Lords Sitting of 26 July 1938

Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, the LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
The Lord Rothschild—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his kinsman.

TATTON ESTATE BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
BRIGHTON CORPORATION (TRANSPORT) BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.
MIDDLESEX COUNTY COUNCIL (SEWERAGE) BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.
CANTERBURY GAS AND WATER BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.
WORKINGTON CORPORATION BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.
GUILDFORD CORPORATION BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.
LEE CONSERVANCY CATCHMENT BOARD BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.
LONDON PASSENGER TRANSPORT BOARD BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.
GREEN BELT (LONDON AND HOME COUNTIES) BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.
LANCASHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL (RIVERS BOARD AND GENERAL POWERS) BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments: the said Amendments considered and agreed to.
WARRINGTON CORPORATION WATER BILL.
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments: the said Amendments considered and agreed to.
LAND DRAINAGE PROVISIONAL ORDER (LOUTH DRAINAGE DISTRICT) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

ISLE OF MAN (CUSTOMS) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: My Lords, this Money Bill, as your Lordships are aware, is presented to Parliament once a year in order to confirm the Customs Resolutions of the Manx Legislature, and for purposes of a like nature. The Bill is in the usual form and I do not think it is necessary to trouble your Lordships with a speech on it, although I am ready to explain any provision in it should any noble Lord desire me to do so. I beg to move that it be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a. —(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.

YOUNG PERSONS (EMPLOYMENT) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the consideration of Commons Amendments read.
THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (THE EARL OF MUNSTER): My Lords, in moving that the Commons Amendments be now considered perhaps I may be allowed to make a very brief statement of what the Amendments really do. There are no fewer than fifty-four Amendments which have been made in another place, but there is only one point which in any way affects the substance of the Bill. This is in the Amendment in Clause 1, page 1,

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line 14, to leave out "two years" and insert "one year," and the consequential Amendments to that. The effect of these Amendments is to reduce from two years to one year after the commencement of the Act the interval before the 44-hour week for persons under sixteen in shops and in the unregulated occupations to which this Bill applies comes into operation. The Government were strongly urged to bring the 44-hour week for persons under sixteen in the unregulated occupations and in shops into force at the end of 1939 instead of at the end of 1940; and as there will be an interval of five months before this Bill comes into operation it is considered that the employers concerned will have sufficient time to make the necessary alterations and adjustments if the 44-hour week for their youngest employees comes into operation one year instead of two years after the commencement of the Act. This will give them a total of seventeen months from now in which to make their arrangements. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Commons Amendments be now considered.—(The Earl of Munster.)
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I understand that the only Amendment of substance is the one that the noble Earl has just explained to your Lordships, and that the others are drafting. I have been a member of your Lordships' House for a very short time only, but it has been borne in upon me lately that the other Chamber is a revising Chamber just as much as this one. Here your Lordships have a House of Lords Bill, which has passed before the eagle eye of the noble Viscount, Lord Bertie of Thame, the whole force of the Government draftsmen, and all the talent of the Government Front Bench; it has gone to another place, and has come from that revising Chamber containing over fifty Amendments. These are mostly of a drafting nature, I agree, but this is not the only example I could cite in recent weeks of Bills that have come from your Lordships' House having been very largely redrafted in another place. I have ventured to draw the attention of the Government to this matter before. It is either because they have brought in such a spate of small legislative measures that the draftsmen are over-worked, or else the Drafting Department
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is not strong enough and needs strengthening. I venture to make that observation in the hope that the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, may perhaps be pleased to look into the matter and make representations in the proper quarters.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, the reason for the greater number of these drafting Amendments is, as your Lordships will remember, that during the Second Reading debate on this Bill there appeared an expression in the Bill, a "designated young person," and the noble Earl, Lord Radnor, said he thought that expression was a most inharmonious expression and asked your Lordships to remove it. That was done, but the other portions of the Bill were not amended to meet the alteration in the wording. This merely alters the Bill to suit the removal of the "designated young person."
LORD STRABOLGI: If I might, by leave of the House, remark upon that statement by the noble Earl: there are a number of stages in which these things may be done here. I am appealing to the pride of your Lordships in this House's efficiency, and in sending down what I should have hoped was perfect legislation as regards its drafting, however imperfect the policy behind it.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD MAUGHANI): My Lords, if I might be allowed to make only one observation in defence of the draftsmen, it is this. Look at the first Amendment of all: line 8, after "whom" insert "this Part of." The other place thought right to put in "this Part of" there, and if you will look down two or three pages, you will find that all these other Amendments are consequent upon those words being inserted. Therefore, although the Amendments look very serious, over twenty of them are consequential on that very slight alteration. That may explain to some extent the number of these Amendments, and exonerate the persons who are responsible for the drafting of this Bill.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENT.
[The references are to Bill No. 212.]
Clause 1, page 1, line 8, after ("whom") insert ("this Part of").
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment, and I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Earl of Munster.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENT.
Page 1, line 14, leave out ("two years") and insert ("one year").
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment. Your Lordships recollect that I just now explained the purport of this Amendment, and I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Earl of Munster.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am going to suggest to the House that it might be convenient if a number of these Amendments were taken together in a batch.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS.
Page 2, line 10, after ("whom") insert ("this Part of")
Page 2, line 17, after ("whom") insert ("this Part of")
Page 2, line 27, after ("whom") insert ("this Part of")
Page 2, line 29, after ("whom") insert ("this Part of")
Page 2, line 35, after ("whom") insert ("this Part of")
Page 3, line 1, alter ("whom") insert ("this Part of")
Page 3, line 10, after ("whom") insert (" this Part of ")
Clause 2, page 3, line 33, after ("whom") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 2, page 3, line 40, after ("whom") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 2, page 4, line 3, after ("of") insert ("this Part of").
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in these Amendments. All the remaining Amendments on the first page of this list are drafting and I think it would be for the convenience of your Lordships that they should be moved en bloc.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(The Earl of Munster.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS.
Page 4, line 30, leave out ("second") and insert ("first")
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Transfer Clauses 3 to 5 of the Bill to line 28 on page 12 (after Clause 13) as Part II of the Bill.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in these two Amendments, which are drafting and consequential upon earlier Amendments which your Lordships have approved.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.— (The Earl of Munster.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS.
Clause 2, page 3, line 24, after ("of") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 2, page 3, line 32, after ("whom") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 2, page 3, line 41, after the second ("of") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 2, Page 6, line 6, after the third ("of") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 2, page 6, line 17, after the third ("of") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 7, page 6, line 31, after ("of") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 7, page 6, line 34, after ("of") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 7, page 6, line 37, after ("whom") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 8, page 6, line 42, after ("of") insert ("this Part of")
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, all these Amendments are of a drafting nature and I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(The Earl of Munster.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENT.
Page 7, line 2, after ("Registrar-General") insert ("and on payment of a fee of sixpence")
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, this Amendment is a Privilege one and I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Earl of Munster.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENT.
Clause 9, page 7, line 11, after ("of") insert ("this Part of")
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment and I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Earl of Munster.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENT.
Page 7, line 20, at end insert—
("(2) The expenses under this Part of this Act of the Common Council of the City of London shall be defrayed out of the genera] rate.
(3) The expenses under this Part of this Act of the council of a county shall be defrayed as expenses for special county purposes.")
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, this is a Privilege Amendment and I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Earl of Munster.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS.
Clause 10, page 7, line 28, after ("section") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 10, Page 8, line 23, after ("subsection") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 10, Page 8, line 31, leave out from the beginning to ("nothing") in line 32
Clause 10, Page 8, line 32, after ("in") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 10, Page 8, line 39, after ("whom") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 11, page 9, line 9, after ("of") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 11, page 9, line 11 after ("of") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 11, page 9, line 18, after ("of") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 11, page 9, line 24, after the third ("of") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 12, page 10, line 7, after ("In") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 12, page 10, leave out lines 29 and 30.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, all these Amendments are drafting Amendments and I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(The Earl of Munster.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS.
Clause 12, page 11, line 4, after ("of") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 12, page 11, line 7, after ("of") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 12, page 11, line 11, after ("of") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 12, page 11, line 54, after ("whom") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 12, page 11, line 22, after ("in") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 12, page 11, line 26, after ("under") insert ("this Part of")
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, these Amendments are also drafting and I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(The Earl of Munster.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS.
Clause 13, page 11, line 29, after the second ("of") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 13, page 11, line 31, after ("of") insert ("this Part of").
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, both these Amendments are drafting and I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(The Earl of Munster.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENT.
Page 11 line 33, after ("burgh") insert ("and any expenses incurred by a county or a town council shall be defrayed in like manner as expenditure for the purposes of the Public Health (Scotland) Act, 1897").
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, this is a Privilege Amendment and I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Earl of Munster.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS.
Page 12, line 10 after ("of") insert ("this Part of")
Page 12, line 15, after ("under") insert ("this Part of")
Page 12, line 21, after ("against") insert ("this Part of")
Page 12, line 23, after ("against") insert ("this Part of")
Clause 14, page 12, line 31, at the beginning, insert ("In this Act the expression 'the Shops Acts' means")
Clause 14, page 12, line 31, leave out ("Sections three to five,") and insert "those Acts and Part 11")
Clause 14, page 12, line 34, leave out from ("operation") to the end of line 35, and insert ("on the first day of January, nineteen hundred and thirty-nine").
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, the remaining Amendments are all drafting Amendments and I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(The Earl of Munster.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

RATING AND VALUATION (AIR-RAID WORKS) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.
RATING AND VALUATION (AIR-RAID WORKS) (SCOTLAND) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.

SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE (AMENDMENT) (No. 2) BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, with your Lordships' permission I may be allowed, before moving the usual Resolution to go into Committee, to make two observations about this Bill which I regret to say escaped my recollection yesterday, when moving the Second Reading. The first is that this Bill is, of course, of considerable importance from a legal point of view, and I ought to have observed to your Lordships that the original scheme of it, and the contents of it, are due to my predecessor in the office of Lord Chancellor. I should like the credit to go where it is deserved and not on this occasion, at all events, to me.
The other remark which I wish to make to your Lordships, and which I ought to have mentioned yesterday but which again slipped my mind at the moment, is that in Clause 3 of the Bill there is contained
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a provision of some importance, inserting in a section of the principal Act a paragraph to the effect that
"if after the occurrence at any time of a vacancy among the puisne Judges attached to the Chancery Division the number of those Judges amounts to five, the vacancy shall not be filled unless and until the Lord Chancellor, with the concurrence of the Treasury, advises His Majesty that the state of business in that Division requires that the vacancy should be filled."
I ought certainly to have mentioned that to the House, because it is a matter of some importance to the Chancery Division. There is at the moment a diminution of work in the Chancery Division. That may not last a very long period, and I think there are reasons for supposing that in a very short time there will be an increase of work in that Division, when it will be necessary to fill up the vacancy again. But at the moment it is thought that if there is a vacancy in the number of puisne Judges in the Chancery Division it will not be necessary to fill it. I express my regret that for the moment that slipped my mind. I beg to move.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to: House in Committee accordingly: Bill reported without amendment.

NAVAL DISCIPLINE (AMENDMENT) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
HOLIDAYS WITH PAY BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS.
LORD DAVIES LORD DAVIES had the following Notice on the Paper: To ask His Majesty's Government to issue as a White Paper an explanatory statement relating to the defensive agreement recently concluded between His Britannic Majesty and the Government of the French Republic; and to move to resolve, That His Majesty's Government be urged to do its utmost to secure the extension of the agreement so as to bring within its

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scope all those nations who are prepared to pool their military resources in a collective force for their common defence and to undertake to secure the settlement of such disputes as may arise between them by recourse to impartial third-party judgment.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion which stands in my name, and in doing so I think I need not offer any apology, because I do not believe that this matter has yet been debated in your Lordships' House. I feel sure that your Lordships will agree that a matter of this importance—the Anglo-French agreement made last April—deserves at any rate the consideration of your Lordships. During the past few days there has been a great demonstration of friendship between the two nations. I am sure your Lordships will rejoice at the enthusiasm which has attended the visit of their Majesties to France, and has thus cemented the bond of friendship which unites the two great democracies of Europe. Before I deal with the Motion on the Paper, may I very briefly allude to Anglo-French relations since the War? During the last twenty years we have witnessed many changes in those relations. Your Lordships will remember that at the conclusion of the War an effort was made to conclude a defensive alliance between France, the United States and Great Britain, which would guarantee the eastern frontier of France against invasion in the future. Your Lordships will also remember that that treaty was not ratified by the United States Congress, and that afterwards the Government of this country also refused to ratify it; and that of course produced at the time a feeling of great disappointment in France.
After that came a period of very strained relations between the two countries following upon the occupation of the Ruhr which, I think your Lordships will agree, was most unpopular in this country. Then came a new phase which culminated in the Geneva Protocol of 1924, when the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary of this country collaborated with M. Herriot and others in drafting the Protocol which was passed by the Assembly at Geneva. Unfortunately that Protocol died a premature death, and the Treaty of Locarno was substituted for it. I venture
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to suggest that Locarno was not a real substitute for the 1924 Protocol which, if it had been ratified, would have brought about a great development not only in the structure but in the machinery of the League. The next phase was that which was associated with the Disarmament Conference, which lasted a very long time. At that Conference the French Government on two occasions submitted plans for the constitution of an International Police Force under the auspices and under the control of the League. Both those plans were unfortunately rejected by the Government of this country, and were not proceeded with. I cannot help feeling that as a result of that unfortunate occurrence the people of France, and especially French Ministers, began to wonder whether we really intended to carry out our obligations under Article 16 of the Covenant. They remembered, naturally, the fate of the proposed treaty of alliance at the conclusion of the War, and when they also realised that this country had launched upon a policy of unilateral disarmament they, I think quite naturally, looked to other quarters and endeavoured to secure a policy of reinsurance. With that object in view they made arrangements, or tentative arrangements, with Rome and with Moscow which had a very disastrous effect on French policy at a later date.
With that we come to the Abyssinian crisis, and the partial—only the partial—application of Article 16. I believe that the main reason why Article 16 was only partially enforced was the commitments which M. Laval had made in Rome. As a result, instead of France and this country being solidly in support of the provisions of Article 16, the French Government reversed their traditional policy of sanctions, departed from the proposals which they had put up to the Disarmament Conference, and were mainly responsible for the failure of the policy which we and other countries advocated of putting Article 16 into operation, not only as regards certain economic and financial measures, but in its entirety. After all the vicissitudes which I have mentioned, to-day it seems to me that we find ourselves back in the position in which we were in 1914. After having gone through all these changes and having tried all these experiments, we are once again in the position of having

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to conclude what is, in effect, a defensive alliance with France—a policy which we absolutely refused to entertain during the whole of this period.
Had we supported the moral authority of the League and developed Articles 16 and 19, to-day we might have had twenty, thirty, or forty nations solidly behind the system of collective security. Instead of pinning our faith to the League, we unfortunately missed all these opportunities, and now, whether we like it or not, we are compelled to enter into this new agreement with our French neighbours. What is this agreement? We had a statement on April 29 from the Government but that statement, unfortunately, did not tell us very much about this agreement. That has been followed by statements appearing in the Press. As to how much credence we are to attach to these statements, none of us knows. Therefore I should like to appeal, if I may, to the Government to give us an explanatory statement, in the form possibly of a White Paper, in order that the country and your Lordships' House may be made aware of the terms and the general principles upon which this agreement is based.
If I may just refer to one or two of the statements which have appeared in the Press, here is one from The Times, in which it says:
"It was agreed that there should be immediate purchases of armaments and raw materials with a certain amount of pooling of financial resources It was recognised that these measures have given practical definition to the post-Locarno undertakings, particularly in the air. The details of the co-operation and of the purchases are to be worked out by 'the competent experts'—that is, by officers of the two General Staffs.
"A further measure of joint defence would ensure the co-operation of both Air Forces under the command of a British officer, and the co-operation of the Armies under a French officer."
Another statement appeared in the News Chronicle, which says:
"But it appears that the British will pay special attention to the building of heavy bombers and the French to that of pursuit 'planes. Also, there will be far more interchanges of British and French officers so as to spread knowledge of each other's methods."
Then from the New York Times we get this:
"The principle of a unified command, which took three and a half years to be accepted in the stress of the last World War, will be brought into instant operation in the
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next. A French General will command the combined Army of the two countries, a British Admiral will direct the allied Navies, and a British air officer will have charge of the combined Air Forces from the time an attack on either country is launched."
As I have already pointed out to your Lordships, we do not know how far these statements which have appeared in the Press are really true, and I suggest to the Government that they might dispel doubts and clarify the whole position if they gave us some more information as to the nature of this agreement. I do not wish to suggest for a moment that they should impart to the public—or to anybody else—facts or information which might be detrimental to the public interest, but I do feel—and your Lordships probably feel too—that more information should be vouchsafed to us than we have hitherto received. What are our commitments under this agreement? I suggest that it would be very disastrous if we are to be left in a position resembling the one in which we found ourselves in 1914. We do not want, surely, to have a repetition of what happened then as regards our precise commitments—whether, for instance, the fact that the military staffs of both countries are working together really means that we are committed in advance to certain military operations.
I also suggest in this connection that there is nothing worse from the public point of view than a feeling of uncertainty, and that it would be far better for us to depart from what in the past has sometimes been described as the traditional policy of this country—sitting on the fence. Let us make known to our own people and to the world precisely where we stand so that, when the day of crisis comes, there may be no misunderstandings or misapprehensions, and so that the course of this country will be quite clear.
The next point to which I would like to draw your Lordships' attention is this. It is said, and has been often said in the past, that it is quite impossible for two sovereign nations to pool their military, their financial, and their economic resources in such a way as to provide for their mutual defence. The technical difficulties, we are told, are so enormous that it is impossible to do so. The technical difficulties for instance of a united command, of munitions, and of finance are supposed to be so immense and so

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insuperable that it is quite impossible to bring about any defensive arrangement in advance of a crisis. If one may believe statements that have been made in the newspapers those difficulties are not insuperable. The fact is they have been surmounted in the case, for instance, of the command of military forces. We know that during the War we were able to secure close co-operation between all the Allied and Associated Powers, and, though it took three and a half years to bring it about, to see the appointment of Marshal Foch as Generalissimo. When that is pointed out people say: "Yes, it is quite possible to do that under the stress and strain of war, but it is quite impossible to do it in peace time." If what the newspapers suggest is correct, then I submit it is possible even in time of peace to organise defensive arrangements and to constitute some kind of international peace.
If that is possible for two sovereign countries, why not for three or four or any number who are willing to pool their resources and join in a scheme of this kind? Why is it not possible for Members of the League to join in an arrangement of this kind? I want to suggest to your Lordships this afternoon that the scope of the Anglo-French agreement should be extended, and that we should invite other law-abiding countries, and other countries who are also menaced, to join in constituting a collective force in order to deter any other country from engaging in war. I know it is often said that the small nations are really of very little account, that their military and other resources are so slender that they should not be brought into the picture at all. As a matter of fact that is not so. The twenty-two European small nations, for contributions towards the maintenance of the League, were assessed at 301 units, while the four great Powers, Germany, France, Italy and ourselves were assessed at 337 units, so that your Lordships will observe that so far as potential resources go in men, in wealth and so on, the four great Powers are only just a little ahead of the twenty-two small Powers in Europe.
It will be asked: "But what about their military resources?" I believe that during the past few years all the small nations in Europe have joined in the rearmament race, and they have already spent a considerable
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amount of money in increasing their military forces. From 1932 to 1937 their expenditure increased by 43·9 per cent., and so far as one arm is concerned, the air arm, the number of aeroplanes under the control of fifteen European countries amounts to somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 fighting aircraft. The point I wish to make is that we cannot regard the resources of the smaller nations as negligible. In fact those nations constitute at this moment the balance of power in Europe. A great deal depends on how they throw their resources into the scale and whether they are willing to do so before and not after a crisis arises in order to increase the deterrent effect and to endeavour to prevent war from breaking out at all. We remember that during the Great War many of these small Powers were dragged in on one side or the other. We did our best to get as many of them as possible to come in on our side, and the Central Powers did the same. Those who were not dragged in remained in a state of neutrality, and they had to undergo very great hardships in consequence of the War. Therefore, it would appear that the best policy for these twenty-two smaller nations is to make up their minds now and not wait till the crisis comes; to try and act in unison in order to assist in preventing another war from breaking out.
In this connection perhaps your Lordships will allow me to quote from a speech which Mr. Churchill made a short time ago in Manchester and in which he dealt with this particular point. This is what he said:
"Britain and France are now united. Together they are an enormous force, which few countries would dare to challenge. I should like to see these two countries go to all the smaller States that are menaced, and say to them bluntly: 'We are not going to help you if you are not going to help yourselves. What are you going to do about it? What are you going to contribute? Are you prepared to take special service in defence of the Covenant? If you are willing to do so and prove it by actions as well as words, then we will join together in active military association with you.'"
The first thing I venture to suggest to the Government is that they should try to enlarge the scope of this agreement with France so as to include as many of the small countries as are willing to join in a defensive agreement of this kind.
But I do not suggest that we should stop merely at a defensive alliance. What

