Lords Sitting of 11 March 1931

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

LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

NATIONAL FINANCES.
LORD MONKSWELL LORD MONKSWELL had the following Notice on the Paper—To call attention to the crusade against national prosperity that has been carried on by all recent Governments, its origin and probable consequences; to ask His Majesty's Government how it is proposed that the people of this country shall be fed when the crusade has reached its logical conclusion; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, on two recent occasions I have brought before you Motions dealing with different aspects of the finances of this country. On both occasions the answers I received from His Majesty's Government appeared to me to be so alarming that I make no apology for again inviting your Lordships' attention to a matter connected with those finances. On the first occasion the noble Lord, Lord Arnold, in giving particulars of uncollected taxes, stated that in 1922 the amounts of Income Tax and Super-Tax combined which were actually collected were £94,000,000 below the assessments. As the rates of these combined are again at the same level as they were in 1922 and the Death Duties are even higher, the prospects of collecting the assessments would appear to be remote. On the other occasion I suggested that our present orgy of national extravagance must shortly lead to inflation. Lord Marley, who made a speech from the Government Benches, in the course of many interesting remarks of a general character, was exceedingly careful not to say one single

277
word upon the subject of inflation. It is, therefore, not unfair to assume that he admitted a proposition which he dared not mention, much less deny.
On the one hand, then, we have passed the upper limit of effective taxation, and on the other we are on the brink of a fall in our currency which, once started, must continue so long as our national extravagance continues, till, if our national extravagance continues long enough, a million pounds will not buy a loaf of bread. In those circumstances I am naturally curious to know how the people of this country are to be fed, and I invite the Government to give us full and detailed information on the subject. A situation of this kind, fantastic as it may seem, is the logical result of the course followed by all recent Governments. One and all, they have carried on an attack against production, therefore against prosperity. Cheap and abundant production of all forms of material wealth is the principal and almost the only necessity for national security and well-being. To bring about this desirable state of affairs, the first essential is an abundance of cheap capital, but one Government after another, in deference to the blind Imbecility of the electors on whose votes they depend for their existence, have put every obstacle they can think of in the way of accumulation of capital.
The possession of any considerable amount of capital—that is to say, the ability to provide tools, to set any considerable number of men or women to do useful work—has been made an offence to be punished by heavy and recurrent fines. Restrictions of every kind have been imposed upon the right to work. Free competition in production is forbidden. Capital is being poured out like water in any way that ensures that it shall reproduce little or nothing. Large and rapidly growing sections of the population are actually being bribed with public money not to work. Meanwhile the childishly simple facts of the situation are a closed book to the electors of this country. The whole basis of prosperity is material wealth, which will almost automatically increase and multiply if its holders are given security, but which dwindles and dies unless it is allowed to be freely used for the production of yet more wealth. There is
278
only a negligible minority of voters who have progressed beyond the conception that the right way to become prosperous oneself is to drain away the sources of other people's prosperity. The huge majority of the voters in this country are, in fact, economically imbecile.
Take, for instance, the nonsense that is talked about over-production. From the point of view of the public, it is impossible to have commodities too cheap. Cheapness is simply the result of efficient and abundant production. When people talk of over-production, what they generally mean is that the introduction of efficient methods has had the effect of reducing the number of workpeople required in some particular industry. This, of course, is always likely to be the case when more efficient methods are introduced. It means that modern methods of production usually involve displacement of labour. This, I need not point out, is inherent. Again, the economically imbecile electorate entirely fail to grasp that the cost of production of the wealth of any country is the whole national expenditure of that country. It is no use saying that we will separate our expenditure into watertight compartments and charge against the cost of production the direct costs only—wages, raw material and so forth—but we will give all sorts of subsidies to the workman: we will educate his children; we will pension his father and mother; we will keep him when he is out of work; and we will not charge that against the cost of production at all. It is the veriest make-believe. These things are costs of production just as much and as little as the direct costs.
Every political Party is forever saying that the standard of living of the British working classes is the highest in the world, and that, whatever happens, this state of affairs is to continue. That this is contingent upon the production of the commodities and services which constitute the standard of living is not mentioned at all, and the economic ignorance of the majority of the electors is so great that they accept the comfortable things that are told them. Men of all political Parties are constantly talking about a redistribution of wealth. They do not mention that, of all the redistributed wealth, 90 per cent. is sterilised in the process of redistribution.
The fact, of course, is that the standard of living of a country depends upon its production. If the British working classes produce less than the savages of Polynesia the standard of living of the Polynesians will rise above that of the British. Clearly our present troubles are primarily, and almost entirely, due to the excessive all-in costs of production, which make it impossible for us to produce as efficiently as other countries. While I do not suggest that tariffs may not in certain circumstances be desirable, they certainly will not do much good unless they have the effect of reducing our all-in costs of production to the level of those of other nations. As our all-in costs of production are burdened by a much heavier extraneous load of taxation than those of most other nations, I do not myself see how it is to be done. If we are to survive, we must be able to produce efficiently enough to earn interest at or about the market rate free of all taxes. Anything short of this is living on capital in some form or other, and sooner or later bankruptcy will result.
I do not think that there can be any doubt that we have for long been impoverishing ourselves in this way and that the breaking point is approaching. What chance is there of our saving ourselves while there is time? The situation, bad as it is, is in no way mysterious, but is obviously the direct result of our present political system. To parody a couplet much used by politicians of a former generation we may now say that the motto of all political Parties is:
"Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die,
But God preserve our new democracy."
I have never myself been able to understand the prejudices for and against the innumerable systems of government that the world has seen and is seeing. The only thing that appears to matter is whether a system produces security and prosperity or the reverse. There is, so far as I am aware, no objection to democracy as a form of government if its results are good. In the particular circumstances of our own case the results are obviously so bad that the system may break down at any time, owing to sheer inability of any democratically-elected Government to provide the country with food.
Democracy with us has been carried to the extreme point where the comparatively small section of the people who practise thrift and understand the importance of production, is entirely without the smallest vestige of political influence. As a political force they have been wiped out for the time being. So far as I know, these people do not even possess any organisation of the slightest value that would enable them to step in and take control when the inevitable breakdown of democracy takes place.
If the electorate were capable of learning anything it is inconceivable that they should not have learned from the example of Russia. The crooks and fanatics who are behind the so-called proletarian movement in that country, having destroyed most of the means of production in Russia, are now saying to the Russian people: "We congratulate you. You have got rid of your capitalist masters. All is going splendidly, and you have given absolute power into our hands. We hope you will not mind, so as to get things quite straight, if we propose to introduce slavery for an unlimited period. If you do mind, it does not matter, because if you resist we shall shoot you down." The crooks and fanatics who are behind the democratic movement in this country are proceeding on precisely the same lines. They have already cajoled the imbecile electorate into dissipating wealth and into planting their puppets where they control the naval, military and police forces of the State, and they are doing everything they can to organise and legalise attacks upon the community. What is intended is not difficult to foresee.
I think it must be recognised on all hands that we are living in a time of political chaos, which in the nature of things will pass and give place to some more stable system. The human race appears to be divided into two main parts—a comparatively small section of people who possess foresight and do not take any important step without counting the cost, and a comparatively large section who have no foresight and never consider consequences. Democracy is a term that may be used to cover a wide range of systems, but in most democratic countries—certainly in this country—the latter section are supreme. They are

