Lords Sitting of 14 July 1938

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
FOOD AND DRUGS BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments.
MILK (EXTENSION AND AMENDMENT) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and to be printed.
LOCHABER WATER POWER ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.

NURSING HOMES REGISTRATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD ALNESS: My Lords, the principal purpose of this Bill, which was piloted through another place by my honourable friend the Member for South Aberdeen (Sir Douglas Thomson), is to require every nursing home in Scotland to be registered, and to make it an offence in that country to carry on a pursing home without registration. It contains certain ancillary provisions, to which, with your Lordships' permission, I shall in a moment refer. There are one or two considerations which absolve me from making any considerable inroad upon your Lordships' time in commending the Bill to your acceptance for Second Reading, and I feel that that is desirable, particularly having in mind the important business of the House which follows.
The considerations are these. If this measure becomes law it will have the effect of bringing the law of Scotland into conformity with the law of England as it has existed for several years. In Scotland, for a number of years, maternity homes have been registrable,
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but nursing homes have not. Since 1927 maternity homes have been registrable in Scotland. This Bill proposes to repeal the Act of 1927, and to make all nursing homes in Scotland subject to one code, as is the case in England to-day, and so to round off the system of incomplete registration in Scotland to-day. That is the first consideration—namely, that this Bill will bring the law of the two countries into complete harmony. The second consideration is that the Bill passed through another place with the substantial agreement of all Parties. There was no Division, either in the House or in Committee, during the various stages of the Bill. And the third consideration is that the Bill not only enjoys the support of many important and influential organisations in Scotland but is also endorsed by the Scottish Office.
Perhaps your Lordships will allow me to make one or two general observations upon the merits of the Bill before I run through its various clauses. There are many good nursing homes in Scotland to-day. I am quite sure that they will welcome the passage of this measure. They have nothing to fear from investigation or from inspection, and I feel certain that in that quarter the measure will have full support. There are other nursing homes which are not quite so good. Nursing homes as a rule, of course, are run for profit. While that is by no means a reprehensible motive, nevertheless it does tend to prevent these homes from attaining the ideals which one would desire. Sometimes, in order to increase the profit, there is a tendency to run those institutions with an insufficient number of nurses, or with nurses who are not fully qualified. That is not only unfair to the patients, but it tends to the exploitation of the nurses concerned, and it throws a quite unwarrantable and unnecessary burden of responsibility upon the matron of a home. In these cases a certain measure of control is highly desirable. There is a third class. There are some homes which are frankly bad, and if there are any such in Scotland, it is high time, in the public and private interest, that they should be controlled, if not indeed altogether suppressed. I hope that this Bill will place the nursing homes of Scotland upon a safe and secure foundation—much more safe and much more secure than if they were left entirely to their own devices.

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I have only three further observations to make before I pass to the Bill itself. The first observation I desire to make is this. There is no desire on the part of the promoters to institute anything resembling an inquisitorial or spying system. The history of the working of the English Act is sufficient to negative any such suggestion. The second point is that I am advised that the cost of working this measure throughout Scotland will not amount to more than £1,000 sterling, which seems to me a very modest sum to pay for the benefits which will enure from the provisions of the Bill. The last observation I would make is this. I happen to be Chairman of a Departmental Nursing Committee in Scotland at this moment, and, while it would be quite improper to refer to the merits of that inquiry in advance of the Report which is to be issued, I do feel at liberty to say that my experience as Chairman of that Committee has convinced me more firmly than ever, not only of the desirability but of the necessity of registering these nursing homes.
With your Lordships' permission I pass for a single moment to the Bill itself. It is not a long measure. It consists of ten clauses. The first clause makes it an offence to conduct a nursing home in Scotland which is not registered, and subjects the offender for the first offence to a penalty not exceeding £50. Clause 2 provides for the cancellation of a certificate of registration. Clause 3 prescribes the conditions precedent either to cancelling the certificate of registration or refusing to grant it. Clause 4 empowers the Department of Health in Scotland to make regulations with regard to nursing homes. Clause 5 provides for the inspection of these institutions at all reasonable hours by qualified persons. Clause 6, which is perhaps one of the most important clauses in the Bill, empowers the Department of Health to exempt from the operation of this measure any institution which is not run for a profit. I think it proper that I should at this stage inform your Lordships that, in accordance with an undertaking given by the promoter of the Bill in another place, and in accordance also with the provisions of the corresponding English Act, I propose to move an Amendment in Committee providing that
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nursing homes of the Church of Christ Scientist may be exempted from the operation of the Statute. Clause 7 provides for penalties to be imposed for infraction of the provisions of the Bill. Clause 8 provides in the usual way for the expenses of working the Bill. Clause 9 is definitive in its character. Clause 10 prescribes the Title of the Bill, and also indicates that it shall come into operation on January 1, 1939. I commend the Bill to your Lordships' assent and acceptance, feeling quite confident that you are dealing with a modest but valuable measure, which has been well conceived and well carried out. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Alness.)
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL): My Lords, I rise only to say that the Government are in sympathy with the objects of this Bill and hope it will receive a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

CRIMINAL PROCEDURE (SCOT LAND) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

COAL BILL.
Order of the Day read for the consideration of Commons Amendments to Lords Amendments and Commons Reasons for disagreeing to certain of the Lords Amendments.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (EARL STANHOPE): My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House if, very briefly, I deal with the situation in which we find ourselves to-day. I understand that your Lordships inserted some 117 Amendments in the Coal Bill, and with the exception of eight they have all been accepted by another place. Of these eight, one has been returned with the object of its being redrafted by your Lordships; a second has been accepted, but transferred to another place in the Bill; two others were amended in a manner with which your Lordships are not likely to disagree; a fifth was considered unnecessary owing

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to a subsequent Amendment which was made at a later stage by your Lordships in this House; and only three have been rejected by another place. Of these, I have reason to think we are likely to find agreement as to the first of them, and I shall move that we shall not insist on the Amendments in the other two cases.
As regards the Amendments which have been accepted by another place, many of them were of a drafting character, but quite a number were of very considerable importance. To mention only one, the question of damage effected by subsidence. In another place that was represented entirely as a claim by landowners, but I am glad to think that the point was taken from an entirely different point of view by the noble Lord opposite, Lord Strabolgi, because I have a distinct recollection, and I have refreshed my memory on the matter, that on the Committee stage he felt that the question of damage by subsidence was of such importance that he wished to place it directly as an obligation under the Coal Commission itself. He recognised, as of course we all recognise, that the question of subsidence is not merely one that affects landowners but one that also affects tenants of houses, very often the miners themselves, and, of course, local authorities. I hope the noble Lord opposite will not only endeavour to instruct your Lordships but will also instruct his own Party on the importance that we attach to the question of damage by subsidence, so that they may perhaps become better informed than they are in another place at the moment.
LORD STRABOLG: May I make this matter quite clear at once? I entirely agree with what the noble Earl says. I got my facts in the matter from our colleagues in another place, who are mining members of the House of Commons and who know a good deal about it.
EARL STANHOPE: It seems unfortunate that they were not in another place when this subject was discussed, or at any rate did not then express similar views. But I do not want to go into the question of divisions in the noble Lord's Party; that is a matter I must leave to him. As regards other Amendments, I spent rather long hours last night reading through the debate which took place in another place; and I found
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that consistently your Lordships had been attacked for putting in Amendments solely for the benefit of royalty owners, of which this House is supposed to be entirely composed. Now as Leader of the House I feel it my duty to make the situation somewhat clearer than it appears to be to some people at the present moment.
It is of interest to recall the first two Amendments which were considered in another place. The first was a redraft of Clause 2, in which we had put in a provision to give power to the Commission to take such action as is necessary to preserve a mine in good order at the end of a lease. That was obviously a provision to increase the powers of the Coal Commission, and I cannot quite see how that could be supposed to affect the position of royalty owners to whom the coal mine would no longer belong. The second point which they discussed immediately afterwards was a matter which was discussed here at great length, as regards the responsibility of the Board of Trade for the safety of mines. The whole point that was made by your Lordships—and it was insisted on particularly by my noble friend Lord Crawford—was that this would be a duality of powers, and therefore might not ensure such safe conditions being imposed in mines as exist under present circumstances. That has come here for your Lordships to redraft in a way that I hope will meet the point that was made in another place. But I only mention it as showing that there, again, your Lordships were not the least concerned with the question of royalty owners and their profits, but with the question of the safety of those who work in mines. A third point that was conceded in this House related to the interests of copyholders. Now copyholders, as I understand it, are almost all what I might describe as small men, and once again your Lordships were considering those interests rather than the interests of some of your Lordships who may have interests in coal mines.
I mention these points not because I think your Lordships mind very much what is said about you in another place, but there are people who read the debates which take place there and they may think, if no answer is made, that no answer is possible. Therefore I thought it right as Leader of the House to point out, not to your Lordships, but to people

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outside this House, that we were not only concerned with royalty owners' rights or landowners' rights or the rights of any particular class, but were concerned also to make this Bill a better Bill than it was when it came to us in the first instance, and to look after the little people, if I may so call them, and particularly those who work in mines, quite as much as any of the other interests which were concerned.
NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear.
EARL STANHOPE: As regards the Amendments as a whole, I think it would not be to the convenience of your Lordships that I should go into them now, but that we should deal with them as we come to them, one by one. I do not know whether there is likely to be a very long debate on them. On the whole I thought perhaps it might be to the convenience of your Lordships to make these few preliminary remarks as to the position, and to point out that your Lordships have indeed succeeded in making a very large number of Amendments to this Bill which have been accepted, many of them, as I say, of a drafting character, but others of very considerable importance, which we believe have made this Bill a better Bill than it was when it came to this House. I beg to move that the Commons Amendments and Reasons be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons Amendments to Lords Amendments and Commons Reasons for disagreeing to certain of the Lords Amendments be now considered.—(Earl Stanhope.)
LORD SNELL: My Lords, we have now reached a stage in the story of this somewhat storm-tossed Bill when we have to consider whether it has to continue its journeys between this House and another place or whether we shall accept and pass the Bill in its present form. So far as my advice is of any value, I very strongly urge your Lordships to pass the Bill. Previous attempts to amend it have been unfortunate in many respects, and continued mutilation of the Bill might have repercussions which your Lordships would wish to avoid. I merely want briefly to re-state our position, which only requires a few words because it is absolutely clear. We do not like
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this Bill, and we would have been ashamed to profess the belief that it would have any serious influence upon the position of an essential industry, or that in it the full interests of either the nation or the mine workers have been considered. It omits, in our judgment, things that we regard as essential. We do not believe that the miner will benefit from its operation, and we do not believe that it will be effective as an instrument of unification in the industry. We believe also that nothing short of a well-considered scheme of nationalisation will in the end be successful. We are grateful to the noble Earl for his admission that some advice from this side of the House was welcomed and acknowledged as being useful. I hope the noble Earl will continue to lend a sympathetic ear to our advice. If he does, that will be beneficial in the future.
But the hesitations that I have expressed about the Bill have to be placed in the balance against such advantages as the Bill undoubtedly contains. It affirms a principle that we regard as valuable, and we believe that that principle is destined to find a definite place in all future legislation dealing with monopolies of whatever kind. It will be quoted as a precedent. It is in the nature of foundational legislation, and probably on that foundation many a good thing will come for the alteration of the structure of the State. I promise your Lordships that we shall not forget the principle that this Bill contains, and on suitable occasions we shall remind this most respectable Government of what they are proposing to do this day. What is to be the future of this Bill? The Bill has some enemies and none of its friends like it. It is neither effective unification nor honest confiscation. We shall presumably pass this Bill as an act of faith, and we shall support the passing of the Bill on this side of the House as an act of policy.
I am concerned to know what the gallant band of brothers propose to do in regard to it. I shall be interested to see whether they will stand by the threats that they have made, or whether, lest worse befall them at a future date, they think it prudent to agree with their adversary whilst they are yet in the way with him. Personally I hope the noble Lords will stand firm. Nothing is more distressing than to see the desertion of a widely-

