Lords Sitting of 5 August 1947

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

Prayers.

  LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (IMPROVEMENTS) BILL.
  THE CHAIRMAN or COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DROGHEDA):My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
  Moved, That the promoters of the Bill have leave to suspend any further proceedings thereon, in order to proceed with the Bill, if they shall think fit, in the next Session of Parliament, provided that notice of their intention to do so be lodged in the Office of the Clerk of the Parliaments not later than three o'clock on the day prior to the close of the present Session, and that all fees clue thereon up to that period be paid;
  That such Bill shall be deposited in the Office of the Clerk of the Parliaments not later than three o'clock on or before the third day on which the House shall sit after the commencement of the next Session of Parliament, with a declaration annexed thereto, signed by the agent, stating that the Bill is the same in every respect as the Bill at the last stage of the proceedings thereon in this House in the present Session;
  That the proceedings on such Bill shall be pro formâ only in regard to every stage through which the same shall have passed in the present Session, and that no new fees be charged in regard to such stages;
  That the Standing Orders by which the proceedings on Bills are regulated shall not apply to such Bill in regard to any of the stages through which the same shall have passed during the present Session;
  That all petitions presented in the present Session against the Bill shall stand referred to the Committee on the same Bill in the next Session of Parliament,—(The Earl of Drogheda.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly: Then, ordered that a Message be sent to the Commons to acquaint them with the said Resolution and to desire their concurrence.

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
LONDON PASSENGER TRANSPORT BOARD BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

NEWHAVEN AND SEAFORD SEA DEFENCES BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
The Amendments were as follows:

PART II.

Standing Order 12, page 18, leave out the Standing Order and insert the following new Standing Order:—

("Posting of notices in case of tramway etc. Bills. (House of Commons, 12.)

12.—(1) In the case of a Bill whereby it is proposed, in connection with the construction of a tramway or a trolley vehicle system or an underground railway or tramroad, to confer powers authorising any alteration or disturbance of the surface of any street or road—

(a) not later than the Twelfth day of November application shall be made in writing to every authority having control of any such street or road for directions as to the manner in which notice of such proposed powers is to be posted in the street or road;

(b) not later than the Twentieth day of November notice of such proposed powers shall be posted in every such street or road in the manner directed by the said authority or, if no directions have been received from the said authority within seven days after the said application, in some conspicuous position in the street or road;

(c) the said notice shall be kept posted as aforesaid for not less than fourteen consecutive days.

(2) Where the said powers are proposed to be conferred in connection with the construction of a tramway or an underground railway or tramroad, the notice posted under this Order, in any street or road shall also state the place or places at which the plans of the tramway, railway or tramroad will be or have been deposited for public inspection under Standing Orders 27 and 36 with local government officers for areas comprising the street or road or any part thereof.")

Standing Order 15, page 19, leave out the Standing Order and insert the following new Standing Order:—

("Notice to owners and lessees of railways, etc. affected by proposed tramway or trolley vehicle system. (House of Commons, 15.)

15.—(1) On or before the Fifth day of December, in the case of a Bill whereby it is proposed to authorise the construction of a tramway or trolley vehicle system either—

(a) crossing any railway, tramroad, tramway or trolley vehicle system on the level or by means of a bridge; or

(b) crossing any canal by means of a bridge; or

(c) otherwise affecting or interfering with any railway, tramroad, tramway, trolley vehicle system or canal;

notice in writing of the proposal shall be given to the owner, and (if leased) also to the lessee, of the railway, tramroad, tramway, trolley vehicle system or canal to be crossed or affected.

(2) Where the Bill proposes to authorise the construction of a tramway, I he notice shall also state the place or places at which the plans of the tramway have been or will be deposited for public inspection.")

PRESTON CORPORATION BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

PRIVATE BILL STANDING ORDERS.
THE EARL OF DROGHEDA: My Lords, I beg to move that the Standing Orders relative to Private Bills be amended as set out in the Appendix to the Minutes of Proceedings. These Amendments are really nothing more than improvements in drafting, or are necessitated by change in the functions of certain Government Departments. They involve no alteration in procedure, and no question of principle. Similar Amendments have already been made, or will be made, in another place.
Moved, That the Standing Orders relative to Private and Provisional Order Confirmation Bills be amended.—(The Earl of Drogheda.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, the said Standing Orders amended accordingly and to be printed as amended.

Standing Order 39, page 27, line 42, after ("Home Office") insert ("the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries")

Standing Order 39, page 27, line 45, leave out the first ("and")

Standing Order 39, page 27, line 46, after ("Planning") insert ("and the Ministry of National Insurance")

Standing Order 39, page 28, leave out lines 10 to 15.s

Standing Order 39, page 28, leave out lines 20 to 29 and insert—

("(6) Of every Bill relating to any company, body or person carrying on business in any part of His Majesty's dominions outside the United Kingdom;

(a) if the business is carried on in a Dominion as defined in the Statute of Westminster, 1931, India, Pakistan, or Southern Rhodesia, at the Commonwealth Relations Office;

(b) if the business is carried on in Burma, at the Burma Office;

(c) if the business is carried on in any other part of His Majesty's dominions, at the Colonial Office;)

Standing Order 39, page 29, leave out lines 4 to 14.

Standing Order 61, page 38, lines 8 to 9, leave out ("previously to the introduction of the Bill into this House") and insert ("before the Bill was read a first time in this House")

Standing Order 61, page 38, line 18, after ("given") insert ("before the Bill was read a first time in this House")

PART IV.

Standing Order 101, page 56, line 33, after ("been") insert ("held on or")

PART V.

Standing Order 129, page 62, line 36, at the beginning insert ("(1) WHERE it is sought by any Bill to give Parliamentary sanction to any agreement, the agreement shall be annexed to the Bill as a schedule thereto, and shall be printed in extenso. (2)")

Standing Order 142, page 66, line 42, leave out ("the House has received")

Standing Order 142, page 66, line 43, after ("Bill") insert ("has been presented to the House")

PART VIII.

Standing Order 198, page 82, line 38, leave out ("38") and insert ("39")

PART X.

Standing Order 203, page 84, line 15, leave out ("in") and insert ("of")

PARLIAMENTARY DELEGATION TO CHINA.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT JOWITT): My Lords, I beg to inform the House (and a similar statement is, I understand, being made in another place) that it has been widely felt that, as nearly two years have elapsed since the war was concluded, it would be appropriate for a Parliamentary delegation from the United Kingdom to pay a visit to China, our war-time Ally. The Chinese Government share these feelings, and have intimated that they would warmly welcome such a delegation to visit China in October. His Majesty's Government for their part cordially endorse the proposal. Mr. Speaker and I were accordingly asked to select six members for this purpose, two from the House of Lords and four from another place. The following have accepted the proposal to be members of the delegation: Lord Ammon, Lord Amulree, Mr. F. McLeavy, M.P., Mr. J. Harrison, M.P., and Mr. Wilfrid Roberts, M.P. The House will recall that a previous delegation from Parliament visited China during the autumn of 1942, in the darkest days of the war, and it will, I
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am sure, welcome this further visit as evidence of the continued interest shown by the Parliament and people of this country in China, and will wish the members of the delegation every success in the discharge of this their Mission of good will.

PALESTINE.
2.38 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I beg to ask His Majesty's Government a question of which I have given them private Notice—namely, whether they have any statement to make with regard to the situation in Palestine, with special regard to the security of British personnel serving in that country.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (VISCOUNT HALL): My Lords, although the Palestine question is under reference to the United Nations—and the United Nations Special Committee have indeed only just completed their investigations in the territory—terrorism has continued unabated. Two British sergeants were kidnapped in Nathanya on July 12. The area was immediately put

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under full military control, and the most intensive searches were carried out by troops and police. These were, however, unsuccessful, and there was no further news of the missing men until on July 31 (following the execution of three Jews sentenced after trial) their dead bodies were found hanging from trees with notices pinned on to them indicating that they had been murdered by the Irgun. This savage crime has greatly increased the prevailing tension in Palestine. On the evening of the day when the sergeants' bodies were found there were several anti-Jewish attacks in Tel Aviv, resulting in the loss of five lives. An immediate inquiry has been ordered into these incidents, in which policemen are alleged to have been involved. In general, in face of the murder of their. comrades, the conduct of troops and police has been exemplary.
The situation has been the subject of the closest consultation between the High Commissioner and the military authorities, and also between the High Commissioner and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and the appropriate measures to he taken have been most thoroughly discussed. The Secretary of State has been informed by the High Commissioner that the Commander-in-Chief and the General Officer Commanding have asked for no measures to Which he has not agreed. Suggestions that the civil and military authorities are not at one in their approach to, and in their proposals for dealing with, the situation are entirely without foundation. Although there has been grievous loss of life, the relentless and continuous action of the security forces has been more effective than may be appreciated. For example, during July the following successful preventive measures were undertaken by the military in co-operation with, and in addition to, those undertaken by the police: Thirty-seven mines were detected and rendered harmless; twenty-two searches, apart from those in the Nathanya controlled area, were carried out in Jewish settlements; six major caches were discovered containing arms and ammunition, including a factory for the manufacture of Sten guns.
As regards the position of British personnel, civil and military, it is evident that in existing conditions security and, in particular, protection against kidnapping
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cannot be complete, but all reasonable precautions have been taken. For example, women and children have been evacuated and security zones have been established for residential and office areas. Travel on roads is confines. to essential duty or to journeys in convoys. These are not conditions tolerable in time of peace in any civilized country. The High Commissioner is assured of the fullest support from His Majesty's Government in dealing with this situation, and I would take this opportunity to express the profound sympathy we all feel for the British staff of the Palestine administration and the military and police forces in their arduous and distasteful duties, and our admiration for their steadfastness in circumstances of such difficulty and danger.
As regards additional measures decided upon in view of the latest developments, steps already taken include the extension and application of the regulation permitting the demolition of buildings from which firearms have been discharged or bombs thrown. The arrest has been effected this morning of a large number of known supporters of the Irgun and of persons believed to be in contact with the terrorists. Action has also been taken to close down the Revisionist youth movement which is known to have provided many recruits for the terrorist organizations.
2.44 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I should like to thank the First Lord for the very full answer which he has given. A private notice question is not the occasion for a debate, or even for a lengthy speech, but there are some things which I think should be said, and I hope the House will forgive me if I trespass for rather longer than is usual upon their time. The Government will. lam sure, realize the very deep feeling of indignation, both in this House and outside, which has been aroused by the cold-blooded murder of brave and honourable soldiers who were serving their country in the fulfilment of international obligations undertaken by us. No event, I think, has done more severe injury both in this country and, I believe, throughout the civilized world, to the cause of Jewry, who themselves have suffered so dreadfully during recent years. We in this country for many centuries have been the best friends of the Jews; they

935
have been better treated here, I believe, than in any other country, including the United States of America. It was due to the initiative of the Balfour Declaration that the Zionist experiment was ever started, and it was due to our protection that it passed successfully through its earlier years.
During the war years, as I know from my own personal experience at the Colonial Office, we took in a great number of Jews from Europe, although our own population at that time was short of food. It might have been hoped that there would be recognition of this fact, as I believe there is from the vast majority of the Jewish community, and that there would have been understanding and co-operation for a solution of what is admittedly a most difficult problem. But it is clear that among a small extreme section of the Jews in Palestine—and I am afraid in certain areas outside Palestine—we are being treated to-day as the supreme enemy of the Jews. This extreme section boasts that they have declared war upon Britain. But they should remember that they are only enabled to conduct that war because of our own patience and tolerance in administering the law of the land. Had the Mandate for Palestine been entrusted to Germany, or to other countries which we might mention, the penalties which would have been imposed would have been of so severe a character that the whole population would have suffered unimaginable misery. Those countries would have replied to terror with terror. That is not our way, and I hope it never will be. But they must not try even us too high. Your Lordships' House will wish me to join the noble Viscount the First Lord of the Admiralty in paying a heartfelt tribute to the exemplary and indeed extreme patience and restraint shown by the troops and police over a long period of strain, including almost daily murders of their comrades. I do not think there can have been any finer chapter in the history of the British Armed Forces.
As the First Lord has said, the United Nations Committee who are at present examining this problem will no doubt, in due course, make recommendations. In the meantime I would submit, both to your Lordships and to anyone else who
936
may be concerned and whom my words may reach, that it is incumbent both on His Majesty's Government and on the Committees themselves—and especially I would mention the Jewish leaders in Palestine, Haganah—to put down disorder by every means in their power. The noble Viscount, Lord Hall, mentioned "reasonable precautions". I should have preferred him to say "every possible precaution" would be taken to see that this is done. If His Majesty's Government are willing, as I am sure they are, to take every action that it is possible for them to take, they may be certain, I believe, that they will receive the most united support of all sections of opinion both in your Lordships' House and throughout the country.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, we on these Benches have denounced with great vigour previous crimes and terrorism in Palestine. We shall continue to denounce them. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, a previous and most distinguished High Commissioner for Palestine, expressed utter detestation of what is happening, and I do not think that I can acid anything to what he has said. I should, however, like to pay the same tribute as the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition paid to the control and self-restraint shown by the British Forces in Palestine. They are in the best traditions of the British Army. I should not like on this occasion not to say one word condemning very strongly the anti-Jewish outbreaks that have taken place in this country, particularly in Liverpool and Manchester. It is not the custom here for innocent victims to be made to pay for crimes abroad, crimes which no doubt they detest as strongly as we do. I feel that these outbreaks are contrary to the whole traditions of the country, and above all to the tenets of Christianity.
VISCOUNT HALL: My Lords, I can but express my gratitude and that of His Majesty's Government to the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, and the noble Earl, Lord Perth, for their expressions on this question this afternoon. I want to assure the noble Marquess that there is no disagreement at all between the military authorities and the civil administration as to the powers which are necessary, and indeed as to the action to be taken, to root out terrorism in Palestine. May I also add that I share the view expressed by Lord

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Perth with regard to action against Jews in this country? It is not the British way of dealing with these problems.

PERSONAL STATEMENT BY EARL HOWE.
2.55 p.m.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, I ask leave to correct a statement I made in your Lordships' House. In the course of a speech which I made on the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Layton, on the subject of newsprint, I made a statement which I now know was quite incorrect, and which may reflect on a great newspaper. I am reported as having said:
"Yesterday we had a fairly extensive debate and several Divisions in this House. The Times to-day reports the proceedings in 37 lines."
I had a look at The Times before I made that statement. I looked at the Parliamentary Report, and the space was, as I had stated, thirty-seven lines; but I quite overlooked the fact that on the centre page there was a very full and entirely adequate report. I should like to express my deep regret for the statement made, and my apology to your Lordships' House and to the great newspaper involved.

ISLE OF MAN (CUSTOMS) BILL.
Brought from the Commons, endorsed with the Certificate from the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill within the meaning of the Parliament Act, 1911, read 1a, and to be printed.
AGRICULTURE BILL.
Returned from the Commons with certain of the Amendments made by the Lords agreed to; certain other Amendments disagreed to with Reasons for such disagreement: The said Reasons to be printed.
TRANSPORT BILL.
Returned from the Commons with certain of the last Amendments made by the Lords agreed to, and certain others disagreed to with Reasons for such disagreement: The said Reasons to be printed.
PAISLEY CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
BOROUGH OF CROYDON (RATING) BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
TYNEMOUTH CORPORATION BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.
NAZEING WOOD OR PARK BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments: The said Amendments considered and agreed to.

ADMINISTRATIVE LAW.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
[The question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government, whether the statements made by the Attorney-General to the Haldane Society, as reported in The Times dated July 24, 1947, represent the views of His Majesty's Government as a whole, and in particular whether his statement that they must increasingly submit the administration of the legislation which is passed to expert tribunals outside the hierarchy of the ordinary courts of law represents their settled policy; and further, whether they share the Attorney-General's belief that "the methods they are using have protected the fundamental principles of our Constitution from a breakdown which would in some measure have paved the way for some totalitarian system," and, if so, in what circumstances and in what form such a breakdown was expected to occur.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I did not see the report of this speech in The Times but I have read the full transcript of the speech. The Attorney-General was careful to point out that he was expressing a purely personal point of view and I am in no way qualified to act as a censor. If the noble Marquess were to read the speech as a whole—and I should be happy to lend him my transcript—I feel sure he will find it a thoughtful and well-balanced speech, with which he would be, as I am, largely in agreement. The only principle in the sphere of justice to which His Majesty's Government are committed is that impartial justice shall be administered to all the lieges, and that in selecting the particular tribunal to administer that justice the wishes of the persons principally interested, together with questions of expedition and cheapness, shall be considered. So long as these principles are observed I see no reason to anticipate any breakdown in our system.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: I am much obliged to the noble and learned Viscount, but may I ask a supplementary question to his reply which was in expectedly general terms? I should like to ask whether the words in inverted commas in my question were in fact part of the Attorney-General's speech, and if so, whether I could have a reply to the last part of my question.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I cannot remember whether those words are actually reproduced in the transcript of the speech, but the breakdown to which the Attorney-General was referring was that of the Parliamentary system. He was pointing out that unless we had in reserve some power such as the closure or the guillotine, or something of that sort, we should be unable to get our Bills through, and in that event we should be unable to cope with the emergencies of the present situation. In that respect I must say I entirely agree with him.

LISBON "POPULAR FAIR."
LORD ROCHDALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
[The question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government why British manufacturers are so poorly
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represented in the "Popular Fair" at present being held in Lisbon.]
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, decision to participate in overseas exhibitions and fairs rests with industrial organizations and firms. They are guided by their estimate of the potential effect on their trade. It can therefore be assumed that United Kingdom industrialists are not convinced of the value of this particular Fair for the sale of their goods.
LORD ROCHDALE: I should like to thank the noble Lord for his reply and to ask him whether, in view of the importance of our export trade, the Government would earnestly consider giving such practical assistance as is possible to firms who are in any doubt about exhibiting either at this Fair or at any other similar overseas fair.
LORD CHORLEY: My right honourable friend is always only too anxious to give such assistance as lies in his power to any firm in connexion with efforts to exhibit British goods overseas.

PRODUCTION OF TEXTILES.
LORD ROCHDALE: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend, Lord Barnby, I beg leave to ask the question standing in his name on the Order Paper.
[The question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government, whether, to achieve larger industrial production in general, they will now direct more consumer goods into the home market as a general incentive therefor, and particularly wool textile apparel in all forms; and whether, since the wool textile industry is still only working at approximately 65 per cent. of capacity, they will assure coal supplies direct and indirect to facilitate a higher approach to pre-war volume.]
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, in view of the urgency of narrowing the gap in our balance of payments, it is not possible to divert to the home market any of the consumer goods now being manufactured for export. In the case of textiles, the Government are appealing to the wool and cotton industries for a special effort to raise production during the coming months. Every effort will be made, within the limits set by the supply

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situation, to see that production in the woollen industry is not held up through lack of coal.
LORD ROCHDALE: I am most grateful to the noble Lord for his reply. I would like further to ask whether, in allocating coal, the Government would bear in mind the importance of supplies to firms that indirectly assist the wool textile industry. I have in mind, in particular, the production of soda ash.
LORD CHORLEY: My right honourable friend is very well aware of the difficulties which have arisen through the shortage of coal, especially at the I.C.I. works at Northwich, which is so much occupied with the manufacture of soda ash. Every effort is being made to see that the necessary supplies of coal to Northwich are expedited, and an assurance has, in fact, been given on those lines.
Loan ROCHDALE: I am most grateful to the noble Lord for his reply.

