Lords Sitting of 21 July 1931

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

LONDON ELECTRIC, METROPOLITAN DISTRICT AND CENTRAL LONDON RAILWAY COMPANIES (WORKS) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day read for resuming the debate on the Motion for the Third Reading, moved by the Earl of Onslow on Monday, July 13.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF ONSLOW): My Lords, in moving that the adjourned debate on this Bill he resumed, I would venture to ask your Lordships' permission to say a few words in explanation of that which has occurred since we adjourned the debate on Monday of last week. Perhaps I might in the first instance say that it was suggested before we undertook that debate that it should be put off at the last moment, in view of the fact that certain noble Lords had observations to offer. It was suggested that it would possibly have been more convenient to put off the debate for a short time in order that the matter might be considered by the promoters. It seemed to me, however, that, as the Motion was down on the Paper and noble Lords had come to your Lordships' House to give their views, it would be better to continue. It is always undesirable to put off a debate at the last moment, and very inconvenient to noble Lords who have come down to speak. Then, if necessary, of course, it can be adjourned, as it was in this case, or the Bill re-committed, as was suggested and the matter considered in private and then brought up again before your Lordships.
As your Lordships will remember, the debate was adjourned, and it was suggested that possibly a, re-commitment of the Bill might be necessary, but I do not think that as things stand this will be necessary, because a meeting of the promoters, those of your Lordships who are opposed to the Bill and other persons was arranged by me, and I think
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an agreement has been reached which is embodied in the Amendments which have been put down and will, I gather, be moved by Lord Newton. I would like, if I may, to make a short statement as to what exactly occurred. In our Standing Orders a railway company acquires power over the whole of the area over which it proposes to lay line. In the case of a Tube railway, such as this, the company need not pay for more than the easement—in this case underground—unless they occupy for buildings or other purposes any part of the surface. A proposal was put forward to use the Camberwell Green site for a Tube station. Camberwell Green, under an Act of Parliament of 1856, is the property of the Camberwell Borough Council, and the Camberwell Borough Council were willing to raise no objection to the building of a Tube station, in consideration of the railway company undertaking to spend £6,000 upon the improvement of St. Giles Churchyard, which was mentioned by Lord Crawford in the last debate. Neither the Borough Council nor the company acted ultra vires in this matter, and so far as they were required by the Standing Orders of this House, and by the law, they made the necessary notifications to the authorities concerned. I do not think, therefore, that any blame can be attached to any of the parties concerned, and, I would like to make this perfectly clear, they acted entirely within their rights.
It is true that the surface of Camberwell Green was shown on the deposited plans as liable to be acquired for works under this Bill, but it is not wholly correct to suggest that provision is not already made in the Standing Orders to protect the interest of the public in such cases. Under Standing Order No. XXVIII, where the work or any part thereof will be situate in London, or where powers are sought to take or use any lands compulsorily in London, copies of the plans are required to be deposited at the office of the London County Council; and this Standing Order was complied with in this case. The London County Council may be considered, in a sense, to be the protectors of the interests of the public, and this may be assumed to be the purpose of the Standing Order. In addition to this, personal

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notices were served on all the owners of properties which were liable to be acquired, including the Camberwell Borough Council. It does appear, however, that under the Standing Orders as at present drafted proposals as to Camberwell Green were not brought directly to the notice of the public at large, except in so far as a notice was published in the newspapers stating that it was proposed to construct a railway from one point in London to another, which would pass through certain boroughs, and that plans might be inspected and copies of the Bill purchased at a reasonable price at certain offices in the County of London.
Where, however, any common or commonable land is intended to be taken or used compulsorily, it is necessary in the newspaper notices to state specifically the name of such commonable land with other particulars. Camberwell Green, and most of the open spaces in London, are not technically commonable land, and, therefore, no such specific notice is at present required in respect of them. It is suggested that the requirement of specific notice as regards commonable land should be extended to all the open spaces scheduled to the London Squares Preservation Bill of the present Session, and the Standing Order amended accordingly. This would mean that any person or society which is interested would be able to see in The Times, or other newspaper in which notices of the objects of a Bill are published, that some particular open space was liable to be interfered with, and would then be in a position to oppose the Bill in its passage through Parliament.
I think it is fair to the promoters and to those who, in the past, have been responsible for compiling the present Standing Orders, to say that, in the case of Camberwell Green, the London County Council were fully aware of the proposals as to building a railway station. It is understood that the County Council thought it more convenient to take no action in the first House—your Lordships' House—as an arrangement can often be arrived at by negotiation without the expense of a Petition. When, however, the debate on the Third Reading of the Bill took place a few days ago a Petition was actually in draft, which had been pre-
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pared before the point was raised by Lord Dickinson, the Petitioners praying that Parliament would not approve the proposal. It was intended to present this Petition in the second House. Your Lordships may have observed that I have put down on the Paper, for consideration on Thursday, certain proposed. Amendments in the Standing Orders. Those are the result of a. Committee of your Lordships' House appointed in the time of my predecessor to go into the whole matter. I have taken this opportunity to put down an Amendment of the Standing Order—or at least I am putting it down to-day and it will be on the Paper to-morrow—in the sense of the suggestions that I have made to your Lordships this afternoon. I hope that that will quite clear up any difficulty or misunderstanding which may arise, or any ambiguity in the future. Your Lordships will see it on the Paper, and I hope it will give satisfaction to those noble Lords who have been interested in the matter.
Moved, That the debate we now resumed.—(The Earl of Onslow.)
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, on behalf of the promoters I desire to move certain Amendments, and I should like to observe that the first five Amendments are purely drafting Amendments which are governed entirely by the new Clause 20A which I propose to move subsequently.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, I shall not detain you more than a moment or two, but I should like to comment on the procedure which has been adopted, and to which my noble friend the Chairman of Committees has referred. He says that on behalf of the promoters copies of the plans were deposited duly with the persons concerned and with the London County Council. That is the case, of course, but nobody knew—not the parties concerned nor the London County Council—that it was proposed that the railway station should be placed on the open space of Camberwell Green. Neighbouring occupiers of premises on the far side of the road from the Green had received notices, and had actually petitioned in their favour, and it was only at the last moment that your Lordships learned that

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the station was to emerge, to erupt, in the middle of the Green, or rather at the south end of the Green. And when the noble Earl said that notices were duly deposited, that is true, but the agreement with the Borough Council in whom the Green is vested only took place three or four weeks ago. That is to say, although it is months since the notices were given, it was only a few weeks ago that this arrangement was made.
That really cannot continue, and I hope that the Amendment of the Standing Order, which I am very glad to hear is going to be made, will make it clear that under the ordinary lines of deviation granted to a railway company there is some limit to the freedom of the places at which they may emerge for their stations. As the Bill stands, under the limits of deviation allowed—the vertical limits, not the lateral limits—there was nothing to prevent the railway company from opening up the whole of Camberwell Green in an open cutting. I rejoice that the Standing Orders are going to be amended, and I hope that then it will not occur again that only by chance an agreement made after a Bill has been deposited in Parliament will be revealed, by which a company in this way takes rights over what is a public open space.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (LORD PARMOOR): My Lords, before the Question whether the Bill be read a third time is put, I should like to say something in corroboration of what the noble Earl, Lord Crawford, has said. I recollect the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, and the Leader of the Liberal Party and myself met last year in order to make it more certain that this House should know what is going on when any question arises upon the Third Reading, and we then made it quite clear that under Standing Order No. XXXVII no new proposal could be entertained unless full Notice of it was on the Paper before the Motion was made. In this case no doubt quite the right procedure was taken, because, as it was not possible to introduce the Amendment on the Third Reading, because no Notice had been given, the only other alternative, apart from throwing out the Bill, was to adjourn the consideration. Now, as the noble Lord, Lord Newton, points out, the Amendments to be proposed are on the
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Paper itself, and therefore we are in order. On the other matter referred to by Lord Crawford I am not so sure. There were many questions in old days as to where stations could or could not be placed under the form in which the powers were conferred upon a railway company. I should not like to go into those matters now, because they are very long and detailed, but, if the Standing Order is amended as suggested, I think it would be a valuable addition to our Standing Orders.
On Question, Bill read 3a.
Clause 11 [Breaking up surface of streets and permanent openings therein]:
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, the first five Amendments are drafting Amendments.
Amendments moved—
Clause 11, page 13, line 5, after ("roadways") insert ("and")
Clause 11, page 13, line 5, after ("footways") leave out ("and places")
Clause 11, page 13, line 9, after the first ("Camberwell") insert ("at")
Clause 11, page 13, line 15, leave out ("the roadways footways and places of")
Clause 11, page 13, line 16, after ("mentioned") insert ("roadways and footways at").—(Lord Newton.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
LORD NEWTON LORD NEWTON moved, after Clause 20, to insert the following new Clause 20A:
As to Camberwell Green.
Nothing in this Act shall authorise the London Company to erect any building or structure on the surface of the garden enclosure known as Camberwell Green or to take any part of the surface of that garden enclosure or to construct any station thereunder.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is an Amendment introduced by the promoters in order to meet the objections which were raised in the debate last week. I understand that it is an agreed clause and that no exception is likely to be taken to it. With regard to what was said by the noble Earl, Lord Crawford, I cannot help thinking that he has rather exaggerated the case, and there is more to be said for this proposal than one would gather either from his speech or from the speeches which were made a week ago, when I was not present. This proposal, which is not a proposal to take the whole of the Green, but to take

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less than half an acre of it, did not emanate from the promoters but from the Borough Council; and, after all, who is the proper representative of the inhabitants if it is not the Borough Council? And I may say that Camberwell Green happens to be a particularly congested district, as anybody must realise who has taken the trouble to look at it. I am informed that it is practically a certainty that widening of the streets will have to take place within the next year or two, and that, in those circumstances, it is almost inevitable that part of the Green should be sacrificed.
I do not wish to say much about this, but I repeat that the section of the Green which it was proposed to take was only a small one, and that the Borough Council were going to derive very substantial advantages from the railway company had the proposals come into effect. The fact is that if the station had been erected on this particular spot it would have had considerable advantages from the transport and commercial point of view, and this is a case in which, rightly or wrongly, commercial advantages and transport advantages have been subordinated to the question of amenities. I am not making any complaint upon the subject, but after the speech made by my noble friend the Chairman of Committees I do not think it necessary to say anything further in defence of the promoters. Everything was perfectly clear and above board, the authorities of this House were conversant with everything that had taken place, and I think that we part from the Bill with a clear conscience as far as I am concerned.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 20, page 18, insert the said new clause.—(Lord Newton.)
LORD DICKINSON: My Lords, as I raised this question last week I would like to say with regard to the action of the company that they have met both Lord Crawford and myself and others interested in this matter perfectly openly and freely, and the Amendment which is now suggested meets entirely what we wished for at that moment. With regard to the other question to which the Lord Chairman has referred, I am glad that he proposes to bring in some Amendment of Standing Orders
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which will prevent any company encroaching upon a square or open space in London, which has now been protected after a great deal of litigation, without due notice to the public. What happened in this case is that the plans of the railway showed a station that was not under the Green. The public could have had no inkling whatever that there was any proposal to put a station either on or under the Green. It was only after the Bill reached its present stage in your Lordships' House that these proposals were made and I am very glad to learn, and I think your Lordships will agree, that in future whenever there is any menace of an encroachment in any way whatever on these open spaces the public at any rate shall be made aware of it.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, I wish to ask leave to add one word on this new question. My noble friend beside me [Lord Newton] says that this proposal was justified because the district is congested. It is precisely because the district is congested that the value of the open space is so great.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: I beg to move that this Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(The Earl of Onslow.)
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