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advertised principle except the non-fulfilment of valiant threats. I confess I should not like to see the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, having led his gallant men to the top of the hill, lead them down again without having put up a fight on this occasion. I believe that in the previous battle of Hastings, in "1066 and all that," the defenders fought to the very last. I ask the noble Lords to take encouragement and example from ourselves. We never give in on these Benches. We are rather like the man of the Border Ballads who, when his legs were beaten under him, fought upon their stumps. I very much hope that the noble Lords will follow that great precedent. Now, having done all I possibly can as agent-provocateur to stimulate the noble Lords into rebellion, I have to say that we propose to vote with the Government, and I hope they will accept our votes without being too suspicious of our motives.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, I cannot profess to find myself in entire agreement with everything that has fallen from the noble Lord who leads the Opposition, except in the one respect with which he began his speech—the hope that the Bill would pass in its present form as returned from another place. It is true that in a humorous passage which closed his remarks he expressed precisely the contrary opinion, and trusted that the noble Lord below the gangway who is in opposition to certain features of this measure would die in the last ditch.
For myself, I may say that I do not think that your Lordships have anything serious to complain of in the manner in which the Amendments made here were treated in another place. A large number were accepted after argument—and often, I think, after a Division—and a certain number, as the noble Earl opposite has pointed out, were rejected and have returned here. I do not think your Lordships' House can be quite so grateful to the attitude of the Opposition in another place. The mere fact that all owners of mineral royalties are regarded as being a band of voracious vampires may not greatly matter. That is the concern of the royalty owners themselves, and not of your Lordships' House. But I think you may be tempted to resent the implications which were so prominent there—one, that practically every member
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of your Lordships' House is an owner of mineral royalties and thinks of nothing but the effect of this measure on his own pocket, and the second, which was even stranger, that all the royalty owners of the country are assembled here in your Lordships' House. That was the general effect produced on my mind by reading the observations made by the highly instructed Opposition members in another place.
If I might for a moment, for reasons which I will try to explain later, go back to the principle on which the first Part of this measure is based, I would venture to repeat what I was able to say at a quite early stage of the Bill, that it appears to me that the actual principle on which the purchase of the minerals of the country is based is a purely factitious principle. The royalty owners have been treated as though they were engaged in an ordinary business. I think the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack compared their position with that of a grocer parting with his business. Royalty owners, I believe, have always maintained that they are not engaged in a business at all, but that they are selling year by year some piece of property which belongs to them, which it is agreed by most people to be their absolute property, and that they are parting with it in just the same way as the owner of a collection of works of art or of a library may sell some object each year, thereby parting with that portion of his capital possessions.
Therefore it is argued that the basis of taking these sales which have taken place over a certain number of years and multiplying those sales by the figure of a certain number of years' purchase is not an altogether fair one. It is almost comparable with a proposal to buy up for the National Gallery or the British Museum all the private collections of works of art or valuable books, whereby the sales during a certain number of years by Messrs. Christie or Messrs. Sotheby would be taken and multiplied by an arbitrarily-fixed figure of years' purchase, and the sum estimated by such a calculation would be the sum to be divided rigidly among the owners of works of art or of libraries. The analogy is closer in some ways than might appear at first sight, because there are very few collections of works of art and few libraries of which portions have not been sold of recent years. It is also true that

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the fluctuation in value of such things varied as completely as the fluctuation in the price of coal during the last ten or twenty years. This is a point of view which I think it is reasonable to take. It is not in one sense relevant to the Amendments that have been sent down from here and considered in another place. I only mention it because of its bearing on what I think may be regarded as the principal Amendment which has been rejected in another place and returned here—the modification which was made here in the vesting date.
I can say quite frankly that I realise that the arguments against the acceptance of that Amendment which were used here and also used in another place are extremely strong, for the reason that the acceptance of such an Amendment would, I feel it must be agreed, render almost nugatory the adoption of a system of valuation at all. Unless some date is fixed, for reasons which would take too long to elaborate, the system of valuation could hardly be carried out. I am bound to say that, had I been able to be in the House when that Amendment was considered here, I should not have felt able to support it. I trust, therefore, that when it comes up for consideration here, noble Lords who made that Amendment when it was before the House will not consider it necessary to insist upon it, although I have no doubt they have not altered their opinion as to the justice of some such arrangement.
I will not go into the detail of any other possible Amendment which has to be considered, and my noble friend on this Bench will no doubt speak on the question of arbitration, which was favoured here and in one instance was dismissed in another place as unsuitable for the particular purpose for which it was desired. I will not attempt to elaborate that, but will merely once more express the opinion that, in spite of the strong views which have been expressed here upon several subjects with which this debate is concerned, in all the circumstances it would be found wiser to accept the position as it now stands after the return of the Amendments from another place.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD MAUGHAM): My Lords, perhaps I may be allowed to make a few observations
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in reply to the speech which the noble Lord, the Leader of the Opposition, very recently addressed to you. I suppose that everybody in this House is accustomed to the grudging admissions with which the Labour Party think fit to acknowledge any measure which they conceive to be a popular one and one which will please their own Party. It would never do for them to be generous in stating that the measure was valuable or would tend substantially to help the people of England as a whole: they might lose votes for their Party. Accordingly, any admission that is made here or elsewhere of anything that the National Government have done has necessarily to be couched in such phrases that nobody can possibly quote the admission on any public platform which members of the Labour party might be addressing. To that we are accustomed. But when the noble Lord goes on to assert that this measure is one which claims to "enshrine"—I think that is his word—a principle, which I take to be either the principle of nationalisation or, at any rate, that of interference with private property, then for my part I wish emphatically to register a protest against any such notion.
I have no doubt that precisely the same thing was said just about a hundred years ago, when this House, like the people in another place, passed such a measure as the Lands Clauses Act, or the other Acts which enabled, for public purposes, not mines beneath the surface of the earth alone, but any property belonging to any man in this country to be taken over, on payment of compensation, for public purposes. If it were not for the great respect which I owe to the noble Lord, I should say that it was complete nonsense to assert that this measure goes beyond the old principle in any respect whatever. In my submission, it is on exactly the same lines. If you once take the view, which for my part I take, that there is a very strong body of opinion that the unification of coal royalties is of benefit to the people of England, and particularly of benefit to the people engaged in the trade, and as that view is taken by all sorts of bodies, consisting of Commissions, and all sorts of political views, to my mind (and I ask your Lordships to agree), it is idle to suggest that this Bill enshrines a new principle. It is carrying out a principle which is at least a hundred years old.

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Then the noble Lord suggests that this is a bad Bill, because it has many enemies and because its friends do not like it. In a case such as this, dealing with a matter of great complexity, and touching interests which have existed since the time of Queen Elizabeth, of a great number of people, is it likely that there would be a universal approval of the measure or that the proposals in it would not be subjected to criticism? I will only repeat what I have said before, that I think the criticisms of this measure were useful to it, that they were not ill-judged. Although they may have been wrong in their views of what the measure was proposing to do, I think the criticism which has been made against those members of this House who put forward Amendments to the measure has been most unfair, for the reasons already given by the Leader of the House. I venture to think that the form in which the measure now comes before your Lordships has been greatly improved, as compared with the form in which it originally appeared when it came up to this House in the first instance. Having said that I am content to leave the rest to the judgment of history, and to remind those who were not here that there was no Division upon either the Second or Third Reading in this House, that there has been on the whole a generous recognition of the fact that the evidence in favour of the view that the Bill is greatly wished for by a very large section of the community is sufficient reason why noble Lords should not put forward their own individual opinions.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I had no intention at all of intervening at this stage, but the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has provoked a reply to one remark which fell from him, which I find it impossible to resist. The noble and learned Lord said that this Bill enshrined no new principle. Throughout the debates on the Bill I never heard it suggested that the old principle, of the right of the State to acquire private property on the payment of compensation, had ever been disputed. It was never disputed throughout the debates. But there is a new principle enshrined in the Bill, in that compensation under the Bill is not to be paid to the individual on the value of his property, but it is to be dependent upon the value of other people's property. If
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that is not a new principle I do not know what is. It is a principle that when once it is embodied in an Act of Parliament and put upon the Statute Book will stand as a nightmare and menace to every owner of every sort of property for all time. I could not allow the noble and learned Lord to claim that there is no new principle embodied in this Bill without protesting. This is the principle which has been the mainspring of our objections from the beginning.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT.
[The references are to Bill No. 78.]
Clause 2, page 2, line 24, at end, insert:
("Provided that nothing in this subsection shall be construed as conferring on the Board any power to give a direction in relation to any matter regulated by or under the Coal Mines Act, 1911, or by or under any other enactment relating to the control or management of a mine within the meaning of that Act.")
The Commons disagree to the above Amendment for the following Reason:
Because the Amendment is unduly restrictive as respects directions which it might be expedient for the Board of Trade to give for securing safety.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, That this House doth not insist upon its Amendment in Clause 2, page 2, line 24, but proposes in lieu thereof the following Amendment:
Clause 2, page 2, line 24, at end insert:
"Provided that nothing in this subsection shall be construed as conferring on the Board any power to give a direction inconsistent with any provisions of the Coal Mines Act, 1911, or of any other enactment relating to the control or management of a mine within the meaning of that Act, or of any regulations made under that Act or any such other enactment."
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move, That this House doth not insist upon its Amendment, and I propose an Amendment in lieu thereof—namely, in Clause 2, page 2, line 24, at the end thereof, to insert the words as printed. This Amendment on behalf of the Government is due to the fact that the previous proviso was one which might have had the effect of preventing the Coal Commission from exercising any function under the Coal Mines Act of 1911, or any other enactment, relating to the control or management of mines. It was accepted with a sort of understanding that the drafting might have to be considered, and in another place the reason

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given for not assenting to the proviso was that it was
"unduly restrictive as regards directions which it might be expedient for the Board of Trade to give for securing safety."
I think it is uncontroversial that in this House nobody wants the Board of Trade to be prevented from giving directions to secure safety, and after a good deal of negotiation and consideration the proviso which stands on the Paper in the form of an Amendment has been suggested in lieu of the previous proviso. This, I think, and I understand other people take the same view, carries out what was desired by noble Lords who in this House thought that some such proviso ought to be inserted to Clause 2. It is only a question of carrying out the true intention in that respect, and I submit to your Lordships that this Amendment does carry out what was originally intended. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth not insist upon its Amendment, in Clause 2, page 2, line 24, but proposes in lieu thereof the said new Amendment.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD GAINFORD: My Lords, I think the words of the Amendment on the Paper do prevent dual responsibility, which might have existed under the Bill when it was brought to this House. So far as I am able to say so, on behalf of the coalowners and the Mining Association of Great Britain, we do accept the Amendment and thank the Government for its wording.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENTS.
Clause 3, page 2, line 40, leave out from ("and") to ("the") in line 2 on page 3.
Clause 3, page 3, line 2, after ("date") insert ("as hereinafter defined")
Clause 3, page 3, line 9, at end, insert ("the vesting date shall be a date to he fixed by the Board of Trade with the approval of the Treasury not less than three months after the amounts ascertained by valuations in respect of each holding in accordance with the provisions of Section seven of this Act have been certified but not earlier than the first day of July, nineteen hundred and forty-two").
The Commons disagree to the above Amendments for the following Reason:
Because they consider that the period up to the 1st July, 1942, will be adequate for the completion of valuations and because uncertainty as to the vesting date would
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render it impracticable to make the valuations.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the Commons disagreed to these Amendments for the Reason printed on the Paper, and Notice has been given of an Amendment in lieu thereof.
LORD HASTINGS LORD HASTINGS had given Notice that he would move, That this House doth not insist upon its Amendments in Clause 3, in page 2, line 40, in page 3, line 2, and in page 3, line 9, but proposes in lieu thereof the following Amendment:
Schedule 3, page 73, line 19, at end insert:
"20.—(1) If in the case of any valuation region the relevant certificates have not become conclusive under paragraph 17 of this Schedule at the vesting date, the claimant or any person intervening in respect of a holding in the region for which compensation is to be payable may require the Commission to make, at the expiration of each quarter thereafter until the certificates become conclusive, a payment on account under the last preceding paragraph of an amount not less than that specified in this paragraph, and, as from the date of any such requirement, the Commission shall be liable to make payments to the person entitled to the compensation for the holding accordingly.
(2) The amount of a quarterly payment that may be required as aforesaid shall be an mount equal to interest for three months at the rate mentioned in subsection (8) of Section seven of this Act on three-quarters of either—

(a) the draft valuation of the holding settled under sub-paragraph (3) of paragraph II of this Schedule, if at the date of the payment that draft has been settled but the certificate relating to the holding has not been sent to the Commission; or

(b) the amount certified, if the certificate has been so sent at that date:

Provided that if before the beginning of any quarter at the expiration of which a quarterly payment becomes due any payment on account has been made in respect of the holding under the last preceding paragraph otherwise than by way of quarterly payment required as aforesaid, the amount of the quarterly payment shall be reduced by an amount equal to interest for three months at the rate aforesaid on the amount of the said payment on account.
(3) In the case of a holding consisting of a reversion, if at a date on which a quarterly payment becomes due the draft valuation of the holding has not been settled, the amount of that payment shall be an amount equal to one-eighth of—

(a) the rent which became payable to the person entitled to the reversion immediately expectant on the lease, in respect of coal mines of coal and acquired property and rights comprised therein, during the year ending on the vesting date (or, in the case

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of a lease that has expired before the vesting date, during the last year of its subsistence), less

(b) the Mineral Rights Duty and Royalties Welfare Levy payable or allowable by that person in respect of that rent;

so however that that amount shall he subject to the reduction mentioned in the proviso to the last preceding sub-paragraph iu the case therein mentioned:
Provided that in a case in which there is reasonable ground for apprehending that, if a payment of the amount so ascertained were made, the aggregate of that payment and of any ether payment on account theretofore made might exceed the aggregate of the compensation for the holding and the interest thereon, the Commission may withhold that payment.
(4) In a case in which the proviso to the last preceding sub-paragraph has effect and in a case of a holding other than a reversion, if at a date on which a quarterly payment becomes due the draft valuation of the holding has not been settled, that payment shall be deferred until the draft has been settled and the amount thereof shall be ascertained under sub-paragraph (2) of this paragraph.
(5) In this paragraph—

(a) The expression 'quarter' means a period of three months beginning on the first day of July, October, January or April:

(b) the references to rent payable to the person entitled to a reversion and to Mineral Rights Duty and Royalties Welfare Levy payable or allowable by that person shall, in their application to a leasehold reversion, be construed as references respectivey to the rent which that person was entitled to receive from his lessee less the rent which he was liable to pay to his lessor, and to the duty and levy which he was liable to pay or allow less so much thereof as he was entitled to deduct from the rent payable to his lessor."

