Lords Sitting of 2 December 1936

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock, The EARL OF ONSLOW on the Woolsack.
MERCHANT SHIPPING (CARRIAGE OF MUNITIONS TO SPAIN) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and to be printed.

DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE IN SCOTLAND.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL rose to call attention to the rapid disappearance of domestic architecture in Scotland of historic and æsthetic interest to the country, and to urge His Majesty's Government to take all practical steps to ensure the preservation of this national heritage without delay; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the matter which forms the subject of this Motion is regarded by the National Trust for Scotland, and by a number of other people who are very much disturbed by what is going on, as one of great urgency and importance. Scotland is fairly well endowed with the more important ancient buildings, many of them in ruins, but for the most part now well tended and guarded against further spoliation or decay. Scotland also has a number of very beautiful and very interesting country houses containing great stores and treasures of furniture and works of art, the preservation of which, as of similar houses in England, is no doubt a matter of national importance. But it is not the castles and abbeys, nor is it the great country houses, that, I had in mind when I put down this Motion. What I wish to call your Lordships' attention to, and the attention of the Government, is the grave and pressing danger which threatens the few remaining examples of bygone domestic architecture of the humbler sort that still remain in Scotland. No observant person who has gone about in Scotland can, I think, fail to have been struck by the scarcity of those villages which owe any picturesqueness and charm they possess to the houses themselves as apart
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from their surroundings or their setting. That is very far from being the case in England, where villages containing a great number of most charming old houses are to be met with in many parts of the country.
I have often been puzzled to account for the more rapid disappearance of the older houses in Scotland than in England, and I believe that the explanation may be found in a difference between the rating systems of the two countries. At any rate, that is one of the principal reasons. I am fortified in that opinion by a letter which I read not long ago in the Scotsman from no less a legal authority than Lord Salvesen. Your Lordships know that in England the rates are paid by the occupier and, generally speaking, no rates are levied on an empty house. In Scotland the rates have to be paid—at any rate the owner's share of the rates has to be paid—whether the house is occupied or not, so long as it is habitable. My fellow-countrymen do not like paying rates on property which is bringing in no return, and there has been a natural tendency to render an empty house uninhabitable, usually by taking off the roof, and thus to avoid the payment of rates. That is the first thing the factor suggests on such occasions, and it has been very extensively done. But whatever the reason may be, I submit that the great scarcity of such houses in Scotland gives that country a special claim to have the few that remain preserved. The National Trust for Scotland has recently been enabled to have a list made of the houses of this kind which still remain and which are thought to be worthy of preservation. That is a very valuable first step towards their preservation, and I hope that the fullest use may be made of it. I notice, however, that the noble Lord (Lord Derwent) who also has a Notice on the Paper dealing with this same subject desires to make that point, and I will therefore not detain the House by arguing it now.
These houses seem up to now to have been "nobody's child." The Government seem to consider the affair a matter for the local authority, and the local authority has many other things on which to spend the ratepayers' money, with the result that these houses

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are left to their fate. The urgency of the matter arises from three main causes, of which the widening of streets and roads is one. It is, of course, inevitable that a certain number of old houses shall disappear in that process along with others, but one does hope that when, as must very often be the case, there is an interesting old house on one side of the road and a new and uninteresting one on the opposite side, preference will be given to the older house. That is by no means always done. The practical suggestion that I would make is that no house which appears on the list of which I have spoken shall be demolished for such a reason unless the Secretary of State for Scotland, or the first Commissioner of Works, or whatever Minister may, be ready to constitute himself their guardian, is satisfied that this is inevitable and that a necessary public improvement cannot otherwise be carried out.
The other great danger which threatens these houses at the present moment arises from recent housing legislation. Parliament has of late paid great attention to housing and has rightly and wisely encouraged the clearing away of slums and the provision of better houses. The activity to which local authorities have been stimulated and the powers with which they have been armed are necessarily dangerous to houses of which I am speaking. That danger is made much more imminent, and much more grave, by the conditions which attach to the grant of housing subsidies. As your Lordships are no doubt aware, grants and loans are made under the Housing (Rural Workers) Acts for the improvement of houses, mostly cottages, which will be occupied by agricultural workers or persons in a similar position, and much excellent work has been done during the ten years those Acts have been in force, in that way. There has to-day been published a, Report made to the Minister of Health by the Central Housing Advisory Committee, of which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester is Chairman, and the noble Earl, Lord Crawford, is a member. I had hoped that Lord Crawford would have been here now, but, unfortunately, the early meeting of the House has made it rather difficult for him. However, I
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hope he will be here before the discussion terminates.
This Report, which I got this morning, is a most interesting publication, and shows what can be achieved under the Acts I have mentioned and at very moderate cost. The Report contains pictures which are reminiscent of the advertisements one sees of patent pills and hair restorers. They show the patient before and after treatment. It is a most excellent official publication, and I hope it will have a very wide circulation. I may say that the cost is only sixpence. Unfortunately, the advantages of those Acts do not extend to towns and cities. In urban districts no housing subsidy is paid except for a new house. Nothing is paid for the reconditioning of an old one. I need not point out to your Lordships how greatly such a regulation increases the probability of an old house being destroyed. The full subsidy can be drawn if the old house is pulled down and a new one built in its place, but nothing will be paid for the reconditioning of the old house. There is no doubt, I think, that many of these houses in Scotland are perfectly capable of being put into condition to meet modern requirements. They are well and solidly built. They have stout walls that have stood the storms of Scotland for centuries. They need modern equipment and sanitation, and given that I am sure they will long outlive the flimsy structures to-day being run up all over the country. In the larger towns and cities of Scotland many of these houses were formerly the residences of well-to-do people. In Edinburgh, in particular, many of them were the town houses of Lords and Lairds before the railways took them and their womenfolk to London.
Apart from their archæological and architectural interest, these houses still retain much of their old-world gracious charm, and we should be distinctly the poorer for their loss. Their recondition as I have already said, is far from being impossible, provided that it can be financed and the whole cost does not fall upon the local authority or the owner. The ideal way of doing what I think ought to be done regarding these houses would be for a sufficient sum of money to be placed at the disposal of some public body—the National Trust seems to be indicated for the purpose—to be used in reconditioning such houses as might be considered suitable for that treatment.

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The money would be well used, and it would bring in some return, as the houses would be in useful occupation. I hope the Government will give very careful consideration to the possibility of dealing with the matter on those lines; but, whatever the decision on that point may be, I do most strongly urge that the conditions attaching to the grant of housing subsidies shall be reconsidered.
I will give your Lordships an example of what is happening, and what will continue to happen, under the present regulations. The City of Edinburgh is considering an extensive scheme for improving housing conditions in the Canongate and its immediate neighbourhood. The Corporation is naturally most anxious to preserve the historic atmosphere of its famous street. It is equally anxious to see its people properly housed. Those desires are not incompatible. The houses themselves, I believe, could without great difficulty be put into a condition which would make them comply with the requirements of the Ministry of Health, and it is right to say that I understand that the officials of the Ministry have shown themselves most willing to help over this matter. But the Corporation have been told—and here I am quoting from the actual communication which was made to the Town Clerk of Edinburgh—that:
"If the proposals for reconstruction involve making use of any part of the existing buildings, subsidy under the Housing Acts of 1930–35 could not competently be paid to the Corporation for the work."
And in case that might not have been sufficiently definite, the i's were dotted and the t's crossed by the following communication received subsequently:
"Even if the façade only were used in the provision of the new houses, Exchequer subsidies could not be paid in respect of such houses."
So nothing short of complete demolition will serve if any assistance is to come from the State.
Surely that is obviously wrong. Here is a great public body, the heir to a priceless heritage from the past, who wish to secure the health and comfort of their people, and who wish to hand on to their successors the treasures they have inherited. I cannot believe that what I have quoted represents the considered policy of His Majesty's Ministers on a matter of this sort. It must be, I think,
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that something has crept into an Act of Parliament which was never meant to be there, or it may be that the trouble is caused by the regulations which have been framed under the various Acts of Parliament by the Departments which administer them. If that is the cause of the trouble, it ought not to be difficult to have the regulations altered. If the law is at fault I submit that it ought to be amended. We are not asking that these houses shall be preserved as dead empty things, simply as museum pieces; we are asking that they should be enabled to go on living a useful life, rejuvenated and refreshed from the public purse. The subsidy can be claimed if an old house is pulled down and a new one built in its place. It need not cost the Exchequer a penny more if the grant is used for reconditioning the old house. I beg to move.
THE MARQUESS OF BUTE: My Lords, I wish to support the noble Lord in the matter that he has brought forward this afternoon. In the first place I would like to assure those noble Lords whose homes may be in the South, and therefore who may not have an equal opportunity of following the course of events in Scotland, that it is difficult to understand the great destruction of ancient buildings that has gone on in Scotland during the last few years. Nothing like it, I think, has taken place in England and, as far as I know England, I feel safe in saying that nothing like it ever will take place. And yet, as the noble Lord said, these old houses in Scotland are more solidly built, have certainly an equal window space, and are as roomy as their counterparts in the South. This destruction has been done in a wholesale way and without any regard whatever to architecture, or history, or workmanship.
I believe that in the town of Dundee there is not now a single really old house left, not even one as an historical mark of life in times gone by in this ancient burgh. I believe the oldest houses now left are two or three of the Georgian period. Even one of Adam's masterpieces, which used to be called the Old Town House, has been wantonly destroyed. It was in good repair and was used, in fact, as the Town Hall, and yet it was simply pulled down against the known desires of the Office of Works, apparently in lack of any definite action

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on the part of that Office. In other places, such as Stirling and Falkland, where the old Royal Palace stands, and I believe one or two other places, the inhabitants, having got a foretaste of the havoc awaiting them, have formed some sort of association or society to preserve their ancient town and save their homes.
I believe I am not exaggerating—and I shall be only too pleased if it can be shown that I am—when I say that in the City of Edinburgh, which used to be one so rich in interesting buildings, dirty though they were, the Office of Works has only scheduled one house, the Cannon Ball House, next to the Castle. It is true that the Office of Works has in hand another building called Abbey Strand. This building can scarcely be said to be undergoing restoration. It stands directly opposite Holyrood Palace and a small part, it is true, has been restored, but by far the greater part of the building appears to be merely being fitted up with a view to obtaining the greatest possible rent. This property was bought by the late Lord Rosebery with a view to improving the amenities of Holyrood Palace, and the present noble Earl presented it to the Crown. To treat it as a commercial asset does appear to me a careless way not only to treat a gift but to treat the memory of the late noble Earl, whose desire in acquiring the property and whose wishes in regard to it are well known.
I own that this last point may perhaps not be one directly connected with the matter under discussion, and I certainly do not wish any noble Lord to get up after this and complain that I have made an attack on the Office of Works. I wish to do nothing of the sort. I am bound to refer to the Office of Works and to the Ancient Monuments Department, but I believe that the whole blame rests with the Government. The restoration of these old buildings cannot interfere with the new housing proposals, and the Ministry of Health, having seen the devastation which has been occasioned, is now, I am glad to see, doing what it can at all events to delay the pulling down of interesting buildings. In doing this the Ministry of Health is only doing what the Ancient Monuments Department should have done years ago. The reason for the inability on the part of the Ancient Monuments Department is, I believe, this, that some rule or order has
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been made whereby no building may be scheduled unless the funds for its immediate repair are available. The Government very simply withholds the funds, so that the Department in this way is relegated to the pointing of old monastic ruins and the measuring up of stone circles.
The people of Scotland have been miserably misled. Some of your Lordships may think I use too strong an expression, but I cannot feel so. I submit that if a Government sets up in Edinburgh a Department whose sole and avowed object is the preservation of ancient buildings and deliberately prevents that Department from functioning in the manner in which it is advertised to function, then no expression is too strong to describe the manner in which Scotland has been treated. The position therefore is that with the exception of Edinburgh, which I believe has the power but has never put it forward, local authorities and civic bodies hold they have no power to rate for the purposes of reconditioning. Therefore they simply pull the places down. The Ancient Monuments Department is prevented from taking action and has to stand by silently watching the disappearance of the very buildings that it is supposed to safeguard. The public does its best to save at all events seine of the national heirlooms, either by individual effort or by subscribing to one of those societies whose object this particularly is. No doubt the public will continue to do all in its power but, with taxation at the level which it has now reached, it is impossible to expect to be able to keep an equal pace with this surge of destruction.
The excuse so often and so speciously heard that the cost of reconditioning of an old building is greater than the cost of its demolition and the building of another in its place is, I feel, quite unfounded. I agree that in some cases the cost will be greater, but in other cases the cost, of necessity, must be less. But in any case these old buildings, whether a cottage or a mansion, when they were were built not as the very cheapest thing obtainable. They were built as the best thing that could be got, and they were built with the object of providing a home. They have stood a very long time, and they will stand a very long time vet, which is more than can be said of most of the houses that are now being put up in

