Lords Sitting of 13 December 1950

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

  ROSS AND CROMARTY COUNTY COUNCIL (KYLE OF LOCHALSH FISHERY PIER) ORDER CON-FIRMATION BILL
  2.35 p.m.
  Considered on Report (according to Order).
  Then, Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of December 7), Bill read 3a, and passed.

DUNDEE HARBOUR AND TAY FERRIES ORDER CONFIRMA-TION BILL
Considered on Report (according to Order).
Then, Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of December 7), Bill read 3a, and passed.

INVERNESS COUNTY COUNCIL (ARMADALE PIER AND HAR-BOUR. &c.) ORDER CONFIRMA-TION BILL
Considered on Report (according to Order).
Then, Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of December 7), Bill read 3a, and passed.

NATIONAL ASSISTANCE (ADAPTA-TION OF ENACTMENTS) REGU-LATIONS, 1950
LORD KERSHAW: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Shepherd I beg to move that the National Assistance (Adaptation of Enactments) Regulations, 1950, reported from the Special Orders Committee on Wednesday last, be approved.
Moved accordingly and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

AGRICULTURE (SPECIAL DIREC-TIONS) (MAXIMUM AREA OF PASTURE) EXTENSION OF PERIOD ORDER, 1950
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRI-CULTURE and FISHERIES (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): My Lords, in moving the approval of this Order, in case there are any noble Lords who may doubt the need for the power conferred thereunder on the Minister perhaps I ought briefly to say why we are asking the House for authority to renew it for a period of twelve months. The purpose of this Order, and a similar Order to be moved by my noble friend Lord Morrison which applies to Scotland, is to enable the Minister, through the county agricultural executive committees, to continue to direct farmers to limit the amount of land they keep under grass. In this way they can be obliged to plough up pasture that could be better used for corn crops. There are two reasons why the need for this power of direction is at present even more urgent, if anything, than it was when the Order was originally made in 1948. The present international situation and the rearmament programme make it more than ever necessary for us to grow more food at home, so that less has to be imported from other countries. The shortage of coarse grains, of which your Lordships are fully cognisant, makes it extremely important to grow more oats and barley in order to maintain and increase our livestock population, I need hardly add that the great majority of farmers co-operate splendidly in the provision of what is required in the national interest, or that this power of direction is not used until every source of persuasion has been exhausted. But we have found a number of cases in which compulsion has been necessary, and there may well be other cases of farmers who would not fall into line if they did not know that they could be compelled in the last resort to do so. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Agriculture (Special Directions) (Maximum Area of Pasture) Extension of Period Order, 1950, reported from the Special Orders Committee on Wednesday last, be approved. (The Earl of Listowel)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

AGRICULTURE (MAXIMUM AREA OF PASTURE) (EXTENSION) (SCOTLAND) ORDER, 1950
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRE-TARY, MINISTRY OF WORKS (LORD MORRISON): My Lords, I beg to move that this Order be approved. I need only add, in accordance with what my noble friend Lord Listowel has just said, that this Order is in similar terms to the previous one.
Moved, That the Agriculture (Maxi-mum Area of Pasture) (Extension) (Scot-land) Order, 1950, reported from the Special Orders Committee on Wednesday last, be approved.—(Lord Morrison.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE (PENSIONS) BILL
2.37 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT JOWITT): My Lords, I rise to move the Second Reading of this Bill. I noticed with some interest that in another place at the conclusion of the proceedings it was said: "Here is the trade union of lawyers showing what a powerful and efficient trade union they are" As this Bill affects me personally as Lord Chancellor I must declare my interest at once. I would say that, so far as I am concerned, I think it is a most inefficient trade union, from which I should contract out or fail to contract in, as the case may be. The long and short of the matter is that 150 years ago when there was no income tax, surtax or any of those horrors, the Lord Chancellor used to get half as much again as he does to-day. I do not quite see what I have been paying my contributions to the union for, because I do not think the officials of the union have been very active. How-ever, so far as I am concerned I would much rather not receive any concessions myself—I have said this privately as well as publicly—if the benefit can go to some of the Judges who are faced with most difficult circumstances to-day. We have not had a strike in the legal profession since the days, I believe, of Christopher Hatton, in Elizabeth's time. I am bound to say that my recollection is that there were so many blacklegs after the strike
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had started that it broke down almost at once.
The purpose of the Bill is to make provision for a contributory scheme for the payment of pensions to the widows and children of His Majesty's Judges and judicial officers. For your Lordships' convenience, and in response to a suggestion which the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simon, made to me, I have arranged for a table to be appended to the front of this Bill, and in this your Lordships will see a list of the Judges and judicial officers to whom the Bill applies and the financial effects that will result from the passing of the Bill. The under-lying principles embodied in this Bill are not, of course, new. for we already have a similar scheme for the civil servants. I am glad to be able to say that the Bill is welcomed in all quarters. It has the support not only of those to whom it will apply in England and Wales, but also of the Scottish and Northern Irish Judges; but in all cases, be it understood, without prejudice to their claim for an increase in salary. This Bill does not deal with the question of salary at all.
Hitherto, there has been no provision for the widows and children of the Judges and judicial officers. I believe that in times like these this lack of a widows' pension scheme may well cause financial anxieties, and it is important that those to whom the scheme applies should, so far as possible, be free from these anxieties; and it is also important that their appointments should attract the best people, so that the high standard of justice to which we have been accustomed can be maintained.
The structure of the Bill can be de-scribed as follows. First, instead of receiving the pension which may at present be paid, the pension of those concerned will be reduced by one-quarter, and to compensate for this reduction there will be paid, either on retirement or in the event of death before retirement, a lump sum or death gratuity, as the case may be. The lump sum will be twice the annual amount of the reduced pension, and the death gratuity will be twice the annual amount of the pension for which the office holder would have been eligible had he retired on the grounds of ill-health at the date of his death, or the last annual salary, whichever is the greater. That, of course, is the Civil Service principle.

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Actuarially, the lump sum or death gratuity is calculated to compensate the office holder so that in the long run the State will neither gain nor lose by this arrangement. I should like to draw the attention of your Lordships to the great advantage of this provision for the payment of a death gratuity to a Judge or judicial officer who dies while still in harness. I believe that in such cases the provision will be of real benefit and will prevent hardship which would otherwise result. Speaking again of myself, it is a very long time since a Lord Chancellor has died in harness—it is certainly not within the last 100 years. But if anything did happen to me—there is no wood I can touch- substantial benefit would be derived under this Bill. I think I should point that out to your Lordships.
The purpose of this alteration in the method of paying pensions and the introduction of the lump sum or death gratuity leads me to the second aspect of the scheme, which is the provision of pensions for Judges' widows and children. It is calculated that the cost of this innovation will be met. as to one half, by the State and as to the other half by the contributions to be made. These contributions by the Judges will be made not in cash but by a reduction of the lump sum or death gratuity to be paid to them by this Bill. The contribution to be paid by the office holders will be equal to the amount of the annual pension of the officer or the accrued pension, if he is still serving at the time of his death. In exchange for the payment of this contribution there may be paid an annual pension for the officer's widow equal to one-third of the amount of his contribution or pension, these being equal. In addition there may be paid a pension in respect of his children, varying according to the number of children under the age of sixteen or children whose education has not been completed, up to a maximum of a further one-third of the contribution or pension.
The table on the front of the Bill will indicate to your Lordships the way in which this Bill is intended to work, and I will give only one example. Let us take the case of a Master of the Supreme Court who is drawing his maximum salary, £2,500. His present pension would be £1,666. This will be reduced by Clause 1 of the Bill to £1,250. On retirement, or on death in office, his lump sum or death
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gratuity, as the case may be, would be £2,500. He would surrender half of this lump sum, and his widow's pension would be £416 a year. It is intended that the Bill shall apply to all Judges and judicial officers appointed in future, but provision is made for those who are now serving either to elect to retain their existing pension rights or to elect that the revised method of paying their pension shall apply to them—that is, a reduced pension and a lump sum, but without the widows' and children's pension rights.
Your Lordships will note that the benefits under the Bill are discretionary, whereas the contributions are compulsory. This may at first seem anomalous but I think that is not so. Personal pensions are always a matter of discretion and. therefore, it is exactly right that Clause 1 of the Bill should contain mandatory pro-visions taking away a potential benefit which is actuarially equivalent to the potential benefit conferred by Clause 2. The lump sums payable on retirement or death do not attract income tax. Further-more, since they are discretionary, the lump sums payable or death, and the widows' pensions, do not swell the estate of the deceased for death duty purposes. This is, of course, an exceedingly difficult branch of the law, and I have had the benefit of consultations with the Inland Revenue on this matter.
As the Bill stands, the Board of Inland Revenue consider that the lump sum pay-able on retirement is not subject to income tax. It does not, in their view, constitute emoluments of the Judge's office, and therefore cannot be taxed as such. It can-not be taxed as pension, since it is not pension; on the contrary, it is to be given in substitution for pension. It is therefore not taxable at all. I may add that in some circumstances the taxability of a lump sum retirement benefit depends on whether payment is discretionary or mandatory, and the fact that the lump sum provided in the Bill is discretionary may be thought to confirm its non-taxable character; the Board, however, consider that it would not be subject to income tax even if payment were mandatory. On the other hand, if payment were mandatory the freedom from estate duty of the lump sum payable to the widow would become open to doubt, since the freedom from estate duty does depend on the discretionary character of the payment. It is sufficient.

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I think, for us to say that this is now the accepted doctrine. Of course, this principle has been accepted with regard to the Civil Service for a very long time, and it is plainly the basis upon which we are proceeding, that these lump sums are not subject to any tax, either by way of in-come tax or death duties.
I believe that this Bill will be of real benefit to the Judiciary, and in asking your Lordships to give it a Second Reading I do so without prejudice to the question of judicial salaries. The Bill has been welcomed, as I have already said, by the Judges and judicial officers concerned, and I commend it to your Lord-ships. I very much hope that your Lordships will agree with me. and that if so you will allow me to take the remaining stages of the Bill this afternoon. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a. —(The Lord Chancellor.)
2.48 p.m.
VISCOUNT SIMON: My Lords, unlike the Lord Chancellor I am under no necessity to declare my personal interest in the Bill, because the Government, by rigid adherence to principle on this occasion, abstained from making their legislation retrospective—a salutary but rigorous rule which in the past and in other connections they have not always thought fit to observe. Therefore I feel no personal embarrassment in saying that I agree with the Lord Chancellor and think it would be an advantage if we carried this measure into law speedily, if only for this reason: that though there is a provision in the Bill by which the holder of one of these offices might declare his option and get the advantage of his choice if he retired, he would lose any benefit which the Bill might otherwise confer if he happened to die before the Royal Assent was given. I think, therefore, on every ground that it is desirable that we should dispose of the matter.
I am glad that the Lord Chancellor has called attention to the table on the first page of the Bill. I do not profess for a moment to follow the actuarial calculations. Indeed, I should have thought that in some cases it was a little difficult to make an actuarial calculation. I am sure that my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack will not mind my saying that
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it would appear to be particularly difficult in the case of X, a holder of his present office, who is necessarily only one person at a time, who may be of any age within reason and whose prospects of life in an official sense are, I should have thought, rather difficult to calculate with any precision. There is also the interesting reflection, which might occur to some members of the House, as to what would happen if an ex-Lord Chancellor by any chance became Lord Chancellor again. Would he receive another lump sum? Without dwelling further on that point, I may say that if the Bill is carefully examined, I think it will be found that however many times he may return to the Woolsack he will receive the lump sum only once.
There is one rather serious consideration which I mention, not at all in opposition to the Bill but because it is important-indeed, the Lord Chancellor has given an illustration. He took as an illustration a Master of the Supreme Court, with the salary he named of between £2,000 and £2,500. The principle of the Bill is that if the holder of the office so chooses, instead of drawing the pension to which he is at present entitled (which is shown in Column 2), he may draw that pension reduced by one quarter, and in return for that reduction some consequential benefits are secured. As a matter of fairness to those who are in the lower scale of salary, I wish to point out that to give up one quarter of your pension is a very different thing for persons drawing the lower salaries as compared with those who are drawing the higher salaries. It is a different thing if the question is how much more or less are they left with to spend, because if they are in the higher range of salaries the present rate of income tax and surtax is such that it really does not make much difference to them whether they receive, let us say. £3,750 or £2,812 as their pension. The direct taxes are so high when you get into these higher ranges that even a substantial increase does not mean much in your pocket, and a substantial decrease does not mean losing much from your pocket.
The position is different, however, when we come to those who are in the lower scales. Let us take, for example, a county court judge, who under the present arrangements has a pension at the end

