Lords Sitting of 21 December 1932

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

CLITHEROE AND DISTRICT ELECTRICITY (EXTENSION) ORDER, 1932.
LLANGYNWYD MIDDLE ELECTRICITY ORDER, 1932.
MID SOUTHERN ELECTRICITY (EXTENSION, &c.) ORDER, 1932.
BLACKBURN ELECTRICITY (EXTENSION) ORDER, 1932.
MINSTER AND DISTRICT ELECTRICITY ORDER, 1932.
NORTH DERBYSHIRE ELECTRICITY ORDER, 1932.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Earl of Plymouth, I beg to move that the Special Orders, as reported from the Special Orders Committee yesterday, be approved, and if your Lordships agree I will move them en bloc.
Moved, That the Special Orders, as reported from the Special Orders Committee yesterday, be approved.—(The Earl of Lucan.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

BUXTON GAS ORDER, 1932.
HAMPTON COURT GAS ORDER, 1932.
COATBRIDGE GAS ORDER, 1932.
WEYMOUTH GAS ORDER, 1932.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Templemore, I beg to move that the Special Orders, as reported from the Special Orders Committee yesterday, be approved.
Moved, That the Special Orders, as reported from the Special Orders Committee yesterday, be approved.—(The Earl of Lucan.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LIVERPOOL GAS ORDER, 1932.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, again on behalf of my noble friend Lord
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Templemore, I beg to move that the Special Order reported from the Special Orders Committee yesterday be approved with additions.
Moved, That the Special Order, as reported from the Special Orders Committee yesterday, be approved with additions.—(The Earl of Lucan.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, I now move that the following modifications be approved:
Page 9, Clause 21, subsection (3), after the words "added limits," insert the words "and within the Speke area if and when such area becomes part of the limits of supply."
Page 14, Clause 29, subsection (3), after the words "preference stock," insert the word "issued."
This Order authorises the purchase by the Liverpool Gas Company of the undertaking of the Huyton and Roby Gas Company and extends the limits for the supply of gas by the former company. Objections to the application were lodged by the Liverpool Corporation and the Lancashire County Council, but these were subsequently withdrawn and the Order is now unopposed. No Government grant is involved. The first Amendment is to make it clearer that, if and when the Speke area (as defined in the Order) becomes part of the company's limits of supply, the provisions of their Acts and Orders shall apply within that area. The second Amendment merely corrects a printing error.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

GRANTHAM GAS ORDER, 1932.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Temple-more, I beg to move the Motion standing on the Paper in his name. The modification referred to is to omit the words "Section 18 (Limit of dividend)."
Moved, That the Special Order as reported from the Special Orders Committee yesterday, be approved subject to the following modification: Page 27, line 14, leave out the words ("Section 18 (Limit of dividend)").—(The Earl of Lucan.)
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF ONSLOW): My Lords, you will have seen by the Minutes that were circulated this morning that the Special Orders Committee reported this Order to the House with a note that there is a departure therein from precedent. The precedent is this. In all former schemes of this kind, if an amount in excess of that required to pay the basic dividend is paid to the shareholders there is a clause providing that an equal amount shall be paid to the employees for their benefit. In this particular Order that clause by which the employees received benefit is omitted. One of the main advantages claimed for the operation of the basic price system is that not only do the shareholders but also the employees obtain a share of any additional profit that may accrue. Therefore the Board of Trade in their Report to the Special Orders Committee drew particular attention to the omission of this clause from the Order. They did not, however, feel bound to insist upon the insertion of the clause for reasons which I will state to your Lordships.
I may point out that the Order was unopposed, and a witness who appeared before the Special Orders Committee as a representative of the employees—I think there are about 50 of them altogether and they are all agreed—stated that they were in favour of the omission of this clause. That was because they have already a benefit scheme which they do not wish to be interfered with and which they prefer to adhere to in toto. It seemed to the Committee that the attention of your Lordships' House should be called to this circumstance because if your Lordships are disposed to agree that the usual clause should not be inserted in this Order, at any rate that course should be taken with an explanation that it was for a special reason and that the employees themselves were in favour of it and preferred that the present system should continue. I think it is most desirable that it should be recorded that this is an exception and is not to be taken as a precedent unless, of course, similar circumstances should arise in relation to another Order.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932 (HERNE BAY URBAN DISTRICT ORDER).
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing on the Paper in my name.
Moved, That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Depart-merit under the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, for extending Section 1 of that Act to the urban district of Herne Bay, and laid before this House on Wednesday last, he approved.—(The Earl of Lucan.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932 (BOROUGH OF WHITEHAVEN ORDER).
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name.
Moved, That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department under the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, for extending Section 1 of that Act to the Borough of Whitehaven, and laid before this House on Thursday last, be approved.—(The Earl of Lucan.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

DONCASTER AREA DRAINAGE BILL.
Message from the Commons, That they have appointed a Committee to consist of five members to join with a Committee of this House to consider the said Bill and request this House to appoint an equal number of Lords to be joined with the members of that House.
Order of the Day read for the consideration of Commons Message.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Earl De La Warr, I beg to move that this Message be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons Message be now considered.—(The Earl of Lucan.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, I now beg to move the Motion standing on the Paper in the name of my noble friend Earl De La, Warr.
Moved, That a Committee of five Lords be appointed to join with a Committee of the House of Commons to consider the

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said Bill as mentioned in the said Message; and that the said Committee be named by the Committee of Selection.—(The Earl of Lama.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

