Lords Sitting of 10 December 1935

Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

INDIAN ORDERS COMMITTEE.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF ONSLOW): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion which stands in my name on the Order Paper. This is the Committee which your Lordships sanctioned by the Amendment to Standing Orders which I moved last week.
Moved, That a Select Committee be appointed to consider all drafts of Orders laid before Parliament under Sections 309 and 475 of the Government of India Act, 1935, in the present Session; and that the Lords following, with the Chairman of Committees, be named of the Committee—

M. Zetland,

M. Reading,

V. Goschen,

L. Strabolgi,

L. Rankeillour,

L. Hutchison of Montrose.

—(The Earl of Onslow.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ROTHESAY CORPORATION GAS ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
Considered on Report (according to Order).
BRIDGE OF ALLAN GAS ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
Considered on Report (according to Order).
NATIONAL TRUST FOR SCOTLAND ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
Considered on Report (according to Order).
PERTH CORPORATION ORDER CON FIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
Considered on Report (according to Order).

HOURS OF EMPLOYMENT (CON VENTIONS) BILL. [H.L.]
THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill which passed your Lordships' House in all its stages during the last Parliament—a Bill to carry out certain draft International Conventions relating to the employment of women during the night and to hours of work in automatic sheet glass works; to amend the law relating to the hours of employment of women holding responsible positions of management who are not ordinarily engaged in manual work; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid. I beg to move that it be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(The Earl of Feversham.)
On Question, Bill read 1a; and to be printed.

VOLUNTARY HOSPITALS (PAYING PATIENTS) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD LUKE: My Lords, last Session the House passed this Bill as it is now reintroduced. It received its Second Reading in the other House last July, but there was no time available for its later stages. In moving the Second Reading again to-day, I desire merely to clarify the considerations which animated those responsible for its introduction and to remove certain misconceptions. The object of this Bill is to put all hospitals on a level, as far as possible, in their power to meet certain present-day needs. Voluntary hospitals with modern trust deeds have no legal hindrance to prevent them providing for all classes who need hospital treatment. Their primary function is to provide beds for the sick poor in the ordinary sense of the term. They often provide a comparatively small number of pay beds for the blackcoated poor of the middle and professional classes, who are able to pay a moderate weekly charge, but cannot afford what they would have to pay elsewhere. They sometimes also provide a still smaller number of beds for patients who need treatments which, however well-off they may be, these patients are often unable to obtain anywhere except at a hospital,

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and who are charged at rates proportionate to their means, thus yielding the hospital a profit which helps it to pay for its poorer patients.
The need for these new services results partly from the modern developments of elaborate and expensive methods of diagnosis and treatment, and partly from recent economic changes which have produced what are called the new poor. These new services have been provided in addition to, and not in diminution of, the maintenance and extension of the ordinary beds. But at some hospitals the trust deeds were settled long ago, when medical treatment was a very simple and inexpensive affair and hospital accommodation was only needed by the very poor. The result is that, at some hospitals, these ancient trusts are so worded that the hospital cannot legally provide for any patients, other than the sick poor in the original sense of the term, even with money specially collected or received for the purpose; and, if the hospital has occasionally to treat any other patients, because the treatments are unobtainable elsewhere, it has no legal power to charge them what they are able to pay. Nor can it provide special accommodation for them, even if it could do so at a profit. It is certainly hard on the older hospitals not to be able to provide these modern facilities which some other hospitals can provide. It is also hard on particular neighbourhoods not to be able to enjoy these modern facilities which other neighbourhoods can enjoy.
The object of this Bill is to give the Charity Commissioners power, in suitable cases, to remove these anomalies, by enabling such hospitals to provide pay beds so long as this is not done at the expense of, or to the detriment of, the primary work which they are doing, of providing for the sick poor. The Bill contains ample precautions against any risk that trusts for the direct benefit of the sick poor will be disregarded. In addition to the control given to the Charity Commissioners, there are special safeguards, introduced into the Bill last Session by the Government, to ensure that funds and property acquired under the original trusts cannot be diverted to any other purpose. In actual practice experience shows that fie provision of pay beds benefits the whole community, including the sick poor themselves. The hospital with pay beds serves patients
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who would otherwise be unable to obtain the latest treatments and who often become grateful supporters. Patients who can afford to pay can be charged what they can afford; and there is often an actual profit which helps the hospital to carry on its ordinary work. There need be no fear that anything in this Bill would enable hospitals to diminish their work for the sick poor, even if they wanted to do so. The safeguards in the Bill would prevent them from reducing their ordinary work: the powers given by the Bill would assist them to increase it. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Luke.)
VISCOUNT GAGE: My Lords, I only desire to say on behalf of the Government that when this Bill was first introduced the Government, as your Lordships may recollect, intimated that provided certain changes were made in the text, to ensure that the objects of existing trusts would be maintained, they would support the Bill. Various Amendments to secure that the objects of the original trust should be maintained and the rights of poorer patients safeguarded were agreed between the promoters and the Government and they reappear in this Bill. In those circumstances the Government fully support, the Bill.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA (REPRINT ING) BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.

MALTA.
LORD STRICKLAND LORD STRICKLAND had given Notice that he would call attention to the defence possibilities of Malta and the political and economic conditions of the Island; and move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, it may be permissible to congratulate His Majesty's Government on the great change in strategy in Malta since last July. Then it was generally held, and confirmed by facts more eloquent than words, that the strategy was based upon a belief that Malta could not be defended from air

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attack, and that in certain circumstances the Island would have to be abandoned, with the expectation that it would be easily reconquered after a long war, which it was assumed would be necessarily successful. Last July, from these Benches, His Majesty's Government was reminded that the abandonment of Malta for any reason whatsoever would be a most horrible going-back from covenants and pacts entered into between His Majesty's predecessors at the end of the Napoleonic wars and the representatives of the Maltese nation. After that—I do not say because of that—there was a hasty rearmament of Malta. The defence that had apparently been altogether neglected was pushed forward with marvellous and efficient rapidity. That Malta would be held became abundantly plain. Every possible landing-place is now protected by barbed wire. If you go to see a friend you are not asked into the drawing room, but into the gasproof chamber. Ladies who are leaders of society are photographed in their gas-masks. There are rehearsals of the putting-out of the lights in case of air-raids at night.
Much more, however, remains to be done to obliterate the very far-reaching and dangerous impression that Malta cannot be defended from air attack, an impression which has been the subject of unchecked propaganda among members of the Service to such an extent that it has almost invited preparations for a coup de main, which we have witnessed very ably arranged within less than an hour's flying distance from Malta. A debt of gratitude is due by Malta and His Majesty's Government to General Godley, who was recently relieved of his responsibilities at the end of his term of office as Governor of Gibraltar. He has published in the London Press the valuable opinions of an expert to the effect that the consequences of an air attack on Gibraltar need not cause apprehension, for the reason that the underground galleries are so ample and so available that the stores and munitions necessary for defence are quite safe from attack. There is also room for the shelter of the civil population. What has, according to that weighty authority, been done in Gibraltar is more easily achievable in Malta inasmuch as the rock of Gibraltar is hard and has to be blasted,
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whereas Malta stands on ground which is easily quarried without blasting, and the result of quarrying there has a market value as building stone.
About ten years ago the necessity of arranging underground hangars in Malta was put forward from the back benches of the House of Commons, but it received no attention. To-day in Berlin there is the largest centre of air activity in the world. The administration buildings contain more than 2,200 rooms, and the aerodrome is surrounded by underground hangars that are invisible and bombproof. If in Malta there be concentrated a sufficient force of aircraft for counterattack under such conditions that that air force cannot be bombed or destroyed, I put it to your Lordships' House that, even if you could not say that there never would be an attack, one would be very unlikely. It becomes most improbable that there would be an attack on Malta if a counter-attack could be delivered with the certainty of return and the forces for achieving it could be kept in reserve with the certainty that they could not be destroyed.
The point that I particularly wish to submit to your Lordships' House is that if an air raid were attempted on Malta, the bombs would not be wasted in attempts to destroy fortifications and buildings, much less on the population, but the landing-places provided for aircraft that alights on wheels would be broken up and rendered useless in a manner which would necessitate a long time for repairs and which might be arranged for at a critical moment. The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, who made his maiden speech in this House with the assertion of the authority of experts that expenditure on additional facilities for the alighting of aircraft that comes down upon the water is a waste of money and quite useless, not to be recommended or encouraged even remotely, lost sight of what I have brought to your Lordships' notice as regards the possibility of destroying the landing-places of aircraft which does not alight upon water. There is a further point. The aircraft that is advisable for counter attack must be of the most rapid description, of a description that with difficulty takes off from land and finds a greater difficulty, if not an impossibility, in alighting otherwise than on the water. I therefore submit that expenditure on an air force of any description must be use

