Lords Sitting of 22 June 1938

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Mervyn George, Lord Bishop of Coventry—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
TATTON ESTATE BILL. [H.L.]
Reported, with Amendments.

LYMM GAS ORDER, 1938.
Special Order proposed to be made on the application of the Lymm Urban District Council:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) for affirmative Resolution and referred to the Special Orders Committee.

OSSETT CORPORATION BILL.
Read 3a, and passed.
LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL.
Read 3a, and passed.

LIVERPOOL CITY CHURCHES ACT, 1897 (AMENDMENT) MEASURE, 1938.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY moved to resolve, That in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, this House do direct that the Liverpool City Churches Act, 1897 (Amendment) Measure, 1938, be presented to His Majesty for the Royal Assent. The most reverend Primate said: My Lords, I know that your Lordships are anxious to proceed to other business and I will deal as shortly as I can with the Measure which I have to ask your Lordships to allow to be presented to His Majesty for the Royal Assent. The facts are very simple. They are contained in the Explanatory Memorandum submitted to the Ecclesiastical Committee by the Legislative Committee of the Church Assembly. Briefly they are that before the passing of the Liverpool City Churches Act, 1897, the Corporation of Liverpool were
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authorised or liable to maintain and repair the fabric of various Churches in Liverpool and to discharge other responsibilities in connection with them. A similar liability in respect of certain churches rested upon the churchwardens of the Parish of Liverpool. By the Act it was provided that the Corporation and the churchwardens of Liverpool should commute these liabilities by the payment of certain sums. The greater part was to be paid to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners or to Queen Anne's Bounty to be held by them upon trusts specifically defined by the Act in favour of various Liverpool Churches. The balance was to be paid to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and carried to a separate account called the Building and Endowment Fund, which was to be used in the discretion of the Commissioners towards the building and endowment of any new churches to be erected in the City of Liverpool.
By a subsequent Act the powers of the Commissioners were extended to making grants for the purchase of sites for new churches as well as for the building and endowment of churches, but all these churches and sites were within the boundaries of the City of Liverpool. Recently and inevitably great building operations have taken place in that City, particularly the latest Corporation housing scheme, and these extend outside the boundaries of the City. The Bishop of Liverpool is naturally and rightly anxious to make spiritual provision for the population thus removed from the City of Liverpool and has been concerned in the building of two new parish churches for which the sites have already been selected but, although these churches may serve districts partly within and partly without the City, the districts themselves and the sites are outside the City boundaries. The object of the Measure is to enable the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to make grants from this Building and Endowment Fund for the building and endowment of churches and the purchase of sites not only in but also near to the City of Liverpool.
There is no question as to the advantage of this Measure. The Ecclesiastical Committee in their Report say that:
"From the public point of view, there is little doubt as to the desirability of the Measure."

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It is quite uncontroversial. The City Council of Liverpool, the only parties who have any remaining interest, have passed a resolution approving of the Measure. But it is only right that I should call attention to an observation in the Report of the Ecclesiastical Committee—namely, an observation raising the question whether if this had been a Parliamentary Bill it would not have been treated as a Private Bill rather than a Public Bill and as to the propriety of a Measure taking the place of a Private Bill. Some time ago the noble Earl, the Chairman of Committees in this House, was good enough to call my attention to this point. I have had an interview with him and with the Chairman of Ways and Means in another place, and as a result I asked the Legislative Committee of the Assembly to arrange a conference with the Parliamentary authorities as to future procedure in the case of Measures of this kind, Measures which had they been Bills would probably have been regarded as Private Bills. I have every hope that some satisfactory procedure will be arranged for the future especially securing the rights of full publicity by advertisement and of appeal such as would have been and are provided under Private Bill Legislation.
By this particular Measure no private rights are affected. The only parties interested are the City Council of Liverpool, who, as I have already mentioned, are in favour of the Measure. This Measure only extends the scope of the existing discretion of the Ecclesiastical Commission. I might add that there is now no need for sites within the City of Liverpool, but there is pressing need for churches and sites outside the limits of the borough. I hope there will be no de lay in enabling the Bishop of Liverpool to carry out his plans for the good of the people in these large housing estates and that your Lordships may be willing to agree that this Measure should be presented to His Majesty for the Royal Assent. The Report of the Parliamentary Ecclesiastical Committee ends by saying:
"Apart from the above considerations"—
that is, on the question of a Private Bill—
"the Committee considered that the Measure does not affect prejudicially the constitutional rights of His Majesty's subjects, and that it is expedient that it should be allowed to proceed."
With regard to those considerations, I
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venture to hope that your Lordships will be content with the assurance I have given that a conference will immediately take place to arrange a satisfactory procedure in the future. I beg to move.
Moved to resolve, That in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, this House do direct that the Liverpool City Churches Act, 1897 (Amendment) Measure. 1938, be presented to His Majesty for the Royal Assent.—(The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.)
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, the most reverend Primate has explained the little difficulty that has arisen and I need not detain your Lordships for more than a moment. The Report of the Ecclesiastical Committee has shown that in certain cases there may be difficulty in securing to any person who may possibly be affected by a Measure the same opportunities as those which they enjoy under Private Bill procedure. I think there is no doubt that if this Measure had been introduced as a Bill it would have been subject to the Private Bill Standing Orders and would have been proceeded with as a Private Bill. As the most reverend Primate has informed you he was good enough to arrange with the Chairman of Ways and Means and myself for a conference whereby it is hoped that arrangements may be reached which will not involve us in any possible difficulty in future cases. For that I would like to say how grateful I feel towards him. I do not think I need say more, except, of course, that I have no intention of raising any difficulty with regard to this Measure, which I fully recognise has been accepted by everybody concerned. So far as this particular case is concerned nobody can possibly suggest that any hardship has been caused to anybody whatever. If all Measures were like this there would be no difficulty, but possibly we may have more complicated ones in the future.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME: My Lords, it is with some diffidence that I rise to make some criticisms of this Measure, because the most reverend Primate has always shown me so much kindness that I would not wish to differ from him. This and the other Measures were on the Order Paper for discussion last Thursday, but they only appeared there overnight. I am glad that it was agreed

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to postpone discussion of them, because obviously if the discussion had taken place last Thursday insufficient time would have been given for the consideration of the proposals. I should like to point out that there would certainly be a protest if ordinary Bills were taken at such short notice. It has to be remembered that every Bill has to go through various stages in this House, whereas these Ecclesiastical Measures only have one stage, at which they can either be approved or rejected.
As regards the Liverpool City Churches Measure I feel that the remarks in the Report of the Ecclesiastical Committee raise a matter of considerable importance, and I should like to read to you some of them in full. Paragraphs 3 and 4 say:
"From the public point of view there is little doubt as to the desirability of the Measure. The City Council of Liverpool has passed a resolution approving the amendment of the law which is proposed by the Measure. It is clear, however, that the Measure alters in terms the conditions under which the Fund is at present held.
"The Committee are of opinion that if these proposals were presented to Parliament in the form of a Bill, it would be treated as a Private Bill and not as a Public Bill, and they do not think that Measures of that character should, as a general practice, be dealt with through the present procedure of the Enabling Act. If in any case it is thought proper that the procedure should be adopted, then the Committee are of opinion that appropriate provisions in Private Bill procedure, such as giving to the public full notice by advertising in the Press, should be adopted. They understand that in this case this course has not been taken.
"Apart from the above considerations the Committee consider that the Measure does not affect the constitutional rights of His Majesty's subjects, and that it is expedient that it should be allowed to proceed."
"Expedient" is not a very pleasant word, and if I may use strong language in the presence of so many Bishops, I think that the observations of the Committee damn the Measure with faint praise. I think it rather weak of the Committee to set what appears to me a rather dangerous precedent, but as they have seen fit to acquiesce in the Measure, I do not propose to move its rejection, although I refrain from doing so with some misgivings, because once a precedent has been set it is easy to put up as good a case in other instances.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I entirely
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agree with my noble friend that if we had proposed to take this Measure last Wednesday (not Thursday) as originally intended, the time would have been too short, and I therefore entirely acquiesced, at some inconvenience, in giving your Lordships a full week to digest this Measure. The noble Viscount has only read a portion of the Report of the Ecclesiastical Committee, which I myself read. He will have noticed that I said I quite agreed that in future there should be some reconsideration of procedure in this matter. As to the use of the word "expedient" at the close of the Report of the Ecclesiastical Committee, I can only say that is the word universally used in every case by the Ecclesiastical Committee when it desires that a Measure should go forward.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PARSONAGES MEASURE, 1938.
THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY AND IPSWICH THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY AND IPSWICH moved to resolve, That in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, this House do direct that the Parsonages Measure, 1938, be presented to His Majesty for the Royal Assent. The right reverend Prelate said: My Lords, I have to move in place of the noble Earl, Lord Grey, who is unable to be present, the Resolution of which he has given Notice, in reference to the two Measures on the Order Paper, that they be presented to His Majesty for the Royal Assent. The first is the Parsonages Measure, and on that I need not detain your Lordships more than a minute or two. It is in the main a Measure to consolidate the law with respect to the sale and purchase of and alteration of parsonage houses, the land adjacent to them, their drainage and other matters relating to them, but it contains also a few amendments of the law which are entirely of a domestic character, designed, as the result of experience, to make more definite in a few cases the provision of the law and in other cases to make the procedure run more smoothly. The Measure is to a certain extent a consolidated Measure. It consolidates the old Parsonages Measure, and the few amendments which have been made have been thoroughly discussed in the Church Assembly for a considerable

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period, and I think were agreed to unanimously. It has the support of the Ecclesiastical Committee, which says, in the same words as the most reverend Primate used just now, that it is expedient that the Measure should pass, as no constitutional rights of any of His Majesty's subjects are affected.
Moved to resolve, That in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, this House do direct that the Parsonages Measure, 1938, be presented to His Majesty for the Royal Assent.—(The Lord Bishop of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSIONERS (POWERS) MEASURE, 1938.
THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY AND IPSWICH THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY AND IPSWICH moved to resolve, That in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, This House do direct that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners (Powers) Measure, 1938, be presented to His Majesty for the Royal Assent. The right reverend Prelate said: My Lords, I beg to move the second Resolution, which is of ad similar character. This measure gives certain additional powers to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners of a miscellaneous character, all of which are enumerated in the somewhat long Title. One is that they should be the sole authority to regulate marriage and birth fees in connection with all the parish churches of the country, and to insist on tables of such fees being exhibited where necessary. There is a provision which enables the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, with the consent of the Lords of the Treasury, to increase the stipends payable to the First and Third Estates Commissioners up to a certain limit. They have at present only the stipends which were paid in 1850. There has been no increase since. Then there are several provisions which mainly centre round a provision by which the Ecclesiastical Commission propose to do what Queen Anne's Bounty has already done—namely, when they have to make payments to incumbents, to make them by quarterly payments and to consolidate the payments which have to be made, and to consolidate certain deductions which have to be made, so equalising the payments. It is again a matter of a domestic character which has received the full
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approval of the Church Assembly, and is endorsed by the Ecclesiastical Committee.
Moved, to resolve, That in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, This House do direct that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners (Powers) Measure, 1938, be presented to His Majesty for the Royal Assent.—(The Lord Bishop of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COAL BILL.
Order of the Day for the further consideration of the Bill on Report read.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (EARL STANHOPE): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be further considered on Report.
Moved, That the Bill be further considered on Report.—(Earl Stanhope.)
THE EARL OF DUDLEY: My Lords, before we proceed to the business of the afternoon I want to ask your Lordships' permission to make a protest against the very unorthodox and, in my submission, rather discourteous manner to your Lordships' House in which the Government hustled through an Amendment last night which stood in the name of the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, and claimed it as one of their own. The Amendment in question appeared to be a consequential Amendment to the main Amendment of the noble Marquess, who did not move his Amendment, and who was not indeed in the House and therefore the Government, I presume, had not his permission to move this Amendment. It was in fact, I understand, a misprint and should have been standing in the name of the noble Earl, the Leader of the House. In view of the fact that it was a misprint, and of the fact that the many officials that the Government had at their disposal had failed to see that the Government's Amendments were properly marshalled on the List, it would have been more courteous of the Government to have deferred this Amendment to the Third Reading.
It was hustled through before anyone had time to realise that it was a Government Amendment or to look it up, and as it happened it was an Amendment to which I take exception myself. The difficulty I myself am in now is that, al-

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though I can move to re-impose the original Amendment on the Third Reading, I am faced with the precedent that your Lordships will not reverse your previous decisions. This Amendment which, as I have said, stood in the name of Lord Lothian should only have been moved by him and I hope, when I seek to reverse your Lordships' decision on Third Reading, the unorthodox method of the Government will be taken into account and that I shall not be told that it is impossible to reverse the previous decision.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, before the noble Earl replies I would like in a word to emphasize what my noble friend Lord Dudley has said. A position of very real difficulty has arisen here. My noble friend Lord Lothian had put down in his name this particular Amendment, and it had been my intention and the intention of others of us to ask whether that Amendment could not be changed to cut out the words after "coal" in line 31 instead of the words after "coal" in line 30. We should have found ourselves in agreement with the omission of the words "or machinery or plant for coal mining."
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD MAUGHAM): To which page is the noble Lord referring?
LORD HASTINGS: Page 51, line 30. It does create a position of very considerable difficulty. I repeat that we felt the omission of the words "or machinery or plant for coal-mining" was desirable. We were in agreement with the Amendment, but we were not in agreement with the omission of the words—
EARL STANHOPE: On a point of order, I suggest to the noble Lord that he is not entitled to go into the whole question of this Amendment which has already passed the House.
LORD HASTINGS: That is the difficulty. The Leader of the House emphasizes the difficulty in which we find ourselves. It is a very grave difficulty. The Government themselves created the difficulty by taking up the Amendment which we thought to stand in the name of the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, who was not in the House and was not available for discussion about his own Amendment. I am truly at a loss to
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know what to do about it. I quite admit that the Leader of the House is right in telling me that the matter has been disposed of and that it is no longer open for discussion. That is unquestionably so. At the same time I do not think the Government would like to leave the matter where it rests.
THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (THE EARL OF MUNSTER): My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Dudley, has raised a question about the Amendment which stood in Lord Lothian's name on the Paper and which should have been in the name of my noble friend the Leader of the House. I very much regret that this unfortunate printing error should have been made, but nevertheless I must say this. I fully believed that the noble Earl, his colleagues, and his advisers had carefully examined every Amendment which appeared on the Marshalled List in order to make themselves thoroughly acquainted with all the matters that were to be raised.
THE EARL OF DUDLEY: I have here a list of comments on all the Government Amendments which have been prepared by those Associations whom we are representing, but naturally that particular Amendment is not included because it appeared to be a consequential Amendment to the noble Marquess's Amendment.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: The noble Earl might have made himself acquainted with all the Amendments on the Paper and not merely with those standing in the name of the Government and himself. When I moved this Amendment last night I drew attention to this unfortunate error, and I mentioned that the Amendment was put down to meet criticisms that had been made by the noble Earl, Lord Crawford, who originally drew attention to this subject. Moreover, the noble Earl, Lord Crawford, was in the House, and I have the clearest recollection that he remained most firmly embedded in his seat and said nothing at all on any point of this Amendment. I could therefore only conclude that it was an Amendment which was satisfactory to him. As your Lordships passed it without discussion, I should be very sorry to see this matter raised again and the House asked to alter a decision at which it has already arrived.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, there is no doubt we shall have to accept that statement because it is in accordance with the rules of the House, but I can only say that it is most arbitrary. The action of the noble Earl, Lord Munster, in taking up an Amendment which was not in the name of the Government and passing it through the House in the way it was done was in accordance with the rules, perhaps, but it was not in accordance with the custom of this House.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, may I plead with the Leader of the House for a little elasticity in this matter? We are not great sticklers for rules of debate in your Lordships' House and, after all, this is a point of very minor importance—quite an academic point—as to what the qualifications of these good gentlemen should be. I would ask the noble Earl, Lord Stanhope, whether he cannot give my noble friend Lord Dudley the assurance for which he has asked, and that is that when we come to discuss this matter on Third Reading we may reach a decision with a completely open mind.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, may I ask the Paymaster-General whether he has satisfied himself that all the Amendments on to-day's Marshalled List are under their proper names? I happened to be present when this episode occurred last night. I did not protest on behalf of my noble friends, but I should like to know whether there is any one who has the duty of going through this Marshalled List and seeing that everything is under the proper names before we start business.
LORD GAINFORD: My Lords, I was in the House at the end of the sitting last night. There were very few members present, and this Amendment was run through rather quickly by the noble Earl, Lord Munster, with the explanation he has already given to the House, but it was very difficult for us to see exactly what the point was at the moment. There have been precedents, I think, where a decision of this House has been reconsidered at a subsequent stage, and although we do not like that practice I think that in these exceptional circumstances it might be possible for the noble Earl, Lord Dudley, to raise this point on the Third Reading.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, this Amendment is one in which I am interested. It was based on observations I offered during the Committee stage of the Bill. I am bound to say in justice to Lord Munster that he told me the Amendment had been misprinted in the name of another noble Lord and that he was going to move it in his own name, thereby preventing me from moving it in the name of Lord Lothian. I do not think it is a very serious state of affairs. Any Peer is entitled to reopen the subject on the Third Reading, as was indicated in unusually clear and explicit form by the Leader of the House last night. In these circumstances I think I may remain embedded in my seat.
THE EARL OF DUDLEY: My Lords, the only assurance I seek is that when I do raise the matter on the Third Reading I shall not be told it is impossible to reverse your Lordships' decision. I sought to find out what the point of the Amendment was as quickly as possible, but it was hustled through in a minute, and it was virtually impossible to look up the passage of the Bill referred to in time. I hope in the circumstances the Leader of the House will give me that assurance.
EARL STANHOPE: My Lords, may I begin by pointing out to Lord Dudley that this Amendment stood in the name of the Lord Chancellor and myself in the list circulated on Saturday? It was only in the Second Marshalled List that it was put down, unfortunately, under the name of Lord Lothian. Therefore, if the noble Earl had gone through the list on Saturday he would certainly have found all the criticisms necessary for the occasion. Apart from that, as I remarked yesterday and as my noble friend Lord Crawford has reminded the House, it is very much better to deal with these things on the next stage of the Bill. This is another case in point. There is no reason whatever why the House should not make an Amendment to an Amendment made on a previous occasion. We do not of course rescind decisions of the House which have been arrived at, but there is no reason why we should not make an amendment of some change made in the Bill already. Therefore my noble friend will have ample opportunity on the Third Reading to put forward suggestions in regard to this Amendment or other changes in the Bill.
THE EARL OF DUDLEY: I am very grateful to the noble Earl.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Second Schedule:

SECOND SCHEDULE.
PROVISIONS FOR DEFINING PROPERTY AND RIGHTS WITH WHICH, AND MATTERS SUBJECT TO WHICH, COAL IS TO BE ACQUIRED.

