Lords Sitting of 1 August 1951

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

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
2.35 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, in order to enable us to take the Appropriation Bill through all its stages and return it to another place in time for the Royal Commission, which is expected to sit at half past five this afternoon, it will be necessary, with your Lordships' permission, to interrupt our proceedings at a convenient time, in order to receive the Commons Message and to deal with it forthwith.

POLICE COLLEGE STUDENTS
2.36 p.m.
VISCOUNT TRENCHARD: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will state (1) the number of students at present at the Police College at Ryton-on-Dunsmore in the age groups 25–30, 31–35, 36–40, 41–45 and over 45 for the junior course of six months and the number at present in each age group for the senior course of three months; (2) What are the total numbers that have passed through the College since it was started in the junior course, and how many of those have been promoted since they left the College.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT JOWITT): My Lords, 173 students are at present at the Police College at Ryton-on-Dunsmore on the junior course, including 151 men from police forces in England and Wales, in whom, I assume, the noble and gallant Viscount is mainly interested. Of these 151 men, 2 are between 25 and 30 years of age; 35 between 30 and 35; 67 between 36 and 40; 43 between 41 and 45; and 4 over 45 years of age. On the senior course,
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there are 39 students, including 25 men from police forces in England and Wales. None of these is in the 25–30 age group: one is between 31 and 35; 6 between 36 and 40; 9 between 41 and 45; and 9 over 45 years of age. Up to and including the sixth course, which ended on June 15, 1951, 964 students, including 898 men from police forces in England and Wales had completed the junior course. Promotions are collated annually; at the end of 1950, out of the 747 men from police forces in England and Wales who had then completed the junior course, 498 sergeants had been promoted to inspector, and 22 officers had been promoted to higher rank.
VISCOUNT TRENCHARD: My Lords, I beg to thank the noble and learned Viscount for his reply.

USE OF FREESTONE TN SCOTTISH BUILDING
2.38 p.m.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many public buildings, including bridges, have been erected, or are in the course of construction, in Scotland with Government assistance, involving the use of Freestone (a) in block masonry constructions; (b) as facing material; and whether they can say what is the total tonnage or volume of (a) Freestone; (b) artificial or reconstituted stone used in such buildings; and what proportion of the total natural Freestone used has been imported into Scotland.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF WORKS (LORD MORRISON): My Lords, natural stone has been used since the war in ten public buildings erected or in course of erection by the Ministry of Works in Scotland. Block masonry was used in nine cases and facing material in the other one. In other projects, artificial or reconstituted stone has been used. The quantity and extent of stone usage could not be ascertained without detailed examination of bills of quantities. In four of the projects the stone has been obtained from Scottish quarries, but in the others, where stone of close texture in a light uniform cream

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colour has been required, the stone has come from quarries in Northumberland, the nearest source of supply. Stone has also been used for many other public buildings which have been erected by other authorities in Scotland, with Government assistance, and it is also quite common to use Scottish stone for bridges. The number of cases and the extent of the stone usage are not, however, known, and could not be obtained without considerable inquiry, involving much time and labour.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I beg to thank the noble Lord for his reply.

CIVIL DEFENCE AND HOME DEFENCE
2.40 p.m.
LORD DE L'ISLE AND DUDLEY: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government how it is proposed that the primary rôle of that part of the field force which may remain in the United Kingdom during the initial course of operations on the outbreak of war shall not be limited or hampered should air attack develop, assuming that the deployment areas of such forces have no relation to likely targets for air attack, unless:—

(a) The Civil Defence organisation, including mobile columns in being, is fully organised and in sufficient strength to take the first weight of any onslaught from the air; and

(b) The Home Guard is organised and ready to come to the assistance of the Civil Defence organisation in order to ensure that it is not overwhelmed; and

(c) Air raid shelters for the civil population are adequate.]

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH): My Lords, no field force units or formations of the Regular or Territorial Army have been allotted Civil Defence rôles. The responsibility for Civil Defence in the United Kingdom, in the event of hostilities, will rest with the Civil Defence organisation, and the primary rôle of field
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force formations and units remaining in this country will be defence against invasion. Nevertheless, in the event of an emergency beyond the resources of the Civil Defence Services, certain Army units remaining in the United Kingdom, depending on their location and allotted rôles, would be available to give such assistance as may be practicable.
As regards the Home Guard, planning is proceeding to ensure that a substantial force can be enrolled, organised and armed as soon as the situation requires. With regard to the Civil Defence Services, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, in another place on January 29 last, explained the emphasis placed by His Majesty's Government on the development of the various military and civil aspects of the defence programme. In order not to divert the national resources from more important demands, it is not proposed that there should be any general acceleration of Civil Defence preparations on a scale comparable to the development of the Armed Forces which His Majesty's Government regard as the main object of the defence programme. Civil Defence planning, however, is being pushed ahead; and, in particular, certain Civil Defence projects, whose development would afford support to the Armed Forces, are being undertaken in the current financial year. Among these are the installation of an air raid warning system, and the development of the network of control and communications at regional and lower levels. In short, the Civil Defence organisation is being developed as rapidly as competing demands on our resources permit; but projects which involve the substantial use of labour and materials, including projects for the provision of air raid shelters, cannot, in general, be taken beyond the planning stage in present circumstances.
LORD DE L'ISLE AND DUDLEY: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Viscount for his answer. May I ask the following further question: Is it not the case that unless, on the outbreak of war, which we hope will never occur, there is an adequate Civil Defence force available, the possibility that the Regular and Territorial Armies will have to be called in to support the Civil Defence is much greater? Are not the Civil Defence mobile columns of great importance in the structure of Civil Defence, and has any Civil Defence mobile column, experimental or other-

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wise yet been formed, as was foreshadowed by the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, last January.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I am sure the whole House will agree that, so far as we can arrange them within the resources at our disposal in this particularly difficult time, Civil Defence provisions of the kind the noble Lord mentioned are highly important. That is why we are recruiting as rapidly as we can and proceeding with such work as we can in that direction. As regards the Civil Defence mobile columns, arrangements are now being made to obtain an effective headquarters site and to begin planning in the direction which the noble Lord desires. I do not think I can say more than that at the present time.
LORD DE L'ISLE AND DUDLEY: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for his further information. Are we to understand that no Civil Defence column is yet in being? Was the noble Viscount aware that the purport of my question is the interdependence of Civil Defence and Home Defence, and that if at the appropriate time there is not an adequate Civil Defence organisation in being, tasks will be thrust on the Armed Forces which are not their proper rôle and which will hamper them in their primary task?
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I have no information in front of me that there is an actual mobile column in existence, but I will confirm this position and communicate with the noble Lord. Of course, it is important to have as much progress in this direction as possible, but I have laid before the House the difficulties of contending priorities at the present time. The extent to which certain courses have been successful, the result of the recruitment of volunteers for the Civil Defence service and the extent of the actual training courses in Civil Defence—which are far ahead of those of most other countries and are being used as a model by other countries—show that we are giving the subject the most serious, active attention. We shall do the best we can in this matter.
LORD DE L'ISLE AND DUDLEY: My Lords, I do not want to delay the House, but I confess frankly that I am perturbed
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by the noble Viscount's reply, and I shall take an early opportunity of discussing this point again in your Lordships' House.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932
LORD HADEN-GUEST: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Shepherd, I beg to move that the Order made under the Act by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for extending section one of the Act to the Rural District of Hemsworth, be approved.
Moved, That the Order made under the Act by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for extending section one of the Act to the Rural District of Hemsworth be approved.—(Lord Haden-Guest.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

DRAFT HERRING INDUSTRY SCHEME, 1951
2.47 p.m.
LORD MORRISON: My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Herring Industry Scheme, 1951, reported from the Special Orders Committee on Wednesday last, be approved. The main purpose of the draft Scheme is to extend the powers of the Herring Industry Board so as to enable them the better to deal with the problem of the herring industry. The draft Scheme, when made, will replace the Herring Industry Scheme, 1935, from which the Board derive their present powers. Most of these powers are included in the new Scheme, some of them subject to modifications. The Scheme also confers on the Board certain additional powers which experience has shown to be necessary for the proper discharge of their duties and for the development of the herring industry. The industry is faced with serious difficulties, particularly in the marketing of herring, both at home and abroad. The Board are expected by the industry to be able to step in and help to overcome these difficulties. They cannot do so, however, unless they are equipped with adequate powers. It has often been represented, both by the industry and in Parliament, that the powers of the Board should be extended.
There has been full discussion with the industry about the draft Scheme. An