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I think your Lordships desire, and what I think the vast majority of the people in this country desire, is to see the rule of law established in Europe. We want to see a new system, one which is not exclusive as a military alliance is exclusive, but one which is open to every country to join. Then it is quite clear that any country which does join in an attempt to establish the rule of law must be willing to do two things. First of all, it must be willing to submit itself to a procedure for the peaceful settlement of all disputes which cannot be settled by negotiation and conciliation and through the existing machinery of the League. It must also be willing to pool its resources and to join in setting up some definite organisation which will enable it to uphold the rule of law. Surely these two things are vital, because in the first place unless we have a watertight procedure for the settlement of disputes it is impossible to brand the aggressor. Obviously the system is not directed against any country or any group of countries. It is only directed against the aggressor and in order to make sure who the aggressor really is we must have some body, some tribunal, some procedure which can settle all disputes. It is quite clear also that any country which ignores that procedure and resorts to war and attacks its neighbour is the aggressor. That is the simple test which is applied in our own country in our own Common Law, and I venture to suggest that it is also the test which should be applied to nations.
Therefore it means that Article 19 should be supplemented, should be extended and should be implemented. Some of us suggest for want of something better an Equity Tribunal, which is the hall mark, or one of the hall marks, of the new system. Would it not be possible—I venture to make this suggestion in all sincerity to the Government—to include in the Anglo-French agreement the setting up of some tribunal of this kind, or of some peaceful procedure so that any dispute which might arise between us and France in the future would be automatically sent to such tribunal if we could not settle it by negotiation round the table? Probably many of us are old enough to remember the Fashoda incident which very nearly landed us in a war with France. Things have changed vastly since those days, but I cannot help feeling that at this
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moment, when there is this wonderful feeling of friendship with our neighbour across the Channel, we should supplement this Anglo-French agreement by substituting some definite procedure and setting up if necessary the actual tribunal for the settlement of disputes. If we do that, then France and ourselves become the pioneers of what I have tried to describe as the rule of law. We can then with all confidence invite all countries to participate in the extension of this agreement.
I should not despair that ultimately—not at the moment—Germany and Italy might be willing to participate in such a system. Once a tribunal has been established there is the appropriate machinery for remedying the grievances under which we understand Germany thinks she is suffering. I think we might also anticipate that a number of what I have tried to describe as the smaller Powers would come in at the outset. Many of them of course are very sore and many are very suspicious after all the events which have happened at Geneva during the last two years, but even at the outset I believe a number of these smaller countries might be willing to come into an arrangement of that kind, although they would be very chary of coming into any defensive alliance. After all, there were fifty-eight nations at Geneva which joined in the imposition of sanctions and five Mediterranean countries, when a questionnaire was sent out asking whether they would come to the assistance of this country if it were attacked, answered in the affirmative.
LORD STRABOLGI: Including Spain.
LORD DAVIES: Five answered in the affirmative at that time. Therefore, I imagine, there are some—I do not suggest all at the moment—of the smaller nations in Europe who might be willing to join in an agreement of that kind if it were established on the basis of the rule of law. What are the alternatives? May I suggest to your Lordships that really we are living internationally in a complete state of anarchy. Each country in fact is a law unto itself. We cannot emancipate ourselves from that anarchical state until we have in some way brought the armaments race to an end. So long as the armaments race continues we are always in danger of being precipitated into war. Rearmament, I suggest, is no remedy of itself. I have supported, as I

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imagine most of your Lordships have supported, the policy of rearmament. I always felt that unilateral disarmament was a complete failure and would never give us any security. And I do not think we can place any great reliance upon defensive alliances. I grant that they are better than nothing, but defensive alliances did not prevent us from being hurled into war in 1914 and I do not believe they will do so in the future.
I gather that in some quarters it is suggested that there should be a Four-Power Pact. That reminds me of the Holy Alliance and of Castlereagh's Quadruple Alliance after the Napoleonic Wars. I imagine that a Four-Power Pact would really not help us very much. It would probably be directed towards plundering the smaller countries of the world, and that reminds me of a quotation from William Penn, who, when he was discoursing on this theme two or three hundred years ago, said the national sovereignties
"are as they were, for none of them now have any sovereignty over one another "—
we have proposed a United States of Europe—
"and if this be called a lessening of their power, it must be only because the great fish can no longer eat up the little ones, and that each sovereignty is equally defended from injuries, and disabled from committing them."
That, surely, is what we all desire to do, and I cannot help feeling that to suggest that a Four-Power Pact is going to be a substitute for the League of Nations is an entirely wrong policy and one that can only lead in the end straight to war.
After all, your Lordships will remember that at the last Election the Government were returned to office because they had assured the people of this country that they stood solidly behind the Covenant. At Geneva Sir Samuel Hoare, who was then our Foreign Secretary, said: "We have stood behind the Covenant in its entirety." That was the slogan that the Conservative Party launched at the last Election. I appeal to those of your Lordships who represent the Government in this matter that they should be true to their principles and not go back on the mandate which they received from the people of this country. We should endeavour, instead of concluding bilateral agreements and departing from the principle of the Covenant, to
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go back to the League and endeavour to carry out our responsibilities and obligations under it.
I am sorry that I have detained your Lordships much longer than I had intended, and therefore I must bring my remarks to a close. But before I sit down, may I venture to remind your Lordships that, after all, the great problem which we have to face, and which every country in Europe has to face, at this moment is whether we are going to try to develop the principle of federalism—because, after all, the League is an experiment in federalism—and whether we are going to endeavour to promote a policy which has been reiterated by every Foreign Minister and every Prime Minister since the War? What was that policy? That the League was the keystone of our foreign policy. I have always understood that we endeavoured in this country to maintain a continuity in our foreign policy. I venture to suggest that the continuity at which we ought to aim is that we should make the League, not only in our speeches but also in our acts and in our policy, the great objective, without which we cannot expect to have peace in Europe. If we do that, I believe that we shall have the moral support of the people of the United States, which in the day of trouble would be very valuable for us. We should also probably receive the benevolent neutrality, if not the armed assistance, of the Russian Republic. Therefore I would once more plead with the Government that we should endeavour so to develop that agreement which they have concluded with our friends and neighbours that it may become a steppingstone to the re-establishment of the prestige and authority of the League of Nations. I beg to move.
Moved to resolve, That His Majesty's Government be urged to do its utmost to secure the extension of the defensive agreement recently concluded between Hi-Britannic Majesty and the Government of the French Republic, so as to bring within its scope all those nations who are prepared to pool their military resources in a collective force for their common defence, and to undertake to secure the settlement of such disputes as may arise between them by recourse to impartial third-party judgment.—(Lord Davies.)
LORD NOEL-BUXTON: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Davies has introduced a Motion which comes at a very appro-