PART II.
Vesting of rights to withdraw support.
6.—(1) In a case in which the fee simple in the coal or mine and the fee simple in land supported thereby was vested on the valuation date in the same person and no coal-mining lease of that coal or mine was then subsisting, there shall vest in the Commission with the coal or mine, such a right as is hereinafter mentioned, to the extent to which the existing owners of the coal or mine were competent on the valuation date to grant such a right by virtue of their interests in that land, that is to say, a right to withdraw support from that land so far as may be reasonably requisite for the working of any coal, subject to an obligation to make good, or to pay proper compensation for damage arising from such working to that land, or for damage arising from such working to buildings or works thereon.
(3) On an application under Section eight of the Mines (Working Facilities and Support) Act, 1923 (which provides for the imposition by the Railway and Canal Commission of restrictions on the working of minerals where a person having an interest in land is not entitled to support or to sufficient support for buildings or works), the applicant shall not be required to pay or give any compensation or consideration in respect of the imposition of restrictions appearing to the Railway and Canal Commission to be justified by circumstances due to the subsistence of a right to withdraw support vested in the Commission by this paragraph:
Provided that this sub-paragraph shall not have effect in the case of an application sent to the Board of Trade after the expiration of six months from the date of the first publication in relation to the right in question of the notice required by sub-paragraph (2) of this paragraph.
(4) Notwithstanding anything in Section thirteen of the Mines (Working Facilities and Support) Act, 1923, restrictions, the imposition of which appears to the Railway and Canal Commission to be justified as aforesaid, may be imposed under Section eight of that Act on the application of, and so as to vest the right to enforce the restrictions in, any such company, authority or body as is mentioned in the said Section thirteen.
LORD HASTINGS LORD HASTINGS moved, in sub-paragraph (1) of paragraph 6, to leave out all words after "obligation" and insert:
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"either

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

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

which obligation shall extend to buildings and works on that land whether constructed before or after the vesting date."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am glad to be able to tell the House that this is an agreed Amendment, agreed as between the mineral owners, the mine-owners and His Majesty's Government. After very considerable difficulty these words have been arrived at, and unless the House desires me to go into and explain them, I will merely content myself with moving the Amendment with the remark that without doubt the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will be withdrawing the Amendment which stands in his name immediately following. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 55, line 17, leave out from ("obligation") to the end of line 19 and insert the said new words.—(Lord Hastings.)
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, on this point I must put in a protest on behalf of the Labour Party but not against the conduct of the noble Lord, Lord Hastings. His job is to get what concessions he can from the Government and to put them through. This Amendment only appeared on the Paper to-day. I saw my honourable friends in another place who represent the miners there this morning, and it has not been possible to get a considered opinion on all these Amendments which stand in the names of the learned Lord Chancellor, the Leader of the House, Earl Stanhope, Lord Hastings and the other Peers concerned. There are a great many of them. I did not know which were being taken and which were being dropped, nor did my honourable friends in another place. Therefore it has been impossible for my noble friends and myself on this side of the House to get any guidance or advice whatsoever. These Amendments deal with matters of technical importance of which we do not pretend to have any special knowledge, and it is therefore most difficult for us on behalf of the Opposition to offer any observations on these Amend-

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ments. The one just moved by Lord Hastings was moved without any explanation at all. He satisfied the Government, so I suppose it is not necessary to satisfy any one else; but I am going to ask the Government to explain what the Amendment means and tell us what effect it will have on the Bill and on the duties of the Coal Commission under it.
In connection with this matter it is my duty to make these observations to-day. As I have said, I and my noble friends met in consultation with my honourable friends who take a special interest in this Bill on behalf of the Miners' Federation. There have been three groups at work on this Bill since it reached your Lordships' House—the group who are advised and assisted by the royalty owners, the group who are advised and assisted by the mine-owners, and His Majesty's Government who have the assistance of the Department of Mines and all the experts they care to call in. Between them they have met and discussed the matter in a kind of Soviet outside your Lordships' House. "Soviet" is perhaps not the right word. This is not Sovietism; this is syndicalism. A syndicalist committee has met outside your Lordships' House—I say this of course without any reproach to anyone—and then we are presented with these results.
May I read out some of the words used by Lord Hastings in the debate last night? Referring to the Second Schedule and asking for its postponement, the noble Lord said:
"The Second Schedule was very controversial, and it has been the subject of interminable negotiations between the two parties interested in this Bill, those representing the royalty owners and those representing the coal-owners. They having come to agreement, then His Majesty's Government stepped in with an alternative proposal."
How dare they step in between these great forces? And we, these orphans, my noble friends and I on this Bench, apparently have no locus standi in this business at all. After all we are trying to represent, however inadequately, about 600,000 or 700,000 mine workers in this matter and also the Official Opposition. Our views are for what we consider to be the good of the nation as a whole. To continue what the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, said:
"They having come to an agreement, then His Majesty's Government stepped in with an
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alternative proposal. As that alternative proposal was put into my hands only after the tea hour this evening between five and six o'clock, it has of course been impossible to arrive at any agreement with those other parties who are deeply interested in this matter."
Then the noble Lord went on to ask that the Second Schedule should be postponed to to-day, which has been done.
Later on Lord Hastings said:
"While the House is dealing with the Report stage we cannot be discussing outside."
I make no complaint whatsoever of Lord Hastings and his friends taking extra advice from those who know the industry. That is not our complaint at all; but I must explain to your Lordships that it is difficult for us on the Opposition side to give an opinion on those Amendments which now have been agreed between the three parties. The Government who had the temerity to step in have now apparently come to an agreement and they have accepted Lord Hastings's Amendment. I must confess to your Lordships that when I saw my friends in another place who are miners' representatives I asked them their opinion upon the Government's Amendments. I said: "You will not have time to look at Lord Hastings's Amendments, but you may take it they are against your interests in any case. Give my noble friends and myself some guidance on the Government Amendments which only appeared on the Paper yesterday." I could only see my honourable friends to-day because yesterday I was otherwise engaged here. Now, apparently, the Government Amendment is not going to be moved. The Government are adopting Lord Hastings's Amendment. I want, if I may, to ask for a full explanation of its implications.
Secondly, I wish to say that as regards my noble friends and myself here we cannot give a considered opinion upon these Amendments. That does not mean to say we agree with them. They may be excellent; I do not know; but in the circumstances I have mentioned we shall have to let them go. In that connection I must remind your Lordships of what happened at the end of the Committee stage. Your Lordships will remember that Clause 12 was postponed so that noble Lords and their advisers outside could try to come to some arrangement, and finally an Amendment was put down

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on the very day that we discussed the matter in the name of the Minister of Education to line 39 on page 14, and another Amendment on line 2 of page 15. My noble friends Lord Addison and Lord Snell and myself had no opportunity of having these Amendments considered, but I did take advice about them, because I thought we might bring the matter up again at a later stage, and if I may I am going to read a few words of the opinion of a colleague of ours in another place who has as much knowledge of this particular industry as I believe any member of the House of Commons. He says:
"The effect of the two Amendments is to tie the hands of the Commission completely so as to secure the financial position in respect of the coal working business not being worsened. If that means anything it means that the Commission has got to deal with rent as if it was a mere accountancy charge in the books of the company; e.g., the owner would not have to pay himself royalties in a bad year; he must not be made to pay the Commission any-thing if he is to be in no worse position in a given year than he would have been. It is impossible to put a tenant in no worse position than a working landlord. The thing is really nonsense."
I have only just got this opinion. If we had been in possession of this opinion before we would, of course, have resisted these last-minute Amendments to Clause 12 on the Committee stage. I cite that as an example of what happened on the Committee stage. Now at the Report stage we are faced with these Amendments which may be of the utmost importance and I feel bound to make the Opposition view clear with regard to them.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I confess the speech of the noble Lord fills me with surprise and, in a modified sense, with admiration because it so happens that this question of compensation had been discussed in this House on previous occasions up hill and down dale with the greatest care and ability, if I may say so, by a number of your Lordships. Anybody who listened to those debates and who considered the questions that were involved should have, I should have thought, no doubt at all as to the two matters, as I understand it, which this Amendment, which seems to be regarded as a nefarious bargain, is intended to deal with. There are two things. The first is this: when the surface is let down how should you put the surface owner,
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according to fair principles, in a position to have the damage done to the surface made good or to be compensated? And there was a question, which the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, urged with his usual skill, whether the clause in the Bill which would enable the person who had done the damage either to make good or to compensate was in fact just, because there were cases where he thought if that was left to the option of the person who had done the damage it might be unjust to the surface owner. Upon that the battle raged.
In many cases, as was pointed out, I am afraid, at some length on a previous occasion, the lessees have a staff man who goes in immediately a wall is cracked or a fence let down or water does not run properly in the drain and the damage is made good sometimes within forty-eight hours after the damage is done. In other cases a house is involved and, if it is a serious matter, instead of it being made good compensation is paid. The question is whether you should pay compensation or make good. This nefarious bargain, as it seems to be regarded, appears to be this, that where the surface owner consents the colliery company or the Commission, as the case may be, shall make good, and where he does not at once consent his consent is not to be unreasonably refused. In other cases there shall be payment in cash for damage done. How that can affect anybody except the surface owner and the lessee, and indirectly the Commission, I am unable to understand. Nobody can have any doubt on reading this very simple clause that so far as that is concerned that is all that is intended to be dealt with by the Amendment.
There was another point which from the point of view of the Government was a more serious point and one upon which the Commission was indirectly interested. Accordingly those persons who are interested in this measure becoming a success might well say that they wanted to understand what was being done. They had a perfect right to object to a liability being placed upon the Commission which they thought was not a fair one. That question again was discussed at great length, and the Government—I am afraid I was the principal spokesman on this matter—objected to any liability being placed on

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the Commission to pay or make good except in cases where the Commission had themselves granted the lease, because it was said that where leases were in existence at the date of vesting it was not fair that a liability should be placed on the Commission which might have arisen from circumstances entirely beyond their control. That is the second point which has been agreed.
It has been agreed on these terms, which I think are fair terms, that as between the persons mainly interested—namely, the surface owner and the colliery company—where the colliery manager is working under a lease granted by the Commission, the Commission should be liable directly or indirectly to pay the sum due to the surface owner. I remember having a little discussion with the noble Lord who has objected to these Amendments. He was taking the greatest interest in the matter then and I remember well, and if I may say so with regret as far as I am concerned, that the noble Lord scored a point over something I had said and I had to admit I was wrong. He said that colliery companies might go bankrupt and accordingly there might be a number of cases in which the surface owner, who from this point of view might be quite a poor man, would be unable to recover from the lessee the sum which the lessee was liable to pay because he had let down the surface. At that time the noble Lord betrayed, as I thought, full and complete apprehension of the points which were being discussed, but it appears that the lapse of a fortnight or so has resulted in his mind being a blank on all these topics and he professes to be unable to understand this exceedingly simple Amendment which is the result in one sense of a bargain, but not an unfair or in any way improper bargain.
The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, has put down an Amendment which the Government are able to accept, and the result will be that proper compensation is payable under paragraph 6 of the Schedule we are discussing for damage arising from the working of the land, or, with the consent of the person entitled to compensation which he may not unreasonably withhold, that damage is to be made good to the reasonable satisfaction of that person and without expense to him. The addition that the obligation shall extend to buildings and works on the land whether constructed before or after the
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vesting date is in effect mere drafting to make it clear that the land does include buildings, as it does not in some other places in the Bill, because buildings are the subject of the claim. The only comment I have to make is that I am not sure that the word "which" in the latter part of the Amendment is as good grammar as the words "and this" would be. That is a matter with which the noble Viscount, Lord Bertie, is generally concerned. It is a purely grammatical question. Upon the other points there is really nothing which calls for prolonged examination, nothing which is unfair or unjust, nothing in which the interests of the public are in the least degree jeopardised.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I would not rise again, although I have the right to do so as the mover of the Amendment, except to take up one remark that fell from the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi. He told us that he had informed his advisers in another place that any Amendment put down in my name must necessarily be contrary to their interests. I take great exception to that. I have endeavoured to explain that the mineral owners of to-day will be the surface owners of tomorrow and the surface owners' interests whether great or small are the same. Consequently on previous occasions as on this occasion what I have been endeavouring throughout to do has been to safeguard the interests of these surface owners. The fact that I have been successful in so doing should be a matter of congratulation from the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, because those whose interests he desires to represent are identical with the interests I represent. I trust he will not again commit himself to the statement that any Amendment which appears on the Paper in my name is contrary to the interests which he represents. It is not the fact. I apologise to the House, because I have endeavoured to save the time of the House by saying little about it, but it has had disastrous effects.
LORD STRABOLGI: May I say to Lord Hastings that I did not mean him to take it too literally? Certainly I did not mean to give him any offence, and so far from his Amendments being all contrary to the interests which I represent, both I and my noble friends have on more than one occasion supported him.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD GAINFORD LORD GAINFORD moved, after subparagraph (1) of paragraph 6, to insert:
"(2) The Commission shall on the occasion of their first exercising, or granting to a lessee the benefit of, a right vested in them by this paragraph give public notice that they propose so to do by advertisement in the London Gazette and in one or more newspapers circulating in the locality, and, in the case of buildings or works whose construction is begun after the date of the first publication of the notice the person for whom the buildings or works are to be constructed shall before the commencement of the construction thereof cause to be deposited with the Commission plans showing the design of and the proposed materials for and the method of construction of the foundations of such buildings or works and the Commission shall have the right of inspection of such foundations during their construction from time to time as they may reasonably require.
(3) If the Commission are of opinion that the proposals contained in such plans as aforesaid are not such as to minimise damage in the event of subsidence they may, within twenty-eight days of the deposit of the plans, propose to the person for whom the buildings or works are to be constructed that such alterations therein as they consider desirable for the purpose of minimising such damage shall he carried out and in that event the obligation to make good or to pay compensation referred to in sub-paragraph (1) of this paragraph shall be limited to damage which could not have been avoided had the aforesaid proposals of the Commission been adopted.
(4) The Commission shall pay the costs reasonably incurred by such person as aforesaid in connection with the deposition of plans in accordance with sub-paragraph (2) and the additional cost incurred in the construction of the buildings or works in complying with a proposal made by the Commission under sub-paragraph (3) of this paragraph.
(5) Any dispute as to any amount payable by the Commission under the preceding sub-paragraph shall, failing agreement, be determined by arbitration.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the subject matter of this Amendment really arises out of the action of the Government in divorcing the interest in the minerals from the surface owner. The colliery owners are very well accustomed to having many claims for subsidence, and in many cases attempts are even made to exploit them by those who either rent or possess houses on the surface. This Amendment deals only with the question of buildings which are to be erected after a new lease. There are three main paragraphs. One deals with the necessity for the Commission to publish in the Press any new lease which has been made, so as to enable any person who is going to construct a building on the surface,
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above the coal, to give notice of his intention. The next paragraph requires that the Commission can in their wisdom take steps to see that proper foundations are laid to those buildings, so that undue subsidence does not take place in regard to those buildings. The next paragraph deals with the cost of the production of plans which are required by the Commission, and deals with costs due to the steps which have to be taken as a result of the Commission's actions. The last paragraph is merely the usual one enabling any dispute to be referred to arbitration.
What I want to emphasize is that this principle has been accepted by the Government, so far as I understand. The cords that are on the Paper are not words which are entirely in accordance with the views of the Government. They are words which have been agreed to between the owners of the surface and the Mining Association. We naturally took rather a different point of view from that of the owners of the surface. They will no longer possess the coal, and will have only one interest, which is to develop their surface as best they can, and have proper rights of protection in connection with their surface against the mineral owners. They are no longer in collusion with the mineral owners in trying to help in the development of the minerals, and consequently they look at a possible subsidence from a very different point of view. The mineral owners, on the other hand, are most anxious that no damage should occur on the surface if it can be prevented, because after all they have only two alternatives, either to pay compensation for all the damage which they have done to buildings on the surface as a result of their operations underground, or to sterilise their coal and leave support for those buildings, so that no subsidence can occur.
In actual practice we have found, as colliery owners, that in many cases where houses are erected on the surface only a very small expenditure is required in connection with the laying of cement foundations in order to prevent any subsidence occurring, or any damage being done to buildings owing to operations underground. This Amendment is necessary in order to enable the colliery owners to work the minerals, and it is also necessary in order to enable the Commission, who will possess the minerals, to be able

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to lease them and. see that they are worked. I am not going to press the Amendment on this occasion, because the Government apparently do not see quite eye to eye with us with regard to these words. The difference I believe is not in principle, but in regard to particulars. Owing to shortness of time it has been impossible for me to secure agreement between the mineral owners and the Government as to the exact final words which ought to be introduced in order to deal with this point. I therefore propose merely to move the Amendment formally, with a view to ascertaining the Government's view with regard to the principle, and I hope that in the interval between now and the Third Reading there will be no difficulty in agreeing an Amendment which can be passed without any discussion. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 55, line 19, at end, insert the said new sub-paragraphs.—(Lord Gainford.)
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, the noble Lord who has moved the Amendment has explained quite fully the purpose of it. It is perfectly true to say that the Government believe that they will be able to meet my noble friend. After consideration of the Amendment which he has moved we had hoped to be in a position to bring forward an agreed Amendment on this occasion. The time has unfortunately been short, but I think there is very little now between the noble Lord and my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade, and if we can agree an Amendment I shall be only too pleased to bring it forward on the Third Reading, at which time I shall be very happy to explain the contents of it to my noble friend Lord Strabolgi, as well as to the rest of your Lordships. I hope therefore that Lord Gainford will withdraw this Amendment now and see whether this agreement can be reached with His Majesty's Government.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Munster, who expressed the hope that he would be able to find words agreeable to Lord Gainford, will not forget that he has also got to find words agreeable to me; because the Amendment which stands on the Paper has been arrived at after very much discussion between the two interests which are vitally concerned in the matter, and any change of words which is agreeable
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to one section without being equally agreeable to another could clearly not have any prospect of passing through this House undisputed. I hope with him that words will be found which will be agreeable to all parties.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, I think it might even be possible to find words which would meet the wishes of my noble friend opposite, difficult as that seems to be at certain periods.
LORD GAINFORD: My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD HASTINGS LORD HASTINGS had on the Paper an Amendment to omit the proviso in subparagraph (3) of paragraph 6. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the original purpose of putting down this Amendment was to eliminate a paragraph which had become inappropriate owing to the action taken by the House in Committee. Since that Amendment was put down an alternative Amendment has been put down by the Lord Chancellor and the Leader of the House. I have given considerable study to that Amendment, and I may say that I like their Amendment very much, but after consulting with my friends in the matter I have come to the conclusion that it would be exceedingly difficult to find alternative words to this Amendment, and therefore I propose to retire from the contest, not to move my own Amendment, and to amend that which is in the name of the Lord Chancellor and the Leader of the House.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in sub-paragraph (3) of paragraph 6, after "Provided that," to insert "the Commission shall, on the occasion of their first exercising, or granting to a lessee the benefit of, a right vested in them by this paragraph, give public notice that they propose so to do by advertisement in the London Gazette and in one or more newspapers circulating in the locality, and." The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, these words were struck out from the text by mistake in Committee, and it is necessary, really only as a matter of drafting, to reinsert them. I think they require no real explanation.
Amendment moved—
Page 55, line 35, after ("that") insert the said words.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Why is it necessary to publish in the London

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Gazette? I should have thought that all that was necessary was to publish in a local newspaper. To do it in the London Gazette seems to me quite superfluous.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I understand there are people who make this their daily reading and desire to have an opportunity of seeing these things in the London Gazette, more particularly if they are not persons residing in the locality.
LORD ADDISON: My Lords, I hope this will be retained, because it is the practice of every Department to issue its notices in the London Gazette. Anyone who wants to know what a Department is doing will get notice of it in the London Gazette. It is exceedingly desirable for many reasons that this practice should be maintained, so that everybody will know where to look.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the next Amendment is consequential.
Amendment moved—
Page 55, line 38, leave out from ("notice") to end of line 39 and insert ("to be so given").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, at the end of sub-paragraph (4) of paragraph 6, to insert "and such restrictions may be so imposed on the application of, and so as to vest the right to enforce the restrictions in, any company or other body or person carrying on an undertaking primarily for the supply of gas, electricity, water or hydraulic power for public purposes or to members of the public." The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this is a case in which I think I have to admit that on the previous occasion I used language in your Lordships' House which implied that I thought there were no reasons for any such provision. It is intended to deal with what may be, perhaps not very inaccurately, described as public utility companies having no statutory rights. In particular it was impressed on the Government that there were a number of such companies in Scotland concerned with the supply of water, gas, electricity and so forth, without any statutory powers. The contention I put forward was
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that they should get protection under the Act of 1923, and I am not at all sure that I was wrong; but, after having said that I would consider the matter, I came to the conclusion that it would be safer (because I was not quite confident that I was right) to insert words which would make it perfectly clear that these bodies, without the necessity of showing that public interests were involved, should be in the same position as the person who had statutory power and would therefore be entitled to make an application to the Railway and Canal Commission. Accordingly those persons can, subject to the conditions of the Act, apply to have imposed the restrictions which are necessary for safeguarding their undertakings.
Amendment moved—
Page 55, line 46, at end insert the said words.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH had given Notice to move to add to paragraph 6:
"(5) If any person interested in any land supported by coal or a mine of coal shall suffer injury or damage to such land or to buildings or works thereon arising from the working of coal he shall have a right of action against the Commission in respect of such injury or damage except where the payment of compensation in respect of such injury or damage is provided for in a coal-mining lease subsisting on the valuation date."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment deals with a matter which I am going to suggest to your Lordships is of the greatest possible importance to every property owner in the country. That of course applies to the question we have just been debating and as to which the Government have agreed to the insertion of words that we consider are reasonable. This is just as important as that, but it has this difference. The difference is that the need for this recourse which I am going to ask your Lordships to give was not, it seems, apparent to the Government until we reached the Committee stage of this Bill in this House. The Bill came all the way through another place and up to the Committee stage here without the Government having perceived the need for any security of this kind.
That illustrates the first point I want to make, which is that the Government have been really unconscious of the difficulties which this Bill of theirs is going to produce in the severance which it makes

