Lords Sitting of 15 May 1934

Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
UNEMPLOYMENT BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and to be printed.
SOUTHERN RAILWAY BILL.
Read 2a, and committed.
NEWPORT CORPORATION (GENERAL POWERS) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (STOKE-ON-TRENT) BILL. [H.L.]
VISCOUNT GAGE: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to confirm a Provisional Order of the Minister of Health relating to the City of Stoke-on-Trent, and to move that it be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read la.—(Viscount Gage.)
On Question, Bill read la; to be printed, and referred to the Examiners.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (SOUTH MIDDLESEX AND RICHMOND JOINT HOSPITAL DISTRICT) BILL. [H.L.]
VISCOUNT GAGE: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to confirm a Provisional Order of the Minister of Health relating to the South Middlesex and Richmond joint hospital district, and to move that it be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Viscount Gage.)
On Question, Bill read la; to be printed, and referred to the Examiners.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (WEYMOUTH AND PORTLAND JOINT HOSPITAL DISTRICT) BILL. [H.L.]
VISCOUNT GAGE: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to confirm a Provisional Order of the Minister of Health relating to the Weymouth and Portland joint hospital district, and to move that it be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.— (Viscount Gage.)
On Question, Bill read 1a; to be printed, and referred to the Examiners.

ARCHITECTS (REGISTRATION) BILL. [H.L.]
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to amend the Architects (Registration) Act, 1931, and to move that it be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(The Earl of Crawford.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name.
Moved, That Standing Order No. XXXIX be considered in order to its being dispensed with for the purpose of passing the Protection of Animals Bill through its remaining stages.—(Viscount Hailsham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932 (URBAN DISTRICT OF EGHAM).
THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper relating to an Order under the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932.
Moved, That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department under the Act, for extending Section 1 of the Act to the urban district of Egham, and laid before this House on

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the 3rd instant, be approved.—(The Earl of Feversham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (BLACKBURN) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Bill reported without amendment.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (SHIPLEY) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Bill reported without amendment.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (BURNHAM AND DISTRICT WATER) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a (according to Order), and committed.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (HERRIARD AND DISTRICT WATER) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a (according to Order), and committed.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (SHEPPEY WATER) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a (according to Order), and committed.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (WEY VALLEY WATER) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a (according to Order), and committed.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (STEYNING AND DISTRICT WATER) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a (according to Order), and committed.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (MILFORD HAVEN) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a (according to Order), and committed.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (MORLEY) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a (according to Order), and committed.

SUMMARY JURISDICTION (DOMESTIC PROCEDURE) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, the measure which I venture to propose to you this afternoon is not one that is intended to bring about any vast or far-reaching social reform. It does not carry into practice any of the major proposals that our political Parties have produced for dealing with any of the great social problems, such as uúemployment and housing, which are perhaps the most vexatious and the most urgent at the present time. It is, in fact, a minor measure of social reform. But I do not believe that for that reason it is lacking in grave importance, and I suggest that it really deserves the serious attention which your Lordships' House always give to proposals that seem to it of national and social importance.
The Bill is an essentially practical measure. I think that that is a very serious recommendation. Because it is not ambitious, because it is humble, I believe that it is more likely to meet with a friendly reception from your Lordships' House. Even the provisions which it includes are in no sense an innovation or a daring attempt to create something entirely new. Your Lordships will find that they simply endeavour to apply the existing law to certain matrimonial cases that are heard at the present time in police courts. It is not an attempt to alter the English law; it is an effort to apply existing methods. Your Lordships will find, for instance, that the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, and the Judicial Proceedings (Regulation of Reports) Act, 1926, are called upon to lend valuable provisions which can be applied in the special circumstances with which this measure deals.

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I should like to reinforce my request to your Lordships by pointing out that since this Bill was introduced into your Lordships' House it has received an enormous volume of popular support, and that this support has not come from any one Party or any one section of the community. I venture to claim that this is essentially a popular measure and that it is equally essentially a non-Party measure. I would support that claim by referring your Lordships to the favourable editorial comments or articles that have appeared in a great number of periodicals and daily newspapers during the last few weeks. I will not weary your Lordships by quoting from these articles, but with your permission I would simply like to give the names of the papers in which they have appeared. Of the daily newspapers that have come out in support of this measure I should like to mention the Evening News, the Evening Standard, the News Chronicle, the Daily Herald, and the Morning Post. May I draw your Lordships' attention specially to this last trio? How seldom it is we hear of three newspapers representing three contending Parties joining together in one single note, mingling their voices in perfect unison. The periodicals which support this measure are quite as equally divergent in their political allegiance. There are the Spectator, the New Statesman and Nation—and what a gulf separates those two productions !—John Bull and the People.
I am not ending on that note. There is also the Justice of the Peace and Local Government Review. That at any rate is a serious enough paper. There is besides, and finally, the Law Journal. I venture to think that this array is extraordinarily imposing. Although I shall not weary your Lordships by quoting one word from any of these articles, I cannot refrain from mentioning the conclusion of a letter that appeared in The Times this morning, over the signature of two such distinguished members of the Church of England as the Dean of Hereford and the Rector of Birmingham. They say:
"This constructive piece of legislation deserves the interest and sympathy of all who desire to preserve the decencies of the married state, and we would urge not only that it may be given a Second Reading but that the Government may give it the facilities which will be needed if it is to become law."
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That is the opinion of two such distinguished people and the opinion that The Times newspaper has thought fit to include. But perhaps as impressive as the array of papers that have come forward in support of this measure is the fact that not one daily paper, not one periodical, not one journal of any kind has come out in opposition to it. I have received cuttings from every quarter of the Press, and I have not received one that points out that this measure is one that your Lordships ought to reject at the earliest possible opportunity.
It is certainly true that popular support, however widespread and however non-Party, is not enough to recommend a measure of this kind. We must have the support of those men who are on the spot, those men who are engaged in the ordinary work of the police courts, and who see the married couples with whom this Bill deals coming before them every day, coming before them regularly throughout the year. The magistrates are definitely in favour of the principle of the Bill. May I for one moment quote a passage from the Justice of the Peace, which is the official organ of the magistrates throughout the country? This paper says in some notes on this measure that:
"This Bill contains two proposals, the first dealing with a special separation court and the way it is to proceed, and the second providing a new method of action by way of conciliation. In their main lines both proposals deserve to be given careful attention."
There was also a resolution passed by the Magistrates' Association at a meeting held on May 4 of this year which begins:
"That this Council would welcome the establishment of special courts for dealing with domestic relations with a panel of justices and a special time set apart for the hearing of such cases and with procedure for preliminary inquiries before the hearing."
I do not say that the magistrates have supported the detailed proposals I bring forward in this measure. All I wish to point out is that they are in absolute agreement upon the need for urgent and drastic reform, and that they stand by the principle of this measure, which is that conciliation should be practised to the greatest possible extent before litigation is resorted to. Finally, but not least, there are the lawyers and the probation officers. The Law Journal is the

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organ of the legal profession, and I ask your Lordships' permission to quote one passage from some notes that it has published on this measure. It says:
"The object of the Bill is a very laudable one, and it would in our view be au excellent thing if some such system as it proposes were to be tried. The removal of the domestic disputes between husbands and wives from the police court atmosphere would obviously be all to the good, and the success with which juvenile courts work all over the country encourages the hope that their methods"—
that is exactly what the Bill contains—
"may be extended to matrimonial disputes."
The magistrates and the lawyers are, therefore, in harmony with us on this occasion and, although I have no resolution expressing the view of the Probation Officers' Association, I am assured that the probation officers are definitely in favour of the principle behind the Bill. They desire proper machinery for the establishment of conciliation between contending parties and, although again I wish to be absolutely fair and to point out that they disagree in many respects with the methods proposed in this measure, they are in general in entire agreement on this fundamental principle.
I will dwell for a moment on the seriousness of the social evil out of which this Bill arises and with which it is intended to cope. The gravity of the situation is fairly represented by the number of matrimonial failures that pass every year through our police courts. I do not wish to weary your Lordships with figures. These, I think, are the only figures I shall quote. There are, on an average, 17,000 separation or maintenance orders granted in the police courts every year, which is over four times the number of divorces granted by the High Courts. From this it is easy to judge how grave and how serious is the threat to the great and established principle of married life, and how perilously near it is to declining among those sections of the population that resort in marital difficulties to the police court.
What are the consequences of these marital failures in human terms? In the first place, there is almost always consequent upon a separation increased poverty, perhaps degrading poverty. The parties have not enough money to support
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two households, and the result is that when the husband goes off, and probably starts another household, there is not enough to support his real wife and whomever he is supporting at the moment, and the standard of life of both parties and of their dependants is lowered. In the second place, there is, of course, inevitably an increase in immorality and bastardy. It is obvious that most men who separate from their wives will not remain celibate during the rest of their lives. The result is that children are brought into the world with the terrible stigma of bastardy, and the high ideal of the relations between the two sexes is seriously detracted from in all such cases. There is, further, imprisonment for debt owing to failure to carry out maintenance orders. I apologise for giving this, the last figure I will quote to your Lordships. In the last year for which statistics are available there were 4,000 cases of imprisonment for debt on the ground that the party was unable to pay a maintenance order granted by the court.
We have so far only been considering the degrading and wretched effect of marital failure on the husband and wife. There is, lastly, but not least, the great problem of juvenile delinquency. I need not remind your Lordships that it is the home that provides the standard and ideal for the moral conduct of children, and it is to the home rather than to the school that they naturally look. The criminologist Professor Burt found defective family relationships in 58 per cent. of the cases of juvenile delinquency which he studied. This fact gives some idea of the terrible unhappiness and the very serious social effects of the present extent of separation and domestic failures that pass through our police courts every year. Those who support this Bill and those who are behind it, both in your Lordships' House and in the country, believe that, given proper machinery for effective conciliation between husband and wife, an enormous number of the cases which at present end in the complete break-up of the home could be removed and remedied by agreement between the two parties.
The Bill simply attempts to set up the machinery which is likely to be effective in enabling the unhappy husband and wife to come together and to settle their

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differences by agreement, instead of going to the court and fighting them out by litigation which is bound to end in a sundering of the happy married relationship. In the opinion of those who support this measure all that is needed is the introduction of a special procedure or a special technique, fundamentally different from the procedure and the technique used at the present time in dealing with criminal cases. We believe that just as in the case of the child the procedure that is needed to be used when some criminal offence is committed should be different; from that which is used to deal with the adult criminal, so also in the case of marital differences a special procedure and a special technique should be employed. We are not asking for the establishment of separate courts, for the setting up of special buildings and the recruiting of a special staff to deal with domestic cases. We were very careful to guard against asking for what, in our opinion, would be far too much. Greatly as we admire the family courts that exist in different parts of the United States, we do not feel that Parliament is likely to support a measure which would inevitably involve an additional burden upon the taxpayer.
This Bill, because it does not endeavour to set up separate courts will not involve a single penny of additional public expense. In fact, my Lords, I would go so far as to say that if successful it will result in a reduction in the money that is now spent by the ratepayers on social services, because, by preventing the separations that occur to-day, it will also prevent the deserted wife resorting, as she so often does at present, to the public assistance authorities in order to obtain relief for herself and her dependent children. I am not putting this forward in any sense as a measure of economy. That would be very far from the thought of myself or of my colleagues on these Benches, but I would like to point out to your Lordships that not only will it involve no additional burden on the taxpayer, but, by affecting reconciliation between husbands and wives, it will save the ratepayer some of the money that he has to pay to-day in order to maintain the social services in our towns and country districts.
There is one objection which I should not be at all surprised to hear, and it is
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not an objection on financial grounds. My friend the noble Earl opposite, who knows far more about the work of the probation officers than I do, and perhaps more than any other noble Lord in this House, will no doubt, if he speaks—though I cannot be certain he will—draw your Lordships' attention to the magnificent work done at present by the court missionaries. Some may say that it is for the probation officers to accomplish the delicate and difficult task of bringing together husbands and wives who are at loggerheads. But while no one who has seen probation officers at work can doubt the immense importance of their labours and the splendid and disinterested way in which they carry them through—I am glad of this opportunity to express publicly the view that must be held by all who have had any contact with probation officers—at the same time, owing to their weakness in numbers, it would be necessary to increase the present strength of the battalions of probation officers in the country, and of course to remunerate them in a way which would give them adequate recompense for their increased labours. That would immediately raise the acute controversy as to whether this is the moment to increase expenditure on the social "services. The measure which my noble friend Lord Snell introduced in another place seven years ago foundered on that rock.
Having discussed the general principles behind the Bill, and having asked your Lordships to support them and co-operate in producing a measure that will satisfy every shade of opinion, I will for a moment turn to the actual clauses of this Bill. The first clause is simply an attempt to define those cases in which this special procedure will be applied. Your Lordships will see that, by including all cases in which husband or wife come before the court for separation or maintenance orders, it will immediately cover the vast bulk of domestic disputes which appear before the police courts at the present time. I need hardly remind your Lordships that the supporters of this Bill have no intention of touching the subject of divorce, because the operation of the Bill is confined to police courts, which only deal with applications other than those for divorce between the parties. The only essential difference between Clause 1 and Clause 2 is that

