Lords Sitting of 7 November 1934

Preamble
The House met at a quarter before four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF KENT.
His Royal Highness Prince George Edward Alexander Edmund, K.G., G.C.M.G., G.C.V.O., having been created Baron Downpatrick, Earl of St. Andrews, and Duke of Kent, was introduced between His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and His Royal Highness the Duke of York (the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, the Garter King of Arms, and the Lord Great Chamberlain attending), and was placed in a Chair on the left hand of the Throne.

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

THE ARMY IN INDIA.
LORD STRABOLGI LORD STRABOLGI had given Notice that he would ask His Majesty's Government what progress has been made with the Indianisation of His Majesty's Army in India; what developments in this direction are contemplated in the future; and move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I desire to ask the Government the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper, and I wish to make it clear that this Question is asked in no unfriendly spirit. Indeed, I understand that the President of the Board of Education is going to reply on behalf of His Majesty's Government, and his sympathy with the aspirations of patriotic Indians is well known, and I
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dare say is partly due to his own distinguished services in the field. I ask this Question now because not only, as I think, shall we be agreed that it is an important Question, but I desire to seek information at a time when we are clear of immediate controversy on these allied questions of Reforms in India. In a little time we may be plunged into what we are told may be a fierce controversy on the Reforms. Therefore this is a suitable time, I believe, to ask the Government for a reply to the matters that I propose to raise.
The importance of the Question is this, I submit, that to-day all Parties in the State are agreed that there shall be an advance towards self-government in the great Indian Empire. Such difference as there may be is only with regard to the speed or pace of the advance. There was recently announced a great scheme of retirement for senior British officers of His Majesty's Army in India. They were described as redundant officers. It is needless to say that no reflection was cast upon these gentlemen, who had performed great services to the State, but as a result of the War there was a great surplus of senior British officers in India, and a generous scheme of retirement was introduced. We have the same thing in the Army here, and in His Majesty's Royal Navy, for senior officers, who are naturally in greater numbers than are required after a period of war. It was announced at the same time, in the account of the retirement scheme published in The Times, that the numbers of young British officers from Woolwich and Sandhurst for His Majesty's Indian Army would continue at the present rate, I believe about 100 a year; and my first question to the noble Viscount is: What is the intention with regard to the recruiting of gentlemen of European parentage in this country for the Indian regiments of His Majesty's Army in India? Is it intended to keep up this rate of entry from Woolwich and Sandhurst, of about 100 gentlemen a year?
The next question is with regard to what is the present output, if I may use that word, of Indian gentlemen to hold Commissions in His Majesty's Army in India. As your Lordships know, India has plenty of soldiers among her sons, but there is a grave lack of Indian officers for His Majesty's Army. This is

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to be remedied, however, and the object of my Question is to ascertain what progress has been made, and what steps are to be taken in the future. May I also ask how many Indian gentlemen now hold Commissions in His Majesty's Army in India, or, alternatively, in His Majesty's Army, not necessarily the Indian Army? How many units have been Indianised, and are these completely Indianised? I understood when I was in India a few years ago, when the noble Viscount was occupying the high office of Viceroy, with very great distinction, if I may say so, that the intention was to Indianise eight units, and, when that had been done, a further eight units. I therefore ask what progress has been made with that part of the programme. Again, are any brigades, today, commanded by Indian officers, and what progress has been made with the provision of officers for the Artillery and Air Force of His Majesty's Army and Air Force in India? I repeat these questions, though I rave notice through the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, to the Government, and I believe the noble Viscount, Lord Halifax, has been made aware of these particular questions.
The only other comments which I have to make are these. I believe that the rapidity of the progress in Indianising the Army in India, that is, providing sufficient Indian officers to command units and eventually brigades and divisions of the Army, will be the test either of our sincerity or of the practicability of Indianisation. I have heard it said by very experienced British military officers that it is not practicable to Indianise beyond a very limited extent. What we actually do will be the proof of that. India has two problems of defence which, as your Lordships are aware, are very serious problems. The first is the frontier problem, both on the North-West and the North-East frontiers, and the last information I had was that the calculations of the Staff are that the armed tribesmen on and beyond the frontiers can put into the field 390,000 rifles, if they all take the field together, and the martial qualities of the Pathans are, of course, well known to your Lordships. Therefore that constitutes, however friendly our relations with our immediate neighbours on the frontier, a very serious military problem which will remain for many years.
The other serious defence problem in India is, of course, the maintenance of internal order in view of possibilities of communal strife. This subject, I submit, is of very vital importance, and it is quite independent of whatever may be the findings of the Joint Select Committee, of which one of the members, my noble friend Lord Snell, is sitting below me. Nevertheless it is a fact that before there was a great advance made towards self-government in other British Dominions, in each case after a period of unrest or strife, the Dominion in question had at its disposal aimed forces for, at any rate, the maintenance of internal peace. I will cite the three cases—I do not say they are altogether comparable—of Ireland, South Africa, and Canada. In each case after a period of unrest and strife those three great Dominions attained self-government, but in each case they had at their disposal plenty of trained officers to command their armed forces. In the past India had these trained officers also and this is the answer to those who are desirous of proceeding with extraordinary prudence and care in Indianising.
In the past the Indians had plenty of officers and very capable ones too. Your Lordships will be aware that the Imperial Army of the Moghuls was largely officered by Indians and in several cases commanded by Rajput generals. The Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Army was frequently a Hindu in the past, and a more recent example was in the days of the Sikh Confederacy, where the Sikhs north of the Indus had a complete military control of the country. I understand that Ranjit Singh had only six European officers as advisers, and yet they maintained the Peace of the frontier with success. Therefore Indians in the past have provided these officers. I have added the usual request at the end of my Question for Papers. That is not a mere formality. If the noble Viscount could lay Papers, I think it would be advantageous to your Lordships' House.
I can well understand the professional pride of British officers in the magnificent regiments incorporated in His Majesty's Army in India who are reluctant to have their places taken by Indian officers, who, they may think, perhaps will not be so successful as battalion commanders and