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earlier version was published in April, and was open to objection until May 31. Thereafter, the objections lodged were discussed with the principal objectors, and a number of modifications were put forward to meet the objections so far as possible. With the exception of relatively few points the objectors expressed themselves as satisfied with the scheme as revised and as presented to the House. It is symptomatic of the desire that the Board should be given wider powers that the draft Scheme was welcomed on both sides in another place by all who spoke and that the Resolution approving the draft was passed in the early hours of this morning without a Division. The draft Scheme will enable the Board to give more effective help to the industry to organise itself to meet the difficulties confronting it, and to secure a measure of stability which, unfortunately, is at present lacking. As a result, the industry should be better able to contribute to the prosperity of the fishing communities which so largely depend on it. There is an important fishing during the autumn off East Anglia, in which the Scottish and English sections both participate and it is most desirable that the Board should be equipped with their new powers before the start of that season.
Moved, That the Herring Industry Scheme, 1951, reported from the Special Orders Committee on Wednesday last, be approved.—(Lord Morrison.)
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, there are one or two questions in regard to this Order which I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Morrison. I see that under Article 8 (a), the Board may
"engage in herring fishing and do all things necessary for the prosecution of such fishing."
Does that mean that they are thinking of buying and operating boats? If so, I feel that it is not a good idea. One objection I have to their doing so is that Article 17 of the draft Order says the Board may establish a system of licensing under which they have to license the use of boats in the industry. I believe that the licensing authority should not itself be an operator. That ought to be a basic principle. Otherwise, a fisherman who is deprived of his licence, possibly because of a redundancy of boats, may see Board boats sailing out and taking his waters; and their licence will have been obtained from the licensing authority
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who are also the owners of the boat. I hope that the Herring Board will not engage in the fishing industry. I do not think that Boards of this kind are very successful in operating, for instance, wage rates. Only to-day we see a new claim reported in the Press—despite dividend limitation. It seems to me that in the fishing industry we should do much better to leave it with the herring fishermen to operate, so far as possible, as the crew owners of the ships, so that they can chase the herring; and even if it means working overtime, they will be able to go on while there are herrings to catch, and will not be restricted to particular hours. I should like the noble Lord, if possible, to give an assurance that the Herring Board will not engage in the fishing industry itself.
Article 17 also provides that the Board may prescribe that no boat except those that have a licence from the Board shall be used for herring fishing. I should not have so much objection to that if the restriction were confined to boats licensed to catch herring for sale. Under the Scheme, the Board can exclude particular classes of boats—I believe those exceeding 20 feet in length. What I do not want to see is that somebody who has gone out in a boat, perhaps on a pleasure cruise, and has dropped a line over the back and caught a few herring, or who goes out in a yacht and catches a few herring to eat for breakfast, is held to have offended against this Order merely because he has not been given a licence for his boat. Incidentally, I would ask the noble Lord what are the penalties for breach of this Order—they do not seem to be set out. I should be obliged if the noble Lord would give the answers to those two questions, because I think it should be made quite clear to the Board that they are not to prevent people not engaged in the trade from occasionally catching herring if they so desire. I certainly feel that the Board should not enter the trade and license their own boats, perhaps to the exclusion of those in the trade.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I should like to add a few words in support of what my noble friend Lord Llewellin has said. As I see it, we are extending a system which, in principle, is not acceptable to the great majority of your Lordships—namely, that one person

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should be judge in his own cause. In effect, that is what is happening here. The Herring Board are to be not only the operator but also the judge as to whether somebody else is to operate. Only yesterday, the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor, in one of those expressions of high principle which always give great pleasure to the House, said:
"We try not to be judge in our own case, or take execution into our own hands."
As I read it, that is precisely what this draft Order is intended to do. It is intended to put the Herring Board into the invidious position of both operating and deciding whether or not somebody else should operate. That is a system which has caused offence in road transport, and in civil aviation; and it will cause offence as often as it is operated. In that part of the passenger road transport system which has a separate licensing body, I think everybody will agree that the system has worked very smoothly. But that is not what is being done here, and I suggest, with respect, that the principle here is entirely unsound.
LORD MORRISON: My Lords, I will endeavour to answer the questions put to me. I am sorry that the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, did not tell me that he was going to raise this question, which is somewhat legal.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No.
LORD MORRISON: The noble Earl did not give me notice.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: May I ask the noble Lord whether he thinks the principle of ensuring justice is a purely legal expression? I think it is wrong to put it that way.
LORD MORRISON: The noble Earl raised the question of whether the Herring Industry Board were to be judge in their own cause, and he gave illustrations of where, he said, such a system had not been a success. I am unable to give him an answer at the present moment. If I had known he was going to raise the specific point, I would have endeavoured to do so.
LORD LLEWELLIN: If I may interrupt the noble Lord, I raised exactly the same point, and I informed the noble Lord that I proposed to do so.
LORD MORRISON: Then I will proceed to endeavour to satisfy the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin. I say at once that it is certainly not the intention that the Board should run their own fishing boats in competition with the fishermen. They are being given power to fish so that, when fishermen are no longer willing to take the risks, the Board will be able to do so. For example, they might undertake a search for the very fine shoals of herring which used to frequent the Barra fishing grounds in the Western Islands of Scotland. The power to fish is qualified in two ways. First, the Board must satisfy themselves that it is necessary for them to exercise such power
"in order to secure proper provision for the needs of the herring industry."
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: What is the noble Lord reading from? Is he reading from the Order?
LORD MORRISON: The words:
"in order to secure proper provision for the needs of the herring industry"
are from the Order. Secondly, the Board must, so far as practicable, consult with persons or organisations concerned. With regard to the noble Lord's point about licences, I would remind him that licences are necessary in order to secure proper control of the industry, and, for example, improved standards of kippering or processing. The Board are obliged to grant licences on request except in the circumstances set out in Article 19 (2)—namely, to undischarged bankrupts or to persons who have been convicted of a criminal offence involving fraud or dishonesty, or who have contravened any of the provisions of the Scheme or rules or directions made under it. Licences have been required under the Scheme since 1935 for everything except freshing.
The noble Lord also asked whether a licence was required to catch a few herring for personal consumption from a boat over 20 feet in length. I was not quite convinced with the suggestion that it might be necessary to throw a line over the side and catch a few herring for breakfast, because I understand that the only way to catch herring is with a net.
LORD LLEWELLIN: No; I have caught them on a line.
LORD MORRISON: In any case, I can assure the noble Lord that there is certainly no intention to interfere with the

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practice of catching herring for consumption on board vessels. The construction of the Scheme is, of course, a matter for the courts; but it is thought that, having regard to the Scheme as a whole, the only type of boat which would require a licence is a boat constructed or used for commercial herring fishing. Similar provisions have been in operation since 1935 without giving rise to difficulty on this point. If, nevertheless, there should be any difficulty, the Herring Industry Board could, and probably would, take steps to meet it under Article 17 (1) (b) of the Scheme, which empowers them to exempt any prescribed class of boat or any particular boat from the necessity of obtaining a licence.
With regard to the point which the noble Lord raised about price maintenance, the proviso to Article 22 provides that the Board must not use their powers to give directions for the purpose of price maintenance, but must have regard only to the facilities available for the handling of herring. The object of this is to secure that in regulating operations of catchers under this Article, the Board do not deliberately restrict catchers in order to create artificially high prices for the fishermen. They must limit operations only if they think that more herring will be landed than can be disposed of by the handling facilities available. The final question the noble Lord asked was with regard to information about penalties. By declaring that contravention of certain provisions of the Scheme shall be deemed to be an offence, Article 24 attracts the penalties set out in Section 6 of the Herring Industry Act, 1935. These are, in the case of the first offence, a fine not exceeding £5; and, in the case of a second or subsequent offence, a fine not exceeding £20, and in both cases forfeiture of any herring or products of herring concerned in the offence or alternatively, an additional fine not exceeding the value thereof. I hope that these answers satisfy the noble Lord.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, I hope that I did not misunderstand what the noble Lord said, but he mentioned something about the ordinary fisherman not taking risks. As one who in the past represented a great many sea fishermen in Parliament, I take great exception to anything suggesting that these most courageous men do not go to sea if it involves taking a risk. On occasions when they do not
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go to sea, it would be very unwise for the Board to do so. I should like the noble Lord to explain what he meant.
LORD MORRISON: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, knows perfectly well that I had no intention of casting any reflection of any kind on fishermen. I myself was brought up amongst fishermen in Scotland. The fisherman has to earn his living and, therefore, he cannot spend many days and nights in searching for the fish. If the activities of the Herring Board can assist him to go straight to where fish can be caught, it will be an advantage to him.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IN HONG KONG
3.5 p.m.
LORD FARINGDON LORD FARINGDON rose to call the attention of His Majesty's Government to the infliction of corporal punishment in Hong Kong, and to ask what steps they propose to take to bring practice in the Colony into line with that in this country. The noble Lord said: My Lords, it is not my intention to delay your Lordships very long. The reason why I have not put down a starred Question is that I thought I should give your Lordships a little of the background which is behind the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper to-day. In this matter of corporal punishment, Hong Kong holds a bad pre-eminence. I am glad to say that the figures are very much reduced—that is to say, the figures for 1950 show a substantial reduction over the figures for 1949 so far as the whipping of juveniles is concerned, a reduction from 4,367 to 405, which I welcome most heartily. Unfortunately, the figures for the flogging of adults shows an increase of nearly 100 per cent. as between the same two years. Therefore the improvement is, unfortunately, rather one-sided. In fact, the corporal punishment figures for Hong Kong are the highest for any Colonial territory with the exception of Nigeria, and your Lordships will realise that there is no comparison at all between the populations of the two Colonies.
In official statements—and I hope this will not be repeated by my noble friend when he comes to reply—this punishment is described as "whipping with a light cane." It sounds very much like a school-