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whereas Clause 1 is obligatory Clause 2 leaves the matter under discussion to the option of the magistrates, who may decide whether this procedure should be applied or not.
Clauses 3 and 4 are an attempt to describe and define the actual procedure that we call domestic procedure and that we consider desirable in dealing with domestic cases. The essential points of these two clauses are that among the magistrates who investigate these cases there shall be women sitting with men, and that Stipendiary Magistrates shall work with lay colleagues. The point of the proposals is perfectly simple. In order to investigate the causes of a marital difference no expert training or legal knowledge is really required; it is a thing which any impartial and sympathetic human being can do. It is simply for that reason that we ask that the procedure shall be adopted which is already adopted in the case of young persons under sixteen, and which will be found provided for in the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933. Clause 3 is one which is built up out of existing legislation, and the methods prescribed by it are precisely the same as those at present used. The idea, as I have explained, is that laymen should collaborate with trained lawyers, and besides, that women should be able to give their attention to cases in which women are concerned, because naturally they are more able to understand the peculiar difficulties of their sex. I am treating these clauses only in their broadest outline, because it is not the practice of your Lordships' House to consider details on an occasion of this kind.
Clause 4 describes the constitution of the court. Subsection (1) of Clause 4 is borrowed wholesale from subsection (2) of Section 47 of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, and the object of this subsection, quite simply, is to exclude the general public from the court. When matters of the greatest intimacy have inevitably to be discussed, the presence of the general public is, I think, a great blot on our legal system. When men and women are describing the difficulties which have led to a rupture between them, it is not only embarrassing for them to have to speak in public on subjects of that kind, but of course it must dissuade a number from doing so, and
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therefore makes reconciliation almost impossible. Subsection (2) is also borrowed from an existing Act, and it would simply apply to the police courts, the procedure which exists to-day in the Divorce Court, where the reporting of the cases investigated is limited and restricted by the Judge. That is a very fundamental element in the Bill. It is, if I may say so, a scandalous and disgraceful thing that the most intimate details of the private lives of individuals should appear in the pages of the public Press, and I venture to hope that the check which your Lordships have put upon this practice by restricting publicity in the Divorce Court may be applied with equal determination to the police courts.
If I may now ask your Lordships to pass on to subsections (4) and (5) of Clause 4, I shall touch on those portions of the Bill which have, I think, given rise to the gravest criticism, and to antagonism which, perhaps mistakenly, has taken the Bill rather than its individual proposals for its object. The reason for allowing the parties to give their evidence unsworn is simply that the moment they get into the witness box you get a legal fight between the two, and reconciliation, agreement and harmony become absolutely impossible. That is the reason for employing evidence that is not taken on oath. Subsection (5), which is equally controversial, allows in the case of matrimonial disputes a relaxation of the rigour of the English laws of evidence which, as many noble and learned Lords point out and rightly point out, are pillars of English justice. The reason for this is that it is infinitely harder, if not impossible, to extract the real story of a quarrel between husband and wife when you have constantly to be insisting on the calling of evidence, the examination of witnesses and so on, which is what the laws of evidence would enforce. But I am not a person to fly in the face of the opinion of high legal authorities, and such authorities as your Lordships' House is fortunate enough to possess, and I should be the first to withdraw both of these subsections if those who have had the greatest experience in the administration of the law do believe that they would detract from the efficiency of our legal system.
Clause 5 contains perhaps the most original proposal contained in the Bill. It aims at the provision of a special con-

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ciliation summons, which is to be different from the ordinary police court summons because it is permissive and not obligatory. The point is this. If either husband or wife feels that difficulties in the home are beginning which, if allowed to run on, will lead to rupture and to a dissolution of the married state, or if they feel that such troubles are on the horizon, then either can go to the magistrate and say: "Will you give me an order for my wife" (or "my husband" as the case may be) "to appear in court and to explain what the difficulties are in order that we may before it is too late come to some satisfactory agreement"? This machinery for conciliation would, I believe, succeed in settling many difficulties and many disputes before they reached the climax and involved both parties in a legal combat.
Clause 6 of the Bill—and I have now almost finished—is simply a provision to make attempted reconciliation obligatory, to make it part of the law of the land, in order that every case which comes before the police court may be one in which the last effort of human ingenuity to bring the two unhappy people together has been exhausted. At present it is only optional. Although many magistrates—no doubt most magistrates—do their best to hand over cases to the probation officers in attendance at their courts, there are many cases in which magistrates are unable, perhaps even unwilling, to do so, and this clause would make it obligatory for the machinery of conciliation to be used to the utmost before the fatal legal process begins.
Thanks, my Lords, to your great indulgence, I have been allowed to put the general case for this measure, and to give some account of its special provisions. All I have to add, if I may, is one word addressed to the noble and learned Viscount who will answer on behalf of the Government. The general support for reform is so widespread, and it comes from such different quarters, that I think it is not unfair to say that the only differences which could arise between different parties and individuals are differences about the methods to be employed in order to produce amelioration of the present state of affairs. I understand that the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack may propose a different method of obtaining reforms to those con-
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tained in the measure which I have introduced. Without wishing to anticipate his remarks in any way I should like, because I thick he would wish me to do so, to ask him whether the procedure of applying the rules which he is allowed to issue and to make, and of having these put into force in the police courts, could, to any considerable extent, alter our present methods of dealing with matrimonial disputes, because, of course, if a Committee of the Home Office, for instance, after investigating the situation, were to report to him, no doubt he would put into effect whatever recommendations he considered valuable by that instrument.
My only fear, and it is a very serious fear, and one shared by all those behind this measure, is that the scope of his rules will not allow him to go far enough. May I ask him if he is able to restrict or limit the attendances at the police court during the consideration of matrimonial disputes? Because that is a cardinal feature of this Bill. Is it within his power to restrict the publicity of hearings? That is an absolutely vital factor in this Bill. May I ask him, finally, whether this is within his power, or whether legislation on this point is necessary; whether he is able to make attempted conciliation between the parties compulsory instead of optional? Them is a very important matter in the opinion of all those who support this measure, and it would not, in any sense, be an innovation, because it already exists in many countries. I should like to ask the noble and learned Viscount these questions, because I feel that he would wish to know exactly what problems occur to the minds of those who support this measure, before he rises to answer. I thank your Lordships for your indulgence in listening to these long and, I fear, rather technically detailed proposals, and I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
LORD MERBIVALE LORD MERBIVALE had given Notice that, on the Motion for the Second Reading, he would move, That this House, while recognising that it is desirable there should be full investigation by competent authority of any available means whereby the public hearing of matrimonial disputes in courts of summary jurisdiction may be avoided, declines to

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give a Second Reading to a Bill which subverts the established principles and methods of English administration of justice.
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, I am sure all of your Lordships will have sympathised with the noble Earl in the spirit which has animated the speech that he has made in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, and will appreciate the object he has in view, which is that of lessening the troubles of a numerous body of people in this country. Perhaps they are not quite so enormously large a proportion as the noble Earl fancies. I think he said that probably 17,000 orders were made under the Summary Jurisdiction Act. Has he called to mind how many millions of families there are in this country? There are nearly forty million people, and taking five to a household, numbers, if you hear them given in the way they were given by the noble Earl, are apt to be a little misleading.
The noble Earl has two objects in view, and I have set down a reasoned Motion in which I take into consideration those two objects. One of the noble Earl's proposals is that, as the best available way to the reconciliation of married people who have fallen out, you should adopt this procedure of his to which I will refer presently. The other matter, to which I have given some attention, is whether, in the conditions under which we live, some forty years after the Summary Jurisdiction Act was passed, and after very great changes in our social conditions, the time has not now arrived when, with all the experience that there has been during the years since the War of grappling with this question and its difficulties, it would be practicable to embody in our judicial procedure some means which would tend definitely towards the ultimate end which the noble Earl has in view—whether it would not be possible to amend our procedure?
In the Amendment which I have framed I have asked your Lordships to bring to the attention of the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack, and of His Majesty's Government, the view that something could probably be done in that direction. Possibly it would be attended with difficulties. The noble Earl has formulated some of the difficulties. He
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realises that the public administration of justice is very dear to the people of this country—that they know that the public administration penetrates much more deeply, and operates much more extensively; than in the cases of the individual parties and the particular matters which have to be decided. The noble Earl proposes to dispense in a great class of cases—cases of the most serious gravity to which he has referred—with the public administration of justice. That, of course, is a very serious matter. I intend to be as concise as I can in the observations which I must make to your Lordships, but the first question which I asked myself when I had read and re-read the noble Earl's Bill, and the question which I have asked myself over and over again since, is this: Is it proper to deprive the poorer people in the land of their right of access to His Majesty's Courts, in respect of grievances of the grave kind which are dealt with by this Bill?
The Bill does not set out what those matters are, but it refers to the Summary Jurisdiction Act, and the Summary Jurisdiction Act is concerned with the cases of married women, of any one of whom it is to be said that her husband has committed an aggravated assault upon her, or has been indicted and convicted for assault upon her, or has deserted her, or has been guilty of cruelty to her, or has wilfully neglected (that is, definitely and constantly neglected) to provide maintenance for her and her children. Now, the class of wrongs which I have recapitulated is a class of wrongs as to which married women in this country have had the right of access to the Courts competent to deal with them during the whole of our recorded history.
Before 1857 they could go to the ecclesiastical tribunal and get redress where there was a wrong suffered: wrong suffered, redress claimed and granted. In 1857 the jurisdiction was transferred under the Matrimonial Causes Act to what is commonly called the Divorce Court—definitely transferred by sections in that Act. That was found to cause a hardship among those thousands of poor people who could not make their way to one of the superior Courts, and the Summary Jurisdiction Act was passed, the Act of 1895. It is only forty years ago. I remember the whole of them, as many of our Lordships do—the preceding state

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of things, the state of things which has gone on during that period; and for one reason or another I have had very intimate knowledge about them. Certainly during a large section of my life I have had some official supervision of the procedure in the magistrates' courts, so that I do not speak without some knowledge of the matter, and I hope that nothing I have seen has lessened, or could lessen, the sympathy which I believe I have with suffering people.
What does the noble Earl propose to do? As to the great body of the people of this country, married women who suffer marital wrongs of the class described can go to the High Court, as they have been entitled to do for so long, and get redress. As to the poorer people who cannot get to the High Court and for whom relief in the Summary Jurisdiction (Married Women) Act, 1895, has been provided, the noble Earl has invented an ingenious procedure which prevents them from getting there for summary redress, and imposes conditions upon their right to redress which wil1 seriously alter the situation of every married woman in this country, and especially married women among the poorer classes The noble Earl speaks with great cheerfulness and a sanguine spirit about these proposals, and he says that in various quarters they have been applauded. Well, if I knew who were the writers I should know what knowledge they had of these matters, but applause in the Press is a rather tricky matter, as those probably best know who have seen the other side of the picture. I do not grudge the noble Earl the satisfaction he derives from having what he regards as a very favourable Press.
The noble Earl proposes by his Bill to set up a new class of courts—courts very artificially designed. A London Police Magistrate, for instance, has exercised this jurisdiction since 1895 in succession to his colleagues, with the assistance of court missionaries, with the assistance of probation officers, with the spirit which I know has animated our Police Magistrates during all my experience of them, with the keen desire that if reconciliation was possible it should take place. The noble Earl substitutes for the Metropolitan Police Magistrates a court composed of a Police Magistrate and probably two ladies, selected I do not quite know how, and they can over-rule him. A new
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court may be a highly desirable thing. If you have an incompetent and highly unsatisfactory tribunal by all means set about amending it; but if you have a tribunal which has gained the admiration of every competent critic, and if you replace it by such an amateur and nondescript tribunal as the noble Earl pro-proposes to set up, I am against it. And it is for that reason, and because I know the broad extent of this measure and the depth to which it will operate, that I have felt bound to set down a Motion against this proposal.
In the country districts there is another artificial class of tribunal set up. I will not say anything at length about it. The noble Earl says it is a tribunal such as is found under the Children and Young Persons Act. I propose to refer to the Children and Young Persons Act, very concisely and very soon; but certainly no tribunal such as is here in question seemed to me to be constituted under the Children and Young Persons Act; and far my own part if it were found there, if you could identify it, I regard the right of the married woman in this country, who is a citizen, as her husband is, as a very different thing from the legal right of the young child, whom you must put under the protection of other people. After all, although she is married she has her rights of citizenship, and it is those rights which this Bill, as I think, most seriously infringes.
Well now, that is not the most serious thing. As I think, the most serious thing is the special procedure here—procedure which is obligatory. I read the clause over and over before I could believe that anybody proposed this procedure. Clause 4 provides that the evidence of the parties or of their witnesses need not be given on oath. That is not the most material matter. "The laws of evidence shall not apply." The parties may be at the expense of having solicitors and even counsel: there is a tender regard for the legal profession here; but the, witnesses may be unsworn, the rules of evidence do not apply, and
"the parties shall not be entitled to cross-examine each other or to cross-examine any witness called…"
but they may ask the tribunal to put a question.
If the noble Earl had had twenty or thirty years experience in judicial proceedings in this country he would see what a burlesque of judicial proceedings that is. He proposes to take defenceless people and to deprive them of existing statutory rights and say: "Now we are going to give you in lieu of your statutory rights the power to go to people whom we have selected. They will not hear your evidence, and if you employ counsel someone may have to pay them, perhaps the other side, but you will not be entitled to ask any questions—the special tribunal will see to that." When I read a proposal of that kind I really wonder in what period I live, or whether this is some strange nightmare which has fallen upon me.
There are other very remarkable proposals. The noble Earl has what he calls "the conciliation summons." If two married people are living together one of them may apply for a conciliation summons which shall be heard under the domestic procedure—that is the procedure we are dealing with now—and I see what class of cases are dealt with:
"Circumstances which threaten to give rise to an application for a separation or maintenance order or to a petition for divorce …"
Just conceive of it. A man who thinks he is in peril of a separation order will apply for a conciliation summons under the domestic procedure; a man who knows that he is in peril of proceedings for divorce will apply for a conciliation summons under the domestic procedure, and the public will not know, but the court will come to its decision! The applicant will be heard first, and of course he will tell a plausible story, and then the other party will be heard next and may not be able to tell so plausible a story, and there will not be any cross-examination or any evidence.
Then I read what may happen. The court may "advise or admonish either or both of the parties" and the noble Earl's Bill provides for the presence then of representatives of the Press. You may have an ingenious applicant, a wrongdoer, bringing his wife before the conciliation board and telling his tale to them and succeeding, with reporters present, and the fact published that this woman who is deprived of her ordinary legal rights has been admonished by the
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special board, and it would be true and she would have no redress.
I wondered whether this Bill could be amended so as to bring it into line with our judicial procedure. It is because I am satisfied it cannot be amended, that it is based upon those proposals on which the noble Earl declares it to be based upon those idealistic proposals which will not stand the test of experience, that I move your Lordships should not give a Second Reading to this Bill. But I do not propose to leave the matter there. I have referred to procedure. The noble Earl appealed to the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack as to the procedure in these cases. Procedure in every kind of case, but especially in cases of the gravity of these, is a very difficult thing to handle, but my belief is that a competent Committee should be appointed by the Home Office, under the advice it can get, to investigate this matter and to see what is possible in order to avoid so far as may be public investigation of matters as to which the public does not gain by their investigation. I venture to propose in my Motion that His Majesty's Government shall be asked to consider that possibility and unless they are advised that it is not a possibility—and I cannot conceive that they can be—they should proceed now, while the thing is fresh, and investigate the matter.
As to the noble Earl's Bill, I do not know of any public demand for it. I have known something of these matters for a long time, as I have said. That there have been writers in the Press I know. I think I could identify some of the persons who have written. One man can write a good many articles in a good many newspapers if he is active enough. But there is, I think, a case for inquiry. I think there is a necessity for inquiry, and the experience I have had and the observation which I have applied to it lead me to think that it is possible in a variety of cases that the strict rule as to publicity should be relaxed. I ventured to propose a Bill in your Lordships' House some months ago by which, in its severest strictness, I thought the rule might be relaxed in certain cases. Well, that Bill has not come back from the other House. But I believe it could be done, and if His Majesty's Government will take up this matter, and if the noble and learned