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priate moment, when there are urgent problems for which his policy should provide. No doubt he would welcome a little discussion on the application of his plans to an urgent problem. I think the public will see in his proposal a policy for the extremely urgent question at the moment, the Czechoslovak question. His Motion raises that question in another way than by its general policy. It deals with our agreement with France, and the importance to us of that agreement with France arises specially from the French alliance with Czechoslovakia. It seems to me relevant and important to test the policy by its application to a practical case. How does the plan meet the urgent case that is in all our minds? It is a policy of collective defence and of third-party settlement, and that is the principle of the Covenant to which we all adhere. It is unquestionably sound, if the case is a clear enough case to which it can be applied.
But I would suggest that my noble friend's policy requires qualification, because there are peculiar cases in which something further is required, and we are, I think, in the presence of such a case. My noble friend advances an Equity Tribunal, but no such court is in existence to meet the needs of the hour, and an ad hoc court would have to be founded. Again, his policy is one of utilising the machinery of the League. Unfortunately, League procedure is rejected by one State closely concerned with the problem of the moment. Germany has no confidence in any machinery of the League. That is a great disaster, but events have made it inevitable. The League has been used partially, as a tool of the Allies, on many occasions, in such a way that we cannot contemplate the reference to the League, which is provided under the Covenant already without any such new machinery as my noble friend suggests. It is not available, definitely, at the moment.
There is another peculiar feature which I think would require further machinery. The Czechoslovak question is an extremely delicate one. It is not a legal dispute. Germany is not claiming under the Minority Treaties; that would be a proper case for legal decision. Nor is she asking for any revision of frontiers; that would arise under Article 19. Ill-feeling has arisen from an internal question of the Czechoslovak State, and legally that is entirely a matter for the sovereignty of
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Czechoslovakia. But equitably the Sudeten Germans deserve redress, and on political grounds peace is endangered by the situation. That again is not a case for a court of equity. Therefore the case is not met in this particular instance by Lord Davies's proposal.
There is another reason why I would urge that something else is required. The case we are thinking of is one of extreme urgency. Mediation under an equity system might take months, and it would be very dangerous to emuloy a prolonged procedure. Unpremeditated incidents might produce violence. Indeed we are in constant danger of such an incident from day to day, and it would be monstrous to allow events to drift into war when conditions are there which make a settlement possible. For instance, Germany is not asking for an Anschluss or for a plebiscite. Czechoslovakia is not denying that great changes are needed. Neither side wants war, and Germany knows that England and France are firmly opposed to violence. All the time delay is very dangerous, and therefore I welcome the news that we have to-day, that His Majesty's Government are taking action, as we understand, in the way of sending Lord Runciman to act as special adviser to the Czechoslovak Government. It seems to me better than third-party treatment of the question. The policy that we suppose lies behind Lord Runciman's visit commends itself very much to me. If such a policy should fail, then still I do not think that third-party treatment would be the most appropriate. I think that diplomatic negotiation would be the next desirable step—negotiations between ourselves and France, and also Germany. An equity court might be brought in in the final resort, but it is better, surely, if the case never comes into court.
The policy associated with Lord Runciman's visit—perhaps one might call it a policy of direct assistance—is the better way of avoiding war, but if we are to have war at all there are two particular facts that I would bring to your Lordships'attention. A large part of the public has not reflected on them. The first is that if such a catastrophe occurred the British public could not be given any clear moral appeal for support and intervention. The defence of Belgium was a straightforward and simple call of honour, which the public perfectly under-

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stood, but if Czechoslovakia had refused adequate autonomy, and war followed, opinion in this country would certainly be divided as to where the blame for aggression lay. The Dean of St. Paul's voiced a very large section of public opinion the other day when, in a letter to The Times, he said that we have fought one war for the cause of self-determination, and he could not understand that we might be called upon to fight another to prevent it. That is a fact which would arise.
Another point, which I had not thought of, was brought to my notice by an old diplomatist. It is this: if we won such a war, after the ruin of half the world, what sort of settlement should we make? We should have the power to restore Czechoslovakia to her present state. If we restored it we should create a position such as exists at present, from which another war would follow. If we decided not to restore it, but made such a settlement as most people wish we had made in 1919, not involving a race of disaffected people within the frontiers of that State, but giving an autonomous system to those people, we should be doing exactly what we had fought the war to prevent. If such an insane war were to occur it is we and the French and other nations who would have to pay the piper. I suggest that in this case, without waiting for the third-party treatment which the noble Lord desires, the principle to follow is that it is we who should call the tune.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH): My Lords, as the Leader of the House explained yesterday evening, my noble friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has been in correspondence with the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and has reached an understanding with him under which it was agreed that my noble friend should reply to Lord Davies's speech during the course of a comprehensive statement that he hopes to make tomorrow on the general situation in foreign affairs on the Motion of the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition. By that time he will have had the opportunity of studying the observations of the noble Lord, and those of Lord Noel-Buxton. In those circumstances I
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shall refrain from saying anything with regard to the subject matter that has been discussed this afternoon. I hope that that arrangement will he agreeable to your Lordships, and that consequently my noble friend opposite will be prepared to withdraw his Resolution.
LORD DAVIES: My Lords, I beg to thank the noble Earl for his remarks, and I ask leave to withdraw my Motion, in view of the discussion which is to take place to-morrow.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

QUACK MEDICINE TRADE.
LORD HORDER LORD HORDER rose to call attention to the enormous growth in the quack medicine trade, and to the incongruity of exercising no control over the deleterious effects of such trade upon health at a time when a serious effort is being made to improve national fitness; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I make no apology for asking your consideration of a subject which may seem to be of very much less importance than the one which has just engaged your Lordships' House. It may be thought that my topic is rather a hardy annual, but I assure your Lordships that the question of quack medicines in relation to the health of the public is not really so much a hardy annual as, in my judgment, a pernicious growth.
I would like at the outset to state that when I suggested dealing with this subject the first objection raised by my friends was that I should have vested interests heavily against me—the vested interests, that is to say, of newspapers and their proprietors, the large Press agencies, and those who own hoardings and posters, for it is becoming more and more obvious that the head and front of the offence in the matter of quack medicines is not the medicine but the advertisement, so often grossly misleading if not actually fraudulent. I want to deal with this question of opposition at once. I want to tell your Lordships that so far from their offering any signs of opposition I have received both help and encouragement from the reputable members of those groups that I have mentioned. For very decency's sake and a sense of duty these people are themselves taking steps to exercise a degree of control and censorship which in

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other countries responsible authorities impose. I have received assurances on this matter from the Proprietary Association of Great Britain, the Newspaper Society, the Advertising Association, the Periodical Proprietors' Association, and the Institute of Incorporated Practitioners in Advertising.
The second point I want to make at the outset is this. Seeking again for advice from all authorities in any way connected with this subject, of course I was warned that "They will say that if you as a doctor raise this subject you will be charged with trying to create a monopoly for your colleagues; you will be charged with depriving the poorer classes of cheap cures to the efficacy of which they constantly testify." Now as to this question cat creating a monopoly, may I state, what I believe to be true, that if there be a monopoly it lies with the trade, which at a cost of nearly as much as the total money spent on the whole of our hospital services, bleeds the public to the tune of between £25,000,000 and £30,000,000 a year? I am seeking to break this unscrupulous monopoly, a monopoly which successive Governments seem almost to have gone out of their way jealously to guard; witness the exclusion of patent and proprietary medicines and food from the otherwise excellent Food and Drugs Bill which is about to become law.
Now as to the position of the doctor. I feel sure that were my friend and colleague the noble Viscount here he would agree with me that if the doctor thought only in terms of hard cash in this matter he would actually benefit from this unprincipled trade. The doctor has eventually more patients because of this trade, and not fewer. Especially would the surgeon benefit, for cases become serious in proportion as diagnosis and treatment are delayed. Ultimately even the undertaker benefits sooner and oftener than he might. Well, in striving to cleanse this Augean stable I am not acting in the interests of doctors, I am acting in the interests of that section of the public which is least able to stand up against exploitation—poorer people, who can less afford to lose money on health than any other section of the nation, and the straitened middle classes. People who are better off, but not perhaps less foolish, can afford to pay for any damage which their adventures into quack medicines may incur.
The third objection with which I propose to deal is expressed by the folk who say: "It is all very well to be destructive, but if the citizen does not send his coupon for his lung cure, and if he does not get his diagnosis by post for his kidney trouble, and if he does not get his gastric ulcer healed with a patent powder, what is there for the poor citizen to do?" And that brings me to perhaps the most important point that I have to put before your Lordships. I submit that now—perhaps only now—we have something infinitely better to put in the place of these extremely dubious specifics. We have now available to the poorest everywhere one of the finest health services in the world, and the slogan "Use your health services" was one of the most intelligent slogans I have ever heard. Health services, constantly expanding health insurance services—these, I submit, are what the Government can and must now encourage people to put in the place of this mediaeval witch-doctoring.
There are clear and abundant reasons why the present chaotic state of the law in relation to quack medicines should come to an end. In your Lordships' House and in another place from time to time for the past twenty odd years unanswerable arguments have been advanced in this connection. My main reason for pressing the Motion for Papers at this time is my deep concern for the success of the concerted move that we are making towards national fitness. By "fitness" I do not mean muscular supremacy, I mean health as a basis for good citizenship and happiness. So men and women of all Parties are converging on this objective. They are all of them genuinely moved with the desire to help. On the platform where the campaign for national fitness was launched there sat men and women of all Parties. That was good. I suggest that anything directly bearing upon the basic health and happiness of the people is outside Party politics. I know from the support I have received during the past few days, when it was known that I was going to put this subject before your Lordships, that it is commonly felt that in the realm of Party politics there is no room for this question of how we should keep the nation fit.
The incongruity to which I refer in the wording of my Notice is apparent to everyone. On the one hand, His Majesty's

