Lords Sitting of 14 March 1939

Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA (PROVINCIAL LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLIES) (AMENDMENT) ORDER, 1939.
GOVERNMENT OF BURMA (INDIA-BURMA FINANCIAL SETTLEMENT) ORDER, 1939.
GOVERNMENT OF BURMA (SHAN STATES FEDERAL FUND) ORDER, 1939.

MESSAGE FROM THE KING.
THE EARL OF CLARENDON: My Lords, I have to convey to the House the following Message from the King, signed with his own hand:
"I have received your Addresses praying that the Government of India (Provincial Legislative Assemblies) (Amendment) Order, 1939, the Government of Burma (India-Burma Financial Settlement) Order, 1939, and the Government of Burma (Shan States Federal Fund) Order, 1939, be made in the form of the respective drafts approved by your Lordships' House. I will comply with your request."

BOOTLE CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
LORD ELTISLEY: My Lords, I beg to move that Standing Order No. 105 be considered with a view to its being dispensed with in respect of this Bill. The Standing Order requires that this Bill, being a local Bill, shall be read a second time not earlier than the fourth nor later than the seventh day after it has received a First Reading. The Bill was read a first time on February 7. It should have been down for Second Reading long before this, but as a Motion for an Instruction was lodged against the Bill it was felt that it would be for the convenience of all parties if consideration of the Bill were deferred to a later date. I therefore beg to move suspension of Standing Order No. 105.
Moved, That Standing Order No. 105 be considered in order to its being dispensed with in respect of the said Bill.—(Lord Eltisley.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
LORD ELTISLEY: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time. I take it that the House will not desire me to go in any detail into the provisions of this Bill. It is a Bill which covers a considerable field. It has no fewer than 132 pages, 201 clauses, 11 Parts, and four Schedules, and it would take a very long time were I to inflict a description of its many provisions on the House. I might say, however, that it is an omnibus Bill dealing with a number of matters the great majority of which are unopposed and are generally accepted. It is a Bill to extend the Borough boundaries to the north and to include an area of land which has been purchased by the Corporation, who desire to develop it mainly for housing purposes. Other provisions in the Bill are common form clauses which are generally accepted as suitable for adoption by local authorities without compelling them to give special proof of their necessity. As the House is aware, Bootle adjoins the City of Liverpool, and many matters of common concern arise, such, for example, as the disposal of sewage, in respect of which there is a Joint Sewage Board. There is a church which has to be moved in order to make room for a school site, and that matter has been adjusted to the satisfaction of all parties concerned. There are many miscellaneous provisions which are not opposed. With regard to Clause 118, the clause on which an Instruction is being moved by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, I shall not refer to that matter now because after he has moved the Instruction he will, perhaps, give me an opportunity of replying. With these few comments, I have said everything that is necessary in moving the Second Reading of the Bill.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Eltisley.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed: the Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
LORD STRABOLGI LORD STRABOLGI had given Notice that in the event of the Bill being read a second time, he would move, That it be an Instruction to the Committee, to which the Bill may be referred, to strike out Clause 118 (Gaming and betting). The
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noble Lord said: My Lords, the Instruction on the Paper, as your Lordships will see, refers to Clause 118. The reasons why your Lordships should support the clause have been circulated by the authority concerned, and no doubt your Lordships have had their representations in your hands. You will see that the clause is aimed at certain bookmakers in Bootle. What happens to the bookmakers is not my concern, although they are entitled to justice like anyone else; but this clause has occasioned a great deal of alarm to showmen—proprietors of fair grounds, travelling circuses, and amusement parks—and they have asked me to move this Instruction. Their reasons are that it would give special powers to the police in Bootle to seize their amusement and pin tables and things of that sort, which power does not exist in any other part of the country, with one exception. Liverpool, I understand, obtained similar powers in their Bill in 1927, but since then, as a result partly of the deliberations of the Royal Commission which sat on betting and gambling, a new Bill has been introduced which became an Act of Parliament in 1934 dealing with lotteries and betting, which, I think, alters the whole position.
It comes, therefore, to this, that the Bootle police, who I understand want this clause, are asking for preferential treatment, and for special powers over the established law of the land and beyond those possessed by the police in any other part of the country with the exception of Liverpool. The contention of those for whom I am speaking is that if such powers are desirable they should be part of a General Act of Parliament brought into either House as a Bill, where it can be properly discussed, and should not be brought in under the cover of this omnibus measure, which deals with the acquisition of churches, the extension of borough boundaries, and other perfectly desirable objects. As the noble Lord opposite has already pointed out, the clause does not specifically mention bookmakers, and if it were confined to bookmakers the showmen would have no objection, but it can undoubtedly be used against showmen.
Now the police have plenty of powers under the Acts of 1845, 1853 and 1854, and also under the new law of 1934. There are in these fair grounds what are called pin tables. Pennies are put into

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them, and if the skill of the operator leads to success a small prize is given. I dare say that can be stigmatised as gambling and as very sinful, but it does give a lot of harmless amusement to many people. In certain districts the Chief Constables have rather harried and hunted the fair ground proprietors, and have contended that these machines are gambling and have launched prosecutions. It is perfectly right and proper if they launch a prosecution, because then the case can be defended, but under this clause the police will be able to seize the apparatus and all the money on the premises, and they will have far wider powers than would otherwise exist. Are your Lordships aware that it has been held that a cocoanut shy is illegal because a prize is won—namely, a cocoanut—if you knock it over? I wonder how many of your Lordships have broken this law in your younger days, or aided and abetted your children or grandchildren to break the law to-day.
This whole question of gambling and betting has been thoroughly examined and dealt with by legislation, and if there is a case for strengthening the law, Parliament, we suggest, should be asked to strengthen it; people should not be granted the specially wide powers which are given by this Bill. This is really piecemeal legislation and we consider it objectionable. On behalf of those very hard-working people who provide amusement and recreation for the people, and who feel very alarmed at this particular clause, I hope your Lordships will support me in instructing the Committee to strike it out. I beg to move.
Moved, That it be an Instruction to the Committee, to which the Bill may be referred, to strike out Clause 118 (Gaming and betting).—(Lord Strabolgi.)
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF ONSLOW): My Lords, perhaps I may be allowed to say a word on this subject. The clause follows the precedent which is set in the Liverpool Corporation Act and which is now the law in Liverpool. I imagine, therefore, that everybody in Liverpool who wants to have a shot at a cocoanut is breaking the law and Boottle desires to follow the Liverpool precedent.
LORD STRABOLGI: Would the Lord Chairman forgive me for intervening? The trouble is this. It is not that the Bill
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creates a new illegality in Bootle, but it gives power to the police to confiscate all the cocoanuts and balls and money on the premises.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: Liverpool seems to have very comprehensive powers. I shall not go into the question of cocoanuts at the present moment; I was never so fortunate as to win one. I am a bad shot, I suppose. The point is this. The clause is not petitioned against; I do not suppose there is anybody who has a locus to petition against it. There may or there may not be. If there is anybody who could petition against it, he could not do so now because the time for petitioning is over. It is an unusual, and I think, if I may respectfully say so, a very inconvenient course on Second Reading to send an Instruction to the Committee. These clauses are all of them somewhat complicated, and they are perhaps more easily examined upstairs than on the floor of your Lordships House. I entirely agree with my noble friend opposite that it is very desirable that these matters should be very carefully examined, and I was going to suggest a course to your Lordships which perhaps might meet my noble friend opposite, and also the noble Lord, Lord Eltisley, and it is this. The Bill is petitioned against. It is going to the Committee upstairs, and I suggest that a letter be forwarded to the Chairman of the Committee, sending him a copy of the speeches which have been made to-day in your Lordships' House on the subject, and asking him to give very careful consideration to the observations which have been made upon the clause as it stands. I think perhaps in that way it will certainly get very full consideration, and I venture to think that that is a more convenient procedure than issuing an Instruction to the Committee such as is proposed by my noble friend opposite. I do not know whether that suggestion would appeal to other noble Lords, but I rather hope it might do so.
LORD ELTISLEY: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, for the way he has received the Bill as a whole and especially for the kind way in which he referred to myself. I am not sure how far I can follow his argument about cocoanuts. It is an unexpected argument to me. I believe that if the cocoanuts are so arranged that shying at

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them becomes a game of skill, legal proceedings cannot be taken against it, but I have no special legal knowledge and cannot deal with that point. So far as my own experience of fairs is concerned, when I have had a shy at the cocoanuts, my only trouble has been that I have won so few. I think the suggestion put forward by the Chairman of Committees is a very common-sense, practical way of dealing with this difficulty, and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, will see his way to accept it. The Bill is really aimed at the legal control of a small section of bookmakers, not the respectable bookmakers but a small section of bookmakers and the way in which they indulge in a good many practices that are contrary to the law. We know that at every race meeting, as in every gaming house no doubt, there is a small section of "bookies" who bring discredit on those who are doing proper business. I myself have been at several local race meetings, and seen "bookies" speed over the plough pursued by a crowd, and eventually they have been thrown into the local pond. I have also seen a "bookie" creep under a coach and emerge on the opposite side respectably attired as a clergyman of the Church of England. One could quote innumerable instances of that kind.
This clause is not to deal with reputable bookmakers or with the great majority of the bookmaking class, but with a small number who set up gaming rooms which it is very difficult to deal with and control. I want to emphasize that these powers are already possessed, as was fairly pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, by the Liverpool police and as far as I know they work quite smoothly. In a way this clause is a try-out of what may become a very useful piece of legislation. The noble Lord suggested that it is not a suitable piece of legislation to carry on a piecemeal basis, but I venture to think that where local government matters are concerned it is often much the best way to try out some legislation when you are not sure whether it will work fairly or not, and this is a case where that might usefully be done rather than introduce general legislation which would be controversial and might not work satisfactorily. Therefore I urge that the consideration of this clause should be granted. Bootle is virtually part of Liverpool and it is obviously very inconvenient
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to have totally different systems on each side of an imaginary frontier.
I do not know how far your Lordships are seized of what goes on when a raid is made, but I am given to understand that it is a highly complicated and skilled matter. When the police have reason to believe that illegal gaming is going on, agents of the police have to be introduced into the gaming rooms. The bookmaker in charge takes great interest in any new arrivals and tries to find out whence they come and what is their object. Very often they will not be allowed to bet until they have paid several visits. Meanwhile his touts are finding out as much as they can about these new clients. When the raid is eventually made procedure has to be very carefully followed, and although the law has been broken it is not by any means easy to bring the matter home. The purpose of Clause 118 is to give the police power to seize not only the gaming apparatus but also any moneys which have obviously been changing hands as the result of gaming transactions.
I suggest that this is a matter for close attention and consideration by an independent Committee such as a Select Committee. I think the House should have some hesitation in adopting the course of accepting a mandatory Motion and issuing a definite Instruction to the Committee to leave out the clause, the effect of which would be to decide against the promoters without giving them an opportunity of stating their case. No one likes to have a decision given against him, but he feels particularly sore when it is given against him and he has been given no opportunity of being heard. If parties have been heard they go away at any rate with the knowledge that they have been fairly treated, and have had, so to speak, a run for their money. It is frequently said in Courts of Law that it is not merely of some importance but is of fundamental importance that justice should not only be done but should manifestly and undoubtedly seem to be done. That is a quotation from a judgment of the Lord Chief Justice. I suggest that the same wise saying should apply in a matter of this kind. I hope that the matter will not be pressed by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, but that he will be willing to accept the advice and suggestion put forward by the noble Earl, the Lord Chairman.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, like the noble Lord opposite, I am very much obliged to the noble Earl, the Chairman of Committees, for his very helpful suggestion, which I am quite prepared to accept. I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, is to be Chairman of the Committee which will examine the Bill, and I would venture to ask him if he would be prepared to call witnesses from amongst the showmen to state how they might suffer. They have nothing to do with the bookmakers. What has been said about the bookmakers does not apply to these showmen in any way, but they feel that they may be in danger and they would be glad to have the chance of giving evidence.
LORD REDESDALE: My Lords, I personally have no objection to calling showmen as witnesses, and they can be heard upstairs in the same way as anybody else, but at the present time there is no opposition to this clause. As there are no petitions, there is, as far as I know, no opportunity for witnesses to appear. That would be a great difficulty.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, there was a similar case some years ago when an unopposed clause was brought to the special attention of the Committee and arrangements were made for a society, with which I think the noble Lord, Lord Dickinson, was associated, to put a case by their witnesses. I cannot remember the exact details at the moment, but I can look up the precedent for my noble friend.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, in the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