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Viscount on the Woolsack, who, I know, pays a sympathetic attention to matters of this kind, will tell us something of the kind can be done, then I am sure the noble Earl will feel we have gained by this discussion, even if the Bill is not carried beyond its present stage. I move the Amendment standing in my name
Amendment moved—
Leave out all words after ("That") insert ("this House, while recognising that it is desirable there should be full investigation by competent authority of any available means whereby the public hearing of matrimonial disputes in courts of summary jurisdiction may be avoided, declines to give a Second Reading to a Bill which subverts the established principles and methods of English administration of justice").(Lord Merrivale.)
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I have the greatest possible sympathy with the noble Earl who liar introduced this Bill and with the objects which lie behind it. If I may echo what has been said by the noble and learned Lord who has just sat down, I think he has done a very considerable public service by bringing the question before your Lordships' House. When I was a member of the long-drawn-out Royal Commission on Matrimonial Causes in 1912 this matter was constantly before our minds. We were very greatly impressed with two facts. One was the number of applications arising out of these particular domestic disputes which were never taken up at all. We were told, if I remember rightly, that in one place alone, the City of Leeds, there were more than 4,000 applications which were lying in the office of the clerk and had never been taken up at all. We were still more impressed with another fact—the number of reconciliations which were effected even when orders had been taken out and made. Most of our witnesses agreed that probably that was true in fifty per cent. of these cases.
It was, therefore, obvious that nothing could be more unreasonable than to describe the large number of applications for separation or maintenance orders as in any sort of way potential divorces. On the contrary, a great number of them, perhaps the majority of them, were due to matrimonial tiffs, to explosions of temper, to the sting of defeat left in the minds of one of the parties after a combat of words, and it was urgent that every step that was possible should be
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taken to prevent disputes which had that sort of origin from resulting in the break-up of the home to the great detriment, particularly, of the children. Therefore, there is not a word that the noble Earl used in bringing forward his Bill, about the necessity of taking every possible means of effecting reconciliation in these cases, with which I do not most heartily agree. That, I think, he advocated as the fundamental principle of his Bill. With that fundamental principle I most cordially agree, and, as I have already said, with the main objects of the Bill I cannot imagine that anyone who is familiar with this aspect of our public and social life would not agree also. It is when I come to the actual procedure of the Bill which the noble Earl has introduced that my difficulties begin, and I am afraid do not end.
I am bound to say that the arguments which have been brought before your Lordships by the noble and learned Lord who has just spoken seem to me irresistible. We shall all await the advice which the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack may give us, but I shall be much surprised if he does not reinforce the weight of what has just been said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Merrivale. These arguments against the particular procedure recommended by this Bill seem to me to be conclusive. But there are features of the Bill, even proposals of the Bill, which seem to me to merit most careful consideration. For example, I think it is right that cases of this kind—that is to say, applications for maintenance or separation orders, bastardy cases, cases of affiliation orders —should be held at special sessions of the court or at times apart from the hearing of ordinary criminal cases. I believe it is the case that in most courts these cases are heard along with the hearing of quite trivial offences, and the patience even of the most considerate magistrates may often be exhausted, after hearing a number of these trivial cases, by the voluble tongue of some woman who is conscious of some grievance against her husband. It would be very much better if the real importance of these cases, which are not comparable to the trivial matters with which they are often associated in the courts, should be recognised and that they should be treated in a special session and at a special time.

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I also think it would be of great value in cases of this kind that where it was at all possible there should at least be one woman associated with the magistrate in the hearing of the case. Further, I my wonder whether it is not possible to make provision that, while the court must be open and in a sense public, the general public advantage there is in a crowd of neighbours or of the ordinary public being admitted to listen to some poor woman who is obliged to reveal the most intimate details of her domestic life. I happened to hear the other day of one case where, before an ordinary public court, a poor woman had to describe, with resentment at the conduct on the part of her husband, just those delicate relations of married life with which the general public has no sort of concern. I venture very much to hope that provision may far ultimately be made for restricting to that degree the publicity with which these domestic disputes are considered.
But the matter of most importance is that it should be the duty of the court, before hearing any application in any of these cases, to instruct the probation officer of the court to make full investigation into all the causes which behind the application, and to advise the parties before they come into court. I agree with every word the noble Earl said about the evil of unnecessarily dragging cases into court. When two parties have stood arrayed against each other, one complainant and the other defendant, the position is necessarily embittered and hardened and the chances of reconciliation lessened. The whole difference might be settled if it were the duty of the court to see that before any of these cases is heard the probation officer has an opportunity of seeing the parties and endeavouring to effect some reconciliation. Further, I would say that there is the greatest possible value in giving power to the court, if it does not already possess it, to order an adjournment within some fixed period, even when the case has come into court, in order to see whether the probation officer would not be able to effect a reconciliation as in the vast number of cases, if the opportunity is given and the duty laid upon him, he is able to do.
In other words, it seems to me that what we should aim at is securing
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mediation in every possible way, but I think the proper mediator is not the magistrate, however valuable his advice may be, but the probation officer. In may judgment the best result of this discussion would be to increase the number and extend the functions of the probation officers. It is difficult to exaggerate the value which these officers render to our social life. I think there are about 204 full-time men probation officers and about 80 women and some 540 half-time officers. I think it is important, in view of what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Merrivale, said, that the police court missionaries as they used to be calle—now they are all probation officers—should be increased in number. Their numbers are not sufficient, and I do not think their duty is quite properly and fully laid down. So far as their work is concerned, it is already heavy enough, and I agree with the noble Earl that it would not be possible to give them increased duties, under our desire to make procedure in domestic cases better, without increasing their numbers.
I believe that in a Metropolitan court there are something like a thousand of these cases every year. In one big borough with which I am very familiar, Croydon, where very accurate records are kept, I think that last year no fewer than 436 cases of married women alone had to be investigated. But I do not agree with the noble Earl that there would be any reasonable objection to the comparatively small increase of public expenditure which would be involved in increasing the number of these wholly admirable probation officers, not only on account of these particular matters but of the whole field of the administration of justice in social matters. Therefore it seems to me that what is wanted is a full inquiry into this matter undertaken by some responsible authority. I would associate myself with what has been said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Merrivale, and I would ask whether the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack could give some assurance that the Home Office would be prepared to undertake such an inquiry as is desired—only I should not like it to be limited to the one question which appears in the form of the noble and learned Lord's Motion for rejection, that is, to investi-

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gate possible restriction of publicity. I should like the inquiry to include investigation into the possible increased use of probation officers, because I am satisfied that that is the way in which this matter can best be approached.
I should like to support the Second Reading of the noble Earl's Bill because I have such deep sympathy with his objects, and, as he will have gathered, so much agreement even with some of his proposals. Some, of the suggestions I have made may require statutory provision. If so, I would suggest to the noble Earl and his friends that they might consider whether they could not bring in a Bill of a much more simple character which does not make the tremendous incursions into the established Common Law practice of this country which have been described by the noble and learned Lord. Other suggestions might be achieved by means of administration in the courts or possibly through the powers of the Lord Chancellor. But I cannot really vote for the Second Reading of this Bill because its object is the establishment of this particular court and the provisions attached to it. I think that is going the wrong way about the business, and that it is complicating the matter with difficult legal questions which are by no means necessarily associated with it. But I am sure that the noble Earl may feel that he has done very great public service in raising this matter before your Lordships and before the public. I hope that the discussion may result in greater care being taken in the discussion of these unhappy matrimonial disputes and, it may be, in the more effective use of the system of probation officers which I hope will be increasingly an integral part of the administration of justice in this country.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, I do not propose to detain your Lordships more than a minute or two. I rise for the purpose of supporting almost everything that has been said by the most reverend Primate and also of expressing my agreement with the observations made by my noble and learned friend Lord Merrivale. I think, with others who have spoken, that we are greatly indebted to the noble Earl for having brought this matter before your Lordships and for having, I hope, paved the way for some further investigation and probably a better procedure than prevails at the
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present moment. I am attracted by a number of the objects which the noble Earl has in mind. Especially am I attracted by his proposal for what is termed in the Bill a conciliation summons. What is needed is some course of procedure which would prevent the constant hearing in the courts of cases which probably could be satisfactorily settled if only some impartial person of authority and influence could intervene at the right moment. We are all aware of the conditions present and of the difficulties that arise in matrimonial matters.
Even so, I confess that I cannot be induced, and I hope your Lordships will not be induced, to vote for the Second Reading of this Bill which, if passed with the clauses proposed by the noble Earl, would have the effect really of destroying the whole system of law built up in this country through the centuries, which I do not think it is too much to say is the admiration of most if not all countries. Indeed, many attempts are made to follow the procedure which we have adopted. No one can speak with greater authority with regard to matrimonial disputes than the noble and learned Lord, Lord Merrivale, and I think I am justified in the observation that no Judge who has ever sat showed greater sympathy and understanding of the questions that came before him during his long tenure of the high office he held or showed a greater desire to deal with them in some way which would prevent the disruption of the tie which had been entered into. I must ask your Lordships not to pass lightly over the criticisms he made.
I could not help thinking as he was addressing your Lordships that it was not my view, nor I think the view of anyone who has practised in the Courts, that matrimonial courts are those in which you get the truth always told. Probably it is not too much to say that there is no court—certainly that is my experience—in which greater untruths are told more unblushingly and supported very often by evidence of a similar character. Yet your Lordships are asked to give effect to a measure which would not only do away with the laws of evidence, which would allow evidence in these cases to be given without the sanctity of the oath, but which would allow it to be given without fear of the

