§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
§ LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDEMy Lords, this Bill is entirely of a non-controversial character. As the former Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Locker-Lampson, said in another place, it carries out substantially the policy of the Foreign Secretary in the last Government. Nevertheless, perhaps I should give some little explanation of the Bill with a short account of its history, as your Lordships may desire 141 to know why the Act of 1925 should be repealed and this Act substituted for it. Your Lordships will remember that the British Boxer Indemnity was £7,600,000 in 1900, and it was bearing interest at 4 per cent. Payments ceased in 1917 till 1922, and the period of repayment was extended to 1945. Payments were resumed in December, 1922, and, up to June, 1930, amounted with interest, roughly, to £3,500,000. To the end of 1945 the further sum receivable will amount to £7,850,000.
His Majesty's Government in 1922 announced that they desired to devote the proceeds of the British share of the Boxer Indemnity to projects equally beneficial to China and Great Britain. A Bill was prepared and eventually passed. An attempt was made in 1924 when the Labour Government was in office. It was revived in 1925 and that Bill—the China Indemnity (Application) Bill—was passed into law. By it payments were to be devoted to such educational and other purposes beneficial to the mutual interests of His Majesty and the Republic of China as the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, after consultation with an Advisory Committee established under the Act, might from time to lime determine. An Advisory Committee was set up consisting of eleven persons, three of whom were Chinese. Subsequently, in order to get first-hand information, a delegation under Lord Willingdon was sent to China and submitted a detailed Report. This Report by the Advisory Committee was issued in 1926. Perhaps I might be allowed to pause here in order to offer a tribute to the noble Earl, Lord Buxton, who I am glad to see in his place here to-day.
§ LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDEI am not quite sure where the Liberals will sit next. The noble Earl who was Chairman of the Advisory Committee, not only devoted time and labour to the production of the Report but has rendered signal service in formulating the lines on which various educational objects in China may best be stimulated. The thanks of His Majesty's Government, as well as those of our predecessors, are due to him for this very fine piece of public work, which is by no means wasted under the new provisions contained in the present Bill. It was recommended that 142 the Fund should not be limited to strictly educational purposes, but that a considerable portion should be invested in useful reproductive undertakings directly advantageous to China, that this investment should ultimately provide a permanent educational endowment, and that the word "educational" should be approached in its widest sense to include research. Then, from 1926 to 1928, came the disturbed period in China, when there was civil war and no Government that could be recognised. Everything was suspended during that period and it was not until comparatively recently that we got into touch with the Chinese Government and came to an agreement with them.
Your Lordships will be acquainted with the contents of the White Paper on this subject and will see there the correspondence between His Majesty's Minister in China, Sir Miles Lampson, and the Chinese Foreign Secretary, Dr. Wang. At the request of the Chinese Government, the new proposals were made. That is a point which has to be borne in mind because it is a change in the objects which were intended in the 1924 and 1925 Bills. Whatever change there is, those who criticise it because it, appears on the surface not to be strictly devoting this sum of money to educational purposes, must exonerate from any blame on the subject the Ministers who dealt with this problem and must know that the proposition for the change in question which I shall describe came from the Chinese Government. I was responsible for the Bill in 1924 and the noble Lord, Lord Cushendun, was responsible for the Bill in 1925. I believe it is possible in going through the debates to find that we contradicted ourselves and it is possible, as they did in another place, to quote both of us against the present Bill. But circumstances have changed and the noble Lord, Lord Cushendun, were he here to-day, would, I am sure, be in agreement with me that the present proposals, although differing superficially from those contained in the Act of 1925, do really carry out the purposes to which successive Governments desired that this large sum should be devoted.
The administration of the Fund is to be handed over to the Chinese Government in return for an undertaking that they will proceed generally along the lines of 143 the educational programme of what I may call the Buxton Committee, and that a considerable portion of the funds will be used in the first instance for the purchase of railway materials in Great Britain. Clause 1 repeals the Act of 1925. In subsection (2) of that clause, provision is made for the payment of £265,000 to the Hong Kong University—that is direct—and £200,000 to the Universities' China Committee in London for certain specified purposes. These were inserted in another place on the representation of the Universities, and with the assent of the Committee who interviewed the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and their Amendments were accepted and put into the Bill.