PREVENTION OF FRAUD (INVESTMENTS) BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL OF ONSLOW in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Licensing of dealers in securities]:
LORD TEMPLEMORE: There are two drafting Amendments to this clause. It
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is proposed to add the words "or agent." The addition of these words closes a possible loophole, since without these words it might be possible for the principal to circumvent the provision by employing not employees in the strict sense, who are required to have representatives' licences, but agents paid on a commission basis. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 1, after ("servant") insert ("or agent").—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: I beg to move the second Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 6, after ("servant") insert ("or agent").—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2:
Saving for certain transactions.
(2) For the purpose of determining whether or not a person has contravened any of the restrictions imposed by Section one of this Act, no account shall be taken of his having done any of the following things (whether as a principal or as an agent), that is to say.—
(a) effecting transactions with, or through the agency of,—
(ii) the holder of a principal's licence, and
(b) issuing documents which, by virtue of the Companies Act, 1929, must conform to the requirements of Section thirty-five or Section three hundred and fifty-five of that Act with respect to the contents of prospectuses, or which in fact conform to the requirements of either of those sections,
or of his having, as a principal, acquired, subscribed for or underwritten securities or effected transactions with a person whose business involves the acquisition and disposal, or the holding, of securities (whether as a principal or as an agent).
LORD TEMPLEMORE: The first Amendment to this clause is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 32, at end insert ("or").—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: The next two Amendments are drafting Amendments which are really consequential on later Amendments to Clause 16. I beg to move the first of these.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 37, leave out from ("of") to the end of line 38.—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: I beg to move the next Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 39, leave out ("of") and insert ("or trustee under").—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: The next Amendment is a drafting Amendment to bring the provision into line with the words in sub-paragraph (i) "or a person acting on behalf of such a person as is so mentioned."
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 11, leave out ("principal's").—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: This is drafting; I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 12, leave out ("document") and insert ("any document").—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: This is drafting; I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 17, leave out from ("which") to the end of line 18 and insert ("contains the matter which, by virtue of subsection (1) of either of the said sections, it would have to contain if it were a prospectus to which that subsection applies").—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD WARDINGTONhad given Notice that he would move in subsection (2), after "sections" at the end of paragraph (b), to insert "or which are by Statute expressly exempted from the necessity of complying with the requirements of either of those sections." The noble Lord said: The point of my Amendment has been met already, and I therefore do not move it.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME: Before we leave this clause, I have a question to ask my noble friend of which I have given him private notice: whether his intention is that companies incorporated by Royal Charter should be excluded from the operation of this clause.
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Perhaps it would save time if I were to withdraw this question now and the Lord Chancellor considered it between now and Report.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD MAUGHAM): I will certainly consider it if the noble Viscount will allow me to.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4:
Deposits or guarantees required in connection with applications for principal's licences.
4.—(1) Subject to the provisions of this section, the Board of Trade shall not grant a principal's licence unless the sum of five hundred pounds has been, and remains, deposited by the applicant for the licence with the Accountant General of the Supreme Court of Judicature.
(3) The Board of Trade may make such regulations as appear to them to be necessary with respect to the investment of sums deposited under this section, the deposit of securities in lieu of money, and the payment to the depositor of the interest or dividends from time to time accruing due on any securities in which a deposit under this section is for the time being invested, or on any securities deposited under this section in lieu of money.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME had given Notice of two Amendments in subsection (3)—namely, to leave out "and" ["and the payment"] and, at the end of the subsection, to insert "and the realisation of such securities as aforesaid in special circumstances." The noble Viscount said: The first of these Amendments would be only drafting if the second Amendment were accepted. With regard to the second Amendment, your Lordships will notice that subsection (2) provides that

(a) in the event of the depositor becoming bankrupt, the amount of the deposit shall be paid to the trustee in bankruptcy; or

(b) if, in a case where the depositor is a corporation, the corporation is ordered to be wound up by, or under the supervision of, the Court, the amount of the deposit shall be repaid to the corporation.

But no provision is made as to the disposal of securities which have been deposited in lieu of money. I originally drafted three Amendments to meet the case, but I have had the advantage of discussing with the advisers of my noble friend Lord Templemore, through his good offices, this matter among others, and his advisers suggested that these two

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Amendments would be sufficient to cover the point. They now stand in my name, and I hope the noble Lord will see his way to accept them.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 37, leave out ("and").—[Viscount Bertie of Thame.)
LORD TEMPLEMORE: I am much obliged to my noble friend. These Amendments of his do improve the Bill, and I have great pleasure in accepting them.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHAIRMAN: The word "special" in the next Amendment as printed should be "specified."
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME: I beg to move the Amendment with that alteration.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 42, after ("money") insert ("and the realisation of such securities as aforesaid in specified circumstances").—(Viscount Bertie of Thame.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: My attention has been called to a grammatical error by my noble friend Viscount Bertie, and I have much pleasure in moving this Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 35, leave out ("their") and insert ("its").—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clause 6:
References to tribunal of inquiry.
(2) For the purposes of this section there shall be a tribunal of inquiry (hereinafter referred to as "the tribunal") consisting of a chairman, and one other person appointed by the Lord Chancellor, being members of the legal profession, and one person appointed by the Treasury, being a person who appears to the Treasury to be experienced in matters of finance or accountancy and not being a person in His Majesty's service.
A person appointed to the tribunal shall be appointed to be a member thereof for a specified period not being less than three years, subject to such conditions with respect to the vacation of his office in the event of his incapacity or resignation as may be imposed before the time of his appointment; and a person ceasing to hold office as a member of the tribunal shall be eligible for re-appointment thereto.
THE EARL OF IDDLESLEIGH THE EARL OF IDDLESLEIGH moved, in subsection (2), to leave out "members of the legal profession" and insert "barristers of not less than seven years' standing." The noble Earl said: This Amendment refers to the composition of the tribunal which is to act as a court of appeal from the decision of the Board of Trade. In such circumstances it is of great importance that the members of this tribunal, which has to perform judicial functions, should be persons qualified to weigh evidence with the utmost care. It seems desirable that the Committee should exact some qualifications beyond that of being a member of the legal profession. I have adopted the qualification for a County Court Judge, and I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 29, leave out ("members of the legal profession") and insert ("barristers of not less than seven years' standing").—(The Earl of Iddesleigh.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Your. Lordships will appreciate that for my part I am not in the least hostile to the other branch of the legal profession, and I am particularly not hostile to barristers, whether they are of more or of less than seven years' standing. It has, however, fallen to my lot to have to do with the framing of tribunals of inquiry both in reference to a Bill that was fought at great length in this House and the name of which I fear to mention, and to various other Bills which have been before the House. In some cases I have been able to limit the persons who are to be put upon the tribunal of inquiry to barristers of so many years' standing, and in other cases I have thought it my duty to refuse. The reason is that I think there are cases in which solicitors are as fit to serve on such a tribunal as the great majority of barristers. They have experience which barristers sometimes do not possess, and accordingly there are cases where the addition of a solicitor to such a tribunal adds to its powers. I am therefore unable to accept the Amendment which has been prepared by the noble Earl and which strikes out the possibility of a solicitor being a member of this tribunal.
The Chairman and one other person are to be appointed by the Lord Chancellor,

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and we must hope that the Lord Chancellor will fulfil his duties under this section with complete impartiality and with the best judgment he can bring to bear upon the matter. If the noble Earl is content merely with an Amendment which requires that these persons should have some experience, for my part I should not be in the least entitled to oppose such a Motion. But, after all, does it matter very much? The Lord Chancellor has to consider who these people shall be, and they will probably be persons of far more than the seven years' experience which the noble Earl suggests is sufficient for a barrister. For the moment the Amendment, as it stands, has the serious defect of ruling out all solicitors from such an appointment, and I am therefore unable to accept it.
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: In deference to the great experience of the noble and learned Lord who sits upon the Woolsack, I am prepared to withdraw this Amendment if the Committee will give me leave to do so.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: The next is a drafting Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 37, leave out ("in the event of his incapacity or resignation").—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 7 agreed to.
Clause 8:
Information to be furnished to Board of Trade by holders of licences.
(2) If, at any time while a principal's licence granted to a corporation is in force, any person becomes a director of the corporation, the corporation shall forthwith notify the name and address of that person in writing to the Board of Trade.
(3) If, at any time while a representative's licence is in force, the holder of the licence leaves or enters the service of any person, he shall forthwith notify the name and address of that person in writing to the Board of Trade.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME moved, in subsection (2), after "name," to insert "nationality." The noble Viscount said: Under the present law the director of a
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company has to disclose his nationality of origin. I do not go quite so far as that in this Amendment, but if a person becomes a member of a corporation, I think the corporation should notify the Board of Trade not only of his name and address but also of his nationality. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 13, after ("name") insert ("nationality").—(Viscount Bertie of Thame.)
LORD TEMPLEMORE: I accept the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD TEMPLEMORE LORD TEMPLEMORE moved, in subsection (3), after "of" ["of any person"] to insert "or becomes or ceases to be an agent of." The noble Lord said: This is a drafting Amendment; it is consequential on the Amendment to Clause 1, page 2, line 6. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 17, after ("of") insert ("or becomes or ceases to be an agent of").—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 8, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 9:
Publication of names of holders of principals' licences.
9. The Board of Trade shall cause to be published, at such times and in such manner as they think proper, the names and addresses of all holders of principals' licences for the time being in force, so however that the said information shall be published not less often than once a year.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME moved, after "names," to insert "nationality." The noble Viscount said: This is not quite consequential, and I do not know whether my noble friend accepts it. Unless any noble Lord wishes for an explanation, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 25, after ("names") insert ("nationality").—(Viscount Bertie of Thame.)
LORD TEMPLEMORE: I accept the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 9, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 10 [Provisions as to industrial and provident societies]:
LORD TEMPLEMORE: These Amendments are drafting Amendments, and I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 11, line 26, leave out ("shares in the share capital of") and insert ("securities")
Page 11, line 27, leave out from ("money") to ("been") in line 28.
Page 12, leave out lines 38 and 39 and insert ("have invested or deposited money").—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 10, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 11 [Provisions as to building societies]:
LORD TEMPLEMORE: The Amendments to this clause are also drafting Amendments. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 14, line 32, leave out ("in the public interest so to do") and insert ("so to do in the interests of persons who have invested or deposited or may invest or deposit money with the society")
Page 14, line 36, leave out ("any shares in the share capital of") and insert ("securities")
Page 14, line 37, leave out from ("money") to ("shall") in line 38.—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 11, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 12:
Penalty for fraudulently inducing persons to invest money.
12.—(1) Any person who, by any statement, promise or forecast which he knows to be misleading, false or deceptive, or by any dishonest concealment of material facts, or by the reckless making of any statement, promise or forecast which is misleading, false or deceptive, induces or attempts to induce another person—
(c) to enter into an agreement the purpose or pretended purpose of which is to secure a profit to any of the parties by reference to fluctuations in the value of some commodity,
shall be guilty of an offence, and liable to penal servitude for a term not exceeding seven years.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: This Amendment is really a drafting Amendment. It makes it clear that it is not only an offence, by misleading statements, etc., to invite another person to enter into a speculative commodity transaction, but also to invite him to offer to enter into such a transaction.
Amendment moved—
Page 16, line 31, after ("into") insert ("or offer to enter into").—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME moved, in subsection (1) (c), to leave out "some commodity" and insert "any property other than securities." The noble Viscount said: When I first read this Bill I was uncertain whether the word "commodity" covered dealings in currency, and therefore I originally put down an Amendment to the Interpretation Clause, to insert "'commodity' includes currency." The noble Lord's advisers, however, thought that the intention of that Amendment would best be covered by moving the Amendment which is now under discussion, and subsequent Amendments later on. I am much obliged for that advice, which I hope your Lordships will follow.
Amendment moved—
Page 16, line 34, leave out ("some commodity") and insert ("any property other than securities").—(Viscount Bertie of Thame.)
LORD TEMPLEMORE: I accept.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 12, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 13:
Restriction on distribution of circulars relating to investments.
(2) The preceding subsection shall not apply—

(a) in relation to any document which by virtue of the Companies Act, 1929, must conform to the requirements of Section thirty-five or Section three hundred and fifty-five of that Act with respect to the contents of prospectuses, or which in fact conforms to the requirements of either of those sections, or

(b) in relation to any document the issue or publication of which is required or authorised by any Act other than this Act or by any enactment of the Parliament of Northern Ireland.

(3) This section shall not prohibit the distribution or possession of any document by reason only—
(a)that it contains an invitation or information—
(iii) made or given by a corporation to holders of securities of or to persons employed by or to creditors of, that corporation or any other corporation which, in relation to the first mentioned corporation, is a subsidiary company as defined by Section one hundred and twenty-seven

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of the Companies Act, 1929, with respect to securities of the first mentioned corporation or of any such other corporation as aforesaid, or
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR had on the Paper Amendments to subsection (2) (a), to insert (i) after "which," where that word first occurs, and to leave out "which in fact conforms to the requirements of either of those sections" and insert:

"(ii) contains the matter which, by virtue of subsection (1) of either of the said sections, it would have to contain if it were a prospectus to which that subsection applies, or

(iii) is a document to which subsection (3) of the said Section thirty-five does not apply by virtue of the proviso to that subsection."

The noble and learned lord said: These Amendments to Clause 13 are Amendments to carry out the object to which the noble Lord, Lord Wardington, called attention when the matter was last before your Lordships, and their object is, I think, precisely the object which we desire to carry out. The clauses dealing with various matters which are the subject in Clause 13, subsection (3), of what may be called the savings or exemptions from the prohibitory part of the section, provide that no person shall, after the appointed day, "distribute circulars of a special kind relating to investments." The noble Lord pointed out that there were certain documents which were really in pari materia to documents with regard to which there were savings and exemptions contained in subsection (3) of Clause 13; and the attention of the Government having been called to the matter, it appeared that the better course would be to introduce a new subsection (3) and to insert also another provision which your Lordships will find is one of the Amendments proposed on the printed list.
The first Amendment is only one to insert the figure (i). That is of no importance. The second Amendment is to leave out a certain portion of the present clause as it exists in the Bill, and therefore to exclude from liability for the distribution of circulars and so forth of matters which, "by virtue of subsection (1) of either of the said sections"—that refers to the two main sections in the Companies Act—namely, Sections 35 and 355—the document "would have to contain if it were a prospectus to which that subsection applies." The new sub-paragraph (iii) reads:
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"is a document to which subsection (3) of the said Section thirty-five does not apply by virtue of the proviso to that subsection."
In other words the Amendments simply provide that certain innocent documents shall not be subjected to the prohibitory provisions of the Bill, and I think the Amendments carry out that Amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Wardington, desires.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 22, after ("which") insert ("(i)").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I have already stated the reasons for the second Amendment and I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 27, leave out from ("or") to ("or") at the end of line 28, and insert—
("(ii) contains the matter which, by virtue of subsection (1) of either of the said sections, it would have to contain if it were a prospectus to which that subsection applies, or
(iii) is a document to which subsection (3) of the said Section thirty-five does not apply by virtue of the proviso to that subsection").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD WARDINGTON LORD WARDINGTON moved to insert in subsection (2), after paragraph (b):
"or (c) in relation to any class or classes of documents, the issue or publication of which is authorised by an order for the time being in force under this subsection;
(3) Any order under the last preceding subsection shall be made by the Board of Trade and may be rescinded or varied by a subsequent order made by the Board."
The noble Lord said: In view of the statement of the Lord Chancellor I shall not move the Amendment to add words to paragraph (a) of subsection (2), but I do move my next Amendment. I do not think that the list of exemptions contained in subsections (2) and (3) of Clause 13—the exemptions from the general ban upon circulars relating to investments—is comprehensive enough. There is grave risk of legitimate business being hampered in the future if there is not some machinery provided in the Bill for making additions to the literature specified in those subsections. I referred to this matter on the Second Reading. Only a fortnight has intervened between that time and now, and already two cases, which had not been foreseen, have arisen

