guilty. My own opinion is"—
I will give him the benefit of this—
"that he was not in his right mind on November 5th."
Your Lordships know that never was laid before the jury. He was not defended on the ground that he was not in his right mind. That is what his wife, says after he was convicted. Of course, the woman did not do that for nothing. It is not to be supposed that this woman, having maintained that he was innocent up to the Court of Appeal, suddenly sat down and wrote this letter all out of her own head and gave it gratuitously to the News of the World. That is not to be supposed for a moment. Everybody who reads that must come to the conclusion, as the Week End Review wrote, that these things are done for money, done to make money, done for the profit that they bring to the newspaper. No one can suppose that that woman did not get money for handing to the News of the World letters so valuable as that letter of hers stating that her husband confessed.
Only a few words more. I have laid before your Lordships what I think are good grounds for its being considered by the newspapers themselves as well as by the public whether there is not some means of putting a stop to what is a public scandal, injurious to the fair unbiased administration of justice. This is no new doctrine—the doctrine of contempt of court. Early in the fifteenth century there came before the Chief Justice in Westminster Hall, in a court within the sound of our own voices at this moment, a case of contempt of court by a member of your Lordships' House. The Judge was Chief Justice Gascoigne; the member of this House was Henry of Monmouth. Henry of Monmouth is

947
there, above your heads, my Lords, to show what has been thought of the conduct of that Chief Justice—there above the Throne is depicted the scene as it happened on that day!
Your Lordships, I hope, will pardon me if I read to you what was said of this incident by Sir Thomas Elyot in "The Boke called The Governour." He gives an account of what occurred upon that day—how the Prince of Wales came and interfered on the part of a servant of his who was to be tried in the King's Bench, and was guilty of the offence of trying to pervert justice by wresting him from the hands of justice. Chief Justice Gascoigne said this to the Prince of Wales:
"Sir, remember yourself. I keep here the place of the King, your sovereign Lord and father; to whom ye owe double obedience. Wherefore, eftsones, in his name I charge you desist of your wilfulness and unlawful interprise, and from henceforth give good example to those which hereafter shall be your proper subjects. And now, for your contempt and disobedience, go you to the prison of the King's Bench whereunto I commit you; and remain ye there prisoner until the pleasure of the King your father be further known."
And Sir Thomas Elyot adds:
"Whereat, being greatly abashed, the noble Prince laid aside his arms, and, doing reverence, departed and went to the King's Bench as he was commanded."
Now, on the next occasion when someone is brought before the Court of King's Bench for doing that which is calculated to pervert the course of justice, those words may well be used by the present Chief Justice to that hypothetical offender. He has already said that other means may have to be taken, and if there are these repeated contempts of court by newspapers of which we have lately witnessed so many, it may well be that the appropriate words for the Lord Chief Justice to address will be those very words used by Chief Justice Gascoigne, applying them, of course, to the offender before him, and that the punishment will be that which the Prince of Wales was ordered to undergo. We know the result: he gave up his evil courses, he gave up that wilfulness which Chief Justice Gascoigne condemned, and he lived to win the Battle of Agincourt. And I trust that those editors and correspondents may make use of what is left to them of life as well as he did, once he had been punished for his offence.
THE LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH: My Lords, I desire to follow up what the noble and learned Lord has said but with rather a larger background. He has touched generally upon the whole theory and practice of justice and punishment, but I do not think that is altogether a technical subject that only concerns the lawyers. I believe that in its implications it has a great deal to do with the general well being of the community. Punishment is an extremely difficult subject. Casual observers think it is easy, but the more one thinks of it—and I have thought over and over again about the meaning of punishment—the more difficult it becomes to correlate the various elements which are involved in the whole problem. Some of them do not arise in the matter raised in the Question of the noble and learned Lord. We are not to-day concerned with that aspect of punishment which seems to be winning almost exclusive attention. To-day attention is chiefly concentrated upon the reformation of the offender. Anyone who looks at the progress made in our prison reforms in recent years or considers the First Offenders Act and things of that kind, will be aware of the great advance that has been made over the whole field. But that does not arise. Nor do I suppose that we have much to say to-day upon the question of redress—a very important item of punishment. That has only a merely philosophic bearing on the subject which the noble and learned Lord has brought before us to-day.
But he has spoken of the majesty of the law, and I think that what the noble and learned Lord has said upon that subject might be carried further: for I, for one, consider that the majesty of the law would be far better maintained if, after the final sentence has been pronounced upon the murderer, no more at all was heard of him, nor of his doings. I had the great advantage at one time of some discussion and correspondence with a late eminent member of your Lordships' House, the late Viscount Haldane, who was almost as much of a philosopher as he was of a lawyer; and in our talk together that was a point in the legal transactions that appealed to him very much—the majesty of the law. And any of your Lordships who are acquainted with the great Greek

949
tragedies will remember that this is no discovery of our own time, but has led to some of the finest literature in the whole world.
In this matter of punishment it is necessary to think of the warning aspect of punishment. Now, if the convicted murderer is to be a kind of hero, and if he is to be dealt with in newspapers in the foolish and vapid and sentimental manner that we see, then one cannot but fear that the element of warning that ought to be found in any adequate scheme of punishment will be entirely lost. Punishment has also to protect the community, and anything that leads to the convicted murderer winning what one might call almost improper sympathy takes from his punishment the warning effect it ought to have. We are taught that we ought to love our enemies; but that certainly does not mean that we are to make much of those who are the enemies of the community and are guilty of hideous crimes against the community in the persons of their victims. Punishment in a case of this kind is a duty laid upon society as a whole for its own protection and the protection of those who will be exposed to outrage if the guilty are left unchecked. Those things which the noble and learned Lord has brought before us and the other things that I have mentioned prevent punishment from carrying out its proper function of being a warning for the protection of society. So far as I can judge, there is not the least fear that we shall fall into the opposite mistake of being vindictive if we refuse to have anything to do with a melodramatic sentimentality; for if there is a sentimentality with reference to a convicted murderer, there is on the other hand a vindictiveness which is quite alien from the proper carrying out of the processes of the law. But we certainly shall not be thought to be vindictive if we put the convicted murderer in his proper place, and, apart from all undue feeling, carry out the sentence upon him without adopting a sentimental and feeble attitude towards him.
Twenty years ago for the first time it fell to my lot to confirm a man who had been convicted of murder. Since that time I have had to confirm another in the same position. But I cannot for a moment see that respect for the personal
950
repentance of a convicted man in any way justifies us in making little of his crime and weakening the effect of his proper punishment upon others and in the protection of the community. Personally, I should like to think when the man has been finally sentenced and all the appeals are over, that it became impossible for the Press to pay any further attention to him, that he was carried off into oblivion and that no one had an opportunity of reading or hearing such dreadful things as those that the noble and learned Lord has put before us. We are indebted to him for bringing the matter forward, and I believe we should be wise to take a large and comprehensive view and go further than merely dwell upon the matters which necessarily constituted the main portions of his speech.
LORD DULVERTON: My Lords, I rise with a feeling of very considerable diffidence but with the full reliance that I shall receive that indulgence which your Lordships' House invariably extends to one who ventures to address it for the first time. I rise because the subject which was dealt with by the noble and learned Lord is one upon which I have felt strongly for a very long time. Although the particular feature of the case I have in mind is closely allied to that which he has presented, it may not be quite the same; at the same time, I feel that the matter is sufficiently near to it for me to bring it before your Lordships for consideration. In point of fact, some twelve months ago I drafted a Motion but I had no opportunity of speaking to it in your Lordships' House.
In the course of his remarks, the noble and learned Lord drew attention to certain features of Press publicity. Under two of our most cherished institutions—namely, trial by jury in open Court and the liberty of the Press—it follows that those matters which have become public in the Courts are left to the discretion of newspaper editors and proprietors as to how much they will publish or to what particular points they will make special reference by means of block headlines. I think your Lordships will all agree that, as far as the great journals of this country are concerned, that discretion rests in wise and reliable hands. That there are exceptions, I

