Lords Sitting of 28 March 1944

Preamble
The House met, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers.
  GOVERNMENT OF INDIA (DISTRIBUTION OF REVENUES) (AMENDMENT) ORDER, 1944:

    MESSAGE FROM THE KING.
    THE EARL OF CLARENDON: My Lords, I have to convey to the House the following Message from the King, signed with his own hand:
    "I have received your Address praying that the Government of India (Distribution of Revenues) (Amendment) Order, 1944, be made in the form of the draft laid before Parliament. I will comply with your request."

    CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2) BILL.
    Brought from the Commons, endorsed with the Certificate from the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill within the meaning of the Parliament Act, 1911; and read 1a.
    CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL.
    Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.

    CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: RESIGNATION OF THE EARL OF ONSLOW.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DOMINION AFFAIRS (VISCOUNT CRANBORNE) (Lord Cecil): My Lords, I have received a communication from the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, saying that on account of illness he will be obliged to resign his post of Lord Chairman of Committees. As your Lordships know, the noble Earl has not for many months now been in good health and the strain of his duties has become too great for him. I am quite certain that the House will receive this news with very deep regret. For the twelve years—nearly thirteen years—in which Lord Onslow has
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    performed the extremely important and exacting duties of Lord Chairman he has won the respect of the whole House. His long experience of your Lordships' affairs, his patience and his absolute impartiality have commended themselves to every section of opinion among your Lordships. I am quite certain that the House will wish me to express to him on your Lordships' behalf the very deep regret that we feel at his decision, our warm gratitude for his long and meritorious services, and our whole-hearted good wishes to him for a rapid return to health.
    The task of selecting a noble Lord who may be able to fill the post of Lord Chairman Session by Session for many years to come—for that is, of course, the ideal for which we must seek—is a task which will no doubt require further consideration by all concerned, but I would Impose with your Lordships' agreement to move a Resolution at our next sitting asking the House to approve the appointment of a successor to the noble Earl for the remainder of the present Session. That, I feel sure, is the course which will commend itself to your Lordships.
    LORD ADDISON: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friends I should like to associate myself very sincerely with the tribute which the noble Viscount has paid to the Lord Chairman of Committees and to express our appreciation of his long and loyal service to this House. The noble Earl, Lord Onslow, immersed in the best traditions of your Lordships' House, served the House with distinction. I desire also on behalf of my noble friends to associate myself with the good wishes which the noble Viscount expressed on the subject of Lord Onslow's health.
    VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, I feel sure the whole House will join the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition in their expression of regret that ill-health should compel the Lord Chairman of Committees to lay down the task which he has performed for so many years with painstaking zeal. His occupancy of the post of Chairman of Committees of your Lordships' House has been, for Lord Onslow, the crown of a long and varied career of public service. Perhaps he had a hereditary aptitude for presiding over a Chamber, since the great Speaker Onslow, who presided for five Parliaments over the House of Commons,

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    left one of the greatest traditions of the Speakers hip that our history recalls. In bidding him farewell from office I am sure the whole House would wish to express to him deep thanks for his loyal and devoted service.
    LORD HEMINGFORD: My Lords, I trust it will not be thought impertinent on my part to add a few words to the tributes paid to the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, because for the whole of the period that he was Lord Chairman—except the last twelve months—I was in constant touch with him as Chairman of Ways and Means in the other House. As many of your Lordships know, in connexion with Private Bill procedure there is a vast amount of work and a very large number of questions which have to be decided by the two Chairmen in agreement. What would happen the two Chairmen did rot agree, I have never, happily, discovered. It was always a real pleasure personally to meet Lord Onslow on those occasions, and although, over and over again, there were times when, to begin with, we took different views on those questions on which we had to agree, we never failed, ultimately, to come to an agreement. And when we did so, it was not a case of a formula meaning nothing except that we were managing to patch the thing up; it really meant that we were thoroughly agreed. During the whole of that time, I think I may say, the fact that we were able to agree on sometimes very difficult points was largely due to his very kindly attitude, to his earnest devotion to his work, and to the tasks which had to be carried through. I should just like to add those few words to what has already been said.

    POST-WAR DEFENCE.
    LORD CHATFIELD LORD CHATFIELD rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether they are planning to improve the administration of Imperial and national defence after the war, and in particular whether they will consider the practicability of obtaining agreement of all parties that national defence policy shall in future be a non-Party matter; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, for many months your Lordships have been debating how we can plan for the better health, Lousing and education of the people of this country. On listening, when I have been able to do so, to those
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    debates, and on reading the reports of them, I have been struck by the unity of purpose that has been behind the speeches, and the spirit of accommodation in which those speeches have been made. To-day, my Motion calls your Lordships' attention to another matter of even greater importance, concerning the people of this country—namely, their safety; for without safety all our plans for their welfare will be built on sand, and when the storms come they will be washed away. I speak, to-day, for security through unity of purpose and action. I have been in Whitehall for fourteen years as an expert adviser and as a Cabinet Minister, and I feel a sense of duty in giving your Lordships my views on the defence problem after many years of study. And now is the time, when we are still united by danger, to think of this problem, for when peace comes, when our unity breaks up, and when the dangers are over, anyone who preaches on the problem of defence will be a mere voice crying in the wilderness.
    If we are to live less dangerously in the future than we have lived in the past, we must ensure that the serious errors we made are not repeated. We must seek for lessons from which to profit, but certainly not for matters for recrimination. For, after all, who can throw a stone? How few in Parliament, or outside it, can look back on those peace years, as regards the matter of defence, with anything but humility. We must look for errors in principle, but I believe that unless both the method and the spirit in which we handled the defence machinery in the past years are changed, however contrite we may be now, however determined to remain strong enough after this war, the machine will inevitably lead us back, sooner or later, to the verge of the same precipice over which we were so nearly pushed four years ago. Was it, then, the machinery of defence or the misuse of it that caused our danger? History shows that it is in our blood to be unready for war. A thousand years ago a Saxon king set us a bad example, arid we never seem to have been able to cast off his spell. We almost glory in the boast that we lose the first battle, but we always win the last. That, perhaps, has been good enough in past wars, but it is not good enough to-day. If you are unready and unorganized as a nation for war, then modern, scientific war, with

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    methods of which even now we can hardly dream, will sweep you away; if you lose the first battle there will not be another. Let us, then, examine the principles and the methods of handling the defence machinery, and in such respects as they are bad let us not fear ruthlessly to discard them.
    This Motion is not intended to ensure unlimited arms after this war. When you have conquered your enemies you have to reduce your armaments, and it is wise to do so; but twenty-five years ago we threw them away unscientifically and without a plan. Our leaders told us that they were not wanted, because there was to be no more war, and that they had found in the League of Nations and its weapon of collective security behind sanctions a panacea which would ensure permanent peace. I have nothing to say against the League of Nations; it was a great ideal which did much for the world, because it brought the majority of the nations of the world closer together than they had been before in the world's history. Some form of League must be our ultimate aim one day. But collective security, as it was then established, was no security; it was a security which was based on quantity rather than quality. You all know that fifty sheep are no safer in the flock than twenty; on the contrary, the larger number gives the wolves more on which to prey, as this war has shown.
    The vast mass of nations behind collective security had no strength, and the sheep-dogs which ran away—or most of them—were turned into wolves. When Germany, Italy and Japan left the League, those great Powers that remained faithful had their responsibilities immensely increased, but when danger came they did not act in concert, because they did not sympathize with each other, and because they were too weak. Moreover, the great Powers who favoured peace and good will, instead of encouraging each other, instead of seeking comfort in each other's strength, strove to disarm each other, because they were jealous of each other's strength. And so the weapon of the League was greatly weakened. When those early tremors occurred in the world, the basis of world safety was undermined physically, and to some extent morally. It was a critical period when we ought to have reconsidered nationally our whole
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    Imperial defence position, but no adequate machinery existed for the purpose.
    We had disarmed unscientifically in response to clamour—"Do not waste money on arms," "Scrap the lot," and so on. We had no plans for rapidly restoring our strength should the horizon become cloudy. We made no allowance for the fact that the great masses of human beings in the world were not equal to the ideal set before them, but were animated by traditional hatreds and by fear. We made no proper provision for our well-made plans failing. We made no plans for our two individual responsibilities, the security of the British race and our share of responsibility for good order in the world. Next, we fixed the strength of the three Fighting Services not on a strategic basis but on a narrow and low financial basis, as well, I fear, as to please other nations. Having made that dangerous start, we next completely undermined our latent powers of recovery. The ten-year rule was the weapon used, as you all know, and it gave power to the Lords of the Treasury to refuse all demands by the Service Departments which might lead to an unpopular Budget. Samson had his locks cut off by Delilah, but Britannia cut off her own. What a tragedy!
    So we muddled along through the 'twenties, our arms getting older, our factories getting fewer, our skilled men vanishing, our Colonial defence ignored, the Service Departments bruised and battered but, to their credit, still struggling. Statesmen thought that they could see ten years ahead; they forgot that peace is only an armistice and will last only as long as you have the strength necessary to suppress any who try to break it. When, therefore, in 1932 and 1933 anxiety first came, we were shorn of our strength and of our power of recovery, and hampered by treaties. Even so, we might have been ready in ten years for a limited war at the peace-time rate of production, provided we had acted at once, but in 1933 we were still clamouring for general disarmament. The spirit was: "Arms are the cause of war; if all are weak, international tempers and ambitions will be restrained, and so the world will be safer"; and so instead of trying to accumulate friends we increased the numbers of our enemies.
    Our foreign policy was not attuned to our weakness. If you want to roar like a lion you must have the strength of a lion,