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and have formed the subject of two subsequent Amendments. One is by the Government, where the case is one of putting up securities for sale is dealt with, and another is dealt with by an Amendment in my own name which is intended to cover the case of Company A wanting to buy the shares of Company B. Those are two additional cases which were not foreseen and if they were not put into the Bill no machinery except an entirely new Act of Parliament would enable them to be dealt with. I feel that it is desirable to give the Board of Trade some extended power to make exceptions and I therefore beg to move the Amendment standing in my name.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 33, at end insert the said new words.—(Lord Wardington.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The Government are greatly obliged to the noble Lord for the care he has taken in making suggestions with regard to this difficult and complex Bill. As to this Amendment, the Government take the view that the noble Lord is quite right in thinking that some further power of exemption should be given to the Board of Trade. They are doubtful about accepting the precise Amendment moved by the noble Lord. They think that the cases which it may be desired to deal with under this Amendment are cases that should take the form of an exemption given by the Board of Trade in particular cases only, and if the noble Lord is willing to accept my promise that the Government will move a suitable Amendment on Report, of which of course he will be given due notice, I hope he may be satisfied, for the moment at any rate, not to press his Amendment.
LORD WARDINGTON: I thank the Lord Chancellor and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: The next Amendment is drafting.
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 6, after ("by") insert ("or on behalf of").—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD WARDINGTON LORD WARDINGTON moved, in subsection (3) (a), after sub-paragraph (iii), to insert:
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"(iv) made or given by any person to all holders of the securities or any class of the securities issued by any company (other than those (if any) already owned by the person making such offer) offering to acquire such securities or any part of such securities."
The noble Lord said: This is rather a wide Amendment, and I do not know whether it will commend itself to the Lord Chancellor, but it is, as I said just now, designed to cover the case of one company desiring to purchase the shares of another company and circularising in connection with such an acquisition under Section 155 of the Companies Act, 1929, all dissentient shareholders in cases where the scheme or contract has been approved by the majority.
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 15, at end insert the said sub-paragraph.—(Lord Wardington.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think it is very likely that some Amendment may be desirable to permit perfectly proper transactions which take place under Section 155 of the Companies Act, 1929, but these things are not very easy to draft, and it so happens that the noble Lord's Amendment is one which precisely makes legal a particular fraud which has been investigated on more than one occasion before the present day. The fraud in question is this. Some person not of very high character circularises the shareholders of a particular company with an offer to acquire their shares in exchange for some other securities in a company which is represented as having every possibility of turning out to be more than a gold mine, but as to which it may be pretty safe to say that the securities are completely worthless. This is one of the devices which the present Bill is designed to meet. Accordingly, the Government cannot accept this Amendment in its present form, but, as I started by saying, the noble Lord may be able so to limit his Amendment, if necessary—and I am afraid I cannot say that I have given enough time to the question whether it is necessary or not—that legitimate transactions under Section 155 of the Companies Act will not be hit. Of course, there is no intention in the least of objecting to those or making them illegal. It is a question of getting a suitable phrase which will permit that to be done.
LORD WARDINGTON: I am content to accept the assurance of the Lord Chancellor, and I beg leave to withdraw.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: The next two Amendments are drafting.
Amendments moved—
Page 18, line 17, leave out ("of") and insert ("under")
Page 18, line 29, leave out ("in the share capital").—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to insert at the end of subsection (3) (a):
"(viii) made or given with respect to any securities in connection only with a sale or proposed sale of those securities by auction, or"
The noble and learned Lord said: The object of this Amendment is to prevent advertisements or statements made in connection with the sale of securities by auction from being prohibited statements. It will be remembered that if an auctioneer sells only stocks and shares in the course of his business, or if a large part of his business is connected with the sale of stocks and shares, he will require a licence under one of the other clauses of the Bill. But with regard to auctioneers' catalogues it is thought that they ought not to be subject to the provisions of this clause if they are concerned only with securities which are proposed to be sold at a particular auction sale, and that is the only object of this Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 34, at end insert the said sub-paragraph.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME: The next two Amendments are consequential.
Amendments moved—
Page 18, line 38, leave out ("some commodity") and insert ("any property other than securities")
Page 18, line 40, leave out ("that commodity") and insert ("such property").—(Viscount Bertie of Thame.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: The next Amendment is drafting.
Amendment moved—
Page 19, line 2, leave out ("other than") and insert ("which is not").—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 13, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 14:
Stock exchanges and associations of dealers in securities.
(3) It shall be the duty of every recognised stock exchange or recognised association of dealers in securities to furnish to the Board of Trade, so often as may be prescribed (which shall be not less often than once a year) a list of all persons who, at the date on which the list is furnished, are members of the stock exchange or of the association, as the case may be; and as soon as may be after receiving any list furnished to them under this subsection the Board shall cause the list to be published in such manner as they think proper.
LORD TEMPLEMORE LORD TEMPLEMORE moved, in subsection (3), to leave out "of all persons" and to insert "showing with respect to each person." The noble Lord said: This and the following Amendments deal with the following point. The subsection in its present form imposes on recognised stock exchanges and recognised associations the duty of furnishing to the Board of Trade lists of their members, and provides that the Board shall publish such lists. It is, however, not sufficient that lists of members should be furnished, as they would be of little value to the public without particulars of the business names under which such persons carry on business, that is, their partnership names or firm names and their addresses.
Amendment moved—
Page 21, line 14, leave out ("of all persons") and insert ("showing with respect to each person").—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 21, line 14, leave out ("of all persons") and insert ("showing with respect to each person")
Page 21, line 15, leave out ("are members") and insert ("is a member")
Page 21, line 16, after the first ("be") insert ("his name and business address and the style under which he carries on business")
Page 21, line 24, after ("of") insert ("the").—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 14, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 15 [Banks, etc.]:
LORD TEMPLEMORE: The next three Amendments are drafting.
Amendments moved—
Page 22, line 9, leave out from ("of") to ("manager") in line 12.
Page 22, line 11, leave out the second ("of") and insert ("or trustee under")
Page 22, line 17, leave out ("principals").—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 15, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 16:
Trustees of unit trusts.
16.—(1) The Board of Trade may by order declare to be an approved trustee of unit trusts for the purposes of this Act any corporation in relation to which the Board are satisfied that the following conditions are fulfilled, that is to say:—

(a) that the corporation is incorporated under the law of some part of the United Kingdom, and has a place of business in Great Britain at which notices and other documents are received on behalf of the corporation, and

(b) that the corporation is empowered by its constitution to undertake the business of acting as a trustee, and

(c) either—

(i) that the corporation has a capital (in stock or shares) for the time being issued of not less than five hundred thousand pounds, of which an amount of not less than two hundred and fifty thousand pounds has been paid up, and that the assets of the corporation are sufficient to meet its liabilities (including liabilities in respect of the repayment of its capital), or

(ii) that more than four-fifths of the said capital of the corporation is held by another corporation being a corporation in relation to which the conditions as to capital and assets specified in subparagraph (i) of this paragraph are fulfilled.

(3) Subject to any exceptions which may be prescribed, every deed or other instrument (executed whether before or after the commencement of this Act) under which property is, in pursuance of any unit trust scheme, vested in an approved trustee of unit trusts, shall be deemed to contain such provisions as may be prescribed, and any provision contained in any such deed or other instrument shall, if and so far as it is inconsistent with any of the provisions so prescribed, be of no effect.
(4) It shall be the duty of every corporation, being an approved trustee of unit trusts to furnish to the Board of Trade, so often as may be prescribed (which shall not be less often than once a year) the prescribed particulars of every unit trust scheme under which property is vested in the corporation as trustee; and as soon as may be after any particulars have been furnished to them under this subsection the Board shall cause the particulars to be published in such manner as they think proper.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "approved
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trustee of unit trusts" and insert "authorised unit trust scheme." The noble and learned Lord said: The next dozen or so Amendments are a little bit difficult to follow unless you see the effect of them in the shape of a Bill that is altered to contain them, but the main object of them is this. Your Lordships will remember that considerable objection was taken to Clause 16 (3) of the Bill by Lord Wardington, and it was felt by persons on behalf of the Government that the clause might be redrafted—I believe somebody was so injudicious as to say that the clause gave him a pain! The object of the present Amendments is to redraft Clause 16 and to improve it in the course of the redrafting. Accordingly there are quite a large number of Amendments, consequential and otherwise. Perhaps your Lordships will allow me to tell you shortly, if I can, what the effect of all these Amendments is. Then it might be that some noble Lords would think it right to wait until the Report stage to see if the objects in question are properly carried out and, if thought fit, to move Amendments on Report. I hope they will be satisfied with the general nature of the clause as it will stand after these Amendments have been made.
The first thing is this. Under the Bill as it stands, in Clause 16 (1) the Board of Trade may "by order declare to be an approved trustee of unit trusts for the purposes of this Act," any corporation which fulfils certain conditions. The question of unit trusts was greatly discussed in another place, and it was strongly urged that certain recommendations of the Anderson Committee should be adopted. Since the passage of the Bill through another place, further representations have been made to the effect that the law with regard to unit trusts should, at any rate, be amended, though it is not the object of the present Bill to deal with the matter completely. The proposals which I am now putting forward have three aspects. First, instead of approving the trustee, the Board of Trade under the Amendments will, in effect, approve the unit trust scheme provided it fulfils certain conditions, one of which will be that the trustee must have the status laid down in the Bill. Secondly, the scheme must be such as to secure that all property subject to the trust is vested in a trustee under a deed providing, to the satisfaction of the Board, for certain definite

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matters which have got to be specified and which, in the proposals before your Lordships, are specified in the Schedule. These are reasonable conditions to which it is thought no reputable trustee can object.
Thirdly, there is a new subsection (3) for enabling trusts to be varied or supplemented by a deed made between the trustee and the manager for the purpose of complying with the conditions in the Schedule. That will result in this. Existing unit trusts in almost every case, at any rate, will have to bring into effect a supplemental deed which will contain provisions under which they will be complying with the provisions it is now proposed should form part of the general law relating to unit trusts. With regard to future unit trusts, they will ab initio commence with the proper provisions, the clauses which are thought to be necessary, in order that the public interest may be safeguarded.
These Amendments are, no doubt, of some importance. They will not satisfy entirely the views of some trustees of unit trusts who want most elaborate provisions to deal with the matter, and, on the other hand, they will not satisfy those who think that the Bill should leave untouched all unit trusts at present in existence, however unsatisfactory their provisions may be and whatever abuses may be open to some of the less reputable of these institutions. It has been found, owing to the complaints with regard to some such unit trusts, that that contention cannot be accepted. Accordingly the Government have thought fit to meet the point raised by Lord Wardington, with regard to subsection (3) of the existing Clause 16, and to take the opportunity for wholly redrafting Clause 16 and carrying out in a more efficient way the three proposals which I have stated to the Committee. As I have already indicated, it is very hard to follow the matter from these complicated Amendments which stand in my name and in the name of Lord Templemore to carry out these objects, but perhaps with that explanation your Lordships will be content, unless any noble Lord wants to ask any question, to take the matter for the present as being that which I have attempted to state, and to move any Amendments which may be considered desirable at a later stage. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 24, line 2, leave out ("approved trustee of unit trusts") and insert ("authorised unit trust scheme").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD WARDINGTON: I should like to thank the noble and learned Lord for the way in which he has met the points I raised on Second Reading.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I beg to move the next Amendment on the Paper.
Amendment moved—
Page 24, line 3, leave out ("corporation") and insert ("unit trust scheme").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in subsection (1), to leave out paragraphs (a) and (b) and "(c)," and insert:

"(a) that each of the persons who are respectively the manager and the trustee under the scheme is a corporation incorporated under the law of some part of the United Kingdom, and having a place of business in Great Britain at which notices and other documents are received on behalf of the corporation, and

(b) that the scheme is such as to secure that all property subject to any trust created in pursuance of the scheme is vested in the trustee under a deed providing, to the satisfaction of the Board, for the matters specified in the Schedule to this Act, and

(c) as respects the corporation being the trustee."

