Lords Sitting of 26 February 1946

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers.

  EVENTS IN CAIRO AND ALEXANDRIA.
  LORD ALTRINCHAM: My Lords, I beg to ask the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, a question of which I have given him private notice, namely, whether His Majesty's Government can give this House any information about recent events in Cairo and Alexandria.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DOMINION AFFAIRS (VISCOUT ADDISON): My Lords, I welcome this opportunity of informing your Lordships of recent developments in Egypt. For some time past agitation has been carried on in Egypt against this country in support of the Egyptian national demands—and more specifically the complete evacuation of British troops—put forward in the Egyptian Government's note of December 26 last, of the contents of which your Lordships are aware. On February 9 student demonstrations on a large scale took place but were firmly handled by the Government then in power. Shortly afterwards, for reasons of internal policy, the Government resigned, and were replaced by the present Administration under Ismail Sidky Pasha, who removed the ban previously imposed on popular demonstrations on the understanding that they would be conducted in an orderly manner. Moreover, His Majesty's Government learned, with some concern, that the King's Rescript to his new Prime Minister characterized these events as a healthy manifestation of the people's ambition to realize their just claims both internal and external.
  A strike was eventually organized by student and workmen's associations on Thursday, February 2r. At first the proceedings were orderly, but it soon became evident that control was passing
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  into the hands of groups of people who proceeded to make systematic attacks on British civil and military property, including R.A.F. Headquarters and the British Cathedral which, as reports at the time made clear, was shamefully desecrated. British troops were finally compelled to fire in self-defence, and I wish to take this opportunity of paying a tribute to the forbearance shown by all ranks in conditions of great danger and provocation. Mercifully, so far as my reports go, no British subject actually lost his life during the day, and order was eventually restored by the Egyptian Police working in conjunction with the Egyptian Army. By that time, however, severe material damage had been done. Incidents also occurred during the day at Alexandria. That evening the Egyptian Prime Minister, in a broadcast, deplored the turn that evens had taken and announced that further demonstrations would be forbidden. His Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires immediately took the matter up with the Egyptian Prime Minister and inquired what action Sidky Pasha proposed to take to punish the persons responsible, to provide compensation for the damage, and to ensure the maintenance of order.
  His Majesty's Government take a serious view of these outrages, coming as they do at a time when they had expressed their intention of meeting the Egyptian demand for a review of the treaty relations between the two countries. They had already drawn the attention of the Egyptian Government to the dangers of the incitements to violence published in the Egyptian Press, and they cannot acquit that Government of responsibility for outrages which they could have foreseen and prevented had they drawn on the lessons of experience, or even reflected on the similar outcome of demonstrations held in Cairo in November last against developments in Palestine when destruction was wrought by groups of hooligans.
  His Majesty's Government has therefore instructed His Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires to follow up the action already most properly taken by him with a formal protest to the King and the Egyptian Government against this failure to take timely and effective action to maintain order; and to emphasize that these events must necessarily threaten the relationship of mutual confidence which the Egyptian

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  Government had declared it to be their object to promote. Mr. Bowker was also instructed to confirm, as from His Majesty's Government, the demands for the punishment of the guilty, for compensation for damage, and for reassurances for the future already conveyed by him, and to indicate the importance of meeting these requests in order to create the conditions of tranquillity which are necessary to enable our discussions with Egypt to proceed. These instructions have now been carried out, and we are awaiting the Egyptian Government's reply.
  I should record that an answer to Mr. Bowker's earlier representations has in fact been received from Sidky Pasha. In this reply Sidky; Pasha announced his acceptance of the three requests put forward by Mr. Bowker, but sought to attribute responsibility for the incidents to British military lorries which were said to have killed and injured some members of the crowd. This suggestion has, I understand, been repeated in the Egyptian Senate. The facts are in dispute, but in any case no action of these drivers could have explained attacks which had already started elsewhere in Cairo and were continued systematically.
  I would only add in conclusion that His Majesty's Government are as determined as ever to pursue the course they have set for themselves of replacing the 1936 Treaty of Alliance with a fresh treaty of alliance, freely negotiated as between equals, to regulate the relations between Egypt and this country. But they must decline to be swayed, and still less to be intimidated, by the actions of irresponsible elements such as those which gained control of the situation on Thursday last, and whose activities if not decisively checked may do grave damage to Anglo-Egyptian relations.

DISCIPLINE IN ROYAL INDIAN NAVY.
2.36 p.m.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, I beg to ask His Majesty's Government a question of which I have given them private notice, namely, whether they have any further statement to make on the mutiny which has occurred in the Royal Indian Navy.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA AND BURMA (LORD PETHICK LAWRENCE): My Lords, the noble Earl will not, I imagine, wish me to repeat the statement which, as your Lordships are no doubt aware, was made by the Prime Minister in another place on Friday last. Since then discipline has been restored in the Royal Indian Navy. There appear to be some ratings at Calcutta and Jamnagar who are not performing their duties, but violence has ended and the officers have resumed control. A full inquiry into the origin of the trouble, the grievances put forward by the men, their reasons for indiscipline and any allegations against their officers is to be held by a Committee appointed by the Government of India, with which Members of the Indian Central Legislative Assembly will, I understand, be associated. Courts of Inquiry will also be held by the Royal Indian Navy at the various centres concerned, to make recommendations about the conduct of individual men.
I must naturally refrain from prejudging the issues which the Committee and Courts will have to examine, but I should like to quote to the House from the broadcast which the Commander-in-Chief made yesterday. He said:
"The word 'strike' has been freely used. The correct word is 'mutiny.' It matters not what form collective disobedience takes—whether negative, such as a refusal to work, or positive, such as a demonstration march. Such acts are all mutiny, though obviously they can, and do, vary in degree.
"Appeals are sometimes made that there should be no victimization of those guilty. In so far as this means that there should be no collective punishment of a body of men, it is true that there will be no vindictive actions or indiscriminate retribution. But I have never made, and will never make, any promise that ringleaders and others individually tried and found guilty will not be punished. On the contrary, they will be. To do otherwise would be quite unfair to well-behaved Service men, who form the vast majority. To refrain from awarding punishment where such is due would put a premium on insubordination."
His Majesty's Government fully agree and will support the attitude of Sir Claude Auchinleck who justly enjoys the confidence of all responsible sections of both British and Indian opinion.
I now turn to the civil disturbances which were consequential on the naval mutiny. They started in Bombay during Thursday night and continued with much mob violence during most of Friday and

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Saturday. Both Congress and Moslem League leaders co-operated in condemning and attempting to stop the disturbances but the Communist Party issued a manifesto at midnight on Thursday thanking the public for its support. Sunday was comparatively quiet and since then there has been a progressive improvement. Similar disturbances, but on a smaller scale, occurred in Karachi on Thursday and Friday. Last night and this morning there has been some trouble in Madras originating in a strike of students and resulting in stone throwing and acts of hooliganism.
I regret to inform your Lordships that grievous loss of life, injury and destruction of property have resulted from all these disturbances. In Bombay there have been 223 deaths and I,037 persons have been injured. The total damage includes the looting or destruction of nine banks, thirty-two Government grain and cloth shops which the public can ill afford to lose, thirty other shops, ten post offices, ten police stations and I,200 street lamps. The number of vehicles destroyed is not yet estimated. In Karachi there have been seven deaths and twenty-one cases of injury. In Madras up to last night one person has been killed and another seriously injured. The Viceroy's general appreciation of the situation which I have received this morning indicates that the situation generally throughout India continues to improve.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord for his full and comprehensive statement.

NATIONAL INSURANCE (INDUSTRIAL INJURIES) BILL.
Brought from the Commons, read, 1a, and to be printed.