The noble Lord said: My Lords, with the permission of the House, I will move the Amendment which stands in the names of my noble friends Lord Teynham, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, Lord Darcy (de Knayth) and myself. Your Lordships will recollect that the original Amendment which the House assisted us to insert in the Bill was drawn with a specific purpose. Although, on the face of it, it had the appearance of desiring to postpone the vesting date, its intention, and indeed its effect, was to cause the vesting date and the date of the payment of compensation to synchronise, so that a hiatus might be avoided during which the owner al the minerals would have been deprived of his property and consequently of the income derivable from that property, and yet would not have received the compensation, inade-
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quate though it might be, that was due to him in respect of that property. That Amendment went down to another place and has been there described, as here, as being the most important of the Amendments remitted to another place by this House, inasmuch as it proposed to touch one of the fundamentals of the Bill; and it was there argued, as indeed we found upon the Order Paper to-day, that the Amendment could not be agreed to by another place "because uncertainty as to the vesting date would render it impracticable to make the valuations."
I do not accept that argument as wholly conclusive, for the reason that the Central Valuation Board is under obligation to make rules for the governance of the valuations, and it would not be by any means impossible for rules to be drafted, providing instructions to the valuers for dealing with the date which was not inserted to be fixed. But I have to admit that it is the Bill which is before the House, and not the rules, and in so far as the Bill stands, it is perfectly true—as has been said both by the President of the Board of Trade elsewhere and by Government spokesmen in this House—that so far as the Bill stands our Amendment would make valuation exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. It is to nobody's interest to create such a situation. On the other hand, there is the grave danger—not the certainty, because it is impossible to say that the valuations would not be complete by July 1, 1942—that the mineral owner would be left in the position which I described when I first began to move this Amendment.
It strikes me—and I say it without apology—as not very creditable either to His Majesty's Government or to their departmental advisers that a Bill should have been permitted to come to this House, much less to have reached this stage, without making provision for the avoidance of such an impossible situation. I think that it ought not to have been left to those of us who have been watching this Bill very carefully to insist upon the elementary justice which is desired surely not only by ourselves but by every member of this House and of another place. However ill-disposed His Majesty's Opposition in another place may be to the royalty owners, however ready the Government have proved themselves to be to throw their own supporters to

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the wolves, I find it impossible to believe that a measure of that kind would receive acceptance either in this place or in another. It was clearly impossible to leave the owner of this compulsorily acquired property with all his commitments still due from him, and with neither income from his property nor income from his compensation money available to meet those commitments, and it was with the express intention of avoiding that impossible situation that the House placed the Amendment in the Bill which has now been returned to this House.
If I were to be forced to the conclusion that in fact both the Government and another place had so small regard for elemental justice as to desire this condition to continue, then indeed I would have taken the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Snell, and myself, with the aid of my friends, have fought this issue to the last, quite regardless of any political consequences that might arise from it. But it would be folly to make war where peace can be had for the asking, and if it is possible to achieve what we do desire, or even the greater portion of it, without joining battle upon the form of words which previously commended themselves to us, then it would not speak well for our intelligence if we did not accept that alternative. And it will be obvious to the House that there always were two alternatives. Indeed, so long ago as the Committee stage an Amendment appeared upon the Paper in the name of my noble friend Lord Teynham which did seek to apply the second alternative to the situation which was developing; but inasmuch as the Amendment which then stood in the name of my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh took precedence by reason of the fact that it was on the Paper first, and that the House assisted him to place that Amendment in the Bill, it then of course became automatically impossible to deal with the following Amendments because the greater absorbed the less.
But there is reason now, having regard to what has taken place in another place, to reconsider what might be done with that particular alternative that had already been in our minds on the Committee stage. There were indications then, and there have been stronger indications since, that the Government might not be unwilling to agree to that alterna-
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tive if words could be found which were agreeable to them and to ourselves. Now the principle embodied in this very abstruse and long Amendment which appears in our names is this, that there should be a compulsory payment of interest during the period which may elapse between the fixed vesting date and the date that the compensation itself becomes payable. To the dispossessed mineral owner it is not a matter of very grave account whether he has received his compensation money, which he himself is able to invest, or receives a reasonable rate of interest upon a properly computed estimation of compensation, and is thereby enabled, out of that interest, to meet the commitments to which reference has already been made. This particular Amendment is drawn to enable, indeed to compel, the payment of a rate of interest computed in the way which will be found by reference to the Amendment itself.
The Bill contains provisions for the making of payments on account, but the option of making these payments vests in the Coal Commission, and it certainly would be a matter of the gravest difficulty to insert mandatory provisions in the Bill in respect of making payments of capital on account. It is definitely easier to deal with the matter on the basis of interest payments. In Clause 7 (8) of the Bill it will be found that provision is made for the payment of back interest by a special method of computation when the compensation itself is actually paid; but of course the payment of back interest when the compensation is paid will not assist the individual who has to meet commitments between the vesting date and the date of the payment of compensation, so that that particular subsection did not help us in this matter very much. It is now proposed that, not sums on account of capital, but the interest, shall be payable at short intervals immediately after the vesting date.
Inasmuch as I have great reason not only to hope but to expect, from what the noble Earl the Leader of the House said when he was speaking a few moments ago, that the Government will find themselves able to accept this alternative, it is now due to those who are intimately concerned in the matter and who assisted us to insert this in the Bill in the first instance, that I should explain, at least in brief, what this Amendment actually

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means. On page 2 of the Amendment paper it reads that
"at the expiration of each quarter thereafter until the certificates become conclusive, a payment on account under the last preceding paragraph"
shall be made. That would seem to be exactly the contrary of what I have been endeavouring to explain hitherto, because here is the use of the words "payment on account" instead of "payment of interest." The purpose of that is abstruse but none the less quite intelligible.
Inasmuch as under Clause 7 (8) the royalty owner is entitled to claim back interest when his compensation is paid to him, it would be better that any payments made to him in respect of interest should be counted as payments on account, because it is then open to the mineral owner to treat these payments either as payments on account of capital or utilise them as interest if he so desires. If they are made as payments on account, he would not be liable to the payment of Income Tax on these payments, and he would not pay the Income Tax on these payments until he reclaimed the eventual interest due to him when the full compensation was paid. He would then pay Income Tax on the interest charged to him. There is, therefore, a specific reason for inserting these words, "payment on account." They would be treatable under these terms either as capital or income at the option of the particular recipient of the moneys.
Turning over the page, it will be found that these payments are to be made in certain circumstances on the basis of three-quarters of the draft or certified valuation. I have to admit that it would not be possible to make interest payments upon the whole, either of the draft or the certified valuations, for the very reasons which led me to follow the Lord Chancellor a few moments ago—namely, that these properties are not being valued by themselves, but are being valued in relation to other people's property, and it is not known to what extent these individual valuations will be scaled down until the last valuation has been completed. Therefore, 75 per cent. is not unreasonable in these peculiar and particular circumstances. In respect of a property which has been the subject neither of a draft nor a certified valuation, there is no possible reference other
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than to the rents received in the previous year, and under the particular provisions of this Amendment the individual owner would receive interest on 5o per cent. of the rents received by him in the previous year. There is nothing said about that in the Amendment, I quite admit, unless you know exactly what it is that is meant by this abstruse wording. It says here that it "shall be an amount equal to one-eighth of." One-eighth, curiously enough, works out at 5o per cent., because these payments are to be made quarterly, and one-half of a quarter is one-eighth, and of course that works out at one-half of the whole. Inasmuch as draftsmen seem to prefer to cloud their best efforts in the way that is here envisaged and seen, I can only assure your Lordships that I am satisfied that in this case one-eighth means one-half.
There is one other peculiarity here. There is reference to "a holding consisting of a reversion." Your Lordships' ideas of what a reversion normally means are not at all what a reversion means in this Amendment. In this Amendment "reversion" is used in the sense of an individual who is entitled to rent, and later on it will be seen that the individual who has no such reversion is only an individual who is the owner of coal which is not in lease and consequently was not in the year before the vesting date receiving any rent. Inasmuch as he was receiving no rent, though presumably he will receive compensation, for his property, he will not be the poorer by reason of receiving no amount between the vesting date and the date of the payment of compensation. In effect it means this, if the valuations are not complete by July 1, 1942, that every royalty owner, every owner of minerals, on demand that it should be paid, will be paid compulsorily—that is to say, he will have the right to payment. He will be paid interest upon either 75 per cent. of his draft or certified valuation, less any sum which he will have received in respect of capital payments on account at an earlier date; or, if his property has not been the subject of a draft or certified valuation, he will receive interest on 50 per cent. of his previous year's rents.
That is not what we had hoped for. We had hoped to be able, not to postpone the vesting date for the vesting date's postponement's sake, but we had hoped

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to make sure that the owner should be actually in possession of his compensation previous to the date when he was compelled by law to convey his property. That would be merely placing the mineral owner in identically the same position as has hitherto been the position of every owner whose property is being compulsorily acquired. I think the Lord Chancellor would not be disposed to dispute that it has hitherto been an accepted practice, and indeed is the law of the land, that a conveyance does not take effect until the purchaser is ready with his cash to acquire the property which has to be conveyed. It is only because His Majesty's Government have accepted an astounding method of valuation, which only can be described as valuation by courtesy, that these peculiar necessities have arisen. It is impossible to apply either common law or common practice to a method which I suggest is, at any rate at the moment, neither legal nor ordinary. And this is only the first of the many inconveniences and injustices which are bound to arise by reason of the acceptance of this astonishing method of valuation.
But things being as they are, and the stage having been reached when it is quite impossible again to raise that point—we have debated it more than once and we have divided upon it—we have to accept things as they are and do the best we can with them, and, inasmuch as I hope and believe His Majesty's Government are prepared to accept and recommend to another place the acceptance of this alternative Amendment, I am not disposed to attach too much importance to the wording of the Amendment with which another place have disagreed, and in its place to move the Amendment which now stands in the names of my three noble friends and myself. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth not insist upon its Amendments in Clause 3, in page 2, line 40, in page 3, line 2, and in page 3, line 9, but proposes in lieu thereof the said new Amendment.—(Lord Hastings.)
LORD CROMWELL: My Lords, I would not rise at what some of your Lordships might think a sixth reading debate on this Bill were it not for the fact that an indication has been given by the
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noble Lord, Lord Hastings, that he at any rate does not attach too much importance to the wording of the Amendment with which another place has seen fit to disagree. If I understood him rightly, he went on to say that he thought that the Amendment which he has just moved would in all probability be acceptable to His Majesty's Government. Be that as it may, I think it is only fair that I should state how the matter appears to me. The Amendment just moved has in my view no bearing whatever on the Amendment with which the Common, have seen fit to disagree. The noble Earl the Leader of the House, in his introductory remarks, said, if I quote him rightly, that something like 117 Amendments were sent from this House to another place, and that all but three of those had been agreed to, though some of them had been agreed to in a modified form. It is surprising, to say the least of it, that in spite of that, at this very late stage in the Bill, if the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, is right in thinking that the Government are prepared to accept this Amendment, we have here another Amendment of several pages in length which it has been left for him to place upon the Order Paper rather than for the Government draftsmen to place in the Bill at the very outset.
I would say in this connection—and I do not think it can be contradicted—that if some such Amendment as this does not appear in the Bill, the Bill itself is completely unworkable if certain conditions take place. If when the vesting date which will appear in the Bill comes to pass, the valuations are not then completed, there will be a gap in which the owners of coal will not be in receipt of any income whatsoever. If this Amendment is agreed to then that gap, it is true, will be bridged by payments of interest on account. But that does not, as I have said before, deal at all with the Amendment with which the Commons have disagreed. I have read the debates in another place, and I see that everyone there had to be very particular not to use words used in this House, and the obstacle was got over by some of the more intelligent members of that House referring to what had been printed in the Press as having been said in this House. I do not intend to refer to the actual words used in another place, but I do think from what was said there that one