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    but we had not. When danger loomed, the Government hesitated to arm. Why? Because rearmament became a matter of political controversy. That was due in part, but not entirely, to the fact that the extreme danger of our position was not known. There was a moral responsibility on the Government at that tine to tell Parliament and the country of our great weakness, and of how our capacity for production had been smashed; but to tell the truth would have been difficult and unpopular. You cannot for ten years lead democratic opinion to believe that there is to be no more war and then suddenly reverse your course. As we all know who believe in it, as I do, democratic government has enormous advantages for our peculiar mentality as a people for settling our national affairs. But in international affairs there are great dangers in its path unless they are foreseen and guarded against in principle. So Parliament remained largely ignorant of our weakness, and the public still believed that there would not be another war and that armies were unnecessary. Thus vital time was lost. If defence had not been a matter of Party controversy, if in time of danger all men of good will had united to study the dangerous problems that lay before us, how different might have been our lot. And if, in time of danger, we did not so unite because democratic practice did not admit it, then surely I am right in saving that we should change our democratic practice.
    If politics played this strange part in the story, what of the other side, the Committee of Imperial Defence? The Committee of Imperial Defence, that body for which the noble Marques, Lord Salisbury, did so much, was powerfully constituted as a body of Ministers and experts admirably adapted to solve defence problems, if it had been allowed to do so. But it was an Advisory Committee only. It was non-executive on all big questions; it had no authority over finance; it never saw the Service Estimates before they were produced. If a majority wished to spend a considerable sum of money on a defence measure and the Chancellor of the Exchequer criticized it—and let us not forget it is the duty of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to criticize expenditure—then the matter would be taken away from our Committee of Ministers and experts, and the Ministers would retire to an inner
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    chamber, where they would consider the problem alone. But the Cabinet is, unfortunately, largely uneducated on military and defence matters. The Chancellor's view, if supported by the Prime Minister, would be bound to prevail. I believe that the power of the two principal Ministers over defence is too great. They make bad decisions, they are secret decisions, and Parliament does not know of them, as it would about other matters.
    I want to say a word about the Service Ministers. I speak with great respect and diffidence on the subject, but I have served under many Service Ministers. I know how hard they strove and how loyally for their Departments. I presided over them for over a year. They were always struggling for money without a proper basis to work on, because the strength of their services was on a financial basis. They were easy game. The First Lord was an exception because he had a one-power standard, a small rock to stand on which, unfortunately, was undermined by treaties. A Service Minister's Cabinet colleagues might wish to help him, but they had no power to do so. It was difficult for them to support him against what Beatty used to call "the other Admiralties at the Treasury". A Cabinet Minister could resign, but it is not easy to resign unless there is a big clash of opinion. The trouble in this case was not refusal to rearm, but delay. We got stronger all the time from 1933 onwards, but half-heartedly. A Committee was set up under Sir Maurice Hankey to advise the Government what to do. How avidly we got to work, how rapidly we reported. But one Committee led to another, and so there was delay. But it was due to the efforts of that Committee, supported loyally by the Service Ministers, that the White Paper was produced in 1935 and the first Defence Loan was voted in 1936. If the Service Ministers had had some strategic basis for their Estimates, some plan, some money allocated definitely on a long-term policy, then their position in spending that money wisely and economically would have been wholly practical.
    Another fault was the continual changing of the Service Ministers for political convenience. You know how that has happened. I need only mention that in the ten years before the war we had no fewer than seven Secretaries of State for War. In the five and a half years in which

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    I was First Sea Lord I had three First Lords of the Admiralty, and a fourth followed very soon after. That surely is a serious flaw in the administration of defence in democratic government. It is a sign of some degeneracy, I almost feel; it militates against efficiency and continuity in the Department, and any business run on those lines would speedily be led to ruin. It prevented Ministers using their talents. The ablest administrator can do nothing if he has not got time—time to initiate things, to learn the problems of his command, to carry weight in the country and in the Cabinet. A political head of a Service Department can make a great name if he is given three or four years in the Department. He can make the Department's efficiency his aim, upon which he will obtain, perhaps, a distinction and a political achievement which will redound to his credit, and for which one day he may conceivably earn the gratitude of his country. Some did so and are of your Lordships' House.
    All this can be rectified by statesmanship. But the vital necessity is political unity about defence. If we go to war we have to unite both in administration and in fighting. Is it not right that those who have to administer in war and who have to fight should wield the weapon which has been unitedly forged? It surely is so. The failure to defend ourselves was a political failure. Parliament should insist on amends for that terrible failure. It is now or never. We have a chance to safeguard our children's children. Is not the defence of the country a sacred trust? Yet if the Government feat the Opposition and an Election is in the offing, they cannot spend money in unpopular ways. Spending money on arms is always unpopular in peace; therefore you want machinery which will enable things unpopular, but vital, to be done without Party disadvantage.
    I know it can be said: "Here is a Service man standing up and blaming the politicians." I do not do it in that spirit. I have been a politician myself. As the late Lord Wedgwood used to say in your Lordships' House, "We are all politicians here." On the contrary my experience of political life gave me a feeling for my colleagues that there was something in political life far greater and finer
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    than those who are not of that persuasion are willing to admit. But pressure to spend money in popular ways on important things such as national welfare is immense. The public ask for something they really want, but to give it to them may mean taking risks which they do not understand. Why do they riot understand? Because they are not educated. In all our schools and universities there should be national education on defence and the dangers among which the country stands, of the evil in the world, of how much we in this country are envied, and yet how vulnerable we are. The electors who do not understand these things—who are told exactly the opposite very often—cannot be expected to vote for those who want to defend the country. There should be education of statesmen; the civilian statesman conducts war, and in peace he decides if you are to have any arms and how many. How can he do that if he knows nothing about the technical side of defence? At some appropriate stage he should be taught the problems of defence. It can easily be done; it only wants statesmanship.
    The final safeguard is Parliament. Parliament is not confided in, and it is not told the truth in peace, even in secret. Those who advise it—the Cabinet Ministers of the Defence Departments—very likely have had their own advice already overruled in the Cabinet. Individual Members of Parliament, or of your Lordships' House, have no means of informing themselves adequately about the state of our national defences. I believe Parliament, including your Lordships' House, should have far greater power over defence. It can easily be devised.
    I want to say one word about finance. It must take its proper place in the defence programme. The task of the Treasury is to criticize, to see that money is well and economically spent, but in effect the power of the Treasury has been used to frame our defence policy. That was highly dangerous. There were three essentials well drummed into my mind when I was Chief of Staff. The first was, "We can only afford to spend so much money." The second was, "The financial dangers of the country"—this was a few years before the war—"are greater than the military dangers;" and the third was, "We must start the war

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    financially strong." All these essentials are half-truths. What is the good of starting a war financially strong if you may lose the first battle and never be able to spend your money. If you are saved, as we were saved in this war, by a few, and are able to spend your money, how much worse is it to buy your arms at a cost of £12,500,000 a day when you might have bought them at peace rates before the war started, when, it would have been much safer. No individual, not even a Party Government, ought to be given carte blanche with the safety of our race. We hear, and we may hear again, "The Government must take responsibility." As regards defence that has been tried and found wanting.
    It is not really necessary for me to propose a solution as the result of the lessons we have learnt, but perhaps my contribution will be considered inadequate if I do not do so. I am dealing with principles. I propose that there should be a National Defence Council set up before the end of the war. If it could be made Imperial, so much the better, but it is not for me to make such a suggestion. This Council could be composed somewhat as follows:—The Prime Minister as Chairman, the leaders of the principal political Parties, the Foreign Secretary, the Defence Ministers and, I should like to add, certain non-political members. If the Dominions took part there should, of course, be adequate Dominion representation. The Council should be permanent and have a permanent Secretariat. The vital point is that although the stage is set for it now in a Coalition Government, which would therefore make it easy to start such a Council, its composition must be maintained when the war is over, when we have beaten our enemies and when we start once again fighting each other. The Council should have an Advisory Board of Ministers and experts. Here again Dominion experts should be added if they so wished.
    The Board should prepare a secret memorandum for the Council as the result of which the Council would produce a White Paper for Parliament recommending our line of action as regards defence for at least ten years after the war. It would include plans for the strategic basis of each defence Service in accordance with its responsibilities, a plan to maintain our Forces, to replace obsolescent ships, aircraft, and military material, a
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    plan for the factories, the dockyards, and the scientific laboratories, a plan for restoring them in case of emergency and for expansion, a plan for the supervision and maintenance at an adequate strength of the private armament industry, a plan for the defence of our overseas bases, and a plan for the vital civil front. Finally, the cost. A Paper of that nature could be laid before Parliament and before the Dominion Parliaments if they so wished for final financial approval; the finance once approved to be the first charge on the annual Budget. The defence situation would be watched year after year by the Defence Council advised by the Board according to the international situation. Each year a general report would be made to Parliament which could be discussed before the Service Estimates. Thus, Parliament would be able to vote money with a clear understanding of what was involved and Parliament would be able to appreciate much better the position each year as regards defence.
    I am sorry to keep you so long, but I do not often weary your Lordships with my oratory and perhaps you will forgive me on this occasion. It may be said: "Need we bother about arms after this war? We have Russia, the United States, China in the Far East, all victorious and strong, with us; why need we make all this fuss about our own strength? "Well, I would answer that if by some measure such as I have suggested of a National Defence Council a safe post-war defence policy can be laid down scientifically and thought out according to our responsibilities, then very early and safe economies are possible, because a plan would exist to adjust that strength as fixed, however modest, after the war according to the international horizon and our foreign policy. We should have a plan to follow or partly rearm again, allowing for a time lag. I know there are a few difficulties that will occur to your Lordships' minds about the idea of a non-Party Defence Council. It may be said, "You can tell the political leaders of a Party, as has been done before many years ago, to consider the defence situation." That, my Lords, is not enough. I am quite sure that the political leaders of the principal Parties must have responsibility. If it be said that a Government cannot bind its successors, that applies to all Acts of Parliament. We get on all right. If it be said that the Defence Council may dis-

