Lords Sitting of 23 June 1936

Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
The Lord Ampthill—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.
The Lord Wakehurst—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

GRIMSBY CORPORATION (TROLLEY VEHICLES) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed, and referred to the Examiners.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVI- SIONAL ORDER (LEEDS) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed, and referred to the Examiners.
PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDER (MARYPORT) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed, and referred to the Examiners.
PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDER (COWES) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed, and referred to the Examiners.
PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDER (KEYHAVEN) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed, and referred to the Examiners.
PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDER (PAIGNTON) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed, and referred to the Examiners.
PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDER (WHITLEY BAY) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed, and referred to the Examiners.
FOUNDLING HOSPITAL BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
CORNWALL ELECTRIC POWER BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments: The said Amendments considered and agreed to.
RICKMANSWORTH AND UXBRIDGE VALLEY WATER BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments: The said Amendments considered and agreed to.
HUDDERSFIELD CORPORATION (TROLLEY VEHICLES) BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments: The said Amendments considered and agreed to.
KINGSTON-UPON-HULL CORPORA- TION BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments: The said Amendments considered and agreed to.

MEASUREMENT OF GAS.
Message from the Commons to acquaint this House that they have appointed a Committee of four Members to join with the Committee appointed by this House, as mentioned in their Lordships' Message of Wednesday last, and that they have made the following Orders:—That leave be given to the Committee to hear parties interested by themselves, their Counsel or agents so far as the Committee think fit; that the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records; that two be the quorum.
Then a Message was ordered to be sent to the House of Commons to propose that the Joint Committee do meet in Committee Room A on Tuesday next, at eleven o'clock.

LONDON AND NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY (GENERAL POWERS) BILL.
Read 2a, and committed: the Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
LLANELLY DISTRICT TRACTION BILL.
Read 3a, and passed.
LONDON MIDLAND AND SCOTTISH RAILWAY BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

PUBLIC HEALTH (DRAINAGE OF TRADE PREMISES) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Gainford.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL OF ONSLOW in the Chair.]
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2:
Notice of discharge of trade effluents into local authorities' sewers.
2.—(1) Subject as hereinafter provided, it shall not be lawful to discharge from any trade premises into a sewer of a local authority trade effluent of any particular nature or composition, or to discharge as aforesaid, on any one day, any particular quantity of trade effluent, or to discharge as aforesaid trade effluent at any particular rate—
(b) (Except with the consent of the local authority) until the end of the period of six consecutive months beginning on the day on which the said notice was served on the local authority or, if in relation to the notice, an application for an order under the next following section has been duly made to the Minister and is pending at the end of that period, until the determination or withdrawal of the application;
and if this subsection is contravened in the case of any premises, the occupier of the premises shall be guilty of an offence:
Provided that, as respects any trade premises from which trade effluent of any particular nature or composition was discharged into a sewer of the local authority
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at any time during the period of twelve months immediately before the commencement of this Act, this subsection shall not restrict the discharge as aforesaid of trade effluent of that nature or composition from those premises, if and so long as the quantity of the trade effluent discharged as aforesaid from the premises on any one day does not exceed the maximum quantity thereof so discharged on any one day during the said period, and the rate at which the trade effluent is so discharged is not higher than the highest rate at which it was so discharged during the said period; and any question as to the nature or composition of the trade effluent discharged from any trade premises into a sewer of a local authority at any time during the said period or as to the maximum quantity so discharged on any one day during the said period or as to the highest rate at which it was so discharged during the said period shall unless agreed between the local authority and the occupier of the trade premises be determined by the Minister.
(2) A local authority, on receiving a trade effluent notice served on them by the owner or occupier of any trade premises, shall forthwith send a copy of the notice to any joint sewerage board of which the local authority are a constituent authority, and to every other local authority being an authority into whose sewers or sewage disposal works the first-mentioned local authority are for the time being entitled to discharge sewage from their sewers.
LORD GAINFORD LORD GAINFORD moved, in paragraph (b) in subsection (1), to leave out all words after "until the end of the" and insert "appropriate time." The noble Lord said: The Amendments appearing on the first page of Amendments in my name deal with matters agreed with the Ministry of Health and the Federation of British Industries. They are really inserted to meet the point raised by traders that their trade effluent may vary from time to time with regard to nature or composition, quantity or rate. Without troubling your Lordships in detail with these Amendments I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 28, leave out from the first ("the") to the end of line 35 and insert ("appropriate time").—(Lord Gainford.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD GAINFORD: I beg to move the next three Amendments on the Order Paper.
Amendments moved—
Page 2, line 39, after ("that") insert ("(i)")
Page 3, line 11, after ("and") insert ("(ii)")
Page 3, line 12, after ("question") insert ("as to the sufficiency of a trade effluent notice, or").—(Lord Gainford.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
LORD GAINFORD LORD GAINFORD moved, after "Minister" at the end of subsection (1), to insert "on the application of either party." The noble Lord said: I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 20, after ("Minister") insert ("on the application of either party").—(Lord Gainford.)
LORD STRABOLGI: I do not want to delay the proceedings, and I am sure the Amendments are of a drafting nature, but we are coming to some rather more substantial ones. If we could have a general statement that the Government offer no objection to them, it would ease the consciences of some of us.
VISCOUNT GAGE: It was stated by the noble Lord, Lord Gainford, that these Amendments had been agreed with the Ministry of Health on behalf of the Government and I did not think it necessary to confirm that.
LORD STRABOLGI: I am much obliged. I understood the noble Lord to say that they were agreed with the Federation of British Industries.
LORD GAINFORD: And also the Ministry of Health.
LORD STRABOLGI: I did not catch those words. I am much obliged.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD GAINFORD LORD GAINFORD moved, in subsection (2), to leave out the second "local" and insert "sewerage." The noble Lord said: Perhaps I may explain to the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, that although this is a drafting Amendment it is important from the London County Council's point of view. The London County Council want to have notice of alterations, and if the word "local" were left in it would prevent notices being sent to that county council and the London municipal councils. The Amendment is really drafting, but I thought I would give that explanation.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 25, leave out ("local") and insert ("sewerage").—(Lord Gainford.)
LORD JESSEL: I remember that on the last occasion the noble Lord stated that
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no agreement had been come to with the London County Council and the Metropolitan Borough Councils. I believe I am correct in stating that now an agreement has been arrived at. Perhaps the noble Lord can tell us.
LORD GAINFORD: An agreement has been arrived at with the London County Council and with the Metropolitan Boroughs in London. They are excluded from the scope of the Bill, but it must be patent that possibly there are effluents running into sewers outside the area which may affect the London County Council and the Metropolitan Boroughs, and in that case these authorities desire to have notices sent to them so that proper action may be taken with the Ministry of Health in connection therewith. All these Amendments are agreed with all the authorities.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD GAINFORD LORD GAINFORD moved to insert the following new subsection:
"(3) In this section the expression ' the appropriate time ' means, in relation to any trade effluent notice, the end of the period of six consecutive months beginning on the day on which the notice was served on the local authority or if, in relation to that notice, an application for a determination of a question as to the sufficiency of the notice or for an order under the next following section has been duly made to the Minister and is pending at the end of that period, the time of the determination or withdrawal of the application."
The noble Lord said: I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 29, at end insert the said new subsection.—(Lord Gainford.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 3:
Orders of Minister with respect, to discharge of trade effluents into local authorities' sewers.
3.—(1) If, within two months after the date on which a trade effluent notice in respect of any trade premises is served by the owner or occupier thereof on a local authority, an application in that behalf is made to the Minister by that local authority or any body to which a copy of the notice is required by the last preceding section to be sent, the Minister may make in relation to those premises either or both of the orders authorised by the following provisions, that is to say:—
(a) An order directing—
LORD GAINFORD LORD GAINFORD moved, in subsection (1), after "local authority," where that, expression first occurs, to insert "or, if within the said two months an application has been made to the Minister for his determination of a question as to the sufficiency of the notice, within two months after the date on which the Minister's determination is made." The noble Lord said: I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 33, after ("authority") insert the said words.—(Lord Gainford.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD GAINFORD LORD GAINFORD moved, in subsection (1), after "(a)) An order directing," to insert "(i) that no trade effluent shall be discharged from the premises into any sewer of the local authority." The noble Lord said: This Amendment is required by the Association of Municipal Corporations to meet cases where an effluent would really be prejudicial in their opinion, and in that case no trade effluent would be discharged. There might be exceptional cases where the expenditure would be so heavy that the resources of the local authority would be unduly taxed. The Amendment is to meet that case.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 39, at end insert the said paragraph.—(Lord Gainford.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD GAINFORD: The next Amendment is drafting.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 41, leave out ("local") and insert ("sewerage").—(Lord Gainford.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 4 agreed to,
Clause 5:
By-laws of local authorities.
5.—(1) A local authority may make by-laws with respect to the discharge of any trade effluent, or trade effluent of any particular nature or composition, from trade premises into a sewer of the local authority, and such by-laws may provide for all or any of the following matters, that is to say:—
(h) For the provision and maintenance on the premises of such meters as may be required to measure the volume of trade effluent being discharged from the premises into the sewer:
(5) Any by-law made by a local authority under this section shall cease to have effect
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on the expiration of ten years from the date on which it is made. Provided that the Minister may by order extend the period during which any by-law made under this section is to remain in force.
LORD GAINFORD LORD GAINFORD moved, in subsection (1), after "A local authority may," to insert "and, if required by the Minister, shall." The noble Lord said: This Amendment is moved at the suggestion of the Ministry of Health itself, but it does deal with the position taken up by the Dock and Harbour Authorities Association. They think that if there is any injury caused to their docks they could apply to the Ministry and require the local authority to make by-laws with respect to the discharge of a trade effluent of that character. The Amendment is really a safeguard to the dock and harbour authorities against injury to harbours, docks, and tidal waters.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 32, after ("may") insert ("and, if required by the Minister, shall").—(Lord Gainford.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME moved, in subsection (1), to add to paragraph (h) "and for the testing of such meters." The noble Viscount said: Under paragraph (h) a local authority has power to make by-laws for certain things, and I think it should also have power to make a by-law for testing meters. I understand that my noble friend is going to accept this Amendment, and I think that if your Lordships take his advice and accept it, on Report it will be as well to have an Amendment to Clause 9, on page 10, at the end of line 32, to insert "and for the purpose of testing the accuracy of such meter." I propose, however, to leave that Amendment over till Report. I have spoken to my noble friend about it and I think he agrees with me.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 4, at end insert ("and for the testing of such meters").—(Viscount Bertie of Thame.)
LORD GAINFORD: I have no objection to this Amendment.
VISCOUNT GAGE: The Government have also agreed.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAMEmoved, in subsection (5), after the second "by-law," to insert "or relaxation or dispensation thereof made under the preceding subsection." The noble Viscount said: Under this subsection the local authority at the end of ten years may extend the order, and I think it is just as well that they should also have power to extend any relaxation or dispensation which they have been able to give during the ten years before.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 35, after ("by-law") insert ("or relaxation or dispensation thereof made under the preceding subsection").—(Viscount Bertie of Thame.)
LORD GAINFORD: I gather that the Ministry of Health do not think that these words are necessary. I am informed that they are really redundant. If the period is extended ipso facto the powers in the earlier period would also be extended and therefore the words are not necessary.
VISCOUNT GAGE: That does in fact state the position of the Ministry.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME: I never like to make myself troublesome. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.
LORD GAINFORD LORD GAINFORD moved, after Clause 5, to insert the following new clause:
Power of Minister to make by-laws in case of default and to revoke unreasonable bylaws.
".—(1) If a local authority, when required by the Minister to make by-laws under the last preceding section in relation to any of the matters with respect to which they are empowered to make such by-laws, do not within three months after such requisition make, in relation to that matter, by-laws satisfactory to him, the Minister may himself make by-laws in relation thereto.
(2) If the Minister is satisfied that the establishment or carrying on of any trade or industry at any premises within the district of a local authority is, or is likely to be, unreasonably impeded in consequence of any by-laws made under the last preceding section by that local authority, he may for the purpose of removing the impediment require the local authority to revoke those by-laws and to make such new by-laws as he considers necessary, and if the local authority do not within three months after such requisition comply therewith, the Minister may himself for that purpose revoke the by-laws and make such new by-laws as he considers necessary.
(3) Any by-laws made by the Minister under this section shall have effect as if they had been duly made by the local authority and confirmed by the Minister."
The noble Lord said: The Federation of British Industries are anxious to secure this power, which is similar to that given to the local authority. The local authorities can approach the Ministry and get orders relaxed, and the Federation of British Industries wish to secure to traders a similar power.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 5 insert the said new clause.—(Lord Gainford.)
VISCOUNT GAGE: The Government accept this clause. It follows, with necessary adaptations, Clause 68 of the Public Health Bill and will assimilate the procedure under this. Bill with the general procedure.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 6:
Agreements between local authorities and traders or other local authorities.
(3) A copy of every agreement entered into by a local authority in pursuance of this section, certified by the clerk to the local authority, shall be kept by the local authority at their offices so as to be available at all reasonable times for inspection by any person, upon payment of a fee of sixpence for each inspection.
(5) Where necessary for the purposes of this Act, any agreement made under Section twenty-eight of the Public Health Act, 1975 (which authorises agreements for the drainage of the sewers of one local authority into the sewers of another) may be cancelled or altered subject to such conditions and in such manner as may be agreed upon between the parties or, in default of agreement, determined by the Minister upon application made by either or any of the parties after notice to the other party or parties.
LORD GAINFORD: The first two Amendments to this clause are drafting Amendments.
Amendments moved—
Page 8, line 11, leave out ("local") and insert ("sewerage")
Page 8, line 13, leave out ("local") and insert ("sewerage").—(Lord Gainford.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME moved, in subsection (3) after the first "inspection," to insert "and copying." The noble Viscount said: This is little more than a drafting Amendment, and I understand my noble friend is prepared to accept it.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 29, after ("inspection") insert ("and copying").—(Viscount Bertie of Thame.)
LORD GAINFORD: I have no objection to this Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD GAINFORD LORD GAINFORD moved to leave out subsection (5) and insert:
"(5) If, on the application of any local authority being a party to an agreement which, whether before or after the passing of this Act, has been entered into in pursuance of Section twenty-eight of the Public Health Act, 1875 (which authorises agreements for the drainage of the sewers of one local authority into the sewers of another) the Minister is satisfied that, owing to circumstances arising or likely to arise by reason of the operation of this Act, the agreement ought to be cancelled or varied, he may by order direct that, subject to such conditions (if any) as he may in default of agreement between the parties determine, the agreement shall cease to have effect, or that the agreement shall be varied in such manner as may be specified in the order.
(6) This section shall have effect as from the passing of this Act."
The noble Lord said: This Amendment is required in order to meet the Minister's view and to give power to vary agreements where two or more authorities drain into each other's sewerage system.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 38, leave out subsection (5) and insert the said new subsections.—(Lord Gainford.)
VISCOUNT GAGE: The Government agree to this Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 7 agreed to.
Clause 8:
Production of plans, and furnishing of information to local authorities.
"(3) Every person who fails to comply with this section shall be guilty of an offence and shall, for each such offence, be liable to a fine not exceeding five pounds and to a further fine not exceeding forty shillings for every day on which the offence continues after conviction therefor."
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME moved, in subsection (3), after "liable," to insert "on summary conviction." The noble Viscount said: I think that in most Bills when a person is liable to a fine it is on summary conviction, and for that reason I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 9, after ("liable") insert ("on summary conviction").—(Viscount Bertie of Thame.)
LORD GAINFORD: This Amendment is really not required. By Clause 15 the Bill is to be construed as one of the Public Health Acts, 1875 to 1936, which deal with the whole subject, and therefore this Amendment will not be necessary.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME: I plead guilty to negligence, and beg leave to withdraw.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 8 agreed to.
Clause 9:
Entry and inspection of trade premises.
(2) An officer of a local authority who takes a sample of any trade effluent with the intention of submitting it to analysis shall forthwith notify to the occupier of the trade premises or his agent his intention to have it analysed and shall there and then divide the sample into three parts, each part to be marked and sealed up in a suitable container, and shall—

