Lords Sitting of 29 April 1936

Preamble
The House met at a quarter before four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
LORD STRATHCARRON.
The Right Honourable Sir James Ian Macpherson, Baronet, K.C., having been created Baron Strathcarron of Banchor in the County of Inverness—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
THORNTON CLEVELEYS IMPROVEMENT BILL.
Read 2a.
MERSEY DOCKS AND HARBOUR BOARD BILL.
Read 2a.
SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE WATER BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (BRIDPORT JOINT HOSPITAL DISTRICT) BILL.
Read 2a (according to Order).
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (LUTON) BILL.
Read 2a (according to Order).
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (MATLOCK) BILL.
Read 2a (according to Order).

SOCIAL SERVICES IN POLICE COURTS.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL THE EARL OF LISTOWEL rose to ask His Majesty's Government what action they propose to take to implement the recommendations of the Departmental Committee on Social Services in Police

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Courts; and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I feel certain that you will agree with me that the first words spoken by the opening speaker on the first Motion before us this afternoon should be words of thanks and praise for those who have been responsible for this very remarkable document, a Departmental Report which combines in peculiarly British fashion the qualities of humanitarianism and solid common sense. I am thinking first and foremost of the members of this small Committee which has been sitting for the last year and a half. We have the great good fortune of having one member of this body present with us this afternoon on the Benches opposite. But I am thinking also of all those who in the last few years have been doing their level best to give a lead to public opinion in this matter, and to urge upon the Government the necessity for a thorough inquiry with a view to taking any practical steps that may be advisable. Your Lordships' House has played a very considerable part. I feel convinced that it was owing to the intervention of several noble Lords belonging to all the different Parties in your Lordships' House and owing to the intervention of the most reverend Primate that the Government ultimately decided that this Committee ought to be appointed. I am sure your Lordships will agree with me that very special mention should be made of the unremitting efforts of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Merrivale. He went so far as to introduce a measure in your Lordships' House and succeeded in carrying it through all its stages—not only a very notable achievement in itself, but a very convincing testimony to the importance which he attaches to the reforms that are suggested in this Report.
There has been also a very considerable movement of opinion outside the Houses of Parliament. I would like to mention particularly the writings of the Metropolitan Police Magistrate, Mr. Claud Mullins, and the example he has set by the methods adopted for the treatment of matrimonial cases in his court. It is, I think, peculiarly refreshing to find a member of the legal profession taking the lead in legal reform, because that is the direction naturally in which the public look. When we remember that the police courts affect most closely the lives of those citizens who
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have recourse to the law in this country, we must be particularly grateful to the professional magistrates who set an example that may easily be followed by the rest of their profession and that may lead ultimately to the passing of measures through Parliament to improve the condition of law and procedure.
There can, I think, be no doubt at all that whatever effect this Report may have its most important effect will be to give a strong impetus to the cause of legal and social reform. This small body of extremely competent individuals has been working solidly for a year and a half. It has heard a great number of witnesses, it has sifted the evidence, and after prolonged consideration it has reached certain conclusions which are embodied in this Report. Those conclusions relate partly to the treatment accorded to matrimonial cases in the police courts and partly to the working of the probation service. In both cases the Committee recommend certain very drastic and far-reaching reforms. There can be no doubt, I think, that reforms that are sponsored in this manner will have a considerable influence in many circles among those who study the Report. I am thinking, of course, to some extent of those who legislate, who naturally wish to consult expert opinion of this kind, but I am also thinking of those who are in any way concerned with the administration of justice in courts of summary jurisdiction. It would be extremely pleasant if one could believe that this small volume would become the vade mecum of all Stipendiary Magistrates and of all the justices of the peace wherever they may be at work throughout the country.
Now I will very briefly—because there is a great deal of business upon the Order Paper this afternoon—proceed to ask your Lordships' attention for the main recommendations contained in this Report, and to ask the Government what steps they intend to take to make them practical and effective. The two main problems with which the Report deals—that of difficulties between husbands and wives, and difficulties for their children arising out of them, and that of the state of the probation service—are, on a long view, certainly indissoluble. It is perfectly evident that we cannot exploit the machinery of conciliation to the utmost

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in quarrels between husbands and wives unless we have a certain number of well-trained probation officers. On a long view, the state of the probation service is of the utmost consequence to the treatment of these matrimonial cases in the police courts, but unfortunately we are precluded by the nature of the particular circumstances from taking a long-term view. If we were to do so, it would mean postponing all action for a very considerable period of time.
Why is this? The reasons are very clear and very simple. The most important recommendations in this Report in regard to the probation services are very drastic. I know that there are many who will agree with me that they are excellent in quality; at the same time I am fully convinced that there are many who will say that, because they are so sweeping, they are at the moment impracticable. In the first place, there can be no doubt that they are controversial. The suggestion that the probation service should be organised on national lines and become a national service is one which we on these Benches naturally welcome and which will find a great deal of support in many different quarters, but it is also one that is bound to meet with opposition among different bodies and from many influential individuals. That is the first reason why it is going to be difficult to get progress with these recommendations affecting the probation service.
The second reason is this. Owing to the necessity of improving the technique of probation, for increasing the number of probation officers, for providing adequate remuneration, for giving them the proper training without which they could not discharge their functions, the Committee have been obliged to recommend that the Government should spend more money on this social service. The sum in question is ludicrously small: it is a matter, in the first year, of only £25,000, a very minute item in a Budget of £800,000,000. But it is perfectly comprehensible that when the country is faced with the necessity of feeding those services which provide for the national defences, it is obliged to neglect those services that provide at home for the welfare of the common people. That is why I fear that this recommendation, involving additional expenditure, will mean that the Government
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will be unable to take action in this respect. At the same time I should like to say that we on these Benches welcome the proposal that this great service, ministering to the welfare of so many thousands of human beings, should be organised on national lines and accepted as a national responsibility.
Those are the reasons why it is necessary to separate the two problems and to treat the question of matrimonial cases independently of the organisation of the probation service. The Government will have no excuse to give if they refuse to take action upon the recommendation regarding the treatment of husband-and-wife cases in the police court. These recommendations are really uncontroversial; I know of nobody who opposes them in principle. They do not involve the addition of one extra farthing to the annual Budget. I am not saying that they should be implemented in full detail; I am simply urging that the principles outlined in the main recommendations should become the basis for a Bill which the Government should see passed through both Houses of Parliament.
The fundamental principles which are contained in these recommendations and which cannot be omitted from any Bill which may be introduced are these. In the first place, it should become mandatory on all magistrates and justices of the peace to hear cases of this kind separately from the ordinary criminal cases that come before the police courts. At present this is a matter left to the discretion of the bench. There are some magistrates who have already adopted this procedure, but it can only become universal if an obligation is placed upon the magistrates by an addition to our Statute law. The second proposal is that the number of justices sitting on the bench should be limited and that among these there should be at least one woman. In order that the atmosphere may be totally different from that which prevails when a man is charged, say, with petty theft or with negligence in driving a car, and that it should be more informal, the number of justices should be limited. There can be no doubt that a large bench exercises a very terrifying influence on men and women who have to come and tell their story before it, and the importance of having at least one woman among the magistrates is

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that, in order to be able to sift truth from falsehood, it is necessary to have somebody who understands the kind of point of view that a wife is likely to express.
But even more important than the last recommendation is the proposal that attendance in court of those who wish to listen to proceedings should be limited to individuals who have a good reason for being there; that is to say, to members of the court, the people concerned with the business of the court on the administration side and all those immediately concerned in the case itself. This would exclude on the one hand the idle sightseers, the local unemployed who come because they have nothing better to do and want a little entertainment of a very doubtful kind, and on the other hand the venomous neighbour—unfortunately, venomous neighbours are not by any means the exception—who goes to a case of this kind in order to find material for gossip and possibly for slander. It would in no way mean a drastic alteration in the existing law; it would simply involve a provision in the Children and Young-Persons Act, 1933, being extended to cover this class of case. Then, besides limiting the "quality" of those who attend and seeing that they are there for a really adequate reason, it ought to be possible to restrict newspaper reports of proceedings to the essential and necessary facts of the case. It is exceedingly unpleasant for difficulties of this kind to be reported in detail in the columns of the daily Press. It ought to be possible to prevent this catering for unpleasant appetites and also to prevent to some extent any very sensational presentation of facts, which is harmful in itself and specially injurious to the parties concerned. This, again, would mean no gagging of the Press, no interference with the liberty of the Press beyond that which is allowed by the existing law. It simply means that a provision that at present applies to the Divorce Court should be extended to cover this class of case in the police courts.
These are, I think, the four principal recommendations of this Committee as they affect matrimonial cases, and what I wish particularly to ask my noble friend opposite, when he answers on behalf of the Government, is what action he
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intends to take to implement those recommendations of this Committee which have in principle already received your Lordships' approval, and which are of so practical a nature that no serious objection has been raised against them in any quarter. I am referring, of course, to the recommendations about the handling of matrimonial cases, and I think we are entitled to ask the noble Earl, if he says that the Government intend to take action, what particular form that action will take. We should clearly like a Bill introduced with the full weight of the Government behind it. That, possibly, is asking more than the Government will be prepared to give, but if not can my noble friend opposite assure us that the Government will give support to a Private Members' Bill introduced into your Lordships' House; and, supposing your Lordships return the same verdict as you returned a short time ago on the Bill of the noble and learned Lord opposite, Lord Merrivale, which contained in principle exactly the same proposition, will the Government do all in their power to provide time in another place for the final passage of this measure? Those are questions which I am sure my noble friend will agree with me are perfectly fair and perfectly legitimate. I beg to move the Motion for Papers standing in my name.
LORD SNELL: My Lords, if no other of your Lordships proposes to speak on this matter I would like to say, on behalf of my noble friends, that we are grateful to my noble friend Lord Listowel for putting his Question on the Paper, because it deals with a matter which we regard as very urgent although not perhaps of a dramatic kind. I have myself had the privilege of taking some interest in this matter for a good many years, and it is merely to relate in a few words my special experience in regard to it that I venture to trouble your Lordships at all. I did for many years, in another place, introduce a Bill which attempted to establish in this country Courts of Domestic Relations. The need for that seemed to me at that time, and has always seemed to me, to be obvious, first, because the police courts were not and are not places most suitable for dealing with difficulties of that kind, and secondly, because the magistrates are like other people, suitable, some of them, for a particular class