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between the surface and the minerals. This Amendment is not quite the same as, but is similar to, an Amendment which I moved on the Committee stage the object of which was twofold. I wanted to give the surface owner, who was the former mineral owner and whose minerals are now going to be vested in the Coal Commission, recourse against the Coal Commission in the case of new leases granted by the Commission in future; and I also wanted to give him recourse against the Coal Commission in the event of the infraction by the lessee of the existing lease which exists at the time of transference—that is to say, the lessee who was the lessee of the former surface owner and who will in future be the lessee of the Coal Commission.
It may be that my Amendment was too wide, and it may be still that this Amendment is too wide. To recall the circumstances, I would remind your Lordships of the Amendment which was accepted on the Committee stage and which was proposed by my noble friend Lord Amulree. That provided that the Commission should have a right to obtain security from a lessee where they were giving a right to withdrawal of support. That was accepted by your Lordships, and this Amendment followed immediately afterwards. As I understood the course of the discussion, the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack agreed that there might be something to be met, and he agreed to consider it between that stage and this and put down on the Paper an Amendment to meet the case. That Amendment which the Government have proposed, I expect, is the one which follows, and the only reason that I have made these remarks is to say that I appreciate that the Government have done something to meet the case which my Amendment was intended to meet, although not all. I wish to know whether the Leader of the House agrees that the right course in these circumstances is to proceed by way of Amendment to the Amendment, because I have tried put down some Amendments to rectify what I consider to be one blemish and one omission in the Government's Amendment. The noble Earl who leads the House has told us that it is unusual to proceed by way of Amendments to Amendments, but he may agree in these circumstances, with the Amendments actually on the Paper,
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that it is the convenient way of doing it. If the noble Earl agrees, I do not propose to move this Amendment, but would try to get what I want through the Amendments to the Amendment to be moved by the Lord Chancellor.
EARL STANHOPE: We think it would be the more convenient course if my noble friend so moved Amendments to the Government Amendment on the next page.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: In these circumstances I will not move this Amendment.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to insert after paragraph 6:
"7.—(1) Any person interested in land damaged by the working of coal in exercise of a right to withdraw support therefrom which vests in the Commission under either of the two preceding paragraphs subject to an obligation to make good or to pay proper compensation for damage arising from such working, and which has been granted by the Commission to a lessee, shall be entitled to enforce against the Commission any liability to pay proper compensation for or to make good that damage pursuant to that obligation which the lessee fails to discharge:
Provided that nothing in this sub-paragraph shall be constructed as rendering invalid any provision contained in a lease granted by the Commission requiring the lessee to indemnify the Commission against liability in respect of any such obligation as aforesaid, and the Commission may require the inclusion of such a provision in a lease which they are under obligation by virtue of Section twelve of this Act to grant.
(2) Any question as to the subsistence by virtue of either of the two preceding paragraphs of an obligation to make proper compensation for or to make good damage to any land, or as to the rights or liabilities of any person in respect of the enforcement of such an obligation so subsisting, shall be determined by arbitration."
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, as I mentioned when we were considering the previous Amendment, there were two great points, and this is the second of them. The question is how far the Coal Commission ought to be liable either by way of proper compensation or by making good any damage that might arise to the surface and buildings as the result of subsidence. This Amendment is an attempt to carry out what we stated the Government were seeking to do—namely, to go as far as we thought was just and proper in the direction of making the Commission liable for such damage or making good to the surface

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owner. The limit to which the Government can go is that mentioned in the proposed new paragraph. It is limited to cases where there is a right to withdraw support by reason of something which the Commission do, and in that case, subject to the conditions in sub-paragraph (1), the person damaged
"shall be entitled to enforce against the Commission any liability to pay proper compensation for or to make good that damage pursuant to that obligation which the lessee fails to discharge."
In the normal case the lessee will have, by lease granted by the Commission, a liability of that kind, but he may be unable or unwilling, or he may refuse in some circumstances, to make good that obligation, and upon that (I think for the first time in this country) a liability is now imposed upon the Commission as landlord—I mean imposed by Statute on landlords—to make good a liability which a tenant of theirs has omitted to discharge in relation to a letting down of the surface.
That is, I submit, quite a substantial concession on the part of the Government. Beyond that I cannot see how the Government can fairly be asked to go. Take a particular existing lease, which continues to be subsisting at the date of the vesting. The tenant has got certain obligations. The lease is one with which the Commission have nothing to do. He may have been acting in accordance with the terms of his lease, quite strictly, and as a result he may let down. He may be liable to pay compensation. His liability may be limited or, indeed, in some cases he may not be liable at all, because the landlord may have given him the right to let down the surface, or he believes he has such a right to let down the surface. In all these cases it does seem to the Government quite unjust and inequitable that a liability should be imposed on the new landlord—namely, the Coal Commission—to pay a debt, discharge an obligation, which has been incurred by a tenant who came on the scene before the Coal Commission were thought of. Accordingly, the right to claim against the Commission is limited in the way suggested.
I am not seeking for the moment to answer all the questions that arise, or particularly the question that will arise on the third Amendment put down by the
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noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, but simply to justify the sub-paragraph as it stands. There is then a proviso that it is not to invalidate any provision contained in a lease granted requiring a lessee to indemnify the Commission. Unless that is put in it may be thought by certain persons that when the Coal Commission are granting the lease they are not entitled to impose a liability upon the tenant. That really is a question of negotiation between the Coal Commission and the respective tenant, and the tenant may prefer to get rather betters terms from the Coal Commission on the condition that he made good any damage to the surface or buildings on it.
Then in sub-paragraph (2) there is a provision, which again, was suggested and asked for by a number of noble Lords, that when any question of this sort arises as to the existence of an obligation under either of these two preceding paragraphs it shall be determined by arbitration. I think someone thought that there should be an alternative, an application to the Court. Perhaps your Lordships will allow me to say, having had a very large experience in cases of this kind in the Courts, that I cannot help thinking that it is not to the benefit of either party to go to the Court, unless it is absolutely necessary, in subsidence cases. They involve so much expert evidence, generally, I regret to say, of a most conflicting character. It is far better, if the parties can manage it, to get a first-rate arbitrator to go down to the mine and see what working has been done, inspect the plans, then go on the surface and see how much damage has really been occasioned. I think those who want applications to the Court should be told that in most cases, so far as my experience goes, such applications would not meet the case. They would be acting rather unwisely if they did not agree to arbitration, which I think is the best plan. That is the paragraph which is proposed on the part of the Government and I leave it to the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, to move his Amendments.
Amendment moved—
Page 55, line 46, at end insert the said new paragraph.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH had given Notice of three Amendments to sub-paragraph (1) of the proposed new paragraph—namely, after coal, to insert

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"(a)"; to leave out "which the lessee fails to discharge"; and to insert "and (b) contrary to the terms of a lease subsisting at the valuation date shall be entitled to enforce against the Commission any liability for payment of proper compensation arising from such wrongful withdrawal of support."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I would like to say, because it clarifies the situation, that there is a printing error in my first Amendment as it appears on the Paper. It is the wrong kind of "a". It makes it rather difficult to follow. It should of course be an italicised "a" to correspond with the italicised "b" lower down. Your Lordships will forgive me mentioning that, because the Amendment is difficult to follow if you did not realise what I have just said.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Perhaps I may read the three Amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, as they are intimately connected.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: I rather want to take the Amendments quite separately, because I regard them as dealing with entirely separate matters, apart from the italicised "a".
EARL STANHOPE: Suppose we put in the italicised "a" and then the House rejects the last Amendment of my noble friend?
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: I do not want to put in an italicised "a". I am quite willing to leave the "a" out. I understood that the learned Lord Chancellor wanted to take the Amendments together, but I wish to pass to the second Amendment in my name and to the third Amendment. First I will move the second Amendment.
EARL STANHOPE: I think that would be the simplest thing. What I was suggesting was that we should have the discussion of the third Amendment on the italicised "a", but it makes no difference.
VISCOUNT HORNE OF SLAMANNAN: My Lords, may I suggest to the Lord Chancellor that the word "constructed" in line 13 of the noble and learned Lord's Amendment ought to be "construed"—"provided that nothing in this sub-paragraph shall be construed"?
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH moved, in sub-paragraph (1) of the proposed new paragraph, to leave out "which the lessee fails to discharge." The noble Lord said: The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack told us in moving his Amendment that this represents the limit to which the Government can go. I very much regret to hear that because I was hoping that we should get some further concession, and if I receive the support which I hope for on this matter I shall feel bound to press it to a Division. The paragraph as it stands applies to the normal lease granted by the Coal Commission in the future, and if I understand it aright it would also apply to a licence or liberty granted by the Coal Commission to a lessee under an existing lease. The provision is that recourse is given to the surface owner against the Coal Commission by which the Coal Commission are forced to make good damage which the lessee fails to discharge—the obligation which the lessee fails to discharge. Reading through the noble and learned Lord's Amendment I found it was all very good up to that point. Those words to my mind are an excrescence which your Lordships may fairly be asked to remove. It is like a wart on an otherwise not unhandsome face. I do not think it is an entirely handsome face, because it is lacking in one essential feature which will be put in by my other Amendment. Meantime we are now dealing with the excrescence.
It does seem to me fair that recourse should be given against the Coal Commission for these reasons. I was very glad to hear the noble and learned Lord say that for the first time there is now to be a liability imposed by Statute on this landlord to make good the liability of his tenant. That is so obviously right that the rightness of it never occurred to the Government until we pressed it on them, but it is all part of this tremendous new problem of the severance, and it is fundamentally fair. You are going to transfer this great body of property, all this coal, to the Coal Commission and the Coal Commission is something quite new. This coal has always before been owned by private individuals or companies and let to lessees, but you are now introducing an entirely new factor into the law of this country. At first the Government said they could not interfere

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with existing leases, nor with those existing provisions which would impose this liability on a landlord for the obligations of his tenant. The Government have now conceded the main principle and what I am asking for is only a very small further adjustment of that concession. I should like to know what these words "which the lessee fails to discharge" really mean. How far am I going to have to take the lessee before he can be said to have failed to discharge his liability? Have I got to take him all the way to the House of Lords? Of course in the ordinary way the lessee will discharge his liability, and I suppose in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred no difficulty will arise, but I can see that the lessee will be much more ready to give effect to his obligation if he knows that he is liable to be stirred up from above, that is, by his new landlord the Coal Commission.
Your Lordships have to remember that the situation of the surface owner is going to be a very difficult one. He is parting with a great deal of his control over his lessee. He is going to be in an extremely difficult position. One question I should like to ask the noble and learned Lord is if he will tell me whether the surface owner will have any right of access to workings under his ground. I know he has a right to plans, but I have not been able to find in the Bill anything definite—although it may well be there—that he will have any right of access. If he has not, I think he ought to have it, because he is going to be in a very difficult position without the intimate knowledge he at present has of what is going on underground from the six-monthly or annual reports of his mineral agents. It seems to me eminently fair that this recourse should be given against the Coal Commission simultaneously with recourse against the lessee. I cannot see that there can be any harm in it and I conceive it only to be fair having regard to the new relationship which is going to be created between the surface owner, the Coal Commission, the lessee and the agricultural tenant.
It is an understood matter I think in this country that in debates in this House or in another place one must be very careful not to make any attack on the Civil Service. They are in the position that if they are attacked they cannot
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answer for themselves. But I do not think it is unfair to say that civil servants are apt to have the defects of their qualities, and the insertion of these words to my mind is an example of depart-mentalism of a rather unfortunate kind. As I see these words they are in there largely to save the Coal Commission trouble. Quite clearly it will be much less trouble for the Coal Commission if the wretched surface owner has to cope with the lessee and exhaust his resources against him before he can turn against the Coal Commission. But the Coal Commission are going to be the big brother in all these mineral matters, and I think they ought to take over not only the plums in respect of royalties but the responsibilities and liabilities which today rest on the surface owner. I think this is a matter of the very first importance and I hope your Lordships will support the Amendment which is simply to remove this excrescence from the face of an Amendment which, otherwise, up to a point, is satisfactory.
Amendment to the Amendment moved—
Line 10, leave out ("which the lessee fails to discharge").—(Lord Balfour of Burleigh.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the noble Lord always seems to see behind an Amendment something which requires consideration, and I think in most cases his desire is fair and just, but I think in this instance he has not appreciated the legal effect. It is that effect which I think may possibly lead him to modify his views. If the words are struck out the result will be that the primary responsibility for making good damage, great or small, caused by the subsidence of surface by a working lessee, will be on the Coal Commission. The result will be if the words are struck out that if a man has a crack in a wall or if his fence is destroyed, or some damage is done to a building, or the drains do not work properly, he will have to communicate with the Coal Commission and to enter into correspondence with them. They will have to communicate with the working lessee to ask if he agrees that the damage in question is due to his workings, and in the result there must be a very substantial delay in giving to the surface owner what everyody wants to give him—namely, compensation, or the alternative of making good, as soon as possible. That

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is, I am convinced, the effect of striking out the words.
If that is so, I cannot believe that the noble Lord will insist on this Amendment, because he knows better than most of us that by far the greater number of these trivial cases of damage are remedied at once by the working lessee. There are staffs employed to do the work who are going round and making good every small damage that occurs to the surface. It cannot be to the interest of the surface owner that he has got to begin by shooting at the Coal Commission, who presumably have some important office in London, who may be far distant, who have to send somebody down to see what has been done; whereas the alternative if the lessee is responsible is that the lessee is on the spot, he is in the position of having people there watching the results of underground working, and it is perfectly easy for them in a very short time either to make good or to ascertain at very small expense the amount of the compensation which ought to be paid. It is on this ground that I do not think this Amendment would have the result which the noble Lord wants. I am strongly of opinion, and I urge it upon your Lordships, that, if you leave the words in, not one case in a hundred will ever come before the Coal Commission. The remaining ninety-nine will be settled by the lessees.
The paragraph which the Government have assented to makes it possible for the surface owner, if damage is done and he cannot get relief out of the lessee, to get that relief out of the Coal Commission. The noble Lord asked, how far has he got to go. I do not think that in practice there is any difficulty in answering that question. The paragraph as it stands makes the lessee primarily liable to discharge the liability. He is the man who has done the work which has let down the surface, and unless the surface owner agrees to its being done he goes to the lessee and says: "Such and such damage has been done, make it good." The paragraph is not so worded that the lessee has got to be pursued to the House of Lords. If a reasonable demand is made upon him and he does not comply with it the lessee has failed in discharge, and there will be an opportunity for the surface owner to apply to the Coal Commission. There will be no difficulty at all. In these circumstances I hope the noble Lord, whatever course he takes with re-
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gard to the next Amendment, will see that the present Amendment is really not so drawn as to have the effect for which he seeks.
LORD ADDISON: My Lords, I think the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, said correctly that this was a matter of first-rate importance which he has raised. It is. I hope your Lordships apprehend that the noble Lord wants to place upon the new big brother a different amount of responsibility altogether from that which applies to the existing small brother. The existing brother, to keep to the formula of the noble Lord, is the existing royalty owner, the landowner. He has certain obligations, and it is right and proper, of course, that the State, if the Commission are really in fact to be the State, should be a good landlord; but that is not a reason for saddling upon the Commission a responsibility which does not now fall upon a landlord, even a good landlord, and which a good landlord does not now recognise as his responsibility. That is what this Amendment would do, and so it is a matter of first-rate importance, because it would really result in this, so far as I understand it. To use the words of the noble Lord, it is the duty of the landlord to make good the defects of his tenant, if the tenant defaults. The lessee in this case would enter into an agreement, and part of his agreement would be to make good surface deficiencies if they occur, and so on. But this Amendment would have the effect of making the Coal Commission responsible for the defects of the lessee, who has entered into a right and proper agreement with the Commission. It opens up a vista of claims upon the national Commission, and would be a standing encouragement to lessees to ignore their own obligations. It would place upon this State big brother an entirely different class of responsibility from that which hitherto has attached to the existing small brother. It is indeed a matter of first-rate importance, and for once the Party to which I belong find themselves on the side of the Government.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I had some considerable difficulty in following the arguments of the noble and learned Lord, and I was wondering whether in fact he has himself appreciated the different sets of circumstances which not only

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may but certainly must arise after the passage of this Bill into an Act of Parliament. It would, of course, be true to say that a surface owner whose coal is now in lease to a company will be often, after the passage of this Bill, in almost constant relation with that colliery company. That I think is inevitable. It is also valuable. In so far as that set of circumstances is likely to prevail, and to continue, the only difficulty there that arises will be to prove that the lessee has failed to discharge certain obligations, and I think my noble friend Lord Balfour is right in saying that a lessee who disputed his failure would have to be taken to such Court as might finally declare that failure or the reverse. That, of course, would be exactly what now is existing in the event of a lessee disputing his failure. There is nothing new in that.
But conceive of a case, and it will be the universal case in the course of time, where the Coal Commission issue a new lease. The Commission select the tenant. They will not ask the surface owner whether he approves of that tenant or does not approve. He will be required under the Amendment which has been put into the Bill by Lord Amulree to accept a tenant only of a class who will be able to pay compensation of a proper character. That is in this Schedule now. But the owner of the surface will be unrelated to that colliery tenant altogether. How is the surface owner of the future to obtain satisfaction for the letting down of his land by a lessee—not a lessee of his own but a lessee of the Coal Commission—with whom he is not in relation, and by whom he is owed no obligation, unless he has a right to go to the Coal Commission itself and to be able to demand in law compensation for the damage done to his surface by the lessee not of himself but of the Coal Commission?
It would seem almost the inevitable procedure. I am unable to understand how the surface owner will be able to get compensation for damage other than by that procedure. And it would occur to me as being right and proper that the Coal Commission should have a statutory liability to the surface owner in respect of minerals worked by a lessee of the Commission. Lord Addison seemed to think that the Coal Commission were being invited to accept a liability which does not now rest upon the mineral owner
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of the present day. It seemed to me that that was the wrong end of the stick. It is not suggested that the royalty owner of the day has a liability in this matter of his tenant. The tenant has a liability to the surface owner. The tenant will have a liability in the future not to the surface owner but to his own landlord, and that is the State, and by this Amendment the surface owner is enabled, so to speak, to move the Coal Commission to operate the liability which the tenant of the Coal Commission owes to the surface owner as the person who has suffered damage. I fail to visualise in the Lord Chancellor's Amendment any means whereby the surface owner can recover compensation from the tenant of the Coal Commission otherwise than by what is proposed in the Amendment moved by Lord Balfour of Burleigh. I beg to support what my noble friend has moved.
VISCOUNT HORNE OF SLAMANNAN: My Lords, I do not desire for a moment to labour a matter which perhaps has already been made abundantly clear by the very lucid speeches which have been made from these Benches. But let us try to find what principle lies behind this proposal, which indeed the Government have accepted. In the ordinary case the present-day royalty owner goes against his tenant or lessee who has let down his surface and done damage to his buildings—quite properly goes against that lessee, because he has got an interest in that lessee, he has selected him. If a lessee not very reliable, not very substantial in the way of means, comes along and seeks to get a lease of the coal, the royalty owner is in the position of rejecting that lessee and making his choice. But when the coal is severed from the surface he no longer has any ability of selection. He has to take the tenant who is forced into the position by the Coal Commission. That may be a very unreliable person. Accordingly, the Government have recognised this fact—I take it that upon no other ground could they have accepted the suggestion made by my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh and have said that the Coal Commission, which puts the tenant into the position in which he is able to do damage to the surface proprietor, shall be responsible for all the damage which is done. That is the principle which lies behind the whole thing.