(a) if required so to do, deliver one part to the occupier of the trade premises or his agent;

(b) retain one part for future comparison;

(c) if he thinks fit to have an analysis made, submit one part to the analyst.

VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME moved, in paragraph (c) of subsection (2), to leave out "the" and insert "a public" [analyst]. The noble Viscount said: I do not quite know what "the" analyst is. I should have thought it ought to be a public analyst. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 11, line 8, leave out ("the") and insert ("a public").—(Viscount Bertie of Thame.)
LORD GAINFORD: The reason why this Amendment cannot be accepted is that a public analyst is appointed under the Food and Drugs Act, and the public analyst has often not got the necessary experience in connection with the kind of bacteriological and analytical work which will be required under the provisions of this Bill. The Ministry think it is very desirable that there should be absolute elasticity in regard to the analyst who may be selected for the

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particular purpose that may be required, and the public analyst might not be the best person that could be found in certain circumstances.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME: I do not wish to be obstructive, and beg leave to withdraw.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 9 agreed to.
Clauses 10 and 11 agreed to.
Clause 12:
Saving of rights with respect to volume of water.
12. Nothing in this Act shall affect any right with respect to the volume of water in a river, stream or watercourse, or authorise any infringement of such a right.
LORD GAINFORD LORD GAINFORD moved, after "shall," to insert "(a)." The noble Lord said: This Amendment deals with a case which may occur in connection with any trading establishment which for a period is not in operation and certain rights might be extinguished if the words which I propose to insert after "right" were not included. Where a trading operation is for the time being not in operation it is very desirable that for a reasonable period the parties concerned should not lose any right that at the present time they possess. The Amendment is designed to meet that case.
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 3, after ("shall") insert ("(a)").—(Lord Gainford.)
VISCOUNT GAGE: I agree.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD GAINFORD: The next Amendment is consequential.
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 6, after ("right") insert "or
(b) affect any right or drainage acquired by any person, by prescription or otherwise, before the commencement of this Act").—(Lord Gainford.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 12, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 13:
Incidental powers of Minister.
13.—(1) The Minister, upon application made to him by any local authority or joint sewerage board or by the owner or occupier of trade premises within the district of the local authority or board, may by order make such amendments or adaptations of any local
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Act relating to that authority or board as appear to him to be necessary for the purpose of bringing the provisions of that Act into conformity with the provisions of this Act.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME moved to add to subsection (1):
" Provided that any such order shall, as soon as may be, be laid before each House of Parliament and if either House within twenty-eight days on which that House has sat after the date on which the order is laid before it passes a Resolution against the order, the order shall thenceforth be void but without prejudice to the making of a new order."
The noble Viscount said: If your Lordships will look at this clause you will see that
" The Minister, upon application made to him by any local authority or joint sewerage board or by the owner or occupier of trade premises within the district of the local authority or board, may by order make such amendments or adaptations of any local Act relating to that authority or board as appear to him to be necessary for the purpose of bringing the provisions of that Act into conformity with the provisions of this Act."
It seems to me that nobody has any power to say that the Minister has gone beyond his powers. By order he can alter this Private Act perhaps in some respect contrary to the intention of the Bill, and it seems to me that Parliament or some other authority should have power to say to him: "You have gone beyond your authority and we annul what you have done."
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 15, at end insert the said proviso.—(Viscount Bertie of Thame.)
LORD GAINFORD: The objection to this Amendment is that the Ministry of Health has a Bill for amending Local Acts, and it is necessary that this Bill should conform to the Bill which has already gone through the Joint Committee upstairs with which it will be eventually merged. Therefore the Ministry of Health are not of the opinion that this Amendment should be accepted.
VISCOUNT GAGE: I might also add that this is actually the procedure which finds a place in the existing law. Clause 13 (1) as drafted follows Section 37 of the Public Health (Amending) Act, 1907, and Section 6 of the Public Health Act, 1925, which is reproduced in the Bill at present before Parliament. Obviously it is within the power of any individual who

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considers the Minister has gone beyond what he is authorised to do to proceed in the Courts against him for taking action ultra vires.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME: I am glad that the noble Viscount quoted the dates of the Acts in his reply. Both these Acts were passed before the Report of the Donoughmore Committee which dealt rather severely with Ministerial powers. But I think, at any rate for the time being, I shall withdraw this Amendment and consider whether I shall bring it up again.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 13 agreed to.
Clause 14:
Interpretation.
14. In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, the following expressions have the meanings hereby respectively assigned to them, that is to say:—
"District" means, in relation to a local authority, the area over which that authority has jurisdiction;
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME moved, in the definition of "district," to leave out "has" and insert "have" The noble Viscount said: This is a drafting Amendment which I understand my noble friend accepts.
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 35, leave out ("has") and insert ("have").—(Viscount Bertie of Thame.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD GAINFORD LORD GAINFORD moved to insert:
"'Sewerage authority ' means a local authority, the London County Council and the council of a metropolitan borough."
The noble Lord said: I have already explained that the word "sewerage" has to be inserted and this is merely a definition.
Amendment moved—
Page 13, line 9, at end insert the said words.—(Lord Gainford.)
LORD JESSEL: May I ask whether it would not be better to put the word "Sewerage" a little higher up in the. Bill before "The Minister." You have "Local authority" at the top of the page, and "Sewerage authority" is to come after "The Minister."
LORD GAINFORD: This Bill has been carefully looked at by responsible draftsmen,
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and it is not for me to say that any alterations should take place. Note will be made of the observations of the noble Lord, and if the draftsmen on reconsideration think it is necessary I have no doubt the Minister of Health would insert an Amendment on Report.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 14, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 15:
Short title, construction, citation, extent and commencement.
15.—(1) This Act may he cited as the Public Health (Drainage of Trade Promises) Act, 1936, and shall he construed as one with the Public Health Acts, 1875 to 1932, and those Acts and this Act may be cited together as the Public Health Acts, 1875 to 1936.
(2) This Act shall not extend to Scotland, Northern Ireland or the administrative county of London.
(3) This Act shall come into operation on the first day of July nineteen hundred and thirty-seven:
Provided that at any time before the said day the Minister, if satisfied, upon application made by a local authority, that having regard to the inadequacy of the sewers or sewage works available for the reception or disposal of trade effluents from premises in the district of the local authority it is expedient so to do, may make an order directing that this Act shall not come into operation in that district until such day as may be specified in the order, and any order made as aforesaid may, subject to the like conditions, be varied by a subsequent order made by the Minister; and in relation to any district with respect to which such an order as aforesaid has been made, the commencement of this Act shall be taken to be the beginning of the day on which this Act comes into operation in that district; and a local authority making application to the Minister for such an order shall give notice of the application by advertisement in two newspapers circulating in the district of the local authority and the Minister before deciding whether or not to make the order shall consider any representations or objections made to him in writing by any owner or occupier of trade premises in the district.
LORD GAINFORD LORD GAINFORD moved, in subsection (2), to leave out "or". The noble Lord said: This Amendment and the following Amendments are made to meet comments made by the London County Council, which desired to exclude from the scope of the Bill not only the administrative County of London but also the areas outside London which drain into the London system. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 13, line 28, leave out ("or").—(Lord Gainford.)
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: I want to say a word on behalf of the London County Council and the Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Joint Committee, because this Amendment affects directly the County of London and certain outlying regions of the Metropolitan area. These bodies express their gratitude to the noble Lord in charge of the Bill for meeting them so readily. His Amendment exactly covers the principal objection that they were bound to raise on Second Reading, and they very much hope that your Lordships will see your way to incorporate this Amendment like the preceding Amendments in the Bill.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Amendments moved—
Page 13, line 28, at end insert ("or to any area which immediately before the passing of this Act drains directly or indirectly into a sewer or sewage disposal works vested in the London County Council or in the council of a metropolitan borough").
Page 13, line 29, after ("shall") insert ("save as otherwise specially provided therein").—(Lord Gainford.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
THE LORD CHAIRMAN: I have a manuscript Amendment from Lord Gainford on Clause 15, page 14, line 8, after "authority" to insert "and in the London Gazette."
LORD GAINFORD LORD GAINFORD moved, in the proviso in subsection (3), after "authority," where that word last occurs, to insert "and in the London Gazette." The noble Lord said: This is merely an Amendment to give information as to what has been done in connection with the notices that are to be given under the Public Health Act which has passed through the Joint Committee, and the Federation of British Industries are very anxious that in addition to the advertisement in the two papers the advertisement shall appear also in the London Gazette.
Amendment moved—
Page 14, line 8, after ("authority") insert ("and in the London Gazette").—(Lord Gainford.)
VISCOUNT GAGE: This seems a reasonable proposal and the Government accept it.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 15, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule:
SCHEDULE.
Provisions as to making and publication of by-laws.
2. Where the owner or occupier of any trade premises within the district of the local authority serves upon them a written request to be registered and states his name and postal address, it shall be the duty of the local authority to enter his name in a register to be kept by them for the purpose of this Act, and so long as his name appears in the register, the local authority shall cause to be sent to him a copy of every notice which they are required by this or any other Act to publish in connection with the making of by-laws under this Act or the confirmation of such by-laws.
LORD GAINFORD: The Amendment to the Schedule down in my name is drafting. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 15, line 32, leave out ("local") and insert ("sewerage").—(Lord Gainford.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME moved, in paragraph 2, after "name," to insert "and address." The noble Viscount said: This is an Amendment of a drafting nature which my noble friend has been kind enough to say he accepts. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 16, line 9, after ("name") insert ("and address").—(Viscount Bertie of Thame.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