THE TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR SYSTEM.
LORD NEWTON LORD NEWTON moved, That in accordance with the recommendations of the Home Office Committee appointed in 1910 to report upon the advisability of adopting, for official and other purposes, the twenty-four-hour system of expressing time, it is desirable that the system should be introduced into the Post Office, and that the railway companies should be invited to adopt it in their time-tables from a certain date,.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving this Motion I have no intention el occupying the time of your Lordships' House for long because the arguments are perfectly familiar. The sole object of the Motion is to simplify railway timetables and to make date marks upon letters and telegrams more intelligible than they are at present. In case there should be any noble Lord present who is unfamiliar with the story perhaps I may explain shortly the history of the circumstances. During the War one of the discoveries which was made was that our system of denoting time as a.m. and p.m. was of no use at all and only led to complete confusion. The result was that we adopted, in common with other civilised countries, what is known as the twenty-four-hour system, and the experiment proved so successful that the Government of the day set up a Committee presided over by my noble friend Lord Stonehaven to consider the whole question and the Committee reported unanimously in the words which are contained in my Motion.
The Committee pointed out that there. would be no public expense if this proposal were carried out, that the railway company were prepared to adopt the system if it were adopted by the Post Office, and that any expense involved would be recouped by the economy resulting from the adoption of the new system. They examined representatives of scientific bodies and the representatives of the Army, Navy and Air Force,
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and pointed out that all these bodies had adopted the practice. They further pointed out that it is in use in every country in Europe, in India and in some of the Colonies, and that in no instance where it had been adopted was there any question of abandoning it. It is employed by the B.B.C., it is used for meteorological reports and it is also used in Whitaker's Almanack. In the circumstances, as no public expense was to be incurred, and in view of the unanimous recommendations of the Committee, one would have thought that something would have been done, but now, fourteen years after the Report, the Government in the shape of the Post Office have stolidly refused to look at the proposal favourably.
I have approached every Government since the War and in no single instance have I or my noble friend Lord Laming-ton ever received a reasonable or adequate reply. When I say that, I do not consider it adequate or reasonable to be told that the people upon whose education perhaps five or six thousand pounds have been spent, are unable to do a common suns in subtraction. I class such an objection with another which I understood was raised in certain quarters against the introduction of summer time by certain people who believed it to be the cause of wet summers. There seems to me to be about equal sense in the two objections. The only reasoned objection I have heard was one made by the noble Lord, Lord Moyne, on the last occasion when I brought this subject forward. The noble Lord, at all events, had an argument to advance, although it seems to me it has no substance. His argument was that the day is naturally divided into two, one half devoted to rest and the other half to work. I should like to see him submit that argument to a trade union. What sort of reply would he get if he put it to a trade union that half the day was to be spent in work? I am old enough to remember—what in these days would be described in the popular Press as a slogan—a doggerel rhyme which, if I remember rightly, ran something like this:
"Eight hours work,
Eight hours play,
Eight hours sleep,
And eight bob a day."

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That is an ideal which has been reached long ago. We have got beyond that stage, but at all events it is a more sensible division of the day than that suggested by the noble Lord to whom I have just alluded.
The fact is that nobody can adduce any reasonable arguments against the proposed change. No attempt has ever been made to bring forward any reasonable argument. I have been told till I am sick of hearing it that the Post Office decline to undertake this experiment because there is no general demand for it. Why on earth should there be? In the first place, the general public has not sufficient imagination ever to think about such a question, and whoever heard of a general demand for anything unless it was for some political or pecuniary advantage? Last time I brought this subject forward I was answered by the noble Lord opposite, Lord Marley, who was, I am bound to say, more sympathetic than any of his predecessors. When I complained of this hollow argument that there was no public demand, he suggested to me that I should go on a hunger strike myself and produce a public demand in that way. Quite frankly I am not prepared to do anything of the kind, and I am afraid I should not be successful if I endeavoured to persuade the Astronomer Royal to parade the streets outside here with bills asking for a twenty-four-hour day. Nor would it be much good to ask a prominent gentleman in the railway world, Mr. Pick, for example, to burn down a church, one of the recognised methods of drawing attention to an alleged grievance.
It seems to me—I was almost going to say contemptible—childish to argue that because there are no public demonstrations and no Press stunt, there is no need to pay any attention to a demand put forward by sensible and responsible people. No one, I submit, has ever made any serious attempt to answer our contention and it seems to me that the Government might perfectly well accept my Motion as it stands. There is nothing about a date in the Motion. No doubt the Government would almost be able to find some convenient excuse for not putting this proposal into operation until a date that suited them. If they will agree to do this, I would be willing to amend the Motion, inserting limiting words; but if they are not prepared to
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do anything of the kind to meet me half way, I shall feel obliged to take the sense of the House on the question.
Moved, That in accordance with the recommendations of the Home Office Committee appointed in 1919 to report upon the advisability of adopting, for official and other purposes, the twenty-four-hour system of expressing time, it is desirable that the system should be introduced into the Post Office, and that the railway companies should be invited to adopt it in their time-tables from a certain date.—(Lord Newton.)
LORD LAMINGTON LORD LAMINGTON, who had given Notice that he would ask His Majesty's Government what objections there are to the introduction of the twenty-four-hour system of expressing time by the Post Office, for official purposes, and whether such a change was not recommended by the Home Office Committee appointed in 1919, and move for Papers, said: My Lords, I should like to express my satisfaction that my noble friend, who has recently recovered from an accident, has been able to be here to submit his Motion. My Notice is to much the same effect, but it is more limited in character for the simple reason that I want to try to pin down the representative of the Post Office who will no doubt answer on this point as to what are the real objections of the Post Office for not introducing this twenty-four-hour system. I have raised this matter for five or six years in your Lordships' House and we have been told time after time that if the Post Office will give the lead then the railways will follow suit. I do not know what possible objection the Post Office can have. It cannot be that of economy. It has been mentioned before that they have these stamps already in use for foreign or Dominion cablegrams on the twenty-four-hour system. Another possible objection might be that the change would involve altering the hours of the various post offices. But these are trivial sources of expense even in these hard times.
The noble Lord, Lord Marley, who was referred to by my noble friend as being sympathetic, practically favoured the introduction of this system, and so did his predecessor, Earl Russell, in private, although not in public. Who is the official in the Post Office who stands

