Lords Sitting of 15 June 1932

Preamble
The House met at a quarter before four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
THE LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER.
Cyril Forster, formerly Lord Bishop of Southwark, now Lord Bishop of Winchester—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
MID SOUTHERN UTILITY BILL.
Read 2a.
LONDON UNITED TRAMWAYS, LIMITED (TROLLEY VEHICLES) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
Read 2a (according to Order).
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVI- SIONAL ORDERS CONFIRMATION (ELHAM VALLEY WATER AND HERTS AND ESSEX WATER) BILL. [H.L.]
Amendments reported (according to Order).
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVI- SIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (HAILSHAM WATER) BILL. [H.L.]
Amendments reported (according to Order).
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVI- SIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (HENLEY-ON-THAMES WATER) BILL. [H.L.]
Amendments reported (according to Order).
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVI- SIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (HERTFORD) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.

PROTECTION OF NATIONAL MINORITIES.
LORD NOEL-BUXTON LORD NOEL-BUXTON rose to ask His Majesty's Government if they will give in-
882
formation as to their action in regard to the protection of national minorities at recent meetings of the Council of the League of Nations, and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, at recent meetings of the Council of the League of Nations important questions affecting national minorities have been dealt with, and notably at the January Council when the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, represented the British Government, a report was dealt with on the terrorisation, as it was called, which took place in the Ukraine in the autumn of 1930. That incident was the subject of a petition by no fewer than sixty-five Members of the British Parliament, and that fact indicates the public interest that is felt in a statement by His Majesty's Government on their action in regard to the question of minorities.
It is a question which forms a potent factor in international relations. In the debate on this subject last year all three speakers, each of whom had vast experience in the matter, insisted on its importance, and that importance is all the greater in a time of tension like the present. It is a main cause of friction between certain Powers, and where there is extreme friction the danger of incidents resulting in disaster must be taken into account. An illustration lies in the case of Danzig. Everyone knows what anxiety attaches to that. The German newspapers and the French newspapers have been full of it, the Germans prophesying a Polish occupation, and the French prophesying a German putsch. Lord D' Abernon recently described the situation in Danzig, and spoke of the corridor as the powder magazine of Europe. I have seen myself in Danzig the kind of difficulties which may lead at any moment to a dangerous incident. There is trouble both on the German and the Polish side, and it has more than once led to brawls which have resulted in loss of life. Quite lately the Polish Commissioner threatened resignation if the League Commissioner did not call in Polish troops. The aggravation which leads to this very dangerous situation arises in the main from the treatment of the German population in Polish territory, and the vitiating effect of all this has its reaction even on the Disarmament Conference, because the whole ground work of contented populations is in peril.
Another deplorable result is that a demand for the revision of frontiers is stimulated on every hand, and we gradually get the European States divided into two camps. We have Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria, and, closely associated with them, Italy, facing the camp which includes Poland and the States of the Little Entente, and this deplorable unrest can be assuaged by the just treatment of minorities. The Treaties affecting minorities were, of course, designed to avoid this friction which the Allies saw to be otherwise unavoidable. The difficulty of the situation was admittedly grave. We had at least 26,000,000 of minorities—some experts would put it much higher—and subordinate races were put in control of their former masters, very often members of a higher civilisation than themselves, but, after twelve years, harmony ought to be much easier than it has proved. The migrations are mainly over, agrarian reforms are completed, and the populations have settled down in a way that ought to facilitate harmony; but the Allies saw that alien domination necessitated safeguards of a strict kind. Frontiers on definitely ethnic lines were impossible, and therefore political unity could only be brought about through cultural diversity. Accordingly the new States were set up by the agency of the Allies, subject to conditions.
The Treaties affecting minorities laid it down that there should be, firstly, equality before the law—and a sample of that is in the denial of the prohibition of prejudice in regard to public employment—and, secondly, cultural rights, especially the right to primary schools in the minority language, the right to social institutions, and the right to the use of the minority language in the Courts. The execution of the Treaties was specially the subject of guarantee by the League. The question of guarantee, of course, is admittedly difficult, but let us recall the terms in which it was established. The Treaties say that the obligations of international concern are under the guarantee of the League, and the guarantee was defined by the Council in 1920 by the adoption of the Tittoni Report, which said that the guarantee meant that the League must ascertain that the provisions for the protection of minorities were always observed. A breach of
884
specific guarantees of that kind adds to the danger of its non-fulfilment. Again, the action of Mr. Arthur Henderson, when Foreign Secretary, led to hopes of the fulfilment of the guarantee, which decreased the danger, and it will be all to the good if that decrease can continue.
I would like to make a suggestion which I hope His Majesty's Government will view favourably. It is that, following the precedent of the White Paper issued on the powers of the League lately in connection with the Sino-Japanese events of last winter, the Government should issue a White Paper to set out for the use of Parliament an outline of the procedure, the powers and responsibilities of members of the Council in regard to minorities, and the nature of the guarantee assumed by the League in regard to the execution of the Treaties. How are these Treaties worked? Czecho-Slovakia is a fairly happy exception to the general regrettable rule. Others have a bad record. We see nationalism unchecked by prudence. Assimilation by the destruction of cultures is the order of the day. That was foreseen by the League and intended to be provided for, but it is still going on. The forms of oppression are similar, although they differ in degree. We have the suppression of schools, we have the suppression of political rights, and in an otherwise melancholy subject one source of humour is provided in the method by which political rights are suppressed—that is, the plan of denying the people the exercise of the suffrage by the brilliant invention of filling the ballot boxes with rubbish so that it is impossible to insert the ballot papers. Agricultural regulations have also been used to prevent the populations of unfavourable villages from getting to the poll by the issue of foot-and-mouth disease orders, which, as your Lordships know, on the Continent often preclude the movement of human beings as well as of animals. There is also the other more simple method of the flogging of voters on the way to the poll, which is more serious and which was proved to have been used in the case of the elections in Polish Upper Silesia.
Then there is widespread discrimination against minorities in regard to public appointments. I should like to give your Lordships two or three

885
examples from actual cases. I will not weary you with too many, or with the case of Italy, which, though it is an important case, does not come strictly into the question of Minority Treaties. The familiar case of Poland comes to the mind. The Allies expected great things of Poland, of a race with a great history, renowned in art and science, a race which should be—and let us hope will be—an example of wisdom to newer civilisations in her neighbourhood. But the policy of Poland, we must admit, has, up to now, in this matter been injurious to herself. The case of the German population is a very urgent matter. From the corridor and from Posen no fewer than a million Germans have already left the country since the annexation owing to conditions which they find intolerable. The dependence of any person requiring a, licence for a public position on the favour of local authorities is used to get rid of large sections of the people. Colonisation, which is the subject of discussion by the Council even to-day, is used to discriminate against minorities. The schools exhibit a figure which your Lordships will find it difficult to credit. Forty-five per cent. of the German children in Thorn and in Posen have been deprived of schools and driven to Polish schools. There has been a reduction of 50 per cent. in the actual number of schools. That is a direct infraction of the clause of the Treaty with Poland which lays it down that:
"Poland will provide…that in the primary schools the instruction shall be given to the children…through the medium of their own language."
A very curious End interesting example has just come to my knowledge, for the truth of which I can vouch, in the treatment of the German Protestant Sunday schools. They apparently have a system very much like the English system, the teachers not being professional, and there has been a deliberate attack on the whole system of Sunday schools. Police break in, they lock up the teachers, they interrogate the children while the teachers are in an adjoining room under lock and key, they take the books. This is persecution of a mean kind and is apparently part of an attempt to suppress the use of the German language, as far as it can be suppressed, by actually diminishing the extent to which the
886
people know how to read it and write it. They may still, of course, use it in their houses, but it is an attempt to suppress the language.
There are more serious things still in the Ukrainian part of Poland. The Ukraine sounds remote from us, but it concerns all the world, because this is really a matter relevant to the interests of peace. The Ukrainians are a much greater race than we are accustomed to remember. There are 6,000,000 of them in Poland, and they are the largest section of the population in Canada apart from the British and French. Therefore, they are in a high degree a British concern. In the East Galician part of Poland, in the period between the end of the War and 1928, the primary schools were reduced in number by about two-thirds—from 2,400 down to 745. In Universities, where under Austrian rule the Ukrainians had eleven professorships, they have now none, whereas they were promised a University of their own in 1922 by the Polish Government.
In the part of Polish Ukrainia which was formerly in Russia, in Volynia, the conditions are harsher still. There is a harsh system of colonisation by ex-soldiers and these men—armed and not averse to lawlessness—persecute their neighbours in a highly regrettable manner. There is a system of suppression of the co-operative stores which are a feature of Ukrainian farming, and all this, I suppose, is part of the policy of keeping the peasants uninformed and disunited. There is also throughout the Ukraine a system of police certificates for anyone requiring a licence of any kind, which leads to a general system of police persecution. An unfavourable report by the police naturally settles the fate of a schoolmaster who does not curry favour with them. You cannot ignore in this connection one especially deplorable matter—that is the torture of prisoners in the prisons and of suspects who have incurred the disfavour of the Polish authorities. I regret that the evidence is convincing that mediæval torture is practised in these cases.
The allegations were described at the Council by the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, who was a delegate of the British Government, as shocking to the conscience of mankind. They were not enquired into as they ought to have been