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    agree among themselves, then I will say that that is inherent in any democratic system, and it is much better that they should argue across the table than that they should fling diatribes at each other across the floor of the House. And, if necessary, there must be compromise.
    Finally, it may be said that Parliament may refuse to vote the money. I do not believe that we are so willing to destroy ourselves. Parliament is more likely to vote the money if the proposal has come from a non-Party Committee. We are wise people if we are boldly led with courage and foresight. If we are to avoid war again in our time or in our children's time and remain an influence for good in the world and help to keep order in a violent world, then we must be strong enough. I do not say how strong, but strength is as important to-day as it ever has been in the world, and it is right that strength should be in safe hands. We must be strong enough to be respected and to give confidence to the weak. We cannot stand alone in the world amid the conflagrations and world dominations that we have seen in our lifetime, so we must keep our powerful Allies. We must not quarrel with them or be jealous of them, as we were, even if we do not approve everything that they say or do, because we must balance things properly in the world's interest. So long as we are strong enough and ready to make the necessary financial sacrifices we are more likely not only to do our duty but to keep our powerful friends. The greatest danger would be if we were to part company with them, because we have no longer the power to choose our own solitary path.
    May I briefly summarize the seven main lessons I have tried to put? First, let us build security for peace on a basis of combination with the three powerful Allies who have fought with us and let us encourage each other to remain strong enough. Secondly, let use plan our Imperial and national defence on our two great responsibilities, protection of our race and the task of helping it to keep order in the world—not on the latter only, as we did before. Thirdly, let us enhance the authority of Parliament over defence. Fourthly, let us appoint Service Ministers for longer periods with the object of making these Departments efficient, not constantly changing them for
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    Party convenience or personal considerations. Fifthly, let our insurance money be a first charge on the annual Budget, as it is or should be in family life. Sixthly, let our statesmen be educated technically so that they can understand the problems which they have to decide, and let us teach the people something about our responsibilities and our vulnerability and about world dangers, so that they will not again allow themselves to be misled. Lastly, let us set up a National and if possible Imperial Defence Council and so free defence from Party politics and make oar decisions about it in unity.
    In conclusion I would say that I have worded my Motion with moderation. I have not asked the Government for a decision they cannot give. You cannot alter our constitutional practice unless the country is behind it. I have asked them to consider it. I have tried to address your Lordships also with reasonable moderation. Unity is my object. It cannot be achieved by heated discussion or recrimination but only by persuasion. Let us took at the problem reasonably with good will, with statesmanship and with unity of purpose. The writing is on the wall for all who look to see. We have drunk to the dregs the cup of insecurity and unreadiness. It is a seductive cup, the easy way, the old habit, and unfortunately it is in our blood. We shall return to it if we are not very careful, unless we study and learn and act on the lessons of the past. United we can stand against the unforeseen but still always existing dangers in the world, but if we do not unite, if we ignore the teachings, then we shall certainly one day be destroyed and swept away as other empires have been.
    It is not easy to change old political practices and old methods which we are proud of and fond of, but I took heart from reading what the Prime Minister said in another place in October last year. Speaking of the other House, he said:
    "Our House has proved itself capable of adapting itself to every change which the swift pace of modern life has brought upon us."
    When victory comes can the State win a victory over itself? To do so would, I am sure, have a far-reaching effect in a world that knows well our weaknesses, and will be soon scheming again to undermine us through them. We shall obtain increased respect in the world for demo-

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    cratic government if it is seen to be adapting itself to modern needs. An Indian poet wrote these words:
    "Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit, Let my country awake."
    So let us awake. Feeling deeply on the subject, and with a sense of duty, I ask the Government earnestly and respectfully to consider carefully what I have put forward. I beg to move.
    Moved, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty for Papers relating to the administration of imperial and national defence after the war.—(Lord Chatfield.)
    LORD HANKEY: My Lords, my noble and gallant friend in the most impressive speech to which we have just listened has brought forward a most interesting proposal. As a former Controller of the Admiralty and Chairman of the Principal Supply Officers' Committee, as a Chief of the Naval Staff and Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, as an ex-Minister for Co-ordination of Defence and an ex-member of the War Cabinet, he speaks with unique authority on this subject. With the principle of his Motion, unity in defence—national unity in defence policy—I should hope that there would be general and enthusiastic agreement. If means can be found to produce a national defence policy which was accepted by Parliament we might hope not only to gain considerable advantages but to avoid the mistakes of the past, more especially if the Dominions would ever decide to co-operate.
    Those advantages and those mistakes of the past have already been described, first in Lord Chatfield's searching pamphlet and to-day in his speech. I shall not repeat them. There is however, one point on which I should like to dwell for a moment. The root cause of our unpreparedness was not so much Party strife or differences as something that lay outside Party, something that was fostered manly from outside the Governments and Parliaments. I speak, of course, of the extreme disarmament movement which was based on the highest ideals, but swept public opinion in the Empire and this country off its feet and resulted not only in inadequate defence but also in moral disarmament. That movement overrode the ordinary safeguards to a dangerous degree and
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    paralyzed successive Governments of nearly all Parties and all combinations of Parties in doing what they knew to be necessary for the safety of the State and the Empire. I use advisedly those words "what they knew to be necessary." As a safeguard against this kind of danger the Chiefs of Staff Committee were charged from about 1924 or 1925 onwards, as often announced, with the duty of presenting an annual report to the Government on the defence situation as a whole. They discharged that duty conscientiously, as many members of your Lordships' House can confirm.
    But, it has already been confirmed in the Statement on Defence dated March, 1 1935 (Command Paper 4827) from which, with your Lordships' permission, I will read a short extract.
    "It is not that British Governments have neglected to keep themselves informed of the position. Every year the state of our armaments has been anxiously considered, and if risks have been run they have been accepted deliberately in pursuit of the aim of permanent peace. Again and again, rather than run the risk of jeopardizing some promising movement in this direction by increasing the expenditure on armaments, Governments have postponed the adoption of measures that were required when considered from the point of view of national defence alone. In this way we have taken risks for peace.…"
    That puts in a nutshell the fundamental reason for our unpreparedness for war, and that is the main danger against which we have to guard. I think that the noble and gallant Lord's proposal, besides taking defence out of Party politics, would in fact go far towards eliminating that particular danger. The association of the leaders of all Parties in a concerted scheme of defence, its endorsement by Parliament, its annual reports and the speeches that would accompany their presentation, would afford opportunities for giving publicity to the facts all over the country and for keeping dangerous tendencies within reasonable bounds.
    While I submit that the underlying principle of the proposals should commend itself, some of the details do at first sight present constitutional difficulties, as Lord Chatfield has himself pointed out, and I suggest that these should be faced squarely in a constructive spirit to see what they amount to and how best they can be surmounted. What are these difficulties? The first is that the scheme appears to strike deep into the roots of our system of Cabinet government. Responsibility

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    for formulation of all policy, including defence policy, rests in normal times with the Cabinet. The Cabinet is composed, of course, of members chosen from both Houses of Parliament belonging to the Party or the group of Parties which has a majority in the House of Commons. They are all Privy Councillors and they are all approved by the King. The Cabinet decides on its policy, presents it to Parliament, where it is debated, amended and, unless rejected or withdrawn, passed up for the Royal Assent.
    Under the scheme which we are considering the Cabinet would hand over the preparation of defence policy for ten years following the end of the war to a Defence Council, the essential features of which are that "it must be neither purely political nor of a Party nature," and that it is to be "authoritative" and not merely an advisory and consultative body like the Committee of Imperial Defence. The Cabinet would not have the right to alter the terms of the plan—I am quoting from the pamphlet and not from what the noble and gallant Lord said this afternoon—once it was completed, before presenting it to Parliament. That sounds at first sight a great derogation from the responsibility of the Cabinet. I suggest, however, that if the matter be probed that will be found to be less so than appears at first sight. To begin with, in times of national emergency it is no new thing for the Cabinet to discharge its responsibility by delegating a part of it to some of its members. Thus in the last war and in the present war we have had delegation to a War Cabinet, and many other instances could be given. In the post-war days we might have an emergency situation for some time to come, and, in view of the hitter experience we had in the early days of the present war, we should, I suggest, be justified in treating defence as an emergency subject to be dealt with by special methods.
    Next I would point out that under Lord Chatfield's plan the Prime Minister, on whom the major responsibility for policy and especially the defence policy rests, is to be the Chairman of the Defence Council, and the Minister for Co-ordination of Defence and the Foreign Secretary are to be among its members. Even more important, the technical advisory body, the Defence Board, is to include the Minister for Co-ordination of Defence as Chairman,
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    the three Service Ministers, the Foreign Secretary and the three Chiefs of Staff, and, if the Dominions should join in, the Dominions Chiefs of Staff or their representatives. That is to say that five United Kingdom Ministers holding key posts in defence matters and the Chiefs of Staff who advise them would all be members of this Advisory body, and the Secretariat would be drawn from the Committee of Imperial Defence. That group possess between them more information about all aspects of our defence than anyone else in the world, so the Defence Council would be very much in their hands in working out the ten-year plan.
    It is this Defence Board that would have to supply the information and the Staff appreciations. In fact, it presents a secret memorandum which is the point of departure for the Defence Council's plan. And it would be the same information and the same appreciations that in their other capacities, as members of the Committee of Imperial Defence, they were giving to the Cabinet. A substantial portion of the Cabinet, therefore, would actually be concerned in drawing up the plan under the scheme. Also, the Cabinet have to sponsor the plan, and they have the right of criticism—certainly so at the formative stage—and they cannot criticize without knowing what is proposed. I am sure, therefore, that they would insist on being informed at all stages of what was going on.
    The position would be very similar to that in the case of a delegation that represents the Government at an Imperial Conference, or an International Conference, or the discussion of some great issue at the League of Nations. That is to say, the Government delegates receive their original instructions from the Cabinet; if they find it necessary to depart from them they come back to the Cabinet for fresh instructions, and throughout the Conference they keep the Government informed of what is going on. In practice, therefore, before the ten-year plan was signed by the Prime Minister and his colleagues, and passed out of the hands of the Cabinet, it would substantially have been approved by the Cabinet. Surely if that view is correct the actual derogation from the Cabinet's responsibility is a matter more of theory than of Practice.
    Nor is that all, because under the plan the Defence Council has to watch the