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the like. I can understand that professional pride. There is a less sympathetic obstruction to a more rapid progress in this matter that is represented by prejudice, or, in some cases, even by vested interests. I do not think those objections are worthy of the attention of this House, but they do exist. I will admit, and I am sure my noble friends on this side of the House will admit, that in this matter there are very grave technical difficulties in making a more rapid progress and, needless to say, His Majesty's Government are well aware of them. But I repeat, in no unfriendly spirit at all I would ask for assurances on this point, and some information on the matter. I have ventured to give one or two opinions of my own with great diffidence, though I am really seeking for facts. I put this Question in a not unfriendly way because, whatever doubts I may feel about the policy of His Majesty's Government in domestic matters, or even in foreign affairs, their efforts, as far as I know them, with regard to the future of India, have my warm sympathy, and I hope that the noble Viscount in the same spirit will be able to give such information as he properly can which he has at his disposal. I beg to move.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (VISCOUNT HALIFAX): My Lords, I must thank the noble Lord for the friendly spirit in which he has brought forward this Motion. I only hope that the very warmth of his generosity on this subject will not inspire doubts in the minds of any of those of my friends on this side who are accustomed to disagree with him on other matters, as to the general wisdom of any policy in regard to Indian affairs that His Majesty's Government may later deem it their duty to lay before your Lordships' House. I recognise that in the Question that he has asked the noble Lord has been inspired by no other purpose than to seek information on a matter which, as he says, is of first rate public importance, and the consideration of which is extremely relevant to the wider matters on which indeed he has quite properly, if I may say so, not thought it right to touch this afternoon, but which will in due course arise for consideration here and elsewhere. Perhaps I shall best serve his and your
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Lordships' convenience if I try to answer as categorically as I may the actual questions that he has put to me, and which he was courteous enough to give me previous information that it was his intention to bring forward.
He asked me first a question in regard to the scheme of retirement for British officers in the Indian Army recently announced, and, if I understood his point correctly, he sought to know whether that scheme of retirement and the calculations upon which it was based had regard to the already announced policy of His Majesty's Government in regard to Indianisation; and whether the rate of recruitment of British officers had regard to the increased Indianisation programme recently announced. That, of course, is so. The numbers of British recruitment on which we are at present working have full regard to the Indianisation policy that has been announced and that is in process of being put into effect. He next asked if I could tell him what was the present annual output of Indian officers, and if I could give him any estimate of annual wastage. I am told that the annual output from the Indian Military Academy which has recently been established will be sixty. With regard to wastage, he will appreciate that it is very difficult as yet to give precise figures, owing to the fact that insufficient time has yet elapsed on which those figures could be based, but it might perhaps help him if I gave him these figures which would give him some indication of what happens. In May this year out of 153 Indian cadets commissioned from Sandhurst between July, 1921, and December, 1933, 139 were still holding Commissions.
He asked me next how many Indian officers now hold Commissions in His Majesty's Indian Army. The answer is 148. To that figure there must be added twenty-eight officers on the unattached list—namely, young officers who are doing their preliminary year's training with a British unit before joining the Indian Army. Fifteen units are now in process of Indianisation, and those fifteen units include the original units that were earmarked for Indianisation in 1923. He will also appreciate that as yet sufficient time has not elapsed for any Indian officer to reach the point of qualifying as Brigade Commander. I am advised

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that so to qualify involves something like thirty years' seniority, and as yet, therefore, sufficient time has not passed to permit any Indian officer to reach that point in the Service. His last categorical question, I think, was if I could tell him what progress had been made with the training of Indians for Commissions in the Artillery and the Air Force. With regard to the Artillery, three cadet officers have been commissioned from Woolwich and further vacancies are to be filled from the Indian Military Academy. Of course the start was made on the Artillery and Air Force very much later than the original start of Indianisation in the other branches of the Army. With regard to the Air Force the Indian Air Force came into being in March of last year, and it now has nine commissioned officers and six cadets under training, all of whom are Indians.
I think that I have answered the precise questions that the noble Lord addressed to me on matters of fact, and it only remains for me to make one or two general observations on the broader issues that he had in mind. It is, of course, the case that the whole problem of Indianisation has for a long time past been engaging the attention both of the Government of India and of His Majesty's Government here, and I do not think it is necessary for me to give any assurance to the noble Lord, or indeed to any other, that that polio, of Indianisation, of gradually equipping Indians for the defence of their own country, is one to which His Majesty's Government attach the greatest possible importance and which they will certainly steadily pursue.
He, of course, had in mind, and indeed I think it was implicit in what he said, that in our consideration of this topic two factors have constantly to be remembered and are related to one another. There is first of all the factor that found expression, if I may be forgiven for quoting the words, in the Report of the Sub-Committee of, I think, the First Round-Table Conference that dealt with defence and recorded its conclusions in these words:
"The Sub-Committee consider that with the development of the new political structure in India the defence of India must to an increasing extent be the concern of the Indian people and not of the British alone."
It will not have escaped your Lordships' notice that the Commission presided over
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by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary some years ago used words expressive of the same idea when they said:
"We consider that this obligation [the Indianisation of the Army] should continue to be honoured in the letter and the spirit."
They also went on to remind us of what I have in mind as the second factor that has to be related with that—namely, the necessity at all stages of making your test of progress the test of efficiency.
The interests of India, both external and internal, to which the noble Lord referred, are far too vital to allow any steps to he taken that in the judgment of those best qualified to speak would undermine or endanger the efficiency of the defence forces in India. But, subject only to that, it is the purpose of His Majesty's Government to continue with the programme that was recently laid down, with the approval of the Government of India and of His Majesty's Government here, by the Commander-in-Chief in India and which has received full public notice. Although the noble Lord to-day disclaimed on his own part any sympathy with, or indeed any firm belief in, the suggestion sometimes made outside that there may be hesitation to proceed more rapidly, through prejudice or vested interest, I think it would be no less my duty to make it plain on behalf of His Majesty's Government that any suggestions to that effect are entirely without solid foundation. It remains, therefore, the purpose of the Government that Indianisation during the next stage should consist of the components of a complete Division with its full complement of artillery, engineers, and signallers as well as a cavalry brigade and a battery of horse artillery. It is on these lines, as I have said, announced by the Commander-in-Chief, that the Government of India is to-day proceeding, and with the assistance and material to be drawn from the Indian Military Academy we hope they will be able to make steady progress with it.
I think that perhaps is all I need say. I note the noble Lord's request for Papers. I am not quite sure what Papers he may have in mind or what Papers it may be possible for my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for India to cause to be laid before Parliament, but I shall certainly consult my

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right honourable friend, and if the noble Lord has any particular Papers in mind and cares to communicate with me on the subject I should be very glad indeed to transmit his request to the proper quarters.
LORD LLOYD: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend this question? With regard to the fifteen units he referred to as being in process of Indianisation, could he let us know when they will be completely Indianised? What is the estimated time?
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: I should hesitate to give a precise answer to that question without notice.
LORD LLOYD: Roughly?
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: No, I am afraid I could not commit myself to a date. The noble Lord will perhaps be aware that when the extension of the Indianising units was made some of the officers from the existing Indianising units were withdrawn from them and transferred to the new Indianising units in order to spread the seniority more evenly, and I am not sufficiently expert, I am afraid, to know what effect that may have had upon the process he has in mind.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount very much for his full and detailed reply. With regard to the request for Papers, I do not want to press that except that I would like to accept the offer he made. The Papers I would personally like would be a detailed report of the actual working in India of the Indianisation of these units, not immediately, but perhaps before we have to take a decision in the latter part of next year on any of the proposed reforms. One comment I wish to make in regard to what the noble Viscount said is about the brigadiers. I was rather astonished to hear that it is still considered necessary to have served over thirty years in a subordinate position to become brigadier. A great many members of your Lordships' House became brigadiers at a much earlier age than that. If that means that it must be thirty years before an Indian gentleman can command a brigade in India in an Indianised army I really would protest most seriously, otherwise we need not talk about any serious reforms in India.
The other comment I wish to make is this. The noble Viscount is well aware,
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I am sure, of what has been done by Admiral Warleigh and other officers in regard to the Royal Indian Navy, as it is now called: there he and his comrades met some of the same difficulties. There are plenty of Mahomedan seamen, good seamen and navigators too, and, in fact officers of the mercantile marine, but he had difficulty in obtaining Indian gentlemen suitable for naval cadet-ships who would command men at sea and perform like duties in an officer-like manner. He took his selected young men from certain of the martial races of North India, living miles from the sea—I believe the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, has some knowledge of this—and these turned out to be excellent young seamen with the officer-like qualities required, and indeed, I believe Admiral Warleigh's experiment and that of his comrades was highly successful. There you had a case where we did not take thirty years before it was possible to make a commanding officer. We have gone on with the work, and it was done, and is proceeding rather successfully.
With regard to the question of efficiency, well, you do not expect to make an Oriental battalion quite the equal of a crack regiment in our own Army or the French Army or the German Army. You have to make certain allowance. What you do want is a suitable police force—a suitable police force in the broad sense of the word—and a good rough and tumble force for fighting on the frontier. With modern mechanised means such as armoured cars, aeroplanes, and so on, you can do that to-day without having the same wonderful discipline, for instance, as you get in the Cameron Highlanders or the Grenadier Guards or one of the great regiments of our French Allies. I thank the noble Viscount. I do not press for Papers, but I do accept his offer, if there are Papers for the information of your Lordships' House on this vital matter, that we may have them in the near future. I beg to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