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of his fifteen years' service of £1,333; his pension will be reduced from that sum to £1,000; in other words he gives up in pension £333. That does make a great deal of difference, because, his own pension being smaller in total, the extent to which he is able to benefit by the larger sum is less eaten into by direct taxation than would be the case with those at the top of the table. I do not say this with any idea that we should change the Bill, but I think it is right that we should observe that point, because I have no doubt at all that that is the effect. Indeed, I wonder whether some of those in the lower ranks, when they consider whether they will exercise this option, will really find it possible to say: "Yes. I will take the lower pension," in view of the fact that they have to contemplate living at the lower figure for whatever is left of their life after they have finished their fifteen years' service. I think that is a comment quite legitimately made when the explanation is offered that: "It is all done according to a scheme. Divide the existing pension by four and take away one quarter." In fact, the operation of that scheme is very different in the case of the man on the higher scale as com-pared with the case of the man on the smaller salary.
One or two other interesting reflections occur when one looks at this table, which I will venture to mention in only a sentence or two. Again I direct attention to the case of. the county court judge which is to be found in the table on page iii. The county court judge has a salary of £2,000 a year, and the table shows the proposals for reducing his pension, providing for his widow and so on. If your Lordships will turn over to page v you will find that registrars of the county court, responsible officials but, after all, subordinate to the county court judges, have, as here recorded, various salaries, of which the highest is £2,125. I think there are twenty-six registrars who receive £2,000 (the same as the county court judge himself) and there are several who get £2,125 The result is that the registrar of a county court, a most responsible official but still not of the status or authority of the county court judge, is by this scheme not only retaining a salary which in some cases is higher than that of the county court judge but is, of course, getting, if he chooses to take it, the consequential advantage of a higher widow's
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pension and a higher provision for children.
Of course, I do not forget that some, at any rate, of the county court judges are now, under a scheme which the Lord Chancellor devised, also doing work as Divorce Judges and, I understand receiving some remuneration for it. I cannot help thinking, however, that the situation very clearly disclosed in this table is a remarkable one, when one considers the position of a county court judge, a very hard-worked official, who has to maintain his proper status in the county and who has great responsibilities which I think are generally discharged to the satisfaction of the general public. It is a great mistake to suppose that the good government of a democracy in respect of the administration of justice is properly secured by disregardirg the hardships of the lower-paid judicial officers. Before a man can administer justice with any satisfaction he has not only to be a man of high character, training and experience but somebody whose mind is fairly free to do his work and who is not distracted by the thought of how he is to carry out his responsibilities to his wife and children. That is irrelevant to-day, and I am glad that it is, because the Lord Chancellor has again stated, as was announced in another place, that (he changes which this Bill makes have nothing in the world to do with the question whether judicial salaries are adequate or not. Therefore the passing of this Bill, as I think the Lord Chancellor agrees, is never to be used as an argument of any weight at all when the question of judicial salaries arises.
That is all I want to say about this Bill. I think it is well that it should be before us now, and I know that we on this side at any rate, have been willing that it should receive its Second Reading at the shortest possible notice. I do not expect that any Amendment will be pro-posed. To some extent, perhaps, these financial matters are not appropriate for this House, but in any case I have ventured to make these observations on the Bill with a desire to call the attention of the House and people outside, so far as I may, to some of the anomalies and difficulties with which I think we may be faced.
3.0 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, I do not want to delay the passage

927
of this very good Bill beyond a moment or two, because I am sure we all give it general support. However, there is one point of public policy that I beg to submit to your Lordships for a moment's consideration. It is the question of policy arising from the proposals of lump sum payments. I feel that the Government are by Statute assisting certain persons to avoid, to some extent, the results of the policy of very high taxation which is being imposed upon the citizens of this country at the present time, for the Bill provides for a reduction of pensions by one-quarter and for the payment of a lump sum in lieu. I am sure the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack will forgive me if I concentrate—not in any personal sense, of course—on the position of a Lord Chancellor.
I calculate that a Lord Chancellor on a retirement pension of £5,000 a year, married and with no dependent children, receives a net spendable income of £2,554. Under the proposals of the reduced pension, he gets £2,136, which is a reduction of £418 a year, against which he receives a lump sum of £7,500. I confess to some difficulty in understanding the words of the Attorney-General during the Committee stage of this Bill in another place. He said:
"The reason why the lump sum is payable free of income tax is that it is regarded as a capital payment compounding the pension which otherwise would have been paid"—
and I would ask your Lordships to note these words—
"and it is because it is actuarially a com-pounding of the quarter of the pension that it does not attract income tax."
I find some difficulty in appreciating how it is possible actuarially to calculate a pension when the age at which the holder will commence to enjoy that pension is not known. As the noble and learned Viscount. Lord Simon, said, a Lord Chancellor may be a Lord Chancellor for a period; then perhaps he is out of office for a bit. and later returns again to office. His age at entry to the enjoyment of this pension is unknown.
It is true that the Attorney-General, on the Third Reading of this Bill, apparently made some intended amendment of his previous Committee stage
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contention, because the Attorney-General then changed his ground and said:
"It is not a sale, but it is a statutory trans-action, and under the clauses as they now stand, although the pension, the annual annuity, will attract income tax in the ordinary way, the lump sum is capital and does not attract tax."
I am rather at a loss to understand whether this lump sum is a sum actuarially calculated; if so, I cannot understand its basis. Alternatively, if, as the Attorney-General's second statement claimed, this is a statutory provision, I think I am entitled to make the point that by doing this the Government are giving certain servants of the Crown at this time an advantage over their fellow citizens. There are tens of thousands of professional men—surgeons, accountants and others—who find it absolutely impossible to-day to accumulate any capital whatsoever for retirement. Men who have looked forward to retirement have now to work virtually until they are physically unable to provide for themselves, because they cannot accumulate any capital under the present levels of taxation. By this Bill the Government are allowing certain persons to avoid the very effects of the Government's own policy.
Let us assume that a commercial man who has served his industry well retires on a discretionary pension given to him by his board of directors, and let us assume that he had great responsibilities for millions of money and the employment of thousands of men. His board of directors give him a discretionary pension of £20,000 a year. Perhaps the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor would be so good as to give me an answer to this question. Suppose that the man either sells or compounds one-quarter of his pension, so that his pension becomes £15,000 a year, and he receives a lump sum of £30,000, could he avoid income tax and surtax on that £30,000? And if the pension were paid at the discretion of the board of directors, would it escape death duties and estate duties? I venture to put that case before your Lordships because I feel that we must realise that we are establishing for certain persons in our State an advantage which is not enjoyed by others who I consider, with the greatest respect, are equally deserving by reason of their contributions to our industrial and political life.
3.5 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to be irrelevant, in the company of the noble and learned Viscount who brought to your Lordships' attention the position of the county court judges. He revealed a most anomalous situation in which the administrative officers in a number of county courts, as the result of the recommendations of the Committee over which I myself had the honour to preside, are now receiving a substantially higher salary than the county court judge him-self. I am quite sure that the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Wool-sack is well aware of this position, but I feel that it needs to be ventilated in the way that the noble and learned Viscount opposite has ventilated it. The work of the county court judge is, in a sense, just as difficult, onerous and important as the work: of the Judge in the High Court. It is true that he is dealing with people in the lower income grades, but the actual decisions he has to come to are just as difficult to make. He tries his cases under conditions which are often much more difficult than those obtaining in the case of a High Court Judge. He is subjected to a great deal of physical hard work. moving over large areas of the country, often in exceedingly difficult conditions, and at the present time he undoubtedly is very seriously under-remunerated. I will not take up your Lordships' time. I am sure that the position is obvious. I express the hope that the Lord Chancellor will find time to deal with it, and deal with it very quickly indeed.
3.7 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I cannot follow the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simon, and the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, into forbidden paths, beyond saying that I fully realise what they say about the county court judges. I Jay at once that the present position of the county court judges, in particular, is causing me, and I think would cause any Lord Chancellor, some anxiety. There are similar cases in Northern Ireland and Scotland. They are matters which would seriously affect the mind of anybody in my position.
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If I may say so, with the greatest respect to the noble Lord. Lord Balfour, he gave rather a grudging compliance to this scheme, but really he is under a complete and fundamental misapprehension. There is nothing to take this scheme outside the ordinary law of the land There is nothing in this Bill which does that. It provides for the payment of a lump sum. Whether that lump sum is or is not subject to tax is a matter which depends on the ordinary law. I have told your Lordships what the ordinary law is, in the view of the Inland Revenue author ties. This is no new problem; it has existed, for years, in the case of the civil servants, and in the case of many other people also. My noble friend tells me that railway men are in the same position.
The Bill does not propound any new principle of law in this connection at all, and whilst I am not going to speculate as to what would happen in different cases, or anything of that sort, I can only tell the noble Lord that it depends upon the existing law of the land, which is not being touched by this Bill at all. Whether or not this lump sum does or does not attract tax is a matter for the ordinary law, and we are not interfering with that. I have told your Lordships what, in the view of the tax authorities, is the position. It is a position which has been followed for many years and I believe it to be right. But the noble Lord has rushed into this very difficult topic, one of the most difficult topics in our law, and he will forgive me if I do not follow him further into the attractive field into which he has endeavoured to lead me.
I am grateful to your Lordships for the reception which this Bill has received, and for the help that you have indicated you are going to give me in order to get it passed.
On Question, Bill read 2a; Committee negatived.
Then, Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of December 7), Bill read 3a, and passed.

NATURALISATION OF ALIENS
3.12 p.m.
LORD VANSITTART LORD VANSITTART rose to move to resolve, That more stringent and effective precautions should govern the bestowal of British nationality upon alien applicants. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in submitting this Motion to your Lordships I will be as brief as possible and, I hope, entirely practical. Our system of naturalisation has never worked entirely perfectly, nor would any fair-minded man expect that to be the case—and I wish to be entirely fair. Before the First World War some of us in the Foreign Office felt that the system might be bettered, and that the subject was too important to be remitted entirely to the Aliens Branch of the Home Office; and we thought that the basis of judgment might with advantage be broadened. After the First World War there was no change that I know of. During the eight years that I was Permanent Under-Secretary I was not consulted in these matters; nor, indeed, again to be entirely fair, if I had been should I have had any comment to make in nearly all cases. In one or two perhaps I might have suggested caution; in one or two I might have objected.
But I still adhered to the idea that my friends and I had had for a long while-namely, that we should broaden the basis of discussion. Therefore, I thought it would be a good idea if final judgment on questions of naturalisation, particularly in any borderline case, were remitted to a committee which would comprise not only representatives of the Home Office but also those of the Foreign Office, the three Fighting Services, the Board of Trade and, of course, all branches of our security services. None of us had the least desire to deprive the Home Office of its primacy in the matter. It would have gone with-out saying that the Home Office should be in the chair. Our idea, however, never caught on, and there has been a certain reluctance to change with a changing and ever more dangerous world. When I was a free man I brought up that idea in this House, in a Motion which contained a good deal of other controversial matter, and in consequence when the Government came to reply they omitted to cover that point at all. So I am going to press it upon them again to-day, and I hope they
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will give it very serious consideration. That is one point.
The second is that the regulations pre-scribe that any applicant for naturalisation must have four well-accredited sponsors. I should like to be quite sure that no exceptions are ever made to that rule. I think it might be worth the Government's while to look back into the past a little, and to see whether a case has not sometimes occurred, because those in authority deemed it to be a special case, where a man was passed on rather fewer than the regulation four sponsors. However high the authority might be in such a case, I think that would be a dangerous practice. We have only to look at the cases of Fuchs and Pontecorvo. Were there the full eight sponsors in those cases?
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (LORD HENDERSON): Yes.
LORD VANSITTART: There were. I am very glad to hear that. I suppose that the joint weight of their sponsorship was held to be a sufficient guarantee against the subsequent betrayal. As I said, I wish to be reasonable in this matter, and I am not going to press the Government to reveal the names of those eight sponsors who unfortunately went seriously astray; but I am going to press them to make public the names of sponsors in future. The Government may say that this would not be in the public interest, but that argument will not work with an old professional like myself: I have too often known it employed. As a matter of fact, there could be nothing whatever against the public interest in publishing the names of sponsors. I have sponsored a good number of people at different times during my life and I should never have had the least hesitation in making public the fact that I did stand guarantee for them. Nor, indeed, can I imagine that any man of good faith and good will would object to some publicity in this matter. If he did object I should think there was something odd about his sponsorship. That would be my first reaction. As a matter of fact, these regulations prescribe that any applicant must publish twice in a newspaper the fact that he is making the application. I

