Lords Sitting of 15 October 1946

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

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932 (CITY OF LANCASTER ORDER).
LORD WALKDEN: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Ammon, I beg to move the first Motion on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department under the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, and laid before the House on Wednesday last, be approved.—(Lord Walkden.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932 (COUNTY BOROUGH OF PRESTON ORDER).
LORD WALKDEN: My Lords, I beg to move the next Motion on the Paper.
Moved, That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department under the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, and laid before the House on Wednesday last, be approved.—(Lord Walkden.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932 (URBAN DISTRICT OF TON- BRIDGE ORDER).
LORD WALKDEN: My Lords, I beg to move the last Motion standing in the name of my noble friend.
Moved, That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department under the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, and laid before the House on Wednesday last, be approved.—(Lord Walkden.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISI ONAL ORDER (NORWICH) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Amendment proposed by the Select Committee made.
ARDROSSAN GAS PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
Considered on Report (according to Order).

CABLE AND WIRELESS BILL.
2.35 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD PAKENHAM): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Pakenham.)
LORD ALTRINCHAM: My Lords, I hope that before the Bill is completed in this House we may have some further light from the Leader of the House, or from His Majesty's Government, as to what is proposed for the future organization. There are really two sides to the question. The first is that of our own domestic organization in this country. What is to take the place of the present Cable and Wireless Company? I need not trouble your Lordships by going through the arguments which more than one noble Lord put forward on the Second Reading against the handing over of this Company to the Post Office. We on these Benches are very strongly opposed to that. I hope that His Majesty's Government have been impressed by these arguments, and that we may have some assurance to-day that the course to be followed will be to set up a corporation similar to the corporations which are being set up in all the Dominions except New Zealand (which, I believe, is different in that respect), and that it will not be handed over to the Post Office. I think that to hand it over to the Post Office would make difficulties not only with the Commonwealth organization, but in regard to cable ends and various other rights in foreign countries. There are many arguments. As I said, I will not repeat them, but I hope

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that before this stage is concluded we may have some information on that point and some assurance that a corporation will be set up. That is, indeed, what we very strongly urge from this side.
The other point is the Commonwealth organization which is to be set up. We are now to have a Commonwealth Communications Council with, I am glad to see, my noble friend Lord Reith as its Chairman. That has been announced and I am sure there can be no more suitable appointment. The service he has already rendered in this matter is very great indeed, and nothing could have given us greater pleasure than to see him selected by all the Dominions and by this country for that purpose. We shall be glad to know what will be the powers, the duties, and the whole set-up of this Commonwealth Council. I understand that unanimous recommendations were made at the Commonwealth Conference last year. Is there any reason, even if the whole of the Report cannot be published, why the recommendations of the Commonwealth Conference cannot be made public? I do not think there would be any objection to that in the Dominions, and it would help us very much in making up our minds as to whether the proposed organization is satisfactory or not. I hope, therefore, that on both the domestic side and on the Commonwealth side, before this Bill passes this stage, we may have a statement from His Majesty's Government.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DOMINION AFFAIRS (VISCOUNT ADDISON): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for the great assistance which he and his colleagues have given to the passage of the Bill, and we are extremely appreciative of it. As your Lordships are well aware, this Bill marks only the first necessary steps in the setting up of the new scheme of arrangements. I may say that the agreement which was appended to the Report of the Commonwealth Communications Council will be published quite shortly—I think, as a matter of fact, as soon as this Bill has received the Royal Assent; at all events, quite shortly. As the noble Lord is aware, the Dominions, whilst completely unanimous in the report for which the noble Lord, Lord Reith, was largely responsible, differed regarding their internal arrangements. Canada and South Africa have one set-up, New Zealand have
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a different set-up, and Australia will have another not quite the same. So, in that respect, they are not of the same pattern, but that fact in no way derogates from the necessity of giving, in good faith, complete effect to the recommendations of the Committee over which the noble Lord presided.
I would join with the noble Lord opposite in his appreciation of our debt to Lord Reith for his services, and in welcoming the fact that everybody wanted him to be Chairman. That is a great tribute to his diplomacy quite apart from his personal ability. As to the future set-up, I note what the noble Lord says and I know that his view is shared by others. At the same time, I am afraid I am not in a position to-day to make any definite statement. There are all manner of considerations to be taken into account, but we are actively considering the new set-up. I am afraid I cannot make any announcement as to its character, which is not yet fully determined. Therefore I must disappoint the noble Lord, otherwise I thank him for his intervention.
LORD ALTRINCHAM: My Lords, if with the permission of the House I may say another word, I would like to thank the noble Viscount opposite for the statement he made regarding the publication of the recommendations of the Commonwealth Conference. That is most satisfactory. With regard to the other point, on which he is unable to give any satisfaction, I am afraid I can only express my disappointment and repeat that we are anxious that these questions should not become an issue between the parties. I hope very much that the future of the corporation will be determined more or less in understanding of the view which we hold upon this side of the House.
2.42 p.m.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, it is with some diffidence that I rise to join this happy family which seems to have been built up round this Bill, but in view of the fact that I did raise this question of cable and wireless in the debate which I initiated in this House last May on the general question of nationalization, I feel that I cannot let the Bill pass without saying a word or two to express my anxiety and the anxieties of other people as to what is likely to take place. I would like to ask the Government—I do not propose to be controversial at all; I only

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want information—one or two rather pertinent questions. As a result of taking over what is admitted by the Government and by all concerned to be a very efficient business, which has built up an organization that has been of immense importance not only to our country but to the world generally, particularly during the war, I would like to ask whether the Government are satisfied that the efficiency side of it all is not likely to be detrimentally interfered with. I ask for this reason. In a great organization like this, which it has taken many years to build up, and on the directorate of which there are many men of great eminence and knowledge of this subject who are going to be dispensed with, is it likely that a new organization such as is suggested by this Bill will be so efficient; and will not the result of it be certain further expense on the taxpayer of this country, which is already very grave?
I do not know whether I am likely to get an answer to this question, but I would like to ask the Government whether the Army, the Navy and the Air Force are satisfied that under this new arrangement the same secrecy and confidential arrangements between the Services and this Company will be maintained, because it seems to me that, while various countries in different parts of the world were satisfied in dealing with a corporation such as Cable and Wireless, they will have quite different ideas when dealing with a Government organization. I can hardly think that those countries which have been giving their confidence and their territory within their own borders to this organization will continue to do so if such business is run by the Government. This will undoubtedly mean putting their nationals into the offices and the conduct of this business. I am wondering whether that is the sort of arrangement which can possibly preserve the confidential and familiar attitude and atmosphere that you want in relation to this very intricate business. There is another feature that touches the taxpayer's pocket. Where now there are certain currencies, dollar and other foreign currencies, which come to the benefit of this country through the services rendered by this organization—a benefit which we so sadly need just now—that advantage will cease. I do not know what amount is involved, but I imagine
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that it must be something fairly substantial.
I have looked into the question of whether the Dominions were really so keen on this business being transferred from the Cable and Wireless Company to the Government. Although in some cases they say they are quite willing that this should be done, I am rather perturbed that in one case words were used to the effect that they would do it but rather halfheartedly. I do not find that there is that agreement to this transaction on the part of the Dominions which some people suppose to exist. And there is another point. This business, so far as I can see, is definitely an international business. How on earth you are going to nationalize a business which is an international business to the advantage of those concerned, I fail to see. No doubt the Government have looked into all these matters, but in view of the opinions of many people, including my humble self, I do feel that they should be ventilated on the Third Reading of this Bill. If, as some anticipate, this great organization is broken up into parts which belong here and there, to different countries, that will not be to the interests of our own country or to the interest of our own nationals.
I make these few remarks because I do not want it to be felt, if, as we anticipate, these things should happen, that voices were not raised on the subject. I would suggest to the Government that these are questions which are really material and of great importance with regard to the future success of this new and very technical undertaking which is being embarked upon by the Government. I would like also to say one further word with regard to the staff and certain members of this organization who have spent what one might call a lifetime in bringing it to its present great position. So far as I can make out, they are not considered to be worthy of any consideration on being turned out of their jobs. I know of no other organization which has had servants, whether as directors or others, who have given all their past to building up a great business and have quite suddenly found themselves without jobs. I beg the Government to look again into this question of compensating those directors and others who may, through these altered circumstances, lose the positions which

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they have occupied for so long and with such great efficiency. I hope the Government will forgive me for intervening in what seemed to be, until I got up, a happy family discussion, and I assure them it is only my anxiety with regard to the future which causes me to do so.
2.51 p.m.
LORD REITH: My Lords, as I had so much to do with this matter in its early stages perhaps your Lordships will permit me to make some brief comments now, I was delighted to hear from the the noble Viscount, Lord Addison, that something was shortly to be published. I take it that will be the draft Overall Agreement, which was an appendix to the Commonwealth Communications Conference Report.
LORD ADDISONindicated assent.
LORD REITH: That will provide what the noble Lord, Lord Altrincham, wants, a clear indication of the duties and responsibilities of the new Central Board. That, I think, will meet him and others of your Lordships who want to know what the new Board will have to do. Might I ask the noble Lord who will reply for the Government whether he can give us any idea when the next stage of legislation in this country will be entered upon. As has been said several times, this is only the first stage. When will the next stage come—the one which will implement, I should imagine, that draft Overall Agreement and permit the establishment of the new Central Board? I think your Lordships would be glad to hear when that is to come.
As to the organization here, I should like to endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Altrincham, said. I will not repeat what I said on July 25 as to its being taken over by the Post Office. The arguments from him and from me are on record and both he and I stand by them. Might I suggest to the Government that they should examine a proposal I made on return from the tour round the world. I think the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, will possibly find an answer to part of his doubts there. The proposal referred to what I called, for want of a better term, Oceanic Assets. The present Company does much work in this country and, as your Lordships know, it does much work in other parts of the world—in the Colonies and in foreign countries. I do
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not think the Government will have any objection to my referring to this Oceanic Assets idea. I wonder whether it might not be possible to deal separately with the work that the Company does in this country, and have it conducted by one organization, and have the work which the Company does overseas conducted by another organization. The Oceanic Assets proposal was presented to and discussed by the Commonwealth Communications Conference last year, with a particular orientation which need not be referred to now. Personally, I hope the Government will not put anything under the Post Office at all, but they might consider, if they are determined to put something under the Post Office, confining that something to what the Company actually does in this country, and having the rest of the Company's activities—namely, the Oceanic Assets activities in the Colonies and in foreign countries—conducted by some other body; a corporation, I would hope. Those members of the Government and of the Opposition who were in office and who were aware of this proposal in 1945, will understand what I am referring to.
It is not my business to reply on behalf of the Government to the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, but I might possibly help a little, because of my early and intimate connexion with this matter, if I mention one or two points he has brought up. As to efficiency, had I thought that the efficiency of the conduct of the telecommunication services, which are obviously of vital importance to Empire and Commonwealth, would in any way be lessened by the scheme which was submitted, after discussion with Commonwealth Governments, to the United Kingdom Government, and which was approved by the Commonwealth Conference last year, I should never have been party to it. I am no less fallible than the next noble Lord, but I would not have been party to a scheme which I did not think would work.
As to the Services being satisfied, the noble Lord may be relieved to know that throughout the proceedings of the Commonwealth Communications Conference last year, there was present a senior representative of the Services, watching what was happening and being given full opportunity to comment at the meetings of the Conference and otherwise. It seemed

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to me—and I would imagine this still to apply—that the Services were satisfied with what was proposed and what was in fact passed for the consideration of all the Governments by that Conference.
As to the attitude of the Dominions and India, would the noble Lord remember that this business began in 1944, when the Commonwealth Communications Council decided to recommend the nationalization of all the telecommunications interests in their countries. It is true that there was a variation in enthusiasm between the Dominion Governments on that issue, but we cannot get away from the fact that a 1944 meeting of the Council recommended unanimously that the local companies should be nationalized in each country. I was presented with that when I was invited to go around the world in January, 1945, but the United Kingdom Government thought—and I entirely agreed with them—that the arrangements for the central co-ordination of all these separately nationalized bodies were not adequate; and I was asked whether I could devise something in consultation with the Dominions and India which would give a greater measure of central co-ordination with a view to greater efficiency. That is what I felt I brought back as a result of my conversations. I did not bring back nationalization; I was presented with nationalization before I went; but wherever I went I did my best to ascertain what measure of enthusiasm there was locally. Some of the Dominions insisted on it and would have nothing other than that. In one Dominion—the noble Lord is right—they said in effect: "We were content to let the existing system continue, but as the issue had been raised we fell in with the wishes of the majority." You may say, therefore, that they agreed, not enthusiastically but nevertheless fully, to the general scheme of nationalization.
I do not understand the noble Lord's references to a break-up. Reverting to this Oceanic Assets idea, the present Company has of course activities in various foreign countries, but they are not going to be nationalized into the nationalities of those foreign countries; the staff there will be as now. That leads to one of my points about the Post Office: instead of having the United Kingdom Post Office take over the offices and organizations in the Colonies and in foreign countries, it would
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be much better to put all that under some separate body here—a corporation I would hope—but there is no question of breakup. Does the noble Lord wish to speak?
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, I am most interested in what my noble friend has said, but does he really think it likely that foreign countries which now have working arrangements with the Cable and Wireless Company are going to continue those very intimate and familiar arrangements with a foreign Governmental organization? I cannot conceive that that is likely at all. If it did happen that there was some arrangement it seems to me that they would insist upon having their own nationals running the show in their own countries and not what I understand it to be now.
LORD REITH: I appreciate the noble Lord's point, and my answer is this. I hope that the United Kingdom Government will not, either through the Post Office or in any other way, directly take over the present Company' activities in these foreign countries. I admit, and always have admitted, the possibility that, owing to nationalization, something might happen that would not otherwise have happened, but I think the danger will be very considerably lessened if, instead of the United Kingdom Post Office endeavouring to conduct this part of the business, the United Kingdom Government should establish a corporation for the purpose; the only obvious difference in a foreign country would then be the heading of the notepaper—if that. Nobody would need to see any difference between what had been and what was. I do not feel that there is any real danger of any break-up or of foreign Governments insisting on putting their own nationals into an office at present run by Cable and Wireless Ltd. but in future to be run by' a United Kingdom Corporation.
I have only one further point to make, and that is to endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, said about the Company and to repeat briefly what I said on the Second Reading. I was a director of that concern, and, if I had thought that the efficiency of the Company was impugned, I could not, out of loyalty to them, have undertaken the mission I did. As I have already said, if I thought that what emerged from the tour and subsequent Conference would have lessened