NATIONAL SERVICE (RELEASE OF CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS) BILL.
2.40 p.m.
Order of the Day for the debate to be resumed on the Motion for the Third, Reading moved on Tuesday, February 12, by Lord Nathan, read.
On Question, Bill read 3a.
Clause 1:
Release of conditionally registered conscientious objectors.
(1) At any time after the date fixed, under arrangements for the release from Army Service of persons called up for service under the National Service (Armed Forces) Act, 1939 (in this Act referred to as the "Act of 1939") for completing the release from such service of persons of all ranks in any group who are released by reference to their group, the Minister of Labour and National Service may direct that any conditionally registered conscientious objector of the same group shall, as from the giving of the direction, be released from the obligation to undertake work subject to which he was so registered.
LORD LLEWELLIN LORD LLEWELLIN moved, after subsection (5), to insert:
"(6) A direction under this section shall have effect only as respects the obligation subject- to which the person in question was conditionally registered as a conscientious objector, and accordingly where he is employed in any occupation the leaving of which is subject to restrictions he shall not by reason of the direction be more favourably treated in relation to the said restrictions than wartime workers in the occupation who have not been registered in the register of conscientious objectors.
In this subsection the expression 'wartime worker' means a person employed in an occupation who apart from war circumstances would not have been employed, therein."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, we have had some discussion, and, at times, some what involved discussion on certain matters which I and several of my friends around me have wished to raise on this Bill. We discussed them in Committee, at the Report stage and on the Third Reading before the debate was adjourned. In the light of those discussions which we then had, it has seemed fit to my noble friend Viscount Swinton and myself to put an Amendment on the Order Paper. This Amendment is somewhat more limited in extent than that which I would have had on the Paper had this Bill been recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House. After all, these conscientious objectors have chosen of their own accord to be treated as civilians. They have applied to tribunals, when called up, not to be sent into any of the Armed Forces, but, on the contrary, to be treated as civilians.
The Bill, as it is at present drafted, if this Amendment be not accepted, would have the effect that these men who have been directed to other employments would get out of those employments

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earlier than other civilians who were not conscientious objectors would be allowed to have their release from employments to which they were directed. That seems to us to be all wrong, and the question, of course, arises as to whether one should keep these conscientious objectors in those employments for so long as anyone is frozen in such employments. While a lot of people who are frozen in employments would be in those employments in any event, and in the normal course of their lives would be occupied—to take agriculture as an example—as agricultural labourers or in some other capacity in the agricultural industry, on the other hand you may get a case of a man who is a don or a schoolteacher or somebody like that, and who has been directed into that industry, which is quite apart from his normal vocation in life. And it may well be argued that he should be allowed to get back to his ordinary vocation and profession, even before the time when those frozen in the industry are released from it.
There may be a case for that. That case is not included in the Amendment which I am now moving. The case which is included is this: if there are two people who have actually been directed into an industry from some other calling, we say that the conscientious objector ought not to be allowed out until you also, at the same time, release the other man who has been directed but who has not been a conscientious objector. It seems to us that that is only fair. There is really no stigma left on the conscientious objector. He is not kept there any longer than any other man who, perhaps because of health reasons, was not called up, and, not being called up for the Army, Navy, or Air Force, was directed into an employment. The effect of this Amendment is to say that the conscientious objector, notwithstanding the other provisions of the Bill, shall not be released from the work to which he is directed until any other man, in the same age group and circumstances, who has been directed to industry is also released. That is only justice, and it is justice that we should, I feel, get this point upon which we have been so insistent, on the Committee stage, the Report stage and now at the ultimate stage of the adjourned debate on the Third Reading. I very much hope that the Government
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will see its way to accept the Amendment which I now propose. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 32, at end, to insert the said new subsection.—(Lord Llewellin.)
2.48 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD JOWITT): My Lords, I am afraid that I knew nothing of this matter until, when I was sitting here a week or ten days ago, I heard my noble friend Lord Nathan battling with some very difficult bowling on a very sticky wicket. I am bound to say that my noble friend did not score boundaries with that flowing ease he frequently does, but he did keep his end up. And he kept his end up, because by keeping it up he was observing and honouring a statement which the Minister of Labour had made in another place. I quite understand the reason the Minister had for making that statement, for, of course, if you were to remove the conscientious objectors from this particular ban, and at the same time—I, too, will take agriculture as an illustration—to hold them to agriculure on some other ground, it might well be said that the relief was illusory, and that the Bill was a sham and a fraud.
I think I speak for all of us about this. We may not all very greatly admire the attitude which the conscientious objector takes up. But after all it was the law of the land. These people have been proved to be genuine conscientious objectors, and they have done what they were told to do, and in these circumstances it would ill become any of us to try to take it out of them at this time. I think that all sides of the House will agree with that. After the debate to which I have referred the noble Lord asked me to look into the legal aspect of the matter to see whether anything could be devised to deal with another difficulty. I am bound to say that I thought the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, in the course of his speech, put the case very forcibly. He said:
"Take two men of 28 years of age, one a conscientious objector who has got excused by the tribunal, and who has been sent to work on a farm, and the other a man who, perhaps, tried to get into the Army and was unfit. He also has been directed or has volunteered to work on a farm. Those two men are working side by side on the same farm, but the conscientious objector is released, and the man who did not object, the ordinary civilian, is held. That surely is not fair as between these two civilians,

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because, in fact, a conscientious objector is a civilian."
I am bound to say that when I looked at that I came to the conclusion that that would not be fair, and, therefore, I am satisfied to advise the House to accept this Amendment, and for this reason. We do not want to penalize or prejudice conscientious objectors, but I cannot think it right that the conscientious objector, just because he was a conscientious objector, should be placed in a better position than another man who went to work on the land. I think it only fair to say that those who support the conscientious objector would agree that that should not take place. Therefore, I hope your Lordships will think that this is a happy way out of a difficulty which has undoubtedly been pursued with pertinacity and vigour by noble Lords, and we are quite prepared to accept the Amendment.
2.52 p.m.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, I think the whole House will be grateful to the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, not only for the very fair and reasonable speech which he has just made to the House but for the trouble which he has taken in going into this matter, a difficult one, and to arrive at a fair conclusion. I make no apology for having brought this matter, as he has just said, so forcibly to the attention of the House and I think all your Lordships will agree that this is a very good example of the value of the deep consideration in this House of Bills where we do want to get justice done, and in 'cases where we want to get Bills into the right form. As the Bill was presented to us it would undoubtedly have done a real injustice, and I do not think that anybody wants that. It is not that anybody on this side of the House or in any quarter of the House wants to do an injustice to the conscientious objector, but what we did deeply take exception to was that this Bill (maybe inadvertently) in spite of many opportunities for explanation given to the noble Lord, the Under Secretary of State for War, seemed to do an injustice. There is not the least doubt that as this Bill was brought before us it gave undue preference to the conscientious objector. I am not going over that ground again as it has been so fairly dealt with by the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor.
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We have discussed the question of when the conscientious objector should obtain, technically, his Army release. I think a great deal of muddle arose over that by trying to treat the conscientious objector—who had either never been in the Armed Forces at all or had been released from the Armed Forces immediately the tribunal said he was not to serve—as a member of the Armed Forces or in some way analogous to a member of the Armed Forces. Of course he is nothing of the sort; he is a civilian. He is just as much a civilian as anyone else who is not called up for military service. For my part, and I am sure my noble friends will agree with me, all that is done with him is something in the nature of a bookkeeping entry, providing that you treat him on equal terms, neither better nor worse, than the civilian which he is. Therefore, we can entirely wash out the question of whether he should be treated in an Army, Navy or Air Force group. He should not be treated as a member of any group at all, because he is not a member of the Armed Forces.
Then comes the question: how are you going to treat this man who has been sent to do a job in civil life? Certain people may be reserved for a long time who are normally employed in an industry. It may be that agricultural labourers will be told, "You are to stay at your work in agriculture (which is what you have always been working at) for a considerable time." I do not know; that is a question for the Government to, say. But I do not think it would be reasonable to say to a conscientious objector who is not an agricultural labourer, but who happens to be sent to work in agriculture, "You shall be retained in agriculture until the last man under an Essential Work Order in agriculture comes out of that employment, or is free to seek other employment." On the other hand, so long as there is any man who has been directed into an employment, whether it is agriculture or any form of industry, who is of the same age and similar circumstances to the conscientious objector, then undoubtedly the conscientious objector should have no preference over that man.
I am very grateful to the Lord Chancellor not only for accepting this Amendment but for his help in the drafting of it. I understand that the effect will be that you will take two men who had been