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boy punishment, and I therefore think it worth while to read to your Lordships an extract from a Hong Kong paper which describes exactly what corporal punishment in Hong Kong means. It says:
"… the caning, or flogging as it might more appropriately be termed, is far from being 'light' punishment. The cane used is thick and long, the administrating officer is big and strong, and the weals inflicted are deep and inflamed. … This is not to be compared with schoolboy caning. … To begin with, something about the 'flogger.' There are three or four prison officers trained for this work, and at least two attend each flogging. Generally these two men take alternate strokes. The main reason for this is that caning is exhausting work—especially in hot weather. The officers are chosen for their fitness and strength. They are then trained for several weeks on a dummy before being permitted to cane a corporal-punishment prisoner.
The technique of flogging is to swing the cane like a golf club and to follow through with precision on to the target—in this case the fleshy cheeks of the buttocks. The aim is to strike approximately the same area with each stroke. Strength is useful when the technique has been mastered, but strength alone is ineffective. On the day arranged for the caning the prisoner is brought into the punishment room and examined by the doctor. If pronounced fit he is securely strapped to a heavy wooden rack. The buttocks are then bared and the flogging commences. At one time the exposed buttocks were covered with a damp cloth to prevent the skin from being cut. But … this softening of the punishment has been abolished. During the flogging the Superintendent of Prisons, the Chief Officer and the M.O. are in attendance as well as the European Officer-in-charge of the punishment block. … The condition of the posterior at the conclusion of the flogging is not a sight to be described here. …"
Hong Kong is a Crown colony. Therefore we have a very special responsibility for what goes on in Hong Kong. I think your Lordships must have been shocked by this account. I am sure that all of you will have been surprised and shocked by the figures which I have given. That this little Colony should have such enormous figures for this particular type of punishment seems to me, at any rate, to indicate that something is seriously wrong. I beg to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
3.9 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF CIVIL AVIATION (LORD OGMORE): My Lords, it is the policy of His Majesty's Government to secure the complete abolition of corporal punishment as a sanction imposed by the courts, and a despatch has been sent to
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all Colonial Governments advocating this course. His Majesty's Government are, however, fully cognisant of the position in Hong Kong. By far the largest number of cases of such punishment there in recent years has been in respect of hawking offences by juveniles, for which the penalty was normally three strokes with a light cane—in spite of my noble friend's description of it. For an experimental period, this penalty for such offences has now been suspended.
As your Lordships know, Hong Kong is open to the mainland and there is little let or hindrance to people coming in, and the hawkers, and especially the juvenile hawkers, have constituted a problem in Hong Kong which has caused some embarrassment and worry to the authorities, particularly the police authorities. These hawkers have no licence, and they clutter up the narrow streets with their barrows, baskets, boxes or whatever it may be. There are only certain ways in which one can deal with problems of this kind. One can send boys to reformatories; but, as the minimum period is two years, that would seem far too grave a punishment for this offence. Then, one can fine them, in which case, normally, it is the parent who pays—and in Hong Kong it is not always easy to find the parents of the respective offenders. Finally, there is whipping. Up to 1949 it was the practice to give the juvenile hawkers three strokes on the buttocks with a cane. There was no necessity for the police officers who inflicted the punishment to go into training on a dummy for this purpose: they were quite capable of giving three light strokes without any preparation whatsoever. Since 1949—a fact which I presume the noble Lord knew but did not think fit to acquaint your Lordships with—
LORD FARINGDON: I beg the noble Lord's pardon: I started by giving the figures of the reduction.
LORD OGMORE: Perhaps the noble Lord will allow me to finish what I was going to say. It has ceased altogether to be the practice to cane juveniles, so that, however many there may have been in previous years, at the present moment there is no caning of juveniles for this offence.
LORD FARINGDON: Then what does the noble Lord say about the 405 cases in 1950?
LORD OGMORE: I said "for this offence."
VISCOUNT SIMON: Will the noble Lord say what the offence is?
LORD OGMORE: The offence is obstruction—obstruction by juvenile hawkers without a licence—and for that offence, which is the one with which I am now dealing (I will deal with others a little later) corporal punishment is not inflicted. That was the main class of case for which juveniles were punished. That accounts for the surprising reduction in the number of cases in which juveniles were punished in this way, and which has already been quoted by my noble friend. Now there are, of course, other offences for which juveniles may receive corporal punishment, and it is in relation to those other offences that the figure given by my noble friend stands: it is not in connection with obstruction. I will give your Lordships the breakdown of the figures of cases of corporal punishment in Hong Kong for 1950. Sexual offences: there were no persons punished corporally; violence: 205; offences against property: 93; prison offences: 1; juvenile offenders: 405. Those were the number of cases making a total of 704, in which corporal punishment was inflicted during the year 1950.
As I say, on the general question the Government are hoping that measures will be taken by all Colonial Governors towards the progressive attainment of the objective of restriction of the use of corporal punishment. But circumstances being what they are in Hong Kong, it means that we must, to a large extent, depend upon the advice of the Governor and his Council as to the rate at which the existing order can be changed and at which the progressive attainment of the Government's objective can be carried out. I think your Lordships will agree that Hong Kong is a special case; that there are circumstances there which are widely different from the circumstances in this country; and that, so far from being censured, both the Governor of Hong Kong and His Majesty's Government should, in fact, receive an unwonted measure of praise both from the noble Lord and from all your Lordships for their action in this field.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: Does the noble Lord challenge the description of this punishment in adult cases which was read out by my noble friend?
LORD OGMORE: I can neither affirm nor challenge it, for I have no knowledge of the nature of it; but the Secretary of State for the Colonies will have his attention drawn to the matter and no doubt will look into it in due course.
LORD FARINGDON: In thanking the noble Lord for his reply, I must say I should feel easier if, in fact, he had replied.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order, Order!

CENTRAL AFRICAN TERRITORIES
3.17 p.m.
VISCOUNT SWINTON VISCOUNT SWINTON rose to call attention to the Report of the Conference on Closer Association of Central African Territories, and to ask His Majesty's Government whether they can give the House any further information about the visit to these Territories of the Secretaries of State for Commonwealth Relations and for the Colonies; and to move for Papers. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, it is agreeable on the "last day of term," so to speak, that we should debate a subject on which I think there is a wide measure of agreement. It is always desirable that in Imperial affairs there should be, if possible, agreement and continuity of policy. Imperial problems should transcend Party political issues, just as in their development and solution they outlast the lives of individual Governments. If Imperial problems can be treated in that way, solutions are likely to be sound and successful. I hope and believe that the closer association of Central African Territories can be so treated. There is certainly a large measure of agreement in what is needed and in the way the matter has been handled.
As the Secretary of State for the Colonies said in another place in June, the Central African Council, which is a purely advisory body, has proved inadequate to its purpose. He went on to say this:
"There is an increasing need for some form of closer association between the three Territories in the interests of their economic development and of the prosperity and well-being of their inhabitants."
With both statements I think that we shall