951
shall venture to point out later on. It would seem at the present time that this particular feature must be left to the discretion of the Press and to public opinion. Rut after a trial is finished, after the evidence has been heard, after judgment has been given and sentence passed, then public opinion, which may legitimately and rightly have followed every detail of the evidence upon which the finding has been reached, should be satisfied.
But there are, as your Lordships have had innumerable opportunities of observing, a number of instances where certain sections of the Press take a diametrically opposite view, and too often, under the most lurid headlines, too much additional information is forthcoming. I have here a number of cuttings taken from the Press over a period of some months. Were I to make any considerable quotation from them I should only be adding to something that I deplore. After all, the noble and learned Lord who spoke first has dealt very considerably with that aspect of the case. To take only one of them in the case with which the noble and learned Lord was mainly dealing, and to quote from memory, allusions were made to the fact that this particular condemned man had not enjoyed his breakfast, had not taken the same amount of pleasure in his game of draughts with his warders as he had done earlier in the time of his incarceration, going on even to the gruesome detail that when he was dressing himself in clothes which were intimately described, it was pointed out to him that he need not on that occasion put on a collar and tie. I venture to submit that there is something shocking to the susceptibilities in thus following a condemned criminal with the prying eyes of a Peeping Tom into the silence, the gloom and what surely ought to be the privacy and solemnity of the condemned cell. I submit that nothing that is useful to the public comes of it that it can only add to the morbidity of minds that are already morbid, and that if it were possible to take steps which would in some way bring pressure to bear on such organs of the Press a good step would have been taken.
This brings me to my main purpose, and at the same time to my conclusion.
952
As has been said in another place, either these, I shall call them lurid, stories which are printed in certain sections of the Press are true, or they are pure fiction. If they are pure fiction, then I respectfully suggest it would be appropriate to take some steps to curtail the inventive powers of newspaper writers. If, on the other hand, they are founded upon fact, then it would appear that the only reliable sources of information are those servants of the State who are officials in His Majesty's prisons. And if that be so, if the Home Secretary does not already possess adequate powers to deal with the situation, I think your Lordships will agree with me that those powers ought to be conferred upon him. I conclude as I began by venturing to suggest that no useful public purpose is served, that it only adds to the morbidity and hysteria of people who indulge in reading these things, and, finally, that even a condemned criminal is entitled to some consideration and to some privacy when he is standing on the very threshold of eternity.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the noble Lord has raised two important questions: firstly, as to newspaper comments made while the appeal of a convicted man is pending, and secondly, as to confessions alleged to have been made by a convicted man in prison. I should like to thank him for bringing this matter forward. In my view this House is indebted to him for the trouble he has taken in the matter, and for rendering a public service in calling attention to a growing evil. I cannot claim as long a judicial career as the noble Lord, but after seventeen years experience on the Bench, I find myself in complete agreement with nearly all he said, but I also find it very difficult to express my views in judicial language. I have made very careful inquiries into this matter in order that there should be no mistake as to the facts under discussion, and I now turn to the first question, as to newspaper comments when an appeal is pending.
Rouse was convicted upon January 31 last, and he had ten days in which to apply for leave to appeal. On February 6 he gave notice of his application for leave to appeal; on February 23 his appeal was heard and dismissed, and upon March 10 he was

953
executed. Now Rouse being convicted, as I have already stated, upon January 31—a Saturday—on Monday, February 2, articles appeared in all the papers mainly of a temperate character, and generally expressing the view that the evidence might have been stronger. The Daily Express, however, proclaimed that the verdict was undoubtedly right, and professed to give facts which, they said, had not been presented to the public because of legal difficulties and the law of evidence. On the other hand, the Daily Worker of the same date protested that a man was being sent to the gallows on extremely flimsy and circumstantial evidence, that nothing had been proved, and that without the brilliance of the prosecuting Counsel the whole case would have fallen to pieces.
Again confining myself to judicial language, in my view both those articles were regrettable and unfortunate. These comments and the comments of other newspapers were considered, but in view of the decision of the High Court in the case of The King against the Editor and the publisher of the People, ex parte Hobbs, it was thought unlikely that the Court would hold that they constituted a contempt of court. The particular passage upon which that was founded was an interlocutory observation of the learned Lord Chief Justice in a similar case, where he asked:
"Is it suggested that the Court of Criminal Appeal will give less than a fair trial because of articles in a newspaper which it had not read?"
After the dismissal of Rouse's appeal on February 23, the Lord Chief Justice made some remarks which in The Times of next day read as follows:
"Later in the day the Lord Chief Justice said that, with reference to the Rouse case there had been, pending the appeal to that Court, a great deal of improper comment in certain newspapers and in letters to the members of the Court, including one from a person describing himself as a Member of Parliament. They would have to consider whether proceedings of that kind pending an appeal did not constitute a contempt of court."
Now, my Lords, you will rightly appreciate that it is not for me here to lay down or to formulate a code of contempt of court. In my view it is not desirable, nor is it possible, to lay down any hard and fast rule upon the matter, or to introduce legislation defining what
954
is and what is not contempt of court. Each case must depend on its own facts and its own circumstances and of those facts and those circumstances the Court is the best judge. Nor is it necessary to strengthen the hands or increase the powers of the Judges. Not only are they entitled to impose a fine, but, as was pointed out by the Lord Chief Justice in a recent case, they have the power to commit an offender to prison—a power which is not seldom exercised and one which the Courts can be relied upon to exercise in a proper case. No one desires to limit the legitimate powers of the Press. I doubt if it is possible to say that a newspaper can make no comment at all till the time for appeal has expired, but it is a consummation devoutly to be wished, and I welcome the views of Lord Rothermere read by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Darling. The position may be somewhat different when an appeal has been entered, but whatever comment is made and whenever comment is made, it must be reasonable and temperate in its terms and not such as to prejudice the accused's chances of appeal.
I think it is due to the Press of this country to say that in the majority of cases their powers are well and wisely used. Publicity may lead to the prevention of crime as well as to its detection, and it serves a useful national service. One recognises that in many cases the work of reporting is carried on under great pressure of time and circumstances, and due allowance is always made for an unintentional as distinguished from a deliberate offence. No question of principle is at stake. But there are many principles, and there is always a law of diminishing return in the application of principles. The further they are extended the less useful and expedient they are apt to be found. There is always a competition amongst principles and that which is most applicable at any given point has to give way further on to another principle which at that point is of greater utility and effect, and the most vital and the most important of all principles is that a person on trial or already convicted shall not be prejudiced either in his defence or in his subsequent appeal by newspaper comments. It does not lie in the mouth of an offender to say that no jury and no Court could have been influenced by the

955
publication of the article complained of. The gist of the offence is the publication of the article. I can give this assurance to my noble and learned friend—and I give it gladly—that in the event of such articles appearing on a future occasion they will be brought before the Court so that the Court may have an opportunity of considering whether contempt has been committed or not.
I now turn to the second part—alleged confessions made by parties in prison. On March 16 Mr. Gardner asked the Home Secretary in the House of Commons whether he would make inquiries as to the circumstances in which what purported to be the confession of Arthur Rouse reached the Press. The Secretary of State replied:
"I have made searching inquiry. I am satisfied that no confession was passed out by any official, and I think it very unlikely that any such document was sent out or passed out in any other way."
Now as to confessions themselves. There is no way at present of preventing publications of this kind by newspapers. It is only possible for the Home Secretary to state quite definitely in the House of Commons, as he did on this occasion, that no such confession was passed out by an official. The Home Office in these cases does not publicly state whether a person did or did not confess before his execution. For many years the Home Office rule has been not to publish confessions, or even the fact that a confession has been made, but in some exceptional cases where strong public interest has been aroused the Secretary of State has caused a notification of the fact, but not the details, of a statement or confession.
Some of the reasons for the Home Office practice may be stated. They are all derived from experience in particular cases. Firstly, the confession may not be in writing. It may be made to the Governor verbally some twenty minutes before the execution took place. If the prisoner has seen relatives on the evening before and has solemnly asserted his innocence, a controversy would certainly arise in those circumstances as to whether he ever confessed at all. Again, the confession may be made to the Chaplain, and although the Chaplain might communicate the fact in confidence he might stipulate that the fact that he has done so should not be made public, or he might keep the
956
confession locked in his own breast. Roman Catholic chaplains and some other chaplains would on no account divulge a confession made to them. The confession, especially if made verbally, may be of a somewhat ambiguous character. One person might regard it as a confession of guilt: another might not. In such a case it might be impossible to say definitely whether the man had confessed or not.
Publication of the details of a confession is clearly out of the question. These confessions, even if written, are very often only part of the truth, and often may be in parts quite untrue. The prisoner may incriminate or possibly libel living persons, and it would be grossly unfair to publish to the world statements of that kind made by a man shortly before his death and likely to gain more credence from that fact. Finally, perhaps the strongest argument against publishing even the fact of a confession is that in cases where a prisoner has been convicted on circumstantial evidence, there is often nothing in the nature of a confession, and in those cases the public would be apt to conclude that the fact that a person had not confessed was an additional reason for thinking that he had been wrongfully convicted or convicted upon insufficient evidence.
I note with interest the remark made by the noble and learned Lord as to restricting publication in the case of charge's of the commission of indictable offences. It might be wise to prevent the publication of evidence which had been objected to in the court before the magistrate. There are no Papers to lay. May I say, finally, that I would like to add that in my opinion a great evil at the present time is the marketing of sensational and often imaginary stories in connection with current criminal cases. It is not in the interest of justice or public morality that the sordid details of a criminal career should be spread abroad. Nowadays newspapers are read by young and old alike, and I would venture to appeal to the editors and proprietors of our great English newspapers, and to ask them whether it is not desirable to discontinue the publication of such articles.
LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, we have a Royal Commission fixed for this time. I suggest, therefore, that the House do