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    situation continuously and make reports every year to Parliament for discussion before the Defence Estimates. There will, no doubt, be adjustments in the plan to meet changes in the international situation, or changes in methods of war, which it is quite certain the march of time is going to produce. There may be great internal movements in other countries, new ideologies or a recrudescence of old ideologies perhaps, and international crises involving speeding up of armaments which would bring the Defence Council into action. Or, alternatively, there may be opportunities for economies. But whatever the reasons may be for making changes, I feel certain of one thing, and that is that the Prime Minister of the day, before summoning the Defence Council to meet, and at every stage, would feel bound to consult his Cabinet. And I am certain also that the Cabinet would expect to be kept informed. I do not see how that could be avoided because the defence policy, after all, is a very important part of the general policy of the Government, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer and all the spending Departments must know a long time before the Estimates how much money is going to be left for them after the needs of defence are provided for. For all those reasons, my Lords, I feel that the plan would make little change in the constitutional responsibility of the Cabinet, who would, in practice, have to be kept informed throughout and frequently consulted.
    Now there are, of course, a great many precedents for consultations between the Government and the Opposition leaders in matters of great national importance. I noticed one only last night in the noble Viscount, Lord Maugham's recently published book dealing with the Munich crisis, and a great many other instances could be given. In the case of national defence, it has been by no means unusual to invite leaders of the Opposition Parties to the Committee of Imperial Defence, which is the predecessor of Lord Chatfield's proposed Defence Council. As I say, there are a great many examples. There was the case of Lord Balfour who, when leader of the Opposition in 1908, attended the Committee of Imperial Defence to discuss the invasion problem, and, again, after he had laid down the leadership, he became a member of a very important sub-committee which inquired into the same
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    subject in 1913–14; and in 1914–15 he became a member of the War Council which was a projection into the war of the Committee of Imperial Defence.
    Again, Mr. Bonar Law, as Leader of the Opposition, and Lord Lansdowne attended a very important meeting of the War Council in March, 1915, when agreement was reached, though it is rather interesting to recall that they were not willing, at that time of controversy over the Dardanelles and munitions problems, to attend regularly. After the war, Lord Haldane, at Lord Baldwin's request, retained the chairmanship of an important sub-committee, and after the fall of the. Labour Government in 1924, he several times attended the Committee of Imperial Defence in that capacity. Between the two wars, the question of the Channel tunnel was constantly cropping up and it became the custom to invite leaders of the Opposition to attend the Committee for those discussions. Before the Disarmament Conference of 1932, there were rather prolonged discussions attended by several representatives of each of the Opposition parties on the disarmament policy. Of course, if the representatives of the Opposition could be present at the Committee of Imperial Defence, I take it that they could associate themselves with Lord Chatfield's Defence Council. Everything, of course, depends on whether the Opposition leaders are prepared to attend. That is a different matter on which I am not competent to speak and I hope that we may hear something about that during the debate.
    Before leaving precedents, I should like to mention one from Australia. In October, 1940, the Menzies Government announced the formation of an Advisory War Council as a result of inter-Party discussions. It consisted of four members of the Government and four members of the Labour Opposition. When Mr. Curtin came into office in October, 1941, he enlarged it to ten members, five from the Government and five from the Opposition, and later Sir Earle Page was co-opted by the Government as an elder statesman. This body, presided over by the Prime Minister of Australia, is a consultative and deliberative body; it takes decisions, but always with the reservation that the Cabinet have the right to implement them or not. There was, however, an underlying assumption that members of the Cabinet would be in a

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    position to get Cabinet endorsement. Members of the Council were subject to the same requirements as to secrecy as members of the Government. Its functions comprised (1) international questions affecting the Commonwealth; (2) the higher strategy of the war; (3) full reviews of the naval, military and air situation, after consultation with the Service Chiefs; and (4) war policy generally. Latterly there have been difficulties as to the membership of the Council among the Opposition Parties, and the United Australia Party decided that their representatives should withdraw from the Council, and Mr. Menzies and Mr. Hughes wrote letters of resignation, but the Country Party still remains represented on the Council. Lord Chatfield would like to see the Dominions represented on his Council, but I shall not pursue that subject, because it is really a matter entirely for the Dominions themselves and it would not be proper for me to speak about it, although I should like to mention that there are a great many precedents both in peace and war for the association of the Dominions in our Defence Councils, so that they could take part in an Empire Defence Council if they should so desire.
    As for the position of Parliament, its constitutional position does not seem to be much affected by the scheme. There would be ample opportunity for debating both the original ten-year plan and the annual reports, in exactly the same way as Parliament used before the war to debate the annual White Paper statements just before the Estimates; and in the last resort, as the noble Lord said just now, the House of Commons, if they found the scheme absolutely unacceptable, could destroy it, though it would be a very extreme and rare step to refuse to accept a plan bearing the signatures of the Party leaders. Many of your Lordships, however, are more competent than I am to speak on the Parliamentary aspects, and so I shall leave that point.
    I believe that the scheme is workable and that it would go a long way to bring about unity in defence. Moreover, I believe that the constitutional objections are very small, considering the abnormal times in which we live. In affirming this, however, I should like to place on record that I myself prefer the Committee of Imperial Defence, to which my noble
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    friend objects, to the new Defence Council. There is nothing which in practice the Defence Council could do which either constitutionally or practically the Committee of Imperial Defence cannot do equally well, and very little which it has not already done. I agree that the abuses which the noble Lord mentioned did creep in a few years before the war, but it would be easier to cure the abuses—indeed, I think that they will cure themselves—than to create a new body and to build it up to a position of prestige and authority comparable to that which the Committee of Imperial Defence has reached. Its advice, despite or perhaps because of its consultative and advisory character, has been accepted, and the vast majority of its conclusions carried out. Moreover, there are advantages in the consultative and advisory character of the Committee which I described here two years ago, and I shall not go over that ground again for fear of trespassing too long on your Lordships' patience.
    I am not going to quarrel, however, about a title. Whatever its title, the new body will be an extension of, and will have to use to a great extent the machinery of, the Committee of Imperial Defence, which under the scheme is to be retained, and I do recognize that there are occasions when a new departure can best be promoted by a change of name. In conclusion, I should like to say how strongly I agree with the noble Lord that now is the time to act, while we have a National Government familiar with all the aspects of war and before Party politics are resumed. The proposals should be worked out and put into execution for the United Kingdom in the first instance. Then, of course, they would be communicated to the Dominions in the ordinary way, and, if they were agreeable, they might be considered by some Imperial Conference or meeting of Prime Ministers.
    LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I am sure your Lordships are indebted to the two noble Lords who have already contributed such very important speeches on this subject. Both my noble and gallant friend Lord Chatfield and my noble friend Lord Hankey have had unique experience in dealing with this subject before the war, and I will, if I may, try to give the point of view of the much-abused and despised Party politician, and in this case

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    also, I hope, the view of the Labour Party, which, if Lord Chatfield's scheme is to be carried out, must, like the Liberal Party, be a consenting party. I have consulted two or three of my friends who have experience of these matters, and I shall try to put our point of view. Both noble Lords who have spoken dealt very largely with the past, and, if they will forgive me, I do not propose to follow them in that. I thought that we were going to discuss more the future, and that is certainly my intention. If we go into the past, what those for whom I speak would want to know would be whom to hang—and there might be quite a number of them!
    The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, painted, I thought, a racier gloomy picture. Apparently we are going back to the same sort of system that we had between the wars and before the last war, with, as he rightly said, in times of apparently profound peace people thinking about anything but war and armaments, and when, unless there are very powerful Defence !Ministers and they are fortunate in having a patriotic Chancellor of the Exchequer, there is apt to be neglect, and armaments are apt to be reduced to a dangerously low level. My noble and gallant friend Lord Chatfield proposes to set up this Defence Council in order to try and obviate that. I thought his case for a Defence Council was very fully answered by the noble Lord, Lord Hankey. It seems to me also to come immediately up against the old rock of Cabinet responsibility, which is so deeply embedded in our whole constitutional and Parliamentary practice that I find it difficult to visualize any Cabinet Ministers worth their salt who would to this extent abdicate their responsibilities to a Council of Defence.
    I believe I speak for a great many of my Party in saying that I can see no insuperable difficulty about an all-Party agreement on national defence policy. I can see no objection to that. But we must remember that that also means that you must have broad agreement between the Parties on international, Colonial and Imperial policies, because armaments ought to depend on foreign, Colonial and Imperial policy; they are the expression of your policy. You do not build up your armaments in a vacuum; you have to consider what international difficulties you are likely to get into and who are
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    your possible enemies. For example, Lord Chatfield, when Chief of Staff and First Sea Lord—and he was quite right—accepted the doctrine that we need not regard the United States, with its powerful navy, as a potential enemy. That attitude has been adopted for a generation in the Admiralty, and he accepted it in his turn as we all did. There is an example of foreign policy affecting our armaments.
    Having said that, may I very respectfully make some suggestions for the future? I was glad that Lord Chatfield hammered the defeatist doctrine that we must always go into a war unprepared and suffer defeats in the initial stages. We had a perfect example of that from the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, in the last war debate on February 24 last. I gave him notice that I was going to raise this, and I know he does not mind my referring to it. Lord Samuel, speaking from that distinguished Bench, let fall this priceless observation:
    "Britain seems likely to continue her tradition, which has been almost invariable in her history, of proceeding through a succession of defeats to victory."
    Why should we continue that tradition? We shall do it once too often. As my noble and gallant friend Lord Chatfield said, the growth of armaments may be such that the first victory will be the final victory in the next war, if there is another great conflict. If that is our tradition it is a tradition which I suggest should be broken, and we should educate our people into the belief and conviction that we cannot afford to go into hostilities so utterly unprepared that we have to go through a series of humiliating defeats in the first stages. We had that process in the South African war, in the first world war, and now in this second world war. We have not reached victory yet in this war, and our early blunders and setbacks have made the way harder and bloodier than it need have been. I was so glad that Lord Chatfield attacked that defeatist doctrine. I hope he will continue to do so.
    There are certain fixed points with regard to the future on which I believe we can all agree. The first is that, for a period at any rate, strong national armaments will be necessary. Secondly, I believe there will be general acceptance of the policy of a collective Allied system for mutual protection. The great Allies will,

