Lords Sitting of 10 May 1933

Preamble
The House met at a quarter before four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
LORD RENNELL.
The Right Honorable Sir James Rennell Rodd, G.C.B., G.C.M.G., G.C.V.O., having been created Baron Rennell of Rodd in the County of Hereford—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
BRIDLINGTON BORPORATION BILL.
Read 2a, and committed.
MALDENS AND COOMBE URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a.

JUDICIAL VACANCY: MESSAGE FROM THE KING.
THE EARL OF CROMER: My Lords, I have to convey to your Lordships the following Message from the King:
"I have received your Address praying that, in pursuance of the Supreme Court of Judicature (Consolidation) Act, 1925, a Judge may be appointed to the High Court of Justice to fill a vacancy in the King's Bench Division thereof, and I will issue directions in accordance with your desire."

SEA POLLUTION BY WASTE OIL.
THE EARL OF ILCHESTER THE EARL OF ILCHESTER rose to call the attention of His Majesty's Government to the pollution of the sea by waste oil discharged from steamers, caused not only to the waters of estuaries and tidal harbors, but also outside the three-mile limit, and to the consequent injury to bird life and to inshore fisheries and to the general amenities of the foreshore; and to ask whether, in view of the serious nature of this damage, they will summon an International Conference to discuss this question, and if possible, to find and to carry into effect a remedy for it.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I have put down the Question which stands in my name on the Paper, to-day, on behalf of the Trustees of the British Museum and the Natural History Museum, as they feel, in conjunction with many other important bodies, a great deal of alarm at the discharge of oil which is at present taking place in our seas, and feel very strongly that the time has come for His Majesty's Government to take some action to mitigate this nuisance, which is so constantly caused all round our coasts and in the waters adjacent to them. The subject, I think, falls quite naturally into three headings: (1) the destruction of sea-birds, and their consequent sufferings; (2) the damage to the amenities of our foreshores; and (3) the damage to our inshore fisheries. On the first two points I do not propose to take up too much of your Lordships' time, not because they are any less important than the other, but because, as your Lordships will remember, they were debated some two months ago in this House, and also because I think there will be several speakers who will deal with those points at a later stage of our proceedings. I do, however, particularly want to impress upon the House that this is not only a matter of destruction of birds and bathing suits, as might possibly be understood by those who read the debate here on the former occasion, but there is also an important fishery side of the question. The sea fisheries committees, who have charge of the fishing in our territorial waters, view this matter with the gravest apprehension.
On the subject of damage to bird life you will have heard from Lord Kilmaine, who brought forward the Motion on the former occasion and who, I am sorry to say, is unable to be present here to-day, of the horrible tortures which these unfortunate birds suffer once they have come in contact with this greasy black mess which floats about in our seas. You were then told that on almost every occasion death is the only relief to their sufferings. It is divers chiefly which suffer, though all sea-birds are affected to a certain extent. Divers are unable, once they are affected, to fish for their food, and die of lingering starvation. Worse still, in trying to clean their feathers they get this oil down their throats, and as
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much of this oil, if you put it on your hand, will burn holes, you can understand the state of the insides of these unfortunate birds.
I am going to ask your Lordships to let me read to you a very short extract from a report of the chief sea fishery officer of my district, the Southern district, of which I have the honour to be Chairman, as I think it puts the case and the effect of what we are discussing to-day very forcibly and very well. The occasion of this report was a very serious discharge of oil in the early days of this year on the south-east coast of the Isle of Wight. He says:
"Numerous sea-birds, comprising puffins, razor-bills, guillemots and gulls have become covered with oil and have been washed up on to the shores, where they have then died a lingering death, sinless killed in order to relieve them from their sufferings The presence of oil on the sea can only be accounted for by its having been discharged from oil-driven steamers, and although some of the steamers may have been at a considerable distance from land at the time of the discharge, yet, owing to the action of wind and currents the oil discharged has been driven on to the shore. The sea-birds get covered with the floating oil when they are out at sea, and there must be large numbers of birds which are covered with oil to such an extent as to become totally helpless, with the result that they perish when they are miles away from land. It is only those sea-birds that are driven towards the shore by the action of wind and tide that are seen. The birds are quite unable to fly, or to obtain food, and sonic of the birds that have been found were starved to such an extent that they had hardly any flesh on them."
On that occasion two birds were produced which I was told were gulls. They were perfectly black, and it was extremely difficult to realise that they were birds at all. On the same occasion a letter was read from a private individual in that neighbourhood, who had been out fishing with lines, and had come upon a patch of this oil, in which there was quite a large quantity of scraps of food. He saw the birds diving into this oil to get the food, and they paid the penalty. I should say that our fishery committees have nothing really to do with this destruction of birds and this was simply inserted in our report as a sidelight to show how very serious things are becoming.
There is no doubt that more birds come ashore after gales than at other times It is possible that some of these

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birds were dead before they were touched by the oil; but I think it is equally certain that the majority are driven into this oil by the force of the wind, when in calm weather they would probably be able to avoid it. There are also many that come ashore slightly covered with the oil, and hardly any recover; and it is an interesting point, I think, that in one or two places where the corpses have been carefully examined it is found that the older birds slightly predominate. There is, however, really very little difference in the numbers as between young and old. I have received on this subject a letter from a bird lover on the coast of Sussex who mentions that the worst time for finding these birds is after a south-easterly gale. In calm weather very few oiled birds come ashore. He states emphatically that many more birds come ashore now than before the oil trouble, and he says that there can be no doubt that sea-birds suffer heavily from the oil, the divers in particular. I noticed in a local newspaper the other day that at a meeting of the Devon Sea Fisheries Committee mention was made of 800 corpses of birds having been swept up on some beaches to the north of Start Point, and a big beach to the west of the same headland having been covered with the bodies of these birds. I understand, too, that in certain parts of Scotland a great deal of damage to birds is going on.
With regard to the amenities of foreshores, I will only just say this, that we have always been proud in England of the cleanliness of our beaches and coasts. I hardly think we can speak in that way of them as things are at present. This oil comes in from the sea, wherever it is cast out. It follows the private boats, it makes everything most unpleasant for the bathers, and ruins bathing suits. I am quite sure that if His Majesty's Government require more evidence, they will have no difficulty in obtaining it from towns along our coast. I understand that quite recently a very strong resolution was passed by the Federation of Women's Unions, asking their Members of Parliament to take this matter up and press most strongly for action. The public is roused on the matter, and I hope that His Majesty's Government will take note of that point, and that something will be done.
But it is on fishery matters that I particularly want to address your Lordships to-day. I do so, I feel, with some authority, because I can claim to speak for the whole of the sea fisheries committees of England and Wales, who are unanimous on this subject. I would remind your Lordships that our coast line is divided into the areas of twelve committees, while Scotland is managed by one large Fishery Board. Our English committees are appointed by the various county councils, and supplemented by fishery members who have practical knowledge and also knowledge of the local coastline. These committees are co-ordinated by an Association of Sea Fisheries, in the same way as the County Councils Association co-ordinates county councils. I am authorized to-day to speak for the. Association, who at their last meeting passed a unanimous resolution calling for alterations in the Oil in Navigable Waters Act, 1922, which was brought in to prevent the discharge of oil in our territorial waters and harbors; and also to ask for a new attempt to be made to obtain international agreement.
I have attended many of the conferences, which are held in London once a year, between these committees and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. I know what they feel about this matter, and am here to represent it to your Lordships to-day. They believe— and I think very rightly— that this oil is doing very distinct harm to inshore fisheries, and if fishing along our coasts is to be maintained at all something will have to be done. The longshoremen, by reason of the size of their crafts— they have only small boats— cannot go far out to sea after the fish. Therefore they are dependent on fish coming close inshore. They fish from small boats and from the beaches with various forms of nets. They fish for lobsters or crabs, they catch shrimps and prawns, and they catch shellfish. These men have been having a very hard time recently. The prices of fish are low, the prices of gear which they have to use are very high; and many of the areas in which they fish have been, I am sorry to say, restricted and curtailed by the action of the armed Forces of the Crown. By-laws have been passed to suit them which are extremely hard. There are cases which I could quote where the Navy could go a few miles further out to sea and would do no harm

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at all, whereas they are using the best fishery grounds and making it very difficult for these men. I would remind your Lordships that in consequence of these troubles this class of man represents a dwindling race. Young men are not taking up their father's profession because they find it too hard. There, I think, we have another reason for unemployment. I would also remind your Lordships that this is the class of man from which our seamen in the past have been drawn and to which England owes much of the glory of the Navy in past years. Now, on top of all their troubles, has come this new plague, the oil menace.
Your Lordships will ask, how does oil affect them? I am not going to tell you that I have seen fish strangled with oil in the same way as birds, though I have had a definite statement from a gentleman who knows far more about the subject in practice than I do, that he has seen fish in that state; but I think I can show you how it does affect them in many other ways. May we take, as an illustration, a patch of this oil which is thrown out, say, fifty miles out to sea. If it is blown in, it comes drifting towards the shore, and takes very little time to get there. The first thing it does is to take all the oxygen out of the water. Fish must have oxygen. Therefore, the moment these great shoals of fish strike this de-oxygenated water, they sheer off and go out to sea again or go somewhere else, and often they go beyond reach of the fishermen, who, as I have told you, cannot go far out. In many places where mackerel were found in large quantities a few years ago, practically none are found to-day. I again quote from the Devon Sea Fisheries Report that a few years ago in Teignmouth Bay any man could go out in a boat and fish with a line, and catch as many fish as he wanted in a day. Nowadays anybody would be very lucky to get six. On the beaches, where five to ten thousand mackerel were formerly no very rare thing as a haul, hardly any mackerel are taken. This experience applies to the same degree in my own district, though I say quite frankly that oil is not alone responsible, though that is one of the reasons.
The patch of oil we were speaking of floats about in the sea probably for three months, and then it begins to sink. If it sank to the bottom and remained dor-
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mant there it would not do very much harm, but what in fact happens is this. Small bubbles keep on breaking off; they remain in suspension in the water and scatter themselves all over the bottom of the sea. They damage the fish spawn, they damage the plants, which are the food of the fishes and of the small animals which feed the fish, and altogether they do a great deal of harm. If this oil sinks right out in the open sea, probably it does not do very much harm, but it comes rolling in, and when it approaches our shores it is deposited on the mud banks at low tide. Perhaps I might tell your Lordships that it is calculated that a very small amount of oil will cover an enormous area of sea. Figures I have had quoted to me show that less than six quarts of oil will cover a square mile of sea with some sort of film. It gets on the mud banks, it destroys the food of the young fishes, it is said to damage the shrimps and prawns, and it certainly does an immense amount of harm to the shell fisheries, winkles, mussels, and oysters.
I propose to give your Lordships some account of the result of the researches of my colleague and co-trustee, Professor Stanley Gardiner, the eminent zoologist and lecturer at Cambridge. He has been making investigations for the last two years in the smaller inlets and estuaries of our east coast. The waters there are shallow and enclosed, and a very little oil will do a great deal of damage. But I think it is not unfair to take what he has told me as an illustration of what is going on in the bigger bays and estuaries, where there is much more oil, though probably the result is proportionately less. He tells me that birds have certainly decreased in numbers and the grass weed on the mud banks, which is useful, for food, is disappearing. He tells me that the surface of the mud is far more slimy than it was twenty years ago, and he calculates that the animal life in the mud banks has decreased in twenty years by not less than 75 per cent. The oil affects the bottom plants and the tiny animals which are the food of the immature fish. Small animals that can swim about are not affected in quite the same way, but when you come to the more sluggish varieties, worms and crustaceans of various sorts, they are being killed in a great measure. Both the attached seaweed and the non-attached sea-weed are very much affected, and the very small