The noble and learned Lord said: I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 24, line 6, leave out from the beginning of the line to ("either") in line 14, and insert the said new paragraphs.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: I wish to draw attention to the wording of paragraph (b), which reads:
"that the scheme is such as to secure that all properties subject to any trust created in pursuance of the scheme is vested in the trustee …"
Later on we shall come to the Schedule, and the Amendment to be moved in that case uses the phrase, "will be vested," which is more correct and more applicable to the circumstances. I suggest that the Government should consider that point and make it "will be" in this case also. I am also informed that the term "vested" in this clause is one that may

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give rise to certain legal difficulties and that a further definition of the word may be desirable.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I will certainly undertake to consider both those suggestions with the assistance of my advisers. I am not sure I agree with the first, but I may be converted during the days that will elapse before this matter again comes before your Lordships. In those circumstances perhaps it is not necessary for me to indicate my hesitation on the first point.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I beg to move the next Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 24, line 30, leave out from ("any") to ("the") in line 31 and insert ("authorised unit trust scheme").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I move the next Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 24, line 32, leave out ("corporation") and insert ("scheme").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I now move the next Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 24, line 33, leave out ("such a trustee") and insert ("an authorised unit trust scheme").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I move the next Amendment in my name.
Amendment moved—
Page 24, line 37, leave out ("corporation") and insert ("scheme").—The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I move the next Amendment on the Paper.
Amendment moved—
Page 24, line 41, leave out ("corporation") and insert ("manager under the scheme and on the trustee under the scheme").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I move the next Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 25, line 3, leave out ("corporation") and insert ("manager and the trustee").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I move the next Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 25, line 6, leave out ("the corporation desires") and insert ("they desire").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I move the next Amendment on the Paper.
Amendment moved—
Page 25, line 11, leave out ("corporation and, if it so requests, afford it") and insert ("manager or trustee and, if he so requests, afford him").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to leave out subsection (3) and insert:
"(3) The terms of any trust created before the commencement of this Act in pursuance of a unit trust scheme may, notwithstanding anything in any deed, be varied or supplemented by a deed made between the trustee and the manager under the scheme, and containing such provisions as may be certified by the Board of Trade to be necessary for the purpose of securing that the condition mentioned in paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of this section is fulfilled in relation to that scheme."
The noble and learned Lord said: I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 25, line 14, leave out subsection (3) and insert the said new subsection.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: This gives rise to a possible eventuality. Your Lordships will notice that the supplementary deed is purely voluntary. It is a deed which may be entered into by the trustees and management, or may not be entered into by them. We have to contemplate the possibility that the management will refuse to enter into the supplementary trust deed, and continue as an unauthorised unit trust. In that case the trustee should, I suggest, be given the power either to dismiss the management or resign from the trust; for it is totally contrary to the desires of any of the respectable bodies which act as trustees of unit trusts that they should be put into the position of being trustees for an unauthorised trust. I hope that question

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may have consideration, and that appropriate measures will be taken to deal with the position.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I know some consideration has already been given to this matter; but I am not sure that it has been given exactly to the point to which the noble Earl calls attention. As I do not want to delay your Lordships by going through the clauses of the Bill as amended in order to see what answer can be afforded to the noble Earl, I will promise that the matter shall be considered, and that if any supplementary or other clause is necessary to carry out his idea, or to prevent the injury which he suggests may arise unless his idea is carried out, it shall be inserted.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to leave out subsection (4) and insert:
"(4) The Board of Trade shall, not less often than once a year, cause particulars of every unit trust scheme which is for the time being an authorised unit trust scheme, to be published in such manner as they think proper."
The noble and learned Lord said: I beg to move the Amendment in my name to leave out subsection (4).
Amendment moved—
Page 25, line 24, leave out subsection (4) and insert the said new subsection.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: I also wish to ask a question on this subsection. It reads "particulars of every unit trust scheme…to be published." What particulars? Would it not be desirable to lay down and specify what particulars shall in fact be published? Then there is no indication in the Amendment as to on whose shoulders is to be placed the onus of publication. I take it that it will not be placed upon the trustee but upon the management.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think the first point is met in this way, that the particulars are to be published in such manner as the Board of Trade may think proper. I do not know that anything else beyond that is necessary or desirable. It may from time to time seem to the Board of Trade that particulars should be publicly specified. The particulars may sometimes be of a wide nature, and then some years afterwards it may be
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found that it is not so necessary to have such wide particulars, and the Board may desire to cut them down. I do not think they should be cast-iron particulars, because the Board of Trade, if I may say so with great respect to that important Department, have not got much experience at the moment of particulars relating to unit trusts. Then, if I may deal with the other point, I think it is possible that the clause should be amended by laying the obligation for delivery of the particulars on the manager rather than on the trustee, but that again must be considered before the Bill reaches another stage.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
On Question, whether Clause 16, as amended, shall be agreed to?
LORD MANCROFT: Is the effect of these Amendments sufficiently stringent? I do not think it is. Particularly in the case of the later Amendments or Schedule rearrangements touching Clause 16, and indeed in the case of the whole clause, I do not think the clause is sufficiently strengthened so far as it governs or controls the trustees. There is no doubt about this, that the small investor has for years looked upon the trustee as the real guardian of his savings, and wrongly. The trustees perform quite a different function from that of the management. We are told that we should wait and see how this Bill works. Then perhaps another Bill might be brought in. I think it would have been better to deal with all these questions by a thorough amendment of the Companies Act, 1929. I am not against the unit trust movement with which this clause almost exclusively deals. I believe it performs a useful function. I believe it has protected the small investor and recently has prevented the small investor from losing much money which he otherwise would have lost if he had put his money into some untried companies. But not nearly enough light is let in upon the organisation of these trusts. It is necessary that there should be a very much deeper probing and examination into their control and organisation and methods than is provided by this particular clause, or by the Bill as a whole.
The Anderson Report—a most excellent Report which I am sorry to say the Government has not adopted—pointed out the weak spots of the unit trust movement

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and they ought to have been dealt with more fully in this clause or by this Bill. The managers of unit trusts ought not to be allowed to appear to be conferring charitable benefactions on the investor. The contrary ought to be made clear. The managers are making a very profitable thing out of the public. They invite the public to hand over their savings, for what purpose? Primarily for the managers' benefit. The public pays heavy fees and in this these trusts ought to be under greater control. The Economist for April 17, 1937, published a unit trust survey, and your Lordships will probably be astonished when I say, reading from that Supplement, that the loading or service charge of some of these trusts begins at 5 per cent., plus brokers' charges, and goes up to 6½, 7½, 8 and 10 per cent. That is to say, that in dealing with these large sums of invested money, amounting to £100,000,000 put into the unit trusts by the public, not less than £5,000,000 or probably £10,000,000 is raked off by the managers and their friends in some form or other. I do not say there should be no rake off, but they should not pose as charitable benefactors of the public. They are getting paid very sweetly without the small investor realising it. Parliament ought to control them through a Bill of this kind. The managers of unit trusts take care to hide what they are doing and making. With great care the managers shield themselves first behind the fact that the trustees are great corporations. In that way they draw away people's attention from seeing that they are making money by diverting public notice to banks and insurance companies who act merely as trustees. They then take care to hide what profits they get as managers and even to hide their names.
I have looked through the list of a large number of advertisements of these unit trusts in the Economist Supplement of April, 1937, and there are only two in which the names of the managers are given. I do not know what the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will say if I perhaps misquote a legal maxim, but I believe it is said that concealment is the shadow of fraud. I do not for a moment impute fraud. There is an interesting case on page 27 of this Supplement. I will not mention names, but there are thirteen trusts, one of them with six issues. On the board of the companies
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managing these trusts is a director of one of the great British banks. The principal shareholder in the managing companies is one corporation. One "A" share in this corporation is held by the executor and trustee company of the bank whose director is a director of the managing company. This share entitles the executor and trustee company of the bank to half the profits as long as the company are managers. Here again you have a screen by which the names of the directors of the managing companies are kept in the background and then a further screen behind which the bank's executor and trustee company get half the profits of the managing companies, and one of the trustees of the executor and trustee company is also the bank director.
This screened information behind a second screen is an example of the policy of concealment which the Amendment in my name is designed to correct. I wish to avoid inflicting another speech on your Lordships and so I would like to be permitted to say that I have an Amendment which is designed to carry out the views I have just expressed. There has been a persistent attempt to hide managers' names. Why should they seek to hide their names even if they are making large profits out of the sale to the public of unit trust units? What have they to fear? I therefore propose to insert an extra paragraph in the Schedule, which appears on pages 10 and 11 of the Marshalled List of Amendments, to provide for disclosure of the name, address and description of the manager and, if the manager be a managing company, of the names, addresses and descriptions of the directors of that company. I think that embodies the spirit of the earlier Amendment accepted by the noble and learned Lord Chancellor to Clause 14. By that Amendment we say it is necessary for persons to give their names and addresses. I think that in order to let people know what is going on it should be compulsory when they issue a document to the public to give the names and addresses of the managers. I look upon the unit trust movement as being able to do a great deal of good for the country and for the small investor. But at the same time it is a weapon which in unworthy or greedy hands may result in the public being fleeced severely and without that being easily detected. I hope your Lordships will allow me to make this mild protest

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so that when later opportunity occurs for revising the whole unit trust system I shall be in a position to say that I was in favour of more stringent regulations even in this Bill.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: In reference to the noble Lord's protest, I cannot help pointing out that the noble Lord could have moved Amendments to Clause 16 or to the Schedule in order to carry out the protest which he says is so desirable. I wish to say that I never suggested that your Lordships should wait and see how this measure, when it became an Act, would work. What I said was, knowing how difficult it is to follow a number of clauses and Amendments in a Bill like this, that your Lordships might wait until the Report stage, when you will have the whole thing printed and can see exactly what proposal is before you, and can, if you are not satisfied, move Amendments. I did not suggest that the noble Lord was not to move Amendments, but a number of the Amendments which stand in my name and in the name of my noble friend Lord Templemore are Amendments which I venture to think will carry out to a great extent the objects which the noble Lord has at heart. This measure, as your Lordships are well aware, is not devoted simply to the matter of amending unit trusts from what I may call the ground floor. It is a measure for the prevention of fraud in relation to investments, and the Amendment which I am moving I venture to think will go a long way towards preventing frauds in relation to unit trusts, more particularly if the Amendment passes providing that trust deeds must be properly framed. I am sorry if the noble Lord thinks he has not been fairly met in this matter. If he does think that, there is an Amendment which he has put down to the Schedule, which I propose to deal with when we reach that stage.
LORD MANCROFT: I do not blame the noble and learned Lord Chancellor, but I take exception to the Government's weak policy which gave rise to this Bill. We had an immensely capable and interesting Report from the Anderson Committee which dealt meticulously with the points to which public attention should be drawn in the organisation of unit trusts. The Government bring in a Bill which has been watered down.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Not watered down, strengthened.
LORD MANCROFT: It was not made very strong. The noble and learned Lord gives us only this clause to deal with a position that needs drastic handling. This Bill, so far as unit trusts are concerned, is a makeshift Bill. After all, primarily the Bill is designed to prevent fraud by share-pushing. But what will it stop? At the most £5,000,000 a year. You can lose £5,000,000 in a year by perfectly honest mishandling of two or three companies, by having honest, incompetent directors over eighty years of age on the boards of two or three old prosperous concerns. You can lose £5,000,000, or £50,000,000, in a year by allowing a number of companies to be floated here in England to unload shares on the public, of the type of the Swedish Match Company. This Bill does not touch such causes of loss. Although I may be out of order in thus discussing the whole Bill, yet I think that Clause 16 and the Schedule, as dealing with unit trusts, do not fully meet the case. The Bill itself disappoints me and makes me the more anxious to protest against Clause 16 because I think that the whole Bill is nothing more than a stopgap to correct various positions which ought to have been dealt with by an overdue and complete amendment of the Companies Act, 1929.
On Question, Clause 16, as amended, a greed to.
LORD RANKEILLOUR LORD RANKEILLOUR moved, after Clause 16, to insert a new clause. The noble Lord said: I think I can really explain this proposed new clause by reading it:
". The provisions of Section six of this Act with regard to appeals against refusals or revocations of licences shall apply in like manner to refusals or revocations of orders of exemption."
I cannot see why an appeal should not be given against the refusal or revocation of orders of exemption. They may have very serious effects on the bodies concerned, and I suggest that the complete discretion given to the Board of Trade without appeal goes far beyond the necessities of the case. I understand, however, from what the noble and learned Lord said on the Second Reading, that he is willing to accept this Amendment.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 16, insert the following new clause:
(". The provisions of Section six of this Act with regard to appeals against refusals or revocations of licences shall apply in like manner to refusals or revocations of orders of exemption.").—(Lord Rankeillour.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am very sorry to think that some message which I sent to Lord Rankeillour has gone astray. Although it is perfectly true that I expressed the hope that I could meet him on this matter, I afterwards discovered that it was exceedingly difficult to do so.
LORD RANKEILLOUR: May I just say that I had some intimation of the difficulty from an official, but I did not really think at that time that it was a message from the noble and learned Lord himself.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am exceedingly sorry: I must have sent a message which went astray. I hope the noble Lord will accept my apologies. The position is this. This Amendment would have the effect that, if there is a revocation of an exemption by the Board of Trade, there will be an appeal in like manner as if there were a refusal to grant a licence or a revocation of a licence. The difficulty that my advisers feel in reference to that proposal is that they consider that revocation of an exemption is a matter for the discretion of the Board of Trade and that it ought not to be subject to an appeal. They consider that the Board of Trade must make up their minds whether the conditions subject to which the order was made have not been fulfilled, or whether the circumstances relevant to the making of the order have materially changed. They point out that the Board of Trade alone will know the circumstances relevant to the making of the order.
I do not propose to take up much time in arguing this matter, and for this reason: I cannot help thinking that it is a case which will practically never arise—I will not say never, but practically never. It is most unlikely that the Board of Trade will revoke an order declaring a man to be an exempted dealer. This Amendment will affect Clause 15 (3). The position will very seldom arise, because in the first place the Board of Trade will very rarely take away an order declaring a man to be an exempted dealer; in the
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second place, if the Board of Trade do so they will do it because they will be satisfied that (a) or (b) in Clause 15 (3) have been proved to be grounds on which the order will be made. Therefore in a few cases only will there be any temptation to appeal. Finally, if there were an appeal, I may say from my very large experience of the law that it would very rarely indeed be successful. Accordingly I am strongly of the opinion that we are now considering something which would take place perhaps once in ten years, and that it is not worth while to spend your Lordships' time in considering a matter of so little importance, more particularly when a strong view is taken that the whole matter ought to be left to the discretion of the Board of Trade, who are not to be presumed likely to act without good cause.
LORD RANKEILLOUR: I cannot help thinking that the arguments which the noble and learned Lord has used with regard to this Amendment would have applied equally to the provisions of Clause 6. I am afraid this is another example among many of the powers which are being continually taken by Government Departments to have in their own hands decisions that might, and in same cases ought to be, the object of some kind of judicial inquiry. At this stage I will not pursue the matter, but I may raise it again on the next stage.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 17 agreed to.
Clause 18:
Offences committed by corporations.
18. Where any offence under this Act committed by a corporation is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of, any director, manager, secretary or other officer of the corporation, he, as well as the corporation, shall be deemed to be guilty of that offence and shall be liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.
LORD WARDINGTON LORD WARDINGTON moved, to leave out "or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of." The noble Lord said: I should like to put in a plea for the official of a company who, by accident and without any fraudulent intent, brings himself under the penalties of this clause as it stands. I feel that, to be fair to him, the Committee should strike out these words. This Amendment is not to