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    for the good of the world, work together for mutual protection, and in time this should merge into an International Police Force, carrying out the judgments of an international authority and a World Court. That is envisaged in the Atlantic Charter. It colours and affects the whole future policy on armaments. Further, the problem of keeping Germany and Japan or any other aggressive Powers helpless in the future to commit new aggressions until a more peaceable generation has grown up will be far simpler than it was after the first world war. All that will really be required is to deprive these two criminal States of aviation. Deprive them of aviation and they will be helpless. Then it will be a simpler problem to preserve the peace of the world by collective armaments.
    As regards our own organization, if those fixed points are agreed upon, I imagine that, for some little time anyhow, we shall have to have some degree of compulsory service. I believe public opinion has changed a great deal in regard to that, and we are inclining more to the old Social Democratic ideas of the middle of the last century and the French Socialist idea that compulsory national service for the defence of the State is on the whole fairer than the old-fashioned voluntary system. It is a very controversial matter, but I suggest that there might be acceptance of that; I do not know.
    Secondly, the ideal arrangement for the future—and I believe this is agreed in many exalted quarters—would be to have only one Fighting Service. Perhaps that is for the future; I see no chance of that being agreed to for some time. The Royal Navy and the Admiralty would certainly object at the present time, and I do not blame them, but I believe they will work up to that. As an alternative, and a stopgap, so to speak—and this touches very much on the proposals of my noble and gallant friend Lord Chatfield—I hope that we shall create directly after the war, if not before and during this war, a real Combined General Staff. We have not got it yet; it just does not exist. I and others have urged it for years in another place, and also in your Lordships' House. A Combined General Staff should have been set up before the war, but it will be a necessity in the future. In connexion with that Combined General Staff, as a
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    beginning of the future merging of the Services I think there should be a far greater exchange of personnel. For example, send your young military officers to sea for a period and your naval officers to serve on land with the Army. I hope that we shall retain a single Minister of Defence and that, in peace-time certainly, he will not be the Prime Minister as well. I do not see how he can be. I believe that would meet some of the difficulties which Lord Chatfield described so vividly to your Lordships when he spoke of the troubles we had before the war.
    The next suggestion which I hope will be considered very carefully is with regard to our Colonial and Imperial defence. We should be prepared to make far greater use of the native races, or rather I should say the indigenous races, for military purposes. May I remind your Lordships of two shining examples of the wonderful military qualities of certain of the indigenous races of the Empire in this war? I could also refer to our African troops, but I prefer to speak first of all of the Maoris of New Zealand. My noble friend Lord Croft will bear me out when I say that the Maori battalions which have fought in this war have shown themselves as fine fighting soldiers as any in the world—most wonderful fighters. The second example is most curious. At the beginning of the war, under one of the schemes drawn up by Lord Chatfield and Lord Hankev—a very wise provision—the New Zealand Government was obliged to send a brigade to the Fiji Islands in case of a Japanese intervention taking place immediately. Having nothing else to do there, the New Zealand officers raised native levies and trained them. These Fijian solders have turned out to be most marvellous jungle fighters. They were used in the fighting on Bougainville Island, where they completely outwitted and outfought the Japanese. Nobody thought of using these Fijians before except as police levies, but there you have natural-born jungle fighters without fear and with all the initiative required for that exacting form of warfare. What a pity it was we did not draw on this wealth of military talent in the Empire before the war. Of course that would mean some change in Imperial and Colonial policy, but the advantages far outweigh the difficulties.
    Lastly, with regard to the future of defence, I hope when these things are being considered, that this suggestion will also be

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    examined. I should like to see the Home Guard system retained and extended also to the Navy and Air Force. I think you will have to pay the Home Guard for time in camps and for lost time generally, and there might be a bonus for efficiency; but if you could keep the nucleus of the idea and spirit of the Home Guard organization going, and extend it to the Air Force and the Royal Navy, you would retain a very valuable backing for the domestic defence of the country. Many of the points raised by Lord Chatfield require very close examination. I did not know what was in the noble Lord's mind, and I hope he will not take anything I have said as being in any way hostile. In conclusion, if I may, I should like, on behalf of all my noble friends, to thank him for his most interesting contribution.
    VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: My Lords, I should like to consult your Lordships for one moment as to the course of this debate. We have had a number of extremely interesting speeches, and a number of other noble Lords—six more, I believe—have still to speak. It seems hardly possible that we shall be able to finish this debate to-day. What I therefore suggest, very respectfully, to your Lordships is this. On the next sitting of the House there is a Motion in the name of my noble friend Lord Southwood calling attention to the problems of juvenile delinquency. I suggest we take that Motion first. I understand there are not a large number of Peers who wish to speak on that subject, and perhaps that debate will be over in an hour or a little more. We could then continue with the present debate and finish it that day. I only put forward that suggestion for the consideration of the House. It seems to me that it would be a pity if so important a debate as this were cut unduly short.
    LORD ADDISON: My Lords, I should like to support the general proposition which the Leader of the House has made. I have before me the list of the distinguished Peers who still wish to speak in this debate, and it is to the national advantage that they should be heard as fully as they would wish. At the same time I should like very cordially to support what the noble Viscount suggested with regard to the Motion of my noble friend Lord Southwood. More than once it has happened that a debate has been continued ever to another day and so put out of
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    court, so to speak, a matter which has been on the Order Paper for a long time, and which was put on the Order Paper in that place in order that it might be debated at an early moment. That is not desirable. Therefore, I agree with the noble Viscount's suggestion, if the House agrees to adjourn the present debate, that it should not prejudice the very important domestic matter which my noble friend Lord Southwood has had on the Paper for a considerable time. We should be in a position to discuss that Motion first and then continue this debate.
    THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: My Lords, I do not know whether the Leader of the House has considered all the possible plans. I am wondering whether it might not be more convenient if this debate were continued, not on the next sitting day, but at a subsequent sitting? I throw out that suggestion in case it may be found more convenient.
    VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: I did consider that. It is a balance of considerations, as always, in a case of this kind; but there are certain noble Lords who are able to be here only two days of the week because they have work in other parts of the country or in London, and it seemed to me better, if we could, to get all our business into two days. I am entirely open to conviction if other, members of the House think differently, but my experience has been that to have an unnecessary debate on a third day very often leads to inconvenience for a number of Peers.
    LORD CHATFIELD: May I ask the Leader of the House at what time he would propose to adjourn this debate, and about how many speakers would be left to speak when it is resumed?
    VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: My proposal would be that three more speeches should be taken to-day and then the debate should be adjourned. That would leave two or three speeches for the next sitting.
    LORD ADDISON: I sincerely hope that the suggestion of the Leader of the House will be acceptable because, as he said, a good many of us are in the habit—not knowing beforehand—of making appointments which would prevent us from attending a debate that has gone over to a third day. Speaking for myself, it has been a very considerable inconvenience to

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    me during the last three weeks. If the suggestion of the noble Marquess were adopted it might mean a fuller debate, but it would not necessarily mean a better attendance or greater continuity of interest in the discussion.
    THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, attributed to my noble friend Lord Samuel a defeatist policy. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, the position is exactly the contrary. What my noble friend said was that we, in the last war and in this war, went through a series of defeats to victory while Germany made a habit of starting off with victories but ended with defeat. If that is a defeatest statement, I do not understand the English language. The noble and gallant Lord who introduced this Motion has, in his speech, accepted beforehand the point of view I wish to put before your Lordships. He stated that he fully realized that defence and foreign policy must go hand in hand. In that I most fully agree with him and with the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi. But unhappily there is nothing to that effect in the Motion which is on the Order Paper. Therefore I suggest to the noble and gallant Lord that his Motion is not quite complete. In my view the second part of the Motion should read "whether they will consider, the practicability of obtaining the agreement of all Parties that national defence and foreign policy shall in future be a non-Party matter."
    LORD CHATFIELD: May I intervene to make one remark on that? I did very seriously consider that, but I realized that the two subjects would be too much for one debate and that the question of foreign policy could be better dealt with in a separate debate.
    THE EARL OF PERTH: I will come to that in a minute if I may. I quite understand what the noble Lord has just said, but before I begin on that point I must express some surprise and a little doubt as to the thesis put forward by the noble and gallant Lord that much of our troubles and unreadiness were due in the past to the doctrine of collective security and also were caused to some extent by the League of Nations. I do not think that that is really a fair statement. The Covenant of the League of Nations placed very great responsibilities on the larger Members and it was for the Governments
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    to provide the force necessary to execute these obligations. If the Governments were not prepared to do so then I think they should have said so openly and either retired from the League or informed their fellow Members of what their position was. As a matter of fact neither of these things was done.
    As to the question whether national defence and foreign policy can be separated, the noble Viscount who leads this House has in various debates very fully recognized their connexion. In one debate on the reform of the Foreign Office he remarked:
    "You cannot have a foreign policy at all unless you have physical power behind it."
    That is a profoundly true observation. It is one which I fear some of His Majesty's Governments in the past have been too apt to forget and therefore they may do so in the future. The size of our Fighting or what I call Defence Services must in a large measure be governed by the commitments we have undertaken in the field of international relations, and the extent of those commitments must in their turn greatly depend on the strength of our Fighting Services. I need hardly stress the point, but I think it is obvious if that is true then it is hardly possible to have a non-Party or, as I prefer to call it, a national policy for defence unless you also have a national policy for foreign affairs. Equally a national policy for foreign affairs necessitates a national policy for defence.
    I do not intend to dwell on the past or to reawaken old controversies, but I am convinced that if such a national foreign and defence policy could be secured the advantages would be very great. Foreign countries have been too apt to speculate on changes in Government in this country and to calculate whether they would receive more or less sympathy if a given Party came into power. I noticed how often that tendency prevailed during the thirteen years I was at Geneva. I noticed, too, that foreign statesmen follow much more closely than is realized in this country our Parliamentary debates, particularly when they touch on foreign affairs. Sometimes even their statesmen are guided in framing their future policies by the observations made by the leaders of the Parties in Parliament here. I have often been asked what view a Conservative Party or a Labour Party would take of a certain subject when the Party in question