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Government have launched a campaign to improve the national physique, have recruited all of us whose business it is to know something about health, have set aside subsidies for the purpose of education and demonstration in regard to fitness, and have spent quite a lot of money in health propaganda. Then, on the other hand, we have this campaign of quack medicines and food, totally uncombated so far by His Majesty's Government, but led by very subtle and skilled generals, bent upon maintaining national ill-health, moral and physical, in order to have a ready market for their goods. For every hundred pounds that the Government spend on making people health-conscious quack medicine-mongers spend a thousand in making them disease-conscious. We are trying to teach people the meaning of nutrition, and the money they might spend on food they are spending on quack medicines, or on very poor substitutes for good food. These are the considerations which led me to bring this subject before your Lordships. We have recently witnessed what financial friends assure me was a most necessary and, they thought, creditably expeditious effort to limit the evil called share-pushing. Well, it seems to me that if the State so rightly protects its less wary citizens against financial sharks, protects their property, that is, it should not regard it as less important to take some steps to protect their health from wanton damage.
I spoke of the extent of the trade in quack medicines and of how our people spend nearly £30,000,000 annually on them, an amount which is almost the same as the sum required to maintain all the voluntary and municipal hospitals in the country. A famous group of patent and proprietary medicine vendors, catering chiefly for nervous and digestive disorders, has just budgeted for a sum of nearly £1,000,000 for Press advertisements alone during the current year. This particular group covers some sixteen preparations, if we exclude shampoos and dog and cat medicines. I see that it is about to buy the control of some six to ten more preparations. The profits on the deferred shares have risen from £40,000 to £280,000 in the past six years. In 1931 the price of the 5s. shares stood at 5s. 7d., and in each of the past three years these shares have risen to above £3. These
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figures give some indication of the lucrative nature of the concern and of the great expansion of the quack medicine trade. No wonder the board of this company thought it a wise thing to make a large donation to one of the London hospitals. I am unable to inform your Lordships if the donation was earmarked for the treatment of patients who had doctored themselves with the company's medicines!
If this were a clean trade, and if people merely spent their money on it foolishly, that would be no matter for criticism, certainly not in this connection. But what is it that is sold and bought? A few patented and proprietary things are good things, and the claims made for them, as claims go, are not unreasonable. A good many things that do little or no good and little or no harm are sold at fantastic prices. But now and again something is sold that does definite harm—not often, because, as your Lordships are aware, an inquest is a thing that puts some of these people out of business more quickly than anything else, and for that reason dangerous drugs are as a rule avoided. All the same, there is nothing in law to prevent a vendor in this country from trading in some new drug not as yet on the poison schedule and concerning which experience of its action is required to discover the danger. In other words, the public is made the guinea pig, as it were, of the unscrupulous vendor.
But there is an enormous number of preparations which are fraudulent in the degree of the advertisement—fraudulent in the claims they make and very fraudulent in the way in which these claims change without any change in the nature of the specific, so called. The public is becoming slowly aware that certain diseases like cancer and hernia—rupture—are not cured by drugs, and the advertiser is quick to realise this. So disease conditions which are, for any reason, in the public mind are made the means of selling the same old goods. For example, the subject of malnutrition is topical just now, and a number of preparations formerly advertised to cure quite different conditions are now advertised as a cure for malnutrition. A spate of new preparations arises claiming to do the samething. The subject of vitamins having become somewhat popular, you will find that quite a large proportion of the quack medicine advertisements to-day claim

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that they contain "all the vitamins necessary for health."
Food substitutes are advertised in large quantity. There is no substitute for good food, unless it be better food. Some of us have quite recently become rather anxious about the prevalence of rheumatic disease in this country, and straightway the quack medicine vendors orientate their advertisements in our direction. In short, the more these things change, the more they are the same thing. Advertising, as your Lordships know, has become a specialised profession. The maker of quack medicine need no longer rack his own brains as to how best to overcome any reluctance the public may have in spending. He hands the matter over to the advertising specialist, together with a large sum—the larger the better—which has been appropriated for this purpose, and the thing is "put across the public," as they say. There is a rake-off for the manufacturer, a rake-off for the advertising agent, and of course a rake-off for the newspaper in addition. When we remember the enormous increase in the media through which advertisement operates—newspapers, omnibuses, hoardings, wireless, and aeroplanes now—we begin to realise also the appalling results which this mass suggestion must eventually have upon the country's health and morale. These advertisements have become a much gniver danger than the medicines they sell. Fear is the chief emotion they rely upon, so that much of this trade is, in effect, a huge form of blackmail. It is all very well to "vet" the medicine and reject its advertisement if harmful, which is claimed by some responsible newspaper proprietors, but there is poison in the advertisement. Nobody seems to "vet" the advertisements except a few papers, and let us pay them all credit for that.
This picture that I am showing of the operating theatre, with the surgeon and nurses in their masks, says:
"Buy our invaluable ointment and you will escape operation, and the result is guaranteed."
There is this other picture of a strong acid burning a hole in the carpet, which says:
"This is what is happening inside your stomach when it pains you. Take our tablets and you can eat anything."
Then there is this diagram of a circle, a very considerable part of which is
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coloured on the poster to represent the proportion of nourishment in a certain meat juice. The representation is a lie because the stuff is mainly, as we term it, extractives, which are not nourishing, salts, and colouring matter, and the actual food value is almost negligible. "Of course everyone takes a laxative," says one advertisement, "so why not ours?" And the wretched man who does not take a laxative begins to wonder if he can possibly be well without it. "Four out of five have pyorrhœa," which is not true, says another advertisement. But the chances are so heavily loaded against the reader that the goods sell. Then these questionnaires, how subtle they are! Imagine a sensitive woman reading these questions:
"Do you cry too easily? Do you ever get fits of dizziness? Are you often in fear of illness or breakdown? Have you ever been told you are anæmic? Are you extra-sensitive about what others say? If 'Yes' is your answer to any of these questions, this is a sign of dangerous weakness. Take it in time. You should begin with our tablets right away."
So I might go on almost endlessly. It is perhaps because some of our Continental friends have been reading our advertisement pages that they think that Britain has become decadent.
This of course is, in the language of the street, a ramp. It is not only demanding money with menaces, it is coining money out of the fears of the people. And it is not only the sick that are swindled, the well are swindled—for by what other word can we rightly stigmatise the deliberate promotion of credulity for the purpose of gain? I do not think that your Lordships can look at the advertisement columns of even the newspapers which I feel certain some of you take in the morning and feel easy about the situation. In Continental countries this pernicious exploitation is forbidden. It is forbidden in the United States, in our own Dominions of Australia and Canada there are heavy penalties for making false and fraudulent claims, and even in South Africa last year a Bill was introduced whose terms were based on the recommendations of the Select Committee of this country of 1914. It is humiliating to think that Great Britain remains complacent in face of this menace to the health of her citizens.
I said just now that the manufacturer got a rake off, that the advertiser got a

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rake off, and the newspaper got a rake off. Well, the Government get a rake off, and it is sometimes thought that this fact prevents legislation. I cannot think that that is a very powerful preventive of legislation in this country, because, all said and done, the Chancellor only nets £1,000,000 per annum out of this sordid business. Of course, he could make much more, because he does not even take the trouble to see that these gentlemen—save the mark !—are evading the Medicine Tax Act in the grossest manner. The Medicine Tax Act of 1812 is still in operation, and a few years ago the High Court described this Act as a mass of confused and obsolete verbiage. To quote only one anomaly, taxes are levied only on drugs if they are advertised as a cure for ailments; and so cough medicines and pills for backache are taxed, but chest mixtures and kidney pills are exempt.
It is nearly fifty years since a Royal Commission stated that the India opium revenue was morally indefensible, and within a month of the presentation of its Report Parliament approved. Well, there is the Report of the Select Committee on Patent Medicines. There are at least two copies of this compendious document, because I see the noble Viscount has a copy. But, although so compendious and apparently unwieldy, it represents an enormous amount of very useful work. The Committee sat under the Chairmanship of Sir Henry Norman, but its Report was so ill-fated as to be printed on that tragic day, August 4, 1914. But that is twenty-four years ago, and the Committee's recommendations, simple though they were—registration, disclosure, censorship of advertisements, were all the recommendations asked—have never been implemented. Why were we so prompt to protect the Chinaman and why are we so dilatory in protecting our own citizens? Yet my analogy is fairly close, because, if I may paraphrase a famous saying, "Quack medicines are the opium of our people.'
What is the remedy? With the best intentions, for which I give the reputable newspapers every credit, no censorship of their own will ever effectually deal with this nuisance. This voluntary effort has been on trial for more than twenty years, and things are much worse than they were. If we except the case of a few select papers, then the breathless, cutthroat
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race for advertisers, the struggle for clients, will determine the issue against them. It cannot be otherwise. If only one paper outside the controlled area refuses to obey a code—and there are many outside the controlled area—then the difficulty in such a case becomes insuperable. It is like people who want to be good but starve if they are good. Central or Government control would tighten up the situation at once. Now it may surprise your Lordships, but I am able to say that the people who might be expected to know, that is the owners of large newspaper combines, support me in this contention. I have letters, quite a number, from noble Lords to this effect, and they agree with me that the evil must be attacked at its source. I take it that when noble Lords wish me luck having read the wording of the Notice, and when noble Lords say "I am entirely with you," then they mean what they say. Now these papers which are trying to-day, but trying unsuccessfully, to control the grosser forms of exploitation of their readers would by some central control be protected and not penalised, which at present they are.
The noble Lord, Lord Southwood, who is President of the British Advertising Association, tells me that an important department of this Association devotes its efforts to the elimination of advertisements of undesirable products. Yet as an example of how impossible it is to carry out this good intention in practice, here is an advertisement of Yadil in this week's John Bull and it is fourteen years ago that Yadil was so thoroughly exposed in three successive issues of the Daily Mail that its sale was entirely stopped. This was the stuff, some of your Lordships may remember, that did not contain the harmless ingredient which it was alleged to contain, but it contained one per cent. of formalin, an intense irritant, of which it made no mention. True, the figure "1935," in brackets, appears now after the name Yadil. This may mean something, or it may mean nothing.
The point is that this monster is hydra-headed, and it can only be destroyed by being strangled at its birth. Now it is only fair to admit that a few things have been done since 1914, and they are to the good. The Venereal Diseases Act made it an offence to advertise medicines for venereal disease, and the very success of this veto shows that measures of this