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE (SUPERANNUATION) REGULATIONS, 1947.
3.3 p.m.
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, I beg to move, That the Special Order on the National Health Service (Superannuation) Regulations, 1947, as reported from the Special Orders Committee, on the 17th July last, be approved. The broad purpose of these regulations is to set up a superannuation scheme for all persons engaged in the National Health Service. The scheme will provide benefits, substantially the same as those of the Civil Service, to all employees of regional boards, governing bodies of teaching hospitals, executive councils, and other bodies set up under the Act; and also the practitioners providing the general medical and dental services—a total of about 300,000 persons. The scheme is on an insurance basis, with contributions reckoned on remuneration—six per cent. for the employee and eight per cent. for the employer, except in the case of manual workers, where the rates are five per cent, and six per cent. respectively. The Exchequer will pay the employers' contributions from the accounts of hospital boards, and other bodies. As in the case of Civil Service pensions, there is a lump
942
sum retiring allowance as well as a pension. Provision is also made for a death gratuity for death during service, a pension for incapacity and an injury allowance. Benefits are based on length of service and final average remuneration. As a variation from the Civil Service scheme, a widow's pension will be issu-able in substitution for a part of the married man's retiring lump sum allowance.
As your Lordships will have seen, the regulations are long and intricate. This was found to be unavoidable in view of the very wide field covered and the unique provisions that have been made for interchangeability, which is complete between the various parts of the Health Service, local government, Civil Service and teaching service. In this connexion, I might point out that two important objects have been kept in mind in the preparation of the scheme. The first was to preserve existing rights, so far as possible, of all who come into the scheme, and to ensure that nobody will be worse off than they were before. The second was to ensure, while keeping the needs of the various services in mind, that the scheme will be of definite value in enabling participants to secure wider experience by transferring from one kind of work to another. In view of the complexity of the regulations, I am glad to be able to tell your Lordships that an explanatory booklet is now being prepared and will soon be available to all who ire interested. It will contain typical example; of how the scheme will work out. It is. also proposed to issue leaflets to help those who will have to exercise options.
The interchangeability provisions will entail the extension and modification of the Local Government Superannuation Act, 1937, and many Local Act superannuation schemes will be similarly affected. Officers who have been subject to non-statutory superannuation provisions will, in some cases, and may in others, at the Minister's discretion, continue in their present scheme in the same conditions as hitherto. The most important of these non-statutory schemes are the Federated Superannuation Scheme for Nurses and Hospital Officers, and the Federated Superannuation System for Universities. Those subject to other schemes will be allowed to carry on with them if they can show that otherwise there would be undue hardship. An under-

943
taking has been given that any dispute as to hardship will be referred to tribunals set up to deal with compensation under Section 68 of the Act. Some, voluntary hospital officers have only an expectation of pension after long service, with no actual entitlement. The regulations provide that this expectation will be recognized and assessed, and, with Treasury approval, a supplementary payment will be made in addition to pension earned under the new scheme. This provision will be administered generously and sympathetically.
Finally, my Lords, I should point out that the regulations have been discussed in draft with some sixty-five representative bodies and have met with general satisfaction, and, so far as I am aware, no opposition. This can, I think, be taken as a certain indication of their completeness and soundness. I think, I may fairly claim that the scheme is an agreed scheme. I feel sure, therefore, that your Lordships will welcome these regulations as providing a superannuation scheme which will he of great value in promoting the efficiency and security of those entering the new Health Service. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Special Order, as reported from the Special Orders Committee on the 17th of July last, be approved.—(Lord Henderson.)
3.8 p.m.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, these regulations, for which you are asked to give an affirmative Resolution this afternoon, are highly complicated in character and very formidable in detail. Although a memorandum was submitted by the Minister of Health to the Special Orders Committee which slightly simplified the meaning of these draft regulations, it was regrettable that towards the end of last week there were insufficient copies placed in the Printed Paper Office by the Minister, and indeed there were no further copies for distribution. As the noble Lord himself has said, this draft Order affects some 300,000 people and, besides this vast number of individuals who are anxious to comprehend and understand the scheme, it is also the duty of both Houses of Parliament closely to scrutinize the contents of the Order. It seems, therefore, if I may say so, slightly unfortunate that this simplified version which
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the noble Lord tells us is now in course of preparation was not available to noble Lords and to another place before the consideration of this massive document. I sincerely hope that, if any further complicated regulations are made under this Act, the understanding of them may be made easier for your Lordships by the circulation well in advance of some simplified form of the Order.
It is not our intention to divide on this Resolution, but there are various questions I should like to ask and some criticisms I should like to make, and I have given notice to the noble Lord accordingly. This scheme, it is true, is a contributory scheme based upon remuneration and, as the noble Lord says, it is very similar to the one in operation for the Civil Service. I feel sure that the Government have every desire to be fair and equitable to all concerned. Indeed, if that were not so, the task of the Minister of Health to bring into the working of the Act those who have not yet decided to come in would be made infinitely more difficult. I think it would be well to recall that the medical profession, although having been brought into the discussion by the Minister, is not committed in any way whatever to the details embodied in this Order, nor indeed will they be so committed until they have further knowledge of all the other details which are necessary to deal with the Government's proposals under the principal Act, and, furthermore, until they have ascertained the views of the profession.
The few questions that I have to ask are very brief in character, and the first one is about transfer and interchangeability. As I understand this scheme, it provides a reasonable measure of interchangeability between the various parts of the Health Service and the other services which are subject to statutory superannuation schemes, including, I believe, the Civil Service and the local government service. But if your Lordships have followed this document carefully you will have observed that there is no provision at all for a medical officer who transfers from local government service to university service. It did seem to me that there might be one possible solution, if the universities had been regarded as employing authorities for the purposes of the draft regulations so far, and only so far, as the medical members of their departments were concerned.

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My next point deals with the somewhat technical question of what are called the "added years." I do myself believe that some concession should be made to doctors for their long period of training and, therefore, the relatively late age of entry into this scheme, winch in fact must prevent them from qualifying for the maximum possible pension at the normal retiring age. The non-medical staff can enter this scheme quite freely at the age of eighteen, and every day of their service counts for remuneration, but that is not the case with the medical officer, who is penalized, and bound to be penalized under this scheme, for the years which are spent in qualifying for his profession and which are not to be reckoned at all. It stands to reason that he cannot possibly enter the service before he is about twenty-three or twenty-four, and that he will be forced to retire at a later age than members of the non-medical staff who, as I have said, enter the service at eighteen.
So much for the young practitioner. As for the older doctor, I should myself have liked to see some concession by way of added years for the elderly doctor who will enter the service on the appointed day. Most of the pension benefits which are described in the Order are available after ten years, and if the retiring age were settled and stated to be sixty-five, the general effect would be to exclude from all the benefits most of the practitioners who were over the age of fifty-five on entry. It is clear that the noble Lord cannot concede me either of these points in these draft regulations, because your Lordships have to accept or reject them as a whole; you cannot amend them. But, if he is unable to concede me these points, perhaps he could give me an assurance that no medical practitioner who is entitled to enter the service will be denied the opportunity for superannuation because his age is such as to make him unable to complete the varying periods for the particular benefits which are mentioned. I attach some importance to that assurance, and I trust that the noble Lord will be able to give it to me.
Finally, I would refer your Lordships to the immediate cover proposals. In the draft regulations there is no form of immediate cover provided at all. The benefits are dependent entirely upon the qualifying period of ten years or five
946
years, as the case may be, and it does frankly seem to me that it would have been wiser to provide immediate cover for the practitioners against permanent incapacity and for the widow of a medical practitioner in the event of his death. At the same time, I should have liked to see embodied in this scheme a provision For an immediate minimum pension which would operate immediately on entry, even if such a scheme involved a higher rate of contribution to all concerned.
I apologize for delaying your Lordships for these few moments on these Orders, when there are other important matters to be dealt with. But, as the noble Lord has rightly said, these proposals are of the greatest importance to over 300,00o persons, and it is the responsibility of Parliament to examine carefully all of these draft Orders, more especially those draft Orders which amend other Acts of Parliament. As the time goes on this scheme may require considerable modification, and I certainly trust that the Minister will consider the proposals which have been, made during our brief discussion here and during the discussion which took place in another place. If it is not possible for him to accept any of these proposals to be embodied in these regulations, then at least he can give us the assurance that, in the event of the regulations having to be modified, the Minister will carefully consider all the points and all the proposals which have conic to mind during the course of our discussions. With those few remarks, I, on behalf of the noble Lords on this side of the House, support the Motion made by the noble Lord.
3.18 p.m.
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, I would first like to express my gratitude to the noble Earl for indicating that the draft regulations are not to be opposed, but will be accepted. I would also like to express my grateful appreciation to him for having been good enough to give me advanced notice of the particular points which he proposed to raise. .As we are all aware, the scheme is a very intricate and difficult scheme, but his action has enabled me to give, although not answers that will be wholly satisfactory to him, at least answers which do indicate that the points he has raised have been seriously considered.

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First of all, the noble Earl referred to the memorandum by the Minister which was attached to the draft regulations, and I can only say I am sorry if any noble Lord was unable to obtain a copy of this memorandum. I am not sure where the responsibility lies in such a matter but, if there is any fault resting with the Ministry of Health, I have no hesitation in offering an apology on their behalf. As regards the issue of the explanatory booklet, to which the noble Earl referred, I have a good deal of sympathy with him on this point. I think that both his August Bank Holiday task arid mine would have been much simpler if we had had a guide to the regulations that we are discussing this afternoon. But I think the noble Earl will realize that explanatory material for general distribution could not safely have been prepared and circulated until the scheme was in the form approved by Parliament. As I said earlier, the booklet and leaflets and other material are in course of preparation and will shortly be issued. This will greatly assist those who are concerned to understand arrangements which may affect their future careers.
As regards the question of transfer and interchangeability, the noble Earl pointed out that the scheme does not make any provision for medical officers who transfer from local government service to university service. That is quite true. The simple fact is that such interchange cannot be dealt with in these regulations. To provide what the noble Earl has in mind would, I am advised, be ultra vices the powers in the Act under which the regulations are made. But I should like to add that the Ministry are in sympathy with the point and it will be borne in mind when an opportunity offers itself for legislation amending the Local Government Superannuation Act, 1937.
As to the suggestion that the scheme should cover the staffs of medical schools, the terms of the Act are such that it can only cover those actually engaged in Health Services: its scope cannot be extended beyond the officers of such Services. The noble Earl also appealed for added years in respect of practitioners' training. I am afraid I cannot hold out my hope of this preferential treatment being given to doctors. Most professions require a lengthy training period, and if a concession allowing training years for doctors to be counted were made the
948
same concession would have to be accorded to every profession. No such concession appears in any existing scheme. All doctors in their last year in hospital after qualification will enter the new scheme. In the normal case this will mean that they are twenty-three or twenty-four years of age, and can look forward to forty years' service and to earning their full pension on retirement. That being the position, I do not think the arrangement involves any injustice or unfairness to the doctor.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I have it at the back of my mind that when we had occasion to recruit additional technical men at the Admiralty—civil engineers and people of that sort—we did have some requirement for giving added years.
LORD HENDERSON: I will certainly have the point looked into, but my information is that there is no public scheme at present under which it is done. The next point raised by the noble Earl was that of the elderly doctor. He invited me to give an assurance on that point. I cannot believe he had any great expectations that I should do so. This is another case where preferential treatment cannot be given. To give a concession would have repercussions on other groups within the scheme. The elderly practitioner has counted upon the proceeds from the sale of his practice to provide for his retirement. He can no longer sell his practice, but in lieu he will receive compensation under the Act. He will not be any worse off under this arrangement, but in addition he may earn something in the future under the new scheme. He may, for example, continue for an extra year or two instead of retiring at sixty-five in order to complete the qualifying period of ten years for pension.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: Provided the Minister allows it.
LORD HENDERSON: That is so, but I think I can give an assurance that the Minister will deal with it in a sympathetic and understanding manner. In any case, after five years, he will be entitled to any of the lump sum benefits. I think in these circumstances it does not appear that the case is unjust, as the noble Earl tended to indicate.
I come to the two points—the immediate cover and minimum pension. Both these points are aimed at securing a right

949
to a minimum benefit immediately on entry into the scheme without any qualifying period. The provision with regard to a qualifying period is contained in all existing public service schemes and there does not seem to be any good reason for departing from it in the present scheme. The matter was carefully considered when the principles of the scheme were being settled, and I cannot hold out any hope of the scheme being modified at this stage to provide for immediate cover and minimum pension. I will, however, bring the arguments of the noble Earl to the attention of the Minister, who will I am sure bear them in mind when the operations of the scheme are being reviewed.
The noble Earl finally asked whether the suggestions which had been made in the discussions in this House and elsewhere would be taken into consideration. Well, my Lords, no scheme can be regarded as definitive for all time. However much care is taken it is impossible to foresee everything. I suggest that the scheme before your Lordships is a good piece of work, but even so there may come to light defects which require amendment in the light of experience. Whatever modifications are found to be necessary will be made so that we may have a scheme that will be to the best advantage of all employed in our National Health Service. I think I have covered the various points raised by the noble Earl, and I hope that your Lordships will now be ready to give your approval to the regulations.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA (GOVERNOR'S ALLOWANCES AND PRIVILEGES) (AMENDMENT) ORDER, 1947. GOVERNMENT OF BURMA (GOVERNOR'S SALARY, ALLOWANCES AND PRIVILEGES) (AMENDMENT) ORDER, 1947. GOVERNMENT OF BURMA (HIGH COURT JUDGES) (AMENDMENT) ORDER, 1947.
LORD WALKDEN: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Secretary of State for India and Burma, I beg to move the Motion standing in his name.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, praying that the Orders be made in the form of drafts
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approved by the House on Thursday last.—(Lord Walkden.)
On Question, Motion agreed to and ordered accordingly: the said Address to be presented to His Majesty by the Loris with White Staves.

COMPANIES BILL. [H.L.]
3.29 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Consideration of Commons Amendments read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to Move that the Commons Amendments be now considered. Perhaps I may just say a word on these Amendments. The Amendments as a whole are of a drafting nature, and in due course, when the proper time comes, I am going to advise your Lordships that we can quite properly and without hesitation agree to all of them. I suggested to the two noble Lords who took a prominent part in connexion with these matters that they should see the officials of the Board of Trade and should go through the Amendments with them, is I feel fairly confident that, having done that, they would feel that there was no reason why we should object to any of them.
There is just this question which I may raise, however; your Lordships will want to know in connexion with these Amendments the time at which this measure is likely to come into force. Your, Lordships will remember that Clause 119 (2) provides that the Act shall come into force "on such day as the Board of Trade may by order appoint, and different days may be appointed for the purpose of different provisions thereof." We should not have introduced this Bill at all at this time of pressure unless we had thought it absolutely necessary to do so, and I cannot, therefore, give an absolute undertaking that the whole will not be brought into effect pending consolidation. On the other hand, in so far as it affects me, I consider that we should give a very high place in our order of priority to the consolidation of this measure, and I am hopeful that that will be done.
Subject to that general reservation, o it intentions are as follows: First, to bring into force without delay concessions and alleviations such as that relating to the disclosure by directors of their previous nationality or previous names. Secondly, to bring into force as soon as possible

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those provisions which place duties on the Board of Trade rather than on the business community; for instance, the powers with regard to investigations into the affairs of companies and to share ownership, as well as those relating to the names of companies and the registration of business names. Thirdly, it is of very great importance that the accounts provisions which are largely self-contained should be operative as soon as possible, and on the other hand it would not be fair to put these into operation without sufficient notice to all persons concerned who must adjust their accounts accordingly, and we do not think notice of less than six months would be proper. Fourthly, the enforcement of the detailed provisions will, if possible, be deferred until consolidation, but consideration will be given to any requests to bring into operation at an earlier date any provisions likely to be helpful to the business community, and naturally the Government reserve the right to bring into force any particular provisions which appear to them to be necessary in the national interests. I hope that in the next Session of Parliament it may be possible to introduce the necessary consolidation measure. This may be, perhaps, rather irregular, but I thought your Lordships would like to know these facts in considering these Amendments. I beg to move that the Commons Amendments be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons Amendments be now considered.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
3.35 p.m.
LORD RUSHCLIFFE: My Lords, the noble and learned Viscount has answered the questions I was going to put to him. The question of when this Bill will come into force is vitally important to secretaries, directors and auditors. It is also important that they should know if the powers of the Board of Trade are to be retrospective or not. With regard to consolidation, may I respectfully give My warmest support to what the noble and learned Viscount said? Many of the clauses in this Bill are already unintelligible to the layman, and indeed the most trained lawyer would have a good deal of difficulty in construing some of them. I had the interest and curiosity to go through the Bill, and there are no fewer
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than a hundred references to the principal Act and other references to other Acts. For the layman to construe such a Bill is quite impossible. Therefore, if I may say so, I warmly welcome the statement of the noble and learned Viscount that the greater part of it, at any rate, will not come into force until there has been a Consolidation Bill. I am sure your Lordships will welcome the statement made the other day to the effect that a special department of the Parliamentary draftsmen's office is to be set up to deal with consolidation, and is being put into the very competent and experienced hands of Sir Granville Ram. I hope this will be only one of the first matters to be treated by him. I am sure the House is very grateful for the information which the noble and learned Viscount has been good enough to give us.
3.37 p.m.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor for his irregularity. As regards the Amendments, I have been through them all, and I can agree very well with what the Lord Chancellor has said. Nearly all are either drafting or consequential emendations though there are one or two of substance. There were 353 Amendments to the Bill as introduced and there are twenty-six pages of further Amendments here. There could not very well be better evidence of the value of a bicameral Chamber than that, even when dealing with a Bill which is the result of extraordinary skilful drafting. As one who took considerable part in this, I would like to say that that is very largely due to the work of the Lord Chancellor himself, who took a tremendous amount of trouble the whole way through, and to the Board of Trade and those who have helped them, with certain assistance from some of us. I think we have made a practicable Bill.
As regards consolidation, I think what the Lord Chancellor has said is a very reasonable compromise. Provisions about business names have been obsolete for years and the sooner they are got rid of the better. I have been a keen advocate of placing the power of investigation on the Board of Trade, and the sooner those powers are given to the Board of Trade the better. The form of accounts has been entirely recast in the Bill, largely through the work of very able and practical accountants. I think the accounts