887
by the Council. The report was adopted without inquiry having taken place. They are relevant to the question of terrorisation which was the subject of the Council's report in January. That terrorisation was sufficiently known from the report, but I will remind your Lordships of its nature by reading the words of a distinguished lawyer who has served the Crown in the Colonies, Sir Walter Napier, who wrote as follows:
"The villagers' leaders were rounded up, driven into some barn, stripped, held down and beaten with the thick sticks used for threshing. Doctors were forbidden to go from the towns to the villages, and peasants attempting to come to the towns for treatment were turned back by the police."
It is very repugnant to criticise a friendly State, but nothing is gained, as has been shown by discussion at the Council, by ignoring breaches of Treaties when those breaches are remediable. We must not forget that Poland has a very special cause to observe these Treaties because the annexations granted her were granted on condition that she gave autonomy to these very districts. That was laid down by the Ambassadors' Conference in 1923 of which our own country was a leading member.
Before I pass from examples I will say a word about the notorious case of Yugo-Slavia. The policy of suppression which is prevailing there is sufficiently indicated by the fact that the Correspondent of The Times was expelled from Yugo-Slavia not many days ago and other correspondents as well. You have the flagrant case there of the browbeating of the Bulgarian population, deeply attached to its own schools and churches and forbidden to have either—punished for the use of their own names, for the use of their own Bible, and prohibited their own language, even when spoken in their own homes, if it is overheard. Well, we all know that the Serbian view is to deny separate nationalisation. If that is the case the obvious remedy is to refer the point to The Hague Court. Until that is done Yugo-Slavia is defying the plainest Treaty obligations.
Much the same conditions prevail in regard to Albanians in Yugo-Slavia. The Albanians are a very helpless people. Their nationality is not denied by the Serbs but in contrariety to the Treaty they have no schools of their own, no religious teaching that suits them in the Serbian schools, and
888
colonisation of their country is carried on with the aid of extreme pressure upon their nationals who own land to part with it. They have sent to the League ten petitions in ten years but they have not received any reply in any single case.
It seems to me that His Majesty's Government might consider the question of publishing extracts from the Consular Reports. They must be full of facts and it is surely a question whether, carefully selected with regard to the susceptibilities of the governing States, it might not be fitting to publish relevant extracts with regard to the carrying out of the Treaty. The Foreign Office is familiar with the need of urging conciliation upon the Yugo-Slavian Government. Good advice has served the interests of peace and of humanity before. In offering it we have followed the tradition of British concern for justice and it behoves us to maintain that tradition.
We are often told there is another side to all this, and there is another side. In my judgment there are obligations on both sides. Minorities ought to try to work with their new co-patriots and we ought to distinguish between extremists' and legitimists' claims. No one wants to support claims that are disloyal. Minorities are commonly charged with disloyalty and their irredentism, where it exists, is said to be fostered from outside. I would say this for the National Minorities Congress, that it is not irredentist, it is markedly not encouraging extremists' claims.
It is very tempting to wish that minority claims did not exist at all and could be altogether damped down, but those who know the minorities by personal contact are quite convinced that suppression of the claims is not a feasible policy to pursue. Of course there are obligations on both sides. The new State ought not to make co-operation impossible. Real statesmanship would bid for the loyalty of minorities as far as possible, and it ought to encourage the constitutional party against the irredentists. Fanatical nationalism is the pet folly of all young States and it is the advice of older States that can in some degree help to cure it.
It seems to me that the best hope of progress is in the modification of the machinery of the League. That machinery has failed to give to the

889
minorities the sense that they can claim their rights. Petitions are sent by them; they go to the Secretariat; they are receivable on very strict conditions. If received they go to Committees of Three. Exceedingly few come before the Council. In 1929 forty-two petitions were received and only two were submitted to the Council. The appellants are left in total ignorance of what becomes of their petition. There has been improvement, I grant, but it is admittedly inadequate. Even if the petitions are referred to a Committee the discussion is still shrouded in secrecy. The minorities do not know whether their petition has been rejected by the Committee of Three or what action has been taken, or what views were held, or what reply was made by the interested Government; and they have no chance of making any counter reply. The case is tried in the absence of the plaintiff while the defendant has the advantage of reply and, moreover, of a secret talk with the judge.
The Madrid Council made alterations in 1929 but I think it would be admitted that they were too trivial to have much affected the situation. They led to the publication of the number of petitions but not much more, and the aggrieved minorities still naturally think that the League ignores them and therefore the most undesirable distrust in the League has arisen. Publicity would have allayed a great deal of suspicion to which the long delays that have occurred have added. In fact the Council has given an impression of inactivity. Respect for the Treaties needs the sustained interest of the Council and that cannot be given while action only follows petitions. The petitions are produced in very difficult circumstances; the victims are naturally afraid of punishment if they speak. Therefore the documentation of the petitions is bad. The initiators are watched and sometimes punished. It is agreed that the situation really needs a Permanent Minorities Commission, collecting information for the Council and enabling members to exercise their duty of initiative.
The greatest authorities support this plan. Indeed Professor Gilbert Murray has advocated an extension of it in the sense that he would like to see agents of the League established in the Treaty countries. It is enough, perhaps, if I
890
quote one authority whose influence will not be questioned, the present Prime Minister, who in an article in 1929 wrote:
"The technical difficulties of presenting petitions should be removed, and the defence of the accused responsible States should be made public. A Permanent Minorities Commission ought to be established similar to the Mandates Commission, and the diplomacy of hush should be banished from its work."
If His Majesty's Government cannot see their way to go as far as this, then I would like to suggest a smaller improvement. It would be a committee of experts to inform the Committee of the Council.
Mr. Henderson said, as a member of the Council, that the President of the Council has too many duties to carry out, and a Committee of the Council is not very suitable for the purpose, because its members are men of ministerial functions and not, admittedly, experts in the minority matter. An advisory body would invite the reply of the minority without injuring the position of the accused State. It would not be asking very much of that State to permit information to be collected, when there is no question of executive action for such an expert committee. The wishes of the accused State cannot be the sole governing factor if we are to avoid a situation which is dangerous. Whatever method be adopted, neutral States, such as our own, may well invite the co-operation of the interested State in a reform which concerns all. No one denies the great urgency of removing the dangerous friction arising from the minority matter. Mr. Henderson was only stating a truism when he said that "the execution of the Treaties is essential to the maintenance of peace."
LORD DICKINSON: My Lords, I hope you will allow me to add a few observations to those offered to you by my noble friend Lord Noel-Buxton, and at the same time to thank him for bringing the matter before this House. It may sometimes be wondered why one feels justified in asking your Lordships to give consideration to this problem, but I think I can mention two facts which certainly in my opinion justify your Lordships in devoting a few minutes of your time to this matter. In the first place the problem is one of considerable magnitude—much greater magnitude than one usually thinks—because in each country there are certain minorities, some numerous and

891
some small. They are, of course, as their name conveys, in a minority, very often a small minority, but the aggregate number of persons who live under the Minority Treaty conditions is considerable. It is difficult to give the figure. It is stated variously as 20,000,000, 30,000,000, 40,000,000 and even 50,000,000, by people who wish to make little or much of their argument, but I think one is fairly within the mark in saying that there are at least 30,000,000 persons who are affected by the proper administration of the Minority Treaties throughout Europe; and certainly if anyone is responsible for the Minority Treaties it is the British Government. At Paris, as Lord Cecil of Chelwood will remember well, the question was considered at considerable length, and it was not very easy to obtain the passage of the Minority Treaties at all. I was not there, but I have been informed that had it not been for the insistence of the representatives of this country the Minority Treaties might never have come into existence. If that is so, it seems to me that His Majesty's Government, and their representatives in Geneva, have a peculiar share of responsibility in seeing that these Treaties are made effective.
I do not propose to deal with the question of Poland, which was mentioned by my noble friend, firstly, because I prefer to avoid reference to any particular nation in this respect in the observations that I am going to submit, and secondly, because I have always realised that in Poland particularly and in all these countries they have had political difficulties in forming their Governments which we find it hard to estimate. Nevertheless, we are brought up against the situation rather abruptly by the events in the Ukraine and the way the minority have been treated by the Polish Government and the League of Nations. My interest in this matter dates from the time of the War. I have not the advantage of knowing the East as long as my noble friend has, but immediately after the War I did visit those countries interested particularly in minorities, and it was evident to anyone who went there at that time that there was a problem upon which the whole peace of Europe, and perhaps of the world, would depend. Upon the proper solution of the relations of these minorities to their surrounding
892
population depended, and I believe still depends, the future peace of Europe.
In all these countries you find great groups of persons who differ from their neighbours in almost every respect—one might say in every respect. They differ in their language, in their religion, in their cultural associations, in their traditions and history and in every particular from the persons who surround them, and, as your Lordships know very well, they have always been the cause of a great deal of trouble in the East of Europe. The War changed this in two respects. In the first place it liberated a very large number of persons who had been held under the yoke of foreign rulers. It liberated a greater number than it subjugated in their turn after the War, and to that extent the War was a war of liberation; but on the other hand it did subjugate to new allegiances many millions of persons, and these were, as a rule, persons who, if not superior to their neighbours, certainly thought themselves to be so. Instead of the Rumanians being subjected to the Hungarians and the Poles to the Germans and the Czechs to the Austrians, the Germans became subordinated in one place and the Hungarians and Austrians in another, and it was perfectly evident that in those circumstances nothing could bring conciliation to Europe except a very generous exercise of the rights of Governments over these people.
This fact made itself evident to our representatives at Versailles in drawing up the Peace Treaty and they, as your Lordships know, enforced more or less the acceptance of what is known as the Minority Treaties. The motive of those who drew those Treaties was perfectly clear. It was to make the change as little irksome as possible to these new minorities. This is very well stated in a report drawn up by three respected members of the League of Nations, M. Adatci, Sir Austen Chamberlain, and Senor Quinones de Léon in 1929, when they stated:
"The purpose of the Treaties was to ensure that the minorities should, for the future, enjoy conditions which would enable them, without loss of their religious or cultural heritage, to bring to the States of which they now form a part that loyal cooperation on which the Assembly laid stress in its resolutions of 1922."

