Lords Sitting of 19 January 1943

Preamble
Reassembling after the Christmas Recess, the House met, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

WAR SITUATION.
LORD ADDISON: My Lords, may I ask the Leader of the House whether His Majesty's Government have a statement to make on the war situation?
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (VISCOUNT CRANBORNE) (Lord Cecil): My Lords, the custom has grown up in these serious times that when Parliament meets after a Recess the Government should give some account of the progress of the war. It is now, I think, nearly three months since I made to your Lordships a general statement on the war situation. On the last occasion—it was November 11—it was a very stimulating moment. The Eighth Army had just won a crushing victory at El Alamein, the enemy were in full retreat; no one knew where they were likely to stop. There were those who prophesied at that time that they might make a pause at Tobruk. There were others who were more optimistic, and thought that no breathing space would be given to Rommel before Benghazi, or even El Agheila. None perhaps at that moment dared to pitch their hopes very much higher than that. But at any rate the prestige of the British Army, which in the early years of the war had suffered some setbacks, had, I think it was generally agreed, at one dramatic stroke restored its position in the world.
Following that famous victory the news had just been announced, when I spoke, of the Anglo-American landings in North-West Africa. I was able to tell your Lordships the initial successes which had been achieved. The Allies had established themselves, or were at that moment establishing themselves, at Algiers, at Oran and at Casablanca; but how that situation was going to develop, what further successes lay before the Allies was still wrapt in mystery. What would be the attitude of the French authorities in Morocco, in Tunisia and in West Africa.
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How far would the surprise which we had achieved enable us to gain possession of the Tunisian tip before the enemy could mobilize his resources? These things were as yet unknown. All we could say was that this new enterprise was vast and bold in conception, was brilliant in execution, had started well, and bade fair ultimately to transform the situation in the Western theatre of war.
Then I was able to turn to the Russian Front and describe the stirring events there. At that time, as your Lordships will remember, the Germans were still attacking at Stalingrad. The issue of that epic of war was still in the balance, but it was already clear, even at that time, that the stubborn Russian defence had dislocated German plans. Hitler, as M. Stalin had exposed in a speech a few weeks before, had intended after the capture of Stalingrad to branch his Armies to the north and to the south, to capture with one section of his Army the Caucasian oilfields, and with the other to roll up the main Russian line which was defending Moscow. That was his grandiose plan for the summer campaign, and it was already clear by November 11th that that plan had failed. The vast expenditure of life and treasure in which the Germans had indulged had not brought them success. The season was already too far advanced for the achievement of their main aims. But at the same time, at that date, they still held their spearpoint of Stalingrad pointed at the heart of Russia, and if they were able to hold that position throughout the winter—and it was still possible that they might—the situation of the Russian Armies in the spring might have been indeed serious.
That was the position in the Western war when I spoke in November. Since then two months have passed, two eventful months packed with incident and excitement. Where do we stand to-day. How have the hopes which we had at that time been fulfilled? In some respects they have been even exceeded. Look at the present position of the Eighth Army. The awkward corner at Agheila which had so often frustrated our hopes has been successfully turned. It is now hundreds of miles behind our forward line. In four months the Eighth Army has advanced a distance almost equal to the distance between London and Moscow, and they

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are still advancing. The main problem in the latter part of the advance has been one of maintenance and the smooth flow of supplies and troops to the forward area. The Supply Services have worked, and are working, admirably to make possible the advance of the Eighth Army which began again, as your Lordships know, on the morning of January 15. This latest move forward has so far been very successful, our forces outflanking the enemy and forcing him out of the Wadi Zem Zem position. The Eighth Army is now pursuing the retreating enemy and has advanced about eighty miles. Indeed, the Libyan battlefield and the Tunisian battlefield, which were not long ago separated by many hundreds of miles, have now become almost one. That is a war of attrition with a vengeance. We in this country are perhaps apt to take events a little bit too much as a matter of course. Once they have happened we accept them; but we should recognize that the way General Alexander, General Montgomery, and their Staffs—particularly their supply organization—surmounted the difficulties of supply in a vast desert area with few ports and inadequate railways, is one of the greatest achievements of modern warfare. So much for what used to be called the Egyptian campaign and is now called the Tripolitanian campaign, and which I hope will soon be the Tunisian campaign.
What of the North African campaign? Here we have not such complete success to record. That is not to say that it has not also been the theatre of very stirring events. There has been for instance, the Darlan episode. That episode was closed in a tragic and dramatic fashion, and there is nothing that I could profitably say about it to-day except that we look forward to the most cordial co-operation with his successor, General Giraud. I would not wish to suggest to your Lordships that a stage has been reached when all the political problems of North Africa are a thing of the past. We have only to read the newspapers to know that that is not so. The tragic events of 1940 temporarily shattered French unity, and it is going to be a difficult and delicate process to put it together again. But, at any rate, the position of His Majesty's Government, as of the Government of the United States, is clear. In the political field the two Governments, for the future, have a single objective, and that is the
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union of all Frenchmen in the war against the Axis for the liberation of France.
It is in order to help towards this end that my right honourable friend Mr. Macmillan has been appointed Minister Resident at Allied Headquarters in North-West Africa. His function is to report on the political situation and future plans for French North Africa, and to represent to the Commander-in-Chief the views of His Majesty's Government on political matters. He has been cordially welcomed by General Eisenhower, and is already working in the closest collaboration with him and with President Roosevelt's personal representative on the Commander-in-Chief's Staff, Mr. Murphy. We must profoundly hope that no considerations of personal prestige will hinder or delay that complete unification of all those sections of French opinion which is essential if France is to be delivered from the common enemy. In the meantime, the less we say here in England the better. The problem of welding together the various sections of French opinion is primarily a matter for the French themselves, and interference by enthusiasts in other nations, however well meant, is likely to do a good deal more harm than good.
The other aspects of the situation in North Africa have, I think, developed in ways for the most part favourable to the Allied cause. Practically the whole of the vast French North African Empire has now rallied to our side. Algeria, Morocco, French West Africa, the great ports of Algiers, Oran, Casablanca and Dakar are now available for the Allied Armies and Navies and are denied to the Axis. Considerable French Forces are also now fighting by our side with courage and determination. They have already achieved valuable successes, and as it becomes possible to re-equip them we may expect them to play an ever-increasing part in the common fight.
No doubt events in the North African theatre have not fulfilled our wildest hopes. There was just the possibility, though it was never more, as your Lordships know, that we might be able to push our forces straight through to Tunis and Bizerta before the enemy could mobilize their defence, but this complete success has been denied to us. There were many factors, some expected, some

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unexpected, which combined to add to the difficulties of our task. There were first of all the simple facts of geography. The distances are enormous. The distance from Algiers to Tunis as the crow flies is over 400 miles, and by road it is further. To move a modern Army with all the manifold appurtenances of supply and equipment over often second-rate roads and over such immense distances must inevitably take time, whereas the enemy were able to bring their supplies direct by sea and air to a base very near to their front line. Then the weather was atrocious and in particular the forward aerodromes, which as your Lordships know are largely constructed of beaten earth, were often unusable for the protection of our troops and became little more than seas of mud. These are not put forward to your Lordships as excuses for an avoidable failure; they are put forward as reasons why what was at best a hazardous enterprise has not been completely successful. They are some of the chances of war which no forethought could obviate. Therefore, as a result of them, it has become inevitable that there should be a campaign to drive the Germans out instead of our having forestalled them, and in recent weeks both sides have been busily reinforcing themselves for the struggle.
I think, my Lords, there is not the slightest reason why we should feel any discouragement about the military position in Tunisia. No doubt the delay has been unfortunate for the Allies: it postpones our advance to the next stage. But for the Axis the maintenance of Armies in so exposed a position as Tunisia constitutes a constant running sore. Enemy ships that run the gauntlet of the passage from Italy are exposed to the attack of our sea and our air Forces, and we have in fact sunk one in three of the ships so employed; though I should strike a note of caution. Conditions for our submarines must inevitably become more difficult as the enemy learns our methods and finds ways of countering them. Yet, precarious as the enemy's position is, he cannot abandon it now but must submit to this continuous and heavy drain upon his resources. Meanwhile what we have already achieved has, I believe, brought a measure of relief to our Russian Allies in their heroic struggle, and what we have achieved is only the beginning of what we hope to do. I think therefore that we
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can continue to look on the North African Expedition with sober satisfaction for the present and with confidence for the future.
If the African Front is encouraging, if it constitutes a valuable Second Front, the position in Russia has also improved beyond all expectations. Three months ago the Germans were still on the offensive. Now they are in retreat over practically the whole of the Southern Front. Then, Hitler's Armies were threatening Stalingrad and were menacing the Russian supply route by the Volga. Now that powerful Nazi spearhead, numbering at least 150,000 men according to the best information that we have, is entirely cut off from the main German Armies. It is short of materials, it is short of food, it is fighting for its life, and it is being gradually reduced. Further West the Russian Armies who have left Stalingrad behind them are steadily advancing. Already they have performed a very remarkable feat in maintaining an offensive on a 200-mile front with a penetration at one point to a depth of 180 miles over a terrain which is very sparse in communications. The main Russian offensive in the south opened on the 20th November, when they struck at the German salient both north-west and south-west of Stalingrad, as a result of which they gained the whole of the north-eastern part of the Don bend, advanced a considerable distance south-west of Stalingrad and left a large German Force, as I have said, surrounded east of the Don. In mid-December they struck again at the Don salient from the north and the east and this fresh offensive has also resulted in far-reaching developments. From the north the Russians have captured the important railway junction of Millerovo, through which the Germans had supplied the northern part of their Don Front.
During the last few days, as your Lordships will have heard this morning, the Russians have been engaged in a series of attacks with the object of raising the siege of Leningrad and last night the great news was received that their efforts have been crowned with success. Schlusselburg has fallen, the ring round the city has been broken, and arms and food are being freely passed in to the inhabitants. So ends happily a noble episode in the long history of Russia. Further south, a fresh Russian offensive was announced on the 16th January in the upper Don sector.

