Lords Sitting of 13 July 1944

Preamble
The House met, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers.

HERTS & ESSEX WATER BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

ROYAL COMMISSION.
The following Bills received the Royal Assent:

Finance,

Parliamentary Electors (War-Time Registration),

Law Officers,

Ministry of Health Provisional Order Confirmation (North Lindsey Water Board),

Ministry of Health Provisional Order Confirmation (Warrington),

North West Midlands Joint Electricity Authority Provisional Order Confirmation,

London and North Eastern Railway,

London County Council (Money),

Herts and Essex Water.

House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

RURAL WATER SUPPLIES AND SEWERAGE BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Earl of Munster.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The LORD STANMORE in the Chair.]
Clause 1:
Government contributions towards expenses of local authorities for rural water supplies and sewerage.
(3) Where the expenses incurred by the local authority are expenses in respect of liabilities arising from time to time under a lease or hiring agreement or a contract for the supply of water or for sewage disposal, an undertaking under this section may provide for the making of the contribution in the form of sums payable from time to time, within any period not exceeding twenty years from the date of the undertaking.
In this subsection, the expression "contract for the supply of water" includes any undertaking to make, or guarantee of, payments to a person supplying water given under Section one hundred and twenty-three of the Public Health Act, 1936, or under this Act.
(4) The Minister may withhold, or reduce the amount of, a contribution which he has undertaken to make towards the expenses incurred by a local authority in respect of any works or transaction, if it appears to him either—
(a) that any of the works have been executed in an unsatisfactory manner; or
VISCOUNT ELIBANK VISCOUNT ELIBANK moved, in subsection (3), to substitute "thirty years" for "twenty years." The noble Viscount said: On behalf of my noble friend the Duke of Buccleuch, who, unfortunately, is not able to be here to-day, I have agreed to move the Amendments standing in his name. The first Amendment to leave out "twenty" and insert "thirty" in subsection (3) of Clause 1. If I read the subsection that will explain what my noble friend has in view. The subsection says:
"Where the expenses incurred by the local authority are expenses in respect of liabilities arising from time to time under a lease or hiring agreement or a contract for the supply of water or for sewage disposal, an undertaking under this section may provide for the making of the contribution in the form of sums payable from time to time, within any period not exceeding twenty years from the date of the undertaking."
This Amendment, therefore, would extend to thirty years the time during which the sums would be repayable. The matter has been brought up because the extension of time is urged by the Association of County Councils in Scotland. There are many areas in Scotland which are very sparsely populated and great distances separate populated places. The

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result is that the ratepayers are often called upon to pay very heavy rates for comparatively small benefits. If the period of twenty years is changed to thirty years it would make matters very much easier for the districts which I describe, and that would apply, to a certain extent, in other cases as well.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 10, leave out ("twenty") and insert ("thirty").—(Viscount Elibank.)
LORD SALTOUN: I should like to say a few words in support of this Amendment. In the first place I would remind your Lordships that Scotland is a very much poorer country than England. When we ask for a little more time to pay we are therefore not asking for anything that is unreasonable. We make the request partly because of impoverishment due to the war and partly because of travel difficulties. Those difficulties make it extremely difficult for Scottish Peers to fulfil their statutory duties in your Lordships' House, and for that reason when we make an appeal which is backed up by that extremely live and efficient body the Association of County Councils in Scotland, it is perfectly reasonable to ask the Government to take special note of our position and to endeavour to meet us, if not at this stage of the Bill perhaps at a later stage. Possibly they will at least take it into consideration so far as it affects Scotland.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA AND BURMA (THE EARL OF MUNSTER): It is quite true, as mentioned by the noble Viscount, Lord Elibank, that the period of repayment of money borrowed by a local authority for the purpose of carrying out capital works for water or sewerage may be spread over a period of thirty years. But I hope my noble friend will forgive me if I tell him that the argument which he employed is misconceived here. Cases where a loan sanction is involved under this Bill will be dealt with, not under subsection (3), but under subsection (2) which provides for lump sum payments. A grant in the form of a lump sum in such cases instead of annual payments is really, I venture to think, to the advantage of the local authority for it obviously gives them the power to borrow
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money at a less rate than would otherwise be required. The third subsection, which follows identically the 1934 Act, with the exception of the inclusion of the words "sewage disposal," is intended primarily for cases of the type to which Clause 5 of this Bill refers. In such a case there will be no capital payments, no capital burden on the local authorities but a liability to guarantee an annual payment to the water undertakers. It was thought right in 1934 to legislate for the possibility in such cases of spreading an Exchequer grant over a period of years, but the benefit should obviously be concentrated on the earlier years when the burden in the particular area may be heavier than would normally be expected in the future years.
Under the Act of 1934 there was, in fact, so far as my information goes, only one case of spreading in England and Wales over a period. All other guaranteed cases were dealt by a lump sum payment to the satisfaction of the local authorities. If in cases coming under this subsection (3) the local authority wishes to spread the benefit over more years there is nothing to hinder a local authority from taking a lump sum or, say, a seven years' payment and forming their own fund for spreading the benefit more evenly over a larger number of years. The whole system is based on a temporary grant scheme. There is no intention and never has been of continuing grants towards these services. The noble Viscount will remember that the Exchequer undertakes to find a sum of over £21,000,000 and my right honourable friend does not think that you can have bits and pieces of this grant hanging about indefinitely to be paid perhaps long after the circumstances have changed, so much so that if starting de novo no grant would then be justified. As I have pointed out, the authority can take the grant under subsection (3) and spread it over a period of years by forming a fund for its own purpose. The clause is, I know, complicated, but this subsection (3) does relate to cases of the type referred to in Clause 5 of the Bill, and does not deal with the matter to which the Amendment is directed.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: Am I to understand from what my noble friend says that it is at the discretion of the local authority whether a lump sum is taken

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or a payment spread over a number of years? I understand that if it is a payment it must be spread over twenty years, but it taken in the form of a lump sum the remainder can be spread over thirty years if that is desired.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: I think that that is correct, as long as it is clear that the grant in aid which will be received from my right honourable friend will be paid, I do not say in a lump sum but in the course of the period during which the work is being done.
LORD SALTOUN: If I understand my noble friend aright, the Government contribution is over twenty years and the local authority can apply it over thirty years. It is a question of amortization. Is that so?
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: I think that that is not really correct. Subsection (3) deals primarily with cases where statutory water undertakers accept guarantees from local authorities. There is a limit of twenty years. It is exactly the same clause as that which appears in the Rural Water Supplies Act of 1934, in which twenty years is the limit. There are two different points; one is the Government grant, and the other the agreement which local authorities can make with statutory water undertakers.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: In view of the explanation given by my noble friend, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH moved to add to subsection (4):
"or (d) that the new water supply has been, or will Is, taken from underground sources."
The noble Earl said: The Committee will remember that in the previous debates, not only on the Second Reading of this Bill but on rural water supplies generally, considerable anxiety was expressed about the danger of continuous over-abstraction of underground supplies. This Amendment is designed not in any way to tie the Minister's hand but, on the contrary, to make it possible for him with greater ease to withhold a grant or to scale his grant in favour of new water undertakings which will take their water from riverine sources or from impounded headwaters, rather than from underground sources,
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where there is the slightest question of abstraction from underground sources being a danger to the whole ecology of the countryside.
The situation is very serious in some counties. I have had the assistance of the good offices of the various technical officers of my own war agricultural committee in Hampshire in reporting what is taking place throughout the county, and I should like to give the Committee the general picture as it has been reported to our own war agricultural committee. All districts in our county report that the local water shortage is extremely serious. That may, of course, be largely due to the drought; but there is, for instance, on the food production side the fact that one district reports that very extensive watercress beds are now drying up and being ruined, and there is a subnote "acres of desolation." In many parts of the county there is a serious risk that milk production will have to be given up completely because of the failure of ordinary water supplies. In many villages the wells are drying up, as are also farm bores and wells.
I am aware that in many cases this is due merely to drought, but in other cases, where the well-levels come into sub-strata of water-bearing levels which would normally be flowing naturally, these hays been dried up by tremendously increased underground abstraction. Three public water supplies, upon which the supply of three small towns and some large villages depends, as well as farmland, note drops in their deep bores of 140 feet to 119 feet, 15 feet 6 inches to 11 feet 6 inches, and 253 feet to 239 feet, in recent years. There is a very grave danger not only that these bores may ultimately cease to run but that in the meantime, through drying up, they may cave in, and the districts may be left completely waterless. There are other instances which have been given to me privately. One bore, 400 feet deep, has normally been able to pump 4,000 gallons an hour for 36 hours without the slightest change of level in the water supply in the bore. From 1939 it has dropped no less than 20 feet, and in the last few months no less than 6 feet. In 1921 and in the very bad drought years in the 'thirties there was no noticeable change of level, and none occurred until the enormous new abstraction for military and other purposes took place in Hampshire