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efficiency, I should not have been party to it. I believed that the new arrangements would have been acceptable to the Company, and it was to my great surprise and disappointment that those hopes were not realized. But as to the Company's record through the long years—and that of the Chairman, Sir Edward Wilshaw in particular—there is no one in this House, either Lord Teviot or any other noble Lord, who would pay to them and to him a greater tribute than I would be willing to do.
3.3 p.m.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: My Lords, I think the noble Lord, Lord Reith, has really answered the misgivings of the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, more efficiently than I could, because he has been right through this business from the very beginning. So far as the objective is concerned, and the machinery of operations, there has been continuity all through. This Bill represents no alteration at all. It is only one stage of the procedure to be carried out. That is all it amounts to, and I can assure the noble Lord that in common with the noble Lord below the gangway we should not be parties to this if we felt there was any likelihood of its diminishing the efficiency of the service or endangering any of the things to which he has very properly called attention. I am quite sure he will be satisfied that it will be the anxiety of the Government that, whatever new company or corporation manage this concern, they will treat with complete fairness and consideration all the staff who have rendered services, as happens in any other case where organizations are changed through legislative action.
LORD TEVIOT: I hate to interrupt the noble Lord, but in view of what has been said, and the undoubted opinion of the efficiency of this organization and its value, I wonder if he could give me some good reason, other than the political reason of nationalization, why you should disturb this very efficient service. There may be some other reason which I do not know.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: I should have said myself that it is fair to say that the initiation of this scheme could not be rightly described as political. Decisions were arrived at in order to get an organization in being which would work with the Dominions in
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common with ourselves and, political considerations entirely apart, this was the business-like way of doing it. I can assure the noble Lord that there is no other thought in our minds at all. I believe it will involve some enlargement of the functions of the Council to which the noble Lord referred a few minutes ago, when it comes into being, with regard to the consolidation of operations and the harmonious working of the different parts of the machine throughout the world.
I will say with regard to the future set-up that I have been greatly impressed by what the noble Lord has said, and particularly with what the noble Lord, Lord Reith, has said. I am well acquainted with their views of what they would like to have, but I regret that I cannot go any further to-day than to say that we have not yet come to a conclusion as to what the final set-up will be. It will, however, be reported as soon as possible; we shall waste no time.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: My Lords, perhaps I might say one word with regard to the last point made by the noble Lord, Lord Teviot. The noble Lord said with regard to this Bill that he could see no conceivable reason for it except the Government passion for nationalization. That is, I know, an impression which has been gained in various parts of the country. I think it only fair to say that this scheme was accepted by the late National Government. I have had no knowledge of the later proceedings, but I had some knowledge of the matter when I was in the Dominions Office before the Leader of the House went there. I must confess that I myself came to the conclusion that it would be impossible for the existing system to go on. I am sure your Lordships will not regard me as an enthusiastic supporter of nationalization; I do not like it. The impression I got was undoubtedly that they would have been unwilling to continue co-operating with us on the old basis. This is to me not a problem of nationalization at all. It is entirely an Imperial problem, and I believe, whether we like it or not, that this new set-up was inevitable and for that reason I have been ready to accept it. I do not pretend that I like it on principle, but I do believe it is the only basis on which we can get an international network of communications. I felt it fair to say that to the noble Lord.

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because I think he was still under a misapprehension on certain aspects of this Bill.
On Question, Bill read 3a, with the Amendment, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

HILL FARMING BILL.
3.9 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON): My Lords, this Bill has been designed to rehabilitate the hill farming industry. I do not know if your Lordships realize how large is the area of hill farming land both in this country and in Scotland. Something like 16,000,000 acres in the United Kingdom are hill and mountain grazings. That is approximately 34 per cent. of the agricultural land of this country. Over 4,500,000 sheep and about 320,000 cattle graze over wild spaces of which little or no use could otherwise be made. To put it another way, one-sixth of the agricultural land in England and Wales is comprised in hill farms and in Scotland rough grazings account for nearly 70 per cent. of the total farm land.
Now the importance of this system of farming is mainly threefold. In the first place, these farm lands provide valuable pasture for breeding beef cattle, which later move down to the lowlands for fattening. Secondly, a hardy indigenous race of mountain sheep is bred which, when crossed with lowland rams, produces Wether-lambs for fattening. But far more important than this is the fact that these sheep provide a basic stock which by cross-breeding spread their vitality through flocks all over the country. They are the basis of our original stocks for breeding. In other words, I think it is fair to say that home meat supplies are ultimately dependent on the maintenance of these foundation stocks of sheep and cattle in the hill lands of Britain. Thirdly, this hill farming provides a way of life for the inhabitants who depend on their flocks and herds for their livelihood.
For some time, their livelihood has been in an extremely precarious condi
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tion. This is, unfortunately, one of the most depressed industries of which we know. Undrained pastures, overgrown with bracken, broken fences and tumbledown walls, empty houses, land reverting to its natural state, farms reverting to their owners because no tenants can be found for them—this is what the visitor finds. In the war years, unfortunately, hill farming did not benefit as other forms of agriculture did. There was no improvement during the war in the economic position of the hill farmers. Hill farms, which largely consist of areas of rough grazings with only small areas of land capable of cultivation, could not benefit to any great extent from the improved and secure markets for cereals, potatoes and other arable crops. Nor could these farmers obtain direct benefit from the improved markets for fat sheep or fat cattle. Only a small proportion of the stock sold by hill farmers each year is in a fat condition ready for slaughter. Almost the whole of the sales of this stock are of necessity made to other farmers in lowland areas, who use them either for further breeding or as feeding animals.
Normally, improved prices and secured markets for fat stock would be reflected in better prices and markets for the store animal. Unfortunately, during the war owing to the increase of tillage and cultivation this did not happen, and in fact there was less demand for the stock from the hill farms. So, in practice, the hill farmers hardly benefited at all. At the same time their expenses, as those of other farmers, rose sharply. Wages, which account for something like 30 per cent. of a hill farmer' expenditure, have increased by nearly 100 per cent. Unfortunately, enhanced prices were not available to compensate the farmers for that. This is the picture which has been painted in the two Reports which we received, one from Earl De La Warr and the other from Lord Balfour of Burleigh. These Reports show only too clearly the condition of hill farming today. If I may, I should like to congratulate both the noble Lords very sincerely indeed on these Reports. In fact, I think the greatest possible compliment has been paid to them by reason of the fact that this Bill has been largely drawn up to implement their recommendations.
So dismal is the picture which these Reports paint that it was apparent to the Government that no small palliatives

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would be of any use. Help of a very substantial kind had to be given if we were going to rescue the industry. Either the industry had to be abandoned, and these areas of hill country allowed to go back to wild scrub with a few strong sheep and cattle grazing on ranches, or else a big effort, with a large amount of finance involved, would have to be made to put the hill farming industry on its feet and build it up again. This is what the Government decided to do and this is what this Bill is designed to achieve. The principle we have adopted—and I should like to emphasize this—is a voluntary one. In fact, this is one of the great differences between this Bill and the recommendations of the two Reports. The recommendations in the Reports had suggested that some measure of compulsion would be necessary. We, on the other hand, have taken the line that we could keep this on a voluntary basis, and in fact the principle that we have adopted is that we are going to help people who help themselves. We do think that these hill farmers, who are perhaps some of the most self-reliant, hard-working and capable people in these islands, if given a chance, can themselves rehabilitate their own industry. That is what we hope, and for that reason we intend to give what help we can.
If your Lordships will turn to the Bill, you will see that in Clauses 1 to 12 is set out the main plan for the rehabilitation of hill farming. Roughly the scheme is this. If the owners of the land and the tenants agree—or anyone else interested in the land agrees—on a scheme that will help that land, and benefit hill farming, then the Minister is empowered to advance—if he thinks the scheme suitable and efficient—50 per cent. or half the expenses of the scheme. That really is the essence of the whole Bill. It is purely voluntary. If the schemes are decided upon and agreed by the parties concerned, the Minister can advance 50 per cent. of the cost of a scheme. These schemes must be concerned with hill farming land, or land suitable for hill farming purposes. And here we run into a difficulty as one is apt to do when one tries to define very precisely an extremely varied matter such as hill farming.
In Clause 1 (3), we define "hill farming land" as
"mountain, hill, and heath land which is suitable for use for the maintenance of sheep of a hardy kind but not of sheep of other
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kinds, or which by improvement could be made so suitable."
Some of your Lordships may have different ideas and disagree with this definition, but I would urge that on examination you will find that the definition does in practice cover the farms which we intend to benefit. It is purely for the hill farmers; but I should like to point out that if a hill farmer owns both hill land and low land he would not be excluded from this scheme, provided the farms are worked in conjunction for hill farming purposes. He could own considerable areas of different kinds of land but would still qualify for the grant. The actual improvements for which the grant will be available, are set out in the First Schedule of the Bill, but the Minister is allowed, by order, to alter or modify this Schedule if occasion demands.
The total amount which may be used is £4,000,000 over a period of five years, though if Parliament agrees an extra £1,000,000 can be added. There are, of course, various safeguards, as your Lordships will note, to ensure that this money is well spent, and that the schemes themselves will be worth the money—in other words, that they will provide equivalent benefits for the money spent. Under Clauses 4 to 8, your Lordships will see that the Minister has power to revoke or vary schemes, either at the request of the parties concerned or in the public interest, or if by any chance he should decide that the work had been badly and inefficiently carried out. In the last case, he will have power to recover such money as has been spent by the Treasury on the scheme. There are also safeguards to see that there shall be neither increased rents nor increased compensation arising out of the receipt of Government money.
I turn now for a moment to what is probably the most controversial clause of the Bill, Clause 10, which relates to improvement grants in respect of work done for the erection, improvement or reconditioning of cottages. It is only fair to point out that this assistance will not add to the number of tied cottages, and in fact, may lead to a reduction. Cottages built under such a scheme will come under the Rent Restrictions Acts and will have a full grant of 50 per cent., which will be available immediately.
Another most complicated situation is that dealt with by Clause 12, where a scheme is envisaged for common land. Immediately

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one tries to deal with common land, as your Lordships know, the whole aspect becomes extremely difficult and complicated. Under this Bill, we have tried to keep the voluntary principle, and in order to try to start schemes on land where people have common rights the Minister has power to initiate schemes which he thinks will improve this land. Such schemes will qualify for the 50 per cent. grant. If, however, a commoner should disagree with such a scheme, and his disagreement is neither frivolous nor groundless, then the scheme will tall through. This will not stop the Minister from initiating another scheme if he thinks that that would do. On the other hand, if a scheme is proceeded with, and one or more of the commoners refuse to pay the appropriate amount apportioned to them, the remaining commoners could continue the scheme, dividing up the whole 50 per cent. among them or, alternatively, they could ask for the scheme to be revoked. We have a slight inducement to commoners who might default on a scheme after it had been agreed, in that the Minister has the right to stop payment of the subsidy to those who default.
As well as the grant for such schemes, the Government intend for the time being to continue the subsidies for both hill sheep and cattle. This is provided for in Clauses 13 to 17. This merely continues what is being done at the present time, and I think that the State has already advanced something like £11,500,000, through subsidies, in support of the industry. I think that your Lordships will agree that it will be some years before any real benefit can come from these schemes, and in the meantime the hill farmers must be kept in reasonable economic circumstances.
Clauses 18 and 19 deal with the control of rams in England and Wales. This has already been tried out in Wales with extremely good effect, and I think that there is general agreement among the farmers there that the level of the herds has been improved accordingly. Then we come to the question of heather burning. Clauses 20 and 21 enable the Minister to make regulations for the burning of heather and grass on land in England and Wales, and also to rescind any clauses in leases which might prohibit this burning. Clauses 22 to 27 deal with the question
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of heather burning in Scotland. The Heather Burning (Scotland) Act, 1926, is repealed, and various rights are given to allow for heather burning in the appropriate season. I may say that the persons chiefly concerned in this have been consulted, and I understand that they agree with the provisions set out in the Bill. Clauses 28 to 31 regulate the valuation of sheep stocks, which for some time has been dealt with in a rather unsatisfactory manner. Here, also, I think that the parties have been consulted and that more or less substantial agreement has been reached.
Clauses 32 to 41 deal with general matters, but I would like particularly to call the attention of your Lordships to Clauses 32 and 33, which deal with advisory and local committees. It must be obvious that any scheme of this kind must be implemented through people with profound knowledge of the industry; otherwise it might be extremely difficult to operate. Your Lordships will see that under these clauses an Advisory Committee will be set up for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and a sub-committee of that Committee for Wales and Monmouthshire. Scotland will have its own Advisory Committee. Under Clause 33, the appropriate Minister may also constitute local committees, which will have the power of carrying out the intentions of the Bill. My right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture intends to use the county agricultural executive committees as far as possible for this purpose. They will have considerable powers delegated to them in order to implement these schemes, except in regard to actual finance and payments, which are reserved exclusively to the control of the Minister.
I am afraid that I have kept your Lordships rather a long time in going through the Bill, but I thought, if your Lordships will allow me, that I would also wind up the debate and try to clarify any point which needs clarification. I hope that your Lordships will recognize that this Bill is a sincere effort by the Government to rehabilitate this industry. We do sincerely want to put the industry on its feet, and I trust that your Lordships will give the Bill a favourable hearing and a speedy passage through this House. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)
3.29 p.m.
EARL DE LA WARR: My Lords, first of all, on behalf of your Lordships, may I congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Huntingdon, on the way that he has laid this Bill before us? May I also congratulate him on the Bill itself? There are certain items which all of us would like to see a little different, but that is usually the case with Bills that are brought before us. I really cannot do other than congratulate the noble Lord on the main provisions of the Bill, because he has been good enough to use a good many of the proposals that were put before his Department by the Committee for Scotland of the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, and also by the Committee for England and Wales over which I had the honour to preside.
We were all very glad to hear the noble Lord stress both the size and the importance of this section of the farming industry. When he spoke of 16,000,000 acres, he gave us some picture and some considerable idea of just how much of Scotland, England and Wales is involved. I purposely put Scotland first because that country is more interested than England in this particular problem. I think we were also glad to hear that the noble Lord was so fully aware of the state to which this section of the industry has been driven, and of the fact that the hills have not benefited—I was going to say to the same extent, but I think it is perhaps truer to say not at all—from the somewhat greater prosperity of lowland farming during the war. When I went round the country with my Commission I frequently found that some of these unfortunate hill farmers had been compelled to plough up considerable areas of hills and sow them with corn that had not got the slightest hope of ever ripening.
There is one point which I would like to stress and to which the noble Lord referred. He has mentioned the size of the problem and the importance of it. He only just referred to the farmers on these hills and mountains. I do not come from one of these districts, but, during the course of taking evidence, I think we visited every single hill district in England and Wales. We would go and stay at selected spots in a comparatively small area, possibly for a week at a time, motor round that district, stopping every twenty, thirty or forty miles, sometimes five times a day, meeting small groups of farmers, anything from twenty to fifty, who were
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brought together either in the local schools, village halls or public houses, taking evidence from them and discussing their problems with them as informally as possible. Therefore, we had an opportunity of forming an impression of the calibre of these men. I do not want to use exaggerated language, but they were magnificent. When one considered the extent, up in those hills and on the tops of those mountains, to which they kept in touch with current events, their courage, and toughness, we felt that many of them were almost hewn out of the granite from which they tried to extract a living. It made me feel that, whatever the economic importance of this industry—and I believe it is of tremendóus economic importance—these men themselves, their wives and the human stock that they are rearing, alone make this problem worth tackling and tackling on a wide and bold scale.
Let me say one other word in general terms. I hope that none of us here to-day feel that we are met in order merely to do a good deed to a worthy body of men. As the noble Earl has already told us, these men are part of the very foundation of what in fact is itself the foundation of the British agricultural industry—namely, live stock. At the present moment and for the next few years the most important factor in the food shortage position of the world is going to be in live-stock products. Therefore we are deeply dependent on this section of the agricultural industry if we are going to produce in this country the amount of food necessary in order to feed the people of this country. Do not let us deceive ourselves by thinking that our food problems are going to, be over in three or four years. There may be a period in a few years when there is plenty of food in the world, but I leave it to those who know a great deal more than I do about the economic and financial position of the country to say whether we are going to have the unlimited supply of exchange with which to purchase that food, even when it is otherwise obtainable. So much for the one or two general remarks I venture to make.
May I particularly congratulate His Majesty' Government on the comprehensive nature of the Schedule? So far as I can see, they have included almost everything that can be thought of. I am only sorry that there is no mention of assistance for installing the telephone. I really believe, not only for business purposes,

