Lords Sitting of 15 February 1940

Preamble
The House met at half past three of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
BRIGHTON MARINE PALACE AND PIER BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a, and committed.
INDUSTRIAL ASSURANCE AND FRIENDLY SOCIETIES (EMERGENCY PROTECTION FROM FORFEITURE) BILL.
Brought from the Commons, read 1a, and to be printed.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (EARL STANHOPE): My Lords, I beg to move, That Standing Order No. XXXIX be considered in order to its being suspended for this day's sitting.
Moved, That Standing Order No. XXXIX be considered in order to its being suspended for this day's sitting.—(Earl Stanhope.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

THE RURAL DISTRICT OF MALLING ORDER.
  THE RURAL DISTRICT OF PLOUGHLEY ORDER.

    THE CITY OF SALISBURY ORDER.
    THE BOROUGH OF SOUTHALL ORDER.
    LORD TEMPLEMORE: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, I beg to move that these Orders be approved.
    Moved, That the Orders made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department under the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, and laid before the House on Tuesday, the 6th instant, be approved.—(Lord Templemore.)
    On Question, Motion agreed to.

COTTON INDUSTRY BILL [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
3.32 p.m.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: My Lords, this is a Bill to promote export trade. As has been often said export trade is of the greatest importance to this country, particularly in time of war, and it is very vital to every industry, especially to the cotton trade. The exports of cotton goods are, as your Lordships may be aware, greater than those of any other single manufacturing industry. If I give a few figures they will illustrate this. Exports in 1937 amounted to over £68,000,000 and in 1938–9 to over £49,000,000. As against this the cotton trade is very vulnerable to foreign competition. In prewar days, I think I am right in saying, four-fifths of the products of the industry went abroad and these constituted nearly three-quarters of the world's international cotton trade. The history of the industry, I regret to say, has really been for the last twenty years a long and unsuccessful attempt to regain ground which was lost during the last war. I think it is common knowledge that a great deal of thought has been given to this matter and much discussion has taken place. From this discussion has, emerged the conclusion that whatever else may be necessary the first step is to secure exact and detailed information about any possible overseas markets. This will require the appointment of skilled and zealous investigators who will regard themselves as essential agents of the industry as a whole.
The Joint Committee of Cotton Trade Organisations, in their pamphlet Lancashire's Remedy, which was published towards the end of 1937, stated that any scheme of reorganisation necessarily implied some central organisation in the industry for carrying out these schemes, and placed first among their proposals one for constituting a Cotton Industry Board whose main function should be to watch over and assist in the development of the export trade and for this purpose to encourage or initiate schemes for the benefit of the industry, especially in such matters as market research and propaganda. Such a Board, charged as its first dirty to perform certain services with a view in particular to the maintenance and extension of the export trade, is set up by the first clause of the present Bill.
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This is not the first Bill in which such a provision appears. I think your Lordships will remember that there is already on the Statute Book an Act called the Cotton Industry Reorganisation Act, 1939, which I had the honour of taking through your Lordships' House last summer, just before the adjournment in August. That Act is at present in suspense, but I should like to note in passing that a Cotton Board somewhat similar in constitution was set up jointly by the President of the Board of Trade and the Minister of Supply soon after the outbreak of war and has since been actively and helpfully collaborating with the Ministry and the Board of Trade, not least in submitting proposals for the present Bill.
Now if I may deal with the clauses of the Bill, the first clause establishes a Cotton Board and defines its functions. The idea of such a Board originated with the Joint Committee of Cotton Trade Organisations and was embodied in the Cotton Industry Reorganisation Act, 1939, where it was called the Cotton Industry Board. The composition of the two Boards can be compared by your Lordships if you look at the Schedules. Clause 2 is a very important clause. It sets out under five heads the services which may be performed by the Cotton Board. Those services are the same as those prescribed under Section 20 of the Act of last year, but there is this significant difference that the service relating to advertising is brought from the third to the first place and related specifically to the export trade. That insistence on the export trade is one of the characteristics of the present Bill. The Cotton Industry Board under the Reorganisation Act had numerous functions in connection with schemes which might be put forward by sections of the industry with regard to redundancy and price fixing. Those are not found in this Bill, because in case of the first they are not necessary in war-time and in the second case because prices will be controlled as far as necessary by Orders made by the Ministry of Supply.
Clause 3 provides the Board with the necessary funds. A levy is to be made on all spinners of a prescribed amount on each amount of raw cotton bought by them or for their account. This is not a new principle. It has been used for years as a means of providing funds for the development of Empire cotton grow-