281
easily organised by cajolery and intimidation and can be driven by demagogues like flocks of sheep. The section that possess foresight are, for the very reason that they think for themselves, much more difficult to organise and to control, but irresistible when of one mind. It is, therefore, in no way surprising to find that from the break-up which came with the advent of the industrial era about a hundred years ago, the first thing to emerge was predatory democracy, which itself believes it will last for ever while it is in fact living from hand to mouth and has already destroyed any chance of permanence that it may ever have possessed.
What should be our aim when our present troubles have been surmounted? Foresight, the one quality in which democracy is most conspicuously deficient, will, as civilisation becomes more and more complicated, point more and more the path to prosperity. Those nations will survive whose rulers recognise economic facts and act accordingly. The others presumably will perish. At the present time it is probable that Great Britain is kicking against the pricks of economic fact harder than any other nation, not excluding Russia. It can be put very simply. The standard of living must depend on the production of those material things by which people live. To attempt to raise the standard of living without concurrently increasing production is to attempt a process which in the nature of things cannot endure. To demonstrate the impossibility of the continuance of democracy in any form even faintly resembling that in which we have it today, we have only to ask ourselves what chance there is of the present electorate voting in accordance with the simple economic fact that the standard of living depends upon production. The answer obviously is that there is no chance whatever, and that to hope for anything of the kind is futile. Democracy in fact is incompatible with survival.
If we go a little further it very soon appears that democracy is a highly artificial system depending even in logic upon a number of childish fallacies, while history gives it next to no sanction. The position clearly is that it is only in very peculiar circumstances that a democracy like ours can come into existence, while
282
the possibility of its continuing for any great length of time—as time counts in the life of a nation—may at once be dismissed. If it is not overturned by some exterior shock it will soon commit suicide. I will nut detain your Lordships by speculating on which of these processes is the more probable. Neither is likely to be a pleasant one.
Let us pass on to the principles which must animate any Government which wishes to initiate an era of security and plenty. The first absolute essential is that a long view should be taken. We must make up our minds whether we are going to be a self-contained community, as far as possible satisfying our own wants, or whether we are going to encourage the exchange of our own commodities with those from overseas. The decision we reach must obviously depend on whether or no overseas countries are prepared to enter into long-term agreements with us, and the matter cannot be settled quickly. There must be no more yearly Budgets with money snatched from anywhere it can be found to meet improvident and hand-to-mouth expenditure. Revenue and expenditure must be planned for years ahead, and no increase in the taxes planned allowed except in the case of war. Finally, and above all, it must be recognised that the root of all further alleviation of man's lot lies in the extended use of power and machinery, and that the provision of power and machinery depends first, last and all the time upon the existence of huge masses of cheap capital which is merely another name for power and machinery. Only in some such way can the possibilities of the industrial era be turned to account, and this can happen only when the thrifty and far-seeing members of the community have organised themselves so as to have at their disposal sufficient physical force to ensure that their programme can be carried out. I beg to move.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (LORD PASSFIELD): My Lords, the noble Lord who has just sat down was so impartial in distributing his criticism and blame over all the recent Governments that I am rising only out of courtesy to the noble Lord, because I feel that His Majesty's present Government have nothing more to protest against