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directed into an employment, one a conscientious objector and one an ordinary civilian. So long as those two men are serving together under any obligation to the State, under any direction by the Ministry of Labour or any other Ministry, they will be treated exactly alike. They will be released on the same date, and neither will go out before the other. If that is the position, we shall be treating both the conscientious objector and the directed man fairly.
2.59 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF BIRMINGHAM: My Lords, may I express the great regret which will be felt throughout the country by pacifists and those in sympathy with them that the Government have yielded to certain members on the Conservative Benches in regard to this matter. Superficially, the clause as now proposed is fair and, its apparent fairness has naturally been stressed from the Benches opposite, but in point of fact there are a number of men working in agriculture, men who are not in particularly good health, who have been registered as conscientious objectors, and who have been directed to agriculture because there seemed little else for them to do. Your Lordships can well understand that a man approaching middle life, say a schoolmaster, whose health may not be particularly good, is not effective when digging potatoes, and to put him to such work is to take him from work where he might render much more useful service to the State.
In the Bill, as it was drafted, the Minister had power to determine where he was satisfied with regard to the previous employment or special qualifications of any conditionally registered conscientious objector, whether, being satisfied, he felt it expedient that the man should be released. I think that such powers would have given the opportunity of much more equitable treatment of conscientious objectors than some of them, only a handful, let us say, will receive under the Amendment now proposed. The Minister would have had power to send a man directed to agriculture back to the tribunal which sent him there, with the request that the tribunal should examine whether he could not fairly continue in the work to which he had been directed. Now, an automatic rule applies. A man may not be sent back
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to the tribunal of first instance. He has to stay doing work which may be most unsatisfactory alike from the point of view of the work done and the effect on the health of the man so unsuitably employed, to say nothing of the fact that he is taken from more valuable service to the State. Now the case of that man is not reconsidered by his tribunal of first instance. Automatically he continues in unsatisfactory work.
That surely is hardly worthy of the rather fine record of treatment of conscientious objectors which the Legislature and successive Governments have made during the present war. If a man were referred back to his tribunal of first instance, that tribunal could determine at once whether it was not advisable that he should go to the work for which he is peculiarly fitted. I might say to your Lordships that the tribunals as they have carried out their labours throughout the country have adopted an increasingly friendly attitude towards conscientious objectors as they have realized the strength of their convictions, and the fine spirit in which they have endeavoured to do their best for the State under extremely difficult circumstances. Must we have this man, as I see the matter, sent back? Must the conscientious objector, who might take Holy Orders, which necessitates his being trained at a Theological College, go on automatically in agricultural work, when the tribunal would undoubtedly release him, and when those of your Lordships here who knew him personally, and who knew his circumstances, would almost certainly acquiesce or determine that such was the correct course?
LORD LLEWELLIN: May I interrupt the right reverend Prelate? Of course, the other man who has been directed, say, to work on a farm, who is not a conscientious objector, may equally be wishing to go into Holy Orders. We are only putting the two on the same footing. There are none of us doing down the conscientious objector.
THE LORD BISHOP OF BIRMINGHAM: Would it not be better, then, that the other man so directed should have the right to appeal to the tribunal which would determine whether in that way he could not do more valuable service to the State?
3.5 p.m.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF YORK: My Lords, I rise to say one word. I rise to support the Amendment proposed by the Lord Chancellor. I am most anxious and always have been to see that the conscientious objectors and passive resisters should have every kind of fairness. As the right reverend Prelate has said, they have had this fairness and justice from the various courts. But I am not anxious that they should have preferential treatment at the cost of others who were willing to serve their country in the Fighting Forces if they had been able to do so. As for the ordination candidates, I would only say this: if there are any such, speaking for the Church of England, I am quite certain they would not wish to have preferential treatment at the cost of others.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

ASSURANCE COMPANIES BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order); Bill reported without Amendment.

MINISTERS OF THE CROWN (TRANSFER OF FUNCTIONS) BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
(The LORD STANMORE in the Chair.)
Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.
Clause 3:
Supplementary provisions as to Orders.
—(1) No Order in Council which provides for the dissolution of a Government Department shall be made under this Act unless, after copies of the draft thereof have been laid before Parliament, each House presents an Address to His Majesty praying that the Order be made.
(2) An Order in Council under this Act, not being an Order made in pursuance of such an Address as aforesaid, shall not come into operation until copies thereof have been laid before Parliament, and if either House, within
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the period of forty days beginning with the day on ii hick a copy thereof is laid before it, resolves that the Order in Council be annulled it shall thenceforth -become void but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done thereunder or to the making of a new Order.
3.10 p.m
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in subsection (2), to leave out "the Order in Council be annulled it shall thenceforth become void but," and insert
"an Address be presented to His Majesty praying that the Order in Council be annulled, no further proceedings shall be taken thereunder after the date of the resolution, and His Majesty may by Order in Council revoke the Order, so, however, that any such resolution and revocation shall be."
The noble and learned Lord said: The Amendment which is down in my name, I may explain to your Lordships, is substantially the same as the Amendment which is down in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin. The difference is so slight that I am really hardly able to appreciate what it is, but the draftsman tells me my form is slightly better than his. It is really a mere matter of drafting. The object is to carry out the undertaking which I gave to the noble and 'learned Viscount, Lord Simon, on the Second Reading, and to carry out the procedure which Lord Llewellin really initiated on the Second Reading. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 6, leave out from ("that") to ("without") in line 7, and insert the said new words.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD LLEWELLIN: I am very much obliged to the Lord Chancellor for putting down an Amendment that slightly alters mine. It was quite clear, when this Bill had a Second Reading, that we, between us, would have to bring it into line with the alterations we made in the Statutory Instruments Bill, and the Lord Chancellor has now moved this Amendment to do so. I thank him for doing this and, at the same time would say that his Amendment is some improvement on mine, and therefore I do not propose to move my Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining Clauses agreed to.
Schedules agreed to.

AGRICULTURE (ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.
UNITED NATIONS BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.

FURNISHED HOUSES (RENT CONTROL) BILL
3.13 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): My Lords, in moving the Third Reading of this Bill, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, and the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, and several other noble Lords on the Benches opposite for their constructive suggestions which have resulted in a number of improvements in the Bill. An example has been set in the revising of the Legislative proposals that reach us from another place. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Earl of Listowel).
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, may I thank the noble Earl, the Postmaster-General, for the tone of his speech. I believe, with him, that this House has performed a useful function in the Amendments that it has made during the passage of this Bill through the Committee and Report stages. We send the Bill back with the Amendments to another place, quite confident in our own minds on both sides of the House that we have done a useful job of work and one that it is fitting this House should do.
3.15 p.m.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: My Lords, I have to thank the noble Earl who is in charge of this Bill in this House for what he has said with regard to the Amendments which have been here moved, but I should regard myself as a hypocrite if I pretended it was a good Bill as amended. I have an entirely different view; I think it is a really bad Bill and will work a good deal of harm during the twenty-two
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months that it is going to be in force. It seems to me extraordinary that we should be asked, by a Bill of this kind, to subject the question of rents of practically every flat in the country, however much it may be a luxury flat and however high its rent, to a tribunal about which we know nothing. A number of tribunals are going to be appointed under the Bill. There is no qualification as to their experience or knowledge, and I know, as I think most of your Lordships must know, that at the present moment it will not be possible to get one hundred or more competent tribunals—competent in the sense that they are to be allowed, without appeal, to fix the rents of all the flats in the land.
Take, for instance, a flat in Grosvenor Square the rent of which may be over £1,000 a year. According to this Bill, all those flats, because there are certain amenities granted in connexion with them other than the occupation of the rooms, are to be subject, at the request of the tenant or the local authority, to an arbitration by a tribunal (as to which I will say another word in a moment), who are at liberty to alter the rent if they think it is too high. Nothing is said in the Bill as to the things they have to consider. There is no qualification whatever of their powers. If they take a communistic view, they may reduce the£1,000 rent to £100. Of course I do not suppose they will, but it is only the extent of the power which I am mentioning at the moment. And there is no appeal whatever, even to the Minister. I speak with a very long experience. I do not believe there is on the Statute Book a single Act which gives such wide powers to deal with real estate in this country, including landlord and tenant powers, as this Bill does, with so little safeguard for the interest of the people who are concerned.
With regard to the larger places, the harm that will be done is, I think, very largely this: that while this Act is on the Statute Book or has a chance of being extended in its operation by one of the Bills that are forced through the other House, I do not believe any sensible man will erect flats. We want buildings to be constructed, but if the result of constructing your building is that, you will not be able to let the flats at the proper price or, if you do so let them, you will be liable to have the rents reduced to an uneconomic sum, a great deal of harm will be done.