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ing. The new rate of levy will, however, necessarily be of a different order from the old one, which in fact it incorporates I come now to Clause 4, which deals with payments to the Empire Cotton Growing Corporation, and I have to inform your Lordships that in this clause there is a clerical error. In the Bill as printed it is provided that the levy shall be "a sum equal to one penny in respect of each hundred pounds or fraction of one hundred pounds." That should read "each five hundred pounds or fraction of five hundred pounds." I propose to put this right by moving an Amendment at a later stage, and I should like to inform your Lordships now that in order to save the expense of reprinting the Bill I am going to indulge in what is perhaps something of an irregularity, which I hope your Lordships will excuse. Instead of putting down an Amendment on the Committee stage the Government propose to put it down on the Third Reading stage. I hope your Lordships will approve of this laudable desire for economy and will not object to that course being taken. The remaining clauses are, I think, consequential.
The Cotton Industry Reorganisation Act of 1930 has been found too elaborate for war-time conditions. That Act had three main purposes, the first of which was to provide means for dealing with the problems of redundancy, the second to make arrangements for the institution of price schemes, and the third to deal with research and market investigation. The first problem does not arise in the cotton industry in war-time; the second can be and is being dealt with under the Defence Regulations; and provision for the third is being made in the present Bill. This is a war-time Bill. I said at the beginning it was a Bill which would promote export, but I think I would rather go a little further than that and say that it is a Bill to promote immediate export. The opportunities at the moment are exceptional; the need for action and early action is very great; but nothing can be done until this Bill becomes law. Therefore I hope your Lordships will give the Bill a Second Reading to-day, so that we may take the remaining stages next week and send it down to another place. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Templemore.)
3.42 p.m.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friends may I first of all congratulate the Government on introducing so important a Bill in your Lordships' House? The other place is only meeting now on three days a week, and your Lordships are probably aware that there is already congestion of business there. I was wondering when the Government would remember the existence of your Lordships' House and ease the pressure a little by introducing measures in this Chamber. With regard to the main objects of the Bill, the trade unions concerned, as well as all the employers' organisations, are in agreement with this Bill, and the Labour Party desire to facilitate its passage into law as soon as possible. There are one or two matters, however, which I would venture to raise with the noble Lord, Lord Templemore. First of all he spoke of Part I of the Cotton Bill of last year being suspended. That dealt with the suppression of so-called "redundant" spindles, and he said it was inapplicable in war-time. What a blessing it is that that Bill was not agreed to earlier and rushed into law earlier and the so-called redundant spindles suppressed earlier! We should now be suffering in the cotton industry just what we are suffering in the shipyards, which under another ill-fated measure were suppressed because they were supposed to be redundant. Now, of course, we need every cotton spindle which can operate in the North of England and in Scotland. I hope that, when the noble Lord speaks about suspension, he means that the Government have learnt their lesson, and that one thing, at any rate, which the war has taught them is that the production of cotton cannot be redundant when there are immense markets all over the world which could absorb our goods if they were properly presented and sold at the right price.
Another matter is that, although it is true that there is at the present time what is known as a "sellers' market"—there is a great demand for cotton goods—we nevertheless have to face a great deal of competition abroad, especially in the cheaper counts. Japanese competition is still very intense, and we have lost a great deal of trade owing to the cheaper cotton goods of Lancashire being too dear for the native buyers. This is particularly the case in the tropics, Africa, and so on.