283
than His Majesty's Government which preceded us. I think, in fact, the noble Lord indicated that the terrible process of undermining national prosperity had been going on since the beginning of the industrial era, about a century ago.
LORD MONKSWELL: Hardly that.
LORD PASSFIELD: I would ask the noble Lord to take courage. If this terrible process has been going on as long as that, it may not be so serious as he thinks. The noble Lord referred to the previous discussion that he initiated on the subject, in which he suggested that my noble friend Lord Arnold, in answering him, did not mention one very serious matter, the danger of inflation, whereupon the noble Lord concluded that Lord Arnold—
LORD MONKSWELL: It was Lord Marley.
LORD PASSFIELD: I beg the noble Lord's pardon, Lord Marley. That being the case, I feel bound to mention that point, lest I should be held to have admitted anything as serious as that my noble friend had overlooked the danger of inflation. Fortunately the subject of inflation is not one of Party differences in this House. The danger of inflation, in the strict sense, is recognised, I think, by all Parties in the House, and I think I can comfort the noble Lord by saying that, so far as the present Government are concerned, they will not willingly take any step whatsoever in the direction of creating inflation. I do not claim any superiority on that account. I could say a great deal in criticism of successive Budgets of previous Governments, but it must be admitted that they were not guilty of inflation. I can assure the noble Lord that His Majesty's Government at the present time are not going to embark on any policy that could be called inflation.
The noble Lord went on to say that we were on the brink of a fall in our currency. I hope that is not true and, as a matter of fact, a rise has taken place in our currency, if it is measured by the general level of prices during the last five years. That is to say, the value of currency, as indicated by the general level of prices, has risen. If the price of articles, measured in our currency, has gone down, the value of our currency
284
has gone up, and the noble Lord's fear that we are on the brink of a fall in our currency must mean that he is afraid that prices are going up. I confess that I can see no sign at present of a marked and general rise in prices, and I would suggest to the noble Lord that possibly a rise in prices would not be a sign of any great calamity. There are many people who say that the first sign of an improvement in trade will be a check to the fall in prices and a return to a steady rise in the prices of commodities. I can assure the noble Lord that, so far as I am advised, there is no sign of our being on the brink of a fall in our currency. The noble Lord said that a necessary condition of stabilisation was cheap and abundant production in all forms of material wealth. I may agree with him about that, but I would point out to him that cheapness in all forms of material wealth is generally described as a rise in the value of our currency. If our currency fell, it would mean that prices would be going up, and that is the very inflation of which he is afraid.
We are certainly enjoying at the present time an abundant production of a great many forms of material wealth. There is probably more wheat in the world than there has ever been before, more rubber, more tin, more wool, and, indeed, more of almost everything. There is abundant production in the world, and producers, at any rate, think that commodities are cheap enough. If the noble Lord were in Australia he would not be under any misapprehension as to the amount of production or as to the low prices that are being obtained. What the logical end of this is I do not know, but the noble Lord seemed to think that the logical end of the action of all recent Governments is an attack on productivity. We sometimes build better than we know, and I suppose I speak on behalf of the late Government as well as of the present Government when I say that they are quite innocent of any desire to attack productivity. That may be the logical end of their action in the noble Lord's view, but we do not always pursue things to the logical end.
To speak more seriously, I would ask the noble Lord to take courage on one point. He was very emphatic on the importance of saving and thrift. The noble Lord seemed to think that the