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So much for the more important houses which are affected by this Bill. The other thing which I think is thoroughly bad is that if a single room is let in a poor dwelling to a poor man or woman, and you happen to give them just a little lighting accommodation, the room then becomes a furnished one; it becomes a service. That is perfectly deliberate, because the clause that does is Clause 12, where services are defined, and it says:
"'Services' includes attendance, the provision of heating or lighting. …"
So if you produce a little lighting it is to be a furnished room, and you are at once liable to the incursion of the tribunal who may reduce the rent, whatever it is, to a sum which the tribunal thinks is sufficient. As a result people who do not desire to have a tribunal coming in and fixing rent—the wiser and more prudent of them at any rate—will remove the lighting accommodation which they have given to their poor tenants perhaps for years. That is not sensible, but there it is, and that I am quite sure will be the result of it.
I am grateful to the noble Earl for what he has done, because I think the amendment which is made in the Acts as regards the rooms which are subject to it is a very important one, and I would like to say in the plainest possible language that the last person I blame for the lack of the clauses which I think should be contained in this Bill is the noble Earl opposite. I am quite sure that he has, as his first task, to make a sensible Bill, but, of course, when the Postmaster-General is in charge of a Bill relating to furnished houses he is apt to be overruled by the opinions of somebody much more vain and arrogant than the noble Earl is. The result is most pernicious. In leaving the matter as it stands I should like to say that the only gleam of hope I get in reading the Bill is that it is only temporary, but how far and how long the injury which is going to be occasioned by this ill-adjusted piece of legislation will last, is something nobody can foretell.
On Question, Bill read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Cornmons.

INDIA (CENTRAL GOVERNMENT AND LEGISLATURE) BILL. [H.L.]
Amendments reported (according to Order).

PATENTS AND DESIGNS BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, I beg 'to move that this Bill be read a third time. In doing so, may I repeat what I said at the end of the Committee stage and at the end of the Report stage, and that is, how much we are indebted to noble Lords: particularly to the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, and the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, for the assistance they have given us. I hope, when the Bill reaches another place, they will find nothing to do and will exclaim, "It is the Lords' doing and it is wonderful in our eyes."
On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

AUSTRIAN AFFAIRS.
LORD VANSITTARThad given Notice that he would call attention to certain questions relating to Austria; and move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, when I first put down this motion I had intended to cover a fairly wide field, but I thought it might facilitate the reply if I confined myself to the smallest possible number of points. Therefore, to-day I have limited myself to three.
In the first place, I submit that denazification in Austria is proceeding too slowly and too half-heartedly. The Inter-Allied Kommandatur has complained previously four times on this score, and British Military Government has censured the Austrian Advisory Committee in Styria for being more preoccupied with release and reinstatement than with purge or arrest or dismissal. Two other quite interesting points arise in this connexion. One is that too many Austrians are still disinclined to denounce Nazis to the Allies. They look upon it rather as being a denouncement of fellow-Germans to a foreigner, and I submit that is not a healthy frame of mind. The other aspect is more legitimate. Too many of them are still afraid of what may happen after the Allied occupation is withdrawn. Some minds are still haunted by the possibility that thereafter the Nazis and the Pan-Germans may get together again. There is one way in which that fear can be dispatched and that is by a more resolute

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policy. We should make it plain that we will no longer accept the excuse that a Nazi cannot be liquidated because he is administratively indispensable — on the contrary I would urge His Majesty's Government that it is indispensable that all indispensable Nazis should be dispensed with. We still have a good deal of Pan-Germanism to deal with in that country. An example brought to my notice is worth mentioning. It is an extract from the Linzer Tagblatt. Linz is in the American sector and that paper is the Socialist organ there. This is what it says:
"There are no Austrian people—no Austrian nation, but what do exist are Austrian citizens of German nationality. The Austrians are a German tribe, and one of the best German tribes, whose duty is to take the lead in the renaissance of Germany which will still again march at the head of the European peoples!"
My Lords, you are getting near to something most dangerous. I am surprised the American authorities are allowing it. We should keep our eyes on this very strictly. Some recent developments in Soviet foreign policy have compelled me to be critical. I am in full agreement with the Communist Austria paper the Oesterreichische Volkstimme. It says:
"The elimination of the Nazi spirit in Austria is impossible without a determined struggle against the greater German idea, a struggle which has hardly begun in Austria."
That last sentence is an over-statement, because I have seen a very great deal of excellent material produced in other sectors. There is a first-class article by Dr. Missong in the Oesterreichische Monatshefte, which put the anti-Pan-German case as well as it can be put, and I submit that we should encourage the Missongs and discourage the writer of that article in the Linzer Tagblatt.
Secondly, I would like to ask for an approximate estimate, not an accurate return of the number of Allied troops still in occupation in Austria; how many British, French, Russian and American troops still remain. Nobody could be more adamant than I in insisting on a long and adequate occupation of Germany, but like all sensible people I do differentiate between that enemy and the ex-satellites who now really present no danger to anybody. Moreover, it is quite impossible for these small countries to achieve a real economic resurrection so
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long as they are over-burdened with futile and excessive precautions, more especially as some of the troops of occupation are still living on the country, which is indeed an unnecessarily heavy burden at this time of day. When that information was last sought several months ago in another place, the reply was given that that information could not be afforded on the grounds of security, but I very much hope that that answer will not be given to me to-day. The war has been over for ten months, and I ask whose security could be compromised, or how, by a little timely and approximate enlightenment? I would add that I believe it is still possible easily to exterminate Nazism and Pan-Germanism with less massive forces than those employed on the task at present.
Now I come to my third point. I wish to mention the matter of the South Tyrol. Your Lordships will observe that I say "the matter" and not "the question" because, to me, at least, there is no question. This involves a little retrospect. From time immemorial most countries and most languages have been feminine, and the convention has at least had the substance that during unregenerate days they sometimes contracted marriages of convenience, or even embraced the highest and most attractive bidder. Towards the end of the last century, Italy entered into a mésalliance with Austria and Germany. They were impossible bed-fellows and relations soon cooled, entirely to Italy's credit and to our advantage. To cut a long story short, as your Lordships know the result was that in the first world war Italy broke away and joined the Western Allies. But there was a price for that, and part of the price was the South Tyrol.
I have often heard the resulting Treaty attacked—and I do not suppose it was a very moral one—but it would be idle, and indeed ungenerous, to deny that it brought us very tangible and solid benefits in an hour of dire need. It would also be ungenerous to forget that during that time of need the Italians performed some remarkable feats of mountain warfare. So we struggled through the bad patch and won the war. Then we had to deliver the goods; we had committed ourselves to make a whole province and its principal river call themselves Alto Adige, but the river in its upper reaches could say nothing but its real name, Etsch, Hochetsch. Oberetsch, as is the wont of