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    was in opposition, not in power, on some subject of particular interest to the country from which my questioner came. Surely it is wrong that modifications of foreign policy should depend on Party electoral successes probably due solely, or at any rate mainly, to domestic issues. Would it not be far happier for ourselves, for the Empire and for the world as a whole, if we had a definite national policy both on foreign affairs and for defence?
    LORD STRABOLGI: Foreign affairs must surely include also Colonial and Imperial affairs because they are often intermixed.
    THE EARL OF PERTH: I do not want to deal with Imperial affairs in this debate. I do not believe that, given adequate information—and of course, as the noble and gallant Lord pointed out, adequate information is essential—men of good will and men who care greatly for the welfare of their country are likely to come to very divergent views as to the principles which should underlie our foreign policy. There may of course be exceptional cases, there may be sincere differences of opinion, but I think these would be due more to individual than to Party tendencies. The detailed execution of the principles must of course be left to the Government of the day. I do not intend to try to formulate concrete terms in regard to the methods which might be pursued in order to take such important issues out of the Party arena. I am doubtful of the wisdom of doing so and frankly I am still more doubtful of a ten-year plan, but there might of course be discussions between the leaders of the various Parties at regular intervals or when His Majesty's Government and the Cabinet thought it important that leaders of the Opposition should be consulted because a grave event had happened in foreign affairs.
    I am considering solely what I may call the domestic side of the problem and not the wider and perhaps even more important aspect—namely, consultation with the Dominions. That is too large a subject to come into this debate to-day. But as far as this country is concerned believe the appropriate machinery can be easily devised. What is required is consent and agreement on the principles involved. I agree that it may involve a considerable break with tradition. What we have to think about
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    surely is the future. I am frankly rather alarmed when I read of a Conservative policy for the treatment of Germany after the war, and a Labour policy for the treatment of Germany after the war, and so on. Surely what we want, and what we must make every effort to reach, is a national policy on so vital a problem, and when once we secure a national policy we must adhere to it. If our hopes are fulfilled and an international organization for the preservation of peace, foreshadowed in the Atlantic Charter and outlined more clearly in the Moscow Declaration, is firmly established, then our foreign policy and indeed the foreign policy of the United Nations as a whole will be very greatly simplified. If I may say so without presumption, I certainly hope that our foreign policy will largely accord with the admirable statement made by Mr. Cordell Hull on the principles guiding the foreign policy of the United States of America which appeared in The Times on March 23. Surely such a policy would obtain the support of all Parties, and all Parties could unite to give effect to it and the policy of national defence which it would entail.
    I must apologize to the noble and gallant Lord for having talked mainly about foreign policy and not much about national defence, but I have done so because I know something about foreign policy, but very little about defence. As we shall have a little time for further consideration I would ask the noble and gallant Lord if he would consider adding the words "and foreign" after the words "national defence" in the last line of his motion so that it would read "national defence and foreign policy shall in future be a non-Party matter."
    House adjourned during pleasure; and resumed by the LORD DENMAN.
    THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, I shall not ocupy your Lordships for any length of time. We have heard two able speeches from the noble and gallant Lord who moved the Motion and from the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, both of whom had a great deal to do with the defence organization as it existed up to the outbreak of this war. They had unique opportunity of understanding the mechanism and no men are better qualified than they are to know where the jolts and difficulties come. I rise to support the Motion of the noble and gallant Lord be-

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    cause I cannot help thinking that it is very desirable to remove national defence from the political arena, though it will be very difficult to get it treated as a non-Party matter. I need not mention foreign policy because I think we all understand that national defence and foreign policy must go hand in hand, or at any rate ought to do so. Parliament, however, is very likely to be jealous on the subject of future policy. See how jealous Parliament is about the Army. It has to pass an Army Act every year or there would be no Army. I think it would be very difficult to get Parliament to give up its authority, but if a defence scheme coming from an authoritative body composed of all the talent available could be laid before the Legislatures of the Empire, I think you would be likely to minimize criticism.
    The criticism I would make of the Council which the noble and gallant Lord suggests is that it is not broad enough. Everybody, when it comes to questions of the Dominions, jibs and draws back. We are told that fools rush in where angels fear to tread, and I am going to rush in now and say what I think we ought to do in order to produce an ideal organization. We cannot do without the Dominions and their great fleets and armies. We should not be discussing foreign policy here at the present moment if it were not for them. This country for many years must be the chief reservoir of man-power and money and so the Prime Minister should be the President of any Council, but all the Prime Ministers of the self-governing Dominions should be invited to become Vice-Presidents, and when this perambulating Commission goes round to study the defences of the Empire, the Prime Minister of the Dominion in which any meeting took place should take the chair.
    There is no difficulty nowadays in studying the defence problem on the ground which will be affected. It is as easy now with rapid air transit and long-range telephones to get a conference to meet in Canada or Australia as it was to get the House of Commons assembled in Westminster a hundred years ago. Psychological value will result from the whole Commonwealth of British Nations seeing a strong Committee going round the Dominions looking into questions of defence. That Committee should be as
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    much concerned with the defence of the Auckland Islands in the south as the Shetland Islands in the north. I suggest that every Prime Minister should have a seat on the Council, whether he wishes to occupy it or not. He could always appoint some representative to occupy it in his absence. The Defence Council, if it is to be strong, must have the very best advice and must have a staff. On that point I am entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi. For goodness' sake after this war let us have a real General Staff composed of officers of all three Services and representatives of all those Ministries which would be engaged in carrying on a war. If you are to have this Staff at the back of the War Council you must disrate those three strongholds of conservatism, the Admiralty, the War Office and the Air Ministry. Let them deal with the administration of their great Services; let them deal with training, clothing and feeding those Services; but let national defence problems be presented to Parliament by the Prime Minister and then Parliament will have all the control it wants. If we have not got a Combined Staff, as Lord Strabolgi said, at any rate we have got something near it.
    LORD STRABOLGI: We have not got one.
    THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: Then let us go on and get one. It may be said that we do not want to start thinking now about the next war, but I think we want a General Staff which can go into questions of defence and see what new values have arisen and what changes must be made. That must be done at once and not in five years time when men have forgotten everything they did in this war. We want it done now, when recollections are vivid, and the information when it is collected will have to be examined by the Defence Council. I am not one of those who want to see one Service only Neither the Navy nor the Army want to lose their old traditions, and I am sure the Air Force do not want to give up the magnificent traditions they have created in a quarter of a century.
    We all want those traditions maintained and a spirit of emulation between the Services maintained. But we should draw the Services closely together. I see no possible reason for having three Commanders-in-Chief. Why

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    should there not be one Commander-in-Chief at a station, if he has the proper staff? If we have differences tie should fight them out behind closed doors and then in public present a united front. Why should we have all these quarrels in Parliament? If you have quarrels in public you have to fight them in public so that anyone may join in the fight. I suggest that differences should be considered in private, so that in public you may be able to say: "That is what the Services want. If you do want the country defended, that is what we ask for in the name of the three Services." I believe that these two things are absolutely essential: a broad Imperial Council to consider the whole thing and to go into all the various parts of the world, and a Combined Staff to be an expert advisory body to the Council. I believe it would be of great value to have such a Combined Staff, leaving the three Ministries and their staffs to carry on the administration of the three Services and to look after such matters as their clothing, transport and so on.
    LORD STRATHEDEN AND CAMPBELL: My Lords, it is with considerable diffidence that I rise to take part in this debate, not only because this is the first time that I have ventured to address your Lordships, but also because the subject under consideration has been dealt with on such a high level by those noble Lords who have already spoken. But, as a serving soldier, I do feel that the organization and planning of Imperial defence is a matter which affects the Fighting Services very acutely, and, therefore, I am venturing to say a few words to your Lordships upon it. It may be that it is not possible to divorce the running of the Services from control of the Cabinet, and, in fact, from Party politics. That, I think, has got to be accepted. But I do consider that you want something on the lines—as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, has suggested—of a Council, representing all Parties, to consult, and to devise the means of ensuring continuity in the defence policy. That is the important thing. The general lines of the policy could go continuously forward and, as the noble Earl, Lord Perth, has said, could work in with foreign policy so as to ensure that other countries do not take advantage of our very rapid changes of opinion on policy. That, I am certain,
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    is most important. And certainly, I think, it entails reorganization of the General Staff with a head responsible for all three Services, and all three Services working within it.
    Then there is the matter which has just been touched upon by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, the question of compulsory service. I had thought that that was more generally accepted as being certain to come about after this war. Possibly, I am one of the very few members of this House who has, in peace, put into practice a system of compulsory military service in the Empire. I can assure your Lordships that it is essential to have this run on an entirely non-Party basis. That is, in fact, the prime essential. If that is done you then get engendered among those concerned a feeling of service to the community, and even the people who are, normally, most difficult, will strive to make it work smoothly. As I say, it is necessary for this to be dealt with on non-Party lines. In conclusion, I would like to express the hope that the Government, and all Parties, will realize the vital necessity of co-ordinating Imperial Defence and of ensuring that is worked on a long-term policy, and that they will seriously consider the possibilities of putting into practice the Motion which has been moved by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield.
    THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: My Lords, I beg to move that this debate be now adjourned.
    Moved, That the debate be now adjourned.—(The Marquess of Londonderry.)
    THE LORD SPEAKER (LORD DENMAN): My Lords, before I put the question, I would just like to say that I am sure that, like myself, your Lordships must all have been delighted to listen to the excellent maiden speech of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stratheden and Campbell.
    On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly.