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of work and unsuitable for other classes of work. Some of the magistrates whose main duties are in other directions have neither the training nor the time to deal with these most delicate and yet really important family questions. The time of magistrates gets more and more taken up with traffic incidents. The courts are filled with policemen waiting to give evidence on traffic and other questions, and the whole atmosphere is entirely unsuitable for the transaction of this kind of work.
It was with that in my mind that some years ago I saw in America the way the problem was tackled there, and I had the privilege, at the invitation of various Judges of the Courts of Domestic Relations in New York, Chicago, St. Louis and other places, of sitting for days on the bench by the side of the Judge, listening to the cases and observing the way in which they were dealt with. I had the privilege of seeing the books, and of going into the whole details of the administration of this special work. The probation system is much more developed there than in our own country. My own judgment of it was that, although it was not uniformly good, yet the main results were excellent; and I cannot help feeling that if more opportunities and more power were given to those good Samaritans of the courts in our own land it would be for good. The noble Earl who has spoken said something about the expense. There would be some immediate expense, but all the experience of America and Canada is that money spent in this way saves the rates and the taxes from a prison population, and in other directions.
It is proved by statistics in America that a very large proportion of juvenile delinquents come from broken homes and from homes that might not have been broken had a system, roughly, such as is recommended by this Report been in operation. It was on those grounds that I ventured to introduce Bills in another place, but I was never fortunate enough to get time to have them considered. I do not imagine that we either could or should copy what is done in any other land. Our problem is rather different, and it is not our way in this country to abolish an evil, however bad it may be, at one fell stroke. We rather like to modify an evil, and so, although this
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Report does not please me in the completeness of its recommendations, I do think it approaches a most difficult subject, and I want to join with my noble friend in appealing to the Government to give it their immediate and, I hope, very sympathetic consideration.
THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM: My Lords, I would immediately wish to associate myself with the opening remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Snell, in expressing our gratitude to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for giving your Lordships' House an opportunity of ventilating by discussion the recommendations in the Report. I am grateful myself, not only as the representative in your Lordships' House of the Home Office, but also as a member of the Committee whose Report is now under discussion. I am certain that your Lordships will appreciate that, owing to the short period since the Report was published—less than a month—there has not been sufficient time for the Government to give to the various questions raised by the Report the full consideration that they require. But I wish to say at once that the Home Office is in very full sympathy with the general objects of the Report, and that the Committee's proposals are now receiving the sympathetic attention of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. He is no less glad than I am myself that there should be a discussion of the Report and he welcomes the opportunity that has been afforded for the examination of its proposals in this House.
Your Lordships will perhaps have observed that the Report falls into three main parts. The first deals with the matrimonial jurisdiction of the magistrates, the second with the probation system, and the third with the miscellaneous social services which generally fall upon a probation officer. No one, I believe, can question the great importance of the matrimonial work which at the present time falls upon the magistrates. The matrimonial cases which come before the petty sessional courts are much more numerous than those which come before the Divorce Court. I remember that when this matter was last discussed in your Lordships' House the noble and learned Lord, Lord Merrivale, whom I am very glad to see in his place this afternoon, and who has brought to

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this subject the assistance of his special experience and authority, agreed with me on that point. The Committee's inquiry shows that the magistrates as a body are generally alive to the importance of this work and are anxious, in administering the law, on the one hand to avoid unnecessary separations and, on the other hand, to see that when applicants have proper grounds for orders, whether they be maintenance orders or separation orders, those applications are made in accordance with the spirit and with the purpose of the law. But the courts are hampered in many directions by the defects of procedure.
It is obvious that matrimonial cases stand on quite a different footing from the criminal cases, and the methods to which the courts have become accustomed in dealing with offenders are not necessarily the methods which are most suitable for dealing with domestic disputes. Some courts recognise, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has told us, the undesirability of mixing the two classes of work, and they therefore hold separate sittings for matrimonial cases. The Committee very strongly recommend that this practice should be generally adopted, and they further suggest that at these special sittings the bench should be limited to three justices, of whom one should be a woman. I think it is obvious to those who have had experience in the administration of courts of summary jurisdiction that a crowded bench is not desirable, and the difficulties that can be counteracted by the elimination of a full rota of a bench dealing with matrimonial disputes are very great indeed. It is to be hoped that justices throughout the country will recognise the advantages of making special arrangements in their selection of magistrates to serve at the hearing of matrimonial cases.
The Committee have also dealt with the difficult subject of publicity of matrimonial proceedings in the magistrates' courts. In the Report we recommend that there should be power to restrict the admission of the public to the court during the course of such proceedings in such a way as to preserve the essential feaures of a public trial, while at the same time preventing the abuses which arise from the presence of curious neighbours, sightseers and loungers, who are only attracted to the court by morbid interest. The Committee have also
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recommended that there should be a check on newspaper reports similar to the check already imposed on reports of divorce proceedings. This would of course require legislation, and may be expected to raise controversy, and your Lordships will, I feel confident, appreciate that I cannot be expected to make a pronouncement on this subject at the present moment.
The Committee received very useful information on the question of how best to provide for conciliation in those cases where a separation can properly be avoided. The question to be kept in mind in this connection is how to reconcile the legal duty of the magistrates to give judgment according to law on facts proved before them with the social duty of seeing that poor people who are not legally represented fully understand the consequences of a separation order, and are not led by ignorance or inexperience into some position which they do not want and which they will quickly regret. In law the only duty of the magistrate is to decide whether legal grounds for separation are proved, but in practice the magistrate realises that to interpret too narrowly his legal duty would be contrary to the public interest and often to the interests of the parties themselves.
Therefore, at almost all courts some arrangements are made for investigation of the question whether conciliation is practicable and desirable. In a few districts this question is taken up by an individual member of the bench, who sometimes interviews the parties himself, but the general practice is to delegate this work to the probation officer, and the Committee believe that the best practice is for the probation officer to make a careful investigation into the circumstances of the parties to the dispute, in order that he can effect a reconciliation, if a reconciliation is possible. As the noble Viscount, Lord Sankey, then Lord Chancellor, pointed out when this subject was debated in 1934, a magistrate who, in the course of conciliation proceedings, has had before him information which is not evidence in law cannot, if the case subsequently comes into court, apply his mind impartially to the evidence on which the court's decision must be based. For this reason, the Committee, while recognising that the magistrates should make proper arrangements

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for conciliation work and should exercise control over it, were definitely of opinion that conciliation proceedings should be kept separate from court proceedings. If conciliation duties are assigned, as we thought they should be assigned, to the probation officer, it is most important, first, that the court or one of the magistrates should consider and decide in each case whether or not conciliation is to be attempted. Secondly, conciliation work, like any other work of a probation officer, should be properly supervised; and, thirdly, the probation staff should be sufficient in number and in competence to carry out this most important work.
This brings me to the second part of the Report, which is devoted to the need of developing and improving the probation service. There is no need for me to argue the value of the probation service. It may, of course, be arguable that some courts use the Probation Act too freely and without sufficient discrimination, but that there are numerous cases in which probation is the best method of treatment is recognised by everyone who has sat as a magistrate. In fact, to-day, I believe everyone recognises that the probation service is an essential part of the machinery of courts of summary jurisdiction. But the conception of what constitutes a sufficient probation service varies very widely, and there are unfortunately still many areas in different parts of the country in which far less effective use is made of this service than ought to be made. There are in England and Wales a thousand courts of summary jurisdiction. Each of them is a separate unit, and naturally some variation is to be expected amongst these many independent bodies, but the variations in the use made of the service of probation officers and in the efficiency of this service are far greater than can be attributed to differences in local conditions and local circumstances. Arrangements can be made and, in fact, have been made for many of our petty sessional courts in the country, each of which has comparatively few cases, to combine together for the purpose of employing a probation officer or probation officers, but full use has not yet been made of the possibilities of combination, and it is strange that to-day there are still many courts content to rely upon the services of part-time probation officers who are paid purely nominal salaries.
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In some places the so-called probation officer is paid £5 or less. Generally speaking, part-time probation officers receive a salary of £5 to £25 per year, and they can only supervise occasional offenders assigned to their care. It is impossible for them to attend the courts regularly or to carry out those numerous social services which occupy a very important part of the time of a full-time probation officer. There are, of course, some part-time probation officers who serve three or four times a week and devote the greater part of their activities to the public work of the courts, receiving remuneration of £25 to £30 per year. I believe that no one can read the chapter of the Committee's Report which summarises the facts about the probation service without realising that large measures of reorganisation should be set on foot as quickly as possible. The court which thinks it has done what is necessary when it has paid a few pounds a year to a local resident to undertake the supervision of offenders has, in my opinion, not realised the full meaning of probation. Neither has it realised the extent of the assistance which it can derive from an officer who has the qualification, the training, and the time to act as the court's social investigator and helper in the many miscellaneous problems which should be investigated if the court is to work efficiently.
I am glad that the noble Earl made reference to the necessity of inquiries being made. Inquiries ought to be made before the court decides whether to place an offender on probation or not. I believe it is not sufficiently understood, as the Home Office would wish it to be understood, that social investigation inquiries are to-day an essential feature of the procedure of courts of summary jurisdiction. It is to the probation officer that the courts can turn for the information it is so necessary to have if the proper sentence or method of treatment is to be meted out to the individual offenders who appear before that court. The extent to which probation can be used depends very largely on the extent of the probation officer's capacity. The wider employment of full-time officers would involve very little extra expense. If the standard of probation is to be raised throughout the country, and the more backward districts are to be brought