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are now in such a self-contained form that, provided six months' notice or so is given, it would not be a bad thing to bring them in. Your Lordships will remember that with regard to accounts, the parallel of the previous year has only to appear after a new system of accounts have been working for a full year, so it is not as if you are going to put a great deal of work of the past on to the companies. The problem of comparison of consolidated accounts will come into the second year. There is a wide latitude in the way these accounts are to be kept, and they very largely follow, and reasonably follow, what has been the practice of good companies. I think there is a good deal of practical advantage in bringing into force the new accounting system in reasonable time.
But for the rest these very complicated but necessary Amendments which have been made are wholly unintelligible at present, and the only way they can be made intelligible is by a Consolidation Bill, like that of 1929. I think the noble and learned Viscount's proposal is a very reasonable compromise, and I, for my part, would wish to expedite the passage of these Amendments.
3.40 p.m.
LORD RENNELL: My Lords, may I join with the noble Viscount who has just sat clown in expressing appreciation of what the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack has said? For my part, I concur with the observations of the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton. I think the Amendments which have been suggested by the other place to a very large extent amplify those that were expressed in the course of debates in your Lordships' House. In certain respects the Amendments go, perhaps, even further than some of your Lordships would have been inclined to go.
I do not think it would be right to let this moment pass without pointing out that at least two of the Amendments made in the other place are not of the comparatively small importance that might have been suggested by the remarks which the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack made. There are two in particular which. I think are of considerable importance, both of which commend themselves very much to me, at any rate, and I think probably to the noble Viscount who has just sat down. One
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is the Amendment which was introduced in the other place, arid is contained in the Amendments now before your Lordships, on the numbering of shares, which has been a very controversial and difficult point which most of us who have had to do with these matters have been advocating for years past. I think it is particularly gratifying that this should. have been introduced into this Bill. It will do away with a great deal of entirely unnecessary work.
The second point is one to which I think reference has already been made, about the insertion in directors' reports of substantial changes in the activities of companies. That is absolutely right, and it was perhaps given rather too little attention, in spite of the great care that was given to the Bill, in your Lordships' House. I myself am particularly happy to find that the vexed question of nominees has been satisfactorily settled, in conformity with what was advocated in your Lordships' House during the Committee stage. The additions which were made to what might be called the nominee group of clauses, giving a mandatory right to 200 members of a company, are obviously right, and although that was implicit in the powers given to the Board of Trade to conduct an investigation, I am glad to see it expressed explicitly as well.
I do not think there is more that I need say, except to congratulate, as the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, has done, all those in the Board of Trade who have been concerned in drafting, amending, and finally seeing this Bill through boll Houses of Parliament. I think they have every reason to be as gratified as we are to see this Bill pass. It is a Bill of far-reaching importance which, as your Lordships know, has been passed without any controversy in your Lordships' House, with the maximum possible co-operation between all persons concerned. I am very young and unversed in the procedure of your Lordships' House, but I do not think there are any points on which those of us who took part in the Committee stage of this Bill would wish to differ from the Amendments which have come to us from another place. I, for my part, shall be very glad to see these Amendments accepted en bloc without any further discussion.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS.
[The references are to Bill No. 47.]
Clause 3, page 4, line 24, leave out ("their expense,") and insert ("the expense of the requisitionists")
Page 5, line 26, at end, insert—
("Provided that if, after a copy of a requisition requiring notice of a resolution has been deposited at the registered office of the company, an annual general meeting is called for a date six weeks or less after the copy has been deposited, the copy though not deposited within the time required by this subsection shall be deemed to have been properly deposited for the purposes thereof.")
Page 5, line 26, at end, insert—
("(5) The company shall also not be bound under this section to circulate any statement if, on the application either of the company or of any other person who claims to be aggrieved, the court is satisfied that the rights conferred by this section are being abused to secure needless publicity for defamatory matter; and the court may order the company's costs on an application under this section to be paid in whole or in part by the requisitionists, notwithstanding that they are not parties to the application.")
Clause 4, page 5, line 44, after ("members,") insert ("having the right to vote at the meeting")
Clause 5, page 6, line 29, at end, insert—
("(a) this subsection shall not apply in the case of a company not having a share capital; and")
Clause 5, page 6, line 34, after ("company,") insert ("having a share capital")
Page 7, line 9, after ("thereat,") insert ("by proxy")
Page 7, line 18, at end, insert ("by proxy")
Clause 7, page 8, line 3, after ("company,") insert ("as defined in subsection (4) of Section fifty-four of this Act")
Clause 9, page 8, line 29, leave out ("petitioner's shares,") and insert ("shares of any members of the company")
Page 9, line 12, at end insert ("and proceedings under this section shall, for the purposes of Part V of the Economy (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1926 (which relates to the Bankruptcy and Companies Winding-up (Fees) Account), be deemed to be proceedings under the principal Act in relation to the winding-up of companies.")
Clause 13, page 11, leave out lines 28 to 31.
Line 37, at end insert—
("(4) The Board of Trade may, on the application or with the consent of a company's directors, modify in relation to that company any of the requirements of the principal Act or this Act as to the matters to be stated in a company's balance sheet or profit and loss account (except the requirements of subsection (1) of this section) for the purpose of adapting them to the circumstances of the company.").
Page 12, line 24, leave out from beginning, to ("imposes,") and insert ("any other provision of that Act in so far as it")
Clause 15, page 14, line 22, leave out from ("accounts,") to ("or,") in line 23, and insert ("dealing respectively with the company and one group of subsidiaries and with other groups of subsidiaries")
Clause 16, page 14, line 34, at end insert ("unless the Board of Trade on the application or with the consent of the holding company's directors otherwise direct")
Clause 18, page 15, line 43, leave out ("the,") and insert ("that other")
Page 16, leave out lines 3 to 6.
Page 16, line 32, at end insert ("for the purposes of a transaction entered into in the ordinary course of that business")
Page 16,line 39, leave out from ("which") to ("right") in line 4o, and insert ("neither as respects dividends nor as respects capital, carries any")
After Clause 18, insert the following new clause—
("Directors' report.
The report under subsection (2) of Section one hundred and twenty-three of the principal Act of a company's directors shall deal, so far as is material for the appreciation of the state of the company's affairs by its members and will not in the directors' opinion be harmful to the business of the company or of any of its subsidiaries, with any change during the financial year in the nature of the company's business, or in the company's subsidiaries, or in the classes of business in which the company has an interest, whether as member of another company or otherwise.")
Clause 20, page 17, line 6, after the second ("and,") insert ("so far as not incorporated in the balance sheet or profit and loss account, any")
Clause 20, page 17, line 16, after ("company,") insert ("having a share capital")
Clause 22, page 18, line 35, leave out from beginning to ("practised,") in line 36 and insert ("obtained adequate knowledge and experience in the course of his employment by a member of a body of accountants recognised for the purposes of the foregoing paragraph or as having before the passing of this Act")
Clause 22, page 18, line 39, after ("company,") insert ("as defined in subsection (4) of section fifty-four of this Act")
Clause 22, page 18, line 40, leave out subsection (2).
Page 19, line 16, leave out from beginning to ("and") in line 17.
Page 19, line 21, at end insert ("as defined in subsection (4) of Section fifty-four of this Act")
Page 19,line 21, at end insert—
("Nothing in this subsection shall be taken to exclude the application, in relation to the said subsection (1), of the definition of "officer" hereafter contained in this Act.")
Page 19, line 27, at end insert—
"(5) Notwithstanding anything in the foregoing provisions of this section, a Scottish firm

957
shall be qualified for appointment as auditor of a company, if, but only if, all the partners are qualified for appointment as auditor thereof.")
Clause 23, page 20, line 12, after ("the") insert ("retiring")
Clause 23, page 20, line 27, at end insert—
("Provided that copies of the representations need not be sent out and the representations need not be read out at the meeting if, on the application either of the company or of any other person who claims to be aggrieved, the court is satisfied that the rights conferred by this section are being abused to secure needless publicity for defamatory matter; and the court may order the company's costs on an application under this section to be paid in whole or in part by the auditor, notwithstanding that he is not a party to the application.")
Clause 23, page 20, line 27, at end insert—
("(6) Where notice is given of an intended resolution to appoint some person or persons instead of a retiring auditor, and by reason of the death, incapacity or disqualification of that person or of all those persons, as the case may be, the resolution cannot be proceeded with, the retiring auditor shall not be automatically reappointed by virtue of subsection (1) of this section.")
Clause 24, page 21, line 11, at end insert—
("Provided that any information which is required by the principal Act or this Act to be given in accounts and is thereby allowed to be given in a statement annexed may be given in the directors' report instead of the accounts and, if any such information is so given, the report shall be annexed to the accounts and the principal Act and this Act shall apply in relation thereto accordingly, except that the auditors shall report thereon only so far as it gives the said information.")
Clause 25, page 21, line 14, at end insert ("nor shall any company—

(a) have as secretary to the company a corporation the sole director of which is a sole director of the company; or

(b) have as sole director of the company a corporation the sole director of which is secretary to the company.")

Clause 26, page 22, line 20, at end insert—
("(5) In subsection (1) of the said Section one hundred and forty-four the words 'or managers' shall cease to have effect.")
Line 21, leave out from beginning to ("and,") in line 23, and insert—
("The particulars required by subsection (1) of the said Section one hundred and forty-four in the case of an individual who is a director within the meaning of that section

(a) shall, in the case of a company subject to Section thirty of this Act, include the date of his birth and shall, in the case of any company, include particulars of any other directorships held by him; except as mentioned in the following paragraph;

(b) need not in any case include—

(i) particulars of directorships held by him in companies of which the company is the wholly-owned subsidiary, or which are the wholly-owned subsidiaries either

958

of the company or of another company of which the company is the wholly-owned subsidiary; or

(ii) his nationality of origin, if his nationality is not his nationality of origin.")

Line 34, at end insert ("and for the purposes of paragraph (b) of the last foregoing subsection—

(a) the expression 'company,' shall include any body corporate incorporated in Great Britain; and.

(b) a body corporate shall be deemed to be the wholly-owned subsidiary of another if it has no members except that other and that other's wholly-owned subsidiaries and its or their nominees.")

Line 34, at end insert—
("(7) For sub-paragraph (ii) of the said paragraph (e) (which excludes, in the case of natural born British subjects, names changed or disused at an age less than eighteen) there shall be substituted the following sub-paragraph:—
(ii) in the case of any person, a former christian name or surname where that name or surname was changed or disused before the person bearing the name attained the age of eighteen years or has been changed or disused for a period of not less than twenty years; or'")
Clause 28, page 23, line 26, at end insert("and the director (whether or not he is a member of the company) shall be entitled to be heard on the resolution at the meeting.
(3) Where notice is given of an intended resolution to remove a director under this section and the director concerned makes with respect thereto representations in writing to the company (not exceeding a reasonable length) and requests their notification to members of the company, the company shall, unless the representations are received by it too late for it to do so—

(a) in any notice of the resolution given to members of the company state the fact of the representations having been made; and

(b) send a copy of the representations to every member of the company to whom notice of the meeting is sent (whether before or after receipt of the representations by the company);

and if a copy of the representations is not sent as aforesaid because received too late or because of the company's default the director may (without prejudice to his right to be heard orally) require that the representations shall he read out at the meeting:
Provided that copies of the representations need not be sent out and the representations need not be read out at the meeting if, on the application either of the company or of any other person who claims to be aggrieved. the court is satisfied that the rights conferred by this section are being abused to secure needless publicity for defamatory matter; and the court may order the company's costs on an application under this section to be paid in whole or in part by the director, notwith-

959
standing that he is not a party to the application.")
Line 27, leave out the second ("the,") and insert ("a").
Clause 29, page 23, line 43, leave out ("other than a private company,") and insert ("which is subject to this section").
Page 24, line 1, leave out ("other than a private company,") and insert ("which is subject to this section").
Page 25, line 5, at end insert—
("(8) A company shall be subject to this section if it is not a private company or if, being a private company, it is the subsidiary of a body corporate incorporated in the United Kingdom which is neither a private company nor a company registered under the law relating to companies for the time being in force in Northern Ireland and having provisions in its constitution which would, if it had been registered in Great Britain, entitle it to rank as a private company; and for the purposes of any other section of this Act which refers to a company subject to this section a company shall be deemed to be subject to this section notwithstanding that all or any of the provisions thereof are excluded or modified by the company's articles.")
Clause 30, page 25, line 6, leave out subsection (1), and insert—
("(1) Any person who is appointed or to his knowledge proposed to be appointed director of a company subject to the last foregoing section at a time when he has attained any retiring age applicable to him as director either under this Act or under the company's articles shall give notice of his age to the company:
Provided that this subsection shall not apply in relation to a person's reappointment on the termination of a previous appointment as director of the company.")
Page 25, line 13, leave out ("disclose,") and insert ("give notice of")
Page 25, line 25, leave out subsection (4).
After Clause 30, insert the following new clause—
("Amendment of s. 140 of principal Act.
References in Section one hundred and forty of the principal Act (which restricts the appointment or advertisement of a director) to the share qualification of a director or proposed director shall be construed as including only a share qualification required on appointment or within a period determined by reference to the time of appointment, and references in that section to qualification shares shall be construed accordingly.")
Clause 31, page. 25, line 31, after ("convicted,") insert ("on indictment")
page 26, line leave out subsection (3) and insert—
("(3) A person intending to apply for the making of an order under this section by the court having jurisdiction to wind up a company shall give not less than ten days' notice of his intention to the person against whom the order is sought, and on the hearing of the application the last mentioned person may appear and himself given evidence or call witnesses.")
Clause 32, page 27, line 12, at end insert—
("(3) This section shall not apply to remuneration clue before it comes into force or in respect of a period before it comes into force.")
Clause 32, page 27, line 20, after ("company") insert ("as defined in subsection (4) of Section fifty-four of this Act")
Clause 33, page 27, line 20, at end insert—
("(b) to anything done by a subsidiary, where the director is its holding company; or")
Clause 34, page 29, line 41, leave out the first ("or,") and insert ("superannuation")
Clause 35, page 29, line 44, after ("company,") insert ("not being its holding company")
Clause 35, Page 30, line 4, at end insert—
("Provided that the register need not include shares in any body corporate which is the wholly-owned subsidiary of another body corporate, and for this purpose a body corporate shall be deemed to be the wholly-owned subsidiary of another if it has no members but that other and that other's wholly-owned subsidiaries and its or their nominees.")
Clause 35,Page 30, line 7, leave out ("by him")
Clause 35,Page 30, line 14, leave out from beginning, to ("any,") in line 15, and insert ("The nature and extent of a director's interest or right in or over")
Clause 35,Page 30, line 16, leave out ("that fact")
Page 31, line 18, leave out ("right or power,") and insert ("or right")
line 20, leave out ("right or power,") and insert ("or right")
Clause 36, page 32, line 27, leave out the first ("or,") and insert ("superannuation")
Clause 36, Page 33, line 21, leave out from ("distinguish,") to end of line 22.
Clause 36, Page 33, line 25, after ("from,") insert ("the company")
Clause 36, Page 33, line 44, leave out ("separately")
Clause 36, Page 33, line 45, at end insert ("or in a statement annexed thereto and shall be distinguished from the amounts to be shown therein apart from this provision")
Clause 37, page 34, line 33, after ("made,") insert ("to an officer of the company or to any such person as aforesaid")
Clause 37, page 34, line 37, at end insert ("but as if any reference in subsection (2) of that section to the company were a reference to the subsidiary")
Clause 37, page 34, leave out lines 38 to 47.
Clause 37, page 34,Page 35, line 2, leave out from ("referring,") to ("whether.") in line 4, and insert ("to a subsidiary at the end of the company's financial year")
Clause 39, page 36, line 6, leave out from ("any,") to ("director,") in line 7.
Clause 39, page 36, line 8, leave out ("directors,") and insert ("company")
Page 36, line 18, at end insert—
"(b) for the purposes of the second and third of them, in relation to persons who are or have at any time during the preceding five years been officers; and"
Clause 40, page 37, line 2, after the first ("of,") insert ("not less than")
Clause 40, page 37, line 22, leave out ("and,") and insert ("or to"
Clause 40, page 37, line 23, leave out ("and agents,") and insert ("or agents as the case may be")
Clause 40, page 37, line 23, at end insert ("for the purposes of that section")
Clause 41, page 39, leave out lines 26 and 27.
Clause 42, page 40, line 10, at end insert ("or a petition for an order under Section nine of this Act, or both")
Clause 44, page 42, line 18, at end insert—
("(3) Where an application for an investigation under this section with respect to particular shares or debentures of a company is made to the Board of Trade by members of the company, and the number of applicants or the amount of the shares held by them is not less than that required for an application for the appointment of an inspector under Section one hundred and thirty-five of the principal Act, the Board of Trade shall appoint an inspector to conduct the investigation, unless they are satisfied that the application is vexatious, and the inspector's appointment shall not exclude from the scope of his investigation any matter which the application seeks to have included therein, except in so far as the Board of Trade are satisfied that it is unreasonable for that matter to be investigated."
Page 43, line 27, leave out ("the section of this Act relating,") and insert ("Section forty-two of this Act which relates")
Page 43, line 46, leave out ("unless they think fit,") and insert ("or with a complete copy thereof if they are of opinion that there is good reason for not divulging the contents of the report or of parts thereof, but shall cause to be kept by the registrar a copy of any such report, or as the case may be, the parts of any such report, as respects which they are not of that opinion")
Clause 45, page 43, line 12, leave out ("on behalf,") and insert ("as the solicitor or agent").
Clause 46, page 43, line 38, after ("concerned") insert ("or any of them");
Page 44, line 7, leave out ("dividends,") and insert ("otherwise").
Clause 48, page 45, line 24, at beginning insert ("Where the company keeps an index of the names of its members under Section ninety-six of the principal Act, the index shall be at all times kept at the same place as the register of members, and");
Clause 48, page 45, line 39, after ("default,") insert ("in complying with subsection (2) of this section or makes default").
Clause 50, page 46, line 26, leave out ("twenty-eight,") and insert ("forty-two").
Clause 51, page 46, line 43, at end insert ("and in the said Sections one hundred and eight and one hundred and nine references to the particulars required by that Act to be contained with respect to directors in the said register shall be construed as referring to the particulars required by that Act and this Act to be contained therein with respect to the company's directors").
Page 47, line 26, at end insert—
"((4) In the case of a company keeping a dominion register,—

(a) references in the last foregoing subsection to the particulars required by subsections (1) and (2) of the said Section cane hundred and eight shall be taken as not including any such particulars contained in the dominion register, in so far as copies of the entries containing those particulars are not received at the registered office of the company before the date when the return in question is made; and

(b) where an annual return is made between the date when any entries are made in the dominion register and the date when copies of those entries are received at the registered office of the company, the particulars contained in those entries, so far as relevant to an annual return, shall be included in the next or a subsequent annual return as may be appropriate having regard to the particulars included in that return with respect to the company's principal register").

Clause 52, page 48, line 28, at end, insert—
("(3) A prosecution shall not be instituted in England in respect of any failure of a private company to comply with subsection (3) of Section one hundred and ten of the principal Act except by or with the consent of the Board of Trade.")
Clause 53, page 49, line to, after ("to") insert ("paragraph (h) of subsection (1) and subsection (2) of Section one hundred and nine and")
Clause 58, page 51, line 31, after ("applicant,") insert ("for permission")
Page 52, line 7, leave out subsections (5) and (6) and insert—
("(5) Section ninety-four of the principal Act shall have effect as if in subsection (1) thereof (which restricts the right of a company to commence business or exercise borrowing powers in cases where the company has issued a prospectus inviting the public to subscribe for its shares) there were inserted. after paragraph (b) thereof the following paragraph—
'(bb) no money is or may become liable to he repaid to applicants for any shares or debentures which have been offered for public subscription by reason of any failure to apply for or obtain permission for the shares or debentures to be dealt in on any stock exchange and'")
Clause 60, page 55, line 18, leave out from beginning to ("the,") in line 31, and insert—
("(a) in addition to dealing separately with the company's profits or losses, to dad either—

963

(i) as a whole with the combined profits or losses of its subsidiaries, so far as they concern members of the company; or

(ii) individually with the profits or losses of each subsidiary, so far as they concern members of the company;

or, instead of dealing separately with the company's profits or losses, to deal as a whole with the profits or losses of the company and, so far as they concern members of the company, with the combined profits or losses of its subsidiaries; and
(b) in addition to dealing separately with the company's assets and liabilities, to deal either—

(i) as a whole with the combined assets and liabilities of its subsidiaries, with or without the company's assets and liabilities; or

(ii) individually with the assets and liabilities of each subsidiary; and to indicate as respects the assets and liabilities of the subsidiaries.")