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quite recently. Only last Monday I had, as a member of the war agricultural committee, to visit a farmer to try to persuade him to keep up his milk supply. The farmer produced the unanswerable argument that in 1939 he had spent £1,000, with the best engineering advice obtainable, in putting in a deep bore which gave him 7,000 gallons at any time he wished to pump it; to-day that has been completely dried out, and again there is no possibility of milk supply from that particular farm.
In these circumstances I think it is of the utmost importance that the Minister should have a discriminatory, power in dealing with grants for water supply, because there will always be the temptation in local authorities to ask for the extension of their existing water supplies, which is exactly what happens at the moment, and if these existing water supplies are extended, with bores from underground sources, then the danger will become very grave and extremely acute. I know we are promised, through the White Paper, that experts are accumulating advice and will be ready to give it, but the temptation will be to give the water supply now and get the advice later. This Amendment will enable the Minister to give grants on a more long-sighted basis whereby you can extract water from the river and purify it rather than extract water from underground sources if there appears to be the slightest danger. Because, though 20,000,000 gallons a day, for instance, for a fairly large catchment area may not appear to be a very large quantity, a river will produce, even in drought times, 300,000,000 gallons a day flow, while from underground sources there is continual abstraction of water from emptying reservoirs without refilling. The water taken from the river does no harm to anybody. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 28, after ("transaction") insert ("or (d) that the new water supply has been, or will be, taken from underground sources").—(Lord Portsmouth.)
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: I had a suspicion that the noble Earl was basing his arguments upon the conservation of underground water sources generally. If that is so, as I think it is, let me say at once that this Bill does not deal with that
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matter at all, but the next Bill—the big Bill which is promised—will be dealing with that particular question and the noble Earl's arguments will undoubtedly be very relevant then. But as he has moved this Amendment and explained that it is intended to enable the Minister to withhold or reduce the amount of his grant-in-aid contribution to the local authority who intended to provide or improve a water supply, or even augment their existing sources of supply, by abstracting additional quantities of water from existing underground sources, let me try to give my noble friend an indication of what would happen if this Amendment were accepted.
I have been told that, as the law stands at present, public water undertakings are already subject to control in the abstraction and use of underground water for public supplies. No water undertaker who operates under the Public Health Act can construct any works for taking or intercepting water without the approval of the Minister, and indeed no water undertaker operating under a special Act can abstract water from a source which has not been authorized by Parliament, or extract water in excess of the quantity which has been authorized by that special Act, which, of course, has been through Parliament. It is easy to see that the Amendment would only confer upon the Minister a discretionary power which he or Parliament can already exercise far more effectively by a complete and absolute veto, if the case should warrant it.
Let me make this one other point, which I think the noble Earl has perhaps forgotten. The scheme which is made by the local authority would be put to my right honourable friend. He would consider it, and take into account all the relevant facts. If the scheme will not work because the underground water supply will run out then the local authority will have to think again. My tight honourable friend will have the advantage, when these plans are put to him, of appreciating very early what other places are supplied with water from the particular sources which that local authority might intend to use. He would then be in the position to say: "You shall not have the grant, because you are threatening your next door neighbour's water."

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Or, alternatively, he can say to them: "You are threatening your neighbour's water, you must go back and consider this scheme again." The scheme which has been put to him will then return to the local authority who will consider the facts again. I hope the noble Earl will not press this Amendment. As I say, I suspected that it really applied to the conservation of water resources generally. That will come up in the next Bill, and personally I think "sufficient unto the day," and I suggest that the noble Earl should withdraw his Amendment and discuss this particular point when the bigger Bill is presented to your Lordships' House.
THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: In view of what the noble Earl has said, I will withdraw the Amendment, having regard to the wider opportunity that will offer later, but I should like to say that nothing in the working of existing supplies affects the fact that it is practicable to undertake extra abstraction, and once undertakings have got their bore down they can pump twenty-four hours a day without anybody interfering.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3:
Extension of duties of local authorities and joint boards as to water supply.
3.—(1) Every local authority shall provide a supply wholesome water in pipes to every rural locality in their district in which there are houses or schools, and shall take the pipes affording that supply to such point or points as will enable the houses or schools to be connected thereto at a reasonable cost:
Provided that—

(a) this subsection shall not require a local authority to do anything which is not practicable at a reasonable cost; and

(b) if any question arises under this subsection as to whether anything is or is not practicable at a reasonable cost or as to the point or points to which pipes must be carried in order to enable houses or schools to be connected to them at a reasonable cost, the Minister, if requested so to do by the council of the county or by ten or more local government electors in the district of the local authority, shall, after consulting the local authority, and, where the request was made by local government electors, after consulting also the council of the county, if any, determine that question and the local authority shall give effect to his determination.

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD moved, in subsection (1), after "Every local authority shall provide," to insert "as soon as practicable." The noble Viscount said: This is a very simple Amendment, dealing with a point I raised on the Second Reading. This clause says that it is the duty of the local authority to provide a piped water supply in their district, and the second part of it says that the water supply must be brought in pipes to such a position as will enable the consumers to get it conveniently for their purposes. The clause goes on to say that if there is any question as to whether the local authority are doing their duty under those two provisions, that is to say if they are providing a piped water supply and if they are bringing it to a proper position with regard to the consumers, the question may be decided under the machinery proposed by the Minister of Health. I have nothing to say against that; I approve of it. But there does seem to me to be a gap. I may be wrong; but I should be very glad if my noble friend can explain to me why I am wrong.
This clause provides for certain duties to be done and certain penalties to be incurred if those duties are not done. It contains no provision saying when those duties are to be done. Therefore if an obstructive local authority, or, more probably, an obstructive minority of the authority, do not want to do anything at all they can always say, "Oh, we are going to do it. Don't fuss about it, we shall do it all right in time. We do not refuse at all, but we are not bound to do it under the Act within any lime at all. There is nothing about time in the Act, no suggestion that it has to be done as quickly as it can be done. Therefore we are not in default, and the Minister of Health can do nothing." It seems to me that there is a possible danger—I shall not put it higher—of that happening. I agree very much with what fell from my noble friend Lord Portsmouth as to the urgent need for water in many districts. To put it off for a year or five years or ten years would be a real disaster. All I want to make quite clear on the face of the Act is that if there is any unreasonable delay—delay for which there are no sound reasons—the Minister of Health can say to the local authority that they must go on and do their duty under the Act. That is the whole purpose of my Amendment, and I hope it will not seem