MATRIMONIAL CAUSES (AMENDED PROCEDURE) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I confess I rise with some misgiving to address

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your Lordships upon the questions of procedure which are involved in this Bill. It is not a Bill which interferes with existing rights. It does not prevent people getting divorce or getting judicially separated; it does not interfere with existing rights at all; but it does propose a substantial modification in the procedure in the Courts, and in particular in the courts of summary jurisdiction—the courts of the Police Magistrates in London and the courts of the petty sessions in the country. With regard to the existing methods and facilities for dealing with questions of separation of married people, I think it is widely recognised that our apparatus is out of date. Whether it was ever well designed so far as it depends upon the provisions which were introduced nearly one hundred years ago, putting powers with regard to differences of married people into civil courts, and which were enlarged in the Summary Jurisdiction Act—whether it was ever an absolutely well-designed procedure, I am not sure. But times have changed and I do not think there is anybody at the present time who is acquainted with the operation of our existing methods who does not think that they could be greatly improved to public advantage.
I have ventured to get your Lordships' leave to have this Bill read a first time and printed, and I am asking for its Second Reading now in order that it may be considered at a time when I know His Majesty's Government, through the Home Office and through a Committee which has been appointed by the Home Office, are dealing with some parts of the matter in question. My view is that the whole of the matter is ripe to be dealt with, and that we could make a substantial advance, and it is with that view that I have drafted the Bill before your Lordships. I am not supposing for a moment that it is a perfect method of dealing with the subject, but it presents concrete proposals, founded upon methods which, I know, command the sympathy of people who are profoundly interested in the large question which is involved. After all, our State is built upon the home, and in a country where there are eight or nine million homes anything which affects the home is of vital consequence.
I am sure your Lordships will give me your indulgence while I endeavour to ex-
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plain what is proposed here. Perhaps I should consider for a moment the existing state of things. Two married people quarrel, violently perhaps. People who are living together are apt to quarrel violently about things which others who are not living together would not think it necessary to quarrel about. But married people do quarrel violently, and one of them, more often than not the wife, issues a summons and it comes before a court of summary jurisdiction, not selected for the purpose, very likely having no woman upon it, and it is fought out. Something like a dog-fight goes on. There is a public encounter of these married people, and if there was a possibility of their coming together before, it really becomes almost an impossibility in the great majority of cases after there has been that set battle fought out to a finish. That, to my mind, is a mistake. After you have had a violent and bitter encounter in public, with professional people engaged and witnesses involved, the whole thing will be aggravated. I know that many people have considered whether that could not be amended without depriving people of their rights.
Then there is another element. One of the elements which make these things very often absolutely fatal where perhaps they would not otherwise be is the unbounded publicity. In a magistrate's court business comes on in the ordinary course. Perhaps there is a charge of theft, and some case which will be committed to the Assizes, and then the summons is called on. The neighbours, of course, have got to know, and soon there will be an interested audience, and if there is anything that is offensive or revolting in the evidence, or that excites curiosity or interest, it is pretty sure to find its way somehow or other into some publication. It does not do any good. It does no good to the people who read it, but it does infinite harm to the people whose misfortune is crystallised from that time. I think that that state of things aggravates the problem which arises from the absence of any modern, suitable, adequate procedure.
I look at the matter from the social side. As I have said, the thing comes on at random. Often there is no woman among the justices, although there are women justices in these days, and there is no power in the court to take the

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humane course which any ordinary citizen would take where such a quarrel came within his knowledge, of seeing whether the parties who are at difference could not be brought together. There is no means at all. The court has no right and no power to apply a conciliatory process. I think that ought to be amended and in this Bill new methods are proposed. One of the objects in view is to avoid mischievous and needless publicity. Another is to have the case considered with proper preliminary knowledge of the matters in question; and a third is to give the court when, with these advantages, it comes to consider the differences, a recognised method of using its influence to bring about a reconciliation of the parties. It is not proposed by this Bill to infringe in any degree upon the principle that, except where there is good reason to the contrary, legal proceedings should take place in public. There is a reservation, not only of the provision that the judgment shall be given in public, but that there shall be control by the court of the extent to which the proceedings may be reported. To my mind, that is a thing which it is desirable to secure.
The other proposal is a proposal of a different kind. It is provided by one of the clauses in the Bill that before a summons is issued in a case of this class, there shall be an information—using the word in the technical sense—deposed to by the complainant which shall set forth the facts relied upon, and that that information shall be in the hands of the justices who are to deal with the matter. That would have two advantages. Instead of the case coming on, as now, upon a bare, concise statement that the complainant seeks an order of separation on the ground that such and such things have happened, the complainant would have to formulate the matters of complaint and the court would have the formulated matters of complaint before it. If the courts are constituted, as I hope they will be, with due regard to their duties and with proper provision for taking these cases out of the ruck of criminal cases with which they are now mixed up and dealing with them separately according to their importance, a court with that information before it and with the parties there would be able to see at once whether it was a case in which it ought to resort to con-
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ciliatory procedure and to apply the means of seeking to bring about a reconciliation of the parties before there was any public hearing at all.
I will not go in detail into the clause in the Bill. The whole matter is set out in the clause, although I do not say in the best possible way, because I am not wedded to the language or even to the detailed proposal. It enables the justices, when one of these very serious cases come before them and they see the parties and know what is in variance, to say: "Now we are going to speak to you by yourselves. We are going to see whether really you think you are bound to fight it out here and make an end of your married life." That is a thing for which there are no facilities at the present time. It will not prevent a complete hearing if the effort at conciliation fails. The court will appoint a day—and I hope it will appoint a day so that this class of case can be separated from criminal work—and when that has been done, if the ease has to be fought out, it must he fought out. I have addressed your Lordships at some length in regard to these matters. I have endeavoured to point out that there is no inroad upon publicity, that there is no inroad upon the right of the parties to have their differences decided by one of His Majesty's Courts of Law as they have had in the past, but the Bill does give a breathing time and an opportunity for consideration. To my mind—and I do not speak without some experience of matters of this kind—that will be invaluable among decent married people who happen to have fallen out.
It may be asked, why bring in this Bill in the last ten days or so of the Parliamentary Session? I drew the Bill a long time ago, having discussed the subject with many people who are interested and generally I found them entirely sympathetic. It seemed to me that it would be a good thing if I could present the Bill to your Lordships now at the close of the Session so that, if your Lordships were so good as to give it a Second Beading, it might be fully considered by those responsible in these matters. I am quite sure that every member of His Majesty's Government will take the serious view of it that I take myself and I believe they would all take a sympathetic view of any proposal which tends to mitigate the troubles of married people who have