Page 56, line 16, leave out ("to be auditors of a company,") and insert ("for appointment as auditors of a company which is not an exempt private company, as defined in subsection (4) of Section fifty-four of this Act, and shall not be made by any accountant who is an officer or servant or a partner of or in the employment of an officer or servant, of the company or of the company's subsidiary or holding company or of a subsidiary of the company's holding company; and for the purposes of this subsection the expression officer shall include a proposed director but not an auditor").
Clause 60, page 55, line 18, leave out subsection (7).
Clause 61, page 56, line 35, after ("not,") insert ("before delivery of a copy of the prospectus for registration")
Page 57, line 12, leave out ("or,") and insert ("therein, or have without giving the reasons")
Clause 61, page 57, line 16, leave out ("made")
Clause 63, page 59, line 33, leave out ("the issue of the prospectus,") and insert ("delivery of a copy of the prospectus for registration")
Clause 63, page 59, line 35, leave out ("the issue of the prospectus,") and insert ("delivery of a copy of the prospectus for registration")
Page 60, line 2, leave out paragraph (b) and insert—
("(b) that person had given the consent required by this Act to the issue of the prospectus and had not withdrawn that consent before delivery of a copy of the prospectus for registration or, to the defendant's knowledge, before allotment thereunder.")
Clause 65, page 61, line 9, leave out subsection (1) and insert—
("(1) In subsection (1) of Section twenty-seven of the principal Act (which requires a company ceasing to be a private company to deliver to the registrar of companies a
964
prospectus or a statement in lieu of prospectus complying with the Third Schedule to that Act) the words 'a prospectus or' shall cease to have effect; but a statement in lieu of prospectus need not be delivered under that subsection if within the period allowed for its delivery a prospectus relating to the company which complies or is deemed to comply by virtue of a certificate of exemption under this Act with the Fourth Schedule to the principal Act, is issued and is delivered to the registrar of companies as required by Section thirty-four of that Act.
(2) A statement in lieu of prospectus delivered to the registrar of companies under the principal Act—

(a) where, in the case of a statement delivered under the said Section twenty-seven, unissued shares or debentures of the company—

(i) are to be applied in the purchase of a business; or

(ii) are to be applied directly or indirectly in any manner resulting in the acquisition of shares in a body corporate which by reason of the acquisition or anything to be done in consequence thereof or in connection therewith will become a subsidiary of the company; or

(b) where, in the case of a statement delivered under Section forty of the principal Act (which relates to companies allotting shares or debentures without having issued a prospectus on their formation or without having proceeded to allot the shares offered by any prospectus so issued), it is proposed to acquire a business or shares in such a body corporate as aforesaid;

shall set out the like reports as would be required by paragraph 2 of Part II of the Fourth Schedule to the principal Act, if the statement were a prospectus issued on the date on which the statement is delivered to the registrar and if the said paragraph z applied to it and to the purchase or acquisition.
So much of the Third and Fifth Schedules to the principal Act so requires a statement in lieu of prospectus to contain particulars with respect to businesses to be purchased or acquired shall cease to have effect").
Page 61, line 31, leave out ("prospectus or")
Page 62, line 1, leave out ("prospectus or")
Page 62, line 1, leave out lines 27 to 33.
Page 62, line 1, line 35, leave out from ("invitation") to the second ("and") in line 37 and insert ("to be treated as made to the public if it can properly be regarded, in all the circumstances, as not being calculated to result, directly or indirectly, in the shares or debentures becoming available for subscription or purchase by persons other than those receiving the offer or invitation, or otherwise as being a domestic concern of the persons making and receiving it,")
Page 63, line 10, leave out ("((1) and (2),") and insert ("(2) and (3)")
After Clause 66, insert the following new clause:
("Numbering of shares.
.—(1) If at any time all the issued shares in a company or all the issued shares therein of a particular class, are fully paid up and rank pari passu for all purposes, none of those shares need thereafter have a distinguishing number (as required by subsection (2) of Section sixty-two of the principal Act) so long as it remains fully paid up and ranks pari passu for all purposes with all shares of the same class for the time being issued and fully paid up.
(2) Accordingly in subsection (1) of Section ninety-five and subsection (1) of Section ninety-seven of the principal Act (which relate to the particulars to be entered in the register of members as to registered and bearer shares respectively) after the words "distinguishing each share by its number," there shall be inserted the words "so long as the share has a number").
Clause 71, page 66, line 10, leave out from ("kept") to second ("of,") in line 11 and insert ("including those relating to giving information to the registrar and in the annual return")
Page 66, line 16, at end insert ("and for the purposes of the said provisions, where part of any such register is kept in and part outside Great Britain, the part kept in Great Britain shall be treated as the company's principal register and the part kept outside shall be treated as a dominion register")
Clause 72, page 67, line 1, after ("present.") insert ("and voting")
Clause 73, page 68, line 2, leave out ("has no share capital,") and insert ("is not limited by shares")
Page 69, line 27, leave out subsection (6).
Page 69, line 29, at end insert:
("(11) Where a resolution purporting to alter the provisions of a company's memorandum with respect to the objects of the company is passed after the coming into force of this section the validity of the alteration shall not be questioned on the ground that it was not authorised by subsection (1) of Section five of the principal Act, except in proceedings taken for the purpose (whether under this section or otherwise) before the expiration of twenty-one days after the date of the resolution; and where any such proceedings are taken otherwise than under this section the two last foregoing subsections shall apply in relation thereto as if they had been taken under this section and as if an order declaring the alteration invalid were an order cancelling it and as if an order dismissing the proceedings were an order confirming the alteration.")
After Clause 73, insert the following new clause:
("Additional power to alter memorandum.
.—(1) Notwithstanding anything in Section four of the principal Act (which prohibits the alteration, except in accordance with that Act, of the conditions contained in a company's memorandum), any condition so contained which could lawfully have been con-
966
tained in articles of association instead of in the memorandum may, subject to the provisions of this section, be altered by the company by special resolution.
(2) This section shall not apply 'where the memorandum itself provides for or prohibits the alteration of all or any of the said conditions, and shall not authorise any variation or abrogation of the special rights of any class of members.
(3) An application may be made to the court for any alteration made by virtue of this section in the conditions of a company's memorandum to be cancelled, and in relation to any such alteration and to any application made under this section, subsection (2), sub-section (3) (except paragraph (b)) and subsections (4), (5). (9) and (10) of Section seventy-three of this Act shall apply as they apply in relation to alterations of a company's objects and to applications made under that section.
(4) This section shall have effect subject to the provisions of Section nine of this Act and of Section twenty-two of the principal Act. (which provides that certain alterations 0f a. company's memorandum or articles imposing a liability on members shall not bind. existing, members without their consent).
(5) This section shall apply to a company's memorandum whether registered before or after the section comes into force.")
Clause 74, page 69, line 31, at end insert—
("(2) For subsection (2) of Section nineteen of the principal Act (which authorises a company to change its name if the name is identical with that by which a company in existence is previously registered or so closely resembles it as to be calculated to deceive) there shall be substituted the following subsection:—
"(2) If, through inadvertence or otherwise, a company on its first registration or on its registration by a new name is registered by a name which in the opinion of the Board of Trade is too like the name by which a company in existence is previously registered, the first mentioned company may change its name with the sanction of the Board and, if they so direct within six months of its being registered by that name, shall change it within a period of six weeks from the date of the direction or such longer period as the Board may think fit to allow.
If a company makes default in complying with a direction under this subsection, it shall be liable to a fine not exceeding five pounds for every day during which the default continues.")
Page 70, line 1, leave out from ("name,") to ("shall,") in line 3.
Clause 76, page 70, line 36, leave out from ("for,") to end of line 37, and insert ("the purposes of a transaction entered into by it in the ordinary course of a business which includes the lending of money")
Clause 87, page 79, line 14, leave out ("one,") and insert ("two")
Clause 87, page 79, line 33, at end insert—
("(4) For the purposes of the said Sections two hundred and sixty-four and two hundred and ninety-eight any remuneration in respect.

967
of a period of holiday or of absence from work through sickness or other good cause shall be deemed to be wages in respect of services rendered to the company during that period.
(5) The debts which are to be paid in priority under the said Section two hundred and sixty-four shall include all accrued holiday remuneration becoming payable to a clerk, servant, workman, or labourer (or in the case of his death to any other person in his right) on the termination of his employment with the company before or by the effect of the winding up order or resolution; and in relation to any sums payable in priority by virtue of this subsection, subsection (3) of the said Section two hundred and sixty-four and paragraphs (3) and (5) of the said Section two hundred and ninety-eight shall apply as they apply in relation to wages.
(6) For the purposes of this section—

(a) the expression 'accrued holiday remuneration' includes in relation to any person, all sums which, by virtue either of his contract of employment or of any enactment (including any order made or direction given under any Act), are payable on account of the remuneration which would in the ordinary course have become payable to him in respect of a period of holiday had his employment with the company continued until he became entitled to be allowed the holiday; and

(b) references to remuneration in respect of a period of holiday include any sums which, if they had been paid, would have been treated for the purposes of the National Insurance Act, 1946, or any enactment repealed by that Act as remuneration in respect of that period.")

Page 80, line 8, leave out ("(3,)" and insert ("(6)")
Page 80, line 13, after ("holders,") insert ("with the substitution in subsection (5) for the reference to the winding up order or resolution of a reference to the appointment of the receiver or possession being taken, by or on behalf of the debenture holders, of the company's property.")
Clause 88, page 80, line 29, leave out subsections (2) and (3) and insert—
("(2) Where, in the case of a company wound up in England, anything made or done after the coming into force of this section is void under the said Section two hundred and sixty-five as a fraudulent preference of a person interested in property mortgaged or charged to secure the company's debt, then (without prejudice to any rights or liabilities arising apart from this provision) the person preferred shall be subject to the same liabilities, and shall have the same rights, as if he had undertaken to be personally liable as surety for the debt to the extent of the charge on the property or the value of his interest, whichever is the less.
(3) The value of the said person's interest shall be determined as at the date of the transaction constituting the fraudulent preference, and shall be determined as if the interest were free of all incumbrances other than those to which the charge for the company's debt was then subject.")
Page 81, line 21, at end insert—
("This subsection shall apply, with the necessary modifications, in relation to transactions other than the payment of money as it applies in relation to payments.")
Clause 89, page 81, line 28, leave out from ("thereof") to the end of line 29.
Clause 92, page 84, line 10, after ("were") insert ("not")
Clause 93, page 84, line 31, leave out ("compulsory")
Clause 103, page 93, line 33, at end insert—
("Provided that subsection (6) of the said Section three hundred and thirty-three (which saves any existing power to alter the constitution of a company registering under Part IX of the principal Act) shall not restrict the operation of subsection (3) of Section nine of this Act.
(2) in Section three hundred and thirty-four of the principal Act (which empowers a company registering under Part IX thereof to substitute a memorandum and articles for its deed of settlement) for the reference to the provisions of that Act with respect to confirmation by the court and registration of an alteration of the objects of the company there shall be substituted a reference to section seventy-three of this Act, and for the reference to registration of the alteration being certified by the registrar there shall be substituted a reference to delivery to the registrar of a printed copy of the substituted memorandum and articles or the date when the alteration is no longer liable to be cancelled by order of the court, whichever last occurs.")
Clause 104, page 94, line 10, leave out from ("Parliament,") to ("and,") in line 13.
Clause 105, page 94, line 42, leave out ("Records,") and insert ("Record")
Clause 106, page 95, line 16, after the second ("has,") insert ("before delivery of a copy of the prospectus for registration")
Clause 106, page 96, line 4, leave out ("or,") and insert ("in the report, or have without giving the reasons")
Clause 106, page 96, line 7, leave out ("made")
Clause 108, page 97, line 36, leave out from ("had,") to ("extended,") in line 37, and insert ("Section fifty-four of, and the Third Schedule to, this Act")
Clause 109, page 98, line 10, at end, insert—
("(2) In paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of the said Section three hundred and forty-four, the reference to such particulars as are by the principal Act required to be contained with respect to directors in the register of directors of a company shall be taken as including—

(a) in relation to name and nationality, the particulars, but only the particulars, required by that Act, as amended by this Act;

(b) in relation to directorships, as including the particulars, but only the particulars required by that Act as originally enacted;

and as not including particulars of date of birth as required by this Act.")
Clause 111, page 98, line 24, leave out ("and (2),") and insert ("to (6)")
Clause 111, page 98, line 27, at end, insert ("but with the substitution for references to the company and to the winding up order or resolution of references to the bankrupt and to the receiving order or, in the case of a person dying insolvent, to the deceased and to his death, and also with the omission of so much of subsection (5) of the said section of this Act as relates to subsection (3) of Section two hundred and sixty-four of the principal. Act")
Page 99, line 1, leave out ("winding-up,") and insert ("a company")
Page 99, line 15, at end, insert—
("(7) In the application of this section to Scotland, references to the receiving order shall be construed as references to the award of sequestration.")
Clause 112, page 99, line 30, at end, insert—
("(4) So much of Section twenty-two of the Registration of Business Names Act, 1916, as provides that references in that Act to a former Christian name or surname or to a change of name shall have any special meaning in the case of natural born British subjects shall cease to have effect, and—

(a) references in that Act to a former Christian name or surname shall not, in the case of any person, include a former Christian name or surname where that name or surname has been changed or disused before the person bearing the name had attained the age of eighteen years or has been changed or disused for a period of not less than twenty years; and

(b) an individual or firm shall not require to he registered under that Act by reason only of a change of his name, or of the name of a member of the firm, if the change has taken place before the person who has changed his name has attained the age of eighteen years or if not less than twenty years have elapsed since it took place.

(5) Where by virtue of the last foregoing subsection an individual or firm registered under the Registration of Business Names Act, 1916, no longer requires to be so registered—

(a) the registrar, if so requested by the individual or firm, shall remove him or it from the register; and

(b) Section eleven of that Act shall no longer require the individual or firm to keep exhibited the certificate of registration or a copy thereof;

and where, in any other case, the particulars registered under that Act in respect of any individual or firm include a former name or surname which by virtue of the last foregoing subsection no longer requires to be included among those particulars, the registrar, if so requested by the individual or firm, shall amend the particulars by leaving out that name or surname.")
Clause 113, page 1oo, line 1, leave out paragraph (c) and insert—
970
("(c) after paragraph 2 there shall be inserted the following paragraph—
'2A. For prohibiting or restricting the issue by or on behalf of the manager of advertisements, circulars or other documents containing any statement with respect to the sale price of units, or the payments or other benefits received or likely to be received by holders of units, or containing any invitation to buy units, unless the document in question also contains a statement of the yield from the units.'")
Clause 114, page 101, line 5, leave out from ("thirteen,") to ("to,") in line 8, and insert—

("(a) to a prospectus to which Section thirty-five of the principal Act applies shall include a reference to a prospectus to which that section would apply if not excluded by Section sixty-two of this Act;

(b) to a prospectus complying with said Section thirty-five shall be construed as a reference to its complying with that section as amended by this Act or not being required to comply therewith because excluded by Section sixty-two of this Act.

(c) to a prospectus complying with Part III of the principal Act shall he construed as a reference to its complying therewith as so amended;

(d)")

Clause 116, page 102, line 17, after ("the") insert ("requirements of the principal Act and this Act as to the matters to be stated in a company's balance sheet, profit and loss account and group accounts, and in particular those of the");
Clause 116, page 102, line 34, after ("up,") insert ("and in subsection (4) of Section three hundred and two thereof (which provides for payment of interest on sums standing to the credit of a company's liquidation account)").
Clause 117, page 103, line 3, leave out from ("requirements") to ("unless,") and insert ("therein referred to").
Clause 118, page 103, line 39, at end insert—
("the expression "accounts" includes a company's group accounts, whether prepared in the form of accounts or not");
Clause 118, leave out lines 42 to 45.
Page 104, line 24, at end insert—
("(5) In the principal Act and in this Act the expression "agent," shall not include parson's counsel acting as such").
First Schedule, page 105, line 33, leave cut from beginning, to end of line 43, and insert ("and for the purposes of this paragraph the net amount at which any assets stand in the company's books at the date of the coming info force of this Schedule (after deduction of the amounts previously provided or written off for depreciation or diminution in value) shall, if the figures relating to the period before that date cannot be obtained without unreasonable expense or delay, be treated as if it were the amount of a valuation of those assets made at that date and, where any of these assets are sold, the said net amount less the amount of the sales shall be treated as if it

971
were the amount of a valuation so made of the remaining assets.");
Page 106, line 17, leave out from beginning, to ("sub-paragraph,") and insert ("in accordance with");
Page 106, line 19, leave out ("paragraphs (a) and (i),") and insert ("paragraph (a)");
Page 106, line 21, leave out ("paragraphs (6) and (ii),") and insert ("paragraph (b)");
Page 106, line 24, leave out ("by any of the said methods,") and insert ("in accordance with the said sub-paragraph (1)").
Page 107, line 47, at end insert—
("(3) The heading showing the amount of the quoted investments other than trade investments shall be sub-divided, where necessary, to distinguish the investments as respects which there has, and those as respects which there has not, been granted a quotation or permission to deal on a recognised stock exchange")
Page 108, line 30, at end, insert ("and the stock exchange value of any investments of which the market value is shown (whether separately or not) and is taken as being higher than their stock exchange value")
Page 108, line 42, after ("to,") insert ("the")
Page 109, line 2, leave out ("aggregate")
Page 110, line 28, at end, insert ("otherwise than by way of security only for the purposes of a transaction entered into by it in the ordinary course of a business which includes the lending of money")
Page 111, line 30, after ("not") insert ("(for that or any other purpose)")
Page 111, line 32, after ("subsidiaries,") insert (", except that they may in a proper case be so treated where—

(a) the company is itself the subsidiary of another body corporate; and

(b) the shares were acquired from that body corporate or a subsidiary of it")

Page 111, line 37, at end insert—
("(6) Where group accounts are not submitted, there shall be annexed to the balance sheet a statement showing, in relation to the subsidiaries (if any) whose financial years did not end with that of the company—

(a) the reasons why the company's directors consider that the subsidiaries' financial years should not end with that of the company; and

(b) the dates on which the subsidiaries' financial years ending last before that of the company respectively ended or the earliest and latest of those dates")

Page 112, line 12, leave out paragraph 5, and insert—
("5. Section one hundred and twenty-eight of the principal Act and Section thirty-six of this Act shall not, by virtue of the two last foregoing paragraphs, apply for the purpose of the consolidated accounts")
Page 112, line 35, leave out paragraph 8, and insert—
("8. In relation to any subsidiaries (whether or not dealt with by the consolidated
972
accounts), whose financial years did not end with that of the company, there shall be annexed the like statement as required by sub-paragraph (6) of paragraph 1 of this Part of this Schedule where there are no group accounts")
Page 113, line 28, leave out ("subparagraph (1) (a)") and insert ("subparagraphs (1) (a) and (3).")
Page 113, line 38, leave out ("a necessary adjunct") and insert ("complementary")
Page 115, line 13, after ("exchange") insert ("or on any stock exchange of repute outside Great Britain")
Second Schedule, page 115, line 35, leave out ("gives") and insert ("give")
Page 116, line 3, leave out second ("the") and insert ("this")
Third Schedule, page 116, line 28, leave out ("money lent") and insert ("the purposes of a transaction entered into")
Page 117, line 3, after ("transferee") insert ("and not the transferor")
Page 117, line 5, at end insert—
("(5) Any interest of the company itself in any of its shares or debentures, and any lien or charge arising by operation of law and affecting any of the shares or debentures, shall be disregarded.")
Page 117, line 8, leave out ("held by the personal representatives") and insert ("forming part of the estate")
Page 117, line 14, at end insert ("other than—

(i) a body corporate established for charitable purposes only and having no right to exercise or control the exercise of any part of the voting power at any general meeting of the company;

(ii) a body corporate which is a trustee of the said trusts and has such an interest only by way of remuneration for acting as trustee thereof.")