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up to the level of the more progressive, the Committee regard it as essential that the Home Office should do more than it has hitherto done in the way of giving help and guidance to the local courts. The question of how best to secure a proper measure of central supervision, whilst still maintaining the principle that the local court is responsible for this service, was very carefully considered by the Committee, and that subject is now having the consideration of the Home Secretary.
From this outline of the Committee's Report it will be seen that, while a number of the proposals are dependent on legislation, others merely involve a better use by the justices of the existing powers. On the question of legislation, I regret that I am not in a position to make any statement at present beyond saying that the Home Secretary recognises that this subject requires early attention. On the question of how far improvements can be effected in advance of legislation, I would say that much can be done by bringing the Report of the Committee to the notice of justices and of justices' clerks. There are many noble Lords who, at Quarter Sessions or petty sessions, take a share in the work of the justices, and I would ask all those who serve in that capacity to study the Report of the Committee and to do what they can to bring the Committee's findings to the notice of the justices with whom they are associated.
Progress in this matter does not depend entirely upon legislation, but largely on a fuller understanding by the justices up and down the country of the importance of the probation officer as a general agent for the social services connected with the courts of summary jurisdiction. Everyone who has had experience of work in the magistrates' courts knows that in many cases justice cannot be done if the court merely depend on the parties to bring all relevant facts to the notice of the court. Few of the persons concerned who come before the magistrates' courts are legally represented, and few of them have the ability to set before the court all the relevant facts and considerations. It is therefore necessary, not only in matrimonial cases but in almost all cases, that the court should have its own means of inquiry. Efficiency depends on the choice of the right man or woman for
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this purpose and the payment of a proper salary; on the interest taken by the justices in the work of the court; on the supervision which they exercise over the probation officers, and on the help that they give to the probation officer by providing him with necessary facilities, including, of course, in busy courts, proper office accommodation and equipment.
To starve this service either by failing to provide the comparatively small amount of money needed, or by failure on the part of the justices to devote sufficient time and attention to the organisation and supervision of this work, is, I think, contrary to the social interest of the country and to the maintenance of judicial efficiency. I hope your Lordships will forgive me for replying at some length to the question raised by the noble Earl opposite. I have done so because I was associated with the service of probation long before I entered your Lordships' House and, personally, I am most anxious to see the recommendations of the Report, which was the result of a very thorough investigation, implemented at the earliest possible date.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I am sure my noble friend opposite, Lord Listowel, will feel that there is ground for encouragement to-day in the response that the Home Office has made through my noble friend on the Front Bench to the appeal now addressed to them. Some encouragement perhaps is not uncalled for. The question is not a new one. It is a matter of the utmost gravity as affecting the social well-being of our country and the question not only of maintaining but of raising the standard of domestic life in this country. It is indeed of great importance there. It is a question of great importance, too, with regard to the administration of justice. It is a curious thing—I have called attention to this aspect before—how, since there came to be magisterial jurisdiction to deal with domestic disputes, the tendency has been always increasingly strong down to very recent times to make the business merely a judicial business. It is not merely a judicial business; it is a matter of the social well-being of our fellow countrymen and countrywomen; and I am glad to think from what one hears from various quarters that the

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efforts the noble Earl has been making for a long time now are meeting with a real response.
The Committee's Report is a very encouraging one. The noble Earl, Lord Feversham, naturally does not feel himself able to promise legislative action upon it. I am not much surprised at that. Everybody who knows the crowded state of affairs in the House of Commons and the immense difficulties which the Government have to face in these times sympathises with those who have to deal with the subject. But, after all, there are two parts of this question. One of them is a wide reorganisation of—I will not call it a police service but a service of control over the conduct of married people by the appointment and satisfactory management of probation officers. That is a very large question. Throughout my own life I have been so well accustomed to see things best done by voluntary unpaid action that I should be glad if voluntary unpaid action could still be relied upon, and that we should not make this a mere official departmental affair. But there is not only the question of setting up a new Department. I have indicated the degree of sympathy I feel with those who take that view. The Report goes farther.
The Report does say that action, which in this House has been endorsed by the unanimous vote of your Lordships time and again, was embodied in a Bill which has had the support of representative people throughout the country, including the Magistrates Associations and social agencies, including the two Houses of Convocation and the Church Assembly. The effort to make that Bill the law has been frustrated by want of time in the House of Commons. It was frustrated in the first instance, and I think in the second instance too, by want of time, and what one asks now is whether it would be of any use now to reintroduce a Bill of that kind. If there were some encouragement from the Government that in case the Bill does prove to meet a popular demand and to deal with an urgent necessity, the Government would back it and see it through, there would be real reason for taking action of that kind again. These matters to which I have referred are mostly in the future, but I sincerely congratulate my noble friend opposite on the progress which is
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indicated in the Report of the Committee and in the view of the Home Office expressed to-day by my noble friend Lord Feversham.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I very deeply regret that necessary duties elsewhere made it impossible for me to be present when the noble Earl opposite introduced this matter to which he has given such long and careful attention, and also particularly, prevented me from hearing all but the latter part of the speech of the noble Earl who replied for the Government. I listened to that with particular interest because, as we all know, the noble Earl himself has taken a most prominent part in the development and in the actual carrying out of probation work throughout this country and indeed elsewhere. I knew that his reply would certainly be most sympathetic. In the circumstances your Lordships will perhaps forgive me if, inadvertently, I may occasionally repeat what may have been said by the noble Earl opposite or by the noble Earl who sits on the Front Bench. The matter is of such great importance to the whole social welfare of the country that I should like to have the privilege of saying one word in order to give my testimony to the great value of the Report, which I have read with as much care as is possible in my busy life. I think it is a very impartial, able and most valuable document, and I earnestly hope—here I share the hope with which the noble and learned Lord concluded his speech—that this is not a document which will merely be shelved in the Department but will really have the increasing attention of the Government, so that where administrative action is sufficient it will be taken, and where legislative action is necessary at least every encouragement will be given to that legislation being brought before Parliament.
With regard to the two aspects of the Report—conciliation in matrimonial disputes and the work of probation officers—I think the Report amply vindicates those of us who felt that we should not go further with the Bills introduced by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Merrivale, until the whole question of probation officers had been more thoroughly considered. As your Lordships will see if you read the Report, it is impossible to get much

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further in the matter of conciliation until we have settled who is the proper officer by which that conciliation should be carried out. I am glad to notice that the Report bears testimony to the encouraging effects of conciliation in every part of the country. I would give just one illustration and that for a particular purpose. We are told that of 6,222 cases included in a special inquiry that the Committee made, only 1,776 reached even a hearing in court and resulted in the making of only 914 separation or maintenance orders.
That seems to me most satisfactory, but there is a curious comment made in the. Report, that it looks as if there is a risk that conciliation may be carried too far. There is one remark in the Report on which I can hardly forbear to make comment. It is this:
" There is a strong temptation to the zealous officer to settle as many cases as he can out of court, and he may even be actuated by personal convictions as to the sanctity of the marriage tie."
That seems to imply that it may be a serious disqualification if a probation officer ventures to remind people in trouble over their matrimonial affairs that, after all, marriage has a certain measure of sanctity. I should have thought that there would be little chance of the success of any appeal for conciliation on any other basis. Certainly, whatever may be said among wealthier parts of the community as to the sanctity of the marriage tie, it is happily still so regarded among the poor. My experience is that there is no ground of appeal for conciliation more effective than the reminder: "After all, in spite of tantrums and difficulties you did promise one another you would hold together for better or worse." That is merely by the way.
I notice with particular satisfaction that the Committee recognise that the actual work of conciliation should normally be carried out not by one of the justices of the peace or even by a Stipendiary Magistrate, admirable as their work has been, but rather by the probation officer. I am sure that in these matters, even with all the good will and experience of justices and Stipendiary Magistrates, there is a further and closer diagnosis necessary before each case can be properly handled and that work of conciliation is best
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done by one who can visit the parties in their home, who can study their environment, and then come to a conclusion as to the best way of dealing with their particular problems. I should like also especially to commend the proposal—perhaps it has been already approved by the noble Earl—that there should be, not special courts to deal with these problems, but special sessions of the courts, so that these matters should as far as possible be taken out of the atmosphere of criminal procedure, and also the suggestion that it is of great advantage, wherever possible, that one of the magistrates dealing with these cases should be a woman. I venture to think that there is much to be said for the recommendation that even in London, where no one knows better than I what an amazing work of friendship to the poor has been done by the Stipendiary Magistrates, they should have the assistance, where possible, of a woman magistrate. I think we should all agree, and the noble and learned Lord would particularly agree, with the recommendation that there should be restraint upon the publicity of these matrimonial proceedings both upon the number of persons admitted to the court while they are being tried and, especially, upon the reports made in the newspaper Press. I think these are recommendations of great value and if they require legislation I hope that the Government at least will give every facility for legislation on these lines that either the noble Earl or the noble and learned Lord may bring forward.
May I turn now for a moment to the position of the probation officers? The whole tendency of the Report is to emphasise the immense importance of the probation system in our modern life in this country. It is the reward of a great deal of patient work that has been going on for a very long time. You must forgive me if in this matter I take some pride in the place taken by the Church of England. It is fifty years since the first step of appointing police court missionaries was taken by the Church and the story of the supply of these police court missionaries ever since is described, I am glad to say, in the Report, as a splendid chapter in English social history. I hope that at any rate it may still be continued. It is not for the first time that the Church has been a pioneer in