285
great majority of people in this country were incapable of thrift and were not saving. I humbly suggest to him that he might take comfort from the fact that one very marked feature of the present time, not merely of this year but of the past few years, has been the very great amount of saving by the great mass of the people. If the noble Lord will take all the statistics, he will see an enormous increase in building societies, in industrial insurance, in friendly societies and in savings bank accounts. If he will add this up, making any deductions that he likes for participation in that saving by the middle or upper classes—if we must talk of classes—he cannot fail to see that there has been relatively a very large amount of saving, measured in hundreds of millions of pounds. It is not only relatively a very great amount, but it represents a huge amount of thrift and foresight and is a very remarkable phenomenon in the present conditions of bad trade.
I would urge noble Lords to take courage from that. It is something over which we can all rejoice without any suggestion of Party views on the subject. It represents a great and widespread saving by the accumulation of relatively small sums, and I doubt whether at any time in the history of this country there has been so much saving by the better sections of the wage-earning class as there is at the present time. Certainly at no time has there been so large an aggregate sum in their possession as the result of saving. I would only remind your Lordships of the co-operative movement which, when I first had occasion to know it, numbered only 1,500,000 members, and had a capita] of something like £50,000,000. The membership is now about 6,000,000, and the capital is at least £150,000,000, practically all of which is accumulated as the savings of the wage-earning class, numbering something like one-third or, to be moderate, one-quarter of all the families in the Kingdom. Now, that is a very remarkable result, and when the noble Lord talks about the huge majority of electors being economically imbecile I would commend to him the fact that a very large section, numbering millions, of the electors, are participating in this extraordinary saving — extraordinary
286
because it is unparalleled in this country at any previous time, and, I suggest, unparalleled in any other country of like magnitude.
The noble Lord indicated, though I do not think he quite used the phrase, that for a number of years this country has been living on its capital. I speak without having the exact statistics in my head, but I do speak with some economic knowledge of the subject, and I can assure the noble Lord that, far from this country having a lessened aggregate of capital this year compared with last year, and so for other years, it is putting it mildly to say that the aggregate wealth of this country has not diminished; the question is whether it has increased at the same rate as the population. I would not like to answer that without looking at the figures again. But there is no sign of our living on our capital yet. The noble Lord may say that the logical end of measures with which he does not agree may be that we shall be making drains on our capital in the future. I mistrust these prophecies and pursuing of things to their logical end, because I do not know; but certainly at the present time this country is not quite so down and out as the noble Lord fears.
In the opening of his speech he drew attention to the fact that some years ago the amount of Income Tax and Super-Tax uncollected ran into a great many millions, and he suggested, though I do not think he stated it, that at the present time the uncollected amount must be much greater. There, again, I think the noble Lord might take courage. It is quite true that, in the collection of Income Tax and especially Super-Tax, the Inland Revenue authorities are not peremptory, they do not sell up a man if he has not paid his Super-Tax by March 31. They allow him a little time before they proceed to drastic measures, and I do not think they are otherwise than wise in doing so. But I do not think that the amount uncollected at the end of the year is at the present time any greater than it has been, and I should be very much surprised, with the steady improvement of our methods, if it is not less than it has been. I have not got the figures, because the year is not completed and they are not published, but certainly last year, up to March 31, astonishing as it may seem,

287
the income of the country, so far as it is evidenced by Income Tax returns, had kept up. And I should be very much surprised if there is any very serious falling-off yet.
Perhaps the noble Lord will accept that as the best reply that I can give to his address on the spur of the moment, because we had very little indication of the line that he was going to take. I would only, in conclusion, urge him to take courage, and not to believe that all Parties in this House and in this country are necessarily led from the rear by the crooks and fanatics to whom he alluded—because in his impartiality he did not attribute that sinister leading by crooks and fanatics to any one Party in particular. He distributed his blame impartially over all the recent Governments. Well, I think those crooks and fanatics are about as imaginary as the army of Russians that passed through this country at the opening of the Great War; and if the noble Lord will look again at what is actually going on among the people of this country, the evidence of their orderliness, of their willingness to work, and of their very great amount of savings—I do not say thrift, because that means wise spending as well as saving—but the very great amount of the savings that they actually make from their wages, which are none too good, I think he will find that they compare very favourably in that respect with some other sections of the community, and their conduct and their character are such as to give me, at any rate, a great deal of confidence in the future. I think that confidence may reasonably be justified, and I hope it will be shared.
LORD MONKSWELL: My Lords, I am very much obliged to the noble Lord for his answer to my speech, which, I am afraid, contained a good number of points which he would want to study beforehand. But I must say that I am rather struck by the hardihood of the noble Lord in coming and making this very optimistic speech when his own Chancellor of the Exchequer is well known to be faced with an unbalanced Budget, and has not the slightest idea where he is going to get the taxes from to balance the next one, especially in view of the constantly growing expenditure—very much, I must repeat, on the lines that I
288
indicated in my speech. Of course, I am delighted to hear that he is satisfied with the thrift of this country, but I must say that it seems to me that the working class thrift in this country is simply a drop in the ocean. I saw some figures the other day, and all I could make out was that the whole of the savings of the working classes of this country amounted to somewhere about £2,000,000,000, that is, about one-third of the National Debt. Considering that they have all had their wages forced up by political methods for the whole of the last twenty years, it appears to me an extremely poor result, and I am not at all favourably impressed by it. But this is evidently a subject which, I fear, is not very well suited for discussion on the floor of your Lordships' House, so I will not say anything more concerning it. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSIONERS (LOANS FOR CHURCH TRAINING COLLEGES) MEASURE, 1931.
EARL GREY EARL GREY moved to resolve, That in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, this House do direct that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners (Loans for Church Training Colleges) Measure, 1931, be presented to His Majesty for the Royal Assent. The noble Earl said: My Lords, it is my duty on behalf of the Church Assembly to ask your Lordships to give a favourable hearing to this Measure. It is a very short Measure, and has only one object, which is to enable the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to advance money on loan to the Church of England so that it may recondition and enlarge its Church training colleges. I think it is curious, when we think of the amount of attention and time that are given to elementary schools in this country, that so little attention should be given to the training colleges which supply the teachers which staff those schools. The truth is, of course—which, indeed, is what one might expect—that the Church of England has just as distinguished and as honourable a record with respect to its training colleges as it has with regard to elementary schools in this country.
There are some twenty-six training colleges owned under Church of England