SURREY COUNTY COUNCIL BILL.
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, before the Third Reading of this Bill is moved in your Lordships' House I would venture, with your Lordships' permission, to make a short personal statement. Long before your Lordships did me the honour to invite me to undertake the duties of Chairman of Committees in your Lordships' House I was a Petitioner against this Bill. Naturally, when I undertook the duties with which your Lordships have entrusted me, I at once wrote to the solicitors who are managing the opposition with which I was concerned and asked them to dissociate me as far as possible from any participation therein. Of course I could not quite dis-

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sociate myself from it. I had been one of the 82 Petitioners and I have naturally to pay my share of the expenses of the Petition, which I undertook to do, I think it was last January.
It seemed to me that in those circumstances—very peculiar circumstances, of course—I should take no part whatever in connection with the Bill while it was passing through Parliament. So I asked my noble friend Lord Stanmore to undertake in connection with this Bill all the duties which are usually performed by the Chairman of Committees in connection with Bills when they are passing through your Lordships' House. My noble friend was good enough to agree and my noble friend Lord Marley was good enough to move the Second Reading of the Bill when it came up from another place. I thought I ought to make this explanation to your Lordships and, through your Lordships, to my friends in Surrey in order that they might be perfectly clear as to my position in regard to this particular Bill, in which, of course, I am personally concerned.
THE EARL OF WEMYSS: My Lords, may I be allowed to ask the noble Earl one question? He said that he petitioned against the Bill. I should like to know whether that means that he petitioned against the whole Bill or part of it. I am very anxious to know whether he petitioned against the dumps clause.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: It was the petition of the 82 Surrey landowners. I have not followed it very carefully but I think the whole thing was settled in another place.
LORD STANMORE: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Stanmore.)
On Question, Bill read 3a, with the Amendments.
Clause 67:
For prevention of ribbon development.
(4) (a) After the date of the first publication of any such resolution it shall not he lawful without the consent of the Council to construct form or lay out any street communicating with or any means of access (whether private or public) for vehicles or
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foot passengers to or from any main thoroughfare the subject of such resolution or to erect any building within two hundred feet from any part of any such main thoroughfare except for the purpose of finishing the construction or erection of any street means of access or building begun or of carrying out any contract entered into before that date. Any consent of the Council under this subsection may be given subject to such conditions as the Council think fit to impose and any conditions so imposed shall be binding upon any successor in title to the owner lessee or occupier of any land to which they relate.
THE EARL OF MIDLETON THE EARL OF MIDLETON moved, in subsection (4) (a), after the first "Council," to insert "which consent shall not be unreasonably withheld." The noble Earl said: My Lords, I think the House will understand that in moving this Amendment I have no desire to appear to cast any reflection on the Committee of your Lordships' House who sat upon the Bill. Nobody knows better than I do the entire confidence which the Committees of your Lordships' House enjoy both with the House and with the public. I am aware also that in moving an Amendment on Third Reading I am taking a course which is not as usual as some other courses in your Lordships' House; at the same time it is one which it is impossible at times to avoid. In this particular case the Bill was carefully gone through and negotiations took place between some who were affected by it.
As your Lordships are aware, the measure consists of 110 pages and covers an enormous field of action. On one particular point, the question of bypasses, a Petition was originally lodged and negotiations took place. If there was any dereliction in not further going before the Committee I am afraid it must be put down to the fact that the original proposals of the County Council were so autocratic, so wide, so serious and, I would say, so novel, that I do not think those who negotiated with them were aware how great was the innovation proposed even after the Council had abandoned part of their proposals.
The original proposal, before the matter came to the Committee of which my noble friend was Chairman, was, I think, that the County Council should take any land which they required for the by-pass. As far as I am concerned I fully realise

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that the rights of landowners must give may in such cases entirely to the interests of the public. But your Lordships will realise that in a crowded county like Surrey these matters have to be watched meticulously. The County Council proposed not merely to take any land that they required for the by-pass, but to take adjoining roads wherever they thought proper and to sterilise in each case 200 ft. on either side of the road. On that land no landowner, whether large or small, could any longer build anything without their leave or make any access to the road without their leave, even though in many cases such land was cut off from the existing roads. As the result of negotiations, before the matter came to this House, I think, they dropped the question of taking the adjoining road and they kept the by-pass question alone.
It may be said that before moving this Amendment I ought to have gone before the Committee and have been represented there at very great expense in order to make the proposal which I now make and which, I think, your Lordships will consider a fair one. But I say frankly that until I saw that bypass being carried out, as it is being carried out by hundreds of workmen, I did not appreciate how serious was the effect of the provision which makes it impossible to obtain access on either side or to put up any buildings. I do not know whether your Lordships can visualise what it means to make a road a great deal wider than this House right across property in that private neighbourhood and then to say: "No erection whatever must be put up except with our leave for 200 ft. on either side of the road."
I will take an obvious case which has occurred, and which I saw for the first time a fortnight ago. I mention it because I think my noble friend might complain that his Committee has not had the advantage of hearing the points. A neighbour of mine has built a house on which he has expended £45,000. It is not very far from the existing road. The County Council have, by their by-pass at this moment, cut right through his garden, and taken off 120 feet. I am not complaining of that. No doubt they may have to give him some compensation. After having built his house, he desires to live there and enjoy the quiet. He
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objects to seeing from his front window a continual procession of traffic such as he would see if he were living in Piccadilly, but if he desires to put up a wall to shut off the traffic he cannot, according to this provision, do it without the leave of the County Council, because he cannot build on his own ground.
I will take another case. This is the case of a house with a park and an avenue to it of a few hundred yards. The County Council have acquired the right to go right across the avenue, to cut down a number of trees, and to make a complete change between two lodges which keep the place private. That is inevitable. But the owner wants to move his gates so as to keep off the public from coming into his private grounds, which are now invaded by the by-pass. He cannot even move his gates, or put up a lodge, because it is within two hundred feet of the by-pass. That is the second case. The third case is more serious from the agricultural point of view. A fortnight ago I saw a number of fields cut in half which before had had access to a road, but now there is no access except by the by-pass. But that access the owner is not allowed to use without the consent of the County Council; so that a farmer may be forced to go a long way round if the authorities of the County Council are unreasonable in these respects.
I do not want to say, and I do not ask your Lordships to believe, that I have any personal apprehension that the present authorities of the County Council may be unreasonable in these respects, but I must say, so far as points have been put to them up to the present, they have not been in a hurry to give the permission desired. But this is a public question, and I do object—and I shall ask your Lordships to divide on the objection—to any public authority having absolute, autocratic power without appeal. I speak with some knowledge on this subject. I served for twelve years in the War Office, and during the whole of that time, under Lord Wolseley and Lord Roberts, large tracts of land were being taken under the Defence Act for public purposes connected with the Army. Every single case came ultimately to the Minister to decide whether he would use these powers, and what consideration he would give to the private individual whose amenities might be threatened or

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destroyed. Look at the pressure. The pressure was all in favour of using the powers. The military authorities, quite rightly, wanted to make their money go as far as possible. They were not going to be swayed as regards a line or angle of fire by the fact that a man had put up a house recently for his own enjoyment, even though they might have gone a few hundred yards further one way or the other. All I can say without taking up the time of the House, is that not once or twice but dozens of times I have had myself to go down and view the site in order to avoid, which by the stroke of a pen I could do, the very easy thing of saying, "Oh, proceed."
Of course there is some appeal in those cases, but the appeal between a private individual and a public Department is not a fair one. It is a most one-sided one, especially for a small man. A public Department has the taxes at its back, the County Council has the rates at its back. A public Department has one check upon it which the County Council has not, because in the last resort the House of Commons may take up very seriously a question of oppression by the Minister, and many such cases have been taken up. The County Council is only responsible to its own ratepayers; it is not responsible to this House. I might bring forward a Motion in this House, and the House is not bound to listen to a complaint which nobody here has the power to deal with. Therefore I appeal to your Lordships to allow some form of appeal. When a statutory authority is involved an appeal lies to the Minister if the county council are held to have acted unreasonably. I should have liked a similar appeal. I had an interview with the authorities of our County Council last Friday, and I said to them, "I am ready to move to insert any appeal which you desire to the Minister." They did not approve of that. Then I said, "To a jury." They did not approve of that. Finally I suggested, "To a judge." They did not approve of that. The only alternative was to leave them unfettered power.
What I will ask your Lordships to do is to put in Clause 67 the gist of the Amendment which will give to private individuals the same rights which are given to public authorities later in the clause. The clause will then read as follows:
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"After the date of the first publication of any such resolution it shall not be lawful without the consent of the Council which consent shall not be unreasonably withheld to construct form or lay out any street communicating with or any means of access (whether private or public) for vehicles or foot passengers."
Your Lordships will see that does not prevent the County Council building their road wherever they like. It merely prevents their giving an absolute order as to means of access, or as to construction of buildings without the power to any of those affected to appeal to any authority in order to restrain them. In that matter also your Lordships will see that they still occupy a very commanding position, because the appeal will be between a private individual at his own expense and the County Council with the whole control of the rates. If my noble friend feels the matter ought to have been brought before his Committee earlier, I regret that that course was not taken, but I can assure him that the matter itself developed during the period that the Committee was sitting, and I can assure him also that those concerned, large or small landowners, are extremely fearful of the effect which this very drastic provision will have. I therefore beg to move the Amendment standing in my name.
Amendment moved—
Page 40, line 43, after ("Council") insert ("which consent shall not be unreasonably withheld").—(The Earl of Midleton.)
THE EARL OF WEMYSS: My Lords, as Chairman of the Committee, I should like in the first place to correct a misapprehension under which my noble friend seems to labour. My Committee had nothing whatever to do with this clause, for it was settled before it came to us, or it was an unopposed clause, which of course would be dealt with in the Lord Chairman's Office. We had really nothing whatever to do with it. I am bound to say that my noble friend has made out a very good case, and it is quite possible, if it had been brought before our Committee, we might have decided in his favour. As one who often presides over these Private Bill Committees I should like to say that I wish the noble Earl had seen his way to come before the Committee. I do not think that the course he has adopted, although it is obviously adopted in perfect good