ROAD TRAFFIC (DRIVING LICENCES) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order).
Clause 3:
Issue of licences appropriate to test.
3.—(1) Where, under Section six of the Road Traffic Act, 1934, any person is required to pass the prescribed test of competence to drive, and the test passed by him is a test prescribed under subsection (5) of that section with respect only to the driving of any specified class or description of vehicles, the licence granted to him under Part I of the principal Act shall specify that class or description of vehicles, and he shall be deemed not to be the holder of a licence granted under that Part of that Act to drive motor vehicles of any other class or description.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH)THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH) moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "principal Act" and insert "Road Traffic Act, 1930." The noble Earl said: My Lords, I owe the House a short explanation in connection with this and the other Amendments in my name on the Paper. Your Lordships will remember that at the Committee stage of this Bill, the noble Viscount, Lord Bertie, suggested a manuscript Amendment which was of a drafting character, but he did not press it because the promoters of the Bill were desirous that the Bill should be placed upon the Statute Book at the earliest possible moment. The Government, sympathising with that desire, did not think at that moment that there was any objection to the Bill passing in the form in which it is at present. However, on further consideration, they feel that in spite of the fact that a little delay will result it would be better to see this Bill go through in the most workmanlike form possible, and for this reason I have placed on the Paper the Amendments which stand in my name, which I hope will be satisfactory to Lord Jessel.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 30, leave out (" principal Act ") and insert (" Road Traffic Act 1930 ").—(The Earl of Plymouth.)
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME: My Lords, I am much obliged to my noble friend for moving this Amendment. I should like to congratulate him on having removed the sanction which was enforced during Committee stage.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 4 [Short title, citation, construction and extent]:
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: My Lords, I beg to move the drafting Amendments upon this clause standing in my name.
Amendments moved—
Page 3, line 5, after ("one") insert (" and subsection 1 of Section three").
Page 3, line 7, leave out (" and Section two ") and insert (" Section two and subsection (2) of Section three ").—(Earl of Plymouth.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

PRIVATE LEGISLATION PRO- CEDURE. (SCOTLAND) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL): My Lords, this Bill has been circulated to your Lordships. It is purely a Consolidation Bill, and it will be referred to the Committee upstairs. I do not propose, therefore, to move the Second Reading in any more than these formal words. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

BRITISH SHIPPING IN THE PACIFIC.
LORD LLOYD LORD LLOYD rose to call attention to the question of British shipping in the Pacific, and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Motion which I am venturing to commend to your Lordships this afternoon concerns the specific case of the British shipping service threatened with nothing less than extinction as the result of the action of a foreign Government. Alas! in the domain of shipping it is not by any means an isolated case, for British shipping, owing to the amount of foreign subsidies, has been brought to very grave straits. It is a matter to which attention was called only two days ago in a very powerful letter to The Times from one who is, I believe, vice-chairman of the Shipping Federation. Before I outline to your Lordships the particular difficulties and dangers of this Pacific question, perhaps you will excuse me if I make one or two general observations which, while I think they probably will be superfluous in your Lordships' House, are needed to be remembered very much by the public outside to-day when our minds are concerned with national defence. It is merely to recall to the minds of the public the absolute dependence of the Empire and every part of it upon its merchant shipping.
The Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, recognises that in almost every line of it, and you can scarcely call the strength and reserve of the merchant navy second

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in importance to that of our Defence Forces. The merchant navy itself—its men as well as its ships—if ineffective or enfeebled, could bring about our downfall as surely as naval defeat. Over and over during the last few years, during the Governments alike of Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, when they were actively engaged—as I think short-sightedly—in leading us down the sombre and solitary road of disarmament, I and my friends have been trying to remind the people of the country of the enormous dangers of thus allowing our merchant shipping to be attacked with impunity, for no other country, obviously, is in so precarious a state as regards its food supplies as our own. Every other country has, in popular phrase, a back-door by which, if its ports are closed, it can be fed. We alone of all the countries in the world have no such back door. Close our ports or sink our ships and the people of this country starve!
In a moment I shall venture to point out the danger to our shipping at the hands of American subsidies, but may I for a moment contrast that precarious food position of ours with the fortunate position which the great federation of the United States occupies. There she is, a compact, self-contained area, an area of something like 4,000,000 square miles with a population of 130,000,000, all connected up by some 3,000,000 miles of roads and 750,000 miles of railways, interconnected and intertwined, all consolidated and concentrated. Besides that, she has a great coastal service entirely reserved to herself, the whole length of her great seaboard, along which no one else may ply, thus giving her ample tonnage in case of any emergency which might conceivably overtake her. We, on the other hand, are at the head of an even greater federation, but we have no such vast concentrated area. Our area is not 4,000,000 miles nor even 1,000,000 miles. It is only 700 odd miles from north to south. Our federation lies outside these Islands. It is on the sea that communications with our federation lie, and without a supreme and efficient merchant navy our troops cannot be moved and our people cannot be fed. I hope your Lordships will forgive me for making these few quite general observations, but they form the frame into which this particular Pacific picture needs, I think, to be fitted.
Now, if I may, I will come to the actual point of my Motion. As your Lordships are aware, up till about 1900 the trade between the Canadian Pacific and the American Pacific coast via Honolulu, Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand and Australia was carried on practically exclusively by British ships. The British lines operating to-day are two. One of them is the Union Company of New Zealand, which is closely connected with the P. & O. That has two steamers and its terminal point on the American Pacific coast is San Francisco. The other is the Canadian-Australian line, which makes its terminal port on the Canadian Pacific Vancouver. The Chairman of the former line has informed the public that for reasons which will become obvious as I proceed his company is going to be forced to abandon this service—next November I think. Sir Edward Beatty, the Chairman of the Canadian-Australian Company, who is over here now and I hope in this respect to good purpose, has indicated that without aid the services of his line cannot long continue. The services which these vessels provide are the links between three important Dominions as well as the Colony of Fiji, and link them also with the United States of America. The real tragedy of the story is that these lines are threatened with extinction, not at the hands of an unfriendly Power, but of a Power with which we have closer kinship and more intimate relations than any other. It is hard to believe that American policy really is deliberately aimed at driving our ships off the Pacific—every one in your Lordships' House, I think, would refuse to believe that—but unless America alters its policy or our Government puts an end to its policy of drift and defends British interests in the Pacific with far greater alacrity and determination than it has yet shown any signs of doing, extinction must be the only result.
The history of this question is an interesting one. If your Lordships will carry in your mind's eye for a moment the map of the Pacific you will see that the Pacific West Coast—Vancouver in Canada, and San Francisco and Los Angeles in the United States of America—Honolulu in Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand and Australia form a series of obvious links, stepping stones as it were from one great Continent to the other. You will see at once that if ships trading from Australia to the Pacific coast are prevented

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from trading between Honolulu and the American coast they are subject to a very grave handicap. That is exactly the disadvantage to which our ships were submitted in 1900 when, after the Spanish-American War, Hawaii was attached to America, The American coastal reservation was applied and we were not able to do that important trade, to our great detriment and loss. Others with greater knowledge will correct me if I am wrong, but I think I am correct in saying that up till 1928 or thereabouts that did not affect us so seriously because the Americans had no fast passenger ships. The effect up to that time was on cargo and not on passenger trading. As to that I think I am correct, but certainly in 1928 Congress passed the Merchant Marino Act and the whole picture was changed to our grievous hurt. The result was the building of three absolutely up-to-date luxury ships the "Mariposa," the "Monterey," and the "Lurline." The two former ships, I understand, ply regularly and the third ship is brought in to supplement the service.
To the aid of this line important construction loans were given. According to a report of the Postmaster-General of the United States to the Chairman of a Committee appointed to investigate the air mail and ocean mail contracts, these construction loans were granted to the Matson Line, that is the American line that controls the steamers. Construction loans were given for twenty years at 1½ per cent. for the first two vessels and one-third of 1 per cent. for the third—an enormous assistance, money on the cheapest possible terms. The financial aid thus given to the Matson Line has enabled it, as I have said, to build high-speed steamers of a design and character which no company that is not heavily subsidised can possibly hope to compete with at all. One of the justifications put forward by American apologists for these loans is the higher building costs which supervene in America. But any examination of the figures proves, I think, quite conclusively that the degree of assistance given far more than offsets any difference there may be in the first place as regards cost of construction. There is another and perhaps a more convincing proof in the fact that, by means of these construction loans, the ships in question have been able to cut rates to such a degree that nobody's ships can possibly
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compete, showing therein an enormous margin of fighting resources, well over and above the construction costs that these subsidies have given to the line.
But that is not all the story. Apart from these important and heavy construction subsidies, there are operating subsidies as well. When I tell your Lordships that between the years 1928 and 1934 this line has received, under its contract with the United States Postal Department, getting on for £1,000,000 sterling in operating subsidies—£963,000, I think, is the figure—you will see the appalling difficulties to which any non-subsidised line is put if it is to have any hope of competing. These subsidies, of course, although they are given through the Postmaster-General's Department, are in no way postal subsidies. Indeed, if they had been calculated at the same rate as the normal postal subsidies, the amount given would not have been £963,000 but £190,000. Moreover, if there is any doubt left in the minds of your Lordships as regards the real nature of these subsidies, we have the testimony of the United States Postmaster-General himself, who, in his endeavour to justify these payments to Congress, stated:
" These objects are national in scope. They have no special relation to the postal service. Ocean mail pay is simply the form in which Congress has elected to extend financial aid to the shipping industry."
There have been other attempts by American apologists to justify these enormous subsidies on the ground of the heavier cost of the American labour employed on the ships. It is hard to get any accurate information as regards the operating costs, but I have here beside me a table which was prepared by the Chamber of Shipping and which, I should think, is as good information as you could get anywhere. According to that table it is quite clear that, at any rate in 1935, so far from American wages having been higher than New Zealand wages, if anything they were lower. The table says that the oilers on the ships in America were paid £15 13s. and in New Zealand £16 6s.; the firemen £14 2s. 6d. and in New Zealand £16 6s.—a large difference, they were much more expensive. The wipers in America were paid £11 11s. and in New Zealand £14 6s.; the sailors—the deck hands—in America were paid £13 7s. and in New Zealand £14 6s. Of course, there are questions of