289
trusts, most of which were founded round about 1850, some rather before, some just after. Those colleges served a very great purpose in the educational field of the country, because it was not till, I think, 1905 that the first training college was built in this country by a local education authority. As they are mostly severity or eighty years old, and have to compete with colleges built out of public funds and only about twenty years old, the time has come, as your Lordships might expect, when a certain amount of re-conditioning is necessary in order to bring them up to the standards demanded by modern conditions. Accommodation, which perhaps was ample, and even in front of its time, thirty years ago, is no longer considered sufficient. And therefore, immediately after the War, the Church of England set itself to carry through a programme of improvements to its training colleges. It was calculated, I think, that rather more than £1,000,000 would have to be spent in carrying that programme through and of that large sum, entirely drawn from voluntary sources, over £600,000 has been spent already. It is now desired to raise more money to complete the programme, and I think it would be no more than the truth if I stated that the Board of Education were almost as anxious as the Church authorities themselves to see this programme successfully completed. It is clear that not only do these colleges perform a great public duty, but their existence saves the taxpayer a very considerable sum as they would have to be replaced if they did not exist.
Recently the adoption of the Hadow Report by the Board of Education has provided another reason for making it desirable that the improvements of the Church training colleges should take place. The reorganisation of the schools of the country demands an increased number of elementary school teachers. In order to provide those teachers the Board of Education invited all training colleges, whether provided or non-provided, to increase their accommodation. The Church of England accepted her share of the increase that was to be made, and it is partly in order to provide the extra teachers required by the Board of Education as well as to recondition her schools and bring them up
290
to standard that the money is wanted. That is the reason prompting the desire of the Church of England to spend this money. As to why we should turn to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to make the loans, it is not easy in these hard times to raise large capital sums unless there is an adequate amount of mortgageable property on which to secure them. Our training colleges are held under charitable trusts and that raises difficulty in the way of mortgages. After very careful consideration it was proposed to the Church Assembly and unanimously agreed by that body that in this matter it would be reasonable to ask the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to make the necessary loans. It would be reasonable not only because it was a vital matter for the Church that the money should be forthcoming and it was difficult to suggest any other source at the moment which would lend at a rate within the powers of the colleges to repay, but also from the fact that the prospects of repayment were such as the Church Assembly thought would justify the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in making the loans.
The position, then, is that the Church Assembly has passed this Measure without a single speech being made from any quarter against it. Previously to that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners themselves, after examining the type of security that was to be offered, had signified their readiness to make the loans if they were requested by the Church Assembly to do so. The Report of the Ecclesiastical Committee on the Measure points out that—
"The Measure does not in any way extend the objects to which the income of the funds in the hands of the Commissioners may be applied."
They say that its effect is so far to extend the powers of investment already possessed by the Commissioners over capital moneys in their hands as to enable them to make advances on lands or buildings belonging to or to be provided for the Church of England training colleges. The Commissioners have consented to the Measure, which was passed unanimously by the Church Assembly, and the Committee are of opinion that the Measure should be allowed to proceed. I hope your Lordships will agree with that opinion and I beg to make the Motion that stands in my name.
Moved to resolve, That in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, this House do direct that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners (Loans for Church Training Colleges) Measure, 1931, be presented to His Majesty for the Royal Assent.—(Earl Grey.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CIVIL AVIATION: INQUIRY INTO ACCIDENTS.
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY asked His Majesty's Government whether they will consider the desirability of affording a greater degree of publicity to the results of the investigations carried out on behalf of the Secretary of State for Air into accidents to aircraft engaged in public transport. The noble Marquess said: My Lords, I desire to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Paper. I am sure that your Lordships and the noble Lord who is to reply will realise that there is no suggestion of censure in any remarks I shall venture to make. The object I have in mind in asking the Secretary of State for Air this Question is to find out whether he would consider it possible to give greater publicity to the results of the investigations carried out on his behalf into accidents to aircraft which are now engaged in public transport. With that object I would suggest to him that he might arrange that the conclusions of the Inspector of Accidents should be automatically published in the case of all accidents in this country to British aircraft plying for hire or reward when such accidents involve loss of life or serious injury.
Your Lordships are aware that publications of this kind have been rare in the past. Naturally, I am not suggesting that there has been any desire on the part of the Air Ministry to hide from the public the causes which have led to these regrettable incidents. I have had much too long an experience in the Air Ministry myself—and I have had the privilege of being very closely connected with the Air Ministry all these years—not to know that the last thing they would wish from their own point of view is to keep from the public any details of matters which it is only right that the
292
public should know. The publication of the inspector's conclusions on accidents would mean a departure in degree from what has been done in the Air Ministry up till now, but it is one which I am inclined to think the Secretary of State would be glad to make. The report of the Inspector of Accidents has only been issued up to now in connection with accidents which have resulted in loss of life or serious injury. I am inclined to think it might be in the public interest, if it were possible, that his report should be issued on more occasions than in the past. It, has been the custom until now for the inspector's conclusions to be communicated, on request, to those parties who were interested in the accident, and I know that has been a source of considerable satisfaction to a great number of those who have been unfortunate enough to be connected with the various lamentable accidents which have taken place.
I am not really asking the noble Lord to publish these reports on all the civil accidents. I can hardly think that publication of that kind would serve any useful purpose. It would perhaps imply that all the information which might be forthcoming was not forthcoming, and so it seems to me that the Secretary of State could very advantageously use his own discretion in regard to these matters. Whenever one of those unfortunate occurrences takes place which attracts the public attention in a greater degree perhaps than some other accident, there is always a demand for a public inquiry, and I am inclined to think that perhaps the noble Lord can make some useful remarks in that connection. Speaking for myself, I should be very seldom in favour of a public inquiry being held, and at the present moment that jurisdiction is left, rightly, at the discretion of the Secretary of State for Air. Your Lordships are well aware that a public inquiry means the expenditure of a great deal of time, and it also costs a good deal of money, and I am not sure that in circumstances of that description, which involve great and wide technical examination, a public inquiry is the best tribunal for giving an authoritative decision on the case which is before them. Sometimes the reasons for these accidents are so obvious that a public inquiry is unnecessary, or the accidents are due to some