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can quite correctly come to the conclusion that a very bad principle has been adopted—namely, that property which is compulsorily purchased is being taken over before the party purchasing it is in a position to pay for it. This Amendment, if agreed to now, will do nothing to eradicate that very bad principle. It is true it was said in another place that there were precedents for it, but they left me, at any rate, quite unconvinced that they were applicable in this case.
I do not think I shall be breaking the rules of the House if I make this reference to what was said in another place. It was stated at the very outset that the question was a matter of Privilege in that it touched a question of finance because the Government or the State was guaranteeing loans. Well, I would not try to dispute that in any way, but it is a very roundabout way of preventing the natural course of justice which this House wants to bring about. I think we are being asked to sacrifice principles in order that a very badly framed Bill can go through without some necessary clause in it, because it appears at this stage to be impossible to put in that clause which would make it just. The noble Lord, the Leader of the Opposition, said that some members of your Lordships' House had made threats. I should like to say that I have heard of no threats made in this House, and certainly if he was alluding to anything that I myself have said I have made no threats. He went on to say that he hoped that the battle of Hastings would not be re-enacted. Now that the question of Privilege has been raised there is no alternative other than to follow out the procedure indicated. The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, is not himself prepared to have another such battle, and, even if my namesake removed the bauble to achieve his ends, I am not prepared to follow his example in this case. Before I sit down, let me illustrate again the difficulty of understanding this Bill. A new difficulty has now come into it. We have been told that "unification" is nationalisation; we have been told that "in perpetuity" means fifteen years; and now we have to swallow that "one-eighth" means a half.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, as the original Amendment was in my name I would like to say one or two words on the Motion before the
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House. First of all I wish to say quite frankly and candidly to your Lordships that I admit that there is force in the Reason which another place has given for disagreeing with our Amendment. I go further and say that the force of that objection was not apparent to me when I moved the Amendment. I do not think that is really a very damaging admission because I have re-read the debate and I find that that argument was not advanced in the House by the spokesman of the Government in objecting to the Amendment. I think we can admit that even the most learned members of your Lordships' House may possibly have learned something about the Bill while it has been in progress through the House. I certainly do admit it, and quite frankly say that I recognise that there is an objection to an indeterminate valuation date. But that does not reconcile me to acceptance of the principle in the Bill. I have spent a considerable time in trying to devise something which I could have offered to your Lordships as an alternative to the Amendment which I am forced to see abandoned. I have failed. I think the objection is more theoretical than real. I think that if the Bill had been better drafted and better conceived in the first instance this difficulty would not have arisen, and I do regret very profoundly the fact that we have to let this Bill go through with this vesting date which will occur at a time when the valuation may not be complete. I regret it because I think it is a profoundly wrong principle.
Various enactments have been suggested as illustrating that this is not a precedent—the Land Clauses Act, the Acquisition of Land Act, and so on—but I think I am right in saying that those Acts have reference to compulsory acquisition by a statutory authority who would require the property for immediate use or occupation. That is some justification for taking a property and paying for it when the valuation is settled. But in a transaction of this kind, which the Government maintain is not compulsory acquisition at all, it does not seem to me right that that should happen. After all, these transactions are enshrined in the Bill as being between a willing seller and a willing buyer. I do not think the debates in your Lordships' House have supported the view that there is very much willingness on the part of the seller, but still that is the legal fiction to which

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the Government are adhering. Still less in that case is it right that the conveyance of the property should take place until the valuation is settled and the purchaser is willing to pay the money. So much for that. We have to let that go. My noble friend has adequately described to your Lordships the contents of this Amendment, but I cannot agree with one thing that was said by my noble friend Lord Cromwell. I think this has everything to do with the vesting date. I think it is the only possible alternative, and it is closely connected with it; but it is not necessary for me to labour that.
The only other thing I would like to say is that I am very grateful to the noble Earl the Leader of the House for what he said in initiating this debate. That was something which needed saying. I have listened to some of the debates in another place and I have read the whole of them. I am bound to say to your Lordships that I came away from reading and hearing what I did with a feeling of sadness. I agree with the noble Earl the Leader of the House that I do not think your Lordships will lose any sleep by hearing what members of another place may think of us, but I think it must cause some of us to feel rather sad that there should be so many members in another place who approach their conception of their public duties so blinkered by prejudice that they are incapable of seeing what this House is trying to do. I think it is not untrue to say that ninety-nine per cent. of the speeches from the Opposition Benches were an essence of envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness. There was no real argument, nothing but vulgar abuse. While I am saddened by that spectacle I have this reflection, that at all events it will not be lost upon the country, and that members who approach their public duties in that frame of mind are, and will long remain, unfit to form an alternative Government.
EARL STANHOPE: My Lords, the noble Lord has dealt with great frankness with the Amendment which stood in his name on the Paper and which it is proposed we should not insist upon now that the Bill has come back to your Lordships' House. Perhaps I was partly responsible for not putting the matter as it should have been put on the Committee stage. I have just looked up the debate and the remarks that were made led me away
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to a consideration of the length of life of collieries and the question of global valuation and individual valuation and similar questions. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack when he took up the case made it abundantly clear that the Government were prepared to accept the Amendment standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teynham. That is almost identical—for all practical purposes it is identical—with the Amendment which now appears in the names of the four noble Lords.
The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, said that the whole object of their Amendment was that the vesting date and the date of compensation should synchronise, but he did not tell the whole of the story. I think your Lordships know that one of the considerations that arose when this Bill was being drawn up was how the money was to be raised to meet the global figure, and what was to happen to it between the time it was raised and the time it was paid over to the various royalty owners who were to receive compensation. Quite naturally the Government felt that it was very injudicious that this money which might have to be raised at a certain period should remain sitting in cold storage, if I may put it that way, until the vesting date arrived. Therefore the Government suggested that part payment should be made and the people who prevented that proposal being put into the Bill were the royalty owners themselves. No doubt they had quite adequate reasons, but the fact that compulsory payment of instalments was not made was not the fault of the Government. No doubt it is partly as a result of that that a provision of that kind did not appear in the Bill when it was first before your Lordships.
We did not feel that it was wrong in principle that property should pass until payment for it had been made. It is not by any means a new principle because I understand that in many cases of compulsory purchase, where no doubt certain provisions have to be agreed to, you can enter into premises as soon as notice to treat has been given, a very long time before actual compensation has been paid. Therefore it is not an unknown provision. But let me say at once that the Government had no intention of following a principle of that kind. We always intended that as soon as the property passed pay-

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ment should be made. The date put in, the vesting date, was a date which was believed to be such that by then the valuations would certainly have been completed. We recognise that there may be a possibility that some of the valuations will not be finished and therefore we are quite prepared to accept the Amendment which appears in the names of the four noble Lords. We think that would meet the situation. We think, indeed, that it goes further than is necessary because we do not believe there is any possibility of at any rate a draft valuation not being made. But, as some noble Lords seem to think that there might be that possibility, we are quite prepared that it should appear in the Bill. That is why sub-paragraph (3) appears under which payment is to be made up to fifty per cent. of what was received in the previous year.
I must point out to your Lordships the reasons why another place resisted the Amendment which was put into the 13i11. Only one reason has been given by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, and that was that an indeterminate date made valuation quite impossible. I do not know how much your Lordships recognise what would actually occur if any one individual in the whole of Great Britain for some reason hung up the valuation. Valuation over the whole of Great Britain would then be stopped and could not be completed in any single region. Take a mine with a short life remaining, say a life at the present moment of ten years: in four years' time there would be six years of that life left, and therefore the valuer would determine that there were six years of life for that colliery which he had to value. But if you change your date from August 1, 1942, to some other date, then it ceases any longer to be six years and has to be x years, according to the actual date to which you have postponed your vesting date.
The result, of course, would be that that mine would have to be revalued to show that it had—whatever it was: four and a half years, five and a half years, or whatever the number of years' purchase, left when the actual vesting date occurred. Then every other valuation would have to be reconsidered also, because in each region, if you reduce the amount which is paid to one individual
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for the short life of his mine, then of course you must alter the figure payable to everybody else in that region. The result would be that almost as soon as you had reached the new vesting date, and the new date on which the valuation should take place, you would find yourself in the difficulty of all these things having to be done again, and once again you would go over your vesting date and have to postpone it. The Government, therefore, felt that to put off the vesting date would create chaos. However patriotic royalty owners and everybody else may be, they are liable to have black sheep among them, like any other class of the community.
LORD HASTINGS: Including the Government.
EARL STANHOPE: In view of the fact that it is obviously in their interest to postpone the vesting date, one or two people would certainly have held up their own valuation, with the result that the whole of the vesting and valuation would have been held up throughout the country. For these reasons, of course, it is quite impossible for the Government to accept the Amendment. I am afraid, as I said, that it was my fault that this was not made clearer at an earlier stage of the Bill, but I am glad that noble Lords now realise that the offer we made on that stage was a fair offer, and that we are now agreed that this is the best thing we can do to meet the situation as we now see it.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I beg to move a consequential Amendment.
Amendment moved—
In the Lords Amendment in page 73, line 21—
In line 3 leave out ("the last preceding paragraph") and insert ("paragraph 59 or 20 of this Schedule").—(Lord Hastings.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT.
Page 15, line 20, after Clause is, insert the following new clause:
"Provisions affecting renewal of leases.
".On and after the vesting date, if a lessee gives notice in writing to the Commission of his desire to renew a lease of coal or mines in force at that date not less than six months before the date of the termination prescribed therein, the consent of the Commission to such renewal on reasonable terms