957
adjourn during pleasure, and after the Royal Commission we can transact the rest of our business.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Does the noble and learned Lord press his Motion for Papers?
LORD DARLING: No, my Lords, I am amply satisfied with what the Lord Chancellor has said.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

ROYAL COMMISSION.
The following Bills received the Royal Ascent:—

Army and Air Force (Annual),

Yarmouth Naval Hospital,

Public Works Facilities Scheme (Inverness Harbour) Confirmation,

London Midland and Scottish Railway Order Confirmation,

London Assurance,

Birmingham Canal Navigation,

Gillingham Corporation,

Carnegie Hero Fund Trust.

House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

INDIA.
EARL PEEL EARL PEEL had the following Notice on the Paper:
To ask His Majesty's Government—

1. Whether it is still the intention of His Majesty's Government to hold another session of the Federal Structure Committee in this country; if so, will the Indian representation be the same or will new members be added? Will the Committee work on the same reference, or will its range be restricted to proposals placed before it by the Government?

2. Whether the Princes who are not members of the Conference, have accepted a federal scheme of government, and if so, upon what terms?

3. Whether they can make a statement to allay the anxiety felt in this country and in India at the serious increase of ill-feeling between the Hindus and Moslems?

958

4. Whether they are satisfied that under the terms of an arrangement recently concluded the boycott of British goods has ceased and that the situation in Gujerat and other places is improving?

5. To call attention to the unrest in Burma.

And to move for Papers.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, it has been suggested to me that I might have postponed the discussion of these Questions until next week when the ex-Viceroy of India, Lord Irwin, might have returned to this country. It would be rather hard to expect that a Viceroy so recently returned should at once, without rest, give an explanation to your Lordships of his administration, and, indeed, the subjects on which I wish information are rather the present and the future, and on those subjects it is His Majesty's Government alone that can answer and can take responsibility. We have had, of course, during the last two or three months much information of a varied character, much of it admirable information, in the newspapers, but nobody knows better than I how difficult it is to gain from the information you get in that way from dry to day the general picture of the situation in that vast country, which is so essential in order to form any true opinion upon it, and it is for that reason that I am addressing these Questions to His Majesty's Government.
It is now over three months since the Conference was brought to a termination, and therefore I have no doubt that His Majesty's Government will not be at all surprised if I ask them several questions as to what has happened in the meantime. What progress, for instance, has been made in India with those discussions which must have been going on with members of the Conference or members of the Federal Structure Committee? And, after that long period of consideration of the provisional opinion and conclusions arrived at by that Conference, have the Government's opinions been more fixed and settled? Have they come to any decision and are they ready now, on some points at least, to formulate their own proposal? We have been told that the Government propose to carry on the work of the Conference, or at least the work of the Federal Structure

959
Committee, and at some date unknown to summon again that Committee to these shores in order to continue further some of the matters that were then so exhaustively discussed. I should like to ask under what circumstances and in what framework do the Government desire to carry on the work, not perhaps of the Conference but rather of the Federal Structure Committee. And do they intend to be satisfied, anyhow, with summoning again that Federal Structure Committee; or do they wish that to be only a preliminary or part of a general summoning of the whole Conference
I may probe the question a little further. What precise value do they expect to get from a renewal of the Conference? After all, how is it to be conducted? If you summon a few months afterwards the same set of people to discuss the same questions, the probability is that you will get the same answers and the same speeches. Can we assume that the Government intend to put specific questions and specific problems before that Committee and to invite discussion on those points I assume, of course, that they do not intend to re-open as it were the whole subject for general discussion. I assume, for instance, that the questions that we discussed for some four days of a Federal Constitution against a unitary one will not be again a subject of discussion.
There is a point here perhaps that the noble Lord opposite might clear up for me. There is to my mind some ambiguity about it. I was looking at the report of the conversations between the Governor-General of India and Mr. Gandhi, and I see there he says:
"As regards constitutional questions the scope of future discussion is stated, with the assent of His Majesty's Government, to be with the object of considering further a scheme for the constitutional government of India at the Round-Table Conference."
Then it defines what subjects should be discussed, but I am not quite clear whether that applies both to discussions in India and also to discussions here if that Federal Structure Committee is to be reassembled. And I should be very much obliged, too, if we could know when that is likely to reassemble.
This question of the scope and reference of a re-summoned Committee is of very great importance. First of all we are told, I think, that the Committee is
960
not only to consist of the old members but that other members are to be added. I understand—and I am only quoting what I see in the newspapers—that Mr. Gandhi is to come over as the sole representative of the Party known as the Congress. I ask incidentally whether it is a wise or prudent thing merely to ask one man to come over, however eminent he may be, in order to represent the views of Congress, whose views, judged by the discussions at Karachi or Lahore, are certainly not uniform or homogeneous. It is a very difficult thing, surely, for one man to conduct a discussion on so many subjects. If you have more representatives they are able to consult, to alter, to modify, to compromise according to circumstances; whereas one single representative may obviously find himself too much tied.
Now, how far is Mr. Gandhi tied? That is one of the subjects which, I think, is worth putting before your Lordships. I wish to quote the instructions that were laid down at the Congress meeting at Karachi, because they are very significant:
"The Congress, having considered the provisional settlement between the Working Committee and the Government of India, endorses it, and desires to make clear that the Congress goal of Purna Swaraj (complete independence) remains intact. In the event of the way being otherwise open to the Congress being represented at any conference with representatives of the British Government, the delegation will work for this goal, and, in particular, to give the nation control over the Army, external affairs, finance, fiscal policy, and economic policy; to have a scrutiny by an impartial tribunal of the financial transactions of the British Government in India; to examine and assess the obligations undertaken by India or England; and the right of either party"—
and these are remarkable words—
"to end the partnership at will. Provided, however, that the Congress delegates will be free to accept such adjustments as may be demonstrably necessary in the interests of India."
These instructions, of course, are very remarkable, because they seem, anyhow, to sweep away at one stroke all those safeguards and reservations which were insisted upon at the Conference, and which were accepted by the present Government as being a necessary part of any settlement.
Indeed, they go much further than this, because they go right back to other