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Highland streams. It could not make a sound like Alto Adige till far lower down its course.
My conscience was unperturbed by the Treaty of Saint Germain. I took the view that next to the Germans the Austrians were responsible for the worst war in history so far, that losers must pay and that most payments are just, but I had a few qualms about this particular portion of the settlement, as I knew something of that part of the world. The principal peace-makers appeared to feel their position much more acutely. Mr. Lloyd George admitted that the transaction was a breach of the principle of self-determination. President Wilson was even more unhappy; he said that a terrible error had been made; he was very sorry about it, but he had been run into it before he had had time to study the facts—and I should add that even when he had had time to study the facts, he still seemed to have got his census figures wrong by nearly 100,000. In your Lordships' House Lord Bryce made an impassioned oration, in which he called the whole transaction "a gross offence against: the principle of nationality," and he added that people were being herded like sheep. We have got used since then to herding on a larger scale, but here I am to-day to echo Lord Bryce with, I hope, complete dispassion and a better chance of success. For the whirligig of time brings not only its revenges but its repentances.
All the time there was a perfectly easy and equitable solution waiting for us. We had only to give the Italian-speaking portion to the Italians and the German-speaking portion to the Austrians, and there was a ready-made frontier already on the ground at Salurn. But in those days people were not very apt to listen to such ideas; they were still obsessed with the idea that extension spelt happiness, and I think it is one of the world's tragedies that that mania has not even now departed from the minds of the mighty. Anyhow, the whole region was blandly labelled Compartimento Venezia Tridentina, but the river still said Etsch, and the language boundary remained just where it was. The Italian case was based on defence, and now that case is even less defensible than it was then. So far as I know, the Brenner has played no part in this war, and it is even less likely to play one in the atomic
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age. Yet even in the atomic age it w be folly to deride all natural frontiers, because, just as at one time in American boxing there were fair fouls and foal fouls, so also there are natural natural frontiers and unnatural natural frontiers. I think my meaning will be clearer when I say that: all watersheds were not necessarily made to divide homo sapiens with an ice-field, and on the other hand that no faith has yet moved the Pyrenees; indeed, I believe there are quite a number of people at this moment engaged in wishing they were higher.
Between Austria and Italy there was, as I have said, a natural frontier, but it was disregarded in 1920 for the very simple reason that one of the claimants was the winner and the other the loser. Now that they are both losers it may be easier to hear the voice of the river. The river says quite plainly that in Austrian census of 1910 there were some 225,000 German speakers and only 7,000 Italian speakers, and those figures are so well-founded and accurate that even in the Italian census of 1921 they were not markedly changed. Of course, the Italians at the Peace Conference said that that quarter of a million was of no particular significance, and equally naturally the Tyrolese said that to them the Tyrol was a home, whereas to Italy it was only a tract of land. In the Trentino the positions were exactly reversed. There were 360,000 Italian speakers, and only 10,000 German speakers. The Italian majority was 97 per cent.—almost the figures of a totalitarian election. I ask your Lordships what compromise could possibly have been easier.
It is so rarely that the easiest way is the right way that we seem to be hesitating very strongly to take it again, because the way that the Allies took in 1920 was neither the right way nor the wise way. They were blind to their own principles and deaf to the parable of the river. In trying to make Italy defensible, they made Austria indefensible. Yet if there is one thing which emerges clearly from subsequent events, it is that the real interest of the Allies lay in fortifying the key position of Austria against Pan-Germany. I submit that in the long run Italian interests would also have been better served by an anti-Pan-German Austria and a contented Tyrol rather than by the temporary possession of a gap in the everlasting hills. As it was, the

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Allies automatically turned Austrian eyes northward. There was no love of North Germany in South Tyrol, but northwards lay the normal markets, and from them the South Tyrol was cut off, to its own undoing, and to no corresponding Italian benefit.
Only last week in the House of Commons the Secretary of State criticized what he called the uneconomic cut-up of the old Austrian Empire. "This was the most unkindest cut of all," because it was pointless. The wine, the fruit, the vegetables, of this intensely and ingeniously cultural district were redundant in Italy, but easily and habitually marketable in Austria. The wine in particular was an exclusively northern taste, easily gratifiable until a barrier was set up against it high beyond the Etsch. That barrier also impeded the passage of the Tyrol's, cattle and lumber. Tyrolese marble could find an outlet north but not in the glutted south, and, conversely, the North Tyrol lost the market for its industrial produce. Worst of all the tourist traffic began to dry up; like the symbolic Etsch it flowed south and not north. To my mind the Allies made the worst of both possible worlds. To ensure failure the Italians resorted to persecution, and that persecution, I would remind your Lordships, began before the Fascist era. Therefore, it would be difficult to trust even democratic Italy again in a district where, to my mind, she has no real business.
As your Lordships will probably remember the teaching of German, even the use of the word Südtirol, became an offence. Italians were pumped in from the south and the administration was handed over to an inefficient bureaucracy, inefficient because most of the bureaucrats could not speak the language of the people they were supposed to administer. Fascism increased the pace. German was eliminated from the streets, from the lanes, from the Law Courts and the cemeteries. Cheap labour was imported, factories were subsidized and set up in the orchards. In 1939 these unfortunate people were again sold down their own river, this time by an Austrian. Hitler and Mussolini concluded a bargain whereby the people of the South Tyrol were compelled to choose between Italianization or deportation to the Third Reich. But even those who opted for Italianization were given to understand
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that they might be deported south of the Po. Faced with those jolly alternatives, 70 per cent. opted for the country where they could at least make themselves understood. But they soon discovered their mistake, when they found out what the Third Reich was like. In the following year, 1940, more than 20,000 cancelled their Vote. Emigration practically ceased. By the end of 1942 only some 70,000 had gone, and some of those trickled back. The rest were scattered abroad in Lorraine, Luxembourg, Bohemia, Carinthia. Italians took their place so far as possible.
Then peace came. One would have thought the Allies would have sat down to consider past errors, but that does not appear to have been at all the case. On the contrary, during 1945 some 30,000 or 40,000 more Italians went in, over and above the 100,000 who had already found their way in since 1923. Then, at the end of the year, the Allies handed back the administration to Italy. That seems to me quite an incomprehensible decision. Now the Italians are in all the offices and influential positions. The purge of Fascism has been slight. Why should they be purged when they can be counted upon to vote for annexation? On the other hand, a good many German speakers have been purged, and quite rightly, because they fought for Hitler. But if you purge one species of black sheep and leave the other you destroy your balance, particularly when Fascist laws remain and Italian garrisons. Some of them bade a facile farewell to discipline. One of the great troubles has been the Folgore division which we armed. At the same time, to be fair, and I wish above all things to be fair, that division did render very signal service in the cause of the Allies during the period of co-belligerency.
By methods such as these and past manipulation of records all real basis for a plebiscite has been destroyed in advance. I hope we shall hear no more of such a remedy, the results of which would be bound to be "phoney." There is only one thing to be done and that is to hand back the South Tyrol to Austria without further fuss or intrigue, and let the Italians keep the Trentino. I hope that no one will think that I speak with any pro-Austrian bias. The Austrians have fought against us twice, but the second time I think it was, to some extent at any rate, our own