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their stead. So now, as the result of this process of excuse and equivocation, there is now comparatively little left to be saved. I do not think it could be argued that it is not through the sudden somewhat hurried action on the part of the Ministry of Health, combined with almost total inaction on the part of the Ancient Monuments Department, just at the very time when that Department's help was most urgently needed and expected, that this irreparable loss has occurred.
I hope, therefore, that the Government may see its way to do something adequate to put right this great loss which has come about. I can see no way myself, I admit, except by a grant of financial aid, and I suggest that perhaps this help might be given to the National Trust; in the first place bemuse of the apparent inclination on the part of the Office of Works to treat some of these old buildings in a commercial way rather than as subjects for restoration, and secondly, because the lists of ancient buildings issued from time to time by the Ancient Monuments Department contain only comparatively few of that domestic type of building which forms the subject of this evening's debate. But whatever may be done I hope it may be done without delay, because the tide of destruction rolls on.
THE EARL OF GLASGOW: My Lords, I also wish to support the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton. I do not know very well what is going on in the rest of Scotland and in Edinburgh with regard to these houses, but I do know something of what is going on in the West of Scotland, and particularly in my own County of Ayr, and ought perhaps to restrict myself to that. I think what is going on there is deplorable, and I dare say the same kind of thing is going on in other parts of Scotland. The Ayrshire County Council, along with other county councils of Scotland, has to carry out its housing schemes on the lines of economy and efficiency and with the aid of Government grants, and is supervised to that extent by the Government. It is the duty of that admirable body of men, the county council officials, to advise committees of county councils in Ayrshire and elsewhere on matters concerning housing, and they are not to blame if their advice sometimes clashes with the ideas of the National Trust. They do their duty in
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putting forward their measures with efficiency and economy, and they have no room perhaps for sentiment in doing so, but they are not to blame on that account. Those who are to blame are, I think, the members of committees of county councils who have not yet been educated up to the importance of the tradition and sentiment which animate Scotland to-day.
I am sure the noble Lord who moved the Motion will agree with me in that, and I think also he will agree that the officials of the county councils are not to blame in this matter. Those of your Lordships who have had to do with local government know quite well that most county councillors are all out for economy in public work, and for obvious reasons they are very loath to advocate economy in anything which has to do with the Social Services. To my mind there should be more economy in the Social Services of this country to-day. I do not know where we are going to stop in the matter of Social Services. We are going so fast in this direction that nobody knows what is going to happen. But, as I have said, county councillors, at any rate, do not like to advocate economy in the Social Services, and they are ready at any moment to seize on an opportunity of reducing expenditure upon things outside these Services like housing schemes and schemes of that kind.
There is a deplorable tendency in Ayrshire, at any rate, and I presume the same thing happens in other parts of Scotland, not only to do away with these old houses which are of interest to the County of Ayr especially, but also to sweep away whole villages and bring them into the nearest housing scheme of some burgh or town nearby. There have been three occasions recently in Ayrshire where three villages were scheduled under demolition orders and the people in those villages were to be rehoused in the nearest housing scheme. The tendency is to denude the countryside of all its charming old villages, and to bring the inhabitants of those villages to the nearest towns, thus swelling the populations of those towns. That seems to me to be a very deplorable tendency, and I am glad to say that in two of the cases to which I have referred, owing to petitions by the inhabitants, the schemes

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were turned down and the houses were re-erected in the villages. I am merely pointing out the tendency of modern local government.
But there are also in Ayrshire as well as in other parts of the country many old houses which come under the ban of the authorities and are swept away, and police stations and other buildings put in their place. My own County of Ayr, as your Lordships know, is the birthplace of the Scottish bard, Burns. It is the Mecca of Scotsmen from all parts of the world. They come there in their thousands every year, and it seems to me rather short-sighted on the part of county authorities, not only in Ayr but in other counties, to do away with these charming old houses which have so much attraction for those thousands who spend their money in the country. I think it is a great pity that something is not done by the Government to stop the demolition of these old places in the country which constitute one of its greatest charms. These old houses are the charm of the Scottish countryside just as in England they are the charm of your country. I hope the noble Lord who replies will give us some hope that something will be done.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I desire to support this Motion. In doing so I approach it from a different angle from that which has been adopted by previous speakers; but I agree that the time has come when this subject should receive the serious attention of the Government. The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, spoke, if I understood him correctly, of having a list of houses. I think that is the true line of approach to this subject, and I would start with this proposal, that before any building can be preserved it should be classified as worth preserving and, contrariwise, that a building which is not so classified is not likely to be preserved.
The business of making representations or recommendations for the preservation of all kinds of structures is in the hands of the Historical Monuments Commissions, whose Reports are themselves historical monuments of well-informed, accurate and most sympathetic scholarship. But the Commissions are themselves limited by their terms of reference to houses in existence at any particular period. For example, in the case of Scotland
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anything later than the Act of Union of 1707 lies outside its purview. I believe that anything later than 1700 lies outside the purview of the Commission for England, but I believe—I am not quite sure about this—that in Wales there is no limit. This means that domestic architecture, which is the peculiar glory of our country, is to a large extent excluded from the survey of the Commission. I suggest an amendment to the Commission's terms of reference as the absolutely indispensable condition of any effective action for the preservation of all buildings which ought to be preserved. There should be no time limit whatever. If a new bridge, for example, opened only the other day, strikes the Commissioners as a work of exceptional merit, they should have power to schedule that bridge.
I cannot too strongly emphasise the point that the whole prospect of saving our gems of domestic architecture depends upon the Commission. To get up a local petition when a charming old house has been purchased by a company which proposes to pull it down and erect a super-cinema is to put the cart before the horse. The first thing to do is to schedule the charming old house and make it impossible for it to be destroyed without official approval. That official approval will be granted in far too many cases goes without saying, judging from pact experience. I myself feel no great confidence in any authority, national or local. How can I, when I live under a Government which has destroyed Regent Street and a County Council which has destroyed Waterloo Bridge? It is, I fear, impossible to guard against the Philistinism of public opinion. The only thing we can do is to make it reasonably certain that such scholarly and cultured opinion as exists shall be heard. The, time limit imposed on the Historical Monuments Commission makes it absolutely certain that such opinion shall not be heard. In my view the time limit should be removed and the terms of reference extended to give them power to deal with all classes of buildings that ought to be preserved.
A building can indeed be preserved as an ancient monument even if it is not scheduled as worthy of preservation by the Historical Monuments Commission. It can be either acquired or protected by the Commissioners of Works or by a

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local authority. There is thus a loophole. Parliament, however, in its wisdom has been careful to stop it in a large measure in the Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Act, 1913. That Act defies the powers of both the central and local authorities and is at special pains in Sections 8 and 12 to except from their application
"any structure which is occupied as a dwelling house by any person other than a person employed as a caretaker thereof or his family."
This exception has met with a great deal of disapproval. The Ancient Monuments Advisory Committee, for example, have disapproved of it. In their Report issued in 1921 they state that:
"…the British distinction between monuments in use and those no longer used is not recognised [on the Continent] and we are of opinion that on logical and practical grounds the advantage is with the Continental conception."
I venture, therefore, to submit that Sections 8 and 12 of the Act of 1913 should be repealed or greatly modified.
It is a fair presumption that when there is legislation to protect ancient and beautiful buildings, and when certain buildings are specifically excluded from its scope, those buildings are earmarked for destruction. I know it is said that all these matters are dealt with, or can be dealt with, under the Town and Country Planning Act and the Housing Acts. But this is not enough. The business of town and country planning committees is to do what little they can to check the badness of new building, and this job will take up so much of their time that there will be nothing left over for the consideration of the goodness of old building. We must not consider the provisions of an Act of Parliament in vacuo. We have to ask ourselves how those provisions actually operate. What is going on now is the reversal of the great movement which a hundred years ago packed our population tightly around the sources of power. Modern methods of power distribution and of transport have released the old tension and our people are spreading themselves over the countryside. The habitable area around the centres has been enormously increased and the business of planning committees is to try to control the flood of new houses while it is spreading.
Suppose that an old farmhouse, which should be preserved, lies in the way of
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the flood, the planning committee—concerned, as they properly are, with the provision of service roads and the maintenance of a decent minimum of houses to the acre—will not lift a finger to spare it. Suppose, on the contrary, that the building is safe from demolition unless special powers are secured to destroy it, then the planning committee, taking the line of least resistance, will discover that it constitutes an admirable nodal point for their plan and can be made to serve an excellent public function. The present is always arrogant and insists that its own needs shall not be obstructed, and, when urged to think of the future, retorts that the future can take care of itself. The answer to this sort of argument is, I take it, that a country as tenacious of its traditions as ours has no right to asume that the future will not share its feelings. We say now that the nineteenth century spoilt our towns. Let us at least make sonic effort to see to it that our descendants do not say that the twentieth century spoilt our countryside.
THE MARQUESS OF ABERDEEN AND TEMAIR: My Lords, I think that those of us who hail from Scotland are in deep debt to the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, for bringing this subject before the House. Scotland is a small country with a comparatively small population and there is consequently not so much wealth as there is in the southern part of the Kingdom. That is really why the situation in Scotland is a great deal worse than it is in England, although I feel that, if things are allowed to drift as they are now drifting, those in England will experience the same trouble and difficulty as we are now experiencing in Scotland. There is no question, either, that the activity of the housing legislation has aggravated this question of old buildings. On the other hand, we cannot help but admire the public-spirited action of those who, like the noble Marquess who spoke after Lord Hamilton, give of their time and treasure to the maintenance of that which is worthy to be kept. I am sure that the noble Marquess would like to see much more kept than he individually is able to keep.
It seems to me that the best way in which to remedy the situation is for His Majesty's Government to give extended powers, both under the Ancient Monuments Act and also to the Office of Works, to do more than they are allowed

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to do, and also for the Treasury to be generous to those two Departments. As I understand the position, the Ancient Monuments Department cannot touch any building which is actually inhabited. The building has to go to rack and ruin, or the roof has to be off, or something like that, before the Department can schedule it under the Act of 1913. I happen to be the owner of one of those scheduled ancient monuments, and I cannot speak too highly of the splendid work which the Department has done in keeping old monuments and restoring them to almost perfect condition—as ruins. The case that I have in mind has been treated splendidly, and the only curious thing about it was that three years after the Ancient Monuments Act was passed in 1913, when nobody was allowed to do any building at all under the Ministry of Munitions Orders, I received notice "to forthwith repair the said monument." But they do not act in that way now, and there is many an ancient monument in Scotland which still has a roof on and ought to be preserved. If the Government could see their way to extending the powers of the Ancient Monuments Act, a great deal could be done at any rate in the way of scheduling the buildings, even though the Department did not forthwith repair them if there were no money available.
The great trouble to-day is that these ancient houses or valuable historic houses cannot be scheduled and are therefore at the mercy of the local authority, who have no money for such a purpose. I cannot say too much in praise of the splendid work which the Office of Works have done within their powers, but there again, they require extended powers and extended grants to enable them to carry out that section of their work with which we are intimately concerned this afternoon. Of course it may be said that we in Scotland do not show enough interest in these matters. It is very easy to talk about things and to show your interest in talk, but if you have not the means wherewith to carry your talk into action it does not exactly manifest the same interest as if you had, and you cannot do things if you have not the wherewithal to do them. The means which some of us used to have for this sort of work have now absolutely disappeared owing to the demands of the Department of Health and the local authorities under the Housing Acts.
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More especially is that the case for those of us who live in the country and have town conditions imposed upon rural areas which are quite impossible to carry out. That is one of the reasons why those old houses in the country are liable to go into disrepair and eventually to fall down because there is no money left with which to keep them in order.
I should like to plead with the Government to extend the powers of the Housing (Rural Workers) Act to the built-up areas. I cannot quite see why that Act, with its system of grants, could not be extended to the towns. That would be of enormous help to preserving small cottages which are worth maintaining, if there were a grant for putting them into proper order, but at present there is no grant for putting them in order and it is only the grant that enables an owner to do it in the country. Surely the same thing ought to apply to the small houses or cottages in built-up areas. In this matter I would claim the interest of noble Lords who are interested south of the Border, because if this state of things is allowed to continue, without a doubt they will find themselves faced with the same situation as that with which we in Scotland are faced. It is therefore to the interest of all your Lordships, and, in fact, of all the citizens in our country who have any interest in the past and who wish to preserve what is good, that they should take an active interest in this matter before it is too late.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, the situation to-clay is very serious and the noble Lords who have addressed the House have not in the least exaggerated the position. Old houses with distinctive character are being swept away, not by the hundred only but almost by the thousand, and with these houses we are losing our Scottish history. The noble Marquess, Lord Bute, did not in the least exaggerate the position when he said that a process of devastation is going on. My noble friend near me described how in the West whole villages are scheduled for destruction. Where a house cannot be reconditioned and made into a wholesome, sanitary building, it has got to go, but seine of the destruction which is going on now is not only needless but it is wasteful as well, because a great number of these houses are perfectly capable of being repaired and put into