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exchange and allowances which make the calculation difficult. I am by no means certain that these figures are right though they come from a considerable authority, but I think they are sufficient to show, at any rate, that the contention that the operating subsidies were justified on account of higher wages in America than in New Zealand is very far from being borne out.
Then there is one other argument which I should like to dispose of, which is also given in justification—namely, that these subsidies are legitimate subsidies paid in support of American trade on an American route. I scarcely need to mention that, because it is quite obvious that the American part of the route is between the American Pacific Coast—Los Angeles or San Francisco—and Hawaii. There is no need of any subsidy there, because under the Coastal Reservation Act nobody can compete at all there. Therefore, when you observe that the subsidies are given, not for one section of the route but all over, right through to Australasia, it is perfectly clear that these are what the Postmaster-General himself said they were, objects national in scope, and, of course, competitive subsidies as against us.
Therefore, to summarise briefly, the advantages which the American ships have over ours are that the Americans have their ships built with the aid of Government money advanced at little or no interest; they receive heavy cash subsidies; and on one important section of the route they are further completely protected by the Coastal Reservation Act. It is all the more serious to us, my Lords, if you remember that, while we are excluded from the American portion under the American Coastal Reservation Act, we allow the Americans to compete absolutely freely in our own inter-Imperial trade between Australia and New-Zealand, which we might easily have kept to ourselves if we had only played the same game and reserved it by coastal reservation. We have played a foolishly generous part, while their part has been less generous. That is the position of the American ships. The position of our ships, on the other hand, is an absolutely desperate one. Our ships have had to maintain their services in the face of these impossible conditions. Our men have had to face these conditions in ships built at the expense of
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private investors, and I think it is a tribute, and a great tribute, to the superlative skill of our shipping industry, its courage and endurance, that these ships have been able to fight these conditions as long as they have.
It is now, my Lords, four years since New Zealand first brought this matter to the Ottawa Conference. The Conference, I believe, unanimously took the view that these were what they called "dumped services," and New Zealand's appeal received the approval of the whole Imperial Conference. After the matter had been referred to the Ottawa Conference, we rather lost sight of the fate of this question. I believe it was referred to a sub-conference, but I have no evidence whether this sub-conference was ever held. I should like to ask my noble friend whether my facts are correct, and whether it was referred to a sub-conference. I should also like to ask him if he could tell us, in the event of my surmise being correct, of what that sub-conference was composed, how often it met, who was on it, and what decision it came to, if any. At other times we are told that this question is to be referred to the Imperial Shipping Committee; we were told so fairly recently. If it is the right thing to do at all, why was it not right to do it four years ago? Why have we waited for four years since this question was raised? What is the use of having an Imperial Conference? What is the use of getting all our great statesmen to meet and to confer over these vital matters if four years later nothing is done at all? Was it necessary to refer it to any committee? Why refer so serious a matter as this to such a graveyard of inaction as a committee always is?
Surely the Board of Trade must have all the knowledge by now. Does it take four years to find out the facts? I should have thought that, if they had really wanted to, they could have found out the main facts of the situation in a few months. They have sufficient material for action. As it is, years have elapsed. Surely the Board of Trade is more competent to deal with the question, and has more authority and more knowledge, than any committee at all. Over and over again in the last three or four years His Majesty's Government and Ministers have made statements, brave statements, but

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nothing has been done, nothing has followed. I will quote only one or two—I could quote a page full or even two pages full, I think. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said in December, 1933, at a meeting of the Midland Union:
"We are not going to see British ships swept off the face of the ocean, and in one way or another we mean to defend ourselves."
That was in 1933. To-day is 1936. The Chancellor of Exchequer was wrong if he was prophesying. He is seeing British ships being swept off the ocean every day of every week. The President of the Board of Trade, more immediately concerned, said in a speech on December 13, 1933:
" We shall, if necessary, take steps to see that the liner services get fair play at all events within an inter-Imperial trade."
This is inter-Imperial trade. Where is the fair play that Mr. Runciman has procured for these services? That was in 1933, and now we are in the year 1936. Again in 1934, Mr. Runciman said:
"I do not want to use the large stick, but we have to make it clear that if foreign countries are going to treat our shipping unfairly we shall know how to put them on an equal footing."
Nothing yet has been done. If Mr. Runciman knows how to put them on an equal footing, he has not imparted his information to anyone else. That is to say, all these promises are entirely unredeemed.
British ships, as I have said, are daily being swept off the face of the ocean. Since 1930 our shipping has been reduced by over 3,000,000 tons gross, or roughly 15 per cent. of the quantity existing that year. During the first quarter of this year an additional forty-five ocean-going cargo carriers were laid up. I have that on the authority of Mr. Watts, confirmed by the Chamber of Shipping. These are terribly grave facts, and I do not think it is easy to depict in Parliamentary language what the effect would be within our Empire if we lost this vitally important link in the All-Red Route. I do not desire to make any attack upon His Majesty's Government, but what I, and I think the country, desire is action. It is not to be believed that the Government after four years are not yet in possession of the facts relevant to their decision. I am not competent to discuss what the remedial measures should be. There are others who will
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follow me who are fully competent. Very possibly it may be thought desirable to substitute for the present four steamers which we have on the route two first-rate fast and up-to-date passenger ships, which would carry the Canadian and American and Pacific trade, and link it up with Australasia. Whatever may be the decision in this respect, there seems good hope for believing that the Dominions will readily co-operate if His Majesty's Government will give an immediate and energetic lead.
I am confirmed in that view by a speech made by no less a person than Mr. Menzies, the Attorney-General for Australia, who is in this country at the present time. Perhaps your Lordships, in spite of the debate the other day, will permit me to read a portion of the speech which he delivered at the Royal Empire Society recently. These are his words:
"Australia was the terminus of a body of British shipping which passed between the Commonwealth, New Zealand and Fiji, touched Honolulu and found its way to Canada. Crossing Canada the route continued to Great Britain. It was one of the great waterways of the world and Australia, regarded the preservation of its British character as essential. I want to make it clear that Australia, as a very definite island country, as a child of the British Mercantile Marine, still believes that the flying of the British flag on the furthest ocean of the world is of the greatest importance to the British race. But she also believes that the security of British shipping in any part of the world is not the business of any one part of the world only.
" She believes firmly that the whole of the British Community of Nations has a common interest in preserving British shipping and British mercantile interests all over the world. It is for that reason that representatives of Australia, New Zealand and other Dominions, and of Great Britain, have been conferring on that matter and we are still engaged in conference. We attach the greatest importance"—
I would ask His Majesty's Government to mark these words—
"to the crisis through which British shipping is passing to-day. The British Empire and the power of the British Empire was largely founded on British shipping. That was a vital element in the position that Australia occupied in the Pacific."
He concluded with these words, to which the City of London might do well to listen:
"If British financial power, to-day, was prepared to admit that it was largely created by British mercantile marine

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power in past centuries, then it could scarcely complain if the British Mercantile Marine said that ' the time has come for you to exercise yourself on our behalf.' "
I am not, as undoubtedly your Lordships will have discovered, an expert on these matters, but the Navy League, with which I am concerned, takes the deepest interest in these matters and I have ventured, although not an expert, to bring them before your Lordships in the hope that the Press of this country, as well as this House, would take such steps as would make His Majesty's Government realise that this is a matter of vital concern to our defence as well as to our trade position.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, my noble friends have asked me to state our point of view on the very important subject which has been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, this afternoon. The view that we take of all subsidies to private enterprise is one of great hostility. I am speaking now of our economic theories. We are economic purists, and we do not like subsidies to private enterprises. At the same time it is recognised that there may be cases in which some form of Government assistance is unavoidable. Other countries are heavily subsidising their shipping lines, and there are Imperial and strategical reasons why it would be dangerous to allow the British flag to be swept out of the Pacific. At the same time I notice that the noble Lord did not propose any remedies in his speech. Naturally, as he would say, that is the business of the Government. There is the problem, and it is their duty to face it. I rather thought he was going to suggest that we should retaliate against those nations, such as the United States, who reserve what in effect is their empire to their own shipping. Of course if we reserved the shipping routes to all our ports within the Empire it would be an extraordinary undertaking. If we said that only British ships should trade between Australia and the United Kingdom, and to any other parts of the British Empire, it would be an extraordinary state of affairs, and my Party would oppose what in effect would be a great shipping war, if such a policy were started. The noble Lord did not suggest that, but it has been hinted at in other quarters.
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Short of that, what is suggested? I presume that what the shipping companies want is State assistance in the form of money, and their excuse is that State assistance is given to their rivals in the Pacific, notably the Americans and the Japanese. The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, did not refer very particularly to the Japanese case, but I have here a cutting from the well-known shipping publication Lloyd's List, of June 15, in which they give some extraordinary figures and statements about the intentions of the Japanese Government. They quote particularly from the well-known Japanese newspaper the Asahi Shimbun, and they say that it is the policy of the Japanese Government to increase the national shipping resources of Japan from 4,000,000 tons of shipping to 6,000,000 tons. I am speaking in the presence of great shipowners, including the noble Lords, Lord Essendon, Lord Inverforth and others, and I believe they will bear me out when I say that the trouble to-day is that, with the existing trade to be carried, there is too much shipping under various flags, for reasons that we all know. If the Japanese intend to construct another 2,000,000 tons it will be an extraordinary state of affairs that the shipping industry will be faced with.
Now we come to the question of the Japanese subsidies. I think there is an inclination somewhat to exaggerate the amount of subsidies that the Japanese, and indeed, the American Government, give, though I admit that they are substantial. According to the returns quoted in Lloyd's List on the date I have given your Lordships, the Government subsidies granted by the Japanese Government to the whole commercial sea services during the last financial year 1935–36 totalled 9,680,000 yen or, in sterling, £570,000, most of that amount going to two lines, the Nippon Yusen Kaisha and the Osaka Shosen Kaisha. The first received £350,000 and the second £150,000. Considering the whole amount of Japanese shipping all over the world, that amount is not very great. We must remember that considerable assistance has already been given in one way or another to British shipping. Compared with the sum that we guaranteed, for example, for the "Queen Mary" and her sister ship, that is not a very large amount of money. We remember the discussion in your Lordships'