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in the way of the introduction of this system? According to my information, some leading officials favour it, but there is somebody who will not have it. I have put down my Motion in order to get a clear answer on this point. I think my noble friend the Chairman of Committees on one occasion did mention, in regard to the introduction of this system for railways, that he thought it would be very complicated. I live in Scotland and have to make these long journeys, and it is most confusing, when taking a through train, to understand the change from p.m. to a.m. The twenty-four-hour system would make the matter absolutely simple. You would know where you were.
Lord Newton mentioned three Services, the Army, Navy and Air Force, which have adopted this system. It was absolutely essential in war time and they also use it in peace. Surely it would be in the interest of the Post Office to see that this system was adopted for the ordinary purposes of their undertaking. Take the Test Matches played in Australia,. It would be very much simpler, if you had a twenty-four-hour system, to know exactly at what hour play was being carried on. I remember during the last Test Match that I and some friends tried to work out the time, and it was almost impossible to tell exactly what the hour was when the match was being played. There is another point which I should like to make. I am not sure that I am altogether in approval of these stunts, but from time to time foreigners are invited to come from abroad and enjoy our climate and amenities. The foreigners who have been able to enjoy the principle of the twenty-four-hour system must find great confusion and very great difficulty in unravelling the intricacies of a railway journey from the South of England to Scotland. It would be far simpler for foreigners to have a system to which they are accustomed.
The noble Lord referred to the B.B.C. I looked in The Times to see how they make their announcements as to various services, and there I saw that in regard to foreign stations it was stated that the hours of transmission were p.m. unless otherwise stated. It is to be presumed that the a.m. was eliminated on the score of the confusion that would result. As to the argument that the alteration would
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lead to confusion here, I would point out that the first twelve hours would remain exactly as now, and that the introduction of the twenty-four-hour system would only lead to only temporary confusion as regards the other half of the twenty-four hours. I do hope that the noble Earl who is going to reply will state definitely what are the objections to the introduction of this system into the working of the Post Office.
LORD MARLEY: My Lords, I did not mean to speak, but my name has been mentioned as being sympathetic to the proposal. I think the House will admire the persistence with which Lord Newton has continued to press for this very important reform. I may say that I am glad that he did not have to go on hunger strike, and I am sure the House is glad to see Lord Newton back after his recovery. The point has been raised that probably the Government will answer that because there has been no demand for the measure therefore there is no need for anything to be done. That is a rather dangerous doctrine to advance on the part of any Government. We all saw before women obtained votes that they had to put in an immense amount of public demonstration, and we have recently had other demonstrations demanding action with regard to the means test and unemployment, which have had some result in alleviating certain conditions. It is doubtful whether you could get public opinion to take action along those lines on this question, but I suggest that from the point of view of the argument raised, as to the Army, Navy and Air Force, the railways and the Post Office, there is an argument which might cause the Government to give a sympathetic answer to this question. If the noble Lord decides to take this matter to a Division the whole of the Party behind me on these Benches will go into the Lobby with him—I shall go into the Lobby with him.
LORD STONEHAVEN: My Lords, I feel bound to support my noble friend because I happen to be associated with the Home Office Committee which launched the whole idea. We went into the question immediately after the War, and we could find no objection to the system. It had been worked during the War by all our Services, and no country

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which has adopted it has ever abandoned it. There is also this interesting point, that when my noble friend raised the question Lord Marley said he was authorised to say on behalf of the Government of which he was then a member that careful and sympathetic consideration would be given to the whole question, and as his sympathy with this question has now gone the length of his promising to vote with my noble friend, should he divide the House, it would be interesting to know what has been the result of the consideration that was given to the question. A little, later Lord Marley said that if my noble friend would put a question in six weeks' time, if there had been no Report before then, he held out some hope that the Government would be able to give an answer. It would be satisfactory to have this matter disposed of one way or another. It has been before the country for a very long time, and although in many ways people opposed to all change would object to this particular change, still the fact that it has been so successful in other countries, and particularly operates in the direction of simplifying communication with our Dominions—for this reason and for others which have been given very often in this House I hope my noble friend who will answer for the Government will see his way to accept the Motion.
LORD MONKSWELL: My Lords, I wish in a few words to support the Motion. To my mind the question of railway time-tables is far the most important one in this connection. Until the moment when some genius discovered the twenty-four-hour system there was always trouble with the question of railway time-tables. Every country that has accepted the twenty-four-hour system, I believe, has no more trouble at all. All kinds of dodges have been tried instead of the twenty-four-hour system, such as specially dark-printed italics and things of that kind; but, like all conventional signs, they are not the slightest use unless you know what the conventional signs mean, which most people do not. So that I really hope that the House will support my noble friend. But I may perhaps add that I am not altogether hopeless about the railway companies, because the railway companies are very peculiar people. 'When the Royal Commission
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on Transport issued their recommendations the railway companies issued a statement to the Press that they had not the slightest intention of taking the least notice of anything that the Commission had recommended. Well, in point of fact, they were all the time making preparations to carry out a great many of their recommendations. So that I live in hope.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, this subject has been brought up each year during the last three years by my two noble friends, and I am afraid that I cannot very much vary the answer which has been given to them by the representatives of the Home Office in the House. Personally, I am not an opponent of this proposal, and as regards Lord Newton's remark about the difficulties of this system, of which we have heard on other occasions, to me personally—and I say it in no boastful spirit—the difficulty of calculation has no terrors. I could deduct twelve from seventeen with the result of 5 p.m., and I see no difficulty in that. But I understand that my two noble friends only wish to have this system for the purposes of the railways and the Post Office, not for all general purposes. For example, when hospitably inclined, I take it, they would not ask their friends to dine at 20.15. I see that the Astronomer Royal returned to the charge yesterday in The Times in support of my noble friends, and this morning a letter appears from another gentleman who put forward the suggestion that we should have two circles on our clocks and watches to mark the two periods of twelve hours each. I do not think that would be an improvement or a convenience to anybody.
But it all comes back to the same point that was made by the noble Lord, Lord Marley, last year, when, after there had been consideration of the matter by the Government during a certain number of weeks, he found that the Government were still not prepared to introduce this reform. The view of the Government is that so far the public has not shown that it wants the change. Except for a few letters which have appeared from time to time in the Press and these discussions in your Lordships' House, there has been an entire lack of public interest in the matter. It is quite true