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This has already made considerable progress against the Hungarians and Germans, and has crossed and probably cleared a big stretch of the railway running south from Voronezh to Rostov. This railway, if restored, would play an important part in future Russian operations. The main offensive in the Don area has made further ground, and on the north and east is approaching the general line of the River Donetz. South of the Lower Don the Russians are pressing forward against stubborn German resistance which is strongest along the line of the River Manich, and news has now come in that the river has been crossed, while the area held by the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad has been further reduced by relentless Russian attacks. The Germans are still withdrawing to the North Caucasus, where the Russians, following up closely on a wide front, are now some 30 miles north-west of Mineralni Vodi astride the Baku-Rostov railway. This retirement of the Germans is probably no doubt partly in view of the threat to their communications further north. Already the Russian offensive has brought them far on the road to Rostov and the situation of the Southern German Armies must be beginning to be extremely anxious.
We in this country are straining every nerve to assist the Russian offensive. In spite of the opposition of the enemy both by sea and by air, and in spite of the appalling hardship of Arctic conditions, our convoys are continuing to carry munitions and supplies to the assistance of the Russian Armies, and the brilliant action of the Royal Navy in northern waters, of which your Lordships will have read, when a light British Force drove off a greatly superior enemy Force, is evidence of the determination of ourselves and of the United States to deliver the sinews of war to our Allies. Moreover, the bomber effort over Germany and the industrial centres of the occupied territories has not been allowed to stand still despite unfavourable weather conditions. As an illustration of the scope of activity of the Bomber Command, in November and December their aircraft operated on every day throughout the two months. During the month of January, the present month, Bomber Command have carried out twelve raids up to date, in the course of which they have attacked important industrial targets in North-West Germany
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and particularly at Essen, the German U-boat base at Lorient, which was the subject of a heavy and well-directed attack, and in addition, as your Lordships know, they have launched two powerful raids against Berlin.
Indeed, the potentialities of the present situation are very great indeed. More than that it is of course impossible at present to say. To prophesy the course of war is notoriously dangerous. The kaleidoscope of a great conflict of this kind forms very rapidly new and unpredictable patterns, but I think that it is significant that German military broadcasters, in paying tribute to the power and skill of the Russian attacks, seem to be preparing the German people for further reverses. Your Lordships may have seen that on January 10 the German expert, General Dittmar, said:
"Though numbers alone cannot decide a campaign, they cannot be entirely neglected without danger. Even Frederick the Great said 'With too unequal a force victory may be denied even to the most efficient troops.' The Soviets are far ahead of us in exploiting their man-power reserves. It is ultimately dangerous for them, but at the moment it is an advantage."
Noble Lords will also have noticed that he allowed himself, or perhaps Hitler allowed him, to give another hollow groan in rather the same strain only this morning, and there is no doubt that that is the mot d'ordre of the German Propaganda Ministry at the present time. It is clear that these melancholy sighs must make bad hearing for the German people who, only two years ago, were told that victory was already within their grasp.
The growing fears of the Nazi leaders are characteristically shown in the unspeakable barbarities which they are now inflicting on their subject peoples, and especially upon the Jews. They are like rats in a trap snapping and snarling in every direction, attacking not merely men but women and children as well. The civilized world has witnessed these revolting cruelties with growing horror, as has been apparent from the debates which have been held in your Lordships' House. His Majesty's Government, with the Governments of the other Allied countries, have been seeking how we may alleviate the sufferings of these unhappy victims and we have been examining the problem. I am glad to be able to repeat the statement which has already been

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made in another place to-day. I think it is right that your Lordships, who have shown very great interest in this question, should hear it direct yourselves:
"His Majesty's Government's intention, in associating themselves with the Allied Government's declaration of December 17 on the German policy of exterminating the Jews in Europe, was to help in arresting this policy. They are, at the same time, conscious of the fact that the only real remedy for the consistent Nazi policy of racial and religious persecution lies in an Allied victory; every resource of all the Allied nations must be bent towards this supreme object. Measures for the rescue and relief of such refugees as succeed in escaping from German-occupied territory cannot be exclusively British, and His Majesty's Government are now engaged in consultations with the other Governments most immediately concerned with a view to seeing what further measure it is possible to take, as soon as possible, to assist those who make their way to countries beyond German control. These consultations are necessarily confidential, and it would not be in the interest of the refugees themselves to enter upon any discussion of them at the present juncture. His Majesty's Government's share in meeting this need has already been very substantial. They are nevertheless themselves working out certain practical proposals which they can make as a further contribution to this concerted effort by the United Nations."
His Majesty's Government feel the tragedy of the situation as much as any noble Lord in this House, and are trying in conjunction with their Allies to find at any rate some partial solution of the situation with which we are all of us faced.
The portents of Axis difficulties which are visible in Europe and North Africa are also, I think, apparent in the Far East. Here, too, the enemy appears to be being driven on to the defensive. I think it is recognized that from the earliest days of the Far Eastern Campaign the Achilles heel of Japan was shipping, and during recent months her losses have been increasingly heavy. Her attempts to reinforce her troops in the Solomon Islands and in New Guinea have added to those losses, and in the west, in Southern Burma, our Forces are now pressing forward towards Akyab. It is perhaps not unnatural in these circumstances that the Japanese Government should recognize that their difficulties are rapidly increasing. Your Lordships may have seen a statement made by General Tojo on December 27 in which he said:
"A close observation of the situation reveals that moves of the utmost strategic importance are lurking everywhere, giving the impression
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that the real war is starting now. In the Solomons the enemy possesses excellent air bases, and it is consequently difficult to land supplies of food and ammunition. In China the Japanese Expeditionary Forces are fighting numerous engagements, striving to crush the enemy and maintain peace and order within the occupied areas. The Japanese Air Force is endeavouring to crush enemy activity in advance. In the north Japanese units are safeguarding the occupied islands in spite of repeated enemy air raids. In Manchukuo Japanese armed forces are guarding our northern defences in face of an everchanging national situation. Other units stationed in Japan are engaged day and night without relaxation in providing against air raids and preparing for future developments of the war."
Even Japan itself, it seems, is now not regarded as safe. That statement showed a very different spirit from the reckless Japanese arrogance of last year. Indeed, everywhere, whether in the West or in the East, there are signs of perturbation and anxiety in the councils of our enemies.
That, I suggest, is the general strategic picture as we look at it to-day. Your Lordships may say that I have painted a picture in unduly rosy colours, and certainly it would be, in my view, both misleading and dangerous to suggest that the war has been nearly won. There are, as yet, no possible grounds for complacency. We shall need, as I am certain your Lordships will agree, every ounce of our strength if we are to achieve victory. The Axis military machine is still immensely powerful, and is still in occupation of vast and fruitful areas. Moreover (if one may touch in the shadows to the picture), there is one area of this vast conflict of which I have not yet spoken and which is yet by far the most formidable. That is, of course, the submarine campaign. Here alone it cannot be said that there is, as yet, a radical improvement. Throughout the waste places of the Seven Seas the grim and unrelenting conflict continues, and as prospects for the Germans and their satellite Powers of a successful outcome of the war on land continue to decrease, and as our offensive in the air gains in volume and power, the enemy is concentrating his energies more and more upon these attacks upon our sea communications. The scale of the U-boat attack is increasing, and it is probable that the peak has not yet been reached. All the same, I do not think that there are any grounds for pessimism as to the result, for the Allies, in their turn, are, as your Lordships know, developing to the utmost

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extent in their power the counter-measures which they are taking. Recent weeks have been a very successful period in the struggle against the U-boat and the highest rate of sinkings yet achieved in this war followed the Allied landings in North Africa.
LORD ADDISON: Sinkings of what?
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: Of U-boats. I am sorry if I did not make that clear. As your Lordships know, the rate of building of merchant ships, especially in the United States, has been accelerated in a very spectacular manner. But—and your Lordships, I hope, will make no mistake about this—we can, in my view, expect no relaxation of the U-boat campaign. Germany realizes that it is her only chance of escaping total defeat. Therefore, this campaign can be expected to continue unabated until the very last hours of the war, and we must bend all our energies to dealing with it. It is the primary duty of every one of us here at home to do everything we can to reduce the strain upon the Merchant Service. Whatever temporary sacrifices we may have to bear we must accept them with courage and fortitude. That is the only adequate tribute we can pay to those gallant men who are risking their lives every hour of the day to bring us the necessities of life.
Now, my Lords, I have come to the end of my review of the present situation. As we cast our eyes over the whole vast panorama of the war, we must, I think, if we are realistic, see not merely the high lights but also the shadows. But I think we can, without undue optimism, say that the situation is steadily improving. Two years ago—even one year ago—the Allies were everywhere on the defensive. But now, as the Germans themselves confess, they and their associates are fighting for their lives. Moreover, I think the Axis Powers have less reason for hope now than we had then, and for this reason. Our setbacks at the beginning of this war were not due to the fact that we were fundamentally weaker, but because we were not fully prepared. Our resources were always immense but they had not been mobilised. It is, of course, the essence of the Blitzkrieg to hit the enemy before he is ready. That was the technique employed by the Axis in
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Western Europe, in Russia and at Pearl Harbour. It very nearly came off. Indeed, it was only the fortitude of the democratic peoples, and, above all of the British peoples, that prevented its success. To-day the situation is widely different. There is no question of the Axis developing further their own resources. These have been fully mobilized from the start. If the enemy have now been driven to the defensive it is because their strength is declining in comparison with the growing power of the Allied Nations.
Everywhere, I think, there is evidence of this. There is their frantic struggle to obtain oil, which has led to their great losses in Russia, and to their present anxious plight in that country. There is the growing inability of the Luftwaffe to meet the calls on all fronts. There are the savage attempts, to which I have already referred, to suppress the rising spirit of revolt in the occupied countries. This last most horrible development of the war is a significant portent. Germany and her satellites are no longer concerned with the goodwill of the conquered peoples. They are no longer concerned to obtain their willing co-operation in Hitler's "New Order." They are reduced to a desperate attempt to batter these peoples into acquiescence as long as possible. That is the measure of their fear of the retribution which is coming upon them. And these unspeakable horrors have for us, too, a further significance. They show the illimitable wickedness of the people against whom we are fighting. If anyone ever had any doubts that we were fighting a crusade, he can have no such doubts now. The fight is by no means won. Great hardships probably lie before us; great sacrifices of blood and of treasure. But we can, I think, enter 1943 with a sober and growing confidence that the sacrifices we have already made have not been in vain and that they will lay the foundations of a better and, we may hope, a wiser world.
LORD ADDISON: My Lords, I am sure that every member of your Lordships' House will appreciate and value very highly the statement which the noble Viscount has just made. I was not aware of its content before it was made, except that one could fairly well surmise some of it; and I think that it is evident from its

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character that it would not be appropriate for it to become the subject of a debate to-day. There are, however, many matters which have been indicated by the noble Viscount which I hope your Lordships will be prepared to discuss in the near future. Some of them are matters of first-rate importance, on which a debate would be, I hope, entirely advantageous. We should all like to join in the appreciation which the noble Viscount expressed of the competence, organizing ability and skill which have been displayed in the direction of the Eighth Army. It has been. I am sure, of infinite comfort to us all to find that we have men capable of directing the immensely intricate organization of supply and the splendid training and the co-ordinated movement which these magnificent operations of the Eighth Army have necessarily involved. It has been an immense comfort to every one of us; and, as the noble Viscount said, we feel confident that it is a portent of more to come.
What the noble Viscount said about the military position in North Africa was fully justified. Only impatient and unthinking people expect the impossible. Matters have been rendered much more difficult by the weather which we know prevails at this time of the year in that part of Africa, while the distances are so vast that the organization of transport and the making of roads and aerodromes, as well as other preparations, necessarily take time. The British people can never be accused of insufficient patience, after what we have been through in the last three and a half years, and I feel confident that, when the time comes, the First Army, with our American Allies, having gained, as they are gaining, experience every day, will be fit rivals for the triumphant Eighth Army rapidly approaching from another direction.
I am sure that we all join with the noble Viscount in our appreciation of the most remarkable exploits of the Russian Armies. It is not a matter of an Army, but of a series of Armies. I am not myself particularly well versed in the history of war, but I do not recall a co-ordinated movement of many Armies in the face of immense difficulties parallel with that which we have witnessed in Russia during the last few weeks. From the Kuban Plains right up to Leningrad
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we have had the co-ordinated direction and supply of Armies widely scattered over immensely difficult country, with terrible conditions. We have there something which I think has never been equalled in the history of war. We are all glad that the City of Leningrad has at last been freed.
I had meant to ask the noble Viscount—but he has anticipated my question—whether he had anything to say as to the progress of the anti-U-boat campaign. I think that that in particular is a subject which we might debate more fully without helping our enemy. I hope that some noble Lord who is competent to do so will be prepared to raise it at an early date. So far as the political events in North Africa are concerned my disposition, like that of the noble Viscount, is to say as little as possible at the present moment. Some of us may be thankful that it has not fallen to us to deal with them! I hope, however, that we shall have an opportunity of discussing fairly frankly, and I trust helpfully, some aspects of the U-boat danger, which, as the noble Viscount said, is clearly the biggest danger of all, and the only big danger, it seems to me, which we have still to overcome. I shall not go further now than to indicate that I hope that that opportunity will soon be provided.
We welcome, too, what the noble Viscount said as to the attitude of the Government, in concert with the other Allied Nations, with regard to the barbarities of the Germans in occupied countries. I am sure that we all feel galled by our apparent helplessness when we see these cruelties to the Jews and others. I think, however, that we do look to the Government to give active leadership in the immediate future in the preparation of plans for the feeding of Europe whenever we get the chance to feed it. It will raise immensely difficult questions of supply, food production, food distribution, prices, organization and many other things of that kind, and I am not quite sure whether we all realize how acute and immediate the danger will be as soon as fighting ceases. We have seen something of it in North Africa even in this short time, but that is a mere shadow of what the substance will be over the whole of Europe as soon as hostilities cease. That is another subject which I think your Lordships

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might usefully discuss in greater detail in the near future. I have indicated some of the thoughts which arose in my mind as I listened to the noble Viscount, and I should like to say again how much we have appreciated his statement.