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but in the case of illness and so on that the availability of telephones in these areas is one of the most important items. I quite realize that now there may be difficulties about labour and material, but I should like to say that I would appreciate it if the noble Earl in his reply could give me some assurance that, at any rate, in a comparatively short period his Department will consider inserting this item of telephones in the First Schedule.
I have only one or two regrets about this Bill. I am rather sorry that the Government have decided to drop all reference to any compulsory measures. Far be it from me on this side of the House to urge compulsion on the other side of the House. We are only too relieved to find that in some Departments there is at least some belief in liberty left, but I can See some important schemes being held up in a large area, where perhaps 70, 80, or 90 per cent. of the people would like to do something, by the mere fact of a very small percentage standing out. I should have thought it might have been permissible to have some power to bring in that small percentage. But I think one's main regret—I am quite sure the regret of everyone on this side of the House, and I know of some who sit on that side who share it—is about what I can only call this complex that His Majesty' Government have on the subject of tied cottages. I think I am speaking for the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, as well as for myself when I say that both our Commissions came to the firm conclusion that housing and amenities of living in these great hill areas form over 50 per cent. of the problem. It is no good having these schemes unless there is the labour to carry them out. Personally, at the moment, I see no sign of the adequate labour in these areas necessary for the carrying out of these schemes, and unless there are going to be houses this Bill is going to be 50 per cent. a dead letter.
Why, when. the Bill started in its career in a perfectly intelligent form, go and completely spoil it by this Amendment to Clause 10? That is going to mean that houses just will not be built in these areas. His Majesty's Government are making provision, I understand, in their forestry scheme for tied cottages. Why? Because they know perfectly well they are not going to be able to carry out that scheme without cottages. I am not going
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to say a great deal about it. When you are dealing with a bad case of neurosis one knows that neither words nor arguments really affect the situation at all. We know we are dealing with something in the minds of noble Lords opposite that just cannot be touched by any argument, but I do think it would be wrong to let this debate pass without registering a very grave warning that, though not the whole, a very large proportion of the hopes they are placing on this Bill are being damned by their own action.
My noble friend referred to the Rent Restrictions Acts. Before leaving this subject I think it may be helpful to the House if we try to get the position clarified as to what, in fact, is the position. I would like to ask the noble Lord whether a cottage that is built on a hill farm by an owner who is in receipt of the 50 per cent. grant under this Bill, would be subject to the provisions of the Rent Restrictions Acts. I think the answer is "Yes." If so, would the owner, in the event of his employee leaving his employment, be able to apply to the agricultural executive committee for a certificate and then, if necessary, to the Court for an order to obtain possession? If he did so, would the Court be able to grant an order if the owner were unable to provide alternative accommodation? I would be very grateful if the noble Earl would answer those questions in his reply. It would not take us very far if the answer to this question is in the affirmative but it will certainly help. The reason why it will not take us very far is that all of us know the machinery of the Rent Restrictions Act is extremely clumsy. If your shepherd leaves you, perhaps tempted to a neighbouring farm by somebody who has outbid you, and you are left without a shepherd for two or three months at a vital period, the matter is not only going to be serious, it is possibly going to be disastrous to the farmer. Therefore, even if the noble Lord can answer "Yes" it is only of partial assistance. But still we are grateful for small mercies. At any rate, I think we all of us would like to thank the noble Lord for not having promised us the so-called "Bevin cottages" in villages that are ten miles away.
I close by making a few suggestions. I hope the noble Lord can give us some assurance that his Department intends to see to it that there is a complete and

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thorough survey of these areas at the earliest possible moment. We all of us know that the Government, quite rightly, has very large plans for planting in these areas, up to millions of acres. It is right and proper and desirable that great areas should be planted, but it is important that we should know at the earliest possible moment what land is to be permanently used for agricultural purposes and what land is to be put aside for purposes of forestry. Secondly, the noble Lord has spoken about the Advisory Committees. I think we all welcome these Committees, but what the noble Lord did not give us an assurance upon was that there should be members of the hill-farming communities on the executive committees. These are the bodies ultimately that matter, and that is a point that particularly struck my Commission in going round these areas. So often we had these executive committees without a single representative of the hill-farming community. Perhaps the noble Lord can give me an undertaking to look into that matter. These are just a few continents and suggestions upon this Bill that I venture to make, but I close, as I began, by saying I hope that we shall see to it that this Bill—on the whole an excellent Bill—passes into law as soon as possible.
3.47 p.m.
THE DUKE OF MONTROSE: My Lords, in rising to speak on this Hill Farming Bill I feel inclined to accord it a welcome now that it has come to your Lordships' House. I understand it has had a fairly rough passage in another place, but I am very glad indeed it is here now at last. I do not say that it is a perfect Bill by any means. I do not say that it cannot be improved, and I do not say that the draft is quite as it should be. Still I am prepared to accept it as a genuine attempt to give financial assistance to a very depressed industry. I am prepared to accept it as a genuine result following the very careful research of my noble friend Earl De La Warr, who carried out a research some years ago, followed by research by my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh. I think this Bill embodies a good many of their recommendations.
I said it was a financial aid to a very depressed industry. I am a fairly large hill farmer myself and I remember, some years ago, the terrible depression which
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we suffered. I can remember the day when ewes were selling at 12s. to 15s., lambs were selling from 5s. to 7s., and wool was selling at 4d. a lb. Never were such prices known before, and the depression was terrible. Now, thanks to the guaranteed prices of agricultural produce on low-lying land, prices are gradually beginning to climb back to a proper height. The low-lying land farmers have their guaranteed prices and their assured markets, and they are now making further demands for the hill sheep and the hill cattle which are the raw material upon which they work. As a result of the growing demand our prices are slowly and gradually climbing back. But we have to face very large increases in wages on the hill, and prices have not yet reached a stage that gives us any definite profit in hill farming. I think I may say that as a result of the depression landed proprietors and tenants have no cash at hand to go in for large rehabilitation schemes on their hill lands and in their houses, and because they have no cash at hand to do that they must seek Government financial assistance. It is because this Bill produces a definite scheme to that end that I accord it a considerable welcome.
There is no doubt whatever that in the past we have been leaning far too much upon importation from overseas, especially in the line of meat—beef and mutton. There is no doubt also that if we can produce more meat—more beef and more mutton—from our own land we should greatly ease the situation, and we can produce more beef and mutton only if we have the money to rehabilitate the land. There are a great many hill farmers to-day who quote the words of our great war leader: "Give us the tools and we will finish the job." I would say: "Give us the finance and we will produce the beef and mutton." I think there is no doubt whatever that we should do something, because the hill sheep and the hill cattle are the foundations of the British live-stock industry. Our sheep on the hills and our cattle on the hills are bought by lowland farmers in order to cross them and produce the mutton and beef which the market desires, and it is essential that we should maintain these sheep and the cattle on the hills.
I think I am right in saying that there are at the moment in round figures about 6,000,000 sheep in the United Kingdom; in round figures about 2,250,000 are to

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be found in England and 3,750,000 are to be found in Scotland. Therefore this Bill is of particular interest to Scotland, because most of the sheep in this country come from Scotland and most of the hill farming is done in Scotland. But the strange thing is that when you look at this Bill it is not until you come to page 25, Clause 39, that there is a marginal note where you see "Provisions as to Scotland." You have got to go searching all through these pages to try to find out what the Scottish conditions are. I have never heard of such a thing. This is the sort of thing that makes a great many Liberals in Scotland pray heaven that the day may come when we may have a Parliament of our own.
If we did produce a Bill I would say that we could greatly improve on the drafting of this Bill. I have never in all my life seen a Bill drafted so badly as this one. I will give a shilling to anybody who can take page 2, line 33 to line 40, page 3, line 31 to line 39 or page 9, line 9 to line 17, read them once, read them twice and then tell me straight out what it all means. You just cannot do it. That is only a sample of the drafting. I do hope we shall be given an opportunity to try to draft this Bill better than it is so that hill farmers can understand whether or not they come within the provisions of the Bill. Although this Bill provides for giving finance to a hill farm, I cannot see in the Bill any definition of a hill farm. Whoever drafted this Bill has fought shy of defining what is a hill farm. We know there is a high hill farm, we know there is marginal land, and we know there is low-lying land, but so far as this Bill is concerned there is no indication of where a hill farm begins from marginal land.
During the war I had great trouble over this very question of what is hill land and what is marginal land. There was during the war a provision whereby you could appeal to the Secretary of State instead of to the agricultural committee, for a definition of what was hill land which could gain the subsidy then given. When I went to the Secretary of State he said: "I have 7,000 applications to upset the rulings of the agricultural committee as to what is hill land and what is marginal land. There is no definition." He then said: "I cannot upset three quarters of these applications. I do not know what to do." In my case I lost, but that does
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not matter. The point is that there is no real definition and there will be a great many headaches for somebody trying to define what is hill land as referred to in this Bill. However, I hope that whatever definition is given the lines will not be drawn too tightly and some play will be left to common sense.
Look at Clause 1, subsection (2), paragraph (a). The idea there seems to be that there may be various parcels of land grouped about here and there but if the area is suitable it can be dealt with as a unit provided it is used for hill farming purposes. The question I would like to have defined is: Is wintering ground included in that? Every hill farmer—it is a common practice—takes his hoggs, his six-month-old lambs down to the lower ground for four months of the year. That low ground may be on marginal land or it may be even lower on low-lying land, but it does form part of a hill-farming unit. That is a most important duty, and you cannot farm without taking the hoggs down from the high ground to the low ground for the four months of the winter. It is a very expensive movement of stock. To-day wintering ground costs anything from 15s. to £1 a head and if you move 300 hoggs to the low ground that is £300, which is a very big sum to a hill farmer. It is most important, of course, that the wintering ground should be clean, well drained and the bracken cut. We go on using the same wintering ground year after year because we know the ground. The whole point is whether in forming a unit the Bill allows winter ground to be included, even if it is on lower ground. It is most important that that should be so, because it will be very expensive to keep clean and to rehabilitate, and it forms part of the hill farm.
Now we come to the most important clause of all, Clause 10, upon which there has been more discussion than on almost any other clause of the Bill. I know that this raises the question of the tied house. That is a very old political question; I remember that we argued about it when I was a Parliamentary candidate some forty years ago. I know it is a question about which in Scotland we get; "a'het up." I am not trying to make anybody hot on the subject of tied houses, but I do not quite understand this clause. The clause says that the appropriate Minister will secure, when a grant has been made in respect of an improvement to a cottage,

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that a condition shall be attached prohibiting the occupation of the cottage otherwise than by the "owner or a tenant thereof." Does that mean that if a cottage is really occupied by the proprietor or his tenant, the proprietor will be able to get a grant for improvements? So far as I make that clause out, that is exactly what it does mean. But what is a tenant? In Scotland when you take a hill farm, you take the land, the farmhouse and the farm cottage. Does the word "tenant" cover cottages occupied by the shepherds or the cattlemen? I imagine it does. Therefore, as far as I can make out, Clause 10 means that in the case of existing cottages, provided they are occupied only by the owner (that would be the proprietor), or his tenant (which would cover the occupation of the cottages by the servants), they will be eligible for the grant. If that is so, then I have no quarrel whatever with it and I am quite satisfied.
Then we come to the muirburn clauses. I think we are all generally agreed upon these, which are the outcome of a good many conferences. There is, however, one point, and that is that the fine for an offence against the muirburn regulations has been fixed at a maximum of £5. A fine of £5 is really nothing when compared with the damage that can be done by bad muirburning and I do not think that as a maximum it is enough. The penalty should be up to £50. I have seen acres and acres of land spoiled by men not doing their duty and not keeping a proper watch on their fires. Then it is provided that the tenant can instruct the proprietor that he wishes to burn heather, and if the proprietor says "No," the tenant can take it before the appropriate Minister for the Minister to give a ruling. I think the same privilege should be extended to the proprietor. He, too, may want some heather burnt somewhere and the tenant may refuse to burn it. In that case he should be allowed, in the same way as the tenant, to go to the appropriate Minister. Whatever the ruling of the appropriate Minister may be, there should be a penalty imposed on either a tenant or a landowner in the matter of muirburn if he does not obey that ruling.
Then there is a question of the Land Court. Some of the references are to be made to the Land Court, some to the Minister and some to the Advisory Committee. I feel that in Scotland they should
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all be made to the Land Court if possible, and that Court should be used to the fullest possible extent. As it has some of the references made to it, it might just as well have all made to it. I do not think the Minister should be called upon to be judge and jury in any of these cases; I think it would be much better that they should go to the Land Court, where all parties can be properly heard.
I think I have dealt with the principal points. Taking the Bill as a whole, if my understanding of Clause 10 is correct, I very much hope that all my colleagues on these Benches will see their way to support the Bill because I believe that in the end it will be to the benefit of hill farming. I am not out to defeat the Bill; I am out to give it all the support I can and to try to make it as efficient as it can be made in order that it may help this very depressed industry which we must preserve at any cost.
4.8 p.m.
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH AND QUEENSBERRY: My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Huntington, has given a clear description of the Bill and a justification for it. He has shown that during the war hill farming came in for none of the advantages which accrued to better farms and was, in fact, rather worse off. The proposals in this Bill were at first received with great enthusiasm, but I am sorry to find that this is now becoming very mixed in a number of different places. It seems to me that they represent a thorough endeavour by the Balfour of Burleigh and De La Warr Committees, and by the Government and by all engaged in subsequent negotiations, to revive and to keep going an important section of farming, and to increase and maintain the production of meat and valuable breeding flocks on our hills on terms fair to the nation and to all those who risk their money and labour in the industry.
From various earlier writings and criticisms it might have been thought that there were millions of acres of neglected and derelict land which were really fertile and capable of producing good crops and stock were it not for a few obstructive and incompetent landowners and farmers. Fortunately it is now recognized that there is a very serious economic problem involved. We are in fact trying to deal with vast areas of poorish upland, varying in quality, altitude and