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House on the British Shipping (Assistance) Bill, which provides in one way or another some £2,000,000 for tramp shipping. I know that this is largely a liner problem, an important problem too; but still, these Japanese figures are not very alarming. But the Japanese intentions, if the statement I mentioned is true, are certainly alarming.
With regard to American figures, I am taking the liberty of quoting from another letter in The Times by a gentleman who came from the city that I had the honour to represent in another place for many years, Mr. Cleminson, the General Manager of the Chamber of Shipping. His calculation of the amount of what he calls the pure subsidy for the American lines in the Pacific—that is, taking away the real payment for mails, and including the disguised subsidy that the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, referred to—is £772,684. I agree that that is a substantial figure, but it is not colossal. And I further agree that the cheap money policy which I have advocated at other times—the policy of allowing shipowners long-term loans at cheap rates—has enormously helped the American shipping companies. I have always been in favour of that policy being extended to our own shipowners.
The general view of my Party is that if there is a case for subsidising sugar beet, for example—I feel myself very bold to say this in your Lordships' House—there is a better case for subsidising British shipping; and that if there is a case for subsidising civil aviation or grand opera (which many of your Lordships have at heart) then, in view of the subsidies paid to its rivals, there is certainly a case for subsidising British shipping, and it may be that in these peculiar circumstances this may have to be done. I understand that the Leader of the House is going to make a statement on the Government's policy. I am glad to hear it, and I am sure he will be much more definite than Mr. Runciman was in December last, when he said that the matter was receiving consideration, and on March 10 last, when he said it was still receiving consideration—and of course that was all that the noble Lord, Lord Templemore, could say on the last occasion when he charmed your Lord ships' House by one of his adroit and eloquent replies on one of these Motions. I find myself, not for the first
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time, in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, in attacking the Government for their hesitations and their long-drawn-out consideration of these matters. I hesitate to say so, but I think that what this country really needs is action. We have had leadership in the wrong direction; let us have a little action in the right direction.
Now I come to a matter upon which my Party feels very deeply, and I would ask the noble Viscount when he makes the Government announcement, if he can, to say what is their policy in this connection if any subsidies or monetary assistance are given. The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, speaks of the British Mercantile Marine as a reserve of the Royal Navy. That is perfectly true, it is a material reserve, but, much more important, it is a human reserve. It is essential to attract into the British Mercantile Marine the best type of young British lads, and that they should have a real, assured career there. To do that you have to have decent conditions of employment. I would like to take this opportunity of congratulating the noble Lords, Lord Essendon and Lord Inverforth particularly as representative British shipowners, on the most recent advance made in this direction by the more humane system of hours of work that has been arrived at by the Joint Maritime Board. I think they have done splendidly, and I have written to the National Union of Seamen to say so, but I want verbally to congratulate them as well. I think they have shown foresight in getting rid of that barbarous two-watch system, and now in all large ships the three-watch system is introduced. That is a great step forward. I am very happy to pay that compliment to the noble Lords. That is voluntary, however. It will be carried out by all good shipowners, we know, but if Government money is to be provided to help British shipping in the Pacific, will the Government this time—they omitted to do this on previous subsidy Bills—see that the minimum conditions of labour and pay agreed to by the Joint Maritime Board, and freely negotiated between the representatives of the owners and the seamen, are enforced in British ships receiving the subsidy? We feel very deeply on this point.
The other point I wish to make is this. If we are going to help British shipping for the Imperial strategical reasons that have been described in this debate, there ought to be some form of Government

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control, some form of Government sharing so that when British shipping revives later on, as we hope it will, the taxpayer will benefit. In the past, in the case, for example, of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, now the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, when the Government, for reasons of high policy, made Government money available, they acquired for the taxpayer a large block of shares which have been a profitable investment. In the case of the Suez Canal, when Disraeli acquired the Khedive's shares they became a valuable investment for the State. In this case, if we are going to provide money by way of subsidy to prevent British shipping from being swept off the Pacific, then I want that to be regarded as an investment for the British taxpayer. That is my Party's policy, and I would wish for some comfort from the Lord Privy Seal when he states the Government's policy on this matter.
The Government's record in this respect in other directions has, I am sorry to say, been lamentable. They have shovelled out the taxpayer's money in all directions, and we have nothing to show for it to the taxpayers. In Germany—I know some noble Lords opposite admire the economics of the present German Government—under the present Government and under previous German Governments, when the State had to come to the rescue of the banks it took very good care that the taxpayer was afterwards recouped, so that when prosperity returned to the banking industry in Germany the taxpayer benefited. I know that is the thin end of the wedge of Socialism. Certainly it is, and that is why I favour it. Never mind; it is just and right, and the fact that we can drive the wedge in further one day does not detract from the justice of the cause which I plead. Finally, I am not prepared as things are, to resist giving assistance in this way. We think it may be very necessary to provide the safeguards I have ventured to submit to the Government, and we think the policy ought to go a great deal further. If private enterprise cannot keep the British flag flying in the Pacific, then we ought to have a State shipping-service. That is our policy, and one day I hope to see it accomplished. I hope to see the whole of our transport, internal and external, one great public service under good conditions and providing the best possible means of communication within this country and outside.
LORD ESSENDON: My Lords, I have certain interests in the shipping industry, but it so happens I have no interest in the particular trade to which the noble Lord has drawn attention. Neither have I, for the purpose of this debate, been in communication or consultation with owners in that trade, because I think by that means I can keep a more detached mind. When I saw the Motion put down by the noble Lord I felt that an expression of my views as representing the shipping industry might be of some use to the House for whatever value those views might have. It may be interesting in the first place to trace the development of this subsidy question. It is really a kind of unemployment dole. It apparently starts in the first instance with the theory that everyone must have ships. It is not a question of their wanting other people's ships; they want their own ships; and then when they get the ships they find that other people have better ships, or can manage those ships better, and they must have a subsidy from their Government with which to compete. Then, having got that, they find that there are more ships than there is cargo, and they cannot get the other man to give them any cargo to carry. Having got the ships and having got the subsidy, they complain to their Government that the other man is getting all the cargo, and they are having this wicked competition to contend with, and that that accounts for the losses they have achieved. Gradually this process develops until we get subsidies to meet differences in construction costs, we get subsidies to meet differences in cost of operation, we get subsidies to meet the losses incurred through currency depreciation, we get subsidies to meet subsidies, and we get subsidies to meet the losses incurred by subsidies.
That is really a parody of the position as it is to-day, which has caused owners of tramp ships to apply to the Government for assistance in order to meet the competition which is created by the number of ships that are built to comply with the spirit of nationalism which is fostered by entirely uneconomic means. I say "uneconomic" because we have practically an impoverished world building ships and running ships that are not necessary, for the purpose of carrying out trade that they refuse to allow to develop, and for carrying people whom

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they refuse to allow to emigrate. In the case to which the noble Lord has drawn attention we have a pioneer line trading between Dominion countries. I believe the line referred to initiated that particular trade, and it is threatened with extinction because you have an American line that has the facility to get a large amount of the purchase price advanced to it for the construction of its ships at a nominal rate of interest. It has a huge subsidy and it has the additional advantage of carrying passengers between New Zealand and Australia while similar rights are denied to the British line from Honolulu and San Francisco, and vice versa, on account of the American coasting laws.
It seems intolerable that a British line should be forced out of existence in these circumstances. The noble Lord has moved to draw attention to this matter, but it may very well be asked, as has been asked, what is the remedy? Members of the Government from the Prime Minister downwards have told us repeatedly that they are prepared to give assurances that the liner interest will be protected against unfair competition. I suggest it is time that the principal Governments concerned should confer together for the purpose of providing a subsidy for the maintenance of that trade. I mean the British Government, the Canadian Government, the New Zealand Government, and the Australian Government. We might also include the Islands of Fiji; I think the noble Lord referred to them. They are a very small and perhaps unimportant part of the British Empire, but none the less they have a very great interest in this matter, relatively as much as any of the Dominions, because their only means of communication between Canada on the one hand and New Zealand and Australia on the other is involved. They may not be threatened with the suspension of their services, but they might very well be affected. I suggest that the time has come when the Governments concerned might put their heads together and see what can be done for the maintenance of this service. May I say that I hope it will be a long day before the suggestion of the noble Lord regarding the reservation of Empire trade is adopted? The shipping industry has enough difficulties to deal with without increasing and multiplying the restrictions with which we have to contend.
LORD STBABOLGI: May I ask the noble Lord what amount of subsidy would keep this service going? I do not want the noble Lord to commit himself, but probably he has some figure in mind.
LORD ESSENDON: I have an idea in my mind, but I should not like to commit myself to it, because I really have no particular knowledge of this trade. I would like to get more information on it before I committed myself. I believe the American subsidy is something like one million dollars a year. But I have not been into the actual figures, and I have not sufficient knowledge of this particular trade. The noble Lord referred to the fact that the Americans pay these subsidies under the guise of postal services. I am connected with a trade from New York to Brazil and the Argentine, where we give a fortnightly passenger and cargo service and carry the mails. On the other fortnight we have an American line carrying the mails and passengers and cargo. It is the only passenger service between North and South America. The American line gets 50,000 dollars a voyage and the British line gets 2,500 dollars, paid on the weight basis. It is only fair to say—presumably the noble Lord did not have this information—that in the new Subsidy Bill which has passed the American Senate they have called the subsidies what they are—namely, subsidies, and they are no longer under the postal system at all. They are recognised as real subsidies.
I have not particulars of the Bill, but from information I have seen of the various drafts sent to this side, the new American Subsidy Bill will provide, probably, for four things. First, it will provide for a subsidy to meet a difference in construction costs, which are probably 50 per cent. more than the cost of building in this country. Then it will give a subsidy to cover operating costs. I believe the noble Lord is correct in saying that the cost of wages on the Australian and New Zealand ships engaged in this particular trade is higher than that on the American ships. Then there will be a subsidy for what is called "peaceful penetration trade," whatever that may mean. It will also give a financial advantage for the building of ships. We cannot blame the Americans for taking advantage of these facilities. I wish we could get something like them sometimes. But remember this is a matter of American

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internal policy. They must be the best judges of what suits them. We have also to remember that the Americans are a great-hearted people. We have recently had evidence of that. I refer to the wonderful reception they gave to the "Queen Mary," of which I was an admiring witness. When I sailed up the Hudson River I confess I had a lump in my throat.
After making full allowances for merchant shipping requirements as naval auxiliaries in the United States, which are probably covered by their coasting vessels, we could wish that they would recognise that we could carry their goods for them cheaper and better than they can carry them themselves; in fact we used to do that before the War. Prior to the War they had only something like two millions tons of merchant ships, most of them engaged in the coasting trade. In that time we and other foreign shipowners used to carry the greater part of their export trade, and we did it cheaper and more successfully than they could do it for themselves. At the same time we have to take things as they are. Personally, I hate subsidies in the same way as I hated tariffs as a lifelong Free Trader, but they were forced upon us, and really the same position applies in regard to the shipping industry. The "tramps," as I have said, have got their subsidy, and there seems to be an idea about that because the liners have what is called their conference agreements they are therefore immune from competition. That is really a delusion. The liners are subject to as much competition in many cases as are the tramp steamers. Merchants when trade is brisk are too glad to take advantage of the better facilities offered by the fast vessels, such as liners, but when the reverse is the case they are also only too glad to take advantage of the lower rates offered by some of the less efficient vessels. Where these conditions do not apply, no subsidy would be asked and none would be expected. It is understood that if a subsidy were granted two new ships would be built in British shipyards and, incidentally, the employment of Empire and British officers and seamen would be continued.
The noble Lord has given a hint that there is a rumour that this matter is going to be referred to the Imperial Shipping Committee. I quite agree with him that
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if that is going to be done, then it ought to have been done four years ago. This matter has been in the forefront of the shipping controversy since the Ottawa Conference of 1932, and I think something might have been done since then. I do not think that the facts are in dispute, and I am sure the Board of Trade must have all the information that is available. I do not see why something cannot be done without further delay. Why not take advantage of the present position in this country, and of the presence here of the Prime Minister of Australia and the Attorney-General of that Dominion and, so far at any rate as Australia is concerned, get some agreement with them as to the policy to be pursued. I would like to point out that it is a very much easier matter to stop a service than it is to recommence a service after it has once been stopped.
VISCOUNT BLEDISLOE: My Lords, I desire to support emphatically the Motion which has been moved in your Lordships' House by my noble friend Lord Lloyd, and in doing so to associate myself with everything that he has said with the single exception of the word "Australasia." That is a word which is not at all approved of in New Zealand, and I venture to hope, out of consideration for the feelings of New Zealanders, and in order to avoid complications in the minds of the British public, some of whom fondly imagine that New Zealand is a part of Australia although it is twelve hundred miles away, that at least in this House the term will not be used. I awaited with some interest the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, because I began to wonder what he could find as an old member and a distinguished officer of the Royal Navy to object to in the terms of this Motion, and, if he will allow me, I should like to congratulate him on the line which, as voiced by him, the Labour Party propose to adopt in this matter. I noticed that he referred to Japan. So far as I am aware Japan does not enter into the consideration of this matter at all. It is entirely a matter as between the great friendly Power of the United States and the British Empire. I noticed also that he said incidentally that the American subsidisation was not colossal. Well, it matters to my mind little whether it is colossal or something which can be expressed in a somewhat less superlative term, but if the subsidisation