SECRET SESSION.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do go into Secret Session in order that I may make a statement on business.
Moved, That the sitting of the House to receive a statement on business be in Secret Session.—(Viscount Cranborne.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.
The Official Reporter then withdrew.
House in Secret Session.
House resumed in Open Session.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: My Lords, I rise to move that the sitting of the House to consider the Motion relating to the work of the Ministry of Aircraft Production, and standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Winster, be in Secret Session. I know that your Lordships do not like Secret Sessions: I do not like them very much myself. I think therefore that it might be useful if I explained very briefly—because time is short—why in the view of His Majesty's Government it is necessary for them to take this action in regard to the present Motion. As noble Lords will see if they look at the Paper, the noble Lord has drawn his Motion very widely indeed. It is "to call attention to the work of the Ministry of Aircraft Production." Now the discussion of the work of the Ministry of Aircraft Production involves, and must involve, the widest questions of strategy, and also of those steps which His Majesty's Government are taking to provide particular types of aircraft which may be necessary to give effect to their strategic plans. That, I am sure the House will recognize, is exactly what the enemy wants to know, and it is exactly what we must not tell him.
I myself greatly regret having to ask the House to sit in secret. As I say, I
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know your Lordships do not like it, and, if you would only believe it, the Government do not like it either, because clearly the Government stand to gain by an opportunity to state the full facts of the case—an opportunity which in war-time they do not always have. But sometimes we have no option. At any rate, I hope that no one will imagine that the fact that we have tabled this Motion indicates any doubt in the mind of the Government as to the discretion either of the noble Lord, Lord Winster, or of any other noble Lord who proposes to take part in the debate. Nothing is further from our mind. We have the most complete confidence that they will do their utmost not to say anything which could be in any way injurious to security. But inevitably they will ask questions. I know the noble Lord wishes to ask a number of very pregnant questions, and it is with regard to the answer to those questions that the difficulty is almost certain to arise.
I think your Lordships may remember a debate which we had in Secret Session not very long ago on the question of shipping. We had just the same discussion before we went into Secret Session on that subject, but I do not think that any noble Lords who heard the answer of my noble friend Lord Bruntisfield, who replied, had the slightest doubt in their minds that his speech could not have been made in Public Session; and yet it was of the utmost advantage to your Lordships to hear the facts that he had to expose. As your Lordships know, to-day in another place there is a debate upon man-power. That debate also is being taken in Secret Session, and so far as I know no objection has been made there, because it has been generally recognized that the national interest demands that it should be so taken. I feel confident that your Lordships will take the same wide view of your responsibilities in this matter as has been taken in another House. I therefore, without more ado, beg to move that the House do sit in Secret Session to consider the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Winster.
Moved, That the sitting of the House to consider the Motion of the Lord Winster be in Secret Session.—(Viscount Cranborne.)
LORD ADDISON: My Lords, I am sorry so early in our proceedings to strike

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a critical note. We object to this Motion very strongly. Of course, I know that the noble Viscount has taken the action he has taken with considerable personal regret. I accept that, but it raises a very much wider principle than that. This is the High Court of Parliament. This is not a Star Chamber; it is not a body to satisfy itself by private and confidential interchanges of view: it is the Parliament of the nation, and it is our duty, as responsible Members of that Parliament, to discharge our duties as well as we can. But we have to remember, as has been said in old times, that rights are not retained unless you continually assert them.
Let us just look at this. Here is a Motion, put down I agree in very wide terms, and His Majesty's Government say: "We are not going to have public discussion on that subject." That is what it is. Now take the last war. I well remember that great dissension arose in 1914–1915 over the supply of munitions. Your Lordships will have a recollection of that. The matter was decided, after much acrimonious but public discussion, and I do not think it is untrue to say that one of the results of those discussions in Parliament was that the supply of munitions to our troops was made worthy of the nation. Those discussions could have been shut out by Mr. Asquith's Government at that time just as easily as it is proposed to shut out this discussion to-day. But Mr. Asquith was a man who was never afraid, even if you were attacking him, of public discussion. That matter never was once, so far as I can remember, a subject of debate in secret, and they were most useful discussions.
There was another matter later on—namely, as to the attitude of the Admiralty on the question of convoys for the protection of our merchant shipping. That was the subject, too, of discussion on several occasions in the House of Commons, and I dare say also in your Lordships' House—most useful discussions. If we accept this principle, it would have been open to the Government of that day, in the event of anyone putting down a Motion to consider the supply of munitions to the Forces in just as wide terms as these, to have said: "No that shall be in secret." In the same way a Motion to discuss procedure for the defence of our merchant shipping might have produced the reply at once: "That shall be
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in secret." But that was not done on either of these occasions, or on many others, because it is the right and duty of Parliament to discuss these matters.
It is not the right and duty of His Majesty's Government to muzzle Parliament. We object. I am not speaking now as a Party man. I am speaking as a lover of Parliament. It is wrong that this Motion by the Leader of the House should be on the Paper. I shall advise my noble friend, if, it is carried, not to proceed with his Motion as a protest. We ought to be able to discuss these matters as responsible men. I am sure the noble Viscount pays lip-service to our trustiness not to say anything injudicious but, at the same time, he takes good care we do not get the chance. That is not quite satisfactory. I am sure my noble friend (Lord Winster) would not seek to say anything which would be in the least helpful to our enemies. Of course he would not, and if His Majesty's Government felt embarrassed by any question he chose to ask, they need not reply. I have known Ministers often say: "It is not in the public interest that I should reply to that question." If the noble Viscount wished to reply, but did not wish to reply in public, he could then say: "I am willing to reply to this question, but I wish the House to sit in secret to hear my reply." That could be done, but even if it could not be done, it would still be open to the noble Viscount not to give a reply. It is not compulsory on him to reply with endangering or embarrassing frankness to any question my noble friend may ask.
It is to the principle behind this Motion that I object. I have a suspicion that there is a certain Departmental pressure behind the Motion. I do not think that Departments should be shielded by Motions of this character. For instance, the First Lord of the Admiralty made a statement the other day of a most deplorable character in which he sought to saddle on an amorphous nation the responsibility for the inadequate provision of competent aeroplanes for the Fleet Air Arm. It is, of course, the business of the Admiralty to see that their men are properly supplied. I dare say that the First Lord would not welcome discussion of that matter, which might conceivably come within the terms of this Motion. That is possibly one of the grounds of objection to my noble friend's Motion being discussed in public,

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and in his speech I hope my noble friend Lord Winster will have something to say about the First Lord's statement, because anything feebler I never heard of. It is the business of a Department to say what the Service wants, and this nation is only too anxious to provide whatever the Service wants. I have an uneasy feeling that this may have something to do with this Motion and other matters of a kindred character. At all events, whether that is so or not, in my judgment a Motion of this kind is a derogation from the rights of Parliament.
LORD BRABAZON OF TARA: My Lords, we have heard the remarks made by the Leader of the House several times. It is almost a set speech. Most of us, I think, are always convinced that probably he is right, but I wish to draw your Lordships' attention to where we are drifting in this matter. In another place the Opposition can choose what is discussed upon the stated days of Supply. One of the matters that they can choose is the Ministry of Aircraft Production. In fact that was done only two months ago. I should like an assurance from my noble friend the Leader of the House that if the Opposition in the Lower House choose to discuss the Ministry of Aircraft Production, that will be done in Secret Session. If not, we get into the most ridiculous position that, whereas the Ministry of Aircraft Production can be discussed publicly in the Lower House, it cannot be discussed publicly in the Upper House. That is the ridiculous position into which we are rapidly drifting if we are always going to be muzzled on Service matters in this House.
LORD WINSTER: My Lords, I regret very much that the Motions that I put on the Paper should result so frequently in these debates. There is nothing personal in my feeling about this, because such Motions as I put down are put down not for the reason of being able to make a speech in public, but because I hope the Motion may be of some service. I am getting rather nervous about putting Motions down because I feel that one day the noble Viscount will rise and move that the. House go into Secret Session for the duration of the war, and only come out again on those occasions
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when there is something to the credit of the Government to mention. There is, I repeat, nothing personal whatever in my feelings about this. It is entirely a matter of principle. The noble Viscount was kind enough to communicate with me about this, but unfortunately he communicated with me on the last day available to him for, putting his Motion on the Order Paper. My Motion had been on the Order Paper for several weeks. It was postponed owing to the change at the Ministry of Aircraft Production because I felt the new Minister should have time to look around. I had a word or two with the last Minister of Aircraft Production and the present Minister about it, and also spoke to the noble Lord, Lord Sherwood, so that there should not have been any doubt about my Motion or about its terms. I was really surprised when the matter was left until the very last day for this Motion by the noble Viscount to be put down.
The noble Viscount (Lord Cranborne) was kind enough to suggest a meeting and that if I gave him some information about what I proposed to say, possibly my Motion need not be heard in secret; but that seems to be getting very near to censorship of speeches. Surely it is unreasonable that one should have to go to a Minister and more or less rehearse one's speech, and, according to what one proposes to say, get permission to make that speech in public or be refused it. Similarly, although I sent some notes to the noble Lord, Lord Sherwood, of what I intended to say, it is extremely difficult to speak knowing that there is a sort of gentleman's agreement by which one is bound and according to which one must not go one word outside the notes that one has sent as a matter of courtesy to the Government speaker. I have no personal feelings about this matter, but I am bound to say that I feel that the noble Viscount did delay in taking this action until rather late, and that, as my Motion had been on the Paper so long, it would have been quite feasible to have communicated with me at a considerably earlier date to let me know what the feeling was.
Now may I come to the reasons which have been given for moving that my Motion be taken in secret. The first is that the Motion is rather wide. The terms of my Motion have been known for many