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save him from the consequences of any fraudulent misdoing, but merely to protect him from being branded as a criminal if, owing to pressure of time or ill health, by a pure slip on his part he does something which could be considered to come under the clause as it is now drafted. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 26, line 5, leave out ("or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of")—(Lord Wardington.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I must confess that I have some sympathy with this Amendment, but I am not sure that I can accept it in its present form, because after all, if we pass the Amendment as proposed by the noble Lord, a director would not be liable for the grossest possible negligence, although he certainly should be. On the other hand, the difficulty is in finding some adjective that can be applied to the word "negligence," and that might lead to great legal difficulty. There are cases where in Acts of Parliament, and certainly in the judgments of the highest tribunals, the adjective used has been the adjective "gross," and the liability to be occasioned in that case by gross negligence on the part of any director, manager, secretary and so on should be appropriate. What I can say is that I will endeavour before the next stage to find some phrase or adjective, which will prevent a director avoiding liability in regard to negligence of such a character that it should be treated as a misdemeanour. It might be done by the insertion of "serious" or some word of that sort, but a director does undertake some responsibility, and if his negligence passes a particular line, and really becomes serious, then I think your Lordships will agree he should be liable, if only as an encouragement to others.
LORD WARDINGTON: I beg to thank the Lord Chancellor. I had in view an official, rather than a director, but in view of what the Lord Chancellor has said I beg leave to withdraw.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 18 agreed to.
Clauses 19 and 20 agreed to.
Clause 21:
Laying of rules and regulations before Parliament.
21. Any rules or regulations made under this Act by the Board of Trade shall be laid before Parliament as soon as may be after they are made.
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH moved to add to the clause:
"and if either House of Parliament within the next twenty-eight days on which that House has sat after any such rules or regulations have been laid before it, passes a Resolution against the rules or regulations or any part thereof, the rules or regulations shall thenceforth be void, but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done thereunder or to the making of new rules or regulations."
The noble Earl said: the object of this Amendment is to secure that both Houses of Parliament shall have not only the duty to debate, but also the right to prohibit any of the regulations which the Board of Trade are empowered, in I think sixteen instances, to make. This is an Amendment upon which this House has frequently insisted in the past, and if the Government will admit the principle of the Amendment I am quite willing to leave the wording to them.
Amendment moved—
Page 26, line 21, at end, insert the said words.—(The Earl of Iddesleigh.)
LORD TEMPLEMORE: The Government will accept the Amendment in principle, but I have to inform my noble friend that it is not quite in the right form. If he will withdraw it I will give an undertaking that the Government will put down a suitable Amendment on the Report stage.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 21 agreed to.
Clause 22:
Service of notices.
22. Any notice to be served under this Act on any person may be served by post and a letter containing the notice shall be deemed to be properly addressed if it is addressed to that person at his residence or place of business for the time being in Great Britain.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME moved, after "his," to insert "last known." The noble Viscount said: These notices have to be served on certain people. They are notices under subsection (4) of Clause 4, which relates to the refusal or revocation of a principal's licence, and under Clauses 15 (3) and 16 (2) which relate to the

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revocation of an exemption order and an order to approve a trustee of unit trusts. The object of the Amendment is only to deal with shady characters, who might plainly change their private and business addresses without giving notice to the Board of Trade. Honest people would doubtless advise the Board of Trade of a change of address. These notices may be of an urgent character, and I think in many Acts of Parliament the last known address is sufficient for notices to be addressed to,
Amendment moved—
Page 26, line 25, after ("his") insert ("last known").—(Viscount Bertie of Thame.)
LORD TEMPLEMORE: The Government agree to this Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME: I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 26, line 25, after ("or") insert ("last known").—(Viscount Bertie of Thame.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME moved a manuscript Amendment, to leave out "for the time being." The noble Viscount said: This is drafting.
Amendment moved—
Page 26, line 26, leave out ("for the time being").—(Viscount Bertie of Thame.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 22, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 23 to 25 agreed to.
Clause 26:
Interpretation.
26.—(1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, the following expressions have the meanings hereby assigned to them respectively, that is to say:
"approved trustee of unit trusts" means a corporation declared by an order of the Board of Trade for the time being in force to be an approved trustee of unit trusts for the purposes of this Act;
"shares" means shares in the share capital of a corporation, or stock of a corporation;
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in subsection (1), to leave out the definition of "approved trustee of unit trusts."
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The noble and learned Lord said: I think the Amendments to Clause 26 are all consequential on those numerous Amendments to Clause 16 which have already occasioned your Lordships some time. The first two are certainly merely consequential. The third is a definition of "court" which is also in substance consequential, and the next is stopping a slight chink in the Bill as drawn, so as to introduce the words "inducing or attempting to induce," as well as the word "inviting." I think your Lordships will agree that these Amendments are in proper form.
THE LORD CHAIRMAN: As these are all consequential Amendments, perhaps I may be allowed to put them en bloc.
Amendments moved—
Page 27, leave out lines 6 to 10.
Page 27, line 12, leave out from ("scheme") to the end of line 15, and insert ("declared by an order of the Board of Trade for the time being in force to be an authorised unit trust scheme for the purposes of this Act;")
Page 27, line 23, at end insert ("'the court' means, in relation to any industrial and provident society, the court having jurisdiction to wind up the society")
Page 27, line 27, leave out ("inviting") and insert ("inducing or attempting to induce")
Page 28, leave out lines 9 to 13.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in subsection (1), at the end of the definition of "shares," to insert "or shares in such an unincorporated building society as is mentioned in Section seven of the Building Societies Act, 1874." The noble and learned Lord said: This again is not entirely consequential. There are a number of provisions in the Bill with reference to building societies, and as your Lordships know they are building societies which are incorporated under the Building Societies Act, 1874. There are still some societies which were formed before 1874. Some of them are very prosperous and respectable societies. Some of them may be not quite so good. I do not know. But it is desired to make societies that are unincorporated get the benefit as regards the prohibition of improper dealings or actions with regard to their shares, by bringing them within the scope of the Bill.
Amendment moved—
Page 29, line 17, at end, insert ("or shares in such an unincorporated building society as is mentioned in Section 7 of the Building Societies Act, 1874").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: The next Amendment is drafting.
Amendment moved—
Page 29, line 23, leave out ("whom") and insert ("which").—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to insert after subsection (2):
"(3) Any reference in this Act to a manager under a unit trust scheme or to a trustee under such a scheme shall be construed as a reference to the person in whom are vested the powers of management relating to property for the time being subject to any trust created in pursuance of the scheme or, as the case may be, to the person in whom such property is vested."
The noble and learned Lord said: This is only a definition of a manager of a unit trust scheme. It is also consequential upon Amendments to Clause 16.
Amendment moved—
Page 30, line 6, at end, insert the said new sub-section.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 26, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 27 [Application to Scotland]:
LORD TEMPLEMORE: These Amendments are purely drafting, in order to cure inaccuracies in the clause.
Amendments moved—
Page 30, line 25, leave out ("four") and insert ("six")
Page 30, line 29, leave out ("subsection (6) of Section eleven") and insert ("subsection (8) of Section thirteen")
Page 30, line 32, leave out ("(9)") and insert ("(11)")
—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 27, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to insert:

SCHEDULE.
Matters for which Trust Deeds pursuant to Unit Trust Schemes must provide.

1. For determining the manner in which the sale price of units and the yield therefrom are to be respectively calculated.

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2. For regulating the mode of execution and the issue of unit certificates, and, in particular, for securing that no unit certificate shall be executed or issued in respect of rights or interests in any property until steps have been taken, to the satisfaction of the trustee, to secure that the property will be vested in him.

3. For securing that any advertisement, circular or other document containing any statement with respect to the value of units or the yield therefrom, and any invitation to buy units, shall not be issued by or on behalf of the manager until the trustee has had a reasonable opportunity of considering the terms of the document or invitation, and shall not be so issued if within a reasonable time after the document or invitation first comes under his consideration he notifies his disapproval of the terms thereof in writing to the manager.

4. For the establishment of a fund to be applied in defraying the expenses of the administration of the trust and for regulating the application of that fund.

5. For the publication of accounts relating to the trust.

6. For requiring the manager (subject to any provisions as to appeal contained in the deed) to retire from the trust if the trustee certifies that it is in the interest of the beneficiaries under the trust that he should do so.

In this Schedule the expression 'units' means securities (described whether as units or otherwise) which may be created in pursuance of the unit trust scheme, and the expression 'unit certificates' means certificates of the acquisition of such securities."
The noble Lord said: These are matters for which trust deeds pursuant to the schemes must provide. The new ones will provide for them, as I have stated, ab initio. The existing unit trust schemes will have before the appointed day to pass a supplementary deed, to do which they are empowered by the Bill as it stands, in order to include these matters. I think your Lordships will agree that they are all of a highly reasonable character, and that no proper unit trust scheme, and no proper trustee or manager, would object to them in any way. Accordingly, I beg to move the Schedule, which can be treated en bloc subject to two Amendments which your Lordships will be dealing with at once.
Amendment moved—
Page 30, line 37, at end insert the said Schedule.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD MANCROFT LORD MANCROFT moved to amend the proposed Amendment by inserting the following new paragraph after paragraph 3:
"For securing that any advertisement, circular or other document containing any statement with respect to the value of units or the

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yield thereform, and any invitation to buy units, shall not be issued by or on behalf of the manager unless the document or invitation discloses the name, address and description of the manager, and if the manager be a managing company the names, addresses and descriptions of the directors of the managing company."
The noble Lord said: As in many cases the managers of a unit trust are a company, the names of the directors of the company are often not divulged. My Amendment is for the purpose of making it compulsory for the managing company to give the names, addresses and descriptions of the directors of that company when seeking subscriptions from the public.
Amendment to the Amendment moved—
After paragraph 3 insert the said new paragraph.—(Lord Mancroft.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: So far as regards advertisements, etc., as to the yield of a unit trust, the advertisements in question always have on them in practice the name of the management company, and the only question is whether there should also be published, in addition, the names, addresses and descriptions of the directors of the management company. It always is, or must be if this Bill becomes law, a company, and not an individual firm or individual person. In the case of ordinary advertisements, that would be a very burdensome requirement to impose, and it would lead to very great difficulties for these bodies, which on the whole are endeavouring to carry on an honest business. With regard to things which are not ordinary advertisements, the matter in the view of the Government is already sufficiently covered by Section 145 of the Companies Act, 1929, which provides that every company to which the section applies—and so far as is known there are no management companies to which the section does not apply—must in all trade catalogues, trade circulars, show cards, business letters
"on or in which the company's name appears, and which are issued or sent by the company to any person in any part of His Majesty's dominions, state in legible characters in respect to every director particulars …"
which I think I need not read in full to your Lordships, including the Christian name, present surname, former Christian names and surnames, and nationality if not British. All those things have to be published in everything except ordinary
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advertisements. I take the view on behalf of the Government that the present Amendment to the Amendment is not necessary, that it would create hardship in certain cases, and that the real object which the Amendment is intended to carry out is one which is carried out by Section 145 of the Act to which I have referred.
LORD MANCROFT: If the Lord Chancellor thinks so I am content, and I beg leave to withdraw.
Amendment to the Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER moved to amend the proposed Amendment by leaving out paragraph 5 and inserting:
"5. For the keeping, auditing and publishing of accounts relating to the trust and manager."
The noble Viscount said: This Amendment is designed to prevent abuse on the part of management companies. In not every case does the management company act as principal. Where the management company acts as principal, and quite apart from any question of abuse—and I can assure your Lordships that, although the matter is technical, there is ample opportunity for abuse—where, as I say, the management company acts as a principal, apart from the question of abuse, there is the question of the possibility of very large profits being made by the management company and concealed. To use a somewhat common expression, the dice are loaded in favour of the management companies, who, by intelligent anticipation of the public demand for units, are able to forestall the market. It is clear—the Anderson Committee stresses this point—that the management company are in a fiduciary capacity with the public. They receive remuneration which is very generous. In one case the total charge is quoted as being 12½ per cent. They receive this charge on the one hand, and on the other hand they do make substantial concealed profits. If they are to make these profits I hope your Lordships will think it reasonable that the public should know what is happening.
I do not suggest that my Amendment would prevent abuse, but I do hope—and I attach a good deal of importance to it—that your Lordships will feel that it is not unreasonable for the public to be in a