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I hope that the fact that there is a sellers' market will not lead to any yielding to the temptation to snatch quick profits now while neglecting the great basic markets which we can perhaps recapture by keeping prices low and keep after the war. In other words, do not let us have a repetition of what happened in the last war: the cotton industry boomed, prices went up, and after the war there was a terrible slump because competitors came in with very cheap goods and were able to undersell us.
The third matter which I wish to put to the noble Lord, and of which I gave him notice this morning, is this. The Board is to deal with the exports of the cotton industry; and, as the noble Lord says, the British textile industry is our greatest exporting industry in this country. But we have also had an Export Council set up by the new President of the Board of Trade, Sir Andrew Duncan, with an imposing galaxy of names on it and four gentlemen of great eminence in business as wholetime executives. This is to be the Government's means of intensifying our drive for exports. Is there to be any overlapping here? In other words, what is to be the relation between, on the one hand, Lord Templemore's Cotton Board which he is setting up under this Bill, the primary object of which is to help the expert of textiles, and on the other hand Sir Andrew Duncan's Export Council? Where do they meet, where do they part? I think that question is worthy of a little attention.
The only other remark I venture to make to your Lordships in connection with this very important matter is this. The Bill is really the result of peace-time preparation. It was all prepared before the present war in different circumstances. It is very useful, of course, but it is a small piece of machinery to deal with our present problems. We may have to export cotton goods in bulk. That is quite possible, as the need of foreign exchange grows and as our necessary imports increase. I prophesy—it may be rather rash of me—that we may have to take farther-reaching steps to sell cotton goods abroad. That is one of the assets we can sell abroad and for which we can get foreign exchange to pay for the necessary imports. This peace-time measure may not be quite wide enough. I therefore hope that the Government are alive to that possibility and are already think-
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ing about greater machinery to help our exports under modern conditions. I am thinking, for example, of barter and preemption, and the possible need of selling cotton goods in certain countries in exchange for their products as part of our economic warfare. I do not need to particularise; I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Templemore, understands entirely what I mean, and I am sure the Board of Trade have had this in mind; but the Government, as we know, have no economic member of the War Cabinet. That body is overloaded with Defence Ministers and people of that kind, all very admirable in their way; and though the admirable experts at the Board of Trade, I am sure, have not lost sight of these considerations, our fear is that the War Cabinet will lose sight of them. I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord, with his great influence, will be able to give us some reassurance on this point. With regard to the Bill itself, so far as it goes it is welcome to my Party, and we shall do all we can to help its passage into law.
3.49 p.m.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: My Lords, I think I can answer the noble Lord in a very few words. I am grateful to him for his favourable reception of the Bill. He could not help in the end bringing forward the point which he frequently mentions and probably will again: about the economic member of the War Cabinet. I would remind the noble Lord that my noble friend the Leader of the House spoke on this matter a week or ten days ago, and I should have thought he ought to have put the noble Lord's mind at rest about it. He gave a very clear idea of how the War Cabinet worked with the President of the Board of Trade, or whoever it was, being called in for consultation. However, I dare say the noble Lord did not hear that. With regard to the question which he asked me about the relations of the Export Council and the Cotton Board set up under this Bill, I have to say that the cotton industry is already represented on the Export Council in the person of the Cotton Controller, Sir Percy Ashley, and I can assure your Lordships that suitable arrangements are going to be made to establish very close contact between the new Board and the Council. The noble Lord asked me where they were going to sit, but I am afraid I do not know that. The Govern-

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ment are aware of the great importance of close contact being maintained, and I can assure the noble Lord that that will be done. I think your Lordships are ready to come to a decision, and I hope that the Bill may now have a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

SPECIAL ENACTMENTS (EXTENSION OF TIME) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
3.52 p.m.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Earl Fortescue, who is away on military service, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. This Bill proposes to make provisions similar to those included in the Special Acts (Extension of Time) Act of 1915, and I trust that it will be accepted as unanimously by this House as was its predecessor. We all know well that if a local authority or a statutory undertaker wants to construct new works, it has normally to obtain authority by means of Private Bill legislation, and Parliament, in granting such powers as it sees fit, fixes a time limit. I have before me the terms of the London Passenger Transport Act of 1939, which empowered the board to construct certain new works, such as a new subway at Leicester Square tube station. Section 21 of that Act provides that:
"If any of the new works are not completed within the period expiring on the 31st day of October, 1944, then, on the expiration of that period, the powers by this Act granted to the Board, for making and completing the work which is not so completed, or otherwise in relation thereto, shall cease, except as to so much thereof as is then completed."
Similar limitations of time are to be found in the Private Acts of county councils, municipal corporations, railways, inland navigation, gas, water and electric light undertakings.
In peace-time an undertaker may find his programme is impeded or delayed, with the risk that the works may not be finished by the prescribed date. I think it is agreed that it is right and proper that, in such a case, he should have to come back with a further Private Bill and
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satisfy Parliament as to the reasons for the delay before he can get any extension of time; but, as I am sure your Lordships will realise, under war conditions circumstances are obviously very different. My right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has good reasons for restricting borrowing, and there are also inevitable restrictions upon steel, timber and other materials, and competing demands for man power. In such circumstances, the House, I think, will readily agree that it would be unreasonable to impose upon the undertakers all the burden and expense of carrying through fresh Private Bill legislation in order to get their time limits extended. This Bill enables a Minister of the Crown, under Clause 1, to consider the undertaker's prayer for extension of time. If he is satisfied that the delay is "by reason of any circumstances directly or indirectly attributable to war," then, after due notice to parties concerned and, if need be, after a local inquiry, he may, if he sees fit, publish in the Gazette an order extending the time limit.
It will not be necessary for me to weary the House with a comparison in detail of the present Bill with that of 25 years ago, but it will be proper to draw attention to two differences which are rather more than matters of drafting. The first is that the 1915 Act gave power to extend time limits for one year only, although without prejudice to further extensions. His Majesty's Government have already publicly announced that their plans for the present war are based on the possibility of its lasting three years, and the present Bill therefore enables the Minister to give a three years', and not merely a one year's, extension. The other point of difference is that in Clause 1 (3) (b) we have to deal with a question which did not arise in 1915. Mention may be made in particular of the Electric Lighting Act of 1888, which gave local authorities an option to purchase certain electricity undertakings at the end of forty-two years: if the right be not then exercised, it revives at intervals of ten years. War conditions will in general make it impossible for local authorities to avail themselves of the options which become exercisable during the war period, and the Bill provides that, on the application of any interested party, the date at which the option becomes exercisable may be postponed, with corresponding postponement of the subsequent options.