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social services which, by reason of the very weight and value which the Church and other societies have attached to them, have come to be a care which ought to belong to the whole community exercised through the authorities, either central or local, of the State.
It may be that this is a case where it is considered that now, thanks to the pioneer work done by the police court missions, this has become a great State service and for that reason should be appointed and paid by the State. There is a great deal to be said for there being no division as to either authority or appointment. There is a great deal to be said for having one system of training, and there is something to be said for not attaching denominational requirements to a great public service. I notice that the tendency of the Report is strongly to suggest that in the future what has become a State service should be completely under the control of the State; yet I am glad to notice that the Report itself says:
"… we are anxious that the religious and voluntary spirit in probation work should not be lost."
Elsewhere it says:
" If the right religious influence can be brought to bear the work of reform can be immeasurably strengthened."
If it be the case that the time has come when work done by voluntary agency is to be undertaken by the State, I earnestly hope that the spirit in which that work has been done will be retained.
I am greatly concerned that nothing should be done in this matter to remove from this great branch of social service all the immense effect which comes from its being undertaken by men and women who have a religious motive and who are able to bring to their work the strength of the religious appeal. I believe that, if it be so—and I suspend my judgment on the matter for the moment—there is still great work which the Police Court Mission and other police court associations can do. They can find out, select and help to train men and women who have the right vocation. They can in many cases act as missionaries where there is a State probation officer as well. They can provide homes and hostel, which are greatly needed by those who come under the charge of the probation officers.
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Therefore I hope that, if this work of the probation officers is increasingly to become a great public service, the Church and other agencies will still be able to supply the right motive and spirit.
LORD GAINFORD: My Lords, I only wish to make what I hope will be a helpful suggestion. We have heard many suggestions about what might be done by improved administration, and also by a more friendly attitude in probation officers and others, in order to bring about better social conditions in domestic life. The point I should like to emphasise is that so far in this debate all the points that have been raised in connection with the alteration of the law appear to me to be so uncontroversial that it might be possible, even within the period of this Session, for the Home Office to draft a Bill dealing with one or two of the points which have been raised in this debate which require some alteration in the law, and submit it to both Houses. A measure of that kind would add to the public interest in the matter and help to secure the objects which we all have at heart.
VISCOUNT MERSEY: My Lords, I was not in the House during the whole of the speech of the noble Earl opposite, and I therefore apologise if I ask a question which has already been answered. What is the circulation, or the proposed circulation, of the Report? Is it merely circulated to clerks of petty sessional divisions, or to all magistrates? Your Lordships will readily appreciate that there is a good deal of difference. If a Report or a White Paper is circulated to clerks, what happens is that, at the ten minutes' meeting before the bench sits, the clerk says: "I have received a Home Office Paper of such and such a number which any magistrate can look at," and probably no one does look at it. If it is circulated to individual magistrates, then probably, although some of them will not look at it, at any rate a number will. The additional expense, once the Report has been printed, of printing and circulating two or three thousand extra copies is negligible.
THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM: My Lords, may I inform the noble Viscount that the Report is not circulated to the approximately 30,000 justices of the peace throughout the length and breadth of the country. I cannot say whether his estimate

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of the cost would be as low as he anticipates; that is a matter which could be inquired into.
VISCOUNT MERSEY: Is it, circulated to the petty sessional clerks?
THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM: As far as I am aware, it has not yet been circulated to clerks of petty sessional courts.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I should like, in a very few words indeed, at this late hour, to thank my noble friend opposite who spoke for the Government for his extremely full and exhaustive answer to my Question, and for the encouragement which his own enthusiasm on behalf of reform affords to all those who are concerned in promoting this work. I should also like to express my gratitude to the many distinguished members of your Lordships' House, on both the secular and the spiritual Benches, who have joined in giving a warm welcome to this Report, who have expressed an ardent desire for reform, and who have urged upon the Government the necessity for early action. At the same time—and this is my last word—I am bound to express the hope, which I feel certain is shared by every speaker in the discussion this afternoon, that the delay for which the Government ask is not merely a pretext for shelving this extremely valuable Report. I am glad to see that the noble Earl answers me that that is not the case, and that I need not have any fears on that score. At the same time, when we consider the number of Royal Commission and Departmental Committee Reports which have suffered this fate, I think there is some ground for anxiety. Naturally, in view of his statement that the Home Secretary would consider the Report at an early date, I shall raise the Question again in the late summer or the early autumn. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion which stands in my name.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

THE ITALO-ABYSSINIAN DISPUTE.
LORD DAVIES LORD DAVIES had given Notice that he would move to resolve, That, with a view to promoting an early settlement of the tragic conflict in Abyssinia, this House calls upon His Majesty's Government to propose the creation by the
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League of Nations of an impartial Commission on the lines of the Lytton Commission to investigate the issues involved and to submit to the Council and Assembly recommendations for the just and equitable solution of the conflict having regard to—

(a) the welfare of the Ethiopian people, the maintenance of order in, and the internal development of, their country;

(b) any legitimate Italian claims for economic and colonial expansion in East Africa; and

(c) the economic interests in this part of the world of other nations, Members and non-members of the League.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion which stands in my name. In doing so, may I remind your Lordships of the events which have brought us to the deplorable position in which we find ourselves to-day? It is a truism that we cannot expect to prevent war unless we provide some substitute for effecting peaceful changes in the relationship of nations. This principle was recognised by the framers of the Covenant when they drafted Article 19. They intended, no doubt, that the provisions of this article, wholly inadequate as they were and as they have since proved themselves to be, would be implemented by their successors in order that an effective procedure could be developed which would enable treaties to be revised from time to time and ensure that all disputes would be referred to the arbitrament of reason and not of force. This intention to institute a peaceful procedure has since been reiterated in many quarters, and I should like to quote from a very notable speech which was made at Geneva by Sir Samuel Hoare last September:
" Something must also be done to remove the causes from which war is apt to arise. Some other means than the recourse to arms must be found for adjusting the natural play of international forces…. Yet the world is not static, and changes will from time, to time have to be made. The Covenant itself admits this possibility. But such changes will have to be made when they are really necessary and when the time is ripe, and not before; they will have to come about by consent and not by dictation, by agreement and not by unilateral action, by peaceful means and

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not by war or threat of war. The Members of the League must address themselves to this as well as to other aspects of security if the rule of law in international affairs is to be established and confirmed."
Unfortunately, however, in spite of these declarations Article 19 has remained static.
On the two occasions when it was invoked, the case of Bolivia and Peru in 1920 and of China in 1929, no progress was made in elucidating the problem of peaceful change, and it is clear that if one of the parties to the dispute refuses to take the advice of the Assembly, then the whole process of revision is completely blocked. The only attempt during the past seventeen years to implement the underlying intention of Article 19 was the appointment of the Lytton Commission in 1932 to investigate the issues which had arisen between China and Japan. This Commission was composed of impartial and disinterested persons, who were appointed not by their respective Governments but by the Council of the League. Consequently it was not intended that they should act as the spokesmen of or should represent the views of any Governments. They acted as individuals in a collective capacity, and were charged, after the fullest investigation, to recommend a just and equitable solution of this dispute to the Council and Assembly of the League. Your Lordships will remember that after many months of exhaustive inquiry in the Far East, they produced a Report which was adopted unanimously by the Council and Assembly, but was rejected by Japan. This Report was not merely concerned with judicial questions or the interpretation of existing treaties, but laid down general principles and the procedure through which these principles could be applied. Broadly speaking, the Report of the Commission was based upon the concept of equity, that is to say, a fair and reasonable adjustment of the claims put forward by the contending parties, coupled with more general considerations regarding the common interests of all States-Members in the peaceful settlement of this dispute.
Here, at any rate, was a peaceful procedure for effecting changes in the relationships of States which was endorsed by the representatives of forty-two nations. Article 19 was obviously
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beginning to work; but this Report, acclaimed at the time as an outstanding document and a signal contribution to the problem of treaty revision, was, as we know, consigned to the waste-paper basket. Why? I suggest for two reasons. Firstly, because the Commission arrived upon the scene too late and started its investigations after the mischief had been done. Secondly, because the provisions of Article 16 were ignored. There were no sanctions in this case. I do not think I need labour this point, because everyone realises that a judge is useless without a policemen; but I also submit that the converse is equally true—namely, that a policeman cannot function effectively without a judge, and that both are complementary.
Then why, it may be asked, was a Tribunal or Commission not created to examine, all the issues involved and recommend an equitable settlement in the Italo-Abyssinian dispute, when it was decided to honour our commitments under Article 16 and to impose sanctions? Surely a procedure that was considered to be appropriate in the case of China and Japan could also have been applied to the conflict between Italy and Abyssinia. Perhaps the Government can tell us why this valuable precedent was discarded. Had such a Commission been in existence as part of the permanent machinery of the League, its services could have been invoked in the early months of last year, when the military preparations in East Africa made it clear to everyone that Italy intended to attack another State-Member of the League. I think it was apparent at that time. It was also apparent that the bilateral treaty of arbitration between Italy and Abyssinia, humorously described as a treaty of friendship, had only become a pretext for delaying any action by the League; and at a later stage, when it had become obvious that further negotiations and conciliation were useless, and that war was imminent, then, surely, the whole question ought to have been referred to an impartial Commission.
It will no doubt be said that in September this task was entrusted to the Committee of Five. The Committee of Five did its best in the time available, but how was this Committee constituted?