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accessibility, and capable of producing only a limited quantity of meat and wool, the annual receipts from which are rarely capable of paying the higher wages of the shepherds and other costs. If Parliament and the nation consider that it is important to make full use of this land and that breeding flocks are needed, then the means to ensure that must be forthcoming somehow. A great many different remedies are detailed which, either combined or separately, can do much to improve the productivity and the results of hill farms. Many of these are being carried out, and have been for many years, by farmers and land owners in improvement schemes on their own, quite irrespective of this Bill, and I think it will be agreed that if it were not for the shortages of so many things and the necessity for licences, and the controls which continue under this Government, these programmes of reconstruction would be going on much more rapidly.
I would like to ask the Government whether, with their knowledge of hill farming, they agree that it is necessary for shepherds to live near their ground and near their sheep, and if they are satisfied about the future provision of housing for shepherds. This has been much debated in another place, and has already been discussed here today, and I think it is an unsatisfactory feature of the Bill. I am afraid there is an impression that the Government approach to the problem is almost entirely political and is not guided by requirements on the spot. The Government ask for co-operation in housing, and their supporters are very critical of the conditions of housing on these farms—but the Government are not accelerating the modernization of existing houses or the provision of new ones where they are most needed, which is generally some distance from the villages and even from the smaller groups up the valleys which are now being encouraged. The Government appear to be rendering a great kindness to owners of hill farms in relieving them of their responsibility for housing and putting it instead upon the State and local authority, but in practice local authorities are not able to provide these houses where they are most needed for outlying shepherds. It is a very serious burden upon public funds if they are obliged to do so.
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I would like to say that if it were not for the cottages which have been provided, and are still being provided, by the landowners there would be no housing available and in this way a great service has been rendered to local authorities and the State. There are many other costly improvements envisaged in the Bill, but if the housing is not provided for there is a danger that they will be wasted. I do feel that with a little encouragement in place of the taunts and discouragement that are more frequent now, the Government could get a great many houses modernized and others built by people in the industry and even without a grant. But if there is a small grant towards this a great service would be rendered and there would be a great saving to the local authorities. I think the Government should remember that whoever has to do the work you are not nowadays going to get cottages in the hills modernized at less than £1,200 each, and probably more, or new houses built for under £1,800 each.
Among the disadvantages suffered in hill farming, in addition to those mentioned by the noble Lord at the beginning, is undoubtedly the fact that whereas by 1939 these cottages were being improved and modernized at an increasingly rapid rate, that was entirely prevented during seven years of war, and we have now the far greater difficulty and cost thrown at our heads. Among the recommendations, and one which is increasingly necessary, is the provision of roads to these outlying houses. I think it is very doubtful whether it is an economic proposition to spend £1,500 or more in making a road to a single cottage up a valley or along a hillside. But such roads have to be made now if the shepherds, in many cases, are to be persuaded to stay at the work, and therefore it becomes an urgent matter. The Government can get caterpillar tractors and bull-dozers for getting surface coal and other public works, but it is almost impossible for individuals to get them for this very important work which may seem of less importance. I hope that if this Bill passes the Government will pay special attention to that point, and that there will be some means of getting these roads made more speedily. In our own case we have only completed three roads during the past year to individual cot-

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tages, but if the appropriate machinery had been available we would have much preferred it to have been twenty.
Reference has also been made to the shortage of labour which will be available for carrying out these improvement schemes. I would ask the Government if they will give their attention to this and if they are satisfied that enough is being done to encourage the provision of the necessary housing up the valleys where these hill farms are, so that there will be labour available. I am afraid that there will be a serious limitation for some years, and if labour is diverted to this work it will only mean taking it off other work of equal importance.
I am glad to find that there is now agreement as to numerous problems, how costly the work will be and probably how unsound—or, at best, speculative—it will be as a business proposition. I would like to suggest that there are still a large number of farmers and landowners who are prepared to do their utmost to co-operate in seeing that hill farming is improved. I do hope that some encouragement will come to them from these proposals. There is no justification for making extravagant claims, because in any case the amount of money voted for the purpose is limited as is, also the available labour. But a start can be made, and if the proposals are administered wisely, sympathetically and energetically, an increasing amount of good can result and subsequently they can be developed further. I therefore urge support for this measure. I would indicate that in Scotland we would call upon all concerned in the industry to co-operate in its success.
But I do feel it is necessary to say—and it cannot be overlooked—that there was some severe criticism of the Bill in another place and outside, to the effect that the proposals are one-sided and that the advantage is too much in favour of the landowners, and to their advantage out of public funds. That, to my mind, is not so, and the terms of the Bill should be as fair as possible to all concerned. I believe that every effort has been made to secure this end. But if Government supporters and a section of the farming community think otherwise, and if the Bill is not wanted, it seems to me better that it should be withdrawn. We do not want to have it thrown at us that we are taking a wrong advantage of public funds. In the agricultural columns of various publications,
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wide publicity has been given to the views of a section—a section which I believe to be a small one—which takes this view. But I have found in conferences with the National Farmers' Union (I believe I am correct in saying this) that the majority of those in the agricultural industry favour the proposals and wish to see them acted upon.
Landowners known to me—and I have a wide experience among them—are as desirous as anyone of seeing this done, and a great many of them are obliged to farm these hill farms themselves, because they cannot let them. These people are not asking or expecting any more help than is their fair share, and it does seem strange that when they are working as active partners and taking all the risks which the industry imposes upon them they alone should be debarred from receiving any of the assistance which is to be allowed to others. My impression is that this Bill will assist the industry, but that it will depend for its successful working upon the co-operation of all in the industry and the representatives of the Government and the various Departments. I hope that it will now receive a Second Reading, and that when it has passed into law it will meet with success.
4.22 p.m.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, this Bill has already been dealt with by other noble Lords who have had far more experience in this industry than I, myself, have had. It has been dealt with not only from the standpoint of the landowner—as I believe is the suggestion of some people. In the case of the noble Duke who has just spoken I believe it is true that he, himself, has taken in hand hill farms for which because of their economic condition no tenant could be found and has made good going concerns out of them. I should be presumptuous if I suggested that I had had as much experience in this particular subject. Hill farming is perhaps the most incalculable branch of agriculture, the one least capable of being reduced to facts and figures. My claim to speak upon it is based partly on the fact that my father had the honour of sitting on the Committee, under the chairmanship of Lord Balfour of Burleigh, which investigated the condition of the industry in Scotland. Further, I have quite recently had thrust upon me both the ownership and the occupancy of a hill farm in Scotland. As a

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consequence, I have been brought into contact, somewhat abruptly, with some of the factors affecting the industry.
There are three points upon which I wish to touch briefly this afternoon. The first is the question of marketing. Hill farming is, perhaps, the only branch of agriculture to-day the principal products of which are sold in an open market, subject to all the influences of the laws of supply and demand. The provisions of this Bill are mainly directed to the improvement of supply; that is, to producing more and better sheep and cattle off our hills. That is a very laudable object in these days of world food shortages, but it is no use producing more and better sheep and cattle if the demand for them is insufficient to bring the producer a proper return on his outlay. The trouble is that store sheep and cattle are an unfinished product displaying, as the Balfour Report put it, "considerable variety in their degree of unfinish." Therefore, it is impossible to get guaranteed prices for them. Something must be done to counteract the disastrous fluctuations in the prices of store animals which have been the ruin of so many farmers in the period between the two wars. I know that the Bill goes some way to help in this direction, by encouraging the reseeding and regeneration of hill pasture which, in some cases, will enable the hill farmer to fatten a proportion of his own stock and thus sell them at a guaranteed price. The trouble is that the same season of bad weather which will spoil the keep of the lowland farmer and discourage him from buying the store sheep of the hill farmer, may equally well ruin the keep of the hill farmer and make it essential for him to get rid of his stock at whatever price is prevailing in the market. I do not know what the solution of this problem is, but I think there will have to be a great deal more thought given to it.
My second point is this. The backbone of the hill farming industry, without a doubt, is the hill shepherd, and I say, without hesitation, that there is no finer type of man in this country to-day. He does not need to be spurred on to do his job with any extra meat ration—although if anyone deserves it I am certain that he does. He has no eight-hour day or five-day week. If your Lordships look at the schedule of agricultural wages, you will see that the shepherd is expected
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to work what are called "customary hours." This means just as long as is necessary for him to see that everything is well with his flock no matter what the weather or the season; in fact, the worse the weather the longer and more arduous is this man's job. Surely nothing that we can do for the material benefit of the hill shepherd is too good for him. He must have water, sanitation, electricity, a road to his home, transport for his children to school and for himself and his wife to the nearest town. I have the honour to come from the Border country where, I believe, more has been done to achieve this end under the Housing (Rural Workers) Acts than in any other part of Great Britain. But now those Acts have been scrapped, and this Bill in its present emasculated form gives very little incentive to the owners of these farms to carry out these very improvements when they can have no certainty that they will have the use of the cottages for their own labourers. It is the farm workers who will suffer for this, for, if they have not the certainty of having the cottages for themselves, owners will not build or recondition. And who can blame them?
My third and last point concerns the relationship of hill farming to forestry. During the war, the Forestry Commission, with commendable zeal, bought up a number of these farms as they came into the market. Many of them, no doubt, were much better suited to meet the demands of forestry than they were to hill farming. But a certain number that were bought in this way were good hill farms carrying sound sheep stock, situated not far from centres of civilizations and, generally speaking, more suitable for the production of sheep and cattle than for the production of trees. I suggest that if a survey is to be carried out to determine how hill land should be allotted between hill farming and forestry it should comprise a careful review of those farms which the Forestry Commission have acquired but have not yet planted, with a view to retrieving these good hill farms either by putting them on the open market or handing them over to the Ministry of Agriculture or the Department of Agriculture for Scotland, to be put back to agricultural use.
Before concluding, I would like to tender a word of congratulation to the Ministry and the Department for one thing that has been of the greatest benefit to the

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hill farming industry. That is, the pools of machinery organized by the Department with the county executive committees. They have provided such machinery as bracken cutters, draining machines, outfits for reaping and ploughing which the farmers have been able to hire. This equipment has enabled the farmers to carry out operations which they could never have done otherwise, and I hope that the scope of this scheme will be extended very considerably in the future. In conclusion, I welcome the Bill with modified rapture—modified because I think that it has been spoiled by this Amendment which the Government has brought in since the original publication of the Bill. I feel that as the Bill stands, many owners of hill farms will prefer to carry on with the existing schemes of assistance for bracken cutting, draining, liming and the various subsidies, without becoming involved in a scheme under this Bill—a scheme which would not give them any assurance that they would be able to house the labour that they require. I wish this Bill well, and I hope, when we have seen how it is working, that in a few years time we may perhaps get a new and better Bill in its place.
4.31 p.m.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I do not propose to detain the House very long, because this debate has gone on for a considerable time. There are, however, one or two points which I wish to raise on the Second Reading, in view of the Committee stage which will follow. May I first of all, congratulate the Government on this Bill? I welcome this Bill. I welcome it because if it is carried out in its entirety I believe that, it will go a long way to save the sheep industry from bankruptcy. I speak from the point of view of the south of Scotland; I do not know it elsewhere. The Committee presided over by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, was extremely helpful in explaining to the country, and no doubt to the Government, the position of the industry. The noble Lord is also to be congratulated on the information which he has supplied. I am particularly glad to think that a great many of the Committee's recommendations have been adopted in this Bill. Generally speaking, subject to what my noble friend the Duke of Buccleuch has said, I think that Scotland will welcome this Bill and will do her best to carry it out.
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My first point is a very contentious one; that is, the question of tied cottages. In my time, I have been on a great many hill farms, but I have never been on one where it was possible for the shepherd to live off it. Consequently, any cottage attached to a hill farm must, of necessity, be in the form of a tied cottage. The shepherd must live in the middle of his job; otherwise he cannot do it. Clause 10 of this Bill says if a grant is given to repair or improve a cottage then it can remain in the form of a tied cottage for twenty years. At the end of that time anything may happen to it. That is what I understand the clause to mean. If I am correct in my interpretation, the shepherd's cottage may find itself in the hands of some other worker at the end of twenty years, and may not be the shepherd's cottage at all. I would like the noble Earl to explain what that means.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: Would the noble Viscount mind repeating that? I have not understood him clearly.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: What I interpret this to mean is that for twenty years a shepherd' cottage may be tied, but at the end of that time it comes under the Rent Restrictions Acts. If the shepherd moves or loses his job, or does not want to go on shepherding, or if he is ill or has made sufficient out of his remuneration for him to have six months' leave or holiday, he would be permitted, under the Rent Restrictions Acts, to remain in that cottage at the end of this twenty-year period. From my particular point of view, this clause is the only blot in an otherwise admirable Bill. I hardly like saying it, but it seems to me that this clause has not been governed by common sense and practice, but has been governed by political sense and prejudice. It is, perhaps, a hard thing to say, but every argument that could be brought was brought in another place, in favour of the tied cottage principle. Even one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the Party of the noble Earl opposite opposed the principle which is embodied in this clause.
My other point, which I broach with a certain amount of diffidence, is the question of the valuation of sheep stock. I believe that, as worded, the clauses and the Schedule will go a long way to help things in this respect. Sheep valuations in Scotland have been one of the most serious