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to be of a, revolutionary character to my noble friend Lord Munster. I hope he will be able to accept it or, at any rate, effectively explain why it cannot be accepted.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 39, after ("provide") insert ("as soon as practicable").—(Viscount Cecil of Chelwood.)
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My noble friend has explained to your Lordships that he is somewhat concerned with the delay which might result from a dilatory or idle local authority who did not bring the water to the neighbourhood as mentioned in Clause 3. If a local authority failed to carry out the obligations imposed upon them by this Bill, there are a number of remedies open to my right honourable friend which he can apply at any time. With your Lordships' permission I might explain what these remedies are. If a question arises as to whether anything is or is not practicable at a reasonable cost under subsection (1) (b) of Clause 3, any ten local government electors can request the Minister to decide the point. If the Minister decides that it is practicable for the local authority to carry out the work at a reasonable cost, then he can give a direction to the local authority under paragraph (b) to perform the work. It is quite obvious that such a direction given by the Minister would be followed up by the Department. Secondly, there is this. Irrespective of any power to determine the question under Clause 3, the Minister has additional powers under Section 322 and the following section as well as other sections of the Public Health Act, 1936, by which he can make and enforce an order declaring the local authority to be in default in carrying out its duties. Its duties will of course include those particularly mentioned in the first subsection of this clause. If the local authority fails to carry out the work specified in the order within the time allowed by the Minister—
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: Can the Minister allow a time?
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: Yes, the Minister can certainly allow a time. He can not only make an order, but can direct that within a period of time the work shall be done. If the order is not carried out, then the Minister can ask the
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county council to do the work or he can do it himself through a contractor, and the expenses incurred in carrying out the work will be charged against the local authority which is in default. I know that my noble friend is nervous that if Clause 3 stands by itself it might be possible for a local authority to defer the question by repeating a promise to do the work or saying, "We shall be better able to do it next year than this year." But Clause 3 does not stand alone. It is a statement of duties which the Minister has before him when he considers any action he can take under Section 322 of the Public Health Act, 1936. There are additional powers which the Minister has under that Act without Clause 3 of this Bill being taken into account. I am told that my right honourable friend can act on the complaint of even one person without having received a complaint from any of the inhabitants at all. He may have an adverse report from one of his own inspectors who has been down and made a survey of the area, and he can act on that. With that guarantee which I have given to my noble friend he will sec—and we are all at one in this—that my right honourable friend does not intend to allow any dilatory methods to be employed by local authorities. I feel quite certain that the powers conferred by this Bill and by the Act of 1936 are quite sufficient to abolish any fears my noble friend may have in his mind.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: I cannot pretend to keep in my mind, even if I ever had them there, the provisions of the Act of 1936 or the Act of 1875, or the many other Acts which deal with this question. The Lord Chancellor no doubt has them absolutely at call, but I have not got that comprehensive memory which he has. Therefore I must take my noble friend's assertion that this Amendment is not necessary because the point is already covered by previous legislation. All the same I hope that before the Bill is finally passed the Government will consider whether it would not be a convenient thing to put it in this Bill, which the local authorities will normally consult, that they have got to do these things and to do them in a reasonable time. If that were put before them it would make the Bill a simpler and more workable measure instead of saying you have got to do these things, and as to the time in which they must be done, you must look back to the

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Act of 1936 and consult this clause and that clause. I was very glad to hear that the Minister can fix a time. That is entirely new to me, and I am much obliged to my noble friend. I did not know the Minister had that power. I hope my noble friend will consider very carefully whether, as a mere matter of practical convenience, it would not be as well to put my words into the Bill. They could not possibly do any harm. The worst that could be said about them would be that they were repeating what was already the law. We all know how urgently these questions come before the local people, and how very hot everybody gets over the question whether there should or should not be a water supply. It my noble friend tells me that there is nothing more that need be done I must submit, lout I hope he will consider the matter carefully.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: I am only too glad to give my noble friend that assurance. I shall certainly convey his remarks to my right honourable friend the Minister of Health.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK VISCOUNT ELIBANK moved, in paragraph (b) of subsection (1), to leave out "ten" and insert "twenty-five." The noble Viscount said: Again on behalf of my noble friend the Duke of. Buccleuch, I wish to move this Amendment. This refers to Clause 3 (1) (b). Again, if I read out the short paragraph, it will convey to your Lordships much more clearly what I have in view than if I attempted to explain it:
"(b) is any question arises under this subsection as to whether anything is or is not practicable at a reasonable cost or as to the point or points to which pipes must be carried in order to enable houses or schools to be connected to them at a reasonable cost, the Minister, if requested so to do by the council of the county or by ten or more local government electors in the district of the local authority shall, after consulting the local authority, and, where the request was made by local government electors, after consulting also the council of the county, if any, determine that question and the local authority shall give effect to his determination."
I am again speaking on behalf of the County councils Association of Scotland. They feel that ten is too small a number, and that: ten people may raise perhaps trivial questions of little substance and put the local authority to trouble and expense for something which is not of
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real importance. It is suggested, and I am moving, that the minimum number who should be empowered to make these representations ought to be twenty-five and not ten. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 6, leave out ("ten") and insert ("twenty-five").—(Viscount Elibank.)
LORD SALTOUN: In supporting my noble friend in this Amendment I should like to say that so far as my own country is concerned we are contentious folk and if there is a real grievance I cannot imagine any district where you could not get twenty-five ratepayers to support it. I think ten is too few. The noble Earl, in rejecting the last Amendment, pointed out that the Minister could move upon representation made to him by a single individual, and if the noble Earl is going to reject this Amendment I shall be very interested to hear the terms he will choose for the rejection of it. I will put forward only one other argument in favour of this Amendment and that is that by raising the number from ten to twenty-five ratepayers you are probably going to cut down by at least half the work of the Ministry concerned with this particular question.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: The effect of this Amendment and the next Amendment which stands in the name of my noble friend is to raise the number of persons from ten local government electors to twenty-five ratepayers who may request the Minister to determine the question whether the work is practicable at a reasonable cost.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: May I intervene for a moment? I have not argued the next Amendment yet. The noble Earl is going beyond the Amendment that I have moved.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: I can assure my noble friend I am not. The noble Viscount told your Lordships that this Amendment had been put down at the instance of the Scottish County Councils Association and that their reason for it was that they thought ten local government electors might raise frivolous complaints and that twenty-five ratepayers would be less likely to raise such frivolous complaints. Let us for a moment make a mathematical calculation. Take two adults to a house.