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a thoroughly good condition. As things stand, however, the Housing Acts place a premium on demolition. I do not know whether Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, whose speech I am sorry to say I did not hear, quoted the letter from the Town Clerk of Edinburgh.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL: Yes, I did.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: In that letter, a very striking letter, the Town Clerk complained about this very point, and he added that if there is a beautiful facade no grant would be made if the feature were incorporated in the reconstructed building. The building would therefore be lost. That is not only wrong but fantastic. I recently noticed when visiting Paris that the whole frontage of a house in the historic square called the Place Vendome is being retained while the fabric behind is being reconstructed. The French value the place as an artistic entity, but if we did such a thing in Scotland the Treasury would say: "Oh, if you use a stone of the old building, no money from us." It is a most wasteful and extravagant procedure, because Lord Glasgow was very right when he referred to the commercial value of these buildings. He ought to know, because he says he represents the Mecca of Scotsmen. I should not contest that description beyond saying that there is an East as well as a West of Scotland, and we know that in Scotland there are people able sufficiently to appreciate the commercial value of a beautiful town or beautiful street. It is inconceivable that public opinion would allow shopkeepers in Edinburgh or St. Andrews, or anywhere else, to erect over their shops what are called fascias, several feet high, which advertise boots, or perfumes or other commodities.
Now these old buildings which are so easily condemned can in many cases be repaired and made into perfectly substantial dwelling houses. The repair of an old building through reconditioning is an art in itself, an art which was revived by Sir Robert Lorimer, and is now being carried on in Scotland by students of his scientific treatment. But may I say this, that reconditioning of old buildings requires a particular training, and it is the habit of the medical officer of health or the local surveyor to condemn a building as being unfit for reconditioning. With
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all due deference to those gentlemen they have not been trained as architects, and unless you have been trained in the art of architecture and the science of building it is no good pronouncing an opinion upon whether walls can be reconditioned or not. Moreover, these gentlemen are much too occupied on other things to give their attention to this problem, on the technical side of which immense progress is being made. In England whole villages have been reconditioned and made into thoroughly satisfactory dwelling houses. Incidentally, the new houses are not always in themselves ideal either. These old houses, with stone walls two feet thick, are cool in summer and cosy in the winter, whereas many of the modern houses with which I am acquainted are very rickety affairs, and I suspect that in twenty years or twenty-five years are condemned to pretty rapid decay. Another condition which I hope the Treasury Bench will take note of is this, that when an old house in Scotland is condemned you are very often condemning a building which is a freehold building, owned by the occupier, or where a small feu duty of a shilling or sixpence a year is being paid. If they are turned out and the family are put into a new house they will have to pay a very largely increased rent. It too often happens that in those circumstances the rent is paid, but nutrition suffers. Upon the whole, I suspect that good nutrition is more important than the correct ratio of window to floor area.
Every noble Lord who has addressed the House has emphasised one or other aspect of the same argument, that old Scotland is vanishing before our eyes, and I am very glad that Lord Amulree referred to the small domestic architecture in Scotland. Not to the grand buildings. We have very few of them in Scotland. It is not sufficiently recognised that the greatness of Scotland has been due largely to urban growth, and it was in these small townships that much of the greatness of our country was bred and born. It is of importance that these smaller dwelling houses should be maintained. I suppose everybody recognises how great and urgent are the difficulties with which local authorities are faced, but Scotland as a whole is not yet fully alive to the danger of the situation. Here and there one section or another is doing its best—

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the Ancient Monuments Board, the Historical Commission—but it is no good relying upon them. I am a member of the English Commission. I have been Chairman of it for twenty years, I believe, but it is going to be 110 years before we get round England, and unless the personnel of the Ancient Monuments Board and the Historical Commission are trebled or quadrupled it is no good expecting them to make any adequate schedule of the buildings that we want to preserve. I may mention the National Trust. In seven years they have made a great impression in Scotland. If I may I will mention one particular burgh, the Royal Burgh of Stirling, which a few years ago rather unexpectedly took drastic action to preserve one very valuable and interesting section of frontage.
Broadly speaking, the noble Marquess, Lord Aberdeen, is quite right in saying that we are drifting in the matter. Very much greater activity is needed. I think the noble Marquess, Lord Bute, was perhaps a little severe on the Office of Works when he said that they seemed to limit their efforts to re-pointing and looking after the gardens. Their powers are very limited indeed, but I do not hesitate to say that the best advocates and supporters of an active policy for the preservation of ancient monuments and buildings, whether secular or religious, in Scotland, are to be found in the Office of Works, the office of which Department is at Westminster. Their control and conservation of old buildings is a great example to us, and for their skill and for their initiative I cannot speak too high praise. But they cannot intervene in regard to small dwellings. It is outwith their reference, outwith their Act of Parliament. They have no right to do it—they cannot do it—and I dare say in some ways it is just as well that they should be kept above the area of controversy in which they would be submerged were they empowered to say: "You may do this" or "You may not do that" to a building in which a family is residing.
I hope that the debate which your Lordships have had to-day, in which we are united in deploring the existing dangers, will have its repercussions on the Treasury Bench and will have its echo in Scotland. For we who speak to-day are speaking with the knowledge that all over Scotland the state of things
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of to-day is causing a most profound anxiety, because Scotland itself is killing its old honoured traditions, and doing it itself. I appeal to the Government very earnestly to make an active and, if possible, an immediate investigation into this subject and later on to inform the House of the purport of their inquiries in order that, if necessary, the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, may refer to the matter again.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL): My Lords, I am sure that your Lordships' House cannot fail to have been impressed by the very powerful plea which has been made both by the noble Lord who introduced this Motion and by all the other noble Lords from Scotland who have followed him. I would like to begin by saying that the Government are in complete sympathy with the general aims expressed in this Motion. The Government recognise that it is most desirable that there should be no wanton destruction of buildings of historic and architectural interest in Scotland, and accordingly they welcome the activities of such bodies as the National Trust for Scotland, the Association for the Preservation of Rural Scotland, and others in trying to preserve interesting specimens of Scottish architecture. I should like to pay a special tribute to the public spirit which has been shown by the noble Marquess, Lord Bute, in purchasing and reconditioning, at his own expense, buildings which would otherwise have been destroyed, for which purpose, I understand, he has employed an architect who is an expert on that question.
It is perhaps desirable in the first place to clear up one or two apparent misunderstandings of the Housing Acts. The demolition of unfit houses is not an innovation of the Housing Act of 1935, the chef purpose of which was to deal with overcrowding. It is true that during the last four or five years the Government's campaign to end the slums has led to an increasing number of demolitions, but the power to demolish unfit houses has been on the Statute Book since 1890. My second point is that it is not essential for a local authority to demolish an unfit house in order to earn Exchequer grant for re-housing its occupants. It is always open to a local authority to accept from the owner an undertaking that the house will not be

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used for human habitation until the local authority cancel the undertaking, which presumably would be done; and even where a demolition order has been made the owner may, with the approval of the Department, reconstruct the house instead of pulling it down.
It may also be useful if I refer to what local authorities can do under their existing powers in the way of preservation. Assistance under the Housing (Rural Workers) Acts can be given for the reconstruction of houses occupied by agricultural workers and persons of a like economic condition and there must be many houses in small burghs and villages which would be eligible for assistance under the Acts. Where an owner is unable or unwilling to take advantage of the Housing (Rural Workers) Acts, the Housing Act of last year enabled the local authority to acquire and reconstruct the property themselves with the aid of the Exchequer grant. Further, local authorities have ample powers to acquire and reconstruct any houses which are used or can be used for housing the working classes, and for this purpose they may draw upon any surplus which they may have in the pool of Exchequer and rate contributions which the new Act provides for.
In addition the Housing Acts give the Department special powers to ensure that in their housing operations local authorities will have due regard to the desirability of preserving works of architectural, historic or artistic interest, and the Department are prepared to use these powers wherever the circumstances would justify them in doing so. I should also mention that the Housing Act of last year provided specially for the appointment by local authorities of local committees with representatives of architectural and other artistic interests to advise them on artistic questions connected with their housing work. I presume it was those committees and the uses for which they might be employed to which the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, referred in his interesting speech. The Government are confident that the appointment of committees of this kind will be most useful to local authorities, and in co-operation with local authorities they will see that the most is made of this power.
I now turn to the main suggestion which was put forward both this afternoon by
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the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, and in the course of a deputation from the National Trust of Scotland which visited the Scottish Office recently. That of course is the suggestion that the Government should, in one form or another, give a grant for the preservation of houses of architectural or historic interest. The Secretary of State and the First Commissioner have considered very carefully the more limited proposal that Exchequer grant should be given for the preservation of selected houses. At the present time when there are so many other claims on the Exchequer, it is difficult to hold out much hope of a Government grant, and naturally, before coming to a final decision, the Government desire to have some idea of the extent of the problem, the cost involved, and the probable support from local or voluntary sources. For this purpose they have suggested that the National Trust should endeavour to obtain the necessary information in consultation with the English National Trust. In the meantime, both the Department of Health and the Office of Works are doing what they can to secure that buildings worthy of preservation are not destroyed. By arrangement with the National Trust the Department of Health have been furnished with a list of buildings of historic or architectural interest in certain districts of Scotland and they have written to each local authority concerned drawing their attention to any buildings in their area and asking to be informed of any proposals for demolishing them.
It has also been arranged that, where necessary, officers of the Office of Works will inspect the buildings and advise the Department in connection with the exercise of their powers to preserve buildings of architectural, historic or artistic merit. A further and more comprehensive list is being prepared, I understand, by the noble Marquess, Lord Bute, and the Secretary of State will of course welcome any further information which will enable the Department to bring to the notice of local authorities any valuable buildings in their areas. I understand that the National Trust for Scotland propose to launch an appeal for funds to help them in the work of preservation. I know something of the excellent work which the Trust have already done and I wish to associate myself with the appeal to all Scotsmen to give some contribution to

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enable the efforts of the Trust to be continued and extended. In conclusion, I should like to emphasise the importance of local effort in this work of preservation. There must be few towns or villages in Scotland which have not some building of historic or artistic interest and I cannot think that either the local authorities or the local inhabitants as a whole are not willing to make some contribution to the preservation of the distinctive features of their district.
There are no papers which I can produce on this subject, and the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, is even more aware than I am of all the correspondence which has passed between the Scottish Office and the National Trust and other individuals in this matter. But I will give him and the other noble Lords who have spoken this undertaking, that I will personally make it my duty to report to the Secretary of State for Scotland the very strong tone that has prevailed in this debate and the completely unanimous feeling of your Lordships' House that something should be done in this case for Scotland.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL: My Lords, I do not think that the noble Lord who has just spoken will be disappointed if I say I did not derive a great deal of comfort from his reply except from his last few words, for which I thank him. His speech as a whole was really rather barren of comfort. I cannot, for instance, be much comforted by the assurance that the law is such that a local authority need not be compelled to pull down an old house if it is not inhabited. Why should it, unless it is likely to fall on the head of some passer-by? I did find part of the noble Lord's statement somewhat at variance with the passage which I have quoted already today, and to which the noble Earl, Lord Crawford, has also referred, in the letter from the Town Clerk of Edinburgh. I will not trouble your Lordships with it again, but I would ask the noble Lord, when he reads the report of this discussion, to try and reconcile what he has said with what is contained in that letter. I thank the House for the support which my Motion has received, and with your Lordships' permission I would withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

