Lords Sitting of 11 April 1933

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
HOUSING (FINANCIAL PROVISIONS) (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read la, and to be printed.
LONDON PASSENGER TRANSPORT BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Lords Amendments agreed to and a consequential Amendment to the Bill.

CALVINISTIC METHODIST OR PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF WALES BILL. [H.L.]
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF ONSLOW): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion that stands in my name that Standing Order No. 105 be considered in order to its being dispensed with in respect of the Calvinistic Methodist or Presbyterian Church of Wales Bill.
Moved, That Standing Order No.105 be considered in order to its being dispensed with in respect of the said Bill, and that the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Onslow.)
On Question, Motion agreed to: Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed.

LONDON OVERGROUND WIRES, &c., BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
OXFORD CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

ADELPHI ESTATE BILL. [H.L.]
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, I beg to move in respect of the Adelphi Estate Bill that Standing Order No. 106 be considered in order to its being dis-

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pensed with in respect to a Petition of the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and the London Society. This is to give an opportunity that was desired at the time of the Second Reading of the Bill to enable the opposition to present their case.
Moved, That Standing Order No. 106 be considered in order to its being dispensed with, in respect to a Petition of the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and the London Society.—(The Earl of Onslow)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and leave given to present the said Petition accordingly.

PROCEEDINGS IN RELATION TO SPECIAL ORDERS.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, in moving the next Motion I ought to explain, perhaps, the points which I think it is desirable should be examined by a Select Committee. In regard to Private Bills the Chairman of Committees has power under Standing Orders to refer unopposed Bills to a Select Committee and it is a question for consideration whether Special Orders should not be able to be referred to a Committee, although unopposed, in the same way. I also think it would be desirable that Standing Orders should be extended so as to give the Special Orders Committee power to report where important questions of principle are concerned or new precedents created. With regard to Special Orders partaking of the nature of Public Bills there are certain anomalies of procedure. Some requiring an affirmative Resolution come before the Special Orders Committee, others do not, and it is a question for consideration whether the Standing Orders should not be altered so as to include all the Special Orders of the same nature. I think it is desirable that these points should be looked into and the Standing Order considered. Perhaps there might be one or two other small points which the Committee might go into as well.
Moved, That a Select Committee be appointed to consider and report whether any, and if so, what amendment of Standing Order No. 212, relative to Special Orders, is desirable.—(The Earl of Onslow)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM)THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM)moved, That Standing Orders No. XXI and XXXIX be considered in order to their being suspended for this day's sitting. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, in moving the suspension of these two Standing Orders I ought, I am afraid, to apologise to my noble and long-suffering friend Lord Danesfort because he has a Bill down which would normally take precedence of Government business. I am sure my noble friend will appreciate that there is real urgency in this matter as there is business put down which it is essential to take before the adjournment and which can only conveniently be accomplished by taking it this afternoon. If your Lordships should be good enough to pass the Motion, it may be for your convenience if t should name the order in which I should propose to ask you to take the business. The first business which I should propose to submit would be the Motion with regard to the memorial tablet to the Earl of Oxford and Asquith. The second would be the Motion with regard to the appointment of the Joint Select Committee on Indian Constitutional Reform, with regard to which I understand a Message has been received from another place. Thirdly, we would take the Russian Goods (Import Prohibition) Bill through all its stages, and the fourth business would be the Committee stage of the Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill. The Church of Scotland (Property and Endowments) Amendment Bill is not, I understand, going to be taken to-day, and therefore the next business would be the Tribunal of Inquiry in Glasgow. Then, if Lord Danesfort is still anxious to have a debate on his Performing Animals (Regulation) Amendment Bill, that can appropriately conclude our afternoon's entertainment. I beg to move the Motion standing in my name.
Moved, That Standing Orders Nos. XXI and XXXIX be considered in order to their being suspended for this day's sitting.—(Viscount Hailsham)
LORD DANESFORT: My Lords, may I say in reply to my noble friend that I entirely agree with him and shall support his Motion, although it ma), involve the

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postponement of my Bill until after Easter. I realise that Government business is so exceedingly important that no private business should compete with it.
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

MEMORIAL TO THE EARL OF OXFORD AND ASQUITH.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I beg to move that an humble Address be presented to His Majesty praying that His Majesty will give directions for a memorial tablet to be erected in the Collegiate Church of St. Peter, Westminster, to the memory of the late Right Honourable the Earl of Oxford and Asquith and to assure His Majesty that this House will concur in giving effect to His Majesty's directions.
It is unnecessary to remind any meeting of his countrymen, least of all a meeting of your Lordships' House, of the public life of the late Earl of Oxford. He became a Member of Parliament as long ago as 1886. In 1892 he was a Secretary of State; and it is just a quarter of a century since, in April, 1908, he formed his first Administration as Prime Minister and leader of a Cabinet containing many men of outstanding distinction, some of whom are present in your Lordships' House this afternoon. This is not the time to appraise his place in history; I would only mention that he was the Prime Minister on whom fell the supreme responsibility of exercising a decisive influence in perhaps the most difficult decision which any Cabinet has had to take, the decision in August, 1914, on the part we should play in the Great War. His countrymen will not soon forget the courage and the patriotism with which he faced those difficult days.
It may be said that Lord Oxford was mainly a House of Commons roan. It is true that he only came to this House in the autumn of his days, when his lifework had been largely achieved, but he brought to its membership the same pride in the greatness of its tradition, the same recognition of its dignity and its responsibility which he had so long developed and displayed as a member of the House of Commons. His contributions to our debates were characterised by the same force of thought and majesty of expression which have made seine, of his speeches classical examples
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of English prose. I am quite sure that I express the wish of every member of every Party in this House when I say that we desire to be associated with the Petition which has been presented to His Majesty from another place, that a memorial tablet to the Earl of Oxford and Asquith should find a place beside those of other Prime Ministers in Westminster Abbey, which is hallowed by the memory of so many of the greatest figures in our history. I beg to move.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty praying that His Majesty will give directions for a memorial tablet to be erected in the Collegiate Church of St. Peter, Westminster, to the memory of the late Right Honourable the Earl of Oxford and Asquith and to assure His Majesty that this House will concur in giving effect to his Majesty's directions.—(Viscount Hailsham>)
LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE: My Lords, I desire on behalf of the Opposition to support the Motion which has been moved by the Leader of the House in such moving and appropriate language. Lord Oxford was a statesman of outstanding intellectual gifts, and his name will be associated with many of the achievements of the Liberal Government when it was at the height of its power. His talent for marshalling his arguments and for getting to the very heart of the debate with terse and cogent phrases was unrivalled, but the quality for which I think he will be most remembered is a, quality which is not too common in the diversities and collisions of political life. It was his unfailing personal loyalty. Lord Oxford, or Mr. Asquith as I like to remember him, had a very great reverence for friendship, and no provocation ever tempted him to throw over or let down any colleague or any friend. This personal reliability and constancy drew to him a very large circle of firm friends. Lord Oxford held the position of Prime Minister with dignity and with a high sense of duty, and he did not relax his efforts to assist in our Parliamentary deliberations when he ceased to hold that high office. On behalf of my noble friends around me I very readily support the Motion now before the House.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, on behalf of those who sit on the Liberal Benches I wish to associate myself with all that has fallen from, and has been so well expressed by, the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition. We on these Benches were closely associated with him, and some of us intimately associated with him, during the important years when he held the highest office in the State. It is not a time, as the Leader of the House has said, to indulge in a survey of all that he achieved, but, as has already been stated, it cannot be unduly emphasised that he will stand out as a great Parliamentarian, a House of Commons man especially, because most of his active period was passed in the House of Commons. He was particularly distinguished by massive intellectual power, trained and equipped in a way which enabled him to use it to the best advantage, and he set an example of classic English to which reference has already been made.
To those of us who were more intimately associated with him he will always remain a very human figure, more easily moved perhaps than many thought, singularly generous and magnanimous both to his opponents and to his friends, and of undoubted loyalty and sincerity in everything that he did. And may I add that he scorned everything that might savour even of the meretricious; he had nothing small or mean in his composition. He was on the whole a grand figure of a man, very typically English in his qualities. In an experience of many years of public life I have never known any man who was freer of jealously or vanity than the great Parliamentarian of whom we are speaking to-day. We shall always cherish his memory with deep reverence and profound affection. We are convinced that neither this tablet which is to be erected in Westminster Abbey nor any great monument which may hereafter be erected to him can be so lasting and fitting a memorial as the recollection of his achievements, qualities, and fame as we will cherish them.
On Question, Motion agreed to nemine dissentiente.
Ordered, That the said Address be presented to His Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

INDIA.
Message from the Commons to acquaint this House that they have appointed sixteen members to join with a Committee of this House, with power to call into consultation representatives of Indian States and British India, to consider the future government of India and, in particular, to examine and report upon the proposals contained in Command Paper 4268; and to request their Lordships to appoint an equal number of Lords to be joined with members of the Commons in that Committee.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I beg to move that the Message from the Commons be now considered.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM VISCOUNT HAILSHAM rose to move, That a Committee of Sixteen Lords be appointed to join with the Committee of the Commons, as mentioned in the said Message, and that the Lords following be named of the Committee:

Lord Archbishop of Canterbury,

Lord Chancellor,

Marquess of Salisbury,

Marquess of Zetland,

Marquess of Linlithgow,

Marquess of Reading,

Earl of Derby,

Earl of Lytton,

Earl Peel,

Viscount Burnham,

Lord Ker (M. Lothian),

Lord Hardinge of Penshurst,

Lord Irwin,

Lord Snell,

Lord Rankeillour,

Lord Hutchison of Montrose

The noble Viscount said The noble Viscount said: I have now to move the Motion which stands in my name on the Paper. It is not an easy matter to make an appropriate selection for the membership of a Committee such as that with which we are now dealing. Quite obviously the ordinary methods of appointing a Committee to choose names to be submitted would hardly be appropriate in a case in which such tremendous political and constitutional issues are involved, and in which it is of the very first importance that every point of view and every section of public opinion should as far as possible be represented. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for India devoted to my knowledge

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a very great deal of time and thought and care to the endeavour to find such a constitution for the Committee in both the other place and in this House as would achieve that result. I am not concerned this afternoon with the membership which has been agreed to in the House of Commons, but the names which I have put down after consultation with my right honourable friend, and I may add, after consultation with some other people as well, will, I hope, commend themselves to the great body of opinion in your Lordships' House as being the names of persons eminently qualified to help in these deliberations and as being representative in the sense which I have indicated of all sides of opinion in your Lordships' House.
I do not want to go into all the names in detail. Of the sixteen, four only did not take part in the debate which led to the setting up of the Committee. Those four were the most rev. Primate, Lord: Derby, Lord Rankeillour and Lord Peel. Of those four, Lord Rankeillour comes as an ex-Chairman of Committees in another place, and his name has been put forward at the special request of that section of opinion which is most hostile to the proposals of the Government. Of the other three I can honestly say that I have not any idea what view they take about the proposals in the White Paper, but they are Peers who from their public service and position seem to me beyond doubt the sort of persons that we are fortunate to obtain to consider and to advise upon questions of this kind. There is, first of all, the most rev. Primate, who will bring a point of view which he is peculiarly qualified to express, and which will be of the greatest value considering some of the problems at arty rate which will have to be dealt with. There is an elder statesman, Lord Derby, who has served in high office as Ambassador and as a Secretary of State, and there is my noble friend Lord Peel who was himself once Secretary of State for India.
Of the twelve who spoke during the debate, one is put forward as representing the official Opposition and is the person whom they selected for the post. Two come from the Liberal Benches opposite and, if they will permit me to say so, they almost choose themselves in a Committee of this kind. A fourth represents that branch of the Liberal Party which I believe is associated with the name of my
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right honourable friend Sir John Simon and I believe incidentally that Lord Hutchison is the only representative of that branch of Liberal opinion except Sir John Simon himself. Of the other eight, who are members of the National Government or its Conservative supporters two are Cabinet Ministers, one the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack, who also is peculiarly qualified as having acted as Chairman throughout the series of Round-Table Conferences which have led up to the present Committee, and the other my noble friend Lord Irwin who in any event would be a necessary member, I should think, of a Committee such as this, forming the third of that great triumvirate of Viceroys whom we are fortunate to be able to contribute to the deliberations.
Of the other six, three definitely expressed themselves as hostile to the Government proposals. Two were, I think, inclined to favour the Government proposals in principle but objected to them a good deal in detail, and the third was a supporter of the Government. I think at any rate it may fairly be said that an effort, and a successful effort, has been made to represent all different standards and every point of view, and when I remind your Lordships of all the qualifications which are included in this Committee—three ex-Viceroys, three ex-Governors, one ex-Secretary of State, one Lord Chancellor, one Archbishop and I think four or five members who have taken part in important Commissions to India within the last few years—I think that to be able to put forward a list of names such as these is in itself a great tribute to the quality and position of this House. My only trouble is that perforce there have to be omissions of names which we should very much like to have included. I do not like to be so invidious as to mention many of them, but your Lordships will remember that during the debate we had contributions, and very valuable contributions, from such speakers as my noble friend Lord Strathcona, my noble friend Lord Hastings and my noble friend Lord Dufferin—I could go on and make quite a long list of people who have qualified themselves to deal with this problem. My noble friend Lord Ampthill is another who also brings the qualification of an ex-Governor of great experience. There

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are a number of noble Lords whom we should have been very glad to see included in this Committee, but the number is already as large as is at all practicable, and it was impossible therefore to give place to all those who might well have claims to be considered for inclusion.
My Lords, it is no light task which we are laying upon these noble Lords whom we are asking to represent us. I know that it may be said that you can count how many are in favour of this proposal, and how many are in favour of that, and you should try to see whether you cannot reach a balance under which the Committee would be exactly evenly divided and never agree on anything. I do not think that would be a practicable thing to do, and I do not believe it is in that spirit that the Committee are going to approach their deliberations. I do not believe the method by which they are going to bring their labours to a successful conclusion is by conducting their debates on purely Party or sectional lines. I hope, and believe, that in contributing men of this rank and calibre and experience to the deliberations of the Committee we are ensuring that its debates will be carried on in the spirit we should wish, with an earnest desire to do the best for this country and for India, and I claim that in the names I have put forward we have made a real effort which is likely to succeed in achieving that result. I beg to move.
Moved, That a Committee of sixteen Lords be appointed to join with the Committee of the Commons, as mentioned in the said Message, and that the Lords following be named of the Committee

Lord Archbishop of Canterbury,

Lord Chancellor,

Marquess of Salisbury,

Marquess of Zetland,

Marquess of Linlithgow,

Marquess of Reading,

Earl of Derby,

Earl of Lytton,

Earl Peel,

Viscount Burnham,

Lord Ker (M. Lothian),

Lord Hardinge of Penshurst,

Lord Irwin,

Lord Snell,

Lord Rankeillour,

Lord Hutchison of Montrose. (Viscount Hailsham.)