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Then one ratepayer would take the place of two local government electors and twenty-five ratepayers would be the equivalent of about fifty electors—that is to say, five times the number that is specifically provided for in paragraph (b) of this clause. This Amendment would make it far more difficult for the local inhabitants to raise any questions at all; in fact I am told that in some hamlets of Scotland it would be extremely difficult even to muster twenty-five ratepayers. Therefore the Amendment which my noble friend has moved would tend to defeat the whole intention of the clause and I maintain that that is wrong. I think the clause as it stands is quite reasonable. It does seem to me—though I do not like to think it is correct—that the Scottish County Councils Association in their capacity as water undertakers are deliberately trying to limit the right of appeal to the Secretary of State to determine questions that would come up under Clause 3 of the Bill. I do not think my noble friend need worry because it is specifically laid down in the Bill that the Secretary of State must hear the county council's side and I do not really think the county councils in Scotland have very much of which to be afraid.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: With great respect I must take exception to the statement of my noble friend that the county councils of Scotland are deliberately trying to reduce the number of complaints that might come up. That is entirely inaccurate. I might even use a stronger term. Their whole intention is to try and get a workable Bill just as the Government are attempting to get a workable Bill. But I do not feel sufficiently strongly on this point to press my Amendment. As to the next Amendment, I do feel a little more strongly about it and when I move it I hope I shall receive a more satisfactory reply than has been given to this Amendment. I beg to withdraw.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK VISCOUNT ELIBANK moved, in paragraph (b) of subsection (1), to leave out "local government electors" and insert "ratepayers." The noble Viscount said: This is an Amendment to the same clause, and I am moving that instead of the words "tea or more local government electors"
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the word "ratepayers" should be substituted. Here again the Association of Scottish County Councils feel that this is a matter which particularly concerns the ratepayers and not the local government electors.
NOBLE LORDS: No, no.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: I am speaking from the Scottish point of view, not from the English one. The county councils also feel that they have to consider the question that has been raised quite recently in the Speaker's Conference where a proposal has been put forward that in future burgh and county councillors should be elected by all citizens entitled to vote for Members of Parliament and not as heretofore by ratepayers. This seems to be the thin end of the wedge, and if that proposal at the Speaker's Conference were to be carried in the future it would apply very definitely to this clause. I think everything ought to be done to avoid bringing politics into local arrangements, and that those who have to pay the rates should continue to be represented not only in this matter but in all matters in which their particular interests are involved. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 7, leave out ("local government electors") and insert ("ratepayers").—(Viscount Elibank.)
LORD SALTOUN: I only want to say one word in support of the noble Viscount. If as we understand the Minister can act on a letter from any individual concerned, then automatically he will take care to look after places with very small populations that might be unable to muster twenty-five ratepayers, the number that we ask for in this Amendment. There can be very few such places in Scotland. Moreover, what is in my mind is that it any public Department is overloaded with work the work is done worse than otherwise it would be. We are quite cantankerous people in Scotland and I am not in the least sorry that we are, for thus it is quite easy to muster the required number of people on any matter about which they feel concern. I do think that the noble Viscount's Amendment is a desirable one.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: This Amendment is one which I think my noble friend is quite aware I cannot possibly accept. It would have precisely the

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same effect that the previous Amendment was intended to have. Instead of ten local government electors he proposes to have ten ratepayers. In small areas, whereas it would be easy to find ten electors, it might be difficult to find ten ratepayers. Let me remind my noble friend of something else. The housewife is, I understand, normally an elector but not a ratepayer, so that she would be in point of fact cut out from making her plea to the Minister although she would be more concerned than her husband in a piped water supply. Honestly I think my noble friend should withdraw the Amendment. If anything it is worse than the previous one.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: I am sorry that my noble friend has such a poor opinion of these two Amendments. They are Amendments which have been very carefully considered by quite intelligent people in Scotland and therefore I think he might have treated them with a little more seriousness and consideration. However, I do not think they are Amendments that I can press and therefore I ask leave to withdraw.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clauses 4 and 5 agreed to.
Clause 6:
Sewerage, sewage disposal and water supply expenses to be general expenses.
6. Notwithstanding anything in Section three hundred and eight of the Public Health Act, 1936, all expenses incurred (whether before or after the passing of this Act) by a rural district council in connexion with sewers or sewage disposal works or a supply of water shall, in so far as they fall to be defrayed out of rates made in respect of periods beginning after the end of March, nineteen hundred and forty-five, be general expenses.
THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH moved to leave out "with sewers or sewerage disposal works or." The noble Earl said: This Amendment is designed to exclude from a general rate sewers or sewage disposal works. I am aware that my noble friend, in reply to my remarks on the Second Reading of the Bill, gave a most persuasive and well-informed answer which would normally put me out of court completely, but I am still unrepentant on the duper issues which are involved. Water-borne sewage and sewage disposal works, where there is difficulty in connecting with the mains outlying farms
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and cottages, are not only expensive but also wasteful both of water and good fertilizer, and the system is very often extremely unhygienic, as I have explained before.
There are three very serious objections. The two Amendments which have just been withdrawn by the noble Viscount have gone to point the moral which I wish to draw. Unfortunately, the householders in this country are by no means all ratepayers and I doubt very much if we shall ever get a reasonable, far-sighted democracy until they are ratepayers responsible for what they are asking for. The vast majority of rural householders and local voters are not ratepayers. In the second place, rural district councils—I say it not in any disparagement—are largely composed of men who have retired from various services or from work in the city and want to give some public service. They very rarely understand the full implications of rural life and the difficulties and expenses of people who live there. Those councils have as officers men who are imbued with urban minds, who have received an urban education and whose whole desire, very often, is to be able to prove that they have produced the largest and most expensive scheme possible in the poorest and most desolate area. On the other hand, a great many rural districts have a substantial semi-urban majority with a sewerage scheme which they would like to extend.
Finally, the majority are ignorant of the fact that rural building is always more expensive. Because of the difficulty of siting and the cost of taking the materials to the works the builder's estimate is always higher, and an addition to the cost on account of water supply and electricity supply will fall very heavily on a rural housing scheme. If on top of all this you have a new rural sewerage system and sewage disposal work, where possibly half the inhabitants will get no benefit, the additional capital cost of a housing scheme may make a difference of 10s. a week in rent and add 2S. in rates. That will be extremely onerous. I say quite frankly that I do not expect that the noble Earl will accept my Amendment. I would be quite content if I could have some assurance that where houses and cottages cannot be connected to sewerage schemes their rating will be on an entirely different scale. I think the same differen-

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tiation should apply in the case of water. If an owner-occupier or a cottage owner has to provide expensive disposal works himself, it is only fair that he should be rated accordingly on a lower scale compared with those who have the benefit of being connected with sewage disposal works.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 45, leave out ("with sewers or sewerage disposal works or")—(The Earl of Portsmouth.)
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: I am afraid it will not be possible for me to accept this Amendment. At the same time I would say that I am not at all certain that I do not observe an ultimate object behind the Amendment which the noble Earl has moved—namely, an endeavour to discourage the provision of public sewers altogether in rural districts. I told him on Second Reading that the provision of new houses in a parish by a local authority is a district charge and not a parish charge. If that is right, (and I maintain and I think all your Lordships will agree that it is correct), there is, as far as I can see, no good ground for different treatment in the case of services which are often less parochial than the provision of houses. If, as I fear, his object is to hinder the process of spreading sewerage expenses over a rural district as a whole, I think it really will not work. Since 1929 rural district councils have been free to do the spreading themselves and a very large number in fact have already done so. They have done it with the encouragement of the Rural District Councils Association and of my right honourable friend. All that this clause does is to turn into an obligation what is in fact a growing practice of the more enlightenend rural district councils.
I cannot help thinking that public opinion calls for a piped water supply wherever possible and when the piped water supply has been installed a water carriage system of sanitation would normally go with it. What I feel is needed in the provision of sewerage facilities is that in a particular area the matter should be gone into on the facts of the particular case with due regard to economy. As to the rating of cottages, obviously I cannot give an answer to my noble friend to-day. I will certainly convey his remarks to my right honourable friend, but
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I cannot say that he will be able to accept the suggestion. I know how keenly the noble Earl feels on this matter, but I hope that in view of what I have said he will see his way to withdraw his Amendment.
THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: In view of my noble friend's agreeing to bring the point about lower rating assessment before the authorities, I would wish to withdraw my Amendment. But I would like to say that I have already seen the general rate spread for water sewerage causing considerable injustice and extreme inconvenience to a good many people. But what I am most concerned about is to have built the requisite houses suitable for our own country people in the quickest possible time. I want to see houses of the best possible type put up, and I want nothing to hinder their erection and use, neither enormous capital outlay nor subsequent heavy expenditure for upkeep. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
Schedule agreed to.
Bill reported without amendment.