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all find ourselves in agreement. Recognising the need and the increasing urgency of the problem, the Government here, and the Governments of Southern and Northern Rhodesia and of Nyasaland, took the wise step of convening a Conference of senior officials of the Commonwealth Relations Office, the Colonial Office and the three African Governments to see whether they could formulate concrete proposals for submission to their respective Governments. I think that was a very wise step. Governments and Governors come and go, but the permanent officials go on for ever—or at any rate they have a corporate existence or succession. They have peculiar qualifications for giving sound and practical advice. They are unprejudiced; they have long-accumulated experience; they know how the machine of government works, or fails to work; and they are the people who have to make it work; and, what is perhaps even more important, they know a great deal about the Africans and their true interests, moral and material. Native opinion is often hard to ascertain—if, indeed the mass of Africans have any definite opinions. The most vocal opinion is not always the most representative or the best informed.
We must never forget that we are trustees, trustees for all, and particularly for the person to-day usually described as the "common man." That is where the opinion of these experienced officials who met in conference is particularly valuable, because their single-minded purpose is the discharge of this trust. Now we have their full and exhaustive Report, with the accompanying surveys on native policy and economics. The remarkable thing is that, on a subject where there has hitherto been much difference of opinion, all are unanimous, and that is a tremendous advance. I shall not deal with the Report in detail. All your Lordships have studied it, and other noble Lords who will speak after me have great knowledge of these Territories and their problems. But there are some aspects to which I should like to draw particular attention.
I would begin by citing a passage from Paragraph 32 of the Report, because it goes to the root of the whole matter. After emphasising the urgency of the problem, the Report—and remember that this is a unanimous Report—reads thus:
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"We believe strongly that economic and political partnership between Europeans and Africans is the only policy which can succeed in the conditions of Central Africa; this is fully recognised by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom,"—
and, I may add, by His Majesty's Opposition as well—
"and by all three Central African Governments. Closer association between the three Territories, by the economic and political strength which it would bring with it, would in our view provide a surer foundation than exists at present for developing and extending the policy of racial co-operation and partnership, on which all three Territories are agreed, without the fear of influences from outside the borders of British Central Africa."
In this connection, your Lordships will have noted that interesting and very comprehensive annex, Annex II, which the Report gives on "Native policy in the three Territories." It begins with these words:
"The conclusion to be drawn from the Comparative Survey of Native Policy is that the ultimate aim of policy in each Territory is to advance the African to the stage where he is in all respects a full partner, exercising all the rights and accepting all the responsibilities of citizenship."
I quote another passage from the Report. Paragraph 18 says this:
"The most striking conclusion which we draw from our examination of the survey"—
that is, this Comparative Survey of Native Policy—
"is the degree of similarity between the policy and practice of the three Governments rather than the degree of difference."
After mentioning the differences, the Report goes on:
"But we believe that these differences, although important, relate largely to method and timing and that the ultimate objective of all three Governments is broadly the same, namely, the economic, social and political advancement of the Africans in partnership with the Europeans"
These wise men come back again and again to this identity of aim, and they conclude thus:
"We do not believe that the differences in native policy which still exist can now be regarded as a valid argument against closer association, provided that a suitable scheme can be devised. On the contrary, we think that there would be positive advantages in closer association from the point of view of native policy."
When we consider this careful review and conclusion by experienced and unprejudiced officials, whose sole object is

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to find out what is true and right, it really is nauseating to read some of the false, malicious and bilious propaganda issued by persons who had not taken the trouble even to read the proposals, and whose sole object appears to be to stir up racial hatred. M. Clemenceau once gave this advice to a young politician who afterwards became a great public servant:
"My son, only two things really matter: to love and to be loved; and to be intellectually honest."
Those are principles which these propagandists might take to heart, if that organ is not too diseased to be receptive.
The Report makes out an overwhelming case on economic grounds for closer union. The Territories will not merely be economically stronger if they work and plan together: they are essentially inter-dependent. Common services, such as communications and posts and telegraphs are essential. As the Report points out, the longer the view we take, the more important this closer association is seen to be. At present, all three Territories are prosperous, but their present prosperity owes a great deal to present prices and current demand. A slump in prices or a serious falling off in the demand for particular commodities might have a disastrous effect on the Territories if they were working as isolated economic units. As the Report says:
"Clearly, an economic crisis could be faced more confidently if the units were closely integrated into an area having a widely based economy."
After dealing with the vital need for closer association on the economic side, the Report wisely points out that this association must react favourably on the moral and social welfare of all the population. Your Lordships will find this statement in Paragraph 31:
"Closer association would bring in its train a quickening expansion of the economy of the area as a whole and, therefore, greater prosperity; this would, in turn, lead to an expansion of Government finance and, consequently, even though a particular department might not be brought within any scheme for closer association, to the provision of better facilities for education (including community education), better health services (both curative and preventive), improved water supplies, housing and agricultural services, and improved social standards generally. The need for these improvments is felt by all communities, and
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in particular by the Africans, who form the great bulk of the population. The moral and social advancement of Africans will march with the economic development of their countries and in our view the pace of such development will be slower if continued on the present basis than if closer association is brought about."
Having proved conclusively the urgent need for closer association, the Conference submit the means by which it should be accomplished. Their proposals are a Federal Constitution, the Federal Government and Parliament being responsible for common services. In so far as native affairs fall within the purview of the Federal Government and Parliament, it is proposed that there should be an African Affairs Board, whose Chairman would be Minister for African Interests. The proposed powers of the Minister and Board are fully dealt with in the Report.
I know that it would be easy to criticise these proposals. I could criticise the tentative division of functions between Federal and Territorial; and it might well be wiser to define the Territorial functions and make the rest Federal. I have never known a Constitution or a draft Constitution which was not open to criticism. Of course, the proposals are a compromise. But, my Lords, compromise is not the least of the British virtues. The better is often the enemy of the good. Moreover, this plan is the only agreed constructive proposal that has been put forward. The experienced officials who have drawn up the plan believe that it will work; and if it is adopted, they will have a large share of the responsibility for seeing that it does work. Nor are Constitutions eternal or immutable—indeed, some, perhaps, change too often. Constitutions evolve in the light of practical experience. Do not let us suppose that if this attempt fails we can just set to work and try again. It is not merely that the architects of closer union will be discouraged. The clock will have been set back, and an opportunity which may not easily recur will have been missed, and missed to the great detriment of all the peoples of these lands. The Secretaries of State will soon start on their journey to these Territories. They will carry with them on their mission all our good will, and we sincerely trust that they will return bringing their sheaves with them. I beg to move for Papers.
3.31 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF LUCAN): My Lords, I must start by thanking the noble Viscount for the very friendly tone of his speech and for letting us know that the proposals, such as they are, have, broadly speaking, the good will of the Opposition. From the careful phrasing of his speech, it is obvious that he realises that this is a matter of some delicacy. These proposals have the most far-reaching possibilities for this part of Africa. They have been put before the public and before Parliament, and therefore it would not be appropriate for me to go further into them or to discuss the merits or the details of the proposals at the present time.
If I may recall to your Lordships the history of the case, it was on June 13 that your Lordships were informed by my noble friend, Lord Ogmore, that neither His Majesty's Government nor the other Governments concerned are at this stage committing themselves to acceptance of any of the particular proposals in the Report, which is published as a basis for consideration and discussion. His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, for their part, are giving most careful consideration to the proposals in the Report, as are the other Governments concerned. This consideration cannot, however, be completed until the views of those communities immediately concerned have been ascertained and discussed with them. In these circumstances, the House will appreciate that I am not in a position to-day to do more than repeat what my noble friend said: that the proposals appear to His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom
"to embody a constructive approach to the problem which deserves the careful consideration of all the peoples and the Governments concerned."
In that same Statement it was announced that my right honourable friends the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and the Secretary of State for the Colonies were to visit Central Africa during the coming Recess. I am glad to be able to confirm that that visit will take place, and I can give your Lordships some details of the programme. The arrangements are being made in
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consultation with the Central African Governments, but I cannot give the detailed timing of the programme other than this: that it is proposed that the Secretary of State for the Colonies should leave this country by air, arriving in Nyasaland on August 26. He will leave Nyasaland for Northern Rhodesia on September 3, and he will remain in Northern Rhodesia until September 15. During his stay in the two Territories he will have discussions with the unofficial members of the Legislative Councils, visit all the important centres, and meet for discussions representatives of all sections of the communities, including delegations from such bodies as the chambers of commerce, the African Provincial and Representative Councils, and the Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia African Congresses.
The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations hopes to leave by air about September 10 for discussions in Southern Rhodesia. My right honourable friend is in communication with the Southern Rhodesian Government, who are aware of his wish to meet representative people of all sections in the Colony. In the light of these discussions, the two Secretaries of State will attend a conference with Southern Rhodesian Ministers and representatives of the Governments and European and African communities of the two Northern Territories. This conference will provide the opportunity for a full exchange of views between all concerned and will be of great value in assisting the Governments at a later date to reach conclusions in regard to the proposals in the Report. The place of the Conference has not been finally fixed, but it is probable that the place chosen will be Victoria Falls.
My Lords, I have said that I cannot elaborate on the statements that have already been made. I can only thank the noble Viscount for his contribution and for his good wishes; and, like him, I commend the proposals as a constructive approach to the problem.
3.37 p.m.
LORD ALTRINCHAM: My Lords, many of us, I think, would have wished that the statement just made by the noble Earl, speaking for the Government, could have been a little more precise. But we understand the difficulties of the Govern-