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suggest for your Lordships' serious consideration, that there could be no pos-sible objection to publishing at the same time the names of his four sponsors, because if anybody were inclined to show just cause or impediment why naturalisation should not be granted (which is the object of the publication), the authorities would have a good deal more information upon which to judge. I do not think that is an unreasonable suggestion That is the second point that I suggest to the Government.
The third is, that under the Nationality Act of 1948 the penalty for making any misleading statement with a view to obtaining naturalisation is a penalty not exceeding three months' imprisonment. When one considers the perilous world in which we live to-day, I think that that penalty is altogether too low, and that something more in the nature of a deterrent should be provided. After all. this country at the present time is more permeated with hostile agents than at any time before in its history, and here is a wide-open opportunity for somebody to add to them at a mere cost of three months, or less than three months, if he is caught. I would ask whether that might be taken into consideration also. That is the third point.
The fourth point that I would ask your Lordships to consider is again in regard to the application. Qualification 1 (a) prescribes as follows:
"The applicant must have either resided in the United Kingdom or been in Crown Service under His Majesty's government in the United Kingdom, … or partly the one and partly the other, throughout the period of twelve months immediately preceding the application."
That is entirely reasonable, as your Lord-ships will all agree. Then, Qualification 1(b) requires:
"during the seven years immediately preceding the period of twelve months mentioned above, the applicant must have resided either in the United Kingdom or in a British colony or protectorate or a United Kingdom mandated or trust territory, or been in Crown Service as above, or partly the one and partly the other, for periods amounting in full to not less than four years."
That also is entirely reasonable. Now we have to see how those requirements work out.
In this form the sponsors have to say and sign:
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"I support this application from my personal knowledge of and intimate acquaintance with the applicant for … years."
They fill in the blank before the word "years." It might be three or four. It is clear from what I have said that those three or four years could, or might in some cases, relate only to what the sponsors have known of the applicant while he has been in this country. In other words, Mr. Smith might recommend Herr Schmitt of Golders Green, whom he has known, let us say, for four years, and during that time Herr Schmitt's con-duct will have been entirely exemplary. It is true that the form which sponsors have to sign goes on:
"I vouch for his good character and loyalty and am prepared to furnish full details of my knowledge of and acquaintance with the applicant."
As a matter of fact, that provision is, on the whole, rarely acted upon. I have never been asked to give further details myself. Perhaps I may take that as a compliment or a mark of faith. I have a great many friends also who have not been asked to amplify. But my print is that it may well be that Mr. Smith recommends Herr Schmitt, having known him thoroughly in Golders Green for four years, but what does he know of Herr Schmitt's life in Leipzig four years before that, or in Frankfurt, twelve years before that, or in Hamburg fifteen years before that? If he does not know that, I think he should be compelled to state the fact. He should be obliged to point out that he knows nothing of the applicant as regards his life in any other country than this; that he has no knowledge of the applicant's foreign background. I suggest that there should be in this form, or attached to it. a space for giving such of the life history of the applicant as the sponsor knows; and when his knowledge is limited to a relatively short period in these islands, that should be stated clearly.
Let us see again how the present arrangement has worked out. Take the case of Herr Fuchs. He was a refugee. Why was he a refugee? Was he a Jew? —because that would be an excellent reason for it. I do not think so. I have known many Fuchs in my time who were not Jews. It is not a Jewish name any more than Fox is. Was he a refugee because he had Communist affiliations or relatives? Now we know that he had. Did his sponsors know that when they

935
made application, or exactly how much of him did they know? I do not want to press these particular cases of Fuchs or Ponte-corvo too closely; I am using them as illustrations. In the case of Fuchs, I think there was clearly recommendation without knowing a sufficient amount of the man's background. Exactly the same considerations apply in the case of Ponte-corvo. Again he was a refugee, and again he was probably a refugee not be-because he was a Jew but because he had affiliations and relatives in the Communist Party, which is the only other really good reason for his flight. Were these things known? If not, was it clearly stated that the sponsors did not know very much of his foreign background, or knew only so much and no more? I urge your Lord-ships, in view of the intensely dangerous character of the times in which we live, to insist that provisions like that should in future be seriously considered, and that space should be given for an exact definition and not an approximate one of the knowledge of the applicant.
Sixthly, I think it is abundantly clear that our screening does not work satisfactorily in all cases. That brings me back to speak very briefly of something which I have said to your Lordships be-fore now—that is, that our Security Ser-vices are, in my judgment, under-staffed and underpaid. I have said in this House before that they were the Cinderella of the Services; that I thought it would be a very serious thing if that were allowed to continue, and that I hoped improvement might be coming in the future. I hope that that is a matter which will also be taken into consideration. Here are these points—all entirely practical—which I submit to the Government. In past years I have put forward a number of propositions with the idea of strengthening the home front. I have not met with any success. I hope that this occasion will be an exception and that what I have said to-day will be taken into favourable consideration. Your Lordships may be inclined to think that it is a minor matter. It is not. It is a test case; a small-scale one, but a test case none the less, because provisions for the protection of the home front here are defective, and this would be one means of safeguard for the future. I beg to move.
Moved to resolve, That more stringent and effective precautions should govern the bestowal of British nationality upon alien applicants.—(Lord Vansittart).
3.26 p.m.
VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER: My. Lords, as one who has often found him-self in complete agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, I am glad indeed to have this opportunity of publicly supporting him this afternoon. My intervention will be but brief, for I pro-pose with your Lordships' permission to address myself to one point solely, and that is the question of the publication in the Press of the names of the sponsors. I think I was the first person to raise this matter in your Lordships' House as a supplementary question to one which was asked by my noble friend Lord Broughshane last March. In that case the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack gave a negative answer, but he was good enough to write me personally giving more fully his considered reasons for the rejection. That was an act of courtesy which I appreciated, and in reply to a supplementary question was something which I did not feel entitled to expect.
I think there will be few of your Lordships who will venture to dissent from the general proposition that to be a British subject is a great privilege. It is something which should not be lightly granted to an alien. The Roman, when he said, "Civis Romanus sum," was not making a vain boast or an idle statement; he was declaring a fact which gave him status even in the eyes of barbarians. So any alien fortunate enough to become a British subject secures some-thing which gives him particular benefits and which bestows great privileges on those entitled to enjoy it. At the same time, it offers great opportunity for doing evil. I should have thought that there never was a time in our history with—as I am afraid I see it— the future of the whole of our civilisation trembling in the balance, when we should have been more ready to adopt the most stringent precautions to see that no undesirables should be admitted as British subjects. That is not to say that we should keep aliens from our shores. But there is all the difference in the world between admitting aliens and accepting them as British subjects.

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One may wonder why it should be in such cases that the Government resist the suggestion which I have made. As I understand the reasons given in your Lordships' House by the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Wool-sack, and those given in another place, they amount to two things: first, that His Majesty's Government attach little or no importance to the names of the spon-sors—the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack will correct me if he disagrees—and, second, that it would no. be right that those who have acted in good faith at the lime should afterwards be pilloried in the Press. I have never suggested that His Majesty's Government do attach undue weight to the names of the sponsors, but that they attach some weight to them is plain. There is no statutory requirement in this regard. One is not bound by Statute to have sponsors, but the fact that the Government insist upon there being sponsors surely implies, ipso facto, that they attach some weight to their support.
And if weight is to be attached to their support, surely it is but reasonable that at a time such as this we should put the sponsors on their guard: and what could put them more fully on their guard than being apprised of the fact that along with the publication of the applicant's name their names would appear jointly with it in the Press? If any noble Lord doubts that that would put them on their guard, I would give an example given to me by a friend who had experience. He was asked to sponsor the naturalisation of a Roumanian. Noble Lords will realise that pressure of business, the filling up of many forms, the persuasive influence exerted by other friends, the easy argument that X, Y and Z had signed and and they are good people, make it hard for someone to refuse to sign as a sponsor. My friend did so sign and he was very sorry afterwards that he did. He admitted that he might have hesitated and given it more thought if he knew his name would appear in The Times. I see little difference in principle in regard to the request I am making whether it is on an important matter or something which is small. It is an extension of the same principle. I think that those who support a proposition which touches our public life should not be afraid publicly to an-
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nounce their support, any more than they are afraid to do so when they support something which touches their own personal life.
I give the illustration of a man who proposes or seconds a new member of a club. He has his name put up on the notice board, whether he likes it or not, and accepts that this should be so. Nor can any man who acts in good faith when larger interests are at stake, or when matters of public interest are affected, possibly resent having his name published in the Press. We should not forget that close on 6,000 aliens have already been naturalised this year. Are we sure that no Fuchs or Pontecorvos have slipped through the meshes of the net? Let us not forget that these gentlemen can change their names. Sometimes they prefer the exalted and ancient titles to be found even in your Lordships' House. Mr. Fuchs, for example, could if be wished simply become Mr. Fox. If he speaks English well, anyone would suppose that Mr. Fox was British by birth and not British by naturalisation. This is a most unsatisfactory situation unless very strict precautions are taken.
It has been suggested that the publication of the names of sponsors would result in the sponsors being pilloried in the Press. The Press, rightly in my view, has made a demand that these names should be published. I cannot see why that implies that the sponsors will be pilloried. I can see nothing of the kind. Far from it meaning their being pilloried in the Press thereafter for what they have done, it is a demand that they should be put on their guard about what they do at the time. I feel most sincerely that no man should sponsor an alien for naturalisation unless he feels that we are going to get a valuable citizen and that the State will be the gainer thereby. If he feels that, how can he possibly resent the publication of his name? I appeal to the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Wool-sack. I may be wrong, but I can see no good reason for rejecting the suggestion that I make, and many good reasons for accepting it. I believe it is a simple, sound and sensible proposition and one which it is very much in the interests of the Government to adopt. I strongly urge the noble and learned Viscount to accept it.
3.35 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I regret to say that I feel a current of xenophobia underlying the speeches to which we have just listened, although the actual proposals which the noble Lords have made have not been very drastic in character. Nevertheless, there was, particularly per-haps underlying the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, a distinct feeling that these people—and he spoke with a note of contempt in his voice— should not be admitted into the citizen-ship of our country.
VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER: I never said anything of the kind.
LORD CHORLEY: The noble Vis-count seemed to be suggesting that there should be some way of marking them, in the way the Jews in Nazi Germany were marked with the Star of David to show other citizens that they were Jews.
VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER: I cannot go on interrupting the noble Lord, but what he says bears no relation to what I have said. Every noble Lord present knows it.
LORD VANSITTART: My Lords, if it comes to a question of interrupting, if the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, is accusing me of xenophobia, I shall resent it exceedingly. I challenge him to show where my speech savoured of xenophobia in the smallest possible degree. The noble Lord should not make charges of that kind in this House when he is un-able to substantiate them.
LORD CHORLEY: I feel a current of xenophobia underlying the speeches of the noble Lords. I said I feel that, and I do not withdraw it. The noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, pointed out that a Fuchs would change his name to Fox and there was no way by which his fellow citizens could know he had had the horrible name of Fuchs. The method adopted by the Nazis in Germany was to mark the Jews with the Star of David, so that their fellow citizens would know they were, in fact, Jews. That was properly condemned throughout the length and breadth of this country.
If one could measure the greatness of the achievements of a nation by the yard-stick of its willingness to welcome strangers within its shores, I think we
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should find that the one was directly in proportion to the other. The noble Viscount has referred to Rome. He could not have given a better example of how the greatness of one of the greatest States that ever existed in the world was built up on this very policy of welcoming to Rome people from all the then known world. It appears that Rome began as a small State which welcomed runaway slaves. But whether that is true or not, historic Rome adopted one of the most liberal policies towards foreigners that any country has ever had. The strength and greatness of Rome in-creased as it received as its citizens men from all the Mediterranean countries. The noble Viscount quoted "Civis Romanus sum." That could be said at one and the same time by Paul of Tarsus, who came from Cilicia, on the one side of the ancient world, and by Seneca, from Cordoba in Spain, on the other. Both these men lived in Rome at the same epoch. Throughout the history of Rome that was typical of the attitude towards people born outside Rome.
Our country has gloried in exactly the same sort of attitude towards strangers. It has been one of the great factors of British history that we have welcomed strangers within our gates, whether they came here because they were men of vitality, industry and business ability, who came to make their fortunes in a country where there were no restrictions, or whether they came to avoid persecution.
Indeed, I believe that is the case of the ancestor of the noble Lord who proposed this Motion. I took the trouble to look up what was said in Burke's Peerage about him. The noble Lord is descended from one Peter Van Sittart, who came here about 1670 as a merchant adventurer. I am sorry that one whose ancestor came here and was welcomed, and who built up a distinguished house in this country, should be proposing this Motion this afternoon. Let me tell him that so far as I know my ancestors came to this country in 449—
A NOBLE LORD: B.C.?
LORD CHORLEY: That is to say, I am completely English on both sides. But there are noble Lords whose ancestry in these islands goes back much further than that. The point I am making is that, both in this House and in this country,