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kind are both practicable and effective. Then there were the Pharmacy and Poisons Act, the Dangerous Drugs Act, and the Therapeutic Substances Act; but good though all these laws are, I submit that, taken together, they do not touch the real problem which I am presenting to your Lordships to-day. In the Food and Drugs Bill, to which your Lordships have recently given a good deal of thought and time, there was a great opportunity of dealing with this pest, instead of which quack medicines are specifically exempted from any penalties under that measure, an exemption which renews automatically the exemption that was made in the previous Food and Drugs Act of 1928. In Part I of the new Bill Clause 4 deals with defences available in proceedings taken under the Bill. Subsection (3) contains the words "where the food or drug in question is the subject of a patent in force," and subsection (5) reads:
"that the article supplied was a proprietary medicine and was supplied in response to a demand for that medicine."
In short, no action could succeed under that measure if it were attempted.
When the noble Lord, Lord Mamhead, introduced a powerful deputation on this matter to the Minister of Health in July, 1935, Sir Kingsley Wood, in his reply, said:
"I should like to see something in this direction. I have indicated that I have never understood why we have never come to such an agreement as has been arrived at in other countries. It was left to be considered in relation to the Government's general programme of legislation."
Now, when it is clear that the Government's general programme of legislation did make that possible, the whole subject is side tracked. A record of the Bills that have been introduced in your Lordships' House and in the House of Commons since 1920 makes very gloomy reading. I do not propose to take up the time of your Lordships' House by dealing with them. They have generally died of that common disease, lack of Parliamentary facilities, though in one or two cases I would suggest that a more accurate explanation of death would be felo de se. On the last occasion the failure of the Bill in the House of Commons was attributed to its having had the bad luck to be introduced on the day of the Grand National.
There does appear to be a hoodoo resting upon Private Bills dealing with this matter. I earnestly trust that your Lordships will support me in the efforts I am making to persuade His Majesty's Government to tackle it by a Government measure. The machinery would be easily forthcoming. My friend and colleague who now has charge of the Ministry of Health must by virtue of his training and experience have exceptional knowledge of the whole of this subject, and must be more fully alive perhaps than some of his predecessors in this responsible office to the importance of this matter. I cannot but hope that when in a letter to me recently he spoke of certain matters crying out for immediate attention, he had this one amongst them in his mind. I believe that he would have the opinion of the country behind him and I think I have good reasons also for believing that the Press as a whole would support him. A Bill dealing with this would be a most fitting corollary to the efforts that we are all making for national fitness. It would demonstrate clearly to the world that His Majesty's Government are really serious in regard to their health campaign. It would close a wide gap in our defences, a gap which is increasing month by month and through which at the moment the enemy is pouring and spreading havoc amongst our people. Once behind the lines there is no limit to the damage which this particular enemy can do. I beg to move for Papers in this matter.
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, you will perhaps excuse me if I bring the lighter artillery of the lay voice to the support of the big guns of the medical profession which you have heard and I believe are going to hear on this subject. A few days ago I was entertained to see in an American newspaper a picture depicting the private office in a large advertising firm into which an employee of the firm comes holding a piece of paper, waving it with enthusiasm and saying "This will make these hypochondriacs sit up." That may have its humorous side, and the hypochondriac perhaps does not get much sympathy, but I think the trouble goes further than that. I think it comes fairly near home to all of us. I imagine that there are very few members of your Lordships' House who are unaware of what is meant by halitosis. I think your Lordships' fathers would have been ignorant of this unfortunate thing,

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which their dearest friends apparently would not have told them about. They would have criticised everything else, from the length of their noses to their intelligence, but apparently something was hidden from them. That, I think, was one of the earliest cases of which the noble Lord, Lord Horder, has spoken, but advertisers have gone to far greater lengths since then, and I think far more dangerous lengths.
I have seen recently a number of advertisements of the same type, but which appeal rather to the emotions of people. They have pretended, shall we say, that a young woman's failure in her love affair may be due to some defect which a preparation which is to be sold can cure. They suggest that a husband's failing interest in his wife may be due to something of the same sort. I suggest to your Lordships that to people in this unhappy condition it is a crime that additional sorrows should be added unto them and that their money should be extracted from their pockets for such a purpose and at such a time. In fact I suggest that these modern advertised products are the present-day equivalent of the old love philter. It is now, I believe, illegal to sell love philtres, though from the sale of these preparations one suspects that they would have the rich market which they used to have.
The noble Lord, Lord Horder, has dealt, as of course he can far better than I can, with the details of the damage done by these medicines and with the measures which can be and should be taken to prevent them. I would, however, like to suggest that the recommendations of the 1914 Committee in one respect at any rate did not go far enough. They suggested the registration of preparations and disclosure to a Government Department of their contents. I cannot think that there is any reason why this disclosure should not be absolutely public. I would suggest, in view of the experience which we have now of the extraordinarily abstruse and incomprehensible nature of disclosure of contents—which is made in many cases incidentally to avoid the Government tax—of secret remedies, that there should be a legal obligation to make them in a form which is generally accepted by the medical profession, so that there should not be any misunderstanding
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as to what is contained in any preparation that is sold. It will, of course, be said that that would not affect a great many of the public, who would be unable, even if they knew the nature of the actual drugs in a preparation, to judge for themselves of the efficacy of those drugs. That is true, but a purchaser would always be able to consult his medical practitioner or the chemist from whom he bought it as to the value of a particular drug.
The noble Lord rightly repelled the suggestion that members of the medical profession have any personal or financial interest in the repression of this trade. The medical profession has, I think, shown a really admirable attitude since the eighteenth century in forbidding to members of the profession the use of secret remedies and insisting on publication. Nevertheless I think that something might be clone by the medical profession itself in co-operation with the educational authorities. I suggest to the noble Lord who moved this Motion to-day that perhaps it would be possible to give more public instruction in the use of household remedies. In that way people who have headaches would not buy some kind of headache powder; they would know, for example, that an ordinary aspirin was in any case the active drug in any preparation which they were likely to buy, and that it could be obtained in a purer form at a very much cheaper price direct from the chemist. That is, naturally, only one of many possible examples. I suggest that the general public, in the interests of its health, should be educated to appreciate the use of common drugs. The only defence that is made, I believe, to these quack medicines is that, even though they are sold at a price—-and I have had some figures given to me—as high as a hundred times the price which they cost their makers, they are still cheaper than a medical consultation and a prescription. I believe that if the general public were further instructed in the use of simple drugs, that one defence, which is not in any case a defence for the purely secret remedy, would disappear. I hope that the Government will be pleased to-day to give us a favourable answer. If they are not, I trust that the noble Lord who has moved this Motion will press it, and I am convinced that he will receive support from all sides of the House.
LORD ADDISON: My Lords, I intervene for a few minutes to support my noble friend Lord Horder, who I am sure has rendered a conspicuous public service by bringing this subject before your Lordships. Although it is very late in the Session, as we all know, I hope that the representative of the Ministry of Health will give us encouragement in this matter. The noble Lord has studiously understated his case, and he has done it deliberately. In 1920 or 1921 I remember, as Minister of Health, being a party to the initiation of proceedings which led to the getting-together of a joint conference which represented all the various interests concerned. I have here, and I expect your Lordships have had, the various recommendations which came from a body on which medical men and newspaper proprietors were jointly represented. This step does not go very far; it is a very tentative and moderate approach to the matter. I am only mentioning it to emphasize the certainty that if the Government will remove what the noble Lord has described as the fear which besets Private Bills and take upon themselves the responsibility in this matter, they will be supported much more vigorously and widely than they suspect. I believe that the general public will be glad to be protected against this exploitation, which has been enormously increased during the last few years. We are supported to-day by the unanimous recommendations of conferences which occupied many years and which were representative of the views of trades, medical men, newspapers, advertisers and the rest. But, as Lord Horder said, it is impossible in existing circumstances for any newspaper which wishes to adopt a good tradition to sustain it, sometimes, in face of the competition which prevails to-day.
Particularly dangerous in these days, the love which the public has had in all ages for quackery has now become exploited by a most skilful development of the advertisement promoting suggestion. I understand that the modern advertiser has a sort of technique in which he promotes what he calls a suitable atmosphere, and that this technique during late years —I have no doubt at great expense—has been imported into the advertisement of these various nostrums. The technique, as we may see in any paper that we like to open, plays particularly upon the fear of people and drives them into that state
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of apprehension which the noble Lord has described to us as being so exceedingly dangerous to a vast multitude of sensitive and nervous people. The scandal is much worse than it was even in 1914, and it is different now in that it has been developed more subtly and much more powerfully. The Government of to-day are supported by the knowledge that they have behind them the recommendations of all the various interests which matter in the case. I therefore hope that the noble Lord representing the Ministry of Health will give some support to the noble Lord's Motion.
VISCOUNT GAGE: The noble Lord who introduced this Motion made a most interesting speech, and other noble Lords have also made interesting speeches. I am sure my right honourable friend the Minister would wish that those speeches should command a wide attention. So far as the medical evidence submitted to us is concerned, I have very few comments to make. It is perfectly true that every investigation that has been made has borne out that the improper use of drugs and of substances which are in themselves harmless is a distinct danger to health in this country; that it has handicapped the work of the medical profession; and that we are behind other countries. I should be quite ready to agree with the noble Lord that it may constitute an obstacle to the national fitness which we all wish to obtain. Before considering the Government's responsibility in the matter, however, we ought to consider what has actually been done. Most of the more powerful drugs are, I think it will be generally agreed, controlled to-day by the Dangerous Drugs Acts of 1920 and 1923, the Therapeutic Substances Act, 1925, the Pharmacy and Poisons Act, 1933, and the Food and Drugs Bill which has just passed through Parliament. Generally speaking, the effect of these Acts is that they guarantee that the drugs are pure, that they answer the description advertised, and that, so far as their toxic qualities are concerned, they shall not be issued to the public except on the prescription of a qualified doctor.
The problem of the dangerous drug has therefore largely been solved, except possibly for the case mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Horder: that of the new drugs that are continually being put on