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fault, for our inability to recognize the expansionist tendencies of totalitarian régimes. But the Allies decided at Moscow to give Austria another chance. I applauded and applaud that decision. That being so, if having decided to give a final chance we do not make it a fair one, what fools we shall be. What fools we shall be if we make exactly the same mistake again that we made before. Equally, my Lords, I would ask you not to think that I speak with anti-Italian bias. You will remember that I began by saying that I fully recognize all the services rendered by Italy when she fought on the right side in the first world war. Still less do I forget the services which she rendered during the period of co-belligerency. Yet the fact remains that the claim to the South Tyrol was always a bad, one and, such as it was, was forfeit when Italy returned to the German connexion. I make every allowance for the pressure to which she was subjected.
As I explained the other day, I deem it essential to any wise long-term policy of His Majesty's Government that they should aim at the creation of a happy, honest and prosperous Italy, able and willing to take her place in that Western Union which I so strongly urge. Therefore it would never occur to me to be unjust in this matter. For that reason, I" would certainly not contemplate robbing Italy of Trieste, where there is an unchallengeable Italian majority. I do not think that there is any ethical or ethnological ground for handing Trieste to Tito. Therefore if you wish to be lenient to Italy there is a way in which you can be both just and lenient. If you wish to push leniency still farther you can perhaps consider some leniency in the matter of the pre-Fascist colonies. The matter in which you cannot be both just and lenient is in the case of the South Tyrol. John Bull has got the worst memory in the world, but even he will not thank you if you foist upon him an unjust and selfish settlement in favour of a flighty respondent.
Italy may have considered herself underpaid for her services in the first world war, but in this particular region she was undoubtedly overpaid. To pay her all over again in exactly the same coin after a decade of infidelity is not policy but lunacy. I therefore hope that we can be assured that the re-commission
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of old mistakes will be no part of the programme of His Majesty's Government, and the sooner we receive that assurance the less chance there will be that the advent of peace which has already been heralded by so much disappointment may not be marred by another injustice. I beg to move.
3.50 p.m.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, I think we ought to be glad that the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, has brought the attention of your Lordships' House to certain questions connected with Austria, because Austria is clearly a country of great importance for the future of Europe. We were not aware from the Order Paper of the questions which the noble Lord was going to raise. If I do not confine myself strictly to them I hope your Lordships will forgive me. The first question he raised was that of the denazification of Austria. I think your Lordships will agree that denazification should take place provided that it is confined to people who are, or who are proved to be, acknowledged Nazis. We must not allow personal influences to interfere with justice, and I think the noble Lord will agree with that. I was troubled and alarmed by the extract which he read from a newspaper. I hope it is not a paper of importance, but I feel strongly that such an article ought not to be allowed in a zone occupied by one of our Allies.
I trust that the questions which the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, has brought to the notice of His Majesty's Government will receive sympathetic consideration by the Government and I hope, too, that when the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack replies, he will be able to give us an assurance that everything possible is being done for the consolidation of Austria and, if possible, both for her restoration and consolidation as an independent State. We have had very many official assurances that that is the policy of His Majesty's Government and we hope therefore that we shall be told that real progress has been made. In this connexion, I should like to congratulate the Government on the initiative they took in reducing the number of troops of occupation. I think that that was a wise and happy measure.
Now for the South Tyrol. I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, that there is great substance in the claim by Austria for the return of

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the German-speaking provinces. Historically it is justified, geographically it is justified, and it is just. I am glad to know that the Austrian Government have made no claim to the Trentino, and I think that there they have shown themselves to be extremely wise. As a matter of history, I differ perhaps as to the value of the Brenner Pass as a strategic frontier, because I remember that the first time Austria was threatened by Germany, troops were sent to the Brenner Pass and the danger was averted. That shows that the Brenner is of considerable strategic value, but in spite of that I strongly urge that it should be returned to Austria. Clearly, there is no reason why as regards the German-speaking provinces of the South Tyrol, we should repeat the mistake of the 1919 settlement. The position is completely different to-day. It is generally acknowledged that Austria was the first victim of Nazi aggression, and if that is so, she is surely entitled to every consideration from the victorious Powers.
I should like to take the opportunity of reminding your Lordships of a very important letter which was written by the present President of the Austrian State, Dr. Karl Renner, because I consider that one passage in it contains matter which I hope the Government will bear in mind, and which your Lordships should bear in mind. He wrote this:
"The guarantee for Austrian existence does not rest solely, nor even in the first instance, with the people of her soil, but it rests in a higher degree with the world outside."
This estimate by Dr. Renner accurately expresses the position of Austria. I think it is a truth which the Powers who are dealing with Austria should never overlook. Unfortunately, as your Lordships know, the truth became obscured during the decade preceding the war and the collapse of Austria, with all its unhappy consequences, was the result. I trust sincerely that that will not be repeated and that the warning of Dr. Renner, who speaks with great authority, will be taken as a salutary reminder of Austrian opinion. It does not mean that the Austrians themselves can contribute nothing. They can contribute a great deal, and they can contribute not only to the consolidation of their country, but to the consolidation of peace as a whole. How can that be achieved? I think they can achieve it by showing both modera
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tion and statesmanship in their internal affairs. Happily, the signs are encouraging. I think the Austrians have done very well in the handling of their position. That is a good augury for the future, and I hope that your Lordships will wish that country, as I do, all success and happy future prospects.
I have been happy to be associated recently with certain members of your Lordships' House in making an appeal to do something this winter towards combating the serious conditions which, in common with most countries of the world, Austria has experienced. Happily, that appeal has had remarkable support from the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and the Chief Rabbi. They have all said that Austria should be helped. I trust that that appeal may be accepted by the people of Austria as an earnest of the good will which the country as a whole, and your Lordships, feel towards the people of Austria.
3.59 p.m.
LORD SEMPILL: My Lords, I should like to support the noble Earl who has just spoken in regard to what he said about the appeal which has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, for the return of the South Tyrol to the motherland, Austria. As your Lordships will remember, some years ago—on February 2, 1943—supported by the noble Earl, Lord Perth, the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil of Chelwood, and the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, I submitted a Motion stressing the vital importance of Austria's independence in the post-war settlement. The tragic story of Austria in the between-war years was outlined and accepted by your Lordships as a correct analysis. At that time the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, was the Leader of your Lordships' House, and he gave a most sympathetic reply, but until the end of that year, 1943, nothing more was heard. Then came the Moscow Declaration guaranteeing the sovereign independence of Austria in the post-war settlement, so that the purpose of the debate was achieved.
As I have indicated, several of your Lordships take a special interest in Austria, and I would like, if I may, to suggest to my noble friend Lord Vansittart, whose Motion your Lordships are debating, that it might be of advantage on other occasions if it were possible

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in advance of the Motion being debated in your Lordships' House for us to meet together and measure up our views with regard to such important matters. I for one, if I may say so, do not feel that a separate Motion in regard to Austria is required at this moment, and in fact when a week or so ago the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, withdrew his Motion I felt that perhaps he might have come to the same conclusion. Austria holds a key position in the structure of the peace, as your Lordships are agreed, and in those circumstances it would seem to me that her requirements would have found better expression in the foreign affairs debate which is due to take place in your Lordships' House next week.
This said, I would like to join very warmly with the noble Earl, Lord Perth, in stressing the tremendous importance of the declaration made recently by the President of the Austrian State, which was read to your Lordships by the noble Earl and which appeared in The Times on February 12. This pronouncement, as the noble Earl said, is of such great importance in setting the position of Austria in perspective that it should not only be recorded in the proceedings of your Lordships' House but it should be noted in every Foreign Office in Europe and particularly in our own Foreign Office. Dr. Renner's warning very clearly underlines the moral of the debate in your Lordships' House in February, 1943, and should, I submit, in no circumstances be ignored. Dr. Renner, as the noble Earl has said, is faced with enormous problems, and your Lordships will wish him well in their solution. I feel that I must take this opportunity of saying that I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, when, in a recent article in the Press, he classed the President as having been or as being a Pan-German. I do not agree at all that he was or is.
The present requirements of Austria I suggest are as follows: The immediate necessity for the reduction of all the Armies of Occupation; the abolition of the separate zones so that Austrian economy may develop naturally; the representation of the "first victim of Nazi aggression"—I wish to emphasize those words—on the United Nations Organization; that distinction be made in all branches of our administration as between Austria and Germany, Austrians and Germans. In many directions there still continues too
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great a tendency to confuse the two, with injustice to Austria and disadvantage to our best interests with the Austrian people. I hope that there may be no weakening in our attitude as regards preserving Carinthia to Austria. Equally as regards the German-speaking provinces of the. South Tyrol I fully support all that has been said so very clearly and with many arguments that cannot be gainsaid by the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart. I hope that these provinces may be returned to Austria. On this subject there exists strong public feeling in this country. Italy can derive no conceivable advantage from retaining within her borders a people linked by so many ties with Austria, the motherland; a territory necessary to Austria if Austria is to be consolidated consistently with the interests of all the Powers including Italy. I hope that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, when he comes to reply for His Majesty's-Government, may indicate in a clear statement their attitude with regard to one and all of these points I have the honour to submit.
4.7 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the Lord Chancellor when he comes to reply to a Foreign Office debate of this sort is, I say quite frankly, in a somewhat difficult position. The House has listened with great interest and profound respect to the remarks of the previous speakers, the first two of whom at any rate have spent a lifetime in diplomacy and know from their own observation and information the subject matter about which they are talking. When I was spending my time arguing demurrers in the Strand the noble Lords were spending their young days learning those strange foreign languages, and then after that in studying the particular countries. I can claim no such privilege or advantage. Therefore I am bound, to a very large extent, to rely on the brief of the Foreign Office. After many years in the law I do not trust briefs very much. Normally I like to be able to take the matter up with the one-man who really can give me information and can talk to me; that is the Minister-in charge. But my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary is having a very short and a very well-earned rest,. and therefore I have been unable to communicate with him or to discuss the