941
we have welcomed these people; and it has paid us hands down to do so, whether they came here merely because this was a country in which a great commercial or industrial career could be built up, or whether they came because they were refugees from persecution, religious or political, in other parts of the world. This country was one of the first countries in Europe to relax the persecution of the Jews. The Jews came to this country, and largely as a result of their financial ability London became the financial capital of the world. This country was one of the first to relax the disabilities on its Jewish citizens, and as a result not the least of the great men who have been Prime Ministers of this country was a Jew. It has paid us hands down in the past to adopt this liberal policy towards the strangers who came within our gates. If there is any other country in the world which has been more liberal than we have in that respect, it is the United States of America. Until the other day, when in a fit of hysteria they "clamped down," the United States had an astonishingly liberal policy towards strangers going in there, and as a result they have built themselves up to be one of the most powerful, the richest and ablest countries the world has seen.
There has been, perhaps, in this country over the last years a certain backsliding in this record of hospitality towards the stranger. It has not gone very far, but if this sort of Motion is canvassed it may go further. In the years immediately before the last war there was a distinct tightening up in respect of admitting strangers. That, I believe, was due not in any sense to a feeling of hostility towards strangers as such but rather because of the difficult employment situation in this country. I feel that it was due to that, and not to any sort of xenophobia. But it seems to me, as I have already said, that there is behind this Motion a certain feeling of that kind. The noble Lord, in particular, has referred to cases of a mere handful of people who have abused this priceless privilege of having British nationality conferred upon them—because I yield to nobody in regarding it as a priceless privilege. But one has to weigh against those few the hundreds of thousands of foreigners who have come here, who have received British nationality, and have conferred inestim-
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able benefits—no doubt receiving benefits themselves at the same time—upon the country of their adoption. I hope that the noble and learned Viscount who is to reply to this discussion will be able to tell us (no doubt he has the official figures) how many revocation cases there have been. In really bad cases the Home Secretary can revoke the certificate of naturalisation, and over the last few years there have been notices in the papers about such revocations taking place. I should like to know, out of all the hundreds of thousands of foreigners who have been naturalised in this country over the last fifty or 100 years, how many cases of revocation there have been. I believe that would be the acid test against which this condemnation of the naturalised foreigner could be judged.
The main proposals of the noble Lord who introduced the Motion seem to boil down to two. The first, to which I have no objection whatever, is that the sponsors' names should be advertised. The other is that in the noble Lord's view, the screening by the security services is altogether ineffective.
LORD VANSITTART: I must correct the noble Lord once more. I did not say, "altogether ineffective"; I said, "occasionally ineffective." There is a great deal of difference. The noble Lord really must not go on distorting what I have said.
LORD CHORLEY: I should like to know what the noble Lord proposes. The screening arrangements are the same for all these cases. I had the honour of working for some time in the naturalisation office of the Homo Office during the war, and the screening arrangements are exactly the same for all these different people. The noble Lord has referred to the case of Fuchs. Unless the screening arrangements are to be made more elaborate than those for people who are employed on the atomic energy pile at Harwell how are we possibly to catch out a man like Fuchs. Fuchs was a man who worked there in very close touch with colleagues, both on the laboratory bench and in the social life of the place, and all of them have said that over all those years they had not the remotest idea that he was leading this double life. It is obviously impossible to put these tens of thousands of people who apply

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for naturalisation over the years through a security screening of such a kind as that. It would not be possible to afford the money, the personnel or the time to carry it through. Moreover, it would not be worth doing, because a skilful person like Fuchs would evade it every time. Surely, it is necessary to concentrate the screening upon the particular employment. There is no need to put a person who is to be employed in an ordinary commercial office, or on some comparatively minor work of that kind, through a screening of the kind which is essential when a man is to be employed on the atomic pile at Harwell, or on some similar security work.
Nor should the innuendo that it is only aliens who have been naturalised who behave in this way be allowed to go through without challenge. The most dangerous of the Communists in our midst at present are people who were born to the privilege of British citizenship, and not people on whom it has been conferred by certificate of naturalisation. One could refer to a man like Dr. Nunn May, a British-born citizen who behaved in exactly the same way as Fuchs. I feel that this is the sort of Motion which attempts to drive the thin end of the wedge into what is one of the most price-less traditions of this country—namely, the great traditional liberal policy to-wards the stranger who is within our gates. I therefore hope that the Lord Chancellor will not accept the Motion.
3.48 p.m.
VISCOUNT SIMON: My Lords. I had not the slightest intention of taking part in this debate—indeed, I had to go out, and so have not heard the whole of it. But I feel that I should wish to say that I rather regret the tone of indignation and reproach which seems to have crept into the discussion, to judge from the speech of the noble Lord opposite. Surely this is a matter which can be discussed without finding any innuendos or under-hand insinuations, once it is realised that the question is whether or not the present arrangements are adequate to protect us from a danger. If the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, had said that in his view any alien ought to be allowed to become a British subject as soon as he applied to do so, then I could understand it. But, of course, he does not hold that view at all. He recognises, as we all do, that not only
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is this a privilege but that it is a privilege which should be granted only when it is in the public interest to grant it.
I should be the very first to agree that, historically, this country has gained enormously from the admission of people of foreign origin, and it has done so through the ages—Spitalfields weavers and every kind of person coming in. But that, after all, is not the question which is being raised. The question which the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, raised was: Are the existing arrangements adequate to protect us, or are they, on the contrary, not adequate, with the result that people become British subjects who would have their naturalisation applications refused if the arrangements were better? I hope that I may be forgiven for saying that it does not seem to me that the question requires very great heat or indignation. It is largely a question of fact. I have twice been Home Secretary, and it is his Department which has to concern itself with the naturalisation of aliens. I think I know a good deal about the working of that Department, and before the last war they took special care to secure that very great precautions were taken in reference to people who in a very short time might find their sympathies drawn to the country of their origin, rather than to the country which they had adopted. If you naturalise a German or Italian on the eve of war, the result is that by making him a British subject you no longer have the right to exclude him from the country, and only in very exceptional circumstances have you the right to restrain him in any way at all. Obviously, the matter is one of anxiety and good sense. I am all for subscribing to Lord Chorley's doctrine that, on the whole, we have gained enormously by our generous attitude to the whole matter.
I have had the privilege of listening to a great many speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart. I have sometimes thought that he spoke a little extremely, but I do not think I have ever heard a speech from him which was more moderate in tone and more reasonable in substance. There-fore, I would venture to suggest that we might await the answer of the Lord Chancellor with general good temper, and not in the attitude that we are all violently quarrelling with one another. What particularly impressed me was that the speech of my noble friend Lord Buckmaster consisted entirely of the point that he thought

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it would be better it the sponsors of the applicant had their names published. That was the sole argument he used, and it was accepted by the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, as a reasonable one. I do not know whether or not the Lord Chancellor will agree, but it does seem rather difficult to quarrel with the one and only point my noble friend made which is the only point with which Lord Chorley agrees.
LORD CHORLEY: The point upon which I was challenging the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, was his suggestion that Mr. Fuchs should not be allowed to take the name of Fox—that he should be branded with the alien stigma.
VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER: I never suggested anything of the kind.
VISCOUNT SIMON: My Lords, to show that I am myself not in the least disposed to be partisan about it, I will make one observation which is well within my own experience as Minister of the Home Office. It is undoubtedly an important principle, which we have tried to maintain in this country, that once an individual has become naturalised he is a British subject for all purposes, whether it is for the public service or whether it is for any other purpose. Once he is naturalised he is a British subject. It was not always so. There was a time in our history, as your Lordships know well, and as the Lord Chancellor knows very well, when offices of State could not be held by people in this country unless they were not only British subjects but British subjects who had the quality of being born British subjects. That was because of the danger people felt of being overrun by Dutch-men or Hanoverians, or whomsoever you please. It is an important principle that once you have made a man a British subject he should be accepted on a level with every pure-born British subject, with the same right of voting and the same right to serve the State. I regard that as a very important principle, but whether it does not rather support the view that we ought to be particularly careful in these cases is another matter. I do not say more, for I was not in the least prepared to speak. I hope that I may be excused for saying that I do not think the question which has been raised is one upon which it is necessary for us to get at cross-purposes, to find all sorts of miserable
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innuendos in what is said. I did not find it so; nor, I think, did other noble Lords here.
3.55 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords. I am sure that as a result of our discussion a good time has been had by all concerned. When I hear noble Lords arguing with each other as to the date of their lineage, whether or not it is the sixteenth or fourth century, I am reminded of what Sydney Smith used to say about his own ancestry. He said that his grand-father disappeared about the time of the Assizes and he thought it wiser to make no further inquiries. Of course, I agree, and I am sure we all agree. that on the whole we have gained enormously through the ages from the fact that foreigners have come to our shores as welcome guests and have become citizens of this country. Equally, I think we should all agree that if we are going to have a system of naturalisation, we must make inquiries to see whether those foreigners who are here are fit and suitable persons to be naturalised. There must be a system of screening. As I understand the object of this debate, it is to see whether or not the existing system is or is not defective. If it is defective, by all means let us improve it, and that is what I am going to talk about now.
Quite frankly, I always feel that any system of screening we may adopt will probably not be proof against letting the real "crooks" through. I remember going to a town and wanting to get some cartridges for a little 22rabbit rifle. I was not registered at the shop, and I went and asked for some of these cartridges. The man looked very surprised at my request and said: "Do you not know that this is illegal, and are you not aware that you introduced a law to that effect?" Apparently when I was Attorney-General I had done so. It was done, I suppose, to prevent evilly disposed people getting ammunition for firearms. I very much doubt whether it would prevent any evilly disposed person getting the necessary ammunition, but what it did do was to prevent my getting ammunition with which I was going to shoot rabbits. I feel that there is always that danger in all the precautions we take; but by all means let us make the thing as watertight as we can. On the other hand let us not think that our system has broken down merely

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because one or two people who prove to be quite unworthy have got through. That is all I say upon that point.
The first question is about the publication of the names of the sponsors. I have no very strong views about this matter, but I think it would be unfair if I were to announce, for instance, the names of the people who sponsored Fuchs, because they did so in perfect good faith and, indeed, their names are very distinguished names. If I were to announce them now I should hold them up to public hatred, ridicule and contempt—to use the old phrase—when they were perfectly good, God-fearing, honest citizens who simply told the Home Secretary what they believed to be the facts. I will certainly put it to the Home Secretary, but I am inclined to think that there would be disadvantages in publishing names in the paper. I confess frankly that I have sponsored these people not infrequently and that I should not have the smallest objection to my name being published in the paper. But I think you have to look at the matter like this: What are the sponsors doing? They are really witnesses, simply telling the Home Secretary, who is the officer who decides the matter, what they know. So long as they tell him in perfect good faith what they know and what they do not know, I think it is hard, if anything turns out to be wrong, that there should be a means of attaching some stigma to them.
This sponsorship, which is a duty not lightly undertaken, is not merely signing a piece of paper. When you have done that, depending in what part of the country you are, you are followed up by the local police force, who have specially trained officers who go round to the various sponsors, find out exactly what they know and what they do not know and whether there are gaps which they cannot cover, and then submit the result of their inquiries to the Home Office. Thus all you can expect the sponsors to do is faithfully and honestly to give the extent of their knowledge, and, having done that, they have performed a useful service. They then leave that information for the Home Secretary or the Home Office to decide what to do. They are not in the position of judges deciding the matter; they are in the position rather of witnesses. If things go wrong in any way, it is hard that the burden should fall
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on the sponsors, always providing they have frankly told the extent of their in-formation. I will certainly consider the noble Lord's suggestion, because I agree with him that it is one thing if I were now to reveal the names of those who sponsored Fuchs but a different thing to publish in the advertisement in the paper who the sponsors are.
VISCOUNT SIMON: I, too, have sponsored some applicants, and, speaking purely from recollection, my impression is that when you signed the application you signed, amongst other things, a statement that from your knowledge of the applicant you considered that he would be a satisfactory British subject. I may be wrong. There is some phrase of that sort.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think that is so, and I have all the forms here. In practice, in London it is followed by a letter asking you for what we lawyers should call further and better particulars, saying exactly what you know of this man and on what grounds you are basing your conclusion.
VISCOUNT SIMON: I can remember it very well, because when I was young and at the Bar I was one of the sponsors for Mr. Hilaire Belloc, whom I had known very well at Oxford. I remember being very much concerned because an inspector of police called at the chambers and the clerk was a little suspicious about what was going to happen. The first thing the inspector asked me was: "Do you know 'Block'? "I said, No, I did not, and he then exhibited my form to me.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Let this be understood: that there are four sponsors and, either by correspondence or by a visit of officers, they are interrogated and asked to explain with precision on what facts they are basing their conclusions. So long as they are perfectly honest and straightforward and do not attempt to pretend that they know more than do know, there is no reason why they should in any case be held responsible. I will consult the Home Secretary about that matter.
The second point which the noble Lord aired—he put it as the first point—was that it was not enough to leave it to the Home Office but there ought to be a committee of various officers to examine cases. What happens is this: if there is