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is destructive of our shipping and calculated to drive it from Pacific waters, surely that is sufficient reason for meeting it with some due and effective answer. I began to wonder when I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, whether in spite of his old-time strongly expressed Free Trade sentiments he was not gradually becoming a heartwhole Protectionist.
I want to make it perfectly clear that in participating in this debate I do not do so in any sense as a shipowner, but entirely from the point of view of one who has held responsible administrative office in one of His Majesty's Dominions overseas, and as such has entertained serious fears as to the ultimate effect upon our Imperial fortunes of the apparent inaction of His Majesty's Government. Since my return to England about a year ago I have indeed been much concerned by the apparent concentration of His Majesty's Government at home upon the affairs of foreign countries, and the relative neglect of vital issues which materially affect the welfare if not the actual existence of the British Empire. I hope my noble friend the Leader of the House will not think me unkind if I suggest that apathy, lack of any settled plans in relation either to Imperial defence or the Empire trade, and undue procrastination appear just now to characterise the attitude of His Majesty's Government towards Imperial problems. Visiting statesmen from Now Zealand and Australia, of whom we have had a good many and there are still some in this country to-day, are always scrupulously polite, courteous and loyal in their public utterances, but it is common knowledge that they entertain the greatest apprehension concerning outstanding questions upon which they are awaiting not merely professions of sympathy but a definite lead and a definite help from the Mother Country.
Of these problems surely none is more serious and none more urgent than that of this highly-subsidised American shipping in the Pacific, and the gradual prospective expulsion from the trade routes between North America and our two great Dominions on the other side of the world of our British Mercantile Marine. For the moment, as has been pointed out, the chief victim of this process is the well-known Union Steamship Company of New Zealand, but what guarantee have we that it will stop there? The
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facts are incontrovertible and should be clearly recognised. One is that no privately owned and unsubsidised shipping company can continuously meet such competition out of its own meagre resources and survive. The second is that relatively poor agricultural countries like New Zealand and Australia cannot possibly attempt with the smallest chance of success to meet subsidy with subsidy in connection with a wealthy industrial nation like the United States. The third and the most important is that this is not in any sense a local problem. It is at least as vital to the future of Great Britain, her trade and her defence, as it is to the Dominions overseas. It is, consequently, surely not only unfair but imprudent upon her part to allow the present drift to continue on the assumption, expressed or implied, that it is not the paramount duty of the British Government to take the lead in saving the situation and to do it without delay.
I know, my Lords, that it is sometimes argued that a shipping company is undeserving of Government assistance owing to its lack of enterprise, and I have even heard it suggested in regard to what I have described as the victim of this artificial and unequal competition that this particular company has been lacking in enterprise. This, even if it is true, is surely not a convincing argument if the company's ships are in the nature of an Empire asset and essential to its defence in time of war. In any case, that criticism, if I may venture to say so, can be proved to be hardly applicable to the company under consideration. Would your Lordships allow me to say something with regard to that company, whose activities I have studied and indeed have admired during my sojourn of five years at the Antipodes? It is now sixty years since the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand was founded by a New Zealander, the late much respected Sir James Mills. Its growth has been somewhat remarkable. Commencing with five small vessels of an aggregate gross tonnage of 212,000 tons and formerly confined to the South Island of New Zealand, its Vessels, new forty-five in all, while effectually serving the Dominion's coastal requirements, ply regularly between New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the United States, the South Sea Islands and Calcutta. To indicate the potential value in war time of such

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ships it is noteworthy that during the Great War this company in the interests of the Empire transported to the seat of war 106,000 men and carried 47,000 men in two hospital ships which it had provided out of its own resources. In war service its vessels steamed over 3,000,000 miles and no fewer than 18 of them of a gross tonnage of 102,000 tons were employed on war service at one time. Probably no shipping company of similar, scope and resources can show a finer war record.
I dislike intensely the nationalisation of Empire industries as calculated amongst other things to conduce to extravagance and inefficiency, but I feel so profoundly upon this subject from the standpoint of the Empire's future, that I want seriously to suggest that the Government should either come forward promptly to the rescue of British shipping in the Pacific or themselves take over the service which it is performing. I cannot but deprecate, and deprecate strongly, the tendency nowadays of British Governments to fail to provide adequately for the defence of the Empire or its mercantile interests through fear of diplomatic reprisals or repercussions. This timidity seldom if ever redounds to the advantage of any country affected with it, and certainly when it is shown by this country with its great maritime interests it neither inspires respect on the part of other nations for Great Britain nor enhances her prestige or her future security. In conclusion, I should like to endorse the appeal of my noble friends Lord Lloyd and Lord Essendon, that this matter should not be further shelved by reference to the Imperial Shipping Committee or any other body for further consideration. All the facts are well known. The overseas Dominions who are concerned in this problem have been awaiting definite action on the part of the British Government for at least three years. Surely now, before Dr. Earle Page and Mr. Menzies return to Australia, as they will do in the course of the next three or four weeks, the British Government should make some clear declaration of their policy and enable them to return with something substantial to tell their colleagues at the Antipodes.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I am sure we are all deeply indebted to my
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noble friend Lord Lloyd for having raised this question. As he has said, and as other noble Lords who have spoken in support of him have said, it is a most vital problem for the Empire. That we should reserve an All-Red shipping trade route around the Empire is as important to-day as it was when the service was commenced. I sincerely hope that His Majesty's Government will listen to what has been said this afternoon not only by Lord Lloyd, who approached the subject from the defence point of view as well as the general point of view, but by my noble friend Lord Essendon, who brought an expert outlook to bear upon it. The debate this afternoon has very largely ranged round the shipping aspect of it. No reference has been made to the goods that are carried in those ships. I happen to be associated with a body called the Federation of Chambers of Commerce of the British Empire. We are going to hold our triennial conference in October this year in New Zealand. In order to proceed there, delegates from Canada and from this country intend to travel by the Canadian-Australian Line to New Zealand. But we are confronted with this position that unless His Majesty's Government are prepared to collaborate with the Governments of Australia, New Zealand and Canada in what has become a very burning subject, which is not only of great political significance in the Dominions but has roused great depths of feeling in this country—unless they are prepared to collaborate in some scheme to save the ships of this line by which the delegates to the congress are going to travel, we as members of the commercial community will have to face a situation which so far as trade is concerned is unparalleled in the history of the British Empire.
How can you expect British goods to be carried in foreign ships to the same extent as they would be in British ships? That is what will be the effect if a subsidy is not granted to this British line. This line will disappear. It is bound to disappear; it cannot face up to the competition, and New Zealand will to all intents and purposes be marooned in American waters. I have nothing to say against the United States of America. They have as perfect a right as any other nation in the world to promote their interests and to promote their trade. But we have a similar right,

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and we have a right to call upon our Government and the Governments of the Dominions to protect our shipping routes and to protect us against unfair competition. I shall travel back from New Zealand by a ship of the same line, the Union Company of New Zealand, to San Francisco, and I am told that that is the last voyage that this ship or any other British ship, if no action is taken, will make on that route. That is a very serious matter. The fact that I, as a British subject, if I go to New Zealand in Future and wish to travel back from New Zealand to San Francisco, must travel on an American ship, whether I like it or not, brings home the gravity of our case. I should like to support what has been said this afternoon and appeal most urgently to the Government to take steps while they may. In this country to-day, as has already been stated, there is Mr. Menzies, the Attorney-General of Australia, and Dr. Page, who are only too ready, as I believe, to come to some arrangement, and I feel that it is only fair to them, having come all this long distance, that some settlement should be reached before they depart for home.
Then there is one other point to which I should like to refer. It was made by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, when he suggested that he would like to see these ships State-controlled, or partially State-controlled, if any subsidies were given. Then my noble friend Lord Bledisloe went even so far as to suggest that, if the Government could not see their way to give subsidies, then they might start a State-controlled shipping line themselves. I should be very much opposed to any such step. We have already had experience of State-controlled shipping lines—not in this country, thank God; I hope we never shall, but they have been tried in Canada, and where are the ships now? Sold back to private enterprise because the Government could not afford to keep them going and were not able to run them as an economic or commercial project. Then Australia herself: it is within the recollection of noble Lords that after the War there was a State-controlled shipping line which ran ships from Australia to this country and elsewhere. Where are those ships now? Sold back to private enterprise because the Australian Government found that it was not possible to run those ships economically and satisfactorily. So, my Lords, with those examples
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before us, I should deplore immensely, and I am sure a great many other people in this country would do likewise, the sight of any State-controlled shipping line in place of the existing lines running to-day from Canada to New Zealand, Australia and America. I sincerely hope that the Government will take this matter in hand—a matter which had the greatest importance even at the time of Ottawa, four years ago—now, as quickly as possible, even if it is apparently a little bit too late. I beg to support the Motion.
LORD MELCHETT: My Lords, I venture to intervene at this late hour only because I want to introduce a new point which has not so far been raised by any of the speakers this afternoon. I should like to say that I fully support the mover of this Motion and other noble Lords who have supported him. Although perhaps with one or two observations that fell from my noble friend Lord Strabolgi the noble Lord will not expect me to agree, yet apart from those I agree with almost every point that has been covered. One thing, however, has not been mentioned this afternoon, and that is the shipping of goods. I have not much interest in this matter as a shipping man, but I am very considerably interested in it as a shipper of goods. One point which I should like the noble Viscount the Leader of the House to explain when he replies is how the Government's present policy is supposed to work.
At the present moment the tramp steamers have their subsidy: the liner companies are faced with the competition of foreign lines and with the competition of British Government-subsidised tramp steamers. It is a very acute competition. I have had some experience of it: It is not always necessary to ship goods by a liner. There are very often occasions when one has the choice of a liner, a tramp steamer or a charter, and the Government subsidy naturally throws the advantage in favour of the tramp as against the liner. The result is that the liner companies are going through an extraordinarily bad time. The point has been taken so well and so ably by my noble friend Lord Essendon that there is no need for me to dilate upon it, except to say that the exporters of goods from this country can never afford to see their goods carried in foreign ships to the exclusion of British ships. If that position is allowed to arise, if the British export