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sea-weed, which floats about and which is a kind of food for these animals, is also affected. If it is examined under a microscope it show s hanging to it little drops of oil whirl destroys it in time. If this state of affairs continues it is only fair to say that a great deal of the food of our fishes is going to be destroyed.
Professor Gardiner believes that there is a 25 per cent. reduction on pre-war figures in the life in these estuaries on the east coast. He also gave me an interesting example of what happens to the shell fish. Some years ago he laid 3,000,000 oysters in the Helford estuary near Falmouth. Shortly afterwards an oil ship went ashore eight or ten miles away and the oil was spread about the coast. Very little oil got into the estuary as far as could be seen, yet half a million of these oysters died, and the others became so thin and attenuated that only the good luck of having a very fine summer saved the situation. I notice that in the debate: in this House on a previous occasion the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, who replied for the Government, gave what I imagine is the official view of the situation, that the available evidence goes to show that pollution is decreasing. I am afraid I am not so optimistic as my noble friend and I am sure he will forgive my saying that, in any case, I should not have been very much moved by his words, for this reason, that owing to lack of trade there are not nearly so many ships coming into our territorial waters, and when trade revives and the normal amount of shipping passes through our waters we shall have much more oil than we are having at present.
I most strongly dispute the official view. If your Lordships will allow me, I will read a very short résumé of the reports which have been made upon oil in my district in the last ten years, and when I have done so I think your Lordships will agree with me that things are not very much better than they were. In 1924 there were two complaints of much oil in the Solent which affected the supply of prawns and shrimps. In 1925, in the first quarter, there was much crude oil or the whole coast eastward from Bournemouth I may say that the district to which I there refer comprises Dorset, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, excluding Southampton Water, which comes under the Southampton Harbor Board. In the third quarter of 1925 there was
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a lot of oil off Portsmouth and the entrance to Southampton Water; also south-west of Portland.
Now I come to 1927—your Lordships will notice there was a year with no report—and the reports state that in the third quarter small quantities of oil were discharged in Portland, but there was general improvement. In the fourth quarter there were small quantities round the Isle of Wight. In 1928, second quarter, there was a considerable amount at Lulworth and Lyme Regis. In 1929, first quarter, large quantities were reported in the Isle of Wight and the Poole districts. The Solent was fairly free. During the second quarter of 1929, on the south-east coast of the Isle of Wight, many puffins were affected. As to the fourth quarter, there is a reference to Portland Harbor and Weymouth Bay. In 1930, first quarter, there was some in Weymouth Bay. Birds were damaged in all districts. In the second quarter, Chesil Beach, Weymouth, and the east end of the Isle of Wight, are mentioned, with large quantities in Sandown. Bay; and in the third quarter Portland Harbor. I am afraid in that last mentioned case it was certainly due to a naval vessel because there was nothing else in the Harbor. In the Solent, off Cowes, there was a film extending all along the shore 100 yards in depth. In 1931, second quarter, on the foreshores of the east coast of the Isle of Wight disabled birds were reported. In 1932, first quarter, some birds were reported in a pitiable condition. In the second quarter there were birds in Portland Harbor and on Chesil Beach; and in the third quarter a bad discharge in Portland Dockyard.
Then I come to this year when, as I have already mentioned to your Lordships, there was a very bad discharge off the south-east coast of the Isle of Wight, and our last report stated that there were small quantities in every district and many birds were affected. Your Lordships will notice that in 1929, 1930, 1932 and 1933 there were complaints everywhere. I have already mentioned the complaints from Devon. I have seen the most recent report of the South Wales Committee, whose district is one which suffers very severely from this oil, and the conditions are appalling all along that coast. I have referred already to the Act of 1922. I believe personally that it has done

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good, but it has several shortcomings and the members of the fisheries associations have asked for its amendment for the last three years and no doubt will do so again at the conference in London this year. They asked particularly for an alteration of paragraph 7, subsection (4), which is, in effect, that they shall themselves be given power to prosecute the vessels which are offending against the Act. It was apparently intended in the Act that they should be given these powers, for the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries actually issued instructions as to how they were to proceed in the case of prosecution, and then discovered that the fisheries committees were not given any powers under the Act.
The present situation is that we have to go to the Ministry if we want to prosecute and this procedure is not working well. I may say that my committee had a good case which the Ministry of Agriculture refused to take up. We also suggest that power should be given to committees to prosecute in the harbors. At present only the harbor authorities may prosecute in their harbors— that is to say, they are either prosecuting themselves or their best customers, and naturally not very much is done. It is only fair to say, however, that one or two authorities, especially the Southampton authority, are very active in this matter, but there are others who are not. There is a further point, and that is that the Act does not apply to any vessel not capable of carrying in bulk for cargo or bunker purposes more than twenty-five tons of oil or not having oil space that would take more than five tons. Small boats up to that size can therefore do a great deal of harm. We think that those sizes ought to be reduced. We were told at the conference that the matter would be looked into, but nothing has been done.
To amend this Act will require legislation, and I felt doubtful of suggesting legislation to His Majesty's Government as I know they do not like it, but the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries has foreshadowed legislation on behalf of the fishing industry and it occurs to me that that might provide an opportunity for making some changes. That, however, does not do away with my argument that international agreement is really the only way to deal with the matter. The only proper way to deal with this question of
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oil is to get separators introduced into all ships. Your Lordships were told on the last occasion of the Conference of 1926. Attempts were then made to get every country to insist on separators being put into oil-burning ships and also to get some agreement as to zones where in oil should not be discharged. That Conference failed. The only thing that came of it was a voluntary agreement between certain countries that they would not discharge oil within fifty miles of the coast. I maintain that a zone of fifty miles is absolutely useless. If you are going to have zones they must be 200 miles to 300 miles from the coast because otherwise with certain winds oil is back on the coast in a very short time.
No doubt the Board of Trade have fully studied the separator question, and we may be told something about that to-day. I am not an engineer and I know very little about this side of the question, but I am told that separators are very much cheaper than they were. I was given a quotation of the cost of separators and I was told that in a ship of 8,000 to 10,000 tons the cost would be about £250, which does not seem to be a very serious proportion of the whole cost of the ship. Moreover, I understand that oil can be used again when it is taken out of the bilges by the separators and therefore the separators should pay their way. I understand that a Bill is to be introduced in another place by an honorable Member, Sir Cooper Rawson, to provide that England at all events shall insist upon separators being installed in ships. One of the objections to this Bill, I understand, is that it will penalize English ships as against other ships. Possibly that objection will not be pressed when we find the Government putting a further tax on heavy oil, which apparently is going to do exactly the same thing.
I spoke of zones just now and I said that I regarded a fifty mile zone as a positive danger in certain respects. That bears on another question, that of oil tankers, which is quite different from the pumping out of bilges of ordinary ships. These oil tankers clean out their tanks at certain times and there is an Admiralty order that no tanker shall clean out within the fifty-mile limit. Consequently these tankers, when they want to get rid of oil, go out fifty miles and then pump out the oil. I suggest that the only way to get over that difficulty is to insist on

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barges being supplied in every harbor into which these tankers, and possibly other oil-burning ships, can pump their spare oil. I believe it is done voluntarily in certain harbors and that it is insisted upon in the United States. I notice that in replies to questions in another place the Government have continually stated that they would welcome effective action but find it impossible to secure agreement. My Lords, we want the Government to take the initiative and not to welcome effective action from somebody else.
Washington started this ball rolling. Why should not our Government keep it moving? Surely it is for a National Government to try to get this question dealt with. I want to ask the noble Lord a definite question. When were foreign Governments last approached? I would also like to ask whether the National Government have done anything with the question. They may tell us that they have done nothing because nothing could be done seven years ago. I confess I think that that is a very poor argument. You can get nothing unless you try. I strongly suggest that a new Conference should be tried. Seven years is a long time, and many things have happened since 1926. France, for instance, is far more dependent on visitors to French bathing beaches than before, but if bathing beaches are going to be soiled by this oil, nobody will go there. Then, take the case of Italy. Who would have believed seven years ago that there would be a bird sanctuary in Italy as there is now? I dare say some of your Lordships will have read the most friendly message sent recently by Signor Mussolini to the Royal Society fur the Protection of Birds. We know that the United States are most anxious to get something done, and I suggest, though I know some will hold up their hands in horror at the idea, that if five or six of the large countries get together we can afford to snap our fingers at the others and tell them that if they do not put in separators they shall not come inside our harbors. I am sure that would assist many of our ships which are now laid up and help to bring them again into use.
I urge the Government most strongly to take this matter up and carry on the
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work of 1926. Everybody in the country is calling for action and if His Majesty's Government do not move nobody else will move, and things will go on exactly as they are. Even if our campaign is not completely successful we might carry matters a step further and make a move towards the ultimate goal we desire to reach, when at least we shall be able to say that England has taken seine part in doing away with this menace to our own and other shores. I must say that to take no hand in the matter seems to me to be a disgrace.
EARL BUXTON: My Lords, I am anxious to have the opportunity of supporting as strongly as I can the noble Earl who has just sat down. There is really before us in this country and else where a new yellow peril with which we have to deal—a problem that has increased enormously in the last few years and now requires more rapid solution than a little time ago. If I may say so, I am speaking on behalf of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, of which I have the honour to be Treasurer. I think T may say that that Society was the first to take up this question twelve or fourteen years ago and to attract public attention to it. I think to them was largely due the Act of 1922 which, though not altogether effective, has done a considerable amount of good. I recognize that this is not a matter merely of protecting birds against the existing evil. There are many other interests involved. One to which the noble Lord specially referred is the fishery interest of this country, and he has shown that in various ways the fishing industry is much injured and hampered by this oil. But I would like to say a few words upon the subject as it affects bird life.
I do not know whether any of your Lordships have seen—it really is a horrible sight—a gull or tern, which is the embodiment of freedom and of the joy of life, saturated with this oil, floating on the surface of the water unable to fly, swim or dive, in a state of starvation because it cannot feed itself, or actually drowned by the roughness of the waves or washed ashore in a crippled condition. As the oil cannot be removed, the kindest thing to do to such a bird is to kill it, and that is illegal. I do not think too much stress can be laid upon the injury and suffering to bird life throughout the