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questions, both as regards the landlords and the farmers themselves, for many years. The arbitration on sheep values has been in the hands of the farmers, and the farmers—I say this quite deliberately—have loaded the dice against the proprietors in those valuations. And, incidentally, they have loaded the dice against themselves, owing to the high valuations which they have placed on stock. I should like to give the House an illustration of what I mean. The noble Earl will forgive me if this is a personal illustration, but it is an illustration for which I can vouch. It is not second hand and is, consequently, of more value. I do not give it from any sense of grievance, but merely as an illustration.
About six months ago I had a hill farm which, after long consideration, and owing to its uneconomic condition, I decided to hand over to the Forestry Commission for the purpose of afforestation. At least if the land would not carry sheep economically, it would do its service to the State by being planted with trees which would be required for the future. Last May, the farmer left. The sheep were taken over by myself on an arbitration. A value was placed upon them in two respects. One was for acclimatization and heftings, and the value placed on the sheep was 22s. 6d. per head for three-quarters of them, and £1 per head for the other quarter. Then came the sales. The sales have only just been concluded. I am advised that on these sales I have lost actually an average of £12s. per head of sheep stock carried on that farm. Therefore to-day I have lost actually—or I have had to pay out of my pocket—£22s. on an average for every single sheep on that farm. How did that occur? First of all, because the arbiters, the farmers, have, as I say, loaded the dice against the proprietor and, incidentally, loaded the dice against the farmers themselves, because, if in that case there had been an incoming tenant, the incoming tenant would have had to take over the sheep at the values at which I took them over, plus acclimatization and hefting value at the same value at which I have had to take over. I have suffered that loss. Consequently, there is a dead weight of capital right through the south of Scotland owing to this method.
How did this arise? It really arose because of the fact that these sheep were
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valued from the point of view of the top-price ewes and the top-price lambs and not from that of the average. In paragraph 1 of the Second Schedule to this Bill, the matter of valuation is mentioned.The paragraph says:
"The Land Court or the arbiter (in Part I and Part II of this schedule referred to as the valuer') shall ascertain the number of, and prices realized for, the ewes and the lambs sold off the hill…"
I have spoken on this matter this afternoon so that the Government may have an opportunity of considering the question. The Amendment which no doubt will be moved in Committee will be that it should be the average price of the cast ewes—that is ewes that are sold off the farm: not the sheep stock, not the breeding stock, but the ewes that are sold off the farm every year from the point of view of making profits. This is supported in Lord Balfour' Report, because first of all he says:
"It is undoubtedly the abuse of discretion by arbiters in the past that has brought the present system into disrepute."
Then he goes on to make the recommendation that the valuation for a Whitsuntide valuation—that is different to an autumn valuation—shall be based on the average of the prices obtained for all the cast ewes and all the ewe and wether lambs sold off the hill in the autumn sales in the previous three years.
I am going to ask the noble Lord to consider very seriously indeed whether he could not insert the word "cast" before "ewes" in paragraph 1 of the Schedule. If he is able to do so, it will mean a great deal, not only to the landlord but to the farmers themselves, because stocks will not be passed from one hand to another, or from one farm to another under meretricious and false values. So far as acclimatization and hefting are concerned, I believe I was over-valued by about 7s. Everybody in the district says that I ought to have paid about 15s. instead of 22s. 6d. per sheep. That is neither here nor there, but it does mean that the whole valuation system should be looked into from that point of view. I would only ask the noble Lord just one question about that, and it is this: Paragraph 6 of the Second Schedule says:
"Ewes of all ages (including gimmers) shall be valued at the basic ewe value with the addition of fifteen shillings per head."
What is that fifteen shillings? Is that the acclimatization value, or what is it? It is

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not clear from the paragraph. I apologize for having detained the House in this discussion but the question of valuation is such an important one that I do hope the noble Lord will very carefully consider before Committee stage the suggestion which I have made this afternoon.
4.45 p.m.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, I am extremely glad that on the whole this Bill has had such a good reception from your Lordships. It is very satisfactory to me and will be to my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture that this Bill, which we hope will be a step towards the recovery of this industry, has had approval from your Lordships and indeed generally a welcome from all sides. There are reservations, I admit.
Now I should like to try to answer one or two questions which noble Lords have raised. I was extremely glad that the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, welcomed this Bill. With regard to his remarks about Scotland, I would point out that the whole of the Bill from page 1 to, I think, page 25 does refer to Scotland. The only reason why Scotland comes in on page 25 is that that is a particular clause which does not refer to England. I hope that the noble Duke's championship of Scottish home rule is based on a more solid foundation than that. Let me proceed to deal with the questions that he asked. I will first deal with the definition of the hill farming land. In a way, this is vague, but it is sometimes convenient to have a thing not too exact and precise. I think it would be true to say that any hill farmer would certainly know what land was suitable for a hardy type of hill sheep, and after all these farmers are the people whom we want to understand what the Bill means. With regard to wintering, this, of course, is eligible for the grant, provided that the farmer has both hill sheep land and wintering land as well; that is to say, so long as a farmer has some land which is suitable for that type of sheep he would qualify for the grant, irrespective of whether the grant was for a scheme including lowland areas as well as highland areas or not. I hope I have made that clear to the noble Duke.
With regard to Clause 10, the noble Duke asked me what exactly a tenant
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means. Well, of course, a tenant would include a cattle man in that sense of the word. If he is a person paying a rent, he is definitely a tenant. With regard to the other question which the noble Duke raised, on the question of muirburning, or the burning of heather, and the scale of fines, this is a very technical legal point on which I hesitate to embark. But I understand, roughly, that the situation is this. There is a scale of fines in relation to prison sentences which has been accepted for a considerable time. It was thought that if a large fine was proposed for this particular offence it might be read in law to mean that the man would also be liable to a much longer term of imprisonment than was intended, and, although some of your Lordships may hold the view that it might be wise that these scales should be adjusted, I think you will agree that this Bill is not the place for such adjustment.
To proceed to the speech of the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, I was very glad indeed that he welcomed the Bill, although I cannot see how he could very well have done anything else in these circumstances. He asked me one or two questions, and, in spite of the fact that he is not here, I should like to give an answer to them. One is the question of committees. He wanted an assurance from the Government that members would be put on the committees who would have a knowledge of hill farming. I would point out that on that point there are Advisory Committees which will be in constant touch with the local executive committees. These Advisory Committees will obviously be almost entirely composed of people who have a knowledge of the industry, either hill farmers themselves or people with a very great knowledge of hill farming, so that the local committees will have at their disposal the advice of people who know all about the industry. Although I can give no undertaking as to the number, obviously my right honourable friend will have in mind that among the members of the local committees in the hill farming district there will be some people who know and have experience of that matter.
THE DUKE OF MONTROSE: Would it be possible that when members of the Committee visit a farm they could give notice to the farmer? As things are now,

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members of these Advisory Committees go out and visit a farm without giving any notice at all. That denies a farmer the opportunity of meeting these people and consulting them. It would be much better to give notice, a day's or two days' notice.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: That, I think, is provided for in the Bill. I have not got the clause with me, but I think it is 24-hours notice they are obliged to give before visiting a farm. I quite agree with the noble Duke that this is an extremely important and necessary provision. Now to come to what is probably a more controversial clause—Clause 10 on housing. The noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, and several other speakers, including the noble Viscount, Lord Elibank, asked questions on this point. There were one or two other questions also, and I will try and deal with these all together. The noble Viscount, Lord Elibank, I think misunderstood the intention of the clause—these twenty years really have the opposite effect. What we try to ensure is that the cottage will not be tied for twenty years. Under this Bill we cannot be certain what will happen after that. We cannot really tie up the situation for longer than twenty years.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: In fact, it is worse than I thought.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: I am sorry, but I do not think we can in this Bill completely control events after twenty years. The houses will come under the Rent Restriction Acts, which is what the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, was asking. I would also like to point out, in reply to his question, that this Bill does not amend the Rent Restriction. Acts. It leaves them alone. Its purpose is to bring houses erected or improved under the Bill within the ambit of these Acts. The circumstances under which alternative accommodation need not be proved to the Court are set out in the First Schedule of the Land and Mortgage Restriction (Amendment) Act of 1933.
The other question the noble Lord asked me was with regard to telephones. The Government do appreciate very much the importance of getting telephones to these hill farms. In some ways it is far more
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important that a remote farm should have a telephone than a cottage in an industrial area, but I think the noble Lord will appreciate the fact that the Post Office is very hard pressed at this moment. Obviously it is a very desirable thing that they should be installed and I would like to point out that the General Post Office will provide a telephone service at the standard rate of £4 per year for residential purposes to any home within three miles of an exchange. This covers a large part of Great Britain, but obviously will not cover a good many hill farms. All I can say is that we do have this in mind, and we should like to help where we can, but I do not think at the present moment, we can give any guarantee. Certainly telephones would not be covered by schemes under this Bill.
Surveys are being carried out. A pilot survey is being done in Wales for the purposes of hill farming and also we are considering this question of forestry which was alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth. This particular Act is not concerned with forestry or with the particular controversy there has been between sheep farming and forestry. The only mention of forestry in it is in Schedule 1 where it mentions "shelter belts." These "shelter belts" would not be the responsibility of the Forestry Commission, but would be carried out by whoever undertakes the work under the scheme and it would not presumably be on a very large scale. So far as I can see, there should be no future difficulties between these conflicting interests. The Forestry Act of 1945 recognizes the need for reconciling these dual interests. My right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture in another place said he is determined, if possible, to avoid any conflict in future between the two different interests. However, it is not a question with which this Bill is particularly concerned.
The noble Duke, the Duke of Buccleuch, also asked me various questions. I was very glad to hear his remarks and, on the whole, his welcome of this Bill because he obviously has great experience of this industry. Remarks coming from him are extremely valuable. We realize, like he does, that the labour position is very difficult, and it is particularly difficult to get things like roads built at this particular juncture.

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They are vital to hill farming and if a scheme was presented which envisaged roads being built obviously it would be welcomed by the Minister and the grant would be available. I do admit that the preparation and expense would in many cases completely wreck the economic advantage behind it. That is an extremely difficult matter which we will study. I cannot say that anyone in the Government is entirely satisfied with the labour problem or the housing problem. We are doing our best with a great shortage of materials and in this case I think it is a generous grant of fifty per cent. which we are giving to the private landowner towards building his shepherd's house. We do hope it will meet with some response.
In replying to the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, I am very glad to hear machinery pools are working well. That is encouraging and I hope it will continue. Marketing is a very important point but it is a little bit outside the scope of this Bill. Coming to the noble Viscount, Lord Elibank, I think that if he is going to move an Amendment on this valuation of sheep that would be the time really to go into it. The purpose of the alteration in this valuation scheme is to prevent such cases as those about which the noble Viscount told us, and where perhaps some injustice and a wrong valuation have come about. I will consider that question, and if the noble Lord is going to move an Amendment I think that would be the time to discuss it at greater length.
I hope I have on the whole answered the questions and dealt with the matters raised. I can only say again that it is our earnest intention to make the Bill work, but it can only work if we get the co-operation of the landowners and of the hill sheep farmers. The intention of this Bill is not compulsion; it is entirely voluntary. All we can do is to provide the finance and the encouragement, and no doubt in some cases the committees can be very helpful in working out schemes and carrying out work which the individual farmers may not be able to do. I would like once more to stress the importance of this Bill in helping to rehabilitate the industry. I do hope noble Lords in this House will give it a quick and speedy Second Reading and that it will now pass.
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On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
5.2 p.m.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, with the permission of the House may I say one word about the business for the rest of the evening. I understand there is a possibility that the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, and the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, might consider postponing their Motions in spite of the great importance—or I might say because of the great importance—we all attach to the subject to which the Motions refer. I think many of us would consider it rather unsuitable to discuss at the tag end of the day the very wide issues contained in those Motions relating to Germany. I can say on behalf of the noble Viscount the Leader of the House that if those Motions are withdrawn now the Leader will do everything possible to find a suitable day for their discussion before the end of the Session. I should mention that if those Motions are withdrawn we should naturally hope that the noble Viscount, Lord Maugham, and the noble Lord, Lord De L'Isle and Dudley, would proceed with their Motions on the Order Paper.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, with your permission I would like to say that I quite accept the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, and with your Lordships' permission I will not this afternoon move the Motion which I have on the Paper. I would like to mention, however, that, while I do this willingly, I am impressed with the urgency of the matters that I cannot help feeling that every day's delay before these questions are submitted to your Lordships is to be regretted.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, I speak on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, who also desires not to move his Motion to-day on the understanding that a future opportunity will be provided for its discussion.