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This is to be found in Clauses 1 (3) (b) and 2 (7). Very difficult questions might be involved in proposals to exercise these purchase rights, and it might be unfair to more than one party that they should have to be handled in the middle of war, with the knowledge that the power, if not then exercised, would have to go into cold storage for another ten years.
Before I finish, I should like to say something as regards the application to Scotland of this Bill. The promotion of Scottish private legislation is governed by the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936, in terms of which promoters are required to proceed by presenting a petition to the Secretary of State praying him to issue a Provisional Order. The first paragraph of the Scottish application clause of the present Bill (Clause 4) accordingly provides that, where the time limit which it is desired to extend is laid down in a Provisional Order or Bill under the 1936 Act, the "appropriate Minister" shall be the Secretary of State. This is appropriate, as in ordinary circumstances the modification of such provisions could be secured only in consequence of a further application to the Secretary of State for a Provisional Order. Clause 4(b) makes the necessary Scottish adaptation in subsections (2) to (5) of Section 290 of the Local Government Acts, 1933, which are applied by Clause 2 (3) for local inquiries held under the Bill. I hope very much that this Bill will win the same general acceptance as its predecessor. It is designed entirely to assist in the furtherance of what must be the preoccupation of every local authority and statutory undertaker, as it is that of your Lordships and of all the people in this country, and that is the successful prosecution of the war. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Templemore.)
3.57 p.m.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF ONSLOW): My Lords, I have not the least objection to this Bill. Although in time of peace your Lordships are very jealous in maintaining the limits of time granted to local authorities in Private Bills for the construction of works, as my noble friend has explained to your Lordships, the exigencies of war render such time-tables probably quite impossible. Your Lordships have been
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told by my noble friend that a precedent exists for this measure and that during the last war an annual extension was given to local authorities for the construction of works. That extension lasted only for one year, but now the limit is to be three years, and, if I may venture to say so, I think that that is a wise provision. Your Lordships will notice that this Bill provides only for the exigencies of war; it is purely a war measure and is in no way an indication that your Lordships wish to alter the procedure and the limits which this House and Parliament have imposed upon local authorities in Private Bills with regard to the construction of works.
3.59 p.m.
LORD SNELL: My Lords, we have no special view upon the Bill which has been introduced by the noble Lord, except that we do wish as far as possible that Parliament shall maintain its control over these things as they pass. Parliament has been extraordinarily generous in its acceptation of the views of the Executive under the circumstances in which we are living. It would not now wish to impede the working of the machinery which is necessary for carrying on and seeing us through the crisis in which we find ourselves.
There is one point of difficulty in our minds, however, and that is in regard to the three years' limitation. It may be a good thing to extend the period of exemption in this case, but supposing, as we all may hope, that the war docs not last for three years, that it may be ended in three months, then we should not like the provisions of this Bill to allow a lapse in this matter for that period. What is in our minds is that immediately the war is over, and that men are discharged from military or naval service and workmen are suspended or dismissed from the munition works, and so on, there will be an enormous influx into the unemployment market, and what will be required then will be not that employment by public authorities and so on should be postponed for any period, but rather that their demands should be advanced so that immediate absorption of as many as possible of the unemployed should take place. We are a little uneasy, as we understand the Bill at the moment, as to how this three-year provision is going to work, and between now and the Com-

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mittee stage I think we shall want rather to be assured on that point.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

TRADE BOARDS AND ROAD HAULAGE WAGES (EMERGENCY PROVISIONS) BILL.
House in Committee (according to order); Bill reported without amendment.
EARL STANHOPE: My Lords, all those who are affected by this Bill are anxious that it should pass through all its stages in your Lordships' House as soon as possible, and therefore I asked your Lordships to agree to the suspension of the Standing Order in order that the Bill should be taken through all its remaining stages to-day.
Then, Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended, Bill read 3a, and passed.