293
technicality which naturally the tribunal of a public inquiry is not in an advantageous position to enquire into.
I think the noble Lord will be able on this occasion—at least I hope so—to give us some figures in relation to the progress of civil aviation. We have, unfortunately, seen in the newspapers on several occasions the occurrence of lamentable accidents, but I feel that when we consider the extent of civil aviation the record is one of which we have every reason to be proud. I would go further and say that the record of this country is one which compares very favourably with the record of any other country in the world. That is due to the progress which has been made in civil aviation, and, if I may say so, is due to a succession of admirable administrators at the Air Ministry. It is not my intention to detain your Lordships long this afternoon. The question of publicity in respect of accidents is one which at different times, and in different degrees, has exercised the mind of the public, and I know that the noble Lord who will reply is of the same opinion as myself, that a certain amount of good can be done to the public by telling them exactly on what line publication is made of these accidents, and of the degree of information which he is only too anxious to give to the public. Your Lordships will realise that in addressing you to-day I am only talking of civil aviation. I am not bringing the other side of aviation into the question at all. That is a totally different matter, and one which requires different handling. I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR AIR (LORD AMULREE): My Lords, I wish to thank the noble Marquess for putting this Question, and for affording me the opportunity of making a statement regarding the attitude of the Ministry of Air in respect to accidents in civil aviation generally, and more particularly with regard to investigations which take place in reference to those accidents. I agree, if I may say so, with the noble Marquess as to the very great importance of this question, more particularly as it affects the general public, and also as it affects those concerned in the industry of aviation, and those directly concerned in transport.
294
Before dealing with the specific Question put to me by the noble Marquess, perhaps I might explain very shortly the conditions under which these investigations take place, and also the method in which they are carried out. The investigation of accidents to or in connection with civil aircraft is held under the Air Navigation (Investigations of Accidents) Order, 1922. The accidents referred to include death or personal injury to any person, and serious structural damage to the aircraft, caused or contributed to by the failure in the air of any part of the aircraft. These are the subjects as to which investigation has to be made. The object of the investigation is to ascertain the cause of the accident. When such an accident occurs a person appointed by the Secretary of State, called an Inspector of Accidents, holds a preliminary investigation. The Order gives the inspector certain powers to obtain information from owners and hirers of the aircraft and their employees; to require the production of books and papers, and to have access to the aircraft. On concluding his investigation it is the duty of the inspector to report to the Secretary of State.
There is thus no question of any hole-and-corner procedure as has sometimes been suggested, more particularly in recent years. The whole procedure is laid clown by Order in Council in accordance with the Statute, and all investigation is carried out by the Inspector of Accidents by virtue of this Order. The Order then goes on to say that:
"where it appears expedient to the Secretary of State to hold a formal investigation of an accident to which these Regulations apply he may, whether or not a preliminary investigation has taken place, by order direct a formal investigation to be held."
This formal investigation is held in open court and is one of the species of investigation referred to by the noble Marquess when he made reference to a public inquiry. It will be noticed that the Order expressly leaves the ordering of a formal investigation to the discretion of the Secretary of State.
The practice as to these investigations and reports thereon has been in the past much misunderstood. It has been said that it has been the desire of the Air Ministry to hush up accidents and to pre-