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that the change could be introduced at small cost, and that the railways, I understand, intimated—and I believe they have intimated again this year—that they would be quite prepared to adopt the innovation if the Government would give the lead. But the Government consider that there is no point in making the change unless it is going to be a real help to the public. It is considered that in a small island like ours the need for the twenty-four-hour system cannot be very great. Railway journeys cannot be very long, because you can get to Edinburgh or Glasgow in eight or nine hours and to Plymouth and Penzance in considerably less time. Telegrams also can never take more than a few hours between the despatch and the receipt. You never hear, either, of a person missing an appointment because he has mistaken a.m. for p.m.
Successive Governments have considered the matter from the point of view of public advantage and have felt that, in the absence of a strong and general demand for the change, it would be wrong to try to impose on the public a system of notation which may confuse rather than assist. The present is certainly not a time to spend money, even a small amount of money, on experiments of this nature, and the Government could not undertake to introduce this change or to ask the railway companies to do so unless they were convinced of the existence of a much stronger public feeling than there is any-reason to imagine exists at the present time. I regret very much that I cannot accede to my noble friend's suggestion that I should accept this Motion with any addition of words—no date being named—because he only suggested that after the Home Office representative had gone away, 'and I have not been able to ask the right honourable gentleman the Home Secretary or anybody else. and I could not take it on myself to accept the suggestion. Therefore I am afraid I must ask my noble friend to be satisfied with the answer which I have given him.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I am sure the noble Earl would be greatly surprised if I did accept the statement he has made with any satisfaction at all. It is the speech I have listened to now for about five years and surely the
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House must have observed that not one single argument is brought forward against the proposal itself. Take the question of expense. There is no question of spending money at all. It is not going to cost the Post Office a penny. And, as regards the other expenditure, the railway companies are prepared to incur it in view of the benefits which they will obtain as the result of employing the system. We come back to the old story that there is no public demand. What has that got to do with the utility of the proposal? The utility of the proposal is admitted. The noble Earl himself has admitted that he is in favour of it. He has stated that he can count. If he can count, other people can do so, too.
It is not a question of the noble Earl only being in favour of it, but every other noble Lord who has had to reply for the Government has also admitted that he is in favour of it. If I am not mistaken, every single Postmaster-General of recent years has been in favour of this proposal, and I do not think I am betraying any secret when I say that the present Postmaster-General is personally in favour of it himself. It therefore comes to this, that there must be some senseless opposition somewhere or other. Nobody has a higher respect for the permanent officials than I have, but it is quite evident to me that there is a solid and unreasoning opposition on the part of some official and that unfortunately he has so far been successful. I am sorry to trouble the House, but, as I think my noble friend is very unreasonable in not accepting my suggestion, I shall therefore propose to take a Division on the question.
LORD LAMINGTON: My Lords, I do not know whether I am in order in speaking again, but I only wish to reinforce what was said by my noble friend Lord Newton. The noble Earl, Lord Lucan, has stated that there has been no public demand for a change, but that is a futile argument. Another point he has made is that this is a small island. But the Post Office has ramifications all over the world, and this question arises every day and every hour. He seems to be unaware of that fact. We have to realise that in regard to cablegrams and foreign telegrams it would be to the great ad-

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vantage of the public if this change were instituted.
On Question, Motion disagreed to.
LORD MARLEY: My Lords, I beg to ask His Majesty's Government whether the League of Nations——
LORD LAMINGTON: My Lords, on a point of order I do not think my noble friend Lord Newton understood that the Question had been put.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT SANKEY): My Lords, I put Lord Newton's Motion. The Question was, "That this Motion be agreed to." The first time I put it nobody said anything. I put it again and the Not-Contents had it.

DISTURBANCES IN TRANSYLVANIA.
LORD MARLEY: My Lords, I do not know whether a sub-committee of your Lordships is deciding either the proceedings of the House or the time by the twelve-hour clock, but if we have now finished upon that matter for the present, I should like to ask the starred Question standing in my name.
[The Question was as follows: To ask His Majesty's Government whether the League of Nations has received any report or petition regarding recent disturbances in Transylvania, during which demonstrations took place against the Hungarian minority; and whether His Majesty's Government has received any reports from its Consular representatives or otherwise.]
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (VISCOUNT FIAILSHAM): My Lords, I take it that the noble Lord is referring to the disturbances at Cluj on December 1, when a body of students stormed the Hungarian Passport Office, which fulfils the function of a Consulate, and insisted on hoisting the Rumanian flag. So far as His Majesty's Government are aware, no report or petition has been addressed to the League of Nations on this subject, but several reports have been sent by His Majesty's representatives abroad, including a detailed account of this unfortunate incident from His Majesty's Consul at Cluj itself.
It appears that the meetings of various kinds which had been arranged all over
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Rumania to celebrate the fourteenth anniversary of the union of Transylvania with Rumania passed off elsewhere without untoward incident. His Majesty's Minister at Bucharest reports that the Rumanian Government at once issued a communiquè; condemning severely the action of the demonstrators as an. infraction of the International Law under which the Hungarian office was placed, and expressing their sincere regrets for what had happened. The same evening M. Titulescu, the Rumanian Foreign Minister, called at the Hungarian Legation to convey officially a similar expression of regret. His Majesty's Minister at Budapest reports that the incident aroused indignation in the Hungarian Press, and in reply to a question in the Lower House the Minister for Foreign Affairs stated that a strong protest had been made in Bucharest. The news of M. Titulescu's prompt action, however, was well received in Hungary, and the matter is now considered closed.
LORD MARLEY: I beg to thank the noble and learned Viscount the Leader of the House for his reply.

CABINET SECRECY.
LORD RANKEILLOUR LORD RANKEILLOUR rose to call attention to disclosures of Cabinet proceedings, and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I trust that no apology is necessary for bringing before your Lordships a matter which I submit is of vital importance to the good government of this country—namely, whether the business of the King's Ministers and the business of the King shall be conducted under an implication of secrecy or not. I believe that the doctrine on this subject which has been long accepted is perfectly clear. I was a little surprised at an official statement of the Lord President the other day in which he said that he had been informed by the proper constitutional authorities that Cabinet documents, or accounts of Cabinet proceedings, could not be divulged without the leave of His Majesty. It would seem as if that doctrine was something which had been half forgotten, and had been buried in the course of time and had to be unearthed from ancient precedents; but I submit that it is laid down in perfectly clear and unambiguous fashion in Sir William