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any doubt at all in the mind of anybody, the Security Service are consulted, and the Security Service are in a position to consult any Government Department which might be able to give any know-ledge upon the matter. That seems to me to be a not unsatisfactory arrangement. The noble Lord suggested that the penalty of three months' imprisonment for making a false statement was insufficient. I am doubtful about that. I should have thought it was sufficient. I have no evidence whatever that people are less restrained by the thought that they can get only three months. I think three months is probably just as effective as six months or a longer period of time for this purpose.
I am afraid I have not the figures for which the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, asked as to the number of revocations, but I am certain that it will be found to be very few indeed. It might almost be counted on the fingers of one hand. It would be very few indeed. In the vast majority of cases it is absolutely satisfactory. But there are a few of the other kind who get through. Whatever system we adopt, probably a few will always get through, but that is no reason for not making the system as effective as we can. I agree with that. Let us make it as effective as we can. I shall convey to the Home Secretary what the noble Lords, Lord Vansittart and Lord Buckmaster, have said, and see whether he thinks those ideas are practicable to make the system as effective as we can. I do not think that we can do much more than this: get the four sponsors, treat them as the witnesses in the case, as it were, let them particularise exactly what they know of the candidate and what they do not know and what gaps there are in their knowledge; and then leave it to the officers to decide on that evidence what they ought to do, bearing in mind that if they are in any doubt at all they will go to the Security Service and the Security Service will then contact any other Government Department (the Foreign Office is obviously one) to see whether they can get any further light thrown on the position. I am not sure that there are any exceptions to the requirement of four sponsors, except with regard to those who have been in Government service overseas. They are in a slightly different category so long as they
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have served the requisite time. They obtain a report directly from their superior officer, and in a sense he ought to be in a better position to say than the four sponsors because obviously he sees more of the candidates; he does not see them only for a short period of time.
I have not the smallest complaint with the noble Lord for raising this question; we all want the same thing. There must be a screening system and we should all desire to make our screening system as effective as we can. I will convey to the Home Secretary the suggestions which the noble Lord has made, and if he thinks that by adopting those suggestions he can make the system more effective without bringing odium upon people who are merely doing the best they can, then I see no reason to suppose that he will not adopt them.
4.8 p.m.
LORD VANSITTART: My Lords, I should like, to begin by thanking the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, for the support he has given me on this matter. I thought he made a valuable point when he differentiated between admission to this country—which we should all be the last to wish to deny to anybody—and the actual process of naturalisation, which has a certain element of inequity that might, in certain circumstances, be dangerous. I thought that it was an extremely good point. I also welcome very much his support of my proposal that those who sponsor aliens should be prepared to have their names published.
I should have wished to conclude this debate on a note of good humour, but the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, has made that impossible. He referred to the Star of David. I think that that is the most groundless and offensive suggestion that I have ever heard in this House, certainly so far as I am concerned. The noble Lord charges me with xenophobia, but he is not going to get away with it. I am going to ask him which of my suggestions savoured of xenophobia. I pro-posed a number of security measures which might strengthen our security ser-vices, and then the noble Lord accused me of xenophobia. There are a great many aliens in this country. Is that xenophobia? I suggested that our security might be strengthened, if not in every case at least in exceptional cases

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or border-line cases, by a departmental committee, where knowledge may be pooled. Is that xenophobia?
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I think I will withdraw what I said. At the time I had a certain feeling about his remarks. I am prepared to accept the noble Lord's statement that there was no such thing in his mind. I withdraw the suggestion.
LORD VANSITTART: I thank the noble Lord most warmly for that, because I should have been sorry had there been any acute difference between us to-day; but the reference to Nazis and the Star of David got me "on the raw." I accept the noble Lord's withdrawal with thanks. I think it is very handsome of him and does him great credit.
With regard to what the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack said— I think the point has been made by other speakers too—I quite agree that one can-not be sure of catching the real "bad'un" every time, but I thought that our chances might be improved if those sponsoring the applications would say just how much they knew, and if space were provided for that on the actual form; in other words, they may be able to say, "We know the record inside and out. It is very good and we have no objection at all. As regards our knowledge of the foreign background, of that we know either nothing" (in some cases) "or only a limited amount" (in other cases). "That is the extent of our know-ledge which we put at the disposal of our authorities." I thought that was a fairly reasonable suggestion. I do not wish to prolong this debate. The noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack has kindly said that he will convey my suggestions to the appropriate authorities. On that, I am very glad to withdraw my Motion, and also take great pleasure in withdrawing any sharp observations that I may have made in regard to the noble Lord, Lord Chorley. So far as I am concerned, there is no ill-blood at all.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

REPAYMENT OF DEVELOPMENT CHARGES
4.12 p.m.
LORD MESTON LORD MESTON rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether they will repay any development charges levied by, and paid to, the Central Land Board in respect of operations or uses which subsequently became exempt from development charge by reason of the Town and Country Planning (Development Charge Exemptions) Regulations. 1950. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in asking the Question which stands in my name may I explain shortly that the matter arises in this way? In 1948, the Minister of Town and Country Planning made the Town and Country Planning (Development Charge Exemptions) Regulations, 1948. As a result of various representations made to the Government to widen the scope of those Regulations, on July 11, 1950, the Minister repealed those Regulations and replaced them by the Town and Country Planning (Development Charge Exemptions) Regulations, 1950. The 1950 Regulations are wider in certain respects than those of 1948-that is to say, certain operations or uses which would not have been exempt from development charge before July 11, 1950, are now exempt from development charge by reason of the wider scope of the 1950 Regulations.
In those circumstances, it may be that before July 11, 1950, certain operations or uses attracted a development charge which has been duly paid, whereas had those same operations or uses been effected after July 11, 1950, they would not have attracted a development charge. The Question is whether His Majesty's Government will repay any such development charges. I may say that some little help on this matter may be derived from Section 73 of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, which appears to me in certain circumstances to give the Central Land Board power, not only to vary a development charge that has already been determined but also to repay in part or in whole any such development charge.
4.15 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the answer to the noble Lord is in the negative. The operations and uses of the type described in the Exemptions Regulations, 1950, which were carried out

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before the date of the Regulations and in respect of which a charge had been deter-mined and paid before that date, are not exempted from charge by the Regulations, and no justification is seen for repayment in such cases. May I add two reflections of my own? The first is this. If you were to repay such charges, in many cases you would find that the man to whom you were going to repay the charges—that is to say, the man who had paid them—had himself had the fullest benefit of his payment by selling or passing on the business he was building, together with the rights which are attached to it by virtue of his passing it to someone else. Therefore, you would be paying him twice.
Secondly, and more generally—and I am sure your Lordships will all agree with this—it would be a very bad example if we were to enact the principle that, whenever a concession is made in the future, everybody who in the past has not had that concession must be compensated. I can imagine no principle which would be more damaging to the granting of any concessions than that the unfortunate Minister, when thinking whether or not he should make a con-cession, had to say to himself: "Well, if I do this, I have got to pay back to these people who did not have the concession all that money I have had." Therefore, as a matter of general principle, I would suggest to the noble Lord—I hope that I shall have his concurrence in this—that the principle for which he is asking is one of very doubtful public utility.
LORD MESTON: My Lords, I beg to thank the noble and learned Viscount for his reply. I know that he will not mind a little joke, even if it be against himself. It is refreshing to find him such an exponent of opposition to retrospective legislation.

YACHTING AND BOATING FACILITIES
4.18 p.m.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS rose to call attention to the position of yachts and boats using the Thames and other water-ways; and to move for Papers. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, in the past I have always tried to keep to the habit of making none but the shortest possible speeches in your Lordships' House. I therefore hope that on this matter, where
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much detail is involved, your Lordships will bear with me if I make a rather longer speech than usual. I have a lot of small detail to get through. Before starting, I want to apologise to the noble Lord who is to reply because there may be one or two points which I shall bring up of which I have not given him notice. If so, I shall not expect a reply on them, but I hope that he will direct them to the right quarter for consideration. I know that a number of the points I am going to make have not in fact anything to do directly with the Government, or with the Minis-try of Transport, for which the noble Lord speaks, but I am trying to restrict my remarks to organisations which do come under Government supervision or Ministerial responsibility in some way or other. If the Minister makes a suggestion, even if it is not directly his responsibility, some result generally ensues. Before making these suggestions, however, I want to say what I do not intend to suggest.
I do not want to suggest anything which will cause yachts and pleasure craft to get in the way of commercial craft in the Thames and the nearby waterways. London is a commercial port, and it is of paramount importance that commerce should come first, that the commercial craft should have priority. Any suggestions I may make must be in the nature of taking the yachts cut of the way of commercial craft rather, than hindering them. Secondly, I must not suggest any-thing which causes great expense at this present time, or which takes scarce materials or would use such facilities as dredgers, which are very badly needed in keeping in good order our present public docks which are used by commercial craft.
This subject really falls into two parts. There is the question of what we should do now. as a temporary measure, for the numbers of yachts which are arriving for the Pavilion d'Or meeting and the Festival of Britain, and also what we ought to have later as permanent facilities. It is an extraordinary fact that in London River no place is set aside as a yacht harbour. We in this country invented yachting as a sport, and we spread it all over he world. Every capital of any country of any size which has navigable water nearby has a yacht harbour. Not only that, but every decent city of any size with any navigable

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water has some special place where yachts go to lie. The only exception to that is London, where the whole game started. What are we going to do about the craft which will be coming to visit us next year? Facilities in London are very limited at the moment. Moorings, where they exist, and yacht docks, such as Cubitts Basin, are in private hands, and largely filled with resident craft or houseboats which never leave them. There is no room for incoming strangers, except in very small numbers.
I understand that the Port of London Authority are to lay down more moorings outside this House, which they say will accommodate up to thirty or forty visiting yachts. That will be some improvement, but it still falls rather short of what is required. I understand that something in the region of one hundred yachts will be arriving for the Pavilion d'Or, and somewhere must be found for them to go. A certain number of these yachts will have fixed masts or high upper works, and will be unable to go under the London bridges. They will have to be accommodated somewhere down below bridges. A certain amount of room can be found for them out in the river opposite Greenwich, but as one who has done it very often I can assure your Lordships that it is not very comfortable to lie permanently at anchor in this very busy commercial river. The number of tugs, lighters, launches, police boats and other things which go past make sure that you never spend a peaceful day, or an undisturbed night.
I believe that the Port of London Authority contemplate using some space in the Surrey Commercial Docks. I understand that there is plenty of room there for a very large number of craft, and of course there are no bridges to hinder them in going in. At the same time, transport facilities from those docks to the rest of London are very poor indeed. There are no bus or underground routes running anywhere near, and that is not a very suitable place for us to put the visitors we want to see coming to this country. Some yachting folk have asked me what I thought about the use of St. Katharine Dock, near the Tower, but in this debate I am not going to suggest any hope of anything of that nature transpiring in the near future, because
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that dock is in a very bad state, and the existing commercial traffic which is using it is fully occupied in getting in and out through the present dock facilities.
Quite apart from our putting up these yachts, if they are to moor up in the stream opposite St. Thomas's Hospital their crews will want to get ashore. I do not know whether any of your Lordships has ever tried to leave a dinghy on one of the Port of London Authority's pontoons. It is a most heartbreaking process. You are told that your dinghy is in the way of the waterbuses, that any available space is needed for Port of London launches, and that that pontoon is quite hopeless, and you are sent to the next one —and so on all the way down the river. I understand that something is to be done about this. Perhaps the noble Lord will be able to tell us what is proposed. It has been suggested to me by the Port of London Authority that if any yachting organisation were willing to apply for it, they would be willing to place one of their old pontoons at the stairs which come up from the water by St. Thomas's Hospital, just above Westminster Bridge, and that that would be a suitable place for our guests to land. That seems to me a very good idea, provided, of course, that somebody can be found to watch it, because the fate of dinghies left lying around on the Embankment where they can be raided by all and sundry, and especially children, can easily be imagined.
Apart from these purely temporary provisions, we must consider what can be done in the future about a yacht harbour for London. We really cannot tolerate the position that London should be the only major city without such a harbour. Where can we establish a permanent yacht harbour for London? The Port of London Authority have made various suggestions to me, and I have suggested one or two places to them, and to the yacht clubs which have approached me. And I hope by this speech not only to induce the Government and the Port of London Authority to do something, but also to send out a wireless message, en clair so to speak, to any yacht clubs which may be interested in the matter, to have a look and see what they can get in this way.
In the first place, I understand that the big pontoon which is being built along Battersea Reach, just off Battersea