PRESERVATION OF ANCIENT BUILDINGS.
LORD DERWENT LORD DERWENT had the following Notice on the Paper:—To move to resolve, That in view of the grave and constant danger of the removal or damage of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century buildings in Great Britain which cannot be included in the country-house category, but which may be of permanent artistic interest, His Majesty's Government should lose no time in making steps to have a complete census made of all buildings constructed between the years 1700 and 1830, with a view to the eventual handing over to H.M. Office of Works for protection of all those that may be decided to be of sufficient importance.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I consider myself very fortunate to have been preceded by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, though I very much regret that he has considered it advisable to withdraw his Motion. Lord Hamilton has opened the battle in this struggle on which we have both decided to embark, and on which it is disgraceful that we should be obliged to embark, in order to stem the tide of careless destruction that is daily menacing the architectural beauties of our country. If there is one anomaly which is greater than that of two Liberals rising to their feet to plead for State support against the blindness or cupidity of individual owners, it is the anomaly which consists in inhabiting a century where knowledge of all sorts is widely disseminated and easy of access, and at the same time of being obliged to assume the part of someone crying in the wilderness. The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, has concentrated, with a most comprehensible nationalism, on the land of his origin. Your Lordships will observe that with the impertinence which Scotsmen would doubtless consider typical of a Sassenach, but which, in view of the parlous state of Scotland as described this afternoon, I no longer consider an impertinence, I presume, in the terms of my Motion, to include Scotland in the scheme I am advocating. I am not able to quote examples for Scotland within the period I have chosen, but this gap has been extremely well filled by the noble Marquess, Lord Bute, who spoke of an Adam house which had been destroyed. The noble Marquess thus confirmed my

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suspicion, which was already a strong one, that the hand of the vandal is as heavy on that side of the border as it is on this.
It is, alas! a question of quoting examples, not only recent ones, but ones which have already become classics. Before doing this, however, I should like to sketch the situation as I see it at present in regard to the houses I have singled out—houses constructed between 1700 and 1830, dates which I will explain in a moment. I am not thinking at all of the gentleman's mansion or country house, both because they are more in the public eye than the ones I am thinking of and also because the National Trust has the intention of bringing in a Bill shortly which will enable your Lordships to have that matter amplified on that occasion. I want to convince your Lordships that the danger I speak of really exists. There are, of course, various reasons underlying it. My opinion—and I find it is shared by many, including some who are concerned directly with ancient buildings—is that while anyone possessed of real knowledge and taste appreciates eighteenth-century buildings at their proper value, the man in the street in England does not instinctively think of them as being, as it were, genuine antiques. Many of them are still inhabited, and he usually considers such houses as being merely dwellings a few years older than his own.
The result of this is that any building enterprise or corporation or town or county council—most of which latter are in any case, as the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, has already said, not exactly renowned for their artistic knowledge; and, after all, that is not what they are chosen for—find no obstacles in their way when they come up against an eighteenth-century house in one of the so-called development schemes (though as to the result of many of these developments, probably the less said the better). They simply look at it as the general public does as being a large-windowed house of more or less recent date, and away it goes, and of ten only when it is gone, or half-gone, does the outcry begin. And that brings me to the kernel of my argument. In all these matters there is one cardinal defect. The only official body that as long as an eighteenth century building is unoccupied is entitled, without having to enter into possession,
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legally to prevent damage to it or demolition of it, is His Majesty's Office of Works. There is no restriction imposed on them as to dates; once they have scheduled a building it is safe.
It will then naturally be asked: Why does this destruction continue? The answer to that question is a double one. The greater part of the Office of Works' time has been and still is taken up with examining cases of buildings or monuments that go back to earlier times, as will be seen from their list of scheduled buildings. These are very numerous, and it is therefore only fair to say that, however great the Commissioners' desire may be to occupy themselves with this question, the administrative difficulties in the way, arising from lack of time and probably also from lack of finance, are considerable. But in addition to this the three other bodies that in theory are interested in this matter, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, the Royal Commissions for the Preservation of Historical Monuments, and the National Trust are each prevented from playing a useful part. None of them have any official advisory capacity so that they are not consulted as a matter of course by the Office of Works. The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and the National Trust certainly have it in their power to recommend for scheduling buildings of any date, but the former's work ranges over a very wide area and there can be no certitude that they will select eighteenth-century buildings for special notice, while the National Trust, though it owns a few houses, is primarily concerned with land and with views over the countryside.
As for the Royal Commissions, there the situation is even worse, for by an incomprehensible discrimination, out of the three that exist to deal with Great Britain only that which deals with Wales has no date limit attached to its work. The one which deals with England has no power to take note of buildings after the year 1714 and that which is concerned with Scotland goes no further than the Act of Union, as the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, has said. I think I need say no more than this to prove to your Lordships to what extent eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century buildings are left out in the cold.
As a result what do we find? Perhaps your Lordships will allow me to cite a

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few details concerning the very beautiful Assembly Rooms at Bath, built by the younger Wood, which, apart from their beauty, are an integral part of our social history and a commemoration of one of its most brilliant periods. This building was only scheduled by the Office of Works in May of this year. The lateness of this date can, I am sure, be explained by the scandalous danger which no one could imagine would arise in the case of so famous an edifice. It had, incredibly enough, been allowed to pass into private hands, and had been turned by its owner partly into a cinema and partly into shops, and had, in other words, been allowed to fall into a complete state of decay. Only when it was bought as late as 1934 by an anonymous private person and handed over to the National Trust, who in their turn requested the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings to negotiate with the Bath Corporation with a view to fixing its use as a public building, did the Bath Corporation, after much haggling as to repairs, decide to do what it ought years ago to have done. My Lords, how can such things be?
This is the same spirit that has let three-quarters of the Adelphi disappear (and, incidentally, a resident in the remaining quarter informs me that there is no guarantee that it will be allowed to remain standing); the same spirit that desecrated Carlton House Terrace with the Pinchin Johnson Building (and what I do not hesitate to call the scandal of Carlton House Terrace—Crown Lands property, my Lords—was only prevented going further by the personal indignation and intervention of His late Majesty King George V.); the same spirit which is going to sweep away the admirable house at the corner of Abingdon Street, opposite the entrance of your Lordships' House—and I say this with all respect to the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury; for I have the temerity to consider that a great mistake has been made in that matter—the same spirit that allows that charming corner of London, Soho Square and its surroundings, to lose one by one its eighteenth-century houses, including, incidentally, I think, Hazlitt's famous house, with its beautiful pine panelling and another lovely ceilinged one that was illustrated in last Sunday's Sunday Times; the same that swept away the Quadrant of Regent Street, and that is
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engaged at the moment in turning out the tenants of Carlton Chambers in Lower Regent Street with a view to removing one of the last remaining vestiges of a noble thoroughfare; the game that has made vanish almost in a night the famous Cocoatree Club in St. James's Street, the haunt of Walpole, Fox, and Byron, with its enchanting interior decorations.
As for Regency architecture as a whole, which the dates in my Motion ire specially chosen to include, this seems to incur special hatred. Whole terraces have been removed at Brighton, and there is no certainty at all that the Brighton Corporation may not suddenly decide to remove the Pavilion. If the Crown Commissioners are as ruthless over their London property, why should the provinces not follow suit? And if it is a question of eighteenth-century buildings that are definitely menaced, I could tell your Lordships of the Assembly Rooms at Derby and at Epsom, of Radnor House at Twickenham, in which Her Majesty Queen Mary has taken a special interest, of charming riverside houses at Mortlake; and, as a pinnacle all these wickednesses, I could mention to your Lordships that, if rumour does not lie, there is a scheme on foot to transfer the Chelsea Pensioners to Windsor Castle and to develop the site on which their present admirable home stands together with some of the well-known gardens behind it. There need be no end to the list, but I beg your Lordships not to tremble: I am obliged to make one.
I cannot do more than this in the limited time allotted to me to make your Lordships blood boil or your flesh creep, whichever reaction I am lucky enough to be able to produce, though I dare not hope for either. I have no hesitation in saying that the eighteenth century and the Regency time are, in my opinion, and in the opinion of hundreds, the most glorious architectural periods in our history, in which architects and decorators flourished who were the equal in taste, in inventiveness, in largeness of view, of any that Continental history can show. And having up till now had the privilege of enjoying these beauties we are doing nothing to ensure that that privilege shall be handed on to our successors. Instead of that we are replacing these buildings with others of which it may be said that

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for every one that is dignified, well constructed and impressive, there are ten others that are shoddy, jerry-built and an agony to the eye.
But I do not wish to exaggerate. I am quite aware of the technical difficulties attendant on any remedy of this evil, and it is for that reason that all I am suggesting to-day is that His Majesty's Government should make a beginning at least and should destroy the possibility of vandalism taking place owing to official and public ignorance of its existence. The noble Lord, Lord Amulree, has slightly stolen my thunder on this point, for which I forgive him amply in view of the enthusiasm and sympathy I hope I am showing for this cause. I am simply suggesting that the Government shall, as soon as possible, by whatever means it thinks fit, arrange for a complete list to be made of the eighteenth-century buildings existing in Great Britain. I am quite aware that this will be a lengthy and possibly a costly business, but it cries out to be done. Personally, I think that it could quite well be carried out on a regional basis—and here the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, has given me some encouragement—by instructing either county councils and town councils or archæological societies, or both, to send in returns of all such buildings in each county. If inquiries are made, I think His Majesty's Goverment will find that the Surrey County Council certainly adumbrated such a scheme not long ago. Whether it came to fruition or not I am not certain.
I am quite aware also that neither the Royal Commissions on Historical Monuments nor the Office of Works could undertake the task in both cases without a special grant from the Treasury and a considerable extension of their staffs, as suggested by the noble Earl, Lord Crawford, and in the case of the former without an extension of the date up to which they are legally entitled to deal with historical buildings. If His Majesty's Government were willing to do this in the case of either of these bodies it would be an ideal solution, although I do not dare to hope for it. It is for that reason, principally, that I make the tentative suggestion about the regional plan. But my role in this matter is certainly not to put forward a definite scheme. That is the part of His Majesty's
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Government; and may I say that never have I so much longed for the tongues of angels, for an infinite persuasiveness, so that I might make it abundantly clear that now is the time for this to be done. In another few years it may be too late. It seems to me that any Government worthy of the name owes it to us and to those who come after us to put an end to what is going on, this wanton wickedness, this destruction that is breaking the hearts of all those who care for England's inheritance of beauty.
I would like to say one word more, if I may, on the conclusion of my Motion. I have suggested that such buildings as are worth preserving—and I consider naturally that whatever body is set up or entitled to make this list, or census, should equally be empowered to decide what is worth keeping, since there is rubbish in the architecture of all centuries—should eventually be handed over to the Office of Works for protection. In suggesting this I am only following up an impression which I received in making my inquiries that the Office of Works would like to have the eventual care of them. As, however, there are very definite complications already existing either in spite of or by reason of these provisions of the Ancient Monuments Act of 1931, when it is a question of the Office of Works having to deal with occupied houses, I do not in the least presume to suggest that this shall definitely be done. In view of the conspicuous success of the National Trust in dealing with occupied properties, like the West Wycombe Estate, it might possibly be arranged for the National Trust to take over occupied houses and for the unoccupied ones to be left to the Office of Works. I am sure the noble Earl who will answer for His Majesty's Government will be able to give me information on this subject. At all events, if this census is made, by whatever means, the Office of Works will no longer have any excuse for not scheduling at least the unoccupied ones. They are quite numerous enough. My personal contention would be that even in the case of occupied houses their owners should be prevented from behaving exactly as they choose about them, since the results of that are in many cases before us to-day.
All such details, however, are for His Majesty's Government to decide. What I claim this afternoon is simply that a method must be found whereby it is impossible