961
resolutions that were passed at a previous Conference—I think it was at Lahore—where, indeed, they claimed the right to re-examine all the basis on which all the debts that had been raised in India had been based, and, in fact, to establish that right or claim to independence at will which, as we know, has been pressed forward so much by the Congress Party. I do not know whether the words "such adjustment," which are the only modification in that statement, imply anything like substantial concessions, but, I rather doubt it. Here we have a question of first-class importance. Those safeguards which were laid down at the Conference were certainly, in my judgment, the minimum limit which could be accepted by this country, if we are to have a reasonable Constitution in India, and if this country is going to discharge its responsibilities. I should like to put this question very definitely to the Government. The safeguards have been mentioned, and have been agreed to, and have been stated by the Government to be part of any Constitution which could be at the present time granted to India, and I think the Under-Secretary might answer me that question most directly, and say if there has been any change or not in the position of the Government as regards the acceptance of those safeguards.
It would obviously be a mistake of the first magnitude if it is to be understood by those who are coming to the Conference that the provisional conclusions with regard to safeguards, and so on, which were reached at the late Conference, were merely to be taken as a sort of starting ground from which other representatives should go forward and whittle away and diminish them, and destroy their value. It is worth stating also that Mr. Gandhi himself has expressed some very remarkable opinions about the scope of the Conference. He is reported to have said that he was opposed to Dominion status on the Australian principle and that the acceptance of it would be outside the Congress mandate. He wanted no more Viceroys and he did not believe that any Army was necessary in India, or that British troops were necessary in communal disturbances. I stress for a moment that phrase "in communal disturbances." He also said that if the Army had to be re-
962
tained, it must be subject to control by the Indian Government. If the instructions of Mr. Gandhi as the sole or leading representative remain as they are, as expressed by Congress, and if his own views are properly represented by those statements, it becomes of the greatest possible importance to know, as I ask in my Question, what is the reference to the Committee and will its range be restricted to proposals placed before it by the Government?
We have had too many instances where great damage has resulted to us in our relations with India because we have been a little vague or wide, as it were, in the statement of exactly what we meant. It would be most unfortunate if these delegates were to come here with the intention of discussing the various forms of Swaraj, independence, and then were to be told that they could not do so. It would be of great advantage, I submit, if at the earliest possible moment the Government would state quite clearly what subjects are to be discussed at that, renewed Conference and what is to be the scope of the Conference. Indeed, it would be fair even to those able men who came forward to the last Conference if they were to know what the limits were to be.
It is common knowledge, I think, that insufficient preparation was made for the last Conference. The Government, I understand, were very much engaged with the Imperial Conference and could not give their minds until a late day to the work of this Conference. Anybody who was there will say that the Conference was at a disadvantage because certain work had not been done before it met. If that is so, let us avoid a second mistake of that kind and let us be quite certain that the work has been not only fully explored but definitely laid down before the Conference meets. Let us not raise again, as we have raised too often on these occasions, hopes that may not be fulfilled and that will end only in disappointment. I have heard it stated, but I hope anyhow that it is not true, that the tactics of the Congress Party is merely to send Mr. Gandhi over here as their representative with certain definite ultimatums, and if those are not accepted he must break up the Conference and retire. I do not know, and I hope that there is no truth in that

963
statement. Anyhow, it emphasises the necessity at an early stage of strictly and closely defining what is to be the scope of the reference of that Conference.
The next point on which I wish to submit a Question is, I think, a less controversial one; that is, with regard to the question of the Princes, and what has been the result of the discussions that we know have been going on between the Princes, among those who came to the Conference and those others who did not come to the Conference. Your Lordships will easily see the immense importance of this point. The difference, if I may remind you of it, between the Report of the Simon Commission and the attitude of the Conference was that, though the main proposals of the Statutory Commission of course all tended in the direction of federal government, they only contemplated the gradual adherence of the Princes to that system and did not regard it as practical politics at the moment to set up at once a federal structure. The change of the Conference was that with the statements of the Princes that particular idea of a federal system for India became less an idea and took on a more objective reality. We were uncertain in the Conference as to the percentage of the Princes that were prepared on certain terms to enter into that federal structure. Indeed, it is of great importance, because the percentage of Princes ready to enter that structure, as it were, must even affect the views of those who have already agreed to do so. It was obviously extremely difficult to construct a Federal Chamber and Government, giving due proportions to the weight that the Princes and their States would occupy in this Constitution, if the number of those who were ready to enter was insufficient and if it was uncertain what the proportions would be.
I know that a great many discussions have gone on, and it would be extremely interesting and, I think, of value on this point to know what views have been expressed by the Princes. I am not going to ask the views of the Princes who were at the Conference because we know them very well. But a large number of Princes were not represented at the Conference, many of them ruling States of great importance. Have they
964
come into the agreement? What have they said, and what has been the result of the discussions which they have had? Further, I should like to know if any very important changes have been made in the views of those Princes who were at the Conference as to the main subjects, such as the proportions in which they should be represented in the Federal Assembly and Senate.
May I add this last word on the subject because it bears on my previous Question? That is that the question as to whether or not subjects like independence or Dominion status at the present moment can be discussed at the Conference is of great importance as regards the presence of the Princes there. We know that the most definite attitude taken up by the Princes has always been that they would not come into any structure of that kind that postulated any sort of separation from this country. It is not necessary I think to quote any statements, but a very important pronouncement was made in the recent Session of the Chamber of Princes by the Maharajah of Patiala, who stated that
"should any attempt be made to translate into action the wild talk of severance from the Empire connection then we ourselves would prove true diehards ready to sacrifice everything for the defence of the Imperial connection."
The importance, therefore, of those questions must be clear.
I pass to the next point, on which I desire to question His Majesty's Government; that is, as regards the position of the communal difficulties. Again, it is most relevant to the subject I am discussing. It is generally agreed, I think, that unless a reasonable basis of communal settlement is arrived at, it will not he possible to develop further the Indian Constitution. Or you might put it the other way, that a reasonable settlement between the great communities is a condition precedent to constitutional advance. Great efforts were made at the Conference to promote an agreement. The Prime Minister himself made great and continuous efforts to do so, but they failed, as we know. I am personally not so much disappointed at that failure, because I always felt that if an agreement of that kind was reached in this country the probability was it would be

965
overthrown when it was translated in India, and that an agreement of that kind must be a matter of long and careful negotiation, and cannot be concluded in the space of a few weeks. I should have asked, and I intended to ask, whether any further basis of agreement, or suggestions of heads of agreement, had been reached between those two great communities. I say I should have asked, but, unfortunately, events have happened during the last few weeks that have made it almost ironical for me to ask at this stage a question of that kind. We are told by men who know India well that, unfortunately, the feeling between those two great communities is worse than it has been for something like twenty or thirty years. All those who have recently come from India bear testimony, I regret to say, to the depth of that feeling, and to the widening chasm between the two great communities.
I am sure the Government are very alive to this danger, but I am going to ask them what steps they are taking in this very grave matter to try to bring about a better feeling, if possible, between the two great communities. It is of no use concealing the fact that this feeling has been terribly exacerbated by these unprecedented, brutal and horrible massacres that have taken place recently at Cawnpore. I am afraid they may have far-reaching results. I am well aware that an inquiry is going on. That inquiry is attempting to establish the responsibility of those who were either responsible for the outbreak or for quelling that outbreak. That inquiry, I am sorry to say, can have nothing to do with the terrible massacre that took place of the thousand or so persons killed in that riot, many of them under circumstances of unparalleled horror and cruelty, of riot and disturbance, to which there is no parallel in the history of India, I should think, for nearly a hundred years.
We were assured sometimes in the Conference that this matter of the feeling between the two great communities was one that could be easily assuaged, and that we were exaggerating that feeling. Unfortunately, a terrible event of that kind shows the tremendous age-long feeling of hatred prevailing between those communities. It has made abun-
966
dantly clear that safeguards for the great minorities in India must not be merely verbal safeguards, but that they must be, as it were, embedded in a new Constitution, and that it must be quite clear there is a full right and capacity for imposing those safeguards. Those minorities are not insisting merely on something fanciful or decorative but are asking for positive security of life and immunity from outrage.
We can say on our conscience in this country that everything has been done here to soften and allay that enmity, and I must be allowed, therefore, to comment on the conduct of one or two of those who in India have apparently done their best to exacerbate feeling. There is a statement by Mr. Gandhi himself—an incredible statement. He is reported by The Times to have said that he quite thought there would be some serious communal strike on the admission of Swaraj, which might possibly end in the exhaustion or destruction of one community or the other—one community being over 200,000,000 persons and the other something Like 70,000,000. These observations have been commented upon as being tactless. I confess I think that is rather a mild word to apply to such observations. I can only suppose that those observations on the part of Mr. Gandhi were sincere. Does not that enforce again the tremendous necessity, when you have one of the leading men, or perhaps the leading man, of that great community speaking in that way and in that language, of taking very great care that those safeguards are secured and enforced? But can you wonder that Mr. Shaukat Ali, the brother of Mahomet Ali one of the leaders of the great community of Moslems who came over to the Conference, retorted in kind to Mr. Gandhi, and that those unfortunate observations, far from being merely tactless, have done a great deal to exacerbate feeling?
In another matter, Mr. Gandhi has made some remarkable observations about the missionaries. He seems to think they may very well stay in India so long as they do not do that religious work for which they were sent there. I refrain from quoting the observations of anybody that can be considered in any degree irresponsible. I confine myself to the quotation from so leading a man as