Page 117, line 15, at end insert—
("(a) shares or debentures held by trustees on trusts arising on an intestacy shall, if the shares or debentures or an interest therein formed part of the intestate's estate at the time of his death, be treated as if the trusts arose under a will disposing of the shares or debentures.")
Page 117, line 41, at end insert—
("Exception for cases of disability.
4. Where the person entitled to any share or debenture or any interest in any share or debenture is of unsound mind or otherwise under any disability, and by reason thereof the share, debenture or interest is vested in an administrator, curator, or other person on behalf of the person entitled thereto, then in relation to the share, debenture or interest the person in whom it is so vested and the person entitled thereto shall be treated for the purposes of this Schedule as if they were the same person.")
Page 127, line 42, at end insert—
("Exception for trusts for employees.
4. The basic conditions shall be subject to an exception for any shares or debentures held by trustees for the purposes of a scheme maintained for the benefit of employees of the company, including any director holding a salaried employment or office in the company.")
Page 118, line 13, after ("themselves") insert ("and (subject to sub-paragraph (4) of this paragraph) their employees and former employees.")
Page 118, line 32, at end insert ("or as trustee of a deed for securing an issue of debentures of that company.")
Page 118, line 32, at end insert—
("(4) In the proviso to sub-paragraph (2) of this paragraph, the direction that employees and former employees of the companies shall be disregarded in computing the number of shareholders shall not apply to a person holding shares in a company of which he is not for the time being an employee unless. having been formerly in the employment of that company, he held while in that employment, and has continued after the determination of that employment to hold, shares in, that company.")
Page 119, line 3, after ("exception") insert ("for the banking or finance company itself, where the shares or debentures are held by a nominee for it, and")
Page 119, line 5, at end insert ("or as trustee of a deed for securing an issue of debentures of that company")
Page 119, line 5, at end insert—
("Exceptions for bankruptcies, liquidations, etc.
6. The basic conditions shall be subject to exceptions for—

(a) any shares or debentures forming part of the assets in a bankruptcy or liquidation of a holder thereof; and

(b) any shares or debentures held either—

(i) on trusts created for the benefit of his creditors generally by a person having an interest therein; or

(ii) otherwise for the purposes of any composition or scheme made or approved under any Act by a court or an officer of a court for arranging the affairs of such a person." )

Sixth Schedule, page 123, line 11 column 2, after ("fifty-three") insert ("and the Third Schedule")
Sixth Schedule, page 123, line 45, column 2, after ("sections") insert ("three hundred and thirteen to")
Sixth Schedule, page 123, line 47, leave out ("Sections three hundred and sixty-two to three hundred and sixty-three") and insert ("Section three hundred and sixty-two")
Sixth Schedule, page 123, line 50, column 2, after ("sections") insert ("three hundred and sixty-five")
Sixth Schedule, page 123, line 61, column 2, after ("fifteen") insert ("Section one hundred and sixteen")
Seventh Schedule, page 124, line 6, after ("sixty") insert ("in subsection (2) of Section two hundred and eighty, in subsection (2) of Section three hundred and eight.")
Seventh Schedule, page 124, line 15, leave out ("(a)") and insert ("(c)")
Eighth Schedule, page 125, line 9, at end insert—
"(S. 313 (2)… Payment of fees into Exchequer.")
Eighth Schedule, page 125, line 16, column 1, after ("Ss.") insert—
("365 to 368 &.")
Ninth Schedule, page 125, line 26, leave cut from ("seventeen") to end of line 28
Ninth Schedule, page 125, line 29, leave cut ("In subsection (3) of Section twenty-seven") and insert ("In subsection (1) of Section twenty-seven the words a prospectus or, 'and in subsection (3) of that section.")
Ninth Schedule, page 125, line 35, after ("forty-six") insert ("in proviso (d) to subsection (1) the words 'where any such shares are redeemed out of the proceeds of a fresh issue.'")
Page 126, line 5, at end insert—
("In subsection (3) of Section one hundred and four the words 'at its registered office")'
Page 126, line 7, at end, insert ("and subsection (5) of that section.")
Page 126, line 44, leave out from the beginning, to end of line 46 and insert—
("In subsection (1) of Section one hundred and forty-four, the words 'or managers' and, in paragraph (a), the words from 'and if,' to the end of the paragraph, except the words 'and his business occupation if any'")
Page 128, line 27, at end insert—
("In Section twenty-two, in the definition of a former christian name or surname, the words from the first 'shall not' to 'and' and in the definition of a change of name the words from the first 'in the case of' to the first 'or'")
In the Title, page 1, line 2, leave out ("to bring") and insert ("in connection therewith to amend.")
Page 128, line 4, leave out from ("names") to end of title.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I now rise to move that this House do agree with the Commons in the said Amendments. Following upon the suggestion of the noble Lord who spoke last and, I think, of the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, too, it might be convenient if I put them en bloc. On the other hand, I must be very careful not to do so if any single member of your Lordships' House feels himself in any way impeded from raising questions which he might want to raise. If I put it in that form, any member of the House can get up and raise any question. Therefore, I propose to move that the Commons Amendments be accepted.
Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING BILL.
3.46 p.m.
Order of the Day read for the consideration of Commons Amendment, in lieu of one of the Lords Amendments and Commons Reasons for disagreeing to certain of the Lords Amendments.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Amendment and Reasons be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons Amendment and Reasons be now considered.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT.
[The references are to Bill No. 71 as first printed in the House of Lords.]
Clause 67, page 77, line is, at end, insert ("and shall provide that the amount of the said charge shall having regard to the terms and conditions on and subject to which planning permission has been granted be determined without any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to one applicant over another")
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment but proposed the following Amendment in lieu thereof:
Page 76, line 47, at end insert ("and shall not give any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to one applicant over another").
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, in Clause 67, page 77, line 12, we propose at the end to insert:
"and shall provide that the amount of the said charge shall having regard to the terms and conditions on and subject to which planning permission has been granted be determined without any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to one applicant over another."
That was the Amendment which we made. The Commons have disagreed with that Amendment, and propose in lieu thereof to insert these words,
"and shall not give any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to one applicant over another."
I must say that I think the Commons Amendment is an improvement on ours. Whereas we propose merely to insert these
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words in regulations, they propose to insert these words in the Bill itself. True wisdom is always to insist on thinking that the other fellow's suggestion is better than your own when you think of it. Here I believe all parts of the House will agree that this is an improvement. Accordingly, I beg to move that we do not insist on our Amendment, but that in lieu thereof we accept the Commons Amendment.
Moved, That this House do not insist upon the Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed, but agree to the Commons Amendment in lieu thereof.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, as the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack has said, this is an improvement on the Amendment which we sent to the other place. It is true that our Amendment was better than having nothing at all in the Bill. It was better that we should provide that this idea should be incorporated somewhere. As the noble and learned Viscount has said, we provided that it should be in the regulations, and the other place have now put it into the substance of the Bill. We should be grateful to them for this I Amendment. I am at one with the noble and learned Viscount in saying that we should not insist on our previous Amendment, but should accept the Commons Amendment in lieu thereof.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
3.49 p.m.

LORDS AMENDMENT.
Clause 67, page 77, line 22, at end, insert:
("(5) Any person aggrieved by any assessment or determination of the amount of a development charge may appeal to a Tribunal consisting of a member or members of the panel constituted under Part I of the Schedule to the War Damage (Valuation Appeals) Act, 5945, selected in accordance with the provisions of Part II of that Schedule, and the provisions of Part III of that Schedule shall in so far as they relate to appeals to a Tribunal have effect in relation to appeals under this Act as if for any reference to the War Damage Commission there were substituted a reference to the Central Land Board and as if for any reference to the War Damage Act, 1943, there were substituted a reference to this Act and the Lord Chancellor shall make rules for regulating, subject to the provisions of that Schedule, appeals to a tribunal under this Act.
(6) For the purposes of an appeal under the last foregoing subsection the Central Land Board shall at the request of the appellant or of the Tribunal furnish to the appellant

977
and to the Tribunal a statement setting out the particulars of the grounds upon which the development; charge was determined by them, together with any facts and contentions relevant thereto.")
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
Because the said Amendment is inconsistent with the functions of the Central Land Board and would hamper the Board in the performance of those functions.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, in Clause 67, page 77, line 22, we proposed at the end to insert words which provided that there shall be an appeal from the Central Land Board. Knowing something about appellate tribunals I am bound to say that there is no certainty that an appellate tribunal is going to be any more right than the original tribunal. I am not certain that this matter is in any sense justiciable. Unless you are prepared to set out at length the exact provisions to which the Central Land Tribunal is to have regard, I do not think there is any good in trying to make it justiciable. However, I do not want to argue this matter again. I expressed my views at the time, and although I am sincerely sorry that the other place have not been able to meet your Lordships in this Amendment, you must remember that a very large number of Amendments were made to this Bill in which they did meet your Lordships' point of view. Therefore, on this particular matter, I beg to move that this House do not insist upon the said Amendment.
Moved, That this House do not insist upon the said Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, I am at one with the noble and learned Viscount in saying that you never quite know what an appellate tribunal is going to do or whether it will be better than an original tribunal. But the one great advantage in having an appellate tribunal is that the original tribunal has to be careful in what it does. That was the sole reason for putting in this Amendment which has now been considered by another place. Indeed, it is perhaps as well to recall that when we were discussing this Amendment on the fourth day of the Committee stage, the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack said these words—I am quoting from column 837 of the Hansard of July 2:
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"Where a man has a factory with some vacant land alongside it, and he wants to utilize part of that vacant land to develop his factory in a way which is really essential for the continuance of his business, it may be said that the Central Land Board are in a position where they can literally blackmail that man, because there is no other potential user of that land."
The noble and learned Viscount went on to say:
"In cases of that nature, where there is substantially only one applicant for the land, I am prepared to concede that there may be an appeal to the Minister. I am not suggesting a tribunal, but an appeal to the Minister."
It is quite true that what we suggested was this appeal to a tribunal. Indeed, we selected the tribunal which the present Government had themselves set up—one which we thought might be one likely to gain acceptance. I am sorry that we have not had back from the Government an Amendment in the nature of that adumbrated by the noble and learned Viscount in the words that I have just quoted. However, without our getting into any conflict with the other place, I think it may well he possible still to achieve this purpose. We are dealing here with Clause 67 and under subsection (3) it says:
" … . regulations made under this Act with the consent of the Treasury may prescribe general principles to be followed by the Central Land Board in determining under this Part of this Act whether any and if so what development charge is to be paid thereunder in respect of any operations or use of land."
It might well be right to make provision under those regulations for the kind of case in which the Lord Chancellor himself said he thought there was a point to meet. I do not put it higher than that.
I am not asking for a reply upon t its matter at the present moment, and I notice the noble and learned Viscount preparing to hurry from his seat and consult other people. I do not ask for a reply now, because the possibility and practicability of doing it is a matter which will have to be thought out. While I am not advising those who may take my advice to insist upon our Amendment—and here I am putting up the amber light and not the red one—all I shall say is that we shall watch very carefully. Clause 67 (5) states:
"Regulations made for the purposes of subsection (3) of this section shall be of no effect unless they are approved by resolution of each House of Parliament."
We shall just watch and when that Resolution eventually comes before us we will remember the words I have to-day uttered.

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For myself, I am sorry that another place could not see their way to accept this extremely reasonable Amendment. I do not like bodies which are set up to gather money to be the assessors, the appeal tribunal and everything all in one. As I said once before, it is too like the old practice from which we rid ourselves in the time of the Stuart Kings and before. Would, indeed, that there were a Gilbert now alive, to create a character in another light opera showing how this Central Land Board, as the great Pooh Bah, may work. With those few words I think at this stage we had better leave the matter where it is and wait to see what happens when these regulations later come before us.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
3.57 p.m.

LORDS AMENDMENTS.
Clause 78, page 90, line 35, at end insert—
("or,
(c) that the land together with any land contiguous or adjacent to such land was on the seventh day of January, nineteen hundred and forty-seven, or would then have been but for circumstances arising out of the emergency which was the occasion of the passing of the Courts (Emergency Powers) Act, 1939, in the course of development as a residential, commercial or industrial estate and that the proposed development is or would be immediately practicable but for such circumstances as aforesaid and that there is a demand for such development.")
page 91, line 19, leave out from ("application") to end of line
page 91, line 25, at end, insert ("which has been supported by such plans or particulars as were required to be furnished under the said Acts or the said bye-laws or other enactments, as the case may be, being an application in respect of development which was or would have been but for circumstances arising out of the emergency which was the occasion of the passing of the Courts (Emergency Powers) Act, 1939, immediately practicable at the date of the application and for which there was at such date a demand for such development which it was the intention of the applicant to satisfy")
The Commons disagreed to these Amendments for the following Reason:
Because the said Amendments would unduly extend the scope of the Clause.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, in Clause 78, page 90, line 35, we inserted these words extending the definition of dead-ripe land. Of course, the effect of an extension of the definition is indirectly to increase the £300,000,000, because you can either increase the
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£300,000,000 directly by adding, say, £50,000,000, or you can make the £300,000,00 cover a smaller number of cases; that is to say, you can exempt certain properties from Part VI payments and from paying development charges. That is rather a matter within the province of another place, although I am not suggesting that we have not a right to make whatever Amendment we like. In those circumstances, I rise to move that this House do not insist on the said Amendments.
Moved, That this House do not insist on the said Amendments to which the Commons have disagreed.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, the first Amendment and the second, which was consequential, were down in my name when they were divided upon in this House. I think it would be inaccurate to say that they increase the amount of the £300,000,000, but what they do is to decrease the amount which the Chancellor of the Exchequer might get by development charge later on in return for his £300,000,000. With a huge Budget surplus on the first four months of this year such as the Chancellor of the Exchequer declared to another place, why on earth he should be so niggardly in a matter of this sort only those who perhaps have the acquaintance of Dr. Dalton will know. Be that as it may, our main object in moving these Amendments was not to increase the amount that the ordinary landowner would get out of the £300,000,000. It was the very simple proposition that in the case of dead-ripe land, as we call it—at any rate, let us call it that, not using terms such as "land which is not quite ripe for building," because it is obviously quite ripe for building—the extra procedure which will be brought about by this Bill before there can be necessary housing development on that land, should be avoided.
That was the point we had in mind when we moved those two Amendments. Whether there is enough labour to build the houses, even if they get these sites, I do not know; but at any rate this is one other hampering effect on building, and I am only sorry that the other place and the Government do not accept the friendly gesture showing them a way to get more houses built for the people. That was our object in moving these Amendments. As

981
the other place have turned it down, we can say no more. It is the Government's job to build houses. We are sorry they did not take this way of doing some of it more quickly. They have not, and we can only point out that we offered it. My advice to noble Lords, therefore, is not to insist on the Amendments.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
4.2 p.m.

LORDS AMENDMENT.
Clause 79, page 91, line 46, at end, insert:
("(c) that where—

(i) a mining lease was in force on the seventh day of January nineteen hundred and forty-seven, having on that day an unexpired term of not less than three years, or

(ii) minerals were being won and worked immediately before that day by a person having an interest therein otherwise than under a mining lease, no payment shall be made under the said Part VI in respect of any interest in the minerals comprised in the said mining lease,

or in any minerals which form part of the same seam or deposit as that in respect of which the operations mentioned in subparagraph (ii) of this paragraph were being carried out and in respect of which an interest was held as mentioned in the said sub-paragraph, as the case may be, and that no development charge shall be payable under the said Part VII in respect of the winning and working of the said minerals under the mining lease referred to in subparagraph (i) of this paragraph or in respect of the winning and working of any minerals referred to in the said sub-paragraph (ii) in respect of which no payment has been made tinder the said Part VI as aforesaid.")
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
Because the said Amendment would unduly affect the provisions of Part VI of the Bill, whereas the main purpose of the Amendment could otherwise be secured under the Bill, if thought fit, without the said Amendment.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the other place are not prepared to accept the Amendment, and in the circumstances I rise to move, That this House do not insist on the said Amend-merit.
Moved, That this House do not insist on the said Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed.—( The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, this Amendment, which went forward to the other place in my name, is one about which I feel I ought to say a word. It
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was, and still is perhaps, one of the most controversial parts of this Bill. I see that in the other place last Friday the Minister said that there was no dispute in your Lordships' House as to the application of the Bill to minerals, and that there was no suggestion that minerals should be taken right out. I think that was a little inaccurate, as noble Lords on all sides of the House will feel. There were quite a large number of speeches suggesting that this was not at all the right place to deal with minerals: I myself made two such speeches, one on the Second Reading, and the other at a later stage of the Bill. The fact that we did not move to delete from the Bill the whole of the mineral clauses does not mean, and should not be taken as meaning, that noble Lords, at any rate, on this side, approve of them. If we had sought to delete these clauses, clearly it would have been going directly against a principle which—for better or for worse—had been approved in another place.
We on these Benches, let me make it clear, still think that it is for the worse. We believe that it would have been much better to leave minerals entirely out of this measure. We believe that the fact of dealing with minerals as they are being dealt with under this Bill will have three effects. First, it will cause uncertainty among those who develop these minerals and manufacture essential goods from them. Secondly, it will tend to increase the cost of those goods: it has even been suggested from the Government Benches that where it is found that perhaps too saran a royalty is being paid to some landowner, the Central Land Board may well raise that royalty. Thirdly, it will certainly have the effect of making new mineral development more cumbersome and more difficult than it has been in the past. There are few landowners who, knowing that they will get no advantage from the digging up of minerals in their land, will be prepared to accept the disadvantage and the disfigurement of the land until it is taken compulsorily from them.
We tried, as noble Lords may remember, to exclude minerals which were being worked under existing leases or from seams that were presently to be worked. It might well be that: some limitation could have been applied upon that, but we wanted to get these essential workings out of the procedure of the Bill by not making them subject to a development charge, and not letting them have any

983
claim to compensation. We wanted things to go on without any interference by this measure with the production of the basic materials for the housing programme, with the getting of basic materials for our steel factories, and the basic materials for a lot of our exportable goods, such as our china and porcelain ware. Once again, I am afraid that planning theory is taking the place of practical common-sense administration—and that, indeed, is what I believe is bringing the whole country into its great difficulties to-day. We in your Lordships' House put this forward with a view to removing any encumbrance from industry. There are a certain number of mineral owners in your Lordships' House. In some quarters it might be said about them that they were putting this matter forward in their own interests. I am certain that nothing of the sort was in their minds. It was certainly not for that reason that this Amendment was put forward; it was in order that we should avoid an additional encumbrance on our production effort at the present time. As the Amendment has come back to us, however, my advice to noble Lords is not to insist at this stage upon it.
VISCOUNT GAGE: My Lords, I should like to say one word in support of what the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, has said. No one seems to be particularly enamoured of this clause. My noble friends have criticized it, and only a few days ago, at the last minute, the Government themselves produced, not an Amendment, but certainly an important modification of the way this clause is to operate. I cannot help feeling that one of the reasons for the apparently almost universal doubt about this clause is that nobody seems perfectly certain as to the object it is to attain. Is the object of the clause to bring more money to the Exchequer, or to make minerals available, or cheaper, or to improve town planning schemes? Or is it simply to enable the Government to say that if anybody is to make a profit out of these minerals, the owner will not be able to make as much as he did before? The Government are claiming to do all these things at once, and the difficulty is that these objects are really incompatible with each other. Surely you are not going to make a thing cheaper by taxing it; nor are you going to make these minerals
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more easily available if you remove the owner's incentive to exploit them. Nor do I see how you are to improve town planning schemes if you give no greater powers or responsibility to town planning authorities than they have at present.
I may be wrong, but it seems to me that the town planning authorities, in providing their development schemes, will continue to discover from existing operators what land they will require during the next fifty or sixty years, and then, if these areas seem to these authorities all right from the point of view of amenities, they will put them on the development plans. There seems to be nothing in this Bill, or in what has been said so far, to suggest that the town planning authorities will have to plan as potential new areas for mineral working areas that have not yet been developed. If they had to do that, it would be an extraordinarily difficult and complicated thing to undertake. The only advantage that is now produced, from the town planning point of view, is that it does become easier to sterilize minerals in order to preserve green belts. That seems rather an odd consideration at the present juncture of our history.
Apart from that, there seems to be nothing to suggest that this clause will produce more minerals or cheaper minerals, or better town planning schemes. On the other hand, as Lord Llewellin has pointed out, there is a good deal of evidence that it will make minerals more expensive and more difficult to come by. That seems an odd result to produce, in view of what we shall be told in the debate to-morrow. The other day a man who was trying to acquire a few acres of chalk to burn agricultural lime had the greatest difficulty in finding anybody to sell him this land. It is the threat of this Bill which produces this effect on owners.
I have no doubt that short-term schemes will be greatly facilitated by this new concession which the Minister has announced in another place in considering our Amendments, but as regards long-term schemes, particularly schemes where a great deal of money and machinery and that sort of thing are involved, I cannot see that it will do more than just decrease, to some extent, the uncertainty to which the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, has referred. The whole

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object of my intervening at all at this moment, indeed, is to ask that, so far as possible, the uncertainty about the regulations that are going to be made will be resolved. At the same time I still cannot help wondering what advantage is to be obtained by creating all this uncertainty at this juncture and, if more money is the real reason, why some more scientific form of taxation could not be devised.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
4.15 p.m.