893
In order to achieve this result, which was evidently the desire of all at that time, the Treaties provided very definitely that their language should be secured to them, their religion should be secured to them, their right to use their own language in the Law Courts should be secured to them, and their education provided for in a very liberal way, schools being provided in which the mother tongue should be the medium of education, and so forth. By that means, it is clear, the framers of the Treaties hoped to prevent the attempts which they felt would undoubtedly be made to denationalise these people immediately after the War.
But unfortunately, I think, they did not take sufficiently into account the national feeling that existed at that time and has existed ever since. This public feeling in the various countries was certainly for many years at first, and still is I think, definitely opposed to any suggestion that these minorities should be in any kind of privileged position in regard to their language or their education. That has been the difficulty that has had to be met. I am sure that some of the Governments would have given better treatment to the minorities if they had not felt that public opinion was against them. We saw it in the years immediately following the War, when all kinds of difficulties were put in the way of the administration of these Treaties in the various countries. School areas were rearranged in such a way that the numerical proportions did not necessitate the establishment of minority schools; land legislation was so adjusted that many of the minority proprietors, at any rate, thought—I believe with some justice—that they were not getting the same treatment as other people. There was a quite unnecessary insistence on the use of the State language. I remember in one place I went to no one was allowed to speak German on the telephone at all. All that kind of petty interference with the freedom of the individual characterised these countries for several years after the conclusion of the War.
The result of it is that we are now reaping the fruit of that failure to reconcile the minorities to their position. It has kept alive an irritation that extends into other countries than the particular countries where these minorities exist—a feeling of irritation amongst
894
large numbers of people. Anyone would bear me out who has travelled in any district such as East Prussia, Danzig, Upper Silesia, the part of Czecho-Slovakia by Komaron, the Banat in Yugo-Slavia, Transylvania, the Bulgar-Serb frontier, the districts round Trieste and between Croatia and Italy, or in South Tyrol. You will find that on both sides of these frontiers the one burning question is the treatment of the minority on the other side. That is very largely answerable for the fact that the public mind is still in a ferment by reason of the fact that they believe—and I think are justified very largely in believing—that the minorities are not getting their rights. So long as that belief exists, it is impossible to hope for permanent peace.
People say, and with some justification perhaps, that matters are not so bad as they were after the War. It is true that the gross oppression and the very objectionable forms of interference with private liberty have ceased, though perhaps not everywhere. It may be that some of the minorities have ceased to complain. I was told the other day of a very important minority visited by a friend of mine. He said: "They have given up complaining; they feel it absolutely hopeless. They have no hope either of their own Government or of the League of Nations. They say it is useless to struggle against the inevitable." That may be true, but at the same time it is rather sad that that should be the outcome of a War which was fought for the purpose of preserving the rights of small nationalities. However, there are a considerable number of minorities who will not throw up the sponge, and who will hold out whatever happens. The problem there certainly is not settled.
In my view the minority question is growing in importance rather than diminishing. It is difficult to give reliable information, chiefly because the League of Nations keeps its information to itself. It is very difficult to get out of the League of Nations the information which it must certainly possess in regard to the position of minorities all over Europe. But under the recent regulations which were passed two or three years ago at Madrid, it was laid down that the number of petitions at any rate was to be published. I can give your Lordships two rather striking figures.

895
The numbers were published in the year ending June, 1930, and the year ending June, 1931. In the former year the number of petitions was 57; in the latter year it was 204. That shows there was an increase in one year of 147 petitions from minorities sent to the League of Nations. When one realises that there are very considerable difficulties even in submitting petitions in proper form to the League it shows that the problem is certainly not diminishing. Another figure which you can also gather from this publication is the number of sessions given to this question by Committees of the League of Nations. In the first year that I have mentioned the number of sessions was 19; in the year ending June, 1931, it was 111. So that there have been 92 more meetings of Committees rendered necessary for the purpose of considering these petitions of minorities and it is clear that the work is increasing.
I think anybody who reads the proceedings of the Council of the League must realise that at almost every meeting they now have some item on the agenda which has reference to minorities, and I think the work must be becoming very onerous for the members of the council. This was one reason why some of us advocated very strongly what has been suggested by my noble friend Lord Noel-Buxton—the creation of a Permanent Special Commission of Minorities. I feel sure it would be a saving of time, and would have very great advantages. But I do not want to discuss that question now. All I can say is that these facts that I have mentioned show that we have not finished with this question at all. There is still very wide discontent in many parts of Europe, and that discontent has its repercussions in neighbouring countries, where you have only to know how the Germans and Austrians speak about the conditions of affairs in the Tyrol to realise that this mismanagement of the minority question in the Southern Tyrol has a very evil effect upon public opinion in Germany and Austria. In fact it is really poisoning the whole political atmosphere of Europe.
Some people blame the Council. I do not do that. I think the Council has recognised its responsibilities, and attempts to do justice to the petitions, but in my opinion the Council has failed
896
in a very important function, one to which the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Buxton, has drawn attention—namely, its function under the general clause of the Treaty by which the rights of minorities are put under the guarantee of the League of Nations. The clause says:
"The country concerned agrees that the stipulations in the foregoing articles, so far as they affect persons belonging to racial, linguistic, or religious minorities, constitute obligations of international concern and shall be placed under the guarantee of the League of Nations."
I have always read those words as meaning, quite apart from the question of procedure or how it is to be done, that the whole League guarantees the rights of these minorities, and that was the view of the Committee presided over by Signor Tittoni in 1920, in which they reported that in their opinion the stipulation meant that "the League must ascertain that the provisions for the protection of minorities are always observed." That is precisely what the League has never tried to do.
It has received these petitions, it has dealt with them as thoroughly as it can, it has adjudicated upon them as justly as it can, but to make an inquiry of to satisfy itself that the provisions of the Treaties are being observed in various countries, quite independently of the particular special petitions that are brought before it—that the Council has always felt itself unable to do. I believe that if it had set itself to ascertain, as private individuals have done, what is the actual situation in any country with regard to legislation affecting minorities, and particularly with regard to administration affecting those minorities, it could have done a great deal, in communication with the Governments concerned, to get rid of the most objectionable things which exist at present.
I would like to say one word of what I think could be done. Some of the complaints of the minorities very largely arise now out of the system of procedure that was adopted by the Council in 1929. Rules were made especially for the purpose of rendering the work of the League easier with regard to petitions. One of those rules was that petitioners must satisfy certain definite conditions, which were stated, and if they do not satisfy those conditions the petitions are turned down. They are not submitted to any Committee to enquire into and they get no further. I am told—I do not think it

897
is always the case—that the petitioners do not even receive a reply to say why their petition was not laid before any Committee. In the figures given in the last publication I find that out of 204 petitions last year no fewer than 131 were decided to be non-receivable; that is to say, nearly two out of every three were turned down for one reason or another without being submitted to any Committee of the Council to investigate. No doubt those who turned them down felt they were justified in doing so, either because their form was not suitable, or because they were couched in too vigorous language, or because they dealt with some case that had already been considered, or because, for some other reason, they offended against the resolution. But it is clear, if 131 out of 204 are turned down without any notice being taken of them, so far as the petitioners know, that it must leave a feeling of very great discontent among the minorities. That is one of the grievances they have.
Another grievance they have in regard to the action of the League of Nations is what seems to be the inordinate delay that takes place in the hearing of petitions. The last case is a good example, the one mentioned in regard to the Ukraine. The trouble took place in September, 1930, and the final hearing before the Council was in January, 1932, so it was kept waiting for various reasons for nearly a year and a half. That is not due to any delay on the part of the office. It is due to the fact that the method adopted by the Council for dealing with these matters does not lend itself to acceleration. They have to bring together two or three important statesmen who are members of the League or of the League Council, and they have to have time to consider the matter. The delay is one of the most serious difficulties that ought to be met as far as possible.
The third complaint of the minorities is due to the secrecy of the League itself. When a case comes before the Council it is published, but when it is investigated privately it is not published unless the Goverment concerned gives consent. What is the result? In about fifty cases (other than those which were brought before the Council) which required the consent of the Government, the consent was given in twenty-one cases,
898
and if you look at the terms of the consent and the particulars of the petition you will find, what is natural, that three out of every four were petitions which had been decided in favour of the Government. Of course, therefore, the Government did not withhold its consent. The minorities believe that their complaints are concealed, that they do not get the proper treatment which they ought to receive, and, although these matters may appear to your Lordships perhaps a little unimportant, the whole minority question consists in a vast aggregation of seemingly unimportant little incidents. It may be quite an unimportant question whether a peasant child shall be forced to go seven miles to school before he can receive instruction in his own language, but, after all, that peasant has now a Treaty right to it, and the whole question becomes one of international importance.
It is because these minorities have their Treaty rights that the whole question assumes the importance which it does, and it is because they think that they are denied these rights that we find this feeling amongst minorities that they cannot get redress from the international organ, the League of Nations, which was established for the very purpose of doing them justice. The result is that, instead of looking to the League of Nations for redress and justice, they look elsewhere. They are now looking, not to us, but to Germany, for the German representatives on the League of Nations have become the protagonists of the minorities. Germany had nothing to do with the drawing up of the Minority Treaties. Germany objected herself to accept the obligations of the Treaties when she came into the League. Now if anybody raises a question in the Assembly or Council it is the German representative who takes the leading part. It seems to be a great mistake on the part of our Government to allow that situation to grow up. The rights of minorities are something which the British public have always interested themselves in, and I should be glad if we could see some more active steps taken by our representatives in this particular direction.
Next September the question of the procedure will be certain to be re-opened. From the discussion which took place

899
in the Council it is clear that it will be re-opened, and it ought to be re-opened, because, when the new procedure was instituted it was understood that it was going to be experimental and temporary. Therefore the time is ripe when this might be done. I suggest to my noble friend who is going to reply for the Government that he should keep an open mind on this particular question as to whether the British representative at Geneva should not raise the question of procedure and have the whole thing thrashed out very carefully. I may say that we are sending a petition from the League of Nations Union to His Majesty's Government in order to achieve this result and I hope it will be successful. I must apologise for speaking at such great length but I was anxious to take this opportunity of bringing the question so far as I know anything about it clearly before your Lordships.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: My Lords, I am sure none of your Lordships will think that any apology was needed from my noble friend Lord Dickinson for giving so interesting an account of this very important question. He certainly was fully justified in saying that there is a historical connection between this country and the minorities question. He referred to what happened at the Paris Conference. He might have gone very much further back than that. If he refers to the records of the Berlin Conference, which resulted in the Treaty of Berlin, he will find that the British Foreign Minister of that day was part author, I think, with the French Foreign Minister of the general proposition that wherever a country received a substantial increase of territory by Treaty there ought to be put upon that country the duty of protecting its minorities. I quote from memory but I believe that is the substance of a clause of the Treaty of Berlin.
Undoubtedly this matter is of very great importance. The question of minorities is responsible for a great deal of the unrest which unhappily still exists, particularly in Central Europe. I think, however, that it is only fair to add that the question is one of the very greatest delicacy and difficulty. There is not the slightest doubt that there are always, as my noble friend Lord Noel-Buxton said, two sides to every minority dispute. On the one side there is the
900
desire of the majority country to unify its territory and its population, to strengthen its position and in the often abused name of patriotism to try to stamp out all opposition that may exist to that unity. On the other side you have the very natural feeling, the very laudable feeling if you like, of the minority that it ought to maintain its separate existence inside the State. It values immensely its connection with its old nationality probably, and it has a very strong sentimental desire—I do not use the word sentimental in any derogatory sense—to maintain its position. It is obvious that when these two tendencies clash there will be a position of very great difficulty and very great delicacy. Though I am disposed to agree with both my noble friends that a great deal of injustice and oppression still exists in Europe—I am inclined to think it has diminished—yet one must admit that there is on the other side a good deal of what, if it happened in our own country, we should undoubtedly call disloyalty and sedition. It is that difficulty which makes the position of the League in this matter and the position of any one who has to deal with it extremely delicate, requiring in my judgment extreme caution—and I am not disposed to be unduly cautious in these matters—or otherwise you may easily do a great deal more harm than good.
My noble friend Lord Noel-Buxton said that in some respects this minority question was a powder magazine and I agree with him. It is full of explosive material. He cited as an instance the case of Danzig, but I think he would agree that that is not a typical minority question, though there is a position there of grave difficulty which has occupied a great part of the attention of the League of Nations. You have there a State which is predominantly German in a country which is predominantly Polish and the clash of two nationalities who are apparently almost always inimical to one another when brought together. In my judgment it is not a typical minority case because it does not come within the Minority Treaties. It is a case of two apparently irreconcilable sections of people placed together in a certain position by the operation of the Treaties.
You will find that position of course in other places where a considerable block of territory has been transferred