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Anson's "Law of the Constitution," which says quite distinctly that the proceedings of Cabinets may not be divulged without the consent of the Crown. As a matter of fact the obligation is reciprocal between the Crown and the Ministers; the Ministers may not divulge without the consent of the Sovereign, and it is held that the Sovereign should not divulge without the consent, at least, of the Prime Minister.
Twice His Majesty King William IV, I am certain from no motive to which any exception could be taken but in his known genial and. expansive way, communicated decisions of Lord Melbourne's Ministry to the Leaders of the Tory Opposition, which at least shows that the imputation which used to rest upon him of being unduly favourable to the Whigs, is not well-founded. On another occasion he allowed an individual Minister to publish his version of what had taken place in the Cabinet, and on that occasion, Lord Melbourne made a remonstrance which I think is worth quoting. He said:
"If the arguments in the Cabinet are not to be protected by an inviolable veil of secrecy, there will be no place in the public counsels for the free investigation of truth and the unshackled exercise of the understanding."
The doctrine which was laid down then, and is set forth in Sir William Anson's book, I believe has never been challenged in theory. I would make this further point: that whereas the obligation on the Crown rests on custom, the obligation on Ministers rests both on custom and on oath. The oath is not a Cabinet Minister's oath as such, but it is the oath that all Privy Councillors take; and if the King should see fit to commit some part of his business to a Committee of the Council other than the Cabinet, the same oath would bind those Privy Councillors who sat on that Committee.
I think it is not generally known, and though it is somewhat lengthy it may be worth reading to your Lordships:
"You shall swear to be a true and faithful servant unto the King's Majesty, as one of His Majesty's Privy Council. You shall not know or understand of any manner of thing to be attempted, done, or spoken against His Majesty's Person, Honour, Crown, or Dignity Royal; but you shall lett and withstand tae same to the uttermost of your Power, and either cause it to be revealed to His Majesty Himself, or to such of His Privy Council as shall advertise
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His Majesty of the same. You shall, in all things to be moved, treated and debated in Council, faithfully and truly declare your mind and opinion according to your heart and conscience; and shall keep secret all matters committed and revealed unto you or that shall be treated of secretly in Council. And if any of the said Treaties or Councils shall touch any of the Councillors you shall not reveal it unto him, but shall keep the same until such time as, by the Consent of His Majesty, or of the Council, publication shall be made thereof. You shall to your uttermost bear faith and allegiance unto the King's Majesty: and shall assist and defend all jurisdictions, pre-eminences and authorities granted unto His Majesty and annexed to the Crown by Acts of Parliament or otherwise, against all foreign Princes, persons, Prelates, States or Potentates. And generally in all things you shall do as a faithful and true servant ought to do to His Majesty. So help you God and the Holy Contents of this Book."
That is the basis of the doctrine of secrecy, and that, I think, has never been challenged, at any rate in this or in the last century, by any authority in either House of Parliament or by any writer on constitutional law. That is the theory.
What is the practice? In the first place I would refer to matters dealt with in memoirs or in the letters left and published after their death by the literary executors of various statesmen. Sometimes we see in those memoirs that the leave of His Majesty has been obtained. In other cases the writer or publisher is silent on the point, and I presume that if he had obtained leave he would have advertised the fact. I am afraid we must take it that in those cases he has not obtained leave to reveal what took place in the Council of His Majesty. But to pass from that to the proceedings of Parliament, if your Lordships will study the debates in another place in the month of September of last year you will find what I only can describe as an absolute orgy of assertion, denial and recrimination about matters dealt with only a few weeks before either in the Cabinet or in Committees of the Cabinet. It is really not worth quoting any particular instances, the debates abound with them, and noble Lords who have any doubt on the matter can look them up for themselves.
To pass from that, I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to an incident that took place on April 27 of this year. On that occasion a former Law Officer of the Crown challenged the Home Secretary to say what part he had taken in the

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deliberations of the Cabinet, and when the Home Secretary was silent he said he would draw a certain inference from that silence. The Home Secretary protested that no inference should be drawn from the silence, which was obligatory on him, and the Chairman of Committees, the House being in Committee, upheld the action of the Minister. But is that proper constitutional protection which was then afforded likely to be continually available if repeated infractions of secrecy are permitted from time to time and are not visited in some form by public or official censure?
I now come from that which is a rather striking illustration of the necessity of protection to a Minister to the events of Wednesday in last week, and this episode offers a striking example of how easily either House of Parliament may slip into a wholly false position. A Privy Councillor rose with a motive, with which I entirely sympathise, to say what he believed and remembered was the policy of the Government to which he had belonged some ten years before. Another Privy Councillor rose and denied his version. A third made another contribution from a somewhat different angle, but the only test as to which was right was in the proceedings of the Cabinet, which it was impossible for any of them to divulge. Probably unwittingly in the course of the excitement of the moment, they did say, or at least two of them did, what had happened in private, and the mischief NV a s done almost before it was realised, and certainly any one reading the discussion (and, I am informed, still more any one hearing the discussion) could not have said at what moment, if any, intervention by the Chair would have been advisable or perhaps possible.
I do not quote these episodes for the sake of going into the merits of the matters then raised, and still less from the point of view of censure on any of the participants. I have no reason to suppose they were exactly aware of the full implications of what they said. My noble friend Lord Hailsham is, I think, a theologian, and he will appreciate the distinction between material and formal sin, between the objective act and the act as done according to the knowledge and conscience of the transgressor. I fully believe that these various Privy Councillors have quite forgotten what was
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in the oath they had taken some years ago. I confess I had forgotten it until for the purpose of this debate I looked it up. I believe that they regarded it as an ordinary oath of allegiance, and although they knew there was a general injunction of secrecy, they did not for a moment realise of what a solemn character it was. But whatever their motives, the words spoken on the various occasions to which I have alluded do, in substance, constitute a breach of the Privy Councillor's oath and an invasion of the rights of the Crown.
There may be arguments against the continuance of the present Privy Councillor's oath. Personally, I should be sorry to see it abrogated. It comes down from a time when perhaps men were more conscious of the ultimate sanctions that govern their actions and transgressions than they are now, and I should be sorry to see it go, but I can understand there may be arguments against it. It may be said that in the hustle of modern politics, with the multiplication of secretaries and documents and the vast number of subjects treated, which make it essential on each of such subjects to take a far greater number of persons into confidence than formerly, a strict obligation of this kind is, in practice, impossible to maintain. That may be said: but what I submit cannot be defended is keeping in force a solemn obligation of this sort and seeing it continually, I will not say callously, but at any rate carelessly, violated by men with a long experience of public life.
That is the position. What should be the remedy 7 That, I think, I must leave to those who have had greater and more continuous experience of Cabinets. I have only been summoned on two or three special occasions on a particular point, and, therefore, I do not for a moment speak with any dogmatism or authority on the matter; but I should have thought, in view of controversies that have arisen, that it should be enough to record formally the decisions of the Cabinet without recording any opinions or divisions therein. That is a matter which I would suggest at any rate for discussion as a possibility. I must leave the matter in your Lordships' hands. I submit that it is a grave question. The business is the King's business. The secrets of Cabinets are the King's secrets. Cabinet Ministers