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punishment which can follow upon the disclosure of a false statement made in evidence, that is, conviction for perjury. All that would disappear under this Bill.
Without travelling further into the matter I beg your Lordships not to give a Second Reading to a Bill which contains provisions of this character; but in saying that I would desire to press so far as is legitimate upon my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack the desirability, with the knowledge we now have and in view of the changes that have taken place in recent years, of instituting an inquiry. That inquiry should not be limited. It should be wide so that we may have an opportunity of introducing some system which would help to relieve the present situation, which would make it perhaps more possible to prevent disputes of this character coming into a public court, and which would certainly give the opportunity, if as the result of the inquiry it should be found right, of having discussions in private, not in the presence of witnesses, with all the advantages referred to by the most reverend Primate, which I will not repeat, but with which I most cordially agree. I do urge upon the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack that in any inquiry which he is prepared on behalf of the Government to promise there should be no undue restriction, but that it should be one with all the advantages which we now have of all the experience of the law which was passed in 1857 and all the changes which have taken place in more recent times. There would be a real public benefit if we could have such a full inquiry into the procedure we now have with the advantage of all the experience we have gained.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I do not know whether I may say, in addition to what my noble friend has said, that the inquiry which I contemplate would be a very full inquiry into the whole of these matters. I do not think that the necessary scope of it has been at all over-stated in the speeches which have been made.
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: My Lords, previous speakers have left me, fortunately at this late hour, with very little to say. I would only like to take the opportunity of this debate to congratulate His Majesty's Government upon the news which I read in this morning's
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newspapers that a course of training for probation officers has been initiated. I am afraid that I must differ from the noble Earl who introduced this Bill, in desiring that more and not less public money should be spent upon probation officers. Though I am very glad to learn of his concern for the public purse, I trust that I shall not be considered extravagant in urging that the services of probation officers, of which the most reverend Primate has spoken with such knowledge and so informingly, should be very greatly increased. I trust that one of the objects of the inquiry which will I hope be set up, will he an increase in the sphere of usefulness of probation officers especially before cases are brought into Court.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT SANKEY): My Lords, permit me to congratulate the noble Earl on his speech in moving the Second Reading of his Bill. This House always welcomes the contributions to our debates made by our younger members. Not only do we desire to hear various views upon public questions, but we are always anxious to know the opinions of those to whom, after we are gone, the destinies of our country may from time to time be entrusted. While, however, this House never turns a deaf ear to new ideals, we must also consider carefully the advice and advantage which come from knowledge and experience. With the principle of conciliation we should all of us be agreed. It would be better to persuade people to agree with their adversary while they are in the way with him. Particularly is the principle of conciliation desirable when the dispute is one which arises between husband and wife and concerns those domestic relationships which everybody in the country desires to see happy and undisturbed.
Let me first, however, sound a note of warning against placing too much reliance upon the consideration of how different conceptions of law have fared in other nations. It cannot be proved that the principle of conciliation has always been a success wherever it has been tried. It must not be forgotten that different systems suit different countries, and it may well be that a code which fits in with the traditions, associations and way of life of one nation will not fit in with the way of life of another. Our Common

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Law is an indigenous growth, derived by a process of evolution from the customs of our people. It has followed lines of development of its own, quite unrelated to any Continental system. One man's meat is another man's poison. Far be it from me to say that Continental systems are ethically or logically wrong. It may be that our Common Law would be just as much out of place in certain countries where for generations they have proceeded upon a different theory and different practice, as the codes of other nations would be when applied to our own conditions and our own outlook.
It would be too risky to support a Bill like the present without more thought and inquiry than appear to have been brought to bear upon the proposals which are contained in it. It cuts across many of the provisions which, after generations of experience and practice, we have found to be the best to enable many of our fellow citizens to obtain their rights. It interferes with procedure which, after generations of experience and practice, we have found to work satisfactorily. The advantages of cross-examination are to be abolished, the advantages of complete legal assistance are to be done away with, the advantages of bringing a trained mind to the settlement of disputes are no longer to be relied upon. The main fault of the Bill appears to me to be that in its very laudable endeavour to prevent disputes between husband and wife taking place in a law court, it starts too late. It begins after the mischief has been done and when, in many cases, people have got into a position where the only remedy is resort to a judicial tribunal. There are many who are convinced that a better way of achieving the desires which are shared by the promoters of this Bill, and indeed by all of us, might be found by attacking the problem at an earlier date.
We have in our country a large number of probation officers, and it would be wiser in the opinion of many that use should be made of these officers in these very distressing cases between husband and wife. The good offices of probation officers have prevented hundreds and hundreds of these cases ever appearing before the magistrate. The work is done privately and without the publicity attendant upon proceedings in open court, and it would probably be far better to
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try that remedy before embarking on the revolutionary proposals which this Bill asks your Lordships to countenance. At many courts the common practice is, before the case comes into court, to ask the probation officer to interview the parties, and experience shows that he is frequently able to bring the disputants to a better frame of mind and to guide them to a settlement. Often the parties are young people and the quarrel is due to inexperience and ignorance. In such cases and in many others it is possible for a mediator of experience to remove misunderstandings, to show how difficulties may be overcome and to bring about a permanent reconciliation. At many courts the official procedure is supplemented by the probation officer in his capacity of court missionary, but it is probable that this can only be done if the court is fortunate enough to have the services of a probation officer with the personality, the knowledge and the time to deal with these difficult problems.
The promoters of the Bill propose to meet this difficulty by providing that matrimonial disputes shall be heard by a tribunal which shall sit in private, which shall not be subject to the laws of evidence, which shall dispense with some of the legal procedure of a court, and which in dealing with alleged offences such as assaults, threats, or abusive language, shall have no power to impose any penalty on the offender. This tribunal will, however, have power after a hearing, to which the important and traditional legal safeguards do not apply, to grant or refuse a separation order or to grant or refuse a maintenance order, although, if a maintenance order is not complied with, such a court will have no power to deal adequately with the defaulter. The Bill, indeed, proposes to confer upon a court of law functions of a non-judicial, advisory and patriarchal character which are difficult to reconcile with the purposes for which a court exists. That in matrimonial disputes such functions can often be usefully exercised by some unofficial person or body of persons is admitted, but they are not functions of a court of law. The function of our courts is to come to a decision on facts put before them in accordance with the laws of evidence and after the evidence has been put to the test of cross-examination. It seems entirely wrong that, as proposed

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in this Bill, a tribunal sitting in secret, dispensing with the laws of evidence, dispensing with sworn testimony, with power to prevent any real cross-examination, should be authorised to decide whether a claim for a separation order is substantiated or not.
As regards the paragraph (f) which deals with summonses for criminal offences—namely, assaults, threats or abusive language—the so-called court when dealing with such cases will not be a court in any sense at all, since it will have no power to enforce its decisions. The tribunal which the Bill purports to set up under the name of a court is not in fact a court of law in any accepted sense of the term. It is an informal committee functioning under an informal procedure, but having neither the effective authority of a court nor the freedom of an unofficial body. It is important that the two organisations and the two methods of dealing with a dispute should be kept separate and distinct. There may be exceptional occasions on which a particular court can properly, of its own will and motion, abandon its authority as a court and resort to methods of unofficial persuasion, but a court whose official duty is to abandon its official legal procedure and when dealing with alleged offences to use merely methods of persuasion and reasoning, is no longer a court at all.
It may be contended that the present unofficial methods of reasoning with the parties to a matrimonial dispute through the good offices of probation officer, or sometimes through the unofficial intervention of a magistrate, are liable to be ineffective because the persons taking this unofficial action are not clothed with the impressive authority of a court, and it is therefore desirable to constitute a tribunal which has the appearance of a court for the purpose of bringing pressure to bear upon unreasonable and wrongheaded disputants. This, however, is a double-edged argument. It would soon be recognised that the tribunals set up by this Bill have no real authority to enforce their decisions and consequently respect for their proceedings would quickly wane. The fact that it is styled a court, and has the ostensible appearance of a court, though having none of the real characteristics of a court, would react to the detriment of the prestige of
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the real Courts of Law. The respect which is felt for the decisions of courts of summary jurisdiction rests on the fact that they have authority to enforce their decisions, and that those decisions are only arrived at in accordance with the traditional and recognised judicial procedure. If bodies are set up which are styled courts of law but have none of the important characteristics of courts of law, such a development might have a harmful effect on the administration of justice generally.
The prestige of a court rests largely on the formality of its procedure, its ability to compel the attendance of the parties and the power to make its decisions effective. To make the court the vehicle of a species of social service for the protection and welfare of married persons would detract from its authority. Under existing conditions when a court postpones the hearing of a summons and brings its influence to bear on the parties with a view to a settlement, it does not suffer in prestige precisely because such a course is not obligatory and all concerned know that a court will exercise its powers if compelled to do so. Under the procedure proposed in the Bill the court is compelled to act in two capacities: first, as a mediator, and, secondly, as a judge; and it can only act authoritatively when it has already failed as a mediator, so that when it enters on its final and proper task it is faced by its previous failure to persuade.
One of the main defects of the Bill is that magistrates who have acted in an informal manner when dealing with a summons for assault, threat or abusive language, or when dealing with applications for arrears under a maintenance or bastardy order, may subsequently be called upon to deal with the same case formally and authoritatively in an ordinary court of summary jurisdiction. This is clearly indefensible. A magistrate who at the first informal sitting under the domestic procedure has listened to statements which are not evidence cannot then apply his mind impartially to the evidence which is subsequently produced before the ordinary court of summary jurisdiction. Moreover, the reputation for impartiality of the latter court will obviously be prejudiced if, at the first hearing, as must necessarily happen under the procedure contem-

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plated, the magistrate in reasoning with the parties has shown how his mind is tending.
No doubt the principle of informal procedure by a specially constituted court has already been admitted in the Children and Young Persons Act and the Juvenile Court Rules, and it may be said that the present Bill is no more than a logical development of this principle. Such an argument loses sight of the fact that the justification of the juvenile court procedure is not that the matters dealt with affect family life, but that one of the parties is a child. Its procedure is directed to safeguarding the interests of the child, and informality is allowed as the most effective means of ensuring that the child shall understand and be able to take part in the proceedings. None of these considerations applies to cases under the Bill when the dispute is between adults. The objections to the whole scheme of the Bill are so strong that it is impossible for the Government to give any countenance to its proposals. No amendment in matters of detail could make it workable.
The noble Earl has addressed certain definite questions to me. He has asked me whether it is possible for a Lord Chancellor, under rules and regulations, to restrict publicity or to keep the public from entering the courts, and also whether under the rules which the Lord Chancellor has authority to make he can ensure that there shall be compulsory conciliation. The answer to the last question is that the Lord Chancellor has no power to make any rule affecting compulsory conciliation. With regard to the other question, I would ask the noble Earl to remember that after all publicity is the soul of justice. It is injustice which thrives on secrecy. The real difficulty in these cases is where to draw the line. To have a gaping gallery listening to some unfortunate woman giving a most intimate account of a dispute between herself and her husband, is disastrous in the last degree. On the other hand, absolute secrecy is equally disastrous, and it may be that it will be found necessary some day to see whether it is possible to frame some legislation which will be a happy line between those two extremes. I do not think a Lord Chancellor has power, at any rate without further inquiry, to make any such
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With regard to some of the ideas of the noble Lord, they can, and it is to be hoped will be, accomplished by the magistrates themselves, by assigning particular days and particular hours for the hearing of such cases, so as to prevent them being mixed up with the ordinary criminal cases of the police courts. It is not necessary, however, for the accomplishment of this desirable reform, to upset rules and practice to which English people have been accustomed for many years, and to resort to changes of procedure against which the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, with all his unique experience, and the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, with his experience as Lord Chief Justice of England, have given us such timely warnings. I should shrink from taking away from, a number of our fellow citizens in distress statutory rights which they at present enjoy, but the way to exercise those statutory rights is quite another matter. It must not be thought that those who are anxious to reform the law are not in sympathy with the difficulties which arise when the husband and wife of to-day are no longer able to agree with one another, and I am sure that your Lordships will probably agree that the remedy does not lie in cutting ourselves adrift from well-established principles.
My right honourable friend the Home Secretary is prepared to have examined the question whether particular days and hours can be assigned for the hearing of husband and wife cases, and the question whether it is possible to extend and develop the present methods adopted at many courts of subjecting applications for separation orders and applications for summonses in respect of matrimonial disputes to a preliminary informal investigation, with a view to seeing whether reconciliation is practicable in particular cases. It may be desirable that at every court some person with the time and the qualifications to investigate such cases, to interview the parties and to see whether by reasoning and persuasion their difficulties can be adjusted, should be available. Where there is a good probation officer he is probably the most suitable person to undertake the preliminary inquiries. It may also be found desirable that in special cases, where he thinks reconciliation desirable but finds his own intervention ineffective, he should

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have the assistance of some magistrate who is prepared to help him, on the understanding that, if the case ultimately comes into court, that magistrate will not. adjudicate.
Questions of this kind, however, are not in the present state of our knowledge proper subjects for legislation imposing obligations on all courts. The making of many proper arrangements can be, and is, a matter of administration, but it is not at present necessary, or even possible, to crystallise these regulations into an Act of Parliament. The need for such work is an argument for strengthening the probation system. Considerable progress has been made in recent years in increasing the supply of good probation officers, but there is no doubt room for still further improvement in this direction. As I have said, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary will examine and consider all these questions in the light of this debate, but I would ask your Lordships not to allow this Bill to go to a Second Reading.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I should like in my very brief reply first of all to thank your Lordships for the very interesting and instructive speeches to which we have been able to listen, because I feel that these alone will give great value to the measure that I have introduced, in that the whole question of the treatment of matrimonial cases in police courts will have had a thorough airing, and will have benefited from the high legal opinions and the opinions of those best qualified to speak during the course of this afternoon's debate. The noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack has, to the great satisfaction of those who support this measure, given us an assurance that a Committee of Inquiry will be appointed to investigate certain questions that arise out of the present treatment of matrimonial cases in police courts. I am bound to say that I am frankly disappointed with the terms of reference and the scope of the inquiry that it is proposed to hold, but I have been so encouraged by the speeches that have been made asking for a Committee of Inquiry with a very large scope of reference, for the fullest investigation of the most burning problems that arise in this matter, that, after further investi-
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gation, and after profiting from the criticisms that I have heard this afternoon, I shall certainly attempt to introduce a measure with a narrower scope, and in the meantime I beg leave to withdraw the present Bill.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I take it that the noble and learned Lord will not press his Amendment?
LORD MERRIVALE: No.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The Bill is, by leave, withdrawn.
Original Motion and Bill (by leave of the House) withdrawn.