967
Mr. Gandhi, in order to enforce again upon the Government the great necessity of maintaining these safeguards.
The next point—I have only two more—is the question of the keeping of the agreement that was made between the Viceroy and Mr. Gandhi as the principal negotiator on the question of disturbances and trade. I can ask the first question very rapidly. Can the Government tell us whether they are satisfied that all the non-co-operation, the non-payment of rent and disturbances of that kind have now largely ceased? I am bound to say it is not due altogether to some of the observations of the Congress leaders, because Mr. Vallabhai Patel, the President of the Congress, has gone about making the most inflammatory speeches on the subject. I pass by such observations as those made by Mr. Bose and others. Incidentally, I assume the Government are considering whether people are permitted to go about making those inflammatory speeches, and in some cases apparently, inciting to murder. One has heard of disturbances lately, and of the non-payment of taxes and so on. Perhaps on that question and on the general question the noble Lord will be good enough to enlighten us.
But there is a great subject, and that is the question of whether the agreement in regard to British trade in India is being fairly observed. There was a rather optimistic statement—Ministers are rather fond of making them—by Mr. Graham, President of the Board of Trade, a few weeks ago, in which he talked about the noticeable improvements in the Lancashire trade in India. He was, of course, fallen upon at once by those who were dealing with the Lancashire trade in India, the merchants and exporters, who at once told him there was unfortunately no ground whatever for the optimistic statement he had made. I am anxious to ask, because my information, I am sorry to say, is that this agreement is not being kept, and that the boycott of British goods—I do not know whether it is said to be on industrial grounds rather than political grounds—is going on as strongly and as vigorously as ever. I am not going to ask the Government whether they have got in the last two or three weeks the figures of imports or sales of British goods in Bombay and elsewhere.
968
These will be difficult to collect, but there must be and there is, as I know, a great deal of information to be gathered, both from merchants and from salesmen in Bombay, and also from merchants and salesmen in Lancashire. I hope the noble Lord will not repeat the sort of answer that was given in the House of Commons to the effect that there was no information. The information can be got, and I say most definitely that if the noble Lord is going to tell us—as I hope he will not, because I hope in his first speech he will be much more frank—that he has not got information, the reason is that the Government will not get the information. It is possible to get the information, and if I were asked to get it I would get it in a week. I suppose that the Government could get in a month, allowing for them being four times as slow as I am myself, the information which I could get in a week.
May I quote again, not from an irresponsible person, but from the President of the Bombay Congress Committee? Mr. Nariman had a word for foreign cloth dealers. He is reported to have said:
"Peace or war will make no difference as far as its sale is concerned, and it is better to warn these merchants before they place their orders that picketing is to be continued with such vigour as to make sales impossible."
Though it may not be possible for the Government to tell us the imports or sales for the last few weeks, I think they can tell us the position as regards picketing, because that is an obvious matter of observation—whether that picketing is still going on. I think they can give us this information—whether that boycott was definitely against British goods and not against foreign goods; because if you look at the figures you will see that Japanese goods were coming in freely, that the drop in Japanese goods could be measured by the drop in trade and that they had a great advantage over our goods. Not only that, but the mischief was further accentuated because the Japanese goods were the class of goods which specially competed with Indian goods, whereas the Lancashire goods did not specially compete with Indian goods but were complementary to Indian goods. That would show, of course, the extent to which it was directed against this country.
I hope that the noble Lord and the Government will pay great attention to this. I have, with others of your Lordships, some reason to know the great misery that is going on at the present moment in Lancashire—not entirely, of course, owing to this Indian boycott but largely accentuated by it, and which, coming on the top of the loss of trade in. Lancashire, is breaking the hearts of operatives and manufacturers, spinners and weavers, in that County. Their miseries, I am afraid, must react on the rest of this country. I am only doing my duty when I say that among many of these leading men there is a feeling that the Government is negligent, careless and indifferent as regards what-is going on, and that the answers to questions in the House of Commons—evasive answers as they so often are—have a very bad effect indeed upon feeling in Lancashire. They do not feel that their country and the Government of their country are sufficiently standing behind them in their difficulties.
I want to ask a question about another matter and that is about this company which I understand was organised to purchase at a very reduced price from dealers in Bombay British goods which were left on their hands and which they could not sell because of the boycott. The suggestion was that these goods should be sold at a, reduced price in other markets, and in that way the loss should not fall entirely upon these particular dealers. This was represented as being rather an advantage, such is the ingenuity of some minds, because there would be a vacancy among the stocks held by the dealers of Bombay which would be filled up by further British orders. Unfortunately it was made a condition that those who were going to accept this offer should pledge themselves not to buy any further goods from this country. The question I raise upon that is whether that is really a carrying out of the agreement. If it is a carrying out of the agreement, I cannot attach very much importance to the value of the agreement. But I submit that it is not, because the sale or purchase of British goods was to be left free without any form of restraint. Is a man entirely free if he is to get something for goods which otherwise would be a complete loss on condition only that he boycotts in the future all British goods?
I have very nearly come to the end of my questions and I hope on that point, especially of trade, the noble Lord will be very frank in dealing with them. The others I can express in a very few words. I want to ask what is the present position in Burma. Can the Government assure us that the disturbances have now been quelled and that normal conditions have been restored, that these organised bands have been either destroyed or captured or dispersed? And can they tell us whether these large-scale dacoities in Burma were connected with a political movement, or were they no more dangerous than robber bands without any great political significance?
There is one further question. We thought that there was one thing on which we had reached general agreement in the Conference and that was the separation of Burma. But the moment we did that we were overwhelmed with telegrams from all parts. Has that question been further examined and have the Government assured themselves as to the desire of Burma for separation? Has public opinion declared itself strongly or otherwise recently on that question and has there been a change in public opinion on that point? It was proposed, I think, at the Conference that a delegation of Burmese should come over to discuss the new Constitution for Burma. Have the Government come to any conclusion in their own mind which they are prepared to tell us as to the nature—not the details, but the nature and the outline—of that new Constitution?
These are the questions which I desire to address to His Majesty's Government, and I am going to urge—and this is my last word—that the Government should deal very frankly with them. I think there has been an uneasy feeling in the public mind that we have not heard all we ought to have heard from the Government on this subject. They have not taken us as much into their confidence as they ought to have done. Do not let us forget the intense interest that prevails throughout this country at the present time on Indian questions. When such great matters as the relations of this country and India are being discussed and are in the balance, I think the least democratic Minister might express himself freely upon the subject. This Government, when they were in

971
Opposition, were very bold and free with their statements that frankness and openness, whether in diplomacy or in dealing with this country, were so intensely desirable. I am sorry to say that as the months have gone by they have shown a tendency to conceal themselves, in a thicket of impenetrable reserve. I invite the noble Lord opposite to be a shining example of frankness, to break with the traditions of his Party, and to give us freely and frankly a full reply to the Questions which I have submitted to the Government.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, I addressed you recently at some length upon matters relating to India, and I propose to take but very few minutes on this occasion, more particularly as my noble friend, in opening the debate, has himself practically covered everything raised in his Questions. There are, however, certain points which I am myself anxious to emphasise, and on which, if possible, I desire to get some reply from the Government. The first, and to my mind the most important point, is that no one should be invited to come to another session of the Round-Table Conference with any possibility of misconception as to the points open to him to discuss, and which have already been dealt with at the Conference. I make that observation because I have followed with some care and some apprehension observations reported to have been made by Mr. Gandhi, and by those who work with him.
I pay attention in the main to the observations he has made. I do not intend to quote them, and it may be they are not accurate. Possibly, with their context, they are capable of some other explanation. The impression left very definitely upon my mind, and upon the minds of those who read these articles and reports, is that among those who are supporting Mr. Gandhi, and also in Mr. Gandhi's mind, there is an impression that when he comes to the Conference he will be able to abolish the safeguards and reservations, or some of them, which were accepted at the sittings of the Round-Table Conference. Speaking for myself, and the Party with which I am associated, I desire to say emphatically that the substance of those safeguards and reservations, as stated by me at the Com-
972
mittee, accepted thereafter by the Government, and pronounced for by the Prime Minister, are safeguards and reservations which must remain; they are part and parcel of the whole question which was discussed, they are part of the promise or of the expressions in favour of responsibility at the centre.
It is impossible to deal with the responsibility at the centre, in my opinion, without at the same time making safeguards and enumerating reservations. There ought to be no misconception. It is quite possible to agree to discuss the methods by which they are to be enforced. Those were not too definitely laid down during the discussions, and are open to suggestions as the result of further deliberations. I do not attach special importance to the language used, but I do attach great importance to the substance of the safeguards and reservations. I will use a word which admits of no ambiguity, which must be plain and emphatic to all who choose to listen or to read, and that is that the safeguards and reservations are "indispensable." May I remind your Lordships and the Government that that is the word used by the Lord Chancellor when, he took part in the recent debate in March, when this very question was raised, and I myself later in the debate referred to it and attributed the greatest importance to it?
There can be no room for doubt if nothing has happened since. I have no means of knowing whether anything has taken place which has in the slightest degree watered the effect of that language, used in the debate opened by the Duke of Marlborough. All Parties in this House and, more important, the Government, agreed in that view, and I trust we shall hold to that and that nothing will either remove those safeguards or whittle them away. In the so-called Irwin-Gandhi conversations there is a reference in paragraph 2 to the scheme for constitutional government of India. It says:
" Of the scheme there outlined, Federation is an essential part; so also are Indian responsibility and reservations or safeguards in the interests of India for such matters as, for instance, defence, external affairs, the position of minorities, the financial credit of India and discharge of obligations."