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are the King's servants, and I suggest that it is essential for the good government of the realm that each Minister should have no sense either of fear or favour but, in the words I have before quoted, should faithfully and truly declare his mind and opinion according to his heart and conscience. I beg to move for Papers.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: My Lords, I rise for one purpose only. The noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, may possibly be able to give information which I believe I possess but which, of course, is only what I understand. Surely, in the days up to the War there was neither a Secretary to the Cabinet nor were there any minutes. I should like to ask the noble Marquess if he can give us any information whether that is so or not.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I had no intention of troubling you with any observations, but as a direct appeal has been made to me I would say that there is no doubt that the noble Earl has rightly stated what was the practice up to the time of the War. There were no minutes when I served in the Cabinet and there was no secretary. What is more, there was no agenda even. There was nothing at all in writing which would lead anybody to know what was decided in the Cabinet except so far as it might be recorded in the Prime Minister's letter to His Majesty, which was a matter in those days of daily occurrence, or, at any rate, whenever the Cabinet sat. Probably it may be so now. At any rate it was so then. Otherwise there was no record.
The truth is that I have some hesitation in dealing with this question because I feel so strongly the necessity, as my noble friend Lord Rankeillour has said, of keeping what passes in the Cabinet secret that I am rather inclined to deprecate discussion as to the procedure there. At any rate it should be touched upon with great delicacy. I agree with almost every word which my noble friend has said in the observations he has made. It is a great pity that the old tradition of the absolute secrecy of what passes in the Cabinet has, to some extent, in these latter days been relaxed. I am sure that your Lordships will realise that if discussion in the Cabinet is to be unfettered then there must be no
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record whatever of what passes. Otherwise everybody will say: "I must be careful what I say or it may be brought up against me hereafter." A man might be inclined to put forward an opinion which was not a considered opinion but put forward only because he wanted to hear what the arguments were on the other side, but if there is to be a. record as a record is taken of what passes in your Lordships' House, he would have to take great precautions in what he said.
Freedom of discussion is not only a matter prescribed in the oath which my noble friend has read, but it is obvious on the face of it that it is absolutely essential if Cabinet government is to have its full operation. There must be freedom of discussion, freedom of opinion and freedom of decisions formed upon that freedom of opinion and discussion. That would be destroyed by any kind of record. I very much hope that what my noble friend has said, and what I am sure my noble and learned friend the Leader of the House will say, will do something to check a practice which is certainly growing and which is full of mischief, as my noble friend has said and as I believe, for the welfare of the realm.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, the importance of the topic which my noble friend Lord Rankeillour has raised this afternoon is one which I think can hardly be exaggerated, and if I deal comparatively shortly with the subject it really is not because I under-estimate its importance, but because I find myself so completely in accord with what he said that really what I can add amounts to little more than an endorsement of his warnings. My noble friend cited three or four instances in which, in his view, there had been an infraction of the obligation of Cabinet secrecy. He referred to the fact that memoirs had appeared in which it seemed at least that matters which occurred in Cabinets had been disclosed. He mentioned three specific cases in another place in which discussions had taken place in the course of which there had been, as he thought, a similar departure from the proper standpoint of conduct. I am sure that my noble friend will forgive me if I do not go in detail into these specific instances. It is not because I find myself in disagreement

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with anything he said, but obviously I should have to enquire into these specific cases to ascertain exactly what had happened. I should be challenging the conduct of gentlemen who hold very high positions, or who have held high positions, in the State without having given them any notice and without their having any opportunity of replying. I do not think my noble friend would desire, or that your Lordships would desire, that I should undertake that task.
But, my Lords, I am very glad that the question has been raised because it has seemed to me that there is a tendency in some quarters at least to ignore or to forget the nature and extent of the obligations of secrecy and the limitations which rigidly hedge round the position of a Cabinet Minister. My noble friend has read to your Lordships what in fact I was proposing to read—that is, the oath which every Privy Councillor takes when he is sworn of His Majesty's Privy Council. Your Lordships will remember that one reason at least why a Cabinet Minister must of necessity be a member of the Privy Council is that it involves the taking of that oath. Having heard that oath read your Lordships will appreciate what a complete misconception it is to suppose, as some people seem inclined to suppose, that the only obligation that rests upon a Cabinet Minister is not to disclose what are described as the Cabinet's minutes. He is sworn to keep secret all matters committed and revealed unto him or that shall be treated of secretly in Council.
In fact, there are, I think, three distinct classes which that obligation plainly covers. There are the so-called Cabinet minutes. I share the reluctance of my noble friend the Marquess of Salisbury to discuss even the nature of Cabinet documents, but I think that without impropriety I may say that that phrase is a complete misdescription of the documents which, in fact, exist. They are described as, and are, Cabinet conclusions, and I should be very sorry if a system of keeping Cabinet minutes were ever to grow up.
There is, secondly, a series of documents, memoranda, telegrams, Despatches, documents circulated from one Cabinet Minister to his colleagues to bring before them a particular problem and to discuss the arguments for and
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against a particular course of conduct—documents which everyone who has served in a Cabinet knows form a very great part of the labour which a Cabinet Minister has to undertake. I do not think that until any one has been in the Cabinet it is possible to realise what a great amount of time is devoted every day of necessity to the study of the various documents which are circulated to members of the Cabinet, which have to be read, considered, digested and thought about if a Cabinet Minister is going to do his duty to his colleagues and his country.
Thirdly and finally, apart from those two classes of documents, there is the recollection of the individual Minister of what happens in the Cabinet. I stress that because, as my noble and learned friend Lord Halsbury suggested and the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, confirmed, Cabinet conclusions did not exist until sixteen years ago. The old practice is set out in a book which bears the name of the noble Earl's father, "Halsbury's Laws of England," with which I have had the honour to be associated in the present edition. This is the description which is there set out, and I read it so that I shall not run any risks of committing an indiscretion by making any fresh disclosures:
"Until 1916 deliberations of the Cabinet took place only in the presence of members of the Cabinet, except where other persons were summoned to assist with special knowledge or advice. No official records of the proceedings were kept, though the decisions arrived at might be embodied in the form of written minutes to be communicated to the Sovereign by the Prime Minister; and indeed it was customary for the Prime Minister to write a letter to the Sovereign after every Cabinet meeting, setting out what had been decided. No agenda was prepared and members might be called upon to make decisions suddenly, and without sufficient information about the point at issue, though it was usual to circulate written memoranda, Despatches, and other documents which were intended for perusal by members of the Cabinet, in Cabinet despatch boxes, of which each member has a master key."
I understand that that practice of having no record and nobody present, however desirable in the interests of secrecy, was apt occasionally to break down because considerable difference of opinion sometimes arose as to what actually had been decided.
There is rather an amusing letter which was published some ten years ago in the