QUESTION OF SECRET SESSIONS.
4.3 p.m.
LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether they will arrange for a Secret Session for the discussion of Lord Ponsonby's Motion on the Order Paper for 6th March [relative to "Ministerial speeches with regard to the Government's policy for the prosecution of the war"]. The noble Lord said: My Lords, with your permission I desire to make a few remarks before putting the question that is on the Order Paper in my name to the Leader of the House. May I say, to begin with, that perhaps it would have been more civil if the Government had waited for the question that I am asking and given me the negative reply rather that to tell the Press that the request was going to be refused? I have a cutting from an important paper, the Glasgow Herald, with the headings, "No Lords Secret Session: Government decide to refuse request." Well, that must have come from some Government source, because a newspaper with a reputation like that does not trust to mere gossip, and I think it would have been perhaps preferable if I had been allowed to put my question and be refused to my face. However that may be, I was encouraged to
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put this on the Paper because of a remark which fell from the noble Earl the Leader of the House just exactly three months ago, on November 15, when a similar request for a Private Session was put forward. The noble Earl said:
"The door is by no means closed should an occasion arise when the Government and your Lordships feel later on that a Private Session is necessary."
That is to say, he did not actually close the door on it, and I thought that, considering the extraordinary importance of the next few weeks it might be thought advisable by the Government to allow opinions to be expressed in your Lordships' House which perhaps could be expressed more freely were we in Private Session. I do not intend, of course, to take this occasion to anticipate the Motion that I have down for March 5.
LORD STRABOLGI: March 6.
LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE: Yes, March 6. It is rather broadly drafted, and at the same time I think your Lordships will probably know what I have in mind and the subject that I shall bring forward. I believe there was an idea that it should be ascertained privately what noble Lords desired to bring forward in a Secret Session, and there were so many different subjects that the idea of having a Secret Session was dropped. I think on the occasion of my Motion the subject which I should bring forward would be one that would claim the attention of all who participated in that debate, but of course it is possible that the noble Earl may agree with the noble Viscount the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who on December 5, referring to me, said:
"He has spoken in his capacity as the representative of a minority, so far as I could judge, of one."
That rather disparaging remark, I can assure the noble Viscount, is not accurate. I am not in a minority of one, even in your Lordships' House, and outside these doors I can count supporters, I do not think it is an exaggeration to say, by the thousand.
My desire, as it is the desire of everybody in this House, is not publicly to say things which can be condemned as helping the enemy, but at the same time to say things which I think ought to be said in the hearing of members of the

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Government. Members of the Government have been good enough to invite us to write to them. I have written to them, and they have had an interview with us. That sort of approach is rather tame, and the atmosphere of a Government office, as one sits on the edge of a chair while the Minister is looking at the clock, does not give one a very fair chance of saying precisely what one wants. I believe that this is the place and this is the right assembly for the divulging of the views which the Government may not be aware of. Even if I did represent only a minority of one I should not cease from doing what I do, but I am glad to say that I have a patriotic backing which has a different interpretation of the present situation from what the Government have. Those who disagree with us will be free to use what language they like. The noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, who made a very strong speech the other day on the Motion that was moved by Lord Darnley, will be able to say, still more violently, what he thinks of us. He might bring out the old accusation that I was receiving German money; I was paid by the Kaiser in the last war! He would be quite free to say that sort of thing, and the noble Viscount, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, could put down a Standing Order that I be no longer heard not only on that occasion but on any other occasion. My noble friend the Leader of the Opposition, with a few well-selected epigrams, would tick me off altogether, and my noble friend Lord Strabolgi would make the speech of his life. He would be only sorry there were no reporters present.
But what is the objection to allowing certain opinions to be freely expressed and met on the floor of this House? If, as apparently is the case, this request is to be turned down, it is because the Government want to suppress discussion. They want to prevent discussion even in private. They do not want to be disturbed by opinions other than those they hold themselves. That produces in the public mind a rather unhealthy feeling that we have a Government that cannot be approached at all. The proceedings in your Lordships' House during the last few months have not been very enlivening or attractive. It is a Chamber for registering what is done in the other Chamber and for receiving a periodic
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statement on the prosecution of the war which all of us have heard a week before. Here is an opportunity for this House to engage in interesting, important, and illuminating discussion privately, with no desire for publicity. This is the one place that would not in the least object if no publicity were ever given to its proceedings. We are content to voice certain opinions and hear them, as they so often are, very well discussed and argued, but as to whether headlines should be given to any of us I am sure there are none of your Lordships who care at all. This is the place for such a discussion, and the opportunity for it is a Secret or, as I prefer to call it, a Private Session. I therefore beg to ask the Leader of the House the question which appears in my name on the Order Paper.
4.15 p.m.
LORD NOEL-BUXTON: My Lords, I think it will be agreed that my noble friend's proposal should be viewed with an open mind. There is a tendency to regard the advocacy of a Private Session as coming from those who are properly called pacifists. I should like to urge upon your Lordships that it ought not to be so regarded. There are many of us who are not what are called pacifists and who strongly believe in the value to the Foreign Secretary of a free and open discussion. I do not wish to repeat the arguments which were used in the previous debate in your Lordships' House on this subject, but I might recall that the desirability of Secret Sessions was fully thrashed out during the last war. In 1916 it was very gravely deliberated. It was thought desirable to hold them. They were thought useful. They were continued again and again, and if there are new reasons why Private Sessions are not useful, I hope we may hear them, because we all wish with an open mind to follow reason. But it does not appear that the reasons which prevailed then do not govern the situation now, and I hope that the Leader of the House, having shown that he had an open mind on the question, may be changed in the light of the new situation, and that he may be able to accede to my noble friend's proposal.
4.17 p.m.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: My Lords, I wish to say only a word because I do not agree at all with the general views of the two noble Lords who