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If you once accept that it is perfectly plain also that the body against whom you must have recourse must be the Coal Commission. And—again taking the view that you may have a very unreliable lessee imposed upon you by the Coal Commission—it would be a monstrous thing if the owner of the surface were to be compelled to go through all the Courts of the land before it could be said that the lessee had failed to discharge his obligation in his liability to the surface owner. It might involve the surface owner not merely in a great deal of worry and trouble, but also in expense, which he might never be able to recover. That is the position in which he would be. There are many expenses incurred in the Courts which the successful litigant is not able to recover, and all that is imposed here upon the Commission is liability for the damage which occurs to the surface.
I was, however, very greatly impressed by the practical difficulty which was suggested by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack when he said: Is everything that takes place to be brought up before the Commission? I should have thought that in a practical world and in this practical country a practical means could be devised of getting over that difficulty. It would be very easy to put a paragraph in the Bill to suggest that in every case of notification to the Coal Commission of any damage that has taken place the surface owner should at the same time notify the lessee and give him an opportunity of making good the damage. Some phraseology of that kind might be put in as a practical method. But I think it would be very unwise and very unjust if we were to allow a surface owner to be put into the position in which he had, in the language of the law, to discuss a lessee who might not be a man worth powder and shot, but who might give him a great deal of trouble. I think the surface owner should on no account give up his direct access to the Commission for any damage which has been occasioned to his surface.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I think the noble Viscount, Lord Home, has overlooked his own Amendment which he had on the Paper jointly with Lord Balfour of Burleigh, and which did insist that where the lease so provided the surface owner had to go to the lessee.
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Then apparently the Government put down their Amendment, the two noble Lords see the Government Amendment, which is virtually the same as their own, and then they try to improve upon the Government Amendment by putting the whole of the onus on the Coal Commission. Where the lessee has an obligation, obviously the surface owner must go to the lessee, and that is admitted in the previous Amendment by the noble Lords, Lord Horne and Lord Balfour of Burleigh, which was withdrawn. Then why do they ask more from the Government now by seeking to amend the Government's Amendment in this way? As the noble and learned Lord has said, I took an interest in this matter on the Committee stage. I am grateful to the Government for this Amendment, and I hasten to come on this occasion to their support.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, I think this short conversation has very well illustrated the difficulties inherent in the separation of surface from minerals. The speech of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack was almost defeatist to that extent. Good gracious! Whatever is the good of thinking you could come up to the absentee landlords in London to get your grievances redressed and to deal with a lessee whose name you may not ever know? I ask one question. Would the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack kindly answer Lord Balfour's question as to the right of the surface owner to inspect the underground working? I can find no right of that sort in the Bill. Unless he has that, he does not know when the mineral owner below ground is going to approach the barrier of his property. The result would be that damage would take place without the surface owner having the power to protest. At the present moment that difficulty does not arise, at least only in one per cent. of the cases of coal being worked. It seems to me a very serious thing indeed that this, like so many other things, has been overlooked, because it is clear that from the very inception the Government thought it quite easy to buy coal, but it had not the remotest idea that it would have to buy the right to lower the surface as well.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My, Lords, may I answer the last question? I have to remind your Lordships that there is no right of action whatever as

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regards working underground unless and until damage results. The effect of this is, and has always been, that you cannot complain because people are working under you; but the instant subsidence takes place on your property, causing damage, you then have a right of action, and in some cases you have an immediate right to an injunction. In practice, what happens is that as soon as you know—and people who are accustomed to these occasions know very quickly—that something underneath your premises is causing some subsidence and causing some injury, you are entitled to a writ, and you are entitled on proper application to inspect the underground working. But there is no right, and there has never been a right, to inspect underground workings in the case of an ordinary surface miler merely because the surface owner knows that some workings are taking place in subjacent property.
We are doing nothing except what is common form in these cases, and it is quite a mistake to suppose that in every case at the present time the surface owner is the person who has granted the lease. Your Lordships must know perfectly well that surface and minerals in countless cases have been severed for over one hundred years, and in these cases the surface owner will be in exactly the same position under this Bill as the surface owner who owns the surface but who does not own the minerals. May I say a word in answer to Lord Hastings? I concede that the man who has been the owner of the surface and the minerals, and is the man who granted the lease, is not in such a good position to know if damage is going to be occasioned to him after the severance has taken place, but he is in exactly the same position to know that damage has been occasioned to him as he always has been. That is the cause of action. It is not working underground, but working underground with the effect of causing damage.
Now may I say something in answer to my noble friend Lord Home? In the first place I should like to congratulate him on the discovery that the word "constructed" is really a misprint for the word "construed," which apparently the Government had not discovered. It shows the great care with which the noble Viscount has read these Amendments.
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But having paid him that compliment, I must go on to say that I am quite unable to see the force of the argument which he has presented on this particular Amendment. It does not seem to me, with all respect to him, that he has answered the considerations I put forward in the smallest degree. The question is, in a case where the Coal Commission have granted a lease to a tenant, with an obligation on the tenant to make good any damage that shall be occasioned, whether the surface owner who has been damaged shall go first to the Coal Commission or shall go first to the man who has done the damage. It is the person whose working has caused the damage, not the Coal Commission, and I am wholly unable to see why in such a case he should not go against the person who has done the damage, who is at his very gate, whom he knows. I cannot believe that a surface owner who originally was the coalowner, who has got a colliery company working on his land, with all the various things on the surface that are incidental to the operation of coal-mining, cannot ascertain or does not know his name.
If a wall has cracked quite recently, and he sees a shaft close by and sees the ordinary stuff coming up day by day, is it not obvious that the sensible thing is to go to the secretary or some other person at that place and say, "Look here, you are letting down my house, you have cracked my wall, you must make good, or pay compensation." It is a complete mistake to suppose that, having done that, you have, in order to have your right against the Commission, to sue the man who has done the damage either in the High Court, the County Court, the Court of Appeal, or the House of Lords. With great respect that is fantastic. The section has said nothing of the sort. The section says if the lessee fails to discharge, and if you make a proper claim against a man, whether he be a working lessee or anyone else on the land, and he does not within a reasonable time comply with it, he is failing to discharge, and on that being so you have the right to go against the Commission.
I cannot help expressing my opinion very strongly that the striking out of these words would be unjust and unfair, and would not in the least carry out any object except this—namely, to cause trouble. You put the primary responsi-

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bility on the Coal Commission in striking out these words. Many people who suffer damage will think they have to go against the Coal Commission first because you have made it first, and in that case the consequence will be simply this. Correspondence with somebody in London, and the Commission will have to communicate with the lessee. The Coal Commission will not know how much damage is done. That is what the lessee will know. I ask your Lordships to leave the matter as it is at present, and let people do what Lord Home says is the sensible thing to do—proceed against the man who has done the damage and not proceed first against the Coal Commission, who have not done the damage and who know neither the damage which has been done nor the quantum of it, nor what should be done to make good.
VISCOUNT HORNE OF SLAMANNAN: May I ask the noble and learned Lord a question?
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order, order.
VISCOUNT HORNE OF SLAMANNAN: By leave of the House, may I ask a question? The question is, supposing the lessee refuses to acknowledge that the damage has been done by his workings, would it then be right for the surface owner to go straight against the Commission, or can the Commission reply that the lessee has not failed to discharge?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am not able to say what the position would be in every case, but in the normal case, where the surface owner is claiming in respect of cracks or damage done to the surface, and the fact is that these cracks have been occasioned shortly after working by the working lessee, if the lessee declines to acknowledge any liability I venture to think that is an obligation which the lessee fails to discharge. It would still be open to the Coal Commission in that case to say that the damage has not been done within the terms of paragraph 7, but if the damage has been caused and is damage within paragraph 7, then the Coal Commission would be liable, and none the less the lessee who made excuse for not performing the obligation.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, I am quite sure your Lordships' House was very glad to have two
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speeches on this important matter from the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, and I hope the same consideration will be extended to myself or my friends if we ask the House to allow us to do so also. I confess that the full reply which was given by the noble and learned Lord has not convinced me that the position of the surface owner is really met by this Amendment. As the noble Lord said, we are talking now about a lease which the Coal Commission will give to a lessee to work coal under a surface owner's grant. The surface owner will have no part or lot in the choice of that lessee. We have convinced the Government that he ought to have recourse against the Coal Commission. Now the question is the order of recourse. Of course, I agree that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the matters will be settled between the lessee and the surface owner, but I maintain that the Coal Commission ought to accept the responsibility right away from the word "Go," if I may say so. There is nothing in this Amendment about communications being sent to the Coal Commission in the first instance about a ditch which wants clearing; there is nothing in this Amendment about assessing the damage. All it does is to put the responsibility equally on the Coal Commission.
I was astonished to hear the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack say that the surface owner would be no worse off so far as this question of damage is concerned. The noble and learned Lord forgets that he said that the surface owner was not concerned—so I understood him to say—with the fact that minerals were being worked under his ground until damage was done. But he is intimately concerned at present. He is getting reports every year from his mineral agent, he knows precisely what is going on, and he is intimately concerned with everything that goes on under his ground because he is drawing that income. Now the need for regular mineral reports is being taken away, and he will not know nearly so intimately what is going on, but he is just as much concerned with the risk of subsidence. You have to remember the position in which the surface owner is going to be. As I said to your Lordships on a previous stage of the consideration of this Bill, he is going to be on one side of the fence, with the Coal

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Commission and the lessee on the other side of the fence, and it is sometimes going to be very difficult to establish against a lessee that damage has in fact been done. Lots of lessees will not be ready to stand up to their obligations; many of them will be very hard to convince.
It is quite easy for the Lord Chancellor to talk about cracks appearing, as though it were a matter of easy ascertainment—as though a crack appeared and you knew at once that the damage had been caused by the working underneath. So often there are doubtful cases; and I do maintain that these words "which the lessee fails to discharge" are entirely unsatisfactory and unnecessary, because, as my noble friend has pointed out, they are so indefinite. We do not know what they mean in the case, we will say, of a claim which is resisted by a lessee. All surface owners may not be perfect individuals. Well, all lessees are
Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment to the Amendment disagreed to accordingly.
not perfect individuals. They are not all ready to admit liability even in cases where that is clear, and still less in cases where it is not clear. The Coal Commission have given the lease, and the Coal Commission ought to be ready to take the responsibility right from the start. I feel that unless the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack can promise me something, I shall have to press this question to a Division. We were asked on the last occasion to postpone it, and we did, but I think that this debate has revealed a very unsatisfactory state of mind on the part of the Government, and unless I can get a very definite promise of something to meet this undoubted difficulty I shall have to ask your Lordships to divide.
On Question, Whether the words proposed to be left out shall stand part of the Amendment?
Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 51; Not-Contents, 38.

CONTENTS.

Maugham, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Stanhope, E.

Fermanagh, L. (E. Erne.)

Wicklow, E.

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

Hailsham, V. (L. President.)

Gorell, L.

FitzAlan of Derwent, V.

Hare, L. (E. Listowel.)

Bath, M.

Goschen, V.

Harlech, L.

Dufferin and Ava, M.

Halifax, V.

Heneage, L.

Zetland, M.

Samuel, V.

Holden, L.

Ullswater, V.

Hutchison of Montrose, L.

Albemarle, E.

Jessel, L.

Bessborough, E.

Aberconway, L.

Kenilworth, L.

Birkenhead, E.

Addington, L.

Lawrence, L.

Feversham, E.

Addison, L.

Perry, L.

Iddesleigh, E.

Arnold, L.

Rennell, L.

Iveagh, E.

Biddulph, L.

Rushcliffe, L.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Boston, L.

Sackville, L.

Midleton, E.

Cautley, L.

Snell, L.

Munster, E.

Clanwilliam, L. (E. Clanwilliam.)

Strabolgi, L.

Plymouth, E.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Spencer, E.

Clwyd, L.

Windlesham, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Portland, D.

Hereford, V.

Gainford, L.

Wellington, D.

Home of Slamannan, V.

Gerard, L.

Hastings, L.

Aberdeen and Temair, M.

Annesley, L. (V. Valentia.)

Howard of Glossop, L.

Askwith, L.

Lamington, L.

Bathurst, E.

Balfour of Burleigh, L. [Teller.]

Middleton, L.

Dartmouth, E.

Mildmay of Flete, L.

Dudley, E. [Teller.]

Basing, L.

Mowbray, L.

Fitzwilliam, E.

Bingley, L.

Oriel, L. (V. Massereene.)

Lindsay, E.

Brancepeth, L. (V. Boyne.)

Saltoun, L.

Mar and Kellie, E.

Cromwell, L.

Sandhurst, L.

Scarbrough, E.

Darcy (de Knayth), L.

Shute, L. (V. Barrington.)

Doverdale, L.

Teynham, L.

Falmouth, V.

Fairfax of Cameron, L.

Waleran, L.

Wigan, L. (E. Crawford.)

LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH moved, in sub-paragraph (1) of the proposed new paragraph, after "discharge"

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immediately preceding the proviso, to insert "and (b) contrary to the terms of a lease subsisting at the valuation date shall he entitled to enforce against the Commission any liability for payment of proper compensation arising from such wrongful withdrawal of support." The noble Lord said: My Lords, I would first like to offer my congratulation to the Government on having been saved by His Majesty's Opposition, who happen to be here in full force to-day, otherwise they could not have performed that rather notable feat. They have just done it. This Amendment is intended to have the effect of giving recourse to the surface owner against the Coal Commission in the case of an infraction of a lease subsisting at the time of valuation. The reason for this Amendment is that if a lessee under such a lease improperly withdraws support the remedy for the surface owner is not under the lease but is at Common Law. It seems to me to be right and in accordance with the principles which are now admitted by the Government, although perhaps not quite to the extent which I should like, that the Coal Commission should have that responsibility. I anticipate that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack will say that this lease has nothing to do with the Coal Commission. I cannot accept that point of view. I think it has a great deal to do with the Coal Commission. It is true that the lease was granted by the present surface owner, it may be many years ago, but the Coal Commission are going in future to be the recipients of the royalties which are paid under that lease, and I think they must take their share of responsibility for such unpleasant parts of the lease as exist as well as the plums.
The argument resolves itself once more into the big brother argument, and I do not think I need develop it at any great length, but I would like to emphasize once more to your Lordships the fundamental change which is being effected by this transfer to the Commission. It seems to me most unfair to take the line that because the surface owner may have had the misfortune to have a bad tenant he is to be left to struggle with that position, and that the Commission are to take the royalties and leave him, as it were, to stew in his own juice. I will not add more at this stage, but with those words I beg to move the Amendment.
Amendment to the Amendment moved—
Line it, insert the said words.—(Lord Balfour of Burleigh.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, again I am afraid I am unable to agree on behalf of the Government to this Amendment, but for somewhat different reasons. As I understand it, the object of the Amendment is to impose upon the Coal Commission a liability for everything done by the lessees who had leases with which the Commission have had nothing at all to do as regards the granting of them, provided that the damage done is damage in respect of which compensation is payable and the liability is in respect of something done contrary to the terms of the lease. I am puzzled altogether to understand the precise meaning of this. The Commission are to be liable if the tenant has done something contrary to the terms of the lease. He may, of course, be entitled to let down subject to payment of compensation or he may have a lease under which he is not liable for having let down. The words of the Amendment are "contrary to the terms of a lease subsisting at the valuation date." I do not quite understand why the noble Lord puts in the valuation date and not the vesting date. In such a case the Commission are to be liable in respect of all these matters.
Tenants do no doubt occasionally commit breaches of the conditions and terms on which they get a lease, and, as I have said before, I am unable to see why the Coal Commission should be liable in such cases. I have already explained to the House, I hope not at wearisome length, that the Government are quite unwilling and unable to accept liability for something done by lessees from whom they have so to speak inherited as from the date of the vesting of the property in them. I am afraid I have already wearied your Lordships on this point. The Government can go no further than the Amendment which stands in my name and that of the noble Earl the Leader of the House.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, may I ask the noble and learned Lord Chancellor or the Leader of the House a question that has a bearing on this important Amendment moved by Lord Balfour? The question relates to the whole of the

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matters we are now discussing. As I understand it, in future the Commission own these coal seams and they lease them to people who are going to work them, to mineowners.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: May I interrupt the noble Lord? We are dealing here apparently, not with leases granted by the Coal Commission, but with leases granted by their predecessors.
LORD STRABOLGI: It is a rather complicated matter and perhaps I can ask my question when we deal with the Amendment as a whole.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, perhaps I ought to have developed my point more fully in moving the Amendment. I am not quite sure that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack is so innocent as he would have your Lordships believe. The case I have in mind is that of a lessee who withdraws support where he had no right to withdraw support. I have in mind a man working a shallow seam where pillars of coal are stipulated in the lease to be left for the protection of surface buildings. It happens to be a particularly valuable seam and the lessee is not a very scrupulous fellow. This is a case within my own knowledge. He goes after that seam and does damage which the lease was so drafted as to prevent him doing. Once again we come to the difficulty that the surface owner will not have the access he used to have. He will not have his mineral agent going every six months to look round and see what is going on. He will have the greatest difficulty in bringing home to the lessee this infraction of the lease. Once again I must tell your Lordships that it is not so simple as it appears to the noble and learned Lord. He says that at once when a crack appears you know that damage has been done. Those of your Lordships who have lived in mining areas and have had experience of these matters know that it is not quite so simple as all that. It is a very difficult matter to bring home responsibility even in a case which turns out to be a flagrant case.
Why the Government cannot do the fair, decent thing to these wretched surface owners who are having their property stolen at forty per cent. of its market value I cannot understand. It really
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makes me very angry. If the royalty owners had had a square deal it might not have been so bad, but not only have they had a deal which I think perhaps soon the country will begin to understand is a very raw deal, in the words of my noble friend, but in addition to that the Government by this proposal go on scaling them down and scaling them down, putting them in the wrong, making things as difficult for them as they possibly can. I can only say once again that this is a measure of which the Government ought to be, and I think probably in their hearts are, ashamed, but I cannot get your Lordships to agree with me and I do not think it is much use pressing the point to a Division.
Amendment to the Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, before the main Amendment is finally agreed to I should like, if I am in order, to ask a question about it. This is the last opportunity before we part with the Second Schedule. As one of the saviours of the Government I would like to presume on that position and ask a question which really supports what has been so ably argued by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh. I am not speaking now of the great landlord who has leased coal for generations. I am thinking of the small freeholder who has bought his house or cottage.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: If the noble Lord had thought of that before he would have voted for my Amendment and we might have carried it.
LORD STRABOLGI: I am thinking of it now. I go a great part of the way with the noble Lord, but on this occasion my noble friend Lord Addison persuaded me against it. Here you have the case of coal which is taken over by the Coal Commission and from time to time the Coal Commission lease it to various companies w ho work it. Earlier in to-day's discussion the noble Lord, Lord Gainford, moved an Amendment, the principle of which was accepted by the Government but which was not inserted in the Bill, to provide for notice being published in the London Gazette and in local newspapers. That notice was to be given by the Commission on the occasion of their first exercising their right to grant a lease. I ask your Lordships to suppose that some years have

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elapsed, that the coal has been leased to perhaps two or three different tenants, and damage occurs through subsidence. I am the owner of a small freehold house which is damaged. How do I know who has caused the damage? By this Amendment I shall have to apply in the first place to the lessee, to the local secretary of the coal mining company. But how do I know who it is? I am a busy man, may be a small shopkeeper, who does not follow these things. Will it he known in the locality whenever a lease is granted, and will it be known when that lease alters the right of support? I am thinking, as I say, of small householders, perhaps thousands of them, who have suffered grievously in the past. They will know that there is this all-powerful Coal Commission in London to whom they can in the last resort apply, but meanwhile they have to go to the local people. What steps do the Government propose to let it be known to whom they should apply?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the case where there is more than one colliery company working an underground seam is not usual, but I think that is the case under the hypothetical house with which the noble Lord is concerned. There are not many such cases, but I agree that I ought not to shirk the question because there are such cases. Usually one seam is let to one lessee and another seam to another lessee. Sometimes, however, there are as many as three or more people working under the ground in question. One colliery corn-pang perhaps is working a narrow seam and another company is working a wider seam. There is at the present time considerable difficulty in. such a case, when damage to the surface occurs, in determining who is liable, but I do not think myself that that difficulty will continue. I am expressing here an opinion which I think is right, and doing my best without notice of the question to answer it. I do not myself think that the difficulty will continue if paragraph (7) as it stands on the Amendment Paper is put into the Bill, for the reason that the owner of the house or cottage would, if he were a wise man, apply to each of the lessees who are working under his premises and request each of them to pay him for the damage that has occurred. If one of them replies, all is well.
LORD STRABOLGI: I am sorry if I have not made myself clear. That was not my point. I was putting the case of one company. There is a change. The original company is perhaps liquidated and a new company formed to take over the lease. How are small local people to know that a new tenant has taken over the lease?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I confess that I had not understood that that was the noble Lord's point. The answer to that, I think, is that the existence of a new lessee would be known in the neighbourhood. If a company goes into liquidation that would be known.
LORD STRABOLGI: A voluntary liquidation?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes, even if it is a voluntary liquidation. If something of that sort takes place he might unfortunately take the view that the wrong person is liable, and if so the answer may be that the persons responsible are those who went out a week, a month, or a year ago. In those circumstances the person to whom the claimant went would very likely decline responsibility, rightly or wrongly, and if within a reasonable time he failed to discharge the liability, then the Coal Commission would come in. I think that the paragraph is so drawn that there is no real difficulty in such a case. The paragraph does not say that the lessee has got to be unsuccessfully sued or anything of that sort. He has got to fail to discharge his liability before you have recourse to the Coal Commission.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Third Schedule:

THIRD SCHEDULE.
PROVISIONS AS TO COMPENSATION PAYABLE UNDER SECTION SIX OF THIS ACT.
THIRD SCHEDULE.
  PART III.

