Lords Sitting of 14 November 1932

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

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name.
Moved, That Standing Order No. XXI be considered in order to its being dispensed with for the purpose of giving precedence to the Ottawa Agreements Bill over other Notices and Orders of the Day.—(Viscount Hailsham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

OTTAWA AGREEMENTS BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Viscount Hailsham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL OF ONSLOW in the Chair.]
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2:
General preferences for British Empire.
2.—(1) Neither the duties chargeable under the foregoing provisions of this Act nor the general ad valorem duty nor, subject as hereinafter provided, any additional duty shall be charged in the case of goods which are shown to the satisfaction of the Commissioners to have been consigned from any part of the British Empire and grown, produced or manufactured in any country the Government of which is a party to one of the scheduled Agreements for the time being in force:
Provided that if at any time the Treasury are satisfied with respect to any such country that an additional duty chargeable on goods of any particular class or description can, without contravention of any of the scheduled Agreements for the time being in
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force, be charged on goods of that class or description which are shown as aforesaid to have been consigned from a part of the British Empire and to have been grown, produced or manufactured in that country, the Treasury may by order direct that, as from such date as may be specified in the order, that duty shall be charged on such goods, either at the full rate or at such lower rate as may be so specified.
Any order made under this subsection may be varied or revoked by a subsequent order.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK VISCOUNT ELIBANK moved, at the end of Clause 2, to insert the following new subsection:
"(8) In the case of grain shown to the satisfaction of the Commissioners to have been grown in Canada, the expression 'consigned' shall for the purposes of this Section and of Section five of the Import Duties Act, 1932, be deemed to mean dispatched from Canada and ultimately delivered into the United Kingdom."
The noble Viscount said: I beg to move the Amendment standing on the Paper in my name. In subsection (1) of Clause 2, it will be found that no additional duty shall be charged in the case of goods which are shown to the satisfaction of the Commissioners to have been consigned from any part of the British Empire and grown, or produced, or manufactured, in any country the Government of which is a party to one of the scheduled Agreements. The effect of this clause, if it remains as it stands, will be to create a very difficult and somewhat curious situation so far as Canadian wheat is concerned. As your Lordships know, most of the wheat in Canada is grown and shipped from the prairies in the central parts of Canada. During the summer months the wheat is assembled in elevators in the western part of Canada, and it is transported down the lakes, via Montreal and Quebec, and through the St. Lawrence, by water to this country and to Europe, but towards the end of November these lakes, and also the St. Lawrence, begin to freeze up, and by the beginning of December they are frozen all over, and so Canada is what you might call an ice-locked country.
In order to avoid that situation in the late summer months the wheat which has been assembled in the Canadian elevators is placed on board lake steamers and is transported across the lake to certain ports on the American side, the principal port for that purpose being Buffalo. Those steamers arrive at Buffalo and they

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off-load their grain into elevators which contain bonded stores. They do not off-load their grain all at once because these elevators would not be large enough to contain all that grain, but the grain placed in the elevators is taken out of the bonded store, is then transferred in bond to train, and sent down to the United States Atlantic ports, where it is picked up by British steamers which have gone over with passenger freights in the winter and carry this grain back to this country and to Europe at very low freights indeed. As the elevators at Buffalo are depleted the grain steamers which have been lying round the elevators go alongside them, the ice having been broken up for the purpose, and discharge further supplies of grain into the elevators; and so you have a constant succession of grain from steamer to elevator, elevator to train, and so on down to the coast, and on to here.
What is the alternative to that? The alternative is for the grain to be taken during those winter months from the elevators in these Western parts of Canada and carried overland to St. John, New Brunswick, or to Halifax—a very long train haulage indeed, and one which, according to the grain dealers in this country and in the Western States, is a prohibitive one. This clause as it stands to-day will mean that there will be two classes of grain upon the Liverpool Corn Exchange. There will be grain which comes out from Montreal, Quebec, St. John, and Halifax, which will receive the 2s. preferential duty, and therefore come in free of charge in that respect; on the other hand, there will be a large amount of grain which will necessarily, owing to the climatic conditions which I have described, have to come through these American ports, Buffalo and so on, and will arrive in this country—exactly the same grain, but subject to a 2s. duty. Consequently, in Liverpool you will have your American-borne Canadian grain costing you 2s. more than your Canadian-borne Canadian grain of exactly the same type.
There is another point and that is the question of what is called the "futures" market. That is a very delicate market indeed, and has to be treated with great circumspection. There are some people who say that the markets would be very much better if there were no "futures"
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market at all. As it happens, about eight or ten weeks ago, when I was in Canada, there came into my hands a Report of a Commission or Committee which had been appointed by the Canadian Government (or perhaps by one of the Provincial Governments of Canada) reporting upon the whole situation of "futures" from the point of view of gambling, and from the point of view of the advantages or disadvantages it caused to the trade as a whole. The conclusions come to by this Committee were very interesting, because the Committee summed up by stating that, taking it all in all, "futures" was an exceedingly useful institution in the grain market, and, instead of having an unsteadying, it had a steadying influence on the world market price generally. By the action, or rather inaction, of this clause this question of "futures" is going to be considerably affected. I believe that this whole question is one of some difficulty. I know the Government must find it difficult to decide what they ought to do about it. So far as Canada is concerned, I think perhaps it has become almost a question of principle as to whether all grain grown in Canada which is to be subject to the preferential duty should pass out through Canadian ports, or whether it should be allowed to pass out of American ports.
So far as this country is concerned, and I believe we have to regard the matter from this country's point of view when we are considering this Bill to-day, I think it is a question of procedure rather than principle. What we have told the Canadian Government is that we will grant them a preference of 2s. on all Canadian wheat which arrives in this country, and therefore if the Customs authority can satisfy themselves in any way that the wheat arriving here is Canadian grain, then, I think, as a matter of procedure, as a matter of carrying out the obligations of the Agreement, we ought to make such provisions as will enable that wheat to obtain the 2s. preferential duty. There is another subsection in this clause which deals with the port of Beira as affecting the goods coming from the Rhodesias and Nyasaland. Under that subsection goods are actually re-consigned from the port of Beira under bond as is suggested in this other case; but the chances of those goods

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being changed are in my opinion even greater than might be the chances in the case which I am quoting, and if it is possible, as is done under this clause, to have Customs officers in the service of the Governments of Southern and Northern Rhodesia or New Zealand signing certificates that the particular produce going through Beira has been grown and produced in those particular countries, I submit it is just as easy to have Customs officers belonging to the Canadian Government located in the American ports and signing certificates that this Canadian wheat is the produce of Canada.
There is one other point I wish to make before moving this Amendment, and that relates to British shipping. British shipping is going through very serious difficulties; indeed there is no shipping in the world which has such difficulties to contend with. The shipping of certain other countries is subsidised by their Governments, whilst our shipping has to fight its way through unaided and unsubsidised. At present British ships which ply between Great Britain, Europe and the United States ports in winter carry a very light passenger traffic, and consequently they have been accustomed for many years since this Canadian wheat trade has grown up, to become dependent in winter upon the transport of this grain from these Atlantic ports back to Europe to help them through the difficult winter period. If this measure is allowed to pass as it is to-day that shipping will be very seriously injured. In another place one of the Members for the City of London, Mr. E. C. Grenfell, has put the case of shipping in regard to a similar Amendment, which was moved in another place, in the most eloquent and feeling terms, and I think that he made a case which was very largely unanswerable. Those are the points which I wish to lay before your Lordships in moving this Amendment. I know that the Government have a difficulty in considering this Amendment, but I hope they will not regard it as an Amendment in principle but as an Amendment in procedure in order to confirm a principle which has been embodied in the Ottawa Agreement. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 6, line 16, at end insert the said new subsection.—(Viscount Elibank.)
LORD SELSDON: This is almost the first occasion I can remember when I have taken a different view of a material question from my noble friend who sits near me, but I desire to ask your Lordships to attend to a few considerations which I think may move you to disregard what I would venture to describe as a very attractive piece of special pleading which the noble Viscount has just addressed to your Lordships' House. I call it special pleading because it really is special pleading. The general rule about the application of preference has been perfectly well known and well understood through a long series of years. I remember when I was at the Board of Trade we were constantly having cases in which it came up. The general rule has always been that, in having regard to the application of preference to any consignment, you must have regard in the first place to the domicile of the bill of lading (the origin of the bill of lading), and preference has always been applied—I think this is strictly true—only to goods shipped on a through bill of lading, with the particular exception which is referred to in this subsection—that is to say, the case of Northern and Southern Rhodesia, which in fact have no ports of their own and have their outlet for trade by way of Beira. Therefore the rule has always been that preference should attach to goods only when they are consigned to a through bill of lading.
Your Lordships will appreciate the importance of adhering as far as possible to that rule. The moment you begin to make exceptions and variations you land yourselves into difficulties. My noble friend ought to make out a, very strong case indeed before he induces you to depart from what has been hitherto the general rule. Has he made out in fact such a case? His case is that he is extremely anxious as to the dislocation in the normal grain trade which may be caused by the abandonment or the partial abandonment of the storage and shipment of Canadian grain by way of United States ports. I know the difficulty well; I have known it for many years. I do not attempt to suggest to my noble friend that he should do anything so unprofitable as to look at old speeches of mine; indeed it is unprofitable to look at one's old speeches; but if he refers to the OFFICIAL REPORT of February 19, 1907