295
vent the true cause of any accident from being known. I was very glad to notice that the noble Marquess in his speech dissociated himself from anything of that nature. This suggestion was definitely and repeatedly made in the case of the unfortunate accident that took place at Meopham in July last, in which more than one member of this House suffered irreparable loss. I wish to state definitely and clearly that the Air Ministry has no such intention or desire and never had. Indeed shortly after the decision to refer the investigation of the cause of that accident to a special Committee, the Ministry notified the public that the Report of the Committee would be published, and the Report was published accordingly. It has also been said that the Air Ministry adopts a policy of secrecy in order to conceal its own responsibility and shortcomings in respect of accidents. Here again I wish to say that there is no foundation for this allegation. It is also sometimes said that the Service personnel of the Air Ministry controls civil aviation. That is quite inaccurate. The Service personnel does not control civil aviation. That is done by the Director of Civil Aviation who reports direct to the Minister.
The causes of air accidents may be divided into two main categories—first, error of judgment (generally under adverse conditions, such as bad weather or engine trouble), and, secondly, development of some defect in design which could not possibly have been foreseen and which is elicited by research after the accident. Inquiries so made tend to prevent similar accidents in the future. Your Lordships will readily recall examples of the first type. There have been two accidents during this winter in which experienced private owners lost their lives through flying in particularly difficult atmospheric conditions. The second type of accident is now comparatively rare. As far as we can judge, accidents due to faulty structure or design are becoming fewer.
The answer to the Question put to me by the noble Marquess depends to a large extent on the nature of the tribunal that makes the investigation into the accident. If the investigation is made by a tribunal sitting in public, it would follow that the result of the investigation would
296
be published; if, on the other hand, the investigation is not held in public, other considerations would apply. The question whether these investigations should be held in public has been much discussed. Accidents are, in practice, first investigated by the Inspector of Accidents. He holds what is called a preliminary investigation, which is none the less effective because it is conducted without formalities. He examines the wreckage, interviews witnesses, and obtains statements from them, and carries out such tests, etc., as he considers necessary. On concluding his investigation, he reports, as I have already stated, to the Secretary of State. It is sometimes said that these inquiries should be conducted in public, in the same way as inquiries into accidents on railways and shipping casualties. It may be remarked in passing that, in the case of shipping casualties, public inquiries are held only in one or two casualties out of 200 or 300; but apart from this, there is no real analogy, for railway accidents and shipping casualties, on the one hand, and air accidents, on the other, are widely different.
Take, for example, railway accidents: there is usually abundant evidence as to their circumstances, obtainable from survivors, eye-witnesses, and railway officials, and the technical causes are seldom likely to be obscure. The inspector may make inspection, but in the main he has only to sit and hear evidence marshalled before him. On the other hand, an air accident may happen anywhere. There are too often no survivors to say what occurred, and to find eye-witnesses may involve searching for them from house to house over half a countryside. The occurrence of the accident is seldom observed by anyone and most rarely by anyone with technical knowledge. By the occurrence of the accident, I mean the moment at which the breakage or defect develops in the air, and not the subsequent impact of the aircraft with the ground. It follows that the cause of an air accident has often to be reconstructed by a highly skilled expert from an examination of the wreckage and from such information as he can obtain from witnesses who have seen anything.
The wreckage must be visited immediately, and before souvenir hunters have had time to remove parts which might