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matter with him. I shall therefore, I am afraid, have to stick much closer to my instructions than I should like.
For the moment I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, that I am not prepared to tell him the numbers of the forces we have in Austria. I hope, after I have had an opportunity of discussing the position with the Foreign Secretary, I shall be allowed to say publicly what of course I shall say to him privately, but at the present moment I am not in a position to give that information, and therefore the noble Lord must not press me. I shall say this, however, that the forces we have are approximately the same size as those of the Americans; our forces are larger than those of the French; and the forces of the three of us are not so great as the Russian forces. I agree with the noble Lord, and I think with the two other speakers, that the time has now come when the size of these forces might well be drastically reduced. Although it is true that an undertaking has been given that these forces are not going to live on the country, yet, even if that undertaking were rigorously observed, it is unfortunate that you should have a large number of military personnel still living in the country, tending to increase its financial difficulties and so on.
Austria must not think of herself as dependent unduly on outside resources. She has to live her own life and evolve her own economy, and we have to help her to do it; the best way we can help her at the present moment, as in the future, is to reduce the number of our forces to such an extent as is sufficient for the important tasks which still remain to be done. There should be a substantial reduction. Therefore, in November last, we proposed that this should be done, but down to the present time we have, unfortunately, been unable to obtain the consent of our Russian allies to this course. The Americans and the French are in substantial agreement with the course we have proposed. We have more recently put forward a new project to the same effect, and I am hopeful that our Russian Allies will concur in the course we have proposed. In the meantime, I would like to say this. I am quite satisfied that the services the British Forces have rendered to Austria, not only in matters of food but in matters
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of transport and in the restoration of some of the industries, mining in particular, have been very great and very remarkable.
Now I pass to the second topic, the slowness of denazification of Austria. Let me state again categorically that our object is to destroy, and to destroy utterly, the whole structure of National Socialism. That involves two things. It is easy enough to pick up those persons who are, or were, holding certain specified positions in the Nazi movement. They, after all, can be identified; they can be picked up and kept in some safe place. The trouble is that, altogether apart from those in what I might call the specified categories, there are a number of sympathizers who played a more or less important part, on whose activities and on whose sympathy this structure was built. It is much more difficult to find out who those people were and to get at them. At the present time we have made something like 6,000 arrests, but those 6,000 mainly come from what I call the specified categories, and comparatively few are in the discretionary type of case where we want to find the influential people.
We are working in this way. In each district of the British zone we have working with us an Austrian Advisory Committee. They are advising us with regard to those we have arrested, as to whether or not we can safely let some of them go; and, secondly, they are advising us with regard to those we have not arrested, as to whether there are other people and which other people we ought to arrest. I should be lacking in candour if I did not tell your Lordships that the advice they are ready to give us in the former respect—that is to say, letting go those we have arrested—seems to be more ready than their advice in the second category, namely, what further people we should arrest. But we are going on and we shall continue to go on, even though we do reduce, as I hope we shall, the size of our occupation forces.
In the meantime it is fair to point out that the Austrian Government themselves have set up what I may call a denazification committee in order to purge the Government, the civil service, and industry generally of people with Nazi records and Nazi sympathies. We have made, I believe, very considerable progress and we shall certainly not relax our efforts to see that this job is really and

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thoroughly done. We shall continue to watch the matter with attention. For our object is to purge from Austria this nazification, in order that Austria may maintain its complete independence and separation from Germany. In spite of everything about Austria, in spite of the overwhelming responsibility of Austria for the 194 war and the rôle she played in the last war, there remains, I firmly believe, friendship between the people of this country and the people of Austria, and we want the Austrian people to be free and independent and true to their own traditions.
The noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, asked me about the article in the Linzer Tagblatt. That was a paper published in the United States bane. I agree with him as to the nature of the article, which I have seen. It is right to add that it was promptly challenged by the Vienna Socialist newspaper, and it is further right to add that the United States authorities were so disturbed that an article of that nature should be published that they have put the paper under an interdict, and at the present time it is not allowed to be published. But I agree that the fact that that publication was made reminds us that this matter is one which demands our constant attention.
I would like, from my own observation of Austria just to say this: that if we want to achieve and maintain complete Austrian independence, I am perfectly certain that we must take care to see that we make Austria possible as an economic entity. If you have a great metropolis surrounded by a comparatively few villages, hemmed in by tariff barriers in all directions, it must be exceedingly difficult for Austria to survive. It was because of these things, I believe, that certain Austrians who, I say frankly, should have known better, regarded themselves as interested in Pan-Germany. The other day, speaking in another place, the Foreign Secretary urged those countries living in the Danube Basin to see whether they could not do something to remove all these barriers which are throttling trade in that area. I hope that in the future we shall be able to do something on those lines. I am quite satisfied that if we make it possible for Austria to have a suitable economic existence, we shall be doing the very best we can for her.
In the case of the South Tyrol, the matter is not quite so simple, if I may
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say so with the greatest respect, as the noble Lord's statement would lead one to suppose. It is in these areas—which rightly or wrongly were handed over to Italy as the result of the first Great War—that great hydro-electric works have in the meantime been undertaken by the Italians, with Italian capital, in territory, part of which, at any rate, is undoubtedly ethnically Austrian—in other words, peopled by German-speaking people. What is to be done under these circumstances? The Austrian Government have put forward a claim to the Province Of Bolzano and they have made it plain that, if their claim is granted, they will have complete regard to Italian interests in regard to the hydro-electric works and so on; whereas the Italians who are resisting the claim have made it plain that if the territory is allowed to remain with them, they will grant a very wide measure of local autonomy in the area. I devoutly hope that a satisfactory solution to these problems will be found, that both countries will derive benefit from these natural resources and that the problem will not be allowed to become a bone of contention with assertions of prestige and the like.
I do not think it right that I should pronounce on behalf of His Majesty's Government in any way on this matter today. After all, this case is at the present moment in a very real sense sub judice. It is now actually being discussed by the Deputies of the Foreign Ministers in connexion with the drafting of a Peace Treaty with Italy. Both sides should be heard, and heard fully, before any solution to the problem is propounded. I would like to tell the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, that, although the South Tyrol was handed over to Italy for administration, it was done without prejudice to what might be considered right in regard to the eventual disposal of the territory under the Peace Treaty. It had to be administered by somebody as a purely temporary measure, and it was made clear by a public statement at the time that this action was entirely without prejudice to the eventual disposal of the territory. We are perfectly free to do what we think right, always assuming of course, that we can get other people to agree with us. I do not think, for the reasons I have given, that it will be useful to discuss this matter further today.
I am very grateful to your Lordships for having had this debate, and I am very