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faith on his part, is a good course to adopt. I think, without explaining matters, that it is liable to abuse, and in any case I think it is unfair to the promoters of this Bill. Therefore, I hope that the course which he has found necessary to take will not be taken by other noble Lords.
LORD LAMINGTON: My Lords, I hope that what we have just heard from the noble Earl will not be acted upon and that the noble Earl, Lord Midleton, will adhere to his Amendment. The noble Earl talks of this being unfair to the promoters, but the point is that unfairness may be inflicted on private owners of land. I need not reiterate what was said by the noble Earl so forcefully as to the power given to the County Council of depriving owners of land on either side of arterial roads of the full value of their land to a depth of 200 feet. I should like your Lordships to notice the reasons given in the Bill. In the marginal note to Clause 67 it is stated that it is to prevent ribbon development. I do not frequent these arterial roads very much, but I would ask any of your Lordships who have been along one of them whether there is anything more hideous than an arterial road?
I know it is a stunt in the newspapers now to disclaim against ribbon development, but any form of houses would be better than the hideousness of these roads. I read recently a report of a speech by the Minister of Transport in which he said that by-pass roads had one value—that of preserving the more rural villages, which were avoided by these roads and so would be preserved in their old charm and beauty. Therefore, I think he recognises that there is nothing more deplorable than going along these arterial roads. Why then should ribbon development be declaimed against? It is supposed to offend the æesthetic interests of motorists, but is it not pure cant to talk about the majority of motorists caring a scrap about the beauty which they are passing? Forty or fifty miles an hour is the average speed on these great roads, and they have no time to look at anything. So far from this being a disfigurement of the country I maintain that any building on these roads would be an improvement.
In any case it is not a sufficient justification of the proposal to deprive owners of
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the value of their land for such a wide margin on each side of the road—practically about seventy yards. That means that a man will be prevented from building a house within seventy yards of the road. My idea is that if I had to build a house on one of these roads I should like to build up to the road and have my garden behind, but in these cases a man will be forced to build his house or bungalow or whatever it may be at that distance from the road and have his garden alongside the road subject to the noise and smell of motor traffic. I think my noble friend's Amendment is only too moderate. The appeal which he proposes should be given to the owner is in my opinion inadequate. I hope, however, your Lordships will give support to his Amendment. It is a mere act of justice and I do not think it will be to the detriment of the public.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, I think my noble friend Lord Lamington does not quite appreciate the motives of the Surrey County Council in promoting this clause. During the last ten years, hundreds if not thousands of miles of new roadways have been made, including a large number of wide by-pass and arterial roads—great, big, straight, broad roads leading miles and miles across the countryside. Ex hypothesi, the authorities—the local authority on the one side and the Ministry of Health on the other—have tried to take these expensive roads through the least inhabited and least occupied parts of the counties for various unanswerable reasons. What has been the result? That miles of frontages have been created on private property which previously had no frontages of any kind whatever unless perhaps to a farm accommodation road.
When my noble friend Lord Lamington talked about these roads removing and lessening the value of the land he must forgive me for saying that he has got the wrong end of the stick. The added value to the agricultural land of landowners created by these new arterial and bypass roads has been something stupendous. Frontages have been made for miles. I think Lord Lamington said that he did not motor much. I wish he would, because then perhaps he would speak from a rather different point of view. What is happening is that these

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new frontages are being presented to the landlords and it is the landlords who are making and authorising ribbon development at the expense of the authorities—firstly, the local authority, and secondly, the Ministry of Health. That is why this ribbon development is growing apace. This Council and other authorities say that if they make these great roads they are entitled to control the frontages of them, because it is their road passing the land of the private owner, who has contributed nothing except his ordinary rates to the cost of the road. Is that unreasonable? Surely not.
Lord Lamington approves of ribbon development. Ribbon development is bad planning. When you go along these great 60-feet roads like the new West Road out of London you see frontages occupied the whole way along that road four times as broad as your Lordships' House—frontages occupied by trumpery little second-class dwellings. That is utterly wrong. It is fundamentally bad town planning. It is not in the interests of the motoring population, as Lord Lamington thinks, that this should occur. An authority makes a great new road and the frontages every 20 yards or so are occupied by bungalows. Each of these bungalows, or cottages, or whatever they may be, has a right of access to the road, and the owner as a rule exercises his right of leaving his little car or his cart outside. So you get all sorts of little cars that can stand every 20 yards down this great road. That impairs and reduces the value of the road. It happens on both sides. It limits the value of the road and thereby wastes the money spent on the road.
The noble Lord, Lord Lamington, seems to think it is quite a good thing for houses to be spread out in a long line. I think it is an anti-social treatment of housing. I think the community ought to live in community style—in a village with a social centre—instead of being spread out in a long line, which is the most expensive way of allowing the building of houses. Instead of their being grouped round a centre, with drainage and light and power provided at a central point, they are strung out along the road, and the road has to be dug up every time any one wants a new telephone or an electric wire put into his house. I hope that apart from the
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merits of this Amendment your Lordships will not allow it to go down that ribbon development is a good thing. It is not. What we want is more orderliness and discipline in town planning rather than less.
LORD STANMORE: My Lords, as Acting Chairman of Committees I am less concerned with the merits of this Amendment than with the irregularity in procedure in moving an Amendment at this stage of the Bill. The Bill has been through the House of Commons and through your Lordships' House, and it is before Parliament for the last time before receiving the Royal Assent. Opportunities for the noble Earl to petition for the amendment of the Bill have occurred in the House of Commons and later in this House. On either of those stages it would have been open to the noble Earl to press for his Amendment to be inserted by the Committee, when its merits would have been examined in the way provided for under the Standing Orders, justice would have been done to everybody concerned and all would have had their say. In the ordinary course the promoters have a right to expect that, when they have got their Bill through the Committee stage in both Houses, they will have no more opposition to meet, and it is a very unusual practice for the House to accept an Amendment on Third Reading against the wishes of the promoters. It will be recognised that there can be no finality in Private Bill business unless the ordinary procedure provided for under the Standing Orders is followed. I think it is very difficult for me, as Acting Lord Chairman, to advise your Lordships to consider this Amendment on its merits.
VISCOUNT GAGE: My Lords, I feel that the difficulties that have been pointed out by the Acting Lord Chairman are very great and, at the same time, there are points of important principle involved in this Amendment which apply not only to Surrey but to other counties as well. I know that Lord Crawford is a very great authority on town planning and, of course, I should entirely agree with him that any measure which promoted ribbon development would be a very bad one. But the compulsory powers that are being granted by Parliament to various bodies to exercise over private property are now reaching very formidable proportions, and I

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think that if you place electric pylons in a man's garden, bisect his property with an arterial road and cut up his farms into small holdings, not to mention the additional taxation forecasted in this year's Finance Bill, you will put a very high test on his patriotism if you ask him to co-operate in what remains of the amenities, probably to his own financial disadvantage.
A case occurred the other day in the county to which I belong, where the making of an arterial road was projected through a village, greatly to the distress of the inhabitants, and after agitation in the Press the project was dropped. I am not sufficient of a lawyer to know whether the effect of this Amendment would be to encourage ribbon development. If that is so, I would not support it, but I do feel that you are on the one hand inviting landowners to co-operate in preserving the amenities and on the other hand putting them to great inconvenience. I feel that one ought to have some rational procedure in regard to town planning.
LORD ASHCOMBE: My Lords, may I be allowed to make a point which I think has not yet been made quite clearly to your Lordships? It is that the point taken by my noble friend Lord Midleton was in the Petition in the House of Commons, but the representatives of the landowners were so satisfied with the concessions that the County Council had already made that it was not pressed, and the clause was practically agreed in the House of Commons. Accordingly it came before the Committee of this House as an unopposed clause, and passed through. That is the true history of this clause, and I do not know how my noble friend, among the eighty-two landowners concerned, omitted this consideration. At any rate, the landowners were so well satisfied that they did not present their ease in the House of Commons when they appeared before the Committee.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD MARLEY): My Lords, I think I ought to make clear the point of view of the Government on this matter. Before doing so, I want to assure the noble Earl, Lord Midleton, that the attitude of the War Office towards private owners of land in connection with arrangements between the two must have changed very considerably since his time.
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We give the utmost consideration to the point of view of the private landowner in every case.
THE EARL OF MIDLETON: I did not say that. I only said that the pressure was enormous on the other side not to show consideration in individual cases.
LORD MARLEY: I can assure the noble Earl, that whatever the pressure may be on the other side., at the present time absolute fairness is the rule in the Department over which I have the honour to preside in the War Office. On the point of procedure, I need hardly say that the Government gives its entire support to the case put by the Acting Lord Chairman, and we feel that this Amendment ought not to be approved by your Lordships' House. In regard to the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Crawford, of course we agree with him entirely in being opposed to ribbon development. There is no doubt that it is, as fie rightly says, bad town planning and makes for difficulties for local authorities and to expense in such matters as drainage, lighting and so on. After all, the right way to deal with these things is to have side roads leading into the main road, and at the end you can have the communities who are living besides the main roads.
But there is an argument against the Amendment which, I think, has not yet been brought up. I refer to the fact that the clause itself does contain an adequate safeguard for landowners. It is expressly provided in subsections (6) and (7) of this clause that any person who proves that his property is injuriously affected or that in relation to his property he suffers loss or injury may claim compensation. That, of course is a safeguard which will make councils careful in the line that they, take in this matter. On the whole, the Government feel that there is not sufficient reason for altering the Bill as proposed, especially in view of the fact that it has passed the Committees of another place and of your Lordships' House.
THE EARL OF MIDLETON: My Lords, before we go to a Division, I hope I may be allowed to say one word to dispel the anxiety which may have been caused by the observations of the noble Earl, Lord Crawford. There is no question on the part of those whom I represent of any

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sympathy with ribbon development. The whole question is whether the communities and properties of the country are to be in the uncontrolled power of the county councils, whether there should be no appeal to anybody and whether individuals, who are weak, should not have the same remedy as is given to the corporations, who are strong—namely, to appeal if they can prove that consent is unreasonably withheld. I can honestly say that I do not think there is anybody concerned with the by-pass who does not wish to give at least proper weight to all national considerations. There is no desire whatever to obstruct what is being
Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
LORD JESSEL LORD JESSEL moved to insert the following new subsection in Clause 94:
"( ) Any authority, body or person who wishes to deposit or dispose of refuse in any place within the county and who is aggrieved by—

(a) a decision of the council or of the local authority of the district withholding or withdrawing a consent under this section, or

(b) the conditions attached to any such consent, may within twenty-eight days after the date on which written notice of the decision of the council or the local authority is given, appeal against the decision or conditions to the Minister of Health whose decision shall be final."

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am quite well aware that in rising to move
done or to ask for unfair terms. But it is obviously perfectly futile to say that you can compensate a man if you make the residence which he has built for a particular purpose quite useless, and if you expose it day by day to the whole of the traffic of a by-pass going at forty or fifty miles an hour. I think this is so serious a question, and will be raised by so many others, that I would ask your Lordships to follow me into the Lobby.
On Question, Whether the proposed words shall be there inserted?
Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 34: Not-Contents, 23.

CONTENTS.

Sutherland, D.

Stanhope, E.

Fairfax of Cameron, L.

Faringdon, L.

Dufferin and Ava, M.

Bertie of Thame, V.

Farrer, L.

Linlithgow, M.

FitzAlan of Derwent, V.

Gage, L. (V. Gage.)

Goschen, V.

Hastings, L.

Bradford, E.

Hailsham, V.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Jessel, L.