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and conditions shall not be unreasonably withheld, and any question whether such consent is being unreasonably withheld or whether the proposed terms and conditions or any of them are reasonable and what other terms and conditions are reasonable shall, if the lessee so require, be referred to arbitration and the lessee shall be entitled to a renewal of his lease on such terms and conditions as may be found in such arbitration to be reasonable.")
The Commons disagree to the above Amendment for the following Reason:
Because it is inexpedient that the exercise by the Commission of their functions in relation to the granting of leases should be subject to review by arbitrators.
LORD GAINFORD LORD GAINFORD moved, That this House doth not insist upon its Amendment after Clause 12 on page 15, line 20, but proposes in lieu thereof the following Amendment:
Provisions affecting renewal of leases.
".On and after the vesting date if a lessee of coal or mine of coal not later than nine months before the date of termination of the lease makes application in writing to the Commission for the renewal thereof the Commission shall have regard to the existing custom to grant a renewal and shall not unreasonably withhold its consent to a renewal on reasonable terms and conditions such renewal to be granted or refused not later than three months before the date of termination of the lease."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I should like for one moment to be allowed to state the reasons why there has been some lack of vision on the part of another place in rejecting a very reasonable Amendment, proposing arbitration when leases are renewed and the colliery proprietor takes exception to the terms which are granted by the Coal Commission. If the miners' representatives in another place had realised the possibility that blunders might be performed by a Commission of this kind, and how their own industry might be prejudiced in the event of conditions being imposed upon a colliery proprietor which might reflect upon their industry, I think they would have realised that the arbitration was not an objectionable feature which your Lordships imposed in connection with the renewal of leases in the event of their being unsatisfactory.
A Commission of this kind, however excellent its personnel—and I cast no aspersions upon the individuals whom it is proposed to appoint to this Commission—is not necessarily infallible. Moreover, members will not live for ever, and other members, who might be still more fallible,
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take their places. It is vitally important to a great industry that, when they have spent enormous sums of money in the development of a colliery, in mechanisation, in putting down plant on the surface, in erecting coke ovens and byproduct plant, when they have laid out their colliery with a view to developing in a particular way, when they have entered into an arrangement for ventilating large areas of coal, they should be entitled to the usual custom in connection with the renewal of a lease. To give an arbitrary power to a Commission of this kind seems to every colliery owner to whom I have spoken—and I have spoken to a great number of representative colliery owners—to be unfair. There ought to be directions that the usual terms, according to the words of my Amendment, should be accepted and passed into law.
All that my Amendment suggests is that the Commission shall have regard to the existing custom to grant a renewal, and shall not unreasonably withhold its consent. That is a considerable modification of the power of arbitration accepted by your Lordships when this Bill went to another place on the last occasion. Moreover, at the present time, in the event of a colliery lessor not dealing fairly with a lessee in regard to renewal, the colliery proprietor has an opportunity of appealing direct to the Railway and Canal Commission in order to secure justice in the national interest and in the interest of that firm, and the lessor can be compelled to give reasonable terms. To deprive colliery proprietors of that right, as the Bill would if it were passed in the form in which it has come back from another place, seems to be inequitable and unfair. The reasons of inexpediency put forward seems to me to have no justification whatever. An arbitrary body can impose any conditions it likes. For instance, if the Commission thought it advisable that one colliery proprietor should be compelled to amalgamate with another colliery proprietor, when a lease was to be renewed, the Commission could say: "Unless you are going to do this, that or the other thing in connection with amalgamation, we decline to renew the lease," or "We will penalise you with regard to working part of your coal." That is a power which would be unreasonable, but which might easily be exercised.
One knows how often in real life influence can be brought to bear upon a Commission, of which they might be quite unconscious of giving way to. In the renewal of a lease you may have a coinheritor, and the competitor may come along to the Commission and say: "I am quite prepared to take this lease at lower terms than the existing proprietor," and for that reason the existing colliery company might have its lease taken away, and the whole of its organisation in connection with development and safety, and everything else, destroyed by the arbitrary act of the Commission. Surely your Lordships will realise that it is unfair to a great industrial concern that it should be entirely at the disposition of a Commission of this character, and will agree that the Commission ought in reason to be directed as to how they should renew leases, on which large sums of money and the prosperity of the industry so largely depend. A Commission sitting in London, of this character, has no local knowledge. It is vitally important that the Commission should be directed as to the renewal of leases, and that the law should not remain as it would be if the Amendment which I now move were not accepted.
My Amendment is a compromise. I am an old Parliamentary hand. I have had a great deal of practice in troubles between the two Houses, and I do not want to see such trouble again; but I have been pressed to resist the House of Commons in connection with this matter, and I have put down my own Amendment in lieu of that with which the Commons disagreed. I am aware that there are those of your Lordships who would desire to see arbitration, but what I ask for is a compromise, and I ask that we should give directions to the Commissions such as are contained in my Amendment. I hope your Lordships will realise that there is a very real desire on the part of the industry as a whole that directions should be given, as we are for the moment no longer retaining that power of arbitration which we thought was essential in the interests of the industry.
Moved, That this House doth not insist upon its Amendment after Clause 12, on page 15, line 20, but proposes in lieu thereof the said new Amendment.—(Lord Gainford.)
LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, I should like to support my noble friend Lord Gainford in his Amendment, as I moved the original Amendment, dealing with the provision affecting the renewal of leases, on the Committee stage, which Amendment, as your Lordships may remember, was carried on a Division. Both Amendments have been designed to give security of tenure to the present owner of a colliery lease. By this Bill we are proposing to give very great powers to the Coal Commission, and I do not suggest for a moment that they will not use those powers wisely and well, having due regard to all the circumstances of any case which they may consider, but I cannot help feeling that the provision of arbitration would have been beneficial to the working of the whole organisation. I think it is a great pity that it is proposed to omit it from the Bill. It would not, I feel, have been often used, and the industry would have felt that there existed the means by which any decision which was deemed unreasonable could be reconsidered. The Amendment in the name of Lord Gainford is a very modified provision, affecting the renewal of leases, and it will, as he has explained, help to place the industry in a position no worse off than it would have been in but for the present Bill. This is a state of affairs which the Government have themselves accepted in other directions, and I hope the Government will see their way to accept this compromise Amendment, which would undoubtedly give to the industry a feeling of security.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I regret that I am unable, on behalf of the Government, to agree with the Amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Gainford, in lieu of the original Amendment which stood in the Bill. Your Lordships will appreciate that the Amendment relates only to cases in which the existing lessee has no right to a renewal of his lease. There are a good many leases in which there is such a clause, but you have to visualise here a case where the lease contains no such right of renewal as against the existing landlord. It is proposed to insert such a right in a lease which has become vested in the Coal Commission, and to insert such a right in cases where the Coal Commission have granted a lease to a tenant willing to take it without a clause

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providing for renewal. In the other place it no doubt looked as if the Coal Commission were being put in an invidious position, compared with other landlords. The contract which had been entered into voluntarily with the Commission was to be altered, in the sense that the Coal Commission were to be deprived of a right which they otherwise had of discussing the question of renewal, or granting a fresh lease, with a free hand.
I want to try and persuade your Lordships that the effect of the Amendment proposed by Lord Gainford is of a much more serious character than I think the noble Lord intends or, perhaps, appreciates. The point is this. On the renewal of a lease so complex and difficult, as ii often is in the case of a coal mine, there are, as some of your Lordships are aware, pages and pages of clauses and conditions—sometimes as many as one hundred pages of draft in connection with a particular lease, and some of the clauses are of great complexity. Assume a lease which does not contain any clause of renewal, which is approaching its end, and the lessee not unnaturally wishes to have a renewal. Assume the normal case, which I can confidently ask your Lordships to assume, that the Coal Commission will be only too glad, if there is coal to be worked, to renew the lease in favour of that same tenant, who has, on the assumption that I am going on, properly carried out his provisions under the existing but expiring lease. What happens in real life is that the terms and conditions of the new lease will be of a controversial character. There may be a score of differences on which the Coal Commission's view as to the proper lease will differ from the view of the existing tenant who requires a new lease—on all sorts of details which I need not trouble your Lordships with. It is on those matters that this Amendment, if it were agreed to, would have the effect of bringing the Coal Commission into the position of having to fight an action in every case of a new lease as to which there was some reasonable doubt (I assume it is reasonable) as to what its terms shall be.
I think—perhaps I am wrong but I think—that the noble Lord suggested by a slip that it would go to arbitration. That is not the effect of this Amendment. The Amendment would have the effect that
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an action would be brought. In every case in which the Coal Commission had, in the performance of their duty, to grant a renewal of a lease—or equally if they wanted to grant and had some reason for granting a new lease to some person, though the normal case would be to grant a renewal—there might be an action with regard to the terms and conditions, and it would put them in the position that they could not, if I may use the language of the disagreement Reasons, exercise their discretion as to the granting of the renewal of a lease without that discretion being subject to review by a Court of Judges, or possibly by an arbitrator. It is obvious that there would be in every case the most cogent reasons to induce the Commission to grant the renewal to the existing tenant, because of course nothing can be more difficult to arrange in the case of a colliery than to substitute for the existing tenant a new tenant. All sorts of difficulties arise. You would have to arrange long before the termination of the lease for such things as the employment of workmen if the old tenant goes out; there would be arrangements with regard to sending in emergency men to prevent any damage taking place at the colliery at the midnight on the day that the term comes to an end; and a great many other circumstances of that kind. And it is inconceivable in my opinion, unless for very good reasons, that the lease will not be renewed, that is to say renewed by the grant of a continuing lease to the existing tenant.
That, I venture to think, is not the trouble at all. The trouble is that there may be disputes about the terms and conditions. The whole Bill is drafted on the view that the Commission are going to be a Commission of skilled people who are going to be fair, and who are going to do their duty to the best of their ability. Unless you assume that, obviously the Bill ought never to be passed at all. But if you assume that, it is not right to take the view that the Coal Commission ought to be saddled in the performance of the principal duty which they have under this Bill, which is to grant leases or to renew leases—in such cases they ought not to be saddled with this position of having, if I may say so, a kind of Old Man of the Sea on their backs. At any rate there is this on their backs all the time, that every case of granting a renewal of a lease is

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going possibly to lead to an action in the High Court, and, it may be, in the Court of Appeal, which may result in very great delay before the terms of the lease are finally accepted.
And I do not know what is going to happen in the meantime. You have got a lease expiring, we will say at the end of the year. Nine months before, you, the tenant, tell the Commission that you want a new lease. The Coal Commission say "Certainly." They send you a draft. The draft is objected to. The terms are not agreed, and the Court is appealed to to decide the question. The case may not come on in Court, I regret to tell you, for nine months. If it does come on in nine months in the High Court of Justice it may then go to the Court of Appeal, and it may take much longer than nine months before you settle the terms of the lease. There is no saying what is going to happen in the meantime. The old tenant may say, "I cannot go on without knowing the terms of my new lease." Or again, the Coal Commission may say, "Well we cannot grant it until you have agreed to our terms." You may say that the rent ought to be halved. That is the sort of trouble that may arise under this Amendment, and in my view this would be a case where it is most inexpedient for this House to agree to the Amendment that is before us.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, as has so often before happened in the debates on this Bill, general principles of equity have been flooded by considerations doubtless of great importance but of relative triviality compared with the great principle. One of the disadvantages of possessing a simple mind is that one sees the objective and does not trouble too much about the thistles which may stand in the way. And here we have definitely a case in point. It so happens that each of the three interests concerned in this industry is equally interested in this particular Amendment. The noble Lords, Lord Gainford and Lord Teynham, have put with great clarity the point of view of the colliery proprietors. I would draw the attention of the House to the fact that under Clause II of this Bill the mineral owner is to receive an apportioned rent for his property; that is to say, he will have his present royalty rent appor-
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tioned as between coal and surface property, and so much of that rent as is apportioned to coal will be capitalised and compensated for—inadequately, as we all believe, but nevertheless it will be purchased, capitalised and compensated for. The amount which he is to receive under the apportionment of Clause II for his surface properties will continue to be paid by his colliery tenant. That in many cases will be a very substantial proportion of the whole. At the moment, when the lease to a colliery company expires, the owner has of course his own interest to serve in continuing that lease if there is still coal to be worked. Under the Bill, he will no longer have any say in the matter at all. The Coal Commission will be in a position to refuse the renewal of a lease to the mineral owner's tenant, and by one stroke of the pen to devaluate the whole of the surface properties without payment of any compensation therefor. That is a very important point.
If there were to be provisions for compensation in respect of surface properties in the event of a refusal to renew a lease, of course there would be nothing more to be said, but there are no such proposals in this Bill, and valuable property—property which continues to be valuable so long as the coal is in lease—is devaluated and ceases to have any value at the behest of the Coal Commission. Therefore, it is very much to the interest of the mineral owner, who will then be the surface owner, to support the view of the colliery proprietor in inserting an Amendment of the character moved by Lord Gainford. Then again, there is the interest of the mine worker. Very clearly that is an exceedingly important interest. Custom and self-interest on the part of the mineral owner to-day give to the mine worker practical security of the continuance of his employment in that particular area. But when you have the Coal Commission actuated, as they must be, by far wider considerations than those that can apply to an individual owner, then the mine worker's position becomes as precarious as does that of the mineral (or, as he will be, surface) owner or the colliery proprietor. All three interests are at the mercy of the Coal Commission who, however wisely they may work and administer their business, yet will be moved by considerations which do not apply to the individual owner.

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The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has given as his opinion that the battle would arise not so much upon the re-issue of a lease as on the terms and conditions of that lease. He will be as well aware as I am that a colliery company proposing to dispute terms before a Court of Law would have, in the first place, to be very satisfied that their case was almost unanswerable, and they would also have to be prepared to incur a very great expense, because they would be disputing the ruling of a great corporation which would be in a position to take that colliery company from Court to Court to the highest Court of Appeal—not a matter which any colliery company would take up lightly. Apart from that, surely the noble and learned Lord would agree that neither the Coal Commission nor any other body, corporate or otherwise, in this country should be immune from the supervision of the Courts of justice. Why should the Coal Commission be set up as a kind of super-authority, having only their own rules to obey and their own considerations to consider?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: No more than the present owner.
LORD HASTINGS: The noble and learned Lord reminds me, and it is perfectly true, that the present owner has the right to refuse renewal of the lease, but the motives which apply to him are not motives that would apply to the Coal Commission, which must approach the whole matter from a much wider viewpoint than any individual owner can possibly approach it. Enough has been said to show that the interests of three sections of this community are here bound together, and whereas no one of the three has reason to suppose that the Coal Commission would in any way be inequitable in the administration of their duties, at the same time the very propriety which may appeal to them may be a propriety which may place the individual coal company, surface owner, and group of mine workers in very grave jeopardy. I beg to support my noble friend Lord Gainford.
THE EARL OF LINDSAY: My Lords, I cannot help feeling that amongst colliery proprietors there will be a feeling of great disappointment that the very moderate Amendment moved by Lord Gainford will not be accepted by the Government. I
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cannot help feeling—and I say so with the greatest respect—that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has assumed a case that may not exist. He has skated lightly over difficulties, and I rather think he has taken for granted that a colliery company might have no opposition at the end of a lease. That does not follow at all, because very likely there might be competition on the part of another company to get control of the lease that had just expired. In that case all the money spent on the making of roads, on ventilation, and so forth will have been wasted by the company that formerly held that lease. Then again, it was said that we must assume that the Coal Commission will be composed of men with reasonable and moderate views, who will not be unreasonable in withholding a renewal; but it must also be assumed that the colliery proprietors and those responsible for the working of the collieries will also be men of reason who will not make unreasonable objections to any conditions that are laid down in the granting of a new lease. I most sincerely hope that the Government will see their way to accept this extremely moderate Amendment.
EARL STANHOPE: My Lords, if I may say just a few words, the noble Lord opposite remarked that the Coal Commission would be moved by considerations which would not apply to the individual owner. I entirely agree with him. That is really why we object to this provision now proposed. In present circumstances the individual owner only looks to his individual interests, and therefore, in order to safeguard a colliery property, there is a right of appeal over the head of the mineral owner to the Railway and Canal Commission. The difference between the individual owner and the Coal Commission is this, that under the Bill the Commission are charged in Clause 2 to consider the national interest. Does the noble Lord imagine for one moment—I am quite certain he cannot—that they would not weigh in that connection such considerations as derelict villages; that if collieries are closed down they would not have, inevitably, to consider the whole question of the housing conditions of the miners; that if you close this pit the men now living in these cottages will no longer live in these cottages, but will have to give them up