§ LORD DANESFORTWould the noble Lord allow me to ask a question upon subsection (2) of Clause 1? Are these payments referred to in the First Schedule to be made out of the existing Indemnity Fund or out of funds received after the commencement of the Act? It looks in subsection (1) as if the payments were to be made out of funds received after the commencement of the Act.
§ LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDENo, they will be payments out of the existing Fund—the £3,500,000. Subsection (3) provides that one-half of the annual payments shall be made to a Board of Trustees. That Board of Trustees will be appointed by the Chinese Government, and British subjects will be upon the Board. The money will be expended on objects wholly beneficial to both countries, for half will be paid to the Chinese Government Purchasing Commission, together with the balance of the accrued amount of the Indemnity, about £3,000,000.
Clause 2 provides for the establishment of the Purchasing Commission, which is to consist of the Chinese diplomatic representative in London (the Chinese Minister) as Chairman, a representative of the Chinese Ministry of Railways and four other members appointed by the Chinese Government from a panel, recommended by His Majesty's Government, of persons of standing with wide business experience. The Secretary of State will submit names from which these four members will be selected. The proposal to invest the money in railways and the income derived from it in education came, as I have said, from China, and we were 144 very ready, as will be seen in the White Paper, to acquiesce in this suggestion. The rehabilitation of the economic life of China is a matter of considerable importance to them, and opportunity is also afforded for giving work in this country which is very sadly needed. At the same time, there will still be an endowment for educational purposes. The Chinese Government are most anxious that this agreement should be implemented by an Act of the British Parliament, and the Chinese Minister has pressed us at the earliest possible moment to get this Bill through the two Houses of Parliament, in order that work may be begun which will be mutually beneficial to the two countries. I beg to move.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede.)
§ LORD DANESFORTMy Lords, I hope the noble Lord in charge of the Bill will not think it unnecessary on my part if I ask him a few questions to elucidate the real nature of this scheme, which I have been totally unable to find out from the terms of the Bill itself. I ventured to ask him, in an interruption in the course of his speech, whether payments under subsection (2) of Clause 1—namely, £200,000—and the £265,000 mentioned in the First Schedule were to come out of the existing Indemnity Fund or from moneys received in respect of that Fund after the commencement of the Act, and he was good enough to tell me that those sums were to come out of the existing Indemnity Fund. Let me call his attention to Clause 1, which says that—
The China Indemnity (Application) Act, 1925, is repealed and the China Indemnity Fund formed thereunder and all sums received after the commencement of this Act.… shall be dealt with in accordance with the provisions of this section.I do not think the Bill makes it clear where those two sums of £200,000 and £265,000 are to come from, whether from present or future sums paid into the Indemnity Fund. Perhaps that might be made clear, though I am afraid we shall not have an opportunity in this House of making it clear, inasmuch as this is certified as a Money Bill.Perhaps the noble Lord could also tell me what is the existing amount of the Indemnity Fund? I gathered from his speech that something like £3,500,000 had already been paid. I am not quite sure 145 whether that is the existing amount of the Fund. That would leave an equal sum to be paid by the year 1945. Perhaps the noble Lord will tell me whether I am correct in that view. As to the £200,000 that is to be paid to the Universities' China Committee in London, there is nothing on the face of the Bill to show what that Committee is or how it is formed. I am afraid I have not had an opportunity of looking into previous Acts to see whether they provided for its formation. Perhaps the noble Lord will tell me whether this was done in previous Acts.