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Manchester Guardian and was written in July, 1882, by Lord Hartington's private secretary to one of the private secretaries of the then Prime Minister. The letter was in these terms:
"My dear Eddy,
Harcourt and Chamberlain have both been here this morning and at my chief about yesterday's Cabinet proceedings. They cannot agree about what occurred. There must have been some decision, as Bright's resignation shows. My chief has told me to ask you what the devil was decided, for he be damned if he knows. Will you ask Mr. G. [that is Mr. Gladstone] in more conventional and less pungent terms?
Yours ever."
Your Lordships will therefore see that occasionally there must have been inconveniences from the old practice. But when the pressure of war arose and enormously multiplied the haste and the pressure under which work was done, and the number and importance of the topics with which the Cabinet had sometimes without much notice to deal, it was felt that it was impossible to carry on without some sort of record of what decisions the Cabinet actually took, and accordingly in that year there was set up what is now known as the Cabinet Secretariat. Although my public life dates from a period when that system was already well established, I must say that, speaking for myself, I do not know how Cabinet work could be carried on if there were not the very wonderful work done by the Cabinet Secretariat to keep a record of what is happening and to see that the matters which come before the Cabinet or the Cabinet Committees for decision are properly prepared before they are considered by individual members, and I should be very sorry to see a departure from that practice.
Your Lordships will appreciate that a failure to maintain a Cabinet Secretariat or to keep any record of Cabinet conclusions would not involve by any means that there would be no breach of Cabinet secrecy. The unfortunate thing that seems to have happened recently is that some Privy Councillors seem to have had a kind of idea that so long as they did not read out what they called the Cabinet minutes it was all right to state, their recollection of what happened in the Cabinet. I hope what I have said will make it absolutely clear that in the view of His Majesty's Government—and
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I believe, if they reflected upon it, in the view of everybody who has undertaken the oath of a Privy Councillor—that is a complete misconception. The obligation of refraining from disclosure of anything which is discussed in Cabinet extends just as much to your own recollection as to any written record which may remain.
Apart from the Privy Councillor's oath there is a penal section which attaches to the maintenance of that secrecy to which we are all bound, and which attaches not only to members of the Cabinet, but to any civil servants or others who, in the course of their duties, should become possessed of any Cabinet information or any Cabinet document. It is, perhaps, just worth recording that under the Official Secrets Act, 1911:
"If any person having in his possession or control any … document, or information which … has been entrusted in confidence to him by any person holding office under His Majesty or which he has obtained owing to his position as a person who holds or has held office under His Majesty … communicates the … document, or information to any person, other than a person to it he is authorised to communicate t or a person to whom it is in the interest of the State his duty to communicate it … that person shall be guilty of a misdemeanour."
And a person guilty of the misdemeanour is liable to imprisonment for two years. Obviously in the case of anybody who has served in a Cabinet that penal sanction is a minor matter. What really binds him is the Privy Councillor's oath; but it is just as well to remember that the obligation of secrecy extends equally to any other person than a Cabinet Minister who obtains confidential information, and that the State has been careful to make provision that anyone, Privy Councillor or otherwise, who fails to observe that obligation of secrecy incurs a very heavy responsibility before the Criminal Law.
The other point to which I want for a moment to call attention is the question of the circumstances in which a release may be obtained from the obligation of secrecy, because again it has seemed to me, from some observations which I have read, as if there was an impression in some quarters that a Cabinet Minister, or former Cabinet Minister, could exercise his own discretion in deciding when he was released from his obligation of secrecy, or as if

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some persons had gained the idea that if, for example, it was necessary, in order to defend themselves against a charge or to convict an opponent of inaccuracy in debate, to disclose Cabinet documents or information, then they were at liberty so to do. I need not, I hope, remind your Lordships that that again is a complete mistake. The only person who can release a. Privy Councillor from his obligation of secrecy is His Majesty the King, and His Majesty, acting, as always in this constitutional country, on the advice of his Ministers, is in that matter guided by the advice given by the Prime Minister of the day.
If a matter arises which concerns some previous Administration the practice is to communicate with the Prime Minister who was then responsible to find out whether he has any objection to publication, and if he has no objection then the duty falls upon the Prime Minister of the day to advise His Majesty as to whether or not it is proper, in the particular circumstances, to make a disclosure. A common instance which occurs to all of us when such a disclosure is possible and is invariably permitted, is when a Cabinet Minister feels it incumbent upon himself to resign his office because of his disagreement on some high matter of policy with his colleagues. In such a case it is the invariable practice to permit the resigning Minister, if he so desires, to state the circumstances which led to his resignation and the reasons why he was unable to remain a member of the Cabinet from which he has resigned. But that privilege is granted to that particular Minister on his application by His Majesty on the advice of the Prime Minister, and without that previous consent it would be improper, even in that case, for the resigning Minister to make any statement at all. The permission is always given, but the permission has to be obtained in order to absolve the Minister from the duty, which is otherwise an imperative and absolute duty, of keeping silence.
I do not think it is necessary for me to discuss at any length whether the rules which I have tried to explain to your Lordships are proper rules, but I should wish that there should be no doubt that. so far as my own personal view is concerned—and I have no reason to doubt it is a view shared by my colleagues in the Government—it would be most undesirable that this rule of Cabinet
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secrecy should be modified or abolished. It would be an intolerable position if in discussions in the Cabinet individual Ministers had to remember that whatever they said in the course of a discussion, the thoughts which they might have expressed aloud on matters which they had not thoroughly thrashed out, and opinions which they had put forward for discussion and consideration, would be allowed to be brought up against them with charges of inconsistency if they departed from them. It would be an intolerable position if a Minister, before he reported to his colleagues some information which might be in his possession with regard, say, to some foreign country, or perhaps some individual—it would be intolerable if he knew that that information was going to be recorded and hereafter was liable to publication, with possibly grievous consequences between this country and a foreign country to which reference had been made.
It is absolutely essential in the public interest that discussions which take place between Cabinet Ministers shall take place in the full certainty of all of them that they are speaking their minds with absolute freedom to colleagues on whom they can explicitly rely, upon matters on which it is their sworn duty to express their opinions with complete frankness and to give all information, without any haunting fear that what happens may hereafter by publication create difficulties for themselves or, what is far more grave, may create complications for the King and country that they are trying to serve. For those reasons I hope that the inflexible rule which has hitherto prevailed will be maintained in its integrity, and that if there has been any relaxation or misunderstanding, of which I say nothing, the debate in this House will have done something to clarify the position and restate the old rule in all its rigour and all its inflexibility.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, have no call to address your Lordships, but as I happen to be in the Cabinet as Lord Chancellor I desire to associate myself with every word that the Leader of the House has uttered. You must have, if our Cabinet system is to prevail, free and frank discussion in the Cabinet of all matters which appear before the Cabinet and with the understanding that none of