901
from one country to another, carrying with it large populations which do not belong to the new country but do belong to the old State, as in the case of Transylvania. You will find among people in that situation not only a desire to be treated with absolute fairness and impartiality, but a vehement protest against the existence of the political arrangement altogether and a desire to have it reversed. It is an irredentist feeling which cannot be dealt with by Minority Treaties but must be dealt with by other remedies as far as it can be dealt with at all. In some cases, as in the Balkans, an attempt has been made with a considerable amount of success to deal with the difficulty by an exchange of population. There has been a transfer in the Balkans of population from Turkey to Bulgaria and also from Greece to Bulgaria, and vice versa from Bulgaria to Greece and Bulgaria to Turkey, in order to get a more or less unified population. Though it is too early to say what are the practical results of that it seems to me a good thing to do where it can be done. Obviously, however, that is a remedy which is only applicable in certain cases.
In other cases something might be done—I wish very much that the countries of Europe would consider this seriously—not so much by giving minorities complete equality, which really does not meet the case, but by giving what is called cultural autonomy. That means giving them as far as can be done their own cultural institutions in language, schools, religion, and so on, quite apart from the nationality of the majority. I believe that in many cases that might lead to a considerable alleviation of the present position. There are, however, cases to which I have already referred where the real desire is not for fair treatment of the minorities in their new countries but a reversal of the Treaty provisions by which they were transferred to other countries. Then there are cases where a minority which used to be a minority in one country has become a minority in another country. There are, for instance, the Germans in Transylvania, who were a minority under Magyar Government and are now a minority under Rumanian Government. I do not think that any practical difficulty arises in cases of that kind.
902
The cases we really have to deal with are cases of people who have become minorities in a country whereas they were part of a majority before recent changes were made, people who have been transferred from a country where their nationality had control of the government of the country. The Germans in Bohemia form as good an instance as any other, but there are numbers of such cases, and those are the cases which cause difficulty. They are put in a position which is much less favourable to them and a position which is regarded as a danger by the new country. It was to meet that danger that the Minority Treaties were agreed to at Paris, and it has been the practice of the League that when any new country is admitted it should accept the same obligations as to minorities as are imposed by the Treaties and they broadly say that equal rights are to be given to the minorities as to the majorities in those countries. Even there the difficulties are very great, as I am sure Lord Noel-Buxton and Lord Dickinson will admit. In a very considerable number of the cases that have come before the League there is the gravest question whether the action of the majority country has been an infringement of the equal rights of the minorities. Very delicate and difficult questions arise. A country, for example, passes an agrarian law providing for splitting up great estates, and in fact all, or the majority of, the great estates are held by one particular race, a minority race. Is that a case where the minority race is receiving equal treatment or not? The law is perfectly general, but it practically only applies to the minorities and you evidently have a very grave difficulty raised in such a case.
Then take the case of very severe laws against seditious action. It may well be that the only people who suffer from that are members of a minority, but can you say that that is an infringement of equal rights? I do not say that these questions are insoluble, but they are considerable and they are very difficult. I may perhaps be allowed to say in passing that though I fully agree with Lord Noel-Buxton as to the horrors, I am afraid alleged truly, which have occurred in the Ukraine with regard to the punishment of political prisoners, I think they are really much more a criticism, not on the questions of minorities, but on

903
the question of the humane treatment of prisoners, which is one of the questions before the League and one which undoubtedly ought to be dealt with. There is no doubt that although in that case it was true it was the Ukrainians who suffered, there are numbers of cases all over Europe where it is not a question of minorities, but the most shocking barbarities are taking place by the mere suppression of political activities by the Party in power.
That is only by the way; but taking these difficulties into consideration I have always felt, or I have felt for many years, that you will never be able really to deal with this question satisfactorily and attain a really established set of principles for dealing with minorities except by our old English plan of gradually building up a Common Law, a jurisprudence on the subject. That is the main reason why I personally adhere Very much to the proposals made by Lord Noel-Buxton with regard to a modification of the procedure of the League. But the matter is not easy. I am sorry to appear to be raising difficulties, but it is essential that your Lordships should understand the position as it exactly is. The Minority Treaties say that certain rights are to be secured to the minority and if they are broken it is for the League and the Council of the League to see as far as they can that justice is done, but it is expressly provided that the Council can only be set in motion by the action of a member of the Council; it cannot be set in motion by a petition from the minority.
That was discussed very much at Paris. I happened to be a member of the Committee of the Conference which dealt with it and personally I regretted that decision, but it was decided by the Powers assembled that it would be going too far to allow a minority to bring the matter before the Council on its own motion. The minority has to get hold of a member of the Council and induce that member to bring the matter before the Council. That is the origin of the Committees of Three. It was found to be an intolerable burden to get single countries to undertake the difficult part of arraigning another country for its treatment of minorities, and so it was arranged that the petitions when they came in should be examined by these Committees of Three. There you get ad hoc Committees
904
of Three to examine petitions—often only one petition or one series of petitions dealing with the same set of facts or with similar facts, and sometimes you will have as many as two or three Committees appointed during the same session to deal with different matters.
I cannot think that is good procedure from any point of view. It means that you get no continuity except such as is furnished by the members of the Secretariat who attend the Committees of Three. Very properly the Secretariat's duty is confined to carrying out the policy which the Council and Committees lay down and not to have a policy of its own. Therefore you really have no method of continuity and consequently no method of the growth of what I have called a Common Law on the subject. I cannot think that is of advantage to anybody. I do not believe it is of advantage to the majority countries and I am sure it is not to the advantage of the minority. I think both sides would be much better off if they knew there was being gradually built up a system of law. I always hoped that would be accepted. No doubt you are in a great difficulty. You cannot modify the Minority Treaties except with the consent of all the Parties. That is one of the fundamental principles of International Law. Therefore, if it is held that this is a modification of those Treaties you obviously cannot do it without their consent.
What I should venture to ask the members of the Government to consider very carefully, and particularly my noble and learned friend, Viscount Hailsham, because we all know his great competence in matters of this kind, is whether it is really true that such a proposal as was adumbrated by Lord Noel-Buxton is a modification of the Minority Treaties. I agree that if you set up anything like a Permanent Commission that would be a new procedure, but if the Council merely say: "We think it would be very convenient to have our Committees of Three advised by experts as to what they can do and what they cannot and what they ought to do and ought not, and therefore we propose to create a small panel of experts who will examine all these petitions as they come in and make their report to the Secretariat or the Committee of Three, and then the Committee could act on that as to

905
whether they would bring it before the Council," I do not myself see, though I do not pretend to express an opinion of value, why that should be a modification of the Minority Treaties. If it is not so it might be possible to get the Council to accept that as part of their procedure in future, and if it is held to be a matter of procedure it could be accepted by a majority of the Council. I should like to have that examined because I feel that it would help to establish that jurisprudence which I think so desirable.
As to delay I do not think you can get rid of it, and I do not think you ought to because evidently in these matters your first business should be to try to convince the Government concerned that they ought to behave better and ought to give some guarantee of better behaviour. To take the case he had in view, of Poland and the Ukraine, the delay was caused in that case, I understood, by efforts made to induce the Polish Government to give some kind of guarantee, some statement that they were going to institute a new system, which would remove the difficulties. That must take time. It is not a question of machinery, or of getting a Committee together, but it is a question of the difficulty of carrying on delicate negotiations with rapidity. I repeat that will have to take time.
There are other changes which are of a more technical character with which I will not bother your Lordships. I only wish to say, in conclusion, that there is one matter in which I agree with Lord Dickinson. I think it would be of the greatest advantage to have greater publicity in these matters. I am sure it would do nobody any harm, and I cannot believe there is any serious difficulty in that being carried out. It would be much better to tell the minorities why their petitions have not been accepted, and, if it can be done, to give them an opportunity of making such explanation as they can make, and allow the world to see what the League of Nations is doing in this matter—I believe it is doing it with reasonable success—and not permit this atmosphere of suspicion to exist. I am sure that my noble friends are right in attributing great importance to this question. I am equally sure that it is a matter which must be dealt with with careful regard to the interests and sus-
906
ceptibilities of all concerned, and it is a matter in which, when it comes to be examined, perhaps at the next Assembly or a near date, I trust the League may have the great assistance and guidance of His Majesty's Government.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, the three noble Lords who have addressed your Lordships on this Motion are all, if they will allow me to say so, persons who have by study of the problems and by visiting the districts, and in one case at any rate, that of my noble friend, Lord Cecil of Chelwood, by his attendance and great help at the meetings of the Council and Assembly of the League of Nations, qualified themselves to speak with authority on the topic before the House. I only have to address your Lordships because, naturally and properly, the views of the Government are required, and it unfortunately happens that the representative of the Foreign Office now sits in another place. Your Lordships and the noble Lord who introduced the Motion will forgive me if I speak with some reserve and some diffidence on the subject of the Motion, because I cannot help feeling that this is a matter in which it is important to be very cautious in the language which one uses. The noble Lord himself compared the situation to that of a powder magazine, filled with a highly explosive mixture. The introduction of a torch, even for the beneficent purpose of throwing light, is apt to produce very startling results under those conditions.
The interest of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom in this matter can only be an interest arising from the desire to secure the observance of Treaties, some of which they themselves had a considerable share in framing, and all of which have a direct bearing upon the peace and good will prevailing in Europe. I think it is satisfactory that the noble Lord himself considers, if I understood him correctly, that the Treaties, if properly carried out in the spirit of those concerned in their framing, would get rid of the existing difficulties, and that it is not so much in the obligations which have been imposed, but in the spirit in which they have been carried out, that difficulty is created. Speaking for myself, I thought that the advice which Lord Noel-Buxton himself gave