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less unless we set to work as early as possible to provide the type of aircraft for defence by counter attack which can alight upon water.
That is the main point which I beg leave to urge upon His Majesty's Government as a paramount necessity for defence. There is no difficulty in locating and bombing land aerodromes by night or in rainy and bad weather. As far as Malta is concerned, cross-bearings are easy and the location is very well known. On the other hand, the aircraft which is to land on the sea knows full well that its landing-places will always continue level unless disturbed by wind and weather, and it is against wind and weather that permanent protection can be easily achieved. When the strategy of non-defence and abandonment was so much talked of in July, and was made believable by facts more weighty than words, it should have been remembered that if Malta were abandoned, in view of the congestion of the population, at least 50 per cent. would have to die of hunger and the value of everything in Malta would be affected to the extent. of at least 80 per cent. The duty of His Majesty's Government to consider those contingencies and the promises made to the Maltese appear to have been the subject of a very salutary reconsideration since last July.
Moreover, for six months in Malta the representation of the King has been entrusted to the hands of a member of the Colonial Service. It has often been denied that anyone but a Military Governor could govern Malta efficiently—an assertion which has been contradicted by so high an authority as Lord Curzon, when Viceroy of India. Certainly, if there is any place in the world which can give us a parallel example, it is India, where military considerations are of the greatest weight, and where the selection of a Viceroy is not confined to a small class of senior military officers, selected by the Army Council for reasons of seniority and promotion, and not for reasons of the benefit of India in the civil line. And during the tenure of office in Malta of a member of the Colonial Service, as representative of the King, we have witnessed a marvellous development and change in considerations of strategy for Malta.
A Civil Governor can co-ordinate the activities of the Army, Navy and Air Force without undue partiality and free
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from a lifelong training in one compartment of ideas as regards defence. If Malta is to be defended permanently—and the serious trouble of defending Malta is not likely to arise for three or four years, in the opinion of the best experts upon that question—then Malta, properly defended by the Air Force, and having to rely principally on the Air Force, with the small military force necessary to prevent landing, in the absence of the Fleet, can furnish no argument for saying that a Civil Governor should not deal with the defence of Malta, the coordination of the needs of the three arms, side by side with and adjusted to the position of a civil population and their rights under the contracts entered into in their behalf. It is a fundamental feature of defence that the relations between the defence forces and the civil population should be of the best—that there should be co-operation and co-operation based on education, sentiment, patriotism and, above all, ties of blood.
To India this Imperial Parliament, last Session, granted self-government by legislative enactment which is so complicated that it has already had to be amended and made the subject of legislation by compartments, which at best will probably be Utopian. That effort, a very praiseworthy effort, is traceable to the necessity of dealing with the inferiority complex and the superiority complex. That problem is certainly much more difficult in India than it is in Malta, where representative institutions have been known for nine hundred, years, and where they were granted and upheld by the Norman kings of Sicily, of the type practised in the Channel Islands—a measure of representative government which has been promised and guaranteed by the successive rulers in Malta who succeeded the Norman kings. The Grand Master of the Order of St. John had to swear that he would preserve the rights and institutions of the Maltese. Similar promises were made in the name of our King-Emperor's predecessors, when Malta was annexed to the British Empire.
I ask your Lordships to have patience to consider what the racial problem means in Malta. It is complicated by the rapid increase of the population, which is more congested now than anywhere else in Europe. There are roughly a quarter of a million souls and additions of 3,000 every year. The bulk of that population

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is of Phœnician extraction. They talk the language of Hannibal, and have no desire to be assimilated by the descendants of those who destroyed Carthage. I might ask your Lordships to remember that the peasantry in Malta grow their own bread and wine, and cotton for clothing, and pay very little in indirect taxation for imported luxuries. There is no direct taxation in Malta except Succession Duties, no Income Tax or rates. There are 30,000 Britishers who are not Maltese. The facilities of travel to-day attract the wives and families of those who are serving the Crown. Travel is cheap, the climate is attractive, and life is more pleasant in Malta for a larger portion of the year than anywhere else that I know. It is that section of the community, together with the Anglo-Maltese, that pays the largest share of taxation.
The Anglo-Maltese, who in the near past have been treated politically as nonexistent, are increasing in number, not only because of the facility of travel and residence but because the relaxation of the rigour of the canon law as to mixed marriages has become increasingly operative. The standard of remuneration and allowances in the Services, particularly in the ratings of the Navy, is so high that in these days of modern culture and education in the Services there is a. growing departure from that condition of society which used to be described by saying that a sailor had a wife in every port. Anglo-Maltese families, the result of mixed marriages, are growing in number, and any attempt to hold Malta indefinitely must be based upon a recognition of their position and claim to consideration, because blood is thicker than water, and the bribery and corruption which make administration in Malta difficult are less operative where there is British culture combined with descent.
The other class of the population of Malta to which I ask your Lordships to give attention is the Siculo-Maltese contingent. They number perhaps some 3,000 to-day. They are fast dwindling in importance and influence in comparison with the other sections of the community. But that class still has a paramount hold on the administration, a paramount hold in the Church and in are Courts, and they are able under present conditions to edge in one imported administrator after another. During the reign of the Knights of St.
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John the official language was Latin because the Knights were a cosmopolitan Order. When the Knights were eliminated, those who succeeded them had to find professional services in the nearest market, and that was Sicily. Very naturally those Sicilians and some of them who inter-married, who in culture and education formed a class, became the masters of administration and arranged their monopoly by introducing trilingual education, trilingual examinations, and the pushing into office of those who knew the three languages. Naturally the rights of the Phœnician Maltese, the aboriginal inhabitants of the soil, were nowhere. Much less were the British or the Anglo-Maltese. But when a Constitution was granted in 1921, with a. larger measure of representative government than the Constitution of 1887 gave, the sons of the soil, the Anglo-Maltese and the British came to have equality of opportunity.
Now that that Constitution is suspended those in the Civil Service who have gathered around the Governor claim to be exempt from criticism, to enjoy stagnation—otium cum dignitate; to be supported in the commission of abuses and favouritism, the putting into office of their sisters, cousins and aunts, or their husbands, the making of examinations less important. All those abuses, against which there was an outcry in 1887 accompanied by a demand for representative government, which had been promised to the Maltese, are growing again to-day to an extent which is not creditable to British administration. Last July I asked for the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into the method in which Malta is being governed and the difficulties of obtaining redress of grievances and abuses under the present system. That request was denied, and I do not repeat it to-day. What I ask for to-day is very little. Two years ago two distinguished and experienced officers, trained in the Colonial Department, came to Malta and remained there for some weeks to advise, inquire and report. I ask here that that procedure be repeated and that some practical system be set up, so that we may have a feeling that grievances can be redressed, that it is of some use working for progress in Malta.
Your Lordships' House is the only place where anyone born in Malta, claiming a right to vote and to speak in the