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fallen out. I have ventured to introduce this Bill and get it read and printed, and I now move its Second Reading in order that before next Session there may be opportunity for the whole subject to be considered by those interested in it. If it goes before them with the sanction of your Lordships' House to the general principle of the Bill, I can only say that any amendment which it is thought ought to be made I should be delighted to help to make. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Merrivale.)
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I do not propose to make a speech on this Bill but merely desire to put a question. In view of what has just fallen from the noble and learned Lord it may perhaps be suggested that the question is superfluous, but I have no doubt that either he or the noble Earl who I understand will speak for the Home Office, will be able to give me a satisfactory answer. I may say at once that I am in general sympathy and indeed agreement with the proposals of the Bill. The evidence which came before those who had the misfortune to sit upon the prolonged Matrimonial Causes Commission, and information and much experience gained since, have convinced me that there are hundreds of cases where applications for separation orders would never have been made and separation orders would never have been granted if there had been the opportunity for the timely intervention of some wise and kindly friend of the parties, and that infinite mischief to the children and to the homes would have been saved if there had been that intervention. Further, I think that magistrates with all their experience, especially such a special panel of magistrates as the noble Lord contemplates, would prove admirable mediators in these matrimonial disputes if they were to bring the parties together without publicity and with the power of issuing such interim orders as are contemplated by the Bill. But it seems to me that there are others who are likely to prove more successful than magistrates, even specially selected magistrates, and those are the probation officers or police court missionaries.
I say that they are likely to be more successful if only for the reason that they
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are able to have much more prolonged and frequent interviews with the parties and are able to follow them into their own homes. Human nature being what it is, intervention taking place actually in the home is likely to be more successful than under the somewhat artificial arrangements of the sitting of a court; and I cannot conceive how magistrates would be able to carry out their conciliatory purposes in nine cases out of ten without the assistance of the probation officer or the police court missionary. I have a recollection of the debate which was initiated in a very interesting and thoughtful speech by the noble Earl opposite, Lord Listowel, when proposals much of this kind were made. In that discussion, if I remember rightly, the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack intimated that the Home Office proposed to introduce reforms, I think, and first to appoint a Committee to go into the whole question of the further development of the probation officer and police court missionary system.
That Committee has been formed and so far as I know is at work. I am given to understand that such questions of judicial procedure as the noble Lord has brought before us are not within the terms of reference of that Committee, but nevertheless it seems to me that the conciliatory methods proposed in this Bill (with which I entirely agree) are so much bound up with the fuller and further development of that admirable probation and police court missionary system that it might be well, and indeed the noble Lord in his concluding observations implied that it would be well, to wait until that Departmental Committee has reported so that the whole matter could be treated together as one whole. I think there is great advantage in the noble Lord having put his proposals into a Bill. As he said, if it is given a Second Reading it will have the imprimatur of this House as worthy of full consideration; but I question whether it would be desirable to proceed with the Bill until its procedure can be considered in connection with the Report of the Committee on the whole development of the probation officer system.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I do not intend to detain your Lordships for more than a few moments, after you

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have listened to two such experienced and distinguished speakers as those whom we have just heard, but having been instrumental in some small degree in drawing your Lordships' attention to the extremely urgent need for alteration in the manner of dealing with matrimonial cases in our police courts, I should like, on behalf of those within and without your Lordships' House who have been agitating for a very long time past in favour of reform, to thank the noble Lord very warmly for introducing this measure to Parliament. It contains two essential principles which have, I think, the practically unanimous support of all those who are acquainted with the present method of treating matrimonial cases in police courts. The noble Lord said quite rightly that there was nobody who had investigated the matter to any degree at all who was not convinced that change and reform were absolutely necessary.
The first of these principles is that of conciliation. Conciliation should come before litigation. It is obviously indispensable that a couple who fall out should be offered every opportunity of reaching a settlement by mutual consent before being submitted to the ordeal and to the legal battle which they would have to face in a court of law. That is the first and perhaps the most essential principle. I do not believe that opportunities for agreement are sufficiently numerous at the present time. The second principle is the principle of privacy. The principle of privacy is brought out very clearly in the noble Lord's measure. He maintains that the magistrate should have discretion to exclude the general public from the hearing of cases of this kind when intimate private affairs must necessarily be involved, and he also maintained that the magistrate should be able to prevent reporters sending to the newspapers for which they work unsavoury details which arise in the course of the hearing. Those are both measures of privacy and decency which are already embodied in other parts of our English law.
I should like to remind your Lordships that you have already endorsed these principles. A few months ago a measure which differed in certain respects from the present measure was introduced, and upon that occasion it had support for those principles from the noble Marquess
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who leads the Liberal Party, from the most reverend Primate, and from the noble and learned Lord who has introduced the present measure. It therefore appears that the general principles outlined in this Bill, which indeed have been reproduced at the present moment, have already acquired the assent of opinion representative of many different interests in your Lordships' House. I do not know what attitude the noble Earl who will speak for the Government will adopt. I sincerely hope that he will say that the principles of the Bill, however much he may disagree with it in detail, are in accordance with the views of the Government and in accordance with the views of your Lordships' House, and that therefore he will not contest the Second Reading for which the noble Lord has asked. But if he were to answer that the matter at present is sub judice, that a Committee of the Home Office is considering the very question which has been raised by the noble Lord in his Bill, then I must confess that I should be very profoundly dissatisfied, because, as the noble Lord has already pointed out, the terms of reference upon which that Committee is working exclude inevitably from its consideration the very much wider issue which is raised in the present measure.
The terms of reference of this Home Office Committee, however admirable they may be, do not permit of the consideration, so far as matrimonial disputes are concerned, of anything beyond a separate hearing of those cases apart from ordinary criminal cases, and of extending the conciliatory methods which are at the present time applied by police court missionaries and which may he improved in the future; but this Bill is very much wider in its scope. It provides for conciliation on a very much larger scale, and I do not think your Lordships could possibly agree if you were asked to ignore the Bill—if the noble and learned Lord is asked to withdraw the Bill—because the matter is being considered by a Home Office Committee. If the noble Earl can assure us that the terms of reference to the Committee are wider than we imagine we shall be perfectly satisfied, but I sincerely hope that the noble and learned Lord, and those who are interested in this matter, will not allow themselves to be disconcerted or put off by the answer that the whole question is