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trade is dependent upon foreign shipping, it will be killed. That is a simple point which is perfectly plain to everyone who has studied the subject and I am totally at a loss to understand what the Government's policy really is, what it is intended to be and how it is intended to work.
It is not only a question of the Empire, although that is perhaps of paramount importance. It is the policy of the Government that this country should be an exporting country. Ministers continually repeat the point. But they are doing nothing to carry out really effectively a shipping policy which will enable that activity to be continued. So far as the Empire is concerned I should have thought that it was so fundamental, so axiomatic, that we, as an Empire, were totally dependent upon sea connections that our command of the sea, not only by our Navy but also by our merchant marine, was vital to our very existence, and that there could be no hesitation for a moment in doing everything possible to make certain that the British Mercantile Marine stood at the head of the various shipping lines throughout the world and that our ships were not, as they are to-day, being driven off in every direction. It really does seem absurd that British shipping should be driven out in many cases by half-bankrupt Governments. All over the place one finds the Government subsidies creating a position which makes it quite impossible for British campanies to compete. It is not a question of efficiency, it is not a question of skill in management; it is simply a question of solid money. Governments who are supposed to manage their finances, and who we are told manage them, so badly, seem to be able to find sufficient money to dominate trade routes. That is an absurd situation. There is, as noble Lords have said this afternoon not the slightest grounds for further hesitation in this matter. Nor is there any time. It is already far too late, and much damage has already been done. I appeal to the Government to put this matter right at the very earliest possible moment.
LORD RENNELL: My Lords, I will only detain you for barely two minutes to add one word to the support which I should like to give to the Motion of my noble friend Lord Lloyd, and to say how glad I am that he has brought this matter forward. My one regret is that his Motion has been confined solely to
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the specific case of the Pacific, whereas we are confronted with similar disadvantages in many parts of the world. I can only say that last year, having occasion to go to the Isle of Cyprus, our one Colony besides Malta in the Mediterranean, it was with profound humiliation that I found that there was no other way of getting there but in a liner of a foreign country subsidised for the taking of our mails. I have also been in correspondence with a good many people, lately, about the coastal shipping of this country, and the advantages which we give to everybody else without as a rule securing any countervailing advantages for ourselves. I find that everywhere there is a good deal of—perhaps discontent is not the right word—apprehension, and I do not look at this thing from the point of view of interested trades but rather from the Imperial point of view.
In view of this apprehension, I hope it is not with the object of taking advantage of the public at a given moment, when we are preoccupying ourselves so much with other important matters, but as I came down to this House I saw the posters of an evening paper on which appeared, in very large letters, "Loss of a flagship with 360 lives." On expending my penny on the paper I found in it a a reproduction of the story of the collision between the "Victoria" and the "Camperdown." If that announcement caused as much discomfort and heartburning to others as it did to myself, I consider the process to be very reprehensible.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (VISCOUNT HALIFAX): My Lords, I make no complaint, certainly, of the course that this debate has taken, and I associate myself with those of your Lordships who have paid tribute to my noble friend who introduced the subject, because I am not less sensible than he, or any who have spoken in the debate, of the importance of it from every point of view. The debate has travelled, in one or two cases, a little bit wide of the Motion which my noble friend introduced, and I shall have to ask the indulgence of your Lordships if I do not, on this occasion, seek to follow all those who have spoken into all the widest ramifications of their contributions. I might, however, perhaps at this point, deal with one matter that Lord Melchett raised while it is still in my mind. It does, I think, lie a little bit outside the

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specific subject with which I have to deal. He drew your Lordships' attention to the range of the shipping problem being, as it in truth is, a great deal wider than the specific matter to which Lord Lloyd began by referring, and he directed our thoughts to the fact that there is, although not much has been said of it this afternoon, real competition, if I understood him correctly, between the tramp subsidised trade and the unsubsidised liner trade. I have not the knowledge to know to what extent that competition is in fact a practical competition, but I am advised that representatives of the liners are members of the Committee which deals with the tramp shipping subsidy, and that no complaints have been advanced by the liner representatives as to the working of that scheme.
Perhaps there is one other matter on which I might make a general observation before coming to the Motion itself. My noble friend Lord Bledisloe, in his interesting contribution to the debate, made what I think he will perhaps allow me to describe as a rather surprising attack upon His Majesty's Government, when he invited your Lordships to believe that so preoccupied have the Government been with the affairs of foreign nations that they had no inclination or time to devote to the affairs of the Imperial nations. My noble friend will, I am sure, take it from me that that is very far from the truth, and I am bound to express the hope that holding the position he does, and having held the position that he has, in which his words necessarily carry the greatest weight outside this country, he would on reflection perhaps regret having advanced so general a charge against His Majesty's Government, to which on this occasion it is quite impossible for me, except in a sentence or two, to make any reply.
VISCOUNT BLEDISLOE: I hope the noble Viscount will allow me for a moment to correct the false impression which he received of what I said. I tried to point out that the Government appeared to be paying relatively smaller attention to the graver issues raised by overseas problems, being apparently relatively concentrating their attention upon foreign affairs. I was careful to use the word "relative" in referring to the more important and serious problems of the Dominions, and not to all the problems that might arise in connection with them.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: I heartily assure my noble friend that the last thing I would wish to do would be to misconstrue anything that he said, as I am equally sure the last thing that he would wish to do would be to fail in any degree in justice to the efforts of His Majesty's Government in these not too easy days. My noble friend Lord Lloyd began his speech by saying that the problem that he was inviting us to consider was by no means simply a national problem, but that it was in the widest sense an Imperial problem. In that I agree with him, and I agree with him not only because I, with him, regard it as a problem which affects Australia, New Zealand, Canada and this country, but because it is, as has been implicit in much that has been said in this debate, only one expression of a problem which vitally affects every part of the Empire. Lord Lloyd, I am sure, appealed to all our sense of loyalty and imagination when he drew a picture of the contrast between this headquarter island, as I think he called it, set geographically thousands of miles away from the other component parts of the Empire, and the countries so closely joined together in the other federation with which he for the moment was contrasting it and comparing it. Of course that is true; and it is also true that as long as a country enjoys sea power and has the material to develop sea power and to make use of the seas, the seas, so far from being a dividing factor, are a great instrument of unity, drawing together those parts that nature had naturally sundered. Therefore so long, and so long only, as there is a prosperous and efficient British Mercantile Marine the seven seas may be regarded in fact as arteries pumping the blood of Imperial health to and from the heart of the Empire and every part of it.
And of course on the practical side the British Mercantile Marine holds a quite peculiar place in the shipping of the world. It is on the British Mercantile Marine in immense proportion that world trade depends for maintenance and development. It is a platitude to repeat it, but it is perhaps worth repeating, that one of the principal exports of this country is the shipping services that it renders to the world. The employment that shipping directly gives runs into very large figures, and the indirect employment—coal and the heavy industries of

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all sorts—runs into larger figures still. I was a little bit surprised at one observation that fell from my noble friend who introduced this Motion when he said that he had information—which for all I know is correct; I have not the figure by me—that during the last few years—I forget precisely what date he chose—British shipping had sunk by 3,000,000 tons; and I think in the connection in which he made that observation he rather suggested to your Lordships that the reduction was due to the failure of Government to take appropriate action, whether by subsidies or in some other way. I do not in any way speak as an expert in these matters, but I should have supposed that that reduction of British shipping, whatever the figure be, must in great part have been due to the general shrinkage of world trade, which has affected us along with everybody else.
The principal criticism which has been directed at His Majesty's Government has been criticism of delay. That was the criticism made by my noble friend who moved the Motion, by I think the noble Lord opposite who, I think, said that we had had leadership but that we now wanted action—whatever precise idea that was intended to connote I have been wondering ever since—and by my noble friend Lord Essendon and my noble friend Lord Bledisloe. All alike joined in the assertion and condemnation of Government delay and also of Government inertia in the whole field of shipping policy. I was rather surprised at the unqualified nature of the condemnation of the alleged Government inertia because, whether people have or have not agreed with the policy that has been pursued by my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade, I should have thought the last thing that, looking over the whole field, he could have been rightly described as was inert. After all, he has committed the taxpayers of this country to a subsidy of £2,000,000 for tramp shipping, which I am told has had great effects in rescuing tramp shipping from the worst of its immediate difficulties. The scrap-and-build scheme has filled a considerable place in shipping policy; and the Press and the public mind have been, I think, greatly impressed during recent months by what seemed to me a stroke of rather wider imagination than is usually exhibited by Government Departments in
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the matter of the assistance and encouragement given to the building of the ship that will, I hope, make the name of British shipbuilding all over the world even more famous than it has been up till now. Therefore I am not at all disposed to accept the complaint of inertia on behalf of my right honourable friend in the general field of shipping policy.
With regard to the other matter, the criticism of Government delay on this particular point of the subsidised competition in the Southern Pacific, I think that perhaps the best and most convenient course is to remind your Lordships of what has been the actual history of this matter since it first came into prominence. The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, gave the history as he viewed it, and I think gave it very fairly. But there are one or two other matters that also need to be kept in mind. A good many speakers seem to me to have spoken on this matter as if it were purely a question for the United Kingdom. That of course is not so. The noble Lord, Lord Essendon, was careful to say in terms that it was a matter on which it was essential to secure the agreement of the three Dominions principally concerned along with ourselves to a solution that might be capable of being put forward. The point that I wished to emphasize was that at the beginning of the last three or four years that this question has been up, it was not primarily a United Kingdom question, and at no point in those four years has it ever been solely a United Kingdom question. In a sense all these shipping questions concern us, as I began by saying, but I think I shall carry the assent of those who have followed this problem when I say that at no point has it, or ought it to have, been treated solely as a United Kingdom question.
It is quite true, I think, that this question began to attract attention somewhere about 1931 or 1932, and at that date, as I think the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, would agree, it began along the narrower lines of a question affecting the trade between Australia and New Zealand, and I think it was at that point that it first engaged the attention of the Imperial Conference at Ottawa, to which my noble friend Lord Lloyd alluded. He asked me one or two questions about the Imperial Conference at Ottawa that perhaps it would be convenient for me to deal with at this point.

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I believe it is the case, although I was not at Ottawa, that New Zealand raised the question of British shipping in the Pacific at that Conference. A discussion took place between representatives of Australia, New Zealand, and this country, and as the result of that discussion it was agreed between those representatives of this country and the two Dominions that the matter would be taken up again and carried further by representatives of the three Governments in London. It was in accordance with the arrangement then made at Ottawa that the matter was taken up in London with the President of the Board of Trade.
LORD LLOYD: Could I be told when it was taken up—how long after Ottawa?
VISCOCNT HALIFAX: I have not the exact date, but I think I can give the date from the general context. It was taken up at the time when preparations were active for the World Economic Conference. The Ottawa Conference was in August and September, 1932, and the World Economic Conference was in June, 1933. Therefore I suppose this question came up and was discussed at the Board of Trade some time in the early part of 1933. The United Kingdom Government had, at that point, taken steps to get the question of shipping subsidies put on the agenda of the World Economic Conference on the understanding that if, and when, no agreement was reached at the World Economic Conference it would be open to the representatives of the Dominion Governments to raise the matter again. The Conference did in fact fail to reach agreement, and after the failure of the World Economic Conference to deal with the matter, I am advised, the Australian and New Zealand representatives employed some time in trying to adjust their points of view in order to reach a common agreement upon matters in regard to which, in some respects, they had some differences of approach. The next occasion on which, as I am informed, the matter was given publicity was in September, 1934, when the Prime Minister of New Zealand made a statement, with the concurrence of the Prime Minister of Australia, in which they both agreed to continue their examination of the question, and so on.
I do not wish to go through this history at wearisome length, but the point I wish
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to emphasise is, shortly, this, that when the matter was first brought up to the Government of this country, they placed before the representatives of the Dominions some of the wider considerations that must inevitably be borne in mind when questions of shipping self-defensive action were being examined. Afterwards they made it quite clear that they were not going to stand in the way of common action that the Dominions primarily concerned with the narrower question might think it right to take. It was not until these Dominions had reached a common policy, and with the expansion, of the question into the wider trans-Pacific nature it assumed after the first year or two of its coming into prominence—when Canada was also brought into the question—it was not until then that we reached the point of His Majesty's Government here being formally approached along with the Ministers of Australia and New Zealand by the Chamber of Shipping in, I think, the month of May, 1935. It was at those meetings in 1935 that the question of a subsidy was first mentioned by, I think, the Chamber of Shipping deputations. At that point the Dominion Prime Ministers receiving their deputations gave, if my recollection serves me rightly, very noncommittal replies, and it was made clear at the deputation received by my right honourable friend the President of the. Board of Trade that the shipping industry itself was not agreed as to the necessity of such a subsidy being given.
I hope none of your Lordships will be tempted to under-rate the importance of such a subsidy decision as has been brought before us as a possibility this afternoon. My noble friend Lord Essendon was quite frank, and said he had always been disposed to hate subsidies, and other of your Lordships, including the noble Lord opposite, said that a very special case had to be made out for the economic purist to accept them. It was quite clear that in this case the question of whether or not a subsidy was justifiable could only be decided on a case that was definitely formulated and definitely made by the only people who could put it up, and they were the representatives of the steamship line themselves. It was only six weeks ago, in April, that a meeting was held between Ministers and High Commissioners representing this country and the Dominions