    VALUATION.
    Claims and Valuation Proceedings.
    11.—(5) As soon as may be after giving effect to the preceding provisions of this paragraph in the case of any holding the Board shall settle their valuation thereof and shall give notice of their valuation in the prescribed form to the claimant and to each of the persons intervening if any, and in the case aforesaid, to the Commission. The said notice to the claimant or any person intervening shall

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    contain an intimation of the right of the person to whom it is given to have the valuation reviewed under the provisions of paragraph 12 of this Schedule.
    14. The Central Valuation Board shall have power to make, with the approval of the Board of Trade, rules as to the procedure to be followed in giving effect to the three last preceding paragraphs and for prescribing anything that is therein directed to be prescribed, and in those paragraphs the expression "prescribed" means prescribed by rules made under this paragraph.

PART IV.

  PAYMENT AND DISPOSAL OF COMPENSATION.
  Disposal of compensation as between beneficial interests.
  20.—(1)
  (2) In the case of a holding that consists of or comprises an estate or other interest subject to a settlement within the meaning of the Settled Land Act, 1925, or to a trust for sale the proceeds whereof are subject to a settlement by way of succession, the trustees of the settlement or the Court, and in the case of the Court on the application of any beneficiary under the settlement, may require and cause the compensation, or the part thereof attributable to that estate or other interest, as the case may be, to be laid out, invested, accumulated, and paid in such manner as, in the judgment of the trustees or of the Court, as the case may be, will give to the beneficiaries under the settlement the like benefit therefrom as they might lawfully have had from that estate or other interest, or as near thereto as may be, regard being had, when the circumstances so require, to the fact that that estate or other interest was property of a wasting character:
  Provided that—

  (a) where a payment on account of the compensation for the holding has been made under the preceding paragraph before the vesting date, the net income accruing to the trustees before the vesting date from the investment of the sum paid, up to an amount sufficient to make good to the capital of the settlement the interest on that sum brought into account under the last preceding paragraph against the capital of the compensation, shall be set aside as capital of the settlement;

  (b) subject as aforesaid no part of the income of the compensation shall be required or caused by virtue of this subparagraph to be set aside as capital of the settlement.

  (3) In the case of a holding that comprises an estate or other interest subject to a mortgage, the compensation (other than any part thereof that is attributable to an estate or other interest not subject to the mortgage) shall be held and disposed of in like manner as if it had been money arising under a power of sale conferred by the mortgage.
  (5) Money representing compensation attributable to an estate or other interest subject to such a settlement as is mentioned in subparagraph (2) of this paragraph, or vested in trustees on or for charitable, ecclesiastical or public trusts or purposes, may, notwithstanding anything in the relevant trust instrument, be invested not only as authorised by law or by the trust instrument but also in or on the debentures or debenture stock or the preference or wholly or partially guaranteed stock or shares of any company incorporated by a special Act of, or provisional order confirmed by, or by or under a public general Act of, the Parliament of the United Kingdom, or incorporated by Royal Charter, being a company which has paid dividends upon its ordinary capital at the rate of at least three per cent. per annum for at least the five years next before the time of investment (of which fact a letter purporting to be signed by the secretary of the company or by a banker or member of a firm of bankers or by the secretary or manager of a joint stock bank or of any branch thereof shall be sufficient evidence):
  VISCOUNT HORNE OF SLAMANNAN VISCOUNT HORNE OF SLAMANNAN moved to insert the following new paragraph:
  "11.—(1)In the case of any holding in respect of which an apportionment of rent is prescribed under Section ten of this Act the Regional Valuation Board shall make the apportionment as soon as may be after notice of registration in relation to the holding has been given to them under the last preceding paragraph and shall give notice thereof in the prescribed form to the claimant, to any persons intervening and to the lessee (which expression for the purposes of this paragraph means the person who at the valuation date was liable to pay the rent to be apportioned).
  (2) Within the prescribed period after service upon him of the notice of apportionment the claimant or any person intervening or the lessee may give notice in the prescribed manner to the Board of Trade that he claims to have the apportionment referred to and determined by the High Court and if any such notice be given the apportionment shall be so referred and determined in accordance with rules to be prescribed."
  The noble Viscount said: My Lords, this is a matter upon which I may hope finally to gain the meed of the Lord Chancellor's favour. It is a matter purely concerned with simplifying procedure. It arises out of the provisions of Clause 10 of the Bill, and I think the House will be glad to find Clause 10 now in the shape in which the Lord Chancellor has put it, rather than in the condition in which it was sent up from another place. Clause 10 provides for the case where there is a severance of interests owing to the fact that the Coal Commission have acquired the coal, but where the interests have been divided,

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  and the Coal Commission have only acquired a part of those interests. In those circumstances it is incumbent upon the Regional Valuation Board to apportion the rent reserved in the lease. My argument starts from that point. It is incumbent upon the Regional Valuation Board to apportion the rent reserved in the lease. Now I come to the question of the procedure which people have to follow who are involved in severance of interest under Clause 10.
  The scheme of the Bill seems to be this. First of all, the previous owner has to give notice of a claim within the prescribed time. If he gives a notice of claim he receives the registered particulars of the coal in question. Thereupon he puts in a valuation, an estimate of the value, of the coal which belongs to him. Thereafter the Regional Valuation Board deal with the claimant's estimate and provide a draft valuation of their own. If the owner objects to that valuation, what he then does is to seek an interview or an opportunity of being heard before the Region al Valuation Board. Then comes a final decision by the Regional Valuation Board, and if the claimant is dissatisfied with that he goes to a referee. That I take it is the scheme put forward in the Bill. Keeping in mind that the Regional Valuation Board have to apportion the rent, it is perfectly plain that in the circumstances I have described the claimant may be assessing the value of his coal upon a totally wrong basis, or upon a totally different basis from that of the Regional Valuation Board, who have apportioned the rent reserved in the lease in a totally different fashion. I would like to suggest that it would be only common sense to cut a part of this procedure, and to follow the method advocated in my Amendment.
  That method is this, that as soon as the Regional Valuation Board have apportioned the rent reserved in the lease they should give notice to the claimant of the apportionment that they have arrived at, and that thereafter he should put in his claim upon the basis of the rent so apportioned, or otherwise. If he objects to the apportionment of the rent which has been arrived at by the Regional Valuation Board, he should at that stage, at once, if he wishes to dispute the matter, take it before the High Court, where a final decision would be given. That would
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  appear to be, with other circumstances in the Bill, the method which is adopted in Clause 10, and so I do not think the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack would suggest that this is procedure which had not been contemplated. Accordingly, I venture to move the Amendment which is in my name on the Paper. I have described shortly what is the result of the first paragraph and also of the second paragraph, and then the ordinary procedure would follow.
  It would prevent what it seems to me would necessarily follow—namely, a whole lot of appeals to referees, which need never occur if you allow the claimant to know from the beginning the apportionment of rent at which the Regional Valuation Board have already arrived. It is senseless that a claimant should put in a claim, or an estimate of valuation, for himself, when he does not know what it is that he has got to meet. Accordingly, I suggest that you should cut a lot of the procedure by adopting the method which I propose. Then there would follow as a consequential Amendment the words which appear on the Paper providing for the appropriate time w hen these procedures would be followed. I hope that the Lord Chancellor will accept this simplification of the procedure in the Bill.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 66, line 21, at end insert the said new paragraph.—(Viscount Home of Slamannan.)
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, it is with great regret that I cannot on behalf of the Government assent to this Amendment moved by my noble friend in such persuasive accents, but I really cannot. For one thing, if I correctly understand it, it is in conflict with Clause 10, which has already been approved by the House on this stage of the Bill. I am not sure that my noble friend appreciates the fact that under Clause 10 the provision is that where there is not a separate rent reserved of surface and minerals
  "the rent reserved by the lease shall he apportioned, and the parts of that rent to be apportioned to the several parts of the premises shall, in default of agreement between the Commission and any other person entitled in reversion,… be determined by an arbitrator selected by agreement between the parties."
  Then follows subsection (2) providing that:

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  "(2) Where an apportionment of the rent reserved by a lease has been made for the purposes of a valuation of a part of the premises under the Third Schedule to this Act, an arbitrator shall have regard to that apportionment for the purposes of a determination under the preceding subsection."
  That is quite inconsistent with what the noble Lord proposes in the present Amendment.
  In the first place, he requires the Regional Valuation Board to give notice in a certain form to persons intervening and to the lessee and then, after the prescribed period, the claimant or any person intervening or the lessee may give notice to the Board of Trade that he claims to have the apportionment referred to and determined by the High Court. The House has already agreed to a clause under which every question of apportionment is to be determined by an arbitrator, and, if I may say so, I express the opinion that the House very wisely acted in providing for this apportionment to be made by an arbitrator and not by the Court. Because if you go to the Court to value the premises comprised in a certain holding of the surface and the mine underneath that surface for the purposes of an apportionment of rent, the Court does not know anything about it of its own knowledge. The Court knows something, perhaps a great deal, about the law relating to minerals, but nothing about that particular holding, either its surface, or its value, or the minerals. The result is that you have then a conflict of evidence on the two sides, which may be very expensive, and which may of course lead to a further application to another Court. Now if you have got an arbitrator, who is to determine a question of fact, in which there is no law involved, the decision of that arbitrator on the question of fact binds both parties. He makes an award, and you cannot have any of the trouble of an appeal unless there is some question of law, or unless you get him in the course of the arbitration to state a case.
  All these facts are perfectly well known to my noble friend, and the main result of the Amendment which he has moved is that, instead of having this apportionment question simply determined once for all by an arbitrator agreed between the parties, or if necessary appointed by an independent person, the parties are to be
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  involved in all the trouble and expense of an application to the Courts. It is for these main reasons, and certain other reasons which are not of so much importance, that I am unable to accept this Amendment, and I ask your Lordships to keep the matter as it was left yesterday when Clause 10 was amended by an Amendment of which your Lordships ought to be well aware.
  VISCOUNT HORNE OF SLAMANNAN: My Lords, I apologise for my temerity in venturing to aspire to paint the lily of this Bill, and accordingly I beg to withdraw this Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  EARL STANHOPE: My Lords, the next Amendment in my name is drafting.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 67, line 10, leave out ("the case") and insert ("either of the cases").—(Earl Stanhope.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, the next Amendment is drafting.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 67, line 14, leave out ("where in the case") and insert ("where in either of the cases").—(The Earl of Munster.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  LORD HASTINGS LORD HASTINGS had given Notice of an Amendment in sub-paragraph (5) of paragraph II, to leave out "case" and to insert "cases." The noble Lord said: My Lords, I think that is probably an omission on the part of the Government draftsman.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: May I suggest that it should be "either of the cases"?
  LORD HASTINGS: I agree. I move it in that form.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 67, line 24, leave out ("case") and insert ("either of the cases").—(Lord Hastings.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  LORD HASTINGS LORD HASTINGS moved, in sub-paragraph (5) of paragraph 11, after "Commission," to insert "and (in the second case aforesaid in which notice has to be given to the Commission) to all persons interested in the valuation of all other holdings in the Valuation Region." The noble Lord said: My Lords, the House will be

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  familiar with the fact that the concession which the Government made in respect of freehold coal created a demand for the insertion in this Schedule of words which would enable the Commission to appear before a person experienced in the valuation of minerals where the Commission had some reason to suppose that the coal in the property of the freehold coalowner had been under-valued. In Committee the Government inserted words, which are to be found in sub-paragraph (4) of paragraph u, to this effect:
  "if the claimant, or in the case aforesaid, the Commission, so require in the prescribed manner and within the prescribed period, the Board shall give him or them an opportunity of being heard by a person experienced in the valuation of mineral,…"
  It is quite evident that after the valuer has made his valuation and the Commission are allowed to appear, and appear successfully, before the person appointed to hear the Commission's objections to that valuation, it is only fair and proper that the other persons who would be affected by an alteration in the valuation should similarly have the right to be heard.
  The diminution of the valuation, or the increase of the valuation, which is what the Commission would presumably be seeking, would deduct from and diminish the amount of compensation money available to the remainder of the mineral owners in that area. In such cases I feel certain that the noble and learned Lord will sympathise with the view of the mineral owner that such diminution or deduction should not be made unless, and until, these other persons who are affected thereby have the opportunity of representing their view. It would be a valuable view to the arbitrator because they, and they alone, could speak of the values attached to other collieries of the same character in that area. I feel that the noble and learned Lord will agree with the principle I am endeavouring to advocate.
  But there is another way out of this which I would like to suggest to the noble and learned Lord as being possibly the better. Yesterday, when we were debating Clause 12, an Amendment was inserted in the Bill by the noble and learned Lord himself on page 14, line 32. It is to be found on page 8 of the First Marshalled List of Amendments in our hands yesterday. The Amendment reads:
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  "The right under this section to a grant of a lease of any coal or mine shall be conditional upon the applicant's satisfying the requirements of the Third Schedule to this Act as to the registration of particulars thereof under the Registration Act and the making of a claim for compensation for the fee simple therein, and to his complying with the provisions of that Schedule that impose upon him any duty in connection with the valuation of the fee simple therein."
  The insertion of that new paragraph in the Bill last night appears to me to make unnecessary the provisions on page 67 of the Bill under which the Commission has the right to appear before a person experienced in the valuation of minerals, for the reason that if the freehold coal-owner has been compelled under this new paragraph to satisfy the requirements of the Third Schedule of this Bill, there cannot in my view be any point on which the Commission could object and desire to appear before an independent person.
  If the noble and learned Lord takes the same view, and I am hopeful he may because I expect the reason why he put that paragraph into the Bill last night was to obviate any possibility of an infraction of the rules of valuation, he may be inclined to agree with me that it would be simpler to rely on that new paragraph and to take out of sub-paragraph (4) on page 67 of the Bill the special provisions under which the Commission may appear before a person experienced in the valuation of minerals. In that case the Amendment to which I am now speaking would become redundant and unnecessary. That is my impression, and no doubt the noble and learned Lord will give attention to the point. At the moment I am merely advocating that the power given to the Commission to appear before this person experienced in the valuation of minerals is an authority which should be shared by other persons affected. I hardly think it should be necessary to argue the justice of that any further. If the noble and learned Lord thinks that the new paragraph already meets the case I shall he very glad to withdraw my Amendment, conditional on the withdrawal also of the special Amendment put in on Committee.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 67, line 25, after ("commission") insert the said words.—(Lord Hastings.)
  EARL STANHOPE: My Lords, I am afraid the Government do not quite see their way to accept this Amendment, and