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—twenty-five years ago—he will find a speech of mine on this subject directed to precisely this difficulty. The point on which that difficulty then arose was at the head of the great lakes, and was directed to the traffic through Port Arthur and Fort William on the one hand and Duluth on the other.
Of course there will be a certain amount of dislocation, just how much it is difficult to say, but the dislocation will not be as large, I think, as your Lordships might have understood from what my noble friend said. It has always been difficult exactly to identify how much grain which has been shipped out of United States ports is, in fact, Canadian grain, but the latest figures, which your Lordships will find in the Canadian Year Book for this year, relate to 1931. It there appears that there were shipped from Canada to the United States for consumption in the United States 7,300,000 bushels. There were shipped from Canada to the United Kingdom via United States ports, 43,452,000 bushels, and there were shipped to the United Kingdom via Canadian ports, 105,007,000 bushels. It is clear therefore that it is only a minor portion of the total shipments from Canada to the United Kingdom which would in any event be subject to dislocation under this clause. When I say that the practice would be subject to dislocation, it is only fair to add that there have been in the past, more than once, some strong and bitter complaints as to the delay which has taken place in the shipment of Canadian grain when travelling via United States railways and United States ports. I think I am also right in saying—the noble Viscount will know if I am right or wrong—that there have in the past been some complaints from the Canadian Government, and some suggestion that in the process of shipment from the American elevators there has been some mixing of American wheat with Canadian wheat.
My noble friend says there are going to be two kinds of wheat dealt with in the Liverpool market in future, the wheat which comes direct via Canadian ports and the wheat which comes via American ports. He says some must necessarily come via United States ports. I am not by any means convinced of the necessity of that, and those who are in a much better position than I am to know are not
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convinced of the necessity either. I am told on the highest authority that the Canadian railways can handle all the Canadian grain for the United Kingdom ports without resort to United States ports during the winter months. According to the figures given to me the total Canadian crop this year is estimated at 430,000,000 bushels and there were actually moving, according to last week's figures, about 230,000,000 bushels. The total elevator storage capacity in Canada is something like 414,000,000 bushels, so that the total elevator storage capacity in Canada is very nearly equal to the whole of this year's Canadian crop.
You may say, of course, that that does not really affect this question and that what matters is the elevator storage capacity at points from which this particular wheat may be wanted to move in the winter. Therefore I would ask you to consider some further figures which relate to the elevator storage capacity in Lower Canada. I have obtained them during the week-end from the highest possible authority I could consult in the matter, and I think your Lordships may take them as being correct. At the head of the Great Lakes, that is to say, at Fort William and Port Arthur—Fort William being on the Canadian Pacific Railway and Port Arthur being on the Canadian National Railway—there is elevator storage capacity for 92,847,000 bushels. Then, coming down the St. Lawrence waterway, there is elevator storage capacity for 46,625,000 bushels, all at points of contact with the Canadian railways. Further down still, at Montreal, there is elevator storage capacity for 16,312,000 bushels. At other points further down the St. Lawrence there is storage for 6,000,000 bushels. Finally, when you come to the terminal ports, there is elevator storage capacity at St. John for 1,500,000 bushels and at Halifax for 2,000,000. That makes a total elevator storage capacity in Lower Canada of 165,284,000 bushels, or two-fifths of the whole of this year's crop.
Therefore I say to your Lordships that if you consider these figures you will see, at all events prima facie, the strongest justification for the statement I made just now—and which, as I said, I made on the highest authority I could get—that the Canadian railways can handle all Canadian wheat sent to the United

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Kingdom this winter without having to resort to United States ports. That being so, the special case which my noble friend has asked you to accept falls, and you are driven back on the general rule to which I submit we ought to adhere—that is, that preference should only attach to consignments shipped on through bills of lading.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My noble friend Lord Selsdon has put the case against this Amendment very powerfully, but I want to add a few words on behalf of His Majesty's Government because I am sorry to have to say to my noble friend Viscount Elibank that it is quite impossible for the Government to accept this proposal. In the first place, as my noble friend Lord Selsdon has pointed out, ever since there has been a provision as to imperial Preference it has been a cardinal feature of that preference that the goods which are the subject of the preference are to be consigned direct from the British Empire to the United Kingdom. Incidentally, a similar provision exists in respect of the preference which is granted to this country by Canada, by which Canada provides that in order to have the benefit of the preference United Kingdom goods must be sent direct from a British port, and unless that condition is fulfilled the preference is lost. We are now asked to make a very big breach in that universal rule.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: May I interrupt the noble and learned Viscount for a moment? I have already pointed out that in one subsection of this Bill you have made a very big breach—in the case of Beira for goods from Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I had not forgotten that, and I was coining to it presently. Unfortunately it was necessary to make an exception there for a reason which is not applicable to Canada. Secondly, as my noble friend Lord Selsdon said, there is no evidence that there is any such necessity for this Amendment as my noble friend Viscount Elibank would have you believe. My noble friend Lord Selsdon quoted American figures. It is not possible to be quite certain of the exact quantity of Canadian wheat which reaches this country on re-consignment. The fact that it is extraordinarily difficult to get
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those figures is one reason why I should be very reluctant in any event to accept this Amendment, because it would impose upon the Customs a very grave burden if they had to find out these facts. But assuming that the declarations made by importers are to be relied upon, we find that last year, in 1931, of the Canadian wheat imported into this country directly or indirectly more than 90 per cent. was sent direct. Therefore less than 10 per cent. would be affected by the proposal of my noble friend Viscount Elibank, which would be about 2 per cent. of the total wheat imported into this country. With regard to that, as my noble friend Lord Selsdon pointed out, it seems pretty clear that there is ample storage accommodation available in Canada, and, of course, there is also very considerable storage accommodation available in England. As far as the Government are concerned we would very much prefer that the storage accommodation available in Canada and in the United Kingdom should be used for this wheat to the advantage of the people of Great Britain and Canada, rather than that it should go to the benefit of our American friends in Buffalo.
Then my noble friend suggested that it was a very expensive thing to send wheat by St. John and Halifax. But in fact a very considerable quantity does go that way at this moment, and in addition to the trade at those two ports there is nowadays a very considerable trade which saves the long railway haul and takes the much shorter railway haul to Vancouver, and goes out by the Pacific coast and round through the Canal. That is a very good route from the point of view of British shipping, for which my noble friend is so anxious, and it is at present a means of exit which is being used in a large and increasing measure by Canadian wheat. Your Lordships will appreciate that Vancouver is only about twenty-four hours from some of the great wheat Provinces of Canada, whereas the east coast is perhaps four times as far away and even Buffalo is three times as far away.
My noble friend Viscount Elibank cited the case of Beira, and he said that there you had an analogy. There is really no analogy. Let me remind your Lordships that Nyasaland and North and South Rhodesia are landlocked. They

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have no means of access to the sea. They have no ports of their own. The only port through which there are reasonable facilities is the Port of Beira. Accordingly arrangements were made long since, and are now operative, under which the Portuguese Government—no doubt to their own advantage because it encourages trade—allow a Rhodesian Customs administration to be set up in Beira, and it is not a case, as my noble friend seemed to think, of our establishing such a Customs for the purpose of this clause, which indeed we have no power to do. There is an arrangement with Portugal by which the Rhodesians keep a Customs staff in Beira and all we have had to do is to arrange that a member of that staff shall certify as to the origin of the Rhodesian produce. There was no alternative, because there is no storage accommodation anywhere else and no other practicable means of getting this produce out of Central Africa.
My noble friend says: "Oh, but Canada could do the same at Buffalo." At any rate they have not done it and I do not think it would be so easy to persuade the United States to allow a foreign country to set up a Customs administration in their territory to facilitate the foreign country gaining an advantage for their produce over the produce of the United States when it got over here. I think there might be great difficulties. At any rate they have not been overcome at present, there is no such arrangement in existence, and it is not in our power to make any such arrangement. Therefore the analogy of Beira is not a true analogy.
Finally, it would be a matter in regard to which, in Canada, there is very great difference of opinion. There are those who would like the relaxation for which my noble friend asks and equally those who would strongly oppose it, and there has been no suggestion from the Canadian Government that they desire any such amendment. Mr. Bennett explained the position in the Canadian Parliament and gave no intimation that he desired any alteration. It is not true to say that without this subsection all wheat that goes from Canada loses the preference if it passes through the United States. That is not the position. Canadian wheat can be shipped to this country through the United States and still main-
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tain a preference provided it is sent off on a through consignment from Canada. I am sorry to have taken up so much of your Lordships' time, but the Amendment is of some little importance and, in the view of the Government, it is quite impossible to accept it. I am afraid I must ask my noble friend not to press it or else ask your Lordships to reject it.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: If I may be allowed the courtesy of a few words before withdrawing my Amendment, I would like to say that I am not at all sorry that I raised the subject to-day. As the noble and learned Viscount has said, it is a matter of very great importance and one that I think should have been ventilated in your Lordships' House. It is a question of principle so far as Canada is concerned and we have now learned from the noble and learned Viscount that there is a question of principle involved so far as this country is concerned. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clauses 3 to 6 agreed to.
Clause 7:
Regulation of importation of certain frozen and chilled meat.
7.—(1) The Board of Trade after consultation with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, may by Order regulate the importation into the United Kingdom of frozen mutton, frozen lamb, frozen beef, and chilled beef, in accordance with the provisions of the Agreements set out in Part II and Part III of the First Schedule to this Act.
LORD PHILLIMORE LORD PHILLIMORE moved, in subsection (1), to substitute "shall" for "may." The noble Lord said: This clause deals with the regulation of the importations of certain meat into the United Kingdom, and I trust that your Lordships' attention and interest are not already glutted with this question as, unfortunately, our meat market is with the meat. As I understand it this Bill contains a series of principles and a certain amount of practical application of those principles. I am certainly not here to quarrel with the principles contained in this Bill. Least of all am I prepared to quarrel with those principles which affect the agriculture of the Dominions and our own agriculture. This