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It included representatives of five Governments, Spain, Poland, Turkey, France and ourselves, three of whom were directly interested parties because they possessed vast tracts of territory in Africa. Consequently I suggest that this Committee, composed of members who were bound to act upon the instructions of their respective Governments, could hardly be described as a purely disinterested and impartial body, however honestly and sincerely they might endeavour to discover a just and equitable solution. Secondly, the Committee had no time to undertake a complete and exhaustive inquiry into all the issues involved. After a short interval of hasty investigation they submitted a brief Report to the Council. Then, after that, despite the fact that war had begun, further attempts at conciliation followed, terminating, as we well remember, in the Hoare-Laval proposals, which, as we know, outraged the elementary sense of justice throughout the British Empire and in many other countries as well. Had there been an impartial tribunal these proposals, I venture to suggest, would never have seen the light of day, and the Government would have been saved the necessity of repudiating them.
This Resolution is not intended to be a gesture to save the face of the League, nor, on the other hand, an eleventh hour expedient. What it proposes is a system, or at any rate an integral part of a system—namely, the resign of law. I submit that it is no use talking about the necessity for peaceful change, the need for disarmament, the collective system and other international reforms unless we are prepared to establish those institutions through which the reign of law can be made effective. Above all, there must be equality in the sight of the law. I would also suggest that it is no use proposing one law for Hitler and another law for Mussolini. You cannot demand sanctions against Germany because she has re-occupied the Rhineland and allow Mussolini almost a free hand to bomb and gas the people of Abyssinia. You cannot suggest a Commission and a High Permanent Arbitration Court for Europe, as the French Government proposes in its plan, and at the same time refuse point-blank to appoint a similar Commission to ensure a League settlement in East Africa. If the League is to survive, its States-Members must insist upon the
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same law, the same procedure, and the same, sanctions for all.
That point was emphasised in a speech delivered in another place a few days ago by Mr. Winston Churchill. Mr. Churchill is a statesman of great experience in these matters, and this is what he said:
" We hear talk of the encirclement of Germany. I thought the last speaker quite justly said that war encirclement would be intolerable, but peaceful, defensive encirclement may be inevitable before the alarms of the nations are allayed. I say we would impose no arrangement on Germany that we would not submit to ourselves. It is not a case of the encirclement of Germany but of the encirclement of the potential aggressor. If we are the aggressors let us be encircled and brought to reason by the pressure of other countries. If France is the aggressor let her be restrained in the same way; and if it be Germany, let Germany take the measures meted out to her by countries who submit themselves to the law which they are prepared to take a share in enforcing."
I imagine that most of us will agree with Mr. Churchill that it is the aggressor, whoever he is, that must be impounded. Moreover, it would be deplorable that any policeman should connive at the escape of the murderer, and it would be still more deplorable if a murderer was invited to play the part of a policeman. "He that is not with us is against us." In this case he that maketh war is the enemy of peace, and should therefore be outlawed as an enemy of the human race.
Consequently we may well ask why has Article 16 not been carried out in its entirety? The spokesmen of the Government at Geneva told us that the policy was that the Covenant should be carried out in its entirety. Why have diplomatic sanctions not been imposed? Why are the oil, coal and steel sanctions periodically postponed? Why has the Assembly of the League or the Committee of Fifty-two not closed the Suez Canal? These sanctions are still available but they have not yet been put into operation. The League, however, is not beaten until they have been tried, and there is no reason why we should anticipate their failure if they are energetically pursued. But, on the other hand, if as we are told the transfer of fifteen French Regular Divisions from the Italian frontier to the Rhine is considered to be worth more than fidelity to the League and the solemn obligations of States-Members under the Covenant, then it is inevitable

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that the League should perish. If this institution is to become the cloak of bandits and the plaything of their abettors, then it is doomed.
Not long ago Mussolini summoned the Chairman of the Committee of Thirteen, Senor do Madariaga, to Rome. Why this proposed new pilgrimage to Canossa, dictated by an aggressor who has flouted and defied fifty-two States Members of the League for the last nine months, and at the moment has announced his intention of exterminating the Abyssinians? We are indebted to the Foreign Secretary for the firm stand he took against this insulting proposal. It only illustrates the cynical attitude of Italy towards an institution of which she is still, at any rate nominally, a Member. Why is she still a Member after having broken every rule and regulation of the club? Why has she not long ago been expelled from its membership? I repeat, why has the last paragraph in Article 16 not been put into force? It reads as follows:
" Any Member of the League which has violated any covenant of the League may be declared to be no longer a Member of the League by a vote of the Council concurred in by the Representatives of all the other Members of the League represented thereon."
What is the alternative? A dictated peace, a peace imposed upon Abyssinia in defiance of the League, and the subjugation by force of arms of one State-Member by another.
Therefore I think we are entitled to ask when we are confronted by this unfortunate dilemma: What do we propose to do? Of course, there are risks, whatever course we may take, but I submit that the greatest risk is to abandon the victim of aggression. This would mean that not only Italy but all the Members of the League in their collective capacity would have repudiated their solemn obligations under the Covenant. It would mean that the first chapter of a new era of bloodshed and murder will have been closed, but its far-reaching results will not be confined to Africa. Its repercussions will be felt throughout the world and especially in Europe, where the forces of anarchy are preparing themselves for the final onslaught.
The noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, in a speech to your Lordships the other day, asked this very pertinent question: "What is it that the democracy of this
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country is prepared to fight for? "May I venture to suggest to your Lordships that the answer to this question is to be found in the eloquent and moving appeal to the women of this country which appeared to yesterday's Times from the seventeen-year-old Princess of Abyssinia. This is what she said:
" Do I ask you, purely selfishly, to do this? No! We are only a small race, but I am seventeen and its leading daughter, and I know, as you know, that if mankind lets bombs and gas destroy my country and people, civilisation will be destroyed too. We have common cause, you and I Why, therefore, do not all do something to drive off this common danger to humanity, this agony, this death by bombs, shell, and gas, before it again establishes itself as it is doing here now; soon to spread fatally to your homes, to your men-folk too? Italian aggression and gas have set humanity a test. If you fail to help us now, we all shall die."
In effect, what this young Princess pleads for is the upholding of the rule of law. That, I believe, is the only cause the democracy of this country is prepared to fight for, because it is the only thing worth fighting for. It embraces our national existence and security, because it is based upon the idea of justice, which alone can be the foundation of any permanent peace.
Therefore I would most earnestly appeal to the Government steadfastly to pursue its policy of sanctions until, sooner or later, Italy is compelled to withdraw her armies from Abyssinia, and simultaneously to urge the creation of an Equity Tribunal or Commission which would be entrusted with the onerous task of recommending the terms of an equitable settlement within the framework of the League. In conclusion, I may say that a society of which I have the honour to be a member, has recently presented a petition to His Majesty's Government in the sense of this Resolution. It was signed by about 7,000 persons, representing leaders of all shades of public opinion in this country. I think I may say that those of us who have signed this petition believe that the idea of equity in its widest sense has played an important part in the development of law and order in this and other countries. We also believe that in the existing international chaos, when the reign of law is still in its embryonic stage, this idea can be usefully employed in the sphere of international relationships. It

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is in order to accelerate its application, and to hasten the conclusion of a just and lasting peace in Europe as well as in Africa, that I have ventured to put down this Motion, which I now beg to move.
Moved to resolve, That, with a view to promoting an early settlement of the tragic conflict in Abyssinia, this House calls upon His Majesty's Government to propose the creation by the League of Nations of an impartial Commission on the lines of the Lytton Commission to investigate the issues involved and to submit to the Council and Assembly recommendations for the just and equitable solution of the conflict, having regard to—

(a) the welfare of the Ethiopian people, the maintenance of order in, and the internal development of, their country;

(b) any legitimate Italian claims for economic and colonial expansion in East Africa; and

(c) the economic interests in this part of the world of other nations, Members and non-members of the League.—(Lord Davies.)

LORD RENNELL: My Lords, it is quite unnecessary for me to say how we all of us esteem—and no one more so than myself—the constant and sincere efforts which are made by my noble friend Lord Davies to bring about some solution of this tragic conflict, and also the testimony that he constantly bears to his unshaken belief in the instrumentality of the League for that purpose, in spite of its having notoriously failed either to avert war or to arrest war. However, it still has a framework, and that framework is invited to do a very great deal for us. The noble Lord's Resolution has been cast in terms which invite investigation of both sides of the question, but in view of the history of the case I think it must be manifestly regarded as directed against only one of the parties involved. Therefore I would ask him, before pressing this Resolution, to weigh with due ponderation whether the stop he proposes should be taken is really at the present moment, I do not say justified, but opportune, as it does not seem to me to be for reasons that I shall try briefly to submit.
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Those of us who have had this matter under constant survey for perhaps a year and a half, and given it earnest and objective consideration, can have very little doubt as to the reasons for the League's failure to take in hand in good time the essential issue—namely, the menace of war—or for its failure, after ignoring the menace of war for the best part of a year, to put in practice forthwith all the measures laid down in the Covenant for such an eventuality. In any case, the experience that we have been left almost alone to make representations on the subject and, generally, to become the mouthpiece for all propositions advanced on the subject at Geneva, has convinced me of the uselessness as well as the undesirability of our monopolising the initiative at Geneva, so long as the whole position of the League has not been reconsidered and so long as we cannot have some assurance that its influence and action can be other than platonic.
If international friendships and interests are to direct the policy of the League rather than the very definite prescriptions of the Covenant, it seems likely to me to become a danger rather than a safeguard to peace. I am not here criticising any particular country but rather the League itself, the implications of which may demand from some States sacrifices which, in view of their own security, they do not feel able to make. Only occasionally I may admit that very intemperate criticisms in the foreign Press, and the attribution to us of motives for which there is no justification whatever, do remind me of those lines which the poet Blake addressed to his friend William Hayley after a quarrel:
" Your friendship oft has made my heart to ache,
Do be my enemy, for friendship's sake! "
We have been ready, if most reluctantly, to sacrifice old and valuable friendships when we believed a principle was involved. Hesitation shown by others to imperil friendships which coincide with interests may well deprive those sacrifices of their anticipated effect, but now we are invited to follow a precedent which in the case of Japan—with all due deference to my noble friend Lord Davies there was no real analogy in the occasion which gave rise to it—only resulted for