Lucan, E.

Ashton of Hyde, L.

Lamington, L. [Teller.]

Midleton, E. [Teller.]

Bayford, L.

Luke, L.

Munster, E.

Clanwilliam, L. (E. Clanwilliam.)

Remnant, L.

Peel, E.

Strachie, L.

Poulett, E.

Cornwallis, L.

Templemore, L.

Selborne, E.

Danesfort, L.

Wynford, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Sankey, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Mersey, V.

Monkswell, L.

Ullswater, V.

Passfield, L.

Parmoor, L. (L. President.)

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Arnold, L.

Sanderson, L.

Reading, M.

Ashcombe, L. [Teller.]

Snell, L.

Doverdale, L.

Stanmore. L.

De La Warr, E.

Hanworth, L.

Trenchard, L.

Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.)

Marks, L.

Wigan, L. (E. Crawford.) [Teller.]

Marley, L.

Strafford, E.

Mendip, L. (V. Clifden.)

this Amendment I shall be exposed to somewhat severe castigation by the Acting Chairman of Committees, in the same way as my noble friend Lord Midleton; indeed a noble friend behind me says that I ought to be treated much more severely. On the other hand, I think it is right that these Parliamentary stages should exist, so that opportunities may be given for admissions that even the wisest Private Bill Committees have failed to give contentment. I am aware, having served in another place as Chairman of Private Bill Committees, what very serious objections there are at this stage to moving Amendments of this kind. The very name of this Amendment, which is one dealing with dumps, is not a very savoury one. I am myself greatly against dumping, and I should be led away to

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voting against myself if I did not give the reasons for this Amendment. This Amendment is of great importance as regards the health and sanitation of a great city. It affects the whole populace of the administrative County of London.
It is calculated that, there are at least one million tons of refuse to be taken away from London per annum, and what on earth are we to do with it? We can not send it all down the Thames, nor can we burn it in the localities themselves, and it is almost impossible to get rid of over one million tons of refuse per annum. Therefore it is necessary to find some other place outside London. The County Council of Surrey are not very much affected in this matter, because they are only touched at one point, and that is by the Borough of Wandsworth. But what we are afraid of is that if this precedent is set other county councils will follow suit and it will be impossible for London to find an outlet for this refuse at all.
I should like to point out that the question of dumping was considered last year by a very important Departmental Committee set up by the Minister of Health to consider the whole question of London cleansing. Evidence was submitted to that Committee by the County Councils of Essex, Hertfordshire and Middlesex. While asking for a right to prohibit dumping—with which I quite agree—both Essex and Hertfordshire agreed that there should be a right of appeal against the decision, and the Middlesex County Council was the only authority to ask for an absolute veto. Moreover, these three County Councils, and the Buckinghamshire and Kent County Councils, at a conference held in September, 1929, passed a resolution asking for the right to prohibit dumping of refuse, but agreeing that a right of appeal should lie to the Minister.
I know that some noble Lords who are not well acquainted with this subject think that when you have dumped refuse into a place it is very disagreeable and insanitary. That is the case if the authority that is dumping does not take proper precautions, and we saw the other day, as regards the County of Hertford, that no less a person than George Bernard Shaw wrote to the newspapers and greatly complained of the nuisance in that County. When the
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matter was examined into it was found that the local authority concerned had not taken the necessary precautions to get rid of the nuisance. I believe that has now been done and there is no nuisance at all. I should like also to point out that Bradford has made great use of these dumps and has even made one of them a site for housing some of the working classes and that site is perfectly sanitary. If your Lordships read the Departmental Committee's Report you will see what a very interesting problem this is. In Bradford they utilised the valley, filled it up with the dump, and the place is quite sanitary.
I should like also to draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that this matter has been dealt with in another place in the Standing Committee on the Town and Country Planning Bill. In that Bill it is now understood that schemes dealing with the prohibition, regulation, control, deposit, and disposal of waste materials will be dealt with, and all those schemes have to get the sanction of the Minister. I am sure the noble Lord who so ably presided over this Private Bill Committee, and whose experience we all greatly respect, will tell your Lordships that this matter ought to have been brought before the notice of the Committee earlier. I might explain that the London County Council is not the authority for looking after these matters. The authority is vested in twenty-eight borough councils, who are responsible for the cleansing of the streets and the dumping of refuse. There is also a Standing Metropolitan Joint Committee. If a question does not affect a particular borough council they are not going to take much trouble over it, and that is unfortunately what has happened. The Standing Metropolitan Joint Committee is not a statutory body, nor has it any right or power to spend any money. I believe the Borough of Wandsworth did bring this matter up and did appear before the Private Bill Committee, but this question was not raised by Wandsworth, because I believe it does not dump in Surrey at all. But my main point is that if the Surrey County Council, which, after all, is very little affected, or likely to be affected, is given this right, we shall have all the other county councils all round us imposing a veto, and I am

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sure your Lordships who live in London will not enjoy living on what may be a cesspool.
Amendment moved—
Clause 94, page 62, line 27, at end insert the said new subsection.—(Lord Jessel.)
THE EARL OF WEMYSS: My Lords, I confess that I heard with some surprise that my noble friend was going to take the unusual course of inviting your Lordships to reverse a decision which had been unanimously arrived at by your Lordships' Committee, and I was the more surprised because, after an experience of seventeen years, I do not think I ever remember a case in which the opposition was so feeble or so easily dealt with; nor can I ever remember a Bill where it was more impossible for a, Committee to arrive at any other conclusion than the one they did arrive at. This Bill was before the House of Commons with this clause. It was opposed in the House of Commons, it was passed in its present form. In the other House they were foolish enough to give their reasons for that decision, in ours we do not. The Chairman there said: "This is a local matter, there is no need for an appeal."
The clause went through the Third Reading in the House of Commons unopposed, and it came before your Lordships' Committee. The Ministry of Health opposed it, and Mr. Goddard, who represented them, cross-examined some of the witnesses, and a supplementary report was put in. Now, I attach the highest value to the reports of these Ministries. They are very often helpful and illuminating; but, in this case, somewhat to my surprise, when, as it appeared to us, the cross-examination of every witness had failed to break him down at all, and when every clause in the Ministry's report had been dealt with by counsel, and I invited Mr. Goddard to answer for the Ministry, to my astonishment he said he had nothing further to say. There was no appearance against the Bill by those people, local boroughs or others, who, wishing to dispose of their refuse cheaply, send it to their neighbours to be dumped on their territory.
I did not really quite follow my noble friend's explanation. It is quite true that Wandsworth did appear, but they did not appear against the Bill. And I can only assure your Lordships that, on
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the presentation of the opposition to this clause, it would have been impossible for any one of your Lordships to have voted differently from the way in which the Committee did. I do not want to go into any detail. Your Lordships understand, I think, why this clause is brought forward. You realise that Greater London, like a gigantic octopus, is stretching out tentacles in every direction, drawing into its embrace more and more of the rural areas. Local authorities are, perhaps tardily, awakening to the fact that it is necessary to preserve their amenities and protect their beauty spots, and this Bill is an effort of the Surrey County Council to protect its amenities. The Surrey County Council do not object to dumping, but they wish to control it.
I do not know whether your Lordships have had the good, or bad, fortune to see one of these big dumps from close at hand. If you go to Dagenham or to Rainham, you will see what looks like a miniature range of mountains burning and emitting smoke and fitful flame. A natural volcano may be a very picturesque thing, but a volcano which is manufactured of filth and refuse, which vomits smoke and smell, which breeds countless hordes of rats, and is a forcing house for myriads of flies and other vermin, is not a picturesque object. It is aesthetically a monstrosity. It is physically offensive. It may be injurious to health. In any case, it is not a phenomenon which ought to be obvious to us in our present-day civilisation. The Surrey County Council do not wish to prevent dumping, but they say that they have a right, in protecting the amenities of the areas they administer and the comfort of the people who dwell therein, to take measures to prevent this dumping where it is injurious. They have brought this clause forward with that intention. They say that an appeal is not necessary. They go further and say, with due respect, that if there were an appeal the Ministry in the circumstances is not an ideal tribunal to act as a court of appeal.
It is a curious thing that the policy of the Ministry of late has been to deprecate appeals and to leave the last word to the local authority. It is a curious fact that in this very Bill it was proposed on another point to give the Ministry an

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appeal but the Ministry asked to have that appeal left out. The County Council say that if they are to act without an appeal in other matters, then on a matter which concerns the amenities of their people and concerns them only it is right that they should be able to act without an appeal. I was very much surprised to hear my noble friend quoting from the Report of a Departmental Committee of last year as an argument in favour of an appeal. That Departmental Committee was composed of representatives of the London County Council, the London Boroughs and the City Council—the very authorities who want to dump, who have to dump, and who hope to continue to dump. And we are asked to take their recommendations. If you asked a child what it would do with a sugarplum it would say: "Eat it." If you asked a local borough what it would do with its refuse it would say: "Dump it." Really I think that is the main point.
I am bound to say, however, that there is another point which strikes me. I do not think I should have come all the way from Scotland to defend this clause on its merits. There is another side of the question which appeals to me much more. I said that it was a very rare and unusual course to try to revise the decision of a Committee of your Lordships' House. Happily, I say it advisedly, it is very rarely done. Your Lordships appoint a Committee knowing that the Committee will hear the evidence and report upon it. Your Lordships know that their decisions will be fairly given and your Lordships endorse those decisions without question. Private Bill legislation is, perhaps, the only legislative function left to your Lordships under the Parliament Act. Noble Lords who serve on Committees upstairs do not serve in the limelight. They are encouraged to serve because they know that their work is practical and that the decisions upstairs have more lasting and permanent effect than, under the present dispensation, can be hoped for even from the most brilliant debates in your Lordships' House.
The Committees of your Lordships' House enjoy the confidence of your Lordships. I have been continually told outside by those best able to judge that there is no tribunal before whom justice can be better obtained than a House of Lords' Committee. Your Committees
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have done, and are doing, good work. There is only one thing that can prejudice their credit and destroy the confidence of their members and make them unwilling to serve. That is if, without due cause, their decisions are challenged and revised in your Lordships' House. The noble Earl, Lord Donoughmore, was most zealous in protecting and supporting his Committees. I am sure that the noble Earl who has succeeded him will be equally anxious to do so. It is unfortunate that in this case, as he has told you, he is unable to take part in the debate. I regret that he cannot do so. I regret also that my noble friend has brought forward this Amendment, but I confidently believe that your Lordships will reject it not only on its merits but because you do not wish to reverse the unanimous decision of a Committee which you appointed, which carefully examined the question and then decided in the way they have done.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, I should like to say a word on the general question. I confess I am not familiar with the dump which the Borough of Wandsworth has placed in this County.
LORD JESSEL: I do not think it has.
THE EARL OF WEMYSS: There is one dump.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: There is one dump in the County of Surrey belonging to a metropolitan borough. I say that I am not acquainted with it, but one knows what dumps can become. I know one in an eastern county. The first time I saw it it looked like a long low range of higher ground rising from the plain. As I got nearer I was conscious that it was something indecent because I smelt the horrible sort of half-sweet, half-bitter stench which arose from it, and then the local people told me that it breeds the two foul and unpardonable things this country breeds—one is the common fly and the other is the common rat. These disgusting things to the tune of 1,000,000 tons a year are placed upon the Home Counties by the Metropolitan authorities. It is unpardonable.
My noble friend Lord Jessel said he was afraid of this Amendment not because it affected Surrey very much or the Metropolitan Boroughs very much,