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for fine eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century buildings to disappear before attention is drawn to them. At present, to sum up, the situation is exactly that described last week by a well-known weekly review:
"The enthusiasm excited in our rulers by an eighteenth-century house or a green tree in the middle of London can be compared only to the emotion which a sportsman feels at the sight of a gaudy cock-pheasant or twelve-point stag. 'What a beauty—I'll bring him down!'"
This sporting comparison will doubtless appeal to many of your Lordships unless you feel, as I do, so bitterly about this matter that even an ironic humour seems to be out of place. In any case I cannot believe that His Majesty's Government will find it amusing to have reproaches of this sort appearing in print, but it is because they are at present abundantly justified that I beg to move the Motion that stands in my name.
Moved to resolve, That in view of the grave and constant danger of the removal or damage of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century buildings in Great Britain which cannot be included in the country-house category, but which may be of permanent artistic interest, His Majesty's Government should lose no time in taking steps to have a complete census made of all buildings constructed between the years 1700 and 1830, with a view to the eventual handing over to H.M. Office of Works for protection of all those that may be decided to be of sufficient importance.—(Lord Derwent.)
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF ONSLOW): My Lords, I should like to ask a question of the noble Lord who has brought forward this matter, because at present it is to me a little difficult to understand his Motion and what he says. In the Motion on the Paper the words at the beginning are:
" … in view of the grave and constant danger of the removal or damage of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century buildings in Great Britain which cannot be included in the country house category,"
but the noble Lord told us in his speech that he did not wish to include houses of that category. The Notice on the Paper, however, goes on to say:
"His Majesty's Government should lose no time in taking steps to have a complete census made of all buildings."
If that is the case, country houses must be included. Personally I think that
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all buildings of interest should be included.
The noble Lord referred to the activities of the Surrey County Council and told us that a list had been prepared for them. That is so, and I do not think that it involved any great expense. The archæological society for the county, with which I have some connection, was able to render assistance, and as there are archæological societies I think in every county, I have no doubt that if their services were solicited they would be willing to help the county council without any charge, or at any rate only a very small charge if one were made at all. I do not think that the list would be expensive to prepare. The Surrey survey goes much further than that advocated by the noble Lord because it includes all buildings without any time limit. It is absolutely comprehensive. It was prepared by a committee largely composed of representatives of the archæological society and the Ancient Monuments Committee of the County. I think that is the proper body and I am sure that if the Office of Works apply to the various societies interested in the matter there will be no difficulty in enlisting their services. The more comprehensive the list, of course, the more valuable it would be.
VISCOUNT MERSEY: My Lords, I should like to add one or two words from another point of view. In destroying these houses we are really destroying the capital of this country. It is not an answer to say that old houses are destroyed in order that dwellers in slums may be housed elsewhere. We are destroying these houses for no reason at all, except to put up what the noble Earl opposite called fascias. We all deplore what is going on low in Spain, where apparently both sides are destroying some of the architectural capital of that country, some of the things which most attract people to Spain. But they are doing it at a time of conflict and they are under a certain amount of pressure, I presume, which compels them to do what they are doing. In this country that is not the case. We have sufficient funds to carry on and we are not in any way forced to do what we do.

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My own feeling is that the course of events which has led to the destruction of houses is very largely due to devolution. We have devolved great power upon local authorities who cannot be expected to have the same taste and technical knowledge as the Central Government. Thus we have lost control over, and largely lost interest in, what has been done in the provinces. I should like to see some form of control maintained at, Westminster, where I know quite well there is excellent knowledge, interest and technical staff, before any provincial building of any interest could be destroyed. I do not think that any debate of this nature ought to be closed without some word of recognition of and gratitude for the great work of the late Lord Curzon. I feel that perhaps the noble Marquess opposite, of whose good work we have heard, may be a worthy successor to him. Those of your Lordships who recollect what Lord Curzon did at Bodiam and at various other places all over the country will hope that he may have successors who will carry on the torch when the Government of the day are not able to do so.
LORD RENNELL: My Lords, I should be sorry that the Motion which my noble friend has brought forward should not receive a certain amount of support from this House. Such support has always been given, and I do not suppose for a moment that it is necessary, because the Motion will probably be received in a friendly spirit everywhere. In listening to the discussion to-day I learned something which I did not know before and which must militate very considerably against the preservation of old buildings in this country, and I should like to know, in the reply from the Government Benches, whether it might not be possible to give us some little hope of modification. That is that, if a building is to be pulled down and rebuilt and there would have been a Government grant in other respects, that grant cannot be given unless the façade is pulled down. I was astonished to hear this because I have lived so much of my life in other countries, where the preservation of ancient buildings is a matter of very serious interest.
For instance, I am part owner and administrator of a house in Rome in a
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very interesting Renaissance street, and the Governorate of Rome, which has recently succeeded the old Municipality, has recently passed a resolution to the effect that people may do at the back of their houses whatever happens to suit them but that no façade in that street, in which almost every house has a history, is to be altered in any respect. In the little city of Vicenza alone, which is extraordinarily interesting as marking the transition from the old Venetian—what I may call the Byzantine-Gothic-Venetian—manner to the manner of the Palladio, they have scheduled 200 houses as never to be altered. It seems to me that to put you under a penalty here for not pulling down an old facade when you have with difficulty obtained permission to change a house is one of the most extraordinary and devastating regulations I have ever heard of. I should like to think that there might be some little gleam of hope given us that this provision may be reconsidered.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, I should like to say just one word as an admirer of post-1700 architecture in this country; but I hope your Lordships will not think that the proposal of the noble Lord opposite is quite so simple as he indicated. A list of all buildings between 1700 and 1830 is really no use for architectural or æsthetic purposes. The building may be built in 1750 or in 1820 and yet have been completely stripped in front and/or completely stripped in the interior. In other words, all the character and distinction with which that period is associated may have gone. We are all familiar with terraces of houses which we know to have been built in 1720, 1740 or 1760 which are no more interesting than houses that were built in 1930. A list, therefore, is no good; it must be a survey. A survey is the only thing that really counts in describing architecture. A bare list is what you find in the Post Office Guide: that is no use at all.
What I want to point out is that a survey is a very technical thing. I speak with knowledge of the staff which is surveying all the old buildings considered worthy of preservation before the year 1700, and I can assure your Lordships—I have watched those people at work ever since that Commission was formed, which I suppose is well over thirty years ago—that it is a highly technical and a

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highly professional job, and it is no good saying off-hand: "Oh, well, let the town councils make the returns." It really will not do. You would get very misleading documents. Very valuable houses would be left out and houses which are of no mortal interest would be put in. I do not know what line the First Commissioner of Works is likely to take, but I would at least make this suggestion to him: that if he is prepared largely to increase the personnel and the machinery of those who are now engaged in making these schedules of old and historic buildings, would it not be well to strengthen them so that they can keep a little more abreast of their work before 1700 rather than give to them a whole new class and type of work of post-1700?
So far as England is concerned we are dreadfully behindhand with the work of surveying ancient monuments before the Act of Union. A county may take three or even four volumes. It may take two or three years or longer for one single county to complete. The schedule of Westminster Abbey is a great, thick volume which took fifteen months to prepare. The scale of this obligation is therefore tremendous, and if the First Commissioner is feeling in a sympathetic humour, it is worth considering whether it would not be more helpful to expedite the work on the earlier period, in which old monuments are much more scarce and probably much more valuable in consequence, than to throw upon these bodies later on duties in dealing with buildings which are certainly not of the same historic importance.
THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (EARL STANHOPE): My Lords, I need hardly say that no one who holds the position of First Commissioner of Works can have listened to the two debates on these Motions this afternoon without certainly being moved. I hope that my noble friend the Earl of Crawford, who was once my predecessor in that office, will not be too alarmed at that statement. I must agree with him that this Motion covers an extraordinarily wide field, perhaps one a good deal wider than the noble Lord who moved it quite realised. The noble Lord suggested that we should make a list of all buildings of the eighteenth century. He will realise that that means dwelling-houses of every character, including back-to-back houses
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in some parts of England which I am quite certain that every one of us will desire to have destroyed at the earliest possible moment. But it would also include places such as business premises, public and municipal buildings, courts of justice, market halls, grammar schools, almshouses and ecclesiastical buildings of all sorts and kinds, in addition to farms and farm buildings in country districts.
My noble friend Lord Crawford said quite truly that the Royal Commissions on historical monuments have already gat their hands more than full in making schedules of historic buildings. I agree with him that a simple list of buildings of any date is of practically no value at all. I must admit that I have not seen the list which has been prepared by the Surrey County Council, and therefore I do not know how far a value could be put on the list of houses and buildings which they have made. As a general rule, however, a survey is really necessary in deciding whether a building should be scheduled, not only as regards its external architecture but also, very often, as regards its internal fittings. That is, of course, a very lengthy proceeding and, as Lord Crawford has pointed out, one that requires skill and knowledge. The result of it is that the Royal Commissions on historic buildings, of which there are three, as Lord Amulree has pointed out, have so far only produced reports of seven counties in England. That is to say, they have two volumes for Buckinghamshire, four for Essex, and varying numbers for the others. There is one volume each for seven counties in Wales, and volumes for ten counties in Scotland. You will see that the work is going on, but, as I think, all too slowly, and if we are going to cover even Great Britain with schedules of value in regard to buildings prior to 1700, then we shall really have to go ahead a good deal faster than in the past.
My difficulty is the difficulty which Lord Bute quoted in another connection. He said it was extraordinarily difficult in these days of high taxation to raise money for such purposes. I wonder what he and others would say if I suggested that taxation should be put up in order to do these and other things. We all have our special desires, on which we would like to see money spent, but let us realise

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that the public purse is not like the widow's cruse, unfailing. Money has to be produced from somewhere, and that somewhere is the taxpayer's pocket, and the more we spend money on doing this and other things the less money will my noble friend Lord Bute be able to collect for the things which are so near his own heart's desire. There is a further difficulty in regard to the Motion on the Paper which I think the noble Lord does not quite realise. Under the Act, if my Department takes over any building for preservation, the public, except in a few cases where it is otherwise specially provided, have always been given the right of access. If that is done on a wholesale scale in the case of occupied houses a good many occupiers are likely to object, and in some cases demand compensation, and so we should be getting ourselves into great difficulties if the Office of Works began to take over buildings in that way.
As regards some of the remarks made in the earlier debate, some of which were more of an archæological interest than of building interest, which my noble friend dealt with more particularly, it is not only a question of money—I am sure the noble Marquess will agree with sue in this—but there is a case that he and I know of in Edinburgh, where an offer was made to the City Council to restore Tailors Hall Buildings. They are buildings of great attraction, which I myself went to see when I was in Edinburgh this autumn, but in spite of the offer made to them that these buildings should be restored, I undertand that the authorities have decided to abolish them for a street widening. Personally, I regret it, and I considered whether I should not schedule those buildings and make a preservation order. That, however, means that you have to come to Parliament and obtain a confirmation of your Order, and I am one of those who believe that persuasion is better than compulsion, particularly when you want to get other things as well. So I had to leave it alone.
On the other hand, where you can rouse public interest enormous things can be done. Stirling was quoted by Lord Crawford as a case in point. Stirling put up a new building and rehousing scheme, and submitted it to my Department. We did not like it, and we made suggestions as to what should be done.
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The result was that we managed to persuade them to appoint an architect highly skilled in the preservation of buildings and town planning, and I think everyone will agree who has seen the scheme that Stirling has not only preserved buildings of great architectural and historic interest, but has made herself a place which many will visit with pleasure and with great profit for many years to come.
It is quite true that when you destroy ancient buildings you also, as Lord Mersey said, destroy the capital of the country. But the real way, I suggest, of getting that capital preserved is to educate the public and also the local authorities. This work can be done extremely well by local authorities, who know where to look for these buildings far better than my Office does, and I am one of those who prefer that there should be decentralisation rather than the reverse, which I think tends to bureaucracy and to a lesser interest, perhaps, being paid by those who live in the locality. I admit that probably the experts are mostly centred in London, but that is not to say that there are not experts throughout the country, and I am one of those who are anxious to enlist their sympathies and assistance. I am bound to admit that destruction is going on, and is going on very rapidly; but the answer I think is not more Government control, more bureaucracy and more centralisation; it is to get the local authorities to realise the treasures which lie in their hands, and to see that they are preserved, so that when they make their schemes for rehousing and the like those treasures shall remain and be more easily and better seen than in ancient days.
Lord Rennell raised a point as to the preservation of ancient buildings rather than their reconstruction. That I admit is, perhaps, a gap in the last Housing Act—that there was no actual grant made for reconditioning a house instead of rebuilding it. But there is this to be said on the other side, that the actual grant per capita comes to more under the present grant than under the old. Therefore it is quite true, as Lord Strathcona pointed out, that the local authorities have really more money now for reconditioning than in old days. In the country districts they are even better off, because, as several noble Lords pointed out,