REGISTRATION OF BIRTHS, DEATHS AND MARRIAGES (SCOTLAND) (AMENDMENT) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.

PETROLEUM (PRODUCTION) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for receiving the Report of Amendment read.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR AIR (THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY): My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now received.
Moved, That the Report be now received.—(The Marquess of Londonderry.)
LORD STRACHIE: My Lords, during the discussion of a good many Amendments of mine, which I was moving on behalf of the Central Landowners' Association and also of the Mineral Owners' Joint Committee, I received assurances from the noble Marquess and the noble Earl, Lord Munster, that they would go into the questions with me if I would go, as I did, to the Mines Department; and I may say I am fairly well satisfied with what took place. But, in order that we may get some definite public statement, I venture to ask the noble Marquess one or two questions on this matter. The Amendments that I moved in Committee were directed to three principal points, and I am anxious to be assured that those points are in fact

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already safeguarded by the Bill, so that my Amendments are not necessary.
The object of one of the Amendments was to ensure that the Crown should be put in no better position under the Bill than a person who obtained a licence under Clause 2, and who is obliged, if he wishes to enter upon or interfere with land, to obtain an ancillary right under Clause 3. It is a question whether under the Bill the Crown is in no such better position, but on the contrary would be at a disadvantage as compared with an ordinary individual. I should like to know what is the reason for this. I understand that it is that the Crown would not be able to apply for an ancillary right" under Clause 3, but that is a question which those whom I represent here are anxious to have answered very definitely.
Further, am I to understand that while the Crown could, in cases where it owns the surface, bore for petroleum, it could not enter upon or interfere with any other land or any minerals which it does not own otherwise than by negotiating terms with the persons interested in that land or minerals? Then again, am I to understand, this being so, that the question of whether it would be more in the national interests that petroleum or minerals other than petroleum should be gotten would be one of the points to which the Railway and Canal Commission would have to pay regard under Clause 6 (1) of the Mines (Working Facilities and Support) Act, 1923, which clause is, inter alia, applied by Clause 3 for the purposes of this Bill? There are a great many cross references in this particular Bill, and therefore it is very difficult for the ordinary layman to understand it. Another point which was dealt with in the debates on the Committee stage was directed to ensuring that where a licensee bored for petroleum, and thereby injuriously affected underlying minerals, there should be a procedure whereby in a proper case compensation should be paid for such injurious affection. This point a good many coal-owners consider very important indeed, because there may be considerable risk of flooding or something of the kind. Another of my Amendments was that the question whether it was more in the national interests that petroleum should be got, or that minerals other than
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petroleum should be got, should receive consideration.
I also want to ask the question whether "land" in Clause 2 (3) of the Bill clearly includes minerals. If that is so, would an individual who obtained a licence under Clause 2 and wished to bore on any land, except in a case where he owned both the surface and the underlying minerals, which would be interfered with by such boring, have to obtain an ancillary right under Clause 3? Would this include a case where a surface owner, who did not own the underlying minerals, wished to bore in a manner interfering with such underlying minerals? Am I to understand that for the same reasons the applicant for the ancillary right would have to pay such compensation as would be awarded by the Railway and Canal Commission under Clause 6 (2) and Clause 9 of the Mines (Working Facilities and Support) Act, 1923, while conditions designed to give protection (otherwise than by means of compensation) could also be imposed by the Commission under Clause 6 (1) of that Act?
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: My Lords, the noble Lord has taken the opportunity of this Motion to ask me certain questions and I feel your Lordships will desire me to answer them. The replies are not of a very lengthy character, and I think I am in a position to satisfy the noble Lord in regard to the points he has raised. The questions which the noble Lord asked me are directed to three principal points. The first is to ensure that the Crown should be put in no better position under the Bill than a person who obtains a licence under Clause 2 and who is obliged, if he wishes to enter upon or interfere with land, to obtain an ancillary right under Clause 3. I have put down an Amendment myself to remove any possible doubt, and this point therefore will be dealt with when we reach the Amendment which appears in relation to Clause 10, page 5, line 24—namely:
"Nothing in this Act shall be construed as conferring, or as enabling the Board of Trade to confer, on any person, whether acting on behalf of His Majesty or not, any right which he does not enjoy apart from this Act to enter on or interfere with land."
The noble Lord asked me a second question to ensure that where a licensee bored for petroleum, and thereby

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injuriously affected underlying minerals, there should be a procedure whereby in a proper case compensation should be paid for such injurious affection. The answer to that is that the licensee could not drill through minerals without the consent of the mineral owner. If the mineral owner gave a right voluntarily the question of compensation would depend on the terms arranged between the parties. If an ancillary right were secured by an order of the Railway and Canal Commission the question of compensation would be settled by the Commission.
The third question which the noble Lord put is to ensure that in considering applications for the grant of ancillary rights under the new Act consideration would be given to the question whether it was more in the national interest to get petroleum than to develop other minerals. We are advised that the provisions of subsections (1) and (5) of Section 6 of the Mines (Working Facilities and Support) Act, 1923, impose on the Railway and Canal Commission the duty of giving consideration to the point mentioned; and, where minerals may be affected, to consider what is necessary to afford protection for existing mineral workings. Where the Commission award compensation the applicant for the ancillary right would have to pay the compensation awarded. I think that is a reply to all the questions the noble Lord has put.
On Question, Motion agreed to, and Amendment reported accordingly.
Clause 2:
Licences to search for and get petroleum.
2.—(1) The Board of Trade, on behalf of His Majesty, shall have power to grant to such persons as they think fit licences to search and bore for and get petroleum.
(2) Any such licence shall be granted for such consideration (whether by way of royalty or otherwise) as the Board of Trade with the consent of the Treasury may determine, and upon such other terms and conditions as the Board of Trade think fit.
(3) The grant of a licence under this Act shall not be taken as conferring on any person any right to enter on or interfere with land.
LORD RANKEILLOUR LORD RANKEILLOUR moved, in subsection (1), after "fit" to insert "provisional." The noble Lord said: My Lords, I ought to explain that this Amendment is not the same as I moved in Committee. That was to propose a
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procedure by Provisional Order. The object of this Amendment merely is that the Board of Trade shall give only a provisional licence and not an absolute licence so as to allow an opportunity for Parliament, if it thinks fit, by Resolution of either House to intervene. On the general principle I cannot understand why oil prospectors should be privileged compared with other undertakers. The old Parliamentary position has been that if undertakers, for their own purposes, no doubt for public purposes too, wish to obtain compulsory powers to enter upon land, and to construct certain works and the like, they have to go and snake their case to Parliament. If it is opposed, or even if it is unopposed, it has to come before a Parliamentary Committee. It is quite true that that principle has been to this extent impinged upon in recent legislation that, instead of a Parliamentary Committee, in the first instance there has been a local inquiry by an official who has reported to his Department, which, if it approves the report, makes a Provisional Order; but that Provisional Order has to go to Parliament and may be opposed in Parliament. That has been in one way or another the constant practice.
We have seen quite recent instances of it. We have had for example the instances of great hydro-electric schemes such as the Grampian scheme in Scotland. These promoters in all cases had to make their case and satisfy Parliament; but under this provision the consent of Parliament is being dispensed with. Parliament cannot come in before the licences are granted. The Board of Trade are the sole body who in the first instance are to give licences and, the licences having been given, there is no Parliamentary review, neither is there any publicity of any kind before the licences are given. No case has to be made in public and you may not know who are applying to the Board for licences. You may not know whether there have been rival applications and you do not know on what grounds the Board of Trade may have decided. It is perfectly possible under this provision for the Board of Trade to give what I may call a monopoly concession to particular promoters, and I submit that that is entirely wrong I heard the Lord Chancellor say not twenty minutes ago

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that publicity is the soul of justice and submit that in cases like this, where you have perhaps large competing interests, before they decide on any one of them they should publish their intention to grant a licence and have a public inquiry in the subject.
It is perfectly true that the licence is not all. The licensee has to go before the Railway and Canal Commissioners to prove that he can, and will, undertake the work contemplated to the satisfaction of the Commissioners, and there will be a good deal to be said on Clause 3 about the procedure and the rules which govern the Commissioners. But this appears quite certain from the Bill as it now stands, that the Commissioners will not be able to hear rival applicants; they will only hear those persons to whom the Board of Trade have already granted a licence. As I read it, the grounds on which they can resist that licence will be not grounds of policy. The Board of Trade will determine the policy; the Railway and Canal Commissioners only have a say in the execution. I submit that Parliament ought not to part with its normal powers in this matter, and ought to retain some control. I would prefer that it should be by the ordinary procedure of a Private Bill, or of a Provisional Order, but at any rate let the licence be a provisional one and not an absolute one.
There is a reason of general policy why I would urge this. There are a number of educated people in this country who have somehow or other got it into their heads that public life in this country is corrupt. They are largely to be found in the academic classes—University dons, schoolmasters and the like—but they do honestly believe this, and if you inaugurate a secret procedure that is the very way to encourage them in these ideas. If you have a public inquiry where the case is stated and where everyone can know, that is the way to do away with all these unfounded suspicions. I do seriously say that a departure from publicity is harmful to the public life of this country. What I now propose is that the licence shall be provisional and shall not be confirmed until it has been before the knowledge of Parliament for three months. I um not wedded to this particular procedure, but I am wedded to the principle of public notice and public inquiry. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 5, after ("fit") insert ("provisional").—(Lord Rankeillour.)
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: My Lords, the Amendment which the noble Lord has proposed on this occasion is very similar to the Amendment which he proposed at a previous stage of this Bill, which was rejected on a Division by fifty-two to nineteen. The noble Lord now proposes that the Board of Trade, instead of making a Provisional Order, should issue a provisional licence. The terms and conditions of the licence are to be published in the London Gazette and the licence is to have effect three months after its publication unless an Address to His Majesty for annulment be presented. With the general remarks which the noble Lord has made I do not want to disagree very much. It is of the highest importance that all these matters should be fully understood, and that the suspicion of anything surreptitious or mysterious should be removed from the minds of the general public.
There are two points which I had intended to mention on the Motion that this Report be now received, and perhaps your Lordships will allow me to deal with those two points now. I regret to say that on the Second Reading I could not have made myself clear to the majority of your Lordships. The first of those two points is this: I should like to emphasise once more that the issue of a licence confers no sort of right on the licensee to enter upon anybody's property. That is a matter which, I think, your Lordships have hardly appreciated as yet. We believe, and we are legally advised, that the Bill, as drafted, makes this quite clear, but in order to make doubly certain the Government have put down an Amendment which I shall move shortly. The right of access to land has to be acquired quite independently of the licence. The other point is one to which the noble Lord has referred—that is, as to whether the issue of the licence can properly be left to the Board of Trade, or whether there ought to be direct control of this matter by Parliament. On this I am quite satisfied, after a very full consideration of the criticisms raised in the debates on the Bill, that the procedure which we are proposing is the right procedure. The licence is merely a contract between the Government and the licensee.

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It is the duty of the Board of Trade to arrange the commercial and technical details of the licence, and to secure, within the provisions of the regulations which are to be made and laid under the Bill, regulations which Parliament has the right of annulling if it is not satisfied with them, that licences are only granted to properly qualified persons. For the acts of the Board of Trade the President of that Board is responsible and he must answer to Parliament if criticism is raised. The Board of Trade Vote can be discussed in the House of Commons as often as a Motion is brought up and, therefore, it is quite obvious that the action which is taken by the Board of Trade can be discussed in the House as often as any member raises the particular point. I think your Lordships will agree that that is a strong safeguard against any improper action by the Board, if such action can be contemplated. In the powers which Parliament now has there is, I submit, a proper safeguard. If there is to be an inquiry before a licence is issued or the possibility of a licence, once issued, being annulled, then I am confident we shall fail to secure the interest of those who are qualified and willing to undertake the work of searching and developing oil and without whose cooperation this Bill will be no more effective than the existing Act of 1918. I think your Lordships are aware that there has been an Act in operation, but virtually no one has thought it worth while to bore for oil because of the difficulties with which they were faced.
Some criticism has been made that no one will know when a licence has been issued. There is, I am well aware, in some of your Lordships' minds a suspicion of concealment about the licensing provisions of the Bill. I think I can say it amounts to a positive apprehension that there will be something mysterious or what I may call hole-and-corner business, that surreptitious dealings will be negotiated, and that Parliament and the country will know nothing about them. Let me assure your Lordships these apprehensions, these fears, are quite groundless. There will be nothing whatever hidden, and in order to meet this point and to make the position quite clear and open, I am proposing to move an Amendment to secure that a notice will be published in the London Gazette immediately
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on the issue of a licence, giving the name of the licensee and the area covered by the licence. Your Lordships will realise that the moment a licence has been given, and the licensee has been chosen by the Board of Trade—for reasons which the Board of Trade are in a better position to judge than anyone else, and reasons which I am sure Parliament will not at any time wish to criticise—there will be publication of the fact in the Gazette.
I should like also to emphasise that if the provisions which the noble Lord is so anxious to include as an Amendment of this Bill are brought into effect, we shall find ourselves in exactly the same position as we were in before, that no one will undertake to embark on a venture of this description. It means that the licensee on coming forward would have to disclose what he proposed to do, and would have to tell the whole world where he thought it was possible to find oil. This would immediately arouse in others the idea that they could do exactly the same thing. I would suggest to your Lordships that if provisions of this kind are to be embodied in this Bill we shall find no one who will undertake the arduous duty of boring for oil in this country, and I hope the Amendment will not receive your Lordships' support.
THE EARL OF DUDLEY: My Lords, as two Amendments which stand in my name at a later stage are very similar to the Amendment just moved by my noble friend Lord Rankeillour, it would save time if I spoke in support of this Amendment in place of those I have put upon the Paper which ask for practically the same thing. We are, it is true, to a certain extent met by the Amendment which the noble Marquess in charge of the Bill proposes to move at a later stage on page 2, line 11, but the great difference between the Amendment which we desire and the Amendment which the noble Marquess proposes to move is that his publicity will come after the licence has been granted and we ask for publicity before the licence has been granted by the Board of Trade.
The noble Marquess has told us that if provision is made in the Bill for a local inquiry and the necessary publicity before the licence is granted, it will do away with the incentive to apply for licences and to bore. I understand that in reply to a question put in another