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  for this reason. My noble friend will remember that we put in the previous Amendments because, as was pointed out on the Committee stage, once you leave the freehold coal owner in the position of being no better or worse off as the result of the Bill there is no reason why he should take any interest in the valuation of his coal property. That is why it was put in that the Coal Commission should have the right to appear. I am not quite sure, in regard to the Amendment put in yesterday, whether that would be quite sufficient without the Amendments which were put in on the former occasion in this particular Schedule which we are discussing, because I am not sure that the Coal Commission would be satisfied that the procedure of Clause 12, on the Amendment moved by the noble and learned Lord yesterday, could in fact he carried out unless they have the right to appear.
  As regards the particular point of my noble friend's Amendment which we are now discussing, of course he will realise that no coalowner has the right to see the valuation of any other coalowner in his particular region. All properties are valued separately and then added up together in the region. It makes an entirely different case if anyone interested can see another valuation. My noble friend's words are very wide indeed—"all persons interested in the valuation of all other holdings." These words are so wide that we could not possibly accept them, apart from anything else. It would mean that the valuation of freehold coal would be inspected by everyone else in the region, because everyone in the region would be interested in that particular valuation. I do not know what the views of freehold coal owners would be on this matter, but I should think there would be considerable objection from their point of view if all the valuations of their properties were to be left open to inspection by anyone interested while all the other valuations were kept from them. For these reasons the Government cannot accept this Amendment.
  LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I find myself in agreement to a certain extent difficulties would arise if this particular with the Leader of the House in this matter. Quite clearly very considerable
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  Amendment were accepted and the valuations became accessible to all persons interested. At the same time there is a point in what I have been endeavouring to explain to the House that it is not really proper that the Commission should have the right to appear and anything they say to go unrefuted. Surely it would be easier and better to establish that subsection in Clause 12 in such a form that the very clumsy method which already appears on page 67 of the Bill, and which would be made even clumsier if my Amendments were accepted, were rendered, both of them, entirely unnecessary. The particular method here, I think it will be admitted by the Leader of the House, is clumsy. It was put in when certain circumstances required that words of that character should be put in, but I am strongly of opinion that the paragraph put in last night has taken away the necessity, and if it has not entirely taken it away, it looks to me as very much easier to strengthen that subsection in Clause 12 than to accept either my Amendments or to insist on the Amendments that now appear on page 67.
  I do not intend to press this Amendment, but I would invite the noble Earl, if he would be so good, to consider that particular aspect of the matter with the idea of simplifying this part of the Bill. If he finds it possible to agree that the provision inserted in Clause 12 is sufficient or, if not, to strengthen it in such a way as will enable these clumsy points to be taken out of the Bill that are already there, I shall be grateful to him. I will leave the matter, if I may, in the hands of the noble Earl, hoping he will find that that is the best way out of a very difficult situation.
  EARL STANHOPE: I shall be most anxious to consider it again, because the point which my noble friend has just raised, as to whether this is necessary in view of the Amendment which we made yesterday, had not occurred to me, and therefore I should like to think it over.
  LORD HASTINGS: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, my Amendment to paragraph 12 is part of the same point, and I do not propose to move it.
  LORD HASTINGS LORD HASTINGS moved to insert the following new sub-paragraph:
  "(2) Before any rules are made under this paragraph a draft thereof shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament, and the rules shall not be made unless both Houses by Resolution approve the draft either without modification or addition, or with modifications and additions to which both Houses agree, but upon such approval being given, the rules may be made in the form in which they have been approved and shall be of full force and effect."
  The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is really an Amendment of very great importance. I am not under the necessity of arguing at any length the need for something of the kind, because already the Government by inserting another form of the same Amendment has admitted its need, and we can shorten the proceedings to that extent. I take it that the Government do recognise that the submission of those valuation rules to both Houses is really absolutely essential—that the rules which the Central Valuation Board may make are quite vital to the interests of the royalty owners, and that it would be grossly improper that a Board of the character which is created under this Bill should have authority to make rules without submission to any superior authority. That is admitted by the Amendment put down in the names of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack and the Leader of the House. It therefore is only a question between us whether the words of the Amendment which I have on the Paper are preferable to the words of the Amendment which the Government have put on the Paper.
  The words of my Amendment require an affirmative Resolution of both Houses; the words which the Government have put down require a negative Resolution of both Houses. As very many members of this House know, this is an old bone of contention. I would be sorry to say how many times I and others have argued this particular point in the House. There have been occasions when we have carried our point and affirmative Resolutions have been agreed to, but not often. More frequently the form adopted, the accustomed form, is that which now stands in the names of the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, and the noble Earl the Leader of the House. I would very greatly prefer the form in which my own Amendment is drawn, but I have to recognise that these rules will be non-recurrent: only once will they come before
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  both Houses; and whereas in some cases rules have a habit of slipping through both Houses because neither House is awake to their importance, in this particular case, with active associations presumably still to be in being and the importance of the rules being as great as it is, there is no very great risk in permitting the negative Resolution, by reason of the fact that those associations will surely not let them go through without examining them very closely. For those reasons and those reasons only—because I do greatly prefer the affirmative Resolution—I do not propose to press my Amendment to a Division and am prepared to accept the Amendment which stands in the names of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack and the Leader of the House. I am very glad to acknowledge that the Government admit the absolute necessity of these rules being submitted to the supervision of both Houses of Parliament.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 69, line 26, at end insert the said paragraph.—(Lord Hastings.)
  VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, before the noble Lord finally withdraws his Amendment—
  LORD HASTINGS: I have not withdrawn it yet.
  VISCOUNT ELIBANK:—I should like to ask this. As I read the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, that provides for the rules being either modified or agreed to as they stand. His Amendment reads:
  "the rules shall not be made unless both Houses by Resolution approve the draft either without modification or addition, or with modifications and additions to which both Houses agree."
  The Amendment which stands in the name of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor and the noble Earl, Lord Stanhope, does not provide in any way for the modification or amendment of the rules. As I read that Amendment those rules will be laid before your Lordships' House and if there is no objection to them within thirty days they will automatically come into force. There is nothing in that Amendment to allow for modification. Perhaps I am wrong. I rise merely to put the point before the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack moves his Amendment.
  THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, in reply to the question which has just been asked by the noble Viscount, I understand that you can modify under the procedure which is adopted in our Amendment. As regards what was said by my noble friend opposite, Lord Hastings, we, of course, realise as he does that these rules will be of major importance, but after careful consideration of the Amendment which he has put down we did come to the conclusion that it was better that this matter should be dealt with by negative Resolution rather than by affirmative Resolution. I am grateful to the noble Lord for saying that he proposes to withdraw the Amendment which he has on the Paper and to accept the Government Amendment in place thereof.
  LORD HASTINGS: The noble Earl must not assume for a moment that I accept his contention that the Amendment in the name of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor and the noble Earl, Lord Stanhope, is a better version. It is not; it is definitely worse. All I said was that in the circumstances of which I am very well aware, and having regard to the difficulty of carrying these provisions for affirmative Resolutions, I was prepared reluctantly to withdraw my Amendment in favour of that to be moved by the Lord Chancellor. But I do not like it and I would far prefer my own. I beg leave to withdraw.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  EARL STANHOPE EARL STANHOPE moved to insert in paragraph 14:
  "(2) Rules made under this paragraph shall be laid before each House of Parliament for a period of thirty days during the Session of Parliament and, if either House before the expiration of that period resolves that the rules be annulled, the rules shall be of no effect, but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously clone thereunder or to the making of new rules:
  Provided that, in reckoning any such period of thirty days as aforesaid, no account shall be taken of any time during which both Houses are adjourned for more than four days."
  The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move. Perhaps the noble Lord opposite will think that this is as near as the Government can get to the Amendment proposed by those who dwell on Olympus.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 69, line 26, at end insert the said sub-paragraph.—(Earl Stanhope.)
  THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, my noble friend the Earl of Munster, referring to the Amendment in the name of the noble Lord Lord Hastings, which permitted modifications and additions, said that the Amendment standing in the name of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack and the noble Earl the Leader of the House covered that point.
  THE EARL OF MUNSTER: May I apologise to your Lordships? I made an error there. I understand that under our Amendment these rules cannot be modified but that they can only be accepted or rejected en bloc.
  THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: That is the whole point. In those circumstances it is necessary to move an Amendment to this Amendment, after the word "annulled" to insert the words "or amended," or something of that sort. Perhaps the noble Earl will accept that. I beg to move it. The Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, which he has just withdrawn—rather incontinently I thought—provided that an immense mass of rules and regulations is not to be laid before Parliament and accepted or rejected en bloc, as the Government propose, but that it shall be dealt with as circumstances may demand. In some cases additions ought to be made; in other cases modifications or amendments should be made. Under the Amendment which the noble Earl has now moved, the rules are placed before one House of Parliament and the other House in succession and they have got to be taken as a unit, as a whole. That really seems to be quite ridiculous and quite indefensible. If an amendment is necessary, if a blunder is exposed, we are not to be at liberty to amend those rules in either House but we have to reject them or accept them in toto. I am only quoting the noble Earl, Lord Munster. He said that these words in the Government Amendment were as good from that point of view as those of Lord Hastings. I say they are not. I think the Lord Chancellor ought to give us an assurance that Parliament should be allowed that flexibility which it ought to have.
  LORD GAINFORD: Surely if there is an error and objection is taken to it by both Houses of Parliament it ought to be amended. There ought to be an opportunity not only for annulling one rule,

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  but also at any rate of retaining those rules which are good, or of amending them. There should be an opportunity of amendment as well as of complete rejection by Parliament.
  VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I think I am in order in speaking on this Amendment. When I put the question the noble Earl, Lord Munster, stated quite definitely that modifications might be made under the Amendment which is now before your Lordships' House; but now we are told the rules must be taken en bloc. I feel sure that my noble friend Lord Hastings would not have withdrawn his Amendment had he known that. I think the Government should meet us by agreeing to a perfectly reasonable and legitimate suggestion that their Amendment should be amended to include modifications which they themselves might regard as perfectly reasonable. I hope the Government may see their way to do this. I support what the noble Earl, Lord Crawford, has said, and if he goes to a Division I shall have great pleasure in going into the Lobby with him.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, may I say a few words about the position with regard to rules of procedure and other similar rules which are put before another place? I am instructed that it is quite impossible, according to the procedure in that place, to amend or alter rules put before it, and for this reason. There is a Resolution either in an affirmative or negative form. There is no Committee stage to deal with it similar to a Committee stage on a Bill, with the result that the Resolution either has to be carried or it has not, and there is an end of it. You may put in what you like, but in the other place, I am instructed by people very well acquainted with this matter, you cannot amend in practice. However, what happens is this. If there is an alternative Resolution in regard to rules somebody makes an objection, and there is a debate, and the rules are ruled out or objected to or not proved or whatever is the right term, and then there is an immediate re-submission of the rules in a new form. Practically the same thing would happen if, on the negative form proposed by the Government, the rules were put before the other place and somebody objected to them on particular grounds. But the notion that
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  in that place you can discuss rules and amend them in detail is impossible owing to the procedure which exists under the rules of the House. That at any rate is my information and understanding about the difficulty, though it is a little unfortunate, I agree. I think noble Lords who object to the Government Amendment on that ground are really objecting on grounds that have no sound basis if what I have stated is correct.
  THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord must allow me to say that we are not governed by procedure in the House of Commons, and if this House cares to insert after the word "annulled" the words "or amended" we are entitled to do so.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It would have no effect.
  THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: If, on the other hand, the House of Commons likes to turn out the Amendment after we have-inserted it we can differ from the House of Commons, and if those words then remain in it will be the duty of the House of Commons so to adjust their procedure that they shall entitle themselves to amend these rules. These are not a few trumpery rules about some Home Office regulation. These are rules which govern a valuation of £60,000,000 to £80,000,000 of property. I have served many years in the House of Commons and I do not believe for a minute that the House of Commons would ever allow itself to let a blunder go through just because its own procedure was ineffective.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: They could object to the lot.
  THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I do not understand. Do the Government realise what a hopeless mess and confusion they are going to put their Commission into in two or three years time? It is said "You make a blunder in the rules, then turn the whole lot out." But weeks and months will have been wasted if that is to be the case, and I propose, if your Lordships will allow me, to see what happens if I can get the words "or amended" put into the Amendment. Let us see then what happens in the other place. From my own knowledge of the House of Commons I believe they will adjust their rules when they see the immense importance of the issue concerned,

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  and will not preclude themselves from amending a rule which is defective. We have had enough blunders in this Bill already to make us a little anxious to see that our rules are right.
  VISCOUNT HORNE OF SLAMANNAN: My Lords, I am greatly in sympathy with the noble Earl, but does he realise how this provision would read as he would propose to amend it—"if either House before the expiration of that period resolves that the rules be annulled or amended the rules shall be of no effect." Does the noble Earl see that even the amended rules will be of no effect? I think the words could not remain in that form.
  THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I assumed that Lord Munster was correct in saying that Lord Hastings' Amendment was covered. I just extemporised the words which I have suggested, but at least I have put my grievance before your Lordships. The words would require considerable amendment.
  LORD HASTINGS: There is a very interesting point of procedure arising here. Anybody who has been in this House for any length of time has heard this discussion half a dozen and more times before. I have heard it argued that with the affirmative Resolution power to modify was impossible owing to the rules of another place. I am sure the annals of the House could be searched and that reason would never have been given. Do the rules of another place only refer to negative Resolutions? Because if that is so clearly it is a very strong reason for insisting upon the affirmative Resolution which gives power to amend. I do not know whether the noble Earl the Leader of the House would see fit to answer that particular point. Is there a difference in the power of another place under its rules to deal with an affirmative Resolution in the matter of amendment? Is there a difference under the rules in respect of that and a negative Resolution, which, we are informed by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, cannot be touched by way of an amendment? If there is there is an obvious remedy to our difficulty.
  EARL STANHOPE: Frankly I do not know. What does surprise me is that both the Amendment in the name of the
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  noble Lord, Lord Hastings, and that in the name of my noble and learned friend and myself are common form, both of them. Therefore it appears that with an affirmative Resolution you apparently can make modifications, but in the case of a negative one you cannot. I am afraid it was I who misled my noble friend the Earl of Munster in saying that we could make an alteration under a negative Resolution. I understood at the moment that that was so. I should like to consider the matter again before the next stage and see what can be done in the matter. I quite see the point made by my noble friend the Earl of Crawford, although I do not think if we were to propose an alteration in a common form proviso that that would be the best way to get another place to agree.
  LORD HASTINGS: I hope the noble Earl will recognise that I withdraw, and do not permit my Amendment to be negatived, so that I shall have liberty to put it down again.
  EARL STANHOPE: I was going to suggect that neither the noble Lord's Amendment nor the Government's Amendment should be put, but that the matter should be raised again on Third Reading.
  THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: In those circumstances I should not ask that the Amendment be put.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  LORD CROMWELL LORD CROMWELL moved, in subparagraph (2) of paragraph 20, to leave out "the proceeds whereof are subject to a settlement by way of succession." The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am proposing this Amendment because there seems to be no reason for confining the powers of trustees for sale to cases where the proceeds of sale are subject to a settlement by way of succession. There will be cases where compensation will be received by trustees for sale although there may be no settlement by way of succession. In many of such cases if there had been no trust for sale the acquired interest would have been settled land and the powers of this paragraph would be exercisable by the trustees of the settlement.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 74, line 33, leave out ("the proceeds whereof are subject to a settlement by way of succession").—(Lord Cromwell.)
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the noble Lord, if I may respectfully say so, has dealt very briefly with matters which are highly complex and which require most intimate knowledge of legislation passed in the years 1922 and 1925. I can only say, as the matter has only recently been brought to my notice, that I am not satisfied that it is proper to leave out these words. I should like an opportunity of reconsidering the matter with the assistance of my advisers, and if necessary the clause can be put in proper form at the last stage of the Bill. Perhaps in those circumstances the noble Lord will see fit to withdraw his Amendment now.
  LORD CROMWELL: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord, and I beg leave to withdraw.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in sub-paragraph (2) of paragraph (20), to leave out "the Court" and to insert "any Court having jurisdiction in relation to the execution of the trusts of the settlement." The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this is a short form of one of the Amendments put down on the Paper by the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell. One of those Amendments in the name of the noble Lord we think distinctly useful in clarifying the Bill and enabling the rights of the parties to be determined in a case where there was a settlement or in some similar circumstances. As your Lordships will see on page 8 of the Marshalled List there is an Amendment in my name and the name of the Leader of the House in which we have borrowed or stolen from the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, some of his suggestions. I had thought that the noble Lord was willing to accept the Amendments which I had suggested to him as being sufficient to carry out the objects—the technical objects, so to speak—which he had in view. He has, however, put down some rather elaborate Amendments which I understand have precisely the same effect as the Amendment standing in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Stanhope, and myself. This Amendment which I am now moving to sub-paragraph (2) is one of those Amendments which carry out, I think, that which the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, has in view, and I would suggest that this Amendment in my name be accepted.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 74, line 35, leave out ("the Court") and insert ("any Court having jurisdiction in relation to the execution of the trusts of the settlement").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  LORD CROMWELL: My Lords, I am quite prepared to agree to the suggestion of the noble and learned Lord.
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in sub-paragraph (2) of paragraph 20, to leave out "when the circumstances so require, to the fact that that estate or other interest was property of a wasting character" and insert:
  "to the terms of the settlement and to all relevant circumstances affecting the premises in which the holding subsisted including:—

  (a) the terms of any subsisting coal-mining lease and the operation of any provision therein contained as to undergettings, short workings, and other like matters;

  (b) the period within which coal being worked might have been expected to be worked out or coal not being worked might have been expected to come into working and to be worked out; and

  (c) the extent to which, having regard to those circumstances, the premises ought to be regarded as property of a wasting character:"

  The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this carries out a suggestion made in a previous Amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, and I am very happy to propose it.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 74, line 44, leave out from ("had") to the end of line 45 and insert the said new words.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  LORD CROMWELL LORD CROMWELL moved to leave out proviso (b) in sub-paragraph (2) of paragraph 20. The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment covers a rather different point. It is suggested that if the proviso remains it is inconsistent both with the power to direct the compensation to be accumulated and with the direction that regard is to be had to the period within which coal not being worked might have been expected to come into working. It loads the dice in favour of the present tenant for life, who may at the moment be receiving no income or only a very small income from the coal. It does not appear right to fetter the discretion of the trustees and the Court in this way. The question will arise not merely in the

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  simple form of apportionment between income and capital but also in more complicated cases where there are successive tenants for life.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 75, line 12, leave out proviso (b).—(Lord Cromwell.)
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am not able to agree with this Amendment. Proviso (b) says that subject to a number of interests
  "no part of the income of the compensation shall be required or caused by virtue of this sub-paragraph to be set aside as capital of the settlement."
  Your Lordships will appreciate that there are complex settlements which relate to the disposal of compensation as between beneficial interests. Particularly they arise where for instance there is a tenant for life of coal from a colliery which has but a short life. So long as it exists he ought to have an interest equivalent to the whole of the income which would be gained from the colliery during its life. All that this proviso is intended to do is to provide that unless the Court has reason to decide that certain of the compensation ought to be set aside as capital, there is nothing in this clause which requires it to be done. The proviso is inserted from abundant precaution it may be, but it is inserted because, as your Lordships know, at the present time the tenant for life plainly is not entitled to the whole of the rent and profits, and in some cases a quarter and even more has to be set aside as capital. I think it is safer that this proviso (b) should be retained.
  LORD CROMWELL: As a tenant for life I am glad to hear what has fallen from the lips of the Lord Chancellor, and in the circumstances I will ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  LORD CROMWELL LORD CROMWELL moved, in paragraph 20, to insert the following new sub-paragraph:
  "(3) All applications to the Court under sub-paragraph (2) of this paragraph shall be made, in accordance with rules of Court, to the Chancery Division of the High Court:
  Provided that—

  (a) the powers of the Court may, as regards compensation payable in respect of an estate or other interest comprised in a holding wholly situate in the County Palatine of Lancaster or the County Palatine
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  of Durham be exercised also by the respective Courts of Chancery of those Counties Palatine;

  (b) where the amount of the compensation, or the part thereof attributable to such estate or other interest as is referred to in sub-paragraph (2) of this paragraph, does not exceed the sum of £500, the powers of the Court may be exercised by any County Court within the district whereof is situate any part of the holding;

  (c) where the Commission makes payment of the compensation to the proper officer of any Court, the powers of the Court shall be exercised by that Court."