907
was very wise advice, when he said that on the one hand the minorities would be well advised if they did not make their rights under the Minority Treaties a cloak for sedition, and if they did not attempt to exploit their privileges in the direction of seeking to get free of a domination which many of them regretted, and on the other hand that the States in which those minorities were incorporated should do their best to make it possible for the minorities to become loyal citizens, and corporate and contented members of the body politic in which they were now incorporated.
The procedure with regard to minorities, the manner in which it has grown and developed, has been referred to by my noble friend Lord Cecil of Chelwood this afternoon, and your Lordships may remember it was dealt with at some length in a speech delivered just a year ago by Lord Parmoor, then President of the Council, in the debate which Lord Dickinson then initiated, in the absence of Lord Noel-Buxton, on the same topic. Lord Parmoor then described the working of the Treaties and the development of the procedure whereby minorities were enabled to address themselves directly to the Secretary-General of the League, and the composition and functions of the Committees of Three, to which allusion has been made. This procedure, as your Lordships know full well, is for all practical purposes the same to-day as when Lord Parmoor spoke upon the subject.
To come to the particular cases which Lord Noel-Buxton cited, my noble friend Lord Cecil has pointed out, and of course the noble Lord knows even better than I do, that the position at Danzig is really not a minority question at all, though the position of minorities in Poland may produce reaction in Danzig, but under the Treaties which followed the War Danzig is a separate and independent entity and quarrels with Poland on equal terms. However acute the Danzig problem may become at any given moment, it is not one which can possibly be solved by any alteration in the procedure with regard to minorities.
As regards the Albanian grievances in Yugo-Slavia, His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom have very little information. Only one recent petition on the subject has been received by the
908
League of Nations and the result has not been reported. I believe it is still under consideration by a Committee of Three. The grievances of the Macedonians against Yugo-Slavia are much more largely in the public eye. The modern Macedonian movement is very much what it was as long ago as the days of Mr. Gladstone. By the Treaties of 1913 the largest slice of Turkish Macedonia was given to Yugo-Slavia, with the result that large masses of Macedonians emigrated to Bulgaria. The Macedonians are linguistically more nearly allied to the Bulgarians than to the Serbs. The Yugo-Slav Government apparently aims at unification and ironing out of differences between its constituent populations, but we still have in our memories the reminder in the expression macédoine of what a mixture Macedonia really is.
With reference to the question whether the Bulgarians in Macedonia are a minority, one has to remember that the Yugo-Slav Government have taken up the attitude that there is no Macedonian minority in Yugo-Slavia, and that contention is one upon which the League of Nations, as far as I know, has never pronounced any judgment. Expert writers on the subject are divided in their opinion, and the best information which the Foreign Office is able to give me with regard to the position of the Macedonians in Yugo-Slavia is that the facts themselves are very obscure, that widely different conclusions are drawn from the facts by the persons and Governments who are best qualified to know and understand them, and that the League of Nations has explicitly refrained from expressing any opinion on the point; and we think it would be unwise and very rash for His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom to pronounce any public judgment upon it.
The Macedonian revolutionary organisation, which is a relic of the Turkish days, does a great deal to prejudice the whole question, because it introduces the element of political terrorism and is very apt to compromise the Bulgarian Government, from whose territory it operates. There is some evidence that, with the lapse of time and with the appearance of a new generation, the Macedonian revolutionary organisation is losing its hold on the so-called Macedonian minority

909
in Southern Serbia. There is some ground for hoping that the Macedonian problem may, if political passions are definitely discouraged, solve itself through the gradual assimilation of the so-called Macedonian minority into the Yugo-Slav nationality, since neither from the point of view of race, religion, or language is there any fundamental distinction between the Serb and the so-called Macedonian such as should make that assimilation impossible. If events prove that, after all, this Macedonian problem cannot be solved even in that way, then the noble Lord is quite right, of course, in saying that the League of Nations may eventually have to take up the question whether the so-called Macedonian minority in Southern Serbia is or is not a minority for the purposes of the Minority Treaties.
As regards the Ukrainians, I know that I need not remind the noble Lord that the whole question of the position of this minority has been before the Council of the League this year as a result of the so-called pacification of the Polish Ukrainian provinces in 1930. Petitions against the action of the Polish authorites in that matter were considered last year by a Committee of Three, of which the British representative, who, I think, was my noble friend Lord Cecil, was a member. That Committee found that there was a prima facie case against the Polish Government for violation of the Minority Treaties. The report on that subject was presented to the Council on January 30 last, by Mr. Sato of the Japanese delegation, and that report took the view that the Polish authorities had had considerable provocation, that they had no intention of pursuing a systematic anti-Ukrainian policy, and that they would henceforward maintain a conciliatory attitude and endeavour to collaborate with the responsible elements among the Ukrainians for the improvement of conditions in the Ukrainian provinces.
The noble Lord will remember also that when that report was discussed by the Council Lord Cecil, speaking on behalf of the British Government, drew attention of his colleagues to the very regrettable nature of some of the incidents mentioned in it, stated that he shared the regret expressed by Mr. Sato that the Polish GoNernment had not granted compensation to the innocent
910
victims of abuses committed by their officials, and expressed the hope that the Polish Government would proceed energetically with measures of reconciliation and appeasement. He also expressed regret that allegations of ill-treatment of Ukrainian prisoners contained in the petitions were not to be investigated and reported upon, pointing out that as matters stood those who had made them could say that they had neither been refuted nor considered by the body to whom they had been addressed, but the Council as a whole were prepared to accept Mr. Sato's report and the matter was consequently not further pressed by the Council of the League. I hope I have endeavoured fairly accurately to summarise what happened on that occasion.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: Absolutely. The only thing I would add is that there was another petition which was not dealt with at that session, but which will come up, I suppose—I do not know what has happened to it since, but it was still alive—which raised, specifically the question of the treatment of prisoners, and it was one of the reasons why it was not necessary to press the matter too far on that occasion that it would come up to be considered later.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I am much obliged to my noble friend. I am afraid I have not got information as to the precise position of the petition, but I have no doubt that it is, as my noble friend says, under a discussion by one of those Committees. I am told that there has been no further development in the Polish Ukrainian provinces of any serious character since the Council meeting already mentioned, and there is good reason to hope that all parties concerned are now more fully alive to their responsibility. Should a definite settlement of the question still at issue between the Polish Government and the Ukrainian minority result from the events of the past two years, I venture to think that no members of the League will have more cause than His Majesty's Government to congratulate themselves on their share in helping to bring about this development.
With regard to the case of the Germans in Posen and the corridor, which the noble Lord has mentioned, the position is that until recently these petitions con-

911
listed mainly of complaints by individual members of the minority that they were prejudiced on account of their race in such matters as expropriation or preemption of their property under the law for agrarian reform or the grant or withdrawal of educational facilities, alcohol licences and the like. In most of these cases it has not been possible, on the evidence available, to question the contention of the Polish Government that the action of their authorities has been dictated by purely practical considerations, such as the undue proportion of large properties in a given area, or an excessive number of alcohol licences in a particular town, and did not constitute an infringement of any right given under the Minority Treaties. There are, however, before the Council several petitions dealing with the question of discrimination as a whole, and submitting comparative statistics intended to show a difference in the respective treatment of persons of German and Polish race over a large area. Such statistics require very careful examination, which is now proceeding, and, until the results of that examination have been ascertained, plainly it would be impossible for His Majesty's Government to make any statement on the subject.
The truth is that it is very difficult to see what further steps His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom could possibly take beyond those which they have taken to induce the parties to the Minority Treaties to fulfil their obligations. It seems to the Government that the best and the safest method of bringing pressure to bear in this matter is through the machinery provided by the League of Nations. Some suggestions have been made this afternoon as to possible alterations in that machinery. There is the suggestion to set up a Permanent Minorities Commission. That was a proposal which was viewed with a good deal of sympathy by the last Government. I think the noble Lord quoted a speech by the present Prime Minister in which he said something in favour of that policy, but when the late Government persevered with the project it became clear that there would be very considerable opposition from a number of States. Quite plainly it is one which could not be brought into operation except by general agreement, and so far as we have been able to ascertain
912
the same reasons and the same attitude persist to-day. It makes it a little difficult to expect that there is any real prospect of that plan being carried into effect.
Then there was a proposal that the findings of the Committees of Three should be published. That again is one which naturally appeals to British sentiment, because we are always in favour, I hope, of giving the widest possible publicity to anything in the nature of judicial investigation, but the difficulty again is that these are matters with regard to which it is necessary to achieve general agreement before there can be an alteration. And, whatever criticisms may be levelled at the system of Committees of Three, it must be remembered that the system was worked out with very considerable difficulty, and that a number of States are very sensitive with regard to any suggestions of departing from it. I can quite sincerely assure all the three noble Lords who have been good enough to take part in the debate this afternoon that the suggestions which they have made will be very carefully considered by His Majesty's Government. The noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, will forgive me if I do not give an answer to his legal question as to whether the setting up of a panel of experts would involve a modification of the Minority Treaties. I am not in the least suggesting it would. A matter of that kind, obviously, would want very careful consideration, and it certainly Shall have very careful consideration, especially from the very competent legal advisers at the Foreign Office, whom he knows to be so well able to deal with matters of that kind.
We are grateful for any suggestions which can be made that would help us to bring about a more satisfactory fulfilment of the obligations undertaken by these Minority Treaties. But we are conscious also that the question of enforcing the performance of such obligations is of necessity a very delicate one. The whole question of any kind of enforcement obviously bristles with difficulties, and an unsuccessful attempt to enforce the observance of such Treaties, or an unsuccessful attempt to champion the cause of a minority, might easily do more harm to the cause of the minority itself than the quieter and less spectacular method of using influence with the Governments concerned. With every desire to see these Treaties fully observed in the letter and