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weeks. Let us look at that point, that the terms of the Motion are rather wide. In July in another place the work of this Ministry was discussed on a Motion that a further sum not exceeding £30 be granted to His Majesty towards defraying the charges for certain Departments connected with production, amongst which was the Ministry of Aircraft Production, £10. The noble Lord knows as well as I do that on that Motion the whole work of the Ministry of Aircraft Production was thrown wide open for discussion. There was not one single aspect of the work of the Ministry which could not be debated upon that Motion in another place. I would ask, in what way is the Motion which stands on the Paper in my name wider than that Motion which was debated in another place? The two cases are analogous.
The second reason is that the Government wish to give all the facts in reply to anything that is said in debate. Well, I confess to learning with some surprise that the desire of the Government in their reply to me is to give all the facts. I remember a series of replies which the noble Viscount gave to me in another place at the time when the Spanish Civil War was raging. I would not say that those replies were characterized by a burning desire to give all the facts. It certainly is not the experience of those of us who have at tended secret debates that the keynote of the Government reply in a secret debate is a wish to give all the facts. But I agree that there is a difficulty before the Government speaker in this matter. It may be the case, and I readily admit it, that there are certain statements and certain facts which the Government speaker wishes to make that should not be made in public; but I would like in that connexion to revert to the suggestion that has been thrown out this afternoon. Is it impossible for the speech to be made in public, and for those portions of the speech which do affect security to be made in Secret Session? Trials are sometimes held under those conditions; part of the evidence is taken in public and other portions of it are taken in camera. My experience of Government speeches in secret debate is certainly this—that at a generous estimate at least 95 per cent. of the speech could cerainly be made in public without any harm whatever being done, so that one is left with a residue of
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some 5 per cent. which, we will say, might affect security and therefore should be made in secret. But is it the case that that procedure is impossible—that at the end of such a debate it is not possible to move into Secret Session in order that the Government spokesman may reply upon those secret matters which affect security?
I really feel that these proceedings are becoming almost farcical. We are reaching a point where only completely academic questions can be taken in public and all matters that affect the war must be taken in secret. In the course of the last year one noble Lord wished to raise the question of shipping. It was intimated to him that that would be taken in secret debate. I myself attempted to raise a question of shipping. I was told it must be taken in secret debate. I then tried to raise the question of shipbuilding. Again I was told that must be taken in secret debate. I had to move my Motion on the conduct of the war at sea in secret. The noble Lord, Lord Chatfield, wished to raise the question of warship construction. It was taken in secret debate. The noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, wished to raise the question of the Fleet Air Arm: secret debate. The noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, had a Motion on the Paper concerning disposal of aircraft: secret debate. The proceedings in North Africa about Admiral Darlan: secret debate. And now the Ministry of Aircraft Production: secret debate. How far is this going?
The noble Viscount in his speech this afternoon made some very striking and very emphatic remarks about the U-boat war. One of the great troubles about the U-boat war and about shipping and what the noble Lord, Lord Woolton, has to do about food, is that the people of this country have not realized the gravity of the shipping position, or the full dangers and implications of the U-boat campaign. How are they ever to be fully seized of these matters if no debate may take place upon them in public? The pressure of public opinion must come behind the Government on these things if something is to be done, and that can only be effected by public debate. I am really unable to accept this security argument, because I believe it is possible and feasible to have some of the debate in secret and the remainder in public, and

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for that reason I am compelled to believe, as I have stated before, that this procedure for secret debate has very little to do with security at all, but is really a device to save the face of the Government concerning matters which are unfavourable to them. That, to my mind, is the negation of democracy, and I must say I think it is the height of hypocrisy to govern nominally in the name of democracy while taking these autocratic methods in Parliament.
I believe that this procedure of the secret debate is having a most unfortunate effect in the country. There is a rift between Parliament and the people, and a rift which is growing. Your Lordships may have noticed a remark made quite recently in a leader in The Times newspaper in which it was stated that both the Conservative and the Labour Parties had failed to capture the confidence of the young generation. We fail to capture that confidence because that young generation finds Parliament not sufficiently responsive to its needs. They watch this cumbrous procedure, these devices of secret debates, and the result is that the rift between Parliament and people steadily widens. This secret debate procedure only accelerates that process. It is on that account that I myself most profoundly regret it.
The final reason which I would wish to bring to your Lordships' notice is this. Certainly in something which I should have had to say about the Ministry of Aircraft Production this afternoon I should have referred to what I consider the scandal of the Fleet Air Arm. It is nothing less than a scandal that the Fleet Air Arm should be equipped as it is to-day, and yet we may not debate that matter in public. But it has been spoken about in public by the First Lord of the Admiralty, who last week said that the Fleet Air Arm fight with some planes of which they certainly ought to have better samples, and then went on to say that they do good work with the old, slow although pretty sound craft which are at their disposal. I would like to hear the Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command say before he sent his bombers to raid Berlin: "I am sure you will do good work; although your bombers are only old and slow, they are pretty sound." By the admission of the First Lord of the Admiralty those are the craft with which
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the Fleet Air Arm have to work. Then he concluded his remarks by saying: "The nation should make every possible effort to see that the Fleet Air Arm is equipped with the most modern planes you can get for them." If ever there was a case of sending for water and washing one's hands, I should say that was the occasion. Sir Hugh Dowding was reported only recently as saying in public that the Navy have got exactly and precisely the planes which they asked for.
Whose is the responsibility in this matter? The First Lord would put responsibility upon the nation. The nation most gladly pays every penny that it is asked to pay, and the workers in our aircraft factories are only discontented because they are not allowed to work as they would wish to work on efficient aircraft for the Fleet Air Arm. Whose is the responsibility? Surely the responsibility can only rest upon the shoulders of those whom the country trusts with political responsibility for these matters. This matter of providing the Fleet Air Arm with the most modern planes that can be got is the responsibility of the First Lord of the Admiralty and of the Minister of Aircraft Production. It is not a responsibility which they can shelve. But that matter we are not allowed to debate here in public. I would only say in conclusion that when I was reading about Pitt the other night, I read that when he was Prime Minister there was an outbreak of very curious political societies in this country. One of those societies which was brought to the notice of Pitt made a practice at their meetings of wearing muzzles and conversing with each other by signs. That may have amused Pitt, but I do not think he can ever have envisaged a time when members of one of the Houses of Parliament would voluntarily accept that method of conducting their most important debates.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: My Lords, I propose to occupy only a very short time, but as one who is entirely independent in this matter, who has no relation with the Government and no feelings on any particular aspect of the matter which is proposed to be debated, I should like to make some observations which I think may be worth your Lordships' consideration. The truth is this debate has suddenly assumed a very curious position. I

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thought we were going to debate the question whether on the whole such a Motion as the one on the Paper is one that could be debated to the full in public without any harm to the war effort or any comfort given to the enemy, but it now appears that a much wider matter is involved. The noble Lord who has just spoken, besides making part of the speech which he would have made if he had had the opportunity of making his speech in public, has also thought fit to accuse the Government of bunking discussion. The noble Lord who leads the Labour Party has said the Government were not willing to face public discussion on this matter and the noble Lord who has just spoken said that the object of the Motion to hold the debate in private was to save the face of the Government.
I do not know what your Lordships think on that matter, but for my part I think that if these charges were true the proper course would be to get rid of this Government. I do not believe, if the Government are afraid to face a Motion here simply because they want to save their own skins, that they ought to be any longer in charge of the Government of this country. It may be there are some people who take that view, but I venture to think it is not the opinion of your Lordships' House. What is it that we are discussing here, or ought to be discussing here? It is suggested that debates ought to be in public. Everybody thinks that as a general view and on almost every occasion debates here ought to be in public and the conduct of the Government should be open to public criticism. It is really, you may say, the life blood of a democracy that the Government should be open to criticism on practically every occasion. But does anybody here think that there is no exception to that rule? The noble Lord who has just spoken seems to think that because as a rule there should be public discussion therefore on no occasion is there to be private discussion. For example, if it is a question of discussing whether a particular action shall be taken of a military character and where it should be taken, and what forces should be employed in taking that military action, nobody, of course, not even noble Lords who want to get rid of this Government, would, say that that ought to be discussed in public.
LORD STRABOLGI: Or in private.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: There I cannot agree. There are matters which can be discussed in private which it would be most undesirable to discuss in public, for the reason I have mentioned, that it is not in the public interest. It is admitted that there is an exception. How far does it go? Surely it goes as far as this, that if a debate is likely to lead to the disclosure of facts which it is much better should be for the present concealed then it is better to have the debate in private or, as an alternative, not at all. The next logical question is who is to determine that matter. It cannot be the noble Lord who moves the Motion because he knows quite well what he is going to say and that he is not going to say anything which will either encourage the enemy or do any harm to the war effort of this country. But having made this speech he cannot tell where the matter is going to stop. He may make a criticism of the conduct of the war by the Government or a criticism of the conduct of the Minister of Production which would not do any harm to the war effort, but it is the answer to the criticism which may assist the enemy in some way which he cannot possibly avoid. I admit that the noble Lord has a very clear and perfectly logical answer to that. He says we should debate in public and as soon as some point comes up which the member of the Government who has to reply, or some other person, thinks is going to lead to some disclosure which is quite wrong, then we should go into Secret Session.
I ask your Lordships to consider how often that would take place in the course of a debate, whether every ten minutes or so somebody would be rising from his feet and asking the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, whether in his opinion—and his opinion would not of course be final—the matter would not be better discussed in private. He might say "Yes" and then we could have a debate to decide the point. Then, if we decided to go into Secret Session, we could hear something, and perhaps in another five minutes we should return to Public Session. Then, before long, the noble Lord who had moved the Motion, or perhaps some other noble Lord—which would be much more likely—would say something which again was trenching on debatable ground, and we should again have to adopt this ridiculous matter of

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splitting the debate into public and private matters which would lead to I do not know how great an inconvenience to your Lordships' House. That would be an intolerable way of conducting a debate. I submit to your Lordships that a far better way is to determine the matter once and for all, and, in determining it, I suggest that it would be most wise that the Government, if they command the confidence of the House, should have very great weight given to the views which they express in the matter.
I am not one of those people who think that this Government, or any Government, is always right. I am not prepared to say that in the half dozen or more instances in which there has been a secret debate in recent days in this House, the Government acted rightly in every case. That is not my position at all. I am dealing only with the present Motion before the House. Discussion on Lord Winster's Motion, as anybody can realize, may trench upon secret matters of great importance to the enemy, and I can quite easily see that a partial defence to charges which the noble Lord may make would be most unsatisfactory, and that a complete defence might involve the disclosure of secrets. In those circumstances I submit to your Lordships that our proper course is, in this instance at any rate, to trust the Government and to agree with the Motion which has been proposed.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: My Lords, if I may be allowed to do so I would like very briefly to put before the House an expression of my own feeling on a question of this kind. I think that other members of the House may feel as I do. I do not see how if the Government, with the full responsibility of a Government, say that this discussion should take place in private, it is possible, apart from very extreme cases, for the House to refuse to agree. At the same time it does seem to me a little unsatisfactory that the Government, merely on their own responsibility and without any guarantees that they are looking at the matter from a proper point of view in every respect, should be able to come down and extinguish public discussion on any subject they wish. I cannot help thinking that that is art unsatisfactory
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position. I should be very glad to hear from the Government—if they thought there was anything in the suggestion—that they would consider whether some sort of procedure might be instituted to ensure some kind of guarantee being given that a request for private discussion of particular matters was not merely the result of Departmental pressure.
I have never yet come across a Government Department that did not think that any discussion of any of its activities ought not to take place in public. I may be thought to be going rather far but that has been my experience over what, I am sorry to say, has been a considerable period of public life. Therefore, I suggest that there is, and must be, in the minds of every one of us some doubt as to whether a demand for a private discussion has really been considered apart from the mere Departmental pressure for privacy that will always be applied. I do not know if anything can be done on the lines I have suggested, and I am not making any definite proposals, but I should be very glad to hear from the Government that they will be prepared to consider whether there is not some kind of procedure which will create a guarantee against undue pressure for private discussion in these matters.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, I had not intended to take part in this debate because I had not the advantage of hearing the original speech made by the noble Viscount or the greater part of the speech made by the Leader of the House on the position. But what has just fallen from the lips of the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, impels me to say that I think there is much force in the point which he raises, that it is unfortunate that the Government should appear to be able to compel a discussion to be conducted in private without having any knowledge of the view that the House as a whole may take on a particular point. I would ask the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, therefore, to consider whether it would not be possible, as the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, has suggested, to have some form of procedure, possibly by way of notice or of consultation with other responsible members of your Lordships' House, before it is decided to hold a discussion of this kind in secret. I quite see one difficulty which arises from the fact that in your Lordships' House there is