THE EARL OF HALSBURY THE EARL OF HALSBURY had given Notice of an Amendment, That the Lords following be named a Select Committee to propose to the House the names of the Lords to join with the Committee appointed by the Commons, namely: Lord Chancellor, Marquess of Salisbury, Marquess of Reading, Viscount Hailsham, and Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I rise to move an Amendment to the Motion that has been put forward, and I am going to claim your Lordships' leave to alter the particular Amendment that I have on the Paper. I put it down after rather hasty consideration as the best Amendment I could move to raise this question without doing it in any invidious manner. But I did that before I had an opportunity of seeing the names which have been put down. I should desire, with your Lordships' permission, to move my Amendment in a different form, and this is the form I have put it in after consideration by those who are, I have no doubt, very much better qualified in drafting than I am. My Amendment will now be this, to reduce the number of Lords to be appointed to the Committee from sixteen to twelve. It is to omit all the words after "That," and insert "a Committee of twelve Lords be appointed to join with the Committee appointed by the Commons." With your Lordships' approval, that is the Amendment I desire to move.
When I saw the way that things had been left, if I may quote a phrase from the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack when he was speaking on this subject, I was filled with some apprehension, and when I saw the list I was filled with more apprehension, and I felt this was a matter that should be reconsidered. In the extraordinary and, if I may say so, wonderful speech that we had from the Woolsack on this subject, we were told really the whole history of the goverment of India from an early date, and when I say an "early date" I mean from 1857 down to the present time. But there was one thing that was omitted, and that was how the White Paper came into existence. The White Paper was brought before another place with the general idea that it was going to be accepted, but it was found apparently that the acceptation of the White Paper was not going to be quite so

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popular as was thought, and the result Ns as that after a short interval of discussion the next thing that came along was this: "Oh, please don't misunderstand us under any circumstances whatever. We are not trying to get you to criticise the baby: we are merely going to ask you to choose the nurse." That was the second attitude adopted in another place, and they chose a nurse, and we are asked to choose a nurse to-day. Let us see whether the nurse is going to be a proper person to do the work. I do not think it is at the present moment.
The noble and learned Viscount who leads the House to my astonishment suggested that the Committee which had been suggested now was the very best for the purpose. I think it is the very worst. What are you doing? You are not asking a Committee to come in from outside to consider this matter, you are asking people who have spoken, given their opinions publicly in this House and in another place and before the public as to what they are pledged to do. And what is the answer? "Oh, well, we have more or less got them divided fairly evenly, although we have seen quite carefully that there is going to be a majority on the Government side, as there is bound to be." What is the meaning of that? Have the Government no courage? Cannot they say whether they want this White Paper or not, without hiding themselves behind the petticoats of a packed Committee that they put in in both Houses? Are they going to the country to say: "We have got the courage to do this." Not a bit of it. If the thing goes right they will say: "Look what we have done." If it goes wrong, they will say: "Oh, it was the Committee." But they make the Committee.
It is a wrong principle from beginning to end to have no courage for what you mean. The Government should not appoint a Committee behind whom they can shelter themselves. You have only to look down the list suggested here. I am not criticising any one of the names. I have no doubt they are perfectly admirable people, but they have all told you what they think. Why are you wasting time? They have given you their report already. They have nothing else to report on. Why waste time by appointing these people here? It is perfectly ridiculous, and I hope the country
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will express itself very strongly on what they consider is a waste of time in asking these people to repeat their speeches. But it goes further. What is going to happen when the Committee come back? We shall have before us every speech that we had before, but we shall be told by the Government: "Oh, no, that is not the noble Lord speaking in the ordinary sense; he has spoken as one of the Committee, and therefore we are bound by what he said, and you must accept this." My Lords, it is a trick, an absolute trick, from beginning to end, and I say, without hesitation, it is meant to be a trick. It is a beautiful trick, if it is allowed to go through.
I ask you to say, by reducing the Committee, that your Lordships mean to have more say in the matter as to who ought to go on this Committee. Why should people go on who have already expressed their views and said they will not be altered in any way? Why should they be put forward for the very admirable work they have done for the nation and the Empire? Nobody suggested they had riot; but because of that they are to go on this Committee and: "We are now going to be the people to criticise what we ourselves have suggested." Sometimes in the Courts we find that a case reaches a point where it is a very excellent thing, and a very advisable thing, to refer some points, or the whole case, to a referee, or a court of referees. Who, before this Government, ever thought of appointing the counsel on each side who have been arguing the case to be the referees and to report on the case If you have an equal number of advocates on each side, of course you get, as the noble and learned Viscount who leads the House suggested, a dog-fight. If you do not, what you will get will be a. foregone conclusion. You have only to look at the list and at what the people on this list have said publicly in this House and elsewhere, to know perfectly well that you have a definite and absolute foregone conclusion of what this Committee is going to report.
For that reason, moving it in this particular way, I ask that this question might be discussed by your Lordships' House with some hope that we might get a different form of Committee. It would be a lamentable thing, considering that

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your Lordships' House consists of, I think, some 700 members, if it were quite impossible that the Government could find from them at least fourteen people who have the ability to understand questions of this kind when they are properly put before them, and who are people whose vote would not be an absolutely foregone conclusion before they have really gone into the question. For those reasons I beg to move the Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Leave out all words after ("That") and insert ("a Committee of twelve Lords be appointed to join with the Committee appointed by the Commons.")—(The Earl of Halsbury.)
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: My Lords, after considerable experience in another place as to the method of appointing Committees I hope your Lordships will allow me to say a few words upon this very important question. If we lose India we shall find ourselves reduced to the position of Spain and Holland, who, when they lost their foreign possessions, became small nations on the Continent of Europe, and we shall become a small island in the North Sea. The loss of India will be far more important than the loss of the Southern part of Ireland, and it is the same people who, when the Irish Treaty was before this House and the House of Commons, told us that the result of the Treaty would be a union of hearts. Mr. Lloyd George—I heard his last words and I have never forgotten them—said:
"By this Treaty we win to our side a nation of deep, abiding and even passionate loyalty. In the future our successes will be their joy and our misfortunes will be their sorrow."
Sir Samuel Hoare, who was sitting by me, cheered that. I took the opposite view.
It is the very people who thought that by the Treaty with Ireland they were going to win a union of hearts who now say that by this White Paper we are going to satisfy something like 300,000,000 of people, the vast majority of whom are so ignorant that they are obliged to have coloured boxes in which to put their votes, an idea, I believe, of the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian. A very clever idea no doubt, but it shows what his opinion is of the people to whom he proposes to trust the government of a
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great country like India. What is this White Paper? We are not asked to set up a Committee to consider the future government of India. We are asked to set up a Committee to deal with a Constitution which has already been set out, and the Committee is set up in the way in which all these Committees are set up. I do not for a moment say that there has been anything different in the way in which this Committee has been set up. I must say I do not quite see what the position of the most rev. Primate is on a civil Committee, especially, as I understand, the religious question is one of the reserved subjects in the White Paper.
But the Committee is being set up. How are Committees set up? In another place they are set up in this way. There is the Opposition—well, we must give a certain number to the Opposition. As a rule it is based upon the number of the Opposition. In this case the Opposition are all in favour of the White Paper, except those who think it does not go far enough. Therefore it is perfectly clear that those members of the Opposition who will become members of the Committee are already committed to the White Paper, and in this case I see, because they are so few in number, a larger proportion than would be given in the ordinary way is given to them. It is rather like Mr. Gladstone who said that Wales, being such a long way from Westminster, ought to have a larger representation, the real reason being, as they were all Liberal, he wanted more Liberals in the House. Now we come to the question of the method in which the Conservatives have been placed upon the Committee. Those of us who have been behind the scenes, as I was in the House of Commons, know perfectly well what happens. I do not say Sir Samuel Hoare, or anybody else said: "Now we must put on so-and-so because he is in our favour," but I noticed in the thirty years I was in the House of Commons that whenever a thing of this kind happened the Government always got a majority on their own side whichever Government was in power.
That being so, what is the position in which we are? We have been told by my noble and learned friend below me—and I am quite certain that he will carry out what he says—that when this Committee has reported we shall be perfectly free No doubt he will say:

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"Your Lordships are perfectly free to do as you like, but you have not heard the evidence; the Committee have heard the evidence; and how can you go against a Committee which has devoted many weeks of labour to the matter? Moreover, do not forget that the Indians will have seen and read the deliberations of the Committee, and if you go against the Committee you will stir up in India a feeling against this country. Therefore the only possible course for you to pursue is to support the Committee." It is as certain as I am standing here that, if not those words, something similar will be said.
Do not let us forget this. The world is composed of wicked people and the idea that if you surrender to a certain person or certain persons and give them something which they are asking for you will earn their eternal gratitude is a mistake. There cannot be a greater mistake. The only result of surrendering is that the people to whom you surrender ask for more. That has always been the case ever since, I. might almost say, the world began. Therefore, my Lords, holding those views, arid believing as I do that unless we are very careful we shall either lose India or have a revolution in India which with our small Army we cannot tackle—it will be very different from the Mutiny; the Indian Army is, I think, larger and has better weapons—I earnestly beseech you to remember that whatever the Committee who have been appointed for a special purpose report, you must hold yourselves free to do what you think right when the Report is before you.
LORD GAINFORD: My Lords, I would like to say one word on this matter because in another place I have been concerned with the appointment of many Committees over a number of years. My experience has been that the Whips on both sides, after consulting their leaders, have not nominated ignorant men who were incompetent to judge the situation, but have nominated men who were competent and had some knowledge of the subject that was to be considered by the Committee. I myself have never been in India and I never thought I could form any opinion in regard to what ought to be the future Constitution of India. I have never expressed an opinion myself, and I believe a great number of
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other members of your Lordships' House, like myself, would not desire to serve on a Committee of the kind we are appointing to-day because we have no knowledge of India which is sufficiently adequate to enable us to form an opinion by sitting on a Committee. What I feel is that the individuals who have been named by the Leader of the House and suggested to your Lordships for appointment are individuals who have knowledge of India and understand India better than anybody else that we could appoint. Your Lordships have accepted the principle of the White Paper and it is now for them, in consultation with any people that they desire to call into consultation, to examine and report on the principles contained in the White Paper. I do not think we could appoint better individuals than those named by the noble and learned Viscount, and I have great pleasure in supporting his Motion.
THE EARL OF GLASGOW: My Lords, perhaps some of your Lordships will think it almost an impertinence that I should get up and address the House on this subject. Many here have great experience of India and Indian affairs. I, having served as a sailor, have hardly any such experience. But surely the setting up of such an important Committee as this is a question which concerns us all. I think it is the aim of the Government—at least they have said so—to set up as far as possible an impartial Committee. It is a very difficult thing to do. Certainly last night in another place an honourable member was able to satisfy that place—judging from the cheers one heard—that lie could produce only one impartial person amongst the whole of those suggested. To-day you have before you the names of those members of your Lordships' House who have been proposed to take part in the deliberations of this Committee. They are all distinguished members of your Lordships' House who have rendered valuable service to the Crown in various capacities in many parts of the world. Therefore in their individual positions no one could take exception to their being included as members of the Committee, but I venture to suggest that some of them have already committed themselves deeply on the main principles of the White Paper, and by their past acts and utterances are bound hand and foot to the proposals of the White Paper and are evidently pre-

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pared to see them carried out practically in their entirety. For that reason I welcome the Amendment of the noble Earl in the hope that some of the noble Lords who have so committed themselves will perhaps be precluded from taking part in the work of the Committee which, to my mind, should be, as far as possible, an impartial Committee, so constituted that members of opposing views may be equally distributed. I therefore support the noble Earl.
LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE: My Lords, it was at my suggestion that the noble and learned Viscount the Leader of the House gave three days to the Indian debate. I think now that he ought to have made it four days because there seem to have been some undelivered speeches suitable for that debate which we have heard this afternoon. The noble Earl who moved the Amendment and the noble Lord, Lord Banbury, seemed to be making speeches against the White Paper and against the setting up of a Committee. I thought that the question of setting up a Committee had been settled and that we had already agreed to that. I only desire to make two comments on the list. I appreciate the extraordinary difficulty the Secretary of State and the Leader of the House have had in making up this list. It is perfectly impossible to please everybody and it is the people you leave out who always make the trouble. There are two points to which I should like to draw attention.
The noble Lord, Lord Banbury, said that the Labour Party were committed to this White Paper. They are not committed at all to this White Paper. The abandonment of the idea of proportional representation on this Committee was, I think, quite right. If there had been proportional representation so far as this House is concerned we should not have had one member. We should have had a very low decimal part of a member. It was perfectly right that that idea should be abandoned. But I do think that the point which I emphasised the other day ought to have been taken further into account. As time passes it is a Labour Government that is going to have the responsibility perhaps of passing the Bill, anyhow of trying to see that this great scheme works. For that reason it seems to me that greater representation should have been given to the Opposition,
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especially in your Lordships' House where we have only one member on the Committee. It seems rather hard that he should be isolated in that way. The other passing comment I would make on the list is that I think if your Lordships look through the list you will see that the age average is very high. Considering the importance of the question and considering that it is likely to be with us for many years to come, I think we might have had a younger member on that Committee, especially as one of the members of your Lordships' House, the noble Marquess, Lord Dufferin, has proved himself so very well versed in the subject But I certainly shall not support the Amendment before your Lordships now.
LORD PHILLIMORE: My Lords, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Banbury, I have never been behind the scenes and I never expect to be there, but I would like to make one comment from the point of view of a member of your Lordships' House who is anxious to he instructed, and did not know very much about India to start with. It seems to me that the advocates of the White Paper made an unexpectedly powerful case during the three days' debate. That being so, I should have thought it would have been the intention that that case should stand on its own merits, to be examined by a Committee which would have been composed—I do not say entirely of non-experts, but certainly with a larger proportion of persons who had not already committed themselves to the principles of the White Paper. If the case is so good, as it certainly sounded to me, why should it not be examined by a more impartial body—you cannot get a wholly impartial body—and if such an examination were granted, and I think we were all led to suppose such an examination was to be granted, would not the nation, as a whole, be more satisfied with the result?
LORD LLOYD: My Lords, before I make any observations on the Amendment I should like to take this opportunity, if I may, to say a few words in explanation of the reasons why I was unable to accept the invitation given to me by His Majesty's Government to join the Select Committee. I need not say I looked upon that invitation as a very great honour and I did not make the

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decision I did make without the gravest heart searching and the most careful consideration and consultation. My main reason was that I consider, rightly or wrongly, the whole procedure adopted by the Government to be highly improper and wrong. The position surely is perfectly plain. We all of us—every one in this House, I think—accepted the Act of 1919. We are all of us acting under it and guided by it, and our procedure should flow from the terms of that Act and nothing else. Your Lordships will remember that under the Act we were bound to send out a Parliamentary Commission to report upon what, if any, progress was made after a decennial period in the grant of self-governing institutions to India. It seems to me to follow, as night follows day, that the Report we should be considering to-day, and the Joint Select Committee should be considering to-day, is that Report of the Royal Commission sent out under the Act of 1919 and no other Report at all.
We have never had the smallest valid explanation from His Majesty's Government as to why that Report was jettisoned. The only reason given was that it was not palatable to Indian political opinion. But if that reason were valid for the rejection of so weighty a document us the Simon Commission Report, is it not valid as regards the White Paper which has been rejected by all public opinion in India to-day? Yet we are pursuing this unprecedented procedure and I, in however humble a capacity, thought we were bound to protest in some manner or other against this gross departure from all constitutional practice. Strongly though I feel on the impropriety of the Government's conduct and deplore its results, which I think very grave, if I had had any reason to suppose that my presence on the Committee could have served to deflect the Government from the pursuit of their main principles of policy my whole desire was to join that Committee, composed of so many with such great knowledge, and it is naturally a grievous disappointment from a personal point of view to have had to make the decision I did. It is improper to discuss private conversations, but I may say that I did the best I could to ascertain from those qualified to inform me whether there was any hope that the main prin-
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ciples of Government policy could really be altered. It was obvious they could not. His Majesty's Government are pledged completely to the main principle, to which I took grave objection, of the simultaneous grant of responsibility at the Centre and in the Provinces. They are pledged to Indians and the public and they are bound to go ahead.
I am not going to use any hard words about "packed Committees." Everybody must realise the extraordinarily difficult task of the Secretary of State in setting up a Committee of this kind and everybody must recognise also that by long tradition the Government have every right to have a majority on such a. Committee. But I would echo the words of my noble friend who has just sat down. A strong case, if it be strong—I. do not think this is—is gravely weakened by setting up a Committee so overweighted—not with prejudiced people; we do not complain; we do not call them impartial in any rude sense, but they are people who agree with the main principle of the Government's policy; and to have so many, and such an overwhelming majority, of noble Lords and of those in another place who are, to that extent, pledged to the policy of the Government, is, I think, a grave misfortune for the policy itself and diminishes very much the weight and authority of the Committee.
It was seen in another place yesterday how strong is the feeling on this question. I do not want to make too much of the combination of majorities that walk through Lobbies, but it is a fact that no less than two-thirds of the Conservative Party either refrained from voting or voted against the personnel of this Committee. I think it is a very bad start for the Committee. I feel we really have some complaint about the attitude of the Secretary of State in the last few months. Those of us who have a sincere and profound objection to the policy of the Government have been cajoled and told, from this Conference to that, that nothing we agreed to now would bind us in the future. The noble and learned Viscount who leads the House—and here I should like to refer to Lord Gainford's remark, which I think must have been a slip, that your Lordships had agreed to the White Paper policy, for I do not remember this House ever having agreed to it—in a debate