973
My view is that every one of the safeguards mentioned not only there but during the course of the discussions was in the interest of India. It may also be that they are in the interests of this country and Empire. We have responsibility and have to take care what may happen in India.
I pass from that, trusting that our own position, the position of the Party to which I belong, is made clear, and that I cannot be accused hereafter of having allowed an opportunity to pass which would have enabled me to remove misconceptions possibly in the minds of Mr. Gandhi and others in India, and that I have made it emphatically plain that I attach the greatest importance to the safeguards and reservations. I may say that I stand in this discussion exactly where I did when the Round Table Conference took place, and when the reservations were enumerated.
There is one other matter on which I would make one or two brief observations, that is with reference to the Hindu-Moslem situation. The noble Earl, Lord Peel, has referred to it. I also would like to know whether anything has taken place or whether any steps are now being taken, for the purpose of bringing the Hindu-Moslem controversy to a settlement. It is impossible not to agree with him that perhaps this present moment makes it extremely difficult. I cannot think that the Government can have a very easy conscience about Cawnpore. I do not know the details, but I have received letters and I have heard much of what has happened. I am conscious of the fact that there is a Riot Inquiry Commission proceeding and that, therefore, we may learn more as it takes place from day to day. No one can read what has happened at Cawnpore without feeling that it is a scandal that such things should happen for three days and nights, as I understand, under any Government. We shall have to learn—and I hope we shall have an opportunity of understanding exactly—what steps were taken. This was not a mere sporadic outburst of Hindu-Moslem hatred and dislike. Apparently, according to all one reads, the events had shown what was to take place. Then, according to some, for something like four days, according to
974
others for three days and nights, there was a murderous and bestial orgy of communal hatred proceeding there and apparently we, who pride ourselves, and properly pride ourselves, on being the custodians of law and order in that country, seemed to have been unable to quell it.
I cannot myself understand how it could proceed for so long. I shall not refer to the details. They are well known. Women, children, men, houses, everything was destroyed. Somewhere there must be a grave responsibility for these events. I hope that the Government will tell us, when they have ascertained the facts as the result of the inquiry, upon whom the blame must rest. I know it is suggested sometimes it is the police; I have even heard suggested the military did not take sufficient part. I do not know the facts—and one cannot arrive at them without Government assistance—but that is difficult to believe, because both the police and the military were there to help, and I cannot conceive that, if they had had the necessary instructions, they would have failed to take every step possible. I am not leaving out of account that there would be great difficulties. I know of them. I know you cannot prevent sporadic outbursts, but what you can prevent is wholesale murder and arson, with the destruction of women and children, which lasted, according to our information, for some three days and nights. I cannot but think that the minority community, the Moslems, will have some ground of complaint against us, if it be true that, as a Government, the Government failed to take the necessary steps. They are the minority and are entitled to our protection.
Again, what was the reason and the cause of this outburst at Cawnpore? As your Lordships may know, it arose from the fact that the Hindus had declared a hartal, a closing of shops in Cawnpore as a protest against the execution of Bhagat Singh, who had been tried and convicted of the murder of an official, Mr. Saunders, and the only reason hitherto given, and the only reason we have been able to ascertain, for the attack on the Moslems was that they refused to close their shops as a protest against the execution

975
of a murderer. I leave that subject, and I hope the Government may be able to give us some information and dispel some of the anxiety. I make no statement as to who is responsible, because I am not in a position to make it with any precision.
The last point I desire to call attention to is a matter to which again I attribute great importance. The condition of things in India, which has been proceeding for some time, undoubtedly gives cause for anxiety. No one can be satisfied, the Government least of all, either here or in India. Some of us who have been following events from day to day have felt great anxiety, particularly as to some of the recent events. That we have cause for that anxiety is shown by a statement made by one of the most distinguished civil servants in India, Sir Geoffrey de Montmorency, the Governor of the Punjab, who has made a speech in the last few days which seems to confirm what many of us have thought. He began by saying:
"Our toleration has only in the end bred licence."
A curious observation for a Governor of a Province !
I know Sir Geoffrey de Montmorency well. He occupied the important position of private, secretary to the Viceroy during four years of my term of office. He has passed his life in India as a civil servant and now occupies the position of Governor of one of the most important Provinces. He used language which makes me wonder what has happened and what is happening:
"Our toleration "—
that is the Government's—"
"has only in the end bred licence."
The Times correspondent says:—
".…the Governor cited a number of incidents to show that the response to this policy of tolerance "—
that is the agreement arrived at between Lord Irwin and Mr. Gandhi—
"and abstention from prosecutions had been ' a spate of incitement to violence and breaches of the agreement.' He expressed dismay at the events which had taken place in the Province since the last week of March; referred to speeches made in different towns inciting people to violence and calling on them to be ready to follow the example of Bhagat Singh; and quoted other
976
speeches abusing and attacking the police, urging people not to pay land revenue, and advising young men to give up the creed of non-violence and destroy the Government by killing Englishmen. The Governor mentioned a speech made at Dasuya, in the course of which the speaker prayed for the death of the English, and said it would give him 'great pleasure to cut them to pieces and throw them to the vultures.'
"The Governor said that these were but a few instances, and to his mind it seemed clear that it had now become impossible for the Government to allow a continuance of such things. The Government had every desire to maintain a peaceful atmosphere, and every step had been taken to give a fair chance for its creation and maintenance, but it could only be said that whatever efforts had been made had not been generally successful. 'The time has come,' the Governor said, 'for licence to be controlled.' "
I am reading from a speech reported in The Times of April 27. I doubt whether any of us can recall, within memory, having read so important a speech coming from the Governor of one of the most difficult Provinces in India. What I would ask is that the Government should in plain language give the Viceroy, Lord Willingdon, an assurance that, in every action he may take to carry out what Sir Geoffrey de Montmorency proposes—and I cannot believe that Sir Geoffrey made that speech without having had some discussion upon it with Lord Willingdon—the Viceroy will have every support and approval from His Majesty's Government, as I am quite sure he will have from the Parliamentary Parties, from Parliament, and from the country.
VISCOUNT BURNHAM: My Lords, at this hour I shall not detain your Lordships long, because I know that you wish to hear the noble Lord who speaks for the India Office in reply. I should like to say, however, in the first place with what satisfaction I have heard the clear and cogent declaration made by the noble Marquess who has just sat down as to his whole attitude and that of the Party for which he speaks, in regard to the necessity for safeguards in the future constitutional arrangements which we make for India. I shall be pardoned for saying that in that he is only repeating what was said by the Statutory Commission on this point. The Statutory Commission said:
"There must be in India a power which can step in and save the situation before it