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but because he feared it would become a precedent. I greatly hope it will be treated as a precedent by all the Home Counties and, indeed, by all the other counties which are affected by similar dumps from large metropolitan centres. The fact is that it is high time we took a comprehensive view of this dumping question. The twenty-eight or thirty authorities who are responsible for dumping now should see if they cannot combine in some big scheme for the disposal of the refuse of this great City far away from our shores, so that they will get rid of it in what, jointly treated, might be a more economical manner and in doing so save the counties from these terrible inflictions.
LORD STANMORE: My Lords, I do, not think I need say more than that it is the custom of your Lordships' House to support your Private Bill Committees. The Committee to which you referred this particular Bill was a strong one, presided over by the most experienced Chairman in your Lordships' House. I think that Committee most carefully considered the questions that came before them, and the matter dealt with in this Amendment was one of those questions. I think there can be no doubt that once more your Lordships will decide to support your Committee.
EARL PEEL: My Lords, I only want to say a few words upon this matter as an old member of the London County Council, and as one very familiar with this question in the past. I have heard an eloquent speech from my noble friend behind me on this subject, but I think the attitude of my noble friend Lord Crawford was possibly a little selfish on this subject. You have your counties around London, and you say that they are to be sacred, and that there is not to be a dump in them for all this London refuse. Have you really realised what it means to deal with the millions of tons of this stuff in London? You might be put to enormous expense in having these incinerators to deal with it in London. Then we are told: "Oh, take it down the river, or send it out to sea." I have never heard a suggestion made with such levity in this House before. There is a great deal of refuse already taken down to the sea, and dumped there. I think if noble Lords
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realised the immense expense that would be placed on London by a system of the kind suggested they would be a little more sympathetic to the suggestion which has been made by my noble friend Lord Jessel. One other proposal has been made, and that is that some joint scheme should be agreed upon by the twenty-eight boroughs to deal with their refuse. I dare say it would be a very good thing if they had a scheme, but what is the good of their having a scheme if afterwards they are to be debarred from putting it into effect by the denial of opportunities for disposing of the refuse. I realise all the difficulties that have been mentioned by my noble friend Lord Wemyss in regard to reversing in any way the decision of the Committee, but I do confess that I have in this matter a good deal of sympathy, as an old Londoner and as one well versed in these matters, with the Amendment which has been brought forward by my noble friend Lord Jessel.
LORD MARLEY: My Lords, very briefly I feel I ought to express the opinion of the Government on this matter. I hardly think that the claim that because the procedure of the House is that if a Committee has decided upon a matter it cannot be changed, has much validity, in view of the fact that your Lordships decided by a majority, ten minutes ago, to reverse a decision of the same Committee.
THE EARL OF WEMYSS: I am sure the noble Lord will forgive me for interrupting him. The Committee had nothing whatever to do with it. It never came before us. It was an unopposed clause.
LORD MARLEY: It was before the Committee of the House of Commons and of the House of Lords. The Ministry and the Government have very sincere sympathy with the feelings of the Surrey County Council in this matter. Nevertheless we feel that we should express our opinion that this must be considered as a community matter, as a matter in the interests of the whole community and not only of one county. After all, if Surrey is to be able to refuse to have any dumps, it merely means that Essex and other counties will have to have more dumps, so we are not as a community gaining anything, whatever may be

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the gain of Surrey in the matter. There are many other eases in which appeal to the Minister lies, or in which the councils have not got a final veto. On the question of laying sewers in other districts there is a right of appeal to the Minister; and on such matters as complaints of nuisance under the Public Health Acts there is an appeal to the Courts of Justice, so that this question of appeal is not anything new. It is generally felt by the Ministry that it would be a fair thing to agree to this Amendment, and at the same time it would provide a means of safeguarding the public interest if the right of appeal were allowed. I am merely stating the Ministry's point of view, and therefore the Government's point of view, in this matter, and I do not wish to press it any further.
VISCOUNT ULLSWATER: My Lords, the debate which we have had this afternoon shows, I think, very clearly the undesirability of this House constituting itself into a Committee for the purpose of hearing these appeals. In order to avoid that procedure, this House as well as the other House sets up Committees to whom it entrusts semi-judicial functions for that particular purpose, and it seems to me extraordinarily undesirable that this House should take upon itself the duties which it has already committed to others. To begin with, we do not hear the evidence, we do not see the witnesses, we are not furnished with affidavits, and we have no sufficient means of judging of the merits of the case. Our decisions must be arrived at upon ex parte statements without cross-examination, and I do feel most strongly that the House ought to support the temporary and unsalaried Lord Chairman in the view which he takes. We all know that the noble Earl, Lord Wemyss, is one of the most experienced of our Chairmen, who sits every year, and his decisions so far as I am aware have always given satisfaction. I think it would be a most regrettable thing if, without any evidence, without hearing any witnesses and simply upon the ex parte statements which we have heard to-day, we were to reverse a decision to which he and his Committee unanimously and deliberately came.
LORD JESSEL: My Lords, by leave of the House, may I say a few words? I
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am afraid a great deal of heavy artillery has been aimed at me this afternoon, and a great deal has been stated about the proceedings of Committees of which I am just as well aware as noble Lords who have spoken. May I point out that there was no petition at all from anybody, and, as I have already explained, the only evidence given before this Committee was that given by a representative of the Ministry of Health. Nobody came from any of the boroughs concerned, owing to the defective machinery to which I have already referred. I only moved this Amendment as a protest—the question of Surrey in itself is a small one—against the general contention that this great City of London is not to be allowed to dump anywhere, not even on the river. It was for that reason that I brought forward the Amendment, and for no other reason. As I have now ventilated the matter, I will not put your Lordships to the trouble of a Division.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

NORTH MIDDLESEX GAS ORDER, 1931.
LORD MARLEY: My Lords, I beg to move that the Special Order, as reported from the Special Orders Committee on Thursday last, be approved.
Moved, That the Special Order, as, reported from the Special Orders Committee on Thursday last, be approved.—(Lord Marley.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

KETTERING ELECTRICITY (EXTENSION) ORDER, 1931.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE): My Lords, I beg to move that the Special Order, as reported from the Special Orders Committee on Thursday last, be approved.
Moved, That the Special Order, as reported from the Special Orders Committee on Thursday last, be approved.—(Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PUBLIC WORKS FACILITIES SCHEME (ROTHESAY WATER) CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
LORD MARLEY: My Lords, I beg to move that the Third Reading of this Bill be postponed until Thursday.
Moved, That the Third Reading be postponed until Thursday.—(Lord Marley.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE (No. 2) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (LORD PASSFIELD): My Lords, in moving that this Bill be read a third time, I want to state for the convenience of your Lordships that I do not propose to move the Amendment which stands in my name. It is a small technical one to the effect that the provisions of Clause 4 "shall have effect as from the dissolution of Parliament next after the commencement of this Act."
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Passfield.)
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, as the noble Lord has told us, he put down an Amendment which he does not propose to move. He has given us no explanation of that course, and I cannot help thinking that the happenings upon the later stages of this Bill are a little remarkable. On the Report stage your Lordships will remember that the noble Lord came to this House and with a fine display of virtuous indignation declared that the Government would not accept the Amendments which had been inserted in Committee, that they declined altogether to move any further Amendments or, indeed, to take any further interest in the Bill as it appeared on the Report stage. Your Lordships were duly impressed, no doubt, by that declaration of the Government's intentions—no doubt given after mature and careful deliberation in the Cabinet—and we proceeded to carry out the Report stage without that assistance which we should have liked to have had from the Government, whose Bill, after all, it was.
The next thing that happened was that we all received Notice that on Third
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Reading the noble Lord was going to move—presumably on behalf of the Government—an Amendment after all. So that, apparently, second thoughts had seemed to him best, and that magnificent gesture was somewhat shorn of its grandeur by the hasty retreat which the Government found itself compelled to beat within two days. That was last week. To-day, we get a third edition of the Government's intentions. We find now that having declared that they would not move any Amendment, having then put down in writing an Amendment they proposed to move, they come and tell the House—"for the convenience of your Lordships"—that they do not propose to move it. On that, I would venture to say, first, that this is one illustration of the extreme inconvenience of making these summary declarations as to what the Government are going to do in the hereafter when the Bill reaches another place, and, secondly, that perhaps it would be a wiser course if the Government would really make up their mind first and then act consistently instead of changing their minds three times in four days, without any explanation of any of the changes. As an exhibition of a quick-change artist, the noble Lord stands unrivalled in this House, but as a serious contribution to the legislative expedition and efficiency of your Lordships' House, I cannot think that these rapid changes or these melodramatic gestures are of very great assistance.
On Question, Bill read 3a, with the Amendments.
Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

HOUSING (RURAL AUTHORITIES) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD MARLEY: My Lords, in moving the Second Reading of the Housing (Rural Authorities) Bill, which is a serious contribution to the legislation of the country, I propose to detain your Lordships for as brief a time as possible. The object of the Bill is to superimpose on existing Housing Acts an emergency drive to secure power for the erection of houses in the poorest of rural areas up to a number somwhere in the neigh-