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which lasted three days last December besought the House in general terms to pass his Motion because we were to be absolutely free to decide on policy in the future, because all we were doing was giving our sanction to further exploration in this matter.
We have been led on and, as my noble friend Lord Banbury said, we can see absolutely for certain what is coming in a few months. I make no doubt that with the great expert knowledge of this Committee there will be dangers that will be averted and modifications made of great value; but do you believe for a moment that the main principles which are laid down in the White Paper will not be defended by the Government, and that then they will not come round to us and say: "Here are we pledged to this policy, here is a majority Report of your expert Committee, and here we are with Indians present as assessors to whom virtual pledges have been made"? I can imagine no greater danger, and no greater harm to the confidence reposed in your Lordships' House, if you are going to take the responsibility of going back on the decision made by the Joint Committee. Where is this to stop? I shall never, I suppose, have the satisfaction of knowing whether my decision is right or wrong—I can only do the best I can on each occasion—but I honestly believe that we are being led step by step, by these easy phrases and assurances, to the brink of a very grave and dangerous calamity. Again, I do not want to use hard words, and I will only ask for your Lordships' indulgence while I say that I did not refuse membership in any light-hearted manner, but because I thought, as one who had always opposed this policy on principle, that if I was sure my presence could not alter that principle I had better stay away, rather than join the Committee and he involved in its deliberations.
On the question of the Amendment itself I know it will be argued that if such an Amendment were carried in this House the numbers from this House would be inferior to those from another place. I think that would be regrettable —most things about this policy are regrettable—but my noble friend has, I believe, moved this Amendment in the hope that at the last moment, at any rate, three or four of those who are most pledged to complete support of the Gov-
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ernment's policy might retire, and that therefore the total members of the Joint Select Committee would give a little less weightage to the supporters of the Government and a little greater opportunity for free criticism in this Select Committee. It does not very much matter whether the members are Peers or Commoners, as regards our deliberations, but the point is the combined feeling and activities of the Committee. I do not know whether my noble friend is likely to go to a Division, but as a matter of protest, and for the reasons that I have given, I shall support him if he thinks it necessary to do so.
VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER: My Lords, your Lordships have listened with your accustomed patience to a variety of speeches which have had but little to do with the Amendment before the House. It is quite plain that notwithstanding the fact that the debate upon this White Paper flowed in full volume through three days debate in this House, it has yet dribbled and overflowed into to-day. The noble Lord who has just sat clown spoke of personal matters, upon which we are only too glad to hear him, but his speech, so far as it related to the Motion, was confined to a few sentences, and those few were not a little startling. It was to this effect, that in order to secure fairness upon this Committee you should require certain people, who hold strong views about the White Paper, to offer their retirement and not to appear. That surely is the strangest method of obtaining fair and independent investigation of this matter.
If there be anyone who can suggest that there are other and better names than those which are before us I shall be glad to hear those names, but up to this moment there has been no one who has suggested that there was anything wrong in the names before us, excepting only this, that they were of men who by their long experience knew more about the matter than anybody else. Is that to be a reason why they should be excluded from a Committee which by its very nature and essence must he a Committee that knows what it is dealing with, and the nature and character, by personal contact, of the people for whom they are legislating? No one has suggested that any name should be added or struck out, and I cannot help thinking that it is a

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matter greatly to be regretted that noble Lords are unable to accept the defeat of their own personal opinions on the Motion to refer the White Paper to a Joint Committee, and should attempt to revive again a question on which a decision was come to without a Division.
LORD AMPTHILL: My Lords, I am not acting with the mover of the Amendment, nor have I had any conversation with him, but I feel obliged to associate myself with him in order to show that I cannot approve of the Committee that has been proposed, and that I do not wish to be held in any way committed to voting for the policy which they may ultimately recommend. I do beg to advise your Lordships who wish to reserve judgment on this vitally important question of the future government of India, to take the same step, in order to show that you do not wish to be committed in any way until the real Bill is before you. We are being led, stage, by stage, to a position in which we shall ultimately be told that we are committed to anything which the Joint Select Committee may propose. We shall be told, in effect, that we have submitted the matter to arbitration, that we have agreed to that, and that therefore we are bound to submit to that arbitration. That is what I think is unfair, and I am grateful to the noble Earl for having done something to enable some of us to show that we do not intend to be committed in that way.
I fully agree as to the eminent and high qualifications of those nominated by the Government. I admit that if you wish to choose sixteen of the most eminent and brilliantly qualified members of this House you could not make a better selection. They are the best members that we have got, and are men of fine achievement and reputation. They are also, I agree, experts, but you do not want experts for a Committee of this kind. You are making these experts judges in their own cause. That is what you should always avoid. The way to use experts in every walk of life is to call them into consultation and weigh the opinion of one expert against that of another, for which purpose you want men of ordinary common sense and sound judgment. I think that this. Committee is unduly weighted in favour of the Government, and that is not what we were led to expect by any previous statement on the part of
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Ministers. I shall therefore certainly associate myself with the noble Earl, and if he goes to a Division I shall vote for his Amendment in order to make it perfectly clear that I do not feel that I am committed in any way to the decisions which this Joint Committee may ultimately place before us.
THE EARL OF MIDLETON: My Lords, I cannot help thinking from the discussions we have had that there are one or two points on which we are not quite clear. The assumption is made that the Government will go into the Committee on the White Paper, if your Lordships approve of the Committee as it stands, pledged to support the White Paper and to drive it through, whatever the opinions of other members of the Committee may be. Surely, that is not the position at all. If your Lordships held that they objected to the White Paper we ought all to have gone into the Lobby against the White Paper. What I understand is the decision of this House I understand also to be the position of the Government. You have had Commission after Commission and Committee after Committee, and as the result of all those deliberations the White Paper at this moment holds the field.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: No.
THE EARL OF MIDLETON: I beg pardon. The noble Earl contradicts me, but the fact remains that as the result of the deliberations of these Committees the White Paper is put forward and holds the field as representing the deliberations of these Committees, but, as I understand, it is to be honestly put before this new and very strong Committee, not with the intention of arriving at a mass vote for the Government on every aspect of the provisions, but as a general guidance to what in their view the Committee should aim at.
There is one other consideration which has not been mentioned. There has been much forceful argument against the inclusion of those who, nobody denies, have got the longest and, in the case of those who have sat on previous Committees, the most recent experience of this question. I do not believe you will ever get Committees to sit again or eminent men to sit on them for weeks and months together if the result of a conclusion arrived at by one Committee is that those

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who have arrived at it are to be excluded from further participation. In the case of this House that would be the snore remarkable because nearly all those who have been put on who may be supposed to support the White Paper, are men of long experience of India, who have themselves criticised the White Paper in this debate. I would appeal to the Government to make it quite clear before we go to a Division that they are not going into this Committee with the intention of driving through the White Paper as it stands now, but that they should keep an open mind to the arguments of a very large body of experience which they will have beside them. I earnestly hope that my noble friend who leads the House will leave us in no doubt as to the attitude of the Government in that respect.
LORD MOUNT TEMPLE: My Lords, may I recall to your Lordships' recollection what the Amendment is on which you are going to vote? It is that the number of members of the House who are to sit on the Joint Committee shall be reduced from sixteen to twelve. I do not think it desirable at all that your Lordships' representation on the Joint Committee should be twelve whereas that of the House of Commons is sixteen. No one in the debate has criticised any name put forward by the Government. Every speaker has borne testimony to the long service and ability of those sixteen members. It seems to me absurd and wrong for us to put forward twelve members whereas the House of Commons has sixteen, and that we should have the invidious task of eliminating four members of your Lordships' House from the sixteen names put before you.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, as has been pointed out more than once in the course of this discussion a great deal of the argument which has been brought forward has been wholly irrelevant to the subject matter of the Amendment. The subject matter of the Amendment is whether or not we shall contribute sixteen members to join with the sixteen members of the House of Commons who have already been appointed, or whether we should content ourselves with twelve. The only answer that has been given to that somewhat startling disparity is that suggested by my noble friend Lord Lloyd, who said that perhaps some of the people in another place would resign
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their membership of the Committee if they saw that we have only twelve—I think a somewhat fantastic hope if he will forgave me for saying so.
For the rest, the greater part of the attack has been made by people who are avowedly hostile to the whole policy of the Government, and their attack has been based upon the assumption that we are now debating whether or not a Committee shall be set up. That was decided last week, and they did not then even challenge a Division—even those who have criticisms to offer on the proposals of the Government. None of them suggested that we should not join in the Committee, and indeed I think I am right in saying that they all urged that we ought to join the Committee and that that was obviously and manifestly our duty. I remember that the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, expressly said that we should join the Committee. Therefore, it having been decided by this House that we should join the Committee, we are now asked to decide that we should only have twelve out of twenty-eight members because some members of your Lordships' House do not like the proposals of the White Paper. It does seem to me the height of illogicality.
My noble friend Lord Midleton asked a question which I am grateful to him for putting. He asked me whether or not it was the fact, as the noble Lords, Lord Halsbury and Lord Banbury, assume, that the Government were going to drive the proposals of the White Paper through regardless of what is said in Committee and regardless of the advice and arguments put forward. It has been stated quite explicitly before, and I beg to reiterate now, that the Government do not propose to drive the proposals through because they happen to be in the White Paper. The reason why we have invited representatives of every section in this House and in the country to take part in these deliberations is that we want to get the best possible advice and the best possible opinion from every point of view. We want to get each of these proposals discussed, criticised and examined from every point of view, and we hope that when we have got that examination completed we may be able to reach a scheme which is workable, fair and beneficial both to India and to this country.

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It is no good my saying that to Lord Halsbury Lord Halsbury is good enough to tell me that we are trying to shelter behind the petticoats of a packed Committee. If your Lordships look at the sixteen names, shat is what Lord Halsbury calls a packed Committee. I regard that as an insult to these men whose names appear there. But he did not rest content with that. He said the Motion to set up the Committee was a trick and was meant to be a trick. I have only to say that that observation is offensive and is meant to be offensive. I am not in the habit of being accused of trying to trick either the House of Lords or any other assembly with which I have had to do. If anyone believes that I am capable of that kind of conduct let him by all means vote against the Motion. We do not want his vote. If you believe that we are tricksters trying to trick this House, and that I as the Leader of this House have come down here trying to trick this House, you will vote against the Motion. We ought not to occupy our position for a moment if that were so. But I do not believe that that offensive observation and attitude of the noble Earl are accepted even by those who agree with him in disliking the policy of the Government. I do not believe that that view of the Government or the Government's policy is held by anybody else except the noble Earl, who seems to have brought his recollections of stories of low-class attorneys into the atmosphere of the House of Lords.
I do not desire to deal with the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, any further. I only desire to say with regard to others that Lord Ampthill expressed his opinion in no uncertain language in the original debate. He dislikes the proposals of the White Paper and he believes they are wrong. That is a point of view which I can understand and respect. I am glad that some of those who share his doubts are accepting membership of the Committee and will be able to express those doubts and discuss them thoroughly. But I do hope and believe that the Committee are going to discuss all these proposals, with an earnest desire on the part of the members frankly arid completely to state their own point of view, to discuss and to hear what is said on the other side, and, if possible, to reach an agreed solution of these difficulties, or, if not an
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agreed solution, at any rate to reach such measure of agreement as may be possible in order that the best possible Constitution may be set up.
I desire only to say one word in answer to Lord Phillimore. He asked: Why not put on the Committee people who are impartial? Well, apart altogether from the fact that the general practice with Committees of this character has been to put people on who take both sides and are able to express both points of view, there is this outstanding difficulty in the present case, that you are dealing here with vital matters affecting our great Dependency, the Empire of India. If we are going to get people to form a just judgment about the proposals, I think it is essential that they should mainly consist of people who have had practical experience of India, Indian conditions and Indian life, and have made a study of it, and if you are going to get people who know anything about India it is almost impossible to get people who have no opinion as to the provisions of the White Paper.
As to the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, he has given his own explanation of why he did not wish to serve. I do not agree with him as to the reasons why there was a change in regard to the Simon Report. They are not the reasons stated by Sir John Simon or by the Government. As Lord Lloyd has told your Lordships, arid as he has written to the Press, we invited him to serve. We profoundly regret his decision not to serve, but, although he has refused to serve, I am sure the considerations he urges and holds with such conviction will have the careful and honest consideration of His Majesty's Government.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: My Lords, in rising to reply on the Amendment, on which I certainly propose to go to a Division, I have two observations to make. I think one may answer both criticisms which have been made by the noble and learned Viscount who leads the House and also by the noble and learned Viscount who sits opposite. It is suggested first of all that I have said nothing in criticism of any particular member of the Committee suggested, nor have I suggested any member who might be put on in place of another. It was never my intention to do either of these things. The first I should have thought was ex-

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tremely invidious, and the second I am perfectly certain I should not be in a position to do. If your Lordships would condescend to look at the original Amendment I put down, and which after consultation I have altered, you will see that the last thing I was suggesting was anything to do with the appointment of any member of the Committee. My objection to it was not from any individual point of view but, as the noble and learned Viscount who leads the House knows perfectly well, was to the fact that the majority of these people have spoken publicly in favour of the White Paper.
He has said that the Government never meant to drive through the White Paper. Of course they did not, but from the very moment it was received as it was in another place they had to go to a Committee. They knew they had to go to Committee, and the next thing to do was to appoint a Committee which would have a majority that would carry their views. I am not withdrawing one single word of what I said. The noble and learned Viscount may make any sneer he chooses about "low attorneys" or anything he likes. The country may possibly judge that these practices have been adopted not by me but by the Government. That will be for the country to decide. I am withdrawing not one word of what I said. What has happened here is what I said before. The Government brought in this White Paper into the House of Commons, and it was not well received from the first. What did they do? They said: "Oh we will send it to a Committee." Now, look at the names of the Committee, and put that
against the names of the people who have definitely said that they were pledged to the White Paper, and see how many you have got. See what majority the Government know they must get.
They may get one or two little odds and ends altered, but the general principle of the White Paper, which is what the noble and learned Viscount has talked about, is the principle which the Government brought forward and which they are putting through in this way. I say it is a matter that your Lordships ought to consider whether or not, in accepting a Committee of this kind, you should accept this great majority of your Lordships' House who have spoken publicly for what the Government desire. I have only one other thing to say. The noble and learned Viscount who leads the House was good enough to say: "Oh, well, it was agreed we should go to a Committee on this White Paper. Why was not anything said then?" I will tell your Lordships why. For one reason, we thought we should have a better Committee than this appointed, and, when it comes to the question of whether we accepted the general question of the White Paper, I say we did not, because the Government did not dare to put it before us. It is for that reason that I ask your Lordships to say that the present constitution of the Committee ought to be revised.
On Question, Whether the words proposed to be left out shall stand part of the Motion?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 65; Not-Contents, 13.