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nobody, like Mr. Speaker in another place, who is able to give a final verdict on questions of order.
In this particular case the Motion on the Paper deals with the Ministry of Aircraft Production. But from some of the observations which fell from the lips of my noble friend Lord Winster, it is quite evident that the discussion might cover a far wider field than that of aircraft production only, and might very easily turn into a debate on a question, or on a number of questions, of policy, affecting the air service generally. This, I can well believe, would make the Government reply more difficult. But, in the meantime, I ask the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, to consider if it is possible to proceed to some degree on the lines which the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, has just suggested.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, I do not intend to detain your Lordships for more than a very few minutes, but I feel bound to associate myself with the remarks made by my noble friend Lord Winster as to holding this debate in secret. When we have the spectacle of the First Lord of the Admiralty going to the nation and asking the nation to support him in obtaining the proper aircraft for the Fleet Air Arm—the branch of the air service for which he is responsible—surely it is evident that it is coming to a grave condition. How is the nation to support the First Lord if it is not allowed any information on the subject? If the Government do not give the information, and if those who wish to bring the information to its notice are not allowed to do so, the nation cannot make up its mind. When you have the head of one of the great Departments of State asking the nation to support it, because apparently it cannot get on without support, and then we find the Government suggesting that the debate should take place in Secret Session, I suggest that there can be no greater criticism of the Government. We should be allowed to debate the question publicly and see whether there is anything in it. I do not think it would take long to prove that we ought to have better aircraft in the Fleet Air Arm, and that something ought to be done, after three and a half years of war, to equip more satisfactorily the least-well-equipped branch of His Majesty's Forces.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: My Lords, I think that we have had an interesting and important discussion, because this is clearly a question which has been causing a good deal of anxiety to your Lordships for some time past. I am very sorry that noble Lords—or some noble Lords, at any rate—were not convinced by what I said as to the necessity for a debate in Secret Session to-day. Before I go on to deal with the main issues which have been raised, I should like to make an explanation for the benefit of the noble Lord, Lord Winster, who apparently thought that I had been guilty of a certain discourtesy to him in this matter. It is true that I did not communicate with him until a late date, but that was because I had not heard, until the day on which I spoke to him, that he had put down his Motion for a named day. Directly I heard that it was down for a named day I communicated with him, and said that I was afraid that on that day I should have to move that the debate be held in Secret Session. I do not think that I allowed more than an hour to pass between receiving the information and attempting to get in touch with the noble Lord. My difficulty was that I could not find him, and for twenty-four hours I was pursuing him round London and the neighbourhood and unable to get in touch with him. I do not think that the Government can be held responsible for that. He suggested that I asked to see him in order to impose a kind of censorship. The very opposite was my purpose. It was the view of the Government, having in mind the wide terms of his Motion, that it would have to be discussed in Secret Session. I was anxious to avoid this if possible, and my object in asking the noble Lord to get in touch with me was to try to find some means by which the debate could be held in public. I hope, therefore, that he will not regard me as guilty of an attempt to gag him, because my object was exactly the opposite.
I think that the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, was perhaps a little ungenerous in what he said this afternoon, because I had exactly the same experience with him not long ago. He put down a. Motion on security arrangements for convoys and for merchant shipping generally. That was a subject which obviously raised questions of security. However, I knew that your Lordships do not like Secret Sessions, and so I got in touch with the

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noble Earl, and he gave me the assurance that he did not wish to bring in anything which would raise security issues, and therefore the debate was in fact held in public. I am not certain that some rather unfortunate things were not said in public, but at any rate the Government did do their utmost to see that the debate was not held in Secret Session.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: I hope you do not think that I did not keep my word on that occasion.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: Not at all; I do not for a moment suggest it. I was only saying that I thought that certain things were said in that debate, perhaps inevitably, which gave rise to anxieties which eventually turned out to be unjustified; but at any rate the Government did their very utmost to see that that subject was discussed in public, which was the desire of the Government and, I am sure, of this House.
I could not help thinking, as I listened to the noble Lords, Lord Winster and Lord Addison, that they were over-suspicious. Their suggestion, so far as I understood it, was that the Government had put down this Motion to-day because we could not face the storm of criticism which was coming against us, and so we were indulging in a rather shady sort of expedient to prevent the public hearing about the appalling things that we had done. That seemed to be the suggestion of the noble Lords. Do they really believe this? I do not for a moment think that they do; but, if they do, the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, who made a very wise speech, is certainly right in saying that they ought to turn us out. But they do not really think this. It is difficult to speak in public about what happens in Secret Sessions, but I do not think that any experience your Lordships have had has gone to show that the Government have been convicted of ill deeds on those occasions. On the contrary, if on occasion the Goverment welcome a Secret Session it is because it gives us an opportunity to put forward our full case, and not because we have anything to hide.
The noble Lord, Lord Winster, put forward two alternative possibilities to a
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Secret Session. The first was that debate should be held in public, and that the Government should give their reply, if they thought that it contained matters which would give information to the enemy, in Secret Session. That seems to me a dreadful form of procedure. Both the noble Lord, Lord Addison, and the noble Lord, Lord Winster, made tremendous play with the right of the public to know the facts, but what would the public learn in that way? They would hear one half the case and not the other half. They would, I am sure, hear an admirable speech from the noble Lord, Lord Winster, but they would hear nothing of the Government reply, and none of the facts in full. They would learn much less than if the whole debate was in public. The other alternative, as I understood it, was that the debate should be held in public, and that noble Lords should accept the fact that they would get a very inadequate reply. That is a possible alternative, but from the point of view of the British public I do not think that it is very much more satisfactory. A number of very trenchant questions would be put, causing great anxiety, and no answer could be given by the Government. It is not a question of the Government trying to be in a safe situation; the point is that that procedure would not be much use from the point of view of the British public.
LORD ADDISON: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Lord, he has had great experience of Departmental administration, and so have I. Can be recall a case in which the Government had an adequate reply and could not make it in public? I cannot.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: My Lords, I think that I could recall any number of such cases. It is rather difficult for me to quote in Public Session cases where an adequate reply was given in Secret Session, but I should be delighted to tell the noble Lord afterwards of numbers of them. Even in peace-time, the main anxiety of anyone who is Secretary of State or Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs—and I think that the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil of Chelwood, will bear me out in this—is that he can never give the full case in public.
LORD ADDISON: I said "adequate."
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: That is the reason, no doubt for the very unfortunate exchanges between the noble Lord, Lord Winster, and myself at the time when I was at the Foreign Office to which he has referred. The effect of the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Addison and Lord Winster, to-day, was that they stand on the right of any noble Lord to insist on a public discussion in war-time of any subject that he wishes, and they say that that is democracy. I think that one or both noble Lords used the expression that all public debate in this country is at present gagged.
LORD ADDISON: No.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: I think that the word "gagged" was used, perhaps by the noble Lord, Lord Winster. Surely, no one could maintain that position. On the contrary, I should have thought that the free exercise of British institutions during the last three years, under conditions abnormal and dangerous in the extreme, has been the admiration of the world. Never before has there been such a record as this country has shown in the last three years. We have achieved a feat which I think would have been impossible in any other country in similar circumstances. During tins period of three years, your Lordships' House has steadily risen in public estimation, not because of Secret Sessions but because of Public Sessions. That should be an answer to those noble Lords who say that all expression of opinion at the present time is gagged.
LORD ADDISON: We never said so, or even suggested it.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: Certainly the noble Lord, Lord Winster, indicated that the situation was becoming impossible, since when any question of importance was raised the Government put down a Motion for a Secret Session. That is what I would call gagging free opinion if it was true; but it is surely not true, and the records of this House will show that it is not true. Now I believe passionately—and I think all your Lordships do—in the merits of Parliamentary democracy. I think it is the wisest and most stable system which has yet been devised by the wit of man. But it does depend upon a due sense of responsibility on the part of those who operate it, and
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I cannot but feel that noble Lords who press for public discussion on every subject in war-time are not showing the due sense of responsibility which they should. If his Majesty's Government acceded to any request which is made to them—and a request is made in every case where a Motion for a Secret Session is put down; not in some only, but in every single case when a Motion for a Secret Session is put down there is opposition from some noble Lords opposite—if the Government acceded to the request and said things which should not be said, it would not only injure the national interest but it would inflict a severe blow on the authority of Parliament itself. My noble friend Lord Cecil of Chelwood was, I think, worried because he felt that some of these decisions on the question of Secret Sessions were really Departmental decisions.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: I do not want to put it as high as that, but I think my noble friend will agree that it does raise a great deal of doubt and discussion in the public mind, and if it were possible to find some way of alleviating that doubt I think it would be as well.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: I was going to say that this is clearly a very important point. I think noble Lords know that no decision of this kind is taken except after discussion with the responsible Ministers concerned, but it may be that there is something further that can be done to make certain that no frivolous Motion for a Secret Session is introduced, and I shall be very glad if noble Lords will allow me to consider that. If we can devise any machinery we will. The noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, said he had heard my arguments several times. I can assure him that that does not mean that they are not good arguments. We fully appreciate noble Lords' dislike of Secret Sessions as a general principle, and I shall be very glad to look into the machinery to try and find if some arrangement satisfactory to all noble Lords can be made, but I am afraid His Majesty's Government must press this Motion to-day.
LORD WINSTER: Before the noble Viscount concludes, will be deal with the point that this matter was debated in another place in public on a Motion just as wide as the Motion standing in my name?
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: That is a new point to me, and I would like to look into it. But in this particular case the noble Lord was good enough to let me—or rather my noble friend Lord Sherwood—see what he was going to say, and I think he will agree that while there are things in it which it would be completely discreet for him to say, yet they are things to which it would be very difficult for the Government to give any satisfactory answer in public. I do not know the practice in another place, but it may be that those who raise the Motion there got an answer not entirely satisfactory to them.
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

EDUCATION: IMPORTANCE OF PHONETICS.
LORD BRABAZON OF TARA LORD BRABAZON OF TARA rose to call attention to the importance of phonetics in connexion with democratic education; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I hope that the Motion that I have the honour to put before your Lordships will be launched on rather a calmer sea, because the debate which we have just had, in the opinion of many of us, raised several definite questions which might be debated for a long time. I find that there are many people who do not know what the word "phonetics" means, so I think it is a good thing to start by saying that it concerns sound and speech. I am very sorry to see that the Leader of the House has gone out, because I would like to have had his full consent to this debate going on in public. I might have referred, for instance, to a slight hesitancy in the speech of the Prime Minister which might have been of advantage to the enemy, and I am sorry I cannot have his assurance on that point. However, at the risk of giving information to the enemy, I will proceed.
All of us, I think, are proud of the fact that this country is one of the most remarkable democracies in Europe, and anything that we can do to enable a man to rise from the bottom to the top should be done. We do as much as we can. Large sums are spent on education with the general conception of providing a ladder whereby anybody, from whatever class he comes, should be able to rise to the top. But there is a bar—and the point of my speech is that there is always a
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bar—in speech. Your Lordships know quite well that if anybody comes into your room he has only to say a very few words and you are able to place him socially immediately. Now I consider that a most undemocratic trait in our national life. It is not true, curiously enough, in Scotland. It is not true in America, and it is impossible for us to judge the social status of anybody from our Dominions. It is not true abroad. I have seen a mechanic in Paris rise to be a leader of fashion within about eighteen months—a thing which would have been quite impossible in this country, with the ordinary speech indulged in by mechanics.
Mr. Bernard Shaw has dealt with part of this subject in his great play Pygmalion, but he deals more or less with the geographical aspect of speech, rather than with the social, and he says there that an expert could readily distinguish between the accents of Homerton and Hoxton, South Kensington and Westminster. I do not mind the geographical difference at all. I think there is a lot to be said for a slight touch of Lancashire, or a slight touch of Yorkshire, or even for a slight touch of Wales. It is uncouth, badly pronounced English, which I am anxious to stop. I do not know if any of your Lordships read a remarkable English paper called Nature, which is the primary scientific paper in the world, but there was a letter in it the other day signed by many distinguished people, in which they defended the abolition of all public schools on the ground that they existed to educate and produce a governing class. That letter was written in envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness, and for the life of me I could not understand this hatred of the public schools. My experience of a public school really was the fagging which I had to indulge in to sixth formers and being flogged for cooking the toast too well. It might have been a very good training for a waiter, but I never could understand how it was part of the education of the governing classes.
But I know why there is the hatred of the public schoolboys. It is because the public schoolboys speak very good cultivated English—I do not say grammatical English. If a public school boy and a boy educated somewhere else were to apply for a job and go to see the owner of a big factory, the boy from the public