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language of his birth, can enjoy freedom of speech. The most drastic Press laws have been enacted that are a veritable disgrace and reproach to those administering institutions under English liberty. Moreover, when the Constitution was suspended, at the annual meeting of the parish priests, the Governor addressed them saying that constitutional government had been set aside for reasons of non-co-operation. It was suggested that nobody in Malta was suitable to stand for election and that henceforth the Governor would be responsible for every single decision. That might be possible sometimes in ideal but unachievable circumstances, but when Malta is an armed camp, on the frontier as it were, when a system of strategy and defence has to be devised and put into execution that will keep Malta British if troubles arise again three or four years hence, that is more than one man's job. Dealing with a civil population in these circumstances is more than one man's job even if he is in the best of health, at the best age of life, and with every possible gift and achievement the thing cannot be done. Therefore the Colonial Office is forced to declare that it will support the Governor right or wrong, and when the Governor is supported right or wrong those immediately below him want to be supported right or wrong, and have to be support ed right or wrong. So the system goes on all the way down.
Not only was the Constitution set aside on the supposition or allegation that nobody was suitable to seek the franchise and the confirmation of the electors, but the electors themselves were deprived of the right given to them by the Constitution—a Constitution declared by Lord Milner who enacted it or advised it to be more democratic than that of New South Wales; a Constitution confirmed by this Imperial Parliament and by your Lordships' House in order to increase the status of that Constitution and give recognition to the loyalty of the Maltese. That loyalty has been proved beyond measure by the Jubilee festivities a few months ago. There is no doubt as to the loyalty of the Phœmician Maltese, of the Anglo-Maltese, and of the Britishers in Malta. They as electors could have been, and should have been, trusted to turn out a Ministry dismissed for alleged disloyalty on the allegation that it had wrecked the finances to an extent that
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justified Imperial intervention. The assertion of that wreckage was so far from truth that it has been condemned in the Maltese Courts of Law in language unrepeatable in this House but proved in the presence of the Maltese Law Officers of the Crown, and neither the Judges nor the Law Officers objected to the veracity of that condemnation.
There was no deficit in Malta, although two Secretaries of State, one after another, have been induced somehow or other to represent that there was a deficit and that this deficit was so terrible as to justify Imperial intervention. We had no debt in Malta, and we had an ample margin for fresh taxation. That shows how false assertions and false reports have to be supported by the Colonial Office. The Colonial Office is not able to reprimand those responsible for misleading them and for causing Secretaries of State to cut that deplorable figure in the Parliament of England.
Under present conditions I am not one to say that responsible government should be immediately re-established in Malta. That proposition is now under appeal on points of law to the Judicial Committee of His Majesty's Privy Council. Therefore I must refrain from going into technical points of law, but on the main principle, and as regards the sacred, promised rights of the Maltese, I do, and I must, go so far as to say that the suspension of representative government as contrasted with responsible government is entirely unjustifiable and a slur on the honour of England. There is no escape from the argument that these pledges have been given. I sympathise with the noble Earl who represents the Colonial Office in your Lordships' House in the difficulty he has of finding any argument whatsoever in reply to, this contention.
I marvelled at the ingenuity with which, last July, instead of an argument, there was an attempt to find a distinction between a treaty and a solemn compact. These solemn compacts made between the Crown and the Maltese were asserted and confirmed in the Treaties of Amiens and Paris and by the Congress of Vienna, and that association is sufficient to describe them as treaty rights; but let the word "treaty" be left out and let them be called solemn compacts. To deny these solemn compacts, which have been asserted and reasserted and admitted by one statesman after another

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for 135 years in both this House and in another place, is to me an appalling attempt to escape from duty, an attempt so appalling and so far-reaching in its consequences that I hope it will not be repeated without a Cabinet Minute authorising that change from a policy that has been established for 135 years.
In conclusion, I wish to appeal for the sympathy of your Lordships' House in the period of transition which must elapse after the decision of His Majesty's Privy Council on points of law —not on points of administration, such as the declaration or non-declaration of a state of emergency—and before legislation can be framed and passed to establish the form or, representative government similar, perhaps, to that of the Channel Islands but within the scope of the privileges conferred by the Norman King of Malta and repeated by dynasty after dynasty. There should be some abatement of the friction and discontent, growing every day in Malta, caused by the despotic and arbitrary use of power by officials who think they can never be brought to book and never be reprimanded. Of course when they know that the Colonial Office will support mistakes, right or wrong, they act accordingly—that is the atmosphere of the Civil Service at present in Malta. It is quite possible to have brought from Palestine to Malta one who taught Arabic, not trained at all in the Colonial Office, who would bring to the Government of Malta methods suitable for dealing with the Arabs in Palestine.
At the bottom of all these difficulties is the inferiority complex. Many in this country think that the Maltese are not a white European race as were the Phœnicians from whom the bulk of the population is descended. Whatever may be the willingness of some Maltese to put up with treatment as camp followers and accept favours and other considerations from those who have power over them as superiors, that mentality is not going to be adopted by the Anglo-Maltese or the English in Malta. None of the Maltese Britishers has the right to the franchise in Malta, nor have the Phoenician Maltese, who are the original lords of the soil. These elements will not put up with the exercise of the inferiority complex and be respectful and cognisant of the principles of British liberty, the teachings of Magna
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Charta, and the teachings of our constitutional lawyers. Some method must be found of abating these causes of friction and discontent to-day. May I say that our troubles in Ireland arose from the same causes? What was called the Saxon garrison in Ireland, namely, the descendants of Normans of non-Irish and of mixed marriages, were known there as ipsis Hiberniis Hiberniores, that is to say, more truly patriotic in regard to Ireland than those Irish who were indigenous. That is the analogy in Malta with reference to those Anglo-Maltese who want to spread a culture that is British and thereby to assure Imperial co-operation and the permanent defence of Malta by ties of mentality and of blood which are more reliable than ties produced by threats and favours.
But the Siculo-Maltese culture still dominates notwithstanding reforms in the recent Letters Patent and the great benefit to the Empire and to Malta conferred by the present Secretary of State for Air when he was Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister with language reforms long overdue and still defied. Notwithstanding the gratitude due to him for that enactment those under anti-British influence are able to defy the reforms; they control examinations, they arrange- the details of legislation, and in other ways they still are able to defeat the very object of the noble Viscount's great achievement. But these acts in defiance of reform, as in the case of other mistakes and abuses, are almost invariably supported by the Colonial Office—right or wrong—to the extent that, for example, to-day Latin is not being taught in Malta in the secondary schools either in the Maltese or English language but through another language that is foreign. The superseded Letters Patent are upheld even in the Government schools where education is free. I will not detain your Lordships and I hope allowance will be made for the earnestness with which I have addressed your Lordships' House. It is the fact that freedom of speech under the privilege of Parliament is now entirely impossible in Malta, because of the suppression of our Parliamentary institutions. The loyal and the disloyal are equally degraded without any intelligible reason. It is here that in the name of English liberty we beg leave to demand redress. I beg to move for Papers.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH): My Lords, the noble Lord has worded his Motion in such a way as to enable him with complete justification to range over a very wide field, but it has left me at this disadvantage, that I was not aware of the actual points which he intended to raise. I hope, therefore, that, your Lordships will excuse me if I do not reply to the noble Lord at any very great length. The first matter that the noble Lord referred to was the question of the defence of Malta, and I am sure your Lordships will have listened with very great interest to the observations which he had to make upon this particular subject. I fully admit that the problems that he touched upon are of very great importance. I hope, however, that he will forgive me if I do not follow him in detail through the various topics which he has introduced into this discussion, for a number of reasons.
They involve difficult technical questions of defence which it would be hardly appropriate for me to enter into on this occasion even if it were in the public interest that I should do so; out I desire to say that the question of the defence of Malta, both at present and for the future, is one which is engaging the close attention of His Majesty's Government. In the careful review which is being made of this matter full weight is being attached to the necessity for safeguarding the interests of the Maltese population as well as the interests of Imperial defence, in which the Island plays a very prominent part. The noble Lord referred more particularly to the air defence aspect of the position in Malta, and he raised a subject which has been discussed in this House, in one form at any rate, as recently as last week—that was the relative merits of defence by means of seaplanes and landplanes. My noble friend the Secretary of State for Air dealt with that point, I thought very completely, during the course of the discussion last week, and there is, therefore, very little that I can add to-day with regard to that particular matter; but I trust that the noble Lord will see that there are two sides to this problem.
I can only say that as far as the Government are concerned they do not share the view that a seaplane base is less open to attack than would be aircraft on
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shore. To begin with, the seaplanes, while riding at anchor, might themselves be bombed, but, apart from that, the slipways, hangars and workshops on the shore, on which they depend for their maintenance, are just as open to attack as any other building. The noble Lord then proceeded to the subject of underground hangars. As far as that is concerned I merely want to say that this is an aspect of the problem which has not escaped the consideration of the responsible authorities. They have considered the possibility of providing these hangars. The conclusion reached is that very great expense would be involved and that the aircraft in time of war could only be fully protected by that method at the price of their losing most of their readiness for taking the air against the invader. That is the considered opinion; of the responsible authorities on this particular subject. Further than that I do not feel it right that I should discuss detailed matters in connection with the defence of Malta at this particular juncture and, if I may, I will now pass on to deal with one or two other matters which the noble Lord raised.
The noble Lord animadverted to one of his favourite topics, and that was the relative advantages of having a Military Governor as opposed to a Civilian Governor in Malta, and he attempted to strengthen his argument on that point by drawing an analogy between Malta and India in this particular connection. I think you cannot possibly maintain an analogy between India and Malta from this particular point of view. There really is no similarity between the two places whatsoever. But the noble Lord attempted to argue that since the Military Governor, Sir David Campbell, had been away and his place temporarily taken by a Civilian Governor, the policy in Malta had entirely changed. There is no truth whatsoever as far as that is concerned. There has been no change of policy in any respect there, and the Colonial Office are prepared to shoulder full responsibility for everything which has taken place. Policy a nay have changed, but merely because circumstances have changed; it is an evolution of policy and in no way a, change of policy. I should have thought that recent events in the Mediterranean would