CONTENTS

Sankey, V. (L. Chancellor.)

Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.)

Desart, L. (E. Desart.)

Ernle, L.

Wellington, D.

Brentford, V.

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

Bridgeman, V.

Gainford, L.

Bath, M.

Buckmaster, V.

Greville, L.

Dufferin and Ava, M.

Cecil of Chelwood, V.

Hardinge of Penshurst, L.

Reading, M.

Esher, V.

Hay, L. (E. Kinnoull.)

Zetland, M.

Hailsham, V.

Howard of Penrith, L.

Ullswater, V.

Hutchison of Montrose, L.

Dudley, E.

Irwin, L.

Iddesleigh, E.

Rochester, L. Bp.

Jessel, L.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Ker, L. (M. Lothian.)

Lytton, E.

Askwith, L.

Marks, L.

Midleton, E.

Bayford, L.

Marley, L.

Munster, E.

Chesham, L.

Melchett, L.

Onslow, E.

Clanwilliam, L. (E. ClanWilliam.)

Mendip, L. (V. Clifden.)

Plymouth, E.

Mount Temple, L.

Rothes, E.

Clwyd, L.

O'Hagan, L.

Sandwich, E.

Conway of Allington, L.

Passfield, L.

Stanhope, E.

Danesfort, L.

Phillimore, L.

Strafford, E.

Darling, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Rathcreedan, L.

Sinclair, L.

Tenterden, L.

Rhayader, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Teynham, L.

Rochester, L.

Wharton, L.

Templemore, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Argyll, D.

Ampthill, L.

Fairfax of Cameron, L.

Banbury of Southam, L. [Teller.]

Lloyd, L.

Halsbury, E. [Teller.]

Monkswell, L.

Morton, E.

Berwick, L.

Redsdale, L.

Carrington, L.

Sempill, L.

Bertie of Thame, V.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Resolved in the affirmative and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The Question is that the Motion be agreed to.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I did not quite understand the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack. He did not put the main question, did he?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes. I put the question, That the Motion be agreed to.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I believe my noble friend Lord Rankeillour has something to say on the Motion.
LORD RANKEILLOUR: My Lords, I was waiting to see whether any other noble Lord wished to speak on the names or any other subject connected with this Motion. The point that I think it may be convenient to raise now is one of importance, though it is not controversial. If noble Lords will turn to the first page of the White Paper they will see it is there announced—or rather those who read it are warned that the language of the White Paper is not the language that will be found in any Statute that may finally be passed as a result of the White Paper, and it is pointed out that many things may have to appear in the Bill if and when it is brought in which do not appear in the White Paper. I cannot help submitting that that is a fact which brings with it very great disadvantages. In the first place it is quite obvious that there are many gaps and omissions in the White Paper that will have to be filled, but, even apart from that, the very fact of its being couched in different language from that of a Statute may lead to great difficulties even where the intention and object is perfectly clear. It is only when you attempt to draft a measure that you find all the difficulties that emerge, and all the reactions that are caused by your proposals. The effects are very often in
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terms you were never acquainted with before.
I remember very well a Bill of first importance being introduced in another place, and it was my duty as Chairman to see to its passage through Committee. The first and pivotal clause was perfectly hopeless, and when representatives of the Government came to ask me how long it would be before it could get through it was my duty to tell them that it could not get through at all unless they recast it from top to bottom. A little later it was revealed to me that this was the fifth, if not the sixth, draft of the Bill, that all the others had been rejected by the Committee that was preparing the Bill, and that they had put in the sixth or the seventh sample because time pressed and they had to put in something. Therefore it was only at the sixth or seventh attempt that we were able to get anything workable. Yet their intention was perfectly clear, and if their intention had been set forth in a White Paper everyone who agreed with the general policy would have accepted it.
I quote this as showing what the difficulties are between intention and effect. And if this is true of any Bill it is particularly true, I should say, of a Bill that may be founded on the White Paper. In other Bills very often a great part of previous legislation is incorporated in a block, but in this case you have to build from the very foundations, and it is essential that what you are proposing should be absolutely clear and defined. What I fear may happen is this. The Committee may or may not come to some measure of agreement. If they come to some measure of agreement it will have to be put into statutory form, but when it appears in statutory form it may very likely happen that those who thought they were agreed will find that they were not agreed at all. If

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that is so, there will be recriminations and charges of breach of faith, and so on. What I venture to suggest to the Government is that they should from the first attach one of the panel of Parliamentary Counsel to the Treasury. It seems to me that the object in view cannot be attained otherwise. It is quite impossible to expect the ordinary staff of a Select Committee to do drafting work, but if the Committee have a Government draftsman from the first who will, if they wish, put some or all of the Government proposals into proper form and also put into proper form any amendment of the Government proposals that may be suggested in the Committee, then it will be possible for the Committee to know exactly where they stand. Otherwise I foresee grave difficulties. It is not a matter that is inseparable from the Motion, but I hope the Government will give attention to it.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My. Lords, perhaps your Lordships will allow me to say a few words following the observations of my noble friend who has just sat down. I do not wish to deal with the same point, although I have every reason to believe what he said was well founded and I hope the Government may consider it favourably. The point I want to call attention to is the clause in the Question put from the Woolsack which prescribes that the Joint Committee shall have power to join to themselves a certain body of Indian representatives who shall sit with them.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: That is not in the Motion. That was in last week's Motion.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: There is power to call into consultation, is there not? Perhaps I have misquoted. I had better read the exact words.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: You are referring to the words of the Message. They are not the words of the Motion.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I am obliged to my noble and learned friend, but at any rate what is suggested is that there should be power for this Committee to add Indian representatives in some form or other. That I believe is a wholly new precedent, and although that does not mean that it is necessarily bad yet it does mean that we ought to be very careful about the conditions which are
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attached to the precedent. I am a little afraid that a certain misconception may arise both perhaps in this country and in India unless the matter is made a little more clear than it is at present. These gentlemen will come here in pursuance of a promise which I think was made by my noble friend to-night—or at any rate it was said in another place—and in pursuance of a promise made years ago by the noble Earl, Lord Birkenhead, at an earlier stage of these discussions. I recognise that that is so and I am not here in any way to oppose the appointment of these gentlemen. Although, as I have said, this seems to be a new precedent and new precedents contain certain dangers, yet it is highly probable that these gentlemen may be very useful to the Joint Committee in giving advice upon technical matters of which they are masters and also upon the state of Indian opinion or sections of Indian opinion which no doubt will be represented amongst them.
But in what capacity will they sit? They will not be members of the Committee—obviously not. They will have no responsibility. The responsibility of the discussions and the conclusions will rest upon the members of the Committee—members, that is to say, of either the House of Commons or your Lordships' House. No responsibility will rest upon these gentlemen. That being so, the question is: Where will they come in? They will, I suppose, sit with the Committee at the beginning and give the Committee the best advice they can, but when we want to decide anything in the course of our deliberations—I say our deliberations because your Lordships have been good enough to propose me a member of the Committee—what part are these gentlemen expected to play in that part of our duties? The ordinary practice of Select Committees is that that part of their duty is done in private. Evidence is not always but generally taken in public; but the deliberations of the Committee are usually in private. Who will be present then? I can conceive that it might be very inconvenient to have these Indian gentlemen present. Let me say at once that my observations are riot intended to be in the least disrespectful to these Indian gentlemen. I should say exactly the same thing in reference to

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Englishmen who were not members of the Committee: It would be very inconvenient for them to be present—for people not responsible to hear all the discussions, which must, to some extent, and indeed ought to a great extent, to be free. Do not let anyone say that I have spoken without proper regard to the feelings of our Indian fellow subjects. That is not the point. The point is that to have strangers present as of right would lead to a very difficult position. I should like to hear from the Government, as they have a very large majority on the Committee, what their view is as to the position in that respect of the Indian representatives.
Then comes the question of evidence. Here, I admit, I am upon very difficult ground, but it is necessary just to touch upon it. When we hear evidence we shall want to hear the truth. How shall we most certainly get the truth? It is not always very easy to get the truth in evidence. I speak in the presence of many noble and learned Lords who have spent their lives in trying to get the truth in evidence. It is not easy, and I think I may say that in the case of Orientals it is more difficult than in the case of Westerners. It depends upon traditions and up-bringing and environment into which I need not go now. But so it is. It may be necessary therefore for the evidence, if it is to be anything like the truth, to be heard in private—in camera I believe is the proper phrase. I should like to receive from the Government an assurance that if it be necessary —it may not be necessary, and I do not want to anticipate any decision; but if it be necessary, in the opinion of a substantial body of the Committee that evidence should be heard in private, the Government will not set themselves against it. After all, the Government must be anxious to get the truth as far as it can be got. They also, I am sure, will desire to carry with them as far as they can all their colleagues on the Committee. I am quite certain no one would say that more readily than my noble and learned friend who leads the House. In those circumstances I suggest that if a substantial body of opinion in the Committee desires to hear evidence in camera, the Government will consider that suggestion. I put this forward because it is really necessary that there should be an
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understanding beforehand. We do not want charges of breach of faith made in England or in India. Let us have nothing of that kind. Therefore I very humbly suggest to His Majesty's Government at this, the earliest moment at which I could properly mention it, that they give favourable consideration to this matter.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, in view of what has fallen from the noble Marquess, may I suggest that surely it is not for the Government to tell us what is going to happen on the Committee? Why should the Government policy be asked for on this question?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Because they command a very large majority.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: I do not know exactly what the noble Marquess means by that. For example, I do not know whether he would consider that I belong to the Government majority. I may agree with much that has been said, and I have expressed my views very frankly to the House, but it does not follow that I should agree with the Government. I think the difficulties put by the noble Marquess are real. They are matters we shall have to consider, but surely it is not suggested that the Government, either now or at any time, are going to lay down to us the policy that we as a Committee are to adopt. No doubt they will give us a lead in Committee, but I should strongly object to sitting on a Committee where I am intending to give the best of my judgment and intelligence to the consideration of all matters that come before it, if the Government are to tell me beforehand that I am to agree to some particular plan. As I understand there would be no shadow of doubt about this. Lord Birkenhead, when Secretary of State, announced definitely that this was to happen, and it has always been said—not the other clay, but always—that when this matter had been discussed at the Round-Table Conference it would come before a Joint Select Committee and that the Joint Select Committee would have to determine it. The only observation that I make with regard to it is to ask the Government, after what the noble Marquess has said, whether it is intended that this Committee is in any way to be bound by

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any view the Government put except as an indication of opinion on which the Committee will be entirely free to choose its own course after hearing everything there is to be said?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Rankeillour, who said it was desirable that a draftsman should be attached to the Committee, I do not quite know at what stage it would be useful to have a draftsman or whether, inasmuch as they are not apparently going to produce a Bill but to make a Report, a draftsman would be desirable. But I am sure that if the Committee reached the conclusion that the assistance of a draftsman was desirable, there would be every readiness in the Government to concur in that view and to assist the Committee in any way in its power—which is its only object and purpose.
With regard to the questions of the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, the reason I ventured to demur a little to his description of the terms of the Resolution is that the question as to the calling into consultation of Indians does not arise on this Motion at all, 'nut forms part of the Motion carried last week. That Motion was:
"That, before Parliament is asked to take a decision upon the proposals contained in Command Paper 4268, it is expedient that a Joint Select Committee of Lords and Commons, with power to call into consultation representatives of the Indian States and of British India…"
and so on. What the noble Marquess was quoting was the Resolution which both Houses have adopted. All we are trying to do to-day is to name the Lords who a-re to form the Committee.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Perhaps it is going rather too far to be rigid about order in your Lordships' House, but may I suggest that as the words in question form part of the Notice my observation would be strictly relevant?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I have no objection to answering any question and I only wish to indicate that the matter of calling in Indian representatives was disposed of last week. My noble friend now puts a series of questions as to the exact part the Indians are expected to play. He asked whether they would vote. Obviously nobody can vote on the Com-
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mittee except the members of the Committee and therefore I think I can definitely say that the Indians cannot vote because it would be contrary to the Parliamentary doctrine that nobody should vote on a Joint Committee except the appointed members of the Committee. Then he put a series of questions—I may say very important questions—as to what part they would take in the deliberations—whether they would be present during the discussion of the Report, whether they would be present throughout the taking of evidence, and matters of that kind; and he pressed me to say that if there was a substantial feeling in the Committee in favour of one procedure the Government would do their best to facilitate it.
Those matters really are matters which the Committee will have to decide for themselves. The Government do not wish to impose on the Committee an obligation to have a greater amount of assistance and collaboration from the Indians the Committee invite than the Committee desire, and the Government would be very sorry to do anything which would hamper the deliberations or check the evidence before the Committee. Whther or not the difficulties my noble friend foresees will actually arise depends, I think, a good deal on the nature of the evidence which is called and the line the Committee determine to take. All I desire to say, so far as the Government are concerned, is that we do not want to compel the Committee or drive the Committee into doing anything, but only that the Committee shall decide for themselves these matters, taking into account such statements as have been made in past years, so that the Committee on the one hand shall do nothing to disappoint any expectations which have been legitimately raised and on the other hand certainly do nothing to hamper their own labours in arriving at the best solutions.
I do not think I can usefully say more. If I were to say more on behalf of the Government, and indeed without any authority from the Secretary of State who cannot communicate with me just at this moment, I should be, I think, rather hampering than helping the Committee in reaching a decision because when it meets to-morrow, as I understand it will, or as soon after as it gets

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to effective work, I am sure the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, will raise the questions he has raised to-day and the Committee will consider how far it is desirable to make up its mind at once or to wait a little to see how the matter develops. The Committee will, after considering all the pros and cons, reach its own conclusion and I am sure will desire to avail itself of the Indians it invites, assuming it does invite them, as much as it can, and will not on the other hand want to do anything which will prevent it from reaching the real facts or making the most useful Report to Parliament. I do not think I can usefully say more, not because I do not want to help the noble Marquess, but because I do not want to incur any risk of allegation of breaches of faith or misunderstandings which would be unfortunate if they arose hereafter in any quarter of the House.
Ordered, That such Committee have Power to agree with the Committee of the Commons in the appointment of a Chairman: Then a Message was ordered to be sent to the Commons to inform them of the appointment of the said Committee by this House and to propose that the Joint Committee do meet in Committee Room A, to-morrow at three o'clock.