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school—such is the snobbism of life—would be asked to lunch to discuss the matter and the boy with the bad accent would be told to come back at half-past four. It is for that reason that there is loathing of the public school—because the public school produces that form of speech which is not produced in the other schools and which could be produced.
We can go further the other way. Let us suppose that two of our most distinguished members here were dressed up suitably in corduroys and sweaters—for instance, the Lord Chancellor and the Leader of the House—and entered into conversation with ordinary people in a public-house in Wapping. Just picture that for a moment. Is it not quite true to say that after three minutes they would be calling the Lord Chancellor "Sir"—not because he knew more about racing or knew more about football, but because his voice is different, he has a cultivated voice. It is not that the two noble Viscounts speak alike—not at all. The Lord Chancellor has a most musical, lovely voice, but he has got all the tricks of the lawyer—he cannot possibly say "Thank you," he has got to say "I am much obliged." Of course, the Leader of the House speaks what can only be described as the Cecilian dialect—very acceptable and very agreeable, but there is an enormous difference between them.
What I wish to impress on your Lordships is that I am not pleading for what is sometimes called "standard English." There are very big variations that can be introduced. Why is it that we allow children to drop "h's" and, what is more extraordinary, put them in where they are not wanted? That has only to be corrected early enough. Why should the word "roundabout," for example, be called "rahnd-abaht"? Why should "paint" be "pint"—a very good word in its own place, but not representing "paint." Why should "male" be pronounced "moil" and "tail" "toil"? Then there is a pronunciation which is the reverse, and which is sometimes called the "Oxford accent" in which a word like "refined" becomes "refained." That is one of the worst of all.
All these types of extreme English should be jumped on in early education. It is accepted now that the spoken word is becoming more and more important.
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In the old days audiences were so small that people could only speak to several thousands, but look at the difference to-day when the great figures of the world speak to millions. Broadcasting has an immense influence on this question of pronunciation. I would like to pay public tribute to those poor people who have to announce the news, good, bad and indifferent, about six times a day. I must say they have a very trying job, but except for one person—I forget his name—who is rather sexless and monotonous, I think they do a wonderful job. They are all rather different in accent, but they have vigour, robustness, and speak educated English. I give them full marks. Some of the women also are very good, but why an Englishwoman should try to croon in a Bowery accent and out of tune, I never can understand. Twenty years ago, if a boy was born on the outskirts of London, speaking some outrageous dialect—say of Cockney—if he were an ambitious boy he would be able to rise and rise and then, about the age of eighteen, he would come up, bump! against the insuperable barrier of speech that would keep him there until he had learnt how to speak, which, at that age, sometimes cannot be done.
The situation is different to-day. Every boy throughout the land is listening day by day to the news in English, spoken more or less as it should be spoken, and it may well be that at the back of his mind, although he does not speak that language, he will be able to reproduce it when he wants. I do not know whether the Board of Education will agree with me on that or not, but it is a great hope that we may be able to get an English which will not show these class distinctions. English is becoming automatically, without any pressure, the universal language. The influences at work are very profound. There is, first of all, flying, which is bringing the world closer together and which is conducted so largely by Americans and ourselves. Then there is broadcasting. There is not an educated man or woman throughout the world who does not want to know what London or New York is thinking of things, and for that reason they have to understand English. Then there is the profound influence of films. Already, before the war, in Paris, unless you spoke English or understood it you could not enjoy the best films. It is a

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growth which will go on. I do not say that everyone will speak English, but those who do not will have to understand it.
I shall conclude by quoting, if I may, some words from a book which anyone interested in this subject ought to read, The Teaching of English in England, which is produced by the Board of Education. This book draws attention to the popularity of the English language, and tells how, in 1919, the Northern Peace Conference, which met in Stockholm, made an inquiry of representatives of countries where none of the great languages—English, German, and French—were spoken, and asked them what in their opinion was the most suitable language for universal use. Out of fifty-four replies, twenty-nine said English. That was in 1919; how much more would it be to-day. They passed this resolution:
"If English is to become the international language, everybody who wishes to learn it must be given the opportunity. It must be taught, in all the schools of the world, optional in the elementary and compulsory in the higher schools."
This very pregnant passage follows:
"This is a measure of the prestige which the English language possesses abroad. It surely merits more attention in the schools of England if only from the point of view of a practical asset. English children required by law to attend school are surely entitled to be taught in a scientific and effective way, the accepted speech of their great country."
I beg to move for Papers.
LORD GAINFORD: My Lords, I rise merely to correct the noble Lord in what he said at one particular part of his speech. I want to point out to him that a change in our present system does not rest with the Board of Education at all. It really rests with the education authorities. They appoint the teachers in the elementary, the secondary and the higher training schools and any change which is to be made ought to be done through them. All the Board of Education can do, as the noble Lord indicated, is to circularize the bodies in order to point out to them what must be done under a better system.
LORD BRABAZON OF TARA: I had to put the blame on somebody and I chose a Government Department.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, before the Lord Chancellor who, I understand, is to be good enough to reply, answers this very important plea put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, I think an opinion should be given on this subject from these Benches. The thesis, as I understand it, of my noble friend Lord Brabazon, is this; that the so-called working classes, or the poor sections of the community, are kept down or handicapped and do not have the same opportunities of advancement because they do not speak with a similar accent to those persons who are in the possessing or, as he calls it, the governing class. That I understand is the thesis. I want it I may briefly to controvert that. I think Lord Brabazon, in his experience, especially as Minister of Aircraft Production and Minister of Transport before that, has known literally thousands of men who spoke a very different English from himself, who spoke with the dialect of the Black Country, or of Yorkshire, or the industrial parts of the West of Scotland and who have reached very high positions in industry and in the professions, and particularly in the engineering industry. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that in the engineering industry, of which he and I both have some experience, and he a great deal more than I, the class who speak with what he calls the public school accent may be under an actual handicap.
A man who speaks with the sort of accent Lord Brabazon seems so much to admire and which I notice he is careful to avoid himself and which he describes, I gather, as Oxford English, far from being asked to lunch is regarded, unless he comes with very high certificates, with a great deal of suspicion; whereas the forthright man who has obviously graduated through the workshops and served his time and has not this much admired accent referred to by Lord Brabazon, has actually a better chance of being taken seriously. I have heard it said, and I believe it is true, that in certain of the Scottish universities the dons tell the students that if they will only retain their native Scottish accent it will be worth a thousand a year to them any time in the City of London; for that accent stands in the City of London for integrity, reliability, character and trustworthiness.
LORD BRABAZON OF TARA: I said it did not apply to Scotland.
LORD STRABOLGI: My noble friend was good enough to say it did not apply to Scotland, but if you are to standardize English and make o us all talk like the B.B.C. announcers then you will have to apply the same drastic treatment to Scotland. May I also remind my noble friend of another case? He and I used to know, and know now, a very prominent trade union leader who could speak very good English indeed when he liked. He obtained a very high position in the life of his country. He deliberately retained his extremely pronounced Cockney accent. It was an asset to him with his men in his trade union, it was an asset to him in Parliament, and it was an asset to him in the City of London. May I also turn for a moment to what Lord Brabazon said about the Continental countries? There is a very distinct difference in the speech of the different provinces in France and in Germany. Hitler himself speaks the most atrocious German. I think Lord Brabazon knows enough German to be able to recognize that when he hears Hitler's voice on the wireless. But those who speak far better German than I do and have a very much better knowledge of the German language assure me it is exceptionally uncouth and uncultured, but that fact does not seem, unfortunately, to have prevented Hitler from attracting an immense following in that country.
May I take this further example, which I ask Lord Brabazon to think over? In happier days I used to be able to get down to Herefordshire for the purposes of sport and in the country districts there I found a very pronounced Hereford accent, more pronounced than the dialect you get in many parts of Yorkshire or Lancashire. I used to see a good deal there of a young public schoolboy, the son of a local squire. He used to accompany me a good deal on sporting occasions and I noticed that when he was talking to me he spoke in the sort of English that Lord Brabazon speaks or the Lord Chancellor speaks, but when he spoke to the local labourers, the labourers on his father's estate, and the village boys, he at once relapsed into the pronounced Hereford dialect. I have heard the same thing in Yorkshire. I have heard Yorkshire gentlemen speaking as they do at the universities, but, when talking to their country neighbours, relapsing into the Yorkshire dialect.
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I would personally—and I believe I am speaking here for my Party—very much deplore any attempt artificially to destroy the provincial and local dialects in England, Scotland and Wales. They have a value of their own and I believe it would be very unfortunate if we forced the pace of standardization or uniformity. As it is, as Lord Brabazon has pointed out, we have been standardizing speech very rapidly in this country. In the last twenty years there has been an immense breaking down of class barriers, and the last three years has seen that process very much accelerated. If I might remind Lord Brabazon, during his youth and my youth, one could tell at a glance by the dress of a woman, particularly in the country, to what class of life she belonged. There was an immense difference when we were boys in the way the women of the labouring class, the farmers' wives and the squire's and clergyman's daughters dressed. You could almost tell at a glance from the way they dressed to which class they belonged.
To-day you cannot tell to what walk of life a woman belongs. The modern fashions, the cheap turnout of most of the modern clothing—and very attractive it is—is standardizing dress. The younger people are rapidly becoming standardized also in their speech and that applies to the men as well as to the girls. Do not force that tendency. If I may respectfully suggest this to the Lord Chancellor, I do hope your Lordships will not countenance this argument that a man is prevented in this country from achieving success because of his accent. I do not believe it for a moment. I do not believe it is the case in the Services. It certainly is not the case in the naval service in which I had the honour to serve for some years. There a man's accent has nothing whatever to do with his promotion. I do not believe it applies in business or industry to-day to any great extent. An artificial forcing will result in what Lord Brabazon himself referred to as "refained" English.
LORD BRABAZON OF TARA: I must object. I said that the "refained" English was the worst type of all.
LORD STRABOLGI: It is what you get if you try to get an imitation Oxford or public school accent. In your Lordships' House those of you who have a musical ear can hear in the course of a