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country. In addition, of course, there is the fishing industry to be considered, the enormous injury done all round the coasts at seaside resorts and elsewhere, the depreciation of property, and the immense inconvenience and discomfort caused to those who live in these places. I am sure that the general feeling in regard to this matter has increased of late because of the increasing amount of damage which is being done.
The noble Earl, Lord Lucan, speaking in a recent debate, said that the evidence before him showed that the evil was diminishing. I am bound to say that I agree with the noble Earl who has just sat down that, far from decreasing, it is increasing. As far as the Bird Protection Society is concerned, we have had a larger number of complaints of death and injury in 1933 than either last year or the year before; that does not suggest that the evil is diminishing. Further, a memorandum of the Shipowners' Parliamentary Committee states that they themselves do not think that the oil nuisance has really abated of late years, though they point out that if it has it is to a certain extent due to the action of shipowners in regard to separators and the 50-mile zone. Any decrease would he mainly due, of course, to a falling off in trade. We hope that the falling off in trade will soon be remedied, and we understand from the Government that they are going to improve our economic position, but the more our trade improves the more will this evil extend unless something is done. We cannot look forward in the ordinary course to any diminution of the evil for the good reason that the percentage of ships driven by oil, when compared with those driven by coal, increases year by year, from under 3 per cent. in 1918 to some 50 per cent. Now.
A still more serious consideration is that all this oil accumulates. In that respect it is not like ordinary pollution which as it is diluted disappears. This is what I am given to understand is the actual effect of the heavy oil "This heavy oil discharge when agitated with salt water forms an emulsion consisting of oil, water and air. These emulsions are very viscous and adhesive, and resemble a heavy grease much more than the original oil." It neither sinks nor disintegrates nor evaporates. Tine, after
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a time some of it does sink, but when it sinks it probably does more damage to fish than when it is on the surface. At all events this accumulating oil becomes a greater menace year by year. I think my noble friend has said that some of these films were hundreds of miles long. I would like to read to the House, if I may, a memorandum by Dr. G. W. Field of New York, submitted to the Biological Survey of the U.S.A., last year. He said this, to prove the way in which the oil is already there and year by year increasing and accumulating:
"My observation convinces me that the oil film is well-nigh continuous for at least 500 miles out of New York Harbor, and off Cherbourg, France, and that a single, continuous sheet of oil at least 100 miles in diameter…existed…mid-way between the French and Newfoundland coasts."
If that is so then we have to find a remedy. I think everyone agrees as to the evil, and the question is what remedy can be found.
There are really only two practical ways in which the matter can be dealt with. One is by fitting separators in the ships, which extract the oil before the bilges are cleaned out. The other is to have local barges in the harbors, which themselves have separators, and into which the ships can discharge their bilge water mixed with oil. The Chamber of Shipping are very anxious about this matter. Their remedy, finding difficulty in putting separators in all the ships, is that it should be the duty of all port authorities to provide these separating barges. They would partly remedy the evil without the necessity of an international agreement. That is one point to which the Government might direct their attention. Another proposal is, of course, that to which the noble Earl referred, but it is really only a palliative—namely, that ships should be induced or forced to discharge their oil and bilge water some fifty miles away from the coast. I am bound to say that I think his remarks about that are perfectly sound. It is true in a way that the discharging of bilge oil fifty miles away from the coasts would be better than discharging it into harbors and docks, but undoubtedly, as this oil floats on the surface and neither breaks up nor sinks nor disintegrates, the waves and winds would in time drive it ashore and into

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the harbors. It is merely a palliative, and certainly not a remedy such as would prevent the poisoning of the waves.
It is quite true, unfortunately, that if you are to have anything in the nature of compulsory separators you can only do that by international agreement. It would not be fair upon our ship owners, or the ship owners of any particular country, without international agreement, to force them to provide separators. They would take up space and cost money, and would handicap our ship owners in competition with those of other nations. Therefore we have to look in that matter to international agreement, and it is to an International Conference that we look for a main remedy for this state of things.
The noble Earl referred to the fait that there was an International Conference at Washington about seven years ago, which met at the instance of the United States, and I would like to say, from a study of this matter, that the United States of America have taken not only a leading part in this matter but a practical part, with regard to their own ships, and have in many instances voluntarily instituted these separators. That Conference had before it two proposals. One was the compulsory fitting of separators in ships, and the other was the question of a 50-mile zone, within which no ship should discharge its bilge oil. Unfortunately, at that Conference the large majority of those represented, some 14 countries in all, were opposed to making it compulsory on s l Ups to carry separators, and although in favor of the zone idea they objected to its being made compulsory. The result was that that Conference came to no conclusion of any real value in diminishing this oil peril.
There is, however, one bright spot, which is immensely to the credit of the ship owning firms in this country. A very large number of the ship owning firms in this country have themselves voluntarily fitted separators in their ships, in order to avoid this evil of oil on the waters. I think that that is an action which we ought not only to recognize but appreciate—that they should have done that on their own initiative. I would almost: cave liked, if the list were not so long, to read to your Lordships the names of the firms who have in recent years taken that action, which is so immensely to
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their credit. In addition I think all our merchant shipping firms have instructed their masters to take care that they shall not discharge this bilge oil within the 50-mile zone. That, after all, is something, although, as I have said, I do not think it is really a solution of the matter, because in the end most of this oil would conic back into shallow waters. Still it shows that shipping firms in this country are anxious to do what they can towards finding a solution of this very difficult problem.
The Admiralty themselves have also issued strong instructions to all their ships that in every case where they come into harbor they must use the separating barges, and that when out at sea they must never discharge within the 50-mile limit. Therefore, so far as this country, and also, I think, the United States are concerned, we have done our best apart from international agreement. It does appear, however, that without some international agreement we shall not really obtain a solution of this question. I gather from answers made in the House of Commons, and in this House, and from the speech of Lord Lucan the other day, that the Government rather deprecate the calling together of an International Conference to deal with this question. I wish they would show courage and take the initiative and not wait for other people to call a Conference. As has been pointed out, it is seven years since an International Conference took place, and a very great deal has happened since then which, if put before a Conference now, would surely alter the views which were taken seven years ago.
In the first place the matter is a far more serious one than it was seven years ago. The amount of oil is increasing and accumulating every year, and the problem has become a far greater one, and there is a far greater danger in every aspect of the question. Then I am certain of this, that public opinion has enormously increased in this matter. Seven years ago very little was known about it, and very little was said about it. But now you will find in every country—France, Italy and so on and most certainly here—that public opinion is very strongly in favor of effective steps being taken. Then, after all, we have got much more accustomed in the last seven years to International Conferences on various subjects, with the

819
hope of getting international agreement in regard to them. But there are two points which are even more effective from the point of view of a fresh International Conference. The first is this. When seven years ago this Conference took place very little was known about separators. They were a comparatively new suggestion. They were very expensive, they were experimental, and many people did not know whether they would be effective. During those seven years our shipowners and others have had experience of them. It has been shown not only that they are effective, but that you can get them comparatively cheaply, and it is known that if you put a separator into a ship that separator will work properly and satisfactorily. The further point is that it has also been shown in the last few years that the separator put into an oil-burning steamer is a profitable thing, and not merely a capital loss.
I would like to read something that was written last year by Dr. G. W. Field, who is an American expert in these matters. He states that:
"Of 105 British vessels reporting, all but five found oil separators a profitable investment. Through the United States Steamboat Inspection Service, as of June, 1932, it is reported that of 349 oil-burning steamers 159 are and 190 are not equipped with separators. All but three of the separator-equipped steamers report a profit in their use."
The Bibby Line, which was one of the first to use these separators, say:
"All our eleven oil-burning vessels are fitted with separators. For purely economic reasons no shipowner to-day can afford to throw overboard valuable oil."
Neither of those arguments—and especially the fact that, the separators are now effective and are shown to be profitable—came before the International Conference when it took place. In these circumstances I would press very strongly upon the Government that they should reconsider their position, and take the initiative in calling an International Conference in order that they may see whether this really very serious evil from every point of view cannot be remedied and cannot be dealt with in a more effective way than it is at present
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, the speech of my noble friend Lord Ilchester appears to me to put this matter on a wholly different footing from that which it occupied only a few weeks ago.
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At that time we learnt from the Government that they looked upon this as a diminishing evil. Well, Lord Ilchester has access to the very best biological information on these matters as a Trustee of the British Museum, he is in touch with students of this matter from the purely scientific point of view, and he takes an active part in practical local government of our inshore waters. He is accordingly in a position to acquire the best available knowledge, and in reply to the optimism of the Government about this oil scandal—which is as great, though I hope not so disastrous, as has been their optimism about the musk rat —he has felt it his duty really to lay before your Lordships the actual state of affairs. Accordingly the problem now assumes new proportions. The public can now realise how grave it is. Hitherto those concerned in this subject have taken it almost for granted that the matter is serious. Now that is proved.
And it is no good for the Government to tell us that they think and hope that the matter is not so serious as it was. It is no good for them to say: "We failed seven years ago to get anything done, and therefore we are not going to try again." A very good opportunity is going to present itself. A great International Conference is going to assemble in a very few weeks. Your Lordships may be quite sure that during that Conference there will be long intervals of leisure; and I suggest that steps should be taken to use the Conference which is now going to take place to make soundings, if not to do more, with a view to a definite Conference ad hoc later on. Really, the Government must not be allowed to push this matter on one side as if there were no interest in it. It is a grave and serious scandal, and it is really incumbent on us to take the initiative in raising the question.
LORD DANESFORT: My Lords, I wish to associate myself as strongly as I can with the powerful appeals that have been made by the noble Lords, Lord Ilhester, Lord Buxton and Lord Crawford, to His Majesty's Government to find some remedy for these grave and proved evils. I say nothing about the dangers and the injury to fisheries and the fishing industry from this accumulation of oil on the surface of the waters, but I want to dwell upon the subject of sea-birds.