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and have to live somewhere, and that someone will have to provide the houses? That at once becomes a national interest, increasing the obligation on local authorities to provide houses elsewhere. Similarly, in regard to schools for the children. Not only have the local authorities to provide schools, but my Department has to come to the Treasury, to the taxpayer, and to Parliament, and say they will pay, at the present moment, 50 per cent. of the cost.
At once the national interest arises, and therefore it does seem to me that it is quite unnecessary to be fearful that the Coal Commission are going to do anything so unwise as to bring a lease to an end unless there are overwhelming reasons for that decision to be taken. There may be occasions where you have a really bad leaseholder of whom you wish to get rid—a man who obeys none of the conditions of his lease. One of your Lordships told me of such a case in the course of these debates. It was the case of a man who under his lease was compelled to leave a pillar of coal for the safety of the building above it, and when the owner investigated the matter he found that that pillar of coal had been taken away. A man of that kind it may be necessary to get out at the earliest possible moment, and certainly at the end of his lease. But certainly I cannot imagine that the Coal Commission, any more than any private owner, are going to get rid of a colliery company and put in somebody else except for good reason. I do not profess to know anything about coal, as your Lordships know, but I do know something about tenancies coming to an end. I know that in every single instance it involves inevitably very largely increased expenditure on the unfortunate owner, and, except in cases where an owner is saddled with a tenant who not only in his own interest but in everybody's interest he has to get rid of, he never attempts to get rid of a tenant either of the surface or of a mine.
To bring the lease of a colliery company to an end is, I am told, far more serious than bringing the lease of a surface tenant to an end, because all the machinery in the colliery belongs to the colliery proprietor, and he can take it out and do apparently a great deal of damage to the mine which can be avoided by giving him a renewal of the lease.
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Why, under those conditions, should the Coal Commission hesitate for a moment to do so? It does seem to me that, charged as they are under the provisions of Clause 2 to consider the national interest, they will have all those considerations and many others that I have not mentioned to your Lordships in mind. Therefore it seems to me quite unnecessary to burden them with the prospect of having to fight cases in the Courts of Law. For those reasons I am afraid that the Government cannot possibly accept the Amendment which has been proposed by my noble friend Lord Gainford as an alternative for the one he had on the Paper before.
LORD GAINFORD: My Lords, there is an Act known as the Mining Facilities Act, 1923, and that Act does give coal owners the opportunity under the existing law, in the event of a colliery lessor not giving satisfactory terms to the lessee, of going to the Railway and Canal Commissioners. If coal is not let which ought to be let in the national interest, again the colliery proprietor can go to the Railway and Canal Commission. Under this Bill we shall not have the right to appeal to anybody except, apparently, under some extravagent process such as that to which the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has alluded. The position should not differ in this case. The Government have proposed and accepted the principle in relation to freehold coal that by the transfer of this coal the freeholders should not be any worse or any better off than they are now, but I submit that if no direction is given to the Commission coal proprietors may be a good deal worse off under the provisions of this Bill than they are now.
It is not that we doubt that in most cases, and indeed in nearly every case, the Coal Commission would be reasonable, but we do say that they are not infallible, and that there may be cases where it may be necessary that they should have the guidance to be reasonable which would be given by the words I suggest in my Amendment. All we are asking as a Mining Association, and as colliery proprietors on behalf of the industry, is that we shall have the opportunity in this Bill of directing the Commission that they shall be reasonable in regard to their attitude towards the renewal of leases. If they have a cogent

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reason why they should not renew the leases they will not, of course, renew the leases, and will take the consequences. I would like to tell the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack that we are not in the habit in connection with the renewal of our leases of ever going to law. We do not want to go to law; it is very expensive; and it delays operations underground. All we want is that the Commission should act reasonably towards us, and if there should ever be Commissioners
Resolved in the negative and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

LORDS AMENDMENT.
Page 15, line 20, after Clause 12, insert the following new clause:
who do not act reasonably—there may be instances in which Commissioners might act unreasonably—we want to have an opportunity of trying to prevent them from doing so. I shall divide the House upon this Amendment.
On Question, Whether the said new Amendment shall be inserted in lieu of the Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 35; Not-Contents, 78.

CONTENTS.

Wellington, D.

Stonehaven, V.

Hastings, L.

Joicey, L.

Abergavenny, M.

Askwith, L.

Leconfield, L.

Crewe, M.

Balfour of Burleigh, L.

Merthyr, L.

Barnard, L.

Middleton, L.

Bathurst, E.

Blythswood, L.

Mowbray, L.

Dartmouth, E.

Cromwell, L.

Phillimore, L.

Grey, E.

Darcy (de Knayth), L.

Redesdale, L.

Iddesleigh, E.

Daryngton, L.

Saltoun, L.

Lindsay, E.

Dunmore, L. (E. Dunmore).

Sandhurst, L.

Fairfax of Cameron, L.

Shute, L. (V. Barrington.)

FitzAlan of Derwent, V.

Gainford, L. [Teller.]

Strickland, L.

Home of Slamannan, V.

Gerard, L.

Teynham, L. [Teller.]

NOT-CONTENTS.

Maugham, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Spencer, E.

Faringdon, L.

Stanhope, E.

Fermanagh, L. (E. Erne.)

Hailsham, V. (L. President.)

Wicklow, E.

Forester, L.

Gage, L. (V. Gage.) [Teller.]

De La Warr, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Bridgeman, V.

Gorell, L.

Buckmaster, V.

Hampton, L.

Argyll, D.

Halifax, V.

Hardinge of Penshurst, L.

Bath, M.

Plumer, V.

Harlech, L.

Camden, M.

Samuel, V.

Heneage, L.

Dufferin and Ava, M.

Trenchard, V.

Hutchison of Montrose, L.

Zetland, M.

Jessel, L.

Addington, L.

Killanin, L.

Airlie, E.

Ailwyn, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Albemarle, E.

Allen of Hurtwood, L.

Marks, L.

Ancaster, E.

Alness, L.

Meston, L.

Birkenhead, E.

Amulree, L.

Monck, L. (V. Monck.)

Bradford, E.

Ashfield, L.

Pender, L.

Carlisle, E.

Ashton of Hyde, L.

Rayleigh, L.

Derby, E.

Bayford, L.

Rennell, L.

Feversham, E.

Camrose, L.

Round way, L.

Fortescue, E.

Carnock, L.

Snell, L.

Iveagh, E.

Catto, L.

Southwood, L.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Cawley, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Midleton, E.

Clanwilliam, L. (E. Clanwilliam.)

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Mount Edgcumbe, E.

Munster, E.

Clwyd, L.

Templemore, L.

Plymouth, E.

De Saumarez, L.

Weir, L.

Rothes, E.

Decies, L.

Wyfold, L.

Sandwich, E.

Elton, L.

On Question, motion "That this House doth not insist upon its Amendment after Clause 12 on page 15, line 20" agreed to.

Provision as to arbitration.
("On and after the valuation date, a clause shall be included in all leases of coal or mines granted by the Commission providing for arbitration in the case of any dispute between the Commission and the lessee in respect of any provision of the lease or any matter arising therefrom.")
The Commons agree to the above Amendment but propose to transfer it to another place in the Bill, namely, after Clause 17.
THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (THE EARL OF MUNSTER): My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree that this Amendment be so transferred. Another place proposed to transfer this clause to a different place simply because it appears amongst the "Transitional Provisions" and it is not in fact a transitional provision.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons that the said Amendment shall be transferred to another place in the Bill, namely, after Clause 17.—(The Earl of Munster.)
LORD GAINFORD: My Lords, we have no objection to the transfer of this Amendment, but I would like to press upon your Lordships' House that the principle of arbitration accepted in this Amendment might have been accepted upon the previous Amendment.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT.
Clause 41, page 41, line 17, at end, insert:
("and for any reference to a receiver of the rents and profits of premises there shall be substituted a reference to a judicial factor.
("(7) Any question which is required in pursuance of this Act to be referred to arbitration shall be referred to a single arbiter agreed on by the parties or appointed in default of agreement by the Sheriff.
(8) In any arbitration in pursuance of this Act, the arbiter may, and, if so directed by the Court of Session, shall, state a case for the opinion of that Court on any question of law arising in the arbitration.")
The Commons propose to amend the above Amendment as follows:
At end of subsection (7) leave out ("Sheriff") and insert ("Lord President, of the Court of Session.")
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, I think that this Amendment proposed by the Commons will probably be agreeable to your Lordships and I therefore move that it be agreed to.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment to the Lords Amendment.—(The Earl of Munster.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT.
First Schedule, page 50, line 8, at end, insert:
("2. At least two of the members of the Commission shall be persons who have had administrative or other practical experience in the coal-mining industry")
The Commons propose to amend the above Amendment as follows:
At end insert ("and one of those two members shall be a person who has been a wage-earner in the coal-mining industry.")
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, this Amendment is practically self-explanatory. The Commons thought it desirable that one of the two individuals mentioned in the Lords Amendment should be a wage earner—in other words, an ex-miner. I accordingly beg to move that the Amendment proposed by the Commons to the Lords Amendment be agreed to.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment to the Lords Amendment.—(The Earl of Munster.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT.
Second Schedule, page 54, line 15, at end insert:
("On granting to any person the right to withdraw support from any land the Commission shall require that person to give adequate security for the payment of any compensation likely to become payable as a result of the exercise of that right.")
The Commons disagree to the above Amendment for the following Reason:
Because the Amendment is unnecessary having regard to the Amendment in page 55, line 3.
EARL STANHOPE: My Lords, this is an Amendment which was moved by the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, I think, on the Committee stage of the Bill. On the Report stage your Lordships accepted a Government Amendment by which the Coal Commission underwrote the cost of damage which occurred owing to subsidence. It would therefore seem unnecessary that security should have to be given by the colliery proprietors in order to show that they are of sufficient substance to make good the damage, in view of the fact that of course eventually, if they are unable to meet it themselves, then the Coal Commission are liable, by the Amendment which your Lordships agreed to at a later stage of the Bill. I think your Lordships would agree that, if we had had a yet further stage of the Coal Bill, this Amendment would have been dropped. It was inserted before we put in the words which your Lordships accepted, and I hope that now you are agreed that we should not insist on this Amendment.
Moved, That this House doth not insist upon the said Amendment.—[Earl Stanhope.]
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, inasmuch as I moved the Amendment which your Lordships accepted, perhaps I ought to explain that when I moved it there was no provision for compensation in the event of the surface owner suffering damage through subsidence except against the lessee and the lessee alone, and it was feared that, in the event of the lessee being unable to meet the claim for compensation, the surface owner would have no remedy whatever. In consequence I moved the Amendment which was carried. The principle of my Amendment was that, instead of the obligation to pay compensation being put upon the Commission, the Commission should insist upon an obligation that the lessee afford adequate security for meeting any claim for compensation that might arise. The reason was that I did not wish to see any extra burden put upon the Commission. However, as the noble Earl pointed out, at a subsequent stage of the proceedings an Amendment was moved putting the whole burden of compensation on the Commission if the lessee were unable to bear that burden. I realised that, when that Amendment was accepted, my Amendment was unnecessary. Accordingly, if I may respectfully say so, the proposal of the other place to delete this Amendment should be accepted.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT.
Third Schedule, page 74, line 45, at end, insert:
("Expenses of Surface Damage Claims.
The Commission shall pay the costs and expenses reasonably incurred by any person after the vesting date in connection with a claim for compensation in respect of damage arising from the working of coal to the land, buildings or other property of such person and to which he may be entitled under the provisions of paragraphs 5 and 6 of the Second Schedule to this Act.")
The Commons disagree to the above Amendment for the following Reason:
Because the Amendment would impose on the Commission liability for costs and expenses in relation to matters over which they have no control.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH moved, That this House doth not insist on its Amendment in the Third Schedule, page 74, line 41, but proposes in lieu thereof the following Amendment:
In the Lords Amendment to page 54, line 11, at the end after "vesting date" insert "and to the payment of the costs
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and expenses reasonably incurred by such person.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the subject-matter of the Amendment which we have now to consider has been before your Lordships on every previous stage of this Bill. I ventured, both in the debate on Second Reading and in the debate on my noble friend's Motion to omit Part I, to say something to your Lordships on this subject, and to point out the injustice which would result if no steps were taken to amend the Bill in this direction. On the Committee stage I moved an Amendment in the same terms as that which now appears upon the Paper and with which another place has disagreed. On the Committee stage that was withdrawn, on the promise of the Government that they would examine the case, which appeared prima facie to require examination, and on their further promise that, if they found the case proved, they would themselves insert an Amendment on the Report stage. Between Committee and Report I had discussions with the Government and their advisers and, to my great disappointment, was unable to prevail upon them to move the Amendment which they had forecast. Accordingly on the Report stage this Amendment was put down again in my name. Your Lordships found the arguments in favour of it convincing and put the Amendment into the Bill. It is true that the Amendment on Report was carried by only a small majority. That was because it was a small House. I venture to say that if the House had been a large House it would have been carried by a correspondingly larger majority.
We have now reached the stage when this Amendment has been considered in another place and has come back to us with this Reason for disagreement:
"Because the Amendment would impose on the Commission liability for costs and expenses in relation to matters over which they have no control."
I do not admit the validity of that objection. At the same time, I appreciate the difficulties of asking your Lordships to insist upon an Amendment in the form in which it was passed by this House and which has not proved acceptable to another place. I have accordingly endeavoured to meet, and have, I hope I shall show your Lordships, sufficiently met, the objections. But it is at the cost