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is, therefore, not in my opinion an Amendment, except technically speaking, to the Bill that I am bringing forward, but an enforcement and interpretation of the principles laid down in the Bill. This clause lays down that the Board of Trade may regulate the importation into the United Kingdom of frozen mutton, frozen Iamb, frozen beef and chilled beef, in accordance with provisions contained in the First Schedule. And it goes on to say in the usual phrases that any Order made under this section may contain such provisions as appear to be necessary to the Board of Trade.
If your Lordships turn to the Schedules you will find in Schedule H on page 53 various principles laid down, and paragraph 4 says, in terms:
"The policy of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom in relation to meat production is, first, to secure development of home production, and, secondly, to give to the Dominions an expanding share of imports into the United Kingdom."
Well and good. No one from these Benches is likely to quarrel with that policy, and equally no one on these Benches is prepared to quarrel with the application of preference to the Dominions for the export of their agricultural products. But whereas on that head various practical decisions were arrived at at Ottawa and are now in the Bill, analogous provisions for the protection of our own home live-stock industry were not included. I do not say that was unreasonable in view of the circumstances, and I do say that we are infinitely grateful to those who secured the principles which have been laid down; but the effect on our live-stock industry of the Ottawa Agreements as they stand in the Bill has not been to secure the interests of the home producer.
If I may trouble your Lordships with it for a moment, the Agricultural Economics Research Institute at Oxford have published a, résumé of the effects on home agriculture of the Ottawa Agreements, and on this subject they say:
"When the second objective is considered—securing the development of home production—the proposals do not bear much promise for British agriculture. Total imported supplies will only be decreased by possibly three per cent."
That is from a very impartial and very well-informed source, and I do not suppose that the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, would be prepared to say that
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that was not, approximately at any rate, accurate. Very well; if home production was not, by practical measures, protected by this Agreement, you may well say: "But the Government have in the last week stepped in and filled the gap, and applied practical measures to relieve the home live-stock industry." That I believe to be perfectly true, and I am very grateful to them for it. But if that is the case, then it only confesses that a gap was there, and makes it only the more necessary that the gap should be filled. And whereas we have at the present moment a Government which sympathises with the home live-stock industry and with agriculture in general and is prepared to take the necessary measures, I his Agreement is to stand, we hope, for at least five years and possibly for very much longer, and the Agreement is quite clear as to what is to be done by His Majesty's Government for the Dominions, and quite vague as to what is to be done by His Majesty's Government for the home industry.
If I may take just one case, will your Lordships look at paragraph 5 of Schedule H to the United Kingdom-Australian Agreement, which is in Part II of the First Schedule to the Bill? That paragraph reads:
"His Majesty's Government in the Commonwealth of Australia agrees to limit the export of frozen mutton and lamb to the United Kingdom for the year 1933…in consideration of the United Kingdom Government"
carrying out the provisions of sub-paragraphs (a), (b) and (c). In other words, we pledge ourselves quite definitely to take the necessary steps to protect Dominion agriculture; we do not pledge ourselves to take the necessary steps to protect home agriculture. It is for that reason that the insertion of the word "shall" for the word "may" should, in my humble opinion, be an Amendment which our own Front Bench might accept, without feeling that anything has been put into the Agreement which either could be considered as being to the detriment of the Dominions or, indeed, as being anything which is not already implicitly contained in the Agreement. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 17, leave out ("may") and insert ("shall").—(Lord Phillimore.)
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I am sorry if I disappoint my noble friend Lord Phillimore, but I am afraid that this Amendment is one which could not possibly be accepted. I am not quite sure, if my noble friend will forgive my saying so, that he has fully appreciated what the exact purpose of Clause 7 of the Bill is. Your Lordships will understand that under an arrangement which was made between this country and Australia and between this country and New Zealand, which is set out in Schedule H on page 53 of the Bill as printed, certain arrangements were made with those two Dominions for limiting the import of meat into this country. We agreed that a consultation should be held as early as possible in the coming year in order to arrive, if we could, at a common scheme of limitation which should ensure a reasonable price both for British homegrown products and also for Dominion products; because your Lordships will appreciate that there is no difference in object between the Dominion producer and the home producer in this matter. The present glut (to use the expression commonly used) of meat has reached such dimensions that no one is able to sell meat at a profit in the British market. That is just as true of the Dominion producer as it is of the home producer. There were actual cases quoted to me when I was in Ottawa in which the Dominion producer got less than nothing for what he had sent here because the cost of sending it and selling it was more than the gross price which he received. Of course you cannot go on like that. Similarly your Lordships, who know the subject of agriculture probably better than any other body in the world, know very well that at present prices the home producer in this country cannot produce at a profit; he cannot sell at the prices which the market at present will give him without losing money; and accordingly the plan is that we shall have a meeting early next year in which we hope to reach some satisfactory scheme which will so limit the supplies reaching the market as to bring prices back to a reasonable level.
Meanwhile, and pending such a meeting, it was urgently necessary to do something to limit foreign importation into this country, which was at any rate gravely accentuating the over-supply from which we are all suffering; and a
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scheme was got out, which is set out at the bottom of page 54 of the Bill, under which there was a progressive limitation on the imports from foreign countries, which at the end of the period reaches as much as 35 per cent.—a pretty drastic limitation. My noble friend Lord Phillimore said that the fact that we have since made a wider plan for more drastic reductions showed that there was a gap. In a sense that is true. It showed that the matter has got worse since Ottawa. The position when we met at Ottawa in July, although it was then grave enough, was not nearly as acute as it has since become, and accordingly we have since, as your Lordships know, been able to enter into negotiations, which look like being crowned with success, with foreign countries and with the Dominions, for a far more drastic scheme of regulation in the immediate future than the Agreement provided.
My noble friend Lord Phillimore wants to alter Clause 7, which at present provides that:
"The Board of Trade.…may by Order regulate the importation into the United Kingdom of frozen mutton, frozen lamb, frozen beef, and chilled beef, in accordance with the provisions of the Agreements set out in Part II and Part III of the First Schedule to this Act."
That is, in accordance with the Agreement to which I have just drawn attention. We hope that it will not be necessary to proceed by Order at all. We do not want to have to pass a compulsory Order regulating the importation into the United Kingdom in accordance with the scheme set up at the bottom of page 54 of the Bill as printed. That is the only form of Order which we could make in compliance with this Agreement. If we made any Order different from that, it would not be in accordance with the provisions of the Agreement. But what we hope to do, and what we believe we are doing, is to produce a temporary agreement which is going a great deal further than the Agreement, and therefore the effect of my noble friend's Amendment, though I do not think the intention of it, would be that he would compel the Board of Trade to pass an Order which would limit the importation of these meats into this country to an extent far less than we are able to achieve without an Order. We want the power to make an Order in case there should be any recalcitrant body which refused to come into such a

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scheme, but we want, if we can, to regulate supplies by voluntary agreement rather than to regulate imports by compulsory Order. I hope that that will satisfy your Lordships, and perhaps even my noble friend Lord Phillimore, that the Amendment is one which ought not to be pressed.
LORD PHILLIMORE: I will detain your Lordships for not more than two minutes, but I would like to call the attention of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Hailsham, whilst thanking him for his courtesy, to the fact that Schedule H, which is part of the First Schedule of this Act and is therefore specifically referred to in Clause 7, subsection (1), contains within itself a paragraph which says that
"The policy of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom in relation to meat production is, first, to secure development of home production.…"
I must confess that it was in my mind—and that is why my other Amendment specifically refers to this point—that in making mandatory the exercise of the powers mentioned in the first clause, I was making mandatory upon His Majesty's Government the carrying out of paragraph 4 of Schedule H, that they should first secure the development of home production. No doubt I am very stupid, but I fail to understand that, even if this were made mandatory on His Majesty's Government, a voluntary arrangement would be in any way detrimental by way of additional support to a mandatory regulation. However, I am so satisfied that the noble and learned Viscount means to attain the objects which we both seek that I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD PHILLIMORE LORD PHILLIMORE had on the Paper an Amendment to add to subsection (1) "such Order shall in all cases apply the principles laid down in paragraph 4 of Schedule H of Part II of the First Schedule to this Act." The noble Lord said: This is consequential, therefore I do not move it.
Clause 7 agreed to.
Clause 8:
Amendment of law as to importation of Canadian cattle.
8.—(1) The provisions of Section one of the Importation of Animals Act, 1922
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(Session 2) (which provides for the landing of Canadian store cattle in Great Britain without being required to be slaughtered) shall apply to all Canadian cattle as they apply to Canadian store cattle, so, however, that the Minister may require any such cattle to be slaughtered within the landing place if, in his opinion, they could be used for breeding and are not suitable for that purpose; and accordingly the provisions of the said Act set out in the first column of Part I of the Third Schedule to this Act shall have effect subject to the amendments set out in the second column of that Part of that Schedule.
LORD STRACHIE LORD STRACHIE moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "may" and insert "shall." The noble Lord said: I shall have to go a little into ancient history, but very shortly indeed, as regards this question of the importation of Canadian cattle. Up to 1922 no Canadian cattle could come in, except for the purpose of slaughter. Then there was a great deal of agitation in the Dominion, and they were able to show us that they had a perfectly clean bill of health, and that there was no foot-and-mouth disease there or in America, and that the great Continent was free. The Dominion came to the Government in 1922 and said that as there was no foot-and-mouth disease in America it was unfair that they should be unable to send their store cattle into this country except to be slaughtered. The procedure which was then suggested was adopted, only with certain regulations and provisions, in order that the breeders in this country might be absolutely protected.
They were absolutely protected, because in the Bill of 1922 it was provided that no Canadian cattle could be imported unless they were sterilised, so as to be unable to be used for breeding purposes, or any other purpose except as material for the butcher. That was done on the recommendation and advice of, and I suspect after very strong pressure from, the Royal Agricultural Society and all the great breeding societies, which said it was most undesirable that we should have every kind of cattle brought into this country—cattle which was unfit for breeding and, if admitted, would entail very great danger of the quality of our herds being deteriorated. The whole idea in these days is to do everything we can to improve our herds of cattle. We know what has been done in Ireland by premiums, and in the matter of bulls, so that they turn out most admirable cattle,

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which used to be brought over and sold in our markets at high prices. The breeding societies were satisfied that at that time they had attained their object.
What is now to happen under this Bill? In that part of Clause 8 to which my Amendment applies it says:
"The provisions of Section one of the Importation of Animals Act, 1922 (Session 2) (which provides for the landing of Canadian store cattle in Great Britain without being required to be slaughtered) shall apply to all Canadian cattle as they apply to Canadian store cattle, so, however, that the Minister may require any such cattle to be slaughtered within the landing place if, in his opinion, they could be used for breeding and are not suitable for that purpose.…"
All I am asking the Committee to do, and I cannot help thinking it would be unreasonable for the Government not to agree to it, is to substitute "shall" for "may." If it is said the animals "may" be slaughtered if in the opinion of the Minister they are unsuitable for breeding purposes, why should it not be compulsory on the Minister to have them slaughtered? The clause gives an option. Although the Minister considers they are unsuitable for breeding, he may admit them and not order them to be slaughtered. I may be told that the present Minister for Agriculture is the last person in the world to allow cattle unsuitable for breeding purposes to be imported into this country, but it is the way of all Governments to imagine that they are going on for ever. You cannot tell who may be the next Minister. He may be a person who may take the view that there should be no hindrance to the admission of any kind of cattle, and that his great and primary duty is to consider the interests of the Dominions and not those of British breeders.
We have already in this Bill had a little taste of that, even with this Government, and to a very large extent agriculturists will be very little considered indeed in this Bill. So much was that so that such pressure was put upon the Government by the agricultural interests in this country that they had to modify the Bill, and to say that they would increase the restrictions. It is therefore clear that the Ottawa Agreements gave too great advantages to the Dominions, to the detriment of the farmers of this country. It is not necessary for me to labour the question whether the farmers
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are in a parlous condition or not. That has practically been admitted on all sides. All I am asking is that if the Minister is satisfied that these cattle are unsuitable for breeding purposes, he shall then be obliged to have them slaughtered. It seems to me not unreasonable. Although I understand that the Government intend to oppose this Amendment, I cannot see why they wish to make this clause optional, not only for the present Minister but for all Ministers of the future, who may take an entirely different view from the majority of those who sit on the Government Benches, who I am sure wish to support the view of the Royal Agricultural Society and of the breeders in this country, that we ought not to have any kind of riff-raff cattle sent into this country. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 36, leave out ("may") and insert ("shall").—(Lord Strachie.)
LORD LOVAT: I wish to support this Amendment. It is a very important matter and has been very carefully argued by the noble Lord who moved it. I think it is one on which the Government might very well make a small concession to our farmers and stock breeders, who want to be absolutely sure that their herds will be adequately protected not only by this Government but by any other Government. Surely if we do not accept this Amendment we are defeating our own abject. Last year we passed the Improvement of Livestock (Licensing of Bulls) Bill, which operates in Scotland, with the whole object of improving our herds. We have a standing example of what can be done in Ireland, where everyone who is familiar with store cattle knows the enormous strides which have been made in the improvement of cattle. I suggest that this is a very reasonable request, which His Majesty's Government might favourably consider. I know perfectly well that it is more and more the wish of all Governments to centralise authority, so that the Department shall be the judge and not the people who are interested, and I think this clause is merely a concession to bureaucracy, which always wishes to have the whole of the power. This matter is one to which we all wish that consideration should be given by the Government. The Amendment would be regarded as a