TRIALS IN THE BRITISH ZONE OF GERMANY.
5.4 p.m.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM VISCOUNT MAUGHAM had the following Notice on the Paper:—To call attention to the trials in the British zone in

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Germany of persons alleged to be guilty of war crimes and of German nationals alleged to be guilty of crimes and atrocities against the laws of humanity and of members of the organizations declared to be criminal by the International Court at Nuremberg, and also to the measures taken against persons described as security suspects; and to move for Papers.
The noble and learned Viscount said: My Lords, this Motion that stands in my name is one which relates to a most complex and difficult subject. The problems which have to be solved by the occupation authorities in the British zone are indeed not capable of a really satisfactory solution. Like many political problems all you can say, if you advocate a particular view, is that on the whole there are fewer objections taken to that course than to any other. I would like to preface my observations by saying that what I am going to say this evening is not in any sense, in my view, a Party matter at all. My intervention is only an endeavour to help, as far as I can, the occupying authorities who up to date, I have not the slightest doubt, have done their best.
They are operating under a council known as the Control Council, which ultimately owes its authority to the fact that the British are in occupation of their zone and the other great Powers are in occupation of the other three zones. The Potsdam Agreement laid down certain principles which the persons engaged in the administration of this zone have followed. It laid down in section 3 the purposes of the occupation. It says this:
"The purposes of the occupation of Germany by which the Control Council shall be guided are" —
and after some things that are irrelevant to my purpose, it says:
"war criminal and those who have participated in, planning or carrying out Nazi enterprises involving or resulting in atrocities or war crimes shall be arrested and brought to judgment."
That obviously implies that they shall be tried and sentenced as may be thought just. It then goes on thus:
"Nazi leaders, influential Nazi supporters and high officials of Nazi organizations and institutions and any other persons dangerous to the occupation or its objectives shall be arrested or interned."
That second branch of the section deals with people who have not committed any
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crimes at all in the ordinary sense—I will say something about people who are members of organizations later on—but in the Potsdam Agreement these are people whose freedom is going to be interfered with because they are dangerous. However, they are not criminals. Dangerous or suspected persons without being subjected to any sort of trial may upon examination be held to be dangerous and to have their liberty interfered with. That is a very serious fact but not one with which most reasonable people will quarrel if that power is properly exercised.
It is a huge task. There are 23,000,000 Germans in our zone; there are no less than 8,000,000 Nazis in Germany, and the S.S. people number more than 400,000. We have got to do justice to all these people on the lines which I have already mentioned. A great deal of work has already been done. Over 434,000 persons have been examined and categorized in one way and another. There were originally 67,000 people whom we had in prison in concentration camps. Of those we have dealt with some 27,000 and most of them have been released. There remain about 40,000 people in concentration camps who have got to be dealt with in some way, and it is on the problem of doing that that I wish to say a few heartfelt words. It is just about a fortnight since the judgment of the International Tribunal, which was first established on August 8, 1945, by the Charter of the four nations, and adhered to by nineteen other nations, was delivered after a trial lasting over nine months. Lawyers and laymen alike who have had an opportunity of seeing how justice was administered and how every effort was made to obtain the information on which sentences could be given will not, I think, be inclined to doubt the guilt of those arch-criminals or to criticize the sentences which they have received. We know that eighteen criminals out of twenty-one have 'been convicted and sentenced to death or imprisonment, and that three have been acquitted. Having some knowledge of the facts and having been there, I do not hesitate to say that the Judges of the four nations who took part in these great trials have earned and amply deserve the grateful thanks of all the citizens of the four countries mainly concerned.
I could not forbear paying my humble tribute to their great achievements, but

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prisoners tried by International Courts, whether it be the Nuremberg Court or any other International Court, are not my concern this evening. I am desirous of discussing the policy of this country in relation to prisoners and detained persons in the British zone, of trying to persuade the Government to do all in their power (and more than they have yet done), to expedite the trial or the categorization, as they call it—horrible word!—of the persons who are not criminals but who are in Germany and whose freedom is supposed to be dangerous to us, and of obtaining some further information on the matter from the Government. The substance of my remarks tonight is the question of how long it is going to take our Government to clear the lists, to try and convict or acquit those who are supposed to be criminals, and to deal as shortly as possible with the vast number of persons whose freedom is thought to be detrimental to the cause of peace. I hope to persuade your Lordships that the questions involved are of very great importance and very great difficulty, because we have no precedent for anything of this sort. There has never been an occasion when after a war duties such as those specified in the Potsdam Agreement have had to be performed by people from this country.
I need not detain your Lordships by telling you anything about our jurisdiction over the Germans in our zone. According to International Law, a victorious army which occupies enemy territory is entitled to act as a sovereign authority until, as a result of the peace, there is a sovereign authority in the country occupied. At the present time there is no such thing in Germany; from the legal point of view, we are still at war with Germany and that is our justification for doing all that is necessary in our view for the administration and the Government of the country. In the British zone—and subject to the Allied Control Council—it is the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army of the Rhine (generally known as B.A.O.R.) who is in charge. He has, with the assistance of not less than some 26,000 British men and women, to administer this great country and to assist in the doing of justice on the lines I have mentioned. We administer it at a cost of £80,000,000 a year. Although I am not going to lay very much stress on that, I think it is one of
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the reasons for every just expedition in the carrying out of our duties. The longer it takes to try all these various people and to deal with all those in the concentration camps, the worse it will, be for us, because even in these days, when we deal with enormous figures which are almost impossible to realize, £80,000,000 a year is still a very substantial sum.
Before dealing with the actual question of these trials, I would like to mention that we have had a great many difficulties there. I am very anxious that nobody should think I am attacking the occupation authorities. We have demobilized over 3,000,000 members of the German Wehrmacht; we have taken into our zone (much against our will, I think) 1,500,000 persons from Poland—persons described as refugees—and other persons as well as those 1,500,000 from other parts of Europe. These things have been done in a country where the means of communication have been largely destroyed and where in many places they were almost non-existent in June, 1945. I might mention as an example of that in passing that no less than 1,300 bridges had been destroyed, many of which assisted important roads to function. The food supplies are very scanty. I am not going to say anything about that because my noble friends Lord Saltoun and Lord Beveridge are going to deal with it at an early date. I can only say to them that I am sorry I am to some extent interfering with the hearing of their Motions.
Now I come to the subject of trials. Your Lordships will appreciate there are two points there. Firstly, there are the trials of people who are supposed to be criminals and who are in many cases well known to be criminals, and secondly, there is that very much larger body of persons who are not criminals but who it is supposed cannot safely be allowed out at the moment. On the subject of trials, there are trials conducted under British Royal Warrants—trials conducted by British Military Courts under Army Order 81 of 1945. The people who are mainly the subject of those trials are people who have been guilty of breaches of the rules and usages of war. Their offences extend from quite minor ones to mass murders and horrible deeds of different kinds—it is important to realize that they differ enormously—but if the crime proved against any of those persons is a serious one, amounting to a crime as

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great as murder, the death penalty must be imposed just as it would be imposed here on any person who committed murder in times of peace.
But the British Military Courts who try these cases, and who are not bound by the ordinary rules of evidence, may in fact sentence a prisoner to something much less than the death penalty, to something such as imprisonment, confiscation of property or a fine. In the case of people proved to be guilty of very minor offences, it must be remembered that they will already have been in a concentration camp for a year and possibly for a much longer period. Now I should like to mention that every sentence is subject to confirmation by a confirming officer, and after confirmation the Secretary of State, or any officer not below the rank of Major-General, may deal with the sentences in the direction of remitting them or granting less sentences. There is, therefore, every care taken so far as our trials are involved. The person will have every opportunity of justice and of not being unfairly treated. I may perhaps without too much egotism say that I have read some dozen lengthy documents in connexion with our trials in Germany, and Army Orders of great length and complexity. In my opinion the system which has been evolved in Germany is an admirable system, and will be absolutely just, so far as human justice can be just. But, if the case is as I conceive it to be, that system must necessarily be careful and it will also be slow, and it is on this aspect of the matter that I urge His Majesty's Government to see what can be done. I am given to understand that not more than 100 persons or thereabouts have been tried in Germany since the British Military Courts began to function. I hope it is much larger in number, but I do not know how much larger. At any rate, I am perfectly sure that it is a very small fraction of the total number that will have to be tried by British Military Courts. I did not invent the figure—
LORD PAKENHAM: Perhaps the noble Viscount will allow me to give him the figure which I believe to be the correct one, which is 495.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: My informants were in error. I am exceedingly glad, and I can treat that as 500.
LORD PAKENHAM: I do not wish to contradict the remark the noble Viscount made subsequently on the same subject.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: You are not contradicting the remarks I have not yet made.
LORD PAKENHAM: The noble Viscount went on to say that whatever the figure was it was a comparatively small proportion of the total number. I was not contradicting that remark.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: I am exceedingly happy to know that. These trials relate only to war trials, and it is very important to remember that that refers to war crimes in the narrow sense—namely, offences against the rules and usages of war. They do not include crimes against humanity which are generally known in Germany as atrocity cases. Those cases involve atrocities committed by Germans mostly in relation to the murder of other Germans, anti-Nazis and others. Those crimes, of course, are often the most horrible, much worse than the ordinary crimes that I imagine are being tried by our people, and they are fairly numerous. There are known to be, I understand, between 450 and 500 atrocity cases already imprisoned in our zone—I hope that figure is not going to be challenged—and it is a little curious that these cases are to be tried by German Courts like a number of other cases I am going to mention.
Now I have some other figures for the noble Lord to digest, if he has not done so already. There are a number of concentration camps in Germany. There is no other name for them except that name, which causes a feeling of horror to run through us, but these camps I understand are very well conducted. I think there are 23,000 war criminals, including not only' those who are guilty of breaches of The Hague Convention and so on, but also other war criminals. All those criminals have got to be tried and every now and then new ones are being brought in. I have some reason to suppose that there is not room for a great many more than at present existing in the concentration camps, and while there is no room I understand that the powers that be are not anxious to have people pulled in. They keep an eye on them and when they can be provided for they are brought in.
There are, or were, 47,000 other persons in our zone in concentration camps, liable

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for their offences to a maximum sentence of fifteen years, forfeiture of property or fine. The 23,000 war criminals may be criminals of greater or lesser degree and, of course, the worst of them are obviously guilty and have got to be sentenced. Altogether that amounts to some 70,000 persons in the concentration camps in our zone who have got to be dealt with in a legal manner according to the system that has been laid down in various laws, directive orders and so forth. From time to time the Council makes new laws for Germany, especially new criminal laws, and German Courts are allowed to function subject to alterations in their laws which we make for the purposes of the occupation. When the occupation comes to an end all the material things will have to be extended in the Peace Treaty or will come to an end.
Under a plan commonly known as the Heyman Report, very carefully considered both in Germany and here, and approved by the British Minister, there are five categories of the people to be dealt with. I am afraid I made a slip of the tongue. I think there are only 40,000 in the concentration camps at present. I think I gave the larger figure.
LORD PAKENHAM: I was trying to trace the 70,000, thinking it must be my ignorance.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: I am sorry; I was thinking of something else at the moment, and I was wrong. I should like to put that right at once. There are, however, 23,000 in the first category; in the second category there are 47,000. I do not know what they come to now, although I thought I did. But it was stated in the House of Commons—and I am willing to accept it for this purpose—that there are 40,000 now in concentration camps. Under the Heyman plan there are five categories. The first category consists of war criminals. That, I think, does not include those guilty of crimes against humanity. I understand that there are 23,000 in that category. That is a very important figure. The second category consists of prominent Nazis; for instance, Hitler Youth leaders, Intelligence Officers, senior officers of the Navy, Army and Air Force, Police, Nazi profiteers and others. The penalties prescribed for guilt there are forfeiture of property, fine or internment for fifteen years. Then there are two other categories which consist of
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less dangerous Nazis, militarists, Regular officers of the Army, persons excluded from office under Control Council Directive 24, air crews and others. These are put in categories 3 and 4 and they are not criminal. They are subject only to restrictions of their personal liberty. For instance, none of them may stand for election. One category of them is not entitled to vote and there are other restrictions on their movements.
This is a very large body, and the largeness of it is important because it means a great deal of work. There are probably over 250,000 of them. They are not in concentration camps at all, they are people on whom an eye is being kept and who are going to be pulled in and placed in the appropriate category when the facts in regard to them are ascertained, and there is accommodation for them. There are people, I need not mention, who have got clearance certificates. People in the first category are to be tried by German tribunals unless accused of specific crimes or crimes against the peace. The first are going to be tried generally by Military Courts, and others, I think, by German Courts. In the second category, everybody, as I understand it, is going to be tried by German Courts. The persons whom I mention, who number 250,000 or more, are people who will be dealt with, for the most part, by what are called denazification tribunals, and, sometimes, by British Review Boards. They are people whose specialized knowledge makes them potentially dangerous, and they may be examined by British Review Boards or by German tribunals. I cannot help thinking that it is important to bear in mind that many of these people are Germans citizens of the very greatest ability, and if they could be let out they would be exceedingly useful in getting German industry back on to its legs again.
I have, so far, been dealing with all the criminals and suspects other than those who are guilty of belonging to criminal organizations—and here comes in the action of the International Tribunal who, by their judgment, have declared that the S.S., the S.D., the Gestapo, and a section of the political corps leaders, were and are criminal organizations. They have also pointed out, which I have no doubt they were expected to do, that criminal guilt is personal. You are not guilty because you were a member of an

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organization, but because the guilt is personal to you; because you committed some crime. Accordingly, the tribunal have indicated for the benefit of members of the courts who are to be engaged in trying these members of organizations, that under Law No. 10, which has been laid down in the zone by the Control Council, they must be proved to have guilty knowledge of the organization to which they belong. The result of this is that all the members of these organizations who are declared to be guilty have got to be separately dealt with. Of course, you could try half a dozen at a time, but they have got to be dealt with separately because each one must be proved to be a criminal in the sense that he had guilty knowledge of the organization which he joined.
There are, I should think, a very large number of these people. I have endeavoured—this time without success—to obtain the figure. I hope that a good proportion of them are in the concentration camps already and are therefore included in the total which I have already mentioned—40,000. But how many are there not yet in the concentration camp who will have to be dealt with under this ruling of the International Tribunal? I would stress that here we are dealing with very large numbers. The S.S. which has been held to be an illegal organization, the end of the war comprised some 40,000 people. The Nazi Party officials now interned number some 14,000, and how many officials are not yet interned I do not know. It is said that the S.S. and the Gestapo alone consisted of not fewer than 300,000 members—40,000 of that total being members of the S.S.—at the end of the war. Now I imagine that we should be very lucky if we found that there were not more than 10,000 people to be added to those who have to be tried by reason of the finding of the International Tribunal. A great many of the members of these various organizations are guilty men. Now I have already said that they have to be tried under Law No. 10 of the Control Council, and I gather—though I think that details of the machinery of this have not yet been published—that they will be tried by German Courts. The punishments prescribed under Law No. 10 range from
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fines to imprisonment for life, to death and to confiscation of property.
Thus, as your Lordships will see, we are dealing with a very large number of men, a goodly proportion of whom are going to be tried for their lives, and there are, as I say, an unknown number of people not yet interned who will have to be tried by German judges. One has to be very careful as to trial by German Judges, because we must remember that during the whole of the Hitler régime non-Nazis were not allowed to be Judges, and were removed from their posts. Accordingly, we shall find some of these Judges are wholly inexperienced when they come to the judicial work of a judge. We must also remember that some of them have been so badly treated by the Nazis that they are not quite to be trusted, without careful review, with sentences on people who are Nazis and who are shown to have some guilty knowledge or other. I have no doubt that the decisions of these Judges will be subject to very careful review by British Judges, or by other British persons of experience. No doubt, that will be considered by the occupation authorities; and it has to be done.
A materiality, from my point of view, is that there is work to be done of a very difficult kind, involving the liberty and happiness and lives of great numbers of people. How many years is it going to take our authorities there to try all these people, and to deal with all these suspects who are to be subject to restrictive orders? In particular, we have to try 23,000 war criminals. I doubt whether it is possible that a court, in the ordinary way, could try more than about three a week. I do not know why we should suppose that even that is possible. We know how long it has taken to try the people at Nuremberg. I am quite willing to suppose that we shall take only a fraction of that time in trying some of these people, but one cannot hurry a man who wants to call witnesses in his defence, and one cannot graduate the speech of defence counsel.
It is a slow process, and I have made a very rough calculation as to what we can do with the number of British Military Courts at our disposal. Such Courts have been working in our zone in Germany since we took over, with sometimes two, sometimes as many as eight Courts, sitting at a time. I doubt