As regards the Chinese Government Purchasing Commission, I notice from subsection (2) of Clause 2, that it is to consist of two members of the Chinese Government and four other members appointed by the Chinese Government from a panel of persons recommended to the Board of Trustees by the Secretary of State in this country. Perhaps the noble Lord will tell me what sort of persons will be put on the panel. Will they be British, Chinese or others? This Commission will have very large sums paid into its coffers, and it will have the very important duties to perform that are specified in paragraphs (i) and (ii) of subsection (1) of Clause 2. I venture to think, therefore, that since the interests of this country will be very largely concerned in seeing that those objects are carried out, we should have an opportunity of appointing members from our own people to the Board of Trustees. On the face of the Bill there is nothing whatever to show how the panel from which these four members of the Commission are to be drawn is to be constituted, but I venture to suggest to the noble Lord that it would be very desirable to put into the Bill some provision that would protect British interests in this matter and secure that this country is properly represented on that Commission.
There is one other question that the noble Lord may perhaps be good enough to answer, regarding the Board of Trustees, who are referred to in subsection (3) of Clause 1. These are to receive one half of every sum received after the commencement of this Act on account of the indemnity. As to the other half, the wording of the clause is rather singular. It is to be paid— 146
to such persons including persons who are British subjects (hereinafter referred to as 'the Board of Trustees') as the Chinese Government may from time to time appoint to be trustees for the purpose of receiving those moneys.…What does that mean? How many members of that Board are to be British subjects? It is obviously very important that this country should be properly represented on the Board. There is nothing in the Bill to show how many are to be British subjects and how many the subjects of some other country, possibly China. I would suggest to the noble Lord that it would be very desirable, somehow or other, either in this Bill or in some supplementary Bill, to make provisions that the Board of Trustees shall be properly constituted so as to protect British interests. Those are the only questions that I propose to ask, and I have ventured to ask them because I fear that we shall not have an opportunity of considering this Bill in Committee. I should be glad to hear from His Majesty's Government that they will, either by supplementary legislation or in some other way—I do not know how—make provision for the case to which I have referred.
§ EARL BUXTONMy Lords, I shall not detain the House for more than a few minutes but, having been Chairman of this Committee and since the Bill is somewhat different from the Report of the Committee, I should like to say a few words in recommendation of the Bill as it stands. My noble friend has gone through the history of the proposals and I will not repeat them. It is very probable that no noble Lord has read the whole of the White Paper, which goes into the matter in great detail, and I am obliged to the noble Lord opposite for having made so clear a statement as to what has occurred. I should like just to endorse what he has said. This matter, at all events, is in no sense a Party question. The original pledge was given in 1922 by Mr. Bonar Law, who was then Prime Minister, that this Boxer Indemnity of about £11,000,000 should be handed back to the Chinese Government as—a term that is too frequently used nowadays—a gesture of friendship towards the Chinese. Since then there have been, I think, four different Governments in this country—a Conservative Government, a Labour Government, a Conservative Government and 147 another Labour Government—and they have all undertaken to carry out the pledge given by Mr. Bonar Law. If the country had been fortunate enough in the interval to have had a Liberal Government, I am quite sure that they would have endorsed all that has been done in regard to this matter.
I should like to explain, if I may, why this delay has occurred. I know there has been some feeling in China that we have not generally carried out the undertaking that we have given. As my noble friend has said, the first Act was passed as long ago as 1925. Even then difficulties with regard to Parliamentary changes, General Elections and so on, and Parliamentary pressure of work, had delayed the passing of that Act for three or four years, and that Act created the Advisory Committee of which I had the honour of being Chairman. We were appointed at the beginning of 1926, and finally reported in October, 1926. So far as we were concerned there was no great delay in our operations, but unfortunately directly after we reported the unfortunate events at Shanghai and the sending of an Expeditionary Force to Shanghai created at that time great friction between the British and Chinese Governments. That caused considerable delay, although we attempted in other ways to carry out the proposals of the Committee.
When finally the matter was cleared up to a certain extent and there emerged a Chinese Government sufficiently representative and with sufficient authority to carry out the proposals which had been suggested, the matter at that time was an entirely different one. It had become obvious that this money should be handed over to the Chinese Government, not under conditions, as the original Act contemplated, from this side. The Chinese Government met the British Government and made certain proposals which are before the House in the Bill the Second Reading of which we are now considering. My noble friend has already detailed what the proposals are, and they fall short, in some ways considerably short, of the proposals of the Advisory Committee, which were that this money, the £3,500,000 already in hand and the subsequent £7,500,000, should be applied to educational matters 148 or matters of that description. We have taken a very wide interpretation of what educational matters would mean. This Bill proposes that the bulk of the money, £7,000,000 out of £11,000,000, should be applied not to educational purposes in the first instance, but to the rehabilitation and extension of the railways, although in the end, after the railways have been made successful and the money is repaid, it is also to be applied to the educational purposes agreed on by the Committee.