STALAG LUFT III.
LORD VANSITTART LORD VANSITTART had given Notice that he would call attention to the massacre of fifty officers at Stalag Luft III, and propose measures which will both ensure retribution and provide a safeguard against further atrocities. The noble Lord said: My Lords, so much water has flowed under the bridges that it may possibly have been forgotten that on May 25 I made a speech in this House in which I described the killing of these fifty air officers as cold-blooded butchery. I added that this would be followed by a lying report from the German Government, and that I would decline in advance to accept one single word of it. That was a statement which brought me several reproaches from various Germanophiles. But that was exactly the position we were led to on June 23 when exactly that point of view was adopted. It was perfectly correct that it was unnecessary to wait for the German report. The modern German really is a little like the new terror weapon, the pilotless bomb—

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you can usually tell pretty well which way he is going. Indeed I think that this newest engine of destruction is in many respects a replica of the modern German soul.
This report has been received and the Secretary of State on June 23 made a statement in the House of Commons of which I fully approve. He stated that the culprits would be punished. Well and good. Of course we expected no less. But how? There is the rub. It is a very difficult question to answer and I do not think it can be answered at all unless your Lordships are prepared to adopt some such proposals as those which I will propound to you to-day. It has been sail that the punishment will take place, but before you consider the answer to the question I put I would ask you to remember for a minute what happened after the end of the last war. The first German world war was hardly over when the new German Republic, the German people, made it very manifest, with a unanimity which was frequently proclaimed at the time and never challenged, that they were not going to allow the war criminals to be punished. At first sight you might have thought this attitude rather strange when applied to the case of a man like General Stenger, who had butchered not fifty but literally thousands of prisoners in cold blood. And it may well be that the General was no worse than his colleagues General von Billow and General von der Goltz, whose barbarous proclamations are still available for anyone who wants to read them. And you might have thought it strange that the German people, including the German women, should have been so anxious to protect those German submarine commanders who had butchered women and children as well in lifeboats. If anyone was surprised at that he little knew the heart of Germany. You might as well expect to find a shilling under a stone as expect justice from a German. As we have learnt from experience the German heart is a stone.
So it was that far from being executed these war criminals were turned into something like national heroes. They were adulated and be-laurelled. I for one will never forget the flowers that were strewn in the path of that bullet-headed old reactionary Marshal von Hindenberg when he made it clear to the people of
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Germany at the time of the last German Republic that he was going to interfere with the course of justice. I think the sin on our part was that we asked for such a short list of criminals in the last war. There were hundreds and thousands of Germans who deserved to be punished for their crimes, but we whittled away the list until we had got it down to a score or so, and even that score we did not get. I beg your Lordships to remember that, because this time we shall be asking for scores of thousands not scores. By that you may measure the magnitude of our task.
Out of that there arises another fact which has a very distinct bearing on our problem. The first act of the united people, of the German Republic, was to cast the mantle of their protection over the very worst specimens of the old régime of which they had professed themselves so anxious to be rid. By that again you may measure the value of the alleged German change of heart. That is a problem which we have to consider very closely now. We, at this time, are naturally determined not to be cheated again. But we are most certainly going to be cheated, and justice will be cheated unless we begin to think ahead, and I propose that we should begin to think ahead to-day. The German people will in all probability deal rather roughly with some of the men who have been cruel to them at home. But for those who have been cruel to their neighbours abroad they will have nothing but the old admiration which was manifested after the last war. Unless we are very careful the real culprits will again be covered by national connivance.
We are told that this crime has been committed by the Gestapo. It is quite true that it was. They are the immediate culprits but behind them remain the ultimate culprits who are an even more pernicious body of men. I will therefore begin by dealing with the immediate culprits and take the ultimate ones last. I think it will not be disputed that practically every member of the Gestapo is a guilty man, that his life is forfeit an hundredfold. I have pointed out in previous speeches in this House—twice in successive years—that we are going to have even less chance of getting a reformed Germany and an habitable Europe if we leave in existence an even