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Really the appalling cruelty that is inflicted upon sea-birds by these oil films on the sea surface is almost incredible. In this matter I am entitled to speak for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and I have been furnished by them with some of the reports of their inspectors, and with your Lordships' permission I will refer to one or two of these reports.
The inspector for the Folkestone district stated on January 31 this year that during that month eighty-seven sea-birds were found suffering from the effects of oil and had to be destroyed. On February 28 this year he reported that during that month fifty-four oiled seabirds had to be destroyed; and during March, 1933, forty-seven oiled guillemots had to be humanely killed. The inspector for the Dorset branch reported on April 1, 1933:
"The weather has been very wild and unsettled throughout the district, with the result that birds which have come in contact with oil and tar far out at sea have been washed upon the shores. Birds with their bodies thickly coated with oil have been found at St. Albans Head, Ring-stead, Weymouth, Wyke Regis and along the Chesil Beach to Burton Bradstock…All birds seen were dead and their bodies so thickly coated that they resembled masses of tar."
I could give any number of quotations, but I think your Lordships sufficiently realise the intolerable suffering which these birds are subject to and the necessity for finding some remedy.
What is the remedy? There was that Act passed to which reference has been made, the Oil in Navigable Waters Act, 1922. I hope that that may be amended so as to get rid of some of the present difficulties. But, even if it is amended, the Act is entirely inadequate to meet the evil, because it only forbids the discharge of oil into the territorial waters of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That, of course is very inadequate. Then it has been suggested that we might pass an Act making it compulsory upon all British ships to carry oil separators. In this connection I think the House will appreciate the most humane and most sensible action of British shipowners referred to by Lord Buxton in voluntarily putting upon their ships, at some not inconsiderable cost, oi1 separators which will go far to prevent, this evil, not only in territorial
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waters, but all over the sea. But, again, an Act of that sort, to my mind, would be not only inadequate, but it seems to me would be hardly fair to British shipowners, because, although the cost of these separators has been largely decreased and their effectiveness has been largely increased, it would be hardly fair to British shipowners to put them to the cost of installing separators in all their ships when they are in competition for sea transport with the sea-going ships of all the maritime countries of the world. Therefore I venture to think the position is this: that no really effective remedy can be applied unless we get the consent, good will, and co-operation of all the maritime countries of the world, and that can only be done by an International Conference.
I agree with Lord Ilchester that perhaps it is hardly necessary to obtain the consent, in this matter, of all the countries of the world. If we can get the co-operation of the principal maritime countries of the world, and if it is possible to have these oil separators on their ships, it would go a very long way, if not the whole way, to getting rid of these evils. As the noble Earl very properly said, there are ways possibly that might be adopted of bringing in any recalcitrant among the smaller countries who will not adopt this method. I do urge upon the Government, knowing what has happened since 1926, that the time has now come when an International Conference could be advantageously summoned, with what may be good results, to meet these very great evils.
LORD JOICEY: My Lords, I feel quite sure that in the country there are no two opinions on this subject. The public has realised now the damage which is done by this floating oil, and I feel quite sure that it will not be very long, if the Government do not deal with this question themselves, before they will be compelled to do so by the country at large. Surely there is no one who objects to this matter being dealt with, because it is absolutely necessary. The only difference of opinion, in all probability, would be as to the method of dealing with it. Of course, shipowners naturally do not want to be put to great cost if what they have in view can be accomplished by other means. The vessels which have got

823
special separators are chiefly very large vessels, and amongst them are many of these passenger ships, very large ships, running all over the world. The people who object most strongly to it are the small owners of tramps, because the burden upon them will be much greater than upon anyone else. I do hope that the result of this discussion will be that the Government will be serious in the matter and will take it up.
I think the speech made by the noble Earl on this side of the House was excellent. He put the facts very lucidly, very clearly in every way, and I hope the Government will not be long before they attempt to deal with this question in such a way as to settle it, because settlement there must be, for the evil is increasing every year and will continue to do so. Shipowners are anxious to do it. The captains of the ships—and I have some experience of dealing with these men—are all anxious to get some scheme whereby they can avoid doing so much damage by the oil and water which come from their ships. I think the middle course suggested by the noble Earl, of having barges in the different ports where the ships could empty their mixed oil and water, would probably be the best solution, but that is a matter which will have to be considered. I hope the result of this discussion will be that the Government will take up this matter seriously.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: My Lords, we have had an interesting debate on this important matter, initiated by my noble friend, than whom nobody, I am sure, is more capable of putting the facts which he has before the House. I can assure my noble friend at the very outset that His Majesty's Government by no means consider this merely a matter of birds and bathing suits. They are well aware of the serious consequences of this oil discharge, although my information, I am afraid, does not agree with that of the noble Earl and of other noble Lords who have spoken, because I am informed by the Departments concerned—the Board of Trade and the Foreign Office—that this matter of oil pollution is certainly no worse, whereas most of your Lordships who have spoken have said it is certainly getting no better and probably getting worse. It is sometimes thought that nothing has been done in this matter, but I can assure your Lordships—and I hope
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to do so in a very few words—that really since 1918 the Government have done all they can, without international agreement, to deal with this matter.
As the noble Lord has said, the Oil in Navigable Waters Act was passed in 1922. It prohibited, under the maximum penalty of £100, discharge in territorial waters in Great Britain and Northern Ireland of oil, or oil mixed with water. It was in 1931 that the Bill referred to by my noble friend was introduced by Sir Cooper Rawson to make it compulsory to fit separators in British ships, but the Bill made no progress, and in fact it was never printed. But I am informed that that Bill, or one like it, is shortly to be introduced again. I think the main objection to that Bill was not so much the cost, as was suggested by Lord Ilchester, but the fact that, in the absence of an international agreement, British ships would be at a disadvantage if they were compulsorily fitted with separators, owing to the curtailment of cargo space. To any one who knows the slackness of trade at the present moment, and the lamentable slackness in the shipping trade in particular, I think this objection will appeal very strongly. The other objection was that the question could not be dealt with completely if only our ships were fitted and not those of foreign nations as well, and to that point I will refer later.
It is therefore, I think, impossible to take steps to compel British shipowners to install separators, but I have to inform my noble friend that oil separators have been voluntarily fitted on a great many ships, and, according to the latest information which I have, in 1930 the number of ships fitted with these separators was 280. Separator barges were referred to my noble friend opposite (Earl Buxton). These have been fitted at various ports of the United Kingdom, especially Bristol, the Clyde, Leith, London and Liverpool.
EARL BUXTON: I was giving the number of owners, not of ships.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: I quite understand. In connection with these separator barges, of which a great point was made by my noble friend Lord Ilchester and also by the noble Earl opposite, I should like to read part of a letter from the Dock and Harbour Authorities Asso-

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ciation with reference to the barge which was fitted up at the Port of Bristol. The letter finishes:
"I should like to draw your attention specially to the information from the Port of Bristol Authority which shows that the barge which they provided at considerable capital outlay has hardly been used at all in recent years."
In an annex to this letter it is stated:
"The barge has only been used by 27 ships in the last ten years, its greatest use being in 1927 when it was used for six ships over a total period of 133¼ hours. In 1931 it was not used at all, while in 1932 it was used by one vessel on two days over 4⅔ hours. The general manager states that the appliance is quite satisfactory, and his authority is very disappointed at the small use which has been made of it."
It appears, therefore, that the use made of certainly one of these barges by the masters of vessels is rather disappointing.
In addition to this, I can assure the House that the Board of Trade are keeping in touch in the matter with the Admiralty and the Chamber of Shipping. They take all possible steps to lessen the nuisance and, when evidence is obtainable, to enforce the penalties under the 1922 Act. I understand that up to a year ago there had been 27 actions taken in which convictions were obtained in 20 cases and fines of from £1 to £250 were inflicted. According to my information, which, as I have said, does not coincide with that of my noble friend, the number of complaints of this nuisance has been considerably less—that is, the number of complaints that have reached the Board of Trade. The number has dropped from twenty-nine in 1926 to fourteen in 1932, and of these latter two were in respect of oil discharged inadvertently from gas works. I think possibly a good many cases of damage to inshore fisheries and foreshores may be due to the discharge of oil from works on land and not from ships.
My noble friend has asked me one or two questions which I will try to answer before I go on to the second part of my reply. He has stated that an amendment is requested to the Act of 1922, and he has gone into certain details which will appear in the OFFICIAL REPORT and I will take care that this information is passed on to the necessary quarters. This will probably require legislation, but I think, as my noble friend said, there is
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to be legislation as regards fisheries introduced later on in the Session, and in that connection I happen to notice that a question was put to the Minister of Agriculture by, I think, the honourable member for the Gower Division, who belongs to the Party opposite, asking if this question of oil in navigable waters would be included in the proposed legislation. I have not the reply by me but, as far as I remember, the answer of my right honourable friend the Minister was that all cognate subjects would be included. My noble friend was very insistent on providing barges in which to pump out tankers in order to obviate the oil being pumped just outside the 50-mile limit at sea. I am not quite sure, and possibly I might put to my noble friend this question. When the oil has been pumped into these barges where do the barges put it? I am not quite clear what happens.
THE EARL OF ILCHESTER: There is a regular process by which it can be separated and used again.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: I hope my noble friend did not mind my asking that question. He and others have laid stress on international action. As the House is aware—I think it does no harm to stress it again—an International Conference was held at the instance of the United States Government in 1926 at Washington to consider the whole question and two main headings were discussed. One was the compulsory fitting of separators in oil-carrying and oil-burning vessels and the second was the establishment of zones in which any oil or oily water should not be discharged. As regards the first of these, no agreement whatever was found possible, but as regards the second, a Draft Convention was actually prepared, to which this country and most countries agreed, but three countries, and they are leading countries—namely, Germany, Italy and Japan—would have nothing to do with it, so that no further progress was possible. But a voluntary agreement was come to by shipowners in Great Britain, the Netherlands and the United States not to discharge oil or oily water within fifty miles of any coast. I think on the whole that has probably done good and been an advantage.