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the market by the enterprise of manufacturing chemists. I think Lord Horder had some criticism to make on these new medicines. He said that the public had been used as a guinea-pig by the unscrupulous manufacturers. I am informed that there is no real method of foretelling what the effect of some of the new compounds is going to be; that one may be a mild disinfectant and another a very powerful explosive. It is true that their effect on the human body can only be ascertained by experiment, and I believe there have been fatal cases abroad where these experiments have been incomplete. I agree that this constitutes a possible danger, but it is one which is very difficult to guard against without putting an absolutely undue restriction on these very valuable new inventions. I understand—the noble Lord will correct me if I am wrong—that the majority of these substances are made by firms of the highest possible repute, who, in their own interests, see that the precautions which are taken are very complete. I believe that the dangers arising from that possible source are really remote.
The real difficulty, as the noble Lord has pointed out, arises from drugs and substances which are not in themselves harmful and which cannot be scheduled as dangerous or poisonous. It is quite true that the improper use of these drugs does constitute a danger, and that danger, I think, arises in two ways. A noble Lord mentioned aspirin. If it is used properly, there is no doubt that aspirin does provide a remedy, or relief anyhow, for a number of illnesses. If used to excess, obviously it is not beneficial, and I believe there have actually been cases where people have tried to take their own lives—I do not know whether they succeeded—by taking large quantities of aspirin. But take the other point of view. If aspirin is not used to excess, but is used to cure some dangerous fever, then it does harm because it may prevent proper treatment being applied. I take this case of aspirin because I think it is a well known product, about which, so far as I know, no very extravagant claims are made, and it is frequently recommended by the medical profession. I take it because I do not think the noble Lord said very much about a large number of perfectly reputable compounds which are on the market and which are frequently
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recommended by his profession. It is true that if these unfortunate results can arise from the improper use of these reputable products, advertised in a respectable way, far worse results can obviously ensue from the improper use of other drugs presented to the public with far less regard to truth and with far less security of quality.
Surely the inherent difficulty in dealing with these substances is that the real fault lies with the individual who takes them. It is surely just as difficult to stop people indulging in the excessive use of drugs and medicines as it is to stop people from excessive indulgence in drink. If people do not use the immense State assisted medical scheme which the noble Lord mentioned, and which has been provided for at least 18,000,000 of the inhabitants, and if people prefer to diagnose and treat their own complaints, it is surely largely their own responsibility if they suffer in consequence. It is perfectly true that they may be encouraged to do so by carefully worded advertisements, and I agree in theory that there is a case for controlling these advertisements; but here again I think the resources of the legal profession can easily be turned to bad account, and it is very easy to find forms of words which evade the penalties that may be devised in Acts of Parliament, unless these Acts are so strict as to bring within the meshes of their nets a number of perfectly harmless and well-established compounds that can at present be cheaply and easily procured.
The Select Committee, which reported in 1914, to which the noble Lord made reference, proposed three essential reforms. Firstly, registration of all manufacturers, proprietors and importers of patent, secret and proprietary medicines; secondly, that the exact composition of every patent medicine should be disclosed to the Ministry of Health; thirdly, that advertisements should be controlled. In regard to this last recommendation it was suggested that a definition of "false trade description" should be
"a statement designed or devised regarding any article or preparation or the drugs or ingredients or substances contained therein, or the curative or therapeutic effect thereof which is false or misleading in any particular."
I have mentioned that it is not always easy to devise forms of words which cannot be evaded. We know that the

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Chancellor of the Exchequer takes particular care to devise forms of words by which to extract money from the taxpayers, and it is to be observed that sometimes these words are evaded. It stands to reason that we can equally expect evasion even from this carefully drawn definition which I have read.
I was surprised to hear Lord Horder and Lord Faringdon say how easily they thought this control of advertisements could be effected. I think Lord Horder said that these things were controlled in America—that they were forbidden. Other things have been forbidden in the United States, but I do not know whether they all ceased immediately they were forbidden by law. After all, the quack remedy has been used as a political metaphor for some considerable time, and if we were to apply to politics or to political Parties a similar law. requiring that any statement which is false or misleading in any particular should be punishable, I fear that some of the noble Lords opposite would begin to regard it as the thin end of the wedge, or at all events would regard us rather askance, or at least begin to argue very hard as to what was false and misleading and what was not. I think that as in politics so it may be in medicine.
I am not attempting to exclude the possibility of some legislation on the lines suggested, but I do say that I think it would be very difficult to guarantee that such legislation would be effective. Of course it has been suggested that certain advertisements relating to certain specified diseases should be prohibited altogether. The Committee did recommend that, and it has been adopted so far as venereal disease is concerned. A Private Member's Bill was recently introduced in another place to extend this prohibition to other diseases, and I am not betraying any secrets when say that if that Bill had gone any way in another place it would have received the sympathetic consideration of the Government. What happened was that during the Second Reading the House was counted out, and the Government were unable to take any action, sympathetic or otherwise, because the Bill was automatically dropped.
Parliamentary apathy in these matters is frequently explained by the phrase "vested interests," to which Lord Horder has referred. I appreciate the tone in
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which Lord Horder referred to that pressure, but others of his colleagues have gone a long way further than he has gone. I noticed that in an article Professor Clark said that "the obvious reason why Parliament has refused for a quarter of a century to attempt to remedy any of the disgraceful abuses revealed by the Report of the Committee" is that "the Press controls the politicians and the secret remedies trade associations control the Press"—the argument being of course that vested interests represented by advertisers in the Press are so strong that the Government is powerless against them. We may be perfectly certain that no major reform has ever been, or is ever likely to be, effected in this country except in the face of vested interest of some sort. I think Professor Clark is rather severe on the Press, and I am glad that Lord Horder treated the matter in a different way, as also did the promoter of the Bill to which he made reference. They both quoted the magnificent work done by the Advertising Association, with the support of the leading newspapers, and I think that several newspapers have played a prominent part in exposing the more glaring cases of misrepresentation. Perhaps I did not hear correctly, but I rather gathered that the noble Lord, Lord Horder, seemed to think that the proprietors of these patent medicines exercised some pressure on the Government apart from the Press.
LORD HORDER: No.
VISCOUNT GAGE: Well, I am mistaken there. I was wondering how it was done. Apart from the very real administrative and legal difficulties of legislating on these matters, knowing as I say the ingenuity and evasion that we must expect, one of the principal obstacles to new legislation is one to which not very much reference has been made, either in this debate or in many of the articles that have been written, and it is one which I would like, with great diffidence, to illustrate from your Lordships' own proceedings. I have no doubt that your Lordships will remember that some months ago a Private Bill was introduced, the effect of which would have been to extend some degree of official recognition to osteopaths, and I think I am right in saying that that Bill excited almost as much opposition in the medical profession as patent medicines are doing to-day.

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Possibly some lesson can be learned from the reception that that Bill had in this House. Your Lordships will probably remember that on the Second Reading some of the most distinguished ornaments of the medical profession—I do not know whether the noble Lord was one of them, but certainly Lord Moynihan and Lord Dawson of Penn were two—made strong appeals to your Lordships to have nothing to do with that Bill. They were supported in that by several distinguished representatives of the law, and also by the Government.
I do not suppose that even the severest critic of your Lordships' House could describe this as a very impetuous body, but nevertheless, after considerable debate, the House decided by a large majority to proceed with the Bill. I admit it was only to send it to an inquiry but nevertheless they did decide to proceed to that stage. I think that a question does arise as to why your Lordships decided to ignore that large body of responsible opinion, as I should have regarded it, and of course on this matter we may hold different theories. Perhaps Lord Horder thought it was owing to the weak case made out by the Government spokesman, but I believe that the real reason was that the majority of your Lordships felt that, in the present state of uncertainty regarding so many aspects of the human constitution, and where so many diseases are still unfortunately incurable, the orthodox school of medicine—although I think everybody accorded it a great measure of respect whether he agreed with the orthodox school or not—should not be allowed to establish too rigid a dictatorship over other schools of thought.
That is not an attitude with which I sympathise myself, nor is it an attitude with which my right honourable friend, who is himself a doctor, could be expected to sympathise. But it is a fact of considerable importance, and as a Minister of a democratic country my right honourable friend has to take that into account. I think in a recent article the noble Lord, Lord Horder, himself has laid down that a law which aims at being in advance of opinion and practice is rarely a good law. I must say that, judging from the reception of legislation since the War, it appears that public opinion is, in spite of what has been said, greatly divided.
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If I am asked to say why, in the face of all these reports, successive Governments have done so little, I should summarise it in this way. I should first explain it by the popular theory that people have the right to make fools of themselves in their own way, provided they do not do harm to other people. That may perhaps sound a rather crude argument, but I do put it to the noble Lord, who is a great authority on these matters, that surely the point is to be considered as to whether there is no danger in weakening the individual sense of responsibility in these matters. Secondly, I think it is a fact that we cannot legislate effectively without at least risking adding to the difficulty and expense of obtaining remedies which are in many cases harmless and beneficial. In saying this I am not trying to exclude the possibility of further repressive and restrictive legislation. All I do say most emphatically is that repression alone is one of the most dubious of all lines of progress. I am sure the noble Lord will agree that it is only education as to what health and fitness mean that will really induce people to refrain, as the well known phrase goes, from "pouring drugs of which they know little into bodies of which they know nothing." My right honourable friend will carefully examine what the noble Lord has said, and will see whether anything can be done to incorporate in the educational side of the national fitness movement something of a warning nature against the misuse of drugs generally.
I have tried to be frank in answering my noble friend. Perhaps he may still not be convinced, and, if that is so, perhaps he would like to have a try at legislation himself. I notice that, in spite of the fact that the noble Lord assured me that there is a great mass of public opinion behind him in this matter, the only explanation he gave as to why private legislation had failed was in the perhaps somewhat unscientific phrase that there was a hoodoo on Private Bills. But I can assure him that on legal matters we should be very pleased to place all our resources at his disposal, and on medical matters we have no higher sources of information than those which he himself can command. I repeat that our own attitude must be, to some extent at any rate, dictated by public opinion because in these matters the public must have the last word. My noble friend has moved