913
in the spirit, His Majesty's Government are fain to confess that as things stand at present they do not see that they could themselves do more than they have been trying to do in the past. The suggestions which have been made will be carefully considered, but I cannot give any more direct promise than the one which I have already offered to your Lordships' House. With regard to Papers, I am afraid there really are no Papers to lay. We have no documents which we can produce beyond those we have already produced, so I hope the noble Lord will not press his Motion for Papers. Naturally, if there is any information on any specific point which we can give him or give the House, we should be only too glad to give it if he will communicate with us.
LORD NOEL-BUXTON: My Lords, if I may be allowed one more word, I should like to thank the noble and learned Viscount for the information he has given us on very many important points. I would venture to hope that, while he sees difficulties in adopting the proposal for a Permanent Commission, he will explore very carefully the modified suggestion that I and the other speakers have developed for a committee of experts which might assist the Council without in any way changing the method of the Minority Treaties in a juridical fashion. May I hope also that, while he has no Papers to lay at the moment, he will consider my suggestion of the value of Consular Reports and of a White Paper upon the procedure in regard to minorities? In conclusion I would ask the noble and learned Viscount not to be too modest as to the influence of His Majesty's Government in the Council of the League in this particular matter. We have a very peculiar position in the Council, upon the question of minorities in particular. We are not only a permanent member of the Council, but we are, notably perhaps, the only great Power disinterested in these matters, and we are able to speak with complete detachment. We are the Power most trusted to have no object in view except the promotion of peace, and I would appeal to His Majesty's Government to regard the task of improvement in this matter as worth their most vigorous attention. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

OTTAWA CONFERENCE AND TIMBER.
LORD LOVAT LORD LOVAT had given Notice to call the attention of His Majesty's Government to the importance of the question of timber at the Ottawa Conference, and to ask what steps are being taken to see that His Majesty's representatives are adequately informed on technical matters connected with the timber trade; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I raise the Question which stands in my name because I dare say it will be admitted that forestry in this country is not dealt with by any Minister but by a Department under the Treasury, and it is quite possible that the importance of the subject has not been fully appreciated. The importance of the timber question at the Ottawa Conference can, I think, roughly speaking, be spoken of in this way. In the first place, timber production is one of the important functions of the Government. They are already the owners of some 200,000 acres of timber land, they are planting timber at the rate of between 25,000 and 30,000 acres a year, and in addition, they have in mind the creation of State forests to the extent of 1,500,000 acres, which eventually will undoubtedly have a value which may be reckoned possibly up to £100,000,000.
At the present time I think it would be no exaggeration to say that the value of the timber, including the land and other things in the Crown woods, must amount to several million pounds, possibly ten million pounds. Some years ago the gross revenue of the forestry Department was over £100,000. Probably it is more to-day. Therefore a conference which is to deal with timber supply, with tariffs and matters of that nature, must be of real importance to His Majesty's Government. I hope I make this point quite clear. Already the Government is by far the largest timber owner in Great Britain and probably it will become equal to the whole of all the other owners, municipal and private, of timber in this country.
There is another reason why timber is of such importance and that is from the point of view of employment. It has always been very difficult to get the exact number of people employed, either in the creation of plantations or in the conversion of the trees into timber, but I think

915
I shall not be far wrong in saying that between 35,000 and 36,000 men are so employed at the present day. Given adequate marketing of timber, which of course means increased care for woodlands, that number could probably be doubled or more than doubled. Then there is the employment given by saw milling to be taken into account, and as home timber is comparatively a small proportion the number of men employed in the saw-milling of foreign timber must be very high. Owing to the fact that there is little or no differentiation between tariffs levied on converted and partly converted timber no fewer than 13,500 saw millers were out of employment, according to an answer given in the House of Commons, in the month of February. I believe the number is higher to-day, but I have not checked the figures since. It is, however, undoubtedly the fact that never in recent years has the saw-milling trade of the country been in a worse condition than it is to-day. The question of timber imports and the question of what tariff should be levied and of what preference should be given will be discussed at Ottawa. Therefore from the point of view of employment, of timber ownership by the State, of the returns from State-owned woods, this question is very important.
Its importance will be seen if we take the actual volume of trade. Imports are something between £40,000,000 and £50,000,000 per annum. Both in quantity and in value imports of timber have been increasing steadily during the last fifty years. I am aware that at the present time, partly because of the inundation of markets by timber produced in Russia with no regard to economics, prices are lower to-day than they were last year or in 1929. Notwithstanding the introduction of substitutes it is the universal experience that the higher the civilisation the higher is the amount of timber used per head of the population. Certainly Canada regards this question of timber as second only in importance to wheat, and the Colonies—which, of course, are less articulate in the sense that they have not the opportunity of stating their position—are even more interested because timber is their principal production and the principal source to which they can look for increase of trade. While soft wood requirements can only be met in part from the
916
Dominions practically the whole of hardwood requirements can be met, and the hardwood used in this country represents something between £5,000,000 and £7,000,000 per annum.
From another point of view also this will be a matter of importance at the Conference because when you come to the final reckoning it will not merely be a question of sentiment but a question of bargaining. It is a question which will differ from the question of food imports. In the one case you will deal with a matter in which price is of absolutely vital interest whereas in the other case the question of food prices can be met by loss on the part of the consumer or On the part of the already over-burdened farmers in this country. One would imagine when there is such a clear direct Government interest—I say "direct" because the Government in the near future may be a producer of timber of anything between £50,000,000 and £100,000,000 and to-day is interested to the extent of £10,000,000—that the Government would have acted as any ordinary trading body would do and sent somebody with full knowledge of the subject to represent their interests. I can understand in the case of agriculture and the manufacturing industries that they might be asked to send their own representatives, but in this matter the State has a very direct show of its own to look after.
We all know the hundreds of individuals who go out to Geneva and Locarno and other Conferences. Surely when they are sent out in such numbers and treated with such munificence it is not too much to ask that an important industry in which the Government itself has such a big stake should be properly represented at Ottawa. What has been done? In agriculture you had an advisory committee, and though I do not compare the importance of forestry with that of agriculture the State has no great farms like it has great woodlands. All that has been done is that some sort of general invitation common to all industries has been issued to the Timber Trades Federation and I understand that up to yesterday the business advisers had not yet seen the committee of that federation. Time is going on, and this is a most technical question that, in my submission, has been grossly underrated in value. May I make a suggestion? The

917
matter is important from a bargaining point of view and it is important in relation to employment, and my suggestion is that you should here and now appoint an Advisory Committee on exactly the same lines as you have appointed an Agricultural Committee. Probably you have the facts, and those you appoint should have them. You ought to have represented on that Committee your own interests as represented by the Forestry Commission, you should have also the sylvicultural interest, the scientific and research interests and, more than anything else, you should have the trade interests, the saw-millers of this country and the importers from abroad.
From that Advisory Committee I submit that you would get your facts presented with a knowledge that would equal the information of those whom they are going to meet. The casual invitation which has been issued is not at all sufficient. An answer was given in another place to Mr. Ramsay the other day which was most offhand and bore no relation at all to the great stake which the Government has in this matter. High as is the opinion I have of the Timber Trades Federation I am not at all satisfied that they are the group who should necessarily give advice on either the interests of the State or the interest of producers here and abroad. I need not go into the whole question of imports at the present time, but it is common knowledge that our soft wood supplies come in the main, and always must come, from the Baltic States. It is also certain that for a considerable time—and in my opinion for ever—we shall necessarily have to import from Russia several hundred thousand standards. Their terms of sale are attractive to buyers here and the average importer finds it more simple to get delivery from them than to go to a new country. It is obvious that these gentlemen of the timber trade may not necessarily be the best advisers at Ottawa and yet, so far as one can see from the action the Government has taken, they are likely to be our only advisers. In asking His Majesty's Government what steps they have taken I would point out that the steps taken up to date are remarkably small. I submit that there is still time for a Committee on the lines I have suggested to be formed, and if it is formed you could get valuable advice. Surely in
918
the ordinary course of business in view of the interests involved it is worth while sending someone to Ottawa well able to represent our industry. You would not be criticised if you took what would be regarded by the country as a whole as an ordinary trading precaution for safeguarding our interests.
THE DUKE OF MONTROSE: My Lords, I am very pleased that Lord Lovat has emphasised the point brought forward in his Motion. I happened to be in Ottawa only a short time ago and had the opportunity of discussing with the Prime Minister and other Ministers various questions of trade and in particular the question of timber. One point that was emphasised was that whatever may be arranged at the Ottawa Conference it will take a long time before trade can actually experience any material benefit, and whatever the time, long or short, may be, it will be very much longer unless those who attend the Conference have at their back all the technical information they require for them to deal with all the points that may arise. I can say that so far as Canada is concerned they will welcome wholeheartedly any technical information that may be available to those dealing wit h timber questions.
I happened to be the president of a trade mission and some were good enough to say that from the point of view of immediate employment and benefit of industry, a trade mission such as ours would have more immediate effect than perhaps even a Conference. That may or may not be so, but I know this. We were only there seven days, but before we cast off from the wharf at Montreal there were orders leaving our shores here in response to cables, as a result of our mission. There were nearly ninety merchants and manufacturers in the mission, representing 148 different lines of industry, and not one single man on the ship was disappointed with the business achieved. What was the secret of our success? It was that every single man was a technical expert, who knew his business from A to Z. It shows the importance of those who attend a Conference being supported by all the technical information and knowledge available.
I am sorry to say that the Forestry Department in this country is rather under a cloud over there. It is a small matter,