RUSSIAN GOODS (IMPORT PROHIBITION) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
VISCOUNT HAILEHAM: My Lords, before I move the Second Reading of this Bill I am asked to mention that my noble friend Lord Danesfort has, I understand, made up his mind that the Performing Animals (Regulation) Amendment Bill will not be taken this evening, and is postponed till Thursday, May 4. I believe some of your Lordships who are largely interested in that Bill will like to have that information, although I hope we may have the benefit of their attendance during the discussion of this Bill. The Motion I have to bring forward is for the Second Reading of the Russian Goods (Import Prohibition) Bill. I have thought, that the best way in which I can explain the case to your Lordships, and I am afraid I must take a little time for that purpose, as the matter
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is of great importance, would be to reverse the usual order of things, and first of all to tell your Lordships what the Bill does and then, when I have explained the provisions of the Bill, to explain in some little detail the circumstances which, in the opinion of the Government, render it necessary for us to ask the House to pass the Bill through all its stages this afternoon.
The Bill by its first subsection provides that:
"It shall be lawful by Proclamation to prohibit the importation into the United Kingdom of all goods whatsoever grown, produced or manufactured in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or of any class or description of such goods specified in the Proclamation."
This, as your Lordships will observe, does not impose any prohibition of any kind at all, but gives power to the Government, if the Government see fit to exercise it. In subsection (2) there is a provision which places goods so prohibited in the same category as goods prohibited under any other Act of Parliament, which is a usual provision where such a Proclamation takes place. Then, in subsection (3), there is a provision as to proof of the origin of goods. In subsection (4) there is a provision as to goods which have been partly manufactured within the Soviet Union and partly manufactured outside it, and such goods are entitled to be exempt from the prohibition if 25 per cent. or more of their value is attributable to processes of manufacture which the goods have undergone since they last left the Soviet Union. Both those provisions are taken from other Acts of Parliament dealing with similar subject matter. Subsection (5) exempts the entrepôt trade. Subsection (6) gives power to revoke or vary a Proclamation by a subsequent Proclamation, and subsection (7) provides that a Proclamation under this Act shall only be valid for three months, unless during the continuance of those three months a Resolution is passed by each House of Parliament asking that the Proclamation shall continue in force.
Clause 2 is declaratory in form, because it probably is the law that where there are goods prohibited by Proclamation His Majesty can, by licence, authorise the importation of goods. Clause 3 provides for relief in case of non-fulfilment of any contracts due to the existence of the Proclamation. This is to deal with the

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somewhat tangled skein of case law which grew up during the War, as to how far the interference with trade constituted a good defence or the frustration of the contract sc as to render it impossible of fulfilment. Clause 4 states the short title and fixes the date on which the Act shall come into operation—namely, the 18th of April, 1933. The reason that day is chosen is that the present trade relations between Great Britain and Russia are regulated by a trade agreement entered into some years ago which was terminable by six months' notice on either side. In that trade agreement there was a most-favoured-nation clause. The agreement was in fact terminated by six months' notice given after the return of the delegation from the Ottawa Conference, and consequently the present bade agreement will come to an end on April 17, and under this Bill therefore no Proclamation can validly be made during the currency of the trade agreement, because the most-favoured-nation clause would he violated if such a Proclamation were made.
So much for the terms of the Bill I ought perhaps to tell your Lordships how much trade is potentially affected. In 1932 the total imports into the United Kingdom from the Soviet Union were £19,697,013, and the exports from this country, which are not affected by this Bill, were £9,274,534. Therefore, the trade balance in favour of the Soviet is just over £10,000,000. If one goes back to earlier years the imports were larger and the trade balance in favour of the Soviet considerably larger than last year.
Now, my Lords, having said so much, I have to explain to your Lordships why it is that we ask Parliament to give the Government these admittedly exceptional powers at this present moment. The story begins about a month ago, and it relates to a company called the Metropolitan-Vickers Company and certain British subjects employees of that company in Russia. The Metropolitan-Vickers Company, as a great many of your Lordships' House are probably aware, is a company which has a. very high reputation in the electrical engineering world. It carries on a very large business. Some ten years ago the Metropolitan-Vickers Company began dealings with Soviet Russia. As your Lordships know, after the Bolshevist revolution the Government of Russia desired to industrialise
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to a very large extent some parts of Russia, and for that purpose it was necessary for them to make some very important contracts with foreign firms. Among those foreign firms was the Metropolitan-Vickers Company, which, beginning ten years ago, has had a number of contracts with Soviet Russia under which it has supplied and erected some very important electrical machinery—some almost ultra-modern machinery, because the Russians were anxious to have the very latest things, and in some cases I believe got some machinery which had gone very little beyond the experimental stage. The most recent contract was only six months ago.
In addition to the contracts for the supply of machinery the Soviet Government entered into contracts for what was called "technical assistance." The first was made seven years ago, for a period of five years, and under that the company undertook to supply skilled engineers to Soviet Russia, who should take care of and supervise some of the highly technical plant. That contract ran for five years successfully, and then the Soviet Government renewed it for another term of years, of which there are some years still to run. In pursuance of that contract it was necessary for the Metropolitan-Vickers Company to send to Soviet Russia a number of highly-skilled engineers, men of very high standing and reputation in their own trade and business, who have been there for some years and who, in the ordinary course of events, would have stayed there for a good long time to come. The relevance of that explanation lies only in this: First of all, the people concerned, the company and the employees, were people who have the very highest standing and reputation; secondly, both the company and its employees are people who have had dealings with the Russians for a long time, with whom the Russians by experience have proved themselves very well satisfied, and they are people who have every inducement, so far as self-interest is concerned, to continue on the friendliest terms with the Soviet Government, because actually there was outstanding at the end of last month something like £1,500,000 owing from Soviet Russia to the Metropolitan-Vickers Company.
These skilled engineers, as I say, have had a long period of service in Russia

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and in the ordinary course might look forward to another long period before their contracts came to an end. In these circumstances it was that on Saturday, March 11, at about half-past nine in the evening, secret police agents came to the house of Mr. Monkhouse, who was, I think, the principal of the engineers employed by Metropolitan-Vickers in Russia, armed with warrants to arrest and. warrants to search. They arrested Mr. Monkhouse and Mr. Thornton, another of the engineers employed, and they made a search of everything that was to be found on the premises. There were also a certain number of Russian employees who were also arrested at the same time. Mr. Monkhouse was taken away to the Lyubianka, the great State prison in Moscow, and one of the employees of the company, Mr. Buckell, who happened to be present when the arrest was made, went next morning, which was Sunday, March 12, to the British Embassy and reported what had happened. Inquiries were made and it then appeared that another of the flats occupied by one of these employees, Mr. Cushny, had been raided early that morning, about half-past eight, and Mr. Cushny and Mr. Macdonald, both British subjects and employees of the company, had, like their colleagues, been arrested and a number of documents had been seized.
As soon as that information reached Sir Esmond Ovey he at once reported it to this country and he at once attempted to get into touch with the Russian Foreign Office. Unfortunately, it was what is known in Russia as a rest day—I think every sixth day is a rest day, and by a coincidence it was the same day as our Sunday. The Russian Foreign Office disclaimed any knowledge of what had happened, and said they could not attend to it until the next day. On the 13th further inquiries were made and attempts were made to ascertain whether or not there was going to be a trial of these men, what charge it was on which they were arrested, and to get the fullest possible particulars. The Soviet Government were informed that the British subjects arrested were men of the highest standing, and that we at any rate felt confidence that they were not the sort of people who were to be regarded as potential criminals. Of
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course, at that time we did not know the nature of the charges that had been made. That was Monday, March 13. On Tuesday, March 14, Mr. Monkhouse was released on parole and Mr. Monk-house was able therefore to see Sir Esmond Ovey and to give an account of what had happened to him.
It will be found in document No. 13 in the first of the two White Papers which have been issued in connection with this matter. Mr. Monkhouse, having been taken to the Lyubianka prison, was cross-examined, his cross-examination beginning at 8 a.m. on the Sunday morning after his arrest and continuing in the first instance without intermission for a period of no less than 19 hours. There were three successive teams of cross-examiners, who took it in turn to relieve one another. Mr. Monk-house was allowed to have meals during his cross-examination but the cross-examination went on uninterruptedly during his meals; and accordingly for a period of 19 hours consecutively Mr. Monkhouse was kept under cross-examination. I venture to stress that a little, because I am not sure whether anyone who has not had experience of what examination and cross-examination mean can quite realise the nervous and mental strain involved in keeping a man continuously under cross-examination for so long a period of time. A time comes when the nervous and mental exhaustion is so great that a man will say almost anything to bring the examination to a conclusion. And there is good reason to fear, as your Lordships will see when I get later on in the story, that that is a favourite method which is adopted by the secret Russian Police of the G.P.U.
Mr. Monkhouse's examination having continued for these nineteen hours, it is remarkable to notice that there was no material evidence which the Russian Police had with which to confront him. The whole time was taken up in endeavours to entrap him into what they describe as a confession. He was asked every sort of question with regard to his activities in Russia and pressed all the time to confess that he had been guilty of some form of political crime against the Russian State. At three o'clock in the morning he was allowed to go to his cell for 4½ hours' rest.

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Unfortunately under the regulations prevailing in Russian prisons, he was disturbed and wakened up three times during the 4½ hours that he was allowed to be there. At half-past seven in the morning he was again brought forward for cross-examination and this time his cross-examination went on without a break until eleven at night. At eleven o'clock at night the examiners threatened him that unless he confessed he would be treated as a criminal, and, as I shall show your Lordships presently, in fact they threatened him with summary execution if he did not confess. Mr. Monkhouse stuck to it and said that there was nothing to confess. The Russians then changed their tactics during, an hour's pause and he was released on parole.
The story of Mr. Monkhouse is mainly relevant for the moment as indicating the sort of treatment to which our subjects have been submitted in their prison. On the same 14th of March it was permitted for the British Embassy representatives, or one of them, to go and see the remaining prisoners who were in prison. But it was made a condition first that each prisoner should be seen separately; secondly, that they should be seen in the presence of the Russian police and, thirdly, that no reference at all should be made to anything connected with the case or with regard to their imprisonment. The result was that, although the conversation was reassuring in so far as it showed that these men were still alive, they had obviously completely to ignore the situation in which they found themselves and were really confined to sending reassuring messages to their wives and friends at home. That interview took place on March 14. The terms are set out in the White Paper and the effect produced on the appearance of the prisoners is shown in Document No.20, where Sir Esmond Ovey reports:
"While the prisoners seemed generally in good heath, the drawn expressions of Messrs. Thornton and Cushny gave me definite impression of their having been put through it.' They were all obviously terrified of speaking and confined themselves to minimum of replies."
And the telegram concludes:
"While I was of course received with utmost courtesy and military display, the obsequiousness of the unfortunate prisoners
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and utterly artificial atmosphere of restraint created an uncanny impression."
That was after three days in a Russian prison. It is not a very reassuring account to get of our fellow subjects under these conditions—obviously terrified of speaking, obsequious, acting in an utterly artificial atmosphere of restraint—it takes a great deal to produce that result in three days on an English or Scottish engineer.
On the same day a Decree was published by the Central Executive Committee which you will find in Document No. 23 on page 15. This Decree states:
"There have been recently disclosed instances of the participation in counterrevolutionary wrecking activities of certain State employees especially bound by their position and by the right with which they are invested to maintain an honourable and conscientious attitude towards the Workers' and Peasant State. In this connection the Central Executive Committee of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics explains that the right accorded to the Ogpu—
that is the Secret Police of Russia—
"…of dealing at judicial sessions of the Collegium of the Ogpu with cases of sabotage, arson, explosion, damage to machine plant of State undertakings and other forms of sabotage and of applying all measures of repression according to the nature of the offence must be exercised with especial severity in regard to employees of State institutions and undertakings convicted of such offences."
Apparently, from such inquiries as we have been able to make, these engineers, since they are employed under contract in Russian State institutions and undertakings, are regarded as employees of those institutions within the meaning of chat Decree.
That Decree caused considerable anxiety both at the Embassy at Moscow and at home, because we had received on the 12th of March, the same day that our subjects were arrested, a telegram which is No. 3 on page 3 describing how the Ogpu had exercised their right of dealing with these cases. This is the telegram:
"Ogpu have to-day issued a communiqué stating that case of officials accused of agricultural sabotage was examined by Collegium of Ogpu on March 11. Thirty-five condemned to death by shooting; twenty-two to ten years and eighteen to six years imprisonment. Communiqué states sentences have been executed."
Your Lordships will see that apparently under the law of the Russian Soviet Republic, if the charge is one of political sabotage or damage to machine plant, it

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is within the competence of the Secret Police of Russia to condemn and execute those persons so accused without trial and without communication, and to act on the sentences immediately without anybody knowing anything about it. In these circumstances we were not reassured by knowing that "especial severity" was to be exercised in future. You will find a telegram of March 16 on page 18 stating that nine Russian employees of the firm had been arrested as well, and on the same day, in Document No. 29, there is a report from Sir Esmond Ovey to Sir John Simon of his interview with M. Litvinov in which he explains his apprehensions in view of the documents to which I have called attention.
I do not want to take up too much time, and that is all I need to refer to in the first White Paper; but since this matter was discussed in another place we have found it possible, and have thought it useful, both for your Lordships and to inform public opinion in the country generally, to publish certain further correspondence which I hope is in the possession of most of your Lordships this afternoon. If I may venture to call attention to one or two documents in that second White Paper you will see that on the 19th of March, that was a week after the arrest—the following Sunday—permission was accorded to a representative of the Embassy to go and see the prisoners in Lyubianka prison, still under the conditions I have referred to that nothing was to be said about the case at all. In Document No. 2 on page 2 we get a report as to the impression created:
"Condition of Mr. Thornton indicates severe gruelling, impression given being of one who had lost power of concentration and was reduced to mental apathy. Mr. Walton"—
that was the British. Embassy official who attended—
"informs me of distinct relaxation in general atmosphere. Mr. Macdonald's reference to troubled sleep was evidently intended to indicate constant disturbance."
I shall be able to show your Lordships later on what had produced that condition in Mr. Thornton, and how natural it was that he should show in his appearance the symptoms which Mr. Walton there described.
On March 26 Mr. Monkhouse was sent for to see the Public Prosecutor. Mr. Monkhouse is the one who had been let
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out on parole; and in Document No. 7 you will see the report of what happened at that interview:
"Mr. Monkhouse was called upon to admit knowledge of a certain entry in company's books involving approximately 250 roubles Torgsin bonds, and, having admitted knowledge of this transaction, he made a statement that he knew of no other transaction having occurred which could he interpreted as bribery He was then confronted with a signed statement in Mr. Thornton's own handwriting admitting a long list of small presents and monetary payments which had been made by Mr. Thornton over a period of nearly ten years. Most of the items were quite small, being for suits of clothes, etc., given to Russian engineers and technicians with whom the company had worked. Mr. Monkhouse, after having read the list, said he had no statement to make in regard to this, and that he regarded most of the transactions as the personal affairs of Mr. Thornton.
"He was then shown another list involving larger sums, but up to the moment has only been permitted to see the first item, which covers an amount approximately of 2,000 paper roubles"—
that is about £26—
"allegedly admitted by Mr. Thornton to have been handed over to Mr. Macdonald to distribute amongst technicians and others at Zlatoust, a munition works, for 'political and economic spying purposes'."
The reason I call attention to that interview and that report is that later on Mr. Thornton came out of prison and was seen at the Embassy. It appears that this statement then made to Mr. Monkhouse by the Public Prosecutor that Thornton had admitted handing over this money for "political and economic spying purposes" was declared a complete untruth.
Your Lordships will find that in Document No. 7 the last paragraph but two states:
"The examiners stated that money had been paid in order to arrange a serious breakdown at the Zlatoust works, but Mr. Monkhouse pointed out that the company had only carried out a comparatively small turbine installation at these works and that no trouble had been experienced. The examiners then stated that there had been a serious breakdown, but not on the Metropolitan-Vickers plant. Mr. Monkhouse then made a declaration that he knew nothing whatever of any breakdowns at Zlatoust or any transactions involving sum named. To him it is incredible that an amount relatively as large as this could have been paid from any of the company's resources without the fact having come to his knowlege. Mr. Monk-house was also shown Mr. Macdonald's confession of the handing over of the money at Zlatoust.