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have just spoken on the question of the war. I speak as one who is absolutely convinced of the justice of the war and of the necessity for its being carried out with full vigour. At the same time I cannot help thinking that there might be considerable advantage in a free discussion in this House of all the circumstances which oppress us and are with us every day continually, because, after all, without any undue flattery of your Lordships' House, it is the plain fact that it contains a very remarkable collection of noble Lords who have great experience and great knowledge in a number of different lines of public service. We have great soldiers and great sailors here. We have got a considerable number of noble Lords who have passed most of their lives in diplomacy. We have got business men and bankers. We have got, of course, politicians, men who have had a good deal of experience in that respect. And I was thinking only the other day—I do not know whether your Lordships will agree with me—that a committee might well be formed of your Lordships' House to which any great question of policy connected with the war might be submitted with the certainty that their deliberations would be of value to the Government of the day.
I have observed, in reading the debates that have taken place on this question, that it is usually assumed that the desire is to enable the Government to make statements more fully than they could make them in Public Sessions. Of course if the Government desire that, that would be no doubt a very strong reason for a Private Session. But I do not myself think that that is the main purpose for which a Private Session would be valuable. I cannot help thinking that a very frank and full discussion of the great questions—not only the question hinted at by my noble friend who asked his question just now, but others which are raised in connection with this war—in your Lordships' House, under conditions which I think would be sufficient to prevent any possible misunderstanding in what was said outside the walls of this House, might be of very great value for the conduct of the war. It is that aspect of it that I would beg the Government very carefully to consider. It is not that this is a kind of ambush that is desired in order to put the Government into diffi-
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culties. I am sure that is not the view of my noble friend who has spoken; it certainly is not my view. My view is simply that I think that such a discussion by members of your Lordships' House, who have very considerable, perhaps exceptional, knowledge of a great number of aspects of public life, would be of value in the public interest. It is on those grounds that I hope the Government will give consideration to this question.
4.23 p.m.
LORD SNELL: My Lords, we have no official demand to make to the Government for a Private Session such as has been described. At the same time, if my noble friend Lord Ponsonby succeeds in inducing the Government and your Lordships to have such a Private Session, we should be very glad to utilise the opportunity to say several things that are very urgently on our minds. I can conceive some quite definite advantages in our being able to tell the Government precisely what we think not only about events but about them. There is, of course, in times like these, a considerable danger that Ministers should interpret our patient, silent acquiescence in what they say and do as being a rapturous approval of everything that they say and stand for. I hope Ministers will remember that it is possible that Parliament may have its own views on such interesting questions. Some alarm has been expressed about the difficulties of a Private Session. Since we last discussed this question we may note, as a matter of interest, that the French Parliament has held such a Private Session, and I have not read of any startling leakages that occurred, but what I have read is that as a result of it the French Government got the quite unanimous support of the French Chamber of Deputies. If that is not an inducement for His Majesty's Government to make a similar experiment then no argument that my noble friend behind me can use will be of much value.
The only other thing I would wish to say is this, that if such a Private Session is to be held, I hope very much that it will cover a wider field than that which is indicated in the Motion that my noble friend has on the Order Paper for March 6. No doubt certain Ministerial speeches have been interesting. Whether a discussion of those speeches themselves is a sufficient justification for a Private Session your Lordships may judge, but