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bourhood of 40,000. I may say in this connection that the extent of the need of houses in rural areas is really as yet an unexplored field, but we propose to provide in this Bill for up to something like 40,000 houses. Conditions in rural areas as regards housing are really, in many cases, very bad.
It was my lot as a Parliamentary candidate in a rural division for many years to come in contact with a considerable number of bad housing conditions. I do not propose to weary your Lordships with examples, save, perhaps, one or two which will remind your Lordships of cases of which you are all aware. I remember a group of small cottages which I visited once, built near an old windmill. The inhabitants had to walk 200 yards for their water and there was no means of getting rid of their rubbish—not even dumping in the County of Surrey. The latrines and privies were outside—20 or 30 yards from the houses—and were common to all these houses. That state of affairs was quite indefensible. I came across another case which is rather interesting and I might perhaps quote it to your Lordships. There was a meeting of the rural district council where I lived in Hampshire and the surveyor reported that he had inspected a fowl house which had been converted into a dwelling and for which the owner was charging the tenant 12 s. 6d. a week rent. One of the members of the council asked "How much a perch?" The surveyor explained that the tenant was a tubercular case and required fresh air, but that the fowl house which had been so converted was quite unfit for human habitation.
I am not saying that these cases are in any way universal or even common. Nevertheless, there are thousands and perhaps more cases in which housing conditions are extremely bad in the country. It is not only a question of comfort, but it is also a question of health and morality. As regards health, there was an interesting article published a year or two ago by a doctor who was formerly County Medical Officer for Hampshire, in which he wrote:
"The hygiene of the rural worker is the hygiene of the home. For the average rural worker, life consists of work and home, and nothing much besides. Housing therefore is to him a matter of supreme importance. In practice we find, in rural homes, sordid
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poverty at its worst, a hopelessly dull existence, with dark depression in its most deadly form."
In the past, several Acts of Parliament have helped to deal with the situation in rural areas. The Acts of 1919 and 1923 provided a number of houses, but the rents, generally speaking, were too high, and very few were let to agricultural workers. It is a fact that while many houses have been built by private enterprise they are mainly for sale and therefore not of use to agricultural workers.
The 1924 Act first recognised the special rural need by an increased subsidy for agricultural parishes. The idea was that thereby rents would be reduced for the agricultural workers. The subsidy originally was £9 in urban areas and £12 10 s. in rural areas. That was reduced in 1927 to the level which is still maintained—£7 10 s. in urban areas and £11 in rural areas. These houses were intended to be let at the normal local rent, but it was arranged that if that entailed a payment from the local rates of more than £3 15 s. each year, then the proper normal local rent could be increased to the economic rent—£3 15 s. being a maximum charge on the rates. There was very fair success under the 1924 Act. Some 40,000 houses were built in rural district council areas in England and Wales under that Act.
Under the Local Government Act. 1929, a rather unexpected difficulty arose as regards rural district councils because, owing to the derating of agricultural land, the ratepaying sources in those rural areas were often considerably reduced. The housing responsibility of the rural areas was not transferred to the county councils, and in consequence the rural district councils since then have felt somewhat doubtful and have been unwilling, broadly speaking, to undertake fresh rating responsibility in connection with housing. I may say in that connection that in more than 200 rural district councils in England and Wales, a penny rate produces less than £100.
We then come to the Act of 1930, under which county councils have a new responsibility. They were given direct responsibility for housing in rural districts, and the power and duty were added to assist financially in rural

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housing. They had the duty to provide an additional £1 a year for houses occupied by agricultural workers and, of course, they had power to give grants beyond £1 if they felt able to do so, and to provide subsidies for houses other than those occupied solely by agricultural workers. This was a new task for county councils and, when we take into account the bad housing conditions which exist in rural areas, the poverty of many rural district councils and the low wages and rents common in rural areas, I think your Lordships will agree that it is not surprising that a slow start has been made in rural housing. The present Bill is designed to make a quicker start in rural areas.
I should like also to mention to your Lordships the Housing (Rural Workers) Act, 1926, which your Lordships agreed to extend for a further five years a few weeks ago. Under that Act, as I then reminded your Lordships, the number of houses reconditioned had been—
LORD TEMPLEMORE: It was 11,000.
LORD MARLEY: The actual number reconditioned was 3,377 in England and 4,579 in Scotland. The noble Lord, Lord Templemore, reminded me that I mentioned the figure of 11,000. I said the number approved for reconditioning and not actually finished was 11,000; the number finished is the figure I have given. Had England and Wales proceeded to recondition houses at the same rate as Scotland, then instead of 3,377 we should have had some 45,000 reconditioned. That is not entirely due to supineness on the part of rural areas in England, but rather to the very bad housing conditions in Scotland.
The actual present position of rural housing is, broadly speaking, as follows. Since the War 410,000 houses have been built in rural areas, of which 84,000 were built by local authorities mainly for letting and the rest mainly for sale. Of that 84,000, 40,000 were built under the Act of 1924. The position, therefore, is not bad as regards the number of houses built in rural areas; but when we come to the houses built for the rural working class population the position is far from good. In fact, it is serious. The reason for that is that, in the first place, many rural
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district council areas are really urban in character. For example, the Durham coalfield is almost entirely rural districts, whereas the South Wales coalfield is almost entirely urban districts, so that we get precisely similar conditions in the one case in rural and in the other in urban districts. I have the example of the rural district of Houghton-le-Spring, in which there are fourteen parishes, only one of which is agricultural, the remainder being urban in character. Further south we have a case in Surrey, in a rural district where there are twelve parishes, only one of which is agricultural, the remainder being urban.
In the second place, houses built in rural districts that are urban in character are not houses built for agricultural workers and people of like economic status. Further, there has been a good deal of building for the overflow from towns, and that casts additional pressure on existing houses in the countryside. Finally, as I have said before, low wages and low rent for agricultural workers mean that there has been little incentive to cater for that class of inhabitant. The average local authority rents are well above the normal rent which agricultural workers are in the habit of paying, and are able to pay. I may say further that of the 40,000 houses built under the Act of 1924 by rural district councils, only 18,000 are actually in agricultural parishes as defined under that Act. I need hardly remind your Lordships that the definition of "agricultural parishes" under that Act, which has been continued in the Bill that we are discussing, is that the net annual value of the agricultural land shall be greater than 25 per cent. of the total net annual value, and that the population shall be less than 50 per 100 acres. Out of those 18,000 houses, a recent statistical survey has shown that only one-third are occupied by persons engaged directly in agricultural employment.
That is a picture of the present position, and it will explain to your Lordships why it is necessary to bring in the present Bill. This Bill authorises special assistance to those rural district councils that are unable by reason of their financial position to meet the needs of housing for agricultural workers and people whose

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economic condition is substantially the same. Additional assistance will be given only on the recommendation of a strong Advisory Committee. The new grant will be given as an addition to the existing Government subsidy under the Act of 1924, which, as I reminded your Lordships, is £11 for rural houses for a period of forty years. That should have the effect of reducing the rate commitments of the less well-off rural district councils, and of reducing the rent that will have to be paid by the occupier of the cottage.
The new grant will be limited to a total capital value of £2,000,000, and this is approximately equal to £112,000 a year. That can be divided up, and an average of approximately £50 per house will be provided for the 40,000 houses which I mentioned to your Lordships, £50 capital value being equivalent to an approximate average of £3 per year per house. In some the grant may be smaller, where the need is less, and in others it may be larger. I may add that 80/91 go to England, and 11/91 to Scotland. I understand that this is the normal basis of proportioning money grants between Scotland and England, and I have no doubt the Scottish Office take care that their share is adequate.
The rents which the Committee may recommend on these houses are somewhat complex. I do not propose to weary your Lordships by working out the details, but I personally worked out a considerable number of possible arrangements when I was considering my remarks on this Bill and, broadly speaking, the rent should be about 2s. 6d. a week to 3s. 6d. a week, exclusive of rates. In a better off district which is able to contribute its share of £3 15 s., which, I need hardly remind your Lordships, is reduced to £2 15 s. in the case of agricultural workers, the other £1 being borne as a duty by the county council, possibly the new subsidy for houses need not be more than £1 or 30 s. a year. In other areas it may be above the £3 average, and in such eases it would be quite possible to arrange for a reduced rate of payment—a reduction of from £2 15 s., which is the normal under the 1924 Act, to 10 s. or 15 s., which would be of great help to the rural district council, which by reason of poverty has been unable to provide for these cottages. In such cases the rent might not be more than 2s. 6d., or even in certain cases a little less.
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The Advisory Committee, which will advise on the whole of these grants, will be appointed by the Minister, with the approval of the Treasury. I need hardly say that in Scotland there will be a separate Committee, in which the Treasury also has a finger in the pie, to be appointed by the Department of Health for Scotland. The Committee consists of Sir Tudor Walters, M.P., as Chairman, and the members will be drawn from, among others, the rural district councils, the county councils, building employers, building trade operatives, farm workers, three or four business men of experience, and a representative of Wales. One at least of these members will be a woman. I need hardly remind your Lordships again that this is only a temporary Committee and, therefore, it will dissolve as soon as its work is done within the next few months. The duties of the Committee will be to receive and consider applications from eligible rural district councils. It will then make recommendations, after consideration of all the circumstances, including poverty, as to the number and type of houses to receive this special assistance, as to the date by which the houses must be completed—that is in order that we may speed up building—as to the rents to be charged for various groups of houses, and as to the amount of special grant which may be given for each of these various groups.
The directions given to this Advisory Committee, and the conditions under which grants are to be made, have to be laid before the House of Commons before they become operative. The rural district councils which will be eligible are those which show that their financial resources are insufficient for making adequate provision, without help, and in this connection the poverty test is first of all that the product of a penny rate in the rural district concerned must be less than 5d. per head of the population.
EARL PEEL: What does that mean?
LORD MARLEY: You take the total product of the penny rate and divide that by the number of people in the district, and the quotient must be less than 5d. per head. The other condition is that the general district rate must be more than 10 s. in the £. It is believed that that is the best index of the resources of a rural district. It is also known

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that the figures are generous; that is to say, many of the areas which fall within those two limits will really be able to provide a good deal of their housing fund themselves. That is why I gave your Lordships those varying figures a few moments ago, in which, instead of the whole £3 15 s. being provided by the district council, it might in certain circumstances be considerably reduced.
These definitions will actually include between three and four hundred of the 650 rural district councils in England and Wales. Rural districts vary enormously in their wealth, and I thought that your Lordships would care to have one or two examples. I have an example in Wales of a rural district council where the general rate is 12 s. in the £, where the product of a penny rate is only £79, and where the rates necessary to build 100 houses would need to be an additional 5d. in the £. Again, I have another in Surrey, where the general rate is 7s. 6d., where the product of a penny rate is £900, and where the cost of building 100 houses would be under ½d. addition to the rates. Those are types of variations which go to show the difficulty of building in the rural areas. In Scotland the conditions are slightly different, in that the whole county is involved, and there, instead of taking a penny rate we take four-fifths of a penny, because in Scotland part of the rent includes a portion of the rates. I have here examples in Scotland. The product of four-fifths of a penny rate would in Orkney be £65, in Selkirk £75, in Lanarkshire £5,814, and in Ayrshire over £2,000. Again in Scotland the contribution from the rates is higher than in England—£4 10 s. instead of £3 15 s. and the cost of building 100 houses would be £450 per annum. Therefore your Lordships can estimate how much would have to be added to the rates where the product of four-fifths of a penny rate is only £65, in order to build 100 houses.
There is no desire and no intention to let off rich rural district councils who are able to build for themselves. The Minister has power under Sections 35 and 36 of the Act of 1930 to compel defaulting councils to build. The present Bill is for councils who by reason of poverty are unable to build themselves. Further, only rural district councils will be eligible for this grant which actually in-
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clude agricultural districts under the definitions which I have already given to the House. In order to qualify for the grant, the rural district council must make application by November 30 of this year, and the houses, to be able to qualify for the grant, must be completed by the date which the Committee lay down. Finally, let me remind your Lordships that the measure will give homes to large numbers of agricultural workers and their families; it will also give employment to a considerable number of building trade operatives and others; it will save the Unemployment Insurance Fund many millions of pounds, and will add to its income; it will bring better health and more comfort to thousands of workers in this country; it will ease toil and create more happiness, and encourage living in the country instead of over-populating the towns; and it will add to the wealth of the country, not only in the material sense of building more houses but, what is of even greater value, in providing better moral and physical equipment for our future citizens who people the countryside. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Marley.)
LORD STRACHIE: My Lords, after the very interesting and clear speech of the noble Lord I should be surprised if any noble Lord objected to the Second Reading. Certainly for my part I should not do so, and the only criticism I am going to make of the Bill is that it might go further in some directions. We shall all agree with the noble Lord that in these days, unhappily, the agricultural labourer is not as well housed as he ought to be, but the difficulty has arisen to a very large extent, both in respect to the improvement of existing houses and the building of more houses, because the landlord, who in the old days used to take great pride in housing his labourers in the best possible way, is not now, owing to Death Duties and other circumstances, in a position to make such an expenditure on his cottages as he did in the past. We all know that cottages are a dead loss to us as landlords at the present moment, owing largely to the very heavy rates upon them.
I was going to ask the noble Lord whether it would not be possible to give some further assistance under the Act