977
is too late. There must be provided, as tar as may be, safeguards to ensure the maintenance of vital services. We have had abundant evidence of the feeling of apprehension with which possible changes in the system of government are viewed by many communities. India is a land of minorities. The spirit of toleration, which is only slowly making its way in Western Europe, has made little progress in India."
And then they conclude their paragraph with these words: —
"Abstract declarations are useless unless there exists the will and the means to make them effective."
That was the opinion of the Commission which went over India studying the problem, as it, appeared in its different facets in the Provinces.
I can also say that I heard with great sympathy what the noble Marquess had to say on the speech made by Sir Geoffrey de Montmorency, which we have all read. I feel sure that the noble Earl who has made the Motion this evening has done a great public service in once more drawing attention to the increased and increasing gravity of the Indian situation. I am one of those who believe that it will not be many months before all eyes are turned upon India. I wish I thought otherwise, but it may be that there is still a large part of our own people who are still in the trough of sentimentality from which we have chosen to regard the Indian problem for some little time past. Many people—and we can understand it—find it difficult to withdraw their eyes from our own home-bred troubles. In regard to India this is nothing new. Ninety years ago one of the most celebrated members of this House drew attention to it in a famous essay.
Well, now, what is in question is how far we are prepared to continue to do our duty to the peoples of India, and especially to what are called the minority communities. If we cannot and do not make up our minds as to what we mean to do, assuredly it will not be long before, out of the growing chaos, there will emerge calamity and catastrophe. The news to-day is menacing enough. I quote from a newspaper that certainly cannot be accused of want of sympathy with what is called the spirit of Irwinism, for it has all along effectively supported the late Viceroy of India in all that he has done and all that he has left undone; I mean The Times. In the course of a long tele-
978
gram, published in Monday's issue, its Simla Correspondent, after dwelling upon the fact that there has been less violence,
says:
"It is painfully evident that the immunity from clashes between police and Congress-wallas has been due primarily to the fact that the Government has been content to hold aloof and look on while the Congress followers were flouting the terms of the truce in the most blatant fashion.…In Bombay, for instance, pickets are still interfering with the purchase of Lancashire floods, not only to the extent of boycotting dealers, but even to the point of molesting individual purchasers in the bazaars.… Mr. Gandhi is at Bardoli, preaching much the same doctrines as he was a year ago, and setting an example to his lieutenants with the continued repetition of the warning that the peace is only temporary and that the tight may begin again at any moment even more fiercely. He is deliberately going behind one particular clause of the pact to which he himself assented—namely, recognition of the fact that confiscated lands sold to a third party could not be reclaimed."
This is a telegram from the Simla Correspondent of The Times, and therefore is pretty good evidence of what is actually going on in India to-day.
It is to that situation that the noble Earl has directed your attention. He has done it in the form of questions, and I wish to endorse what has been said, that I hope sincerely that the Secretary of State for India will not fail to make known to all parties in India through the Viceroy the resolution that at any rate the Conservative and Liberal Parties have formed, to adhere to those safeguards which they put forward when the Bound-Table Conference was in session. I believe that there will be & widespread feeling of sympathy for Lord Willingdon, who has been called at such a time to such a heritage. Both my noble friends have spoken of the Cawnpore massacre. It is said to have been the worst episode of its kind since the days of the Indian Mutiny. With the other members of the Statutory Commission I was present at an incipient riot at Cawnpore, and I can well imagine what took place on this occasion. The most serious thing of all is that it was stated in evidence by several official representatives that it was due to the inaction of the police. Having is deep sense of gratitude, as I am sure all noble Lords who have been in any way officially connected with India feel to the Indian police for all they did for our protection when we were in India, I attribute this, if it be even partially

979
true, to official mismanagement, but most of all to the want of support and encouragement which comes from the defeatist spirit of the Government of India itself. That is my feeling. On the other hand, I see that the Deputy Inspector-General strongly denied this charge against the police, and says they did all they could, but that they were without orders, and that there was no sort of organisation for the purpose at Cawnpore at that time. That hardly makes the case any better. But at least it points to what we know, that the situation in India itself is very serious, and we shall do no good by trying to deceive others, any more than by trying to deceive ourselves.
My noble friend Lord Peel spoke of Mr. Gandhi coming over as the sole representative of Congress. Of course, as we know, there are very few Moslems in Congress, but the opinion of the Moslems in regard to Mr. Gandhi was very clearly expressed by the Secretary of the All-India Moslem Conference, who issued a reply to his statements, in which he said that
"what has offended Mahatma Gandhi is apparently the effrontery of all parties of the Moslem Conference because it dares to express the views of Moslem India that it would not accept his dictation."
That, of course, is the feeling. I hope and believe that the Government are going to take a strong line and a consistent line in this matter. I hope that they are going to recollect—what of course is so true—that our hold on India has rested primarily on the fact that we have maintained the rule of justice as between communities and creeds, castes and classes. We have to make sure that that rule shall be in no way abated and, as Burke said, we have to look not to the immediate, not the retrospective, but to the provident operation of justice. It is with the provident operation of justice in India that we are concerned this afternoon. I hope that what is said by the representative of the India Office in your Lordships' House will confirm what we all hope and what I believe the great majority of the people in this country expect—that the Government of India is going to be firm and frank in dealing with a situation which admits of nothing else.
THE UTTDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (LORD SNELL): My Lords, I venture to ask for your generous con-
980
sideration on this the first occasion that I am privileged to address your Lordships' House. I make that appeal all the more confidently because, as your Lordships' are aware, the subject upon which I am called to speak is one of acknowledged difficulty and of general anxiety, and also because it requires from me, as representing His Majesty's Government, unusual care and precision of statement. If, however, owing to the influence of an environment with which I am not as yet familiar, I should unhappily deal inadequately with the Questions put to me, I hope your Lordships will attribute the fault to my own shortcomings rather than to the nature of the reply that I am called upon to make. The noble Earl who introduced these Questions made a touching appeal to me to be frank in my first speech.
EARL PEEL: Not only in your first. Do not confine it to the first.
LORD SNELL: My desire to please the noble Earl is intense, but he must not lead me into any path of indiscretion on this occasion. The speech of the noble Earl has covered a wide variety of topics and, if I may presume to say so, has introduced many things that were not in his Questions as placed upon the Order Paper. I am sure he will forgive me if I confine myself primarily to the answers to the Questions he has placed on the Paper. The first Question covers three points relating to the resumed work of the Round-Table Conference. Broadly speaking, I can add very little to what has already been said on this matter, which, for the information of the House, I will summarise. As regards the intention to hold another session of the Federal Structure Committee in this country, the plans of the Government in relation to the resumed work of the Federal Structure Committee and the Round-Table Conference were declared in a considered statement made by my right hon. friend the Secretary of State in the House of Commons on March 12. This statement contained the following passage:
"There need in particular be no great delay in bringing the problems which have been entrusted to the Federal Structure Committee under further discussion. Accordingly, as soon as Indian delegates, among whom I include representatives of the Congress, are prepared to resume discussions, we propose to invite them to come

981
to London to resume the work of the Federal Structure Committee. We hope that the Committee's deliberations will make progress here during the summer."
This intention still holds good.
As regards the second part of this Question—namely, whether, if the Committee is to sit again the Indian representation is to be the same or will new members be added—the record of conversations between Lord Irwin and Mr. Gandhi contained the following clause:
"In pursuance of the statement made by the Prime Minister in his announcement of 19th January, 1931, steps will be taken for the participation of the representatives of Congress in the further discussions that are to take place on the scheme of constitutional reform."
This applies, of course, to the reconstituted Federal Structure Committee. We are considering, however, whether in the circumstances in which the resumed Federal Structure Committee may be sitting at a time when the Conference is not in session, it will not be desirable to add to it representatives of certain interests which were not directly represented on the original Committee, but no definite statement as to personnel can be made until Lord Willingdon has had time to consider the matter.
Thirdly, the noble Earl asks whether the Committee will work on the same reference, or will its range be restricted to proposals placed before it by the Government. The Government's plans, as indicated in the statement of the Secretary of State which I have already quoted, contemplated "bringing the problems which have been entrusted to the Federal Structure Committee under further discussion." The specific heads of inquiry which were referred to the Committee when it sat in London were intended broadly to cover collectively the whole field of the constitution and powers of a Federal or Central Government of the type contemplated by the Conference. As the noble Lord knows, the plan sketched out in the Committee's two Reports leaves much of that field still largely unexplored, and the Government hope that the further session of the Committee will enable it, if not to complete the work which was necessarily left unfinished in London, at all events to make specific progress towards its completion. I am not yet in a position to say what precisely will be the procedure best adapted towards that object.
982
May I remind the noble Earl of the agreed basis on which the work of the Conference in general is to be carried on? It was expressed in the following terms in the agreement made between Lord Irwin and Mr. Gandhi:
"As regards constitutional questions the scope of future discussion is stated, with the assent of His Majesty's Government to be with the object of considering further the scheme for constitutional government of India discussed at the Round-Table Conference. Of the scheme there outlined federation is an essential part. So also are Indian responsibilities and reservations or safeguards in the interests of India, for special matters as, for instance, defence, external affairs, the position of minorities, the financial credit of India and discharge of obligations."
That quotation answers the points put by the noble Earl and the noble Marquess, Lord Reading. This applies, of course, to the programme of the Conference as a whole and, therefore, generally to the work of the Federal Structure Committee.
The second of the Questions on the Paper relates to the attitude of the Princes to the Federal scheme that emerged from the deliberations of the Round-Table Conference. Here I think I can give the House some information that will be of interest to it. We have as yet no definite information as to the reaction of individual Rulers not present at the London Conference towards the scheme of federation. One important consideration is the distribution among the States of the seats available to the States as a whole in the Federal Legislature. The States' delegation is now engaged m India in obtaining the views of their brother-Princes on this question and they hope to have collected a representative body of opinion in some six weeks time.
At the March session of the Chamber of Princes, two resolutions obtained the unanimous support, of some fifty Princes present—namely:—
"This Chamber places on record its high appreciation of the single-minded devotion and statesmanlike ability with which the representatives of the States—both Rulers and Ministers—represented the States at the Conference; and supports in principle the scheme outlined at the Round-Table Conference, which, while laying the foundation of a greater India, aims at securing to all parties in the country their legitimate and cherished rights beyond risk of encroachment."