LORDS AMENDMENT.
Page 97, line 21, at end, insert new clause—
("Investment land held for charitable purposes.
F.—(1) This section applies to land an interest in which is held on charitable trusts or for ecclesiastical or other charitable purposes of any description if the land is not used in any such manner as is mentioned in subsection (1) of Section eighty-three.
(2) The provisions of Part VI of this Act shall apply to any such interest as aforesaid in land which on the appointed day is land to which this section applies.
(3) Where any land, which, on the appointed day, was land to which this section applies ceases at any time thereafter to be such land, any development charge which shall be payable under Part VII of this Act in respect of any development by virtue of which the land is used in any such manner as is mentioned in subsection (1) of Section eighty-three or its use is made to correspond with the use which prevails generally in the case of contiguous or adjacent land shall not, subject to the provisions of subsection (4) of this section, exceed the amount of any payments made under Part VI of this Act in respect of the said land, if planning permission for that development has been granted under Part III of this Act before the land ceases to be land to which this section applies.
(4) Where any payment has been made under Part VI of this Act in respect of any land to which on the appointed day this section applies and any part or parts of such land cease at any time thereafter to be such land the limitation imposed by subsection (3) of this section upon the amount of the development charge payable in respect of such part or parts of the said land shall apply only to the amount, if any, by which the aggregate of the development charges payable in respect of all such part or parts exceeds the payment made under Part VI of this Act in respect of the whole of such land.
(5) Where any such interest as is mentioned in subsection (1) of this section in land to which this section applies is compulsorily acquired under this or any other Act in pursuance of a notice to treat served on or after the appointed day, then if the land was land
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to which this section applies on the appointed day, it shall be assumed in assessing the compensation payable in respect of the acquisition of the said interest, that planning permission would be granted under Part III of this Act for any development by virtue of which the use of the land would he made to correspond with the use which pervade generally in the case of contiguous or adjacent land, and that the development charge payable under Part VII of this Act in respect of any such development would be limited in the manner provided in subsections. (3) and (4) of this section.")
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
Because the said Amendment would confer on one class of landowners a preference unrelated to the character and use of the land.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I confess that, although I lave great sympathy with these charities, I never thought that the scheme propounded in the clause was a workable one. I understand that the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, has an Amendment on the Paper, but I think we should, first of all, get rid of the old clause, if that meets with your Lordships' wishes; then we can consider the new clause. I rise to move that this House do not insist on the said Amendment as set out at the bottom of page 3 and on page 4 of this List.
Moved, That this House do not insist on the said Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
VISCOUNT SAMUELwho had given Notice that he would move that the House should not insist on the Amendment bit that another clause should be proposed in lieu thereof, said: My Lords, as the liable and learned Viscount has said, this clause deals with the lands belonging to colleges, universities and hospitals which, technically, for the purposes of the law, are classed as charities. The matter was discussed in the Committee stage of tour Lordships' House, and again very fully during Report stage. The outcome of that discussion was that a clause which I had the privilege of moving was inserted in the Bill by the vote of your Lordships' House. I hasten to explain to your Lordships that I do not propose to reopen those debates or to press the Motion which stands in my name; and I say this with the concurrence of the other members of your Lordships' House who are interested in the matter. I want to make clear that this alternative clause has been put upon

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the Paper for a reason which I shall now give.
When the Report stage discussions took place, the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, made certain suggestions as to how the clause as proposed by us could be improved if the other place were prepared to accept it in principle. We thought it right that an effort should be made to arrive at an accommodation, in order that the clause should be put technically into the best possible form. Conversations took place between some of us and the Lord Chancellor and his advisers, and I should like to express my warm gratitude to him and to them for the willing assistance which they rendered. As the outcome of that, the clause was re-modelled with the object of getting rid of certain technical difficulties, with the best expert assistance, and was in reserve in case the other place should be prepared. to agree. However, as the Lord Chancellor had repeatedly warned us, there was little probability of that, and the debate in the other place showed the very unyielding attitude expressed by the Minister of Town and Country Planning and by the Attorney-General.
Their arguments, I venture to say, are open to easy reply, but, as I have said, I do not wish to detain your Lordships by re-opening the whole matter and going afresh into the somewhat dry and wearisome technicalities that surround this difficult subject. It is very desirable that the best form of clause should be placed upon record, for I think it is possible that we have not heard the last of this matter. If the apprehensions of these institutions are confirmed, then they will be faced by very heavy losses in the working of this Act, and it may be that this or some subsequent Parliament will he called upon to reconsider the matter altogether. For that reason, it is as well that the best form of clause should he left to posterity, so to speak for their consideration. It is for that reason that I put this clause upon the Paper. At the same time, to invite your Lordships to carry it, possibly on a Division, and to send it back to the other place would be a mere gesture, and a gesture doomed to futility, for the Government in another place, having rejected the very principle of this proposal, are not likely to accept it on second consideration merely because the form of it has been technically approved.
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For these reasons, I wish pro forma to move my new clause in order that there may be a record of it in Hansard. If the Government see fit to oppose it—which I think is in the highest degree probable—and declare that they are not content for this to be placed in the Bill when it is sent back to the other place, we who are interested in this matter will not challenge their decision.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think, first of all, it is necessary to remove the clause from the Bill, and then the noble Viscount can proceed to move.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
4.20 p.m.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: I beg to move my new clause.
Moved, That the following Amendment he proposed in lieu of the Amendment at page 97, line 21, not insisted upon by the House:
Page 97, line 21, at end insert the following new clause:
("Land held on charitable trusts for purposes of investment.
.—(1) This section applies to land an interest in which is held on charitable trusts or for ecclesiastical or other charitable purposes of any description, not being land to which the last foregoing section applies.
(2) No payment shall be made under Part VI of this Act in respect of any such interest as aforesaid in land which on the appointed day is land to which this section applies:
Provided that if, upon application made to him at any time within three years after the appointed day by the person entitled to any such interest as aforesaid in any such land, the Minister is satisfied that it is reasonable so to do having regard to all the circumstances (including the prospects of planning permission being refused for any development of the land), he may direct that this subsection shall not apply in relation to that interest; and where such a direction is given this section shall cease to apply to the land.
(3) No development charge shall be payable under Part VII of this Act in respect of any operations carried out on land which on the appointed day is land to which this section applies by the person entitled to any such interest as aforesaid, or to any interest derived out of that interest after the appointed day, or in respect of any use of the land by that person, if those operations are carried out or that use instituted, as the case may be, within the period of twenty-five years after the appointed day.
(4) Where any land which on the appointed day was land to which this section applies ceases at any time within the said period of twenty-five years to be such land otherwise than by virtue of a direction given under the proviso to subsection (2) of this section,

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no development charge shall he payable under Part VII of this Act in respect of any operations carried out on the land, or in respect of any use of the land, for which planning permission had been granted under Part III of this Act before the land ceased to be land to which this section applies.
(5) Where any such interest as is mentioned in subsection (1) of this section in land which on the appointed clay was land to which this section applies is compulsorily acquired under this or any other Act in pursuance of a notice to treat served within the said period of twenty-five years, then if apart from this provision, a development charge would be payable under Part VII of this Act in respect of the development for the purpose of which the said interest is acquired,—

(a) no such charge shall be so payable; and

(b it shall be assumed, in assessing the compensation payable in respect of the acquisition of that interest, that planning permission would be granted under Part III of this Act for that development").—(Viscount Samuel.)

VISCOUNT SIMON: My Lords, I feel I ought to add a few words, because I have been associated with this particular point, and I think the House knows that this is a matter upon which I do feel very deeply. I will not occupy more than a few moments at this stage. I remember on an earlier occasion asking the Lord Chancellor—indeed, I may say, challenging him—as to whether it was not possible really to put in suitable legal language the exception for which we were urging Parliament to make provision and, as I expected, the Lord Chancellor admitted that that was quite possible, though throughout he warned us that his own view of the matter, and after discussion with his colleagues, was that a proposal even in the best language would not commend itself to the Government in the other place. Nothing could be more completely candid than the way in which the Lord Chancellor then behaved, and I should like to say that I personally am very grateful to him, because I am sure, this goes against the grain with him as much as it goes very greatly against the grain with me.
As Viscount Samuel has said, inasmuch as we are not going to ask the House to divide, I would not be justified in asking whether the arguments used in another place are really good arguments or not, but perhaps I might be allowed to make these two observations. The Minister of Town and Country Planning in his speech
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went so far as to say that the owners of these great charities for educational purposes, by means of which universities and colleges are maintained and other very valuable contributions are secured, are not going to lose anything. That sounds very comforting, and only proves that somebody is wrong. But it appears on examination that what he meant when lie said that these educational charities were not going to lose anything was that, though they had bought this land on the advice of Government Departments for the purpose of promoting their service to education, the charities were going to he deprived only of the prospect of increasing the amount at their disposal by disposing of this land as they developed it at an increased price. You will not comfort a man by telling him that he is going to lose nothing if he had any expectations of any kind and those expectations are not realized. The fact remains that many of these great educational trusts, of the administration of which your Lordships have heard a great deal in these debates, have the prospect of a very severe loss that everybody will regret and, consequently, a greatly diminished opportunity of contributing to any charitable needs as they have done, trying to do the best they can for all classes.
The other speech that was made on behalf of the Government was made by the learned Attorney-General, and we have heard earlier in the proceedings to-day, from the mouth of the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor himself, a testimonial to the thoughtful and well-balanced character of his speech from which I think my noble friend Lord Reading had taken some extracts. I must say that the Attorney-General is obviously a man of many moods. I see that in resisting this proposal in the other place he exhibited that exquisite facility with which he does sometimes adorn his orations. Being faced with this very serious proposition, which everybody recognizes is a most serious matter, he adopted the course of choosing what he thought was an extreme instance, and proceeded to ridicule the instance, What he said was that it would be very inconvenient if, when a claim was made for a development charge, the would-be developer who had bought from the charity had said: "You cannot do that to me, although I have received compensation. I happen to be the conductor of

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a cats' home, or the Society for Promoting the Doctrines of Johanna Southcott, and you cannot charge me for development charges more than I have received." It is very consoling, I am sure, to some of these trustees to know that that is the analogy which occurs to the learned gentleman. So far as I know, though I speak subject to correction, there is no cats' home which owns any investment land. What the doctrines of Johanna Southcott may be I am not precisely aware. I understand she was a lady who left a box which was locked up for a very long time. I am not sure whether it has yet been opened, but that it contains any investment land I do not believe.
Before we part with this subject, may I say that the fact is that it is really only these big trustee enterprises, not always educational, but sometimes religious, that do in fact own investment land? I do not believe an instance can be given of a comic trust holding investment land. It is to perform the purpose which has so often been conducted under the advice of Government Departments that these great educational trusts have tried to secure that they may be able to keep up the income which is so badly needed to-day in connexion with education. Everything about education costs more. Salaries have risen and hooks, instruments, and buildings all cost more. It is only just possible for these educational trusts to keep up and, it may be, even to improve what they are doing for education of all sorts—for the Workers' Educational Association, for the poorer undergraduates of our various universities, for the great library which serves the whole nation—it is only possible for them to make these contributions if, indeed, they have some means of actually getting an increase. I am sure, as Lord Brand said on a previous occasion, if the earlier founders of these institutions had advised everybody to go in for equities the property would have disappeared long ago.
Therefore, without re-arguing the thing at all, because it is too late, I hope I may be forgiven for occupying your Lordships' time in saying how deeply I regret that this is the decision which has been reached. I do not think that in saying that I shall offend the ears of my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack, for I cannot help thinking that in his heart of hearts he regrets it too.
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, I just want to add, if I may, a few words. Quite shortly, the reason given by the other place for not accepting this Amendment is because it would confer on one class of landowners a preference unrelated to the character and use of the land. We have in other parts of this Bill differences which do not entirely relate to the character or use of the land. We exempt local authorities for certain land that they hold. I should have thought that we might equally well have exempted recognized and approved charities, because of the use they also make of what they hold. It seems to me that we might quite easily have done that. I see that the Minister in the other place said that there was no reason why that income should not be increased as a result of planning, and that their values might increase as leases fell in. He said: "There is no reason why charities should not be charging increased rent, subject, of course, to the Rent Restriction Act, in accordance with present day values." That is true, to a certain extent, but it means that the charity will be able to get back increased rent only so long as it maintains the existing property, and the moment it tries to move with the times and improve its property, it becomes liable immediately to a development charge. Anything more stupid than that, anything more likely to defer and delay appropriate development, I have never before seen, and I very much regret that this course has been taken in the case of charities which have done such a fine work for the country as a whole.
We are now at the last stage of this Bill, which has gone through this House in such a friendly and business-like manner. The Minister himself gave us credit for the amount of despatch with which we had carried through this measure. I have worked it out and, taking Amendments small and large, we spent only seven minutes on each Amendment. But I would urge that there should not be too much of a rush to try and fill the vast staffs needed to carry out this measure. These people, after all, cannot perform any work which will get this country out of its present grave difficulties, and it is not much good planning a better and a brighter Britain if it is going to be a blighted and bankrupt Britain. We already, it seems to me,

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have too large a proportion of our population employed in official circles, whether Government or local government. Let us, in this service—I say these final words in parting with this Bill—have quality and not quantity, good men, but few.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I have the great honour to be an Honorary Fellow of one of the Oxford Colleges—perhaps I had better not say that in my opinion it is by far the best and most famous of the Oxford Colleges, because that might lead me into the area of controversy !—and as such I frankly say that I should have been very pleased if measures had been taken in this Bill to protect in some special way the interests of that College, and all other Colleges in the same case. I therefore felt it right that I should lend my assistance to seeing that the fly was dressed in the most attractive sort of manner in order that the big fish might be attracted. I have played my little part in suggesting the lines which this Amendment might take. In spite of the clever dressing of the fly, the big fish, I am sorry to say, will have nothing to do with it. Therefore I cannot accept this Amendment, and I hope that in these circumstances your Lordships will not press it.
On Question, Motion negatived.