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us in weakening an old established and valuable association without achieving any practical result beyond placing on record an unacceptable expression of disapproval.
In the present instance the decision of the vast majority of Member-States was recorded in their verdict that under the conditions contemplated in the Covenant Italy was the aggressor, and I can see no practical advantage until the first object in view, the re-establishment of peace, has been achieved, in promoting a Commission to pronounce upon issues or make recommendations which there seems no disposition to accept and no power to enforce. So far as paragraphs (b) and (c) of the Resolution are concerned, the respective interests of Great Britain, France and Italy were clearly laid down in the Treaty of 1906, the first article of which recorded the agreement of those three Powers to maintain the territorial and political integrity of Ethiopia, Surely it is rather for the other nations, non-members of the League, than for the League itself to look after their particular economic interests.
I shall no doubt be told that if you believe a thing to be right you must stand by it. Yes, by all means, but it is not wise to endeavour to enforce it unless you are sure that you have the power to do so. I understand that even my noble friend Viscount Cecil, who I am sorry to see is not here to-day, would only expect this country to take its share in suppressing aggression on condition that an overwhelming superiority of force was on the side of the peace-keeping Powers. Those are practically his own words. Others, however, would go further than this. Well, my Lords, having made a lifelong study of foreign countries, I have never hesitated in my view that those who pressed for our premature disarmament and at the same time seem to insist on an attitude which other countries would consider provocative, can only be regarded as a national danger.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, this matter is of such very great importance that I think it will be agreed a few words are called for from this side of the House. The arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, in support of his Motion, I must say, appealed to me very much, but I was not in so much agreement with his Motion ton the Paper.
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Should he press it to a Division my noble friends and I could not support it, very largely for one of the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Rennell, who has just addressed your Lordships. Such a procedure, we think, will be too late now in all the circumstances of the present situation, and for that reason, if the noble Lord should divide your Lordships, we could not support the Motion. The noble Lord, Lord Rennell, said that the League had tragically failed to do certain things. I think it is a little premature to say that the League of Nations has finally failed, and I hope when the noble Earl who will speak for the Government, as he always does with such great ability and adroitness, comes to reply, he will make it clear that His Majesty's Government have not yet acknowledged failure in this matter, and that we are not going to begin to retreat or to extricate ourselves from the obligations we have undertaken. It is no good making matters worse than they are now. I do not for a moment accept the thesis that the League of Nations has finally failed. This game is not played out by any means and if only the peaceably inclined States-Members will stand firm, especially ourselves with the other great Powers, the case is by no means hopeless.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: Will the noble Lord say what he means by "standing firm "?
LORD STRABOLGI: Yes, I certainly will say what I mean by standing firm. In the first place keep on your present sanctions, and in the second place carry out the Covenant by intensifying sanctions. I think the time has come, for example, when direct help should be given to Abyssinia in this trouble. I was just going to address a question to the Government and I apologise for not having given notice of it, but I am sure the noble Earl is aware of the case, in reference to the prohibition on the use of the railway to Addis Ababa from French Somaliland for the carriage of munitions of war. Under the treaty which enabled that railway to be built, it has to be freely open for the carriage of munitions for the safeguarding of Ethiopian territories, and I understand that the French on one pretext or another have held up these munitions that have been paid for from reaching Abyssinia. We have a direct

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responsibility in this matter because we were a party with the other States-Members in our endeavour to be so impartial at the beginning by prohibiting any munitions from going either to Italy or Abyssinia. That did not affect Italy at all in her war-making powers but it certainly affected Abyssinia. And now for the French to hold up munitions intended for the Abyssinians is a real act of treachery. I understand that the reason is that the French have made a bargain, that the railway will not be bombed or otherwise attacked in exchange for this breach of the treaty. I would ask the noble Earl who replies for the Government and for the Foreign Office in your Lordships' House whether any representations have been made to the French in this matter. I do not think we can divest ourselves honourably of responsibility in this business.
The noble Lord also said that we have been left almost alone in this matter. I think the noble Earl who replies for the Government will agree, and the Leader of the House who has taken a considerable part in these matters will agree, that we have not in all cases taken the initiative. We have not thrust ourselves forward in the quixotic manner which the noble Lord, Lord Rennell, describes and which the Italian propagandists have tried to fasten upon us again and again. Initiative has often been taken by other nations. In the case of oil, I think the initiative was taken by Mexico, of all countries; one of the great oil-producing countries. I think I am correct in my facts there. Mexico proposed oil sanctions and our complaint indeed on this side of the House—the Labour Party's complaint—is that the Government have been far too timorous in the matter.
May I put this argument before the House in a very few words, to try to sum up how I think the ordinary man regards the present situation? We will presently have a new French Parliament, rather more to the Left than the late Parliament, and I hope that the new French Government will be a little more active and bold in this whole question. Supposing that one single Italian soldier invaded British Somaliland or the Sudan. There are no great material interests concerned affecting the British public, especially in British Somaliland, which is a poor and small country, though there
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may be some strategical interests. Supposing one Italian soldier set a hostile foot across the frontier, the whole British Empire would prepare to mobilise.
LORD BELHAVEN AND STENTON: No.
LORD STRABOLGI: Oh yes.
LORD BELHAVEN AND STENTON: You would have to work us up a good deal more before we would mobilise.
LORD STRABOLGI: If there was an invasion of a British Colony I venture to differ from the noble Lord, if he will allow me to do so. I think that if a British Colony were invaded the whole of our Forces would be mobilised at once.
LORD BELHAVEN AND STENTON: The noble Lord opposite said that if a single Italian soldier invaded Somaliland the whole of our Forces would be mobilised at once. No—not if a hundred Italian soldiers entered Somaliland.
LORD STRABOLGI: Of course if there was only one single soldier concerned we would ask for explanations and there would be notes, diplomatic conversations and so on, but if that soldier was followed by a division of soldiers either into the Sudan or British Somaliland, the noble Lord himself would dash to the colours and we all would be called up, including myself. I am not one of the elderly pacifists accused of sending young men to their deaths. I am on the emergency list, and I could be called up to-morrow on any emergency even with a mobilisation proclamation. I would go to-morrow if it were my duty, and the noble Lord would probably go, whether he was liable to be called up or not. Everyone knows that for that reason no British Colony would be invaded by any country in their senses unless they were desirous of a great war with ourselves opposed to them. Look at the particular case we are discussing on the initiative of the noble Lord, Lord Davies. Our honour is just as much involved in the protection of Abyssinia as a Member of the League of Nations—whether she ought to be a Member is another matter, but in fact she is a Member—just as much as our honour would be engaged in protecting a British Colony or a British Protectorate like the Sudan. The Covenant of the League of Nations may have been ill-conceived and

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too ambitious. That is a different matter. But we are bound to carry out our present obligations under it. Yet the moment anyone like the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, proposes real sanctions, straight away people say that they may mean war. This nervousness about going too far, as it is called, is being exploited by the disturbers of peace in the world.
Now may I ask the representative of the Government when he replies not only to answer the very cogent arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and to express the Government attitude to the Motion, but also to tell us, if possible, what the Government propose to do in these present circumstances. The last debate we had on this subject was just before Easter, and a good deal has happened since then. The Abyssinian military position is a good deal worse. I believe according to the Prime Minister's statement that the Poison Gas Convention has been proved to have been definitely broken. Doubt was expressed about that in the last discussion in your Lordships' House, but since then that doubt has been removed, I understand, according to the Prime Minister's public statement. What are the Government going to do? I think that the people of this country are very exercised as to whether we intend to continue with the policy so far followed, and above all as to whether we are considering intensifying the sanctions. We have the choice now. In a few weeks time it may be too late, and what the noble Lord opposite, Lord Rennell, said will have come true—the League will have been proved a complete failure.
LORD RENNELL: May I be allowed to say that I only spoke of it having entirely failed first to forestall the menace of war and then to prevent war. I said it might be in danger of becoming a peril to us rather than a security. I did not assert definitely that the League of Nations had failed. I have always been a great supporter of the League of Nations, and I wish it to be reformed so that it may be a success.
LORD STRABOLGI: I am grateful to the noble Lord for correcting me in the matter and I am glad to hear that he is a supporter of the League. It will certainly need supporting in the near future, in view of the writings in large
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sections of the Press which normally support the Government and of the utterances of some of those in your Lordships' House and in another place who normally support the Government. It will need much stronger nerves on the part of the Government and Government supporters in the events which will immediately come upon us. I thought it right to say a few words on this extraordinarily important subject, and I do not think I have misrepresented the recent and present attitude of the Labour Party.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, it seems to me that the noble Lord who has just sat down did not really complete the speech which he was making. Otherwise he might have told us that, in the event of Italy making peace arrangements with Abyssinia which the League of Nations did not like, he would be prepared to lead this country or to go with this country into Abyssinia and to alter those terms by dictation to the Italians located there. It seems to me that the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and the noble Lord who has just spoken on behalf of the Labour Party, are leading us, or would lead us if they were in power, into such an impasse that we would have no alternative but to go to war with Italy. The noble Lord has just told us that our whole honour is bound up with this question of Abyssinia, but he omitted to state, as he has often stated from those Benches, that he believes in collective security. If he had stated that the collective honour of the League of Nations was at stake there might have been some truth in the statement, but to tell your Lordships' House that the honour of this nation as an individual nation is at stake, if it does not proceed as he wishes it to proceed so far as Italy is concerned in connection with Abyssinia, I believe to be utterly untrue and utterly beyond the facts.
We listen to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, making these speeches with regard to the League of Nations, and I am quite sure that there is not one of your Lordships who does not believe in the great sincerity with which the noble Lord delivers these speeches or who doubts that he believes most thoroughly in the proposals that he propounds from time to time. I suggest, however, that in these matters the noble Lord is a visionary rather than a realist. He