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grateful for the speeches which were made. The observations which your Lordships make on this matter with great authority will be very carefully considered by those responsible for the formulation of our policy in Austria. I think all sides of the House agree on this. We want to see a free, happy prosperous and independent Austria, an Austria which can maintain its independence and survive as an entity, completely separate from the German people.
4.15 p.m.
LORD VANSITTART: My Lords, I am very grateful for the support to my Motion which I have received from the noble Earl, Lord Perth. I gather he agreed with most of what I said, and I agree with most of what he said. On that I have little comment to make. There appears to be only one infinitesimally small difference between us, and that is the value of the "Brenner" in 1934. I always regarded that as a contest between two bluffers, and that "saw-dust Caesar" out-bluffed "Schikelgruber." Lord Sempill suggested that when I spoke again it would be well if we got together and I organized some support before I spoke. I have frequently spoken in this House in a manner that has not always been acceptable, and I have always studiously refrained from anything in the nature of soliciting, because I did not want to put any of my friends in the delicate position of having to say they do not wish to speak. The noble Lord went on to suggest that I had previously withdrawn my Motion. I never did anything of the sort. I merely postponed it, because I was informed it might come on at such a late hour. It was merely out of consideration for the House that I postponed it.
It is quite true that I did object originally to the declaration of Dr. Renner, and I am not going to be drawn on to that ground because I do not wish to. There is a difference between Gross-Deutsch and Alt-Deutsch. My original objection to Dr. Renner had nothing to do with personalites. I merely thought he was a dangerous President, with a very Gross-Deutsch record. That is a matter of the past and I do not wish to revert to it.
THE EARL OF PERTH: I cannot accept that it is a very Gross-Deutsch record. I do not wish to go into the argument, par
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ticularly as it refers to the Head of a friendly State.
LORD VANSITTART: I affirm it. I do not wish again to be drawn on to that. There is very ample evidence of it. I prefer to let people speak for themselves, and that voice was a very clear one. With regard to the speech of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, I heard with regret, but without surprise, that he felt unable to give me even an approximate idea of the number of troops of occupation. He did say, if I understood him aright, that the forces of the French, the British and the Americans combined were considerably inferior to those of the Russians. Therefore, I suggest that His Majesty's Government might enter into communication with the Soviet Government with a view to getting some alteration there. He said they had already arrested 6,000 Nazis. That seems to be a disappointingly small figure. I should have been better pleased with 16,000, and perhaps the Foreign Office will duly inform me when they have reached that more satisfactory figure. He went on to say it was the firm intention of His Majesty's Government to purge the place of all these various taints, and there again I listened with very great interest. The only comment I have is that the purge has not been effected yet. I hope it may be stimulated. I welcome very much also what he had to tell me about the Linzer Tagblatt. That certainly is the stuff to give Pan-Germanism. I hope the dose will be repeated whenever necessary.
The noble and learned Lord went on to make a point which surprised me a little. He said the matter was complicated by the fact that the Italians had established power stations in the South Tyrol. Of that, I am well aware. I see no reason why Austria or the South Tyrol should not export power just as Switzerland does. I think the noble and learned Lord would be surprised were I to raise in another context the argument he has used here. Suppose I were to wait at his residence until he takes a vacation, and then slip in and instal a refrigerator: he would be surprised if I were to claim that the residence were henceforth mine. I do not think that is an admissible argument. He also said the administration of the South Tyrol had been handed back to the Italians without prejudice. I am afraid you cannot do that. It is not

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possible to hand it back without prejudice. The possidentes have certain advantages which you cannot annul.
I quite understand that he is not able to disclose to me the intentions of His Majesty's Government in regard to this area, but it may assist matters again if the substance of this debate is brought to their notice, with a rider that some of us, at least, would find it very difficult not to move to reject a treaty which contains a repetition of old injustices. Meanwhile, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for his remarks and for the support I have received in this debate. I hope it may have done something to clear the air and show what this House esteems to be justice, which I hope also I shall see done. I beg leave to 'withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

DEMOBILIZATION OF OFFICERS.
4.30 p.m.
VISCOUNT LONG VISCOUNT LONG asked His Majesty's Government whether they can now state by classes how many officers who should have, by now, been released from the Services are still serving, and how far the officers are behind the other ranks in this respect. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I rise to ask His Majesty's Government the question which stands in my name. May I crave your Lordships' indulgence? I have a very heavy cold and-my voice is very bad. I hope His Majesty's Government can give us some hope, first, that these officers who were detained last October under an order issued by Viscount Montgomery of Alamein have now been released or are in process of being released; secondly, that the gap that was then caused by their retention has been reduced to a minimum; and, thirdly, that there has been in no way any discrimination as between officers and other ranks. I say this because those serving in Palestine and the Middle East especially have got their noses right down to the grindstone. They are not living under very comfortable circumstances and from correspondence I have received it seems that they feel they have been rather left in the cold and kept in the Army whilst other ranks have been allowed to come back. After all, all these officers started -from the ranks and by their efficiency and prowess they became officers. I do hope that His
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Majesty's Government will be able to give them a hopeful answer this afternoon.
4.32 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD NATHAN): My Lords the release of officers and men from the Forces is governed primarily by their age and service groups. I have assumed, therefore, that these groups are the "classes" referred to by the noble Viscount, Lord Long, and I am giving the figures on that basis. I should mention at the outset that the Government release scheme was never intended as a rigid plan, giving identical treatment to all members of the three Services. The need for a degree of fluidity in its application was assumed and provided for from the outset. It was made clear in the White Paper on the Reallocation of Man-power, issued in September, 1944, that owing to military considerations release would necessarily proceed at different rates in the different Services, and that it would be necessary in some Services to deal separately with the several branches, and possibly with trades and ranks (or ratings) in those branches. In fact the method and progress of release varies to some extent in the three different Services, and for that reason I will deal with each Service separately. In all cases the information I give relates to male officers only.
In the Army it will be convenient to consider the position on February 4, 1946, which was the closing day for the release of other ranks in group 25. At that date some 24,000 officers in groups 25 or earlier were still retained in the Army because of the slower rate of officer releases. The release of officers up to and including group 25 is due to be completed on April 9, 1946. It follows, therefore, that officer releases are rather more than two months behind those of other ranks at this time. There are, of course, exceptions to the normal rule, both in the case of officers and other ranks, but that is the general position. As noble Lords will no doubt have seen from the provisional programme of releases up to June, 1946, published on February 4, 1946, the release of officers and other ranks will be at approximately the same level by June of this year.
In the Royal Air Force, the general level of release in February, both of

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officers and other ranks, is group 27. But it is necessary, as foreshadowed in the White Paper, to deal separately with the different branches and trades, and 3,304 Royal Air Force officers are still retained because they belong to branches in which the rate of release is below the general level. The period of delay necessarily varies in the different branches. At present it ranges between one and four months, but I understand that every endeavour is made to keep the period to a minimum.
In the Royal Navy the situation is more complicated, and I regret it is impossible to give the actual numbers. At present, on the average, the release of naval officers is 12 groups behind the average of naval ratings, and in some cases particularly in the Supply Branch, release is still further delayed. Notwithstanding this, the average group for the release of officers at present is group 27. It is expected that by June of this year the officers will be only nine groups behind the ratings, excluding the Supply Branch. I trust the noble Viscount will feel that in this reply I have given him the figures for which his question asked.

MID AND SOUTH EAST CHESHIRE WATER BOARD BILL. [H.L.]
Report from the Committee of Selection, That the following Lords be proposed to the House to form the Select Committee for the consideration of the said Bill:

V. St. Davids,

V. Stonehaven,

L. Chesham (Chairman),

L. Monkswell,

L. Ailwyn.

Agreed to, and the said Lords appointed accordingly.