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if we have a Private Session I should welcome the privilege of wandering all over the field, of talking about the war in general, and about the way it has been conducted and many other things. I, therefore, cannot say that the Labour Party as an official Party demand this Private Session, but we do not see the disadvantages attaching to such a Private Session that we have heard from Government speeches in the past.
4.26 p.m.
LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, there is one point I should like to make, which I do not think any of your Lordships to-day has made. It is this, that if we had a Secret Session I feel certain it definitely tends to make the enemy feel that our people and the Government are not one in the prosecution of this war. For that reason alone I hope His Majesty's Government will not accept the suggestion.
4.27 p.m.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (VISCOUNT HALIFAX): My Lords, although, as it will be my duty to try to make plain, I do not think that the ground on which the noble Lord asked for a Secret Session—namely, to discuss the speeches of Ministers—would be in any case an adequate ground, yet it has been the ground chosen by my noble friend the Leader of the House (Earl Stanhope) to invite me, as one of those responsible for those speeches, to reply to the noble Lord in place of himself. Whatever view we may take about the speeches that the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, either has made or might make, I can assure him that I should regard it is most improbable that any Leader of the House, or any member of His Majesty's Government, would ever move in this House that he should be no longer heard, because it is always one of the most refreshing interludes of Parliamentary life when he honours our debates by participating in them. I feel bound also to offer a word of quite vicarious apology to him for the Press leakage that he has discovered, but which had escaped my eye, concerning the nature of the anticipated reply that the Government were to make to his question this afternoon. I can assure him that so far as I am aware, and I have made some inquiries, there was no official intimation made to the Press in advance of the reply to your Lordships' House, and I think
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perhaps he will not feel it impossible that there may have been on this occasion, as on others, some intelligent anticipation, based perhaps on what he was expected to ask and what, on the basis of past form, the Government were expected to reply. I think that either he or I, by practice of our own intelligence, could almost have reached the same conclusion.
I was a little bit distressed to find the noble Lord, the Leader of the Opposition, associating himself, though guardedly, with the noble Lord's request, and that not for the reason that would naturally be the first to occur to his mind. I do not in the least object to his having views about the merits of Secret Sessions that I may not be able to share, but I did greatly regret to notice that he had shown signs of breaking his own publicly expressed resolution of abandonment of grumbling for the period of the war. The main purpose on which he grounded his support to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, was that he wished to be able to tell the Government what he thought of them. Well, if we had a Secret Session I can imagine myself finding equal delight in being able to tell the Labour Opposition what I sometimes think of them. But I can assure the noble Lord that it is not on any ground of that sort, any more than, as the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, suggested, any ground of suspected ambush, that I should feel difficulty about acceding to what the noble Lord has asked. Let there be no doubt about this. I would wish to say another word about this in a moment. In no quarter that I know of on this side of the House, least of all in the ranks of the Government, would there be anything but the fullest desire to have all possible useful exchange of views, pooling of wisdom, concentration of effort in the task that does invite and enlist, as it necessitates, all our joint resolution and joint determination. But that really is not the point that is raised by the noble Lord's question.
The general question of Secret Sessions, as he has reminded us, has been debated in this House once formally and more than once by reference and implication. It has I think been made quite plain that the main purpose of that proposal has always been, as indeed it has been this afternoon, not that the Government should impart secrets to the House, but that members of the House should tell the

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Government, as the noble Lord has put it, what they think of them or what they think it is good for them to hear. With what purpose is that proposal made? One would suppose that the main purpose with which it is made must be to induce the Government to change their mind about this point or that, to convince them that on some particular matter of policy or action they could do better than they are doing. Unless that is so, it would seem that we should all find ourselves of one mind and that the talk would be completely devoid of purpose.
LORD SNELL: If the noble Viscount will excuse me for a moment, is it not just possible that in a Private Session the Government might allay some of our anxieties in regard to certain things—to preparations for the war, the use of existing machinery—which they cannot do in a Public Session?
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: Yes, I think that might be so. I had intended to say a word on that matter, but perhaps I might say it now as it is equally applicable to the point I was endeavouring to make. I would have thought that, for the purpose of the argument that particular policies should be pursued, whether on those matters which the noble Lord who put the question may have in mind, or in regard to methods of the prosecution of the war, or in regard to matters on which, as the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition says, there may be anxieties on particular points, far the better plan either of bringing conviction to the Government, or of bringing reassurance to individual members on different points, was not a Secret Session where people make more or less set speeches and points are not adequately proved and finally decided, but in private interview and private discussion at which across a table in conversation the actual points by which people are troubled or disturbed can be brought to much closer examination. I can say for myself, and I am sure for all Ministers, that at any time if any noble Lords have doubts or difficulties of any kind we shall hold ourselves wholly at their disposal.
I had meant to say something about the reasons why it did not seem to me that the noble Lord who put the question had chosen a wise or perhaps an adequate
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ground on which to base his demand. After all, Ministers' speeches were all made in public and they have all been the subject of public criticism or, as I think in the majority of cases, public approval, and I should find it difficult to see what possible reason there could be for debating those speeches in private. I believe they correctly represent——
LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE: May I interrupt the noble Viscount just a moment? The terms of my Motion for March 6 are deliberately of a vague nature because I did not want to draw fire by any precise Motion on the Paper. My object was not to compare Ministerial utterances, it was not to approve of one or disapprove of another, but to show that they were united in the prosecution of a certain policy to which I take objection.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: Well, I do not know that the noble Lord's interruption causes me much surprise, because I rather anticipated that his Motion must have one of two purposes. If his object was not to show any difference between the speeches the only other possible explanation must have been to show that the general tenor of the speeches was uncongenial at least to him. But I do not think they happen to be uncongenial to the majority of the people of the country. It may be, and it probably was, that I fell into unwitting exaggeration when I said the noble Lord was in a minority of one. I am willing to give him that point, but I feel sure that he will give me the point that he and those who think with him represent a mere fractional minority of the country.
LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE: That is not a reason why we should not be heard.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: Not at all, and that leads me to the next point that I was prepared to make. I really would far sooner have the noble Lord make any speech he likes in public in this House than have him ask for a Secret Session with all the consequences to which my noble and gallant friend behind me referred. Germans may be very ill informed in some respects about us, but I do not think they are so ill informed as not to know that the noble Lord really does not speak for any great volume of opinion in this country. The fact that