HUNGARIAN ELECTIONS.
4.36 p.m.
LORD VANSITTARThad the following Notice on the Order Paper: To inquire into the prospects of any real freedom in the impending Hungarian elections; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: Early in June, I spoke to your Lordships on the alarming spread of the police State in Europe. It is true that criticisms of any sort always set the Eastern bloc talking of the concern caused in democratic circles, but in the Communist vocabulary "democratic circles" are those that have been squared by the Kremlin; and although I have been told that there are some in another place, there are none such here, and so I return to the charge. I take Hungary as an example, not of the worst, but of the latest police State. I do not intend to make a long speech—it is late in the Session and everyone is tired—so I will
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try to confine myself to the terms of ray Motion and to inquire what are the Prospects of any freedom in the impending Hungarian elections. I shall answer my own question and say that in my judgment those prospects are very indeed, and I shall give my reason; for thinking so. I shall then invite the Government to give me their information, and I do not suppose it will differ substantially from mine.
I will begin with the "plot." When I last spoke in this House I said that the plot had been greatly magnified for political purposes. To-day I go a good deal further. I have read the Hungarian White Paper and I have seldom seen so much official rubbish served up for public consumption. I shall say nothing of the passages that are certified to be false by our own Mission, but I will pass to those which remind one of the trial scene in Alice in Wonderland. where no one knew the difference between the words "important" and "unimportant." That is the White. Paper all over. One of the witnesses, for instance, testified that the ex-Prime Minister's daughter asked him to buy a book, but he could not remember what the book was about, or what its name was, and in any circumstances he did not get it. Another testified that the ex-Prime Minister had promised to do something for somebody, but he could not remember what it was. Another testified that the ex-Prime Minister had given 50o francs to someone. Well, I hope they were not French francs, because that would be rather less than £1 on the black market, and I have never heard of a Prime Minister being "run in" for fifteen "bob"! Perhaps the more charitable assumption is that they were Swiss francs. But what plot could be run on such chicken-feed except in the realm of flamboyant make-believe which constitutes the totalitarian mind? We had an example of that yesterday. Tito had been adding some bricks to the Eastern bloc, and at the end of it he said that this would foil an imperialist plot to make a powder keg of the Balkans. Have your Lordships ever observed what an extraordinary high proportion of nonsense is talked by dictators?
The further you go into the Hungarian White Paper the more you are reminded of the cryptic poem attributed to the Knave of Hearts, precisely because it was

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not in his handwriting and he had not signed it:
"If I or she should chance to be
Involved in this affair,
He trusts to you to set them free
Exactly as we were."
It is not even meant to make sense. There are some more serious charges than that. Some of these people had been engaged on a plan to train what they call pure Hungarians to become bureaucrats. To say "pure" anything nowadays savours of racialism, but let us look at it from a somewhat different point of view. I understand these future Hungarian bureaucrats are to take the place of Swabians. Many of these Swabians were humble people who have been expelled and scattered to the four winds of heaven, often in circumstances of superfluous unkindness, done with the full approval and encouragement of the occupying Power. There does not seem to be much to be made of training up Hungarians to take their place. Let us take this from another point of view. The German-Jewish head of the Secret Police, Herr Schlesinger, has filled that body with his own co-religionists. I suppose that in a sense is racialism too. So that if the advocates of the pure Hungarian bureaucrats are to be imprisoned, so also ought to be the whole of the Hungarian Secret Police, a course which would considerably gratify the entire Hungarian population.
There is something more serious. The accused have been making plans against the day when they would hand over power to the Communist minority and suppress the other Parties—more or less what is happening to-day. There would no doubt be, and to that extent there has been, a combination of a majority against a small and insatiable minority. If therefore the members of the majority should be imprisoned, so also should the authors of a much more successful combination of the minority against the majority; so that if the authors of a White Paper brought their argument to a logical conclusion they would end by imprisoning the whole Communist Party of Hungary—and I am sure that was not their intention.
With some of these ideas in mind I listened on July 26 to the radio debate between Mr. William Rust, editor of the Daily Worker, and Captain Poole, M.P., a supporter of the noble Lords on
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my left. I thought it very significant that Mr. William Rust skirted round that problem like a cat on hot bricks. He spat at it once or twice but he confined himself to generalities and Captain Poole won extremely easily. His was certainly one of the best performances on the British radio I have heard for a long time. In a surprisingly short space of time he managed to say almost everything in the defence of real democracy against the tyrannous counterfeit. I wish we could have a little more of that abroad to do something to raise our prestige. This was treasure from a source where neither rust nor moth cloth corrupt!
I come now to the Press law. It was inadequately reported in our Press, partly because the incident was raised by American and not by British journalists. The American journalists cornered the Hungarian Minister of Information and questioned him about a two year old law which confers on the Hungarian Government the most drastic power to inflict heavy penalities including the death penalty on all journalists, Hungarian or foreign, for spreading news, false or true—note that, your Lordships: "or true"—which might bring the Republic into discredit. At first the Minister denied all knowledge of that law. Pressed again, he admitted the law and denied the clause. But when pressed further he at last admitted the clause and the whole bag of tricks and said it would come into force when Hungary was again a sovereign nation—and that meant when the Treaty was ratified. I will return to that later. I am not suggesting that there will be executions of British or American journalists but I know very well that a measure of this kind will certainly be used to suppress all freedom of the Press, or real freedom of the Press, in Hungary, as has happened in all other police States. Here also the prospects are extremely black.
Now I come to the elections themselves. They will be held on August 31—I should have said the elections will be made on August 31, because in Eastern Europe, you do not hold elections, you make them. These elections will be "cooked" like all the others, and cooked to a cinder. The sole purpose is to transfer power, formal power, to the present Communist minority, which already enjoys it in fact. The existing Smallholders' majority,

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which has already been undermined and whittled away, will finally disappear. They are not allowed to indulge in any polemical election campaign with their rivals, and, what is more, the candidates are to be passed not by the Parties but by the national committees which are controlled by the Communists.
Even that is not the whole story. A great number of people are to be disfranchised. The estimates I have heard range from 50,000 up to 300,000. I think 50,000 is too small and 300,000 too high. No doubt the Government will be able to give me the exact figure, or almost the, exact figure. I do not want to be too exacting. It is certain, anyway, that a great number of small cultivators and ex-civil servants are to be disfranchised. The Communists, true to their principles, do not intend to allow any real opposition. For example, the Freedom Party has already gone out of commission because its leader has been debarred from the candidature, also, perhaps, I should say, because he was one of the first to denounce Szalasi, the Nazi leader of the Arrow-Cross, many of whose adherents have now been taken over by the Communists. Here perhaps I may interpolate that that practice has been very largely followed in Eastern Germany too. The transition from one totalitarian form to another only necessitates the undertaking of two commitments—one to cease abusing the Jews and the other to cease abusing the Communists. Otherwise, the transition is not too difficult. In fact, sometimes it is very easy.
Another reason why there is unlikely to be any real opposition is because the Opposition meetings have been so frequently broken by armed Communist thugs; and then Herr Schlesinger's police arrive on the scene too late, according to plan, and seem more concerned with arresting the injured than the thugs. I think I ought to add here, too, as a warning, that in all probability the next Party to be hamstrung or disrupted will be the Socialist Party in Hungary. It will not happen to-morrow or the next day but it certainly will happen, and a great many of its members know it. Most of the best have gone already and the rest would welcome even a small real opposition Party to act as a whipping boy and defer their own fate.
What is happening in Hungary is happening all over Eastern Europe. Every-
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where there is the same story of "phoney" plots and fierce reprisals. Everywhere it is the story of people kept in political confinement, in circumstances which are no great improvement on those obtaining 500 years ago. In that respect, at least, the clock is being put back. A few days ago I saw a film on witch hunting in Denmark in the 16th century. While I watched innocent women being tortured into confessing personal contact with the Evil One, and then being burnt, I though: to myself: This is not, after all, so very different from what is happening over great parts of Europe now, except that what is happening is on a much greater scale—it is witch hunting by the million. The other great difference is. that on the charge sheet the words "the Evil One" have been replaced by "the West." That is what we have come to, and I feel it my duty to bring this to the attention of the House, and so far as possible to the world, before we bleak up.
I will waste no further words on the fanaticisms of the 20th century, but will come to the remedy. The Hungarians say that they will be empowered to hang journalists when the Treaty is ratified. Very well: do not ratify it. The noble Lords on my left have not, perhaps, been too kind to journalists of late, but I do not think they will be able to stand by and see them strung up. Otherwise we might really feel that they did not like us very much ! I speak rather personally, as an occasional journalist myself. What goes for Hungary goes also for Rumania and Bulgaria, where die cases are even worse. Already the Government have had reason—certainly on one occasion and I think on two—to protest to the Rumanian Government against their beastly and cruel regime (which has just been intensified by the liquidation of the Peasant Party) and to tell them that if they go on with these ways they would not be eligible for decent society—that is, the United Nations. I think the Government have told then that in so many words. What is the good of ratifying treaties with people whom you have to address in those terms?
To pass to Bulgaria, which is really the worst case of the lot, there the oppression is led by a former Comintern Member, Dimitrov, who became world-famous by not burning down the Reichstag. I think he is the one person who achieved

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world tame by not doing something. Only the other day the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State to the Foreign Office said in another place that this regime was not civilized. I think he is quite right, and few, if any, members of this House would dare to contradict that. I can see some point—not much, but a little—in ratifying good Treaties with bad people when you really believe they are not going to be kept. But these are not good Treaties; they are indifferent Treaties; and we have accepted them—this was stated very clearly in this House—only because they are the best we can get in the circumstances. That does not alter the fact that they are poor material, and in many respects their duration is doubtful.
Can anyone tell me what on earth is the sense of ratifying bad Treaties with had people when you know, not only that they are not going to be kept, but that they are already being broken under your nose? That is not conducive to anybody's dignity. I think you forfeit all respect by doing such things, and if we do that I think we shall also forfeit the last lever we may hold for insisting on better conduct in the future. Therefore, I am asking the Government to give me an assurance that they will not ratify these Treaties—not one of the three, the Hungarian, the Bulgarian or the Rumanian—without full further consideration of the very altered circumstances which now obtain, and of all these breaches, infringements and scandals which have already occurred. In other words, I hope that these Treaties will not be ratified during our absence—that is while Parliament is not sitting—because I feel we are all entitled to have another say in the matter. If they should be so ratified, I must now reserve to myself the right to make the strongest possible protest open to me so soon as the House reassembles. I beg to move for Papers.
4.56 p.m.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, I heard yesterday, to my sorrow, that the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, had been ill for some days, and I asked my advisers in the Foreign Office what we should do about this debate if he were absent. They assured me from long experience that no amount of illness was likely to keep the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, away from the performance of what he regarded as
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an urgent duty. I know the House will wish to join me in expressing admiration for the great spirit which 'has brought him here to-day and sustained him throughout his speech.
I was rather sorry, if I may say so without meaning any offence, that the noble Lord dealt so fiercely with the Treaties in the concluding part of his speech. I do not propose to-day to argue their merits. As the noble Lord knows, they are the best we have been able to obtain. In our view, they contain many virtues, but it is, of course, open to the noble Lord to express the view which he has placed before the House. I would say one other word that will not be altogether in harmony with what he told the House, and then, for the most part, I think he will feel that I am travelling along with him. The noble Lord takes a very gloomy view indeed about the forthcoming elections in Hungary. As I will explain to the House, I am not particularly optimistic about those elections, but I cannot go so far as the noble Lord in pre-judging them and announcing in advance that we are certain they will be " cooked." I sincerely trust that those elections will be reasonably fair and free. The new Hungarian Prime Minister, Mr. Dinnyes, has promised that they will be, and we hope that he will be able and willing to fulfil his promise. But the House can be assured that His Majesty's Government will carefully watch the position. If the elections are not fair or free, His Majesty's Government will form their own opinions and act in accordance with the views which they form.
I feel that the House would wish to look at this matter in a fairly broad way—I am sure that it would be the wish of the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart—and will not expect from me too detailed an examination of the precise electoral arrangements. However, since the noble Lord raised the question of former electors who would lose their votes, I can only tell him that we estimate that the figure will be between 250,000 and 500,000. These will include more than 100,000 members of the German minority, who are due for expulsion. As the noble Lord informed the House, one Party—the Freedom Party—have met such difficulties that they have found it necessary to go into voluntary liquidation.
We must also—and I feel this will be the more important part of my remarks—

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look at the general background of the Soviet occupation of the country. The situation in Hungary cannot be considered in isolation; it must be taken along with the situation in Bulgaria and Rumania. As the House knows, the armistice regime gives the Soviet Union the right to maintain armies of occupation, but we trust that the armistice regime will soon be coining to an end. It will be brought to an end when the Peace Treaties are ratified, although in Rumania and Hungary, even after the Peace Treaties with those countries are ratified, it will be open to the Soviet Union to maintain a small number of troops to protect their lines of communication to Austria for so long as the occupation of that country continues. Of course, we hope also that before very long it will be possible for all occupation troops to he removed from Austria. Our information goes to show that in all these three countries the majority of the population, who consist of small peasants working their own land, support the local peasant Parties—in Hungary, the Smallholders' Party, in Rumania, the National Peasant Party and, in Bulgaria, the Agrarians. But for a long time, in all three countries, there has been a systematic drive to weaken these Parties and thus weaken all legal opposition to the Communist-dominated Governments.
As I told the House on a previous occasion in connexion with Hungary, these Communist Parties wield power out of all proportion to their strength in the country or even in the Parliaments. They effected this by various means, some of which have been explained to-day and on the previous occasion by the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart. One of the most effective methods is the control of the secret police and the Ministries of Interior and Communications. Of course, they enjoy the support and protection of the occupying army. That process of weakening those Parties has been going on for a considerable time; but more recently action has been taken to break up and finally destroy, so far as we can see, the peasant Parties on the ground of conspiracy.
In Hungary, accusations of conspiracy began as long ago as the end of last year. On February 25, as the House will remember, the Soviet High Command arrested Mr. Kovacs, the Secretary
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General of the Smallholders' Party, on the charge of espionage against the Soviet forces in order to get over the obstacle of his Parliamentary immunity. Mr. Kovacs has not yet been brought to public trial, and I am hound to say that I tremble to think of the experiences he is likely to have passed through. Evidence said to have been furnished by him in secret was stated on May 29; the rest of the story was discussed in your Lordships' House the last time we had a general debate on foreign affairs and is familiar to your Lordships. Article 6 (c) of the Statutes of the Allied Control Commission in Hungary gives us the right to receive all information and documents which can interest His Majesty's Government. The attempt of the American authorities in Budapest and our own Ambassador in Moscow to find out what this evidence was met with blunt and repeated refusals. Since then numerous arrests have been made by the Hungarian authorities Especially, the police have concentrated on the members of the new Freedom Party—formerly the right wing of the Small-holders' Party—who were expelled under leftist pressure and led by Mr. Sulyak. Some eighty members of this Party have now been arrested.
As regards Mr. Sulyok, a gentleman of whom I have no personal acquaintance, I would only say this. It is true that his views are right wing, though they are democratic. To hold right wing views can scarcely be regarded as a crime, though some of us in this House (and I think the majority in the country) regard it as a blunder. But certainly none of us would wish to persecute any gentleman who held views, whether right, left or centre, in the fashion that Mr. Sulyok and his Party are now undergoing persecution. There is no question of His Majesty's Government pursuing any particular Party line. Our objection is to the fact that lawful opposition is being destroyed by intimidation, and that is not what we understand by democracy.
I would like, if I may, to break off for one moment, as I have been in Europe a good deal in the last few months, and interject a personal reflection. It is vital, it seems to me, whatever our physical means may enable us to do at any particular moment, to let it be known everywhere, and particularly throughout central Europe, what we in this country

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stand for. It is vital that people should realize what we mean and do not mean by democracy, and it is vital to denounce, to the best of our power, any grave violation of democratic practice.
In Bulgaria the situation is somewhat worse. One by one the Agrarians and the other Parties which formed the Fatherland Front and negotiated the armistice have been forced out of power. The Communist leader mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, Mr. Dimitrov, has returned from a long residence in the Soviet Union to become Prime Minister. By the end of April the the two main Opposition newspapers, which expressed the democratic aspirations of the Bulgarian people and had a far wider circulation than the Government Press, were suppressed. No British and American protests, I am sorry to say, have succeeded in obtaining their publication again. Since the spring Agrarian and other leaders have been arrested on the usual charges of conspiracy. At the beginning of June the militia finally arrested Nicola Petkov, the leader of the Agrarian Party, as was discussed in your Lordships' House on an earlier occasion. The twenty-three most prominent Agrarian members of Parliament were made to resign, in spite of their protests. Three have since been arrested. The Communist Party have now opened negotiations with the leaderless remnant of the Agrarian Party in the hope of bringing it to renounce its principles and its leaders, and fall behind the totalitarian regime of Mr. Dimitrov. That is the position in Bulgaria.
In Rumania the story is much the same, though the so-called "conspiracy" is of more recent date. The arbitrary and high-handed rule of the Rumanian Government has been causing alarm, not only to our own people and the Americans, but also to all responsible Rumanians. I would like to quote, with the permission of the House—though not at any length—from a Memorandum submitted in June to his colleagues, by Mr. Tatarescu, the Rumanian Deputy Premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs. This Memorandum has been circulated widely in Bucharest and copies have now reached this country. Mr. Tatarescu declared that among the causes of general discontent
"first of all come the excessive preventative arrests. The way in which they are executed
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leads to abuses and causes throughout the country an atmosphere of disquiet and uncertainty and even of hate, which is continually increasing. Absolutely innocent men are being arrested for reasons which have no connexion with the safety of the state or public peace and order. The legend is being born that we are nothing but an unpopular and undemocratic regime which maintains itself by force and terror, that we are afraid of the free manifestations of the country, and obliged to chain it down by acts of violence. Mass arrests have never been in the past, and they are not to-day, an obstacle against subversive organizations. This state of discontent and distress is common to all social categories without exception."
I am not perfectly informed about Mr. Tartarescu's views, but my heart warms to him as I read his Memorandum, and certainly there is hope for him if he continues along these lines. But I am afraid that this Memorandum did not deter the Rumanian Communists and their patrons. On July 14 it was announced that most of the important leaders of the National Peasant Party had plotted to escape from the country in an aircraft. These men were not even given permission to leave the country legally. Whether or not they committed the "crime" of seeking to move without permission, it is difficult to say, and is not, perhaps, very important. What matters is that these men, with their aged and respected leader, Julius Maniu, have been banished and the Government have now proscribed the National Peasant Party as a whole.
It should be remembered that there is no kind of external threat to any of these countries; and if there were it would not be any excuse. But in fact these countries have not been endangered from outside; there has been nothing to provide even the flimsiest pretext for the use of the kind of police methods I have described. Parallel with the political reduction of these countries to a Communist pattern, of course, has gone their increasing economic subjection to the Soviet Union. I cannot say that it is a matter on which one has clear and definite evidence—evidence as clear as that on other matters I have mentioned—but, so far as one can see, the peoples of these war-ravaged countries feel a very genuine disappointment that they were prevented from taking any share in the Paris discussions on the Marshall offer.
It is not difficult, with the information open to us, to discover the broad outline of the facts. It is, of course, very much

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harder to know exactly what is the right course to pursue in the circumstances. We have no troops of occupation in any of these countries, and our difficulties in enforcing civilized behaviour are therefore very great. His Majesty's Government—and here I come to the particular recommendation of the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart—have carefully weighed the advantages and disadvantages of proceeding to ratify the Peace Treaties with these countries, and on balance we have felt that it would be better to ratify these Treaties, which have been negotiated after great efforts. When they come into force (though if am far from accepting the very severe strictures that the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, passed on them I do not claim that they are perfect) they will bind these Governments to secure to everyone under their jurisdiction the enjoyment of human rights and the fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of expression, of Press and publication, of religious worship, of political opinion, and of public meeting. The Treaties also give our representatives, with those of the Soviet Union and the United States, the right and duly to give the Governments such advice as may be necessary to ensure the rapid and efficient execution of the Treaties, both in the letter and in the spirit.
His Majesty's 'Government, after a great deal of thought, believe that these Obligations should not go by default. Also, of course, we look forward to the time when all the troops of occupation will have left these countries and their peoples once more become masters in their own house. At the same time, I will lay before my right honourable friend what the noble, Lord, Lord Vansittart, has said, though I should be misleading the House if I gave the impression that it is likely that the view that has been indicated was at all capable of being modified, except in circumstances which we cannot at the moment foresee.
I have also been asked about economic relations with these countries. We have economic interests in that part of the World, especially in Rumania. We intend to stand on those rights, and to make sure that they are honoured. We shall also be glad to trade and to expand trade with these countries. We are far from wishing to refuse all commercial inter-
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course with countries of whose Government we disapprove. I am afraid that at it would be rather an extreme doctrine that we could not do business with anyone unless we liked the form of their Government. Just because the peasants of those countries have had Governments of which we do not approve, we do not intend to add to the burden lying upon those peasants by refusing to buy their produce or refusing to sell them, in return, goods of which they are in need. In this field our relations are most developed in Hungary, and a Hungarian trade de legation are here at present discussing the sale of foodstuffs to this country, and collective matters, following the visit to Hungary of a British Trade Mission earlier this Year.
There is another connexion in which we are bound to think carefully about our attitude to these countries. We must consider what attitude to adopt about admitting them into the comity of civilized countries, and allowing them to become members of the United Nations. The question is a very complex one, and is deserving of much thought; and it is one on which opinions are likely to differ. As things stand, the Peace Treaties with these three ex-enemy countries have not been ratified. Until they are ratified it would be difficult to argue that the countries in question are qualified for admission. If and when the Treaties. are ratified, a new situation is created.
With the leave of your Lordships I will not say more than a few words as to the course to be pursued. We must remember that not every State that is a member of the United Nations has a Government whose internal administration conforms to the high democratic standards we should like to see practised. I would only add that we ourselves will always work for the inclusion in the United Nations' organization of those countries which in our view can mace a helpful contribution to the work of that body. For instance, His Majesty's Government were very disappointed that tae Soviet Union should have blocked the candidature of a country like Eire, on the unreasonable grounds that she was a neutral in the war and had no diplomatic relations with Moscow. I am sure that your Lordships will not charge me with dragging in the Irish question. I am an Irishman myself, but I cannot remem-