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place a short time ago, the Secretary for the Mines Department stated that no fewer than ten applications—I think it was ten, I have not got the exact answer here, but at any rate a large number of applications—had been made already for permission to bore and that they were put off by the Government owing to the intention to introduce this Bill. I do not know whether your Lordships will agree with me, but I cannot see why there should be a lack of incentive if the publicity is to take place before the licence is granted and no lack of incentive if the publicity comes after it has been granted. After all, by the time the licence is granted the mischief will be very largely done. The licensee will then be in a very strong position.
At present—I am sure the noble Marquess will not deny this fact—negotiations can take place in secret between the President of the Board of Trade and an applicant for a licence. The first thing that any locality or any estate owner in any locality will know about it is when the company comes with an application for a right to bore in that district. The locality will have had no chance whatever of putting forward any objections—and there may be very serious objections—to that particular licensee.
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: If the noble Earl will allow me to interrupt for a moment, I would like to say that I was strongly advised to make a long, disquisition on the Motion that the Report should be received, but I thought I ought not to trespass on your Lordships' indulgence. It is after a licence has been granted that proceedings begin. There is no access to the land until negotiations have been gone into with the owner of the land. If the licensee cannot agree with the owner of the land the matter comes before the Railway and Canal Commission. But there is no access to the land whatsoever, so that the noble Earl's remarks as to some company arriving on the land are quite wide of the mark.
THE EARL OF DUDLEY: I quite understand that there is no access to the land before a licence is granted, but I repeat that when the licence has been granted the damage has been very largely done. The licensee is in a very strong position because the licence can only be taken
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away if you find him an unsuitable person to bore. Having been granted a licence, the licensee then goes to make the necessary arrangements with the surface owner in the area where he intends to bore. He may or may not make arrangements agreeable to himself and the surface owner and proceed to bore. Personally, I should think that in nine cases out of ten he will not make proper arrangements because the surface owner will object. Then the whole case is put before the Railway and Canal Commission and they make an arbitrary order for compensation and so on, against. which the surface owner has no redress and no appeal whatsoever—nor has anybody else in the locality who may be directly interested. That is the procedure.
I quite admit that there is no access to the land before the licence is granted. That, I think, does away with a certain amount of the implication which was mentioned by the noble Marquess in Committee that it would be unfair that any geological discovery which the applicant had made in regard to petroleum and on which he had spent money should he made public in a public inquiry before the licence was granted. I think that was one of his points. But in reference to that I would ask: If he has had no access to the land before a licence was granted, how can he have made any geological discovery? He could not have put down experimental bores which he would probably do before the licence was granted.
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: He cannot do it.
THE EARL OF DUDLEY: He obviously cannot until he gets the licence, but my point is that that does away with the argument of the noble Marquess that he will be in possession of certain information which it would be unfair to ask him to disclose in a public inquiry before the licence was granted. If he has not got to the land before he gets his licence he would not have that knowledge at all. I hope your Lordships will see the importance of having publicity, and a public inquiry if necessary, before the licence is granted. If the noble Marquess would agree to alter his Amendment to take out the words "as soon as may be after granting a licence" and to insert the words "before granting the licence hold

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a public inquiry", then our case would be met. I hope your Lordships will see our point and will support us.
LORD RANKEILLOUR: My Lords, I feel bound to say that I am not convinced by the statement of the noble Marquess. His proposal is that after the Board of Trade have acted there shall be notice given. Only that licensee can go to the Commissioners, and he is in a privileged position. As to subsequent Parliament-
THE EARL OF DUDLEY THE EARL OF DUDLEY moved to add to subsection (1), "within areas to be specified in such licences." The noble Earl said: My Lords, when I moved an Amendment in the Committee stage of the Bill endeavouring to give a priority to the estate owner where there were several applicants for a licence including the estate owner, some of your Lordships indicated that you were in sympathy with the principle of the Amendment although the form and wording of the actual Amendment were not suitable. I have endeavoured to draft another Amendment, but the difficulty is that we do not know what the regulations are to be. I understand that when an applicant goes to the board of Trade for a licence to bore, one of the regulations will be that he must specify the area in which he proposes to bore. Therefore I presume the Government will have no objection to the first of the Amend-
ary action, everyone knows that in a case like this, although you may raise the matter in the House of Commons you have no chance whatever of prevailing against the Minister for his past act. I feel that the noble Marquess has not met the point and I shall be obliged to ask your Lordships to divide.
On Question, Whether the word "provisional" shall be there inserted?
Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 23; Not-Contents, 31.

CONTENTS.

Exeter, M.

Bertie of Thame, V.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Salisbury, M.

Hereford, V.

Hutchision of Montrose, L.

Jessel, L.

Ancaster, E.

Carrington, L.

O'Hagan, L.

Dudley, E.

Daryngton, L.

Rankeillour, L. [Teller.]

Grey, E.

Erskine, L.

Rhayader, L.

Iddesleigh, E.

Fairfax of Cameron, L.

Shute, L. (V. Barrington.)

Midleton, E.

Gainford, L.

Somers, L.

Radnor, E. [Teller.]

NOT-CONTENTS.

Sankey, V. (L. Chancellor.)

Hailsham, V.

Marley, L.

Halifax, V.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Willington, D.

Redesdale, L

Balfour of Burleigh, L.

Rennell, L.

De La Warr, E.

Bayford, L.

sanderson, L.

Feversham, E.

Biddulph, L.

Seaton, L.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Clwyd, L.

Somerleyton, L.

Munster, E.

Danesfort, L.

Stonehaven, L.

Plymouth, E.

Denman, L.

Strachie, L.

Stanhope, E.

Eltisley, L

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.)

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

Hawke, L.

Templemore, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

ments which I propose to move, which merely provides that the licence shall specify the area where it is proposed to bore. The other Amendment follows on and gives a prior right to an estate owner, or an association of estate owners, to be granted a licence by the Board of Trade where there are several applicants one or more of whom is the estate owner or are estate owners, of course provided that they are willing and able to bore for petroleum as effectively as the other applicants, who may have no local interest whatsoever.
I know that one of the aims of the Government is to ensure unity of development, and in that they have my sympathy, but I think that in this Bill they go too far, and they are in fact socialising—there is no other word for it—the whole of the production of petroleum, which may be a very lucrative operation, at the expense of the surface owners. After all, the estate owners are greatly interested in that production, because whoever gets

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the petroleum has to bore through their surface to get it, and they might have been just as effective, both financially and technically, in getting it themselves. I know that it is most undesirable that, we should arrive at a state of overdevelopment such as I understand obtains in Texas, but that could surely be avoided by the control of the licences by the Board of Trade. Surely it would be possible to frame regulations under which one licence could be granted to an estate owner if there were only one estate owner applying for the licence, that is to say giving him preference over the other applicants, provided again, of course, that he was able effectively to bore for the petroleum, and in cases where there were several estate owners applying for licences, to grant one licence only to an amalgamated association of such estate owners.
I hope that the Government will most seriously consider this aspect of the estate owner's case before the Bill is passed into law, and will, either in the Bill itself or in regulations, give some interest to the surface owners in the getting of petroleum on their own estates and in neighbouring estates; that is to say, give them some interest where petroleum is to be bored for on their own property or is to be gotten from under their own property, where they are able effectively to do it themselves. Otherwise, I am sure your Lordships will agree, this Bill is pure Socialism, and the localities and the surface owners will have no interest or say whatsoever in the matter. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page, 2, line 6, at end insert ("within areas to be specified in such licences").—(The Earl of Dudley.)
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: The noble Lord has moved this Amendment and has referred to another Amendment which he proposes to move later on. I think, perhaps, I had better wait until he moves that second Amendment before dealing with it, because there is also an Amendment in the name of Lord Iddesleigh which comes before it. In answer to the Amendment which has now been moved, I am given to understand that this Amendment is entirely unnecessary, as the licences would obviously have to specify the areas in respect of which
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they were granted, but if there is any doubt in the noble Earl's mind I think, if he will consider the Amendment which I am myself moving, relating to the notice in the London Gazette, he will see that it will be there definitely stated what are the areas in respect of which the licence has been granted. I think my Amendment covers the point.
THE EARL OF DUDLEY: It covers the point of the present Amendment, but my further Amendment is consequential upon this one.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH moved to insert at the end of subsection (1):
"Provided that a licence shall not be granted to or held by any person other than a British subject nor in the case of a body corporate unless membership and control thereof is limited to British subjects."
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I am certain that your Lordships will agree with me when I say that it is desirable that our national resources should be exploited by men of our own nation, and that if they are exploited by companies it should be by British companies. After all, we are not lacking either in initiative or engineering skill, or capital. We are not in the position of those less-developed countries which are compelled to grant concessions to foreigners to exploit their resources, and we know from experience that trouble very frequently arises from the granting of such concessions.
I can conceive of one objection being taken to the form in which I have moved this very necessary Amendment, and that is that it does not provide for the case of what I may call the man of straw. It may be possible, even within the terms of my Amendment, for a foreign company to take out a licence in the name of a British subject, who may lend himself for that purpose. That practice might be guarded against by requiring the licensee to give an affidavit that he is not acting on behalf of any foreign interests. It is also possible that the Government will criticise the drafting of my Amendment. Of course I am only too anxious to satisfy them on any point of that kind, on which they are necessarily better informed than I am. Finally, I am a little inclined to fear that we shall be told that we may safely leave this matter, of the granting of licences to British subjects, in the hands of the officials of the Board of Trade or the