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for Papers. I am perfectly prepared to lay any Papers he likes, but I hope I have met the main arguments he advanced to his satisfaction.
LORD HORDER: My Lords, I understand that I have free access in a private capacity, and I would like to avail myself of that. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES.
Order of the Day for the consideration of the Second Report from the Select Committee read.
The Report was as follows:
1.—ACOUSTICS OF THE CHAMBER.
A Report as to the improvement of the acoustics of the Chamber was laid before the Committee.
The Committee recommended that one microphone should be suspended over the Cross Benches with a view to a further installation if satisfactory, and that twelve car pieces should be fitted in the Strangers' Gallery.
The Clerk of the Parliaments was desired to investigate the question of other improvements.
2.—APPOINTMENT OF CLERK.
The Committee sanctioned a scheme for the appointment of a Clerk on the general clerical scale.
3.—ADJUSTMENT OF SALARIES.
The Committee sanctioned, as from April 1, 1938, the application of Treasury Circular No. 14/37 (Revision of Salaries) to the salary of the Counsel to the Chairman of Committees and the salaries of two senior clerks, the salary of the Counsel to the Chairman of Committees to be £2,000 and that of the two senior clerks £1,200, accordingly.
4.—THE FIRST PRINCIPAL DOORKEEPER.
The Committee sanctioned an increase in the salary of the First Principal Doorkeeper from £280 to £300 per annum as from July 1. 1938.
5.—CLERK TO THE LORD GREAT CHAMBERLAIN.
The Committee confirmed the appointment of Mr. R. Herbert. The salary to be £190, rising by annual increments of £12 from October 15, 1938, to a maximum of £280.
They also sanctioned a payment to Mr. R. Herbert of £35 per annum whilst discharging duties of secretarial work to the Clerk of the Parliaments.
6. —HOUSEKEEPER.
The Committee sanctioned full pay for the period May 19 to June 18, 1938, to the house-keener, who was incapacitated owing to an accident while on duty.
7.—GRATUITY TO A HOUSEMAID.
The Committee sanctioned a gratuity calculated under Section 4 of the Superannuation Act, 1887, to Mrs. Elizabeth Matthew in respect of twenty-four years' service as housemaid in the House of Lords.
8.—AUTHORIZATION OF EXTRA PAYMENTS.
The Committee sanctioned the payments in connection with extra duties on Coronation Day, May 12, 1937.
9.—LIBRARY SUB-COMMITTEE.
The Earl Baldwin of Bewdley and the Lord Stainnore were added to the Sub-Committee.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF ONSLOW): My Lords, the only point in this Report to which I would draw your Lordships' attention is the first one, which is headed "Acoustics of the Chamber." I think, as your Lordships are all well aware, the acoustics of this Chamber are not what they should be, and indeed I had occasion to remark the other day that if your Lordships and another place were to agree to Ministers addressing both Houses of Parliament, and a Minister from another place were to address your Lordships from behind the Woolsack, noble Lords would not hear what he said. Indeed, it is impossible in many parts of the House really to hear what noble Lords say. Any improvement of the acoustics of the House I am sure would be very greatly welcomed not only by your Lordships but by those who come here to listen to the debates. I have been myself in the Strangers' Gallery during a debate, and there found it extremely difficult to hear what noble Lords were saying on the floor of the House. I should imagine that much the same disability exists in the Reporters' Gallery, though perhaps the position is better there than in the Strangers' Gallery.
Various experiments have been considered by the authorities of the House and by the Office of Works, and it is proposed in the first instance to instal a microphone which will be hung from the ceiling just over the Cross Benches, and to connect it with the Strangers' Gallery by means of twelve ear-pieces, so that ear-pieces connected with the microphone will he used for the Strangers' Gallery as well as for your Lordships' House. That is not all we propose to do. Various other experiments are under consideration and will be tentatively introduced. This microphone installation is tentative. We do not exactly know how it will work, but it is hoped, by experiment and by

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putting in different devices, that we may be able to improve the acoustics of your Lordships' House. Personally, if I may say so, I hope one result will be the disappearance of the ugly black boxes that stand on the Table in front of your Lordships. That is the only point in the Report to which I need call your Lordships' attention. I hope these experiments will be successful, that the acoustics will be improved and that further improvements will be made as time goes on. I beg to move that this Report be now considered and agreed to.
Moved, That the Report be now considered and agreed to.—(The Earl of Onslow.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

OVERSEA SETTLEMENT.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK VISCOUNT ELIBANK had given Notice that he would draw the attention of His Majesty's Government to the policy expressed in a recent speech in the House of Lords by the Under-Secretary of State for the Dominions, in which he stated that it was considered that the fifty-fifty basis of contribution to voluntary societies engaged in settling people overseas under the Empire Settlement Act of 1937 was, normally speaking, sufficient for the purpose; ask whether in view of the fact that these voluntary societies are the best and most economical instruments for carrying out the filtration policy of emigration recommended in the recently published Report of the Oversea Settlement Board, His Majesty's Government will carry out the intention of Parliament when passing that Act and give to approved societies in as many cases as possible 75 per cent. of any amount required to settle an individual overseas, as is provided for under that Act; and move for Papers.
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I shall say in a very few words what I have to say on this Motion. It arises out of a debate on oversea settlement which took place in your Lordships' House last week. During that debate I urged that the voluntary societies, which seem to me to be the best medium of carrying out the emigration policy of infiltration, should be subsidised to a greater degree than they are to-day. It seems in fact that they are the only
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medium through which that policy can be carried out with any degree of success. In the reply made by my noble friend the Under-Secretary of State, he referred to the fact that under the Empire Settlement Act of 1937—I am trying to interpret broadly what he said—up to 75 per cent. of any amount expended on overseas emigration may be provided by the Government. But lie went on to say at the end of his speech:
"But, broadly speaking, 50 per cent. is considered enough for us to find and the fifty-fifty basis is the one on which we normally work. But, as I have said, we have powers in exceptional conditions to contribute up to 75 per cent."
I refreshed my memory of that Act after the debate because I could not remember any reference in it to "exceptional conditions." The Act actually says this in subsection (2) of Section I:
"Notwithstanding anything in proviso (b) to the said subsection (3) (which limits the contribution of the Secretary of State to half the expenses of such a scheme as aforesaid), the Secretary of State may contribute an amount not exceeding three-quarters of the expenses of any such scheme"
except in certain cases. What I venture to submit is that when this Act was passed it was passed with the deliberate object of increasing the 50 per cent. contribution to 75 per cent., not in "exceptional cases," but in as many cases as possible. If that had not been the case, that provision would not have been included in the Act. I suggest to His Majesty's Government that that is the interpretation they should place upon that subsection and not the interpretation which was stated by my noble friend in the debate last week. I wish also to contend that if that proper interpretation, as I submit, is placed on the Act, it will enable the infiltration policy to be carried out much more speedily.
Obviously if a voluntary society—and I am talking about approved voluntary societies—has at its disposal x number of pounds for the purpose of emigrating people overseas, if it is only to receive contributions on a fifty-fifty basis it cannot send as many people as it would if it were receiving a 75 per cent. grant. I urge the Government, if they are going to make use of this Act, to adopt a much more liberal spirit in applying it. The noble Duke, in his reply, told us that out of a sum of £1,500,000 only £24,000 was expended last year.

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There was a reason for that because Australia had not started immigration to the same extent as she is doing now; but out of this £1,500,000 they estimated only £65,000 would be spent this year. I suggest that that is not a right policy. The whole country is crying out for emigration to the greatest extent that it can be secured, subject to what the Dominions may do; and it is entirely wrong that this Act, which was deliberately passed with the object of increasing that emigration, should be interpreted in the mean spirit, if I may so describe it, in which it is being interpreted to-day. In spite of the Treasury representative on the Board, about whom I accept what the noble Duke said last week regarding his keenness and enthusiasm, I hope that a very much more liberal view will be taken in the future. I beg to move for Papers.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR DOMINION AFFAIRS (THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE): My Lords, I trust that at this relatively late hour my noble friend will forgive me if I reply quite briefly. The Act of 1937 to which my noble friend referred was passed as the result of a recommendation by the Oversea Settlement Board. That recommendation was that:
"where the partner in the scheme is an organisation financed otherwise than from Government funds, it should be open to the Secretary of State to contribute, if he thinks fit, up to 75 per cent. of the cost. We do not of course imply that the contribution should be 75 per cent. in all cases."
The provision which enables the Secretary of State to subscribe to the funds of voluntary societies is intended to enable him to assist migration throught these societies. It is designed to enable him to secure migration so far as lies within his power, but it is most certainly not designed to enable him to spend the taxpayers' money unnecessarily.
So far as I can speak for my noble friend the Secretary of State, I think he will continue to adopt the policy he has followed in the past of securing his results as cheaply as he possibly can. In many cases voluntary societies which are supported by the Secretary of State do not receive the 5o per cent. which was the old basis. It is unnecessary that they should. There are many excellent societies which can draw upon the general public for sympathy and support, and to which it is unnecessary that the Secretary of State should make any very substantial
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contribution, but a contribution is in many cases of value as showing the sympathy of the Secretary of State as well as in virtue of its intrinsic value. There are cases—and since the Act of last year was passed I think there have been three or four cases—in which the contribution of the Secretary of State has been raised as high as 75 per cent., but, speaking broadly, the Secretary of State will continue to make his contribution to the funds of those societies only to the extent that is necessary and not more. He will not exceed 5o per cent. or any other amount and will not go to 75 per cent. unless he can be convinced that a contribution of 75 per cent. is necessary in order that the society can carry on its work. Where we are convinced that it is necessary we shall of course pay 75 per cent., but we shall not do so unless we are satisfied that it is necessary for the work of the society. I am sorry not to give my noble friend greater satisfaction, but, on the other hand, I can assure him that within the limits laid down by Parliament monetary considerations will not interfere with our giving the greatest possible support we can to any scheme of migration which really deserves it.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I cannot regard the reply of my noble friend as in any way satisfactory. What he has really said is that the Government sympathetically look upon the efforts of the voluntary societies, but that, from a practical point of view, they do not propose to assist them beyond the extent which they feel to be absolutely necessary. That is not the spirit in which this Act was passed. I was present when it passed through this House and I read the debate in the House of Commons. The Act was passed by Parliament with the object of inducing the Government to use it to every possible extent, and I submit that my noble friend's reply to my speech does not show that that is being done. I feel so strongly on this matter that I propose in the autumn to raise in your Lordships' House the whole question of the reconstitution of the Board and the establishment of a business Board to look after migration in this country. There are any number of people who agree with me in this matter. I beg to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
House adjourned at two minutes past seven o'clock.