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"From the folders which were produced and which Mr. Monkhouse was able to see (only selected paragraphs being shown…) it is obvious that Mr. Thornton has, during the period of his incarceration, written extraordinarily lengthly statements covering practically every activity of the company during its nearly ten years' work in the Soviet Union."
The comment on that is in the telegram in Document No. 8:
"Sums referred to are trifling. Alleged evidence on the subject can only come from confessions extorted from prisoners under conditions which one can only presume were at least as trying as those to which Mr Monkhouse was subjected."
I shall be able to show your Lordships from the story of the prisoners themselves that that is, if anything, an understatement. The document goes on:
"Prosecution had a whole mass of papers which they indicated to Mr. Monkhouse contained further evidence with which to confront him."
Then on the 28th, two days later, Mr. Nordwall, who was in their employ, and who had been let out after, I think, only a mere ten hours' examination, was sent for and the Public Prosecutor's interview appears in Document No. 15, page 9:
"Mr. Nordwall was asked by Public Prosecutor to admit that he had distributed considerable sums of money in Ivanova-Voznesensk district at the end of 1931 and in January, 1932, for wrecking purposes. Mr. Nordwall stoutly denied suggestion, which is completely untrue. He was then shown an alleged confession by Mr. Thornton to the effect that Mr. Thornton had given Mr. Nordwall money for this purpose."
Again, if your Lordships will be good enough to look at Document No. 24, in its last paragraph but one, you will find that no such confession was ever made. Document No. 15 continues:
"Mr. Nordwall repeated his denial. He was next confronted with a Russian engineer whom he knew at Ivanova and who, by his appearance, had obviously been brought from prison. This engineer in Mr. Nordwall's presence confessed that Mr. Nordwall had on several occasions given him sums of the order of 2,000 and 3,000 roubles for wrecking activities, and that he had actually engaged in various wrecking work of which he gave details. Engineer stated that he had been instructed by Mr. Nordwall not to wreck any Metropolitan-Vickers plant so long as it was under guarantee from the firm, but to devote his attention to other companies' plant or to Metropolitan-Vickers plant which was out of guarantee. Mr. Nordwall denied any such thing ever having occurred. Engineer then appealed to Mr. Nordwall to confess his guilt in the same way as he himself had done.
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"Prosecutor then said to Mr. Nordwall; 'You did anyhow give him a fur coat.' It is true that this engineer did purchase a fur coat for 400 roubles from Mr. Taylor, one of the company's test department engineers, who visited Ivanova about that time and who is now in England. Mr. Nordwall was in the transaction as an interpreter only and as channel for receipt of purchase price. Mr. Nordwall told Prosecutor that money had passed through his personal account which is available at the company's Moscow office. Police immediately searched office accounts and found that Mr. Nordwall was mistaken in his recollection."
If your Lordships would go back to No. 14 you will see a little of the methods which the Russian Secret Service use to obtain these confessions:
"Last October ….Mr. Cushny was approached and asked to undertake secret work unknown to his firm in connection with purchase and supply of electrical plant for Soviet power stations. He was offered 250 dollars a month for this work. Mr. Cushny refused to consider proposition, although he was approached on several occasions. In November a Russian woman was sent for by authorities and instructed to seduce Mr. Monkhouse and persuade him to do this work. She refused."
Then in No. 16, on page 10, there is something which I think explains why we are a little anxious about Soviet trials:
"Two of defending counsel in Shakhti case were exiled after the trial. Their ostensible private conferences with accused were overheard and recorded by microphone by G.P.U. After the trial they were confronted with this record and told that their conduct was incorrect and that they must suffer for it."
That is one method of ensuring that the defending counsel shall not put forward too plausible or convincing a defence.
On the 1st April we got in Document No. 22 a telegram which shows how puzzled Mr. Monkhouse was over these alleged voluminous confessions of Mr. Thornton:
"Mr. Monkhouse is puzzled and disturbed by Mr. Thornton's apparent voluminous 'confessions.'
"Possible explanation are—
"1. That Mr. Thornton, who was born in Russia and is a man of the world with intimate knowledge of Soviet ways and of history of past Soviet trials, has written down everything suggested to him by the G.P.U. or Prosecutor, however absurd with intention of repudiating every word of it at the trial.
"2. That in his present state of nerves he has broken down and made false 'confession' under one of the well-known forms of G.P.U. pressure, such as threat of consequences either to himself or Mme. Kutosova"—

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the Russian secretary of the company—
"or both in the event of his failure to 'confess' (Mr. Monkhouse was so threatened—see his letter to Mr. Richards of March 14), offer of release if full 'confession' is made, or threat of exposure to the world of his alleged intimate relations with Mme. Kutosova."
That is a suggestion, I understand, for which there is no sort of foundation. The telegram goes on:
"At Lyubianka G.P.U. threatened to confront Mr. Monkhouse with Mme. Kutosova, and he challenged them to do so, whereupon they let the matter drop.
"3. That being of generous nature and well liked by all Russians with whom he works, he has been indiscreet in helping them in their need, either in money or in kind, conduct which G.P.U. and Prosecutor have twisted into ground for accusation of either sabotage or espionage. Every foreigner in Russia brings in necessities from abroad for Russians, friends or associates."
I do not think I need read the rest of that telegram. Perhaps, however, I ought to mention that your Lordships will see a reference to Mr. Monkhouse's letter to Mr. Richards, who is a director in London of the Metropolitan-Vickers Company, of the 14th March. It is a long letter and I do not propose to read it all, but there is one passage which is worth reading. It is Mr. Monkhouse's own account of what happened at the end of his second seventeen hours of cross-examination. Your Lordships may remember that in the original account which appeared Mr. Monkhouse was threatened if he did not make a confession. This elaborates it a little:
"At this stage my examiners rushed away and left me under guard in the examining room for about an hour. When they returned they told me I had not made a full confession and was hiding information and that I must be regarded as a criminal and he punished accordingly. They were most threatening at this stage and the senior man told me that if I persisted in this attitude, it would be the end of being of any service either to the Soviet Union or to Great Britain and he asked me if I realised what he meant. I told him I did and was prepared."
He knew what was meant—that he might be shot in prison, ES so many other un-fortunate victims of Ogpu have been in the past.
On April 4 Mr. Thornton was let out on bail and his account of what happened appears in Document No. 24, which is on page 16 of the White Paper:
"Mr. Thornton is worn out, and it was not easy to get a connected story from him.
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He has been under interrogation from the day of his arrest until this morning"—
that is, from March 12 until April 4—
"on one occasion for about twenty-one hours without a break. He found suspense of waiting for the next summons and perpetual tramping up and down stairs in a heavy coat most exhausting. He was never directly threatened or offered a straight bargain for a 'confession,' but there was a strong undercurrent of menacing hints during his examination and occasional suggestions of lucrative employment in return for satisfactory answers. He was confronted with Mr. Cushny and Mr. Macdonald and many Russians, including Mine Kutosova, sometimes unexpectedly. Russians made most fantastic accusations against him, and were either in a state of terror or obviously in league with G.P.U. He was many times deliberately misled, e.g.,

1. He was told that all the company's British employees in Russia had been arrested.

2. He was given daily bulletins of Mr. Monkhouse's health to make him think Mr. Monkhouse was still in prison.

3. Examiners read to him what purported to be Mr. Monkhouse's statements in his deposition regarding two instances of failure of plant supplied by the company some years ago (K 5 switches and Shatura transformers), to which Mr. Monkhouse had, in fact, made no reference whatever in his deposition."

"Acts of economic espionage which Mr. Thornton has admitted amount to no more than collection of information for company on state of company's plant, general condition of the country and prospects of future business. His admission of military espionage is founded on collection of three pieces of information which were common knowledge.
"As regards charge of bribery, he admits he gave small presents to Russians (which might be so described): a list which covers last eight years he has included in his deposition. He has a satisfactory explanation of transfer of money to Mr. Macdonald at Zlatoust which he will produce at the trial…. He remembers mentioning it casually to Mr. Richards. Examiner deliberately deceived Mr. Monkhouse in suggesting that Mr. Thornton had admitted that this money was for spying purposes and in leading him to believe that this was only one of a number of similar large transactions.
"He totally denies charges of wrecking and made no such confession as that produced by prosecutor to Mr. Nordwall of having given the latter money for this purpose. …
"G.P.U. tried unsuccessfully the whole time to make him confess (1) to working for Intelligence Service, (2) to obtaining funds for his activities from His Majesty's Consulate. Mme. Kutosova, company's secretary, who had been obviously terrorised, asserted in his presence on confrontation that he hail drawn 50,000 roubles from consulate. This is, of course, without foundation."

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Then, my Lords—I am getting to the end of these stories—your Lordships will see in Document No. 25, on page 18:
"Mr. Thornton is astounded by what occurred at his confrontation with Mr. Macdonald. Mr. Macdonald stated that Mr. Thornton instructed him to engage in economic and military spying at Zlatoust. Mr. Thornton agreed that he had received information from Mr. Macdonald about state of Metropolitan-Vickers plant there, possibilities of future business and condition of workers. Mr. Macdonald asserted that Mr. Thornton had given him these instructions at his house near Moscow. Mr. Thornton denied this. Mr. Macdonald being questioned, agreed that he had told Mr. Thornton about wrecking of certain plant and that Mr. Thornton had expressed satisfaction. Mr. Thornton said Mr. Macdonald had told him no such thing. Mr. Macdonald said that he had received 4,500 roubles "—
that is, about £50—
"from Mr. Thornton for 'espionage purposes.' Being questioned, Mr. Macdonald agreed that he had given Mr. Thornton information about number and calibre of shells made at Zlatoust and about electrical mobilisation plant. Mr. Thornton totally denied this. M. Gusev, Mr. Macdonald's friend, made similar statements on confrontation, but put sum at 10,000 roubles."
That is, more than twice as much. The telegram proceeds:
"Mr. Cushny was shown Mr. Macdonald's charge, which is atrocious, of espionage in conjunction with M. Gusev in connection with military factories in and around Gheliabinsk and also at Leningrad. Mr. Cushny also saw the final protocol of Mr. Macdonald's deposition in which he pleads guilty to the offences with which he is charged."
Then in Document No. 26 we get this:
"Mr. Gregory and Mr. Cushny also made statements at Embassy this evening. Neither appears to have made any admissions under interrogation. Mr. Gregory has only been questioned for a few hours in all and his direct simplicity made his continued imprisonment inexplicable. Mr. Gushny was under daily examination, lasting, at first, for as much as twelve hours, until quite recently."
I need not read the whole of that; it is a very long document. Then we have Document No. 27 which says, under date April 7:
"Mr. Thornton this morning reported to me the following incident which occurred during his examination by Ogpu. It well illustrates one of the means of pressure exercised by Ogpu to extract confessions. For two days examiners tried to make him admit that he had received money from His Majesty's consulate and that he was member of Intelligence Service. They told him that Mine. Kutosova, the company's secretary, had testified to this effect and threatened
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to confront him with her. On erroneous assumption apparently that their relations were more intimate than that of friends and colleagues, and rightly thinking that he has great regard for her directly, they added that, if at this consultation he said that she was not speaking the truth, she would, under the articles of criminal code relating to bearing false witness at an investigation, suffer the highest measure of punishment, i.e., presumably death…"
I ask your Lordships just to visualise for a moment what that means. You get some unfortunate man, you interrogate him for twelve hours, fifteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one hours at a stretch until he is almost willing to say anything to escape from the terror of perpetual examination. You then tell him that if he confesses he will get off with a comparatively light sentence, but if not he will probably be executed then and there. If that does not succeed you tell many other people have admitted it and that if he contradicts it those people, his friends, will be executed because they must have given false testimony. Can one imagine a more terrible manner of trying to torture a man into giving an untrue story? I ought, perhaps, to continue reading this document. It goes on:
"When confronted with him, Mme. Kutosova, who is normally an able, intelligent woman of about forty, was in pitiable state of terror and, like other Russians with whom Mr. Thornton has been confronted, after an initial hesitation, reeled off her accusation mechanically in an unnatural voice as if by heart. She asserted that he had drawn money from consulate, that he was a member of Intelligence Service, and that he had been engaged in wrecking. Mr. Thornton repudiated the whole of her statement.
Mr. Monkhouse and Mr. Thornton suspect that Mme. Kutosova, who was already shattered by her arrest and examination last January, has now been broken by the usual threats in regard to her relatives.
Mr. Thornton also recalls that at his confrontation with Mr. Macdonald…his amazement at Mr. Macdonald's statements began to embarrass the latter, whereupon examiners made Mr. Thornton sit with his hack to Mr. Macdonald for remainder of confrontation. He says that Mr. Macdonald 'looked awful.'"
My Lords, that is the end of the story down to the date to which the White Paper brings us. What we have now to make quite clear to your Lordships is what it is that we say and what it is that we do not say. First of all His Majesty's Government do not say and never have said that if a British subject goes to a

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foreign country he is not liable to be punished for offences against the law of that country or that he can with impunity commit crimes in that country. Secondly, His Majesty's Government do not say and never have said that they insist that the methods of administration of justice in every other country to which our subjects may go, are to conform with our own or that the rules of evidence which regulate our Courts have to regulate their Courts. That would be an impossible and preposterous proposal. What we do say is that a Britsh subject is entitled to a fair trial by an impartial tribunal, by an independent Court, and we say clearly that at that trial the evidence which is produced against the accused, while it need in no way conform with our own canons of evidence, must be of such a nature and given in such circumstances as to afford a reasonable assurance that it can be relied upon. The danger which we see in the present case is that neither of those conditions seem likely to be fulfilled.
First of all as to the independence of the tribunal. Thanks to the linguistic attainments of my secretary I have obtained a translation of a book called "Courts and Law in the U.S.S.R." by N. V. Krylenko, former Public State Prosecutor and now Minister of Justice of the Soviet Republics. It was published by the State Publishing Department in 1927, and it may therefore be taken as an authoritative statement of Soviet views of their own Courts of Justice. This is the translation:
"The Courts are organs of State administration, and as such do not differ by their nature from any other organs of State administration, which are all called upon to give effect to and carry out one and the same State policy. In particular, in their specific work of maintaining the existing legal order, the Courts do not differ qualitatively in any way from such an organ as the Cheka. This results in an essential incompatibility between the idea of Soviet justice on the one hand and on the other the ideas of division of powers and independence of the Courts, the peculiar ideological philosphy of bourgeois liberalism. Soviet justice entirely repudiates both these principles. The Proletarian Court—the organ of the class in power—does not separate itself either from this class or from its policy. The Courts are the organs of State power, and as such have as their basic function the defence of the interests of the revolution and the defence of the existing social order. Every Court worker must therefore be fully conversant with all the questions of State policy, and must bear in
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mind that in his judgments in particular cases, whether civil or criminal, he is to give effect to this policy of the ruling class and to nothing else…."
In other words, when a man is brought before a Soviet Court on a criminal charge in which any question of State policy is involved the question is not whether the man is guilty or not, but whether or not it is in the interests of the State administration that he should be convicted and sentenced. How can one rely on justice administered by such a Court based on such principles?
When the debate took place in another place one member who had been in Russia and had been present at Russian trials, Mr. Patrick, described how he sat through one of the State trials "looking at an enormous red banner hung behind the Judges table at which the Judges were sitting smoking." Mr. Patrick said:
"Upon the banner in large white letters was written, "This Court is the organ of the Proletariat.' That is one of Lenin's classic remarks; typical of his sayings quoted as texts on all occasions. Those words mean precisely what they say. The Court is the organ of the proletariat, and by a simple chain of Communist doctrine which I will not go into on this occasion, the Court is the organ of the class war, and exists for that main purpose."
Then he goes on to describe the methods by which they obtained evidence and when you remember that this was before the publication of the second White Paper you will see how remarkably it fits in:
"Most certainly these State trials have not suffered from lack of evidence. The explanation of that is very simple. The matter has been in each ease in the hands of the Ogpu, and the procedure has been the same in every case. It has been decided in advance what type and sort of evidence is required, and the usual course has been to arrest a number of people and put them into prison.…The arrests are usually made in the early hours of the morning. The arrested man disappears, and very often his family hears nothing of his whereabouts for weeks or months. At the end of that time, possibly, his family may receive a curt message that he has been shot a fortnight or three weeks before. In other cases they may hear nothing. Their relative has gone and is lost, without any news at any time. Having obtained the necessary number of prisoners and determined on the plan of action, the next step is to get their evidence, and they do it by selecting one or two who are known as the lucky ones. They are subjected to long cross-examination, and when the prisoner is in the right frame of mind they say to him: 'In exchange for your sig-