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Government, or that provision will be made to meet this matter under Clause 6, by which the Board of Trade may make regulations prescribing the persons by Whom applications for licences may be made.
I would venture to say this to the Government. They, of course, have a perfect right to ask this House to repose confidence in them and their successors, but it is nevertheless the constitutional duty of your Lordships to regard these requests with the utmost suspicion. If we are not here to put a check upon the Government, and to regard their actions with some degree of suspicion, then I am at a loss to understand why we are here. Therefore, as a stern constitutionalist, I express the hope that the Government will refrain from saying, as they have said on former debates on this Bill, that this House must take it for granted that they will not do anything flagrantly wrong in this matter.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 6, at end, insert the said proviso.—(The Earl of Iddesleigh.)
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: My Lords, I am certainly not quarrelling with the noble Earl for his vigilant attention to the activities of Governments, and I hope he will continue to pay such attention so long as he is a member of this House. He has furnished the answer, more or less, to the Amendment which he has moved. It is true that we are relying, to a very large extent, on the regulations which can be made under Clause 6 of this Bill. An opportunity will then arise to discuss the matter, and if Parliament considers that the regulations are not satisfactory they can be annulled. The noble Earl, I think, desires a more drastic treatment of these provisions by the Amendment which he proposes to incorporate in the Bill. I think the noble Earl should not overlook the fact that if his Amendment were adopted we could hardly complain if other countries in different parts of the world, who own petroleum resources, followed the same course and shut British enterprise out of territories where they are now operating to the advantage of this country and the Empire. Such a result could only make us more dependent than we are now on supplies from foreign countries. I think the noble Earl will see that his object is probably best achieved by means of regulations
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under Clause 6, and that instead of incorporating such a drastic suggestion as is contained in his Amendment, the matter would best be dealt with by the means which we are proposing to adopt.
LORD RANKEILLOUR: May I ask whether the noble Marquess will give us a draft of the proposed rules before the Bill leaves this House on Third Reading?
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: I do not want to press the Government on this Amendment, as I understand I have received some assurance that this matter of British nationality will receive some consideration in the draft regulations. There is one point I might put to the noble Marquess. I believe it is inevitable that other countries who can afford to finance their own development, and have the competence and skill to carry it out, will increasingly tend to do so. Therefore I think it is a pity that we should rely too much upon being able to develop the resources of other countries, and that it would be unfortunate if it prevented us from developing our own resources by our own people. Having received some answer from the Government, however, I will not press this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE EARL OF DUDLEY THE EARL OF DUDLEY moved to insert at the end of subsection (1):
"Provided that where two or more separate applications are made for a licence or licences under this Act to search and bore for and get petroleum within an area or areas in which there is situate any land of which one or more of the applicants is or are the estate owner of estate owners the Board of Trade if satisfied that such estate owner or such estate owners or any of them is or are able and willing to operate effectively the licence or licences for which he or they have applied shall not grant a licence to any person other than such estate owner or one of such estate owners or two or more of them jointly. For the purposes of this section and of the proviso to section (Appeals) of this Act 'estate owner' means the owner of the legal estate in the fee simple of the land in relation to which the expression is used."
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move. I have already explained what I hope your Lordships will agree is the necessity for this Amendment, which I moved on a previous occasion.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 6, at end insert the said proviso.—(The Earl of Dudley.)
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: My Lords, this mater was raised on the Committee stage by the noble Earl, who asked for a preference to be given to the owner of the land. I pointed out to the noble Earl on that occasion that we may have confidence in the action which the Board of Trade would take, but I am afraid that that did not satisfy the noble Earl. The area over which a licence is given may be an area of a certain number of square miles, and there may be a large number of estate owners who might desire to have a preference given to them in the boring for oil, and I hardly think that it would be possible to accept the Amendment. I should like to ask the noble Earl to consider the case from all its aspects. He seems to have in his mind the idea that a licensee will be an individual entirely hostile to all the local interests. I hardly think, knowing human nature as I do, that that is the attitude which the licensee will take up. I think he will be only too anxious to ingratiate himself with all those owners of the soil with whom he will have to negotiate; and it is obvious therefore that, if there is someone in that area who is capable of carrying out these operations on a scale which would be useful and profitable, that person cannot be left out, nor is he likely to be left out.
If he is so certain that he is in a good positon to develop these resources surely he will be the first in the field. The idea that somebody will, if I may so put it, catch him napping and come before him and get the licence, is so unlikely that I do not think that is a proposition which we need consider. But, even if that were the ease, we should then understand that there was an owner of the land who was quite capable of developing these resources over a wide area—which I hardly think is going to happen in this country. I think that over such a wide area, where there is a licensee who is capable of boring for oil, you will find that there will be a number of owners of the land in that area. And if there does happen to be one owner who is capable of developing on those lines, or if there is a syndicate which is capable of finding oil on those lines, that is a matter which must be taken into consideration by the Board of Trade. After the licence has been granted, the licensee has to
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negotiate with the owner of the land, and the owner of the land, If should say, under his arrangements with the licensee will be able to come to some understanding which will be satisfactory to both.
THE EARL OF RADNOR: My Lords, the noble Marquess's speech is hardly a reply to the Amendment at all. This measure is largely confiscatory. The noble Marquess has been given several opportunities of bringing it more into line with the views of several members of your Lordships' House and to save it from being an entirely Socialist measure. If he would accept this Amendment it does at least give the landowner or landowners concerned the first chance to develop their own property, which they have not got under the Bill as it stands. The noble Marquess suggests that the Board of Trade would bear it in mind and that the licensee would of necessity go in with the local landowners. If that is so, why not put it into the Bill and let them have the chance of knowing that they can do so? l hope the noble Marquess will reconsider his decision, or, alternatively, that the noble Earl will force a Division.
LORD GAINFORD: My Lords, at an earlier stage of this Bill I also appealed to the noble Marquess to try to meet this point. After all, I know something about boring for oil. I have visited Peru and Ecuador, and I know where the rival interests come in. Here in this country we have not had the experience of some of the South American or Mexican areas, but at any rate what I feel about this is that the people in a locality who have some knowledge of the requirements of an industry ought to have a better right, or at any rate as good a right, to the licence as an outside company. An outside company has not got any interest in the amenities of the district. The people in the district have, and they will take great interest in the question where the plant is to be put up, where the borehole is to go down, and where the works are to be erected. None of those things will come within the purview of an outside company, which may have developed oil in one place and thinks itself entitled therefore to have the first claim to a licence in another.
It is all very well for the noble Marquess to say that the Board of Trade will take all those things into consideration. It is quite possible that the President

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of the Board of Trade, in whom I have every confidence, if there are two parties applying for a licence, would consider all the circumstances relevant to the development of an industry in a particular locality by strangers or by those who are interested in that locality. But we may in the future have a President of the Board of Trade who does not take into consideration those things, and I think it is desirable that some such words as these should be inserted.
LORD DANESFORT: My Lords, I must say it seems reasonable that if there is boring for oil on a man's property, which involves a good deal of interference with the amenities of the property and disturbance of the land, and the owner is capable of undertaking it, he should be given priority. The noble Marquess says that the Board of Trade will consider these points, but it does not follow that a future Board of Trade would act on that principle, and if it is right that the Board of Trade should consider it why not put it into the Bill? I cannot see any real objection. It will not interfere with the working of the measure. It will only make it clear who is to get the licence. I hope that the noble Marquess, unless he sees any real objection of principle, will accept the Amendment.
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: My Lords, this is a question which really should be considered from all its aspects. Boring for oil has been undertaken only on a- very limited scale, in fact only three licences are now in force, so that the owners of the land have not up to the present time taken advantage of the facilities. The boring for oil which will take place, as we hope it will, and the development of resources which may or may not be hidden under the soil of this country, will, I presume, be undertaken by people who are fully cognisant of these matters and, in their judgment of geological conditions, are hopeful of finding oil. So it does not seem to me that this is going to cut across any right of an individual who, the noble Lord seems to suggest, is likely to come forward. He has not come forward yet, and why, because a licensee is advertised in the Gazette as having received a licence, that should stimulate an owner, I do not quite follow. The noble Lord referred to foreign companies boring
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for oil, and said they would be regardless of the amenities of the district, but that is a matter which is provided for in the Bill.
LORD GAINFORD: I quite understand what the powers of the Railway Commissioners are. That is merely a question of compensation. The Railway Commissions will not have any real regard to the amenities except so far as the payment of compensation is concerned.
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: I do not think the noble Lord is quite correct, but I would again appeal to him to consider it from this point of view, that the licensee is not coming on to the land with the idea of antagonising everybody. He will know that if he pushes his borehole down in some place where the amenities are injured he will have to pay compensation. It may be he will be called upon by the Commission, instead of paying compensation, to buy the whole property. Therefore I think the noble Lord should recognise that the licensee is not a sort of wild savage individual who is coming for the purpose of riding rough-shod over the whole countryside, but will do his very best not to alienate all those people on whose co-operation he so largely depends.
EARL GREY: My Lords, the noble Marquess opposes this Amendment by saying that because very few landlords have asked for licences in the past, that is a good reason why we should not get this Amendment. Surely the point is not to discuss whether landlords have applied for licences in the past but whether, if there is a probability of oil on their property and they do apply for a licence, their application will receive favourable consideration. It is a question of principle. It is not a question of whether people have applied in the past or not. If it comes to that, the big syndicates that the noble Marquess expects to apply have not applied in the past either. I would ask the noble Marquess to remember that in line 4 of the Amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Dudley, at the top of page 2 of the Marshalled List of Amendments, it is still the Board of Trade who have to be satisfied that these owners are able to work the licences effectively if they are given to them. Therefore the Board of Trade, by my noble friend's Amendment, are not asked

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to give a licence to someone who cannot work it effectively. I do not think my noble friend is asking for anything unreasonable in suggesting that the landlord should be given some priority if he is able to bore effectively and search for oil on his own land.
THE EARL OF DUDLEY: My Lords, I am afraid I have not had a sufficiently sympathetic answer from the noble Marquess to lead me to withdraw my Amendment, and unless I can get something more sympathetic I shall have to force it to a Division. The noble Marquess says that the large companies to whom he refers, who will probably be granted these licences by the Board of Trade, will probably not antagonise surface owners and people in the locality and will have due regard to the amenities of the locality. That may be so but, on the other hand, it may not be so. After all, their first consideration is to make money for their shareholders or themselves, and, beyond this bare reference to the amenities to which the Railway and Canal Commission shall have regard, there is nothing in the Bill which will prevent them doing all sorts of damage and running counter to local interests and surface owners' interests in every sort and kind of way, which the local surface-owner, if he wore boring for petroleum, or an association of local surface owners, would not do.
The noble Marquess raised the point that surface owners have not so far come forward to apply for licences. That point was met by my noble friend who has just sat down, but I would like to point out, the fact that three surface owners have been granted licences, and ten licences have been applied for, some of which are probably on behalf of surface owners, and these have been turned down by the Board of Trade pending this Bill. The noble Marquess says that an applicant for a licence who is a surface owner will probably have due consideration by the Board of Trade. If that is so, why not embody it in the Bill so that he will have that consideration, and prior consideration, over the Trinidad Oil Company, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, or any other outside concern which cannot have the same regard for local amenities or the same knowledge of local affairs, or indeed of local geology, which local people themselves have? I
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do not pretend that my Amendment is a perfect one, but I hope your Lordships will recognise the principle and importance of it, and give it your support.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I really think there is a little misunderstanding—at least I hope there is—between the noble Earl and ourselves. If you proceed on the basis that the Bill is confiscatory and bad in principle, and ought to be knocked out, we have nothing to say. I think we are at cross purposes. The Government succeeded on the Second Reading in convincing the House that that view is ill-founded, and I hope your Lordships' House will support that. But if you proceed, not on the principle that the Bill is a bad one and that you wish to destroy it, but that the Bill has been accepted in principle by your Lordships' House and you want to make it reasonable, then I would point out to the noble Earl that I do not think he has quite appreciated what we have said over and over again.
The noble Marquess has said it a good deal better than I can do, that from our experience and in our deliberate opinion, and in the opinion of all those we have consulted, if we are to make the search for oil a success—and we deliberately desire to do that from reasons of economic interest and also from reasons of defence interest, which I need not elaborate too much—it is essential we should at any rate attract those very few people (largely, I am glad to say, though not exclusively, British) who have the geological knowledge and skill sufficient to enable them to form an opinion as to where the most likely place is in which to look for oil, and get them to take an interest. They have the whole world to range over. They are certainly not going to come to Britain to try and find oil if they are told that anywhere else in the world they can, by their skill and knowledge, if they apply it, ascertain far themselves the likelihood of obtaining oil, and then proceed to get licences which will enable them to get it without first inviting the rest of the world to come and compete—they are not going to do so if, should they come and try to do the same thing in England, they are required, as soon as they have acquired the information by the exercise of the skill of their geologists arid a staff

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of experience, to advertise to the world the place where it is likely to find oil, and give to the world the knowledge which enables them, anywhere else, to get a preference over the rest of the world. It is essential, if we are to get any chance of having oil found in Britain, that we shall allow people to get licences without first announcing to all humanity that they think a particular spot is likely, and being put into competition with everyone else with regard to that spot. That is vital.
"But," says the noble Earl, "I am afraid of the effect on the amenities." I do not want to spend time in discussing a matter of detail, but your Lordships will appreciate that it is a mistake to think that, if you had to go to the Railway and Canal Commission, it is only a question of compensation. If your Lordships look at Clause 3, subsection (2) (a), you will find the first thing the Commission has to decide is whether the right shall be granted at all, and in doing that it shall have regard, among other considerations, to the effect on the amenities of the locality of the proposed use and occupation of the land. It is a mistake to think it is only a question of amount. It is a question of whether or not the right shall be granted.
The noble Earl—this is a big point—wants to be sure the estate owner has the prior right, other things being equal. I should not object, and I do not think any of my colleagues in the Government would object, in fact we should approve of that principle, and we should be prepared, if we could, to help the noble Earl to secure the principle. The trouble about his Amendment, and that which makes it impossible to accept it, and which makes it so difficult to meet his point, is that, in order to secure his principle, he not only puts in the Amendment which we are now discussing but follows it with one which was defeated on the Committee stage, the one which immediately follows on the print, in which he sets out the requirement that whenever an application is to be made for a licence it has to be advertised. Then there are to be notices published, and there is to be an inquiry and matters of that kind. Those are matters it is impossible to accept. You might just as well destroy the whole object we had when we entered upon this legislation. It
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is impossible to meet that, and if the noble Lord thinks, as I rather gather he did, that his two Amendments hang together then it is not possible to meet him.
THE EARL OF DUDLEY: The point is that the surface owner or association of surface owners cannot know of any secret arrangements which may be going on between the Board of Trade and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company or some outside company unless it is made public. If the noble Viscount is willing to embody the principle of my Amendment pure and simple in the Bill, without the question of publicity or the opportunity of inquiry, then the ordinary procedure would be that every surface owner in the country would immediately apply for a licence as soon as this Bill came into operation so as to safeguard himself. How is the Government to deal with this?
LORD GAINFORD: My Lords, I can only ask a question by leave of the House. Would the noble and learned Viscount the Leader of the House consider before the Third Reading whether he could introduce words which would meet the point? I see there is substance in the complaint which he has just made that all the words of the noble Earl's Amendments may not be acceptable to the Government, but he has indicated that he does see substance in the noble Earl's Amendment, and if he would be prepared to consider this matter with the view of introducing an Amendment on the Third Reading it may not he necessary to go to a Division.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I am much obliged for the suggestion. The difficulty which I was trying to explain to the House was this. In fact my noble friend Lord Londonderry says that the Board of Trade always would, other things being equal, prefer the owner on an application for a licence. The noble Earl, Lord Dudley, says that may be so, but he wants to be satisfied not only that the Board of Trade would do it, but that the Board of Trade must do it. That is, put shortly, his point. I quite realise that, and I would like to meet him, but what I cannot do is to offer a concession which involves that before a licence is granted the fact that it has been applied for might be made public. If we had to do that it would destroy any possibility of the Bill being useful.