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have shown the advantage rather than the disadvantage of having a Military Governor controlling the situation in Malta.
The noble Lord went on to discuss the history of Malta at considerable length. I am sure that, with his great knowledge, what he told us will have proved of very great interest to noble Lords present, but I venture to say that there was not anything in what he said that called for any answer on my part. He concluded by making a severe attack on the Colonial Office generally, and I think the gravamen of his charge was that the Colonial Office were compelled in some mysterious way—I could not quite make out how—to accept the decision of the Governor of Malta, whether he was right or wrong. So far as I know there is absolutely no truth in that statement. Every question is decided upon its merits. I do not know what he has in his mind when he makes such accusations as he has made to-day. He further complained that the people of Malta had no opportunity to make representations to the Government except through the House of Lords and I suppose in another place as well. That really is not true. The people in Malta are in exactly the same position as the people in any other Colony. They have the same rights as every British subject in the Colonies to make representations to the Secretary of State on any matter through the usual channels, through the Governor. I really do not quite understand what he means when he says that British subjects in Malta have no opportunity of making representations except through him in your Lordships' House.
He then made reference to the constitutional position. I agree with him that the legal aspect of that particular question is at present sub judice and that therefore it would be improper to attempt to discuss it. But he referred to other aspects of the constitutional position all of which he raised in a previous debate and which were then discussed at very considerable length. I am afraid I cannot follow him into the details of those matters. I gave my answer on the last occasion upon which they were debated in your Lordships' House as recently as July, and I really have nothing to add to what I said at that time. Those I think were the principal problems raised, and in view of the fact that we have several times in this House
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discussed the question of Malta in some detail, I am afraid there is nothing further I am able to say this afternoon.
LORD STRICKLAND: My Lords, I must express my astonishment at the statement of the noble Earl representing the Colonial Department that anyone in Malta is in the same position as any other inhabitants of the four dozen or so of Colonies under the Colonial Office. He is right in reference to the Virgin Islands or St. Helena, where a, British subject is in exactly the same position as in Malta, but in most other Colonies there are degrees of representation. Even where the majority is not white, namely, in the Federation of the Leeward Islands, of which I had the honour to be Governor, there is a Federal Council and an elected Assembly in four Presidencies except the Virgin Islands. Elected members can ask questions and speak under privilege of Parliament. Heads of Departments have to answer in public for advice given to the Governor and for blunders, and redress can be demanded in debate. But the loyalists of Malta are in the position of those in St. Helena or Ascension Island. In Malta even the Executive Council is suspended, and yet the noble Earl says that the people of Malta are in the same position to demand redress as anybody else, on large matters and small matters that may be killed by delay.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: My Lords, I said the individual subject.
LORD STRICKLAND: The individual subject is not in the same position because in other Colonies he has the right to vote for an elected representative and he can have questions asked forthwith in public and get redress through him from a Governor who has heard both sides. As to the noble Earl's objection to Malta being compared to India because India is large and Malta is small, I would say that human nature is substantially the same everywhere and has been but slowly changed through the ages. Because the population of Malta is a quarter of a million and Ireland, say, four or five millions, as compared with India's population of four hundred million or five hundred million, it does not follow that the same argument does not apply when racial or psychological questions are considered.

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Ireland has suffered under Dublin Castle rule and is now separated as to Southern Ireland by the faults of the bureaucracy of which we complain. There is an analogy as to mentality and reciprocal promises. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD DE CLIFFORD.
THE MARQUESS OF HUNTLY THE MARQUESS OF HUNTLY moved to resolve, That it is not obligatory for Peers to wear hats when attending the trial of Lord de Clifford on 12th December. The noble Marquess said: My Lords a little more than a month ago the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack issued a circular with reference to the approaching trial of a member of this House. In that circular, as your Lordships will remember, there was a paragraph stating that those Peers who attended the trial of course would have to wear their robes and cocked hats. Upon receiving that circular I addressed a letter to the noble and learned Viscount calling his attention to the fact that I did not think that the wearing of hats was obligatory upon Peers attending a trial, and stating that as I had been present at the last trial of a Peer in Parliament—that of Earl Russell in 1901—I was able to state from memory that we did not wear what are called cocked hats. The correspondence ended with a letter from the noble and learned Viscount in which he told me that there was a difference of opinion upon the point and that it was a matter for the House to decide for itself.
I therefore put down the Motion which stands in my name and I will give your Lordships the reasons that lead me to recommend that the wearing of hats is not compulsory on an occasion of this sort. To begin with I think the description "cocked hats" is a misnomer. I have looked through the most recent edition of the procedure of the House of Lords—the twelfth edition brought up to this year—and in that there is a very voluminous account of the proceedings at the Russell trial. There is, however, no nutrition in it of cocked hats, nor is there any mention of cocked hats in the very long report of the trial which was published in The Times on 19th July, 1901. I think the meaning to be
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attached to the statement that Peers uncover at the reading of the Commission and any Proclamation of the Sovereign is that those who are covered, those who have hats on their heads, take them off in the same way as when the King's Speech is read from the Woolsack by Commission those who happen to be wearing hats take them off. There is not a word in any report of the trial of Peers about the compulsory wearing of hats.
I have said that the description "cocked hats" seems to be a misnomer. These hats are three-cornered, and I think in the old phrase they were called shovel hats. But, whatever they are called, I remember vividly that on the occasion of the Russell trial—I was sitting in the Barons' Bench at the very top of the Royal Gallery and had a view of all the Peers present—these three-cornered hats were worn by the Law Lords and only by one or two others. It seems to me an omission that the Select Committee which sat to consider the proceedings to be followed at the trial of Lord de Clifford did not include any Peer who was present at the Russell trial. There are still in this House about a dozen Peers, I believe, who were present at that trial on 18th July, 1901. Among them was the late Chairman of Committees, the Earl of Donoughmore, and also I think the Earl of Shaftesbury, the Lord Steward, the Earl of Malmesbury, Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, and some five or six others. I should like any of them who were present to say what their remembrance is of the procedure on that occasion.
We assembled in this House in our robes, and Lord Halsbury, the Lord Chancellor, was appointed Lord High Steward to act on the occasion. After we had left this House we marched to the Royal Gallery. There had been a temporary Throne erected at the far end, and a chair was set for the Lord High Steward and the proceedings opened. I can say that the few Peers who did have their three-cornered hats on of course removed them when the Royal Commission was read, but certainly the bulk of the Peers present were not covered. It is said that this will be the last trial of a Peer. I do not believe it, but I am certain that if we go by former times we should follow our precedents strictly and it should not be made obligatory upon Peers, if they wish to attend the trial of