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very considerable concession to stock breeders in this country, who, after all, do require all the encouragement they can get.
LORD ERNLE: I should like, if I may, to add my appeal to that of the two noble Lords who have just spoken. I will not go over their arguments. The arguments are very well known to all persons who are interested in the breeding of cattle. But we have had the greatest difficulty in inducing farmers, often at their own expense, to scrap scrub bulls because they were unsuitable for the purpose of raising the general standard of breeds in this country. They have now loyally accepted the principle, and the work is going forward. I cannot help thinking that if this option is left to allow Canadian cattle to come into this country, practically for breeding purposes, it would be a disaster to the steps which are being taken for the improvement of breeds.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I could not help thinking as I listened to the speeches, and especially to the closing words of my noble friend Lord Ernle, that there has been a little misconception both as to what the clause does and as to what the Amendment does. The clause does not give an option to Canadian cattle to be brought into this country. My noble friend Lord Lovat seemed to think that the purpose of the clause was to allow bad cattle to come in from Canada for breeding purposes, but that is not the purpose of the clause. May I explain exactly what the clause does and how it came about? I think your Lordships will then realise why the wording which we have is the right wording, and, indeed, is the only possible wording if this Bill is to become law.
What happened is this. As your Lordships know, there was in old days an absolute prohibition on Canadian cattle coming into this country except when they were slaughtered at the port of arrival. That was bitterly resented by Canadians, who regarded it as being an undeserved slur upon the quality of Canadian cattle. A Commission was set up to investigate how far it was true that there was any real risk to the herds of this country if Canadian cattle were allowed to come in. That Commission reported in 1921, and said that there was no risk, and, in fact, such information
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as we have been able to get from careful investigation and inquiry seems to show that the herds of the Dominion of Canada at this moment—as they certainly have for some years past—enjoy a greater freedom from disease, especially the more dangerous diseases, such as rinderpest, foot-and-mouth disease, pleuro-pneumonia, than those of any other country in the world.
That being so, in 1922 an Act was passed which allowed Canadian store cattle to come into this country, but did not allow any breeding cattle to come into this country. They had to be only store cattle and incapable of being used for breeding purposes before they were allowed into the United Kingdom. That provision has operated for the last ten years, and, so far as disease is concerned, nobody has suggested that Canadian cattle have been introducing disease into the United Kingdom. The Canadians say—and I can at least understand their saying it—that it is a very undeserved imputation upon Canadian cattle that, whereas cattle from other parts of the world, notably from Ireland—I admit, of course, not at present, owing to the temporary arrangement arising out of the dispute over the Land Annuities—were allowed to come in for breeding purposes, you did not allow any cattle to come in from Canada except with these special precautions.
Accordingly, they made a great point of asking us to make the concession of putting the Canadian cattle on the same footing as Irish. On the other hand, we stipulated that if we were to do that we should get certain advantages with regard to the importation of our pedigree cattle into Canada, which our stock breeders on their side regarded as important for them. An arrangement was made under which we would let Canadian cattle come into this country and be used for breeding if they, for their part, would relax the precautions and restrictions as to the importation of pedigree cattle from this side. But in the course of that discussion—and I venture to think that your Lordships would all of you agree with what we said—we said that if we allow Canadian cattle to come into this country for breeding purposes we must be allowed, if we see fit, to stop any particular animals being sent in for breed-

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ing purposes which we do not regard as suitable, because we do not wish the quality of our herds to be lowered by bringing in unsuitable cattle. Accordingly, the Canadians agreed that, if the Minister thought any particular cattle which came in were unsuitable for breeding purposes, we should then be at liberty to order those particular cattle to be slaughtered.
That was the bargain which we made and that is the bargain which is recorded in this clause:
"The provisions of Section one of the Importation of Animals Act, 1922 (Session 2) (which provides for the landing of Canadian store cattle in Great Britain without being required to be slaughtered) shall apply to all Canadian cattle as they apply to Canadian store cattle,"—
that lets them all in—
"so, however, that the Minister may require any such cattle to be slaughtered within the landing place if, in his opinion, they could be used for breeding and are not suitable for that purpose…"
That textually reproduces the bargain which we made. Noble Lords say that that in some way is going to lower the quality of our herds because it is only "may require." But if you put in "shall" require you have still got
"if, in his opinion"—
that is, the Minister's opinion—
"they could be used for breeding…."
So that you are in just the same position, because the imaginary Minister of whom the noble Lord, Lord Strachie, is so frightened, who wants the Dominions to be benefited, and who will let any cattle in, will not form the opinion that they are unsuitable for breeding.
Therefore the "shall" is quite useless as a precaution, and I cannot imagine, and I really do not think your Lordships will seriously propose, that any Minister of Agriculture in any Government, whatever his political opinions might be, would come to the conclusion that Dominion cattle of a quality unsuitable for breeding, which would lower the standard of our herds, although he thinks that they are going to lower the standard of our herds, ought still to be let into this country. It is inconceivable that he would come to such a conclusion. The Amendment therefore is unnecessary, because it is inconceivable that a Minister would seek to take so unreasonable an attitude; it is undesirable because it is
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inconsistent with the Agreement entered into with Canada; and it really would have no effect except to enable the Canadians to say: "You have not carried out your bargain; this Bill does not carry out the Ottawa Agreement, and we for our part shall not carry out ours and shall not let in your pedigree cattle as we have at present promised to do." I must say that is not a contingency which your Lordships would desire to bring about. For the reasons I have given I do hope that your Lordships will understand that the clause has not got the terrors in it which my noble friend Lord Ernle was inclined to think, and that the Government ought to be supported in maintaining the words as they stand.
LORD STRACHIE: By the leave of the House may I say that the noble and learned Viscount did not tell us what are these great benefits which are to be conferred upon pedigree stock? It would be very interesting if we had been told, but I do not think that very much matters. What really matters is this. In plain English, when the Minister is actually satisfied that in his opinion these cattle ought to be slaughtered because they are unsuitable for breeding, why should the Minister have an option not to slaughter them? I put a plain and simple question to the Leader of the House; he has never given any answer to that except to say: "You can always trust not only the present Minister"— I agree with that—"but all Ministers." I would ask whether he would be quite content in the future to trust all Ministers in all questions, because it really comes to that.
I can assure him there is a very strong feeling that we may have Ministers who would consider the Dominions first. We know very well that when it is a case of feeding our Army with British beef the Minister of Agriculture is repudiated. I have good reason to believe that that was because the Dominions Minister was regarded as much more important than the Minister for Agriculture. The former objected to it on behalf of the Dominions and therefore it was turned down. I believe that so far as the Ministry of Agriculture is concerned it would be forcing an open door, but when you have a much more powerful Minister, supported by a Cabinet, stating that in the

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interests of the Dominions we should not feed our Army with British beef, even for six months of the year, then it is not done. You may also have a weak Minster who would have pressure put upon him from outside. The answer given by the noble Viscount is unsatisfactory. If you say the Minister will always slaughter, why should you not say that he must do so, and that he should have no option? I will adhere to my Amendment and divide the Committee upon it.
LORD LOVAT: May I say without disrespect that we have not up to the present moment regarded "shall" and "may" as interchangeable terms? Those who were members of the Advisory Committee on Agriculture fully discussed this matter, and had all the facts put before them. We were told that what the Canadian Government objected to was, as has been pointed out, a differentiation between Ireland and Canada. When cattle came over from Canada, on account of the risk of disease and not because of the quality of the cattle, they had to be accompanied the whole way by a veterinary surgeon, and go through all sorts of formalities. I am sure all who know anything about the breeding of cattle in Canada know that they are free from tuberculosis, that as a class they are immune from that disease; but whether they are good cattle for breeding is a quite different matter. They are big, raw-boned cattle, and we do not want them in this country where we are doing our best to improve our breed of cattle.
In the matter of not having a veterinary surgeon on board I think we ought to meet the Canadians in every way. The only question is whether these cattle are desirable for breeding or not. The noble Lord opposite knows, everyone must know, that the Minister for Agriculture does not inspect these cattle. He has various inspectors at the port of entry, and it is on the report of those inspectors that he decides whether the cattle shall be admitted or not. If the word "shall" is used, when he gets a report from his recognised inspectors it will then be his duty to stop the cattle from coming in. There will be no question of his exercising his discretion. It is the man on the spot who gives a definite report who really decides the matter. I submit that the noble Lord
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should give way on the question of risk. It is only on the question of suitability for breeding that it seems a backward step to let in inferior cattle.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I do not want to make another speech. I have made my answer, or tried to do so. The noble Lord, Lord Strachie, made a suggestion, which I must deal with, in regard to British beef for the Forces. It has nothing to do with the argument, but I should like to assure him that he is entirely misinformed. As the Secretary of State for War I know why British beef was not supplied to the Forces, and if and when it becomes relevant I shall explain why. It was not owing to any pressure of any kind from the Dominions. I should like to make that clear. The reason I cannot agree to this Amendment is that, rightly or wrongly, we have made a bargain which we believe protects the British agriculturist. Your Lordships will appreciate that if the Minister forms an opinion to exercise the power he is given, he may require the cattle to be slaughtered so as to keep up the standard. To go further than that is to do something which we did not ask the Canadians to agree to, and therefore is not in accordance with the bargain made at Ottawa. If we are wrong I am sorry, but I do not think we are. We could not possibly accept this Amendment because it would be departing from the Ottawa Agreements, which, after all, are the very things that we are asking the House to carry out.
LORD STRACHIE: May I add one word? The noble Viscount the Leader of the House talks about a bargain. Does he mean to say the bargain with Canada was that, though the Minister may be quite satisfied these animals are unsuitable for breeding and ought to be slaughtered, he should have the option not to slaughter them? I cannot believe the Canadian Government would be so unreasonable as to say it was not right that there should be an obligation on the Minister in this country to slaughter cattle which in his opinion were unsuitable for breeding purposes. It seems an extraordinary statement that a bargain was made of that kind. I cannot believe it, and if we had the Canadians here I think that they would voluntarily agree to this alteration as they have voluntarily agreed to other alterations asked for by agriculturists.
On Question, Whether the word "may" shall stand part of the clause?
Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.
Clause 8 agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
Schedules agreed to.
Bill reported without amendment.