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position to know what profits have been made, and to know what is taking place; so that when they buy these shares they can choose a company which is economically and soundly run, or, if they prefer, they can choose one that is more extravagant. I am aware that under the Companies Act these accounts have to be published, but the information so acquired would not in my opinion be adequate. We want a good deal more, including, I feel, an account setting out the profits and losses made in dealing with units or sub-units. No one suggests that the accounts of the trustees will be illuminating. One knows how admirable the accounts of those people who are present trustees are likely to be. We shall get no information, and the public will really know nothing unless the management accounts are published. I believe some of the unit trust groups accept this Amendment, and I hope it will commend itself to the Lord Chancellor.
Amendment to the Amendment moved—
Leave out paragraph 5 and insert the said new paragraph.—(Viscount Buckmaster.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I know that the noble Viscount has considerable knowledge of this matter. If it were only auditing as well as keeping accounts relating to the trust I should have nothing to say, except that this is a very useful Amendment. I am troubled about the word "publishing," and I am troubled about the inclusion of the word "manager," without anything to show what accounts of the manager are intended to be published. I suggest to the noble Viscount that if the clause he proposes were to be of any use he would have to consider with a little care what it is he is inviting us to make part of the constitution of every unit trust in the land. For example, a manager acquires certain shares. When the trust is formed he transfers the shares to the trustee on behalf of the trust at an increased price. Some people think that is a very wrong thing to do, but how can you stop it? How long or how short is to be the time between the dates when a manager has acquired the shares and the date when he transfers them to the trustee? He might have had them for years. He transfers them at the market value, I suppose. Are you going to say
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that his previous accounts are to be kept and audited and, as the noble Viscount suggests, published? You cannot do that. You must limit the accounts relating to the manager to some specific date. It is not done in the Amendment. But what does it mean? The accounts of the manager in relation to the trust after a date when the trust was formed? That might work out, but, then, what accounts are to be so published?
It has been suggested to me that there is a danger of this nature, that if the accounts show the securities bought and the securities sold by the unit trust you may be helping, not the unit holders, but stockbrokers and jobbers who may have occasion to deal with the trustee or with the manager upon any alteration of the securities that form part of the trust. People in the City are often very chary about publishing the whole of the securities which they possess. Some trust companies, as your Lordships know, do it, but other investment trust companies are very careful not to do it. At any rate, it is the sort of thing that requires considerable care before your Lordships at once insert in these trust deeds a clause which may be thought to have a pretty wide effect and which, if the noble Viscount will allow me to say so with the greatest respect, is not worded in such a way that the Court or the Board of Trade can determine what accounts relating to the managers, as from what date, and containing what particulars are to be kept, audited, and published. I am not at all unwilling to consider any other Amendment at a later stage to paragraph 5 of the Schedule, but for the moment I am unable to accept the present Amendment.
VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER: Would the noble and learned Lord go as far as to say he has some sympathy with the principle that the management accounts, if they could be properly specified, should be published, and would he consider, if possible favourably, the question of the Government putting forward some Amendment on these lines? In that case of course I would be pleased, with your Lordships' permission, to withdraw my Amendment.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I have some difficulty in making a promise at the present time because I am not quite sure how far it will extend. I know I have advisers who think that for the

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moment the present paragraph 5 is sufficient. I am not satisfied that the noble Viscount himself may not be able to amend that clause, and therefore I would invite him to exercise his great abilities in drafting an Amendment, but I would prefer not to make any promise at the present time on behalf of His Majesty's Government.
VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment to the Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: I should like to draw the attention of the Committee to paragraph 3 of the Schedule dealing with advertisements. At this late hour I am not going into a lengthy discussion, but the point is one of the very greatest importance, and I would suggest that the matter is not by any means as clear as it should be. I understand that the noble and learned Lord may invite me to a conference with his advisers on this question, and if that invitation could be extended I should not trouble the Committee with my special points.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I should be very glad to have a conference with the noble Earl on this matter.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.

PATENTS AND DESIGNS (LIMITS OF TIME) BILL [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do resolve itself into Committee. Your Lordships are anxious to get on to an important Bill, and it may simplify matters if I make a short statement on the Motion to go into Committee on this Bill. All the Amendments are of a drafting character and are intended to meet the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, on Second Reading. The noble Lord found fault with the wording of Clause 2. He said that some of the words, especially the word "completed," were ambiguous, and in consultation with my advisers we have replaced that word and the expressions in which it occurs by the words
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"in order" and corresponding expressions. We have also included in subsection (1) of Clause 2 the explanation of what was previously called a "completed" application but is now called an application "in order," instead of making that explanation a separate subsection later in the clause, and we have struck out subsection (5). We consider this will conduce to clarity and improve the Bill. I beg to move.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL OF ONSLOW in the Chair.]
THE LORD CHAIRMAN: Perhaps it will be for your Lordships' convenience, after the explanation given by Lord Templemore, to take all the drafting Amendments en bloc.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: I beg to move en bloc the drafting Amendments standing in my name.
Amendments moved—
Clause 2, page 2, line 11 leave out ("completed") and insert ("in order")
Clause 2, page 2, line 13, at end insert:
("An application shall be deemed to be in order when the complete specification has been left, or, where it has been returned to the applicant after it has been first left, has been finally left, and the applicant has satisfied all requirements to be satisfied by him by virtue of this Act, or of rules made thereunder, whether in connection with the complete specification or otherwise in relation to the application, and not before.")
Clause 2, page 2, line 14, leave out ("completed") and insert ("in order")
Clause 2, page 2, line 20, leave out ("completed") and insert ("in order")
Clause 2, page 2, line 23, leave out ("has been completed") and insert ("is in order")
Clause 2, page 2, line 26, leave out ("completed") and insert ("in order")
Clause 2, page 2, line 41, leave out from the beginning of the line to the end of line 8 on page 3.
Clause 2, page 3, line 9, leave out ("completing an application") and insert ("the purposes of this section")
Clause 2, page 3, line 11, leave out ("thereof") and insert ("of the application")
Clause 3, page 4, line 23, leave out ("allowed for completing the application") and insert ("within which the application must be in order").—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.

OFFICIAL SECRETS BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD RANKEILLOUR: My Lords, may I ask the noble and learned Lord whether he is able to say anything on the point that I brought forward on Second Reading as to the position of executors who found themselves in possession of extremely confidential documents, the publication of which might be most detrimental to the public interest? I did not move to extend the scope of the Bill as I quite realise that the Government could not possibly extend the scope of this Bill without involving themselves in a great deal of time and trouble, but the noble and learned Lord did say he hoped to look into the particular point I raised.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the point mentioned by the noble Lord has been looked into. Under the date of March 10 last I addressed a long letter to the noble Lord informing him of what has been done in regard to this point. It was pointed out in that letter that Section 2 of the Act of 1911, so far as it relates to documents, etc., connected with prohibited places, applies to any person, and that Section 1, subsection (2), of the amending Act of 1920 contains a number of relevant provisions, in particular the provision in paragraph (b) which makes it an offence if any person
"on obtaining possession of any official document by finding or otherwise neglects or fails to restore it to the person or authority by whom or for whose use it was issued or to a police constable."
Accordingly, if the executor, as the noble Lord suggested, attempted to resort to blackmail he could be dealt with under other provisions of the law, which might be known to some of your Lordships. It would, accordingly, somewhat surprise me if it were not possible to deal, in one way or another, with the case which the noble Lord has put. But the Government are extremely obliged to him for drawing attention to the point. It will certainly be looked into and considered if there should be occasion for future amendment
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of the Acts. As your Lordships know, at the moment the Government have declined to enlarge the scope of the present Bill, and do not feel, therefore, that the present is an appropriate occasion for dealing with the point which the noble Lord has raised.
LORD RANKEILLOUR: My Lords, I am very much obliged to the noble and learned Lord for his reply. I was not quite sure whether he said he had written to me, but if so I have not yet got his letter.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The letter was posted on the 10th, and I can only express regret that the noble Lord has not yet received it.
On Question, Bill read 3a.
An Amendment (Privilege) made.
Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

CANCER BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR DOMINION AFFAIRS (THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE): My Lords, I am sorry to have to make a speech of considerable length to your Lordships starting at this late hour of the evening, but this is a Bill of some length and complexity, and I feel bound to explain its provisions in some detail to your Lordships. Its main purpose is to establish a cancer service under which there will be available in every part of the country modern facilities for the diagnosis and treatment of the disease. At the present moment such facilities exist in some voluntary hospitals and some municipal hospitals, but there are wide areas of the country where they are far from adequate.
I want to stress the point that the Bill is primarily one for the diagnosis and treatment of the disease, because some criticism, both in another place and outside, has been directed to the point that the Bill contains no provision for further research into the nature, the causes and the cure of the disease. My noble friend behind me, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, has an Amendment on the Paper directed to this particular point. With all respect to the noble Lord and to those who agree

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with him, I would point out that the provision of machinery for the diagnosis and treatment of disease throughout the length and breadth of the land and the provision of funds for highly specialised research work are two entirely separate and distinct things. The Lord President of the Council, and not my right honourable friend the Minister of Health, is the Minister responsible for the allocation of funds for medical research, and even if he were of the opinion that at the present moment it was desirable for him to find more money for research work into cancer, this Bill, which is an administrative Bill, dealing with the machinery of local government, would not be the appropriate method of his doing so. In point of fact the Lord President of the Council can increase his grant to the Medical Research Council without any legislation whatever. Legislation is not required for that purpose.
Besides that it is a fact that a very great deal of admirable research is being carried on by the two great bodies which are engaged on cancer research, the Imperial Cancer Research Fund and the British Empire Cancer Campaign. Between them these two bodies are to-day spending over £90,000 a year on research and both have given my right honourable friend formal assurances that there shall be no relaxation of their efforts. A Clinical Cancer Research Committee has been formed which is composed of representatives of the London teaching hospitals, the London County Council, the Middlesex County Council Hospitals, and a proportion of the specialised hospitals in London. This committee hopes to investigate the whole of the 17,000 new cases of cancer which are estimated to be admitted to London hospitals each year. It has appointed cancer registrars at the hospitals which are co-operating in the scheme and those registrars will record by means of a system of uniform registration particulars of all cancer patients who attend at the hospitals. The committee will thus be able to investigate and compare the results obtained by different methods of treatment and to advise on what form of treatment is best under any given condition.
Arrangements are being made to secure that adequate records are kept of all cases treated under the Bill. Moreover, the Minister has arranged for the appointment
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of a special sub-committee of the existing Medical Advisory Committee which will advise him in the exercise of his functions under this Bill, and will, in particular, be consulted as to the records required, the methods of analysis and the publication of results. I have already referred to the Medical Research Council, which anticipates that the increased number of cases which will be treated under this Bill will add to its responsibility, and, to quote its report for last year, the Medical Research Council is prepared to assume responsibility for the greater efforts in this direction which have now plainly become a matter of urgency in relation to the development foreshadowed in the Cancer Bill. It may well be that the greater number of cases which will be treated under this Bill and the increase of medical knowledge which that treatment may lead to, may open up new lines of research which may be profitably pursued. If that proves to be the case I have very little doubt that the Lord President of the Council will lend his ear to representations which may be made to him by the Medical Research Council, and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his turn may be willing to listen to representations made to him. I hope that I have said enough to indicate to your Lordships that research, although not specially provided for in this Bill, is not being neglected and that the possibilities of further grants for research have not been ignored.
Cancer, my Lords, is not only one of the most deadly, and I think quite the most dreaded, of all diseases which afflict mankind, but is one of the most baffling to medical science. Great progress has been made in the prevention of other diseases which used formerly to be dreaded scourges. Cholera, malaria, typhus and plague, all of which at one time were dreaded afflictions in England, have been for all practical purposes eliminated altogether. It is not a very long time ago that normal parents expected to lose a considerable proportion of their numerous families from smallpox, and that any woman who was not irretrievably scarred by smallpox was considered a great beauty. Last year there were only three cases of smallpox in Great Britain and not one was fatal. Great progress has been made with the treatment of tuberculosis and the death-rate from that disease is going down. No one now regards it as incurable, as it

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was universally regarded until a relatively short time ago. The position with regard to cancer is otherwise. The death-rate is rising and it is now the second on the list of fatal diseases. Deaths in 1937, the last year for which complete records are available, were 74,000. Of the total deaths from all causes during the working period of life, that is fifteen to sixty-five years of age, no less than 17 per cent. are due to cancer, and it seems probable that even that does not represent the full mortality, for medical men, I understand, for the sake of avoiding distress to relatives, do not certify death to be due to cancer if they can fairly and reasonably avoid doing so.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: Do those figures relate to England and Wales?
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: I think England and Wales. Nearly half the deaths from cancer occur when the victim is under sixty-five and about 10,000 under the age of fifty, when working or business capacity is still at its best and the head of a family is most necessary to his dependants. Moreover, as I have said, the death-rate is rising. In 1901 it was 835 per million. To-day it is over 1,600 per million, so that it has nearly doubled in the course of one generation. The problem is not one which is confined to our own country. Other countries which have a registration system show a high and increasing figure. There is some doubt whether the figures are strictly comparable, and I give them to your Lordships with all reserve. It may be that the method of keeping figures on the Continent does not afford an exact comparison with our own, but, for what they are worth, it seems that in the five years from 1926 to 1930 the incidence of cancer increased 9·5 per cent. in Holland, 3·9 per cent. in France and 3·7 per cent. in Switzerland, while in this country it increased by 14 per cent. It is sometimes suggested that cancer is a disease of civilisation and that the increasing artificiality of our lives has something to do with its increase. In fact, it is by no means confined to civilisation. No comparable figures of mortality are available, of course, but the disease is by no means unknown among quite primitive native races, and among some very primitive peoples there are forms of it which are actually more common than they are among ourselves. So much for the
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seriousness and magnitude of the problem which confronts us.
There are brighter aspects of the situation which it is permissible to consider, anxiously and carefully, and not without hope. One of these is that there are very good grounds for believing that the increased incidence of cancer is due in no small measure to the increasing average duration of life. Medical science has in the last two generations enormously extended the average person's duration of life. The result is that many more millions of persons are living on until the age at which cancer normally becomes prevalent. It is a mistake, as I said just now, to regard cancer as a disease only of old age. It attacks many people in the prime of life. But it is, generally speaking, not a disease of youth. In the eighteenth century nearly half the people born in a great city died without reaching the age of 21, and the incidence of cancer was necessarily very low. There can be no doubt that the fact that many people's lives are prolonged into the late sixties—many more than was the case in the past—has had a good deal to do with the increased death-rate from cancer, and we can fairly claim that the figures, formidable and serious as they are, are not quite so formidable as at first sight they may appear.
Another ground for optimism is that the mortality from cancer of certain of the more accessible organs is declining at almost every age of life, notably cancer of the lip, jaw and skin. There seems to be no doubt that this decline is due, in part at any rate, to the increased knowledge of the appropriate treatment and to the effects of that treatment, though it may be partly due to the lesser incidence of the disease in those particular organs. Again, some forms of cancer seem to be disappearing altogether. Some forms of skin cancer, due to exposure to certain irritants, such as tar, some forms of mineral oils, and some forms of industrial processes, are preventible, partly by avoidance of exposure to the particular forms of irritation and partly by preventive treatment of those conditions of the skin which may give rise to the disease. It seems certain, and I think credit should be given to my right honourable friend the Minister of Health and his Department, that some of the health services which are now available are definitely bearing fruit in reducing the