877
of dropping a very substantial part of the Amendment which your Lordships saw fit to approve. I propose therefore to say a few words first on that part of my Amendment on which I am not asking your Lordships to insist; after which I will develop in more detail the Amendment which I am now asking your Lordships to accept.
The Amendment, as your Lordships see, has relation to the cost and expenses incurred in a claim for compensation. That part which I am not asking your Lordships to insist upon has relation to costs and expenses reasonably incurred in the case of a claim in respect of the surface overlying coal in lease at the valuation date. That of course, is by far the most important part of the Amendment. All that is left if we agree to drop that is something so small that I anticipate with some confidence that the Government will be able to accept it. But before leaving the part of the Amendment upon which I am not asking your Lordships to insist, I think it worth while to state once more, and quite briefly, the facts of the case. Your Lordships will remember that the global figure of compensation has been arrived at after deduction of certain factors, among which was a factor of 4.47 for management expenses. The whole issue between the Government and myself is whether that 4.47 does or does not include any expenses in respect of surface management. It is admitted that, if it does, then this deduction is unjust. On the other hand, if, as the Government maintain, it does not, then of course there is no case for this proposal. My case now is based on facts elicited during the debate on the Committee stage.
The noble Earl, Lord Munster, said this:
"If we had, as I said on a previous occasion, been quite certain that we were in the wrong and that the deductions for surface management had been made, then it would have been our duty to put something back in the Bill to meet noble Lords. But I have not the slightest hesitation in my own mind, from the advice given to me by those who attended the meetings between the mineral owners' representatives and the officials of the Treasury and of the Mines Department, that there was no deduction made which was for the expenses of the surface."
Later on the noble Earl admitted that the deduction—this 4.47—was not a figure which was arrived at by a process of
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bargaining and argument but was, in fact, a figure supplied by the Treasury. The 4.47 was the figure given by the Treasury as being the average of expenses in respect of which royalty owners had claimed return of Income Tax on the score of management. That was admitted by the noble Earl opposite in the course of our debate on the Committee stage.
The question, therefore, is: What was the make-up of that 4.47? The noble Earl says that it is obvious it contained nothing in respect of surface damage. His advisers may advise that, but they are not possibly in a position to substantiate their advice, for this reason. They cannot possibly know what is in the claims of the individual royalty owners on this score of management. It was not a figure agreed after consultation, one side saying so much and the other side saying so much, but it was a figure imposed by the Treasury on the ground that it was the Income Tax recovery figure. I am a royalty owner. I have a small amount of coal being worked and for the last twenty years I have signed Income Tax claims in respect of management expenses. I know what is in that claim much better than the advisers of the Government can possibly know. A substantial part of the expenses included in that claim are fees of the mineral agents who come to inspect and who go underground
It is impossible to say what portion of a mineral agents' fees are in respect of surface damage, and what in respect of underground minerals. When coal is being worked at a shallow depth the two matters are completely indistinguishable. For the advisers of His Majesty's Government to say that there is nothing included for surface damage is therefore a rank impossibility. Even if they had examined every individual royalty owner's claim they could not say it, because they would not know what portion of the mineral agent's fees was applicable to surface damage and what to management, except in exceptional cases. I have taken the trouble to make considerable inquiries since the last stage of the Bill, and in every case save one I have had the answer that included in that claim for a return of Income Tax are such expenses as will continue even after the coal has been transferred to the Coal Commission. Your Lordships will see, therefore, that it is

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no longer a matter for argument. Out of the mouth of the noble Earl himself the case is proved, and proved beyond peradventure.
Therefore your Lordships may say: Why not ask the House to insist upon the whole Amendment? There are reasons, I think, for that. In the first place, even if we were to put the whole Amendment in again it is obviously quite impossible for the Government to recommend it to another place. It would be quite impossible for them to do that, in face of the opposition that they have consistently put up to this proposal. Moreover, even if the Government should think that they could bring themselves to recommend it in another place, they could not do so for this reason, that at this stage to admit the claim would be to expose the rottenness of the foundation on which the whole purchase price of £66,000,000 is founded. This question of management expenses was one which had reached the stage of agreement or rather of acceptance; this was a figure imposed upon the negotiators and therefore agreed before the matter got to the Greene Tribunal, and if that figure is wrong, then the whole structure is unsound.
For that reason I recognise that it is of no use even carrying this in a Division, and I think we have now reached a stage when we have got to remember the sort of intentions with which your Lordships started on a review of this Bill. I think it was on the Motion to omit Part I of the Bill that I said I thought it would be difficult for some of us to vote in some of the Divisions, because we were personally interested, and we must be prepared to make sacrifices if these were called for. I think we have reached the stage with regard to these expenses where we have to recognise that. We have made the injustice patent, and I think we have now to leave it to the Government to reconcile it with their own consciences to carry the matter through. It becomes distasteful, particularly when we have a personal interest in the matter, to press the matter further, and therefore I think it is wise not to insist upon the original Amendment.
With reference to the Amendment on the Paper, it is another matter. This Amendment, which I am proposing to substitute, only refers to coal which is not
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in lease on the valuation date. That is a very small matter. Coal which is not in lease on the valuation date is a part of the coal resources of the country which probably will not be worked for many years to come. There is already sufficient coal in lease to produce the existing output for fifty years or more, and therefore the function of the Coal Commission of granting new leases will not be extensive. Therefore it is not an important matter, and does not affect us financially to-day. This Amendment is only giving effect to the principle that where compensation is payable costs should follow the compensation.
I anticipate that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, in replying to me, will say that this is unnecessary because it is inherent in the Bill, and to that I venture to offer two replies. The noble and learned Lord may postulate the case where the surface owner has to take a case to Court, and he may say that if he is successful he will be awarded costs. That will be what the lawyers call party and party costs, and anybody who has had experience of the Law Courts will know that even if successful in litigation you do not recover, in costs, more than a proportion of the expenses that you have reasonably incurred. It is important, therefore, for that reason to put my Amendment into the Bill. There is another reason. I envisage many cases in which a surface owner will not go to Court at all. He will make his claim against the lessee of the Coal Commission, for whom he will have no responsibility. The surface owner will try to come to a settlement, but there is nothing in the world to make us think that the surface owner will be able to recover, in addition to the agreed damages the costs which he has reasonably incurred.
The fact that the Government admitted the principle that the Coal Commission are responsible for damage—and if responsible for damage quite obviously the Commission ought to be responsible for the costs, and they in turn will pass on this liability to the lessee—seems a conclusive argument in favour of the Amendment. It has this additional merit, that it completely meets the objection raised in another place to the effect that the Amendment would impose on the Commission liability for costs and expenses in relation to matters over which

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they have no control. That objection drops because they will have complete control over these matters, seeing that this affects only coal not in lease, therefore coal which will be let by the Coal Commission to a lessee. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth not insist upon its Amendment in the Third Schedule, page 74, line 41, but proposes in lieu thereof the following Amendment:
In the Lords Amendment to page 54, line 11, at the end after ("vesting date") insert ("and to the payment of the costs and expenses reasonably incurred by such person.").—(Lord Balfour of Burleigh.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, as usual, the noble Lord who has just spoken has explained with the very greatest force the reasons he has for putting forward the present Amendment. He began by a statement of the argument in favour of the Amendment to which another place found it impossible to agree, and he asserts, as we have been told on previous occasions, that nothing was included for management expenses as regards surface injury in the figure of 4.43. That matter was considered here, and the Government took what they believed to be the best evidence they could obtain as to whether the noble Lord was right in his assertion in that respect. I do not think it would be right for me to take up the time of your Lordships in further discussing that matter, inasmuch as that original Amendment is not now insisted upon. But I feel bound to say on behalf of the Government that although they quite accept—naturally accept—what the noble Lord has said with regard to his own case, and they would regret it very much if those cases were common, so that in fact there has been very little included in the figure of £4,430,000 on this particular head, yet they are unable to accept the view that the statement previously made by the noble Earl, Lord Munster, was incorrect. That is all I will say on that point.
Now we come to the Amendment which stands in the name of the noble Lord, which requires a slight addition to the words which were originally on page 54, line 11, of the Bill, but which are now, in the more modern version, on page 57 at line 26 or just below. I am only calling your Lordships' attention to that because I want to ask your attention for one moment to the Bill as it would read if the noble Lord's Amendment were
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accepted. Paragraph 6 of Part II of the Second Schedule provides that in the case with which the paragraph deals there shall vest in the Commission a right
"to the extent to which the existing owners of the coal or mine were competent on the valuation date to grant such a right by virtue of their interests in that land, that is to say, a right to withdraw support from that land so far as may be reasonably requisite for the working of any coal, subject to"—
an alternative obligation to which I want to draw your Lordships' attention. It is either

"(a) to pay proper compensation for damage arising from such working to that land; or

(b) with the consent (which shall not be unreasonably withheld) of the person who would otherwise be entitled to claim compensation for that damage, to make good that damage to the reasonable satisfaction of that person and without expense to him."