DISARMAMENT: CONTROL OF CIVIL AVIATION.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY THE EARL OF HALSBURY had the following Notice on the Paper—To call attention to statements that at the forthcoming Conference on Disarmament at Geneva proposals will be brought forward for the international control of civil aviation and for the restriction by international agreement of the numbers of private aircraft; and to move to resolve, that before any such proposals are agreed to on behalf of this country full details should be submitted to both Houses of Parliament for their approval.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I put down this Resolution because I desire to call attention to certain statements that have been made in reference to the forth-coming Disarmament Conference at Geneva. There are two matters to which I desire to call attention. First it is being suggested that there should be inter-
Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 62; Not-Contents, 5.

CONTENTS.

Sankey, V. (L. Chancellor.)

Wicklow, E.

Danesfort, L.

Darcy (de Knayth), L.

Wellington, D.

Cecil of Chelwood, V.

Darling, L.

Chaplin, V.

Dickinson, L.

Bath, M.

Churchill, V.

Ernle, L.

Exeter, M.

Elibank, V.

Gage, L. (V. Gage.) [Teller.]

Hailsham, V.

Greville, L.

Shaftesbury, E. (L. Steward.)

Knutsford, V.

Hampton, L.

Denbigh, E.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Devon, E.

Abinger, L.

Hutchison of Montrose, L.

Effingham, E.

Alvingham, L.

Kilmaine, L.

Halsbury, E.

Amulree, L.

Leconfield, L.

Howe, E.

Annaly, L.

Redesdale, L.

Iddesleigh, E.

Annesley, L. (V. Valentia.)

Russell of Liverpool, L.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Armstrong, L.

Selsdon, L.

Malmesbury, E.

Arundell of Wardour, L.

Somerleyton, L.

Onslow, E.

Berwick, L.

Southampton, L.

Poulett, E.

Biddulph, L.

Stonehaven, L.

Roden, E.

Chesham, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Rothes, E.

Clanwilliam, L. (E. Clanwilliam.)

Sandwich, E.

Strickland, L.

Stanhope, E.

Clements, L. (E. Leitrim.)

Templemore, L.

Strange, E. (D. Atholl.)

Cottesloe, L.

Wharton, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Bertie of Thame, V. [Teller.]

Davies, L.

Remnant, L.

Phillimore, L.

Strachie, L. [Teller.]

national control of civil aviation; and, secondly, it is suggested that there should be restriction by international agreement and not by private act. Not only have these statements been made in the public Press but official notice has been taken of them in another place, and so I think there is no doubt that they are matters which have been brought forward as possible suggestions to be made at the next session of the Disarmament Conference, which, as your Lordships know, is to take place in the immediate future. Therefore it is a very urgent question and a very grave question. Those of us who have taken any interest in aviation know that these suggestions raise the very gravest questions which can come up for determination.
After I had put my Notice on the Paper there was a debate in another place where the Lord President of the Council, Mr. Baldwin, made a speech last Thursday. I suppose every member of your Lordships' House has read that speech and I expect that most people in the country have read that speech. It is a speech which is well worth perusal. It certainly gave me a great deal to think about. When I made practically the same speech seven years ago to your Lordships I was thought a crank. When I said the same thing in 1917 I was told that I was

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a lunatic. It is at least pleasant to realise that at this long last people in first-class positions in the country are beginning to realise the danger that was foretold to them fifteen years ago. Of course there will be an enormous danger from the air in any war that comes in the future. It is the greatest danger that you could possibly have to face. As Mr. Baldwin said quite rightly, the only certain defence against it is total abolition of flying. But if you are going to be logical you would then have to disarm in other matters that are necessary for war on the scale of modern warfare. You must do away with your railways, with your motor cars and with your mercantile marine. I am not at all certain that this world would not be a very much happier and more contented place if we went back to sailing ships and horses and carts; but I learn from the history of England that it is not much good taking an armchair down to the beach and sitting down on it and expecting the tide not to come in.
We have to realise that the tide of progress is coming in, that it is not possible to do away with all aviation, that aviation has come to stop. Quite early a lot of the big people in aviation said in terms that they thought the world would have been happier if flying had never been invented, but as it has been invented we have to face it and to say what is going to be done in regard to it when discussing the question of disarmament. There are two proposals put forward with regard to what I am raising at this time. One is the international amalgamation of all air lines throughout the world. All I would say about that with a considerable knowledge is that I think it is wholly impracticable. It would be merely a waste of time to consider whether you could do it or not. If you did it I think it would be a bad thing, but I do not think it could be done. Then we come to a much more important matter and that is the question of private flying—what is known as civil aviation in private aerodromes. Among others I have taken a great deal of interest in that for the last fifteen years and in a moment I will tell you why I think the proposal put forward is so hopeless.
Let us see what is going to be suggested. There is to be a restriction in some way in numbers. Why? Because they might
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be used for war. Mr. Baldwin in his speech asked what was the good of trying to restrict aeroplanes to small aeroplanes; if you do the result will be that some of these scientists will produce a bomb of about the size of a walnut which will do all the damage you want. Unfortunately I cannot agree with Mr. Baldwin in that statement. It is not a question of what the scientists will do; they have done it. I will tell you of one walnut straight away and that is poison gas. If you realised the tiny amount of poison gas that would completely obliterate a town you would not listen to any nonsense about there being only a small number of small aeroplanes. The smallest would do the work and Mr. Baldwin was right when he said that against aeroplanes attacking a civilian population there is no defence. Every expert will tell you that that is true. The aeroplanes will get through and obliterate your towns. It is true that as they go away you may inflict one or two casualties by pursuing them, but you will not keep them out. London to-day is absolutely indefensible; so is Brussels, Paris, Berlin and every other large industrial town.
What is the good of suggesting that you should try to keep down civil aviation? It would have no practical value at all. It is the outcome of some sort of pacific idea that you are going to put down war and that you must have disarmament. There are two branches of armament in regard to which you cannot disarm. One is the air and the other is poison gas. You can disarm in regard to submarines and big battleships. You may say you may not have them and you can tell whether people are having them or not, for you cannot make a battleship in a back yard or construct a submarine in a field. Mr. Baldwin said in his speech that if a nation gets its back against the wall it is going to use any weapon which it has in its possession, and as long as you allow any chemical factory at all, or any air force at all, they can always be used if a nation is fighting with its back against the wall; and you have no defence against either. What are we going to do about it? I will tell your Lordships what I have been preaching ever since the Armistice and what if believe is the only solution. You will have to get a national feeling against war, and that does not mean the feeling of a number of politicians, however able,

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at Geneva. The feeling must be national and must pervade every nation. The way to get this feeling among the nations is to make them see that war will be so horrible next time that they will never dare to go to war with each other.
Those of us who have studied the matter know that the potentialities of the air and of poison gas from the air are the most horrible that can be imagined. They mean the obliteration of man, woman and child on both sides and there is no defence. I have preached this both here and in other countries. The only people who realise it are those who have studied the matter or those who have flown themselves or known personally the people who fly. You will never get the people of a nation to realise, merely from reading something in the newspapers, how deadly this attack can be, and therefore we want every nation, if we are to keep flying at all, to take to flying, to be air-minded, and to see for themselves that once you have any power in the air at all you cannot go to war again. The whole idea that you should put down civil aviation, or private aviation, is wrong. In order to get this idea against war in the future you want to make every person fly whom you can; you want to increase your civil or private aviation. I am not talking about the Royal Air Force nor about any military aviation. I know quite well, and we all know, that you can turn a civil machine into a war machine. We all know that the only difference between an air liner and a bomber is the cargo. That is perfectly true. I do not want to get it for the purpose of getting an extra war force; I want it for the purpose of getting people to understand what the air means, and consequently to realise the danger they are going to be to each other.
I may be wrong, my Lords, but I have this in my view. I have often heard it said in the last few years that science has progressed to such an extent that the next war will be the obliteration of civilisation. It may be, and by the means of which I speak. But the only way to stop that, to my mind, is to get the people, that is to say the nation—not the politicians, not technicians, but the nation as a whole—to realise that it will be the end of civilisation if they ever go to war again. It is that realisation that I want to get, and it is for that
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reason that I want to get civil aviation bigger and bigger and bigger, so that people can understand it, so that people can understand that they can get here, there, and everywhere directly before anybody can stop them.
The other point is this. That being the proposition which is going to be put forward, we now come to the question as to how it is going to be dealt with at Geneva. That question was put to the Prime Minister in another place, and it was put in this form: Before any agreement is finally made is it to come before both Houses of Parliament? The answer to that was perfectly obvious: it cannot be done otherwise, because it has got to be done by legislation. The suggestion to stop civil aviation in this country or to keep it down to a quota is absolutely a question of legislation, and of course the Prime Minister answered that, certainly, the Houses of Parliament will be able to say "Yea" or "Nay." Of course they will. But under what conditions? That is the difficulty about it. Are we allowing our people to go out to make some agreement and then come back and say: "It is quite true that you in Parliament can say 'Yea' or 'Nay,' but do not forget that if you say 'Nay' it means that we are breaking faith with the people with whom we have agreed," without ever putting it before Parliament at all first?
It may be said that that would not happen. After Ottawa? I took down the answer given by the noble and learned Viscount who leads the House, Lord Hailsham, on the first Amendment which was moved, and it was this: "We have made a bargain." What is the good of coining to us after that and saying that we would have a free hand in Parliament in this country as to whether we would say "Aye" or "Nay"? Are we going to agree to have our civil aviation cut down by somebody, however eminent, who thinks proper to make a. bargain in Geneva? I know perfectly well that I am going to be in the difficulty in which the Government can always put one. They will say that this Motion of mine is too early because nothing has been agreed yet, and they are going to continue until some agreement has been made and then they will say that it is too late to alter it. I want a free hand for this Parliament to say