297
give essential information. This expert is the Inspector of Accidents, an officer of great experience with special knowledge probably not possessed by anyone else in this country. In certain cases, even when there are no survivors, he is generally able to diagnose the cause of the accident with reasonable certainty from a study of the state in which different parts of the machine are found and the nature of the breakages and the distribution of the parts over the ground. In other cases, parts of the wreckage have to be taken away for examination and test, sometimes including test to destruction. It follows from this that the Inspector of Accidents in the case of aircraft, unlike an inspector inquiring into a railway accident or an inspector inquiring into a shipping casualty, is in most cases the only person competent to give a technical explanation of the matter. This obviously makes it difficult, if not impossible, for him to sit in public and conduct an inquiry. Even after he has made his investigations he may be unable on rare occasions to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion.
I have already referred to the investigation which may be held in "open court." This court may sit with or without assessors. It has power to summon witnesses and examine them on oath and to require the Production of documents, and in due course reports to the Secretary of State. Where courts have been held, their reports have been published. If the report of the Inspector of Accidents reveals nothing, or no satisfactory cause of the accident, and if the Secretary of State is satisfied that no useful purpose would be served by holding a public inquiry, he does not sit at his desk and say that the matter is insoluble. He refers the matter to a committee of experts. A convenient body for this purpose is the Aeronautical Research Committee, of which Sir Richard Glazebrook is Chairman. This Committee is a highly scientific body consisting of some of the most distinguished scientists of the day. It is ready to hear all available evidence and to consider and test any theories put forward. It also makes elaborate research investigations. In these circumstances, it is not compatible with its work to sit in public. It reports to the Secretary of State, and where the
298
Secretary of State has had resort to such a body he has published its reports.
Here, then, are the investigations the Secretary of State may order: an investigation by the Inspector of Accidents, informal yet thorough, and an investigation by a Court of Inquiry—these are statutory—and finally an investigation by a Committee of scientific experts. Inquiry into air accidents is, in our present state of knowledge, an inquiry apart. The science of aeronautics is in its infancy. It is often very difficult to determine the exact cause of an accident, and it is sometimes not possible to support by the ordinary rules of evidence of a Court of Law the conclusions which may be reached. This is in the nature of things, but, with the advance of the science, rules will be promulgated which only research and experience can verify.
It was at one time thought that a convenient method of inquiry might be adopted, following the precedent of inquiries into shipping casualties, by appointing courts of summary jurisdiction to hold a formal investigation, or an inquiry in open court. But it was found that such a tribunal was unsuited for such an investigation; the causes of some accidents, as I have pointed out, were too obscure, requiring scientific research, and the general problem of arriving at the true cause was too involved for a court of summary jurisdiction to give that confidence that the public and the industry required. The scheme was accordingly abandoned. It was thereupon decided to rely on the investigation by the Inspector of Accidents and, in cases where the Secretary of State thought fit, an investigation by means of a public inquiry before a specially constituted Court, and, where such a body as the Aeronautical Research Committee was deemed the appropriate tribunal, to refer the matter to it.
I have carefully reviewed the whole question. I propose to maintain the present practice of only ordering formal public inquiries where it is held that they would serve a useful purpose. There will be no hesitation in ordering a public inquiry wherever there seems to be a prima facie case for such a course. May I point out the advantages of the present procedure? It is elastic. The Inspector of Accidents makes an investigation into all serious civil accidents and also all

299
other civil accidents, the circumstances of which appear to require investigation. When a public inquiry is called for, it is held; when the case is one which is far more suitable for investigation by a highly technical body, such as the Aeronautical Research Committee, that form of investigation takes place. If a permanent Court were set up, or a procedure adopted whereby public inquiries were automatically held into all civil accidents, a very considerable expenditure would be incurred and additional staff would be required in the branches concerned at the Air Ministry. I do not think that any advantage which might be gained would justify the expenditure.
Having shown the kind of inquiries that are most appropriate to investigate the cause of accidents in civil aviation, I will now deal with the Question addressed to me by the noble Marquess. He put a question to me regarding the progress in civil aviation and the relative figures of accidents to the number of journeys taken. I regret that I have not the figures by me but, if he will allow me, I shall be very happy to furnish him with the numbers in that respect. With regard to the publication of the conclusions of the Inspector of Accidents, as the noble Marquess pointed out, their publication has been rare in the past. Hitherto the Ministry has only published the inspector's conclusions on six occasions during the last ten years, out of 130 investigations. I think the time has come when the practice of publicity may wisely be extended. In future the conclusions will be published in cases of all accidents in this country to British civil aircraft plying for hire which involve loss of life or serious injury. Accordingly, the conclusions will be published, not only in the cases of accidents on regular air transport services, which is the class of accident round which discussions have so far centred, but also in the cases of all accidents to "taxi" or "joy-riding" machines, whenever they are plying for hire or reward in the normal course of civil aviation. The inspector's conclusions will also be published in all cases, other than those falling in the category mentioned, which present special features, or in which it
300
appears that there are any useful lessons to be learned from the point of view of practical flying, technical development or aircraft construction.
Interested parties, as hitherto, can always have the gist of conclusions communicated to them. Where an investigation has been held by a Court of Inquiry, or an investigation has been made by such a body as the Aeronautical Research Committee, the present practice of publishing these reports will be continued. The policy which I have decided to adopt may, therefore, I suggest, be fairly said to meet fully the request of the noble Marquess. The results of investigations into accidents to aircraft engaged in public transport will thus be afforded a greater degree of publicity than hitherto. I hope my statement will satisfy the noble Marquess.
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: I am very much obliged to the noble Lord for his full answer to my Question.

YARMOUTH NAVAL HOSPITAL BILL. [H.L.]
Amendments reported (according to Order).
ALDERSHOT GAS, WATER AND DISTRICT LIGHTING BILL.
  PETITION FOR ADDITIONAL PROVISION.
  Examiner's Certificate of non-compliance with the Standing Orders referred to the Standing Orders Committee on Tuesday next.
SALVATION ARMY BILL.
Report from His Majesty's Attorney-General received, and ordered to lie on the Table.

BACUP CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn: The Order made on the 10th of February last discharged, and Bill committed.
House adjourned at a quarter past five o'clock.