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Park where the Festival pleasure gardens are to be, is not to be a purely temporary, jerry-built structure, but will be permanent enough to be left there perhaps for thirty or forty years. If we, the yachts-men of London, can apply to the Festival authorities, perhaps the noble Lord will use his good offices to make certain that the Festival of Britain authorities hand that pontoon over to the London yachts-men at the end of the Festival of Britain, to be a permanent floating mooring-place for incoming visitors. That would be of enormous advantage. They would be able to step directly ashore, and would not have to use their dinghies. They would be able to have pipes laid on directly from water points and fuel points. It might even be possible to have a yacht club structure set up, from which a yachtsman could get all the other things which he needs. As I am sure your Lordships will know, yachtsmen do not drink only water. They need a quantity of other things. They require not only baths but bars as well. They have occasionally to use train time tables, and they want all the rest of the things which any normal civilised being requires, when he arrives at a large city and wants to know where to go next. All these things could, possibly, be provided on this pontoon if, at the end of the Festival of Britain, it were handed over to some representative of the London yachtsmen.
For reasons which I have given before, lying in this river is not always the pleasant business which it might be. I believe that there should be an enclosed dock at some point which yachts could enter and in which they could lie quietly, perhaps for as long as a fortnight. I wish especially to underline the question of a short stay. If you provide any form of mooring-place on this river, with a right for craft to lie there permanently, you will soon discover that, while you have not been looking, a great many of the yachts will have turned into house-boats. Soon after that, you will have a new form of housing problem on your hands. In addition, the yachts which turn into houseboats will block the way for other visitors who may arrive. There are several docks which might be avail-able but I am sorry to say that they are above bridges, so that they would not, in fact, be of much use to vessels with tall fixed masts. There is, for instance, the old Great Western Railway Dock
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at Lots Road. I understand that it is very little used now for commercial traffic, and it has the advantage of having proper lock gates. It is therefore possible for craft to work in and out of that dock during a great many hours of the day. It can be used at half tide, or at any other state of the tide when a yacht can get over the sill into the lock—not merely when the lock gates are open at high water, making a level inside and out.
Another place which has been suggested is Ham Lock, a large flooded gravel-pit on the south side of the river just below Teddington Lock. It is only just within the Port of London area. That dock, I understand, is now half full of concrete barges, which seem to have turned into very unpleasant white elephants so far as the Ministry of Transport are concerned. I do not know what the Ministry intend to do with this dock; temporarily they might put it to some use in the formation of a yacht harbour. Ham Dock has possibilities for being made into a very beautiful yacht harbour. But, again, the trouble is that it is miles from any point where visitors can pick up buses, or get on to the Underground in order to travel into Town. Furthermore, it is situated some considerable way from the centre of London.
Now I pass from the subject of the Port of London Authority, because a large part of London's waterways does not lie within the Port of London Authority area at all, but within the Thames Conservancy area—that is to say above Teddington Lock—or in the areas of the canals, of which there is a very large network all around North, North-East and North-West London. Some of your Lordships, I believe, have taken craft up into the Thames Conservancy area. Lord Merthyr, who is to speak shortly, wishes to say something about that matter, I understand. I have here a little booklet entitled Hints for the Guidance of Persons in Charge of Launches. All I can say about it is: Heaven forfend that anyone should try to carry out those hints!
No matter what typo of launch they have, before going up into the Thames Conservancy area it is laid down that they will have practically to rebuild it in accordance with regulations. They will have to paint names in letters of regulation size; they will have to alter the

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fittings of the engine; they will have to stop up any sort of water system they may have, and they will be under the necessity of painting words on their dinghy and carrying out all sorts of other alterations. When they have done all that, they will find that these things are not insisted upon: that, anyway, nobody cares. It may be all right for someone who wishes to keep a boat permanently in the Thames Conservancy area, and who, presumably, would have a boat designed for the purpose; but for visitors coming in from the sea all these tasks would entail a great deal too much trouble. Furthermore, they will find it laid down in the booklet that they may not throw rubbish over the side. That, possibly, is sensible, for after all the purity of the river has got to be preserved. Further on, it is laid down that those in charge of craft may not put out their rubbish on the banks. It is to be noted that there are one or two named rubbish points on the river, but if you look for them it will soon become obvious that they are very difficult to find. I do not know what others would do in the circumstances, but what I did was to creep out at night and bury my rubbish. All I hope is that I shall not be put under arrest at the end of this debate.
Next, let me turn to the canals. The authorities concerned have always been very chary of allowing yachts on the canals, because they believe that they hinder commercial traffic. I have recently cruised on the canals in my own boat quite a lot, and it seems clear to me that, as things stand, there could be a very large increase in the numbers of yachts using canals without commercial craft being troubled at all. If you take a boat along the canals at the present time, and spend a week-end moving around, you cannot expect to meet more than two other yachts on the move during the whole of the week-end. If the people in charge of the yachts are sensible, and give way to commercial craft when it comes to going through locks, or in cases of that sort, there is no reason why even a considerable increase in the number of yachts using the canals should cause any trouble to the commercial craft. Yacht owners are issued by the Docks and In-land Waterways Executive with licences to cruise on canals. If the people in charge of the yachts misbehave—for
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instance, if they work sluices carelessly, or damage the waterways in any manner— surely the Docks and Inland Waterways Executive can revoke those licences.
There is a considerable length of very pleasant waterway close in to London which could be used by owners of small yachts, which would be of immense value to them and which is at the moment practically deserted. The main trouble on the canals is simply that there are no facilities for yachts; for example, there is nowhere a yacht can lie safely un-attended. I know one can find an occasional factory where a yacht can lie along-side the factory wharf inside the factory gates, making sure that the boat is not raided by the small-boy population of the neighbourhood; but. apart from that sort of place, there is practically no-where to lie with safety if one is going to leave the boat. The provision of moor-ing places would not be too difficult, as they would not have to be very many. They could be a considerable distance apart.
It seems to me there ought to be a canal yacht harbour in London. There is an area of water where this could be done right in the centre of London, on the north side of Paddington. There are two arms of canal which converge on Paddington—the Grand Union, which comes from the west, and the Regents Canal, which comes from the east, coming up from the Regents Canal Dock and running through the London Zoo—joining together at the Paddington canal junction. Behind that junction there is about half a mile of dock. The area of the junction is fairly considerable, and if a small amount of dredging were carried out— and I emphasise that it is a small amount because I have prodded round that area myself with a boathook in an effort to find out how much water there was— there would be a very fine position for a London canal yacht harbour. It would also serve as one of the safe mooring points for canal yachts.
There is another great hindrance to the proper use of canals by yachts—namely, that a number of canals still close down and padlock their lock gates after working hours. The gates are closed of an evening on a working day, after one o'clock on a Saturday and all day on a Sunday. This makes certain that no craft at all can move along the canal at the

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very times when yachts want to use them. Your Lordships may notice, in the matter of yachts hindering commercial craft, that the commercial craft move almost entirely during working hours and yachts move almost entirely outside working hours. It is only two years since the main line of the Grand Union Canal went through the process of doing away with padlocking their lock gates after working hours, thus opening up that waterway to pleasure craft. But the whole area of the River Lea, the River Stort, the Regents Canal, and Duckett's Canal, which connects them all together, are still padlocked; which means that the entire waterways lying to the east and north-east of London are closed to all pleasure craft at any time except when commercial craft are moving. The reason appears to be the difficulties which have been found in dealing with the old Act of Parliament under which these waterways were built.
It is clear that what is needed in this matter is legislation. There will be no difficulty in that. I understand that the Transport Commission intend to put for-ward an annual Bill in which they will propose any provisions they find necessary for carrying out their statutory functions, and it would be easy for them to put in that Bill a clause permitting the alterations I wish to suggest. The old legislation insists that tolls shall be levied on the Lea Navigation and the other water-ways at every lock. That means there has to be a lock-keeper on duty to collect the money, and whenever the lock-keeper goes off duty, in order not to miss the tolls he has to padlock the lock. The only way to get round that is to do what was done on the Grand Union Canal— namely, to abolish the taking of tolls by lock-keepers and have them taken at check points along the canal, say, at every fourth or fifth lock or at some such other intervals as might be thought fit, and have the collectors take not one lock's worth but four or five locks' worth, as may be necessary. That is a perfectly practical thing to do—it is done on the Grand Union now—but it means that the old legislation will have to be altered to permit it. When that is done, there will be a whole new area of waterways opened up to pleasure craft. Although I have not actually been along that strip, I am told that the Lea and the Stort contain some of the finest water scenery which we have close to London. I think this
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is a matter in which I should have the support of the Conservative Party, who believe in "setting the people free," and of everybody else. These are very real chains which we wish to cast off.
Another group of people have some considerable reason for dissatisfaction with our present inland waterways—that is, the canoeists. Although I am afraid I did not give the noble Lord who is going to reply notice of this point when I told him what I was going to raise, I wish to lay particular emphasis upon it. The canoeist causes much less trouble on the canals than anybody else. His boat is shallow and he can sneak in alongshore out of the way of commercial craft. He does not need mooring places because he simply lifts his boat on to the bank. What is more, he does not waste water going through locks. When a boat uses a lock, a lock-ful of water is taken from the up-stream side to the downstream side, and wasted. The canoeist does not go through the lock. He simply picks up his boat and carries it round. One would think, therefore, that canoes would be encouraged by the Inland Waterways as a form of traffic which does not cause them any trouble. The canoeist pays less than other craft using the waterways; nevertheless, he pays quite a lot. For the pleasure of going along the canals, he pays 3d. per mile. This may not sound so extraordinary until you realise that the third class fare on our railways is 2½d. a mile. In other words, you pay more to paddle your own canoe on the Grand Union than you pay to use British Railways. I know it is felt that a smaller charge might not be worth collecting, and that this would not be particularly welcome to the canal authorities, but cannot something be done to make things a little cheaper for the canoeist, who causes so little trouble and is a class of boatman who would certainly appear in large numbers if the facilities were available for him on the waterways and if he could get a good cheap licence? He can at the moment get a cruising licence for two guineas a year, but that takes him over only a small area of the country. One would have thought that a cruising licence of two guineas would take him anywhere, but that is not so.
This is all small detail, of course, and much of it not of great weight, but it is these small things which are tripping up the boating fraternity around London. If

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these small hindrances, which amount in sum total to quite a policy of hindrance, could be removed, then, indeed, the Londoner would have open to him a very fine sport right on his doorstep. We all want to encourage yachting, and we know that as things stand about 50 per cent. of the expense of a yachtsman has nothing to do with his yacht, but is his railway fare to and from wherever his boat is lying. Here is the possibility of enabling him to have his boat within a few pennies'-worth of bus or underground travel, and to cruise over a considerable area of water. I am convinced that if these waterways had just a small amount of work done on them to make things more attractive to the waterman, they would be more adequately used. I beg to move for Papers.
4.54 p.m.
LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, speaking as a keen yachtsman with some knowledge of London River, having been the principal naval control officer during the early months of the war, and having had to look into all the nooks, crannies, canals and creeks, I feel that we should make more of London River for yachting purposes than we do. If one goes to any of the other great ports, such as Venice, one finds many facilities provided for visiting yachts. I was delighted to hear that there is to be a pier built somewhere near Battersea Park for the purposes of the Festival of Britain. I hope, as I think the noble Viscount suggested, that this pier will be retained as a permanent structure after the Festival of Britain, for mooring yachts alongside for a limited period. I am certain that it would be of the greatest benefit to the many London yacht clubs, of which there are quite a number operating on London River.
I should also like to put forward the suggestion that the Port of London Authority might consider making St. Katharine Dock available, in spite of what was said by the noble Viscount, because that dock, as compared with Surrey Dock, is on the right side of the river for visiting yachts, and with a little tidying up could be made a very fine yacht basin for visiting yachts of the larger sort. I under-stand that we are to have a visit from a large number of big yachts in June of next year for what I think is called the Festival of the Pavilion d'Or. I hope that
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we shall provide something for them, so that they can appreciate their visit to the greatest port in the world.
I do not want to cover anything like the ground that has been covered by the noble Viscount, but I thoroughly sympathise with the canoeist, who apparently has to pay lock dues although he takes his canoe out of the water and puts it on the other side of the lock. As for the 3d. a mile, I think that is an outrageous charge. I hope that the Government will see their way to giving their support and assistance to the yachting fraternity in London River. We must not forget that these small boats and yachts provide a good deal of the seamanship and training for the officers and men of the R.N.V.R. drawn from the London area. I feel it is vital that we should support anything of that nature which would assist in that training at the present time.
4.57 p.m.
LORD FAIRFAX OF CAMERON: My Lords, I should like to support the noble Viscount's Motion. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is to reply, and I hope that he may find some of our suggestions on water transport more amenable than he seems to find those on road transport. It is surprising to me that a seafaring nation, such as we have always prided ourselves on being, should offer such poor facilities to yachtsmen, particularly in London River. They com-pare badly with the facilities offered by other countries in Europe facing on the North Sea and the English Channel. We do not begin to compare with them in any respect, and we do not hold out any welcome to foreigners visiting our shores in yachts such as one always finds in countries like France, Holland and Belgium.
Early this year I was in a sailing boat in Holland, and later on in France, and wherever one went one received untold kindness and facilities. It was really beyond what one could describe, and one felt very sorry indeed that it was impossible in this country to offer them what they were able to, and did, offer us. There are excellent yacht basins for visiting yachts, either of the particular country or of other countries, at Rotterdam. Antwerp, Deauville and St. Malo, just to mention a few, Rotterdam is in a somewhat similar position to