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springs on your Lordships' House proposals which are quite impracticable and quite unlikely to effect the object which he has in view. Once more he has presented to your Lordships' House a Resolution which is of the most impracticable nature. He has compared the Commission proposed in that Resolution to the Lytton Commission set up in connection with the trouble between China and Japan two or three years ago. He told us that the Report of that Commission was committed to the waste-paper basket, but he did not go on to tell us the real result of that Report. It was that Japan, our old ally, regarded, and does regard to-day, the Lytton Commission as a British Commission and not as a Commission appointed by the League of Nations.
If such a Commission were set up today in order to investigate affairs in Abyssinia that Commission could not be effective. In fact, I doubt very much whether, under the conditions which exist in Abyssinia to-day, it would be able to collect any information which was worth while or to visit the places which it would be necessary to visit in order to obtain that information. I venture to believe that the only effect of that Commission would be to be consigned, like the other Commission, to the waste-paper basket and, on top of that, merely to exacerbate the bad feeling which has unfortunately arisen between Italy and Great Britain as a result of the perhaps too active part which we have played in the League of Nations in connection with the Italo-Abyssinian affair. I sincerely hope that the noble Earl who will reply on behalf of the Government will reject this suggestion—I hardly like to say with contumely—because I believe that it is utterly impracticable, will lead us into an entirely wrong position, and will only add to the difficulties which already surround this extremely difficult question.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (EARL STANHOPE): My Lords, I confess that I have never looked on myself as a pacifist, but I am bound to admit, when I compare my views with those that have been expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, opposite, and by Lord Strabolgi, that I am one; because there is no question whatever that the courses they advocated would have meant plunging this
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country into war. The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, told your Lordships that we were just as much implicated in defending Abyssinia as we were in defending any part of the British Empire. I must entirely and absolutely disagree. It is absolutely the duty of this country to defend every part of His Majesty's Dominions, but as regards the rest of the world, there our obligation is merely confined to that which falls on any Member of the League.
The League is not an individual and collective responsibility, it is purely a collective one, and therefore this country is entitled to be called on to perform to the full up to what other nations are prepared to do, but not to take action independently of the rest of the Members of the League. If in fact that were the case, quite obviously collective action would be a thing of the past and unilateral action by this country or by some other would be the rule which would be followed at Geneva. That is not the view of His Majesty's present Government, and I hope it is never going to be the view of the Labour Party opposite, because undoubtedly, if it received any support at all we should find the situation of this country far more difficult and dangerous than it is at the present moment. I find myself much more in agreement with what was said by my noble friends Viscount Elibank and Lord Rennell.
I was asked a number of questions by Lord Strabolgi, with which perhaps I might try to deal first. He asked me whether the French were holding up munitions on the Jibuti Railway. I have heard rumours to that effect, but have no information about it whatever. So far as I know, it is not happening; no complaints have come from Abyssinia in regard to it. It may be so, but it may not. I entirely agree with the noble Lord that it is far too early to say that the League of Nations has failed. I was taken to task by certain sections of the Press for saying that a short time ago, and I suppose I shall be taken to task again to-day—
LORD STRABOLGI: That will not hurt you!
EARL STANHOPE: But that leaves me unmoved. May I remind those of your Lordships who have not thought about

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the matter fully, that it is perfectly true to say that the League has failed to prevent war beginning by the threat of sanctions, and has not succeeded in stopping the war. The war, however, is not yet over, and the Italians are faced with the most appalling difficulties as they get farther and farther from their base. The weather and the geographical conditions are such as to test to the utmost the extraordinarily fine provision which has been made by the Italian administrative staffs, and I am bound to admit that the more true the implications that Italy makes against Abyssinia—that the Abyssinians are a hostile, warlike and savage race—the more true is it that their difficulties are immense and that it will be months, if not years, before they can reduce their forces in that vast country of Abyssinia. Very few people seem to realise that Abyssinia is one and a half times the size of France, something between 350,000 and 420,000 square miles; therefore, even with her present forces, Italy would have very little more than one man per square mile over that territory. To be able to maintain sufficient garrisons to prevent hostile action by even small remnants of the Abyssinian forces is a task that is going to test her finances and all her resolution.
At the same time the present economic sanctions are having their effects. I was thought by your Lordships last October to be a pessimist when I said that it would be some months before sanctions began to take effect. Perhaps I shall be called an optimist now in saying that sanctions are having their effect, and a rapidly increasing effect as the months go on. With Italy faced with that vast expense of maintaining her forces in Abyssinia, with the stranglehold of the present sanctions still continuing, it is absurd to suppose that we are at present in a position to say that the League has failed. So long as we can maintain the sanctions front, I still believe that Italy will find that she is in a far worse position—her people, her finances, her trade—than she would have been if she had never gone to war at all. If we succeed in proving to the world that war does not pay, at any rate we shall have achieved something of which nobody need be ashamed and something which may tend to discourage the hostile action
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which other nations, perhaps, are beginning to think they may take in the future.
LORD STRABOLGI: The Great War proved that war does not pay.
EARL STANHOPE: Yes, but that war was lost by the side that started it. I have no doubts, and I think very few of us have any doubts, that Germany was the aggressor in the last War, and I think Germany has fully realised that the last War did not pay. The point, however, is to prove to the winning side, if there is a winning side, that even having won she is very much worse off and has failed. That is the point that I am trying to make, and the point that will really have an effect on the views of other nations hereafter.
The noble Lord opposite asked what His Majesty's Government were going to do in the future. I can put the answer in one short phrase: exactly the same as our fellow-Members of the League; no more, but no less. It is quite true that we have on many occasions had to take the lead at Geneva. The noble Lord was right in saying that many other nations had on occasion taken the lead, but I am afraid that is more true of the time when sanctions were beginning than it has been in recent months or weeks. We are not, however, ashamed of having taken the lead, and if the League eventually fails, it will not be because of any inaction on the part of this country, but because of inaction on the part of some others who should equally have taken their share in the work and the proposals of the League.
May I say this in addition? A League which depends upon the lead of one country is not a sound instrument, and therefore, if the League is eventually to take its proper share in the affairs of the world and to attempt to stop aggression and to bring forward conciliation, every nation must take its part. It is useless for some nations to think that they will get all the benefits, as they believe them to be, of collective security without giving their quota and occasionally taking the lead in the proposals which are made at Geneva. Now I am not going to contend that collective security exists as regards Abyssinia. It is obvious that when the whole of this unfortunate struggle is at an end both

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the League and this country will have very carefully to consider the whole situation, and to decide upon what our future policy will be based. That was said by the Secretary of State in another place two days ago, and no doubt your Lordships saw and appreciated the statement which he made.
LORD STRABOLGI: May I ask a question on that important point? Does that consideration mean with regard to the Covenant of the League as a whole, or this particular case?
EARL STANHOPE: I imagine as regards the Covenant of the League as a whole, and how the League may be made effective, and not as regards the present situation. My noble friend Lord Rennell pointed out that Manchuria was a very different case from that of Abyssinia, and I entirely agree with him. I am surprised that the noble Lord opposite, who is always asking about an Equity Tribunal and an International Police Force, should have hit upon the Lytton Commission as an example of what he meant. Let me remind your Lordships of what happened with regard to the Lytton Commission. First of all China asked for an independent Commission, I think about ten days after the so-called Mukden incident. On November 21, 1931, about three weeks later, Japanese representatives proposed a Commission of Inquiry on the spot. The Council, on December 10, 1931, adopted a resolution calling for the appointment of five members, and the names were approved by the Council on January 14, 1932. On April 20, 1932, the Commission arrived in Manchuria. When did that Committee of Five report? It signed the Report in Pekin on September 4, 1932, and the Report was considered by the Council, and a resolution embodying the first nine chapters was passed by the Assembly on February 24, 1933, the thing having been originally begun in November, 1931. Does anybody imagine that if we set up a Commission such as the Lytton Commission now we should get a report of any value in the situation as it exists in Abyssinia at the present moment?
Let us look a little further. The Lytton Commission wrote a long Report of some ten chapters. The first nine were accepted by the Council of the League. The first eight were, I think, entirely an historical summary. The
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next one drew up the general principles for a settlement and these nine chapters were, as I have said, accepted by the Council, but Chapter 10—"Considerations and Suggestions to the Council "—never has been adopted yet. And, as regards the principles for a settlement, which were adopted by the Council, I think the noble Lord will agree that there is a great deal less chance of these suggestions being accepted by Japan to-day than when they were made three years ago. Therefore, when the noble Lord puts forward a suggestion that we should follow the Lytton Commission in Manchuria, I am bound to say that if I were he I should have chosen some other case rather than this one, where the Commission took over a year before reporting to the League, and even so has never had its recommendations brought into effect.
As the noble Lord said, the Committee of Five have already been into questions of this character, and although it is quite true they did not go out to Abyssinia and therefore had to deal with the documents which were presented to them at Geneva, there was this enormous advantage that instead of taking over a year to produce their Report from the time when the thing was proposed—the Committee of Five were appointed on September 6, 1935—they made their suggestion to Italy and Ethopia on September 18, and reported to the Council on the 26th of the same month. What happened? That Report, although in very general terms, covered every suggestion which the noble Lord has put down in his Resolution before the House, and the recommendations made by the Committee of Five were rejected by Italy as not being adequate to meet her aspirations. I see no hope myself, and I doubt if the noble Lord can see any hope, of a Commission being thought acceptable by Italy if approved by the League next month at its meeting at Geneva.
The noble Lord suggested that there should be an Equity Tribunal permanently established at Geneva. I do not know whether he thinks that would be more acceptable to a country such as Italy than an ad hoc tribunal appointed to go into the particular question. He says that the Committee of Five cannot be considered to have been an impartial body. Although Italy found all sorts of