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those discussions and none of this information will leak out. I very much regret that in the last several years there has been from time to time serious Cabinet leakage. I hope that this discussion at any rate, will have this effect, that in future there will be no leakage at all from any Cabinet, not only of foreign affairs but of home affairs. It is most important that every member of the Cabinet should be entitled to give his opinion. Sometimes it may even be changed afterwards. It is vital that no Cabinet discussion—I am not speaking of secrets—should leak out at all. I think that if this rule is not observed our Cabinet system and system of government will come to an end. I would also like to add to what the noble Viscount the Leader of the House has said, first of all that any disclosure of Cabinet secrets is a breach of the Privy Councillor's oath, and secondly that it offends against the Official Secrets Act; but to my mind there is something more important still—and I feel sure that every noble Lord will take that view—it is a breach of a man's personal honour to make any disclosure.
THE EARL OF MIDLETON: My Lords, I desire only to add one word to what has fallen from the two noble Lords who have just spoken. There is another question with regard to the secrecy of Cabinet proceedings which has been brought before me more than once, with a request that I. would bring it up in this House. Therefore I think it is not inappropriate that I should for a moment engage your Lordships' attention upon it. A system has grown up since the War of the publication in memoirs and biographies and other printed forms of the view held, or supposed to have been held, by individual members of the Cabinet with regard to proceedings in which military and naval advisers have been involved. I do not want to suggest the name of any individual. But I do ask your Lordships to recollect the extraordinary inequality which thereby is made to exist in the conduct of military operations between the Minister who gives the orders and the technical advisers on whom he has to rely. If it were appropriate I could give your Lordships half a dozen instances in which, perhaps unintentionally, interpretations of opinion have been made or really very
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grave aspersions have been cast upon military or naval advisers who, if they, ire serving, are debarred by the terms of their service from replying, and, if they have died, whose relatives often have even not got papers by which they can be vindicated.
That is really a serious matter. I would not have ventured to raise it, but it happened that I served for twelve years in the War Office, and therefore perhaps it was not unnatural that in more than one ease the men who have felt themselves so aggrieved should have asked me, if it were in my power, to bring the matter forward. I have always felt, certainly during the War and immediately afterwards, that nothing could be less beneficial to the public service than that a controversy should be raised in which it was necessary that all that happened in a Cabinet or a Committee of the Cabinet should be brought out in order to controvert what I might have stated, and therefore I have not done so. But perhaps your Lordships will not consider it inappropriate that I should ask that what the Lord Chancellor and my noble friend below me so strongly stated should be regarded as applying not merely to those differences of opinion between Cabinet Ministers on which the debate has arisen, hut also to the relation of the Ministers of the Crown o the technical advisers of the Crown.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, may I add a word to what my noble friend Lord Midleton has said? He has spoken of the military and naval advisers of the Crown. May I say that exactly the same thing seems to me to apply to the publication of Departmental minutes, which has been done on a very large scale in recent years. I do not think that you should publish even with their consent—certainly not without their consent—the minutes of men who have written them without the slightest possible idea that they might conceivably be published. I think it is absolutely wrong that that should be done. It will lead inevitably to a system which has existed in the past, and noble Lords who have served any of the Departments can confirm my words: a system to which I think there are considerable objections—namely, the conduct of public business, not in official archives, hut by private conversations and in private letters which

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are taken away by people because they are their own personal property. That has led in the past to a considerable amount of difficulty, as we all know. But not only that, the publication of Departmental minutes will certainly lead to discontinuing them in the future. It is bound to happen. In view of possible publication people will not write their minutes freely. They will undoubtedly follow another system. I feel perfectly certain that the practice of publishing Departmental minutes is a mischievous one. I do not think it is necessary. A minute, which a man puts on the file, is quite a different thing from a Despatch which is sent home from a Mission abroad. Everyone who writes a Despatch knows that it is possible it may be published in a Blue-book. The private comment on a Despatch which is made in the office is quite a different thing. My late colleagues in the Foreign Office, some of whom are here, will bear me out when I say that it was a rule of the office that those who were serving abroad should not see the minutes written on their Despatches. I think I am correct. If that is the case, surely they ought not to be published for all the world to see. It is a practice that has done mischief and I hope it will cease.
LORD RANKEILLOUR: My Lords, 1 sincerely thank my noble friend Lord Hailsham for what he has said. There is just one question I would like to put to him. Under the Official Secrets Act is there any Parliamentary immunity for members of either House? I do not ask for an answer immediately, but I just ask that. As to the rest, after the very emphatic declarations of my noble friends Lord Hailsham and the Lord Chancellor, I trust that this Motion, for thie time being at any rate, has served its purpose, and I ask leave to withdraw.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

VISITING FORCES (BRITISH COMMONWEALTH) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order): Amendments (Privilege) made: Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.
EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I think it will be for the convenience of your Lordships if I mention that I am suggesting that your Lordships' House should meet at noon to-morrow, by which time I understand the Consolidated Fund Bill will have passed all its stages in another place. I shall have formally to move the suspension of Standing Order No. XXXIX in order that that Bill may pass through all its stages here. There will be a Royal Commission at a quarter past twelve o'clock to give the Royal Assent to a certain number of Bills, and thereupon I propose to move the adjournment of the House until February 7, keeping the Motion in the form which I am sorry has almost become habitual now, which gives power to the Lord Chancellor in this House and to Mr. Speaker in another place to summon the House at an earlier date if a public emergency should render that course necessary.