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being considered by a Home Office Committee, and that it would be advisable to wait until this Committee has reported. That does not meet the case, and I sincerely hope that if this answer is received from the Government the noble and learned Lord will challenge it.
LORD DANESFORT: My Lords, I venture to think that the House and the country at large will be extremely grateful to my noble and learned friend for having introduced this Bill. It seeks to avoid difficulties and troubles with which everyone, I suppose, in this country is familiar, from the newspapers or otherwise, but when the measure is brought forward by my noble and learned friend, who, I suppose, has wider experience of these matters than certainly any man in this House, and I venture to think than any man in this country, it carries a weight of recommendation which otherwise it would not possess. But I venture to think that even an ordinary layman can form an opinion as to the importance and desirability of the principles which underly this Bill. It must be obvious to everyone that when, unfortunately, matrimonial disputes arise, the worst way possible of attempting to settle such disputes is to go into court and have hostile speeches and the evidence of witnesses on one side or the other, and that publicity which would render any conciliation absolutely impossible. On the other hand, if you can bring the parties together in private, where there can be a full and friendly discussion, with no publicity, I venture to think that in many cases where now disputes end in permanent hostility they would end in permanent conciliation.
There is one matter which appears to use to be of the gravest importance, and I think it is dealt with in this Bill, and that is the tribunal before which such disputes come. That tribunal will have to be armed with great tact and great discretion. I am glad to see that the noble and learned Lord has realised that, and has proposed in this Bill that there should be a special panel of justices from whom the persons to sit on this tribunal shall be selected. If that panel is well appointed the selection ought not to be very difficult. I agree with the noble Earl who has just spoken in thinking it is most important that this Bill should receive a Second Reading to-day. In the
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first place, the general principles underlying the Bill would thereby receive the imprimatur of your Lordships' House. Secondly, if the Bill is read a second time undoubtedly it will receive wider consideration in the country by those who are best competent to speak than otherwise would be possible. I believe it will receive much consideration in the Press, and probably great consideration from ninny of those who up to now have been appalled at the way in which these matrimonial disputes have developed into permanent hostility. I cannot feel that there can be any possible objection to reading this Bill a second time to-day, so that the Government may give their approval to the general principles underlying it, and when the noble and learned Lord reintroduces it next Session the discussion which, I doubt not, will have taken place will enable him, if necessary, to modify the details of the Bill so as to make it a valuable and workable measure.
LORD ASKWITH: My Lords, the most reverend Primate and Lord Listowel have raised important questions as to whether this Bill would come within the terms of reference to the Home Office Committee. Might I ask the noble Earl, who knows so much about probation officers, and who apparently is going to answer for the Government, whether it would be possible to enlarge the terms of reference to the Committee and, if necessary, add members of the legal profession, so that the questions raised by this important Bill may be considered by the Committee? My noble and learned friend says he is not going to press the Bill at the present time, but that he wants it discussed. I do not think anyone can disagree with the principle—namely, the advantage of conciliation in these matrimonial disputes—and my noble and learned friend has pointed out that the present procedure was started one hundred years ago. Since then the daily Press has come into being, with its circulation throughout the whole country, and surely that is a factor which makes these quarrels very different. Once they come under the present procedure there is a direct incentive to continue the quarrel, and a person who has come before the public and into notoriety, with applauding friends, perhaps, and other people reading all about the dispute, is given an incentive to go on and win.

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That is not the way in which such quarrels can be settled, and if only a better procedure than this archaic system can be devised by the Committee at present sitting, or by such Committee enlarged, or by another Committee, before my noble and learned friend reintroduces this or a modified Bill next Session, I think a great many people in this country will be very grateful to the Government for the action they have taken.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, before the noble Earl replies might I ask him another question? I do not think I have seen the personnel of the Home Office Committee mentioned, but I have seen comments in the Press, and I have seen it stated that no married women are sitting on this Committee dealing with conciliation in matrimonial disputes. If that be so it seems a rather remarkable omission, and I would ask the noble Earl if it be a fact.
LORD MERRIVALE: I do not think there is any reference to the Committee of the question of conciliation.
THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM: My Lords, I have listened with very great interest and attention to the speech with which the noble and learned Lord has introduced the Bill which stands in his name. The eminence which its author has reached in the profession of the law would of itself give weight to the proposals contained in the Bill. But I think the Bill has a further and a special claim on our attention because it represents the views of one who for many years has gained experience of the problems arising in matrimonial causes as President of the Divorce Court. As your Lordships will recall, there was a debate on this subject as recently as last May, when the noble Earl opposite, Lord Listowel, introduced his Summary Jurisdiction (Domestic Procedure) Bill, and several noble Lords, including the noble and learned Lord who has introduced this Bill and the most reverend Primate, took part in what was then an interesting and a valuable discussion.
In some respects the two Bills present a striking family likeness, but I am glad to notice that the present Bill does not contain some of the proposals to which grave exception was taken during the debate on the previous Bill. As a result
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of the previous debate the whole subject was dicussed with my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, who, in the light of the observations made in this House, decided to appoint a Committee to deal with one important aspect of this question so far as courts of summary jurisdiction are concerned—namely, the organisation of the social services connected with the administration of justice in those courts. It is quite a common practice when an application for a separation order has been made for a court of summary jurisdiction to ask the probation officer to interview the parties and to try to bring about a reconciliation. Most probation officers throughout the country are at present engaged on this as well as on many other duties, and one of the functions of the Committee which has been set up will be to review the functions of the probation officers in this particular direction and to consider what changes are required in the existing organisation of the probation service and otherwise.
The noble Lord who spoke last has directed a specific question to me, enquiring as to the personnel of the Committee and especially with regard to whether a married woman has been appointed to that Committee. The personnel and composition of the Committee has been published, and I will supply the noble Lord with the necessary information as soon as possible. With regard to the inclusion of a married woman in the personnel of the Committee, that has, I think, raised a point of precedent which the Department which I represent has not met before, and that is whether the composition of a Committee not necessarily dealing only with the subject of matrimonial disputes, but more with the administration of the social services of the courts of summary jurisdiction, should have regard to the private circumstances of its members. But the matter is, I think, going to be more fully dealt with in another place by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary in the course of a day or two.
In my opinion—and this opinion is shared by the Home Secretary, and, I am glad to see, is also shared by the most reverend Primate—it would be a great mistake to attempt to deal with the important question of procedure and cerain other proposals contained in this

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Bill until the present Committee has completed its labours. The inquiry that is being made by this Committee is bound to throw considerable light on the value of the existing methods of conciliation and also probably on some of the proposals contained in this Bill. For this reason I should prefer to offer no opinion at present on the details of the scheme which the noble and learned Lord has inserted in his Bill, except to say that the underlying objects behind his Bill, such as proper preliminary knowledge and the correct ascertaining of the facts of the case so that they can be brought before the bench of magistrates, will be most decidedly included in the scope of the Committee and are well within the terms of reference. It is obvious that at the present stage of this Session there can be no hope of this Bill, which requires detailed and careful consideration, making further progress, and for this reason and for the other reasons which I have given I do not propose to pass any detailed comments on the individual clauses of the Bill. I can, however, assure my noble friend that I fully appreciate the importance of the subject which he has raised and the need of giving it the fullest consideration. I can assure him also that when the Report of the Social Services Committee is received we shall be prepared to give this Bill our most careful consideration.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I intended to make it clear when I was moving the Second Reading—and I say this in answer to the very kindly speech of the most reverend Primate—that I had no desire that this Bill should go beyond Second Reading at this time. The object of the printing and publication of the Bill was that at a time when the matters in question are exciting a very great deal of public interest some definite proposals should be before those who are responsible in the matter, and I say that with regard to the Committee which my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has appointed. I was very glad he appointed it, but it is not commissioned to deal with the questions embodied in this Bill. The noble Earl, Lord Feversham, knows twat of course. The Committee has no authority to deal with them, and if this Bill has the sanction of the House and comes to be a practical proposal, the Home Secretary of course will feel it his
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duty to deal with the matter and to deal with the specific proposals. I am not wedded to the details of the Bill. The outline of it has been approved, I think, by each of the speakers who have unofficially addressed the House. With regard to the probation officers there is nothing in this Bill to prevent justices, if the Bill passed as it stands, from consulting the probation officer or putting the probation officer in contact with the parties. The justices are to take all the necessary steps and may adjourn the case and postpone the hearing while these steps are being taken.
I do not propose to take up time in discussing details, which I am sure will be much better understood and more clearly appreciated when a little time has elapsed, and I simply ask that your Lordships will give this Bill a Second Reading on the understanding that I have no intention of proceeding further with it at this time, but that I shall want to know in the course of next Session what the view of the Home Office is in regard to it. If it should prove that the Government are too busy to deal with such a matter as this then I shall reintroduce the Bill and see what your Lordships have to say about it.
On Question, Bill read 2a.