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we allowed him to speak in public—which he would not be allowed to do in Germany—would I think be the most convincing proof that we were not greatly intimidated by the difference of view that he might present in any set public speech. If he thought it was an essential thing for him to do the responsibility would be on his shoulders, but it would not cause me undue anxiety. But there is another point of view, and I would put this very earnestly to him, whether he does not think that a better result would be achieved if he were to take the opportunity that others have taken and some of his friends perhaps may have taken or may be willing to take, of discussing with members of the Government and with others in this House these questions in other ways by which, as I said just now, closer examination is possible than by debate, even in Secret Session, in this House.
There is really great force attaching to the observation made by my noble friend behind me. I do not know whether your Lordships took note that, after a Secret Session in another place not long ago, that was immediately picked up, as we all knew it would be picked up, by the machinery of German propaganda, and an article appeared in a German newspaper, so far as I know completely mendacious and misleading, but no doubt believed by the German people and giving them exactly the conclusion that my noble and gallant friend behind me anticipates would be the conclusion regarding the repetition of a Secret Session, especially if it were one of a completely roving character, as was suggested by the noble Lord who leads the Opposition in your Lordships' House. Therefore I think that it would be a mistake, to lend what I may call the magnifying-glass of secrecy to the views of a minority who, whatever we may think of them, are of course at full liberty to claim the opportunity of self-expression but have no right, by a special procedure in this House, to claim the opportunity of those views going out to the world with exaggerated, importance. That is the strongest consideration in my mind: that by claiming this special procedure for what are admittedly minority views, those views are claiming an additional privilege to which in my judgment they are not
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entitled. Therefore, while I have, as I said at the beginning, every desire to be fair to the opinions expressed by noble Lords opposite, while I recognise their right to hold them, I do not feel that, speaking on behalf of the Government, I am called upon to give them the advertisement of using those opinions as a foundation for asking your Lordships' House to depart from your ordinary procedure.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
4.38 p.m.
LORD SNELL: My Lords, I beg to ask the noble Earl the Leader of the House if he can make any statement on the business of the House for next week.
EARL STANHOPE: My Lords, I propose that on Tuesday, February 20, we should take the Committee stages of the Cotton Industry Bill and the Special Enactments (Extension of Time) Bill: There is also already on the Paper Lord Faringdon's Motion on rural housing policy. I think we shall be able to take the Royal Commission somewhere about half-past five that day in order to pass the Trade Boards and Road Haulage Wages (Emergency Provisions) Bill into law, which passed through its final stages in your Lordships' House to-day. On Wednesday Lord Lamington has a Motion on the adoption of the twenty-four-hour system. There is also the Second Reading of the Industrial Assurance and Friendly Societies (Emergency Protection from Forfeiture) Bill, and the Third Readings of the Cotton Industry Bill and of the Special Enactments (Extension of Time) Bill. For Thursday, at present, there is no business on the Paper, and a Government statement on the general situation is not expected. Proceedings on the Agriculture (Miscellaneous War Provisions) Bill are not expected to conclude in another place until late that evening, and therefore it will not be possible to receive the Bill that day in your Lordships' House. I propose, however, that there should be a formal sitting of the House on the following Monday, February 26, to receive the Bill and give it a First Reading, and then I shall ask your Lordships to give it a Second Reading the following Thursday, the 29th.

COVENTRY CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
  KING EDWARD THE SEVENTH WELSH NATIONAL MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION BILL. [H.L.]
  Reports from His Majesty's Attorney-General received, and ordered to lie on the Table.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932.
Orders made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department extending Section 1 of the Act to—

1. The Urban District of Axminster;

2. The Borough of Newbury:

Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) for affirmative Resolution and ordered to lie on the Table.