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My noble friend asks for another International Conference. I take note of this new anxiety for Conferences. I thought that the complaint usually against this Government, and other Governments, was that there were too many Conferences. However, I take note of my noble friend's desire. In this connection I would remind my noble friend that there is going to assemble in this City on the 12th of next month one of the largest and certainly the most important Conference that has ever assembled in the world. I think sixty nations are going to take part in it, and His Majesty's Government do not think the present moment a. fitting time to take the initiative in calling another Conference on a subject like this, which, although most important, is, after all, a minor subject as compared with the enormous questions that the World Economic Conference is going to discuss and, if possible, settle. At the same time I take note of what was said by my noble friend Lord Crawford, who introduced a new note into the debate, and said that possibly this matter might in the intervals of the Conference be mentioned with a view to interesting other nations in the matter and possibly trying to assemble an International Conference on this particular subject later on. I do not deny that an international agreement would be highly desirable, but it is unfortunately the case that other nations have ceased to take the interest in this subject which they formerly took.
My noble friend the Earl of Ilchester asked me when were foreign Governments last approached. The answer to that is, I am advised, as regards the United States, in June, 1930, and as regards Germany, Italy and Japan, in 1929. Those were the Powers owing to whose opposition further international action has been dropped. Since then we have no reason to believe that the readiness of these Powers to collaborate has increased. I can only say that if my noble friend the Earl of Ilchester or any other noble Lord who has spoken in this debate can produce any evidence that the interest of foreign nations is greater than we think, the Government will give due weight later on to that consideration. At present I can assure my noble friend the evidence in possession of the Foreign Office is quite to the contrary.
I should like to read an answer given in the House of Commons on February 22
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last, in answer to a question by the honourable member for the New Forest. This is what appears in the OFFICIAL REPORT:
"MAJOR MILLS"MAJOR MILLS asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether at an early date he will take steps to bring before the League of Nations the question of the prevention of the discharge of oil at sea outside territorial waters and endeavour to secure international agreement and action in this matter?
SIR J. SIMON: His Majesty's Government would welcome effective international action to achieve this object, but it has hitherto been impossible to secure agreement among the principal maritime Powers. It would, therefore, unfortunately serve no useful purpose to bring the matter before the League of Nations at the present time."
I only mention that as proof that my right honourable friend has gone into this matter and that he considered that in these circumstances it would not be at the moment any use taking initiative on this subject. I think I have answered all the points which my noble friend asked me and have commented sufficiently upon the matter. I greatly regret not being able to give a promise to my noble friend, but I assure him and other noble Lords who have spoken that I will see that both my right honourable friends the Secretary of State and the President of the Board of Trade are duly apprised of the debate to-day and of the interest—indeed, I might almost say the high feeling—which this subject arouses.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I do not wish to prolong this discussion, but as principal Trustee and Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Trustees of the Natural History (British) Museum. I should like to thank my noble friend who has just spoken on behalf of the Government for the friendliness with which he has received representations made on behalf of the Trustees. At the Same time, so far as I can speak in an official manner, I would venture to say that I hope the noble Lord will represent to His Majesty's Government that those who are really concerned about this matter and who have a great deal of information and scientific authority behind what they say, are not disposed to go on indefinitely being told that His Majesty's Government will give the matter most careful consideration. It has been pointed out already in the House that great changes

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have taken place since the last Conference in 1926, and I think it has been shown conclusively this afternoon on scientific evidence that there is grave danger that this matter of pollution is affecting the fisheries of the country which are already in a somewhat difficult state. On the ground both of the intolerable way in which we continue to allow cruelties to be inflicted on the beautiful birds all along our coasts and of tile possible danger to one of the industries of the country, I do hope that the noble Lord will represent to the Government that they must take up this question very seriously.
My noble friend the Earl of Crawford alluded to the debates which have taken place in reference to the musk rat. We were given definite assurances that the matter was receiving the most careful consideration of His Majesty's Government. But meanwhile the evil grew, and it has now become a serious menace. If His Majesty's Government at an earlier stage had done something more than give sympathetic consideration and had taken some practical steps it might have been possible to combat the evil. With the utmost gratitude for the spirit in which my noble friend has replied to the noble Earl, Lord Ilchester, I hope we may pass from favourable consideration to some effective action.
VISCOUNT EXMOUTH: My Lords, I am very much interested in this matter and I should like to say a few words approaching the subject on a somewhat different line. I would like to refer to it as a matter of chemistry about which at one time at any rate I knew something. This is really a problem of waste products and modern chemical science has devoted itself to utilising waste products. That has been done with great success in dozens of industries it which waste products have produced profits, and important profits. An outstanding instance of that occurred in English chemistry about 100 years ago. A great soda business was developed and it was concentrated on the banks of the Mersey, where great factories were established. The process consisted of taking sea-salt and treating it with sulphuric acid. That produced sulphate of soda, which in turn could be turned into carbonate of soda by a simple process. But in that process huge quantities of acid gas were dis-
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charged into the air. The result was that not a blade of grass would grow, every tree was stripped of its leaves and the countryside was devastated. But the soda factories were working at a profit and their owners objected to any change.
Then some public-spirited people—headed, I believe, by Lord Shaftesbury—succeeded in the face of a good deal of opposition in getting legislation passed to prevent any factory turning into the air more than an extremely small amount of acid vapour. The manufacturers said their business would be ruined and that they would not be able to compete with foreign nations. However, legislation was passed and was enforced, apparatus was put into the factories, and it was found that without difficulty every scrap of that acid could be kept out of the air. Then the manufacturers began to find uses for that acid. They found that it could be turned into chloride of lime—bleaching powder—for which there was a steady and increasing demand, and although new processes have been discovered on the Continent for making soda in an entirely different way, much cheaper than the old English way, the English process still continues simply because of the profit made from the bleaching powder produced from these waste fumes. For many scores of years waste products which used to foul the atmosphere and the ground have been used in a harmless and profitable form.
With the chemical knowledge and the engineering skill that we have in England, there is no earthly reason why this waste oil about which we have been talking this afternoon should not be furnished in large and regular quantities to firms who could turn it into a. fuel oil which would be of value more than enough to pay for the expense of recovering it. The noble Lord who spoke on behalf of the Government said that it was difficult for the Government to take action because it was necessary to have an international agreement. But is that necessary? Would it not be possible for England to take a stand, to say that she would not allow her shores to be polluted, and that every ship that came into her ports, whether British or French or German or Japanese or American, should first dispose of its waste oil in a proper manner. Boats provided with separators should be able to dock without delay. The rest, before docking would have to

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discharge their waste into separator barges, the revenue from which would undoubtedly pay for the expense. Boats, without separators, that had cleaned out their oil tanks before entering port, would be fined, or refused permission to land. Could not rules of this sort, if applied to all oil-burning ships without any discrimination, be laid down as harbour regulations, without the bother and delay of formal International Conferences? It seems to me that to do that is exactly like telling members of our own families and outsiders that when they come into our houses they must first clean their shoes on the door mat and not bring in mud. But in this case the mud will be turned into profit. I have a strong belief that if England set the fashion in this matter we should find that other nations would soon follow suit. At any rate, we ought to take the initiative.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: My Lords, I have to apologise for venturing to intervene in this matter because I do not pretend to any expert knowledge; I only rise to make a practical suggestion for the consideration of His Majesty's Government. This is evidently a very serious matter and craves the most prompt action that can possibly be given to it. It is also evident, as I understand the debate, that nothing effective can be done without international action. My noble friend (has explained that there is a difficulty in summoning a special Conference, partly because it is always a difficulty to summon special Conferences—it takes a long time and involves considerable negotiation—and partly because of the present situation. But why could not the Government raise the subject at the Assembly of the League of Nations next September? There you have a Conference ready summoned for you. It is true that it has not the necessary technical knowledge, but there is no difficulty about that; it can refer the question to a Special Commission which would have the necessary knowledge and would draw up the necessary treaty. In that way the subject could be disposed of within a year after, and I really believe that would be practically quicker than waiting to summon a special Conference, and would certainly be cheaper.
LORD RHAYADER: My Lords, I should like to support the noble Vis-
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count's appeal that this subject should be brought up at the Assembly of the League of Nations. The reply of the Government was very sympathetic, but it did not get us any further, and I listened almost with pain while it was explained that a proposal on this subject coming from the British Government would receive little support from foreign nations. Really I think the Government have grown too diffident. I still believe that this is the greatest shipping nation in the world and that any proposal put forward by the Government of Great Britain in the name of Great Britain in regard to a shipping question would receive careful attention. I do not think the Government need be so timorous. More than once in recent years friends of this country and of the League of Nations have regretted that the Government have not been willing to put matters forward at Geneva. I beg the Government to speak out boldly on this matter to the Assembly of the League of Nations, to uphold proudly their position as the leading naval nation, and to assert that in the interests of shipping, of the trade of the world, of the preservation of fish and fishing and of birds, steps should be taken internationally to deal with this question, which can only be settled by international agreement.