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greater number of thugs, hooligans and sadists than after the last war. It must further be remembered that every member of this force has gone into it of his own free will; there has been no compulsion. According to German standards it is a corps d'élite The first thing that I ask to-day, therefore, is that His Majesty's Government should approach the Allied Governments and ask them to agree to the entire Gestapo being put on the proscribed list; in other words, to agree to bring to trial every member of it on whom we can lay hands. I venture to think that His Majesty's Government will find very little difficulty in obtaining the assent of the Allies, who have suffered so much from these people.
Even so, we shall not be able to lay hands on very many unless we are prepared to adopt the further methods which I will now describe. Secondly, therefore, by "unconditional surrender" I understand what I think that every plain man understands, and that is that when the Germans have had enough of being beaten they will surrender, and they will be told the terms afterwards and not beforehand. However, there will be no disadvantage whatever, and in fact very considerable advantage, in making known, on an occasion like this, something of what we shall require, and of what we must require if we are to have retribution visited on the right people, and an orderly Europe. We must let it be known to the German Generals that there will be no cessation of hostilities until they have handed over, or are ready to hand over, a substantial portion of the Gestapo as an instalment.
What do I mean by "an instalment"? I will explain that. I calculate that in France, for example, about 30,000 members of the Gestapo have probably been employed. The same will hold good for Poland and for the parts of Russia which were once occupied. There are, of course, many other overrun countries which are smaller in size, and have therefore required fewer of these atrocious people. If we are to take an overall figure, and include in it the Gestapo employed in Germany, it would be unsafe to calculate on the basis of a smaller figure than about 200,000. The demand which I put forward to-day is essentially a moderate one. I would ask, as a condition of the cessation of hostilities, that one-quarter of
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that number should be handed over—not to us but to the Allies corporately. Since we have not been invaded we shall be concerned only with a small portion of these people, but included in that comprehensive instalment would certainly be all those responsible for the crimes committed against our men. This is what I think should be done with that instalment; they should be put in prison camps until the Allies have had time to decide which of them will be executed and which deported to some place such as Devil's Island or some South Sea atoll. The one thing which is absolutely essential is that none of them should ever set foot in Europe again. I think everybody who means business will agree with that.
I have accounted for a quarter of them. We shall have to look after the other three-quarters. We must get rid of as many of them as possible if we are sincere in looking forward to a settled Europe, and therefore, thirdly, I propose that the Allied Governments should declare the Gestapo to be outlawed—in their own language, Vogelfrei, fair game for anyone. If you will do these things you will find that you will get a large crop of denunciations and identifications, which you will never otherwise obtain, and not only in occupied territories but from Germany itself. If you do not show now that you mean business you cannot expect denunciations and identifications from anyone, when he will have reason to believe that the vast bulk of the satanic colleagues of these people are left at liberty.
You can go further with this process of sanitation, denunciation and identification by the fourth measure which I propose, and that is that you should declare, either to-day or as soon as you possibly can, that as soon as we get into Germany we are going to set up inter-Allied military tribunals all over the country, which will deal with the Gestapo and kindred bodies by summary procedure. If you do not do these things or their equivalent, I predict that you will not get one per cent. of the real culprits. In that case all the brave words of His Majesty's Government will once again become as tinkling brass and sounding cymbals, and we shall be "had" again as we were after the last war. Moreover, all prospects of European security will be frustrated at birth; and anybody who is prepared to contemplate that possibility is himself a war criminal.
I now come to the ultimate culprits, and here I make my fifth proposal. The German General Staff are in this up to the neck. I think your Lordships will remember that ever since I have been a member of this House I have been a persistent critic of our broadcasting to Germany; but on June 24, the day after the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs spoke, there were two excellent broadcasts to Germany, in which we said that the General Staff were guilty, and we added, to my great satisfaction, that we were going to punish not only the guilty officers but the guilty men. That is excellent, but it is not specific enough. Experience has taught us that in dealing with Germans it is not the least good threatening generally or vaguely; you have to he specific, and you have to give it a name. I am going to give it a name. I propose that to-day we should declare our intention of bringing to trial every member of the German General Staff who at the time of the crime had any connexion whatever with prisoners-of-war matters. I do not think that anyone can challenge the justice of that demand.
I want to go one step further, and to say that we must also engage to bring to trial all those who held positions of military importance and responsibility in the Wehrkreis district at the time of the commission of the crime and, as I said on May 25, that will also include the head of Stalag Luft III and his assistants. All these are guilty men; they have all been conniving with the Gestapo. Never at any period in this war has it been possible for the Gestapo to take action of this sort without the authorization and connivance of the General Staff and the Army generally. I should like to say here with what great satisfaction I hailed the excellent speech made on July 6 by the Minister of Information. On that ocasion he was dealing with the wholesale massacre of Jews from Hungary in the suffocation camp of Auschwitz, and he then said that the General Staff were deeply involved in this. He was quite right; they are the real culprits for everything that has happened to afflict humanity for generations past. Mr. Brendan Bracken indicated that they will all be brought to trial, and I hope that he will insist on that.
He also said something further which I am sure will be highly unwelcome to the
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right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Chichester, when he said that the German nation is responsible also for what is happening. Dead right too!
If your Lordships will bear with me a little longer I think you should listen patiently to what I say to-day because you owe the ensemble of these measures not only to the Europe of the future but to all prisoners of war of any nationality still in German hands. If you will take the advice, the urgent advice, that I press upon you to-day you will find two things happen. You will find that because the Gestapo know well enough that the game is nearly up and that the doom of the Third Reich has struck—and incidentally I hope that we shall also strike out of the German vocabulary the word "Reich": the word "State" is good enough for the future—because they know the game is up and know also what is coming to them, if you make it manifest to-day what is coming to them a good many of them in these last crucial, vital weeks and months will stay off the job and go underground, and I prefer them underground until we come to smoke them out. Of those that stay on the top a fair proportion will be interested in constructing twelfth-hour dossiers of good behaviour for submission to the Inter-Allied tribunals which are going to try them for their misdeeds, and I need not emphasize the infinite gain from the point of view of all prisoners of war.
I do not think you can do less than what I have proposed to-day. I hope you will adopt that point of view because it is in deadly earnest that I am putting this forward to-day. I am hoping to receive from the Government a declaration that the Gestapo are really going to be extirpated, eliminated altogether, and I am hoping also that I shall receive from them a declaration that the General Staff, the ultimate culprits, are going to be dealt with with equal severity. I hope that nobody in this assembly will waste a scruple, let alone a tear, upon the Gestapo. Their epitaph was written generations ago by Sir William Gilbert, when he said: "I am happy to think that there will be no difficulty whatever in finding plenty of people whose loss will be a distinct gain to society at large." If you are firm you will have no difficulty in finding plenty of such people in Germany, but if you are not firm you will find next to none.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER: My Lords, in calling attention to the massacre of the R.A.F. officers the noble Lord proposes measures designed both to ensure retribution and to provide safeguards against further atrocities in the future. The murder is a terrible murder and the noble Lord's strongest words, like Mr. Eden's strongest words, are not too strong to express the British detestation of an abominable crime committed against brave and honourable men in cold blood. But the noble Lord's measures are not calculated to promote the interests of British or Allied prisoners of war, as I shall endeavour to show, or to advance the ideals of our own country; and I am bound to add that had the noble Lord shown a more statesmanlike attitude on other occasions, and had his words, both printed and spoken, been less unremittingly violent, his proposals for dealing with this occasion would have carried a good deal greater weight.
I say first that the noble Lord's proposals are not conceived in the interests of British prisoners of war or in the interests of all prisoners of war, of whose cause he seems to claim to be the champion. The Foreign Secretary said in another place than this mass shooting was an individual occasion and that the Government had no knowledge of any other. The Foreign Secretary quoted the official Nazi version, which the noble Lord repudiated in advance before reading it. The official Nazi version—and this is a point of great importance which has not been sufficiently recognized in discussion—said that internal security questions in Germany itself were involved. It sought to justify the Gestapo because it said there was some connexion between opposition groups within Germany and prisoners of war, and the official German Note states that in March there were mass escapes of prisoners of war from camps throughout Germany, involving several thousands of prisoners, systematically prepared by the General Staffs of the Allies, with both political and military objectives. This statement, whatever significance may be attached to it by the noble Lord, is in line with reports from other sources as to contacts within Germany between Germans and prisoners of war of different nationalities.
There are reports well authenticated of fraternization between German workers in the Rhineland and in the Ruhr and,
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still more, between German peasants and prisoners of war, and I should like to quote a report from East Prussia in March of this year—the same month—when an innkeeper was sentenced to death by the People's Court at Konigsberg because in the presence of prisoners of war and German guests he had undermined the armed strength of the nation and helped the enemy by making an appeal for resistance to the régime. There is a still further interesting illustration of collaboration between the French resistance movement and the German resistance given by a French officer who had escaped to Switzerland. It was reported in a Swiss paper that the French resistance movement was organized among millions of French prisoners of war and forced labourers inside Germany, and that this organization of the French resistance would have been impossible without the aid of the German resistance.
In addition to this there is plenty of evidence that escaping prisoners of war have been assisted by members of the German population, that Nazi newspapers have been exhorting ordinary citizens to give up prisoners of war to whom they have given shelter, to avoid giving them food and shelter, and to inform the police about doubtful figures. There was a very recent illustration of these orders in the instructions given by a Gauleiter at Bayreuth. It would be very hard on would-be escapees and on the prisoners, British or Allied, who are still in Germany if the efforts of a section of the German population were to be denounced by spokesmen here. I claim that the attitude of the British Government as stated by the Foreign Secretary is absolutely right. This is an odious but an individual crime committed, as the noble Lord has affirmed, by the Gestapo superseding Army authority and Army responsibility after such supersession. The question of the legal responsibility of the Army authority is, at any rate, open to doubt. His Majesty's Government's policy is that the foul criminals responsible for this cold-blooded act of butchery should be tracked down to the last man and brought to exemplary justice. It is surely all the more regrettable that the noble Lord should attempt to abandon this ground and—I would ask your Lordships' special attention to this point—should give the Nazi authorities a pretext for exchanging the Army guards and the Army responsibility for those of