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London, and I can best describe it, perhaps, by telling of my own experience there. We went up this river and saw a sight very similar to that which one sees from the Thames, with enormous factory buildings, warehouses, cranes and so on on both sides. One could not imagine how there could possibly be room for private yachts anywhere. But about half way up the river one came into a little lock set into the bank, where there was room for some sixty or seventy yachts, and where there was every amenity. It was right in the centre of Rotterdam, and very pleasant, with trees growing round the top of the lock and every kind of facility—it was a very fine show indeed. We received a great welcome from the people: so much so, that they turned all their Dutch yachts out of the lock in order to let all the British yachts come in, because it was the end of a race and there were many British yachts there. That is a welcome which I do not suppose we should ever give in this country, which is a great pity. We can offer absolutely nothing like that in London.
Next year, with the 1951 Exhibition, I believe that there will be quite a problem. In the first place, there is no satisfactory mooring (except for the odd thirty yachts which the noble Viscount has mentioned) anywhere at all in the river, and the yachtsmen are not even welcome. If you do come up the river in a cruiser, or some other similar small boat, you are just told to go away—you are not wanted. That applies also to any foreigners visiting the Thames. I feel that that is a regrettable situation, and something which we should look into, because with large numbers of foreign yachtsmen coming here next year it will create a very bad impression amongst them, and it will be a very poor return for the hospitality which they always extend to us when we go over to the other side.
St. Katharine Dock has been mentioned, and I believe that that should be decided upon as a future lock. It may not be possible to get anything really elaborate ready by next year, but I am sure it is worth trying to do something. I would say that it is as much the responsibility of His Majesty's Government to do something as it is for them to be concerned with any other part of the 1951 Exhibition, because to a large number of
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people this matter is very important. St. Katharine Dock could be available for sailing yachts with high masts which cannot get underneath the Thames bridges, and higher up the river there ought to be some sort of mooring avail-able for the motor cruisers and motor boats which can get farther up the river. There is another point. Even in the places where it is possible to moor in the Thames you cannot do so without getting all sorts of permission, and going through all sorts of red tape. That is all wrong. Anywhere you go up the Maas, or any of these other rivers, there are places where you can drop your anchor or take up moorings without asking any-one's permission. That is the way it should be in the yachting world, and in the whole seafaring world, and that is the way they expect it. In the Thames there should be permanent mooring places where such facilities exist.
I do not think that this lack of facilities is entirely confined to the Thames, and I would suggest that before next year there ought to be one other place avail-able to foreign yachtsmen, and I suggest that that place should be Southampton. The Hamble River, which is a great centre for yachts, is as full as it can be, and there is no room for any further moorings to be dropped there. But just by the Hamble River—on the north side, just at the mouth behind the Fairey Works— there is some sort of re-entrant, which is quite small, and which without very much trouble could, I believe, be turned into an ideal dock. I would say that it should be reserved solely for foreign yachtsmen. Southampton is the place where yachts-men automatically go. They always con-gregate there because of the Solent and other facilities. I believe that it would be well worth while to make some place down there—possibly where I suggest— reserved solely for the foreign yachtsmen. I think that is the least we should do.
One final word about yachting generally. It is often thought in some quarters that yachting is not a sport in which people generally can indulge; that it is a sport which is the private pre-serve of the privileged few. Nothing could be further from the truth. This morning I tried to find out how many small yachts and boats there are afloat since the war, but it was impossible to do so, because so many of them are not

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registered. I think it would be safe to say that there are well over 4,000 small yachts and boats afloat round the shores of this country to-day, and all of them owned by English people. That does not include the small racing craft—the tiny ten-footers and fifteen-footers—and there must be many thousands more of those. The fact is that this is an ever-growing sport, and it is being taken up by a wider and wider section of people. It is going to play a big part in the Exhibition next year, and I think that His Majesty's Government would be contributing greatly to the success of this Exhibition, and also to the happiness of people who go in for the sport of yachting—and there are very many—by trying to provide more facilities on the lines which have been suggested this afternoon.
5.6 p.m.
LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, when I saw this Motion on the Order Paper I feared at first that it would be rather too easy for His Majesty's Government to answer, but on second thoughts I think that this is a matter which is of national importance—it may be to only a limited extent, but it is of growing national importance. As has been said already, if the Government expend great energy and much money on a thing of pure pleasure, such as the Battersea Park Amusement Fair, then we are entitled to say: "You ought to take an equal interest in one of the most ancient sports in this country; one which, as has been said, was initiated in these waterways, and one which has some use in times of war." I suggest, therefore, that we are not wasting time this evening, and that we are, I hope, exercising the powers of eloquence of the noble Lord who is to reply.
With regard to the inland waterways of this country, I do not hesitate to say that we are fifty years behind the times: and that, I think, is an under-statement. After all, it was this country, I believe, which started canals. We were the people who built the first canals, realising that water transport was the cheapest form of trans-port that had then, or has since, been found. Then what did we do? Having built those early canals, we proceed completely to neglect them. It does not matter for to-day's debate whether it was private enterprise or Government enterprise, but the fact is that they were com-
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pletely neglected and allowed to silt up and fall into disuse—a thing for which everybody in this country ought to be slightly ashamed.
How much different the circumstances are when one goes to the Continent has been rightly and eloquently commented upon this afternoon. When one goes yachting in Continental waterways one is forcibly reminded of the lack of facilities in our own country for the entertainment of foreign visitors in return for the hospitalities which we there experience. Even since the war Belgium —a country which was involved in the war—has made a first-class yachting harbour at Antwerp (it was opened last year) at very considerable expense and on municipal lines. That harbour was not a mere pier stuck in the river; it was a dock carved out of solid land at great expense. If Antwerp can do that, is London to say that it cannot do anything of the kind? That is only to mention one instance. There are a great number of yachting harbours on the Continent and. of course, there are hundreds in America, compared to which we simply have nothing at all. All the Scandinavian capitals have proper yachting harbours— Copenhagen, Stockholm and so forth. In comparison we have just nothing.
On this question of yachting harbours, may I emphasise a point which has been touched upon already, and that is that they are of little use if the boats in them are exposed to the wash of passing craft. When I think of the noble Viscount sitting on his deck opposite the Houses of Parliament, meditating upon the spectacle of the nocturnal sky-line of your Lordships' House in a state of semi-permanent oscillation, it does not inspire any enthusiasm for the sport at all. It really is a very important point. I know of at least one specially constructed yacht harbour which is largely spoilt and made useless because of the wash of the water-buses continually passing the entrance. That is in Stockholm. The value of that harbour is reduced by 50 per cent. on that account. I was interested to hear for the first time this afternoon of the proposal to make a pontoon at Battersea Park, but I say once again that that will be of little use if the boats lying there are exposed to the wash of the river. Can it be in some way enclosed? I think the noble Lords are

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entirely right in suggesting that St. Katharine Dock, on the one hand, and Ham Dock, on the other, are the right answers for yachting harbours for Lon-don. They will suit different purposes and, to my mind, they both should be made into yachting harbours.
The Thames is a great highway, but unfortunately we seem to apply to the Thames the general law of other highways, which I understand to be that the public has the right of passing and re-passing along the highway but has no right to stop on it. That is the trouble. If a foreign yachtsman makes inquiries about what he can do with regard to a trip up the Thames, he will be told: "Yes, you can go up the Thames," but he will have very great difficulty in finding where he can stop. It takes a great deal of the pleasure away from yachting if one can never stop. As he goes up the Thames he will see many notices on the bank saying: "Private Landing," "No Landing Here," "Trespassers will be Prosecuted," and so on. I am not saying a word against the owners of the property; they are entitled to stop people from landing if they want to; but I do emphasise the need for municipal or Government action in this respect.
Again I must underline this point about expense. The limited facilities we pro-vide in this country are lamentably expensive. For every lock I go through in my boat on the Thames it costs me six shillings, but if I take the same boat through any lock on the Continent it will not cost me anything like sixpence. I once went through the entire width of Sweden, passing through sixty-two locks, for the sum of 28s. It is true that was before the war, but it shows the incredible difference between the expense of navigating in England and navigating on the Continent. I think I am right in saying that one can go through the whole of Holland by waterway at no expense except a tip to the bridgekeepers, and very much the same thing could be said about France. I hope that point will be borne in mind.
The noble Viscount has reminded the House of the rules and regulations with which navigation on the Thames is wrapped up. I shudder to think what would happen if yachtsmen worked to rule on the Thames. It would create complete chaos. I do not criticise the
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Thames Conservancy Board or the Port of London Authority; they are entitled to look after their own business; but what we are suggesting to-night is that something should be done for the pleasure craft. Those authorities do not pretend to cater for pleasure craft. I have seen a letter written this year by the Port of London Authority to a well known yachting organisation, saying in effect: "Please do not encourage foreigners to come to London in 1951, because we have no facilities for them." That is rather a serious matter. As I have suggested before, it does one good sometimes to read the experiences of foreigners visiting this country. What do foreign yachtsmen mostly do when they come from a distance, for example, from America or Australia? They first of all go straight to Cowes, because they have always heard that Cowes is a famous yachting centre. Having been disappointed by the complete absence of any yacht harbour at Cowes, and having been rolled about by the "Queen Mary," they make straight for London, because they have heard that London is a great and vast port.
I recall a book written by an American yachtsman who sailed single-handed from San Francisco round the world to London. He arrived at Cowes and arrangements were made for his reception in London by a most hospitable body presided over by the noble Lord, Lord Teynham. They entertained him to dinner at our most expensive yachting harbour on the Kentish coast, and provided for him everything possible in the way of hospitality except one thing, and that was a fair wind up channel, with the result that he arrived for the dinner just as everybody was going home. The noble Lord will correct me if I am wrong, because he was there. This man went up river and eventually succeeded in mooring himself at Westminster Pier, where he was duly photo-graphed with Big Ben in the background. I do not know what would have happened if I tried to tie up at Westminster Pier; I am sure I should be chased away before I got a mooring line ashore. In fairness to the authorities, I must say he was allowed to spend the winter in St. Katharine Dock.
I think the noble Viscount has done us a service in introducing this Motion. I say not only to those who go afloat