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incidence of the disease. Dental services, venereal disease services, and maternity care services are all contributing to the prevention of conditions which might otherwise have become ultimately cancerous conditions.
But above all other ground for hope is that we can claim—only tentatively as yet—that our knowledge of the treatment of the disease is increasing. The records of the surgeons show that by surgery, by radium treatment and by X-ray treatment patients can be not only relieved but, especially in the earlier stages of the disease, definitely cured and freed from their disease. Little progress has been made in our knowledge of the causation and real nature of the disease. We know that certain forms of irritation may produce it, but we do not know how or why. We do not know whether it is caused by a bacillus or by a virus. We know very little about the extent to which it is contagious. There are many things we do not know, but we do know beyond possibility of doubt, that treatment both by radium and by X-rays—and in some ways, I understand, X-ray treatment has held out most encouraging hopes, in some forms at least, of late—does produce some definite action on the cancer cells which leads either to their destruction or to some change which facilitates their removal by the normal regenerative processes of the body. In that knowledge there is ground for hope.
The object of this Bill is to make available, where they are not available to-day, the benefits of this advance in knowledge. For treatment to be successful it must be given in the early stages of the disease, and to enable it to be given there must be adequate facilities both for early diagnosis and for proper treatment. In some parts of the country these facilities are not unsatisfactory to-day. In London, for example, it is computed that there are at any given time some 11,000 sufferers from the disease, and that about 10,000 of them are receiving some form of treatment. Progress nearly as great is being made in some other areas. There are, however, extensive areas where no adequate or accessible facilities are obtainable. These are, notably, a belt of country extending from the Tyne to the West Riding; very nearly the whole of North and Central Wales, and a broad belt of country running across England from the Wash to Devonshire. There are, of
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course, other minor areas as well. My right honourable friend, after making a most exhaustive survey of the situation, estimates that in order to carry out the objects of the Bill and to make such provision that the sufferer from cancer in any part of the country shall have available adequate facilities for the early diagnosis and early treatment which are necessary, approximately 300 to 350 new consultation centres and twelve new treatment centres in addition to the existing twenty-two will have to be established. This will necessarily take time. I need not remind your Lordships of the danger of entrusting to an inadequately-trained staff so formidable a weapon as a deep X-ray apparatus. He further estimates that about 1,000 additional beds will have to be provided at existing hospitals.
We lay stress on the provision of the Bill that the new beds will be attached to existing and established hospitals, because we wish to avoid the stigma which might adhere to the word "cancer." Many of your Lordships will be aware that there still existed until lately in many parts of the country a deep-rooted fear and suspicion of all hospitals. Many people believed that admission to a hospital was probably a death sentence, and almost certainly a sentence to be ruthlessly experimented upon by unskilled and unprincipled medical students. That belief has died, or is dying fast, and the hospitals to-day enjoy the confidence of the people of the country. The management and the medical and nursing staffs have deserved the confidence of the people, and there is a great measure of confidence in the hospitals to-day. I think, however, that your Lordships will agree that there might well exist, both on the part of patients and on the part of their relatives, especially in the remoter parts of the country which it is the special object of this Bill to assist, a real dread of visiting any hospital which is called a cancer clinic, cancer hospital or whatever you like to call it, and that this dread might go far to defeat the object of the Bill. We have therefore considered it important to attach the new facilities for cancer treatment to existing hospitals which enjoy the confidence of the population. The Bill also includes provision for financing the purchase by the National Radium Trust of additional quantities of radium and of other radio-active substances, and of apparatus and appliances

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for radiotherapeutic treatment. This financing will be done by means of loans through the Trust, and the loans will be repayable to the Minister. The Bill also includes provision for the prohibition of certain classes of advertisements.
So much for the Bill and what it sets out to do. I propose to take your Lordships very briefly through the various clauses and to explain how the Government intend to do it. Clause 1 lays upon the local authorities the duty of making arrangements to facilitate the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, and for the payment where necessary of travelling expenses both for patients and for a friend or a relative to accompany them. I think your Lordships will agree that that is both a humane and a necessary provision. Clause 1 further lays upon the local authorities the duty of reporting from time to time to the Minister what arrangements they have made, and of consulting certain expert bodies upon these arrangements. Certain sections of the Public Health Act, 1936, and of the corresponding Acts applying to Scotland are made applicable to the new service, so that in suitable cases the local authority will be able to recover expenses. The net cost of the new service is estimated at approximately £700,000 a year, Scotland included, of which half will be found by my right honourable friend and half by the local authorities.
Clause 2 deals with the method of allocating the Exchequer grant to local authorities. The broad principle is that Parliament provides half the money and the local authorities the rest, but, as I think your Lordships will agree is fair and reasonable, the half provided by Parliament is not to be divided on a flat rate but according to the needs of the locality. Under the ingenious and, I think, very fair and reasonable system of weighting the percentage grant, so that it may accord with the needs of the locality, it will vary from as low as 21 per cent. in a comparatively well-to-do area such as Bournemouth to as high as 85 per cent. in Merthyr Tydfil, Denbigh, Pembroke, Glamorgan and a number of other relatively poor areas in Wales and elsewhere. I need scarcely say that, while the general principles of the Bill have not been seriously challenged in another place, this scheme which deals with a share-out on a cash basis has been
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the subject of severe criticism. There was no lack of members who were prepared to declare upon their conscience that, while on the whole the system was fair, the needs of the particular locality which it so happened that they represented had been grossly under-estimated. Your Lordships are immune from the necessities which begin to weigh upon the members of another assembly with increasing severity towards the end of the third year of the life of a Parliament, and I trust that you will agree that, while no system is perfect, the system of weighting the percentage grants which my right honourable friend has worked out is on the whole a fair and a just one.
Clause 3 provides for the financing of the purchase of additional quantities of radium which the provision of increased facilities for the treatment of cancer will necessitate. It has been thought desirable, for reasons which your Lordships will appreciate, that the Government shall not themselves directly enter the radium market. It is proposed that the purchase of the radium and other radio-active substances required shall be carried out by the National Radium Trust. The clause provides that for this purpose the Minister may lend to the Trust sums not exceeding£500,000. This is not new money over and above the £700,000 per annum which it is estimated the Bill will cost, for the clause also provides that the radium purchased by the Trust shall be distributed by it to hospitals, and the hospitals will have to make charges sufficient to cover the service of the loans made to the Trust. The amount of these charges is included in the estimate of £700,000.
Clause 4 deals with advertisements. Your Lordships will remember that we had a most interesting debate, initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Horder, to whose views on this Bill we shall look forward to hearing, on this subject last year. The noble Lord called attention to the enormous growth in the quack medicine trade, and to the incongruity of exercising no control over the deleterious effects of such trade upon health at a time when a serious effort is being made to improve national fitness. After an interesting debate my noble friend Lord Gage expressed the sympathy of the Government with the Motion, but could not promise the early introduction of general

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legislation dealing with the quack medicine trade. In view of what he said, however, your Lordships will not be surprised that in introducing a measure providing for the effective treatment of cancer the Government should deal with this trade so far as it applies to this disease.
In the course of that debate Lord Horder referred to the fact that the public is slowly becoming aware that some diseases, like cancer, are not cured by drugs, and that the advertiser is quick to realise this, so that in fact cures for cancer have gone out of fashion. There is, nevertheless, a real danger that with the increased publicity given to this disease, and to the undoubted fact that it is curable, by the campaign which the Government are launching in this Bill, there might be a recrudescence of these advertisements, and a valuable opportunity might be missed if advantage were not taken of it to deal with the matter. There is no doubt that the advertisement of these quack remedies is a great evil. In many cases they produce no effect at all, good or bad, and in that case the sufferer is merely wasting money on them which he would do far better to spend on nourishment or something else. That is bad. In other cases they are actually harmful to health, which is worse. In cases where they may produce some temporary alleviation, fancied or real, they may induce the sufferer to postpone taking proper treatment, and in that event they are, positively and literally, a deadly menace to human life. The Government are gratified by the fact, which your Lordships will be glad to learn, that this clause has been welcomed by the two great newspaper organisations, the Newspaper Proprietors' Association and the Newspaper Society, and it was indeed somewhat strengthened in the House of Commons at the instance of a member of one of these organisations.
Some fears have been expressed about the clause, and apprehension has been felt that it may operate to hinder the beneficent work of faith healers and others, who have, it is claimed, sometimes produced the most remarkable results. I do not think that your Lordships need have any fears on that point. There is a saving for advertisements sent to members of the medical, nursing and pharmaceutical professions, and certain businesses, or published in journals of a technical character, or sent to certain
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classes of persons who may reasonably need to be informed on such matters, such as members of either House of Parliament, or members of local authorities, so that I do not think that there need be any fear that the clause will operate to hinder the proper dissemination of any genuine information about the disease.
The clause, moreover, applies equally to qualified and unqualified practitioners. It does not prohibit an unqualified person from treating cancer, so long as he does not advertise, and it does not prohibit an academic statement for the information of the public of the results obtained by any particular method of treatment. Further, as a safeguard against vexatious prosecutions, it is provided that no prosecution may be initiated without the consent of the Attorney-General or of the Solicitor-General. I have had some inquiries as to the application of this clause to Christian Science treatment. It will be obvious to your Lordships that the clause does not prohibit the treatment of the disease by Christian Science practitioners. But the question has been raised whether the Directory of Practitioners published in the Christian Science Journal will not be an infringement of the provisions of this clause. My right honourable friend the Minister of Health has considered this question with his legal advisers, and he has asked me to say that he is now satisfied that this clause will not prohibit the continued publication of this directory.
Of the remaining clauses, Clause 5 is the Interpretation Clause, Clause 6 deals with the application of the Bill to London, Clause 7 with its application to Scotland, and Clause 8 is the short title. I am afraid that I have kept your Lordships a very long time, but we are dealing with a very big and a very serious subject. I commend this Bill to your Lordships as a serious, carefully-planned, and well-thought-out attack upon one of the most terrible scourges of humanity. At the present time cancer is responsible for over 70,000 deaths a year, and the death-rate is rising. It is reckoned that not more than one case of cancer out of every four in an accessible site, and fewer still where it is deep seated, is to-day given the chance of cure or substantial alleviation offered by the prompt application of methods based on the knowledge now at our disposal, so that a very large number of cancer sufferers, who could be cured,

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are not being cured, and others whose sufferings could be greatly alleviated are not receiving treatment.
The great message of hope which this Bill brings is that cancer, especially in its early stages, is curable, and that a new cancer service, designed to bring the most modern methods of treatment and cure within reach of every part of the country, is being set up. The bogey of the incurability of cancer is one which we have got to fight. It has been a powerful ally of this fell disease, and a powerful hindrance to the doctors in their fight against it. So long as people believe, as very many still believe, that cancer is incurable, many will shrink from going to a doctor about it at its first onset. I dare say that there is not one of your Lordships who is not familiar with some such case as that of a person tormented by the fear that he or she has cancer, but deferring any treatment or even a visit to a doctor because of the fear that, at worst, he or she will hear a death sentence or, at best, that nothing much can be done about it.
This fear of diagnosis, which is a very real thing, is one which it is very important to dispel. It is a fact that many forms of the disease are curable, and curable completely and permanently if taken sufficiently early, and that many thousands of curable cases are to-day reaching the incurable stage through lack of sufficiently early diagnosis and treatment. The evil effects of this fear of even naming the disease extends beyond those who are actually suffering from it. There must be many thousands of people who are torturing themselves with the fear that they are afflicted, who have in fact little or nothing the matter with them. Within my own experience I have known a case of suicide from fear of cancer, when in fact the victim was suffering from nothing of the kind. It is our hope that by making facilities both for diagnosis and for treatment available, and by proving to an ever-growing number of people that the disease is curable, and that all is not over when a diagnosis of cancer has been made, a different attitude may in time become prevalent. It is our belief that this Bill holds out a prospect of cure to very many sufferers for whom a cure has not hitherto been available, that for many more it affords a prospect of substantial alleviation of their sufferings, and that it will add, and add appreciably, to the sum
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of our knowledge of the disease, and so enable us to intensify our attack upon it. I earnestly commend the Bill to your Lordships, and I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Duke of Devonshire.)
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH had given Notice that, on the Motion that the Bill be now read 2a, he would move to insert the following words after the word "That"—namely, "this House whilst regretting the Bill does not contain a provision for increased research into the cause and treatment of cancer, resolves that." The noble Lord said: My Lords, my first duty must be to offer my respectful congratulations to the noble Duke for the very admirable speech which he has just delivered. It was full of information and I think we could not have had a better exposition of the Bill and of the many admirable things which it contains. I might add, if I may, as I think this is the first time the noble Duke has been in charge of an important Bill in your Lordships' House, how fortunate we must think the Government to be in having secured so admirable and eloquent a recruit for their Front Bench in your Lordships' House.
Admirable as the noble Duke's speech was, I must confess that the part which I liked least was that with which he began, when he made reference to the question of research. The object of my Motion is to stress the need for fundamental research into the cause of this disease and to give the Government an opportunity of making a statement on the point. I hoped to hear that along with this great measure for alleviation, and in some cases cure, we were to have a stimulation of the other side, the driving force of the whole business, the stimulation of research. Instead of that I must admit the statement the noble Duke made was worse than anything which I could possibly have imagined. I can only say that the bad impression which the absence of any reference to research in this Bill has already created in medical and scientific circles in this country, will be intensified by the statement which has been made by the noble Duke. I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that every speaker in another place who had any medical or scientific knowledge referred particularly to the question of research, and indeed it is a matter which