919
and I only mention it because I think it could be put right. It seems that a little time ago we asked the Canadian Forestry Department to collect large quantities of seed. They went to much trouble and expense to collect it, and then, because we had cut down our own forestry operations in this country for reasons of national economy, we told them that the seed, or a very large proportion of it, was not wanted, and we left them to foot the bill. It was indicated that if anything more was to be done between our Department and theirs, there would require to be some guarantee that there should be no repetition of this. If I may do so, I would suggest that perhaps some steps should be taken to square this matter before the Conference. A little oil now would lubricate business in the future.
There was one other point of interest to trade, and that was the question of the importation of paper and wood pulp. It was pointed out that by reason of the tariff imposed by America it was very difficult indeed for Canada to hold her position in the United States market, and especially against a country like Scandinavia, where wages and transportation charges were lower. It is possible that perhaps we could help Canada by giving a preference to Scandinavia, so as to draw her pulp from the American market. Whatever arrangement is made it will have to be an arrangement for dovetailing the British and Canadian interests, and if we can help Canada, directly or indirectly, we should do so. Whatever arrangement is made we must go into the Conference with all the knowledge and information available.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (EARL DE LA WARR): My Lords, the two speeches to which we have just listened will have convinced all of us who needed any convincing on this subject, of the tremendous importance of the point which Lord Lovat has raised. What the noble Lord wants, I think, and I hope I shall be able to give him, is some reassurance that the Government are making adequate preparation for dealing with this subject satisfactorily at Ottawa. Perhaps that point can best be dealt with if I put before the noble Lord the exact preparations that are being made. The Government have appointed seven indus-
920
trial advisers to form part of the United Kingdom delegation:—three trade advisers, Sir Gilbert Vyle, Lord Weir and Sir Alan Anderson; two advisers appointed by the Trades Union Congress, Mr. Citrine and Mr. Bromley; Sir Edward Davson, to advise on Colonial trade matters; and Sir Douglas Newton, to advise on matters of particular agricultural importance.
It is quite obvious, if we consider for a moment the numbers of trades and industries which exist in this country and which are bound to come up for discussion at Ottawa, that it is impossible to have one representative for every trade, and I am sure that the noble Lord would be the very first to admit that. On the other hand we have appointed these three special trade advisers and Sir Douglas Newton for dealing with agriculture, and the position is that it is open to all trades and industries to approach these advisers and put the whole of their case before them. The noble Lord complains that until a very late date there has not been consultation with the Timber Trades Federation, or any other body interested in the timber trade of this country. That is the responsibility of the trade itself, and from inquiries I have made—
LORD LOVAT: You cannot expect the trade to look after your interest. You, the State, are directly interested in this matter, because you are the biggest timber producers here.
EARL DE LA WARR: I was not dealing with the particular discussions which may take place between the Forestry Commission and the Government. I was disussing for a moment the private side of the trade, and I was saying that so, far as the inquiries I have made have been answered I gather that in no case have the trade advisers approached any trade. It has been up to the trade or industry to approach the trade advisers, and put their case before them, and the reason why there has not been prior discussion with the Timber Trades Federation or any other body, is that up to a very few days ago they had not made any application. The noble Lord raised another point, which is that he feels the Timber Trades Federation are not likely to be entirely representative of all the interests in the home producing timber trade.
LORD LOVAT: May I again interrupt? That is exactly my point. To-day the importers can buy all the timber they want in the easiest possible way, and moreover he heavily remunerated. Why should they go unless you ask for their assistance?
EARL DE LA WARR: That is exactly the point I was coming to in my speech. If it be said that the producers of this country are not satisfied with the representation of the Timber Trades Federation—and the noble Lord has given us very strong reasons why they should not be so satisfied—then there is no reason why the producers in this country themselves should not also state their case to the trade advisers. It is entirely up to them to make use of the machinery that exists, and what I would put to your Lordships is that this lack of contact—and that there has been a lack of contact must be admitted—is not the fault of the machinery, but is due to the regrettable fact that the machinery which does exist, and which, if used, will turn out to be fully satisfactory, has not been used either by the timber trade or (if we are going to make this distinction) by the home producers of timber. There is nothing that the Government would welcome more than the opportunity of getting hold of the full opinion of all the various interests in the different sections of the timber trade. I hope that they will be put into the position of being able to do so in the near future.
I particularly stress the point that if the Timber Trades Federation are not regarded as satisfactory representation, then it is up to those who feel that they are not being represented by that federation to put up their own representation through the machinery provided by the Government. I think then that I can assure the noble Lord that he and those with him—and I know that there are many who are anxious on this point; the noble Lord is not speaking for himself alone—will find that the interests of the home producers, particularly of timber in this country, will be adequately represented at the Conference at Ottawa. There is one further point—namely, that there is nothing to prevent a trade sending its own representatives to Canada in
922
order that they may be available on the spot for consultation with the industrial advisers, should the need arise. I understand that a number of trades are doing that, and there is nothing to prevent this trade doing so also.
LORD LOVAT: My Lords, I cannot say I am satisfied with the noble Earl's answer, which does not deal with a great many of the points that I raised. He has not told us in any way how the State forestry industry is going to be represented at Ottawa. Are the Timber Trades Federation going to represent the interests of the Forestry Commission at Ottawa? After all, we are far the biggest people who are interested. I would ask the noble Earl carefully to consider my suggestion that just as the Government have done with agriculture appointing men representing every branch of agriculture—I happen to be one myself, we have met with the greatest harmony, we have had very few meetings, but we knew our subject and quickly got through our work, and I do not think it is breaking any confidence to say that our report is nearly ready—it would be quite easy to appoint a committee, and you could then choose as your representative someone who knows something about forestry to be chairman of that committee. Then you could go forward and say you had really dealt with the subject. There is very grave dissatisfaction among those who have the misfortune to grow forests or to be interested in the State forestry development, but still greater dissatisfaction among those who know something about the Empire and who know by direct evidence that at Ottawa they do not think they are going to have a square deal before they start. I think it would remove a great deal of this anxiety, which undoubtedly exists in the non-self-governing Colonies to-day, if you had quite a small committee appointed, covering those branches that I have mentioned, with Sir Douglas Newton as your representative, who could then say that at all events you would study the matter properly and that your own State industry was going to be represented as well as one particular section.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE.
LORD LOVAT LORD LOVAT had the following Notice on the Paper:
To ask His Majesty's Government—

1. How many officials in the International Labour Office draw salaries (including pensions allowances) of £1,500 or over?

2. What percentage do these highly-paid officials represent of the total numbers of the permanent staff?

3. What is the nature of the International Labour Office pensions scheme? To whom does it apply What is its ultimate cost? Was it included in the answer recently given in the House of Lords on the subject of the cost of the International Labour Office to this country?

4. What is the reference to the Committee of Inquiry into the international Labour Office expenditure?

5. What representation on that Committee will be given to Great Britain and the principal contributing nations to the International Labour Office expenditure? And to move for Papers.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I again return to the question of the expenses of the International Labour Office, and I propose to put further questions at a later date. With regard to the first Question, I have put down £1,500 a year and over because that represents British money. With regard to the second Question, I wish to emphasise the word "permanent," as I do not include charwomen and partially employed people like that in the permanent staff. With regard to the pension scheme, I hope the Government will be able to give me full details—not only whom it affects and whether it affects the wives and children, but how many illegitimate children are affected by the scheme. I would also like to know by whom the money is paid—whether it is paid out of International Labour Office funds or out of the League funds; and whether at the time I made my last inquiry on the subject this was included in the figures that were given me for the total expenditure under the International Labour Office.
Since I last asked a Question here I understand that an inquiry is being made into the expenditure of the International
924
Labour Office. I would like the Government to tell me whether this is going to be dealt with by the whole Council, or whether it is going to be a sub-committee that will deal with this matter, and what the reference is. I would like to know what representation we, the unfortunate country which subscribes the largest amount to the International Labour Office, are going to have—whether we are to be represented individually or whether we are going to be represented on the basis of payments made: that is to say, whether the non-contributors are to be represented as well as the contributors, and whether those who contribute most are going to have a larger representation than others? I beg to move for Papers.
THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (LORD ROCHESTER): My Lords, I do not take it that the noble Lord is contesting the immense value of the International Labour Office, but that he is concerned at the expenditure attendant upon it. To deal with his Questions seriatim, the answer to the first one, in a word, is seven. Provision is made in the International Labour Organisation Budget of 1932 for the salaries of these seven officials whose emoluments, together with the pensions contributions paid on their behalf by the League of Nations, would at par rate of exchange amount in each case to £1,500 per annum. These seven are the Director, the Deputy-Director, four chiefs of divisions, and in addition one technical adviser. While those seven officials are the only ones falling within the exact term of the noble Lord's Question, I will be frank and add that there are seventeen officials in the next grade below them. They are chiefs of sections whose salaries rise by annual increments to 33,000 Swiss francs, which at the par rate of exchange is roughly £1,130. That is as regards the first Question.
LORD LOVAT: May I interrupt to say my Question is directed to the seventeen? The noble Lord says that at the present rate of exchange the salary of 33,000 Swiss francs will only be £1,130. My mathematics are entirely in error if that is the case. The noble Lord is quite aware of the present rate of the Swiss franc. If he will work it out—it is a simple arithmetical sum—he can see what the result is.
LORD ROCHESTER: I would point out to the noble Lord that I deal with the par rate of exchange. I admit the present rate of exchange is somewhere about 18, but I am dealing with the par rate of exchange which is 25, or approximately 25, and on that account I emphasize that these seventeen, although not coming within the exact purview of the noble Lord's Question, should be mentioned. At the par rate of exchange their maximum would be £1,130, and even at the present rate of exchange they would still be outside the purview of the Question.
LORD LOVAT: I ask in my Question for the amount to be stated in pounds and therefore at the present rate of exchange. If the noble Lord had not mentioned the seventeen gentlemen I should have done so.
LORD ROCHESTER: That is the reason I mentioned them. I wanted to anticipate the noble Lord. I would emphasize that after all these officials are living in Switzerland, where they pay correspondingly higher rates for everything they consume. Therefore it is only fair, for the purpose of comparison, to take the par rate of exchange, but, even if you take the present rate of exchange, I suggest that the noble Lord's mental arithmetic is at fault, because then they would come just under the maximum. The noble Lord has mentioned in his Question the amount of £1,500. But be that as it may, there are seventeen in the lower grades that would approximate to his Question. I want to be frank. The total number of the permanent staff of the International Labour Office is 411, of which number the seven senior officials I have mentioned represent 1.7 per cent. of the total. If I understand the noble Lord's second Question that is the point he wants elucidating.
To come to the third Question, which is a little more involved, the pensions scheme applicable to officials of the International Labour Office is the scheme approved by the Assembly of the League of Nations at its eleventh session in 1930. It is applicable to all officials of organisations of the League of Nations (including the International Labour Office) appointed after the 1st January, 1931, whose appointment is without fixed time
926
limit, or for a fixed period of not less than seven years. Officials appointed before the 1st January, 1931, who are members of the provident fund may, if they wish, transfer to the pensions scheme. Officials classed as belonging to the first division are required to contribute 6½ per cent. of their pensionable emoluments; other officials contribute 5 per cent. As to the ultimate cost of this pensions scheme, I think the noble Lord, upon reflection, will appreciate that it is almost impossible to estimate that exactly, because it is contingent upon so many uncertain factors, such as the number of staff and their expectation of life, but no doubt it will answer the noble Lord's point if I say that the League of Nations contributes a percentage of the pensionable emoluments of the officials, which is fixed annually by the Assembly. For 1932 the percentage was fixed at 9 per cent.
The scheme provides for a pension on retirement. Officials who have attained the age of sixty, and who have completed twenty-five years service may choose an annuity equal to one-half the average annual pensionable emoluments of the last three years of their service, or a capital sum equal to the present value of the annuity. Officials who do not satisfy such conditions but have completed ten years service, are entitled to pensions based on lower proportions of their emoluments. Provision is also made for invalidity pensions and for pensions to widows and to children of deceased officials. Detailed particulars of the scheme are already in print. I say that apropos of the noble Lord's request for Papers, and, as he is out for economy, I am sure he would not want duplication and have them printed again. He can find them set out in Staff Pensions Regulation, document A.25 (1) 1930 X, and a copy is available in the Library of your Lordships' House. The cost of the pensions scheme to Great Britain for 1932, so far as the International Labour Organisation is concerned, represents approximately £3,400 of the figure of £54,000 to which the noble Lord referred, and which was stated in your Lordships' House by my noble friend Lord Stanhope on the 15th March last as being provided in the Estimates of the Ministry of Labour.
May I say that His Majesty's Government are as anxious as the noble Lord to