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if these Courts, for technical reasons—such as inability to find Courts for criminals, where all sorts of preparations have to be made for the prisoners to be kept and moved for trial—have the capacity to try a large number. How long will it take? I am a little shaken by the figures, which I am told are to be produced, as to how many people have been tried by British Military Courts under this heading, but I do not think any reasonable person would imagine that all this work would be done in less than five years, if we go on with the system on which we are proceeding at present.
The question is whether in some way we cannot expedite the process. I do not want to be dogmatic as to how long it will take before we can get rid of all these people and have a clean sheet. I have asked several other people what they think and they all agree with me that we ought to finish the whole job in two years from now. That would be over three years since hostilities have ceased. In order to finish in two years from now, every conceivable step must be taken to expedite as far as possible the trial of all these people. Then there are all the persons in Categories 2, 3 and 4, who have to be either tried or examined and made subject to restrictions. How long is it to take to deal with them? So long as this process continues, we shall have many Germans in our zone—23,000,000 in number—looking upon every execution as a sort of legal murder of soldiers and others whom they will not be able to believe are being justly tried and convicted.
Persons in confinement will also be considered, in some cases, as martyrs of the Fatherland. For my part, and I think that a great many of your Lordships would be of the same opinion, I do not believe that the re-education of German citizens can begin while these terrible but just sentences are being given out, week after week, month after month, during a prolonged period. After a couple of years, it will be thought: "This is mere revenge. They have punished the country enough, and we are suffering enough, owing to lack of food and so on. We need no further demonstration of the views of the victorious nations after this terrible war" I am not disposed in the least to criticize the occupying authorities for the present position. It might have been possible to maintain it before the Nuremberg
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judgments. It has now become much more difficult; and recent events have shown that it is more difficult.
We are going on with a number of German Courts. I do not know what information the noble Lord opposite has as to how these Courts are carrying out their duties, and whether their sentences are being approved. I understand that they have not been operating for very long. You may ask what is to be done. I think that there are various things which could be done. With regard to the trials of these persons I have a number of ideas, although I am not sure that it would be possible for me to ventilate them here. They are technical notions, connected with trials. With regard to people who are found guilty of comparatively trivial offences I have a strong feeling, having regard to the enormous job with which we are confronted, that it would be well if a great number of those were released on a species of ticket of leave. I will not use the word "parole," which is applied to soldiers of very high standing and sense of honour. We do not know that about many of these prisoners. I think it would be possible, however—at any rate I suggest that the possibility should be considered—to release them on an undertaking not to indulge in propaganda, or in politics, or in any munition work whatsoever, and to report to a particular office where they can be registered. We should explain to them, when they give these undertakings, that they will be pulled in if they break them, and will then be guilty of an offence which we should regard as very serious.
Consider that. There may be objections about which I know nothing, but I should like to hear that a great many of this vast number of Germans were treated in this way. Of course, any suggestion is liable to misunderstanding by somebody, and I should like to say that nothing is further from my mind than the notion of allowing anybody charged with the atrocious crimes which were committed and in respect of which evidence was given at Nuremberg, to be treated in any other way than they were, namely, tried, convicted and sentenced to death. That is the only way of dealing with people concerned with horrors such as were disclosed at Nuremberg.
I have given my view. I should like to end by giving the view of somebody whose voice is much more powerful than mine—

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namely, Mr. Churchill. On September 19, he made a speech at Zurich, in which he said:
"There must be an end to retribution. We must turn our backs upon the horrors of the past, and we must look to the future."
He spoke also of a pact between France and Germany, which, of course, is a useful aspiration, and he spoke of a spiritually great Germany. All these things are things for the future. They are objectives for a distant period. The re-creation of the European family is a vast operation which will take years to accomplish. But that work, in my opinion, cannot begin until we have cleared the decks by putting an end to what I call the monthly executions. I saw in the newspaper yesterday that a Military Court had condemned eleven Germans to death. Those who look carefully in the papers will find that that is going on all the time. While there are tens of thousands of people in prisons for war crimes or in concentration camps, it seems to me impossible to think that the work of regeneration can really succeed. That is my firm belief. It is for that reason that I want us to have done at an early date with the trials, with the sentences and with the detentions in concentration camps. Let us try to persuade all the decent-minded Germans that we have come to an end of retribution, and are now desirous by every means in our power of helping the Germans to become once more a great nation, but a nation without any power again to re-arm or to make preparations for another war. I beg to move for Papers.
5.55 p.m.
LORD DE L'ISLE AND DUDLEY,who had given Notice that he would ask His Majesty's Government whether their attention has been called to the manner in which the case tried before a War Criminal Court at Wuppertal between 28th May and 1st June, 1946, was reported in the Press; and move for Papers, said: My Lords, I have a Motion on the Paper to-day, but for the convenience of the noble Lord who will reply, and with the permission of the noble Viscount who has just spoken, I beg to intervene for a few minutes in this debate. My Motion deals with a kindred subject to that raised by the noble Viscount, but it deals with one particular event in the administration of justice in Germany. This year, between May 28
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and June 1, there took place at Wuppertal in Germany the trial of some ten Germans who were charged with being concerned in the killing of four British women. Those brave women had been parachuted into France and had been captured. After a good deal of preliminary investigation, I understand that ten Germans were brought to trial on the charge which I have just enumerated.
What actually took place I think can best be brought to your Lordships' notice in the words of a letter written to The Times by a member of that court—Mr. Marlowe. These words are extracted from that letter:
"The simple facts proved to the satisfaction of the court were that these women were put to death and subsequently cremated. The only issue before the court was whether the unfortunate women had suffered 'judicial execution' after trial and sentence as spies or not. The court being satisfied that there had been no trial or sentence, the executioner or executioners could be condemned for murder.
"The evidence was clear that some four people were the executioners. Only one of these was before the court; he was duly condemned to death. Of the others, one had committed suicide and the other two had not been apprehended. The remaining accused were proved only to have played minor roles of complicity and (except for three who had clearly not been implicated and were therefore acquitted) were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment."
My reason in raising the question of this trial concerns the reporting of the trial in certain sections of the Press. It seems clear, according to my information, that the Press had some foreknowledge of the trial before it actually took place, and it appears, to put it at the lowest, very likely that some branch of the War Office dealing with public relations had given the Press some information about the prosecution's case. The report of that case was undoubtedly couched in rather lurid and horrific terms and made very glaring headlines in the paper. The court sat, with the result that I have just read out, as stated by Mr. Marlowe, a member of the court. But it appears that the Press was not present during the defence, or at any rate did not report the defence, with the consequence that on Sunday, June 2, there were articles in the Press of which I will, with your Lordships' permission read an extract.
This is from the Sunday Dispatch of June 2. The article is headed: "Oven Murder: Only 1 to die." It says:

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"Six men who murdered by burning alive four British girl Service parachutists at Natzweiler concentration camp, Alsace, were sentenced by a Military Court at Wuppertal yesterday. Werner Rhode, the camp doctor, who gave the girls drug injections before they were put into red-hot ovens, was sentenced to death by hanging. The camp commandant, Fritz Hartjenstern, received a life sentence, and the chief crematorium executioner, Peter Straub, whom one of the girls fought as he forced her into the oven, was sent to gaol for 13 years."
Then it goes on:
"Straub, who had 'seen 4,000,000 go in smoke up the chimney at Auschwitz,' broke down when his victim fought for her life, as her killers forced her into the oven, the court was told."
The following editorial comment appeared at the foot of the article, of which I have read a part:
"The Sunday Dispatch reports this decision of the Wuppertal Court to the fullest extent made available by agency messages. In the absence of possible further detail, the Sunday Dispatch makes this comment, which it feels will express the opinion of the great majority of British people:
That mere sentence of imprisonment for this horrific crime is an outrage against justice. That there can be no degree of guilt such as is inferred in the varying sentences. That the decision of the Court should immediately be reviewed by an appropriate authority."
In the light of what Mr. Marlowe afterwards wrote, that can hardly be regarded as a satisfactory state of affairs. It may be that the Press used the information, and the only information, that was available to them. But it does raise this question in my mind. How came it about that the Press knew, first of all, beforehand only the prosecution' case? How came it about that they reported only the prosecution's case, that the defence was apparently neglected, and then the wrong conclusions drawn? It seems that there was some lack of liaison in the public relations branch, or whatever branch of the War Office was concerned, and that the good name of British justice in Germany has suffered. Those officers who took part in that trial would naturally feel that they had been misreported and had far less than justice done to them.
To show the extent to which the public can be misled, may I quote from a debate which took place in your Lordships' House in July of this year? The noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, was raising a question which concerned Germany, and in his speech he made the following remark:
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"The most flagrant case of inadequate information was the Wuppertal case. We were considerably stoked up for a long time by being told that four British girls had been burnt alive, and that only one German was to be hanged for it. It turned out afterwards that three more were to be hanged, but that was only because as a sort of sideline they had been murdering British airmen too. So the long arm of coincidence was brought in to reinforce the short arm of the law. Shortly after that we were told that the evidence of the burning alive was quite inadequate, but we only learned that by a casual letter to The Times. Even then, there was no doubt the four girls were murdered, and only one German was to be hanged, a camp doctor. What was the matter with stringing up the camp commandant?"
The noble and learned Viscount who sits upon the Woolsack, in replying to the debate, said:
"The noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, referred to some other trials. I will confess to him, if it is any consolation to him, that I myself have been rather uneasy about some of the decisions I have read in the newspapers. I think in some senses it is a pity that when these military tribunals give their judgment, they do not give their reasons for the judgment. In the result, I am quite satisfied that, not infrequently, their decisions are entirely misrepresented. I agree with him that greater publicity would be all to the good."
It seems to me the noble Lord spoke very justly about the misrepresentation of such a British Court in Germany. I think that perhaps in one sentence he does a little less than justice to that Court because Military Courts cannot, I understand, publish reasons for their judgments; which have to be confirmed by higher authority, and those Courts are not in the position of a Judge in our Courts.
I think no blame can attach to the principal of the Court because greater publicity was not given to the trial as a whole, but I do feel, on the facts as I understand them, that a grave responsibility rests upon the War Office to see that trials are adequately and fully reported, or at least that fair representations are given to the public of what actually takes place, because otherwise unfairness may be done to the members of British Courts and a wrong impression created in British public opinion. I hope we may hear from the noble Lord who replies to this debate that steps have been taken to settle this matter. I hope he will be able to take the opportunity of declaring in public how completely justified

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these gentlemen who were members of that Court were in reaching the conclusion they reached.
6.4 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, there are only two short points I want to make on my noble and learned friend's Motion. One is with respect to these people awaiting denazification, as it is called, in these concentration camps. I think that recently an amnesty was declared for those who were born later than the year 1919, which has resulted in a considerable clearance. I confess that the logic of that decision rather escapes me. There is plenty of evidence that German industry is very much handicapped by the lack of the key men who are still in these camps and whose cases ought, I think, to be dealt with. I should have thought that it was far more dangerous to release the people born since 1919 than the people born before that date. The people born since 1919 have been brought up for most of their impressible years in a purely Nazi régime without any other doctrine. They know nothing, for example, of Christianity, whereas the people born before that date must have been brought up originally in Christian surroundings. It would seem to me much more likely that they would be capable of returning to their first love, and not be so deeply impregnated with the Nazi doctrine. That is only my impression. I should have thought that the older men were the men whose cases could have been more sympathetically reviewed, except, of course, those people against whom there are definite charges.
The other point that troubles me is this. I have not read the whole of this Nuremberg judgment because I am waiting until His Majesty's Government give us the whole text, but I notice that one of the charges stated in the judgment was "planning wars of aggression." Of course, no sensible man can possibly doubt the guilt of the German Government in that respect. I know, as a matter of fact, that in the diplomatic archives of Vienna can be got proof that the 1914 war was planned by Germany as early as February, 1914. There is no question about that, but, with respect to the charge of planning wars of aggression, it appears to me that every soldier doing his duty to the country
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does plan wars of aggression. If Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery is doing his duty I am sure that he is either planning, or does plan, wars of aggression because nobody wants to plan a purely defensive war. No soldier worthy of his name would do that. What I am afraid is that, at the end of every war in which any people may unhappily find themselves, the leaders on either side are bound to be liable to that charge. If that is so, then it seems to me the logical development is that wars will become more and more ruthless. For example, the Commandos. The Germans took grave exception to the Commando invasion of Europe and, as you know, they put cur men in chains when they were captured. If the leaders on both sides know that they are for the "high jump" at the end of the war if they fail to win it, then it seems to me that they will not content themselves with comparatively mild measures, but will proceed themselves to judge and to execute judgment.
The logical development of that seems to me to be that in future wars there will be very few prisoners taken at all, and there will be almost wars of extermination. I am not condemning that, I am not saying it is a good thing or a bad. When I was a young man I knew very many good soldiers of very mild tempers who deliberately said they thought the taking of prisoners was illogical and a mistake. I do not know whether it is a mistake or not. All I want to say is that, unless my logic is at fault—and if my noble friend opposite will point it out I shall be very grateful—while we may go forward possibly to a world without war, if war does come, it will be war of greater and greater savagery. That is the only thing I have to say, but I submit it is a question for the consideration of His Majesty's Government.
6.9 p.m.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: My Lords, before my noble friend replies I want to intervene for one moment on the speech that has just been delivered by my noble friend opposite, because his speech is directed really to the reasoning of the judgment at Nuremberg. It really all rests on that. The question is whether aggressive war is to be an international crime or not. It is a vitally important question. I am not in the least quarrelling with my noble friend for having