  The noble Lord said: My Lords, as your Lordships will see I am acting on advice, and I am advised again, on this question, that the jurisdiction of the Court cannot be dealt with in the simple manner proposed by the Amendment moved by the Lord Chancellor in Committee. The question of which Court has jurisdiction to execute the trusts of the settlement will, as between High Court and County Court, depend on the value of the whole of the settled property, realty and personalty. It may very well happen that a settlement of property of great value (the trusts of which could only be executed by the High Court) may include a small parcel of coal, the compensation paid in respect of which is less than £500. It is suggested that the amount of the compensation, not the value of the settled property, should determine the jurisdiction. Moreover, where the compensation is paid into Court that Court alone should have jurisdiction. In any case it is undesirable that there should be room for any doubt on the question of jurisdiction.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 75, line 16, at end, insert the new sub-paragraph (3).—(Lord Cromwell.)
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the view of the Government is that it is unnecessary to provide that these applications should go to the Chancery Division, because it would be left to the Rules Committee to deal with, and it is not now the practice, as I understand it, to state in Acts of Parliament the Division to which a particular matter should be referred. The Rules Committee is a powerful body, and it may in some circumstances think that a particular matter should go to one Division and sometimes to another. That is the only reason why that part of the Amendment is objected to, because in practice there

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  is no doubt that in effect the rules will provide that these matters should go to the Chancery Division of the High Court. Until the noble Lord spoke I was not aware that one of his objects was to prevent a matter of this kind going to the County Court. I think if it were a very small matter it would be well that it should go to the County Court; but if you left it open I imagine the Rules Committee can easily provide that if a matter is one of complexity there shall he a right of transfer from the County Court to the High Court. The reason why I do not like to assent to it now is this, that although, as the noble Lord justly said, some of the matters would be exceedingly difficult and require great consideration, others may be of the greatest simplicity and quite within the competence of the County Court to determine. I would suggest that we might leave it there, and leave it to the Rules Committee to decide the Court before whom the matter is to go, and if necessary to provide for power to transfer from the County Court to the High Court.
  LORD CROMWELL: After what has fallen from the Lord Chancellor as to the practice I am not prepared to press the Amendment. Whether my advisers will agree I do not know, but I now ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  LORD CROMWELL LORD CROMWELL moved, in subparagraph (3) of paragraph 20, after "shall," to insert ",if paid to the mortgagee." The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move this Amendment and I will listen to the Lord Chancellor explain the Government's view of it.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 75, line 19, after ("shall") insert (", if paid to the mortgagee").—(Lord Cromwell.)
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This Amendment is one which the Government think is unnecessary, and may have a. result which is not intended. The proposal is in effect that where a mortgagee permits payment to the borrower instead of compensation to himself nothing should be said as to the rights in the compensation money. It is thought that the better course is to provide that the money shall in every case be treated as if it had arisen from an exercise of the mortgagee's power of sale and to leave any subsequent
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  arrangement to be made between the mortgagee and the borrower. The Government must oppose the Amedment.
  LORD CROMWELL: My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  LORD HASTINGS LORD HASTINGS moved, in sub-paragraph (3) of paragraph 20, to leave out "like manner as if it had been money arising under a power of sale conferred by the mortgage" and insert:
  "such manner as (in default of agreement between the mortgagee and the mortgagor) on an application made to the High Court by the mortgagor within one month alter the compensation has been paid, the Court may direct.
  In dealing with an application under this paragraph the Court shall have regard to the amount ascertained and certified by the Regional Valuation Board as the value of the holding as compared with the sum paid under this Act as compensation for the holding and to the fact (unless proved to the contrary to the satisfaction of the Court) that the passing of this Act was not within the contemplation of the parties to the mortgage when it was entered into, and shall make such order or give such directions as appear to the Court to be requisite to secure that where the estate or other interest subject to the mortgage is shown to the satisfaction of the Court to have been depreciated in value directly owing to the operation of this Act the loss arising from that depreciation shall be borne as nearly as may be in equal proportions between the mortgagee and the mortgagor, taking into account the amount of the mortgage debt in relation to the amounts of the certified valuation and the compensation respectively under this Act."
  The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment is one which touches neither the finances, nor the framework, nor the machinery of this Bill. It is an economic question of course, a legal question no doubt, but more particularly a big social question. The effect of the method of valuation adopted by the Government will be to cause a scaling down as between the amount of the valuation and the amount of the compensation paid. That is inevitable. I have protested, and many another has protested, against this particular method of valuation, and here is one of the most unfortunate consequences which must arise from the adoption of this method. If an individual is to have his property compulsorily acquired and to be paid the value of that property as ascertained by competent persons, and that value falls short of the sums required to meet that owner's commitments, there is of course no one to blame. He has to bear that loss himself as best he may, or,

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  if his property falls short of the charges made upon it, automatically the chargee loses a certain amount of the money which he has either invested or loaned because his security fails to meet the charge.
  But here is a totally different set of circumstances. The value of the property may be in fact ample to meet all charges. But, having been ascertained, it is then subjected to a scaling down process to enable it to be fitted in with the properties of other owners to a figure previously fixed, and by so much as the value of the properties of other owners in that region may be high, by so much will each individual be scaled down, so that in fact the compensation moneys received by any individual, although they may be fair as between individual and individual in the region, will not bear any relation to real value. That is a really appalling principle to have permitted to creep into an Act of Parliament. It is going to establish a precedent dangerous to every form of property in this country, but here and now is not the opportunity or the moment for discussing that again. I have already said a great deal upon that subject, and we still have the Third Reading before us upon which no doubt much more can be said. But not now. All I desire to say to the House now is that the effect of adopting this method of valuation will be to scale down the property of certain individuals to a figure which will disable them from meeting the charges upon that particular form bf property.
  Now how is that to be dealt with? I have suggested that it be dealt with in the way in which my Amendment is drawn. It is not to be supposed that I, any more than any other noble Lord, contemplates with equanimity interference with debt—a thoroughly dangerous principle in itself, and not one which I would care to advocate, unless necessity drove me so to do. But what exactly are you going to do with an individual who at the moment is reasonably affluent by reason of the fact that his income from mineral royalties is sufficiently in excess of that proportion of the income which is required to meet commitments, or interest on commitments, that is, when there is a sufficient balance for himself to be living in reasonably affluent circumstances—what are you going to do when the principal is so greatly reduced in
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  amount that the share of it which is taken by the chargee absorbs the whole, and the royalty owner, now reasonably affluent upon the balance of the income from these royalties, after the passage of this Bill and the occurrence of the vesting date, is left not only penurious but conceivably bankrupt? What exactly do you do in a case of that kind?
  His Majesty's Government have the responsibility, not I, and it is a very unpleasant responsibility which faces them. I cannot bring myself to believe that if they can find any way or means out of such an impasse they will not be ready to take it, because the mere circumstance of a previously reasonably affluent individual appearing before the Court and pleading bankruptcy or inability to meet his commitments, owing to an action of the Government, is not the kind of circumstance which this or any other Government would care to face, neither is it proper that Parliament should allow such a condition of affairs to occur, if it can prevent it. My Amendment, somewhat crudely perhaps, proposes in effect that the charges of an estate of that character should share pari passu in the loss occasioned by the action of the Government to the royalty owner. That is to say, if the royalty owner should have the valuation made of his property scaled down by, say, twenty-five per cent., the charges on that property should also be scaled down by the same amount.
  And there is a good deal of authority for advocating such a solution. I have here a note on this subject which I will take the liberty of reading to the House, because it will be almost impossible to make it understandable if I were not so to do, it being largely extracts from legal decisions:
  "It will be argued that a reduction by Statute of a mortgage debt is without precedent, but this Bill is without precedent in its provisions that after a fair valuation of market value has been made compensation may be scaled down to an undefined and uncertain extent.
  It is an accepted rule of English law that where performance of contract has been rendered impossible by Act of Parliament the contract becomes unenforceable. This principle is very clearly set out in Lord Halsbury's 'Laws of England,' in the second edition of which, edited by Lord Hailsham, the following passage appears in Volume 7, page 218 (Article on Contract):—
  'Where performance of a contract has been rendered impossible by Act of Parliament passed after the contract was made,

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  the promisor is excused from performing his promise unless it appears that he intended to bind himself with reference to the future state of the law, for the presumption is that the parties intend to contract with reference to the law as existing at the time the contract is made.'
  On the same page there follows a long list of cases to support this statement of the law. One which is of particular interest in the present connection may be quoted. It is Brown versus London Corporation, and is reported in 13 C.B. (N.S.) page 828."
  This is a very interesting point, and I think the House will be glad to hear of this because it does largely substantiate the case I am trying to make:
  "The Corporation of London were conservators of the Thames from Staines Bridge and levied tolls upon vessels navigating the river between Staines and London Bridge. The Corporation borrowed money for river improvement and raised large sums on bonds secured by the tolls and duties payable as annuities until the repayment of the principal money. Then the Thames Conservancy Act was passed transferring to that body the control of the tolls upon the security of which the bonds had been entered into. The Corporation ceased to make payments upon their bonds. They were sued in the year 1862 on ten bonds of £2,000 each. The Court held that no action would lie: and on appeal this decision was upheld.
  "This case was made stronger by the fact that the Thames Conservancy Act was a private Act to which the Corporation of London was a party, and it was argued on behalf of the plaintiff that the general rule of law releasing the makers of the bonds does not apply where the impossibility of fulfilment arises from some act superinduced by the party himself, as in this case from the provisions of an Act of Parliament which was passed at the instance of the defendants in the action, the Corporation of London.
  "Chief Justice Cockburn in delivering the judgment of the Court said that the Act in question dealt with public rights and matters of great public interest and could hardly be looked upon as a private agreement and he added, 'The Act of Parliament therefore having transferred the tolls out of which the bonds in question are made payable from the Corporation to the Conservators appointed by the Act, we are of opinion that the Corporation are no longer liable to be called upon to satisfy the claim arising therefrom.'"
  There is apparently considerable legal justification for suggesting, what is no more than a suggestion, that amelioration should be given to those royalty owners who find themselves unable, not by any default or causation of their own, but unable through Act of Parliament to meet their liabilities. That is exactly what happened in the case I have quoted to your Lordships. It is exactly what must happen in a number of cases after the passage of the Coal Pill into law. There
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  must inevitably be cases where the charges upon income, when capitalised, must absorb the whole, and in some cases more than the whole, of the compensation moneys payable under the system of valuation which His Majesty's Government have thought fit to adopt—because in fact it is no system of valuation. It is compelling actuality of valuation to relate itself to a figure previously fixed, and whereas we had in the earlier part of this debate the happy optimism of some who spoke of scaling up, long since we have all realised there can be nothing but scaling down, scaling down which will be veritably destructive of some.
  There are cases with which Parliament and public are almost too familiar where no hardship of so gross a kind will arise, because there will be other resources enabling the borrower or mortagee to meet all commitments, but there are very many cases of which Parliament, Press, and public do not seem to realise the existence—small royalty owners, men whose resources, when deprived of their royalty income, are practically non-existent. It is these persons who will have borrowed money for one purpose or another, good or bad, whose predecessors in title were induced to put charges upon their royalty income for the benefit of members of the family, and whose mortgages and charges together are going to absorb the whole or more of any compensation which this Bill is going to give to them. It is undeniable that these cases are bound to arise. It is very difficult to quote to this House individual cases without giving a clear indication of where they come from and it is a rather delicate matter to do; but I would never be guilty of venturing to mislead the House in any way, and I feel sure I would be credited with no such desire. I can assure the House that a number of cases have been presented to me which fully justify me in saying to the House that these cases of hardship will arise in considerable numbers, cases of the gravest hardship.
  How are we to deal with them? I have suggested that chargees should have their charges reduced pari passu with the amount of the reduction which is to be applied to the royalty owner himself as between the valuation and the amount of compensation payable. It may not be the best way. I readily acknowledge that since I first raised this matter, which was on the Second Reading, I have had

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  discussions outside this House with persons qualified to advise in the matter, and I have submitted it to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack himself. I acknowledge with the greatest readiness the extreme difficulty that arises in dealing with matters of this kind. I do not even suggest that my particular method is the best. All I do wish to do is to inform the House that these cases must arise, and at least to divest myself of responsibility of causing them to arise. If the House thinks nothing can be done in the matter, then the House must take its own responsibility, but that responsibility rests veritably on His Majesty's Government.
  They are, by advocating this Bill and presenting it to your Lordships and to Parliament, going to create a condition of affairs which is cruel. The hardships which this Bill will cause to some at the instance of His Majesty's Government are gross, and the responsibility is theirs. I have this Amendment on the Paper, and although in many ways I regret very much having put it down, because I should be as sorry as any man to see any portion of a debt repudiated, I have put it down because I can find no alternative method of dealing with the particular hardship which is to be created. If His Majesty's Government can find a better way I shall be most glad to welcome it. Inasmuch as hitherto they have not met me in any way in regard to this point, I have put this Amendment on the Paper, and I now beg to move it.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 75, line 19, leave out from ("in") to end of line 2r, and insert the said new words.—(Lord Hastings.)
  LORD CRANWORTH: My Lords, I would venture to appeal to His Majesty's Government to give some consideration at all events to what my noble friend has said. The reason why I specially do so is this. I believe I am typical of a great many members of your Lordships' House. I am not a royalty owner in any sense or form, but before the last Election I was persuaded that it was a right and proper course for His Majesty's Government to acquire these royalties for the nation, and in accordance with that persuasion I appeared on the platform and advocated that course. But it was never put to me by any soul, nor do I believe it was the
  208
  intention of His Majesty's Government, that the royalty owner should be paid out otherwise than on a full and fair scale, and I feel that in that matter, not only have I let other people down, but that I have some extent been let down myself. I feel a certain responsibility in the matter. I do not suppose that there are five per cent. of the members of your Lordships' House who believe that these royalty owners have received a full and fair deal. Outside the Front Bench I have heard only one speech which said so, and that was a speech made by the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel; and those of you who were present will, I think, agree with me that it was very far indeed from being a convincing one. I know it may be said that to a certain extent in the early stages this was the fault of the royalty owners. All I can say is that I am not concerned with that, nor is this the place to go into it. I have been concerned, and I think your Lordships will be concerned, that a full and fair deal should be given to the royalty owners, as I believed was the intention of His Majesty's Government when they went to the country.
  The particular Amendment which is now before the House is one which it is probably almost impossible to accept as to its letter, but I think something might be done to meet its spirit. After all, what have these men done who have mortgaged their property in this way? They have done nothing that was not perfectly legitimate, and, it may be, more than legitimate; it may have been an absolute necessity for them. After all, I should think that half the businesses in this country must at one time or another have mortgaged some portion or the whole of their assets in order to maintain or extend their works and to provide work for the population. Have these men done more than that, that they should be singled out in this way to suffer ruin in some cases, as I know that in some cases it will be? Those cases may be few—I hope indeed that they are very few—but that there are some I am well assured. In all earnestness and, may I say, on behalf of those many people who like myself on the platform at the General Election advocated this measure and who are after all supporters of His Majesty's Government, I ask for their sake that His

  209
  Majesty's Government will give really serious attention to the Amendment of my noble friend.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, this Amendment is one which the Government cannot possibly accept, and if they were to accept it here it is quite impossible that it would be accepted in another place. I must begin by saying this, that the Government do not accept the view that the compensation payable to the royalty owners is other than right and proper compensation. I am not going to argue that again, but I do not agree with the view that because their income is no doubt going to be substantially diminished it follows that the capital value which they receive is other than the fair capital value of their interest in the coal. I have argued that before and I will not argue it again. But assume, against my submission and against the submission of His Majesty's Government, that in fact as a result of the compulsory sale to the Coal Commission, the amount to be received by a particular royalty owner or by a number of royalty owners is less than the real value of the property, and assume that in some past era those royalty owners have mortgaged their property and that the result is that the margin upon which the mortgagee relied disappears owing to the apparent reduction in the value of the property forming the security for the mortgage; then the contention is that in every case the rights of the mortgagees should be reduced, and the argument is supported by certain views of the subject of contract law.
  The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, has cited some cases which to me at any rate, with all respect to him, appear to have nothing in the world to do with this case. A man who has property which he has mortgaged is still liable to comply with his contract if for any reason the security turns out to be worth much less than he supposed, or if as the result of a fire and, it may be, the default of the insurer the value of the property sinks to nothing, or if as the result of a compulsory purchase the amount payable by the authority which purchases the property is no longer enough to discharge the mortgage. It certainly cannot be suggested that there is in those circumstances any ground for saying that it is impossible for him to comply with his covenant for payment. A man has mortgaged his coal royalties,
  210
  we will say, for £10,000, and he has covenanted to pay to the mortgagee the principal of £10,000 and interest it may be at 5 per cent. There is nothing in the circumstance that the security has diminished to make it impossible for him to comply with his covenant.
  And, moreover, we are dealing here with all sorts of cases. For all I know the mortgage in question is one for which there is not only the security of the royalty but there may be the security of other property as well. Again there are cases where the mortgagor is known to be a man of great means and the mortgagee has never bothered to consider the precise value of the coal in question. He has not employed a valuer; he has shrugged his shoulders and has said to himself, "I know perfectly well that if as the result of the agitation which has been going on for forty years this property is taken away for less than its real value, or if it is entirely confiscated" (as some persons have contended is the fair thing to do) "yet there will be the covenant of the noble Lord who happens to be the mortgagor," or whoever else it may be—some humble but wealthy commoner; and the mortgagee has thought to himself, "Well, that is enough for me, and I do not care two straws what happens to the security in question."
  Cases of that sort have to be borne in mind if you put before the Legislature the argument that a contract entered into in a perfectly formal way by a mortgagor with a mortgagee should be altered, and that in a sense, as the noble Lord fairly said, it should be repudiated under the guise of assistance by the Legislature on the ground that the security has been unfortunately diminished, which is the assumption that I am making for this purpose. I cannot conceive the justice of that; and I would add that this particular form of property has been threatened for forty years, and that if the mortgagor has only this sort of property to rely upon for his support and for the payment of the mortgagee, it is a most unfortunate circumstance, one which I agree is exceedingly hard and one which I on behalf of the Government would bitterly regret, but I cannot help saying that this property has always been property which was liable to be purchased either by the Government or by a Coal Commission, These are circumstances which must have been known to any prudent person, and

  211
  should have been considered in relation to the financial obligations which the mortgagor undertook when he mortgaged the property to some third party. At any rate I do not propose to argue it any further. I can only say it is quite impossible for this Government, and I believe for any Government, to consent to the Amendment which the noble Lord has moved.
  LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, what has fallen from the noble and learned Lord is no less and no more than I expected, but it does not alter the facts of the case one little bit. The facts remain as I stated them, and when the noble and learned Lord tells us that for forty years and more this property has been under threat of compulsory purchase, I can only tell him that until a year or two ago the people of this country, both the lenders and the borrowers of money, were content to rely upon the strength and integrity of the Conservative Party, and they never expected that the Party which they supported all their lives would let them down in the way it has. That is the reason why the mortgagors and the mortgagees have not paid regard to the conditions to which the noble and learned Lord referred from his place just now.
  I know that it is no use my attempting to press this Amendment to a Division. Frankly, I do not like the Amendment myself for the reasons that I gave. It is just as distasteful to me to repudiate debt as to any other noble Lord in this House, but I am glad that the Government and not myself have the responsibility for the hardship which is going to be inflicted upon some of their own supporters. I am glad that it is they and not I who are going to have to listen to what will be said of them when the first of these bankrupt mortgagees goes into the Court and has the opportunity of expressing his views upon the act of State which has forced him there. All that he says will be no less than the truth, and there will not be found any noble Lord able to deny what I have stated here, that it is the action of this Government which has forced him into penury. I hold that that is unjustifiable. I have done my best to prevent it. I recognise that I have failed, and I once more repeat that I am glad it is not my responsibility. I beg to withdraw the Amendment standing in my name.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  THE EARL OF DUDLEY THE EARL OF DUDLEY moved, in subparagraph (5) of paragraph 20, after "on" ["on the debentures"] to insert "the stock or other securities of any local authority in the United Kingdom, or the stock, shares or other securities of any statutory undertakers within the meaning of Section thirty-two of this Act." The noble Earl said: My Lords, on the Committee stage of the Bill, when the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack inserted this long provision in the Bill, I sought to widen the powers of trustees in regard to the investment of the compensation money in order that those tenants for life who were suffering the loss of income might be able to acquire as large a dividend as possible to recoup them for their losses. At that time I moved an Amendment which was unacceptable to the Government. The noble and learned Lord Chancellor was good enough to say that he would examine the question between then and this stage of the Bill. Since then he has been kind enough to receive me and those who advise me legally on this subject, and I hope that the words in this Amendment of mine are acceptable to him. The first part, as your Lordships will see, refers to stock or other securities of any local authority in the United Kingdom, or the stock, shares or other securities of any statutory undertakers as those words are defined in an earlier portion of the Bill. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 76, line 5, after ("on") insert the said words.—(The Earl of Dudley.)
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am glad to acknowledge that the noble Earl has been of great assistance in this matter. I think there is no real objection to this Amendment and on behalf of the Government I accept it.
  THE EARL OF DUDLEY: My Lords, I am very grateful indeed to the noble and learned Lord Chancellor for the courtesy he has shown in this matter, and for having accepted this Amendment on behalf of the Government.
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  THE EARL OF DUDLEY THE EARL OF DUDLEY moved, in subparagraph (5) of paragraph 20, to insert immediately before the proviso:
  "or the ordinary or other stock or shares of any company incorporated as aforesaid, being a company which has paid dividends upon its