REMISSION OF SENTENCES IN MALTA.
LORD STRICKLAND LORD STRICKLAND had the following Notice on the Paper—To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will give the reasons for which a remission of part of a sentence for fifteen years has been granted to one, Miller, who attempted a political assassination, and any information as to efforts to ascertain the parties responsible for supplying Miller with money and firearms and ammunition and board and lodging; and to ask for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, no speech is necessary to suggest to your Lordships' House that the Question on the Notice Paper covers ground of wide general interest, because, while the method of government described as Fascism is in this country still in the stage of infantile innocence, in other countries east of the Rhine and south of the Alps, concomitants have developed from that system which cer-

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tainly call for very close attention and may be illustrated by precedent. I beg to move for Papers.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH): My Lords, on the 23rd of May, 1930, Miller fired three shots at Lord Strickland while he was entering the hall of the Court of Appeal at Malta. Fortunately the noble Lord was not hit. Miller was tried by the Maltese Courts for the attempted assassination and was sentenced to fifteen years hard labour. Following upon the visit of their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Kent (then Prince George) to Malta in August, 1932, the Governor reported that in view of that occasion he had, at the request of Ministers, exercised the Royal Prerogative of mercy in favour of all prisoners undergoing sentences passed by the Criminal Courts of Malta by reducing their terms of imprisonment by one fifth. There were 126 prisoners who benefited by this general remission made in honour of the Royal visit and Miller was one of them, his term of fifteen years imprisonment being reduced by one fifth. I wish to emphasise in this connection that at the time of the remission of the sentence Parliamentary government was in force in Malta and that the action of the Governor was taken on the advice of his responsible Ministers.
With regard to the second part of the Question, our information is that Miller was employed as a billiard marker at the Nationalist Club at Senglea from the 23rd August, 1928, until the date of the crime, and received lodgings on the premises. He purchased a revolver and twenty-five rounds of ammunition from a shop in Valletta either one or two days before the attempt. Shortly after the crime was committed the Governor, in a telegram, stated that the investigation was still in its early stages but that there was to the best of his judgment good ground to conclude from such evidence as was available that the crime was due to the close association of Miller with the Nationalist Party and to the reaction on an excitable temperament of the highly-charged political atmosphere. The Governor added that there was "at present," which was of course at that time, no evidence to show that the attempt
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was instigated by a group or an individual.
LORD STRICKLAND: My Lords, I desire to ask your Lordships' House to adopt the view that the action which the Government have taken in this case is open to criticism inasmuch as Miller was not a first offender. He had previously been convicted and imprisoned for another serious crime against public order as one of the leaders in the most regrettable incident in Maltese history in this century—namely, the riots of 1919 that led to bloodshed, after the calling-out of military forces, which might have been avoided if there had been greater care taken by those who were then responsible for the administration. The Military Governor at that time was an Acting Governor during a term of interregnum, and naturally he was prone to lean on the advice of his local advisers, who may have been under political influence.
The general impression imposed on the inhabitants round the shores of the Mediterranean by the facile treatment of incidents of this description may be pressed further on the attention of His Majesty's Government by a reference to a similar attempt organised against Sir Augustus Bartolo, at one time Minister of Education and now one of His Majesty's Judges. The scheme was that the person selected for the crime was to be paid a sum of money to be enjoyed later on, on the other side of the Southern Atlantic, and he was assured that there would be a change of Government, that he would be comfortably housed in an asylum for the mentally defective, and that after a not too lengthy period he would receive facilities to leave the Island and enjoy a pension. The information produced by the police to Ministers was to the effect that that plot against Sir Augustus Bartolo failed because the cash was not forthcoming at once and in sufficient quantity.
In the case of Miller there was also evidence of the same admirably concerted psychological preparation. As soon as the Miller case was about to come before the Courts a Maltese newspaper began printing magnificently written articles in Italian suggesting that he was irresponsible, and they created the psychological impression desired to the extent that in a published letter by His Grace

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the Archbishop the suggestion was made that Miller was irresponsible. I ask your Lordships to believe in the great power of Press suggestion not only in southern countries but also in England. So strongly was that suggestion of irresponsibility broadcast that even the Malta Royal Commission of 1931 has a paragraph suggesting that Miller was irresponsible, notwithstanding that a Maltese jury and a Maltese Court presided over by the Chief Justice awarded fifteen years imprisonment. These remissions bring to mind the system followed elsewhere and well known to those who have studied the development of one-man rule and the assassination in a neighbouring country of a leader of the Opposition, when those responsible were duly arrested and properly tried. After a long period the trial ended. Just before the trial ended there was the anniversary of an historical royal event when those condemned enjoyed without delay a political amnesty of all the political prisoners.
In order to obtain office the Party successful in the last General Election in Malta made lavish promises of obtaining pardon for friends and relations of those whom they had employed. The Ministers referred to by the noble Earl who has just sat down made it a prominent part of their appeal to the electors that there would be vast remissions of sentences if they were returned to power. That naturally appealed to the friends of the gangsters who are not uncommonly employed by certain parties in Elections. What I ask His Majesty's Ministers to understand is the ability with which a psychological effect is produced in the case of representatives of the Imperial Government who ought to look at both sides of the question and be well aware of the well informed and systematic effect of organised terrorism in countries South of the Alps and East of Suez.
It is said that the punishment should fit the crime. In this case the remission fits the people whose liberty is desired. I have heard with much relief from the noble Earl who has just sat down that he is now advised that responsible Ministers are responsible, or share the responsibility, for the remission of sentences. I gather that he had on a previous occasion been otherwise advised as regards the case of Mr. Orlando Smith.
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I am not surprised that there are these divergencies of opinion from the legal advisers of the Colonial Office, because the early text books on self-government in the outside Empire did hold the view that the Governor was primarily, and in some cases solely, responsible for the exercise of the prerogative of mercy. But later authorities, such as that most respected and authoritative work by Professor Meredith Keith, of Edinburgh, have made it perfectly clear that under self-government, as practised to-day in Australia and Canada, and as was followed in Malta, Ministers are responsible for the recommendations to mercy. I admit it may lead to grave abuses, and even to corruption, but that is the working of responsible government.
The Governor, however, has the power not to take the advice of Ministers on such subjects when he is prepared to persuade them to adopt his views and when he is prepared to find other Ministers. Under the present position of affairs it would be very interesting to find any authoritative writer on Constitutional Law to tell us who is or who is not responsible for the exercise of that prerogative of mercy. If I may venture to express an opinion I would say the person responsible is Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister, who, under the present position, is responsible for Malta to the Imperial Parliament in accordance with the declarations made by His Majesty's Ministers when the Constitution of Malta was suspended. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

SECURITY SERVICE IN MALTA.
LORD STRICKLAND LORD STRICKLAND rose to call attention to the unsatisfactory conditions of the Security Service in Malta; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, little progress has been made either in another place or in your Lordships' House in obtaining information from His Majesty's Government as to what are the motives and reasons for the proposal in its original form of what is known as the Sedition Bill, and I feel it a duty to this House to fill that void by offering information. I do not propose to follow the very regrettable example of publishing, as we have seen in books widely sold, matters that should be