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what we are going to do on these two things before a Minister comes back and says that the thing is a fait accompli. It is a vital thing for us and a vital thing for our aviation.
This country has not gone ahead as it might have gone ahead and as other countries have gone ahead in the question of air-mindedness. We are not air-minded. It is no good telling me that we have done wonders. We have; we have shown that our pilots are second to none; we have shown that our machines, designed and made in this country, are second to none; but our country as a whole is not as air-minded as other countries have become, and consequently those of us who have taken any interest in this matter feel that we ought not to have our hands bound by this modern method.
May I describe to you quite shortly what I conceive the modern method is? You send a man out—a Minister, anybody whom you may think fit, several of them if you like—to some place chosen for its excellent climate or whatever it may be. They have a little conference there. What you do is this: you send him out with what is popularly known as a mandate. He goes out with the mandate. Having gone out with the mandate, he makes a gesture. Having got a mandate and made a gesture, the child of this unholy alliance is almost invariably a quota; and then the result is brought back to us and we are asked to baptise and bless it. My Lords, I ask you to say: No, let us have the proposals before this House and before the other House before we allow ourselves to be bound—to be tied hand and foot—by this method of mandate, gesture, quota, and then a speech by the Leader of the House in either place saying: "You must accept it, although you are entitled to say 'Yea' or 'Nay.' You must accept it; otherwise we shall have betrayed what we have promised to other people."
Moved to resolve, That before any proposals for the international control of civil aviation and for the restriction by international agreement of the numbers of private aircraft are agreed to on behalf of this country, full details should be submitted to both Houses of Parliament for their approval.—(The Earl of Halsbury.)
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: My Lords, I do not wish to intervene; I would rather have waited to hear what my noble and learned friend the Secretary of State for War had to say on the subject. I want to say only three or four words, really. I listened with the greatest interest to what my noble friend Lord Halsbury has just said, but I cannot help thinking either that he a good deal exaggerates his case or else that the result of such inquiries as I have had the honour to make in this matter has been wholly misleading. I have had the opportunity of hearing a good many gentlemen who at any rate regard themselves as experts in this matter, and like every other member of this House, I have no doubt, I have read a certain amount of literature on the subject. I entirely agree with the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, when he says that the danger from the air is a very terrible one, and it is particularly terrible for a great City like this within very easy reach of attack from the Continent. I agree, indeed, with the whole case which was put forward by my right hon. friend the President of the Council in the other House a few days ago in that very impressive and moving speech which he made on the subject; but to go as far as my noble friend Lord Halsbury goes—namely, to say that with a few bombs the size of walnuts you can destroy this City, seems to me to be asking us to believe something of which there is at present no scientific evidence. It may turn out to be true, but I do not think there is any evidence that it can be done at this moment.
However, that is not the point. The real point is the Motion of my noble friend, and the purpose of his Motion is this. He wants your Lordships to say, or at any rate he wants the Government to admit, that they are not to be entitled to put any proposition on this subject before an international conference without having previously obtained the approval of Parliament and of this House to that proposition.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: No; I beg the noble Viscount's pardon. What I said was that they were not to agree to it until Parliament had approved it; not that they were not to put it forward.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: If they put it forward they must agree to it; they do not put forward something

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to which they do not agree. Even this Government do not do that. Therefore I think I was not very inaccurate in my reading of my noble friend's Motion. But surely that is an impossible position for Parliament to take up? I quite agree that Parliament is entitled to say, and is indeed by modern practice generally admitted to have the right to say, that before any agreement, at any rate any agreement of importance, is ratified, it shall be submitted to the two Houses of Parliament, or at any rate to the Lower House—I should myself like to say to the two Houses of Parliament—for their opinion on the subject; and that is the constitutional doctrine. To go further than that, and to seek to say, not that we desire that a particular measure should not be taken—that is quite legitimate, of course—but that before they take any measure whatever they are to submit to this House exactly what they are going to produce in an international conference, would seem to me, with the greatest respect to my noble friend, to make international negotiation almost impossible. You would have to come to Parliament and lay the whole of your case, whatever you were going to agree to, before the two Houses of Parliament, before you presented it to the conference at all.
I do not think that that is a practical proposal at all, and I do not see how it could be agreed to. Therefore I hope the Government will not give any encouragement to a doctrine which seems fatal to international negotiation. I do not wish to stand between this House and the Leader of the House any longer. I only wish to add, in one word, that I read with the greatest possible pleasure and agreement the speech made by my right hon. friend the President of the Council. I, personally, have seldom received greater pleasure than when I read the observations which he made and the indication of the policy of the Government in this matter which he gave.
LORD DAVIES: My Lords, I would crave the indulgence of the House for a few moments while I make some observations on the speeches to which we have just listened. I think the House is grateful to the noble Earl for having, raised this matter, because we all realise that we are indebted to him for having for so many years drawn the attention of the
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people of this country to the great menace which threatens them. I imagine that many of us have read his admirable book on the subject. The description which he gave us in that book, I am sure, must have brought home to many of us the tremendous risks which we are running at the present time. He has alluded to the speech of the Lord President of the Council in another place. I cannot help feeling that that speech, together with the speech which we have listened to from the noble Earl, has impressed us with the extraordinary vulnerability of this country to attack from the air, not only because we have in this country a denser population than any other country, but also because we are an entirely industrialised population, with nerve centres which apparently are most vulnerable to air attack.
The noble Earl has told us, and the President of the Council also told us, that the best thing might be to abolish the air fleets altogether. But we are told that that is an impossibility. Then I think Lord Trenchard also said, some time ago, that if he had the casting vote he would vote in favour of the abolition of the air weapon. Apparently that is impossible, and so we have been driven back upon another species of safeguard—prohibiting certain weapons and abolishing them on paper. The Lord President of the Council stated categorically that he had no faith whatever in the attempts now being made at Geneva, in the Disarmament Conference, to prohibit certain weapons. We all know that when war passions are aroused these agreements and protocols, and so forth, become mere "scraps of paper." Then there is the suggestion that fear of reprisals will frustrate air attack. Lord Thomson, I think, when Minister of Air, pointed out to this House that the only response to attack was reprisal. That means blotting out Paris or Berlin at the same time as this City is being reduced to ruins. Therefore, apparently, there is nothing to be gained from any reply by way of reprisals. It seems to me that the crucial question really is this: What is to be the real and right use of force?
The noble Earl tells us that everybody must agree that there shall be no more war, and we must see to it that there shall not be. We all agree with

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that advice, but we all know that war arises from various causes and comes very unexpectedly. If we are to organise in defence we must have some clear conception of the general principles which shall govern our policy. Therefore the question which I should like to ask is this: What is to be the right use of force? Is it to be used as an adjunct to the system of national duelling, or is it to be used merely for carrying out the police function? Are the people of this country, if they want to prevent war from the air, willing to hand over their aeroplanes and poison gas, and all the other things menioned, to the control of some international authority, to be used solely for the purpose of carrying out the police function?
The noble Earl told us that this was a question which had to do with the mentality of the peoples. I entirely agree, but we can only exercise our functions of mentality, we can only secure their practical application if there is some definite organisation in existence to which the peoples can look for security against any attack from outside. Therefore I venture to sugest that we shall really not be able to cope with this question of the air until we are in agreement with the other countries, and especially with France, which has already put forward these proposals at Geneva, that force shall be limited exclusively to the performance of the police function. Last week we had a discussion on the Lytton Report, and I think we all in this House expressed great gratification that this Report had been issued. The House gave it its commendation. That Report, it was pointed out, for the first time represented the award or conclusions of a Commission which had been appointed to discuss not merely questions of law but political issues between two great States. The members of the Commission expressed their conclusions not on grounds of law but on grounds of equity. Consequently if the proposals which are being made by the French Government to constitute an international force under the control of the League are adopted, then it will also be necessary to make the tribunal system, of which the Lytton Commission is a complete instance and precedent, a part of the permanent machinery of the League at Geneva. It seems to me that it is only in that way that we shall in-
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duce the kind of mentality which the noble Earl has told us this afternoon is so essential.
I should like to conclude by saying that I think we are all deeply indebted to the Lord President of the Council for having urged the necessity of an investigation into this matter. I think we shall all agree that it needs to be investigated very much more thoroughly than it has been in the past. But before the experts can investigate it I think the Government should give them some indication of the principles and of the general policy upon which the investigation is to take place. Is it to be an investigation merely into the feasibility or the practicability of establishing some kind of international aviation force? Are the Government willing to agree to the formula which underlies the French proposals—namely, that this force should be regarded as a policing agency, and should be under the control of the League in order to enforce the decisions of its Tribunals and its Courts, and to prevent any kind of aggression? If we can subscribe to a formula of that kind then there is a definite lead, and a definite proposal, to the commission of investigation. They will know exactly what they are intended to do, and what lines they are to follow.
The noble Earl has spoken about the necessity for disarmament. May I draw his attention not only to the necessity for disarmament but of something which is very much more important and is included in Article 8 of the Covenant—namely, the enforcement by common action of international obligations. That is a definite undertaking which has been enshrined in the Covenant. I think it comes before disarmament because, once the Members of the League are willing to agree upon an organisation that embraces armed forces, disarmament will follow automatically as a result of the organisation of the collective forces of humanity for the suppression of aggression.
LORD DANESFORT: My Lords, I cannot agree with the precise form of the Resolution, but I do think that there is an underlying principle in what the noble Earl has said which deserves the attention of your Lordships' House, and that is that whatever agreements may be arrived at at Geneva in international