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If the noble Earl is satisfied by having—I am not pinning him or myself to exact language—his first Amendment and not his second one, that is to say, a provision that the Board of Trade should grant the licence to the estate owner if he applies in preference to other people, I think that would be an Amendment which, subject to any necessary alteration in words, could be accepted. But if he goes on to say, as I am afraid he might that is no use to him unless he also has a provision that every estate owner in any area in which an application for a licence is made shall be given previous notice, then that is an impossible concession for the Government to make. The noble Earl says that if he had his first Amendment without his second one every estate owner would apply for a licence. That is a risk which we should be quite prepared to take, because I am certain that very, very few estate owners would imagine that it was worth while going into serious negotiations with the Government as to the terms on which they could bore for oil when they had no more reason than I have, or any other of your Lordships, for imagining there is any oil there at all.
THE EARL OF DUDLEY: That depends on the regulations, which we do not know.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I do not know them either. They would be laid before Parliament, and the noble Earl could criticise them. What I want to make clear is that we are not merely being obstinate in refusing to accept an Amendment which is reasonable because we cannot give way. That is not the position. We believe that the noble Earl's views would be met by the Board of Trade, and we would be satisfied to incorporate, if we could, words to the effect that the precaution must be taken by the Board of Trade. That is in fact obtained in the noble Earl's first Amendment. We are all very anxious to secure the chance of oil being found in commercial quantities in this country—that is vital—and we cannot give way on this point, which we have voted on two or three times to-night and in the Committee stage, the point that the fact of a licence having been applied for is to be made public and time then given for other people to come in and make cross applica-
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tions. If the noble Earl is satisfied with the concession which I should be willing to give, that if any estate owner chooses to put in an application for a licence his application shall be preferred to that of anyone else, other things being equal, I should be satisfied. If he goes further and says: "I must insist that every application for a licence shall be advertised and made public before it is granted," then that is a thing I cannot give him. I hope I have at least made my position clear.
LORD RANKEILLOUR: May I ask my noble friend this? I can quite see the difficulty, but, on the other hand, until the licence is granted and published the neighbouring landowners will not know what opportunity they have. What I want to ask the noble Viscount is this. When the licence has been granted and the licensee goes before the Railway and Canal Commissioners, will the Railway and Canal Commissioners, among other things they have to consider, consider not only whether the licence holder is a fit and proper person to carry out the work but whether there are other persons who are more fit and proper? The noble Marquess said on the Committee stage that they could consider Whether the licensee was a fit and proper person. He did not say whether the Commissioners could consider whether there were alternative persons. If the noble Viscount could give that assurance I think that would go some way to meet the point.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I can only speak again by leave of the House, but I think your Lordships will give me leave. May I say to my noble friend Lord Rankeillour that the question he has just put shows once more the mistake which we cannot eradicate from the minds of some of your Lordships, including my noble friend The mistake is to mix up two different stages—the stage in which application is made for a licence to bore and the stage in which application is made for leave to go on anybody's land for that purpose. What we are dealing with in subsection (2) and in the present Amendment is the stage of applying for a licence to bore for oil. If, and when, that licence is given it gives no one any right to go on to anyone else's land. I think that is clear in the Bill, but we have an Amendment to make it certain.

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The Railway and Canal Commission does not come in at all at that stage.
LORD RANKEILLOUR: May I say that I was asking that they should be allowed to come in?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: That we cannot do at that stage. The Railway and Canal Commission comes in at the stage when a licensee desires to go on to someone else's land. When the licensee desires to do that and the owner will not let him go except on terms that appear to be unreasonable, the matter comes before the Railway and Canal Commission and the Commission then has to grant or refuse a right and settle the terms on which the licensee is to go on the land—terms which are already laid down in the Mines (Working Facilities and Support) Act, plus the terms in subsection (2). Your Lordships will see therefore that I cannot give my noble friend the assurance that he would like, because the Railway and Canal Commissioners do not consider the position between different licensees. They only come in to adjudicate in a case where an existing licensee desires to go on to some property, and is unable to get leave to go and has to come and satisfy the Commissioners that his application is reasonable.
THE EARL OF RADNOR: May I ask if the effect of granting a licence is to give the licensee the right to go on land provided he is prepared to pay whatever compensation is demanded of him?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: The only right a licence gives to the person who gets it is to bore for oil if he has land. If he happens to be a landowner, having got a licence he has all that is necessary. If he is not a landowner he has to persuade some landowner within the area covered by his licence to allow him to go on his land on such terms as are reasonable. It is only in the event of his being unable to do that that he goes to the Railway and Canal Commission and asks the Commission to give him the right to go on the land on whatever are reasonable terms. I hope I have at any rate answered the question.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY moved, after subsection (2), to insert:
"(3) The Board of Trade shall, as soon as may be after granting a licence under
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this section, publish notice of the fact in the London Gazette stating the name of the licensee and the situation of the area in respect of which the licence has been granted, and, if the said area or any part thereof is in Scotland, the Board shall also publish the said notice in the Edinburgh Gazette."
The noble Marquess said: My Lords, this is the Amendment which I foreshadowed I would put down to meet some of the objections raised. I think the wording explains itself, so I will not detain your Lordships with any explanation. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 11, at end insert the said subsection.—(The Marquess of Londonderry.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: My Lords, there is a consequential Amendment to this clause. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 12, leave out subsection (3).—(The Marquess of Londonderry.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH moved to add to the clause:
"(4) Any such licence shall after five years from the date at which it is granted be revocable by a Resolution of both Houses of Parliament."
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I have put down this Amendment because as far as I can discover there is no provision in the Bill that these licences should be revocable. So far as I understand it is in the power of the President of the Board of Trade to grant a perpetual licence. That is a very dangerous thing to do and I suggest that we should set some term—I have suggested five years in my Amendment but the term might be longer—to the duration of the licence that may be granted by the President of the Board of Trade. We are leaving things too much to his discretion if we set no limit whatever to the period of the licence.
I do not know the exact value to be attached to these licences—that may be to some extent in dispute—but they are very valuable concessions. Not only are they licences to exploit the mineral oil wealth of the country, but they will also have the effect of preventing any other person or company from exploiting that wealth within the defined area. I am

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afraid that if one of these licences came into the hands of a large company with great international interests you might find that no genuine boring for oil took place at all, but that the licence was used merely to keep rivals out of the field. In those circumstances it certainly ought to be revoked. Although I am not particularly enamoured of the drafting of my Amendment, I suggest to His Majesty's Government that some provision for revocation ought to be made.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 14, at end insert the said subsection.—(The Earl of Iddesleigh.)
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: My Lords, I think the noble Earl on reflection will not desire this Amendment to be incorporated in the Bill. The first objection to this Amendment is that no responsible concern would be prepared to sink money in a search for oil if its licence could be revoked in the manner suggested. Boring for oil, I am given to understand, although I am bound to say that I do not know much about it, is not a, cheap affair. It means sinking a great deal of money by tile company or the individual interested, and if the licence which a person had received might be revoked after five years he would be very unwilling to sink any money in trying to find oil. Another objection which I think may appeal to the noble Earl who is so suspicious of what Governments may do, is that the Government would be in a position to revoke licences and take them away from people who had successfully bored for oil.
There is another point which the noble Earl referred to at the end of his speech and that was that it would be possible for companies to come to this country, get licences and, under pretence of boring for oil, occupy an area for the purpose a keeping out individuals who might be genuinely anxious to bore for oil. I think that lie will recognise that all licences will remain unless the conditions which the Board of Trade impose are not fulfilled, and in that case the Board of Trade would have the right, and would properly have the right, to annul a licence which had been given. In those circumstances I shall be glad if the noble Lord will not press his Amendment.
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: My Lords, if the House were a little better informed
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about the conditions which the Board of Trade were going to propose, it would not be necessary to move these Amendments which indicate a certain distrust of the action of the Board of Trade. However, I will not press this Amendment, but I do trust that when the regulations under Clause 6 are brought before Parliament some provision will be made to the effect that licences may be revoked even without compensation unless proper steps are taken to make use of them for the development of British oil.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBEEDE: Before we proceed further, may I ask the noble Viscount the Leader of the House what his intention is with regard to this Bill and the other Orders on the Paper? I do not know whether he wants the House to continue sitting now?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I rather understood that most of the Amendments which remain on the Paper, which are in the names of two noble Lords, except one to be moved by my noble friend Lord Londonderry, were consequential and were not going to be moved. What I was proposing to do was to see whether we could not get on further, because otherwise we shall probably have to discuss these Amendments on Thursday, and it might be more convenient for your Lordships at any rate to see whether we can get through the Report stage of this Bill to-night, if the Amendments are consequential and are not going to be moved or are non-controversial. If serious controversy should arise on any one of them, then I do not think that it would be reasonable for your Lordships' House to sit any later, but I rather hope that we can get some way further. I rather gathered from my noble friend Lord Dudley that most of his Amendments at any rate were consequential. I do not know how far that may be true of the Amendments which stand in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rankeillour.
LORD PONSONBY OF SITULBREDE: The other Orders on the Paper will not be taken?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: They will not take more than a few moments, I gather.
THE EARL OF DUDLEY THE EARL OF DUDLEY moved to insert the following new Clause after Clause 2:
Appeals.
".Any person aggrieved by the refusal of the Board of Trade otherwise than pursuant to the proviso to subsection (1) of Section two of this Act to grant a licence under that section or by any term or condition as to consideration or otherwise upon which a licence is granted under that section may at any time within three months after the intimation to him of such refusal or of such term or condition by notice in writing addressed to the Board of Trade appeal against such refusal or such term or condition (as the case may be) and there upon the Board of Trade shall refer the matter to the Railway and Canal Commission who, after considering any representations made to them by the Board of Trade and hearing any other parties appearing to the Commission to be interested in the matter, may either allow or disallow the appeal or (in the case of an appeal against any such term or condition as aforesaid) may allow the term or condition with modifications or substitute a new term or condition, and the decision of the Commission on any matter referred to them under this section shall be final and binding. Provided that where separate appeals are made by two or more persons against the refusal of the Board of Trade to grant a licence under this Act to search and bore for and get petroleum within an area in which is situate any land of which one or more of those persons is or are the estate owner or estate owners the Commission if satisfied that such estate owner or such estate owners or any of them is or are able and willing to operate such licence effectively shall not allow the appeal in favour of any person other than such estate owner or one of such estate owners or two or more of them jointly."
The noble Earl said: My Lords, this is the same Amendment as I put down on the Committee stage of the Bill dealing with the right of appeal of unsuccessful applicants. I do not know whether the noble Marquess has anything further that he can tell us in regard to this principle, but I do feel that if these arrangements between applicants for a licence and the Board of Trade are to take place, as it appears now that they are to take place, in secret, without any local inquiry or any publicity of any sort, it is only just and fair that unsuccessful applicants for a licence should have some right of appeal from the decision of the President of the Board of Trade. I admit that generally speaking the President of the Board of Trade can be trusted to choose the right person to whom to grant the licence, but it may be that he does not, and then there is
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no redress whatsoever to unsuccessful applicants, who may feel that they have just as good a claim to the licence as the person to whom it was granted, and in fact may have an even better claim. This Amendment proposes that any unsuccessful applicant may have the right of appeal to the Railway and Canal Commissioners, who may then call for the necessary evidence and go into the whole case, and their decision shall be final and binding. I hope that your Lordships will see my point and will agree that it is a point of substance, and I trust that the Government may be able to meet it. in some way.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 2 insert the said new clause.—(The Earl of Dudley.)
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: My Lords, in the view of the Government the procedure which we have proposed in the Bill is the proper one, and the procedure which is likely to cause the Bill to work properly. The licence is really a contract between the Government and the licensee. As your Lordships are aware, it is the duty of the Board of Trade to arrange the commercial and technical details of the licence, and they also have to secure, within the provisions of the regulations which have to be made. under the Act, and which Parliament has the right of annulling if it is not satisfied with them, that licences are granted only to properly qualified persons. For the acts of the Board of Trade, as the noble Lord will realise, the President of the Board of Trade is responsible, and it really is impossible to interpose between the Board of Trade and the President an appeal court, because that would, as I think the noble Lord will see, impinge upon the responsibility of the President of the Board of Trade as a Minister to Parliament. That is why, when the Board of Trade and the actions of the Minister are open to criticism in Parliament, it is impossible to interpose an appeal between the Board of Trade and the Minister. For that reason the Government cannot accept the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I understand from my noble friend Lord Rankeillour that he regards the Amendments in his name as not being covered by what we have already discussed and as being points of substance. I think

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therefore it will probably be for the general convenience if we adjourn the debate. To-morrow I am afraid we have rather a full day, and therefore it will be necessary to continue the Report stage on Thursday. I beg to move that the debate be now adjourned.
Moved, That the further consideration of the Bill on Report be now adjourned.— (Viscount Hailsham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and further consideration adjourned accordingly.

PROTECTION OF ANIMALS BILL.
Amendments reported (according to Order).
Then, Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended, Bill read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

WATER SUPPLIES (EXCEPTIONAL SHORTAGE ORDER) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order) with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
House adjourned at eight minutes past eight o'clock.