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the Report issued by the Central Housing Advisory Committee in England shows what can be done with old houses in the country districts. Sometimes I think difficulties have occurred—I have had occasion to prove it on my own property where I have wanted to make improvements and have been prevented by the by-laws from doing what was really good—owing to the views taken by local officials. I think there are cases where local authorities have got to learn more than they know now, so that if they are going to preserve ancient buildings they must not be too severe in the housing conditions that they impose. I am not going to suggest that people should be asked to live in houses which are unhealthy, but I think you have only to look at this Report to see how things can be done.
I am afraid I am somewhat wandering away from the terms of the Motion, but I hope I have indicated that the Office of Works are just as keen in preserving ancient buildings as anybody else. All we feel is that the better method of doing it is by arousing local interest, and I feel certain that, with the great knowledge which the noble Lord showed on this subject in the speech which he made in your Lordships' House to-day, he has done a great deal to arouse that local interest and to see that the buildings which both he and I value should be preserved in the future.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, may I say in answer to the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, that if my Motion admits a possibility of country-houses being included, although I was not primarily thinking of them, this may have seemed carelessness on my part, but it was in fact done on purpose, seeing that if by any chance the National Trust Bill does not go through, they would need all the protection they could get, and therefore might be scheduled by the Office of Works in the meantime. I am gratified at the reception that His Majesty's Government have given to my Motion, because whatever I may have said in the course of my speech about the action and assistance of local bodies, I am of the firm opinion that that would be an admirable way to set about increasing the interest taken in, and the care taken of, these ancient buildings. Although the noble Viscount below me was good enough to support me in bringing this matter forward,
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I regret I do not agree with him on that particular point. I think that whatever ignorance these local bodies may show, they are certainly capable of doing a great deal of good in this direction. I hope that the Office of Works will act promptly and with the greatest rapidity, and will introduce some measure which will enable them to undertake this work which I have so much at heart. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

MALTA.
LORD STRICKLAND LORD STRICKLAND had given Notice that he would move to resolve, That this House deplores delay in implementing obligations to respect representative institutions in Malta, and regrets the too elastic interpretation given to the Malta (Letters Patent) Act, 1936, which only gives power to revoke and amend Letters Patent, but does not specify, as is necessary in law, any power to withdraw representative institutions or to issue enactments irreconcilable with the Common Law of the Empire.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, within forty-eight hours I am leaving for Malta, where warlike preparations are feverish and an epidemic of plague after months has not been stamped out. I feel the responsibility of rising temporarily on the Opposition side of the House, notwithstanding that many of my friends hold the view that, because of the difficulties under which His Majesty's Government are labouring at present, it is not helpful to criticise His Majesty's Ministers. Nevertheless, I feel it a duty to differ from the view that criticism may not perhaps save us from the fate that has brought down other kingdoms by the spread of an ostrich-like mentality. I hope I shall persuade the majority of this House that a greater measure of recognition and respect for pledges given to maintain representative institutions in Malta would be more conducive to the defence of that fortress than an announcement that a new Constitution has been given to Malta when this has not been done. What has been done under the Malta (Letters Patent) Act of this year is to destroy altogether even the semblance of representative institutions in Malta.
Before proceeding further may I be allowed to congratulate His Majesty's Government on having finally and courageously done what is necessary—almost accomplished what is immediately achievable to eliminate a third foreign language from the education of the Maltese people, a policy which the pro-British and loyal section of politicians in Malta has worked for during the last fifty years. Napoleon achieved the elimination of trilingual education in a week. His Majesty's Government have no doubt also deserved our congratulations on the effective steps that have been taken since last year in placing Malta approximately in a condition of defence. But to assert that the creation of an Executive Council is a new Constitution can be disproved so easily that I feel confident this House will agree with me in deploring that assertion, which is a substitution for fact.
I have had the honour of being Governor of Norfolk Island, and the attempt to govern it without the advice of an Executive Council made it imperative that I should seek and obtain permission to hand over the government to the Commonwealth of Australia. Attempts to govern without an Executive Council bring about the demoralisation of the Civil Service because of the difficulty or impossibility of maintaining discipline by enforcing Colonial regulations. I have also had the honour, as Governor of the Federation of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean Sea, of being responsible for governing the Virgin Islands with an Executive Council. It was necessary to charter a Royal Mail steamer on personal responsibility to get an Executive Council there at all to deal with a case of loss of life because a Government doctor had attempted to extort a fee before attending to the case. Same think that an Executive Council is absolutely necessary in a Crown Colony of the most severe type, such as Norfolk Island or the Virgin Islands, and to assert that a new Constitution has been granted to Malta because an Executive Council has been set up after three years of the equivalent of Martial Law is not correct.
In the Executive Council of the Virgin Islands, where there was not a single white resident, I, as Governor, had no responsibility and no power to
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put in or put out any of the members of that Council. The new Executive Council in Malta contains some official members and some unofficial members all nominated by the Governor or by the Secretary of State, liable to immediate termination of their period of office, appointed only for three years, and in no way elected. I ask your Lordships to agree with me that that is a complete denial of the covenanted pledges to maintain responsible institutions in Malta. Incidentally one of those selected is the Leader of the Labour Party. He is not there because a system of election has been established, but he does represent the only Party in Malta which, in the opinion of the Maltese, is in any way represented. Coming from the pro-Italian section of the Nationalist Party, after that Party had decided not to accept office in the new Executive Council, there is one who has left that Party and has been entirely repudiated by that Party and who, while remaining in the Executive Council, has declared he is as determined as ever to uphold the Italian language against the policy of His Majesty's Government. That is no form of representation.
Another of those selected from the Nationalist Party has also been repudiated by that Party. One, who once belonged to the Constitutional Party, withdrew from being a candidate of that Party when the Pastoral was issued threatening the penalty of mortal sin on those who voted either for the Constitutional Party or for the Labour Party. That is not a representation of those Roman Catholics in Malta who rely on the safeguards of religious toleration for not being debarred from any office on account of religious tenets. That is a feature of the Constitution which has just been suppressed, and only in part recognised, which would appear to be binding on any Governor who took office under that Constitution. In these circumstances I hope your Lordships will agree that what has taken place in Malta is a withdrawal to the level of the Constitution of the Virgin Islands, where in my time there were not half-a-dozen white visitors.
A greater departure from the law of England—the Common Law that applies to the Colonies—is to be found in the method in which the Letters Patent of this year are being interpreted. The

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Letters Patent Act of this year gave power to the Crown to amend the then existing Letters Patent and to repeal them altogether. That Letters Patent Act also repealed certain clauses of the Malta Constitution Act of 1932—not all the clauses. The Preamble remains, the Title remains, also the assertion of the legal fact, which is most important—namely, that once a Constitution has been granted to any Colony, or even promised, it cannot be withdrawn without an Act of Parliament, if it specifically, in operative words—words admitted by the highest Courts of Law to be operative—does give power to the King to legislate by Letters Patent and Orders in Council. According to precedent, and following the decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the Common Law of England does apply to the Colonies and entitles any British subject to decline to pay taxes unless the imposition thereof is supported by a representative asembly. Moreover, the precedents are to the effect that the mere granting of power to the King to legislate by Orders in Council does not carry authority to delegate that authority unless the authority to delegate that power is inserted in an Act of the Imperial Parliament. Nothing of this appears in the Letters Patent Act of this year. There is no transfer to the King; no granting of power to the King to legislate for a Colony not acquired by conquest from the Maltese, or of power to delegate such authority.
Allow me to put briefly before your Lordships the history of the grant of rower to the Crown to legislate for Malta by Orders in Council. The first Act of this Parliament passed for that purpose was enacted in 1801, when an Act was passed for Malta, and Malta alone, giving power to the King to legislate by Order in Council and Letters Patent. That Act also asserted that Malta is part of Europe. That Act was repealed in 1872 by one of the periodical Statute Laws Revision Acts, but it was there stated specifically that the clause which declared Malta part of Europe was not repealed. Later on, in 1876, in the Customs Consolidation Act, the same declaration was made that Malta is part of Europe. In 1848 a Constitution was granted to Malta, a Constitution of a very severe type, with a permanent official majority. When that was granted the Act of 1801 was "spent," in the
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terms of the Act itself, inasmuch as the Act provided that the power to legislate should not extend after events that happened six weeks after the first meeting of Parliament after 1814.
The Act of 1843 provided that the King could legislate by Letters Patent and Order in Council for the Falkland Islands, for settlement on the Coast of Africa and for territories adjacent to the Coast of Africa, and it is only by an Interpretation that Malta could, under that Act, be the subject of legislation by Order in Council and Letters Patent. But no authority derived from this Imperial Parliament can be traced for legislating for Malta by Letters Patent. From the very beginning of the association of Malta with England the people if Malta have repeatedly claimed by reputations and petitions at least that measure of representative government which had been granted by a former Norman King, Roger of Sicily, which save a very restricted measure, of representation, but there was a representative institution. Now many of my friends say that it is imprudent under present conditions to have a system of election in Malta that might, by external influence and bribery, bring about the equivalent of a plebiscite which might be embarrassing to international situations. I have said nothing in this House either to-day or in the past criticising the suspension of all responsible Government in Malta under present conditions. What I have been asking, and what I ask to-day in the interests of defence of the fortress, is that the present Executive Council should not contain any unofficial members who are not elected in some way or another, even if they are elected by groups—that is to say, to represent the nobility as under the old Constitution, or to represent the Chamber of Commerce, or the graduates of the University, or the landowners.
It is quite easy to copy the Constitution of King Roger the Norman and to establish some imitation, be it only a mere simulacrum, of representative institutions upon which it can be said that the promises made to the Maltese and the obligations derived from International Law had been carried out, in view of the fact that the Maltese had established an elected assembly as the governing force of the Island, as was the case when the French