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objections to the recommendations made, they certainly never criticised the Committee for taking up an anti-Italian attitude by reason of the nations to which the members of the Committee belonged.
LORD DAVIES: I think Italy objected to the presence of representatives of Great Britain and France on the Committee.
EARL STANHOPE: And what was the result of the presence of my right honourable friend Mr. Eden, then Minister for League of Nations Affairs, and of the French representative, on that Committee? The two countries, the United Kingdom and France, were able to say that they were prepared to give up territories if that would enable a solution to be found acceptable to Abyssinia and Italy. So far from our being hostile to Italy the fact of there being representatives of this country and of France on that Committee enabled a proposal of great advantage, as we thought, to Italy to be made—a proposal which we considered it would have been much to her advantage if Italy had accepted.
The noble Lord asked me why Article 16 has not been carried out in its entirety. For two reasons. In the first place the proposal, which is part of Article 16, that we should withdraw our diplomatic representative seemed to us to be of no advantage either to Abyssinia or the League itself. We thought it would be, far more valuable for His Majesty's Ambassador in Rome to remain at his post, keeping himself informed and reporting to us as events went on. The second and more important reason was that we have persistently said that we were only prepared to go as far as other nations, and no further, and that unless and until other Members of the League were prepared to go to the extreme limit of Article 16, we in this country were not prepared to do more than they did. That is all that we are entitled to do, and that, as I have said, is what is meant by taking collective action.
Then he asked me why Italy was not turned out of the League, and said that the alternative was a dictated peace. What effect would it have had if we had turned Italy out of the League? It would not have stopped her going on with her fighting in Abyssinia; it would not have stopped her using gas: it would have had
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no effect except to make relations throughout Europe more strained than they are at present, and would have made the situation rather worse than it is at this moment. I think the letter which I understand the Prime Minister sent to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, in reply to his Resolution, really has said in better terms what I have tried to say to your Lordships to-day, and therefore I have nothing further to add in regard to this Resolution except that I hope the noble Lord will not press it, because we shall certainly have to oppose it. We do not think that the suggestion he makes is either a practical or a sound one, and therefore we are certainly not in favour of the Resolution for the setting up of a Commission like the Lytton Commission.
LORD DAVIES: My Lords, at this late hour I do not propose to try to reply to the points raised during the discussion, but I cannot help saying that I feel disappointed that the noble Earl has not at least tried to make out a case for the particular procedure which he suggests in order to bring about peaceful changes in the relationships of nations—for that really is the principle involved in this Resolution. We are still left in the dark as to the precise manner in which His Majesty's Government propose to carry out the implications of Sir Samuel Hoare's speech last September at the Assembly of the League. It seems to us that if the Assembly is not a real legislative body we have to fall back on some system of this kind. The Lytton Commission was the best example of the functioning of the principle of equity in trying to bring about a settlement of these disputes. The noble Earl said: Why not have an ad hoc Committee every time? Well, before a crisis arises nobody knows whether such a Committee is going to function or not. If this system becomes a permanent part of the machinery of the League, then everybody knows that if conciliation fails, if negotiations come to a standstill, if you are faced with war, both sides have to go before some tribunal, or some Committee or Commission, and to state their case before it.
EARL STANHOPE: That is already part of the Covenant, to which every Member of the League of Nations is already pledged.
LORD DAVIES: Well then, why cannot we set up this system and make it a permanent part of the procedure of the League? The Lytton Commission was not appointed until three months after the incident had occurred in Manchuria. I think the noble Earl told us that they took a year—over a year, they took eighteen months—to produce their Report. I submit that time, after all, is not the essence of the contract in this matter. The great thing is to have this procedure known in advance, and for these Commissions or Committees to operate before the crisis is upon us, before the act of war takes place. Therefore I cannot help feeling extremely disappointed that the noble Earl has not told us what he proposes to put in its place. I think he said that Italy would never have agreed to go before a tribunal of this kind, that Italy at the time objected to going before the Committee of Five. Of course Italy would have objected so long as she was determined to go to war, but had there been a procedure of this kind in existence long before the war broke out then it might have been a different story.
Then there is the case of Germany. Germany mistrusts the present Council of the League. She mistrusts the present Assembly of the League, because she believes that it represents the Allied and Associated Powers in the War, who are overwhelmingly against the German ease. If that is so, is it not possible that Germany might be prepared to accept, a Commission composed of entirely independent persons who are not the representatives of any particular Governments, and who are giving their time and thought to trying to bring about an equitable and just solution? I do not know whether the German Government would agree to a Commission of that kind or not, but in any case, as it distrusts the present organisation of the League for the purpose of settling disputes of this kind, the tribunal at any rate is an alternative. That is what I should like to ask the noble Earl. What alternative has he got? I should like to ask the noble Viscount, Lord Elibank, who denounced this proposition in unmeasured terms—what alternative has he got to bring about peaceful changes in the relationship of nations? War has been the instrument of revision in the past. Is he still in favour of war? Does he still maintain
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that these changes must be brought about by war? If this is not his position, then what alternative can he suggest?
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: I do not believe in causing another war in order to stop war. The noble Lord evidently does.
LORD DAVIES: I do not suggest anything of the kind. I tried to suggest that there must be some alternative, some substitute for war, and, if it does not exist at the moment, how it is possible to construct some system of that kind, which all the nations represented on the League—and we hope some of those at present outside it—may possibly agree to. Then the noble Viscount said that we should forfeit our friendships—I think that Lord Rennell said something of the same kind—if we carried out our obligations and responsibilities under the League to which we agreed when we signed the Covenant. I always think that, in international relationships at all events, the friend of to-day very often becomes the enemy of to-morrow. Why? Because it is simply a question of national interest, and the only sound foundation on which to build is what I have tried to describe as the reign of law. If we are going to support the reign of law, we have to take the risk of losing these friendships, which are not of great value if they cannot stand the strain.
I think I have said enough. I do not wish to detain your Lordships further, because I realise the hour is late and we can go on discussing these questions for a very long time. But I would implore the noble Earl not to turn down this proposition altogether. I hope that he and his friends will seriously consider the possibility of some alternative in order to bring about these changes in the public law. After all, what is going to happen now? We were told the other day by the Foreign Secretary or someone else at Geneva that whatever settlement was arrived at would have to be a settlement within the framework of the League. What exactly does "within the framework of the League" mean? As the noble Earl told us a moment ago, arbitration comes within the framework of the League. It does not mean that we are to allow the Italian and Abyssinian representatives to meet together and arrange their own peace terms without the League having any

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say whatever as to what those terms are going to be. That would be a dictated peace, and would not be within the framework of the League. Therefore I suggest something should be done, some new procedure should be evolved, in order to meet this very difficult situation in which we find ourselves. I am obliged to the noble Earl for his reply, and I ask leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

PUBLIC SEWERS (CONTRIBUTIONS BY FRONTAGERS).
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF ONSLOW): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion which stands in my name.
Moved, That a Committee of three Lords be appointed to join with a Committee of the House of Commons to consider the provisions of Sections 62 and 64 of the Romford Urban District Council Act, 1931, with respect to contributions by frontagers to the expenses of the construction of public sewers and to make recommendations as to the circumstances in which and the conditions upon which similar provisions should be allowed in future Bills; that the Lords following, with the Chairman of Committees, be named of the Committee:

L. O'Hagan,

L. Macmillan;

that leave be given to the Committee to hear parties interested by themselves, their Counsel, or Agents, so far as the Committee think fit; that such Committee have power to agree with the Committee of the House of Commons in the appointment of a Chairman.—(The Earl of Onslow.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Ordered, That a Message be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith, to request them to appoint three members to be joined with the said Committee, and to propose that the Joint Committee do meet in the Chairman of Committees' Committee Room, House of Lords, on Wednesday, the 13th of May, at half-past ten o'clock.

PUBLIC HEALTH BILL. [H.L.]
VISCOUNT GAGE: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion which stands in my name.
Moved, That a Committee of seven Lords be appointed to join with a Committee of the House of Commons to consider the said Bill; that the Lords following, with the Chairman of Committees, be named of the Committee:

V. Ridley,

L. Hare (E. Listowel),

L. Addington,

L. Dorchester,

L. Mamhead,

L. Mottistone;

that such Committee have power to agree with the Committee of the House of Commons in the appointment of a Chairman.—(Viscount Gage.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Ordered, That a Message be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith, and to request them to appoint seven members to be joined with the said Committee.

ARMY AND AIR FORCE (ANNUAL) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
House adjourned at seventeen minutes before seven o'clock.