UNIVERSITY SPURIOUS DEGREES (PROHIBITION OF USE AND ISSUE) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD JESSEL: My Lords, I have no proprietary interest in this matter, as I do not mind admitting to your Lordships that I myself never took a degree. I passed all the necessary examinations, but owing to being ordered out to join my regiment in India I failed to keep sufficient residence. I am still on the books of my College as an undergraduate and, not having heard from the authorities at Oxford whether my action is looked upon favourably, I am not sure I shall not incur their wrath for bringing forward this Bill. I understand, however, that the authorities at Oxford referred the subject matter of the Bill to the University Bureau of the British Empire and, having done so, regarded themselves as prevented from taking separate

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action. The Bureau has been somewhat tardy and, as this is an evil which requires remedying, I have ventured, on behalf of the Association of Scientific Workers, to step into the breach. I am not going to trouble your Lordships at this late hour with the views of other Universities, but on the whole they have replied in favour of action being taken.
In regard to the Association of Scientific Workers, I do not claim to be one of them, nor have I any knowledge of the organisation, but it is an association representing a large body of graduates who feel that this evil bears more heavily on the genuine graduate than on the University authorities, inasmuch as graduates have to market their abilities in competition with the holders of these spurious degrees. To those graduates who have to struggle for a living this is a question of a livelihood, and in regard to the Universities it is a matter of prestige. I should like to mention the names of some of the gentlemen who are connected with this Association. The President is Sir Richard Redmayne, formerly Chief Inspector of Mines at the Home Office. The Vice-Presidents include Sir William Bragg, O.M., Director of the Royal Institution and winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1915, and Sir Charles Sherrington, O.M., Professor of Physiology, Oxford, and winner of the Nobel Prize in 1932. I am not going through all the names, but there are several other very eminent gentlemen among the Vice-Presidents, and among the honorary members are the Right Hon. W. Ormsby-Gore, First Commissioner of Works, Sir Francis Fremantle, M.P., Chairman of the House of Commons Medical Committee, Sir Ernest Graham-Little, M.P. for London University, who holds a prominent position, Sir Michael Sadler, a great educationist, Mr. H. G. Wells, and, last but by no means least, Mr. Herbert Williams, formerly Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade. That is the Society of Scientific Workers.
What is the object of the Bill? The Bill seeks to put an end to a state of affairs which is a menace from many angles, and it is a matter of surprise to me, and doubtless to many of your Lordships, that the existing law is powerless to deal with the evil. Briefly, it is proposed that it should be a penal offence for any person to use any letters after
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his or her name which are used by any University within the United Kingdom—and I might remind your Lordships that under the Statute of Westminster the legal definition of United Kingdom is now Great Britain and Northern Ireland—or His Majesty's Dominions or Colonies, to denote the holding of a degree, unless such person actually holds the degree specified, conferred by a recognised University as defined in. the Bill. Further, the Bill makes it a penal offence for any company, institution, organisation or individual, not being a recognised University within the United Kingdom, to confer degrees purporting to be University degrees for profit or otherwise. If your Lordships will look at Clause 2, that penalises the person, and Clause 3 penalises a company in the United Kingdom, because by the Statute of Westminster that is the only way in which one can penalise a company.
The Bill does not propose in any way to encroach upon any existing rights. For instance, as your Lordships know, there are the Lambeth degrees conferred by the most rev. Primate, whom I am glad to see is present. There is also the conferring of degrees honoris causa by any recognised University. The main purpose of the Bill is to eliminate the charlatan practitioner who traffics in spurious degrees, and to prevent the purchase of these degrees with a view to victimising the public. I may be asked what is the extent of the evil which it is sought to remedy, and whether it is extensive enough to warrant special legislation. The Association promoting this Bill has collected considerable evidence as to the extent of the practice, but I imagine that at this stage of your Lordships' sitting you would prefer that I should be commendably brief.
I will instance one case of what I will call a "one-man university." Its premises are the residence for the time being of its "Chancellor," who is also the "Archbishop" of some fancy American sect. Why an American Archbishop "should live permanently in England I do not know. This gentleman alternates between addresses at Chelsea and Clapham. At neither address is there anything in the shape of teaching staff, laboratories, or the ordinary paraphernalia of a University. It is, in fact, a peripatetic "university." An elaborate prospectus and "calendar"

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are issued, which on paper look imposing. The hollowness of the "university's" pretensions, however, is demonstrated in the statement that "in certain cases an examination will he dispensed with, and a dissertation accepted." There is a scale of fees. One may "matriculate" for the modest sum of one guinea: to become a Bachelor of any faculty (medicine excepted) costs ten guineas; while for sixteen guineas it is possible to blossom into a Master or a Doctor.
There is also a lucrative side-line in connection with this undertaking—namely, it also trades as a. hood and gown emporium, retailing to its graduates a most tasteful, but expensive, line in academic millinery. Some little time ago this practioner conferred the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and had the effrontery to add "(Lond.)." In the existing state of the law, or absence of law, London University is powerless to secure any remedy. Both Chelsea and Clapham are in London. Moreover, not so long ago one of these practitioners appeared at Bow Street Police Court charged with this sort of fraud. He was discharged, as it was held that there was no Statute to prevent any one of His Majesty's lieges making a discreet and agreeable selection from the letters of the alphabet to tack on after his name. Of course, if these descriptions are definitely and directly used for the purpose of obtaining money under false pretences, these gentlemen do come within the Common Law. They dare not confer or use medical degrees, or they would come within the provisions of Section 40 of the Medical Act of 1858. If the medical, veterinary, dental, legal and other learned professions are protected against fraud of this description, why should not the genuine holders of University degrees be protected from having to market their abilities in competition with the holders of these spurious degrees?
There is another aspect of the matter. In a fair proportion of the cases of those using such degrees there is no more sinister motive than vanity. On the other hand, there is a subtle use to which these spurious degrees are put which is distinctly fraudulent in effect. Parents of moderate means seeking preparatory schools for their children are apt to be imposed upon by a prospectus detailing the academic distinctions of the staff—distinctions which only too probably have
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been purchased across the counter like a pound of tea. I am informed That the degrees in greatest demand in this traffic are those of Bachelor of Divinity, Doctor of Divinity, Master of Arts, and Bachelor of Arts. The prevalence of a demand for Divinity degrees is significant.
After all, this traffic is so safe. The occasions on which a man is asked to produce the parchment conferring his degree are rare. Quite a considerable number of the members of your Lordships House, if I mistake not, hold University degrees. I should like to know what proportion of your Lordships have ever been asked to produce any evidence of possession of those degrees? I venture to assert that hardly any have been. That state of affairs provides the opportunity for the traffic. No one likes to ask a man, who professes to hold a degree, to produce his parchment. Moreover, the parchments which could be produced by the holders of these spurious degrees are, I am told, of a much more alluring and imposing appearance than those issued by the legitimate Universities. As a consequence of the existing state of affairs degree-mongers can practice with impunity. At present, if challenged, an "M.A." is at liberty to say: "But I have never represented myself to be a Master of Arts. M.A. means to me Master of Angling, or Master of Agriculture." It may be, therefore, if this Bill becomes law, that people who hanker after academic distinctions which are beyond their attainments will be driven to copy the unsuccessful Babus, who describe themselves as "B.A. failed (Lond.)."
Seriously, by making this a fraud, carrying a heavy penalty, it is hoped that this evil will be stamped out, and that the rightful prestige of University degrees will be preserved. I should like to make one quotation because I think it is very apt. I know it will appeal to the President of the Board of Education because it comes from a part of the country and from a newspaper very dear to his heart, the Yorkshire Post. In a leading article it says:
"Academic distinctions are the intellectual coinage of society, and the man who traffics in them should be as readily open to prosecution as a man who utters sovereigns made of lead."

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May I finally appeal to the Government in this matter? I know this Bill is by no means perfect. I know it casts a certain onus on the President of the Board of Education. I know it may be said that a society of this kind, or a. private member like myself, ought not to have had the temerity to introduce an important Bill of this kind. I know the Government will not oppose this Bill; but I do ask them, if they do not oppose it, to help to put the Bill into proper shape. I do not want by any means to rush this Bill. If your Lordships are good enough to give it a Second Reading to-day I do not intend to ask you to consider the Committee stage for another three weeks. That will enable the authorities, if they are so disposed, to put down any Amendments in ample time. If your Lordships will give this Bill a. Second Reading to-day I think you will have done a great deal to deal with a long-standing evil with which no genuine attempt has hitherto been made to cope.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a—(Lord Jessel.)
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I feel bound to say one or two words on this matter, partly because certain degrees conferred by those who hold my office are specially dealt with in a clause of this Bill. First of all as to the other degrees. I am interested to note that "spurious" appears to be correct Parliamentary language for the word usually used, which is "bogus"; but "bogus" really more effectually describes the evil with which this Bill is intended to deal. I have had a. great deal to do with the matter. There is a large class of people, whom I view with great sympathy, who have a strange and pathetic yearning to possess a degree. Some of us who have possessed degrees from Oxford or Cambridge are aware that we obtained them at greater expenditure of time and money than perhaps of study, and we do not very often quote the fact that we possess them. But there are numbers of persons, especially in the world of education and in the profession to which I belong, to whom the possession of a degree is a. matter of most pathetic concern, and it is that class of person that the purveyors of these bogus degrees are able to exploit. And therefore it is not merely the fraudu-
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lent use of letters which betoken degrees, or fraudulent attempts to sell those degrees, that I hope may be combated, but that these innocent persons may be protected from those who make them their dupes.
The evil is great. I wish I felt that this Bill was the best that could be devised for meeting it. For instance, it cannot deal very effectively with the greatest evil, which is the selling of degrees from alleged American Universities, and I think it would he rather hard to fine those who wear these hoods or possess these degrees. Also it throws an onus on the President of the Board of Education, who, if he is willing to assume it, will excite my very great sympathy, because I have tried continually to find some authority in the United States or in this country to whom it could be referred to decide whether or not any particular alleged degree-giving body was a recognised University. But I am very grateful to the noble Lord for bringing the matter forward, because I think this may pave the way to some better Bill, and may call the attention of the Universities throughout the country to the very great need of protecting all that a degree ought to be in the social and educational life of the country.
Now I ought to say a word about these Lambeth degrees dealt with in Clause 4. I think this is almost the first occasion of which I know on which the existence and character of the degrees has been placed before Parliament, and I am anxious at the beginning of the discussion of this matter to give some information as to their origin and their use. I need hardly say that the right of giving these academic degrees is not one that is assumed. It is true that I am a one-man University in the sense that I do confer these degrees, but I do not do so presumptuously, but by virtue of a very ancient Statute of the Realm. It is a Statute passed in 1534, known as the Peter's Pence Act, which conferred the granting of "all such licences, dispensations, compositions, faculties, etc., as were used to be had at the Court of Rome" to the Archbishop of Canterbury for the time being. It belongs to a large class of licences and dispensations which are continually exercised, for example, especially licences enabling people for good reasons to be married at, other hours and other