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were defeated, the Maltese being the principal co-belligerents with England and Portugal in driving out Napoleon Bonaparte from that Island. I have not asked for more than can be granted without danger and with advantage for the present, but I can assure your Lordships' House that there is nobody in Malta who does not feel deeply humiliated by its being said that the present selections of unofficial members of the Executive Council are representatives of all Parties in Malta. Such representation can only derive from some system of election. How can a Governor just arrived know who does or does not represent a Party? He has to ask his private secretaries and entourage. He meets few people. It is most dangerous for the prestige of the Government. Mistakes are always made; they are unavoidable; but if those mistakes are the result of election there is an answer. What is more, the Imperial Government and the King's representative in Malta has an opportunity, as a result of election, to know who the real leaders of the country are, and he would be safe from picking up individuals who have lost all credit and all representation and have been turned out of their Parties.
That is the crying need of Malta at present in the interests of the fortress. After the Constitution of 1848, which could only be legalised by admitting that the Maltese had a right to accept or reject the Constitution, the acceptance thereof brought it within the Common Law of England which no doubt was a proper legal proposition. The only other legal argument is that the Falkland Islands Act and the African Settlements Act could be extended to Malta by interpretation, because Malta is near Africa. After that we had the British Settlements Act, passed in 1860, which bears upon the question whether, when the King has power to legislate by Letters Patent, he has or has not power to delegate the Royal Prerogative. Then we come to the De La Warr Constitution of 1887. It was decided to grant that Constitution and to recognise the status of equality of the Maltese nation, which had been admitted time after time by such authorities as Lord Glenelg, Secretary of State for the Colonies, by speeches in this House, and by the Royal Commission whose Report was accepted by Parliament. The De La Warr
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Constitution was proclaimed in 1887 to give the most ample form of Crown Colony Constitution that could be drafted without establishing responsible Government, but it is obvious from the drafting of the Act and the words used therein that the Law Officers of the Crown then realised that, as the Act of 1801 was spent, they had to have a new Act, which was passed in the same year, 1887. The Constitution was granted in December; the British Settlements Act was passed earlier in the year.
That Act, according to the Preamble, only applied to unoccupied land without a Legislature where British settlers might wish to establish themselves. No clause of the Act could be applied to Malta under the Preamble if reconcilable with the operative words of the law. It could not apply to Malta even under a clause that contains glaring contradictions and mixes up what is a "possession" and what is a "settlement." That clause, it might be argued, according to one interpretation, which is obviously erroneous, brings under the Act all British Possessions outside the United Kingdom. The glaring contradictions in that Act were the subject of a strenuous debate in the House of Commons where it was abundantly demonstrated that the Act contained contradictions extending to an irreconcilable degree. The Secretary of State, then Sir Henry Holland, would accept no amendment and no argument. He would give no elucidation of the glaring contradictions beyond bringing forward an opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown on a narrow issue which referred in particular to New Guinea, and the Secretary of State said that in view of that opinion the Bill of 1887 did little that was new and he would not enter into any further discussion as to the contradictions therein which members of the House of Commons showed to be so glaring as to be destructive of a part of the Act.
Under that Act of 1887 Malta, being out of the United Kingdom, was to be treated as something adjacent to Africa, and unfortunately Malta has been repeatedly thought of as African for various purposes. For hundreds of years in the Middle Ages Malta was treated ecclesiastically as African, and subjected as such to the Archbishopric of Palermo. To the struggle as to

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whether Malta should be treated as African or European is due the present legal muddle, which can only be solved before the Privy Council. Be that as it may, the British Settlements Act, 1887, is the only foundation in law for Letters Patent enacting the Constitution of 1887 under a statute, but in so far as that Constitution was accepted by the people of Malta it is good at Common Law. A sufficient title would be an Act of Parliament that lays down clearly what it means and is not contradicted by decisions accepted by Mr. Secretary Ormsby-Gore in the House of Commons: these decisions must be repeated on again going to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. I have endeavoured to obtain the best legal advice available in England on these legal difficulties, and the conclusion is that the best course is to go to Malta, refuse to pay taxes, and start over again on a specific case in order to protect the rights of the people of Malta, and thereby assist materially His Majesty's Government in a desire to act legally and justly.
Your Lordships may remember that when the Malta (Letters Patent) Act of 1936 was before your Lordships' House an offer was made so to draft the Bill as to get over the legal difficulty, but not a single Amendment was allowed to be made, not a comma or contradiction could be changed. The draftsmen were very capable in not going beyond the instructions given and they avoided attacking the English Common Law in a manner that would have affected adversely Southern Rhodesia and other parts of the Empire. All this has taken place for Malta at a time when a very liberal Constitution was being granted to India based on a promise contained only in the Preamble of an Indian Bill. We all know that the Preamble is not an operative part of an Act of Parliament. We know also that an Act which makes any change in the Common Law must be explicit in the text as well as in the Preamble in declaring what it is doing. I would point out that what is being done in Malta is unjust to neutrals in politics and the loyal majority, when selecting persons to be selected from various Parties, even from the pro-Italian Party. Wrong has been done by selecting members of those Parties who have been repudiated by their Party organisations or who previously resigned from their Party. The selection has been
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accompanied by the gift of a salary, and social position, and then saying that they represent something they had left behind. Thus they represent nothing but themselves or that great body which in every country is eager under any circumstances to accept pay, promotion and social prestige at the sacrifice of principle.
It is sought by the Bureaucracy to show that under present conditions in Malta everybody wants Crown Colony Government, and that nobody wants any form of representative government by election. Can any of your Lordships believe that? It is evident that under the system of Bureaucracy which now is omnipotent in Malta no-one dare tell high officials that they are wrong and that the majority desires any other system. Let us take as a test of where the majority lies the popularity of the various organs of the Press. The section of the Press that is pro-British demands the restoration of some form—even an attenuated form—of representation for the sake of showing that the present Government is keeping promises. It will be found that the newspapers that demand representation are patronised to an extent greater than all the other sections of the Press put together. People in Malta do not like paying for anything of which they do not approve and the people of Malta seldom buy newspapers unless those organs represent their opinions. To say that all the people of Malta prefer Crown Colony Government of a severe type and do not want any form of election is a very deplorable way of not adopting a practical solution and meeting the situation. But little is required; namely, let us either re-establish some form of representative institutions or let us abolish a nominated element in the Executive Council that may represent nobody. The system now adopted merely results in testing by trial and error what is the price at which members of a Party may change sides. The use of that test to our rivals may be to establish a sort of tariff that will be very useful in future emergencies to such as nay want to gain over against England a large number of those who may be scheduled as subject to similar influences.
But there is a worse result of this system. Your Lordships will see at once that if persons are promoted to paid office, or are to have salaries, as members of the Executive Council, that come in

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monthly—an ambition that is common with all nationalities round the Mediterranean, including France and Italy—it will follow that if such "loaves and fishes" are given to any who change their politics, the preferment must be given in disregard of justice to those who deserve better treatment. There may be ten applicants for an office when only one can get it, and the other nine are added to the dissatisfied. If any are dissatisfied because they deserved better than the recipient but did not get the post, then every time there is any appointment, additional enemies of the Government are created of a most dangerous description. That process augments the dissatisfied from year to year, and disaffection accumulates to a degree which is detrimental to the safety of the fortress, because it is based on injustice. By the present system great power for psychological suggestion is inevitably vested in that small section of the Bureaucracy who are immediately round the Governor and organised to support, each other. No Governor, however industrious and experienced he may be, even if he has been for several years in office overseas, has worked very hard, read many newspapers and studied all he could, can possibly with efficiency or conscientiousness ascertain "who is who" without the advice of private secretaries and an entourage. The only remedy for that psychological dilemma is to have some form of group election.
This use of patronage in Malta for the purpose of completing the Executive Council has gone so far that one of the newly-elected members of the Executive Council held a public political meeting, while he still kept on as a member of the Executive Council and was still clinging to the perquisites of office. He has before this been turned out of Ministerial office by Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister, now Lord Swinton, for non-co-operation—which is obviously, the Colonial Office word for "disloyalty." This same newly-selected Councillor at a public meeting declared his continued allegiance to the policy that the Italian language should have and regain its old position in Malta. He went further, and informed the public meeting that he was accused of being a candidate for a Judgeship and in reply thereto he was pleased to say that for "the present" he was not. That sort of public display by an Executive Councillor
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demoralises those aspirants to office in Malta who have real claims based on long service, and who perhaps are and have been absolutely neutral in politics. These arguments are unanswerable, and are put before your Lordships with circumspection and with a full sense of responsibility.
Without any risk of the imputation of exaggeration it may be said that I have worked the whole of my life for the upholding of Imperial interests, and of Imperial sentiments and of Imperial power in Malta. No one, perhaps, has so much to lose if there were to be a separation of Malta from the Empire. I have not hesitated at any personal risk in the direction of augmenting the union with England. Notwithstanding the want of sympathy which is to be expected by all who criticise the shortcoming of any bureaucracy it at times becomes a duty to ask that officials should defend themselves from the imputation of blunders I am, in conclusion, clearly of opinion, from long experience as one who has spent a whole life in the working and the study of constitutions and the drafting thereof, that on legal grounds the Malta (Letters Patent) Act, 1832, is spent and is being wrongly used to proclaim law. The Letters Patent of 1821 have been completely repealed; there is nothing left to amend, not even the Title, not even the Preamble. On the other hand, the Malta Constitution Act, 1932, has not been repealed; it is still open to amendment. The skeleton is there. A few clauses have been repealed, and the important operative clauses are gone, but that skeleton is hanging in the cupboard of the Colonial Office. It is shaking there as evidence that the Common Law has not been repealed. It is there to proclaim the findings of English tribunals on the rule of English Common Law applicable to the Colonies. What remains upholds the contention that once a constitution has been granted, no taxation can be levied without the concurrence of some form of representative assembly. I beg to move.
Moved to resolve, That this House deplores delay in implementing obligations to respect representative institutions in Malta, and regrets the too elastic interpretation given to the Malta (Letters Patent) Act, 1936, which only gives power to revoke and amend Letters Patent, but

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does not specify, as is necessary in law, any power to withdraw representative institutions or to issue enactments irreconcilable with the Common Law of the Empire.—(Lord Strickland.)
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (EARL DE LA WARR): My Lords, I think we should all desire to congratulate the Opposition on a new acquisition, and we should also desire to congratulate the noble Lord on his new place on their Front Bench. We have all listened to a long and interesting history of the government of Malta, and certainly I, and I am sure all your Lordships, have learned a great deal of that history. There was, however, one item in that history which has been omitted, and that is the fact that this question, a very important question, which has been put before your Lordships by the noble Lord, Lord Strickland, has been before your Lordships a number of times before and has been very thoroughly discussed. The whole question of whether in fact His Majesty's Government are under any formal obligation to maintain representative institutions in Malta has been discussed in itself. It was discussed at length on a Motion by Lord Strickland in July, 1935; it was again discussed during the debate on the Second Reading of the Malta (Letters Patent) Bill this year—a Bill, now an Act of Parliament, to which the noble Lord has referred. On both those occasions the noble Earl, Lord Plymouth, expressed the opinion, and backed it by argument, that there is nowhere an intrinsic obligation on His Majesty's Government to maintain those representative institutions.
But I want to make it clear, and I should like to make this quite clear to the noble Lord, Lord Strickland, who is, I know, most anxious on this point, that while His Majesty's Government do not recognise that they are under any formal obligation in this respect, they nevertheless do not regard the present Constitution as anything other than an interim measure, and it is our most earnest hope that in the course of time, as and when circumstances permit, some more liberal form of Constitution compatible with the admittedly high level of development and culture of the Maltese people may be evolved. The intentions of His Majesty's Government with regard to the future Constitution in Malta were very
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clearly stated during the debate on the Bill of this year, both in the House of Lords and in the House of Commons, and they were again stressed by the governor of Malta in his Address on the proclamation of the present Constitution. Therefore, His Majesty's Government can, I think, justly claim that there is no justification for an accusation of delay in introducing a more liberal form of Constitution.
There is a further point that the noble Lord has raised, and that is on the question of the interpretation of the Act of 1936. We are again quite unable to agree that we have been guilty of the breaches that are suggested in the noble Lord's Motion, and in his speech. It was just because the Letters Patent of 1921 did not contain a power of revocation or amendment that the right of His Majesty in Council to legislate for the Island was restricted, and that power has definitely now been conferred on His Majesty in Council by the Malta (Letters Patent) Act of 1936. The noble Lord has suggested that that was not made clear in the discussion on that Bill. I have looked very carefully through the whole debates and I find that both in another place and in this House the speeches made by Ministers in charge made that point most abundantly clear. I have here the words of Lord Plymouth, then Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. He said:
"There was a wide area over which the Crown reserved no power to legislate, and, in particular, it reserved no power to revoke the Constitution as a whole. It is primarily in order to remove this limitation that this Bill is brought forward."
I contend that nothing could have made the intention of His Majesty's Government more clear than that.
LORD STRICKLAND: Intentions are of no weight at law. It is only what is said.
EARL DE LA WARR: The words of the Act of Parliament were quite definite, but it is the business of the Minister in presenting a Bill to Parliament to make it clear to those who are not able to interpret the Bill before them. The Government, therefore, take the very definite view that there has ben restored to His Majesty in Council complete freedom with regard to revision, and that therefore the revocation of the 1921 Letters Patent was in strict accordance with the provisions of the Act. My