Then there is a provision with regard to buildings, of which of course we are all in favour.
The position which will arise when this right has been granted will be this, that there will be a tenant of the coal, working the colliery and liable to the extent mentioned in paragraph 6, and a surface owner, who may be one of your Lordships or some other person, who has simply a right to the surface of the land. There may be buildings on it, and he therefore finds himself called upon from time to time to face injury by a subsidence. It is a mistake to suppose that it is the Coal Commission who will be prima facie called upon to pay that damage. I will not deny that there may be a case here and there where the person working the colliery is on the verge of liquidation or insolvency, but, omitting that, it is the colliery owner who is going to be asked to do one of the two things—to pay proper compensation for the damage or, with the consent of the surface owner, to make good the damage to his satisfaction and without expense to him.
Well now, in the first case, supposing compensation is claimed, the ordinary way in which the compensation is assessed is by agreement, and when the compensation is claimed the two people who are concerned—the one who is urging the claim and the other who is cutting it down to the lowest figure, the latter being the person employed by the colliery company—are going to negotiate. There

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will be a question whether it is x pounds or x plus y pounds, and in considering that figure of compensation of course the person who suffers the damage will claim something of his expenses. If it is going to be settled without arbitration, the tenant of the coal will have to pay the reasonable costs which have been incurred in respect of the claim, and if it goes to arbitration the arbitrator will have complete jurisdiction under the Act, the Arbitration Act, to award all proper costs. And I can assure the noble Lord that, as a general rule, in the costs awarded by an arbitrator there is practically no difference between solicitor's and party costs. In any case it is very small. The only difference is that as a general principle in solicitor-and-client's costs you are not entitled to claim anything in the nature of a luxury. You have to prosecute your claim with reasonable economy. That is the position with regard to compensation being claimed.
Supposing the colliery owner—the person, therefore, who is performing the colliery operations—wishes to make good, which in nine cases out of ten would be clearly more economical to him than the paying of compensation, then what happens? He has got to go to the surface owner, cap in hand, and say, "Will you allow me to make good? Your wall has a crack—you have just told me so—let me make it good. I have the staff. I can do it in 48 hours," or something of that kind. Then supposing the surface owner by that time has incurred an expense of £10 or £20 or something of that kind in respect of the employment of a surveyor, all that happens then is that the owner of the colliery is asked to pay that sum. It may very well be the surface owner cannot get agreement. He will then say, "No, I will claim compensation," and the consequence will be that the colliery tenant who is particularly concerned in fighting such a case has got the strongest possible motive for seeing that any reasonable claim for costs, such as is the subject of the present Amendment, shall be paid in order that he shall have the chance of doing what he would prefer—making good instead of having to face a claim for compensation either through an arbitrator or a Court—in either case disastrous to him, for he has got to pay his own costs and the costs of the claimant.
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If that were not a sufficient answer, a further answer to this particular Amendment is to be found in the words which already exist on page 57, line 26, of the Bill in its present form as it came from the other place—that there is to be a making good of the damage "to the reasonable satisfaction of that person"—that is, the surface owner—and without expense to him. I agree that these words are not very precise, and if there had been lots of time to consider them perhaps they might have been put in more precise form; but it seems to me that the arguments which I have respectfully presented to your Lordships, taken in conjunction with the words I have quoted, and the fact that, unless these words are construed in a liberal sense by the colliery tenant who has got to make good, the surface owner will say, "That for your making good; I intend to claim compensation and stick you, if necessary, for costs and expenses, your own as well as mine," are conclusive to show that the present Amendment that stands in the name of the noble Lord has got this objection to it, that it is really unnecessary, and will not help the surface owner to recover the costs which are mentioned in the Amendment. Therefore the Amendment ought not to be accepted.
Moreover, I have to add this. The noble Lord is wrong in thinking that the Commons Reason is inaccurate because the matter of costs and expenses is not a matter over which the Coal Commission have any control. It is still the case that it is the colliery tenant who has got to pay these things—it is not the Coal Commission. In every case where the tenant is solvent he has got to pay whatever expenses and damages are incurred under a successful claim for compensation, or he has got to pay such costs and expenses as will induce the surface owner to consent to a making good. For these reasons, I ask your Lordships not to assent to the Amendment in question.
VISCOUNT HORNE OF SLAMANNAN: My Lords, I should have liked at this late stage of the Bill to be able to express my full concurrence with the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack. We have happened to disagree at different points of our proceedings, and it certainly would have come as a much more agreeable thing to me if I were able enthusiastically

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to give concurrence to what the Lord Chancellor has just said, because we are now approaching the very end of our debates. One thing that strikes me very strongly about the Reason which has been given by another place for disagreeing with the Amendment made by your Lordships is the fact that they do not say it is an inequitable claim on the part of the surface owner. They never suggest that, on merits, the argument of my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh is wrong or can be upset, but they put their case on what is entirely a side issue—that is to say, that these expenses relate to matters which are outside the control of the Commission.
When I looked at it in the first place, and before I knew that my noble friend was going to make any alteration in the form of his Amendment, it would have occurred to me to say that if the claim was a good one, and nobody else was put by the Government in a position of responsibility except the Commission, then the Commission would be the only body which could remedy what was obviously an injustice. Accordingly I should have been prepared to go further than my noble friend and insert the original Amendment. He has thought fit, for reasons which seem good to him, to put forward what is a very much smaller Amendment, to the effect of making the Commission liable only for those costs and expenses which are incurred by the surface owner owing to claims for compensation which he has in the case of new leases, which really reduces the Amendment to something very small indeed.
The Lord Chancellor put forward an argument to the effect that all these costs and expenses reasonably incurred would be met by the award either of the arbitrator or of the Court in a case where a successful claim was made by the surface owner, and that he would be only reasonably entitled to these expenses if his claim was a good one. I had a very long experience of the Courts, and though I would not like for a moment to set my experience against that of the Lord Chancellor, I was repeatedly in cases in the Courts and before arbitrators where the amount of expenses which the successful litigant got at the end of the day was very much less than the amount he had quite reasonably incurred. The taxing master always applies a very strict rule
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in these matters, and I have no doubt it has been the unfortunate experience of every one of your Lordships who has had a case at law that he has very seldom had the good luck to get back in the way of the costs awarded to him anything like the amount he has spent.
Accordingly, I would press upon your Lordships that it is a very reasonable claim that is now being made on the part of the surface owner that the Commission should meet the costs and expenses which he has reasonably incurred in defending his property—costs and expenses which, certainly in a very large number of cases, were included in the amount for Income Tax deduction and which formed the basis of the final deduction made from the global sum to which the royalty owners were entitled. I think this is a very strong case in equity. I think the Government have behaved in a very shabby way throughout in regard to this claim, but now that it has been limited to the very small measure which my noble friend has suggested in his present Amendment there is no reason of propriety or justice upon which the Government can fail to respond to the claim which is being made.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords before the Question is put I imagine I have a right of reply. In the first place, may I say how delighted I was to hear the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack refer to the critical figure as 4.43. I have had the misfortune to fall under the displeasure of the noble Earl, Lord Munster, on two occasions for saying £4,300,000 when I meant £4,430,000. The noble and learned Lord said 4.43 when he meant 4.47.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I apologise to the House.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: I am only too pleased to find myself erring in such good company. There are just two small points that I wish to mention to your Lordships. The noble and learned Lord talked as if these claims between the surface owner and the mineral lessee would go to arbitration.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: To one or the other.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: It makes a good deal of difference. You may get costs from an arbitrator which

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you will not have a chance of getting from a Court, and even from an arbitrator I do not think the successful litigant will get the full costs which he has reasonably incurred. I am quite certain he will not get them from the Court and there is nothing whatever to say that it will be arbitration and not the Court. Then the noble and learned Lord made a great point that in paragraph (b), where it is a question of making good, it has to be done without expense to the surface owner. That postulates that the damage is going to be repaired under the making-good provision. It may well be, and it will be all right, but it may well be that it will not. I do not think it is fair to say that because those words are there the surface owner is not entitled to recover those costs.
Above all, and this is the last point I would wish to press on your Lordships, this responsibility is on the Coal Commission, and it will be on their lessee provided they pass it in the lease, which of course they will. If they pass on those responsibilities in the lease they can at the same time pass on the responsibility for these costs. There is no difficulty or
trouble about it whatsoever. I want just to remind your Lordships that these mineral lessees will not in every case be able or willing to respond with alacrity to claims which will be made upon them, even reasonable claims. That is a point I have ventured to make to your Lordships before. Mineral lessees, I may say with great respect, are not always willing with the greatest alacrity to respond to the claims of the surface owner, still less will they be willing under the new dispensation when the surface owner no longer is the owner of the minerals. They will then be under less obligation still to make good damage which they will be all too inclined to dispute. The case really is one of such strength that it does surprise me that the Government do not see their way to accept it without argument. With one breath the noble and learned Lord says he will not accept it and the next breath he says it is unnecessary. I feel bound to take the sense of the House.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment shall be there inserted?
Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 32; Not-Contents, 92.

CONTENTS.

Wellington, D.

Horne of Slamannan, V.

Leconfield, L.

Balfour of Burleigh, L. [Teller.]

Merthyr, L.

Abergavenny, M.

Middleton, L.

Cornwallis, L.

Mowbray, L.

Bathurst, E.

Cromwell, L.

O'Hagan, L.

Carnwath, E.

Darey (de Knayth), L. [Teller.]

Ormathwaite, L.

Grey, E.

Phillimore, L.

Lindsay, E.

Fairfax of Cameron, L.

Redesdale, L.

Mar and Kellie, E.

Gainford, L.

Saltoun, L.

Wicklow, E.

Gerard, L.

Shute, L. (V. Barrington.)

Hastings, L.

Strickland, L.

Bertie of Thame, V.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Teynham, L.

Wolverton, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Maugham, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Feversham, E.

Halifax, V.

Fortescue, E.

Mersey, V.

Hailsham, V. (L. President.)

Iddesleigh, E.

Plumer, V.

De La Warr, E.. (L. Privy Seal.)

Iveagh, E.

Samuel, V.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Trenchard, V.

Midleton, E.

Ullswater, V.

Bath, M.

Midlothian, E. (E. Rosebery.)

Camden, M.

Mount Edgcumbe, E.

Aberconway, L.

Crewe, M.

Munster, E.

Aberdare, L.

Duflerin and Ava, M.

Plymouth, E.

Abinger, L.

Zetland, M.

Poulett, E.

Addington, L.

Radnor, E.

Ailwyn, L.

Airlie, E.

Rothes, E.

Allen of Hurtwood, L.

Albemarle, E.

Sandwich, E.

Alness, L.

Ancaster, E.

Spencer, E.

Amulree, L.

Birkenhead, E.

Stanhope, E.

Ashton of Hyde, L.

Bradford, E.

Bayford, L.

Carlisle, E.

Bridgeman, V.

Bethell, L.

Denbigh, E.

FitzAlan of Derwent, V.

Blythswood, L.

Derby, E.

Goschen, V.

Cadman, L.

Camrose, L.

Gage, L. (V. Gage.) [Teller.]

Monck, L. (V. Monck.)

Carnock, L.

Gorell, L.

O'Neill, L.

Catto, L.

Hare, L. (E. Listowel.)

Pender, L.

Clanwilliam, L. (E. Clanwilliam.)

Heneage, L.

Rossmore, L.

Hesketh, L.

Roundway, L.

Clwyd, L.

Hutchison of Montrose, L.

Snell, L.

De Saumarez, L.

Jessel, L.

Stanley of Alderley, L. (L. Sheffield.)

Denham, L.

Joicey, L.

Elgin, L. (E. Elgin and Kincardine.)

Killanin, L.

Stanmore, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Elton, L.

Marks, L.

strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Fairhaven, L.

Meston, L.

Fermanagh, L. (E. Erne.)

Mildmay of Flete, L.

Templemore, L.

Forester, L.

Milne, L.

Woodbridge, L.

On Question, Motion, "That this House doth not insist upon its Amendment in the Third Schedule, page 74, line 41," agreed to.

Resolved in the negative and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.
Bill again returned to the Commons.

HIRE-PURCHASE BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
LORD SNELL: My Lords, I beg to ask the noble Earl the Leader of the House if he has any statement to make about future business.
EARL STANHOPE: My Lords, I hope it will not be too much of a shock to your Lordships, after having disposed of the Coal Bill and thinking perhaps that we should now have less to do, if I say that I shall have to ask your Lordships to meet five days next week. On Monday I propose that we should meet at three o'clock, because I understand that many of your Lordships have received commands to attend elsewhere that afternoon. There will be the Committee stage of the Essential Commodities Reserves Bill and the Second Reading of the Anglo-Turkish (Armament Credits) Agreement Bill. I do not think either of those Bills will take very long, and therefore I think if we meet at three o'clock your Lordships will be able to obey commands elsewhere. On Tuesday I propose that we should meet at a quarter past four. I think the business for that day is on the Paper. On Wednesday I propose that we shall meet at a quarter before four, unless the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition thinks that a very large number of people are likely to take part in the debate on his Motion on migration. There
890
is the Committee stage of the Fire Brigades Bill that day, but as far as I know that will not take very long. Therefore, although there are three introductions, I should think there would be enough time to get through the business if we meet at 3.45 p.m. Perhaps the noble Lord knows if there are likely to be many Peers taking part in the debate on his Motion?
LORD SNELL: I have no knowledge that my Motion will arouse great controversy. I should think that it would he more or less an uncontroversial exploration.
EARL STANHOPE: Then I suggest that we should meet at the usual hour, 3.45 p.m. On Thursday we have a meeting of the Offices Committee at three o'clock. There is a good deal of business that day, including the Second Reading of the Finance Bill, and I know that several noble Lords are proposing to take part in that debate, but in view of the fact that there is that meeting of the Offices Committee I am afraid it will not be possible to meet before the usual hour. On Friday I think it will be necessary to have a short sitting in the morning to deal with the Report stage of the Bacon Industry Bill and perhaps the Fire Brigades Bill. Both Bills will have to go back to another place to deal with Amendments which will have been made in them. I think there is nothing further I can say except that on the following Monday, July 25, I think it will be necessary to meet, and I suggest that we should meet at three o'clock. We are likely to have three Second Readings, and there will be the Third Reading stages of several other Bills which should not take very long. We shall also meet on Tuesday and Wednesday in that week. I think that is all the information I can give your Lordships at this moment.
House adjourned at twenty minutes before seven o'clock.