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one of their own body, to wear three-cornered hats. They should be allowed to wear them if they like, and if they do not wish to, they should not have to wear them. I therefore beg to move the Motion which stands in my name.
Moved to resolve, That it is not obligatory for Peers to wear hats when attending the trial of Lord de Clifford on 12th December.—(The Marquess of Huntly.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, I had hoped that some of your Lordships might be able to respond to the invitation of the noble Marquess, but unfortunately none of you who were present seem to have availed yourselves of his invitation, and therefore it is left to me to answer the Motion. I am a little sorry in some ways that this is the subject of debate in this House. I am sorry, not because it is not perfectly legitimate for any one to raise any point in your Lordships' House, but because disrespectful people may perhaps think that it is not very dignified, when these grave questions are being debated outside, for us to spend much time on the consideration of what clothes we shall wear on the day after to-morrow. The noble Marquess based his argument, as he told your Lordships, on his recollection that on the occasion of the Russell trial, which was the last occasion when a noble Lord was indicted for felony, members of your Lordships' House did not have hats. I did not understand him to say that they wore any other hat than their ceremonial cocked hat—they did not appear in bowlers or top-hats—but that they had no hats at all.
As the noble Marquess has told you, he wrote to me some two months ago and said that he was right in that recollection. Naturally I had no recollection or knowledge myself, but I invited the learned Clerk of the Parliaments, who had himself been present at the trial, to give me his recollection and also to reinforce it as far as he could by others who were there. Human memory is naturally often at fault, and I can only tell your Lordships that he told me that he had a very clear recollection that hats were worn or carried, and that such inquiry as he was able to make corroborated that memory. Among others whom he was able to ask were some of those who were professionally
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engaged in the trial, and their recollections accorded with his own.
Further than that, he looked up the record, the formal Minutes, and, as the noble Marquess has said, there appear in the Minutes several references to the covering or uncovering of the Peers on that occasion. For instance—I only take this because it is perhaps the clearest reference—when the Commission was read at the beginning of the trial, the record in the Minutes provided that
"The Peers uncover themselves, and they and all others stand up while the Commission is read."
The noble Marquess had obviously seen that passage; he said it only meant that those who were covered uncovered themselves and the rest stood up as they were. The matter does not, however, rest merely on that negative testimony, because I have, since the noble Marquess first wrote to me, been at pains to have search made in the contemporary Press, and I find these three quotations—I believe there are others—as to what actually happened at the trial.
On July 18, the Evening News said, describing who were there:
"Peers wearing mantles of scarlet and ermine and gold and with quaint black cocked hats on their heads…"
The reporter at any rate thought he saw the Peers covered with hats. Then on the following morning, July 19, the Morning Post, reporting the Russell trial, said:
"Peers wore their robes of scarlet barred with ermine and carried cocked hats in their hands."
The Globe, reporting the trial, said:
"Each Peer"—
I call your Lordships' attention to that word—
"wore or carried a black cocked hat."
So that those who were reporting the trial at the time recorded that they had seen the Peers each of them wearing or carrying a black cocked hat. Even the best of memories after thirty-four years is perhaps not quite so reliable as the contemporary record of what happened.
In addition to that, the learned Clerk of the Parliaments has procured a copy of the illustration of the trial, which was published in the Illustrated London News at the time in 1901. That is on the Table, if any of your Lordships should

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care to look at it. If you look at the drawing—it is of course on a small scale—you will observe that the Peers are depicted sitting in the Royal Gallery with their black cocked hats on their knees. They were not wearing them, apparently, when they sat down. I think what happened was that, as the procession was formed and passed from this House into the Royal Gallery, the members of the procession walked covered, wearing their cocked hats, and that when they arrived in the Royal Gallery and took their seats they took their hats off and put them under their seats or on their knees. That being the record of what happened at the time; that being also the recollection of such persons as I have been able to inquire from; that being also the record of the Minutes, I venture to think that we may take it as fairly certain, in spite of my noble friend's recollection, that in fact cocked hats were either worn or carried, although no doubt he may have carried his and not actually worn it.
It is open to your Lordships, of course, to make any modification in dress which you think desirable. I do not think it would effect any substantial economy in the present case, because all those of your Lordships who are proposing to sit in judgment on Thursday and take part in the trial will have sent in their names and presumably by this time have equipped themselves for the trial by the acquisition of their robes and their hats, which, after all, form part of the ceremonial dress. It is open, of course, to this House to determine that your Lordships should sit without hats, or, for that matter, without robes. I think that there is a good deal to be said for taking the view that this manner of trial has outlived its usefulness, and that your Lordships' House might think it desirable, perhaps on an early occasion, to express an opinion to that effect. But this is not the moment to do that, and I am prepared to suggest to your Lordships, and to my noble friend, that perhaps so long as the old method of trial is maintained, it would be more in consonance with the dignity of this House and with its traditions if we maintained the method of trial which prevailed apparently in 1901, and certainly in every other trial of this kind of which we can find any record, and that so long as that method of trying Peers indicted for felony continues the old form should be main
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tained and the old tradition should be followed. It is for these reasons that I venture to suggest to your Lordships, and to my noble friend, that it would not be advisable to pass the present Motion.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: My Lords, I rise to address you for one reason only. I also happened to be present at the trial of Lord Russell. I was not at that time a member of your Lordships' House, but nay father was Lord High Steward, and he asked me to act as his secretary. Therefore I was present at the trial. I was not present at the part of the trial which took place in this House, but only at that part of it which took place in the Royal Gallery, and my recollection is in accordance with that of the noble Marquess. It was an occasion which impressed me very much, as your Lordships can understand; but having told your Lordships that, I go on to say that I entirely agree with my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack that memory is not a thing that you can say is going to tell you exactly what happened. After the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack has called our attention to these contemporary accounts of the trial, I can only say that I think my memory must be at fault.
THE MARQUESS OF HUNTLY: May I ask the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack what is the use of carrying a hat in your hand? If by only carrying a cocked hat in your hand you conform to usage, surely the time has arrived when it would be wise to say that you can dispense with it.
On Question, Motion disagreed to.