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passed by the late Government, the Housing (Rural Workers) Act. That Act has been put into force in very few counties. I am quite aware that Devon has done a great deal in this matter. I believe they have spent something like £40,000 on the conditioning of agricultural labourers' cottages. I know from personal experience that that Act can be used with very great advantage, with comparatively small expense either to the county council, the landowner, or the Government. It is often very easy, by spending a comparatively small sum, to add a third bedroom. So many cottages in rural districts at the present time have only two bedrooms, and I think in these days no cottage ought to have less than three bedrooms.
I cannot help thinking that one of the reasons why county councils have not exercised their powers under that Act is that the rates are very heavy, and during the present agricultural depression the county councils are very shy indeed of increasing the rates at all. I would make one suggestion—namely, whether it would be possible that in the future the county councils should be relieved entirely of their contribution of one-third of the cost, and that the Government should contribute two-thirds, leaving the landlord to contribute one-third? If that is not practicable, it would be something if the county councils were entirely relieved of making a contribution and the Government paid half the cost from Imperial sources, the landlord having to pay the other half. Of course, the landlord must pay his fair share. Some people say that this is going to be of great advantage to landlords. I believe a certain number of landlords consider it a distinct disadvantage that they should come under this Act, because for twenty years the landlord has to pledge himself that the cottage will only be let to rural workers, and the rent is not to exceed that which can be paid out of the ordinary agricultural labourer's wages, that is to say, practically 3s. a week.
Then I have another suggestion to make to the noble Lord in charge of the Bill. As he is of course aware, the rural district councils at present, under the Housing (Rural Workers) Act, do not have much to do with this matter unless the county councils are ready to delegate their powers to them. My suggestion is that before a rural district council re-
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ceives money under this Bill, it should satisfy the authority which makes the grant that it has taken advantage of the Housing (Rural Workers) Act, or asked the county council to delegate its powers to them under that Act. I think that ought to be a condition, because I believe that more can be done under that Act than by building entirely new cottages. I speak with experience, and I say without fear of contradiction that the Housing (Rural Workers) Act, if properly applied by the rural district councils who are anxious to have these powers, would be an effective way of dealing with this matter. In conclusion may I say I am very glad to see that so much is being done under this Bill to improve the conditions of agricultural labourers in this country.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME: My Lords, as recently as last November an attempt was made by the present Government to ignore your Lordships' House, and to institute single-Chamber Government. I refer to the Colonial Naval Defence Bill, which was before your Lordships' House last November. Part of Clause 3 of that Bill read as follows:
"any such expenses may be so paid, if, and so far as, the Commons House of Parliament hereafter think fit to make provision by Resolution for that purpose."
I drew the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Passfield, to that and he was good enough on Report to move an Amendment, which made the clause read:
"any such expenses may be so paid, if, and so far as, Parliament hereafter thinks fit."
Exactly the same sort of attempt is being made in this Bill.
If your Lordships will look at Clause 1 (4) you will see that it is in these terms:
The Minister shall cause any conditions laid down by him for the purposes of subsection (1) of this section, and any directions given by him for the purposes of the last preceding subsection, to be laid forthwith before the Commons House of Parliament, and, if that House within the next twenty-one days on which the House has sat after any such conditions or directions are laid before it, resolves that they shall he annulled, they shall cease to have effect but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done thereunder, or to the laying down or giving of fresh conditions or directions.

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Having pointed this out, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Marley, in Committee, will put this matter right, as the noble Lord, Lord Passfield, did in the Colonial Naval Defence Bill.
EARL PEEL: My Lords, I shall detain the House for a very few minutes, because the noble Lord who introduced this Bill gave us a very full account of it, and I think answered many questions which your Lordships might have been inclined to ask. I was rather gratified to hear in his closing sentences that he spoke of the enormous revolution which a Bill of this kind was going to introduce into our rural life. I confess when I looked at the Bill I had not imagined that the results were going to be quite so far-reaching. According to the noble Lord the Bill is going to restore life to the countryside, to deal with unemployment, and to bestow a number of blessings of that kind. If the expenditure of £2,000,000 over a certain period on houses is going to have this beneficent effect I should certainly welcome the Bill very much. I also perhaps may congratulate the Government that in these penurious days they have £2,000,000 to spare to spend on rural housing.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Strachie, that the series of measures dealing with rural housing has unfortunately become necessary because of the heavy burden of taxation, which has borne so hardly upon rural landlords during the last few years, that they have not been able to look after the housing of their labourers in the way they have done in the past. Unfortunately we have got into such an evil circle of subsidies for housing, and so very intricate is the story of those subsidies, that I think we are apt to forget that a very good case can be made out for saying that the more subsidies you have the higher does the cost of houses rise. That is a large matter into which I do not wish to go this evening, but I should like to ask the noble Lord a few questions as to the working of this Bill. I dare say it is my fault but I am not very clear as to how this money is to be distributed. Is this Committee to be the sole judge of the particular rural district councils who are to have funds allotted to them? Then, with regard to the selection of the particular necessitous districts, I have no doubt the noble Lord and his advisers have arrived
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at a very good method of deciding what are necessitous districts. There has been a good deal of investigation into the matter in the past and it has not been very easy, I think, to decide or to judge as between one necessitous district and another.
I may congratulate the Government in that I understand when the Bill was first introduced into another place there were practically no conditions or regulations concerning the method by which this money was to be distributed, but as the result of its passage through another place a number of conditions and regulations, I will not say were introduced but are going to be introduced. The Minister himself is going to make regulations—is he not?—as to the conditions on which these grants are to be given or administered. I should be very glad to know from the noble Lord when those regulations are to be issued. It might be very convenient if they could be issued before the House rises for the Recess in order that there may be some opportunity of criticising them. I think the noble Lord said that all the applications for money have to be sent in by the beginning of November or a very early date and it will probably be rather difficult to criticise the regulations at a later stage. I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord will be able to tell us that they will be laid on the Table before the House rises for the Recess.
There is another point which perhaps he could tell me about. I congratulate him on having secured the services of Sir Tudor Walters as Chairman of this Committee. I understand that Sir Tudor was the inspirer of the policy of the Government in this respect, and it is very fitting that the man who inspired the policy should be the principal agent in trying to carry it out. Again, the noble Lord told us that certain bodies and so forth were to be represented on this Committee. I imagine they have been selected and nominated already. I should be very much obliged to the noble Lord if he would tell us what the composition of that Committee now is. He said something about the rents of the houses and as to whether they are to be 2s. 6d. or 3s. 6d., and the rates and so on. He said something also about

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the cost of the houses. I do not know whether any limit is to be put on the cost of the houses, or whether that is to be left entirely to the rural districts themselves, or whether the Committee is to lay down any regulations regarding particular rural districts as a condition of the grant that may be made to them. I should be very touch obliged if the noble Lord would give me an answer on those particular points. As to the general conditions in the Bill and so on, I certainly do not wish at this stage to offer any opposition to the Second Reading.
LORD LAMINGTON: My Lords, I understand that these committees will not be set up in Scotland. Will the county councils still deal with the matter? I hope so, because the committees are going to be very extravagant, though the county councils are pretty bad.
LORD MARLEY: My Lords, I propose to deal very briefly with the questions that have been raised. I have, first of All, to thank your Lordships for the very kind and sympathetic way in which this measure has been received. The noble Lord, Lord Strachie, asked about the Housing (Rural Workers) Act. I ought, perhaps, to explain to him that that has very gradually speeded up the number of houses that have been reconditioned. For instance, in this country in 1928 only forty-four houses were reconditioned. That gradually increased to 790 in the next year, to 1,080 in the year after, and to 1,455 in the year ending March 31, 1931. So that, here has been a gradual speeding up, especially in the last eighteen months. It is the policy of the Government to press as far as possible the speeding up of work under that Act. I entirely agree that three bedrooms are essential for growing families, but I do not think they are essential for older couples. I also want to remind the noble Lord that we have just extended that Act for five years so that the time for the revision of the Act will hardly be reached before 1936. Nevertheless, I will, of course, convey to the Minister the suggestions he put forward in connection with the alterations. The point raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Bertie, is of course a Committee point and it will be within his competence to bring it up on Committee if he feels it is of sufficient importance.
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The noble Earl, Lord Peel, asked how the money is to be distributed. These grants will be available, of course, for the Advisory Committee and the Advisory Committee will distribute them according to the need of the councils concerned. That is to say, they will examine the poverty of a council, the number of bad houses and the number of agricultural workers and persons of like economic position, the amount of the rates and the product of a penny rate in its district. All those points will lead the Committee to differentiate as to the amounts they are able to recommend and the relative needs of the councils concerned.
EARL PEEL: Will they hold inquiries in the rural districts to get to know all these facts?
LORD MARLEY: I fancy the first step will be an application by the rural district to the Committee. Then the Committee will either accept the information provided by the rural district council or will put further questions to the council to elucidate the local position and to provide the comparative figures whereby the Committee can judge of the relative demands of the various rural districts. That is the kind of line that will be taken. Of course if it came to a sort of impasse where there was equal poverty in a large number of rural districts, it might be necessary to make local inquiries; but it is not anticipated that will be necessary.
As to the issue of the regulations, I am very sorry that I do not know when they will be laid on the Table, but I will convey to the Minister the suggestion that they shall be laid as soon as possible. I am sure it will be his desire to have that done at the very earliest moment in order that the Committee may prepare its plans for getting to work.
EARL PEEL: Will it be done before the Recess?
LORD MARLEY: I do not know, but I will convey the suggestion that it should be done. I can assure the noble Earl that I will do my best to see that the matter is expedited. With regard to the composition of the Committee, I gave a list of the organisations from which the members will be drawn—the rural district councils, the county councils, the building employers, the building trade operatives, the farm workers, business men of experience and a representative of Wales.