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places than would be legally required, or a dispensation enabling an incumbent to hold two benefices in plurality, or a dispensation enabling an illegitimate person to be ordained and the like; as well as the faculties for conferring certain degrees. All of them have one object—to enable some responsible person, not bound by the strictness of regulation, to get things done which, if they were not done, would involve very real hardships and disabilities.
The privilege has been exercised by my predecessors for about 400 years and is still exercised, and its main objects are these. In the first place, to give recognition and reward to conspicuous contributions to learning, art and science in the cases of persons who have either not been at any University or have been at a University which does not confer degrees in respect of the subjects concerned. A very considerable number of persons have attained considerable eminence, both in art and science and in learning, without possessing that inestimable testimony to profound learning which so many of your Lordships enjoy. I need hardly say that in all these cases there is the strictest possible scrutiny and examination, and a very high standard is required. It would be inconceivable that any person should obtain a degree in Arts or Science or Divinity without the Archbishop having the assistance and advice of the most eminent persons representing these various branches of study.
I do not know that the use of the privilege has ever been criticised, but I learn that of late there has been considerable criticism about the bestowal of the degree of Doctor of Music. I have been told that it appears to be given to persons because of personal favour or the pressure of their friends, or after long years of useful service as organists in churches and the like. I wish to take this opportunity of saying publicly that these criticisms are entirely devoid of any substance of fact. No one obtains from the Archbishop the degree of Doctor of Music whose claims have not been scrutinised by very eminent musicians who are good enough to assist me with their counsel and advice, and who pay particular regard to the merit of any musical compositions which the
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applicants can show. I may just add, in a sentence, that in the case of medical degrees it is provided in the Medical Act that even if a person has a medical degree from Lambeth he is not thereby entitled to practise unless his name is on the register of the Medical Council.
In the second place, the privilege is used in order to confer degrees jure dignitatis where it seems right and fitting and where other provision has not been made. For example, in the Statutes of many Cathedrals it is required that a Dean should possess a superior degree of learning. The Crown appoints some admirably suitable person, and then it is found that this Statute requires him to possess such a degree. He either has not got it or he cannot obtain it, or, if he did obtain it, it would mean a very inconvenient delay in appointment. The Archbishop steps in with this useful dispensing power and confers the necessary degree, which enables the desire of the Crown to appoint that eminent person to a deanery to take effect. I hope that the revision of the Statutes of the Cathedrals which is now taking place will no longer retain that provision upon Cathedral Statutes.
Then again—this is perhaps the largest case—it seems fitting that, by virtue of very ancient custom, those who attain the status of a Bishop should have a suitable degree in Divinity. A doctorate is almost universally recognised as proper. In old days for centuries the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge were accustomed to give the dignity of D.D. to any of their graduates who attained episcopal dignity, either by diploma or honoris causa. Recently the Faculties of Theology in those Universities, for reasons which I do not question, have abolished that custom, and now it is necessary for anyone to proceed by ordinary methods to obtain the Divinity degree unless he is a person regarded as of outstanding eminence and honour. On the other hand, there are an increasing number of Bishops who have either not been at a University or who have been at Universities, either in this country or in the Dominions, which have not Faculties of Theology and cannot confer any theological degrees. In that case, again, recourse is had to this dispensing power. It is in accordance with a very old and fitting custom, reasonable in itself, that

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persons who attain the status of Bishop should possess the degree of Doctor in Divinity. It has to be exercised with very great care and circumspection, but the existence of such a power seems to me to be for the general public advantage.
I am sorry at this hour to have troubled your Lordships, but I think some of your Lordships may be almost surprised that such a privilege rests on the office that I hold. It comes to me from another office, once held in the greatest honour and still, I trust, in great respect within this Realm, and it has been always exercised by my predecessors and by myself, and I hope will be by my successors, with the greatest possible care. We regard it as a privilege, which lays upon us, a very special responsibility which we are anxious to fulfil for the public good and in a manner which confers advantage on some deserving person and inflicts injury on none.
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: My Lords, I have no wish whatever to oppose the Bill introduced by my noble friend Lord Jessel, but I think it advisable to suggest that it will need very considerable alteration and. amendment in Committee if great injustice is to be avoided. In the first place, I will venture to direct your Lordships' attention to the wording of Clause 1, paragraph (a). The defining words are:
"A University situated within the United Kingdom which only grants academic degrees to persons who have undergone a prescribed course of training for at least three years."
I venture to submit to your Lordships that these words are meaningless, for I do not know any University, certainly none in the British Isles, to which such conditions apply. All Universities claim and exercise the power to grant degrees honoris causa without any prescribed course of training. Many Universities, notably the University of London, grant doctorates, particularly Doctorates of Letters, without requiring a prescribed course of training, and these are given on submission of a thesis. Then, again, there was a time shortly after the War when Oxford and Cambridge granted B.A. degrees to ex-officers on completion of a special shortened course of only two years; and there are, moreover, to be considered the questions of degrees
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ad eundem and degrees granted by Trinity College, Dublin, to Cambridge women students. I suggest, therefore, that the words in paragraph (a) will have either to be amended or deleted.
I am still more anxious about the effect of paragraphs (b) and (c), and to explain my anxiety I must ask your Lordships to bear with me while I make a short digression into the realm of history. In the Middle Ages a college normally acquired University status in virtue of Papal recognition. The secular Governments at that time usually were not much interested in University matters, and in this country we have a good example in Glasgow University, which has recently been celebrating the anniversary of its foundation by Papal Bull. Although this is entirely changed in the United Kingdom, there still exist abroad a considerable number of what may be termed Papal Universities; that is to say, Universities that exist in virtue of Papal charters and not by civil recognition. There are three such Universities in Rome; there is the flourishing and admirable University of Louvain; there is the Institut Catholique in Paris; and similar Universities in nearly every country in the world where there is a considerable Roman Catholic population. All these Universities are, in every sense of the word, perfectly genuine Universities; the degrees which they grant are in no way spurious; they are recognised throughout the Roman Catholic world, and also throughout the whole learned world, and they are only given as a reward for a severe and protracted course of study. I was given one example this morning. For the doctorial degree in theology or in sacred music at least five years study is prescribed, in addition to four years preliminary training in classics and philosophy and a recognised term of secondary education.
I will not delay your Lordships with many details about these Universities, but I would call your attention to the wording of paragraph (c) of Clause 1:
"A University situated in a foreign country of precisely similar status to those mentioned in paragraphs (a) and (b) with analogous recognition by the Government of the country in which it is situated, and whose degrees are recognised by the President of the Board of Education as being equivalent to those conferred by recognised Universities within the United Kingdom or His Majesty's Dominions and Colonies."

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This definition excludes nearly all the Papal Universities and will certainly have to be drastically amended. These Universities do not possess, either because they do not apply for or because they are not granted, recognition by the civil power in the countries in which they are situated. For instance, the ancient University of Louvain does not consider it necessary or proper to seek purely national recognition by the Belgian Government.
Again, there are others that exist in countries in which anti-clericalism is unfortunately rampant. There is a well known University in Paris that cannot obtain recognition from the French Government, because the French Government, being laical, will not recognise it. There are at the moment something like 400 young subjects of His Majesty who are studying for degrees at these Universities, and under this Bill their position will be exceedingly tragic. They will come home, some after nine years of study, with a hard-earned Doctorate of Divinity, and if they use their title in England they will find themselves liable to a fine of not less than £5. I am sure my noble friend does not want to inflict that injustice upon them; but such is the position under the Bill. Moreover, the Act is in a sense retrospective; it affects degrees which have already been obtained. I hardly like to name the eminent Roman Catholic Doctors of Divinity who will find themselves in a Police Court if this Bill is passed in its present form. Of course, I acquit my noble friend of any such intention.
I will only trouble your Lordships with one further point as the hour is very late. Under Clause 4 we most properly recognise the right of the most rev. Primate to grant degrees on his own initiative. No one of course would do anything to prevent this being the case. At the same time, it would be a very greatly appreciated act of courtesy—I say no more—if we recognised in the same manner the right of other ecclesiastics to grant degrees in cases in which that right has been enjoyed over a very long period of years. I am not, of course, referring to ecclesiastics of the type of the American Archbishop to whom my noble friend Lord Jessel referred. I think I have said enough to show that the Bill is at present somewhat unsatisfactory, and that it requires substantial amendment, and I am
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very grateful for the assurance of my noble friend that the Committee stage will not be proceeded with for three weeks.
LORD CONWAY OF ALLINGTON: My Lords, as I spent some twelve years representing the interests of eight English Universities in another place I acquired during that time the habit of pricking up my ears whenever University affairs were mentioned, and I feel, although I shall keep your Lordships a very few moments, that I must at least say a word or two in this debate. It must have come as a surprise to many of us—at least it did to me—to know that there were people actually in London selling degrees. It seemed to me almost impossible to imagine that that should be done. One has heard, of course, of the agencies of so-called American Universities who sell degrees, but that a bogus one-man University can be found in London to carry on its affairs without incurring penalties is obviously a thing which ought not to be tolerated.
I am obliged to agree with a great deal of the criticism of the wording of this Bill. Points of obvious criticism have been raised by my noble friend Lord. Iddesleigh, and I sympathise with all he said about them. In paragraph (a) of Clause 1 I find no definition really of a University. A body appears to be regarded as a University if it is in receipt of a University grant from the Imperial Government—that is to say, the University Grants Commission which distributes the money given by the Government for this purpose. If I am to judge by the words of this clause, such a body would seem to become a University merely through receiving a University grant. The University Colleges which exist in this country have practically all qualified under the terms of this paragraph to be Universities, whereas, as a matter of fact, they are not. Their students have to obtain degrees at London University or elsewhere. They get their training at University Colleges, and they get a degree given to them at some other University on the ground that they have passed through certain examinations and attended certain lectures and made certain studies.
Then the very important paragraph (c) refers to Universities in foreign countries. It appears to me to be absolutely im-