THE ABBOTSBURY SWANNERY.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD THE EARL OF CRAWFORD rose to draw attention to the danger to the Abbotsbury Swannery arising from the projected firing range for the Royal Air Force; and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg leave to refer to the danger to a famous Swannery on the coast of Dorsetshire, called the Abbotsbury Swannery. Not only is it the only thing of its kind in this country, but it is the only thing of its kind in Europe. Its value is in many ways incalculable, and once lost it would be of course irreplaceable. Many of

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those who are best acquainted with this place believe that the danger to the birds from machine gun practice is very real; not at the nesting place of the birds, but at their winter feeding ground. They nest at the western end of the bays, or "fleets" as they are called, and during the autumn move eastwards to the winter feeding grounds. Only a few days ago this majestic procession of birds moved eastwards to the area where the water weed zostera nana grows. There is not much of this weed, and the result is that the swannery is not much more than 500 in number. The flock goes there because it is the only place where the birds can get this sustenance.
At one time the flock, or as the Charter of 1591 calls it, "the game of swans," amounted to 1,400 in number. However, the food supplies are adequate for the smaller number; and I need not remind your Lordships that artificial feeding is quite inadequate for these birds. It is precisely within the danger area that the new machine gun range will be established. The birds, which are very tame when nesting in the spring, become wild and easily disturbed during the autumn and winter months, and once the birds are dispersed it is very doubtful whether they will ever collect together again. I should like, incidentally, to remind your Lordships that this swannery, which is already scheduled under the Wild Birds Protection Act, also contains a large number of very interesting and scarce wild bird colonies.
I would like to say a word about the nature of land involved. Chesil Bank or Beach is a long, narrow neck of land, eight or nine miles long, lying between two sheets of water—between the lagoon on the land-side and the open sea to the south. It is a bit of the Dorsetshire coast, 100 yards in width, and in places from twenty to thirty feet high. In itself this bank is of the utmost interest to botanists and geologists. Wild England is represented in a unique fashion in this little bit of seaward land. And machine gun targets are to be placed upon it!Apart from the natural history point of view, there has been much criticism of this siting of targets on purely technical grounds. The target in the first place is fixed, which is
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not a condition normal in time of war. Not only is the target fixed, but the distance of the target from the aerodrome is equally fixed, and equally emphatic, because the target on this narrow neck of land must be within a few yards, you might almost say within a few feet, of the water line, which of course marks the area of the target as nothing else in the world could do; so that the distance from the aerodrome being known to a yard, and the distance from the water edge being equally known, it must surely provide a very mediocre type of practice ground.
Under service conditions picking lip the enemy objective is quite as important as the actual firing, and certainly requires as much practice. Now a place is chosen where that condition is notable for its absence, and it seems a very poor and unvarying type of exercise and education. The situation of the target ought not to be as unchangeable as it must be upon the bit of land chosen. A few weeks ago, in the summer, the Air Ministry was good enough to allow some of my friends to see a demonstration of firing at Long Sutton. There also the firing was directed against fixed targets —targets visible a mile away. I noticed that the aeroplanes flew very low and very slowly, and yet the shooting was very erratic. I noticed in particular a smoke bomb which fell at least 200 yards away from the target. We are told by the Air Ministry that no bullets will fall into the sea on Chesil Bank, nothing but empty cartridges. Well, my fears in that respect were not dispelled by what I saw last summer at Long Sutton.
But I think really that apart from the nature of the target, Chesil Bank is badly chosen on technical grounds because of restrictive pledges which have been already given by the Air Ministry, such as those given to the Borough of Weymouth. I think I am right in saying that the noble Viscount (Lord Swinton) has given a. pledge that no flying of aeroplanes shall take place over the built-up area of Weymouth, and presumably over its suburb of Chickerell as well, nor must there be flying at night. I am not sure whether those are facts, but that is the general belief in that area. If so, the Air Ministry has deliberately precluded itself from approaching the target from due east; in other words, a very important type of practice, that is, flying towards

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the objective with the sun low down in your eyes at sunset, is going to be impossible. That, again, strengthens the view, which I know is held by professional people, that this area has been badly chosen from a technical point of view. There are many other objections, to which I do not propose to refer, economic objections—the fisher folk for instance—and very fine farm land has to be taken. But I am not going to refer to that; I am limiting myself to the other aspects of the problem.
It is no good saying that this site is inevitable. I should like to say that, again speaking with very good local advice, it appears that an alternative site is available not far distant, similar to this site, with the same climate, the same conditions of light and wind, with equal accessibility to Portsmouth, to Salisbury Plain and to London, and not more expensive. I think it would be a very good thing if all these practising grounds were not so much concentrated in Hampshire and Dorsetshire.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE, FOR AIR (VISCOUNT SWINTON): What is the situation of the alternative site?
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: It is to the west.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: I thought so.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: It is close on to the west, but on the same assumption of lines of attack, would just spare the water where the zostera nana, the little under-water weed, thrives, the only place where it grows. I think there are so many training areas in Dorsetshire and Hampshire, for tanks, for rifle ranges, for seaplanes, for gunnery targets, for mining areas, for mine-sweeping, for submarines, that Abbotsbury might be spared. The local feeling on the subject is very strong. I see the noble Earl His Majesty's Lieutenant of the County, Lord Shaftesbury, who will be able to say how keenly exercised the local feeling is, and I shall not insist upon that, but I should like to say that what you might call the learned societies are very much concerned. The Trustees of the Natural History Museum are very much interested in the preservation of these birds and the lovers of nature all over England are united in this matter. We asked for an experiment to be made, a trial while the birds are on their winter feeding grounds. But
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even this was refused. The Air Ministry have been good enough to say that they will change the targets later on if the Swannery is injured. But surely it would be better, would it not, to make the test before the injury is done? I am confident that, once dispersed by firing, the birds will get frightened, will scatter, will get killed, and this unique Swannery will never be rehabilitated.
I speak on behalf of a great -group of lovers of nature, on behalf of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England. It is a federation of scores and hundreds of societies, including many public authorities, who are actuated by the motive of preserving rural England, as typified in its name. This Council knows perfectly well that the siting of aerodromes is a very complex affair. We admit that interference with all sorts of things is necessary when an aerodrome is set up—with shipping, with fishing, with industry, with agriculture, with residential areas and so on. And we most fully recognise the responsibility of the Air Ministry. To show our good faith, I should like to say that, though we are constantly approached by people who object to aerodromes being set up in their midst, we have never yet asked the Air Ministry to review or revise its decision on these matters—never once. This time we are doing it because we are confident that our case is really important, and because we believe that another site can be found.
Really, this Abbotsbury Swannery is a very precious asset, a real national asset. The very idea of its loss and dispersion fills my mind with horror and consternation. Do I exaggerate, if I rank it as one of the wonders of Britain, if I compare it with Kingley Vale, with Wicken Fen, with Rannoch Moor? For Abbots-bury Swannery in nature is what in human achievement are Maiden Castle, the Roman Wall and Stonehenge—great, glorious things which are irretrievable and irreplaceable. There is something solemn and grandiose about these great silent birds which have lived and thriven for 700 years in the lagoons called the Dorsetshire fleets. Now the interest in the preservation of nature is keen and it is growing constantly. We in Britain are now the best naturalists in the world We have got bird sanctuaries which are being extended all over the Empire. We have been very insensitive to these things