    PREVENTION OF BIGAMY
    LORD MOTTISTONE LORD MOTTISTONE had the following Notice on the Paper: To ask His Majesty's Government, whether with a view to mitigating the cruel hardship

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    caused to innocent persons by the prevalence of the crime of bigamy they will direct every citizen to fill in the relevant facts, if any, as to his or her marriage on his or her identity card, and at the same time instruct registrars and all other persons entitled to celebrate marriages to require each person applying for permission to marry to produce his or her identity card at the time of application and not to permit the completion of the marriage contract until sufficient time has elapsed to enable proper inquiries to be made; and to move for Papers.
    The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am moving the Motion which stands in my name because it has come to my knowledge since I first drew your Lordships' attention to this matter that the evil is really great and growing. Public mention has been made of it by Judges of Assize, and I have heard of it from police authorities in many parts of the country. Of course, bigamy may take many forms, but the one with which I am principally concerned is that which involves the entrapping of an innocent girl by some heartless and heedless man who cannot get possession of her without taking her to church or to a register office. The result does lead to what I have described here. It causes great hardship. There can be no doubt that when we rate monogamy so highly as to make a breach of it punishable by a sentence of seven years penal servitude, and then take so few precautions to see that such breaches are not committed, we, as a State, render ourselves responsible for an untold amount of real suffering and distress of mind. For see what happens to the unfortunate woman when the fact comes out that the man has already got a wife. He has very likely disappeared by that time, and she is left amongst her neighbours without the name she has borne before, and, worst of all, the children, if there are any, are branded as illegitimate.
    There are people who think that bastards should not suffer the disqualifications that they do suffer under our law. But it is the law, and therefore I am not exaggerating when I say that the distress of mind which is caused is very real and very great. I think that will be common ground amongst us, and I hope that the noble Earl who replies for the Government will not again say, or suggest, that the evil is not very great.
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    I can assure him, from facts which have come to my knowledge, both in the Home Office and outside, and at the Ministry of Health, that there can be no doubt that this is a very real and growing evil. The question is how to cure it. I have proposed in this Motion of mine a method which really would have the desired effect. I do not for a moment say that it would stop bigamy altogether, but it would abate it to a very great degree. As to that all authorities who have considered it are of one mind. As will be seen, what I propose is that in order to reduce the prevalence of the crime everyone should be obliged to set down in full the relevant facts, if any, as to his or her marriage on his or her identity card. I am indebted to my noble friend Viscount Maugham for pointing out to me that this proposal would carry, as a corollary, that from now onwards everyone who contracts a marriage either at a register office or in a Church of England church should produce his or her identity card, and that it should be stamped or marked in the appropriate division by the celebrating authority. That would at once render the crime of bigamy far less prevalent, even if it did not stop it altogether.
    I have been told by the Home Secretary and by the Minister of Health—to both of whom I pay my acknowledgments for the great consideration they have given to this matter and for the very great courtesy they have shown to me personally in discussing it with me—that they cannot carry out this proposal. I cannot see why. No legislation is necessary; all that it is necessary to do is to decree that in the appropriate place in the identity card which we all carry—I hope that I have mine with me!—the holder shall state whether he or she is married or single. There is a space on the card which seems to me to have been made for this purpose. It may be that it was intended to be used by Lord Woolton, because we know that the identity card is important for the proper working of the wonderful food arrangements which we owe to him. However, the space is there, and I suggest that it should be used in this way. To carry out the suggestion of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, which I gratefully acknowledge, the celebrant or registrar would have to see that the space was properly marked in his presence when a marriage took place. All that is neces-

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    sary is to say that this shall be done, and to ask the Women's Voluntary Service to assist in carrying it out, as they have helped in so many other ways already. I believe it would be found that there was no real difficulty.
    It may be urged that we should have only the word of the man or woman concerned as to whether he or she was married or single. That is true, but men and women will hesitate for a very long time before writing down what they know to be a lie, with all the chances of being found out. I am told by those who understand the criminal mind that it would be very rare for people so to act. So far as the Forces are concerned, I think that the identity card method is the best one, and I have on my side a number of very eminent legal authorities. The noble Earl who is to reply said in a recent debate that he hoped the day would come when there would be no more identity cards, but I think that point can be met by saying that they will at any rate be needed for some little time after the war, until the various war-time provisions under which we live have given way to more normal conditions; and it would be an advantage, I think, to the Ministry of Health And to the Home Office to have done something to abate this grave evil while they are getting ready their plans to co-ordinate the general arrangements for registration, which I know that they are anxious to do. In thanking those concerned or the consideration which they have given to this matter, I should like to add that the Registrar-General himself has been good enough to give me much of his time and advice.
    I think also that it would be easy and wise to decree that whenever any one serving in the Forces comes to be married he or she should produce the pay book which shows the married or single status, and in the case of a man what allotment is being made. It is curious that that is not done now, and it is only necessary to say that it shall be done for it to be done. Already many of our Dominion Forces, anxious to help in this matter, have issued instructions that the permission of the commanding officer is to be shown to the registrar or clergyman, and it would be easy to show the pay book as well. It may well be that the noble Earl who is to reply will say that it is the view of the Government that they cannot mark the
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    identity cards. It has been indicated to me by the Registrar-General that there is another method by which we might greatly abate this evil. I hope that that may be found to be effective.
    I think it will be a little difficult in the case of the Church of England. I had thought that there was less risk of the crime of bigamy in the case of marriages conducted by the Church of England than in the case of marriages conducted by registrars. That used to be the case when so many of the population lived stable lives and most of them went to church. The words of the Marriage Service are so terrible in their import that many people would hesitate to commit a crime of this kind if they heard them, and all the people assembled in church would of course know the parties, and that would act as a very real deterrent. I fear that that is no longer the case, however, and I am told that the Church of England does not insist on any document to the same extent as do the registrars. I think that that is so from a conversation which I had with the Registrar-General. I am sure, however, from what the most reverend Primate the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury said on the last occasion on which I raised this matter, and from a conversation which I have had with the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of London, who has been good enough to come here at great inconvenience to-day, that they would be glad to co-operate with the Registrar-General in any well-designed scheme to abate this evil. I make this proposal on behalf of that large and, I am sorry to say, growing number of innocent girls of worthy families who are entrapped in this way. They are the people who are suffering from this intolerable grievance, and it is for them that I appeal. I beg to move for Papers.
    THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: My Lords, I do not want to follow the noble Lord who has just spoken, because I am sure that all your Lordships agree very fully with the objects he has in mind and hope that something may be done to reduce the number of cases of this offence, a number which is, unfortunately, increasing at this time. I rise only to ask the noble Lord one question about identity cards. I am sure that he realizes that as soon as this war comes to an end there will be a very strong campaign for the removal of all controls. We know quite

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    well when we think the matter over that a great many controls will have to be maintained, but we hope that they will be reduced to the smallest number possible. So far as identity cards are concerned, I think that the population as a whole will take more exception to them than to anything else, as being quite foreign to anything to which we have ever had to submit before, and there will be a determined demand to get rid of them. I am not sure, therefore, how long the noble Lord thinks that this solution which he has suggested for the prevention of bigamous marriages will be in operation. For my part, I would do all I could to remove the necessity for identity cards. At present identity cards are in use for food rationing purposes, and when rationing comes to an end probably identity cards will disappear. I do not know whether the noble Lord has considered that point, and whether he is prepared with an answer to the question I have put to him.
    VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: My Lords, I should like to support the Motion of my noble friend. Speaking as a lawyer, I can see no objection to his proposal. I quite realize what the noble Marquess has said with regard to identity cards going out of use in due course, but it does not seem to me very likely that they will go out of use for some years after the war. Although it may be desirable that a great many things which are due to the war should disappear, I am not sure that identity cards are things to which most people very much object. My knowledge, as far as it goes, is that there is only one class who really strongly object to identity cards, and that is the criminal class, although I am quite sure my noble friend had not that in mind when he addressed your Lordships. I do not know of any other class in the country who would be very strongly opposed to the notion of disclosing their identity when it may be necessary. At any rate, I do think this terrible evil of bigamy should be stopped, as far as the Government can stop it, and if they are unable to accept the proposal of my noble friend Lord Mottistone I should be very glad to hear that they have some other method of preventing so many hapless girls having their lives ruined by finding themselves involved in an illicit union to a man who has already deserted his wife.
    LORD JESSEL: My Lords, I am sorry I cannot agree with my noble friend who spoke just now about the necessity of preserving identity cards after the war. There is no doubt they must go on for a certain time because, as has been pointed out, they are necessary for rations, and we know very well that we cannot have freedom from rationing directly after the war. I quite sympathize with what the noble Lords says about bigamy; it is a dreadful thing that is going on in this country. If you take the trouble to read this Motion closely, you will see that the noble Lord asks the Government
    "whether with a view to mitigating the cruel hardship caused to innocent persons by the prevalence of the crime of bigamy they will direct every citizen to fill in the relevant facts.…"
    That is a most dangerous thing. You cannot do that because you are not allowed to touch your identity card in any way. Look at the enormous trouble it would be to fill in all those cards again and send them back. It took time enough on the last occasion. The noble Lord's question goes on to speak of filling in the relevant facts "as to his or her marriage on his or her identity card." I do not know what the ladies would have to say to that. Even if you did adopt this suggestion it would be a very difficult thing, and I do not think a great many people would like all these detailed disclosures. Supposing a man has been divorced or is separated from his wife, or something of that kind, it would be very unpleasant for him to have to put in all those details.
    It does not seem to me to be the right way of doing things. What I hope is that now that the noble Lord has called attention to the matter the Government will consider it is up to them to devise some remedy. With regard to the serving soldier, he always used to have to get from his commanding officer permission to marry so as to get on the strength. The commanding officer, therefore, would know the facts. It may be difficult in these times to get a certificate from a commanding officer. The same thing might apply to the soldiers of other nations who are quartered over here: they might also be asked to get some certificate from their commanding officers, stating whether they are married or not. I do not expect the Government will agree to this proposal. At the same time, I quite sympathize with the noble Lord, and I