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has been uppermost in scientific and medical circles ever since the introduction of this Bill.
May I remind your Lordships that the cause of this disease remains undiscovered? The noble Duke said, of course quite truly, that machinery was one thing and the provision of funds was another, and I admit that his departmental defence is complete. But that does not meet the charge against the Government that this policy is lop-sided and incomplete. The noble Duke said, quite truly, that the Medical Research Council had at its head the Lord President. He made a slip when he said—I took it down—that the Lord President could quite easily increase his grant. Of course, as the noble Duke knows, the Lord President has no funds at his disposal. All he can do is to apply to the source of all bounty and hope for the best. After the statement which the noble Duke has made to-day, what hope is there of increased grants for research? I must confess I am deeply discouraged by what we have heard.
The noble Duke made a great point that a great deal of research was already being carried on by voluntary bodies. So it is, and so it will be continued. But all the things which he enumerated—the comparison of results, the question of treatment, the keeping of records—have reference to what I may call clinical research. They have no reference whatever to fundamental research into the cause of this disease, which is the thing to which alone we could look for the mastering of this terrible scourge. The methods of treatment on which the Government are founding this great experiment are surgery, radium, X-rays, and of these three the last two methods are still in their infancy. I was glad to hear the noble Duke's reference to present knowledge of this subject; he did not go further than to say that it was tentatively hoped that knowledge was increasing. He also made reference to the fact that in hands other than the most completely skilled, some of these methods may be more of a menace to the sufferer than an alleviation. The noble Duke made reference to the Report of the Medical Research Council, and I have fortified myself with that Report, because I think it is important to let your Lordships understand exactly where we stand with regard to these methods of treatment.
At this late hour I shall spare your Lordships the infliction of reading many paragraphs. I would have liked to have been able to give your Lordships more extracts than I now can, because this Report, emanating from so high an authority, must carry more conviction with your Lordships than the words of a layman. In a section of the current Report of the Medical Research Council, just issued, there is a passage of three pages dealing with the treatment of cancer by radium which does show how very tentative the advance is, and how very far we are from having any certainty that even in early stages a cure can be effected. There is the tale about the radium—how in 1920 the Treasury handed over 2½ grammes of radium salt from the Disposal Board of the Ministry of Munitions. It was surplus from the War and that was the origin of the radium available for treatment. It has been added to by other bodies, and for sixteen years investigations have been made. The Report says:
"Until recently these were the only methods of radium therapy in practical use and they are of proven value in selected cases."
That means early cases, and cases which are easily accessible, nothing more.
The Report goes on to talk of the newer methods—radium beam therapy or teleradium therapy, and all that can be said is that "the results have been encouraging," and that "in view of the promising results the research will be continued." It speaks of co-operation with certain other bodies, and states that
"the co-operation gives evidence of a belief on the part of the scientific leaders of this country that the hope of establishing satisfactory methods of dealing with cancer depends upon carefully controlled research…. What the future of radium beam therapy will be cannot yet be foreseen."
The Report goes on to say:
"Meanwhile there is already looming in the distance the need for studying the therapeutic effects of neutrons and of temporarily radio-active substances, such as radio-sodium, now made possible by the discovery and development of the cyclotron by Lawrence in California."
I am not going to try to explain to your Lordships in detail what a neutron or a cyclotron is; I should very soon find myself out of my depth. Briefly the cyclotron is a scientific apparatus which is capable of emitting a new kind of ray which may make not only radium but X-rays

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entirely out of date in the treatment of cancer. It is the invention of a physicist, and while there are two cyclotrons being built in this country they are both being built in physics laboratories and there is none available for medical and biological research. The Report also says:
"There is even the possibility that both radium and X-rays will be superseded by the cyclotron in the treatment of cancer by radiations and radio-active substances."
The Medical Research Council, together with the British Empire Cancer Campaign and the National Radium Commission, are agreed that it would be a great advantage to have a cyclotron in this country available for medical and biological research and also for treatment by radiation, but no funds are available with which it can be provided.
Research is an investment which may result in great economy. It seems to me perfectly crazy to be going ahead with the expenditure of £600,000 or £700,000 on treatment which is tentative when new methods are constantly coming into view that may supersede the methods to which we are pinning our faith. I am not sure that the noble Duke did not suggest that this research must continue by voluntary subscriptions because if the Government were to contribute that might tend to dry up the sources which are at present subscribing. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that it is only since the foundation of the Medical Research Council that the greatest benefactions in aid of medical research have been forthcoming from private sources. I need only mention the Nuffield benefaction and the Wellcome benefaction.
It is true to say that the Medical Research Council with its Government grants has provided the drive which has given rise to most of the useful medical research which has taken place in the last twenty years. Research costs money. You cannot merely go to the stores, however modern and well equipped, and buy research by the pound or by the yard. It takes months of preparation. It takes the establishment of units of research with the best brains and with the most expensive apparatus, and unless the Medical Research Council and other bodies can know that they are assured of proper support, the research which otherwise would immediately be put in hand must wait and possibly never will
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come to fruition. It would be a fatal mistake if it were to go forth, as it has gone forth, that this great effort towards treatment is not to be accompanied by a parallel effort with further research, not only into radio-therapeutics but into the fundamental causes of the disease. I venture to say that in launching this scheme in this way the Government are not merely spoiling the ship for a ha'p'orth of tar; what they are doing is building a battleship equipped with every modern appliance on the deck, but failing to equip the engine room with motive power.
In conclusion, I want to leave your Lordships one thought. The noble Duke has told us that 70,000 people died of cancer last year. The length of the incidence of this disease is one which may vary from a few weeks to a few months. I have not been able to secure any accurate information as to the number of people who suffer from cancer, but if, rushing in as a layman where a scientific man would fear to tread, I may take the average duration of the disease as eighteen months, that means that there are at any one time 100,000 people suffering from this disease. They are, as the noble Duke has told us, men and women mainly in the older sections of the population, largely men and women in the prime of life, men and women doing work which is useful in the service of their country, in the full sweep of their powers, intellectually and physically, men and women who, many of them, have children dependent upon them and still urgently needing the cherishment and support of their parents. This great army is, as we sit here, standing literally on the brink of the River of Death. In a year's time 70,000 of them will be gone, but the ranks of that army will not be depleted. This is not an army which needs any recruiting campaign to keep it up to strength. Silently and inexorably, the conscripts will be called to take their place and fill the gaps. If we could see that army with our seeing eyes what money would we not spend and what effort would we not put forth to avert the fate which so imminently awaits them!
Could we but find it, there is a talisman which would work the miracle. That talisman is the knowledge of the cause of this disease. That talisman remains hidden within the secrets of Nature, and what I want to hear from the Government

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is a statement that no few paltry thousand pounds shall stand in the way of prosecuting the research which, sooner or later, will give the results which alone will enable this disease to be conquered. We want to see a great deal more than mere alleviation of a few cases, the curing perhaps of a few additional cases in the early stages. We want to see this disease conquered as other diseases have been conquered, and another leaf added to the imperishable story of medical research. I do ask for an unequivocal statement that when we go for money for this research which is essential, we shall not be met with the answer that the commitments are already too great or that the present arrangements are satisfactory. I hope that we shall be given a statement which will extract the Government from the position which at the present time they occupy and which is both ambiguous and disconcerting. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After ("That") insert ("this House whilst regretting that the Bill does not contain a provision for increased research into the cause and treatment of cancer, resolves that").—(Lord Balfour of Burleigh.)
VISCOUNT DAWSON OF PENN: My Lords, this Bill has been explained with such clarity by the noble Duke and it has received so wide as acceptance that at this hour of the evening I shall detain your Lordships only a few moments. I would like first to state that this Bill is welcomed by the medical profession, but there is in our minds one reserve which has been so eloquently stated by my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh, who, as your Lordships know, is Chairman of the Medical Research Council. Here is a great extended opportunity for combating the scourge of cancer in our midst. This disease differs from a great many others with which various health services have hitherto sought to combat. It is a disease which is not closely associated, in bulk, with bad environment and bad conditions such as want, ill-feeding, and slum conditions. It is a disease which discriminates but little between one class of the community and another. It knows not one condition of man from another. It is true it is more prone to attack those of advancing years, but at the same time, as has been already stated, it may come out of the blue at any moment and strike down men and women in the full tide of their lives of usefulness.
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We are face to face with certain cheering circumstances—that is, there has been a definite improvement and increase of knowledge in the treatment of this disease. This Bill is justified thereby, because it will bring to all classes and conditions of people the advantages of that knowledge. As regards personnel, there is no difficulty in obtaining good surgery in the staffing of these sectors, for the reason that surgery offers a good career to men of promise, and they will come forward in sufficient numbers to fill these posts. On the other hand, this is not true of radiotherapy. Radiotherapy does not at the present moment offer sufficient scope to encourage younger men to take up its study, and at the present time this country is deficient in skilled radiotherapeutists. The Bill will be able to meet that difficulty, because it provides not only for facilities but it provides for men. It will thus be able to help in the training of men, and enable radiotherapy, or the centres in which it is practised, to be adequately staffed.
This Bill differs from the previous medical or health services in that it seeks to establish the treatment of cancer in a certain number of centres. In fact what it does is to extend and perfect what has been the practice for some years under the Radium Commission of starting something like twenty centres attached to the teaching hospitals of this country. This Bill will extend that number by something like twelve new centres, and it will provide adequate means for the starting of those centres both as regards fabric and personnel. But I would entirely support the contention of my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh. It is almost incomprehensible that a big scheme of this kind for extending the benefits of knowledge to the masses of the people should have been launched without a research scheme at its head instead of allowing such a scheme, in some few years perhaps, to be affixed to its tail.
In a subject like this you want a research unit at its head to explore new avenues, settle differences of opinion, give light and leading to those centres which are concentrating upon routine and who are compelled to apply themselves day by day to the patients who come and seek their advice. There is need of a unit which is untrammelled by routine, where difficult questions can be explored and problems resolved. There is yet another

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advantage. Such a unit would inspire the whole system with a new life; it would be a court of appeal for the workers; and it would make just the difference between a real vitality and mere routine. If one takes the position that is now occupied by opinions in regard to radium and X-ray therapy, there are those who would give to ray therapy time and space, and there are others who would emphasize the value of radium. There are still others, who are probably nearer the mark, who would apply one or other according to the circumstances. The problem can only be resolved by patient research work of units set up for the purpose, and I would urge with all the force at my command that, instead of the Government giving the impression meanwhile that they attach no value to the growth of knowledge, instead of leaving research to the chance benefactions of private individuals, they should from the first let it be known that they mean these centres to be inspired by the results of new knowledge and to put research at the head of this movement.
If one only looks at it from an economic point of view, if one thinks of the large sums of money which are spent on this expensive apparatus, the cost of the research unit would be met many times over before two years had passed. It would produce an economic saving because it would avoid waste, and waste of effort there must be if knowledge is only advanced by trial and failure. Therefore I would content myself at this time of the evening in beseeching His Majesty's Government to change the wrong step they have taken, and start this movement with a research unit at its head and not wait to see how things go. "Wait and see" in a matter like this is a dangerous course to adopt. If, on the other hand, a research unit is started it will show the world that this scheme is animated by growth of knowledge. It will show that the Government appreciate that it is by growth of knowledge that this disease will ultimately be conquered. These units do offer us a great opportunity, and their harvest will be tenfold if all along the line their work is animated and inspired by the spirit of research standing at their head. I beg to support the Motion of the noble Lord opposite.
LORD ADDISON: My Lords, like the noble Lord behind me I shall not detain
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the House many minutes at this time. I should like to congratulate the noble Duke upon his exposition of the Bill, and of course to congratulate the Government upon the scheme of facilities for early diagnosis and treatment which the Bill provides. It would be churlish and unfair if amongst one's criticisms one failed to recognise that important fact. But I would like to express my agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh and my noble friend behind me (Lord Dawson of Penn) that the opportunity has been lost to associate this with an organised scheme of research. The noble Duke said something—I did not quite catch what—about the Minister of Health being advised by Councils associated with the Clinical Institution. Perhaps I shall understand that better when I read his speech, but in any case whatever system of advice there may be for the Minister of Health derivable from the Clinical Committee associated with the management of these institutions, it has no relation whatever to what is really wanted. I think it is almost fair to say that, despite the advances of knowledge on many other previously fatal diseases, we know very little more about the essential nature and genesis and real causes of malignant disease than we did forty years ago.
It is true there have been great improvements in treatment and it is a good thing that they are to be extended to the masses of the people. But I think, if the noble Duke will look at the history of the Medical Research Council, he will see there a very signal example of the immense value that has followed the organised central direction of research by a body of men highly qualified to undertake that duty. We had it during the War. I remember many significant instances of the immense value of research and its application to the treatment of disease. There was the case of Dr. Leiper in regard to bilharzia. For the first time in history a great army spent a long time in Egypt without being afflicted wholesale by that disease which is as old as the Pharoahs. I could give, of course, many other illustrations.
Here we have a glorious opportunity, if I may so put it, for associating organised, well directed and well supported research. It is not enough, as my noble friend said, that we should have

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to depend upon the successful application of the Lord President of the Council to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This thing should be organically associated with the Research Council and with those who are linked up in the direction of research. It is particularly important because, as I am sure the noble Duke will agree, research is a slow business. It takes years. The most difficult provision of all is the researcher. He only crops up now and then, and he does not crop up unless we give sustained opportunities for young men and women to develop their abilities. It is the successful production of researchers, which is a long-term business, which must be encouraged. I will not prolong the debate further, but while welcoming this Bill I must support the Motion of the noble Lord.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (EARL STANHOPE): My Lords, I think it would be to the general convenience of the House that we should adjourn the debate at this stage. I have been in consultation with several of my noble friends and it is suggested that we
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should meet to-morrow at three o'clock and debate this Bill for the first hour, and then go on to the Motion of the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard. It will be necessary that we should agree to this Bill taking precedence, and I should propose to ask your Lordships to do that on the Motion for the adjournment.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: My Lords, I beg to move that the debate be now adjourned.
Moved, That the debate be now adjourned.—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
EARL STANHOPE: My Lords, I propose that the Cancer Bill shall have precedence to-morrow over other business and that we should meet at three o'clock.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes before eight o'clock.