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ment in the situation. We completely appreciate the importance of leaving conclusions open until the visits of the respective Secretaries of State. All I can do is to join my noble friend who moved this Motion in congratulating the Government on having convened this Conference of officials, and in trusting that they will find it possible to proceed with the recommendations which the officials have unanimously made.
For my part, like my noble friend I think these proposals offer a chance of establishing the principle of racial partnership in a vital quarter of Africa as no other proposals that have been laid before us or thought of for a long time could have done. As all your Lordships know, there has for long been a conflict between two different schools of thought upon the future of Africa, a conflict which is now becoming a clash of fanatical ideologies, a clash which threatens the peace of Africa throughout its breadth and length. At one extreme there is the nationalism which has been developed in West Africa and at the other pole there is the nationalism which has become so intense and so fanatical in the Union of South Africa, based on the doctrine of absolute separation between the White and the Black races. As I said what I felt about that doctrine, in a Motion moved by the noble Lord, Lord Winster, last year, I do not propose to say any more now, except to repeat that I think it would be a disaster if that ideology were to be allowed to spread further North. As your Lordships know, this clash is at present causing a ferment throughout Africa, and that ferment has reached a critical, if not a dangerous, stage. The Report we are discussing is closely connected with that ferment. Every page and almost every paragraph of the Report stresses the necessity of partnership between the races if conflict is to be avoided.
This danger was already running high thirty years ago, when Southern Rhodesia received responsible government. I would ask your Lordships for just a minute to cast your minds back to that period, because the decision then taken and the results which flowed from it have an intimate bearing on the issue confronting us to-day. Indeed, I think that the bearing will be considered decisive by all who justly appreciate and understand it.
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By 1920 the Chartered Company—the British South Africa Company; Cecil Rhodes' Company—had ruled for thirty-one years. On the whole, it was a fine achievement, although it had its "ups and downs." When it was initiated, my noble friend Lord Salisbury's grandfather said that he thought the responsibility which was being placed on the Chartered Company was greater than any such company should be asked to bear; but, since he saw no other chance of introducing civilisation into that part of Africa, or of persuading Parliament to bear the expenditure, he thought that the Chartered Company should have the opportunity for which it asked. It took the opportunity and discharged its responsibility very well. There was a clause in the Charter providing for its revocation if ever any Government in this country found it necessary to complain about the administration of the Company. But no suggestion of revocation was ever made by either the, Conservative or the Liberal Governments which held power during that time. In these days, when private enterprise is widely distrusted and condemned, it is perhaps worth suggesting that your Lordships should salute the achievement, unsurpassed in that age in any part of Africa, of shareholders who were content to put their capital into a great undertaking without receiving any interest—indeed, continuing to invest without prospect of interest for a great many years.
By the end of the First World War the time had come for an end to Chartered Company rule. There was, for instance, in the Act of Union of South Africa a provision for the adhesion as Provinces of both Rhodesias to the Union of South Africa, on the presentation of an Address from both Houses of the Union Parliament. That was a provision in the Act which could not be ignored. On the other hand, the settlers were getting restless under Company rule, and at that time were also extremely suspicious of South African nationalism, which, as your Lordships may remember, had caused the rebellion in the First World War; and on that account the majority of settlers at that time were demanding responsible government.
In 1921, a Committee was appointed here in Whitehall. Largely it was an official Committee, very much on the lines of the Conference which has just been convened. The Committee was

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under the Chairmanship of Lord Buxton who had been Governor-General of the Union of South Africa. I was a member of that Committee and I remember its proceedings very vividly, because Lord Buxton was good enough to entrust me with a good deal of the sifting of the arguments and evidence and with the drafting of conclusions on them.
Early in 1922 that Committee recommended that the population of Southern Rhodesia should be given a free choice by plebiscite between entering the Union of South Africa as a Province or attempting responsible government under their own resources, and with the small European population which it had then of 33,000. A delegation was invited home to consider the Constitution under self-government, and on its way it had a long discussion with General Smuts, who did his utmost to persuade the delegation and those it represented to enter the Union. Afterwards they came here and discussed the Constitution with the authorities in Whitehall. In October, 1922, a plebiscite was held, which resulted in a decisive vote for responsible government and against incorporation in the Union. Self-government was inaugurated a year later, in October, 1923. My Lords, thus was established a great self-governing country, bearing Rhodes' name, dedicated to his great principle of "equal rights for every civilised man," inaugurated as a second step in the realisation of his great dream.
Believe me, the doubts expressed at home in regard to the wisdom of granting self-government at that time were as great as the doubts expressed in many quarters now. As I have said, the Europeans in Southern Rhodesia numbered only 33,000. Could they produce the political quality and the leadership required? Of necessity they were all compelled to earn their own living. Could they make the sacrifice of time necessary to take a responsible part in public work and the business of government? Even Lord Milner was uncertain on that point. I remember his saying what a strain it might prove. But, in the sequel, all doubts have been triumphantly dispelled. That is what I think we ought to remember at the present time. We made then an act of faith which I believe was justified. We are called upon to make an act of faith
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now, and I believe it will be justified again.
Southern Rhodesia under responsible government achieved a sound and economic administration. It paid its own way and great economic development took place. As a sign of that, the European population has practically quadrupled in eighteen years. It also rendered great service in the two World Wars. More that half the adult male population underwent military service in the First World War, and in the Second World War, as all your Lordships remember. Rhodesia was an essential base in Allied measures for for the defence of Africa.
There are many who say, "All that is true. The settlers have shown that they can look after themselves. But what about the Africans?" No one who has been to Southern Rhodesia can doubt that the Africans are happy. On that matter, I can quote the testimony of Ministers representing the Government who have been there quite recently. There is no doubt that the African population of Southern Rhodesia are a happy population. They have had not only their reserves of land secured to them on a very large scale—it is about one-third of the area of the Colony—but they have also had further land on a large scale appropriated to them for individual purchase, of which only a small part has been taken up by them so far. They are beginning a system of local government, although there it is not so far advanced as in Northern Rhodesia. But, if I may quote the Report upon Southern Rhodesia's record in this matter, I think your Lordships will find this paragraph impressive. It is on page 30 of the Report of the conference; and it runs:
"The Southern Rhodesian Government spends considerably more per head of the African population on such African services as health, education, irrigation and soil conservation than do the Northern Governments …"
I think that is worth remembering, when the question is raised whether the European system of self-government has done justice to the African population in Southern Rhodesia or not. Above all, they have adhered to Rhodes' principle of equal rights for every civilised man and no political colour bar. There are people in this country who doubt the sincerity with which that principle is being applied.

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But what is the value of such criticism, coming from students, itinerant professors and politicians of various kinds, as compared with the solid testimony of impartial civil servants, whose main interest, after all, is to see that the population of the country as a whole, and more particularly the least vocal part of the population, the African population, is justly attended to? I could quote from the Report many passages to show how highly they esteem the Government of Southern Rhodesia in that respect, and how, despite some differences, they regarded the principle adopted in the Crown Colonies as being exactly the same as the principle pursued in the self-governing Colony of Southern Rhodesia. I do not believe that any better showing is to be found for European leadership in Africa since Europeans first went to that continent.
It is therefore, I think, meet and right that we should pay tribute here to-day to the men responsible for that achievement, and more particularly to the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia, Sir Godfrey Huggins. He was not trained to public work. He was, by profession, a doctor, who had his initial training at St. Thomas's Hospital across the river, and afterwards worked at the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital. He emigrated to Rhodesia in 1911, and he served in the First World War very gallantly. He entered Parliament, on pressure by his neighbours, when self-government was first given in 1923. He became Prime Minister in 1933, being then of the same age as, I think, was Cromwell when he entered public affairs in this country. This goes to show that political capacity may be developed unexpectedly and very late. He is, as all who know him will agree, compact of sound principle and profound political sense, and he understands, above all, that progress must be tentative and gradual if justice is to be done to all in a society such as that to be found in Southern Rhodesia.
I should like to pay a tribute also—and I am sure your Lordships will join with me in this—to the Legislature, the Administration and the electorate of Southern Rhodesia. We know that democratic electorates are not always wise in the selection of the leaders to whom to entrust their affairs. I say that without Party prejudice of any kind. But the
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electorate have certainly been wise in Southern Rhodesia, and their choice reflects great credit not only on Sir Godfrey Huggins but on the electors themselves. I think that these things prove to the hilt that if you give responsibility to British stock in any part of the world, they will show the mettle of their pasture and do honour to the Island from which they spring. Your Lordships will, I think, agree that this record of a great trust which we gave, and which has been justified, has an intimate bearing upon the issue to-day, now that we are called upon to face another decision of even greater scope and weight.
The Report of the Conference, as my noble friend said, emphasises and reiterates not only the necessity but the urgency of closer union between these three Territories in the interests of the Territories themselves, and in the interests of all the races contained therein. That was evident to the Bledisloe Commission which went to Rhodesia before the war, and it has certainly been proved by the experience of the Central Africa Council, a purely advisory body which was established during the war. That Council was fully represented at this Conference, and, therefore, joins in the unanimous advice which the Conference has given. Of course, as my noble friend has said, the Federation scheme is imperfect. What scheme is not? For my part, I feel particularly anxious about the weight and expense of the apparatus of government proposed. I will not go into details, but for a population of 6,000,000 it appears to be a very heavy and complex machine for government and administration, with governors, legislatures, and all. And I think it may be well worth while, when the time comes to study these matters in detail, to consider whether, in the interests of all races, some simplification and some economy, both in money and men, are not possible. Of course, that is only one example. There is an immense amount of detail to be worked out. These proposals are largely headlines, and everyone knows how much work must be done to give them constitutional shape. Details apart, however, I for my part wholeheartedly endorse the general framework which is proposed, and I trust that there will be complete agreement between the Parties upon endorsement of that scheme when the Secretaries of State have been out there and consulted opinion upon the spot.