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ber ever having alluded to that question in your Lordships' House before. I am bound to say, though, that it would he a parody of justice if a democratic country like Ireland continued to be excluded from the United Nations, and countries whose Governments are the kind we have been discussing were allowed to enter and enjoy full rights.
I should like, to make it clear—and I speak now perhaps to a wider audience than we can easily visualize at the moment—that we in Britain are not hoodwinked by any excuses or any misuse of words. We are perfectly aware of what is going on. We are under no illusions about what is being inflicted and what is being suffered in these countries. The Hungarian, Rumanian, and Bulgarian peoples, who, we believe, are at heart peaceful, democratic and hardworking, have our sympathy in their hour of trial. History shows that these dictatorships, maintained against the will of the people, come and go. If we look back over the loth century, we see that democratic opinion in Europe was often repressed and gagged, and yet gradually, as the century wore on, our influence and our example had a very great effect in bringing about general liberation throughout Europe. We did not achieve our main effects during the loth century by force of arms; but we helped to keep the flame of democracy alive until, by one process or another, the forces of tyranny abated. So may it be on this occasion.
I am sure that your Lordships will not wish me to attempt to overdramatize a situation that is already fraught with melodrama of an unpleasant kind. I have carefully noted the various suggestions, some of them most weighty, made by the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart. We can all form our own views as to what exactly should be done in this situation, but I can assure your Lordships that the Government are extremely well informed as to what is happening in that part of Europe. We are exceptionally well represented there, and we intend to allow no one, whether in that part of Europe or in any other part of the world, to rest under any misapprehension as to where our sympathies lie and as to the continuing stand that we in this country shall
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take on behalf of peace, democracy and justice.
5.21 p.m.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, replies, I would just like to say two or three words in order to express the opinion that I believe the Government will be right to ratify the Treaties. They have certain bad elements in them but on the whole, in my view, the good elements outweigh the bad. I will give one or two particular reasons. I attach the very greatest importance to those clauses which establish human rights and freedoms. Lord Vansittart may say: "Well, but those clauses will probably be ignored." Maybe, but even so you would have a very solid ground of protest once those Treaties are ratified. You can bring those people before the great sounding board of the Assembly of the United Nations. That is a remedy which the noble Lord has himself suggested. There is one other reason; and a very important one—namely, that once the Treaties are ratified the forces of the occupying Power will be withdrawn, and that, to my mind, may be very effective in allowing the ordinary men and women of those countries more freedom, because you take away from the Communist Party one of their greatest weapons. It is for those reasons that I believe that ratification is right.
5.23 p.m.
LORD VANSITTART: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord thought that I was too severe on these Treaties. That was not my intention. When these Treaties were before the House, I made it perfectly plain and I gave all the reasons why I thought they were indifferent treaties. I myself urged that they should be passed because they were the best we could do. What baffles me now is to find the advantage in ratifying treaties which (a) we know to be indifferent, and (b) are not being kept and we know are not going to be kept. The noble Lord thought also that I was too pessimistic in regard to the outcome of the elections. He then proceeded to adduce a number of facts which went far beyond my apprehensions. For instance, his total of the people who are going to be disfranchised was well in advance of mine, which ran from 50,000 people to something like 300,000 people. His amounted to a possible 500,000. We

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have always been told that elections in Eastern Europe were going to be conducted "good and straight and proper," and they never have been. We are getting a little tired of these assurances. I have no confidence in them whatever any more. I should be very agreeably surprised if the Prime Minister Dinnyes turns out to be the one exception. From the noble Lord's speech, I think it transpires that he has some faint hope that between the stages of signing and ratification there will be some transformation of the soul; that I can hardly believe. If people are not bound by their signature and continue to dishonour it the whole time, I do not think the mere formality of ratification will bring about that chance of heart.
In passing I may say that I am afraid that the noble Earl, Lord Perth, greatly overrates the effect of the withdrawal of Soviet troops, but I will deal with that point later on another occasion, if need be. In the case of Poland, every international obligation was flouted and the elections were a farce and a travesty of any semblance of decency or fair play. The result was "cooked" beforehand and anybody could have told you what the exact result was going to be. We protested over and over again and we got nothing but rude answers or no answer at all. After that, we sent out a new Ambassador, we received here forthwith a Polish trade delegation and we conferred upon them an advantageous financial agreement. Some of us would be very reluctant to drain the dregs of humiliation again. There may be a good answer in the case of Poland. The noble Lords on my left would say: "Well, we could do nothing else." True, there was no treaty pending for Poland.
But in the case of the satellites, our ex-enemies, there is something that we can do, and I think that we shall be culpable if we do not do it or at least if we do not reconsider, just as I have asked, before we finally commit ourselves. You can do something by refraining from ratification until you have some better assurance that the terms of the treaty which is now being dishonoured will be held in greater esteem and respect. If you fling away that one lever that you have in your hand without further discussion, you will be incurring a very grave responsibility indeed. It will be fair for me to point that out to this
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House when the time comes, but for the moment I do not wish to pursue that any further.
I thank the noble Lord most warmly for his courteous reply. I could not have expected a better one. I know from what lie said that his idea of what is happening in the world runs closely parallel with what I have described. Therefore, for the present, as time is getting on, I shall ask for your Lordships' permission to withdraw my Motion. I can only hope that there will be no ratifying during the Recess so that I shall not be compelled to speak on this subject again.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

ORGANIZATION OF YOUTH VISITS.
5.28 p.m.
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH rose to ask His Majesty's Government what steps have been taken in connexion with the arrival in this country of a party of Norwegian young persons. for whose accommodation inadequate preparations lad been made; and to call attention to the serious dangers which may arise in connexion with similar arrivals of young persons. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the aim of the World Friendship Association is to promote international good understanding by means of an exchange of visits between children and young persons in this country and those abroad. With that aim most of your Lordships will have a certain degree of sympathy, as I myself have. It is true that one can never tell how much good is done in the international sphere by any particular visit but, if well organized, such excursions should he delightful, interesting and valuable to the children who take them.
There is another matter which is beyond controversy. The Association itself admits that its resources and organization have proved totally inadequate to the task of coping with the enormous number of visits which it has been asked this year to arrange. They run to many thousand; of visits and the handling of these large bodies of children and young persons, travelling for the most part for the first time, and their reception in this country, present problems of great complexity that can only be handled by well-trained and competent people endowed with ample funds. At the same time, there have been

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indications that all was not well with the affairs of the World Friendship Association. Last year a party of foreign children came to my own neighbourhood, to Aldershot, and there were many local criticisms of the manner in which that party had been organized, and there was a hostile article in the local newspaper.
This year, as we all know from the accounts that have appeared in the Press—and I may say that I consider that the Press have performed a great service in calling attention to what was going wrong—there have been some very lamentable blunders indeed. I will not detail these matters that have already been so well covered, but I feel bound to draw attention to one very serious matter in connexion with the arrival of a party of Norwegian children and young persons on Sunday, July 27. I understand that on July 25 a party of Norwegians was embarked for this country which exceeded by some 200 the numbers for whom arrangements had been made here. When this fact was discovered by the organizers in Great Britain the British Broadcasting Corporation were asked to send out an appeal after the nine o'clock news for volunteers to come forward and offer hospitality to the children, who would otherwise have no homes to go to. Applications poured in to the offices of the Association the next day, and on the 27th the children and young persons, many of whom were boys and girls in their teens, arrived.
They were met by the would-be hosts. Some of the hosts, after waiting a considerable time to meet their guests, finding that there was considerable delay went away. Others stayed until the Norwegian children arrived, and then proceeded to claim this or that child to be their guest. I am informed that no precautions were taken to identify the would-be hosts; even the routine precaution of inspecting their identity cards was not rigorously pursued, and, finally, according to the Daily Express newspaper, the organizer of this chaotic scene mounted a railway bridge, I believe, and proceeded to hold what the Daily Express described as a kind of auction of the children. He called them up one by one and said: "Who wants this boy of fourteen?" and hands might or might not go up, and some of the
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children had the humiliating experience of not being wanted by anybody. Later on in the proceedings the young women were held up to auction in the same manner, and it was open to anybody on that crowded station platform to come forward and say, "Oh yes, I will take this young woman."
I do not feel that I need emphasize the extreme undesirability of those proceedings, nor need I do more than remind your Lordships that in this country, as in all countries, there are wicked and unscrupulous people who might take a very terrible advantage of such circumstances. I am sure that I shall command the agreement of all your Lordships, and particularly that of the noble Lord who is to reply, when I say that this sort of thing must never happen again, and that it is a disgrace to this country that it happened at all. The last thing I want to do is to enter into any recriminations, but I must point out that Ministers have some responsibility in this matter, a responsibility which public opinion would not allow them to evade, even if they wished to—and I am sure they do not wish to. In the first place, I am informed that the services of local education officers are employed in arranging for parties of British children to go abroad under the auspices of this Association, and that they, with the assistance of local committees, prepare the reception of foreign children who come here. I think that that must imply at least the tacit permission of the Minister of Education and, though the World Friendship Association is a purely private body and not a public body at all, the fact that it has received the co-operation of the Ministry of Education makes it proper for me to question the Government about its affairs.
Then, of course, there is the Home Secretary who in this matter, too, has overriding duties. In the first place, he controls the admission of aliens to this country, and, in the second place, he has a particular responsibility for the protection of young persons. I know that there are regulations regarding the admission of aliens for temporary or for prolonged visits to this country, but it was my experience last year, when I entertained some foreigners in my home, that it was not very easy to discover exactly what the regulations were, and it was also my im-

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pression that it would not have been very difficult to evade those regulations, though I need hardly assure your Lordships that I did not try to do so. In fact, I made a number of journeys, some of them fruitless, to police stations in order to find out what I had to do. I think it would be helpful—and I have notified the noble Lord, Lord Walkden, of this question in advance—if the noble Lord would tell us exactly what the regulations are, and what steps are taken to ensure that they are observed.
Finally, my Lords, I hope that the noble Lord will be able to give us some indication as regards the Government's plans for the future. For the present, I see in the papers that all the tours have been stopped for this summer. I am glad to hear that. It is much better that they should be abandoned and completely given up until such time as they can be properly and efficiently organized. There are, in this country, a number of youth organizations, some of them having an international character, such as the Boy Scouts and the Girl Guides, and many others, including the Children's Country Holidays Fund. They have great experience in the movement of children and young persons. It seems to me that many of those organizations or perhaps some joint committee acting on behalf of them all would be capable of arranging for exchanges of visits next year, on a basis that would be safe and prudent and thoroughly enjoyable to all concerned. But it must be the moral of the series of events I have mentioned that no organization in the future should be permitted to function unless the Government are satisfied that it is competent to do so. Much as I dislike any extension of the sphere of State action, it appears to me inevitable that some system of Home Office licensing should be introduced.
The question has also been raised regarding the possibility of Government assistance to the funds of societies that arrange these matters. I should hope very much that international visits could be arranged on a basis that would need no subsidy whatever, and I should much regret any entry into this field of public money. Certainly the appropriate Departments have a duty to supervise whatever is done. I should like to conclude by saying as an Englishman that I feel
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very much ashamed at the scurvy welcome that these Scandinavian and other guests have had in our country. My Lope is that the latter days of their visit will erase the bad first impressions which they must have gained of our hospitality, and that they have now been accommodated in satisfactory and suitable homes and have been made to feel truly welcome here.
5.42 p.m.
LORD WALKDEN: My Lords, our thanks are due to the noble Lord for calling attention to this matter, which has excited a great deal of public interest. There will be general agreement with the view expressed by the Home Secretary in replying to questions in another place on Thursday, July 31; when he said:
"The last thing I desire to do is to prevent children from other countries coming here and children from this country going abroad, on a mutual basis, because I. am quite sure that, properly controlled, this is a most valuable piece of international work."
Until a recent case occurred there had been no occasion to question the character of the arrangements made for bringing parties of foreign children to this country. Soon after the termination of hostilities, arrangements were made to bring parties of Ditch children here for rest and recuperation. Parties of French children have also been brought here. Moreover, arrangements have been made for the interchange on a mutual basis of visits by British children to countries abroad and by children from those countries to Great Britain.
Such is the value of these interchanges of visits that the Minister of Education would like to see a suitable national organization established as soon as possible to handle exchanges and visits of this and. To that end he is in consultation with representatives of the local education authorities and of the teachers' organizations through the educational co-operating body which has been set up for U.N.E.S.C.O. purposes. Whatever may be done in the way of creating a national organization, there will probably still be room for the making of such arrangements by unofficial bodies. As the Home Secretary indicated on Thursday last, there is no desire on the part of the Government to be exclusive in this matter or to give the monopoly to any particular organization.

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While the Government are anxious to facilitate these visits, they are, of course, equally anxious that the welfare of the children shall be properly safeguarded. The question now under consideration is what arrangements ought to be made to prevent any abuse which may occur in connexion with these schemes. It is, of course, important that those who undertake the organization of such schemes should be responsible and reliable persons who will take all proper steps to safeguard the welfare of the children. In particular, it is important that before any parties of children start on their journey adequate and careful arrangements shall have been made for their reception on arrival and for their maintenance and accommodation. It would be a mistake to suggest that there has been any general failure to take such care, but the recent case to which public attention has been called illustrates the need for precautions. What precisely is the most appropriate scheme for ensuring the necessary precautions is a matter on which consultation is taking place at the present time between the Departments primarily concerned—namely, the Home Office, the Ministry of Education and the Foreign Office—and I can assure the noble Earl that there will be no failure to arrange such safeguards as are necessary and appropriate.
I will now endeavour to answer some of the specific questions which the noble Earl raised. He asked whether the World Friendship Association is sponsored by any Government Department. The answer is, No; the Association is not sponsored or recognized in any way by the Government. It is an independent body for which the Government have no responsibility. He further asked whether it was the case that the World Friendship Association usually arranges for the interchange of children's visits by employing as their agents the local education officers. The answer is that local education authorities have power to defray expenses incurred in sending school parties abroad. If, for the purpose of sending schoolchildren abroad, a local education authority enters into an arrangement with the World Friendship Association, or with any other travel agency, a responsibility rests on the local authority to satisfy themselves that proper arrangements have
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been made for the welfare of the children. In any such case it would hardly be correct to say that the World Friendship Association was using a local education officer as their agent. The position rather is that the local education authority is using the World Friendship Association as their travel agency.
The third question was whether some responsibility may rest upon the Foreign Office in connexion with passports and visas, and on the Home Office in connexion with residence permits and with the use of the deep shelter in which parties have been accommodated. The Home Office is responsible through its immigration officers for deciding whether a foreigner who arrives at a port shall be admitted, but in the case of ordinary travellers it is not the duty of the immigration officer to inquire whether the visitor has assurance of accommodation. Obviously, all necessary arrangements for the accommodation of parties of children ought to be made before they start on their journey.
The system of visas granted by British Consuls abroad as authorization for foreigners to travel to the United Kingdom has now been abolished as regards a number of European countries. There is a general desire to get rid, as far as possible, of these war-time arrangements which are liable to make travel more difficult. Consequently, as regards nationals of such countries, there is now nothing in the nature of a "residence permit" granted before the traveller starts.
Now, with regard to the deep shelter in which the Norwegian children were accommodated, that was a shelter which had been placed at the disposal of the War Office. As, at the time, the War Office were not making use of the accommodation in this shelter, the War Office, at the request of the World Friendship Association, agreed to make it available for the Norwegian children as an emergency measure. It is understood that a representative of the Norwegian Embassy has seen the accommodation provided and expressed himself as highly satisfied. According to certain papers—I will not mention names—the police undertook to visit the homes in which the unexpected Norwegian children had been placed. No such suggestion was made

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to the police and there is no foundation for this story.
In reply to the question as to what is the state of the law in regard to the temporary sojourn of foreign young persons with English families, there is, of course, no law to prevent an English family accommodating a foreign guest or to require an. English householder to obtain some official authorization before doing so. The noble Earl said he was doubtful whether sufficient precautions against the exploitation of young girls were in force. That is a very serious point. If by exploitation the noble Earl refers to the use of foreign girls as domestics for inadequate wages, or under unsatisfactory conditions, there is no ground for any such misapprehension. Foreigners are admitted for employment only under Ministry of Labour permits, and permits are granted only where wages and conditions are satisfactory. If the suggestion is that young girls may be brought to this country from the Continent for immoral purposes, any such risk is one on which careful watch is kept, both by the immigration officers, by the police and by various societies, including the Vigilance Society. Procuring girls for immoral purposes is, of course, a criminal offence, for which severe penalties can be imposed, and there is no ground for suggesting that the system of exchange of visits can facilitate the procuring of girls for immoral purposes.
The noble Earl also asked whether we were satisfied that the laws in force in foreign States are sufficiently stringent to provide our children and young persons with protection against immoral exploitation. I have not very much information on this point, but some fine regulations were promulgated by the League of Nations. Whether they are all being honoured in every country to-day we are quite uncertain; but apart from any protection afforded, by foreign States the important point is that those responsible for taking children and young persons abroad should satisfy themselves that proper arrangements have been made for their reception and accommodation at the other end. The noble Earl suggested some form of licensing system of societies or individuals who arrange for visits to foreign countries. I can only say that one of the suggestions the Ministry of Education have in view in trying to create some
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form of national organization is that this organization shall exercise proper supervision over the activities of all societies and individuals who undertake such travel arrangements. I trust that your Lordships feel satisfied that the Government, within the powers they possess to deal with it, have the matter well in hand.
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply. In doing so, with the leave of the House, I would venture to say this: I pointed out certain dangers in connexion with this travel, but I would like to say that I have made no suggestion that anything more deeply wrong has actually occurred.

AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY EXPORTS.
5.55 p.m.
LORD AMHERST OF HACKNEY: My Lords, I make no apology, owing to the importance of the subject, for asking this question at this late hour. As the question is self-explanatory, I will merely ask leave to put the question standing in my name.
[The question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government, the number of tractors, ploughs other categories of agricultural machinery exported during the last three months and what percentage these numbers represent of the total production of each category for the same period.]
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, with regard to tractors, 3,245 tractors were exported in the second quarter of this year, but I am not able to give the exact numbers of other types of agricultural machinery exported because no records of these are kept. The manufacturers, however, make returns to the Ministry of Agriculture of the quantities they are manufacturing for export, which, of course, is not quite the same thing. These returns show that 20,878 tractors, 18,364 ploughs, and 8,869 other machines were produced in the same period, of which the percentages produced for export were, respectively, 22, 60 and 23 per cent. Exports in this quarter were affected by the fact that a number of machines were diverted to the home market to help farmers who were particularly badly hit by the difficulties of the winter, especially

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by floods, and therefore the number produced for export is higher than the number which were in fact exported.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932.
Orders made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department extending Section 1 of the Act to the
1020

City of York;

County Borough of Reading;

Borough of Bexhill;

Borough of Eccles;

Urban District of Redditch:

Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) for affirmative Resolution, and ordered to lie on the Table.
House adjourned at two minutes before six o'clock.