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the secret police. This is what the noble Lord's Motion would imply.
LORD VANSITTART: Does the right reverend Prelate deny the overriding authority of the German General Staff? Because if he does so, it shows he knows singularly little of the German Army. I ask for a straightforward reply: Does he or does he not deny that, which is what he is seeking to do?
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER: The question is open to doubt.
LORD VANSITTART: On what ground does the right reverend Prelate doubt it?
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER: It is a matter that cannot be gone into except by a tribunal—
A NOBLE LORD: After you are dead!
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER: After victory is won. It is all the stranger and mote regrettable that the noble Lord should adopt this attitude, involving this risk for the prisoners of war, since he is the President of the Association of Relatives of Prisoners of War. How many parents, how many wives, I wonder, from the shelter of this free country, would advocate that their relatives in German hands might just as well be handed over to the Gestapo as remain under their present custody? That is the issue which the noble Lord raises, and in raising such an issue he is no friend of the British or the Allied prisoners of war.
LORD VANSITTART: That is a little more than I am prepared to stand even from the right reverend Prelate. I have pride in being President of the Relatives' Association. I was proposing measures to-day which would mitigate the risks to which the prisoners are going to be exposed Out of the blue comes the right reverend Prelate and, with his one hundred per cent. Germanophile views, takes exactly the opposite line, and pretends that there is nothing to be done. That is the worst possible way of protecting prisoners of war, and it is a very fair example of endeavouring to hit below the belt.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER: I do not think the noble Lord can have quite envisaged the effect of his attack on the German General Staff and the Gestapo in one and the same breath, or
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could have imagined the effect in Germany on the prisoners of war if measures such as those he suggests were to be carried out. They are not in my opinion in the interests of prisoners of war. There is another substantial reason for disagreeing with the noble Lord's proposals. They are not calculated to advance the ideals of this country. This fearful crime has to be viewed in the framework of the German situation as a whole. It is one of a series covering a long period against innumerable innocent victims. Read the Polish Black Book of three years ago. Read the account of the deportation of German Jews last year. Read the account in the last few weeks of the transport of Jewish children from Hungary in their thousands, in crowded trains, and in circumstance of pitiless cruelty. Ask the exiles from the Allied countries what they have suffered. Ask the German victims of the Nazi concentration camps who are in America or in this country. They are all fruit of the same ruthlessness and the same mockery of law and justice of which these fifty British officers are the latest victims. The Foreign Secretary was surely right in calling very particular attention to the fact that this crime, like the other crimes, is the crime of the Gestapo, those gangster criminals employed by Hitler and Himmler who are the authorized executors of the vilest principles of the Nazi way of life.
I would emphasize this point, for it has a very real bearing on the attitude which British people ought to adopt. Last Tuesday the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, drew a contrast between Hitler's and the British way of life. This war is a war of rival ways of life, rival religions, and the real issue is which is to prevail. It would be fatal at this stage of the war if we were to allow any climax of Nazi brutality to induce us to abandon the principles to which we have pledged our allegiance. The noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, in Black Record, after enumerating a number of bestialities committed by Germany in the present war, says:
"To do all these things that no Briton could or would do the Nazis find a large supply of cold-blooded young barbarians who are not only willing to do them but revel in doing them."
The noble Lord is right both in what he said about the Nazis and in what he said

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no Briton could or would do. At all costs we must stand by law, as the Foreign Secretary stands by law, and with any measures which confuse the criminal with the non-criminal, which savour of proscription—and the noble Lord used that word—and are directed against a whole community, we should have nothing to do. As to retribution, we should in no way depart from the Foreign Secretary's policy of fixing retribution on those who are responsible for the crime. As to safeguards, the best safeguard against further atrocities of any kind is to end the wild ungoverned Nazi system as victory will end it.
I have spoken of principles. If I were disposed to pay regard to drier and colder maxims of policy I would add this. To speak now of retribution in this large-scale indiscriminate fashion, apart from the punishment to be visited on individuals proved guilty of stated crimes, would be to prolong the war, to increase man's suffering, and to add to the havoc of Europe and the world. The Gestapo know, and Hitler and Himmler know, that there is no hope for them after victory. Their whole purpose at this hour of imminent catastrophe is to persuade the German people that there is no hope for them either and that their only chance of survival is to rally one and all around the Führer. The diplomatic correspondent of The Times of July 8 describes in calm, objective words the ever-present fears of the German people, their fear of the Gestapo, their fear of defeat, their fear of what will follow after defeat and the determination of the Nazi leaders to increase those fears by word and by deed. Tell them that the Allies are intent on measures of this kind and you will unite the responsible leaders, the Nazi leaders, with what Hitler calls the great stupid flock of sheep-hearted people in a desperate struggle for life. Tell them that the criminal system of militarism, focused in Hitler and Himmler and the Gestapo and the Nazis, must be destroyed, but that there is a hope for a Germany purged from these horrors, and you will meet that within the German people which longs for an end of war's agonies and you will slacken the will to fight.
It is right to tell Germany, as she groans in misery, that she is the victim of her own crimes. I do not differ very much in principle from what the noble Lord said
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about that. It is right to bid Germany ask pardon of God and man for the calamities which she has brought on herself and others. But it is also right to make it plain that our aim is not to exterminate all the German people, but to overthrow a monstrous tyranny which seeks to dominate the world, to ensure security for the future and to fasten the punishment on the individual guilty perpetrators, however many they be, of proved crimes by process of law. For these reasons—first, that such measures as the noble Lord proposes will recoil on the prisoners of war in Germany itself; second, that they are inconsistent with British ideals; third, that they are calculated to rally all Germans in a last desperate struggle under Hitler and to prolong war's sufferings—I hope that His Majesty's Government will have nothing to do with the noble Lord's proposal.
LORD WINSTER: My Lords, I wish in a very few sentences to reinforce what has been said this afternoon concerning the complicity of the German General Staff and of German officers in the war crimes of Germany. In regard to the particular incident which is being considered this afternoon, these men who were shot while in the care of the Commandant of the camp, perhaps I may remind your Lordships that, speaking of the captives taken after one of his victories, Nelson said, "When they became my prisoners they became my guests." Surely that is the spirit which should inform the actions of any officer in charge of prisoners of war. But I have seen no explanation whatever of the action of the Commandant of this camp when his functions were usurped by the Gestapo. I have read of no protest which he has made. I have read of no protests made by the German General Staff of the functions of this Commandant being usurped by the Gestapo. For these reasons I do not see how either the Commandant or the German General Staff can possibly be absolved from complicity in this murder.
It confirms my view also that we should begin to repudiate and contest, wherever it is found, this extraordinary legend about the German General Staff and about the officers of the Wehrmacht that they are an honourable body of men, admirable for their professional qualities. I think in some cases far too much honour has been paid to some of