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conferences as to the regulation or limitation of aviation, those agreements should come up before both Houses of Parliament in some form in which Parliament should have an effective control, not merely a nominal one. As my noble friend has strongly urged, very often these Agreements come before Parliament in this form. We are told: "This has been agreed abroad; and you may have a technical right to disagree, but practically you cannot." I think that is a very dangerous position. I think it is a great infringement upon the rights of Parliament, and that is not only true as regards agreements about flying, but would apply with perhaps equal force to any agreement about other forms of disarmament. If, as I hope may be the case, there is some really effective limitation of armaments at Geneva, do not let it be said that when the agreement comes to this House it is merely a matter of form, and do not let us be told that if we dissent from any of the provisions made at Geneva we are breaking faith or destroying the whole effect of these arrangements. I trust that the Government will give us some reassurance on this matter.
LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE: My Lords, I should like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Davies on his maiden speech, which was a most thoughtful and interesting contribution to the discussion. I have known for long the special interest he has taken in this subject and the books he has written about it. Although he and I do not see exactly eye to eye, our object is identical, in spite of the slight variation in the methods we propose. I think I am alone in this House in having heard the remarkable speech of the Lord President of the Council on Thursday night, as I happened to be in the gallery of the other House, and I was very deeply impressed by it. I was very glad that a statesman in his position, with the audience which he naturally commands, should make a speech of that kind. I thought it was a speech which I had been making for a good many years past, and the noble Earl opposite thought the same thing, so I feel I am getting on. I agree with the noble Earl in nearly all he says and I do not believe he was exaggerating about the walnut—it was the actual phrase used by the Lord President of the Council. I dare say he saw, as I did, the report of the
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air manœuvres. Seven aeroplanes got through and made direct hits on Whitehall, and that was only just manœuvres of a squadron or two—nothing compared to what one would expect with squadron after squadron coming day after day. I do not think he exaggerated the horror.
I do not believe that we are going to regulate this—and there again I agree with the noble Earl. The internationalisation of civil aviation, I think, might be a step in the right direction, because what we have to be on the lookout for, after there has been the abolition of bombing aeroplanes, is to prevent the conversion of civil planes into military planes, and, as the noble Earl pointed out quite correctly, reduction of numbers is of no use, because there are few aeroplanes that cannot drop these deadly poisons and explosives on towns with the greatest possible case without anybody being able to defend themselves against them. I should like to believe in the regulation, the limitation and the abolition of aeroplanes, but I believe Mr. Baldwin is right that in war time people will have recourse to every weapon that science can put at their command in order to defend themselves or to attack the persons pointed to them as the enemy.
The only point in Mr. Baldwin's speech where I did not agree with him, one which I think made his speech as pessimistic as it was, was the point where he said that what we were up against was the fighting instinct. We are not up against the fighting instinct. The fighting instinct, the combative instinct, the elemental passion is not what makes international war. International war is not made by anything of that kind. If it were, then I think we should be in a very bad way. But it is not. It arises from all sorts of other causes into which I do not intend to enter now, but it does not arise from that cause. Therefore I think the curbing of these terrible weapons becomes easier for us than if we were trying to prevent men from flying at one another's throats.
The noble Earl went on to ask the Government to tell us before they made an agreement. The noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, has pointed out that that is not possible. I remember that in the House of Commons many years ago I used to press very strongly for treaties and agreements being laid before Parliament

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before they were ratified, and in 1924, during the short period of that year that the Labour Government was in office, that was done. But an agreement, a treaty, cannot be altered; that is perfectly clear. I used to think it was democratic to control in those days, and I do not remember the noble Lord, Lord Danesfort, supporting me in the House of Commons in those days when I used to press for democratic and Parliamentary control over treaties. But after further experience I quite understand that when you make an agreement with a foreign country, and it is altered by your Parliament, you have to have a new conference, and start all over again. That is what is being done in the Ottawa Agreements. I could not understand the Division this afternoon, and why noble Lords thought they could alter a comma of the Ottawa Agreements. Of course they cannot. The ratification is a mere form. You have to trust the Government that you put into power to carry out these treaties and agreements as you wish. A great many noble Lords, and a great many members of the House of Commons, and a still greater number of the electorate, are finding that they do not trust the present Government to carry out the agreements in the form in which they think they ought to be carried out, but that is a matter for them to look out for at the next General Election.
So far as the Government are concerned they could not possibly agree to the noble Earl's suggestion to come before Parliament and say what they are going to propose before they meet the foreign representatives, or come back to Parliament with the agreement made and say that they are in a position to alter it. They cannot do it, for it, can only be a form of confidence that comes before Parliament. The major question of members' confidence in the Government of the day really supersedes any of the minor questions of any particular agreements that they may come to. I cannot say how glad I am that the Lord President of the Council has made the whole country feel the reality of the seriousness of this problem. I agree again with what the noble Earl said, that if the people who have not sufficient imagination would themselves take to flying they would understand the enormous potency of this weapon. But I believe that this
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speech made in the House of Commons is going to stimulate people's imaginations sufficiently for them to realise that if they do allow the Government of the day, whoever it may be, to lead them towards the path of international warfare, they are destined to have to prepare for their own immediate destruction.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, the debate to which we have been listening this evening has been notable in the fact that it has elicited from all quarters of the House a most remarkable consensus of approval of the utterances of my right hon. friend the Lord President of the Council in another place last week. A speech which can at once remind my noble friend Lord Halsbury of his own previous utterances and at the same time be identical with the utterances of the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition, must indeed show a breadth of view which is very exceptional. It had an additional merit. For the first time, I think, since I have had the honour to lead this House, we have been able to receive the all too rare approval of my noble friend Lord Cecil of the policy of His Majesty's Government. Altogether my right hon. friend the Lord President has achieved a very remarkable success.
Apart from that I desire first of all, in trying to deal seriously of course with the Motion before the House, to express to your Lordships the regret that my noble friend the Secretary of State for Air feels at being unable to be present himself this afternoon. He has already, I know, indicated to the noble Earl that he was unable to be here owing to a public engagement in Northern Ireland, and the noble Earl felt it his duty to bring on the Motion; consequently it falls to me once more to be the spokesman of another Department. I am not competent in the same degree as the noble Earl to express an opinion as to how far the pictures of the horrors of the next war, especially from the air, are exaggerated or not. The noble Earl has been greatly devoted to the subject during many years past, and he has certainly given us a sufficiently vivid and a sufficiently terrifying account of what is going to happen in the event of another war breaking out—that aeroplanes must break through any defence, and that when they break through they are capable of

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annihilating any city in the United Kingdom. That is certainly a sufficiently terrible picture. Assuming that the position is as grave as my noble friend represents, I am not quite sure that I agree with the conclusion that he draws from that premise.
The noble Earl says that the Government must not be allowed to make any agreement, however provisional, for restricting civil aviation, because, he says, the only possible means of dealing with the menace of destruction from the air, which will infallibly come about if there is a war, is so to educate our people to the possibilities of flying as to make them and other people unwilling to face the horrors of such an experiment. The noble Earl may be quite right—I am not in the least saying that he is not right—but because he has that plan it does not necessarily follow that there is no other plan. It may be that it is impossible to devise any effective means of restricting all these horrors from coming upon us if war breaks out. It may be that he is right in saying that any form of restriction of civil aviation may be mistaken. I am not in the least combating that. I have no authority to do it, nor indeed have I any inclination to combat that view. But the fact that these horrors are so terrifying surely is a reason why we should not fail, in the modern jargon, to explore every possible avenue, to examine every possible means of averting or even of minimising them.
I am not quite sure that debates where these matters are thrashed out in public are not one of the best means of educating the public. I am not at all sure that debates, especially at Geneva, where not one nation but all the nations are represented, on the subject of allowing unrestricted air arms to go on and of allowing the possibilities of this kind of disaster to come upon the whole of our civilisation—whether debates of that character are not one of the most valuable means of ensuring that the people not only of this country but of other countries may make up their minds that they will not allow such things to happen again.
It does seem to me that the noble Earl is wrong when he suggests, as he does in his Motion, that there is to be no sort of agreement, however provisional, by His Majesty's Government
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before both Houses of Parliament have been consulted as to what is going to be agreed. Obviously this Government cannot make an agreement binding this country until Parliament has had the opportunity of accepting or rejecting it. The Prime Minister, in another place, stated this in terms. Speaking on November 2, the Prime Minister said:
"The House may be assured that the Government will not commit the country to any further commitment without the consent of the House.…The Government must be free to negotiate the abolition or the extension of anything, but the negotiations will be conducted with the full knowledge that final consent remains with this House."
Then Captain Guest, who had raised the matter from the point of view of the air arm, put this specific question:
"I wish to extract one further word from the Prime Minister, that the House will not only be able to register consent but dissent if it feels so inclined."
The Prime Minister replied:
"I said so—either 'Yea' or 'Nay'."
That I understand to be the constitutional position.
Anyone who goes to Geneva representing this country goes there with the knowledge that he cannot make an agreement binding this country except subject to the ratification of both Houses of Parliament. But it is quite a different thing to say that on that account he must not come to any tentative agreement even before first of all the proposal has been discussed in both Houses of Parliament. It obviously could not be only this country which would enjoy that privilege, and it would really mean that no agreement could ever be reached in Geneva about anything, because every country would naturally claim the same liberty that we would be then asserting, and every country would say that its representatives were unable to agree about anything until there had first been discussion in the democratic Assembly—whatever form it might take—sovereign in that particular country. That does not seem to me either sound in International Law or politic from the point of the practical conduct of international affairs.
It is certainly true that the last word rests with Parliament. It cannot be true also, as my noble friend would wish, that the first word must rest with Parlia-

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ment as well. It is possible, after we have made an agreement subject to Parliament's consent, for either House of Parliament to refuse to give its assent, to refuse its confidence in the Ministry of the day in regard to the particular agreement which has been made. It is quite true that the House cannot alter an agreement, but as the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition pointed out, as it takes two to make a bargain so it must take two to alter a bargain. We cannot unilaterally alter a bargain once made, but the House can refuse assent to a bargain, and it then rests with the Government, knowing the particular form of objection, to see if it can frame another form of agreement satisfactory both to the other party and the Parliament of this country.But, what my noble friend invites your Lordships to do is not merely to claim the right to express disagreement with a policy which the Government have adopted, not merely to express its lack of confidence in the Government with regard to any agreement which they make, but to anticipate that by passing a vote of no confidence in the Government in advance before even knowing what they are going to do. I respectfully urge upon your Lordships that if we were to do that it would paralyse the authority of any one who went to Geneva to represent this country. You could not go there with all the countries of the world told in advance that, so far as one House of Parliament in the United Kingdom was concerned, so far as the House of Lords was concerned, members could not trust their representatives to do the right thing on behalf of this country, and that those representatives went there tied with an express Resolution saying that the House had no confidence in the reasonableness of those representatives or in any attitude that they were going to adopt.
It seems to me all the more unreasonable to ask your Lordships to adopt that attitude at this moment, when you remember that the last speech on disarmament was the one made by the Lord President of the Council which has met with such universal support and applause from all quarters of the House. In these circumstances I would first ask my noble friend not to press his Resolution, which seems to me one which is so unfair to the
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Government, and I would ask your Lordships in the last resort to refuse to accept the Resolution which has been moved, and to rest satisfied with what I believe to be the constitutional position—namely, with the assurance that the Government cannot, and will not, make any agreement except subject to the approval of both Houses of Parliament, but that they go to Geneva free to discuss any agreement, free to discuss and thrash out with the representatives of other countries any proposals which may be put forward, and then, if they believe that those proposals will do something towards minimising the dangers if a war breaks out in future, to bring those proposals home for the approval of this country and of this Parliament.
May I, in conclusion, say to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, to whose first speech in this House we have all listened with pleasure and interest, that I do not reply to his specific questions because I am not the representative of the Foreign Office, and the matters with regard to which he offered some very interesting suggestions are obviously matters which I could only deal with on the direct instructions of my right hon. friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs? I can assure him that his remarks will receive at the hands of my right hon. friend and those who advise hum the careful attention which I am sure they deserve.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: My Lords, if I may say a word in reply I do not propose at this hour to answer the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, on any question as to the size of walnuts. I should be delighted to talk about that matter with the noble Viscount outside. I propose to come to one or two other matters. The noble Lord who leads the Opposition was, if I may say so, carried away in a wrong direction and the noble and learned Viscount who leads the House has rather followed him. This is, and has to be, a question of legislation. It is not a question of a ratification of a treaty, but a question of definite legislation regarding the liberty of the subject in this country to deal with his own property. There is no question of a treaty here at all.
We were told that I had suggested that there was no other plan than the one I have put forward. I should like to correct that. There is another plan