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long day's sitting many different accents. Most of us as a rule speak differently from one another. Lord Brabazon referred to two Ministers in this House who speak different varieties of English. I hope these variations will continue and that the English tongue will remain the variegated thing it is to-day.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, my noble friend's intervention has prompted me to intervene when I had no intention of doing so. I want in one word to support my noble friend the mover of the Motion, and to say something which I hope will produce a reference from the Lord Chancellor who I understand is to reply to the Motion. I would like to support my noble friend in advocating a standard pronunciation of English. I think it would be a definite advantage, and I disagree with my noble friend opposite that it would be a deplorable result to achieve. The military aspect of this question has been mentioned. In this connexion I would like to point out—and in this respect I speak not of present knowledge of the Services but of my knowledge of the last war—how difficult it was to understand someone speaking English with a broad Lancashire or Yorkshire accent. I hesitate to make any reference to Scotland because we admire the Scottish accent. We have no reluctance in accepting the Scottish accent, but I noticed that one of the happy recipients in the New Year's Honours List said in reply to a toast to himself that, while he saw no evidence of shortage of paper in the congratulations he had received, one thing which caused some difficulty was a telegram in Gaelic. I do not know whether it is incumbent upon the Post Office to accept telegrams in Gaelic.
The point I want to make in supporting my noble friend is that there is an advantage to be attained by a standard phonetic pronunciation of English. We have all heard people say how fine is Mr. Roosevelt's voice and how easy it is to understand. Those who, like myself, have lived in the United States and travelled in that country know how different is the employment of English in Boston and in Chicago. I have two main points on which I would seek the comments of the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor. My noble friend referred to French. We know that in Alsace the
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Mulhouse French is entirely different from the Tours French, and that in the Basque country again the accent is entirely different. Those of your Lordships who are familiar with French Canada will know also that the French employed there is very different from that used in France. The most expert speakers of French will find difficulty in understanding the language. One of the main complaints among the people of Quebec against the rest of Canada is that the people of Quebec do not get a square and fair deal in the matter of opportunity in the rest of Canada. That is because they do not speak English or, if they do speak English, do not speak good English. That is because they do not trouble to learn it properly at school.
Again, those who know Australia will know the different employment of English in different parts of that country. You may take members of the same family who have had the opportunity of a good education—not necessarily an expensive education—where the girls will speak English such as we believe to be good English and the boys will say "bison" for "basin." That is because it is the customary view among boys in Australia that it is affectation to talk real English. I hope the noble and learned Viscount will give encouragement to the belief that it is an advantage to speak good English, and that opportunities should be given to teach English phonetically, as it is generally believed to be most easily and most musically spoken.
LORD WEDGWOOD: My Lords, I hope that when the noble and learned Viscount speaks he will make it quite clear that this is not a matter of cash value—I do not believe the noble Lord regards it from that point of view—but that it is a question of mental psychology. If people have an inferior accent and like it by all means let them keep it. If people have a Somerset accent or a Scottish accent they had better keep it as long as they are proud of it. What we do want to stop is people being ashamed of their accents. What we want to avoid, and I am perfectly certain the noble Lord wants to avoid, is an inferiority complex. An inferiority complex does not destroy a man's learning capacity, but it does destroy his happiness in life. The question is how can we end it. Women and girls are much more susceptible and

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acquire good manners and a good accent much more rapidly than boys. Girls who go to a higher education school become so enamoured of their teachers that they adopt their language, their ideas and their standards.
This is the most snobbish country in the world and snobbishness means being afraid of what somebody else is going to think of you. That leads to the inferiority complex, and if the noble Lord by waving a wand could make a change by which all would acquire an accent and standards of speech of which they were proud it would benefit the whole of the country. It would destroy a jealous frame of mind. How is it to be clone? You can do a certain amount by broadcasting, and it does not matter if broadcasting is done with an accent as long as it is not done with a vulgar accent. The difficulty is that to speak with a vulgar accent is still supposed in this country to be the quintessence of humour. You have only to go to see a British film to find a scene in which people are made to speak with an objectionable, vulgar and ridiculous accent which is supposed to be funny. If I were employed in a servants' hall I should want to throw things at the screen. It is a travesty of the servants' hall; and there are far too many English movies like that. If you go to see an American or a French film you will not see those funny public-house bar and servant hall scenes which you see on the English films. In America it is inconceivable that a person should be thought to be inferior because he does not speak with a Boston accent.
A great deal can be done by local education authorities, especially as nowadays most elementary school mistresses come front the professional classes and have the normal accent. They could do more in the case of the men. In the broadcasting they could do more, not by discouraging local accent, but by discouraging vulgar exploitation of it by humourists. Those responsible for the production of films could do much more by assisting to make people understand that vulgarity is not attractive, and by not travestying one class of people, particularly the servant class. They should realize that that sort of thing is the worst kind of bad form, and ought to be dropped altogether.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (The EARL of ONSLOW): My Lords, there are only one or two words I wish to
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add to what has been said in the course of this very interesting debate. I suppose that the real object of my noble friend's proposal is to ensure that the greatest number of people speak in a manner which the greatest number of people most easily understand. That I think is very desirable. I myself can remember when dialect was spoken in this country which has now practically dropped out. When I lived in Germany, I learnt German along with my noble friend Lord Cromer at Hanover, and of course we learnt to speak with a strong Hanoverian accent. Afterwards, when I went to Frankfurt, I was told that I knew a decent amount of German but that I spoke with such a horrible, vulgar, northern accent that nobody could possibly understand me. Now we were told in England that the Hanoverian accent was the finest accent in Germany, that it ranked like the Touraine accent in France. But in regard to this latter I must say that if you were to ask a Gascon whether they spoke good French in Touraine, his reply would probably be abusive.
So far as we are concerned with the matter now before us I feel sure that the object we have in view is to enable as many people as possible to speak English and to understand it with the least trouble to themselves. That, of course, is a problem which, in the first place, confronts the Board of Education. But my noble friend Lord Gainford pointed out quite correctly that the matter of the curriculum is not in the hands of the Board of Education but in the hands of the local education authorities. I have been connected for ten years with the Board of Eclucation, and I know the local education authorities very well for I served in the office for some time. I rather suggest that this problem, which at least requires examination, might well be referred to the Education Consultative Committee. That body was founded, I think, in 1899. It does not very often meet, but it has occasionally produced excellent reports. It is not functioning during the present war nor did it function during the last war. Its last report was on secondary education—a great fat volume—and was produced before the war. This, I say, is in my view just the sort of problem which that body might usefully consider, and I venture to suggest, in the most respectful manner to the noble and learned Viscount who sits on

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the Woolsack, that possibly this is a suggestion which might be conveyed to his right honourable friend the President of the Board of Education.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT SIMON): My Lords, in the few minutes that remain I should like to make one or two observations on the very interesting question which has been raised by my noble friend Lord Brabazon. As I understood him I did not think that he was making a plea for an attempt to abolish well-established local methods of speech. That I am sure would be an entirely hopeless task, and for my part I should not sympathize with it at all. I understood him rather to urge that everything should be done to secure in schools the abolition of slipshod, mumbling, poor forms of speech. Many of the dialects of speech in this country are the most vigorous in existence. They are outspoken and clear to a degree. As I say, I understand that to be implicit in my noble friend's main point. He is not using "phonetics" in the sense of the study of the sounds employed in human speech, represented by symbols which we see sometimes in the dictionary and which some of us find it rather difficult to interpret. When he did refer to the dictionary I almost hoped he was going to tell me what "phoney" means. I understood him to be urging the importance—and so far I very much agree with him—not of deliberately cultivating some nice standardized form of speech which takes away half the vitality of human conversation, but of avoiding slipshod, dogs' eared, down-trodden, mouthy, mumbling speech, which does not do credit either to the local dialect or anything else.
I do not entirely agree with my noble friend in some of his illustrations. I have long wanted to know what the Oxford accent was, and the illustration which he gave of it convinced me that the Oxford accent has no more to do with Oxford than the Oxford Group has. I think, too, if I may be allowed to say so, that my noble friend rather exaggerated what he called the speech barrier. I could not undertake to say whether he was justified in asserting that in the other languages of the world nothing of the sort ever happens. I am rather surprised at the statement, though. I should have thought that even in the United States of
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America, a cultivated American did not have very great difficulty in detecting a man who came from a wholly different stratum or order of society. But be that as it may, I do not mind differences of dialect or accent as long as they do exhibit a real attachment to your native tongue as it exists where you live or in any great area to which you belong. What I object to is—and this I think is the business of the educationists—the undoubted prevalence of slipshod and ill-enunciated language. This has got to be got rid of, as I apprehend—and is being got rid of—by teaching and encouraging English reading and English recitation, and I think, especially in the younger schools, the production of English drama. All these are things which tend to make a man accurate in the use of what is the noblest tongue in the world.
Using my own judgment, I would not put the influence of the B.B.C. quite so high as my noble friend does. Certainly the announcers do most admirably. Their work must be a constant strain to them, and we are all greatly obliged to them. I thought that what my noble friend said about that was very well justified. I must admit, however, that my own experience is that when I turn on the wireless so as to be sure that I am not late for the news, I am sometimes compelled to listen to back-chat between performers who, I understand, are professionally known as "comics" in which the English tongue is debased almost beyond recognition. I do not quite understand why those who want to listen to the news should be sentenced to listen to this sort of thing just before. Similarly, as I think my noble friend hinted, sometimes when waiting for the news one has to endure noises produced, I suppose, by the human voice, which certainly are neither music nor even in tune. I am told that the technical name for these things is "hot rhythm." I cannot see why we should have to endure that either, and I think that there ought to be a close time for such things. But perhaps, after all, these excruciating disturbances are introduced in order that we may admire the more the admirable clearness and the high level of pronunciation of the veritable official announcers.
I wish to reinforce with two or three illustrations of my own the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi. I certainly think that a vast amount is

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added to the value and vividness of human converse by certain varieties in speech, pronunciation, manner and tone, derived largely from the area from which people come. My noble friend who sits near me [Lord Gainford] and I have often listened to Mr. Asquith speaking in the House of Commons, and I often used to think that that fine scholar and most noble orator got an added power and aroused a further interest because, every now and then, you could hear quite clearly the Yorkshire burr which he had as a boy. Then there is the Father of the House of Commons, who has just been celebrating his eightieth birthday, and is greeted by all of us and by people all over the world wits warm congratulations. Anyone who heard Mr. Lloyd George speaking at his best knows that he owed not a little of his power to a characteristic Welsh note, a cadence and a thrill which you could hear even when he was speaking in English, and which you may gather best of all, perhaps, when listening to a Welsh choir singing "Land of my Fathers." If I may recall an experience at the Bar, the most powerful and effective advocate of my time, without any question, was Sir Edward Carson, and often he would make his most telling point by assuming, consciously or unconsciously, a little more of the Irish brogue that always underlay everything he said.
LORD STRABOLGI: And in the House as well.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: And in the House as well. I do not presume to make such comments about a Scotsman, because I hardly think that the Scots would admit that the way in which the language is spoken north of the Tweed is a mere matter of dialect; but of course it is absolutely true, at least to us Southerners, that the penetrating force of many a Scotsman's argument, whether in persuasion or denunciation, is redoubled by the fact that he has command of the cadences and vowels of Robert Burns. Within the confines of England the same thing happens. Some of your Lordships probably know the story—I believe its veracious—of Lord Curzon, who, when he first entered that great room at the Foreign Office after his appointment as Foreign Secretary, rang the bell and pointed to his desk, on which there rested an inkpot. Lord Curzon said: "When Lord Salisbury
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was Foreign Secretary, his inkstand was made of alabaster: what is this contraption of brass and glass?"—using these words as though they rhymed with "mass." I was born in Manchester and spent part of my youth in Bath, and so I know very well the difference between the quality of that "a" in the north and in the south, in many and many a word.
Some reference has been made to the language which they speak in the United States. I do not know whether many of your Lordships have had your attention called to a most admirable book drawn up by the War Department of America and called A Short Guide to Great Britain. It is only 32 pages and it is put in the hands, as I understand it, of every American soldier who is crossing to this side. It contains some most useful information, and on page 24 I find a passage headed: "English versus American Language." I will venture to read it to the House:
"Almost before you meet the people you will hear them speaking 'English.' At first you may not understand what they are talking about and they may not understand what you say. The accent will be different from what you are used to, and many of the words will be strange, or apparently wrongly used. But you will get used to it. Remember"
—and this has a bearing on those who think that the American language is the same all over that great continent—
"that back in Washington stenographers from the South are having a hard time to understand dictation given by business executives from New England, and the other way around.
In England the 'upper crust' speak pretty much alike. You will hear the news broadcaster for the B.B.C. … He is a good example, because he has been trained to talk with the 'cultured' accent. He will drop the letter 'r' (as people do in some sections of our own country) and will say 'hyah' instead of 'here.' He will use the broad a pronouncing all the a's in 'banana' like the a in 'father.' However funny you may think this is, you will be able to understand people who talk this way and they will be able to understand you. And you will soon get over thinking it is funny.
You will have more difficulty with some of the local dialects. It may comfort you to know that a farmer or villager from Cornwall very often can't understand a farmer or villager in Yorkshire or Lancashire. But you will learn—and they will learn to understand you."
It seems to me that the whole of that book contains the very greatest wisdom and good sense.
I think, therefore, that what the matter comes to is this. I certainly do not want