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concerned and the definite proposals were submitted by the shipping companies concerned—in April and, more precisely, in May—which now, as I shall show in one or two moments, are in definite occupation of the field. I stand open to correction, but I think it is true that supporters of the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand have come to realise the difficulties in the way of making a case for financial assistance to enable both their service from the United States and also the service of the Canadian Line from Canada to be maintained. They have, in consequence, I am informed, been for some time prepared to put forward a scheme for rationalising these trans-Pacific services by dropping that of the Union Steamship Company which, I believe, is to have the final honour of carrying my noble friend to New Zealand in the autumn, and placing the service of the Canadian Line on a sound financial footing.
As your Lordships may have been informed, the definite proposal that has been put forward is that the Canada-Australia Line should build two new vessels capable of effective competition with the fast and well-equipped vessels of the Matson Line and that they should use these to maintain a monthly service between the West Coast of North America and Australia and New Zealand. When I tell your Lordships that these proposals by the people principally concerned were only put forward to His Majesty's Government six weeks ago, I do not think any charge of undue delay in dealing with them can properly be laid.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: May I interrupt my noble friend and ask how long this question will take for consideration by the Imperial Shipping Committee?
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: I was just coming to that. The first step of course that ought to be taken was to secure the agreement of Canada and the other Dominions to the proposal to remit it to the Imperial Shipping Committee. I was a little surprised that my noble friend Lord Bledisloe found fault with any reference of this matter being made to the Imperial Shipping Committee. I was even more surprised, if he will allow me to say so, to hear it suggested that it would have been a good plan, if no other plan suggested itself, for the
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Government to run the line itself. For the reasons given by my noble friend behind me, and which I should have thought would have been familiar to the noble Viscount as not having been so very far distant from him in New-Zealand, the Australian experience was not, I believe, an encouragement of Government-managed steamship lines. But I must not digress from my purpose.
VISCOUNT BLEDISLOE: The noble Viscount really must be fair to me. First of all I only deprecated reference to the Imperial Shipping Committee as a course which ought to have been taken, if taken at all, some three years ago, and not left until the present time when there is universal dissatisfaction being expressed at the dilatoriness of the Government in this matter. With regard to the possible nationalisation of the shipping service, what I wanted to point out was that it is absolutely essential to the security and effective defence of the Empire that the matter should not be allowed to drift indefinitely and the Mercantile Marine swept off the Pacific; and that I for my part for that reason would welcome, although reluctantly, the Government ownership of the ships themselves.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: I am afraid I cannot pretend to be at all in agreement with my noble friend that Government ownership would ever be likely to provide a satisfactory solution of this matter; nor, I am bound to say, can I understand why he should have committed himself to the statement, though I do not wish to cross swords with him, that reference to the Imperial Shipping Committee, because it was in his view late, was, therefore, wrong. That seems to me to be an illogical and unsafe deduction. But the short point surely is that the Imperial Shipping Committee is the only body that can perform the function of advising all the Dominion Governments of the Empire on the questions that a matter like this involves. My noble friend asked me how long I anticipated that it would take the Imperial Shipping Committee to report upon the problem. I am naturally not in a position to tie them or make any commitments on their behalf, but I understand that they are proposing to expedite their inquiry now that they have got a definite problem stated before them. They are, I believe, holding their first sitting to-day, and it

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will be hoped very much that they may be in a position to make their Report within what we should all consider quite a reasonably brief space of time.
It will perhaps interest your Lordships to hear the terms of reference that they, with the concurrence of the Governments concerned, have been given for their work:
"To inquire and report:—

"(a) as to the traffic possibilities of a British passenger and cargo service between Western Canada and Australia/New Zealand;

"(b) whether the service outlined in the Note annexed would be appropriate in view of the traffic possibilities and of any other shipping facilities available; and if not, what kind of service would be appropriate;

"(c) as to the probable financial results of such a service, taking into account the financial results of the working of the existing British services between (i) San Francisco and Australia/New Zealand, and (ii) Vancouver and Australia/New Zealand;

"(d) whether such a service would have any ill effects on other British shipping interests."

I think your Lordships will agree when you examine those terms of reference that they are pretty comprehensive, and at the same time sufficiently detailed to invite and to permit rapid examination.
I do not think there is really anything more that I can say to add to the information that I have tried to give your Lordships on this matter. The noble Lord opposite (Lord Strabolgi) asked me a couple of questions. The first was as to what obligations the Government would consider laying upon any recipients of subsidies. I am afraid my general answer to him must be that it is premature at this stage for me to pronounce upon those matters, but I might perhaps remind the noble Lord that the National Maritime Board, which may, I suppose, not inaptly be described as the Whitley Council of the shipping industry, have a great deal to say to all the recipients of the tramp shipping subsidy, and that he may draw such conclusions as he can from that analogy so far as it is complete. With regard to his other point, that he would wish to see the shipping business or the recipients of shipping subsidy under some measure of Government control, I am afraid I must tell him that on that point I should be, if I understood him correctly, in disagreement with him
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for the same reason that I was in disagreement with the hypothetical case put by my noble friend Lord Bledisloe, because, on the whole, I think that business, and perhaps particularly shipping business, is the best conducted the least it is interfered with by any Government Department.
LORD STRABOLGI: May I point out that the Anglo-Persian Oil Company is subsidised and that shares in that company, which are a valuable property, are held by the Exchequer? There we have a Government Department concerned, yet the Government do not interfere with the commercial business of that company. Cannot we have something of that sort here?
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: It is not for me to shut my mind to any of those proposals. I was only asserting a general principle from which I am very glad to find the noble Lord does not greatly differ.
LORD LLOYD: My Lords, before turning to the reply of my noble friend the Leader of the House I should first like to say, if I may, with what satisfaction I heard the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, refer to this question, and, despite his Party's dislike of subsidies, say he thought there might be an exception in this particular case. The noble Lord is, as somebody has said, a distinguished sailor. If he will allow me to say so, I always notice that when the salt of him supervenes over his Socialism, he becomes particularly sagacious. But we are grateful to him, I am sure, for the help he will give us on this question. I am very grateful also to the noble Lord, Lord Essendon, and to my other noble friends for the speeches they have made.
I was a little sorry, if I may say so, that my noble friend the Leader of the House should have indulged in such a rather heavy rebuke of my noble friend on my right (Viscount Bledisloe) on his very proper remarks. My noble friend the Leader of the House, if he will forgive my saying so, has a habit growing on him of treating as guilty almost of lèse majesté any one who points out the very obvious shortcomings of the Government in these matters, shortcomings which are obvious to the whole Empire, though the fact that this is so does not seem yet to have penetrated the minds of the Front Bench

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in this House. I really think my noble friend ought to have been more grateful for the important and careful contribution to our debate from a noble Lord who has such distinguished experience and knowledge of those questions as the late Governor-General of New Zealand. When it comes to the defence which my noble friend attempted to make for Government policy I can only say I heard that defence with a sense of profound discouragement and unhappiness. Every thing he said showed that what I had feared was abundantly true. I do not want to misquote the noble Viscount, but I think he said that this Pacific question was not at first primarily a British question.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: What I said was that it was not primarily a United Kingdom question at that time.
LORD LLOYD: I agree. I regret I misquoted my noble friend. But at what period in this controversy could it ever not have been primarily a United Kingdom question? The United Kingdom is the power house of the whole Empire. From the very beginning, this great problem of how to keep up an All-Red Route to connect the various parts of the Empire was surely a United Kingdom question as well as an Imperial question. Then there was what I think was a rather unhappy period in the noble Lord's speech—the Government were not prepared to interfere with the Dominions on this matter. What we are begging His Majesty's Government to give is a great deal more leadership to the Dominions in these very difficult and complex matters. In these matters the Dominions have not got the resources in many cases to take the lead, either in cash, or very often in counsel. They have many distinguished people, but it is to the leadership of this country that they look in a great maritime question like this. If the Imperial Government say they are not going to interfere in this question there must be terrible drift and terrible delay.
Now we are to have this question once more referred to a Committee. All of us who have spoken on the matter are united in feeling, and indeed as far as I can judge the House is almost unanimous to-day in feeling that the Government must have in their possession the information
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necessary for a prompt decision of this question. These lines are dying. There is no time to wait. What hope is there, with all the expedition that my noble friend contemplates, that before next autumn there is likely to be a complete decision? If it is possible for a Committee to reach a decision by the autumn, how much sooner it would be possible for the Government to reach a decision when the President of the Board of Trade has only to telegraph to the Dominions for information in their possession. There is tremendous feeling in this country on this question, and I think there will be a feeling of profound discontent and discouragement when people learn that once more a decision has been adjourned, if not sine die, at any rate for weeks and probably for months.
I feel very tempted, in view of the unsatisfactory reply given, to ask your Lordships to divide. I am not going to do so, solely for the reason that I believe at this juncture a Division, in which the Government as far as I can judge would suffer defeat, might do more harm than good. I can only, while thanking the noble Viscount for his full and of course courteous statement on the question, express to him my profound sense of discouragement and dissatisfaction. In view of the Government's reply I and my friends will wish to raise the matter again at an early date. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (THE MARQUESS OF ZETLAND): My Lords, I understand that it will be for the general convenience, in view of the lateness of the hour, if we postpone until to-morrow afternoon the remaining Orders on the Paper. If that meets with the general approval of your Lordships, these Orders under the Government of India Act and the Government of Burma Act will be taken to-morrow afternoon.
LORD RANKEILLOUR: My Lords, may I ask at what time they will be taken?
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: My Lords, they will be taken after the other business on the Paper, and of course I cannot say

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exactly how long that business will take but I should think it ought not to take very long. The business, if your Lordships have not the Paper before you, consists of the Second Reading of the Weights and Measures Bill, the Second Reading of the Employment of Women and Young Persons Bill, the Committee stage of the Pilotage Authorities (Limitation of Liabilities) Bill, which I believe is formal, and some other formal matters. I am afraid that my noble friend the Secretary of State will be obliged by exigencies of dates to take them by to-morrow and I think I am interpreting the opinion of your Lordships when I say that I think it would probably be more convenient to take them to-morrow rather than this evening.
LORD SNELL: My Lords, these Orders deal with matters of some importance and, although no one I think will want to discuss them in detail, no doubt the Secretary of State will want to explain carefully the meaning of their provisions, financial and otherwise, for India. It seems a pity to rush these Orders through at the end of a long debate. If it is convenient for the Government to take them to-morrow I should advise that being done.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: I think I may take it that the general sense of the House is that we should take the Orders to-morrow, and in that case I think we might now adjourn.
House adjourned at two minutes before seven o'clock.