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which has been put forward most care fully. The reason I did not mention it is that I do not agree with it. It was put forward by a Russian and I think it is the only logical plan I know. He is one of their head people on gas, and he says the only thing to do against such a danger is to demolish entirely your towns and rebuild them immune from gas. He goes on to say that the Soviet country is the only one in which you could do it because it is the only one in which you could appropriate the houses, land and so on, and rebuild with free labour. For that reason I did not mention that plan. Having explored every plan put forward by Russians, Germans, French, Belgians, Italians and Americans, I have found no other that has given any sort of solution. Nor has the present Government at any moment suggested a solution. The other solution is one that I heard when I raised this question some six years ago in this House. Then the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, said that the only possible answer was the evacuation of London. When some noble Lords rather suggested that that was going a bit far, he said: "I can only tell you that when you get this attack London will have to be evacuated; it will be evacuated either in chaos or through care being taken beforehand." Those are the only other suggestions I have heard, and therefore I am left a little cold when I am told we are sending out a plenipotentiary to make some sort of arrangement.
When the noble and learned Viscount was speaking, I was rather worried about what he meant. He pointed out that the Prime Minister had said that it was in the power of the two Houses to say "Yea" or "Nay." "Yea" or "Nay" to what—to the whole scheme and nothing but the scheme? Or might they say: "We think you are right about one thing but we will not accept another"? If so, under what mandate is a plenipotentiary sent out? I do not know. It has never come before us that we should send one out to bind us under those conditions. The noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, says that the Government could not consult the House before agreeing—that international agreements would be impossible under those conditions. But has M. Herriot found any difficulty in stating frankly and fairly what he said he wanted to put before Geneva and asking for
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power to do so? Has the present Foreign Secretary ever put up any suggestion before either House of what he proposes to do? He has kept absolutely quiet. He has asked to be sent out with a blank cheque, never saying for what he is going to sign it, and he is coming back to ask us to acknowledge his signature. I think that is utterly wrong, and, if your Lordships reject this Motion, when that blank cheque comes back signed and you are expected to honour it, you are bound to do so without any discussion or else dishonour the cheque altogether. You are putting everything into the hands of one man. I trust that your Lordships will not do so. It is not right to put it into the hands of one man, however able, to say dictatorially: "This is what ought to be done; you must either take what I say or reject the whole thing." I am afraid I must press my Motion.
On Question, Motion negatived.

CORPS OF CUSTODIANS.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL THE EARL OF KINNOULL rose to ask the Lord Chancellor whether a Committee of this House was consulted as to the corps of custodians; whether the chief officer has taken up his duties; and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, at this late hour I am certainly not going to delay the House more than two or three moments, although I think this Question must be of interest to those of your Lordships who regularly attend this House. As I understand the facts there is going to be a reduction of a certain number of police in these precincts—I think the number is one inspector, two sergeants, and thirty-eight constables—while both Houses of Parliament are sitting, and they are to be replaced by a corps of custodians. This, I understand, is to be done in the interest and sacred name of economy. I think it has been stated in another place that the economy effected would be £13,000 per annum. I am going to try to show that there is no economy either to the taxpayer or the ratepayer.
I take the smallest point of all first. That is the cost of the new uniforms. At the present moment the police who police this House have uniforms, and whether they stay here or whether they go outside they will still have to have uniforms. For this corps of custodians new uniforms

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will have to be supplied. The second point which I want to make is that I understand that the gentleman to be put in charge of this new corps of custodians is an ex-superintendent of police, who became an ex-superintendent only two or three days ago, and that now that he has retired from the police force he is entitled to a pension of just over £9 per week, and while in charge of this corps of custodians he will be receiving on the top of that an additional salary of £300 a year. There are also two ex-inspectors who are in receipt of pensions of £5 a week and they, I understand, under this suggestion, are to have a salary of £200 a year. I do not know how many ex-constables will be employed; perhaps my noble and learned friend an the Woolsack will tell me; but each of those ex-constables who are to be employed has a pension of £3 a week and a salary here of £156 a year. I think it will be found that in most cases their pension plus their salary will come to rather more than what their salary was when they were officers of the police force. I want to ask my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack this question: Has the Minister of Labour been consulted in this matter, and are there no ex-Service men, not in receipt of pensions, who could be perfectly well appointed to do the job which is required?
I am willing to admit that there is a large number of police on this building, such as the policeman at the Library here and the police upstairs on the corridors, who have very little to do except to stand there, but there is this point: they are always there in case there should be a riot downstairs; and there is a very big effect in the police uniform. It can be seen perfectly well in the streets. You get a group of people; perhaps there are two men fighting, or something of that description happens, and immediately a crowd gathers. One policeman arrives and says: "Move on there, move on!" and they all move on, and he can arrest the two people without any trouble at all. I think very much that in this House the effect of the police uniform on the general public who come here is the same, and that if we have a corps of custodians who are bedecked in some uniform like a messenger it is going to create a lot of chaos. First of all, every policeman in this building has been here
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for very nearly twelve years; he has experience and knows every person who frequents the building. He also has had to deal with many difficult situations in his time; whereas these new people, whoever they may be, will know very little about matters, and all sorts of mistakes may occur. For those reasons, my Lords, I beg to move.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT SANKEY): My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, for drawing attention to this subject. He has administered a great number of interrogatories to me in addition to those which he put down on the Paper, and, although it is not within the jurisdiction or province of the Lord Chancellor, I have asked for the information and I will tell him the result of my inquiries and give him the answers to all the questions that I can possibly answer. When Parliament is in session the protection of this building is a matter for the Lord Great Chamberlain and the Speaker of the House of Commons. When Parliament is not sitting the whole responsibility of looking after the building is in the hands of the Lord Great Chamberlain. At no time, therefore, is it a matter which really concerns a Committee of the House; it is the concern of the Lord Great Chamberlain.
Now, my Lords, a new corps of custodians is being established which will be under the authority of the Lord Great Chamberlain and will incorporate the present night watch maintained by the Department of the First Commissioner of Works. I understand from my right hon. friend the First Commissioner of Works that the corps will consist of one superintendent, three inspectors, one assistant-inspector and not more than forty custodians, who will replace the present night watch and forty-one police officers, at an approximate saving—I cannot give the exact amount, but the noble Lord was right—of £13,000 a year. Sixty-one police officers will remain employed at the Houses of Parliament of whom forty-eight will be on duty, together with six custodians, while Parliament is sitting, as compared with fifty-nine at the present time. The new arrangement, which has been agreed with officers of both Houses of Parliament and with the Commissioner of Police, are to come into force on

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January 1 next. I think it is true to say that the custodians will not all be pensioned ex-policemen, but at the moment of a change-over of this kind it is very desirable that a certain number of individuals who have been familiar with the work of the House should continue their duties. I think in any new appointments preference will be given to ex-Service men.
Those being the general observations which I desire to make, I will try to answer the questions categorically. To begin with no Committee of this House was consulted for the reasons which I have given: it is a matter for the Lord Great Chamberlain. This question was raised about twelve months ago, and the heads of various departments in this House were asked if they had any objections to the scheme being carried out provided always that the efficiency of the protection of the Palace of Westminster was maintained. It was pointed out then that the whole scheme would come under the jurisdiction of the Lord Great Chamberlain, and no one had any objection. The scheme does not come into operation, as I have already said, until January 1 next, and in answer to the noble Earl I can tell him that no one has, as yet, been officially appointed, but it is hoped that all the appointments will have been made by the middle of December. I finish as I began, by again thanking the noble Earl for raising this Question, which is an important one, and I hope that I have been able to give him all the necessary information on the subject which he is right to bring to the attention of the House.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack for giving me a very full reply to my Question, and I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, before the House adjourns, I should like to say that it is proposed to take the Third Reading of the Ottawa Agreements Bill as the first Order to-morrow, and
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that there will be later a Royal Commission to give the Royal Assent to the Ottawa Bill.
LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE: To-morrow?
THE EARL OF LUCAN: To-morrow. I would like to inform your Lordships that Lord Denbigh's Question on Russia is going to be postponed, and will probably have to go over to next Session. I should also tell your Lordships that it is proposed to take to-morrow the Transitional Payments (Determination of Need) Bill. It is expected to be received from the House of Commons at some time to-morrow evening, and it is proposed to have a formal House to give it a First Reading, and to take the Second Reading of it on Wednesday. I understand that it will probably be a certified Bill, so that there will be only two stages required. In that case the House will probably meet at 11 o'clock on Thursday morning and take the remaining stage of that Bill, and there will then be a Royal Commission for the Prorogation early on Thursday, at some time in the morning.
LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE: I am much obliged to the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, for giving us this information. May I take it that the Bishop of Winchester's Question on housing will come on as anticipated on Wednesday? I think the noble Earl said that the Transitional Payments (Determination of Need) Bill would be taken on Wednesday. Does he mean through all its stages, or only through Second Reading?
THE EARL OF LUCAN: I think that Bill will be taken then only on Second Reading, and as it will be a certified Bill, there will be only the further Third Reading stage.
LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE: On Thursday?
THE EARL OF LUCAN: On Thursday. As regards the Bishop of Winchester's Question, it will come on as arranged.
House adjourned at ten minutes past seven o'clock.