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secret, and as to which knowledge was obtained inside the Cabinet system. Any information which I think is useful to submit to your Lordships' House upon the subject is based upon facts of common knowledge, perhaps co-ordinated and put in an intelligible order. I feel that the real reason, above many others, that has justified the proposal of what is called the Sedition Bill in its original form is that vast sums of money are publicly provided in Parliamentary Votes—not merely tucked away as Secret Service provisions but provided for the purpose of propaganda—to diminish the authority of neighbouring Powers. The amount of money thus provided is really astounding. On the other hand, the amount of money that we provide as a counterweight in our Estimates is a trifle.
There is no sense of proportion in dealing with matter of the systematic expenditure of money in order to break down the British Empire, to undermine British trade and to divert it to other sources. The sums spent for that purpose are colossal. They are known to some extent to those who are in the know, but I think they should be made known to the public and to the responsible representatives of the electors in the other House through the Press. It will justify my asking for a little of your Lordships' time when I submit that I have had experience in administering similar constitutional laws as Minister of Police and experience of the administration of those same laws against myself and my political supporters by those who were previously my political opponents.
It may interest your Lordships to know that at the present moment—I do not know whether I come within the terms of the Sedition Bill now before your Lordships' House—I am the possessor of seditious literature printed in Russia for distribution in Malta at the time of the Invergordon riot. This is in the safe of my solicitors in the City, a firm deserving the full confidence of His Majesty's Government. That raises a legal point which may deserve study as to whether the law is efficient, but apart from that I wish to explain how this Security Service in Malta has proved its inefficiency inasmuch as it is connected with my possession of these seditious documents, beautifully compiled and badly printed in Russian. I have also the letter of the Bolshevist Agent in London offering a reward to
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Joseph Orlando Smith to distribute these documents in Malta. Orlando Smith, being secretary of the Parliamentary Labour Party in Malta, working in alliance with the pro-British Party for the purpose of achieving legislation for workmen's compensation and otherwise for the advancement of the working classes, did not distribute this seditious literature in Malta but took the advice of his co-secretary in the Maltese Parliament. He was advised to take this seditious literature at once to the Security Office and let them make use of it as they thought best.
Orlando Smith was thanked in a letter written and signed by a Security officer. I have in my time, in common with other people, done security work for His Majesty's Government on the understanding that if we failed we would be repudiated and if we succeeded we would be thanked. I have been once thanked in writing and I may say that I thought it a great mistake that I should be thanked in writing. Orlando Smith was thanked in writing. Let me pass on to examine how the Security Office had dealt with Orlando Smith. The Security officer who wrote that letter and who was very thankful to Orlando Smith was very efficient. He passed on to a Staff College, after having learned almost all that there was to be learnt in Malta, and all his work and experience was lost. So starved was the Security Office in Malta that suitable continuity, with a suitable staff of trained and responsible Security officers, was not possible. Consequently authority passed into the hands of a Pharaoh who knew not Joseph. My political opponents were in power. A search was ordered of persons supposed to be in possession of seditious matter. But the seditious matter that had been in the hands of Orlando Smith for distribution was in my safe in Malta.
Police went to search his premises and they found nothing, but they went on with a vindictive prosecution against Orlando Smith, who, being secretary of that section of the Labour Party which was loyal in Parliament, had become a most useful and loyal link between the workers' movement and the Government. They found in his office books by Bernard Shaw and the ordinary books possessed by the editor of a Labour newspaper. I felt bound to write to the Governor: "We are told that you want seditious

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matter. Here it is." I took it out of my safe and sent it to the Governor and asked him to send it to the Secretary of State. I got a formal acknowledgment of sorts, and after a few days the stuff was sent back to me. My representation was not forwarded to the Secretary of State as I think I had a right to ask, as a member of the Maltese Parliament, should be done. Perhaps the noble Earl who represents the Colonial Office in your Lordships' House will tell us how many similar representations made by responsible persons in Malta to the Governor, with a request that they be forwarded to the Secretary of State in accordance with Colonial regulations, have not been forwarded, or have been delayed for a long time.
I will not dwell on the manner in which justice was denied to Orlando Smith. It would not be courteous to the noble Earl who has just sat down because it would involve technicalities of law. It was suggested that Joseph Orlando Smith had no grievance because he did not appeal to the Privy Council. There are on these Benches luminaries of the Bar who know perfectly well that to bring before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council an appeal in a criminal cause is a matter requiring most exceptional circumstances. It has to be done as a matter of grace, and such appeals are never granted unless there has been a denial of natural justice, or unless there are abnormal circumstances. Yet the secretary of the Labour Party, who is now elected as President of the Trades Union Council, whose business has been ruined by this vexatious and unjust prosecution, was told that he might have gone to the Privy Council. I ask your Lordships to accept the view that this sort of reply is far from charitable and certainly more than harsh.
Another reason for which I consider that the Security Service in Malta has been reduced to a parlous condition is this. Above all things a Security Service should be independent. There may be difference of opinion as to the ability of this man or that, there may be difference of opinion as to whether a very able man should not have immediate promotion and leave his office in less able hands, but there can be no difference of opinion as to the necessity of his being absolutely
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independent, and what is more of enjoying that aspect and that appeal of independence which, where called for in the public and the Imperial interest, will induce loyal citizens to give information to such a Service. What has happened in Malta? A representative of the Security Service paid from Imperial funds has been taken off the list of those paid from Imperial funds and put on the list of those paid by the Malta Government. He has been placed as a subordinate in the secretariat where he may have to serve, in the absence of Imperial officers, under influences which at times have been the subject of investigation by the same Security Service. That certainly does not add to the prestige of the manner in which it is managed at present. In order to increase the staff when the Treasury would not increase them, the money made available by paying one man from Maltese funds has been used to pay the Governor's Aide-de-Camp as Security officer. That has not added to the prestige of the organisation of the Security Service in Malta.
With modern developments in the way of large expenditure of money to undermine one Government or another by this or that Government, we are in the position in which England was during the War, when the submarine had to meet the submarine. We were told that it was disgraceful to English honour to employ submarines. We were told that during the War for three years running. Then, at last, it was found necessary to provide a sufficient force of submarines to meet the submarine. I appeal to your Lordships' House to make the Security Service in Malta efficient by an adequate expenditure of money. The Security Service is the only means compatible with a democratic and Christian Government like ours to meet the danger of the development of Fascism, which ends, when the crisis arises, in organised assassination. It may be said that we are sufficiently taxed, but that also was said during the War. I say that I for one feel it a duty to say in this House and to the other House that I would prefer taxation to be increased even to the point to which it was increased during the War sooner than have an inefficient Security Service or an inefficient Air Service. Let us either do things pro-