983
"This Chamber authorises its representatives further to carry on discussions and negotiations with due regard to the interests of the State, and subject to the final confirmation and ratification by the Chamber and each individual State."
During the discussion, the Chief of Sangli quoted the following resolution which had been carried by a meeting of twenty-six Rulers of smaller States not members of the Chamber:
"Without committing any individual State to any final course of action, this meeting is of the opinion that it would be advisable, under the circumstances that have arisen, for the Indian States under all categories to join an All-India Federation and participate in the political ideal of a United India, provided a scheme satisfactory both from the financial and political points of view to all the interests concerned and with adequate safeguards and suitable representation for all is finally evolved."
The third Question of the noble Earl is one which I attempt to answer with considerable diffidence, because it raises a matter which is inherently very delicate, and the solution of which is a matter primarily for Indians themselves. All that His Majesty's Government can do in response to the noble Earl's invitation is to reiterate what was placed in the forefront of the Prime Minister's declaration made on their behalf at the close of the Conference — that the new Constitution must contain such guarantees as are required by minorities to protect their political liberties and rights. This is one of the basic conditions on which not only the Government but all Parties in the Conference took their stand. I will read in this connection an extract from the resolution adopted unanimously by the Conference at its final plenary session:
"The Conference feels that arrangements should be made to pursue without interruption the work upon which it has been engaged, including the provision in the Constitution of adequate safeguards for the Mussalmans"
as well as other minorities.
I turn now to the noble Earl's fourth Question, which relates to the boycott of British goods in India. By way of preface, I should like to emphasise that the time that has elapsed since Lord Irwin's conversations with Mr. Gandhi is much too short to make it possible to form any confident opinion of the effect of the agreement on actual trade movements.
EARL PEEL: I do not wish to interrupt, but that as what the Secretary of State said a month ago—the time is too short. Is it still too short?
LORD SNELL: I would remind the noble Earl that economic processes move slowly, and it is not possible to define them accurately close to events that are taking place.
EARL PEEL: I am afraid the boycotts of business go on very quickly. That is my experience.
LORD SNELL: I would ask the noble Earl to hear me till I finish what I have to say on this matter. We think that the time is much too short to enable a really confident opinion on the effect of the agreement on actual trade movements to be based. At the best, any estimate of the kind would be complicated by other forces, such as the present reduced purchasing power of the Indian market and the relative costs of production in Great Britain and other competing countries. The question has to be considered in the light of the conversations between Lord Irwin and Mr. Gandhi. In the published account of those conversations it is stated that the Government approves of the encouragement of Indian industries as part of economic and industrial movements designed to improve the material conditions of India, and has no desire to discourage methods of propaganda, persuasion, or advertisement, pursued with this object in view, which do not interfere with the freedom of action of individuals or are not prejudicial to the maintenance of law and order.
The only undertaking that was given as the result of the agreement was that the boycott of British commodities would not be used as a political weapon; that those who had given up purchasing or dealing in British goods were to be left free, without restraint, to change their attitude if they so desired; and that picketing could continue so long as it did not involve coercion, intimidation, restraint, hostile demonstrations, obstruction or any offence under the ordinary law. I have no reason to think that this undertaking is being generally disregarded, though certain difficulties have arisen which are receiving the consideration of the Government of India. My information is to the effect that the open preaching of the boycott of British goods

985
as a political weapon has practically ceased since the settlement, and that very few instances have occurred in which there has been discrimination against British goods as such; but it is clear that efforts are still being made to persuade the Indian public to cease using foreign cloth generally, and such persuasion is consistent with the agreement.
But the Government of India have received a general impression that sales of foreign (including British) cloth have increased since the settlement, and that though a number of dealers are still abstaining from sales, existing stocks are being cleared. As I have already said, however, it is still too early to estimate the effects of this movement on British imports; but I share the view expressed by the President of the Board of Trade that the conclusion of the Irwin-Gandhi agreement is bound to promote a better environment for commercial relations generally. Any decrease in political feeling in India must give freer play to the natural economic tendencies which govern the: markets. The noble Earl asked about the formation of the company to which he referred. I have to reply that in spite of diligent inquiries no definite knowledge is available as to whether that company has actually been formed or not.
As regards the political situation in Gujerat and other places, I have no very recent detailed information, but I have reason to believe that there has been a definite improvement in the general political situation in the Bombay Presidency, and in particular distinct signs of improvement during the past fortnight in Gujerat where collections of the land revenue are better. Since the settlement the position has definitely improved in Bengal, Madras, Assam and the Central Provinces, and there are some indications in Bihar and Orissa of recovery from the deterioration which had occurred there. In the United Provinces and the Punjab on the other hand the position is less satisfactory. Communal tension is high, economic conditions are bad and have afforded a ready excuse for agrarian agitation. At the same time there is undoubtedly a widespread desire throughout India for peace, and there would be general regret if the settlement were to break down. There are undoubtedly difficulties ahead, but greater difficulties have been faced and over-
986
come in the past, and we see nothing in the situation to justify a mood of pessimism.
The noble Earl has asked me about the disturbances in Burma. Risings of the kind that have occurred, which are usually led by an individual styling himself King, have been in the past not uncommon in Burma. On this occasion, as before, the superstition and ignorance of the peasantry have been exploited. The organisers of the rebellion were also assisted by the prevailing economic distress due to the low price of paddy and rice. My right hon. friend, the Secretary of State has, in another place, made public telegrams which he has received from the Government of Burma giving the most recent details of the disturbances. There have been since the end of December, outbreaks in six different districts. When the back of each outbreak was broken the rebel force divided itself into gangs of dacoits who were joined by local bad characters. It is very difficult to deal with these small bodies owing to the nature of the country. The most recent of these outbreaks has been in the Thayetmyo district. Although the disturbances continue there, the local officers are hopeful that they have got the situation under control. The problem now is to restore normal administration in the disturbed districts and to bring arrested offenders to trial. An Ordinance was promulgated by the Governor-General on March 12, providing a special procedure for expediting the trial of offences connected with the rising.
I have endeavoured to answer, as shortly as possible, the questions of the noble Earl and I think that the information I have been able to supply is of a reassuring character. The situation in India at the present time requires the qualities of both patience and tolerant understanding. That there are difficulties to be faced is beyond question, but I feel that, to use the words employed by Mr. Baldwin last night, nothing should be said by any one "which could in any way make a settlement of the Indian difficulty harder to achieve. Such a settlement was essential."
EARL PEEL: My Lords, I will not detain the House for more than a moment or two. I am very much obliged to the noble Lord the Under-Secretary for India

987
for the reply he has been good enough to give to my Questions. I am very sorry that he was not in a position to carry further the answers to some of these Questions than the statement made by the Secretary of State in another place five or six weeks ago. Therefore, I dare say the noble Lord will not complain if at a later date I raise some of these Questions again. I will only make one observation and that is that the noble Lord said that my speech contained certain points which were not referred to in my Questions. May I suggest to the
988
noble Lord that he has recently come from a more pedantic place than the one which he now adorns, and that perhaps when he has freed himself from the ideas of another place with their strict notions of order he will rejoice in the large irrelevance which we practise in this Chamber. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes past seven o'clock.