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these German officers who have been taken prisoner. I have no doubt that that is due to a mistaken sense of chivalry, but I repeat, I think too much honour has been paid them. After all, what are the actions of these officers of each branch of the Wehrmacht? General von Kluge, now Commander-in-Chief on the Western Front, is on the Russian list of war criminals, and we know quite well that the German Army in Russia were accomplices in the appalling and abominable crimes committed on the Russian people. Then take the Navy. What inhumanities and brutalities have commanders of U-Boats committed on officers and men of the Merchant Navy turned adrift hundreds of miles from land in all weathers, mocked and laughed at and dended by officers of U-boats. And the officers of the Luftwaffe have not even hesitated to machine-gun the crews of lifesaving ships. Those are specimens of the things which the officers of each branch of the Wehrmacht do.
I will say nothing this afternoon about what we should say as to our intentions with regard to the trials of war criminals. A statement has been made on behalf of the Government by the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack of our intentions. Repetition is not always emphasis and it is for the Government to decide upon the new statement of our intentions with regard to war criminals and whether such a statements appropriate at this time or not. But I hope the noble Viscount who is to reply may find it possible to make clear that His Majesty's Government have no intention whatever of distinguishing between the German General Staff and the officers of the Wehrmacht and the Gestapo and the S.S. in this matter of the trial of war criminals, and that it will be made clear that those officers cannot possibly be dissociated in our minds from Himmler and his minions.
LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE: My Lords, this is a terribly serious matter and I wish that Lord Vansittart had tabled a Motion much more in the form of a demand upon the Government of the day that they should deal with this affair. The murder of these officers is not the only thing we have to be concerned about. We have heard of cases, and I have had cases in my own family, of bloody murder. It seems to me that unless we take a very determined and
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bold stand on this matter many of the criminals will escape punishment, as they did in the last war. I hope and trust that when the end of this war does come the surrender of these war criminals will be part of the demands made on the Germans. That must be done at the time of the Armistice. It is no good waiting, as after the last war, for a Peace Treaty. One of the first things to be dealt with is the punishment of these war criminals. They must be dealt with, not by courts of law, but by military courts composed of officers who know what has been going on during the war with Germany. The Germans in war have proved themselves to be outside the pale of civilization. They have committed atrocities, offences against the laws of war, and the only courts before which they can be suitably dealt with are courts of military justice.
Germany will be under military law, I hope, during the early stages of occupation, and we can trust our officers who may be sitting on military courts to adjudicate in all fairness in the cases that come before them. I feel sure that this country and the various families concerned will demand that speedy justice be done in this matter. I strongly support all that my noble friend Lord Vansittart has said. Having had a considerable experience after the last war in Germany, I am of opinion that the only way in which you can deal with these brutes is to bring them before a military court on which all arms must be represented. It is all very well to say that we will have legal courts. They are too slow and too far away from the atrocities that have been committed. I hope the Government will give an assurance that they are determined to deal with this matter quickly immediately after the Armistice and see that these criminals are brought before military courts.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DOMINION AFFAIRS (VISCOUNT CRANBORNE) (Lord Cecil): My Lords, I am quite certain that there is no noble Lord in any quarter of the House who would not endorse to the full the solemn and moving indictment delivered by the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, against those responsible for the brutal murders to which his question refers. It might have been thought that, after four years of the type of war we have been enduring, we might have become callous to horrors.

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But the cold-blooded slaughter of young airmen who had committed no fault at all but to fight fearlessly and single-mindedly for their country is a crime which, in my view, and I am certain in the view of your Lordships' House, stains indelibly the honour not only of those primarily concerned but of the German Army and the German people. It has been, as the noble Lord, Lord Winster, said, a degradation of those military virtues which it has been supposed in some quarters that the German nation still possess.
The right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Chichester, while fully concurring in his speech with all that Lord Vansittart said with regard to the crime itself, attempted, I thought, too strictly to limit the responsibility for this crime. While we all recognize the passionate sincerity with which the right reverend Prelate speaks, I could not find myself in agreement with what he said on this occasion. There is no one, I am quite certain, in this country, from Lord Vansittart downwards, who wishes to condemn the innocent, but I cannot feel that, though there are certain people who are most directly and immediately responsible for these crimes, either the military authorities or the German people can be held entirely free from blame. They have allowed this odious Nazi system to be set up and they are fighting to-day wth fanatical zeal to keep it in power. If they want to see the end of Nazism the remedy is in their own hands. While they continue to support Hitler they must share the responsibility for the crimes committed in his name. It has been said that every nation gets the Government it deserves. It seem to me that the responsibility of the German people in this respect is a very heavy one. It is no good ignoring that fact. I agree with the right reverend Prelate that we must punish the guilty and not the innocent. But we must not delude ourselves as to where the guilt lies, and I could not myself draw such narrow limits as have been drawn to-day by the right reverend Prelate.
In his statement in the House of Commons on June 23 this year, my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary explained the facts of this terrible story which led His Majesty's Government to the inescapable conclusion that fifty
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officers who were prisoners of war in Stalag Luft III were murdered, after removal from the camp, at some unidentified place or places, at some date or dates unknown. He recorded the solemn protest of His Majesty's Government against these cold-blooded acts of butchery and he declared that His Majesty's Government would never cease their efforts to collect evidence to identify all those who are responsible. My right honourable friend added that His Majesty's Government are firmly resolved that these foul criminals should be tracked down to the last man wherever they take refuge when the war is over and brought to exemplary justice. Your Lordships will have noticed that in a further statement in another place yesterday the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs slightly elaborated that statement and said that this resolve of His Majesty's Government to track down and bring to exemplary justice the perpetrators of such crimes applies to all, of whatever rank and whether or not they are members of the Armed Forces, who are responsible for the crime either as instigators or as actual perpetrators. I think that is a perfectly clear statement.
It is, I hope, evident from the statements to which I have referred that His Majesty's Government are in the fullest agreement with the aims of the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, both to ensure retribution for this particular crime and to provide safeguards against further atrocities of the same kind. The noble Lord in his speech to your Lordships put forward certain proposals as to possible ways by which these objects, which we all hold in common, may be achieved. I would like to say, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, that we welcome all such proposals and assure him that we will take full account of them in discussing with our Allies the large and important issues that they raise. He will, of course, recognize that I cannot at this stage commit either His Majesty's Government or the Allies. I speak only for one Government of the great company of United Nations. We must come to united decisions. But I would make one or two brief and preliminary observations upon the noble Lord's proposals.
I understood him to suggest that no unconditional surrender should be accepted from, and no truce granted to,

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the German Government which did not ensure the immediate handing over of a substantial proportion of the members of the Gestapo. I can give the noble Lord an assurance that it is no part of the intention of His Majesty's Government, when Germany surrenders, unconditionally, as she will, to leave the Gestapo free. On the contrary, we intend to root out utterly the whole of that devilish organization. It is our firm intention that those who are responsible for these crimes shall pay the full penalty for them, and, personally, I shall be very glad to see the handing over of a substantial proportion of these odious men. I am not quite sure if I was right in understanding that the noble Lord's proposal goes rather further than that, and that he suggests, with a view to encouraging further denunciations and identifications of its members, that the Gestapo should here and now be de-dared an outlawed body. As I understand it what he has in mind is this: that after the United Nations have issued a declaration to this effect, anyone who kills a member of the Gestapo should be able to do so without any danger of suffering any legal penalty for having committed that act. The House will appreciate that this proposal—and I say this in no spirit of criticism—is one of an extremely drastic character, and it contains very far-reaching implications. It will be necessary to weigh this proposal very carefully in the balance as to the results which are likely to accrue from it. That, however: is an aspect of the matter which it is neither necessary nor desirable that I should go into in great detail this afternoon. Clearly, I could not commit His Majesty' Government or our Allies at the present stage. But the noble Lord may rest assured that his proposal will be most carefully examined with a view to any international discussions that may take place. And the same applies to his other proposal with regard to the setting up of military courts.
Finally, the noble Lord implied, if he did not actually say so, that he wished
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His Majesty's Government to make clear, in broadcasts or by any other methods, to Germany, their determination, and the determination of the United Nations, to bring to trial all members of the German General Staff who held appointments, or were connected with the treatment of prisoners of war, at the time of the crime, and also all military authorities in the military districts concerned at the time of the crime, including the Commandant of the camp and his assistants. My Lords, on this point let me make the position of His Majesty's Government once more quite clear, if there remains any doubt. It is our firm intention that all who are responsible for this crime, and all who have connived at it, whether they be military authorities or others, shall be pursued and brought to exemplary justice. And we shall make this clear to the German people by any and every means in our power, in order that they may be in no doubt as to what will be the fate of those, whoever they may be, whether they be high or low, who lend themselves, either as principals or agents, to the commission of these abominable crimes.

EMERGENCY POWERS (DEFENCE) ACTS.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty in pursuance of subsection (1) of Section eleven of the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act, 1939, praying that the said Act as amended by any subsequent enactment be continued in force for a further period of one year beginning with the twenty-fourth day of August, nineteen hundred and forty-four.—(The Earl of Munster.)
On Question, Motion agreed to: the said Address to be presented to His Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.
House adjourned.