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possible of administration. How are you to find out what is the status of a University in Wisconsin or in Texas? There may be, and there are, Universities of first-rate importance in what are to us relatively remote parts of the United States. This Bill envisages a list of real foreign Universities to be drawn up by the President of the Board of Education, but I think it will be a long time More the President of the Board of Education succeeds in producing a list that will command the general assent of the graduates of Universities in which degrees are given in a manner that would be approved by the rest of the world. Those are small points but not unimportant ones; in fact some of them appear to me to be really fundamental points; and I am sure this Bill will have to be not only amended but actually rewritten before it satisfactorily meets the difficulties which the situation implies. I suggest that a very radical criticism and revision of the Bill is necessary. No doubt it will come before us again, and other points which I might wish to elaborate at the present time but which I will not, having regard to the time, I shall have an opportunity of dealing with on the next stage of the Bill. At present r am merely giving a general idea of my attitude, that while willing to give a Bill of this kind my support I am not by any means willing to accept this draft as one that can in the main be accepted.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: My Lords, I have been asked by the University of Birmingham, of which I have the honour to be the Chancellor, to say a word on this matter. It is only in that capacity, hat I venture to intervene in this debate. I should not desire at this moment to elaborate a detailed criticism of the Bill. I agree very fully with what has been said by my noble friend who has just sat down, and also by my noble friend Lord Iddesleigh. The Bill does appear to me, if I may say so with all respect to the noble Lord, Lord Jessel, to require complete redrafting from any point of view. I merely give one instance—paragraphs (b) and (c) of Clause 1, which say that the Bill is to apply to foreign Universities "of precisely similar status to those mentioned in paragraph (a)." I do not know how on earth any Court would be able to construe such a phrase as that. It is a terrible meta-
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physical inquiry as to whether a particular University is of precisely similar status to the Universities referred to in paragraph (a). I have no doubt that with a little ingenuity one could put a great number of cases showing the extreme difficulty of applying such tests. I notice also that the penalty clause is of a very strange character, because it does not allow the Court to fix a less penalty than £5 in the case of an individual or a less penalty than £50 in the case of a "university." I will not say that that is unexampled, but it is certainly a very unusual provision in modern penal legislation.
I have been asked to say to your Lordships very respectfully that this matter affects the Universities very closely, and they think that they ought perhaps to have had an opportunity of considering the matter more fully than they have had an opportunity of doing before a Bill of this kind was introduced. They feel that this Bill, if passed in its present form, would be ineffective and possibly pernicious. Therefore, although I do not desire to take up an obstructive attitude, I trust that if the Bill is read a second time it will be on the understanding that for the present it will go no further, and that those bodies which are most closely affected will be consulted and the matter fully investigated before your Lordships pass a Bill which might be of very serious consequence to the Universities.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (LORD IRWIN): My Lords, although the Bill which my noble friend has asked you to read a second time has received some very severe criticism this afternoon, I do not think that there will be any one who will not be grateful to the noble Lord for having initiated so interesting a debate as that to which we have just listened. The debate has ranged over a fairly wide field. The noble Lord who moved the Second Reading led us over some unfamiliar paths and the most rev. Primate gave us an interesting historical disquisition on the origin of the Lambeth degrees which I am sure your Lordships heard with profit. I was interested to note that in his opening speech the noble Lord, Lord Jessel, said that in the academic sphere he still holds undergraduate status.I cannot but suppose that when he may

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decide to endeavour to proceed to graduate status his zeal in the cause of academic degree purity will stand him in good stead—unless, indeed, it is possible for him to pass the close scrutiny that the most rev. Primate said was the preliminary to a Lambeth degree and so attain his end by a shorter cut.
It has been said that the Bill would require considerable redrafting. That certainly would be so if all the suggestions that have been made by those of your Lordships who have taken part in the debate were put into effect in the course of Committee discussions. I have tried to follow them, and I gather that the noble Lord, Lord Conway, would delete most of paragraph (a) of Clause 1 and the noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh, would delete paragraphs (b) and (c). Most of Clause 1 would go and we should be left with a penal clause for an offence which is somewhat indefinite and a. more severe penalty in Clause 3 for a similarly unascertainable crime. Therefore it is obvious, as my noble friend has no doubt. realised, that he will have to be prepared, if your Lordships give a Second Reading to the Bill, to introduce very substantial modifications in it. I need hardly say that I am not here to state the official view on the merits or demerits of the Bill because I have no information on which to do that. The Board of Education, as your Lordships know, is in no way officially responsible for Universities in this country, and still less am I responsible for the Universities of Scotland and. Northern Ireland, which are also dealt with in the Bill and are related to their own Education Departments.
I am grateful to noble Lords who have expressed sympathy with me in regard to the duties proposed to be put upon me by the Bill. It would be embarrassing to be credited with that degree of official knowledge and discrimination that would be necessary to decide whether the degrees of a University are or are not equivalent to those conferred by recognised Universities here, and I can hardly imagine that any President of the Board of Education would be able easily to discharge that responsibility. As my noble friend the Earl of Iddesleigh pointed out, even before that responsibility came to be discharged the President of the Board of Education would have a still more
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difficult task to which the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, also alluded—that of deciding whether a University in a foreign country was or was not of precisely similar status to those mentioned in the preceding paragraphs.
I suggest that there are two points on which your Lordships would want to be satisfied before this Bill passed into law. The first is that there is clear evidence of a practical and widespread evil in this matter. On that I have no evidence myself, although no doubt your Lordships will be prepared to give great weight to the view of the noble Lord who introduced the Bill. Then there is the question whether or not this is the right kind of Bill to deal with the matter, and I venture to think that the noble Viscount who spoke last made a wise suggestion when he said that the noble Lord who introduced the Bill should take steps to place himself in consultation with those who can speak for the Universities. So far as the Government are concerned we should raise no opposition to your Lord. ships giving a Second Reading to the Bill if you so desire, but we wish to make some reservation as to any further action with regard to the Bill, which would naturally depend on the results of such consultation with the Universities as the noble Lord may find it possible to make.
LORD JESSEL: My Lords, I must say that if there has been a good deal of criticism of the Bill—at which, as I said at the beginning, I am not surprised—I am content with the result of the debate, because I hope it will induce the authorities to come together and help produce a Bill which would be satisfactory to all parties. I hope the President of the Board of Education will not be dismayed at the idea of being included in some way in any future Bill, because it seems to me that the Board of Education should recognise that they have some duties in this matter in regard both to the Universities and the public. As to my noble friend's question about American Universities, it is a curious fact that in connection with this Bill I have received a letter from a lady asking me to find out whether her husband had a real degree from a proper University in America. This is a difficult question, but I propose to write to the American Embassy asking if they know which Universities are proper or spurious Universities. I should have

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thought, with all due deference to the President of the Board of Education, that a list could be supplied from other countries of Universities which are recognised as equivalent to our Universities, should not have thought it would have been very difficult to think out Amendments to this Bill, as I do not quite take the view that the Bill is incapable of amendment. But I thank the President of the Board of Education for saying that the Government will give their consideration to the, subject at a later stage if the proper authorities agree.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: And my noble friend will not put down the measure for Committee without further consultation?
LORD JESSEL: I shall not put it down for some time.
On Question, Bill read 2a,and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

PROTECTION OF ANIMALS BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: My Lords, I desire to move the Second Reading of this Bill. The Bill has already passed all stages in the House of Commons without opposition and I believe I am correct in saying that the Home Office has no objection to it. It merely provides that in cases where magistrates have convicted a man of cruelty to a dog they can, if they think right, order that that man shall not take out a licence to keep another dog. At this late hour I will not trouble your Lordships with instances of cruelty, but I have reports of recent instances in my pocket. I understand that every Party in the other House is in favour of the Bill, that the Home Office is also in favour of it, and I will therefore content myself with moving the Second Reading.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Banbury of Southam.)
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, at this hour I will not detain the House for more than a few seconds, but I would like to support Bill as strongly as I can. It will be within your Lordships' memory that I put a question and the noble Lord, Lord Danesfort, moved a
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Resolution some time ago on this subject. Then your Lordships were good enough to support the Resolution in spite of the fact that the Home Office opposed it. Every week we see reports in the Press of appalling cruelties to dogs. There was a case the other day where a man was convicted and sentenced to imprisonment. He had had six dogs previously and had been convicted of cruelty to each of them. I believe the magistrate said they wished they could have sentenced the man to flogging or the "cat." I hope your Lordships will give a Second Reading to the Bill.
LORD JESSEL: My Lords, I am very much surprised at the action of my noble friend in sponsoring this Bill. He has slain more Bills than anybody else in either House and now he comes and asks us at a very late hour to support his Bill. A poacher turned gamekeeper, or Satan reproving sin, could not surprise me more than the action of the noble Lord. I think his Bill worthy of support, though, if someone else had brought it in, I wonder whether his attitude would not have been this: "Cannot a man beat his own dog? How dare anybody propose that a man should not beat his own dog if he wants to? And if he is convicted it is his own business." The attitude of my noble friend fills me with astonishment, though I know it is in a good cause.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, I, too, was surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Banbury of Southam, should place himself in such a vulnerable position after his past record; but it gives me great pleasure to assure him that the Government have no intention of opposing the passage of the Bill into law. In regard to the remark of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, the action of the Home Office might seem inconsistent, but the circumstances are not the same because this Bill differs to some extent from the Bill which the noble Lord. Lord Banbury of Southam brought in two years ago. This Bill quite satisfies the requirements of the Home Office and they desire to support it.
LORD RANKEILLOUR: My Lords, I have been a friend and, in certain respects, a pupil of the noble Lord, Lord Banbury of Southam, for thirty-two years, and I wish to testify to the fact that,

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although he was successful in defeating many another measure, yet all that time he continually brought forward his own measures for the protection of dogs, and I heartily congratulate him on his ultimate success.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT.
LORD SNELL: My Lords, I beg to put the Question standing in my name.
[The Question was as follows: To ask His Majesty's Government whether any decision has been reached respecting the setting up of a committee of inquiry into the general problem of imprisonment for debt, as intimated by the Lord Chancellor in the debate which took place in the House of Lords on 6th December, 1932.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT SANKEY): My Lords, the Home Secretary has decided to set up a Committee to review the existing law relating to the enforcement of fines imposed by courts of summary jurisdiction and to the enforcement of wife maintenance and affiliation orders and of payment of rates, and to consider whether by changes in the law or in the methods of administration
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it is possible to reduce the number of imprisonments in default of payment, due regard being given to the importance of securing compliance with Orders made by the Courts. At the present time the personnel of the proposed Committee is under consideration and it is hoped that an announcement may be made at an early date. I can assure the noble Lord that I have seen the Home Secretary on the matter and I hope it will not be long before we are able to announce the names of the Committee.

ELECTRICITY (SUPPLY) BILL. [H.L.]
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion which stands on the Paper in my name.
Moved, That the Lords following, with the Chairman of Committees, be named of the Select Committee:

E. Strafford, E.

E. Plymouth,

V. Falmouth,

V. Mersey,

L. Redesdale,

L. Carnock.

—(The Earl of Lucan.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at seven o'clock.