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in the past. We have allowed our country and our flora and our fauna to suffer very much from our heedlessness. We have lost the great bustard of the plains. We have lost the pine martin. In the last few years we have lost no fewer than thirty-five different kinds of wild flowers that have disappeared from our land—gone for ever. But we are making great efforts to try to arrest these losses. The eagle and the wild cat, the bittern and some of the greater lepidoptera, are no longer on the verge of extinction, but very much is still threatened. We cannot afford to lose any of the really wonderful things which still survive. That is why I ask your Lordships to be sympathetic about this Swannery at Abbotsbury. Its collective value, its value as a Swannery, is, as I say, unique and inestimable. I very earnestly press the Secretary of State to reconsider his decision. I beg to move for Papers.
THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY: My Lords, bear with me for a few moments while I add a remark or two to the arguments which have been so well put forward by the noble Earl who has introduced this subject. Born and bred in the County of Dorset I, with all others intimately connected with and intimately interested in that County, look askance at the proposals of the Air Ministry and at the plans which they have in view. I fully appreciate, and I am sure every noble Lord in this House will appreciate, the dire necessity that has forced the Air Minister to find some wild and remote spot free from harm and danger to the neighbouring district where the ever increasing numbers of the Air personnel can be trained, but here he seems to have lit upon a spot which, apart from its natural beauty, should, I think, claim to be immune from (shall I say?) his somewhat barbaric treatment. Take Chesil Beach for example.
As the noble Earl has told us, this is of real archæological interest. The age of it is, I think, not really known. It was formed certainly in prehistoric times, probably not much earlier than 2000 B.C. It is therefore of extraordinary geological interest, and were it not for this breakwater the Island of Portland would now be right out in the sea with the waves washing the chalk cliffs east and west of the point called Ridgway Hill, which is between Weymouth and Dorchester.
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Chesil Bank, as the noble Earl has said, is seven or eight miles long, and it has this curious property, that it grades its shingle continuously from west to east, from Bridport Bay to Portland. It has always been a surprise to me that this has not been long ago scheduled as an ancient monument. If it were so, I suppose we might have been treated to the spectacle of the Air Minister and the First Commissioner of Works scrapping over the carcase.
Not only has this Chesil Bank remarkable value, but there is also, as the noble Earl has told your Lordships, a danger inherent in these proposals to this Abbotsbury Swannery. This is, as must be realised by now, not only of local but also of national and European value and interest. It is absolutely unique and of paramount interest to all lovers of nature and of bird life. Cogent and weighty arguments were put forward by great authorities when the Air Minister was kind enough to receive a deputation, and weighty arguments have been put forward by the noble Earl this evening. Therefore I do not want to dwell upon this point. Suffice it for me to say that we on the County Council of Dorset have twice passed unanimous resolutions strongly deprecating these proposals, whilst our Archæological Society is really seriously perturbed and alarmed at the harm that may ensue. I really think that the swans might be allowed to rest in peace and pursue their peaceful practices unmolested and undisturbed by the marauding hand of man. I make this final appeal to the Air Minister that he should further seriously consider the objections we have raised, and that he should find some other spot altogether away from the County of Dorset, but if he cannot do that, let him take into consideration moving further west where the same objection cannot be raised.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, I am very glad that the noble Earl has raised this question in your Lordships' House, because it gives me the opportunity of making a very full statement, and I am sure your Lordships would wish to have a full statement about the whole position of the proposed firing range. The matter was exhaustively considered by the Air Ministry before I went there and decisions had been taken, but in view of the representations

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which I received from the noble Earl and others, and the great interest rightly attaching to the Swannery, I felt it my duty to review the whole question myself.
I came to it entirely new and with a completely unprejudiced mind. No, that is hardly true. I came to it rather with a prejudiced mind because I came to it with the natural inclination to find some way out which was agreeable to everybody. In a great national undertaking like the expansion of the Air Force one has a very keen desire to carry everyone with one, to get the maximum of co-operation and the minimum of friction. I also came to it frankly with a prejudice that it must be possible to find some alternative site somewhere along the British coast. I want to give your Lordships the facts, as I have found them to be, from the national point of view, and I am sure your Lordships will give me credit for having made a very close personal investigation of all the considerations involved.
Under the expansion scheme in which the Home Air Force will be at least trebled, it is absolutely necessary for us to have nine or ten of these machine-gun ranges. These ranges have got to be in constant use in order to give the necessary training, and if you select a site for a range that you can only put to a limited use and use at certain seasons only, that means you must have a larger number of ranges, because ten is, I think, really the minimum number required for the central training of the Force. Every single squadron has to undertake this form of training every year. There are a number of factors every one of which has to be present in a range which is to afford a satisfactory training ground. First of all the range must be suitable for two types of training. My noble friend said that this would be a bad place because a stationary target was not in itself enough. That is perfectly true, although firing at a stationary target is a very necessary part of training. We have all of us who were trained to use rifles had to fire at a stationary object upon a rifle range.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Stationary in the sense that it, cannot be moved, because the ground on which it is situated is so narrow.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: I do not think the opinion of the experts—and I have to rely upon expert advice for this—is that this is a very material consideration. But you have to have two types of firing. There is not merely the firing at a target on the ground, there has to be firing at a moving target out at sea, and both of these kinds of practice must be done by every single one of these aeroplanes. You therefore have to have not only a target on the ground but you have to have what we call a "towed" target—a target which is towed along behind the aeroplane, and at which the other plane, in order to carry out its practice, fires. That, of course, involves the width of the danger zone. The result of that is that all the ranges that are selected must be upon the coast. That is the second condition. Then, because you have to have both types of firing made possible, you have to have a danger zone which will extend to three miles out to sea in order to ensure safety when you are firing against this moving target in the air.
It follows, as another condition, that you must find a site which interferes as little as possible with shipping or fishing and which does not inconvenience a populous area. There is a further consideration which, I am bound to say, had not occurred to me at first but which is very necessary, and that is that the meteorological conditions of the air should be suitable. You must be able, if you are to carry out your training, to carry it out day after day, and you cannot, therefore, select some site, which might otherwise appear suitable, if there is a constant prevalence of low cloud or of fog. Another consideration is that you have to have unobstructed approach to the target. These machines, as an essential part of their practice, must dive out of the air in order to descend upon their ground target. That is an essential part of their practice for the work required of them in war. That means that you cannot take a site with hills close behind you, a fact which in itself rules out a very large number of sites. It rules out, incidentally, a site further to the west to which the noble Earl referred. The Ministry has most carefully considered this particular site which was suggested to us, with a very genuine anxiety to adopt it if it were possible to do so, but I am advised that to adopt

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that site would definitely be either to render your fire largely impracticable or to involve a risk which, if diving is to be done, you would not be justified in asking your men to undertake. Lastly, you have to have a range which is reasonably near either to an existing aerodrome or a place where you can site an aerodrome, because you have to move these squadrons into their training camp one after another, and they must be able to get fairly quickly from the aerodrome to the target.
Every one of those conditions has to be present in any range which is taken. The whole coast of England and Wales and Scotland has been most carefully surveyed in order to find a suitable range, and we have not yet succeeded in getting the minimum number that we require. There are four already in existence out of the nine or ten required—Catfoss, Yorkshire, North Coates Fittes, Lincolnshire, Sutton Bridge, Cambridgeshire, and Leuchars, Fifeshire (which is well known to the noble Earl). Two more have been selected and approved—a place appropriately called Hell's Mouth, Carnarvonshire, and Luce Bay, Wigtownshire. There are, further, two provisional sites, of which Chesil Beach is one and the other is in Northumberland. We have even gone as far afield as Cromarty Firth, which is now under investigation, although it is expensive and inconvenient to have a site so far away from where the squadrons undergo their ordinary training and from their ordinary stations. The mere fact that we are investigating there, and probably shall have to go there if it is practicable, does show your Lordships how wide is our search to find suitable places and how far afield we are prepared to go.
Now, my Lords, these are facts which I simply could not get away from in coming to a decision on this matter. I felt, as I am sure any of your Lordships in my position would have felt, that, charged with the duty of seeing this expansion scheme go through in a short space of time, and the necessity of maintaining efficient training during that period, when one squadron would succeed another, and in the period coming after, nothing but the very strongest grounds could justify me in reversing the action already taken and taking a decision which I honestly felt, and could not help but honestly feel,
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would be definitely prejudicial to national defence. That is the national case for this site. Let me come to the objections. Objections were taken on three grounds, only one of which is urgently pressed in your Lordships' House to-day. There were certain objections originally raised by the Weymouth Council in respect of which, they tell me, they are completely satisfied.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Was I correct in saying what I did about that?
VISCOUNT SWINTON: Yes. Assurances have been given, and given frequently, in the case of Weymouth, that there will not be flying by night over the town, but that does not include Chickerell. I am advised that the noble Earl is wrong in his assertion that those assurances will prejudice us in the use of the range. I am bound to give the noble Earl the considered view of my expert advisers, and I would ask your Lordships to accept that. As regards the fishing interests, the Ministry of Agriculture, who are always consulted with regard to any of these ranges, advise us that no site in the southern area was likely to cause so little interference with fishing. That is their considered view. Fortunately there is no shipping along this route, and your Lordships will appreciate how difficult it is, when you must have a three mile danger area out to sea, to find an area where you do not cause some interference with either coastal or other shipping. Special arrangements have been made in order to protect the interests of the seine fishermen, who fish from the ridge of Chesil Beach and who will have free access to the whole of the area of the beach except over 1,000 yards at the time of actual firing. I think the maximum that is possible has been done to meet their case.
The real issue, I quite agree, is the case of the swannery. I have already dealt with the question of the site considerably further west to which the noble Earl referred. We would have taken that with the greatest pleasure if it had been practicable, but because of the hills it is not a site which we could use as a range. It was originally proposed, as the noble Earl will remember, that the range should be sited rather further to the west; but we were asked not to do that because that would interfere with