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perly or pray for the end of our physical and political existence.
The case of Joseph Orlando Smith is not the only one in which want of organisation of the Security Service has prevented that continuity of policy which would have assured his not being prosecuted or which would have ensured the prosecution being stopped when it ought to have been stopped, at once. There are other cases. A feature which is not connected particularly with the Orlando Smith case but with the general procedure of law, is no doubt well known to the noble Viscount, who is a luminary of the law. In the days of the Tudors, and even later, when it was decided to "down" an innocent man, he was put to the bar with two or three others who were certainly guilty, and the innocent man was treated as they were. Those cases are frequent. The obverse is also frequent. I have seen it happen myself outside Malta and outside England, too. When you want to free a man who is guilty you try him with some who are innocent and popular, and he gets off. Every step in procedure which the cleverest lawyers could devise was concentrated to punish Orlando Smith who had helped, and had received the written expression of the gratitude of His Majesty's representatives in Malta for his services.
Every step the cleverest lawyer could invent was applied to that case to defeat him because, by providing a majority of one, by organising his branch of the Labour Party, he gave Malta three years of pro-British government and excluded the pro-clericals from their place in the management in the Labour Party. For that he had to be punished, and His Majesty's representatives and His Majesty's officers in Malta have unwillingly been made the helpers of what we see to-day as the survival of the methods of the Spanish Inquisition. I hope my noble friend the noble Viscount who leads the House, when he remembers what happened in Ireland in similar circumstances, will feel with me and forgive the earnestness with which I plead this case. He must know equal, if not worse, cases in Ireland. He certainly is able to understand what I feel, and why I feel it to be a duty of honour, as long as I can, to move in any way legally to ask for justice in this case.
In Ireland justice was denied by upholding those on the spot, right or wrong, in a manner which could not show even the appearance of logic. And what was the consequence? Armed rebellion by Lord Carson, who was afterwards a member of this House. I am not going lo do anything of that sort, but within the rule of constitutional appeal I hope, sooner or later, to persuade this Government or some other Government to do justice in this case. I had every hope that justice was going to be done last year, from the courteous tone in which my appeal was received by my friends of the Colonial Office, but somehow or other the necessity of supporting those on the spot, right or wrong, overshadowed the expectations which I then legitimately entertained from the tone of that speech.
What happens in other countries to the Security Service? Those who spend astonishingly large sums of foreign money to undermine our Empire get value for it. They have their agents and they have dossiers of the life, habits and accessibility of all the principal persons in the country where they have to work, from the important typist to the most exalted of the land. We ought to be able to do the same. If this is too much, at all events it might at least be expected that a dossier would be available where it is a question of appointing a Minister dismissed for want of co-operation with His Majesty's Government and even worse. He should not be appointed without some reference to his previous history, his character as shown in his dossier.
It is not my business or my duty to go into that now, but I did give a challenge. And how was the challenge met? There was certainly obvious doubt on the part of the Colonial Office as to how much weight could be given to that recommendation. Mr. Stockdale was sent out to report. When I was in the Colonial Service, if people had been sent out to me to report I would have at once resigned. Mr. Stockdale is a high official in the West Indies, a great expert on prize pigs and poultry, and on sugar and South Sea Island cotton. He was sent out to Malta, and it is much to the credit of Mr. Stockdale that he simply reported that this ex-Minister knew nothing about agriculture but was very energetic. It is true that he was very energetic, especially when he was chief canvasser

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for the ultra-clericals in an electoral division where more votes were recorded than there were electors on the register. He was certainly very active and popular with the farmers in that division. I say that the Secret / Service in Malta should have a dossier of the ways and doings of all those who are Parliamentary candidates, and all those who are engaged in politics. I think they ought to have a proper dossier of myself, with all my failings, and then if I attempt to suborn the Fleet I might be proceeded against under the Bill which is now before Parliament.
I think, my Lords, I have said enough at this hour to point out that the Secret Service of Malta is very far from being in a satisfactory condition, and because it is not in a satisfactory condition anybody who is a taxpayer in England, and therefore pays for the maintenance of that Service, is entitled to call attention to it. The fact remains that one of the reasons why self-government in Malta is impracticable at present is that the Security officers are either unwilling or are unable to support loyal Ministers, and the loyal Police and the loyalists ale thoroughly discouraged. They feel that they are unsupported and undefended. The result will be that one friend of England after another will disappear, and when a time of distress comes there will be neither energy nor resources, and probably not even life, left to fight for the Crown and Government of England. If I have no other right to ask for recognition for anything I have done since I have ceased to be a direct servant of the Crown, I think the representations which I have made should at least entitle me to a little better hearing of them than they have received. I beg to move.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: My Lords, the noble Lord's Motion reads as follows: "To call attention to the unsatisfactory conditions of the Security Service in Malta, and to move for Papers"; but I must point out that this Motion only appeared on the Order Paper for the first time this morning. The noble Lord gave me no notice yesterday that he intended to put it on the Paper. I did not therefore know in the slightest degree what he was going to say. He has, as a matter of fact, traversed a very large number of
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subjects, and dealt with a number of points which he had already raised in the course of the debate last week. It would therefore in any case be impossible for me to give him anything in the nature of a full reply.
The noble Lord has used the term "Security Service" in his Motion. I want to make it quite clear that the term "Security Service" has no official meaning whatsoever. What is understood colloquially by "Security" duties in Malta is that portion of the duties of the Police and Civil Government which relates snore particularly to the administration of laws such as the Official Secrets Ordinance, 1923, the Seditious Propaganda Ordinance, 1932, the Weapons Acts, 1931–22, the Press Law of 1933, and the Aliens Ordinance, 1933. But whether I had been placed in a position to give a full answer as the result of having been given notice of this Motion, or whether I was not in that position, I am sure your Lordships will agree that it is definitely not in the public interest that this subject should be publicly discussed, or that any detailed information should be given with regard to it. I would only say that from the information which they have at their disposal His Majesty's Government are fully satisfied that the so-called Security Service is functioning satisfactorily. With regard to the other matters which the noble Lord raised, and from which he drew certain implications which I cannot possibly accept, I can only refer him to what I said with regard to them during the course of my speech last week.
LORD STRICKLAND: My Lords, I shall be very brief in replying. I regret that the noble Earl has adopted the attitude that the Security Service in Malta is perfect and infallible. I hope that it does not involve the attitude that the Treasury, by failing to provide the Service with sufficient money and with sufficient personnel, is also perfect. Fulsome praise is not acceptable to men with brains and education. I am not concerned with the definition of the words "Security Service." Whether the new or the old definition is properly or improperly applied, or whether it has other meanings, the fact remains that we all know the meaning that it has had in fact. That is quite sufficient to support my argument. If that Security Service

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continues to report that no free pardon should be given to Joseph Orlando Smith, I have to say that, having been Minister of Police in Malta, having, even now that I am no longer in office, uncommon resources for obtaining information, and having done all I can to ascertain whether there is the slightest excuse for this obstinacy on the part of those who say they will not listen to the denial to his being guilty of sedition, I assure this House that I have been unable—and your Lordships can see it from the very terms of the official document I have here granting a niggardly pardon—to discover anything chargeable as sedition against Joseph Orlando Smith. It is a fact that he has been in possession of certain books. In a free country with assured religious toleration he may have been in possession of atheistic books, he may have been in possession of Socialist books and other stock-in-trade of the editor of a newspaper, but he had not the possession of the seditious documents when he was searched; the documents were locked up in my safe.
When a policeman makes a mistake he expects to be supported, right or wrong, as the Governor is supported right or wrong. In the absence of any representative government in Malta, where the people have no means of publicly demanding the redress of grievances in Parliament, this policy of supporting subordinates because they threaten to resign is gradually swaying the whole of the population away from that loyalty which it has been the work of my life to establish in a Party that was truly wholeheartedly and intellectually loyal, that was intelligently and truly loyal to England, a Party that was gradually becoming a majority last year on the swing of the pendulum. And we were not allowed to go to the polls because, even when responsible Nationalist Ministers were driven to do their duty by offering to resign, when they knew at last that it was their constitutional duty to resign, the Governor's private secre-
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tary was sent to dissuade them from resigning and performing their constitutional duty. That was what wrecked the Constitution. This was done, and not rightly done, to seize the opportunity for "one-man government." It is not trained administration according to law but a sort of amateurish effort to excuse the present system of selection. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.