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The economic arguments used in the Report are, as my noble friend said, compelling, but they are less important than taking the right course with regard to the most critical of all questions in Africa to-day—human and racial relationships. That is the vital thing. I spoke of the two ideologies which are in conflict now in the African Continent. Both are extremes. Both are counsels of despair, because, under either, racial conflict must be inevitable. With either of those extremes one race or the other goes under, and, naturally, both races will struggle to survive. As I say, I regard both extremes, both ideologies, as counsels of despair. Central Africa stands between these two ideologies, a bastion of sound policy, upholding the principle of racial partnership. But consolidation of Central Africa, that is, of the two Rhodesias and Nyasaland, which is so closely intertwined in its interests with the Rhodesias, is imperative if that bastion is to resist the waves of fanaticism which are going to beat upon it from every side. Remember that the population of Northern Rhodesia is now greater than the population was in Southern Rhodesia when we gave self-government to that country eighteen years ago. The population of Southern Rhodesia then was 33,000 Europeans as against nearly 1,000,000 Africans. The population of Northern Rhodesia now is 35,000 or more. Already that European population has an unofficial majority, and it has been fortunate in finding a remarkable leader in Mr. Welensky, who first proved his capacity as a trade union leader and then showed his powers of leadership in the political field. He is not only the leader of the unofficial majority in the Legislative Council; he is also a member of the Governor's Executive Council. I am sure that many of your Lordships who have followed his speeches, as I have, will agree that they show a grasp of principle on this question of racial relations in which we are entitled to confide.
The issue is crystal clear. Either we trust our own people in Africa or our people in Africa will cease to trust us. And if they cease to trust us, where will they go, where can they go, for support, except to the great Union to the south? If that occurs, Central Africa will have been relegated by our blindness to the hopeless conflict of extremes which seems
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to be developing elsewhere. As my noble friend said, in this matter there must be compromise. What is needed now is that in some respects we should trust the European population and in other respects the European population should trust us. If only a compromise on these lines can be secured, if only their good will and confidence in us can be maintained, if we make the same act of faith which we made in 1923, then I believe that we shall have created a fabric of racial partnership which will never be overthrown.
4.2 p.m.
LORD HAILEY: My Lorls, probably the general feeling of your Lordships is that those who follow the noble Viscount should speak as shortly as possible because, looking at the following items on the Order Paper, I think (if I may so phrase it) the hearts of many of your Lordships are in the Highlands and not in the Rhodesias. Therefore, I shall do little more than to follow the President of the United States and the preacher who, as the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, recalled a few days ago, when discussing the nature of sin, confined themselves to saying whether or not they thought well of it. I join the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, in admiration at the unanimity of the officials who have dealt with this project. I think that unanimity has been remarkable, and it is very significant. But as we has been reminded by letters in the Press and elsewhere, it is one thing to secure the unanimity of officials who have represented the various units concerned and another thing to secure the good will of Europeans and Africans to this project.
I do not wish to deal with the Report in any detail. I wish to be perfectly realistic about this scheme, and I fear that the unanimity of officials on one point was a little misplaced. I do not agree with them that
"the differences in native policy between Southern Rhodesia and the two Northern Territories are largely those of method and timing."
It may be true that the ultimate objective of all the Governments concerned is the same—namely,
"the economic, social and political advancement of the Africans in partnership with the Europeans."
But if we are to secure the good will of the Africans to this project—and it is not the good will of the Africans in Southern Rhodesia that concerns us so much as

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the good will of the Africans in the two Northern Territories—we must try to view the native policy of Southern Rhodesia through their eyes. They do not look at the objective; they look at certain concrete and tangible facts. They say that in the policy of native administration they are far more advanced than Southern Rhodesia.
I should like to say how heartily I agree with all that has been said about Sir Godfrey Huggins and the good will of the European community towards Africans, and, on the whole, the general contentment of Africans in Southern Rhodesia. But so far, for example, the Africans in Southern Rhodesia have not been trusted with the trial of criminal cases—I take that as a typical point. All that has been done in regard to the development of the native treasury system is far behind what has been done in the Northern Territories. It is points of this nature that the Africans of the Northern Territories will consider when they are asked for their opinion of any form of union with Southern Rhodesia. They are, again, well aware of what has been done under the industrial Conciliation Act, which amounts to something like a complete colour bar in labour; they are well aware of what has been done by some of the trade unions. And I am afraid that their judgment is likely to be swayed a great deal by the knowledge of these facts.
As for the Europeans, there has been for many years, since Lord Bledisloe's Commission reported, a considerable diversity of feeling on the subject of amalgamation or union. I am well aware that the project that we are now to consider is not amalgamation and that the arguments which apply to amalgamation cannot properly be applied to a scheme of federation, but I am afraid that when the Secretaries of State go out there, they are likely to hear the project attacked from two different points of view. First, I think it will be attacked from the point of view of the Europeans, many of whom feel that federation is a poor substitute for amalgamation, because it does not secure what many Europeans in Southern Rhodesia demand—namely, something like the permanent supremacy of the White population. They are also liable to be attacked on the point referred to by the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, and
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the noble Earl, Lord Altrincham—that is, the difficulties in detail likely to occur. For instance, there may be difficulty about the appointment of a Minister in charge of African interests, presumably responsible to a Governor-General, and not to the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia or the local Legislatures; and difficulties may also occur because both federal and local Legislatures have power to impose income tax. They will be able to say that it looks as if in future we shall see a continuing period of tension between local Legislatures and Downing Street and, indeed, between one Department and another of the British Government.
I have already indicated that the scheme is liable to be attacked by Africans from another point of view which particularly appeals to them, partly on account of old prejudices against union with Southern Rhodesia, and partly on account of the difficulties inherent in the present scheme itself. Nevertheless, I am certainly one of those who hope that the scheme will be given its best chance, both here and in Africa. I am convinced that closer association in some form or another is essential. I am not so much swayed by the fear that, if there is no form of union or closer association between these Territories, they may fall within the orbit of the Union. I see more positive grounds for closer union. It is certainly the fact that all these Territories have now arrived at a stage of economic progress when some form of union is necessary between them. I would say equally that they have arrived at a stage when some form of union is necessary which will enable a greater development of the possibilities of co-operation between the White population and the Africans. Most of all, I am swayed by the fact that the history of the British Commonwealth shows that none of the great units of the Commonwealth has attained its present stature save under some form of federation. If ever these large areas of Africa are to take an honoured and useful place in the Commonwealth, then it must be by some form of co-operation between what have been hitherto dispersed, ill-equipped and immature units. It is in that faith that I myself would commend this project, not only to all classes of thinkers here but to those who are concerned for the best interests of the African population.
4.13 p.m.
LORD HARLECH: My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord who has just spoken ended as he did, because in the earlier part of his speech I thought he tended unduly to emphasise what a large number of people are saying—namely, that there has been great diversity of native policy in Africa between Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia. Having often been to those countries, I have not seen that. As a matter of fact, in many respects, I have been more impressed with the progress made in Southern Rhodesia compared with that in either Nyasaland or Northern Rhodesia. I agree that that is when one goes reasonably off the beaten track into the native reserves and into the native areas. I know that suspicion against Southern Rhodesia can be used by interested parties who are trying to wreck this idea of federation. I devoutly hope that federation will come about, in the interests of all the three territories, in the interests of resisting the spread of Malanite ideas from South Africa, and in the interests of the whole future destiny of the British relations with East Africa and, indeed, of Africa as a whole.
Whoever was dealing with native affairs in Southern Rhodesia had a very different task in front of him compared with that, say, in Nyasaland. In Southern Rhodesia there remained only the scattered remnants of the Mashona Tribe, after the invasions on one side by the Matabele, who slaughtered them in their thousands, and by the Shona on the other The tribal system of the Shona, which was always very primitive, had never been effectively built up, and they were in fragments. In Nyasaland, however, there were intact, coming down through long ages, some of the most advanced, progressive and indigenous tribal organisations in the whole of Africa. For a long time it was the Nyasaland natives who provided the leading Africans in East Africa, right down to the Cape. Thanks to the Scottish and then the Roman Catholic missions, they have produced many outstanding Africans—and, after all, they are far more numerous in little Nyasaland than in the two Rhodesias combined. It is, of course, vital to any federation or union between the two Rhodesias that Nyasaland should come in: they are dependent on the same thought, and and absolutely interlocked in every way
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for the purposes of defence and economic development. I am convinced that it is in the major interests of each party that that should be so. After all, the native leaders in Nyasaland know that an ever-increasing number of their people (and remember that they are an overpopulated country, with over fifty people to the square mile, as against three to the square mile of native population in Northern Rhodesia) are going to Northern Rhodesia and to Southern Rhodesia, where, incidentally, I may say they are getting all the best jobs.
I visited these countries first exactly forty years ago, and again in 1924 as chairman of the first Labour Government's mission on closer union between East and Central Africa. I have often been there again since, and I was in all three Territories last year. I believe that it is most important that Sir Godfrey Huggins should not hide his light under a bushel. He has always kept very dark about what he has done on the quiet. I remember one instance, when one of the European municipalities was doing pretty bad native housing in the location. He was very cross about it. The situation was very difficult: it was a European municipality, and he did not want a row about the matter. However, he resumed for a short time, as Prime Minister, the Ministry of Native Affairs, and then went back again. Then he found himself in possession of the Native Land Trust Fund, the basis of which is that any money derived from alienated native land goes into the Trust to buy other native land for natives. He bought up the land alongside the municipal location for the Native Land Trust, and proceeded to show them how to build a native township. I went over it soon after it was finished, and it was among the best native housing that I have seen. I had this surprise however. I said to the manager and the leading native who came down with me: "Who are these people who are occupying these charming places? Look at that nice garden and look at those curtains there. Are they Shona or are they Matabele? "His reply was: "Neither; they are practically all from Nyasaland."
Sir Godfrey Huggins has rendered outstanding medical assistance right away from the European areas. I have been to many of these native clinics deep into