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raised it on this issue, but in point of fact it shows how all these things hang together. My question is simply this: Will the Government in allotting the time which is at their disposal, which I understand is not very extensive at the moment, consider carefully whether there ought not to be reserved a proper opportunity for debating the principles of the Nuremberg judgment and the Court which was improvised—on this occasion necessarily improvised? And also whether that should be the permanent Criminal International Court, or whether there should be some other Court? There are other questions of great importance, but those two questions at any rate seem to me to be of absolutely vital importance to the future of the world. I do hope we are going to have a really serious debate. There is nobody in the Kingdom better qualified than members of this House to debate such a question of mixed law, politics and morals, and I hope we shall have a serious debate initiated in the ordinary way.
LORD SALTOUN: I beg the noble Viscount's pardon, but I must put myself right. I did not say "waging aggressive war"; I said "planning aggressive war," and I was careful to take the words I had read.
6.11 p.m.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, with regard to the very serious issues raised by the last two speakers I would just remind the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, that the following words are to be found in the Charter under which the Tribunal operated:
"Crimes against peace—namely, planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of a war of aggression."
That is in the Charter, and if I understand the noble Lord correctly he was criticizing the Court for what was outside their power. I am not sure whether he realizes that those words are in the Charter.
LORD SALTOUN: I am not criticizing.
LORD PAKENHAM: As regards what fell from the noble Viscount who spoke last, I am authorized on behalf of the Leader of the House to remind your Lordships that it was stated earlier this evening that it was hoped to provide an opportunity for a full discussion on Germany during this Session. I cannot help
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wondering whether the noble Viscount will not feel that that will be the appropriate opportunity. The noble Viscount shakes his head. Then he will no doubt wish to raise the matter further with the Leader of the House.
The issues before us to-night are complicated. They are matters upon which the noble Viscount, Lord Maugham, has specialized for many years. I lay no claims to any great erudition in this field myself. I ask permission of the House to run rapidly over some of the ground he covered because there may be other noble Lords present besides myself who like to hear figures twice, particularly if they are not the same figures, before they are quite sure they have got them into their heads. Can we not simplify the whole problem—a very acute problem, as the noble Viscount brought out so forcibly—if we look at the people we are trying to deal with under this policy, which we are all agreed on, of denazification under three heads? It seems to me that there are great numbers of people we suspect of being criminals: there are others, even more, whom we suspect of being in some sense dangerous persons; and finally, there are a number of people whom we regard as unsuitable for holding positions of responsibility. I do not know that those categories can altogether be separated; there may be a certain amount of overlapping. However, it may focus thought if we carry them in our heads.
Take first of all the trials. We have tried in our zone of Germany by the Military Courts referred to by the noble Viscount nearly 500—actually 495—war criminals and we have cases against a further 4,000 or thereabouts in various stages of preparation. So the noble Viscount was not far wrong in the latter part of his remarks on that subject where he said we had only tried a limited proportion of the total number which it was thought deserved trial.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: What is the figure of people awaiting trial?
LORD PAKENHAM: Well, there are 3,913 suspects against whom cases are in various stages of preparation, but it is not dear what proportion of those will eventually be brought to trial. Only just over 1,000 of the 3,913 have so far been apprehended and we cannot tell how

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many of the others perished during the latter stages of the war. Therefore, one has got to be careful in talking of 3,900 or 4,000 coming up for trial under this head. Nevertheless, I think we must all recognize with the noble Viscount the seriousness of the problem. We must all desire expedition. It cannot be very easy, if we are determined to denazify Germany, to carry through a legal or quasi-legal process to which I suppose there is no parallel in history. However, I hope the noble Viscount will be reassured when I say that a review of the whole situation before the Military Courts is to be carried out during the next few weeks with a view to achieving the most rapid disposal of the more serious cases affecting British victims, and to determine in consultation with the Control Commission for Germany and Austria the future policy for dealing with outstanding cases, having in mind the desirability for ensuring that none but trivial offenders should escape. That distinction between the serious and the less serious offenders will, I believe, commend itself to the noble Viscount. So much for the first category.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: Those are only war crimes properly so-called.
LORD PAKENHAM: Exactly. I am dealing with the policy that has prevailed hitherto first of all, and then trying to place before you the contemporary situation. In the second category, comprising those whom you might call the people suspected of being dangerous, the noble Viscount provided us with the correct figures, as we knew he would. He pointed out that there are close on 40,000 —38,000 to 39,000—who remain in the camps. Then thirdly—although this does not come up under the noble Viscount's Motion, but it completes the picture—we have dismissed nearly 160,000 persons from office or responsible employment on account of their association with the Nazi Party. In addition, we have rejected as unsuitable applicants for appointments a further 86,000. Including those, we have examined altogether with regard to their suitability for employment about 1,250,000 individual cases. That is the third category, the category of people regarded as possibly unsuitable.
So much for the position as it has been hitherto. Coming to the future, if we take our first category, those suspected of
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crimes, the noble Viscount is perfectly right in saying that that category has been extended by the recent verdict.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: Would the noble Lord allow me to interrupt for one moment? I think he has left out another category. The numbers he has given here as being tried by British Military Tribunals can only be persons who are guilty of crimes against the laws and usages of war, because those are the only people our Military Tribunals are trying. But there are others who are guilty of crimes just as great who are not tried in that way at all. He has not yet dealt with those.
LORD PAKENHAM: May I come to that point? May I place before the House the position as it is at the moment? Under our first heading—people suspected of crime—our intention is to dispose as quickly as possible of all minor war criminals against whom we have satisfactory evidence and to hand over to our Allies for trial those other cases which warrant disposal in that way. Still dealing with those suspected of crime, we have now got to deal individually with the members of the organizations declared to be criminal at Nuremberg. That, of course, is a very much larger number. It may include people from the original 4,000 against whom cases were being prepared, but the number will be primarily drawn from the close on 40,000 who are still under detention. Some of these members of organizations declared to be criminal will be dealt with, as the noble Viscount has intervened to point out, by our Military Courts where the crimes are against peace, and where the crimes are crimes against humanity, the procedure will be through the German Courts. I would like to say emphatically on behalf of the Government that we sympathize very much with the concern felt by the noble Viscount on this point. I think the noble Viscount is perfectly justified in saying that the task of giving a proper and fair trial, with opportunity for appeal, to the many thousands of persons involved will present very formidable difficulties. I am in broad agreement with him when he says we should endeavour to limit our action to what can be practicably performed. There the noble Viscount carries us with him. The consequences of the Nuremberg verdict are now being carefully studied and I can assure him that we shall

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not set ourselves a task which we cannot carry out within a reasonable period. I do not suppose he will wish me to be more specific tonight, but only if because he has drawn that assurance from me I hope he will feel, as I do, that his Motion has been worth while.
I will not deal exhaustively with the remaining categories because they do not concern us so actively this evening. The Motion, your Lordships will recall, was concerned primarily with the trials of criminals, but I cannot close this part of my reply to the points which have been raised without re-emphasizing that the task of denazifying Germany is bound to be prolonged and arduous. It is quite true that we do not, and should not, approach the subject in any spirit of revenge, but nevertheless we are committed to re-educating Germany and we do not believe that that task can be properly concluded until the Nazi elements have been eradicated by one means or another.
I come finally to the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord de L'Isle and Dudley. With one of his conclusions I whole-heartedly agree, and from another, with emphasis and, if he will allow me to say so, with a certain amount of heat, I must dissent. I will not traverse all the ground again which he covered so very clearly. I think that broadly, and also precisely, his account of the trial was accurate. It is quite true that some of the allegations of excessive cruelty were not substantiated during the trial. Moreover, as he pointed out, of the four men primarily responsible for the murders, two have never been apprehended and one committed suicide while awaiting trial. Only one was, therefore, actually brought to trial. The remaining accused were concerned only in a minor degree with the crime. The prisoner directly responsible was sentenced to death, five of the others were sentenced to varying terms of imprisonment and three were acquitted. I think all those points were made by the noble Lord himself. I agree with him wholeheartedly that there is nothing whatever in the case to suggest that the protests made in the Press of undue leniency on the part of the Court were in any way justified. His Majesty's Government are satisfied that the proceedings were properly conducted throughout and that the accused were dealt with appropriately on the basis of the various charges made
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and proved against them. In every possible sense, therefore, the officers of the Court are vindicated.
At the same time I cannot help expressing surprise because, possibly through some misunderstanding on my part, I had not got the impression that the noble Lord was going to levy a charge against the War Office. Of course, I am always open—as anyone who stands at this box should be open—to investigate any charge made against a Government Department, but I say that up to the present I see no evidence whatever to suggest that the War Office were at fault, and I cannot help hoping that the noble Lord, either tonight or on some later occasion, will withdraw the suggestion that there is any evidence against the War Office in this matter. I have attempted to deal with some of the points which have been raised but I feel that there may well be others to which we shall have to return on a later occasion.
6.28 p.m.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: My Lords, if your Lordships will allow me to do so, there are two things I should like to say. The first thing concerns this Wuppertal business, though it is really only a sort of picturesque and horrible by-pass so far as my Motion is concerned. I should like to say something, if I may, for the benefit of the Press in dealing with judgments of this sort in the future. Nobody has yet mentioned the fact that trials under Special Army Orders, such as these were—and I hold the Royal Warrant in my hand; it is Army Order No. 81 of 1945—do not leave the decision on the death penalty to the mere, though admirable, Judges constituting a British Military Court. Not only has the convening officer to direct that a finding of guilty and the sentence awarded shall be announced by the President in open court, but he has also to direct that it shall be announced that such finding and sentence are subject to confirmation. It is nothing unless it is confirmed. This question of confirmation has to go before what is called a confirming officer, who often does not confirm. If he confirms, the accused may, within fourteen days, submit a petition to the confirming officer against the finding and sentence, and if he does that within fourteen days it has to go, together with the proceedings of the trial, to His Majesty's Judge Advocate-General or to

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any deputy of his approved for that purpose in the Command overseas where the trial takes place for advice and report thereon.
Therefore the notion that three military officers, or two military officers and one legal member, made some horrible blunder in this case and let off lightly some brutal murderers, was from the start a ridiculous idea, because it could not take place. I do not know whether these people who were guilty of murders for which they were sentenced appealed or petitioned. The sentence had to be confirmed and it would then go before the Judge Advocate-General, so that really the opportunities of mistake are, I venture to think, almost impossible. That may relieve the minds of a great many people, and it would rather suggest to reporters that before they make a disturbance about the original sentence they should wait and see whether it is confirmed or not, and whether there is a petition or appeal.
May I say one thing about the main subject of my Motions? I am very grateful to the noble Lord for what he has said and for the attitude of mind in which he has approached the important subject involved in the debate. I quite conceive that I may have been wrong in one of the figures I gave, although I am a little surprised, and if I have an opportunity I shall tell the noble Lord the source of my information.
LORD PAKENHAM: I only intervene to say that I obtained that figure independently from two Government Departments, so I think it may be correct.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: Well, maybe. But however, the noble Lord is wrong in thinking that that disposes of all the people who are guilty of crimes which may deserve a death sentence. That is far from being the case. The list he has given me, and which he says two Departments have given him, is a list only of cases tried by a British Military Court. It is nothing else. There are far more crimes which deserve death which are not being tried by Military Courts at all under the regulations that now exist, but which are going to be tried or have been tried by German Courts. As I said before, nothing is included in his list but what the British Military Courts have done, and crimes against humanity and other murders of all sorts, including murder of
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German subjects in Germany, are being tried by German Courts and not by British Courts at all. I hope the noble Lord will pardon me for saying that, because I think it is quite possible that I was quite wrong in my first figure and when I am wrong I like to acknowledge it. I think that if the noble Lord would give me an opportunity at some time to spend five minutes on this subject I could persuade him that in other respects I was right. Having said that, I ask leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD DE L'ISLE AND DUDLEY: My Lords, I hoped that I might, with the permission of the House, speak again in view of the remarks which fell from the lips of the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, at the end of the debate. I had no intention of making an attack on the War Office, but I thought it was a matter which the Government should investigate. There was clearly some pre-information by the Press which proved to be as, I thought, deleterious to the Court, and I thought that whoever was responsible for giving that information ought to have corrected the impression that was made publicly. So far I have seen no statement, official or unofficial, that that impression should be corrected. It was merely a suggestion that the matter should be looked into at the War Office, and if possible what I thought to be an unfortunate occurrence should be set right. I will not now proceed with my Motion.
6.38 p.m.

GERMAN INTERNEES IN DENMARK.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I beg to ask the question standing in my name.
[The question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government, what steps they are taking to enable the repatriation to Germany of about 200,000 German civilian refugees now interned in Denmark, a very great many of whom are women and children.]
VISCOUNT ADDISON: My Lords, the question of the return to Germany of the 200,000 civilian refugees in Denmark is under discussion by the representatives of the Four Powers on the Control Council in Berlin, and it is impossible to say when

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a solution will be reached. The problem should not therefore be regarded as purely Anglo-Danish, but the authorities of the British zone have agreed to receive into the British zone those of the refugees who previously lived there, numbering 10,000.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: I am obliged to the noble Lord for that answer. I suppose he cannot say when the question will be settled by the Big Four?
VISCOUNT ADDISON: I am afraid I cannot say any more than I have said.

NUREMBERG TRIAL.
6.40 p.m.
LORD BEVERIDGE LORD BEVERIDGE asked His Majesty's Government whether they will ensure that full transcripts of the proceedings before the Nuremberg Tribunal including the speeches and evidence for the defence are placed in suitable libraries where they will be accessible to students of history, politics and jurisprudence. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in putting the question which stands in my name may I just say a few words. The judgment of the Nuremberg Tribunal, and all that is contained in that judgment and the action of the United Nations in setting up that Tribunal, will come up for judgment by the tribunal of history. In order that it should do so, it is essential that the reason for the Tribunal reaching its judgment should be readily available, together with all the evidence for the defence, all the documents put in for the defence and the whole of the proceedings. As that may possibly be very long—I do not know how long it is—I suggested that it would be sufficient if a transcript were available in particular libraries. Naturally, if the Government feel it possible to print the whole and distribute it more widely I shall be only more pleased.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD JOWITT): My Lords, copies of the transcripts of the official shorthand notes of the entire proceedings at Nuremberg are being periodically published in a series of publications by His Majesty's Stationery Office. Furthermore, I am now able to state that the Government have arranged to publish the transcripts of the judgment and sentences as a Command Paper. These publications will be available for purchase by libraries and other authorities at the Stationery Office in the ordinary way.

ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL BILL.
Report from the Standing Orders Committee that the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the Bill ought to be dispensed with: read and agreed to.
Message from the Commons, that they have appointed a Committee to consist of six members to join with a Committee of this House to consider the said Bill and request this House to appoint an equal number of Lords to be joined with the members of that House. The said Message to be taken into consideration to-morrow.

GLASGOW CORPORATION BILL.
Reported from the Select Committee with Amendments.
NORTHMET POWER BILL.
Reported without amendment.

BANBURY CORPORATION BILL.
Reported with Amendments.
House adjourned at eighteen minutes before seven o'clock.