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to sec artificial efforts made to get rid of these undercurrents of difference in our English speech which prevail in different parts of the country. Your Lordships may know the remarkable fact in the history of our literature that Chaucer, who wrote in the dialect of East Midland English, really had the effect of making that form of speech prevail by degrees all over the country—not entirely, but to a very large extent. In the same way, unquestionably the diction and the grammar of the Authorized Version, and I would fain hope of Shakespeare, have enormously influenced us, and indeed have largely standardized modes of writing and speech. A very good example to take is Bunyan, a poor man, a tinker, with no pretension at all to come from what people call the "upper classes," but you cannot find a purer piece of English than Bunyan wrote in his many books, and he had no one to help him, because he wrote most of them while he was in prison.
Our plea is, therefore, that the children's speech should be looked after in the schools, because, after all, every child in an English school is learning English all the time, and if he is not learning good English, he is learning bad English. I think the right view is that the schools must be in warm sympathy with family and local life; they must never dream of despising or denouncing genuine local habits or manners or modes of speech. You must not condemn the native speech of the child as though it was open to rebuke; if you do, you will only drive the child into silence. But at the same time the positive function of the school is, first of all, to use its influence to get rid of and to discourage mere mumbling—slipshod, downtrodden language; and, while respecting the traditions of the part of the country from which the child comes, and certainly holding no shame of it, the schools should, so far as may be, help to equip the child for something which can be used, and will be used, as a standard currency.
I do not at all agree with the noble Lord if he thinks that anybody who goes to an elementary school in this country is a person who talks bad English. Nobody who has been to a school prize-giving could ever think anything of the kind. There are thousands of the poorer children in every part of England who speak good English, and they ought
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to be encouraged to do so. But I do think it is one of the functions of a well-devised system of education to press the appreciation of this magnificent tongue of ours by reading aloud, by recitation of the passages that children are really interested in—and there are plenty of them—by the learning of poetry, which you can do more easily in your early years than you can perhaps when you are older, and by everything that tends to raise the breadth and the purity of the method of communication, without being standardized or formal or moulded according to a very special pattern. Having read, as my noble friend has, this book about the teaching of English, which is a Board of Education publication, and having informed myself for the purposes of this debate about some of the work that is being done, I really have no doubt at all that that is the object which is set before the schools of this country by the Board of Education and, what is very important, by the inspectors of the Board. Many of their reports show it quite clearly.
After all, education in English is for all Englishmen a matter of the most vital concern. Dogberry, you may remember, says somewhere: "To read and write comes by nature." Well, it does not. And, while for my part I would utterly scorn and repudiate a method of instruction which attempts to belittle that which is genuine and traditional and sincere, and of the family and of the tribe, here we have this flexible instrument which is destined to spread yet further over the world, and our people should use it worthily. In many ways the history of England gave English a bad start for international purposes. There was a very long period, of course, when the polite and the learned in this country talked Norman-French. If anybody wishes to see to what depths of absurdity that method ultimately descended he needs only to look at some of the black-letter books of the Law, in which half the words are bad French and the rest of the words English. Then there was a long period when Latin was the language of diplomacy and for international communication. Milton spoke and wrote it as easily as English. It was the diplomatic medium. It was the language, too, in which Sir Robert Walpole, finding that George I could not speak any English, communicated with his Sovereign. English, therefore, has

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had rather a chequered career, but it has come forward in the last centuries, not only because of our great models, such as Shakespeare and the Bible, but because of its intrinsic merits.
There was a very interesting article I read the other day pointing out how the English grammatical forms were able more precisely and flexibly to state what is wanted than any modern language—any language, I should think, except ancient Greek. French was once regarded as the language of diplomacy. I do not think it will survive in that character. You used to hear three-quarters of the speeches at Geneva delivered in French—not always good French—but I do not think that will be so in future. I think our vernacular tongue, spreading over the world, has a priceless opportunity. I wish very much that we could get out of the way of imagining there was something called "commercial English," which consists in saying: "Your esteemed favour of the 6th ult." and so on. That is no use to anybody. But the Board of Education are extremely alive to the importance of this subject, and are dealing with it in the sympathetic way which some noble Lords have referred to. My noble friend has raised a very interesting question, and I thank him—I do not say I am much obliged to him—for his speech.
LORD BRABAZON OF TARA: My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion. I do not apologize to your Lordships for having introduced it, because it was through that that we had the most entertaining speech of the Lord Chancellor.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

CONCESSIONS IN THE COLONIES.
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, I beg to ask the question which stands in my name.
[The question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government what principles govern the grant of concessions in minerals to Europeans and others in Africa, the West Indies and other parts of the Colonial Empire, and whether any principles regarding taxation, royalties, welfare funds and social responsibilities of new enterprises are laid down.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE):My Lords, the grant of mining concessions in the Colonies is regulated by the mining ordinances of those Colonies. In the case of oil-mining a model ordinance was prepared in this country by a Committee of experts some years ago, and all Colonial oil-mining ordinances follow that model 'with such small modifications as are required by the local circumstances. In the case of other minerals the variations between the various ordinances are necessarily wider, but the underlying principles are the same throughout. These are broadly that any person or company who is competent to perform the operations contemplated is eligible to obtain a concession. There are in most cases provisions regulating appropriately the various stages in such an undertaking, that is to say exploration, prospecting and mining. The miner must perform these operations efficiently and must not damage other people's property, unless this is unavoidable, in which case fair compensation must be paid. If he wishes to enter private property he must make proper arrangements with the owners, and he must make good the land, so far as this is possible, before he abandons it. On the other hand, so long as he conducts his operations properly he is given security of tenure for an adequate period.
So far as taxation and royalties are concerned, the general principle is that the Government, when it grants a concession, makes the best arrangements that it can for securing a fair share of the proceeds of the undertaking for the public revenues. In some cases the rate of taxation is laid down by the mining ordinance; in others, where there is no appropriate provision in the ordinance, it is made the subject of a special agreement between the Government and the undertaking. In some cases the taxation takes the form of a royalty, in others that of an export duty or a share of the profits. In nearly all cases a rent is charged for the land leased for mining operations; where the rent is a heavy one, the amounts so paid are sometimes set off against the royalties or export duty otherwise payable. Apart from this special taxation, mining undertakings are subject to the ordinary general taxation of the Colony, import duties, Income Tax, etc., unless a special bargain has been made.

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It is unusual for special arrangements for welfare funds to be made, since it is considered that the Government's receipts from mining undertakings should be freely at the disposal of the Government for the benefit of the community at large; but the Government is in a position to ensure that proper wages are paid to the work-people. So far as social responsibilities are concerned, the general labour legislation of the Colony applies to such undertakings, and in some cases there are special provisions on the subject of mining. There is a Labour Department in all Colonies where there are any substantial mining operations, and it is the duty of the local Governments, through these Departments, to see that the proper labour conditions are Maintained in mining as well as in all other industrial undertakings.

CONSOLIDATION BILLS.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, I beg to move to resolve, That it is desirable that all Consolidation Bills in the present Session be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament. That is the usual Motion which is made in your Lordships' House every Session, and I hope your Lordships will agree to it.
Moved to resolve, That it is desirable that all Consolidation Bills in the present Session be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament.—(The Earl of Onslow).
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Ordered, That a Message be sent to the Commons to communicate this Resolution and to desire their concurrence.

FIELD-MARSHAL SIR ARCHIBALD WAVELL.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I beg to ask the question standing in my name.
[The question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government, whether they will consider the advisability of immediately bringing Field-Marshal Sir Archibald Wavell into close association in this country with the supreme strategical direction of the war.]
LORD SNELL: My Lords, I have been asked to reply. His Majesty's Government are fully cognizant of the high qualifications of Field-Marshal Sir Archibald Wavell who, as Commander-
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in-Chief in India, is already closely associated with the supreme direction of the war in the Far East.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: Arising out of that answer, which I regard as rather unsatisfactory, may I ask my noble friend, in view of the very critical state of the war and the vital necessity of utilizing in its supreme central direction the best brains that the United Nations can produce, if he will be so good as to represent to the Prime Minister the desirability of making use at the centre of direction of the well-known high strategical qualifications of Field-Marshal Sir Archibald Wavell, with his unrivalled knowledge of the strategical problems of the Seven Seas, by appointing him to the War Cabinet, possibly as Minister for Offence? I should like to add that this step would, I am sure, meet with unbounded satisfaction in this country and on the part of the United Nations, and in a proportionate degree with great disfavour by the Axis Powers.
LORD SNELL: I shall see that the noble Lord's remarks are conveyed to the proper quarters.

STANDING ORDERS.
The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House that the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid on the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that the Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with:

Bridgwater Gas,

Cardiff Corporation,

Colne Valley Water,

Grand Union Canal,

Liverpool Hydraulic Power,

Northampton Corporation,

Sunderland Corporation;

The same was ordered to lie on the Table.

ROLL OF THE LORDS.
The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House that the Clerk of the Parliaments had prepared and laid it on the Table.
The same was ordered to be printed.

ADJOURNMENT: STARRED QUESTIONS.
LORD SNELL: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn.
Moved, That the House do now adjourn. (Lord Snell.)
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, on the Motion for the adjournment, I am entitled to raise one point, and I do not propose to do it at any length. I wish to raise the whole question of the procedure in connexion with starred questions. I am aware that debates have taken place on this subject, but unfortunately I was not present. To-day I have had a starred question on the Paper which has kept me in the Chamber the whole afternoon waiting to ask it, whilst there was an important Committee upstairs which I ought to have attended. I cannot see any reason why the procedure in connexion with starred questions should not be the same as in connexion with questions in another place. After all, most of these starred questions only take a minute or two to ask and to answer. If they were to come at the beginning of the proceedings, the time during which starred questions should be asked could be limited to ten minutes or a quarter of an hour at the outside. I also suggest that the number of days before a question is asked should be determined by the Standing
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Committee. I further suggest that in the event of there being no starred questions, the proceedings should open from the very commencement, thus varying the practice, to some extent, from the House of Commons. I wish to urge that there are questions which numbers of your Lordships wish to put and do not wish to go to debate. They should be provided with a reasonable and convenient opportunity of asking these questions, and not have to wait through the whole afternoon for the purpose of asking a question which it takes only a minute to answer.
LORD SNELL: My Lords, the question of giving priority to starred questions over other Notices and Orders of the Day was referred to the Select Committee on Procedure by the House on December 2 last. It is anticipated that the Committee will meet at an early date and then report.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: I am much obliged to the noble Lord for his answer. I cannot expect anything more, but I wish to add my voice to the representations which have already been made.
House adjourned.