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the country. I suppose that he has violated every tenet of every British Medical Association branch in the world. Every kind of native who has had some training performs every kind of operation, if it is in the interests of saving life, long before he is qualified. They are rudely and roughly equipped, but extremely well equipped, and they saved untold lives in Southern Rhodesia only last year. There is a low-lying valley of the Sabi, which some day, under irrigation, may be developed. It is very low-lying, and it is not European country. If anybody is going to make good on that it will be the Africans. Already, on Sir Godfrey Huggins' own initiative, Africans are being trained to grow crops under perennial irrigation. The work is tucked away where people do not see it, and it is all done by one white officer in charge, the rest of the workers being Africans. I felt that I must say that, in view of the kind of doubts which the noble Lord, Lord Hailey raised in his speech this afternoon. I deeply regret that he felt called upon to stress them as he did. I know that this scheme, and probably any scheme, wily be full of anomalies: it will satisfy no theoretical Constitution-monger, and may even cost some more money. But I am passionately anxious that the federation of the two Rhodesias and Nyasaland shall go through, and go through now, in some form.
In Southern Rhodesia there has been a new influx since the last war of at least 50,000 new Europeans from this country, and not from South Africa. Periodically, there is the threat of an infiltration by Afrikanders from the Union with, of course, their un-British ideas. I see ever-increasing racial tension in the Union—Boer versus Briton and Briton versus Boer—the whole of the coloured community thrown into the arms of the Africans and the Indians. As a result of the present dogmas at Pretoria I see nothing but racial clashes there. I profoundly regret that, because I love South Africa. Do let us show the Europeans in South Africa, before it is too late, that on British lines and British traditions we can have a strong federal State, where the English tradition of the relations between the British from this Island and the native races of the Empire is once again shown to be liberal, decent and on a really Christian basis.
4.26 p.m.
EARL DE LA WARR: My Lords, so much has already been said in such an excellent manner that it is hard to think of much which is different to say. I cannot help feeling that it is a great privilege to be able to join in a debate which may well be a landmark in African history and possibly Imperial history. It is not that we think anything is going to be actually decided on these Reports to-day—because, after all, we are really having a debate on the Reports which are before us—but they may well be the foundation of a great new African State. As has been said already, we, are discussing a very old subject but we are doing so from a new and a fresh angle—the angle provided by this body of servants from the three great African Colonies of Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia, and our own Colonial Office.
Every speaker but the noble Lord, Lord Hailey, has stressed what the Reports themselves stressed—namely, that the great barrier which has always seemed to stand between these three Territories has, in fact, been much exaggerated. The noble Lord who has just sat down stressed the fundamental similarity, in spite of the many differences, between the policies of these different Territories. The noble Lord, Lord Altrincham, went further and drew our attention to what is perhaps one of the most important pronouncements in the Report on this question of native affairs, where it says on page 30 that Southern Rhodesia spends considerably more per head on African services than do either Nyasaland or Northern Rhodesia. With deference to what the noble Lord, Lord Hailey, said—and we all listen to every word he says to us on these great Imperial questions—the gentlemen who drew up this Report are in even closer touch than he is with what is in fact happening in Africa at the moment. As the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, told us at the beginning, these are men who are nurtured in the principles of trusteeship and of partnership. They are men from the Colonial service and also those from our own Colonial Office who are the very achitects of the West Coast scheme of self-government.
What is the real significance of the problem before us to-day? Surely it is

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this. We are going to have a chance of seeing what African self-government means in West Africa. We are having the opportunity of watching the development of pure White separation and supremacy in the Union of South Africa. But what Central Africa can offer us is a conception of partnership between two races. And that, as the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, said, is essentially the British contribution: the partnership between Black and White, which is by far the greatest hope of African progress—greater than either of the other two extremes.
Let us not discuss this scheme under any sense of illusion. Let us face the fact that the position is not entirely in our own hands. It is in our power to discourage this scheme to the extent that it is postponed, if not actually destroyed. It is not in our power to prevent what some feel to be the inevitable result of taking that action. I do not want to discuss the merits of whether it is a good or a bad thing that Southern Rhodesia should more and more look in a southerly direction. But I feel that it is almost inevitable that that should be so if this scheme is discouraged and turned down, and that this would be of the most profound economic, political, and strategic significance. If that happened, the whole hope of creating this great Central African Territory would vanish. I use the word "Central" not only geographically but in terms of native policy. Moreover, if we do postpone this scheme we shall lose the opportunity of starting the scheme under the leadership of a proved Empire statesman, a man who has also proved himself fundamentally liberal in the finest sense of the word. I know there is a certain amount of disquiet in the minds of some people overseas about the British power of veto over native policy. But it is not only to Our credit here that the veto of the British Parliament has never been applied; it is also to the credit of Sir Godfrey Huggins and his colleagues that it has never been necessary.
There is one thing that I would say to those who are leading African opinion and to those over here who feel that they are defending the African. Are they quite sure that they are taking the best possible steps for the African? If they drive Southern Rhodesia to look more and
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more to the Union of South Africa—I will not mention Northern Rhodesia, for we cannot see very far as yet in that direction—let them ask themselves whether they are helping the native cause. After all, the same gentlemen, if His Majesty's Government were to propose handing over Bechuanaland and Swaziland to the Union Government, would fight the proposal to the last ditch. Why, then, themselves take action that may well land Southern Rhodesia in that position? I cannot help wishing that some of those persons who were referred to by the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, and others (there was in The Times this morning an important letter—important in the sense of the harm it could do—signed by one of your Lordships) could have been with me in June when I was in Rhodesia. That was at the time of the publication of the Report. I believe they could not have failed to be most deeply impressed by the sense of responsibility with which that Report was received. After all, this is a very old subject. It has been in the minds of many over there for a long period of years; and yet the Report was received with the greatest calm and quietness. There was some criticism of its limitations—and there are certainly very great limitations—but the Report was received in a spirit of sober responsibility and deep thought. I believe that anybody who had been with me when I was there would have returned with a firm belief that these are essentially a people to be trusted.
And that word "trust" reminds me of the reference made by the noble Lord, Lord Altrincham, to confidence. I believe that confidence by us in the Rhodesians and their confidence in us is absolutely fundamental to a successful solution of this whole problem, especially in regard to native affairs. That is why I am particularly glad that the Secretary of State paid his visit to Kenya. I think it had a tremendous effect in restoring confidence out there. It created a completely different state of mind in the average settler. The confident man can be generous and liberal; the frightened man becomes defensive and illiberal. If a man has dug up his roots from his own country and taken root in the soil of a far country; if he has put his all into it and taken his family and spent his life there, then he is completely committed to it; and