After all, my Committee, I think, were sensible men and women, and saw that the position had altered very considerably, that there were urgent and clamant demands for railway rehabilitation, and that these proposals were not proposals dictated here but made by the Chinese Government themselves, to which the British Government agreed. On those grounds, speaking on behalf of my Committee, I wish to say that we entirely endorse the conclusion which the Chinese Government have come to, with the assent of the British Government, to apply this money as proposed in the Bill and as explained by my noble friend. There is one matter which has been touched upon and which was the cause of the main objection taken in the other House—namely, that the bulk of this money, which was to be directly applied to the railways, was to be spent in this country, under a Commission to which my noble friend behind me has referred. That was, after all, a proposal which the late Government had in mind, and on which they had prepared a Bill on the same lines. Therefore I do not think the present Government can be blamed for carrying out those proposals, and for undertaking that this expenditure should be largely applied in this country.
That is really all I desire to say in order to show that so far as my Committee are concerned we endorse the proposals made in this Bill which the Government have brought forward. I was indebted to my noble friend for the fine compliment which he was good enough to pay me. My Committee included three Chinese members, and I do not think we could have had more loyal colleagues. I am greatly indebted to my fellow members, but especially to my Chinese colleagues.
§ LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDEMy Lords, I would like to thank the noble Earl for the support he has given to this Bill. His endorsement of the action taken by the Government will have very far-reaching effects and will give, I am sure, in China just the sort of blessing to this measure for which we had hoped. He has sketched to your Lordships the various stages through which this rather vexed and complicated question has passed, and your Lordships will appreciate the great assistance which the noble Earl has given in bringing this matter to a successful conclusion.
May I very briefly pass to the questions which Lord Danesfort asked? With regard to the two sums to the Universities' China Committee and the Hong Kong University, they will come out of the £3,500,000 now at our disposal. The amount that is due to the end of 1945 from further sums receivable comes to £7,850,000, which will be paid in instalments from time to time. The noble Lord wanted to have some particulars about the Universities' China Committee. It is perfectly true that that body has only quite recently received its charter—only within the last few weeks—but it is a body which was initiated by the Society of Friends as far back as 1925 with the object of promoting closer cultural relations between China and Great Britain. The Universities of the British Empire took up the scheme at the request of its Standing Committee of Vice-Chancellors, and the Universities' China Committee held its first meeting in 1926 under the Chairmanship of the late Sir Arthur Shipley, Master of Christ's College, Cambridge. Its objects are to promote cultural relations by lectures in England by eminent Chinese, by work among Chinese students, and a number of other objects, which have proved successful, and it is eminently a body to be supported.
§ LORD DANESFORTAre the educational people on the Committee all British subjects?
§ LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDEThat I cannot answer. The noble Lord enquired who would be the four members to be put on to the Chinese Government Purchasing Commission. The panel from which those four members are to be selected is a panel prepared by the Sec- 150 retary of State for Foreign Affairs, and I really think in this matter one can trust the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for the time being to see that British interests are thoroughly well represented, and to see that people interested in this sort of question—people of some eminence—have their names submitted for selection. With regard to the Chinese Government Purchasing Commission, the noble Lord will see that Dr. Wang, in his Despatch of September, 1930, quoted on page 8 of the White Paper, says that the Board of Trustees in China will include a certain number of British members. I think it would be rather unnecessary for us to force him to say more than that, and the Government have not thought that there was anything in that which required any sort of criticism.
§ LORD DANESFORTIs there any minimum number of British subjects appointed to this Board of Trustees?
§ LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDENo, no number.
§ On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.