927
see that any unnecessary expenditure is curtailed, or rather eliminated if there be such expenditure, but this is preeminently a case for agreement? After all this country is only one of about fifty countries who are members of the League, and they all have equal status as far as the Assembly is concerned; but it would be false economy to curtail expenditure to the point of impairing the efficiency of the League, and the International Labour Office is an integral part of the League. The only economy therefore that can be entertained by His Majesty's Government is that which can be accomplished without loss of efficiency. The history of the finances of the International Labour Office shows that so far from exhibiting a steady tendency to increase, as is sometimes represented, they disclose on the contrary a surprising stability when account is taken of the inevitable growth of the demands made upon the Office as its position and possibilities become more clearly recognised in the world, and the corresponding growth of its work, which has in fact taken place, in meeting those demands. Perhaps I may be allowed to add that the Budget of the International Labour Office is one of the most carefully scrutinised in the world. It is proposed by the Director and then revised by the governing body which includes Government, employers, and workers' representatives. It then has to pass the Supervisory Commission, and finally the Fourth Committee of the Assembly, and the Assembly itself, which votes it.
My noble friend's fourth Question, if he will forgive my saying so, is not very clear in the light of the facts. Presumably he has read the proceedings of the last session of the Council and desires to know the exact instructions which have been issued by the Council with regard to investigation into the expenditure of the International Labour Office. Perhaps it will be convenient if I refresh the noble Lord's memory as to the exact sequence of events. I ought to explain that the Budget of the League of Nations comprises expenditure of the League of Nations organisation proper, of the International Labour Office and of the Permanent Court of International Justice at The Hague. Although the International Labour Office is an autonomous body its expenditure has to be provided for each year by the Assembly of the
928
League. The Fourth Committee of that Assembly receives and passes each year the Budget which, as I have just said, includes the expenditure of the International Labour Office. Admittedly there is practically nothing in the nature of external control over the International Labour Office—that I concede—before the estimates reach the Assembly. What happens is that after approval by the International Labour Office the Budget goes to the Supervisory Commission, whose duty it is to examine the figures and to report to the Assembly of the League, but they are not in a position in any way analogous to that of the Treasury in this or any other country.
In the circumstances, therefore, His Majesty's Government at the last session of the Council in May put forward a memorandum drawing attention to the increased expenditure of the League and suggesting that unless the tendency to increase expenditure were checked strong criticism might be aroused in various quarters. They proposed, first, that an examination should be made into the whole organisation of the League—that is including the International Labour Office—with a view to effecting economies, and secondly, a review of the scale of the emoluments of the staff, including the staff of the International Labour Office. They proposed that these questions might be examined by a small committee of outstanding men of affairs outside the political fields in their own countries, with such expert advisers as they might find necessary and a secretary from the League staff. They expressed the opinion that it was essential that economy should be incorporated in the terms of reference to the proposed committee and that policy should not be excluded, though of course any question of real policy which emerged from the committee's labours could only be decided by the Assembly later in the year because by the constitution of the League of Nations the Assembly is the body ultimately responsible for finance.
The discussion of this memorandum occupied several sittings of the Council and it was finally decided that the memorandum of His Majesty's Government, together with the minutes of the various meetings, should be forwarded to the Supervisory Commission who should be requested to prepare a report for the

929
Assembly on the papers sent to it. The Supervisory Committee were left to decide for themselves which of the various points they could usefully and effectively examine. Questions relating to the activities of the League would not fall within their competence, while certain questions relating to the organisation of the Secretariat have been reserved for discussion at the next Assembly of the League, which is in the first week of September next, as the noble Lord knows. Three subjects however remain—namely, a possible reduction of staff, a possible reduction of salaries and a stricter control of expenditure. The Supervisory Commission were asked to examine these matters and to associate with themselves two or three experts in those subjects which the Commission should decide to examine.
The Supervisory Commission have received the papers and have met and have decided that they cannot usefully go into the question of the reduction of staff, but they are examining the questions of the possible reduction of salaries and of a stricter control of expenditure. The Chairman of the Supervisory Committee has invited Sir Malcolm Ramsay, who was until recently Comptroller and Auditor-General in this country, to assist them in their labours. It is not known whether any other experts have been invited from other countries. Sir Malcolm Ramsay is now in Geneva studying the question, and it is understood that the Supervisory Commission will meet at Geneva at the end of the month to continue the discussion and prepare their Report. The report of the debates at the meeting of the Council of the League last month at which our proposals were made are already in print and if they are not in the library of your Lordships' House they very shortly will be there. If only on the plea of economy, therefore, I would ask the noble Lord not to press his demand for Papers. If he decided to do so the Government would not withstand his demand, but it would only mean duplicating information which is already in print. The Government are quite alive to the anxiety of the noble Lord and those associated with him, and they are taking what steps they can to meet the case he has presented. If there is any other information I can give him I shall be only too pleased to do so, but the noble Lord
930
will recognise that I am speaking not for my own Department but for another and that therefore I am in a somewhat delicate position.
LORD LLOYD: May I be allowed to ask the noble Lord for one piece of information? I think I am right in saying that those States which have not paid their subscriptions to the League are just as eligible to vote as those who have paid their subscriptions. In this much-needed scheme of reform is that matter to be dealt with, so that those States who are in arrears with their subscriptions will not be allowed to vote?
LORD ROCHESTER: I am not sure whether the noble Lord is referring to the Supervisory Commission, but I might tell your Lordships that the constitution of the Supervisory Commission at present is as follows: Czecho-Slovakia provides the President, India, Norway, France and Venezuela are represented, and Poland and Hungary provide substitute delegates whore necessary. As regards the representative of India, we are fortunate in that he is a member of your Lordships' House, Lord Meston.
LORD LLOYD: I am afraid I did not express myself very clearly. Perhaps I might take a concrete case. China, for instance, is grossly in arrear with her subscription to the League, but has an equal vote with Japan. In this scheme of reform will China's voting power be reduced in conformity with the reduction in her contributions? That seem to be a matter of equity.
LORD ROCHESTER: My reply would be that twelve years membership of the House of Commons has taught me not to answer or attempt to answer hypothetical questions. I cannot anticipate the findings of the Supervisory Commission. I quite appreciate that this point is worthy of consideration, and no doubt it will be considered, but it is not possible for me to anticipate the findings of the Supervisory Commission.
LORD LLOYD: I do not wish the noble Lord to anticipate findings, but I was anxious to be assured that this was one of the things that would be brought up.
LORD ROCHESTER: I should like to be as noncommittal as possible and I

931
therefore say I will intimate to the Minister concerned the anxiety of the noble Lord in this regard.
LORD LLOYD: May I ask one more question Are officials who are the subjects of a country which has not recently paid its subscription eligible to be beneficiaries equally with those of other States under the pension scheme?
LORD ROCHESTER: I think the noble Lord must appreciate that I am really not in a position to give a categorical answer. I should say that the fact that a Government has not paid its contribution or is in arrear of contribution should not ipso facto disqualify members of the staff who are subjects of that Government from benefits that they admittedly are entitled to under contract, but this matter, too, I will refer to the Minister concerned and if I can give the noble Lord any further information at a later date I will do so.
LORD LOVAT: I thank the noble Lord for his answer to the questions that I put down. I am afraid I take exception to one or two of the statements he made, but on the other hand I think we can
932
congratulate him and the Government on the fact that these great rises of expenses, which have gone up I think I am correct in saying from 6,000,000 Swiss francs to 9,000,000 Swiss francs in the last few years, seem to be approaching a limit. I am quite aware that the noble Lord cannot give an answer to the question of the ultimate cost of the pension scheme, but I would point out that this scheme has been so liberal that I think I am right in saying that it out-balances that of any country in Europe. I propose to return to the charge in the near future when I have had an opportunity of considering the noble Lord's answers and, perhaps, after I have heard of actual economies that are effected in the meanwhile. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

SOLICITORS BILL. [H.L.]
Amendments reported (according to Order).
House adjourned at five minutes before seven o'clock.