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I mentioned also that one of those members would be a woman, but I cannot give the names. As regards the Chairman, I may say that he has not been selected as being the putative partial father of this scheme, but as being a member of another place who has very great experience in the matter of building houses and it is felt that his experience will be extremely valuable as Chairman of that Committee. As regards the cost—
EARL PEEL: My Lords, the noble Lord will forgive the interruption, but I meant to ask a further question though I admit that I did not. It is with regard to confining these houses to agricultural workers. We know what has happened in the past with reference to that. I see that the Bill says agricultural workers and persons of "substantially the same" "economic condition." May I assume that the agricultural workers proper will have the preference for these houses?
LORD MARLEY: There is not the slightest doubt about that. The Committee will take into account that factor as one of very great importance in determining the amount of the grant and the distribution of the grant. It is essential for agricultural workers and those of like economic condition to come in in that connection. With regard to the cost of the houses it has been estimated that the average cost of these houses will be in the neighbourhood of £350, but it is believed—and the experience of Sir Tudor Walters will help in this matter—that that cost may be able to be materially reduced. If that is the case, then the grants can naturally be larger or more widely distributed; and that will be one of the factors for the Committee to consider in any advice they give to the county councils concerned.
With regard to the rents, I do not quite understand the difficulty. Perhaps I did not make myself clear upon this matter of rents. The rents of these houses are based first of all on the economic cost expressed as a capital figure at to-day's value, or an annual payment over 40 years. That economic rent is reduced first by the value of the £11 subsidy under the 1924 Act. That is capitalised at £200 today. Then there is the £1 grant by the county council to cottages inhabited by agricultural
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workers. That is capitalised to-day at £18. Next there is the £2 15 s. which is capitalised at something in the neighbourhood of £45 to £50—that is the balance of the contribution payable by the rural district in which the cottages are put up. These added together will leave a sum which has to be met by that portion of the rent payable by the agricultural labourer who occupies the cottage—that portion of the rent he pays which is not for repairs—and that portion, therefore, after deducting the amount for repairs, becomes a portion which we can capitalise. Perhaps I have not made that point clear. Suppose the total outgoings exclusive of rates were, say, 3s. Then, approximately, 1s. or 1s. 3d. or 1s. 6d. might be taken as the cost of repairs each year. That would leave about 1s. 6d. as the annual payment which we could capitalise and express as a present-day capital sum towards the capital cost of the houses. Then we can say that so much of this balance due will be paid in the form of rent by the tenant of the house, and so much will be the contribution from the Bill, which I hope your Lordships will shortly make into an Act. I hope that that makes the question of rents quite clear.
Finally, may I say that I do not think this Bill is going to revolutionise the countryside. I did not mean to claim that, but what I did try to claim was that it would give employment, and, however small the employment given, I am sure every member of your Lordships' House will welcome that contribution towards dealing with the unemployment problem. Moreover, it will provide far greater comfort, happiness and welfare to something like 40,000 families, and in a countryside in which the number of families is falling and not rising, and in which conditions are very difficult, I am quite sure the noble Earl, Lord Peel, will agree that this is a considerable contribution to happiness and comfort in that area.
LORD LAMINGTON: Will the noble Lord answer my question as to whether these committees will be set up in Scotland or whether the county councils administer the grant?
LORD MARLEY: No, there will be a separate Committee for Scotland. I cannot give the composition of that Com-

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mittee, which will be appointed, after consultation with the Treasury, by the Department for Scotland. I do not know who the Chairman will be, and I do not know who the members will be, but I have no doubt the Committee will be composed on similar lines to those of the Advisory Committee for England and Wales.
On Question, Bill read 2a and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

THE TWENTY-FOUR HOUR SYSTEM.
LORD LAMINGTON LORD LAMINGTON asked whether His Majesty's Government have come to a decision as to the introduction of the 24-hour system according to the undertaking given on May 6. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I will not trouble the House for more than a few moments at this hour, as we had a debate upon this matter when the question was brought forward by my noble friend Lord Newton not, long ago. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Marley, who, I understand, is going to reply, will be able to give a definite and favourable answer. In his speech on the occasion to which I have referred he really raised no objection to this proposal, except that the Government did not think there was any great public demand for the change. I agree it is not a matter that excites the masses of the people, but I think everybody who has had any experience of the working of the 24-hour clock approves of it. It has been introduced into the Army and Navy and Air Force, and on the Continent it is universal. Therefore, although there may be no great public demand for it, I do not think it would be objected to by the public. The only valid objection that I have heard was the opinion expressed that it would cost the railways something if introduced on the railways. I am very unwilling that any act of the Government should put a further burden on the railways in addition to those burdens which have been imposed in past years, but if a good time limit were given there would be no objection.
LORD NEWTON: The railways want it, and are prepared to pay for it.
LORD LAMINGTON: The noble Viscount, Lord Churchill, said on May 16 that if the Government would give a lead
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he would not object. I think this is a case where the Government might well give a lead by introducing it into their post offices, and having envelopes and telegrams stamped on the 24-hour clock principle. I think that would be a very great convenience. I believe that cable-grams already are stamped on the 24-hour system, and, therefore, it might well be adopted for ordinary letters and telegrams. Under the present system, one often has difficulty in deciding at what time a letter has been posted. It is generally badly stamped, and you cannot find out whether it has been posted a.m. or p.m. If you had one time to deal with it would simplify the matter. I trust this afternoon that we are going to have a favourable reply from the noble Lord, and that this 24-hour system will be adopted as regards the Post Office.
LORD MARLEY: My Lords, I promised when I dealt with this question a few weeks ago that the Departments concerned should re-examine the matter. The Departments have re-examined this question, and have taken into account the discussion which took place in your Lordships' House the month before last. I am bound to say that I personally very much regret that as a result of that re-examination the Government have decided that they are not able to take any action in the direction of changing the present method of expressing time. In coming to this decision the Government were influenced by the fact that they have no evidence of any general or widespread desire for the change suggested. They do recognise, however, that a number of very distinguished authorities have expressed themselves in favour of the change—persons like the Astronomer Royal, for instance—but they also have to recognise that other authorities have also expressed themselves in a contrary sense, and that is one of the difficulties which any Government have to face when there is no widespread desire for a change.
The Government have further taken into account the question of the railways, and it is a fact in this country that there are very few journeys of sufficient duration to make the use of the 24-hour system in time-tables a real necessity. Of course in regard to Continental travelling the matter is entirely different,

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and I understand this system is used in certain Continental time-tables printed in this country. As regards the railways here, however, it is felt that there is nothing to prevent the railway companies, if they particularly want this change, making it themselves without any question of Government intervention. The railway companies really said that they are prepared to accept it if the Government wished to make a move, but are not particularly anxious to have it. Of course your Lordships know that I feel—and there is no doubt—that the proposed change would be advantageous, but, on the other hand, it would cause worry to a number of people whose mathematics are very weak. I do not, of course, refer to members of your Lordships' House in that connection. Perhaps when the school-leaving age has been raised and children have more facility in mathematics a different interpretation may be given to the question. Personally I hope so, but I am sorry that we cannot do anything more at the present time.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I have listened to the noble Lord's statement with mingled surprise and disappointment. I have been engaged in polities now for many years, and I ought to be inured to disappointment, but I confess that when the noble Lord not so long ago expressed himself in favour of the change and assured the House that it would be considered in a careful and, above all, a sympathetic spirit by the Departments concerned, I did hope that something really was going to happen. I can only say that I have never listened to a more unconvincing statement than that which has just proceeded from the noble Lord. This is an obvious and a petty proposal against which there is nothing whatever to be said. It is admitted that it is conducive to accuracy in all exact operations. It was unanimously recommended by a Joint Committee of the two Houses of Parliament something like 13 years ago. It has been adopted by all the Forces of the Crown. It is in operation in all European countries. And when the noble Lord advances as an argument against it that it would be hard on the railways, he must, surely, have forgotten the fact—of which I hoped I had been able to convince him—that the railways actually want it. The railways know as well as
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the noble Lord that it would cost them something, but the point is that they are quite prepared to incur that expense in consequence of the greater convenience which would result. I quoted from railway authorities in support of this statement. Therefore, that particular argument falls to the ground altogether.
He has two other arguments. When I say "he" I presume he represents the view of the Cabinet—a Cabinet which seems in some respects to possess a very retrograde nature. He says that there would be difficulty in calculation. There is no more difficulty in calculating the time of day under the 24-hour system than there is in calculating what half a crown means. He might just as well say that if you use the term half a crown, nobody would know that you meant two shillings and sixpence. There is just as much force in the argument. Then he had a final argument, that there is no demand for it. I admit that there has not been any demonstration at the Albert Hall or on Tower Hill or in Hyde Park or anywhere else. Nobody has gone to prison and nobody has gone on hunger strike in favour of this 24-hour day. But is the opinion of scientific authorities and the experience of professional men to count for nothing? Are the Government only to be influenced by processions of people carrying red flags or black flags or symbols of that kind? Surely equal attention might be paid to persons of experience and common sense who have had a proper education. There is really no argument of any sort or value that can be adduced against it. The only argument that suggests itself to me is that the Government have been influenced by a desire to placate—a perfectly hopeless undertaking—people like my noble friend Lord Banbury. That really is the only explanation I can think of for this apathy. This proposal is so sensible, so simple and I may add so cheap—it is not going to cost anybody anything except the railways—that it is bound to come. I hope my noble friend Lord Lamington will persist in this crusade and continue to worry the Government on the subject. I can assure him and the noble Lord opposite that if he does not do so I shall be quite ready to take his place, and I shall hope to see it in operation before I depart this life.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, as nobody has said a word on behalf of the Government on this occasion, may I be allowed to congratulate them on the conservative spirit in which they have treated this important question? Personally, I am one of those placated by the speech of the noble Lord. I much prefer to have my day cut up into a.m. and p.m., as I have been in the habit of doing for so many years, and not have to make mathematical calculations. I do not say that I cannot, with the assistance of pen and paper, find out that 15 h. is really 3 p.m., but prefer to see 3 on the clock or in the time-table. We are told that the railway companies want it, but there seems to be some confusion there. I gather that the railway companies would acquiesce in it, but are not clamouring for it with red, black, green or white flags which the noble Lord advocates to press the cause. The noble Lord said that it was no more difficult to understand that 15 h. meant 3 p.m. than that half a crown meant two shillings and sixpence. Perhaps it is not, but I am surprised that he should use the half crown argument because we are told that cur coinage system is as bad as our time and that we ought to divide our coinage into decimal parts. Therefore, when one got half a crown it would be two shillings decimal five or something like that. Then the noble Lord said there was no great demand for it. Is not that a good reason for the wise decision come to? If there is no demand why upset everybody's habits? I should like to express my agreement, not with the noble Lord—because I do not think he was in agreement with himself—but with the very wise advisers he has behind him.
LORD LAMINGTON: May I, by leave of the House, ask the noble Lord whether he has any definite statement from the Post Office Advisory Council on this matter?
LORD MARLEY: Perhaps I ought to wind up this by saying that the question was not referred to the Post Office Advisory Council, but it was carefully considered by the Postmaster-General. Personally, in many ways, I would much rather placate the noble Lord, Lord Newton, than the noble Lord, Lord Banbury, if I have to placate somebody. I wish I had more influence in this matter.
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I find myself in total disagreement with the noble Lord who supported me in what he said in this connection. There are several Departments concerned and one of the difficulties when several Departments are concerned in a matter is that very often they do not see eye to eye. I do not agree that this is a petty proposal. I think it is an important proposal, and the Department in which I work—the War Office—has shown that it does not consider this a petty proposal by actually adopting it. Nevertheless, the position is, I am sorry to say, as I have already stated, and I can only hope that the noble Lord, Lord Newton, will go on hunger strike. By that means, perhaps, we shall get a further move in this matter.