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    think we are under a debt of gratitude to him for calling attention to this state of affairs. But as regards his actual proposal I am afraid it would take a great deal of time and it would be so impracticable that I hope his Motion will not be agreed to.
    THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA AND BURMA (THE EARL OF MUNSTER): My Lords, the intention which lies behind the Motion of my noble friend Lord Mottistone to mitigate the hardship caused to innocent persons by the cruel and heartless crime of bigamy will naturally have gained the sympathy, not only of a number of people outside this House but of all noble Lords who have listened to my noble friend's argument. At the same time, His Majesty's Government also are seriously concerned with the increase which has recently occurred in the crime of bigamy. There can therefore be no dispute whatever between my noble friend and His Majesty's Government, for we are all equally anxious to take every practical step to check the rise which has occurred, and which I think can be attributable to the unusual conditions prevailing in war-time. Unhappily this crime of bigamy is no new thing. It has a precedent of respectable antiquity, if I may use such an adjective in such a connexion, for it is recorded in the Bible in the fourth chapter of Genesis, where we are told that the patriarch Lamech, the son of Methuselah and the father of Noah, in spite of living to the ripe old age of 777, married two wives, Adah and Zillah, and so committed bigamy.
    LORD MOTTISTONE: But it was not against the law, was it?
    THE EARL OF MUNSTER: I am coming to that. If in those days identity cards had been in existence, and if every citizen had been directed to fill in all the relevant facts on his card it would not have prevented this first recorded act of bigamy, for the patriarch Lamech married both his wives simultaneously on the same day. It does seem to me to exhibit a most unusual desire to double his responsibilities, which he presumably took for better or for worse. But although it may or may not have been the law in that day, let me tell the noble Lord that it was laid down from that day onwards that no man who committed bigamy could advance to the dignified rank of a bishop, so I take it there
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    must have been some law in existence in those primitive times.
    My noble friend has suggested in his Motion that the particulars of marriage should be inserted by every citizen on his or her identity card, and that all persons who intend to be married should produce their cards to the Registrar-General or the minister of religion who is performing the ceremony. Frankly, I do not believe that the first proposal contained in this Motion would afford any protection. Anyone, as I see it, could enter on his identity card whatever facts suited his particular case. Let me try to give my noble friend an example, not of what might occur, but of what would always occur. Supposing my noble friend himself was prepared to perjure himself in a notice of marriage and was perfectly prepared to enter into a bigamous union. Surely there is no reason whatever why he should stop short of making a false entry on his identity card as well. It would be utterly futile for him to perjure himself for part of the journey when he intended to travel the whole way. It follows that unless we can be assured on every occasion that the entry made on an identity card is absolutely correct, the proposition which my noble friend has put forward is bound to collapse. It would not be sufficient to direct all citizens of this country to enter particulars of their marital state on their identity cards. There could be no guarantee that any of these entries were correct, and it would be a physical impossibility to ask the Registrar-General to call in 27,000,000 identity cards and endorse them with the appropriate remarks defining the marital state of the holder of each card. My noble friend will agree with me that, really, the work involved could not be justified at the present time in dealing with what is really a very limited problem.
    Let me turn from that and examine the second suggestion which my noble friend has made—namely, that identity cards should be shown to registrars and others entitled to perform the marriage ceremony, and if the relevant particulars were unsatisfactory or insufficient the celebration of the marriage could not take place until further facts were provided. I do not want to enter into any legal arguments on the preliminaries of marriage, but it is quite clear from what my advisers have told me that to meet the

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    point which my noble friend has made would require legislation involving considerable amendment of the existing Marriage Acts. It is equally obvious that it would be utterly impossible to introduce such legislation at the present time. My noble friend went on to suggest that a registrar should warn those intending to marry of the consequences which would follow if they committed bigamy. Frankly I am not enamoured with that proposition. I cannot help feeling that my noble friend, in his preoccupation with the guilty case, has overlooked that that warning would, in well over 99 per cent. of cases, imply a suspicion that the particular declaration was a false one and that one of the parties, or both of them, intended to commit the crime of bigamy.
    No doubt my noble friend will observe that I have turned down the two suggestions he has made, but there remains the question whether His Majesty's Government can take any practical steps to deal with the increase in the crime of bigamy now and at once. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Home Affairs, who is primarily responsible in this matter, is, as I have already said, seriously concerned with the recent increase in this crime which has occurred, and he is anxious to take every possible step to check the increase in bigamous marriages. My noble friend is doubtless aware that certain steps have already been taken in consultation with the military authorities whereby it is made more difficult for members of Dominion and Allied Forces in this country to commit bigamous marriages. At the same time he will also remember that measures have been taken to prevent delay, as far as possible, in the celebration of war-time marriages, and the shortening of the period of notice in order that marriages may be celebrated more quickly has received the general support of the public. It would be unfortunate if my noble friend pressed his suggestion that members of the Armed Forces, chiefly of the British Army, should produce their paybooks if they desired to be married. I have been in consultation with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for War, who definitely objects to that suggestion on the reasonable ground, as I think, that soldiers, or indeed members of any of the Services,
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    should not be singled out for such a requirement.
    It therefore remains to see how it would be possible to assist my noble friend. I have here two forms which have to be completed before marriage in the case of all denominations other than the Church of England. The supply of these two particular forms is now, I understand, exhausted, and my right honourable friend is prepared to consult the Law Officers of the Crown before the forms are reprinted, to see whether additional words cannot be inserted to remind people of the serious crime of bigamy and of the penalties involved. That will go a long way to meet the point which my noble friend has in mind. As the result of these discussions arrangements can probably be entered into with the most reverend Primate to see whether the Church of England could in some way fall into line with our suggestions. If my noble friend will accept this offer I shall be very happy to invite the Home Secretary to enter into consultation with the Law Officers of the Crown as soon as possible to draft words which will meet the point which both my noble friend and His Majesty's Government have in mind.
    Perhaps I might make one last observation on the question of identity cards. Your Lordships will have observed that there is considerable feeling in some sections of this House as to the advisability or not of continuing identity cards after the war. They automatically expire when the emergency comes to an end as laid down in the National Registration Act. I do not want to enter into a discussion now as to whether they should be continued or not, but if my own personal view were asked it would be one which would support my noble friend Lord Londonderry and my noble friend Lord Jessel. I realize that I have not been able to go the whole way to meet my noble friend, but I feel sure that the action which the Home Secretary is prepared to take will bring the severe penalties for bigamy before the minds of those who are ready to commit this heartless crime, and I hope my noble friend will accept the suggestion which I have been authorized to make to-day.
    THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON: My Lords, as marriages in the Church of England have been mentioned perhaps I might venture to say a very brief word

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    upon that subject and as it has to be brief I must not enter into a debate upon the marriage law in Old Testament days. I was, however, surprised if I heard aright when the noble Lord said that from the days of Lamech onward it had been the law that no bishop might commit bigamy. The episcopal office is a great and an ancient one but it does not go back to the days of Methuselah. On this particular matter the Church of England is only too anxious to do everything possible to assist in the limitation and prevention of bigamy and to impress upon all the sin of bigamy. It is more easy for the Registrar-General by administrative order to secure that a particular form drawing attention to the penalty is used in every case than it is for the Church of England to do the same thing in every one of its churches; but in fact I think in every diocese there does exist an official form to be used when application is made for banns to be issued.
    In my own diocese that form asks the very direct question: "Have you ever been married before? If so, was that marriage ended by death, divorce or nullity?" Those are the only three possible causes for ending marriage and nobody who desires to commit bigamy can answer those questions without perjuring himself in doing so. But the fact remains that there is no statement on that form that to commit bigamy is a crime and involves penalties. I think your Lordships will understand that in the Church of England we do not want to suggest that those who come to be married by us are quite likely to commit bigamy. However, if the Registrar-General is going to take steps to draw particular attention to this matter I am sure that the authorities of the Church of England would be only too glad to see how far they can co-operate in the notices they issue and how, in such action, they can keep in line with the Registrar-General.
    There is only one other point I would mention. Reference has been made to the fact that members of the Canadian or American Forces wishing to marry in this country have to produce a certificate from their commanding officer authorizing them to do so. Some months ago some of us did most seriously ask that the same system might obtain in the British Army, and to the best of my belief our request
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    was refused and still remains rejected. I cannot see that there is any reason whatever against it. I agree that to produce a pay book is another matter, but every commanding officer has the necessary knowledge and it is not in the least difficult to say that anybody receiving banns for the marriage of a soldier must also require the production of a certificate from the soldier's commanding officer. I still hope that that particular suggestion may be very seriously reconsidered. It works without any difficulty in relation to Canadian and American soldiers. If you say it is singling out of the Army for one particular kind of treatment, I would point out that the Services are in a particular and unusual position. They consist of men living away from their homes and home associations, and it is not in the least easy for the registrar or for a clergyman, when a girl in his parish wishes to marry a soldier, to make the right inquiry about that soldier. It should be simplicity itself, and would be if he had to produce this certificate from his commanding officer. I therefore strongly urge that particular consideration may be given to it again. The last word I would say is that, distressing though this prevalent increase in bigamy is, we do well to remember that it is a tiny proportion of the total number of marriages. Distressing as it is, we have to keep it in proportion, but it does cause such distress that we ought to do everything possible to prevent it.
    LORD MOTTISTONE: My Lords, I must add a word to what the right reverend Prelate has said about producing a certificate from the commanding officer. While Canadians and Americans, as the right reverend Prelate has said, do produce this certificate our soldiers do not, and I am sure I shall have the sympathy of the noble Earl who replied for the Government and who himself is a soldier, in saying that it is ridiculous that we should not conform to a rule which the Canadians and Americans have been glad to follow. I am sure he will be able to tell his chief and the Secretary of State for War that this House strongly feels that the plan suggested by the Lord Bishop of London should be followed.
    With regard to my Motion I am sorry that my noble friend cannot accept it. I still think that this war-time trouble

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    might best have been dealt with by a wartime measure like that of identity cards, but the suggestion he has made is a most valuable one. He did not, however, make it so clear to all of us as I perhaps hoped he would do. I understand it is a fact that every man going to be married before a registrar has to subscribe to a document and that the Registrar-General proposes to add to that document strong words pointing out the dangers and hardships of bigamy and the penalties attaching to it. If it be the fact that in dioceses other than the diocese of the Lord Bishop of London there is not a similar document to which people must subscribe, I should hope that in consultation with the Registrar-General they will do the same. I thank the noble Lord for his reply and I hope he will convey my thanks to the authorities for having made this concession. I now desire leave of the House to withdraw my Motion.
    Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

  YORKSHIRE REGISTRIES (WEST RIDING) AMENDMENT BILL.
    BECKETT HOSPITAL AND DISPENSARY, BARNSLEY BILL.
    Reported, without amendment.