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nature to this confession, we will promise you a light sentence. In default of that signature, your sentence will be death.' The prisoners knows that that is not an idle threat. Therefore, he has no alternative, and he signs his confession implicating himself very often in most fantastic charges, and, what is more painful, from our point of view, he almost inevitably implicates a great number of his comrades."
It was stated in debate elsewhere that during the whole history of the Russian Soviet there never has been an acquittal in a political trial; in every one there has been the evidence of confession, such as that described, and such as that which we see was attempted to be obtained, and in some cases was obtained, in the present instance. In one instance—I think it was in 1928—there was a trial in which elaborate confessions were produced showing that a plot had been organised by Colonel Lawrence, now known as Aircraftman Shaw, and the witnesses described interviews which were supposed to have taken place with him in London at a time when Aircraftman Shaw was at Karachi. There was another trial in which elaborate confessions were obtained of people who had conspired with an alleged White Russian leader—Ryabschinsky, I think it was—in Paris who had been dead three years when the confessions were obtained. None the less the confessions were obtained and conviction also. Can you wonder if His Majesty's Government are anxious when they know that those are the methods adopted and that those are the results in other cases?
For myself, and I believe I speak here for the Government also, we earnestly hope it may not be necessary to make use of these powers, but we are anxious by every means in our power, and especially by the overwhelming decision which I hope I shall obtain presently from your Lordships' House, to satisfy the Soviet Government how seriously this matter is regarded in this country. We want them to understand that the whole of the people of this country are behind the Government in this matter and that we are determined to leave no stone unturned to secure justice for our fellow subjects in peril in Moscow. I say I hope it will not be necessary to use these powers, but after all the powers, when obtained, are no other than those the Russians already have, and I venture to think that it is not unreasonable, in view of the facts and documents which I have
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produced to the House this evening, that we should ask your Lordships to give us the economic power which is proposed, in the form of pressure which we could use, in order that we may be armed as far as may be to protect His Majesty's subjects in peril in a foreign country.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Hailsham.)
LORD PASSFIELD: My Lords, I want to state at the outset that whilst I cannot say that I entirely concur in the manner in which the noble and learned Viscount has put his case—as to which I shall have something to say presently—I do entirely concur in thinking that the Government, that is to say, the members of Consulates and Embassies in all parts of the world, should intervene whenever any British subject is arrested, and not merely when he represents a firm of high standing, or is of high character. The fact of being arrested in a foreign country and held in a foreign prison, under an entirely different system of legal procedure, is in itself so disturbing and seriously affecting to the person arrested that I want His Majesty's Government to intervene in every such case in the most effective way, in the interests of British subjects who are there.
As a matter of fact, as the noble Viscount probably knows, Consular officers and Embassies in the different countries are constantly intervening whenever arrest takes place of British subjects, and not in Soviet Russia alone. It is a regular thing, and I have seen it myself quite frequently. Certainly, if His Majesty's Government want to be furnished with further powers of intervention for the protection of British subjects, neither I nor my friends will stand in the way of their getting those powers, but there has been worked out in practice a method by which this is constantly done in the Foreign Office, so that it has almost come to be a code of conduct. If you are bona fide interested, with a single eye to help the unfortunate victim, there are various things which you must do or which you must avoid doing. You have to proceed by way of making friendly relations with the Government, and by private representations, in order that the foreign Government may be able, if it is willing, to accede to your request. You can only ask. You must not give the least sus-

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picion that you want to interfere in the internal government of the country. You can only ask for what can be legitimately given to the unfortunate people who have been arrested. You can ask for comforts to be given in prison, or for bail, or for prisoners to be allowed to communicate with their relatives, or for an early trial, or for a proper defence; but it is necessary to avoid all trace of suspicion that you are seeking to interfere with the foreign Government in its internal affairs, however wrong you may think that Government may be in its system.
If you are really trying to protect British subjects, it is vital that you should not, so to speak, put up the backs of the foreign Government with whom you are dealing, and above all it is vital that you should avoid all threats. Therefore I have nothing to say in criticism of the Government for having taken up these cases, and I am not going here to defend the police system of Russia, except to say that private investigation, in prison, though alien to our system, is not confined to Soviet Russia. It is a system which prevails nearly all over Europe, and the case of what has happened in Russia is nothing to what has happened under a similar system in Poland, and nothing to be compared to the horrible tales which we have heard on the best authority as having taken place in the United States of America. I am not saying that in any way as palliation of this system, but only by way of suggesting that if you want to help these victims you will not do so by assuming that these things are confined to Russia. We may think that only the British Empire has a better system of justice, but, as the noble Viscount knows very well, our own police have been guilty of very much the same thing in particular cases.
However, it is not my business and I am not going to palliate these cases, but we have the greatest possible misgivings as to whether His Majesty's Government have gone the right way, or are going the right way, to attain the things which we all desire—namely, that these prisoners should be treated with what we consider to be justice, and we all hope that they are all of them guiltless. These misgivings relate to the constant attitude of the Government from the beginning. The very day that the Ambassador discovered that these men were arrested he
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suggested, and His Majesty's Government acted on his suggestion, that they should proceed by way of a threat, and it is interesting to notice that the threat of these tremendous reprisals, by stopping the import of goods from Russia, was first brought before the House of Commons by the Prime Minister, who talked as if it was in connection with the renewal of negotiations for a trade agreement. It was so mixed up with the renewal of trade relations that members of the House of Commons pressed for an explanation, and asked for an assurance that the Government only wanted these powers to secure the discharge of these six prisoners. Even the noble and learned Viscount rather suggested a connection between the powers and a new trade agreement, but I am glad to say that the Government practically confessed in the other House that that was a mistake or misunderstanding.
A very definite pledge was given in the House of Commons by the Government that these powers, if granted, would not be used for anything in connection with the trade agreement, or with fiscal bargaining, and that they would not be used even in the case of any future aggression upon British subjects in Russia, but exclusively for the cases of these six men. I would ask the noble Viscount to confirm that. The Government have given that specific pledge. The President of the Board of Trade said:
"I say at once that the primary consideration is the life and liberty of, these men. I will at once therefore give an undertaking on behalf of the Government that we shall not use these powers for any other purpose."
That was confirmed by the Attorney-General, and Sir Austen Chamberlain made it clear that if any further power were required for that purpose the House would begin the matter de novo. I am glad to say that the Government have made it clear that they will not use the powers which are to be conferred by this Bill for any purpose whatsoever other than the defence of these six men. If some other men in the course of the year have grievances against the Russian Government His Majesty's Government will have to get new powers. They have undertaken clearly, specifically, unequivocally, that they will not use these powers which Parliament will give them except for this purpose of saving these particular six men, and no others.

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I am anxious to make that clear, to put that on record in this House, as it has been put on record in the House of Commons. It is interesting to notice that several members of the Conservative Party received that intimation with dismay, and one hon. member said that he had received it with dismay because he had been hoping that the powers would be used to secure benefits for his constituents, farmers and fishermen. He was interrupted by someone who said: "Are you asking the Government to break its pledge?" and he replied, "No, but I hope they will do so." I am quoting that in this House because I am sure that the noble Viscount—and noble Lords generally—will not sanction a breach of a pledge which has been thus given in another place. Therefore in voting on this Bill we can vote that its powers will be used solely for the rescue of these particular six men, and not for any other purpose whatsoever.
Though on the whole I am glad of that, consider how nakedly it makes it appear to the Soviet Government that we are demanding of them that they shall go contrary to their practice which the noble Viscount has described, and say that they shall confer a privilege upon these six men which they deny to their own subjects—confer that privilege because these six men are British subjects and because the British Government have used against them this great threat. Will that make it easier for the soviet Government to agree? They have their clamour of public opinion as we unfortunately have ours. If you want a Government to do something—a Government which is a first-rate Power, remember, with a population of 160 millions—if you want them to give some special privilege to your subjects, is it the best way to do it by a threat, and to go out of your way to make it clear that the threat applies to these six men by promising that you will never use the powers for any other purpose? That makes it absolutely clear that you are holding not a pistol but a machine-gun at the Soviet Government. We do not yet know what the evidence is against these six men; we have only heard the ex-parte accounts of some of the evidence against them. But to say: "Unless you let off these six men"—and that was our demand, that they should be discharged without trial—"we are going to inflict this great
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penalty upon you of stopping the whole of your external trade"—is that the way to get what you want?
The worst of threats is that they often have the very opposite effect from that which the user intends them to have. I give the Government credit for believing that the best way to save these men was to make this threat and that the best way to make the threat was to make it quite definitely with regard to these men and to say: "It is not that we are going to alter our policy, our Customs policy or our trade policy—nothing to do with that; we make this threat that we will stop the whole of your trade in order to make you let off these six men without trial." And you make that threat to the Government of a great Power. Is that the way to conduct foreign affairs? We have misgivings that that threat will have—has had already—exactly the wrong effect. In fact, you can see in the White Paper that the Soviet Government have gone a long way, as it will seem to them. They have hurried through this preliminary investigation, which generally lasts much longer. They have let out five of the men on bail. The Government were anxious that the trial should not be by the G.P.U. As a matter of fact it was already announced on March 24—ten days before the Foreign Secretary spoke in the House of Commons—but he did not tell the House, though the Government must have known then, that already it had been settled that the trial would be, not by the G.P.U., but by the highest Court, the Supreme Court of the Soviet Republic. They could not do better than that.
They had already announced that the prisoners would be allowed to have any Counsel to defend them which has the right of audience, just as we would allow anyone who had been called to the English Bar to defend prisoners. They were told that they could have their British lawyer in Court to consult with and to see to their case and instruct Counsel. They had done all that, but the Government were not satisfied with that, and the noble Viscount has told us why. Because, he says, none of the Law Courts of the Soviet Republic can be trusted, simply because their theory is that they should be equal to the executive organs of the State; the Judicature is not separate from the Executive, and

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consequently you could not expect justice from such a Court. It may be that that means that it is impossible for the Soviet Government to comply with the request. They cannot give you a better Court than they have got, and, as the noble Viscount says, a British subject who goes to a foreign country must submit to the law and the procedure of the foreign country. Here these men are to be tried in the best way that the Soviet Government knows how. They are to have all this paraphernalia. And now what is the consequence after a somewhat provocative speech to-night on the state of mind of the Soviet Government? But first notice the other thing about a threat. It not only has very often the reverse effect from that which you expect it to have. Instead of securing freedom for these men it is very likely preventing them from having their freedom. Instead of securing an acquittal at the trial is not there the danger that it will have the further effect—as the noble Viscount said, nobody is ever acquitted at these trials—of making quite sure that nobody will be acquitted at this trial?
See what dreadful peril we are getting into. And then consider the next thing also about the threat. The noble Viscount has repeated what the Foreign Secretary said, that he hoped it would not be necessary to put the powers of this Bill into operation. I do them both he justice of believing that they do fervently hope that it will not be necessary to put these powers into operation. But what will satisfy them? Will it satisfy them that these men are brought to trial before the Supreme Court of the Soviet Republic, that they are defended by the best Counsel that can be got, that they have a British lawyer there in Court, that they have all the resources of Metropolitan-Vickers behind to see that the case does not suffer for lack of money Supposing the trial ends in the conviction of one of these men. Sup-losing the trial ends in the conviction of all six. I do not think it will, but what I am much more alarmed about is that it may end in the conviction of one of them. I do not know which one—I am not speaking from facts—but I am very much afraid that this may be the result of your threats. Then what are you going to do? One of the evil things about a threat is that you may have to face the difficulty of carrying it out. If it
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should happen that after this trial, after this defence, after this giving of all the justice that the Soviet Republic can give according to its procedure, one of these men should be convicted, what will His Majesty's Government do?
I do not want them to answer, but I want them to consider in advance before they go on with their threat. Supposing one of these men, only one of them, is convicted, will they have the magnanimity and the courage to come forward and say: "Although we do not agree with the Soviet Government, yet the men have had a trial, which is the best they could have had, and unfortunately, though five have been acquitted, one has been found guilty of something we do, not understand. He is to be given"—I do not suppose he will be shot—" some sentence." What are they going to do then? If we are really anxious to save these men had not we better think a moment in advance, just as when you are playing chess it is not sufficient to think of the next move but to think of half a dozen moves ahead? When the Government, in their anxiety to save these men, rushed in with this tremendous threat, had they thought it out? Because, after a trial, after a conviction, after a sentence, there comes in Soviet Russia, as in this country, an opportunity for grace, for clemency, for amnesty, for commutation of the sentence—perhaps imprisonment instead of death, perhaps a fine instead of imprisonment, perhaps mere deportation instead of even a fine. Just as the Crown has the right to pardon and commute in this country, so in Soviet Russia the Central Executive Committee, presumably through one of the Ministers acting for it, has the right and the power to extend this clemency. Supposing, unfortunately, one of these men is convicted, will the Government, having at heart the interests of the men—that being their sole motive—take proper steps to save this man? One of these proper steps would be a private friendly communication to the Soviet Government inviting them to extend clemency to the convicted man. Would that not be more likely to secure its object than the carrying out of a threat?
Will the Government take the responsibility of carrying out the threat, assuming this happens as I have suggested,