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what I think is called the "summer range" of the swans. Therefore the present site was selected. That involves possible risk when the swans are on their winter feeding ground, to which they are attracted by a weed which grows in this particular place and which forms their winter feed. Any one who is not familiar with air experience would naturally think that any bird is likely to be terrified by an aeroplane flying over it, particularly if it is flying low, and by the firing of machine guns from aeroplanes. But I would ask your Lordships, in weighing the merits of this case, as it has been my duty to do, to take into account the accumulated experience which has been gained by the Air Ministry on other ranges of the same kind. There is Leuchars, where firing has been going on for years. There a ternery runs right up to the targets, and a bird sanctuary lies between the aerodrome and the targets, I think only a mile and a half away.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Less, about a mile.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: This bird sanctuary is only a mile away from the targets, and the birds continue to live there between where the aeroplanes take off and the actual target at which they shoot. It is interesting to note that long before there was any controversy over this particular site there were photographs in Country Life of the birds on the ranges, showing how little could be the effect of guns and aeroplanes upon them. Then there is Leysdown, in Sheppey, where there is an armament school and where firing experiments take place and have taken place for twenty years. Yet, summer and winter, every kind of wild fowl congregates and stays there. Then there is Lydd, near Dungeness, where we have another of these targets, and I would like to quote to your Lordships a letter written recently to The Times by Mr. Reginald Denham. He wrote:
"Those ornithologists who criticise the decision of the Air Ministry regarding Chesil Bank would do well to pay a visit to Lydd, where aeroplane target practice is a regular occurrence throughout the year. A mile to the east of the target field is the well-known Dungeness ternery; a mile to the west the Midrips, a series of saltwater fleets, 'where almost any bird may be seen any day of the year.'
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I have been present several times this year while firing has been in progress, and have seen swans, shelduck, grey plover, whinbrel, innumerable terns, duck gulls, and waders completely unperturbed by the 'terrifying swoops' of aeroplanes driving over the fleets.
This summer there has been an enormous increase of trippers to the. Camber Sands near by. Their bungalows disfigure the coastline, and their sardine tins desecrate the foreshore. Fortunately these people are forbidden to approach or overrun the Midrips owing to danger from aeroplane fire. The birds may therefore be said paradoxically to be protected by target practice."
It is true that we have never had a target at a swannery, but on that point I should like to quote a letter from Sir Kenneth Crossley, who lives at Comber-mere Abbey, Shropshire. He wrote a letter to The Times in which he said:
"Judging from my own experience the Trustees of the British Museum and the Council of the Linnean Society need have no apprehension as regards the swans being disturbed by aeroplanes. There are frequently between 50 and 100 swans on my mere, and I can fly at 100 ft. above them without their taking the slightest notice. It is the same with Canada geese, which are much wilder birds. Mallard occasionally swim into the reeds, but never rise."
I need not read the rest of his letter, but he goes on to say that there is a heronry which he constantly flies over when the birds are nesting.
In view of the accumulated experience I think one is bound to come to the conclusion that what are quite natural anticipations of serious risk and cause for anxiety are really very unlikely to materialise. It fell to my unhappy lot to have to take the decision as to whether, in the face of that evidence, I was to do a thing which I must say without hesitation to your Lordships would seriously prejudice the training and efficiency of -the Air Force. If I could find another site, I would take it to-morrow and take it thankfully, but the question I had to face was whether the use of this range at Chesil Beach was to be stopped with the certain knowledge that if I did stop it I was going to prejudice, and prejudice seriously, the training of a large number of squadrons in the Air Force. I am perfectly certain that any of your Lordships if put in my position of responsibility could have come to no other conclusion than to say, as I said, "I must endorse the decision previously taken."

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By that I must stand, but I am most anxious to do anything to avoid any possibility of risk to this Swannery. I made the suggestion that in the winter, if serious disturbance were caused to the swans, the targets could be put out at sea. It would be highly inconvenient, but we would do it. I have another suggestion provided the area is satisfactory, and I think it would be, from a technical point of view. There is no question about the summer time, when the swans are away in the Swannery to the west. In that time, no injury can possibly be done. It is a perfectly reasonable site for this range during the summer. The anxiety is in the winter months, when they are on this narrow triangle of water where the weed grows most extensively. What I would suggest is that, as the swans move, so we should move, and that when the swans come on to their winter feeding-ground we should move the target a distance of about two miles to the west, which would be rather near to the site which was previously considered, but was found unsuitable for them on their summer range. If that is, from a technical point of view, a possibility for the Air Force, I would undertake that it should be done. In that way I think we could do the maximum possible to ensure that, whether the swans are in their summer or their winter quarters, they shall incur the least possible risk.
I am afraid I have spoken at rather great length, but I felt that your Lordships had a really genuine anxiety in this matter—as I had. I want your Lordships to appreciate the national side as well as—I am not going to call it the local side; the two national aspects of this question. I hope after what I have said that your Lordships will agree that I have taken the only decision which was possible to one who has my responsibilities, and that I have given such undertaking as is possible to make this further variation, which I hope will insure against any conceivable risk, however remote.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, may I be allowed to thank the Secretary of State for his very interesting reply? I will not comment on many controversial things that he has stated, but I should like, if I may, just to thank him for his concluding words. It is difficult to appreciate off-hand without large-scale maps the exact connotation of what he
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proposes. I hope it means that his advisers feel that there may be a possible alternative site, variable according to the season of the year, to the west of the proposed targets.
VISCOUNT SWINTON; No, my Lords, I do not want my noble friend to be under a misapprehension. It would mean that during the summer we use the site which is at present selected, but during the winter, when, as I understand, the swans move to the water immediately behind that target, we should move further west and have a target to the west during the winter months.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: That is to say that the movement of the swans should vary inversely with that of the airmen. I am very much obliged to my noble friend. I will merely ask him in conclusion if he will permit us to talk the matter over with him in his office at his leisure. I wish, if it he your pleasure, to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

THE LATE EARL JELLICOE.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (VISCOUNT HALIFAX): My Lords, before the House adjourns, I think I ought to tell your Lordships that arrangements have been made for a Motion to be moved in another place on Thursday in connection with a memorial to the late Earl Jellicoe. I think perhaps it would be your Lordships' wish, following precedents in other similar cases, that an opportunity should be taken simultaneously in this House to enable us to pay our tribute to the Admiral's memory.