  213
  ordinary capital at the rate of at least four per cent. per annum for at least the ten years next before the time of investment (of which fact such a letter as aforesaid shall be sufficient evidence):"
  The noble Earl said: My Lords, this Amendment is consequential on the previous one, and amplifies it in regard to other stocks or shares of any company incorporated as aforesaid, being a company which has paid dividends upon its ordinary capital at the rate of at least four per cent. per annum for at least the ten years next before the time of investment. I hope the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack will not object to this which is consequential on the other Amendment already agreed to.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 76, line 16, at end insert the said words.—(The Earl of Dudley.)
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, this Amendment also is one which the Government accept.
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH moved to insert the following new paragraph:
  "Expenses of Surface Damage Claims.
  22. The Commission shall pay the costs and expenses reasonably incurred by any person after the vesting date in connection with a claim for compensation in respect of damage arising from the working of coal to the land buildings or other property of such person and to which he may be entitled under the provisions of paragraphs 5 and 6 of the Second Schedule to this Act."
  The noble Lord said: My Lords, with the exception of the small concession which my noble friend obtained from the Government a moment ago my noble friends and I on this stage of the Bill have been like the fishers of old who toiled all the night and took nothing. This is the last occasion on this stage of the Bill when an Amendment will be moved from this side of the House, and in spite of the lateness of the hour I am afraid I must detain your Lordships for a few moments while I explain what the purpose of this Amendment is. It is the same Amendment that was on the Paper in my name on the Committee stage, and on that occasion the Lord Chancellor was good enough to say that the Government would give careful consideration to it before this stage, and that they would endeavour to meet the point on the Report stage. I need not, therefore, tell
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  your Lordships what a very bitter disappointment it has been to me to find the Government now saying that they can do nothing whatever to meet the grievance which I was under the impression even they were unable to deny existed in this matter.
  Let me remind your Lordships of what actually happens. I am afraid it is elementary to most of your Lordships who know about these things, but, as the Government do not seem to know what happens, I am afraid it is necessary to explain. When a coalowner lets his coal with the right to let down the surface given to the lessee he generally protects himself by a provision that that lessee shall pay compensation. There are three parties. There is the owner of the coal, who is also the surface owner at the present time; there is the mineral lessee; and there are the agricultural tenants. It is a matter of day to day management that there is co-operation between these three parties to keep the surface right in respect of the subsidence which is going on. There are ditches to be kept clean, walls to be repaired, and all the minor damages which are going on all the time. There are also other matters. There is a possibility that water on which the landlord or the tenant depends for his cattle may disappear as the result of mineral workings. There is the possibility that ditches may be silted up by water which the mineral tenant pumps out and which may carry silt and mud with it. There is a constant succession of questions which raise points of divided liability and which are entirely due to the working of the minerals underneath.
  The royalty owner, at present the owner of the surface, has of course his mineral agent who makes regular reports, and the owner is kept constantly in touch with day-to-day circumstances. That is no longer going to happen. He is not going to have the regular reports, and to that extent he will be saved the expense of his mineral agent's report as to the amount of coal which has been taken out and reports on other matters affecting the surface which he receives regularly from time to time; but everything will go on just as before. The transference of the coal to the Commission will not prevent all these matters continuing to happen. These are expenses which have in part or in whole been capitalised and deducted from the compensation which

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  this owner is going to receive. It is a very difficult thing to distinguish between the expenses which have been paid to the mineral adviser in respect of the routine examination underground and in respect of the surface matters which are going to continue. The extent to which these expenses will continue in the future will vary in proportion as the mineral lessee is a good or a bad one. Even if he is a good tenant ready to stand up to all his obligations these expenses will continue, and competent estimates which I have received from firms who manage clients' affairs of this kind tell me that probably in the case of a good mineral lessee twenty-five per cent. of expenses which have hitherto been borne will continue. In the case of a mineral lessee who is not so good, and who is only too ready to evade his obligations if he can, it is estimated that no less than fifty per cent. of these expenses will be continued. There will also be occasions when there will be special expenses, as for instance at the end of a lease, when the lease provides that there shall be compensation paid for surface damage which has accrued during the lease.
  All these expenses will still have to be borne by the former coalowner, who is still the surface owner, and I cannot see how anybody can deny that expenses will continue which have in fact been capitalised and deducted. I am afraid it will not console me in the least if the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack tells me that the Mineral Owners' Joint Committee who gave evidence in regard to these matters before the Greene Committee must have been aware of that and accepted the figure of 4.47. I do not recognise, as your Lordships know, that Committee as representing me in any way, and moreover I question their competence. I think this is a point which was overlooked. I do not think that anything like a ratio of 4.47 for management ought to have been deducted, and I feel quite confident that it includes expenses of a kind which will continue. There are solicitors' fees, surveyors' fees and fees for mining engineers who may have to be specially employed to go underground. The noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, still has not been able to tell us whether or not we shall have the right to send mining
  216
  engineers underground. I feel myself that it is quite evident that where we formerly had reports from mining engineers regularly keeping us informed, we shall have to pay someone regularly to keep watch on the surface. We did not have to watch the surface in the same way before, because we knew automatically what was going on. Now we shall have to keep watch on the surface to see as early as we can subsidences and other things which are the consequence of mineral working of which we shall have no means of getting warning. The Coal Commission will let coal under the surface to people we do not know, and we shall have no means such as we used to have of finding out what is going on and securing protection.
  I hope the noble Lord, the Lord Chancellor, will not talk as he did on a previous occasion about Court actions. This is not a question of going into Court and winning a case and receiving damages. Even if it were, the damages would be insufficient. You can only get taxed costs and costs up to the moment when the late tenant made an offer. But the main burden is not any action that may go into Court, it is the day-to-day management of the surface due to the minerals being taken out. If the noble and learned Lord says that is surface management which was not deducted, I can only ask him where surface management ends and where mineral management begins. Take the case of coal which is being taken out at a shallow depth—ten or fifteen fathoms. Every time coal is taken out the surface above moves quite extensively. I do not know whether there is yet any definition of what is surface and what is not, but quite clearly coal ten or fifteen fathoms below the actual surface of the ground must be included in any sort of definition of surface.
  I venture to hope, in spite of the fact that the Government have not put any Amendment on the Paper, that they still intend to try and do justice in this matter. I was interested to hear, in reply to the mover of the last Amendment, the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack compare the action of the Government to that of a fire. I thought it was an extremely apposite comparison. I am not quite sure that the noble and learned Lord realised quite how apposite it was. This fire will consume our property and take away 40

  217
  per cent. of it. I will not press the matter further, because I hope that the noble and learned Lord will realise that here is a case which really must be met, and I still cling to the hope, which I expressed at a very early stage in these debates, that the Government intend to be fair. My faith in that intention has been shaken, I am bound to admit, during the course of our debates. There is here an opportunity for the Government to restore the faith in their integrity and in their desire to be fair, and I hope that they will take it with both hands. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 27, line 20, at end insert the said new paragraph.——(Lord Balfour of Burleigh.)
  THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord. I quite understand one thing, and that is that this Amendment relates entirely to expenses for surface management. It is the same Amendment which the noble Lord moved on a previous occasion, when the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, suggested that he thought there might be something in the criticisms that Lord Balfour had made. Since that time we have been very carefully, with our advisers, into the whole question of the costs which were deducted from the original figure to make the global figure of £4,430,000. The noble Lord will remember that they were the Mineral Rights Duties, the Miners' Welfare Levy, the rates in Scotland, and the cost of management. Having deducted all these figures the total figure was reached of £4,430,000. I mention that figure of £4,430,000 because I thought it was a figure which was generally accepted by nearly everybody who has been taking part in the discussion over this Bill, but the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, and the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, in the interesting letter which they wrote to The Times, to-day, misquoted that global figure as £4,300,000 It was nothing of the sort.
  The deduction to which I have referred as management expenses was a percentage agreed to represent the deduction normally claimed and allowed on that account for the assessment of tax on income from coal ownership, as being the cost of management of coal properties exclusive of surface. If we had, as I said on a previous occasion, been quite certain that we were in the wrong and that
  218
  the deductions for surface management had been made, then it would have been our duty to put something back in the Bill to meet noble Lords, but I have not the slightest hesitation in my own mind, from the advice given to me by those who attended the meetings between the mineral owners' representatives and the officials of the Treasury and of the Mines Department, that there was no deduction made which was for the expenses of the surface. The noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, has asked me to remind Lord Balfour to look at Clause 51 of the Bill in which he will see that permission to inspect the plan of working, which will give the necessary information, can be obtained. I hope that the noble Lord will not press this Amendment because I am perfectly certain that there has been no manifest unfairness to the mineral owners.
  LORD DARCY (DE KNAYTH): My Lords, really I think we have got down to a position where largely we are arguing about words. I think, with great respect to the noble Earl, Lord Munster, that his reply has thoroughly begged the question. These are expenses attributed directly to underground operations, and are hardly to be attributed to the continued expenses of royalty owners on the surface. I would give an analogous case. Supposing it were not an underground operation, but an operation on the highway. Supposing a person were run into by a motor car and his leg were broken. Could it then be said that the cost of his surgeon's bill in setting that leg is not a cost of an accident on the highway but merely a cost of continuing his expenses in bed? That there are twelve people in this country who would accept such a theory I very much doubt. My principle is simply this, that these figures were included in the global figure, and the Amendment merely requires that the fund should be properly applied.
  LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, it did not surprise me that Lord Munster told the House that he had been advised in certain terms, in respect of what had or had not been done in the negotiations which proceeded between the Mineral Owners' Joint Committee and the officials of the Treasury and the Department of Mines, because all through this Bill, and the preparation of this Bill, and the negotiations thereon, these advisers have not

  219
  been in any way reluctant to seize the opportunity which the Government gave to them at the same time of despoiling the royalty owners and of laying hands upon the industry itself. It does not surprise me that the advice they have given to the noble Earl should be as biased at the end as their advice was at the beginning. So much for their advice. I tell your Lordships here and now that it is grossly inaccurate, and bears no relation to the actual fact.
  THE EARL OF MUNSTER: Can the noble Lord prove that it was inaccurate? It would be interesting to have his observations.
  LORD HASTINGS: I will tell the noble Earl now that the figure of 4.47 was mentioned in the negotiations and was finally agreed as being the figure at which mineral agents' expenses should be fixed, that is to say, the expenses of management. That figure of 4.47 was taken to include the whole expenses of management attachable to the ownership of minerals. There was no other qualification. It is a certain fact that a part, and a particular part, of the duties of a mineral agent is to examine the plans of a colliery company's workings, so as to establish, or fail to establish, a case for his employer against the coal company in respect of surface damage. No surface land agent is competent to check up those plans, and it is only the surface agents who in the future will be employed unless funds are placed at the disposal of the mineral owner with which to pay persons competent to check up the plans. It is quite purposeless to endeavour to secure compensation from a colliery company in respect of surface damage, unless you have some person available who can go through the underground working plans with the colliery manager, and agree or disagree with him as to whether or no that damage has been caused by colliery workings. Only a mineral agent is competent to do that.
  Those mineral agents' salaries have in the gross been deducted from the amount allotted to the royalty owners under the global figure of £4,430,000. No provision has been made by which these mineral agents can in future be paid and it is absolutely inevitable that the mineral agents must be paid a retaining fee by
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  the mineral owners, otherwise they cannot substantiate any claim for damage. Why tell the House that you have been advised that such and such a thing was done, and such and such an expense deducted, when on the face of it it cannot have been? These expenses have got to continue, and no money is allowed out of which they can be met. This Amendment is absolutely essential to the creation of a state of affairs which will be just. The noble Lord, Lord Balfour, will unquestionably press the Amendment, and I beg the House to support him in this, for it would be grossly improper and most unfair that the owners should be mulcted twice over in the same expenses and then be put off by being told by the noble Earl that his advisers tell him that these expenses have already been discounted and provided for, when it is not in accordance with the facts.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, before the Question is put I must say a word in reply to the noble Earl. I am glad to know that at least he read my letter in The Times this morning. I am sorry if there was a small slip in it, but perhaps now he is a little more seised of the justice of our case than he was before. He says that surface management expenses were not deducted and therefore there is no hardship in allowing them to continue. Does not that just show what a disadvantage it is that the Greene Committee's Report has not been published?
  THE EARL OF MUNSTER: With great respect this has nothing to do with the Report of the Greene Committee. This £4,430,000 was arrived at long before the Greene Committee was set up.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: Then let me suggest what the 4.47 per cent. was, and I am inclined to suggest to the noble Earl that the 4.47 per cent. which was deducted for expenses was the average of expenses of management of minerals which were deducted by owners for claims for repayment of Income Tax. Is that so? The noble Earl assents. Then the case is made, because that 4.47 per cent. for mineral management includes the very expenses I have described, and the case for a double deduction is made. I am much obliged to the noble Earl, and I ish to press the Amendment to a Division.
  On Question, Whether the proposed new paragraph shall be there inserted?
  Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
  EARL STANHOPE: My Lords, the next Amendment is drafting.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 78, line 13, leave out ("of this Schedule").—(Earl Stanhope.)
  THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, the next Amendment is consequential.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 80, line 7, insert:
  ("(v) Paragraph 20 shall have effect as if for any reference to an estate or other interest subject to a settlement within the meaning of the Settled Land Act, 1925, there were substituted a reference to an estate or other interest subject to a trust within the meaning of the Trusts (Scotland) Act, 1921, or to an entail or to a liferent.").—(The Earl of Munster.)
  Fourth Schedule [Lease Consolidation Schemes]:
  EARL STANHOPE: My Lords, the first Amendment on this Schedule is drafting.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 82, line 21, leave out from the beginning to ("any") in line 22 and insert—
  ("The said lease shall, notwithstanding anything in subsection (2) of Section eleven of this Act, not include").—(Earl Stanhope.)
  THE EARL OF MUNSTER: The next Amendment is also drafting.
  Their Lordships divided: Contents, 24; Not-Contents, 19.

  CONTENTS.

  Wellington, D.

  Elibank, V.

  Gainford, L.

  Hereford, V.

  Gerard, L.

  Dudley, E. [Teller.]

  Hastings, L.

  Fitzwilliam, E.

  Addington, L.

  Heneage, L.

  Grey, E.

  Balfour of Burleigh, L. [Teller.]

  Mowbray, L.

  Lindsay, E.

  Redesdale, L.

  Wicklow, E.

  Cranworth, L.

  Saltoun, L.

  Darcy (de Knayth), L.

  Sandhurst, L.

  Bertie of Thame, V.

  Fairfax of Cameron, L.

  Teynham, L.

  Wolverton, L.

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Maugham, L. (L. Chancellor.)

  Mount Edgcumbe, E.

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

  Munster, E.

  Holden, L.

  Bath, M.

  Spencer, E.

  Jessel, L.

  Dufferin and Ava, M.

  Stanhope, E.

  Kenilworth, L.

  Lamington, L.

  Feversham, E.

  Clanwilliam, L. (E. Clanwilliam.)

  Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

  Iddesleigh, E.

  Lucan, E. [Teller.]

  Fermanagh, L. (E. Erne.)

  Windlesham, L.

  On Question, Amendment agreed to.

  Amendment moved—
  Page 83, line 26, leave out ("who is competent to grant a lease in the terms of a draft") and insert ("whose grant or concurrence is requisite to the taking effect of a lease").—(The Earl of Munster.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, the next Amendment is drafting.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 83, line 28, leave out ("of any premises to which the draft relates") and insert ("as respects any premises comprised therein").—(The Earl of Munster.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, the last Amendment on this Schedule is also drafting.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 83, line 29, leave out ("a lease in the terms of that draft") and insert ("the lease").—(The Earl of Munster.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  Fifth Schedule [Grant of leases to freeholders in possession of coal, immediately before the vesting date]:
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the two Amendments on this Schedule are to remedy a drafting omission. In the original drafting we omitted the fact that the parties concerned had to execute a lease security, I beg to move.
  Amendments moved—
  Page 86, line 11, leave out ("and") and insert ("or")
  Page 86, line 13, leave out paragraph 4 and insert—

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  ("4. Subject to any agreement between the parties named in the draft of a lease substituted security or other instrument settled under this Schedule, it shall be the duty of each of those parties, on being required by any other of them so to do, to execute a lease security or other instrument in the terms of the draft.")—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  On Question, Amendments agreed to.
  Sixth Schedule:

SIXTH SCHEDULE.

  AMENDMENTS OF 20 & 21 GEO. 5. C. 34, S. 13.
  1. In Section thirteen, after subsection (1) thereof, there shall be inserted the following subsection:—
  "(1A) The following provisions shall have effect with respect to any scheme submitted to the Board of Trade by the Coal Commission—
  (a) the scheme shall provide for the consideration to be given to each of the constituent companies from which property is to be transferred (hereinafter referred to as a transferor company) being given out of the securities of the new company or of the constituent company to which that property is transferred, as the case may be (hereinafter referred to as the transferee company) and not otherwise …
  2. For subsection (2) of the said Section thirteen there shall he substituted the following subsection:—
  "(2) In relation to any scheme submitted to the Board of Trade under this section by the Coal Commission, the Act of 1926 shall have effect as if for the proviso to subsection (2) of Section seven thereof and Section eight thereof (which both relate to the consideration of schemes by the Railway and Canal Commission) there were substituted the following proviso, that is to say:—
  "Provided that the Railway and Canal Commission—
  (b) shall not have power to make, or require to be made, in the scheme modifications inconsistent with any provisions required by the enactments relating thereto to be included in schemes submitted to the Board of Trade by the Coal Commission …
  EARL STANHOPE EARL STANHOPE moved, in paragraph (a) of the substituted subsection (1A), to leave out "not otherwise" and insert ",except in so far as may be otherwise agreed between all the transferor companies and the transferee company, only out of such securities,". The noble Earl said: My Lords, this Amendment is really to give effect to a promise I made to the noble Earl, Lord Dudley, on the Committee stage so that where everyone is agreed cash should be given
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  when an amalgamation is made, it should be possible for cash to pass.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 87, line 2, leave out ("not otherwise") and insert the said new words.—(Earl Stanhope.)
  LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, I actually moved this Amendment on the Committee stage, and I should like to take this opportunity of thanking the Government for meeting us on this point.
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in paragraph (b) of the substituted subsection (2) in paragraph 2, to leave out "any provisions required by the enactments relating thereto to be included in," and insert "the enactments relating to the matters which are required to be provided for by." The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this is not quite a drafting Amendment. I have to admit that when this point was before the Committee I was unable to agree there was any necessity for anything of the kind. But I had some little doubt in my mind, and after considering the matter very carefully I thought it wiser that the point raised should be met by the Amendment in question.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 88, line 17, leave out from ("with") to ("schemes") in line 18, and insert the said new words.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  Seventh Schedule:

SEVENTH SCHEDULE.

  AMENDMENTS OF 20 & 21 GEO. 5. C. 34, SS. 5 AND 8.
  9. At the end of the said Section five the following subsection shall be inserted:—
  "(11) Any appointment to be made by the Board of Trade under this section of a person who is thereby required to be a member of the legal profession shall be made after consultation with the Lord Chancellor."
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, at the end of paragraph 9, to insert "or where the appointment is of the chairman of a district committee of investigation for a district in Scotland, after consultation with the Lord Advocate." The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, we have come to the last Amendment on this important stage, and I find it is one

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  where I am able to remove an injustice which might have been done to Scotland. The clause as it stood named the Lord Chancellor as the person nominating the arbitrator, and it was found that where the chairman of a district committee of investigation in Scotland was concerned the appointment should be made in consultation with the Lord Advocate. I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 92, line 15, at end insert the said new words.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
EARL STANHOPE: My Lords, before we adjourn, perhaps I had better remind your Lordships that it is proposed that we should meet to-morrow at three o'clock.
LORD HASTINGS: May I ask when the Third Reading of the Coal Bill will be taken?
EARL STANHOPE: I am proposing to put it down for Tuesday of next week.
House adjourned at a quarter past eight o'clock.