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rather than ask for clemency? You cannot do both. You will not get any Government to extend clemency at the point of the bayonet. Should we extend clemency to a prisoner, who had been properly convicted, at the threat of the Soviet Government that unless we did that something or other would happen to our trade? Is it likely that we should give way? I am afraid we should not. The right course, the magnanimous course, the noble course in both cases would be to ignore all that sort of feeling and extend clemency. Really it will be a competition between the British Government and the Soviet Government as to who will show the highest nobility and the greatest magnanimity in this matter. That is the trouble you get into with regard to your threat.
Just one word more. This threat is a proposal to stop Russian imports into this country. The noble Viscount said it did not extend to exports, but the noble Viscount must know perfectly well that if you stop imports from Russia you, at the same time, stop our exports to Russia. Are we not at this moment engaged in endeavouring to persuade the American people that if they will not receive our goods we cannot pay our debts to them? The only way we can pay our debts is by sending goods. If we refuse to receive goods from Russia under this Bill, does not that mean that Russia cannot buy anything from this country, cannot buy the machine tools which occupy 80 per cent. of our machine tool workers employed? Not only that, but Russia cannot pay any debts to this country, just as we cannot pay any debts to the United States. If the Government, because of this rash threat which this House is now going to sanction, take the responsibility of saying that the Russian Government should not be allowed to send any goods here, it means quite clearly that we do not intend our people to sell any goods to Soviet Russia at all, and that we do not intend to permit Soviet Russia to pay those debts to us if we refuse to receive their goods, because we know that that is the only way they can pay their debts.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: I confess I am finding it very difficult to follow the noble Lord. He is arguing here about questions of trade. Does he mean that when we are trying to save
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these men, and when there is all this danger to them, these questions which he is now discussing about the relative merits of trade between the two countries enter into it at all?
LORD PASSFIELD: I hope that magnanimity and nobility will rise above these considerations of trade, but unfortunately we know the Soviet Government is not a person of magnanimity and nobility of soul. It may be that the Soviet Government think the same of us. Therefore I will not go on with that. My sole object in this matter would be to endeavour to get these men saved—saved in one way or another from whatever is in store for them. I am afraid, very much afraid, that the Government, by taking the method of threat, have injured the chances of these men and not improved them. The Government say, and rightly say, they hope it will not be necessary to put the Bill into operation. Well, let them consider in advance what they will be satisfied with, because, supposing one man is convicted and one man is sentenced, we want to get him off. You can only get him off by appealing for clemency, and you cannot yet clemency if you demand it by threats.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: My Lords, I only desire to say that I rise to express my support of the Bill that the Government have produced, and to testify for what my voice is worth—not much, I know—my profound belief that the country is ready to sanction, and support the Government in, any action they may think it necessary to take in order to save the lives of these men. After all, the elementary, almost the most elementary, duty of a Government is to protect its subjects. That is the very foundation of the whole relation between the sovereign power and the governed, and I cannot doubt for a moment that the country, the whole country without any exception, is anxious that everything that can be done should be done with that object.
No one who listened to the very remarkable speech of my noble friend can have felt other than profound anxiety in this case. I admit all that has been said both here and elsewhere as to the difference of criminal administration in the different countries and the mistake of trying to apply our rules of fair treatment of prisoners in their entirety to other criminal systems, but I do not

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think that any one who has read the two White Papers can have failed to come to the conclusion that in this matter it was not merely a case of certain British subjects being brought up to answer charges of having broker the criminal law of a foreign country. It was more than that. It was that British subjects were in peril because they were up against a system which accepted the principle that the courts of justice were part of the administrative system of the country and designed not only to punish crime but to forward the general policy of the country. A condition of that kind is one that must give us a profound anxiety with reference to what has occurred, and when the responsible Government of the country come down to Parliament and state their case fully as far as they can, and ask for a particular measure which they believe will be of advantage in one of their primary duties, that of protecting the lives and liberty of the subjects of His Majesty, it does not seem to me that Parliament can do other than accept the proposal and, as unanimously as possible, vote for its adoption.
A good deal has been said by my noble friend Lord Passfield about what he conceives to be the unwisdom of certain actions which the Government have taken, and particularly with reference to what he calls the threats that the Government have made against the Soviet authorities. It is only fair to the Government to point out that if you read the early part of the first White Paper, as far as I can learn, no threats were uttered in the first instance, and the period of threats only arose when it seemed probable that the Soviet Government were not going to yield to the ordinary diplomatic representations that had been made. However that may be, I do not see that any member of this House could say—I certainly should feel utterly incompetent to say—whether the particular method that the Government had adopted was or was not the best one. That seems to me a matter upon which only the executive Government of the day can possibly form a judgment. They have access to the whole facts. They have had the benefit of the presence in this country of their principal representative in Russia. They have no doubt heard all he has to say, and, having heard all that and having considered the whole thing, they come
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down and deliberately say that they do believe, if they are given the power to refuse imports from Russia, that will be a very important means of argument with the Russian authorities in this case.
My noble friend Lord Passfield will forgive me if I say I a little regret, as aid the noble Marquess, the intrusion into his speech of questions of economic policy and that kind of thing. They are very important, but they are not comparably important with the question of saving the lives of these men. Therefore, I should certainly be disposed to say, and do say, that it is our duty to support the Government and grant them the powers they ask. If it is not the right policy they must bear the responsibility for that. It is our duty, as it seems to me, to give them all the powers they ask on an occasion of this kind.
I want to say one word more which has a very indirect bearing, if it has any bearing, on this particular case. I want to mention it because otherwise I think misunderstanding in this country may arise. Of the two powers that the Government desire to exercise in this case, the first is the withdrawal of the head of our Diplomatic Mission from Russia. They asked him to return for consultation. That was, apparently, the reason, but it was also no doubt to express our dissatisfaction with the proceedings of the Soviet Government. Secondly, they propose this other measure, the refusal of Russian imports. In another very important international matter—not less important than this; though not making such a poignant appeal to our hearts and sympathy, yet perhaps in the end not less important for the happiness and welfare of this country and of the world—I mean the controversies in the Far East—some of us have more than once begged the Government to consider the possibilities of some such measure as they are now adopting unilaterally against Russia, to consider whether some such measure as that could not be adopted, not unilaterally but in common with all the rest of the world, in order to enforce what we believe—what I profoundly believe—to be our absolute rights in the matter, our treaty rights clearly expressed in more than one treaty which have been hopelessly disregarded. And not only to enforce our treaty rights but to maintain that attempt, on the success of which the future of the world depends,

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to organise some system for the effective maintenance of the peace of the world.
It would be trespassing on your Lordships' patience to ask you to listen to any further disquisition on that topic. I am anxious to mention it because it is a matter that is occupying a good deal of the attention of the people of this country, outside Parliament, and I earnestly hope the Government will now consider most carefully whether the policy which it is right, as I think it is right, to support in order to enforce our duty to protect our fellow-subjects is not also the right policy to pursue in order to enforce our rights to the maintenance of treaties and the observance of obligations which lie at the root of the whole system of preserving the peace of the world. While I hold that view, though I think it is important it should be stated, though I trust earnestly the Government will consider it and consider it impartially with a desire to deal with it as favourably as they can, that does not alter my view that in this particular case, and in these circumstances, there can be no question in my judgment that it is our duty to support the Government and to support them whole-heartedly in any measures, on their responsibility, which they come and state to Parliament are regarded as an advantage in the efforts to save the lives of these men.
VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER: My Lords, I am sure I need not assure you, and I trust I need not assure the noble Viscount who has just sat down, that I would not stand between him and your Lordships' House for a single moment. I understand that the sole and the isolated purpose of this Bill is to afford some protection to five of our fellow-subjects who, at this moment, are standing in grave peril. The assurances in another place that that was its purpose have been repeated here, and indeed, so far as I was concerned, it appeared to me unnecessary that they should be repeated because, in spite of what the noble Lord, Lord Passfield, said about some excitable interjection in another place, I would never believe that the Government would be guilty of such an unworthy action as to introduce a Bill designed to protect people who stand in jeopardy and then use it for the purpose of advancing some other form of policy. I should be slow indeed to believe any such thing, and I wish to add that I know
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nothing in what the Government have done that could justify anybody in making that assumption. Therefore this measure must be looked at in that light and in that light alone.
The noble Lord, Lord Passfield, appears to look at it in almost every other light, and the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, could not refrain—I quite understand it—from adding to it a matter with regard to the general application of just such a policy, which diverts our minds from the real question. While I am speaking there are five of our fellow subjects who have got into the net of a system of law which, from what the noble Viscount has told us, we can only regard with the gravest possible apprehension. I feel myself some uneasiness about the matter for this reason. The Government think that this is the only course that can be taken. It may be that they are right, but one thing at least is certain, that people who think that there may or may not have been another course are now too late to put it forward. The trial of these men begins to-morrow. If action is to be taken it must be prompt. If the Government's attitude in relation to the Russian Government is to be effective, if it is to be strong, it must be action which has behind it the united opinion of both Houses of Parliament and which commands the assent of the people of this country. It is therefore too late in the day to consider anything else.
The Government on their sole responsibility—responsibility which I am thankful to think I do not share—have decided that this is the only effective course that they can take. That being so, I am bound to say that I heard with great regret the speech that was made by the noble Lord, Lord Passfield. That, I thought, might have had some effect in a debating society meeting held in some back drawing-room, but could only be dangerous when delivered at this moment in these circumstances. I at least, speaking for myself, desire to say that I give support without qualification to the Government's proposal. But as everybody is permitted something in the nature of a rider I should like to add this. I do wish that it was possible that someone who has an influence that I cannot claim, and an authority which I can never possess, could make the Russian Government understand that what we have said is

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really what we mean, and that we are not using this for the purpose of breaking commercial or other relations with them—that, indeed, we have no desire to do anything of the kind, but that we are driven to it by circumstances which have been forced upon us.
I should also like them to understand that the conception that there are either individuals or groups of people here acting with the belief that they can overthrow in Russia the idea which is embodied in the Russian Government is the purest fairy-tale. Whatever people may think about the possibility of such a system here, there is not one that has the least desire to overthrow it there. Let them work out their own salvation. Let them understand that. Let them understand even more that there are quite a number of people here who have no objection to the idea embodied in their Government, but who object to the means by which they have attempted to carry that idea into effect. Let these people know that after all to do justice and to execute mercy is the only firm foundation oil which they can maintain the great experiment that they have undertaken.
LORD MOUNT TEMPLE: My Lords, anyone who speaks in this debate must do so with the greatest sense of responsibility and some of us who in the past have criticised the policy of His Majesty's Government as regards Russia must be specially careful in anything we may say this evening. Whether the Government are right or wrong in the views they have chosen it is the obvious duty of everybody in this country to support them at the present crisis. The Government have means of knowing what should be done which is denied to outside people. The Government have had the advantage of conferring with the Ambassador. Therefore it seems to me, as they have come here this afternoon to say that in their considered judgment this Bill is the best way of saving the lives and the liberty of these imprisoned men, that we ought by a unanimous vote and by a unanimous voice to support them in the course they have pursued.
I hope and trust that the policy of the Socialist Party is more patriotic than that outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Passfield. I say that because in reading the speech of the right hon. gentleman who moved the official Amendment to this
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Bill on Second Reading in another place, I notice that Sir Stafford Cripps used the following words:
"Beyond this right to make the fullest inquiry and obtain the fullest information, International Law recognises no right of interference in the internal affairs of a foreign country"—
now mark these words:
"unless certain specified states of affairs can be shown to have arisen with regard to the nationals of another country."
That means, I take it, unless there are very exceptional circumstances. What more special circumstances could there possibly be than arise in the case of these arrested British employees? I cannot conceive that Sir Stafford Cripps could find a case in which the exception to the ordinary rules of International Law is so patent.
As we have been told by the noble and learned Viscount the Leader of the House, the Soviet Courts are not independent or impartial. They do not pretend to be. They are part of the Government machine and the Courts are subservient to policy. Therefore if the Soviet Government consider that these British engineers should be convicted for the benefit of the Soviet Government, convicted they will be, end the Soviet Government will decide on the sentence to be imposed. That ground alone seems to me ample ground for the action which His Majesty's Government have taken and for any extraordinary interference which they may consider right. Further, must not the Government regard as an exceptional circumstance the fact that on the day these men were arrested thirty-five Russians were shot without trial by the same organisation? Lord Passfield seems to take it as an ordinary state of affairs that their form of trial should be different from what it is here, but would lie not consider that the Russians would have a right to interfere here if Scotland Yard arbitrarily arrested certain Russian subjects, and within a day or so of other people having been shot? Again, are not the torture and questioning of Mr. Thornton for twenty-one hours on end and Mr. Monk-house for nineteen hours and seventeen hours appalling ordeals? These men were alone, not knowing the language and allowed no sleep and no rest. Surely on such grounds His Majesty's Government are entitled to intervene. These

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British subjects can only be defended by people who do not understand their language. As has been pointed out, when defending Counsel have been proved to have been too anxious to save their clients they have been dismissed from the College and punished. It seems to me that the Government are amply justified and I hope the House will give them its unanimous support.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I desire to say very few words in summing up this debate, but I should like to be allowed to thank the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, and the noble Lord, Lord Mount Temple, for their support and the language which they have used. I cannot help feeling that the weight which we desire this decision to have will be enormously increased when it is realised that figures which stand so high in public estimation, not only in this country but in the world, as the noble Viscount on the Cross Benches and the ex-Lord Chancellor on the Liberal Benches, associate themselves so wholeheartedly with the policy of the Government.
I only want to say one or two words in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Pass-field. He assured us that his sole object was to get these men saved. Of course I accept his assurance, but I think the method he adopted in his speech was singularly ill-adapted to that end. He criticised my right honourable friend Sir John Simon for never having told the House of Commons that there was going to be a trial, but if he had taken the trouble to read the White Paper before the House of Commons he would have seen that that fact was expressly set out in Document No. 30, telephoned from Sir Esmond Ovey on the 16th March. That fact was extracted after five days of intensive questioning by the Embassy from the Russian Foreign Office. To suggest that that fact was not disclosed to the House of Commons was a little unfair.
And when he criticised us for what we are doing one wondered a little what his policy would have been. I began to think he would rather have waited to see whether the men were shot before he made up his mind to make any protest. That is not the attitude His Majesty's Government see fit to adopt, and his
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bland assumption that there existed in the Soviet Republic that clamour of public opinion which he thought would have such weight upon their Government showed an innocence of mind which would almost explain his singular infelicity of attitude. I do not wish to take up forther time in discussing this matter because I cannot help thinking that your Lordships have made up your minds. I am grateful to the House for allowing me to take so long in opening. Your Lordships will realise this is a matter on which the Government feel the most grave anxiety and on which I believe the feeling of this country has been intensely aroused.
On Question, Bill read 2a.
Then (Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended) Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House forthwith. House in Committee accordingly: Bill reported without amendment: Bill read 3a, and passed.

ARMY AND AIR FORCE (ANNUAL) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.

GLASGOW INQUIRY.
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Paper for the setting up of a Tribunal of Inquiry under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1921. Those of your Lordships who are interested in Scotland will be aware that for some time in Glasgow there have been numerous allegations of bribery and so forth in the conduct of municipal business, and the Secretary of State for Scotland has therefore decided to set up a Tribunal under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1921, to enquire into these allegations. The Government's decision to take this step was announced in the House of Commons on the 9th of last month. By proceeding under this Act it will be possible to take evidence on oath and to compel the attendance of witnesses and the production of documents, and it is hoped by these means, and by the measure of indemnity from prosecution promised in the Secretary of State's announcement in the House of Commons, to secure an inquiry of a searching and conclusive character. The

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Corporation of Glasgow has undertaken to meet the costs of the inquiry. The members of the Tribunal have already been announced in another place. Before a Tribunal can be appointed it is a statutory requirement that both Houses of Parliament should pass a Resolution that it is expedient that a Tribunal be established for enquiring into a definite matter described in the Resolution as of urgent public importance. The Resolution was passed in another place last night without opposition. I beg to move.
Moved, That it is expedient that a Tribunal be established for enquiring into a definite matter of urgent public importance, that is to say, the letting and allocation, since January 1, 1928, of stances and of other premises in the Markets under the control of the Corporation of Glasgow, and the circumstances attending, and the negotiations prior to, the said letting and allocation, and allegations of bribery and corruption in connection therewith, or in connection with other matters relating to the civic and municipal administration of the Corporation of the City of Glasgow and the licensing administration affecting the said City since the said date.—(Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal.)