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answer has not been a very long one, but I think the noble Lord will feel that it has been clear and definite, and that it will therefore make it possible for him not to press this matter. If he does, of course His Majesty's Government will have to oppose it.
LORD STRICKLAND: My Lords, I beg leave to reply to the statements and opinions of the noble Earl who has just sat down. The noble Earl referred to the declarations made in the House of Commons.
EARL DE LA WARR: And in this House.
LORD STRICKLAND: In both Houses. It is glaring that the declarations made by Mr. Secretary Ormsby-Gore in the House of Commons were very different from the declarations made in this House by the Earl of Plymouth and guardedly referred to to-day by the Parliamentary Secretary of the Colonial Department. The declarations made to-day in this House are quite consistent with all the declarations and opinions previously made here, but they are not consistent with the declarations made and opinions expressed on both sides of the House in another place. Moreover, the declarations were made without quoting the legal authority on which they may rest. Law Officers in both Houses were challenged time after time to stand up and say if they could pronounce one word in support of the Bill that is now the Malta (Letters Patent) Act of 1936. No Law Officer would take the risk of imperilling his professional reputation by defending that Bill. There is then a studied omission of the operative words which are necessary in every such Bill. I wish to offer congratulations and to express thanks to the present Secretary of State for the Colonies, inasmuch as in the House of Commons he carefully refrained from repudiating the binding promises and assurances to the people of Malta which have been admitted and repeated for 136 years, and were never contradicted before this Session. They have never been held void or contradicted by any Law Officers of the Crown. No Law Officer has put n different interpretation to the Maltese position under International Law and natural law as acquired by conquest from the French, because every Law Officer knows that it cannot be done. He knows what the decision
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would be if the matter were again brought before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
It is undeniable that Mr. Ormsby-Gore said explicitly in the House of Commons that His Majesty's Government had deliberately decided to put an end to "one-man government in Malta." Nevertheless, after he had said that—which of course meant something very different to the Executive Council of to-day—it happened that a Despatch did come to Malta reasserting the attitude of the Department before Mr. Ormsby-Gore took charge thereof. Notwithstanding the declarations by Mr. Ormsby-Gore and his admission of the decisions of English tribunals there came from the Colonial Office a Despatch to Malta which astonished everyone in the Island, reasserting the Departmental view held and expressed by Lord Plymouth before Mr. Ormsby-Gore came into office—namely, that there were no promises binding on His Majesty to uphold representative institutions. During the vacation it may have happened that the rubber stamp of the Secretary of State, affixed instead of a signature, may have been wielded by others; perhaps it was a mistake that Mr. Ormsby-Gore's view was contradicted then as now. I am unable to accept any of the legal points of view which are relied upon for saying that these promises and rights under the law of nations are non-existent. If the noble Earl had come here armed with the opinion of His Majesty's Law Officers of the Crown, and if he had laid it on the table, I should have been silent until there had been an opportunity to read and study that responsible opinion on points of law.
There is a precedent when Lord Knutsford was Secretary of State for the Colonies, and when he was put in a position in which he had no answer to the argument that the Act of 1887 required elucidation. He then produced the opinion of the then Law Officers, and suggested that that opinion applied. It did not apply beyond New Guinea, but that is the way he answered. Here to-day we have nothing of the sort. No Law Officer's opinion is quoted, rightly or wrongly. We have to note a studied abstention on the part of all the Law Officers in either House from staking their professional reputation on such

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contentions, and with all the responsibility of a member of the English Bar I am entitled to offer an interpretation as to that abstention. A member of the English Bar ought under no circumstances to express an opinion on a point of law in a House of Parliament which he does not believe in. We have had a notable precedent when Lord Hailsham was Attorney-General. That noble and learned Viscount, who adorns the highest legal office in the Realm, when in the House of Commons gave advice to the then Ministers on an illegal action of the then Governor after careful consideration. That advice put right the error of the Governor of Malta, who had acted wrongly, and a Bill wrongly assented to had therefore to be disallowed. Now it seems equally impossible for any Law Officer to give an opinion against the Common Law and to agree with these views and opinions which we have heard suggested to-day against the rights of the people of Malta. I put it to your Lordships that in view of the impossibility of bringing forward the opinion of the Law Officers, I have proved my argument, and I am unable to withdraw the Motion that stands in my name.
On Question, Motion negatived.

FIREARMS BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND AVA: My Lords, in moving that this Bill be read a second time I shall not have to detain your Lordships for more than a few moments. This Bill is purely a consolidation measure and, if your Lordships give it a Second Reading, will in due course go to the Committee on Consolidation Bills. Its purpose is to consolidate four Acts of Parliament relating to the manufacture, sale, purchase and possession of firearms and ammunition—namely, the Firearms Act, 1920, the Firearms and Imitation Firearms (Criminal Use) Act, 1933, the Firearms Act, 1934, and the Firearms (Amendment) Act, 1936. The Acts of 1934 and 1936 effected various amendments in the Act of 1920. As a result the law has become complicated and it is difficult for the trade to understand it or for the police to administer it. A Departmental Committee of 1934 on the classification and definition
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of a firearm recommended that some measure such as this should be introduced, and in introducing the Firearms (Amendment) Act, 1936, promises were made, both here and in another place, that a Consolidation Act would follow. I therefore confidently recommend this Bill to your Lordships in the belief that it will help those who have to deal with the purchase of firearms and the administration of the laws relating to firearms and ammunition.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Marquess of Dufferin and Ava.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

GENEVA CONVENTION BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time. The Bill is necessary to give effect to certain provisions of the Geneva Convention of 1929. This Convention consisted altogether of thirty-nine Articles, but this Bill deals with only one of them—namely, Article 28. Your Lordships may be aware that the first Geneva Convention, which was for the purpose of protecting the medical services and the sick and wounded in time of war, was held in Geneva in 1864. It originated with Dr. Dunant, a Swiss doctor. His efforts led to the first Convention. Amongst other things which this Convention decided was that some easily recognisable mark was necessary to distinguish the wounded and the medical Services of the armed forces, and the red cross on a white ground was chosen for this purpose. That was done primarily as, a compliment to the Swiss nation whose distinguished subject had originated the whole idea. The Swiss arms, as your Lordships are aware, consist of a silver or white cross on a red ground, whereas the mark of the ambulance is the red cross on a white ground.
There was a further International Conference held at Geneva in 1906. It was felt that the Red Cross emblem was being rued in circumstances other than those provided for in the Convention, and it was thought necessary to limit its use by law. An Article was therefore embodied in the Geneva Convention under

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which the signatory Governments undertook to pass legislation to prevent the use of the emblem or of the words "Red Cross" or "Geneva Cross" for purposes other than those contemplated by the Convention. So far as this country is concerned, effect was given to this Article by the Geneva Convention Act, 1911, which prohibited the use of the heraldic emblem of the Red Cross or the words "Red Cross" or "Geneva Cross" without the authority of the Army Council. In 1929 a further International Conference was held at Geneva to consider the revision of the Convention, and some time was spent on the particular Article of the Convention with which we are concerned in this Bill.
It was felt that the Red Cross emblem needed further protection, and it was specially suggested by the Swiss delegate that the Swiss arms were sometimes used for trade purposes and Swiss national sentiment was deeply offended. It was felt therefore, both in the interests of the Red Cross and of Switzerland, that something must be done to meet the position. Accordingly the revised Convention signed in 1929 contained provisions prohibiting the use not only of imitations of the Red Cross, but also of the Swiss arms and imitations of those arms, as the Convention puts it:
"by private individuals or associations, firms or companies … whether as trade marks or as parts of such marks, or for a purpose contrary to commercial honesty or in circumstances capable of wounding Swiss national sentiment."
This country ratified the Convention on June 23, 1931, and assumed the obligation to give effect to Article 28 on December 23, 1936.
The Bill is short and simple. Clause 1 provides that no one may use for the purpose of his trade or business or for any other purpose the Swiss arms and imitations of those arms, imitations of the Red Cross emblem and any words closely resembling the words "Red Cross" or "Geneva Cross" without the permission of the Board of Trade. There is a valuable provision in subsection (3), the effect of which is to permit anyone who was lawfully using the Swiss arms or an imitation thereof prior to the coming into force of the Convention, namely, the 23rd December, 1931, to continue to use the design in question. This follows a reservation made by the United
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Kingdom at the time of signature of the Convention. A similar reservation was made by Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Irish Free State, India and Japan. There is little else in the Bill calling for comment. There is a safeguard in Clause 1 (5) against vexatious prosecutions, in that proceedings can only be instituted with the consent of the Attorney-General in England or Northern Ireland. Clause 2 has been inserted at the request of the Commonwealth Government to empower Australia, if she wishes, to legislate comprehensively as regards her obligations under both the 1906 and the 1929 Conventions. Clause 3, which makes provision for extending the Bill to the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, Newfoundland or the Colonies if required, is in the usual form. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

CLEARING OFFICE (ITALY) AMENDMENT ORDER, 1936.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: My Lords, this Order varies the Clearing Office (Italy) Order, 1936, made by the Treasury under the Debts Clearing Offices and Import Restrictions Act, 1934, on July 10 last. I will explain briefly to your Lordships what the Order means. During the period March to November, 1935—that is, before Italian imports into the United Kingdom were prohibited under sanctions—the payment of trade debts between Italy and the United Kingdom, as also of certain freights, was regulated by an agreement which did not involve any compulsion on United Kingdom debtors to make payment to any central account here. The agreement worked unsatisfactorily, so that debts amounting to about £1,750,000 accumulated in Italy. On November 18, 1935, a Controller of Anglo-Italian Debts was appointed under a sanctions Order in Council, to whom debts for Italian goods were payable compulsorily. By that means, some £600,000 was collected up to July 15, 1936, when sanctions were raised, and was applied to reduce the volume of the debts due to the United Kingdom.
When sanction's were raised it was decided to set up an Anglo-Italian Clearing Office, payment to which by United Kingdom

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debtors would be compulsory. The Clearing Office was duly set up, but His Majesty's Government decided that the sterling it received should be placed to a reserve fund pending the conclusion of negotiations with the Italian Government as to the method of its disposal. These arrangements were established by the Clearing Office (Italy) Order, 1936, made on July 10 and approved by your Lordships' House on July 28. The negotiations with the Italian Government had to be suspended towards the end of July because it was not possible to agree on the provision to be made for the liquidation of the commercial arrears due to the United Kingdom. The negotiations were resumed later in September, and an Agreement was signed on November 6. The text of the Agreement is printed as a Schedule to the Order of which I now ask your Lordships' approval.
The main provision of the new Agreement is that the sterling collected by the Anglo-Italian Clearing Office in London is to be distributed as follows:—18 per cent. for the transfer of commercial arrears under the agreement of 1935; 9 per cent. for the transfer of other commercial arrears; 3 per cent. for the transfer of financial remittances, including interest, rents and dividends; and 70 per cent. for current trade debts. Of the sums already collected by the Clearing Office and placed in the reserve fund, 50 per cent. is be allocated between the first three heads I have mentioned and 50 per cent. is to be allocated to current trade debts. Paragraph 3 of the new Order accordingly provides that the Clearing Office shall no longer place its sterling receipts to the reserve fund, but shall distribute them in accordance with the new Agreement. This paragraph also enables the sums already in the reserve fund to be distributed on the agreed basis which I have explained. Paragraph 1 of the new Order exempts from the original Order debts falling due on or after November 16, 1936, in respect of certain transactions which it has been
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agreed shall be excluded from the clearing. The remaining provisions of the Agreement do not require any variation of the Order made on July 10, 1936. In accordance with Section 4 of the Debts Gearing Offices and Import Restrictions Act, 1934, this new Order must be approved by each House of Parliament within twenty-eight days from the date of the making of the Order, which period, I understand, expires on Tuesday next. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Special Order, as reported from the Special Orders Committee yesterday, be approved.—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CONSOLIDATION BILLS.
Message from the Commons that they have ordered that the Committee appointed by them to join with the Committee of this House to consider all Consolidation Bills in the present Session do meet the Lords Committee as proposed by their Lordships.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I would like to ask the Leader of the House whether he can make any statement about business to-morrow.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (VISCOUNT HALIFAX): My Lords, it is proposed that we should meet at three o'clock tomorrow, when the first business will be the Committee stage of the Judiciary (Safeguarding) Bill standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Rankeillour. The second business will be the Merchant Shipping (Carriage of Munitions to Spain) Bill, and I give notice that I shall move the suspension of the necessary Standing Orders to enable us to take that Bill through all its stages tomorrow.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes before seven o'clock.