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but to all Londoners and all who have the great merits of the Thames and its history at heart, that this is something worth-while. Finally, may I mention one thing in particular, and that is that I earnestly hope that some day, in my lifetime, we may have another great facility which has not been mentioned—namely, the Thames barrage. That touches on a number of difficult subjects, but I believe that in this matter, as in others, difficulties are made to be surmounted, and I refuse to believe that if they can have a yachting harbour in Stockholm, which is a great city situate entirely on a tideless water, we cannot have the same in London. I believe that the advantages of the Thames barrage, not merely to yachtsmen but to all the citizens of London and those who use the Port of London and its facilities, would be enormous. I believe that the amenities of London would be improved beyond all knowledge and that those who then surveyed them would ask: "Why did we not think of this before?"
5.19 p.m.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I had not intended to address your Lordships on this subject, but wooed by the eloquence of the noble Viscount and the other noble Lords who supported him I feel that I must say two or three words. Lord Merthyr pleaded a most eloquent case on this subject, but whether he has injured our international relations in suggesting it was ourselves who invented canals I do not know: I should nave thought it was another insult to China. I have little doubt that some of the noble Viscount's enemies may pick up that phrase about "semi-permanent oscillation" and use it to his disadvantage. I think the "semi" is the innuendo there.
More seriously, when we look round at modern life and see how drab it is in every direction we want to encourage every means of getting out of it. Think of the outlook of the unfortunate youth who starts off at sixteen by catching the 8.5 a.m. train in the morning, and knows that he will go on doing it until he reaches the age of sixty-five or seventy—perhaps getting a little later as he goes on in years—and finally draw a pension. That is a terrible outlook, and yachting or boating is one of the means by which we can introduce some colour into modern life. We can let youth have some sort of fling, some sort of adventure, to mitigate the
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appalling drabness of the conditions we have created under which man and woman have nowadays to do their daily work. Of course, that is the view of all of us in this House, I think without exception. That is probably the view of the noble Lord the Parliamentary Secretary, who is to reply to this debate, but it does not seem to be the view of the Inland Water-ways Executive, because the conditions under which this adventure is offered to the youth of this country are almost prohibitive. The 3d. a mile for paddling your own canoe may act as some sort of protection to the railways or something like that, but it has no relation whatsoever to facts. The cost of passing these vehicles along these canals is infinitesimal, and to charge a youth or a couple of youths 3d. a mile for paddling along is outrageous. The lock solution does not seem to be insuperable either. The collection of tolls at every lock is obviously absurd. Per-haps some arrangement could be come to for making the system easier to work. I ask the Inland Waterways Executive to remember the motto of so many big business men—"A large turnover at a small profit." At the moment, they seem to be making for the smallest turnover at the largest possible profit.
Then there is the question of the harbours and halts and so on. It is a well-known fact that yachtsmen from time to time must halt for food and for water. The noble Lord, Lord Merthyr, suggested that these halting places should be pro-vided by public services. I think that some of these places should be provided by private enterprise. The noble Viscount suggested "having one" at the "Padding-ton" Arms." I have no doubt that the "Dog and Duck," and various places like that on the banks of the canals, would in due course, with the aid of the brewers' money behind them, find it profitable to have little tying-up places or harbours where the boats might be left. Let private enterprise see what they can do about it. This is one of the best sports of the country for youth. It is far safer than speeding down the Brighton road, or indulging in any of those other forms of sport which tend to injure others, as well as those engaged in them. Finally, it is an outlet for the sea blood in our veins, and eventually, in time of war, there is no doubt that it produces an immense number of people for the R.N.V.R.
5.26 p.m.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, before the noble Lord replies, I want to support a view which the noble Lords, Lord Fairfax and Lord Hawke, have put forward. Before the war, there was a vessel navigating the Thames of which I was very proud. It was called "The Earl of Cork," and was really a 25-foot Service whaler. A petty officer with whom I served wrote to me some time before the war and asked me, knowing that I was fond of sailing, whether I would help get him a boat for a boys' club he was running somewhere down in the neighbourhood of Wapping. So I got a boat that the Chatham Dockyard let me have cheap, and supplied it to the club. That club quadrupled its numbers in the first summer after that, because the boys had a chance to sail. Given the facilities for sailing, hundreds of boys will become interested in the best sport in the world.
5.27 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRE-TARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH): My Lords, may I first of all express my gratitude to the noble Viscount, Lord St. Davids, for having raised this subject, and also to noble Lords who have supported his Motion? And let me say straight away that His Majesty's Government will do anything they can to influence the use of our River Thames for the private pleasure of the citizens of this country. His Majesty's Government do not require convincing on that score. Of course, since yachtsmen are like sailors, some of their suggestions are not very practical, but the vast majority that have been made this afternoon have been most helpful. As the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax, said, I find them far more to my liking than some of the suggestions made yesterday. Perhaps it is because they have that element of sense, which always comes into suggestions when Party alignments are not the major consideration.
Perhaps I should first of all say, as the noble Viscount has indicated, that although His Majesty's Government have a watching brief (and I promise they will do everything they can to encourage the object which all noble Lords have in mind, the River Thames comes under two statutory authorities—one, the Port of London Authority operating, as the noble Viscount said, from Teddington Lock
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downstream, and the other, the Thames Conservancy, operating from Teddington Lock upstream. I know that all noble Lords will appreciate that in the Port of London area, especially the Pool of London, the first consideration there must be the commerce of the Port. Your Lordships must recognise that. That is the first consideration. When St. Katharine Dock is suggested as a central harbour for yachts, I am afraid that must be completely ruled out, for the reason that St. Katharine Dock is scheduled for commercial purposes and must remain for commercial purposes.
I do not think I need go in detail into all the suggestions that have been made. What I am going to do is to promise noble Lords in all parts of the House that not only will I give these suggestions my very careful consideration, but I will see that all these authorities consider them. Already, of course, a number of things have been done. I am informed by the Port of London Authority that there are within their jurisdiction at the present time moorings for about 500 yachts in the Thames. Whether or not that is going to be enough will have to be carefully investigated. For the Festival of Britain there will be berthing facilities for seagoing yachts (those are the vessels which the noble Viscount mentioned, which of course cannot get under the bridges) down at Dead Man's Upper Tier (rather a peculiar name) in the Surrey Canal and at Rainham, in Essex. They are also going to see whether provision can be made for dinghies in and around Westminster—for instance, at Cadogan Pier. Whether or not we can do more than that within the scope of the Port of London Authority I will discuss with them very seriously.
LORD FAIRFAX OF CAMERON: May I ask the noble Lord a question: Will it be possible for people to tie up in those places he has mentioned, with-out having to ask special permission?
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: That I could not say. The points that have been raised will be noted, but I think that is a very difficult thing to ask. It will have to be looked at very care-fully. There must be some allocation otherwise moorings may become habitations, and then we shall have a housing problem; in other words, we shall have squatters—and I suppose squatters in

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yachts are not unknown. I believe that one or two noble Lords come into that category.
Coming to the Thames Conservancy, I was greatly impressed by what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Merthyr. Again, there are a considerable number of facilities already, but I think Lord Merthyr put his finger on the spot in suggesting that the local authorities who want to attract very valuable custom should see whether they cannot do it in that way. I know that the Thames Conservancy will do everything they can. I was rather surprised to hear the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax, say that yachtsmen were not wanted. I must look into that very seriously. I think the noble Lord, Lord Merthyr, supported him by saying that some of our foreign visitors had already received a letter from the Port of London Authority saying, "Please do not come to Britain; you are not wanted."
LORD MERTHYR: May I correct a slight inaccuracy? It was a letter from the Port of London Authority to a yachting organisation in England, not to foreigners, saying "Do not encourage foreigners to come." It is not quite the same thing.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: The substance is exactly the same. That is a very important matter, and I will have it looked into, because that is against the very thing for which the Festival of Britain is being built. I think there must be some misunderstanding somewhere. But, again, yachtsmen themselves should do something about this matter. I remember supporting very heartily a Motion proposed in your Lordships' House by the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, that my right honourable friend the Minister should appoint to the Thames Conservancy Board a representative solely to watch the interests of those who use the river for private purposes. Your Lordships supported that idea, as did the Select Committee to which the Thames Conservancy Bill was sent; and it is now an accomplished fact. The representative that my right honourable friend appointed to the Thames Conservancy Board is the Chairman of an association of private boat owners. I should have thought that through that channel, and by using their combined voices, the
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yachting clubs would have a means of righting a lot of the wrongs to which the noble Viscount has drawn attention, and of obtaining a number of concessions.
I must confess that I was intrigued by Lord Hawke's suggestion in regard to getting some of the hotels, hostelries or "pubs." along the Thames to provide moorings. I feel certain that it would be a good source of revenue for them.
LORD HAWKE: And canals.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: When I come to the canals I come to something operating under the jurisdiction of the British Transport Commission, who assure me that they are wholly sympathetic to the purposes which the noble Viscount has in mind, and if he will make concrete suggestions to them, even for moorings to be made available at Paddington and Regents Park, and for providing a centre there, they will give them very sympathetic consideration. I am afraid that I do not know very much about canoes, a type of transport that has never appealed to me very much. In my early days when I went on the river, the lowest form of transport I ever patronised was a punt, and I can assure noble Lords that I never navigated that very far. But I will have investigations made.
The noble Viscount said something else which rather intrigued me—about the concrete barges belonging to the Ministry of Transport. It is true that at one time we had a great many concrete barges, but we found private individuals who would buy them all, and we showed far more enterprise in defence of the tax-payer's interests than has private enterprise since they have been the owners of the concrete barges, because the barges are still there, and they have not been able to use them. I will also look into the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, as to whether or not the new pier at Battersea in connection with the Festival amusement park can be used. My present information is that it is considered to be only of a temporary nature; but if it will help at all I will make representations—
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: May I inter-rupt the noble Lord on the matter of the pier at Battersea? In that connection I had a talk with the Port of London

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Authority and was informed by them that this pier was of such a nature that it would have a life of thirty or forty years in its present position.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: What matters is not so much its life, but whether it would become an obstruction to traffic.
LORD TEYNHAM: Surely, if the pier is going to be moored for steamers to berth alongside for the Festival, there is no reason at all why it should not remain for a considerable length of time without being an obstruction?
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Perhaps we can put up with a little obstruction for a short time, but it is a different thing to put up with it for the rest of our lives. I confess I was not prepared for the point which was mentioned by Lord Fairfax in regard to Southampton Water, but I will look into it. I happen to have lived for thirty years within sight of Southampton Water, which is, of course, the most renowned yachting centre in the world, and the best, and therefore I much resent what the noble Lord, Lord Merthyr, said about the "Queen Mary" coming up Southampton Water and rolling all the yachts about. That is a libel upon a great ship, which I assure your Lordships comes up Southampton Water at a speed befitting a lady of her size. I have never seen anything roll in Southampton Water —except yachtsmen coming ashore at Hamble.
I am afraid I have not done very much to satisfy your Lordships on specific points, but I would ask noble Lords, if they have any influence with any clubs, to take steps to get those clubs to combine together and make representations to the appropriate authority, whether it be the Port of London Authority, the Thames Conservancy Board, or the British Transport Commission, on the subjects with which they have dealt so ably this afternoon. If they fail to get satisfaction and they will let me know, I will undertake to pursue the matter as far and as hard as I possibly can. I repeat that it is the desire of His Majesty's Government that every reasonable facility should be given to private boat owners to enjoy the amenities of the River Thames.
LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I, with the
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leave of the House, ask one question? I noted what he said about St. Katharine Dock. Supposing a yacht comes up unannounced into the river outside St. Katharine Dock, and wants to get in at tide time, will it be admitted in the ordinary way as yachts are admitted to a number of commercial docks all round the country without any special formalities having to be gone through?
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I am afraid I cannot answer the noble Lord's question off-hand. I will obtain the information for which he asks and will communicate it to him by letter.
5.44 p.m.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, I must say how grateful I am to the noble Lord who has replied on behalf of His Majesty's Government, and to everyone else who has taken part in what has grown into rather a fine little debate. It might interest noble Lords to learn some of the statistics relating to the numbers of yachts in this country. An accurate record has never, I think, been made, and I do not suppose it can ever be made, because so very few of these craft figure on any form of register. But I know that at Burnham-on-Crouch alone 800 vessels are said to be lying. This I can well believe. At Hammersmith there are close on 200 sailing dinghies. And there is a similar number at Putney, about a mile lower down the river. If you take those three centres, add up the number of craft and then try to calculate what the numbers must be in other parts of the country, your Lordships will readily realise that the grand total must be enormous.
An important consideration, and one well within my knowledge, is that these dinghies are owned to a great extent by students and youngsters working in offices and, generally speaking, by all sorts of people who have very little money. On the whole canoeists, I think, are even less likely to be people of wealth than yacht owners. It should be possible to do a great deal more for these people, as has been indicated by noble Lords to-day. What is more, the facilities which are asked for need not be established by the authorities mentioned, or by the Government. What is wanted by the yacht clubs is space—water space, dock space, riverside space or canalside space—where they can put up club houses and lay their moorings. They are quite prepared to do

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their part fully. They do not need buildings put up for them. All they require is a place, a site, on which to set up their establishment. If arrangements can be made for suitable places to be provided, I am certain that yacht clubs, canal clubs, canoe clubs and all the rest will appear like mushrooms to occupy the sites which are granted.
Finally, I should like again to say a word or two about the canoeists. Canoe-ing is a sport which has expanded greatly of late, as also has dinghy sailing. Naturally, therefore, the production of small craft has increased in proportion. It is an extraordinary fact that in spite of austerity and other adverse conditions,
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sail makers and dinghy builders have had far more employment in these last few years than ever before in their lives. There are long waiting lists of people wishing to buy almost every form of small craft. If any sort of facilities for these little craft are given in the areas which have been mentioned, it will open up a very fine sport to the ordinary people of this country. Again, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate for the interest which they have shown in this matter. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, with-drawn.
House adjourned at twelve minutes before six o'clock.