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then, if some politician makes him feel that the whole basis of his life is going to be destroyed, it is not surprising if the man does or at least says some silly things. It is for these reasons that I am sure that Mr. Griffiths' visit to Kenya did immense good, and that his visit to Central Africa should also do good.
I should like to say a word or two to some of my Rhodesian friends. I speak with a feeling of immense diffidence. It is only recently that I have begun going out, and I visit the country at most only twice a year. My only excuse is that I have learnt to love it deeply. While I was out there I read a letter in the paper by an ex-Minister of Southern Rhodesia, Sir Ernest Guest. In many ways it was a well argued and well conceived letter, but there was one thing in it that seemed to me to be based on a complete fallacy. It was in the last paragraph, where he warned the Rhodesians to beware of accepting a scheme with so many limitations and so many faults; that this scheme would be from now onwards permanently round their necks, and that it could never be amended. I should like anybody in this House or anywhere in the British Empire to put his finger on any British Constitution in any part of the world that in fact has remained static. We all know that there are things in every compromise that we do not like. I think there are some things in this Report that it would be hard for a Rhodesian Prime Minister to stomach—such as having a Minister in his Cabinet not appointed by himself and not responsible to him. There is also the question of expensive and heavy overheads referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Altrincham. But, for heavens sake, do not let us fix our minds on details which can always be discussed and dealt with at a later stage, but let us concentrate our minds on getting the big scheme going. The principles of federation must be accepted. Get in train the greater confidence of race relations that can grow out of that scheme, and then I am convinced that many of the native fears will be discounted. Let us realise that there are genuine native fears, even though some of us may believe that a great number of them are bogies. But we shall never prove that they are bogies until we have the scheme actually in operation.
The big conception is that the future of the Rhodesias and Nyasaland depends on
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the putting into operation of a scheme of closer union. The future of a great and immense experiment in relations in Africa depends upon it. There is only one real danger, which is that without a lead from His Majesty's Government things may be allowed to drift and we may lose our opportunity. Or else we may allow ourselves to be confused by a chorus of opinions about details. But there is here a chance of great Imperial statesmanship awaiting the two Secretaries of State on their return from their visit to Africa. Statesmanship will be needed, I believe, on both sides. I close by joining with other noble Lords in wishing the Secretaries of State well in the task that they have undertaken, and in hoping that they will in fact avail themselves of this immense opportunity.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, it may be convenient if we now take the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill, which must be returned to another place before the Royal Commission is held.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL
4.44 p.m.
Brought from the Commons endorsed with a certificate from the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill within the meaning of the Parliament Act, 1911, and read 1a.
Then, Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of July 30), Bill read 2a: Committee negatived, Bill read 3a, and passed.

CENTRAL AFRICAN TERRITORIES
Debate resumed.
LORD TWEEDSMUIR: My Lords, what I have to say can be said in a very few minutes. To-morrow, as we all know, this House goes into Recess, but the debate on the issue that we have been discussing to-day will gather in intensity in the three Territories of Central Africa, reaching its climax, I suppose, when the Secretaries of State arrive there in the autumn. I do not often quote from the Daily Herald with very warm approval, but I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to what I thought was an

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extremely wise piece of advice in the Daily Herald of June 14. Referring to the Report, it said:
"What is now necessary is that the plan should not be hastily judged, but carefully considered by all the peoples concerned."
That appears to me to be the epitome of good sense. But who are the peoples in Africa? Sometimes we read, and sometimes we hear, sentiments expressed which tend to becloud that issue. Surely the peoples of Central Africa, and of East Africa too, are those who intend it to be the home of their children and their children's children.
About fifty years ago my father was a very junior colleague of Lord Milner. Looking at these Territories of Central Africa with the unclouded eyes of a very young man, he came to a series of conclusions, which he wrote down, about the future pattern that they would assume. Much has happened that he did not foresee; much that he foresaw has not happened, but certainly the fifty years of progress in the three Central African Territories to which this Report pays tribute are a great reality. The pattern of trusteeship and the pattern of partnership in these three Territories is indeed a shining reality. "Trusteeship" is a very old term with us; it is nothing new to the British race. It was first used, in that sense, in a House of Commons Committee as far back as the year 1837. Gradually, and almost entirely within this century, we have seen the growth in Africa of something else—the growth of partnership. Partnership is the pattern of the future. We have in front of us this project for closer association, the pattern of a partnership in Africa on a grand scale. So far-reaching a proposal "should not be hastily judged," wisely commented the Daily Herald. It is, therefore, the more deplorable that immoderate and unreasonable men, with preconceived and misconceived views, should have tried to muddy the pool and thus do such a monstrous disservice to so many people in these Territories.
The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, referred to some such propaganda. The trouble, as I think he himself said, is that, when you are assessing African opinion, too often it is the noisiest that assails your ears. This is a policy of moderation, and you can counsel moderation. You may indeed preach it; but
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you cannot possibly agitate for moderation. So the man who agitates against you gets most of the ear of the crowd. I should like to draw attention to a certain statement—and I do so with an especial feeling of shame that such a statement should have gone out from this country in what is believed to be a responsible journal. For this is the kind of thing which can only do the most unmitigated harm to the cause we all have at heart. The statement comes from the New Statesman of June 23, which said:
"Such is the attitude of the great majority of the settlers in all three Territories, that Federal Union would certainly be used by them to reduce the Africans of the two Protectorates to the status of hopeless servitude which the Africans of Southern Rhodesia now occupy."
I should be most unwilling to believe that that statement was actuated by pure malice. It is the grossest distortion, and if one assumes, charitably, that it proceeds from mere ignorance, it is little the less deplorable for that.
I suppose that it is true to say that not only in the Commonwealth but throughout the world to-day the tendency is towards larger and larger groupings, as the position of the small nation becomes progressively more precarious. In such a grouping as this you broaden the basis of the economy and thus you strengthen it and, to some extent, insulate it against the buffets of booms and slumps. The whole aspect of strategy, which must always be in the forefront of our minds, is strengthened. A well known Victorian statesman speaking on federation once said:
"The justification of any association is that the bundle is stronger than the sticks that compose it."
The justification for the binding up of this bundle is absolutely clear. This Report has been prepared, as many of your Lordships have said, by men whose impartiality was not in question, and to whose expert knowledge all attested; and they reached agreement. I do not suggest for one moment that the Report is perfect as it stands. What I should like to say is this. I hope that those in the three Territories who find themselves in disagreement with the men who prepared the Report, will not just damn the idea of federal union but will address themselves to finding and devising a better form of relationship in closer association.

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Every possible difficulty can be placed in the way of federation. It is an act of faith, as the noble Lord, Lord Altrincham, said. No Federation has ever been easily achieved, and none ever will be. Federation means giving up something of what you have and what you know, in return for something which you have not yet experienced. The oldest Federation in the British Empire and Commonwealth to-day is Canada. Its federation took place in the lifetime of men still alive. It has risen, since it federated, from a small, poor and unimportant series of North American Colonies, to become the fourth biggest manufacturing and exporting nation in the world. I should like to point out, taking Canada as my example, how federation stirs up opinion in the most astonishing way, and how that opinion swings from one extreme to another and, of course, may well swing back again. The Canadian Federation took place in 1867. A year later, in 1868, they had an election in Nova Scotia. The Nova Scotians wished to withdraw from the Federation. In that election, only one Member was returned to Parliament who was in favour of the Federation. However, they were prevailed on to stay, and an election took place four years later on just the same subject, and on that occasion only one person who was not in favour of federation was returned, after four years' experience.
Those who tend to stress the very great difference between Nyasaland and Southern Rhodesia should study the even greater difference between Quebec and Ontario, which have existed side by side for so long. I think this plan answers a question which has been, perhaps unspoken, in the minds of the peoples of Central Africa for some time: "Just where are we going?" This plan creates for them a goal to which the people of Central Africa can confidently march; it offers a grouping for strength; it offers some insurance for political stability in the future and, perhaps, the creation of yet another great nation of the Commonwealth. Let those who think that the difficulties in the way are insuperable reflect how those difficulties may accumulate with a terrible momentum in the years to come, until, working perhaps to the worst case one can envisage, a fearful conflict of extremes ensues.
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In bringing my remarks to a close I would say just this. Perhaps several of your Lordships, besides myself, read a book that came out about two years ago, written by a distinguished American author. I do not quote it for its contents, which are not very convincing, but for its title. That book was called Last Chance in Africa. I do not say that this is the last chance in Central Africa to bring about the closer association we wish to see, but I do say, with my noble friend Lord Swinton, that it may be many years before such an opportunity recurs and that it is doubtful whether it will ever recur in the same form and under these conditions. Mere constitutional change does not by itself solve the problems of plural societies; it solves them only when it is allied to the good will, the good sense and the farsightedness of the people of the Territories concerned. To that we appeal, and on that we rely.
4.56 p.m.
LORD SEMPILL: My Lords, when the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, spoke just now, he said that he counted it a privilege, to join in this debate. On my own behalf I repeat his words. For eight of the last eighteen months I have, been working on the continent of Africa and I have been able to see the situation at first hand. I would say to your Lordships from firm conviction, based on that experience, that His Majesty's Government are to be congratulated on this scheme, and I hope that your Lordships will give it the fullest possible support, so that the terms therein envisaged may be brought into effect at the earliest possible moment. I beg to support the scheme, and I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, for raising this vital matter.
4.57 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, at the end of this extremely harmonious debate, which, so far as I know, has produced no serious difference of conclusions, although inevitably there have been some differences of argument, I rise only to support, very shortly, but most sincerely, what has been said by Lord Swinton and other speakers as to the scheme of the White Paper to bring about the closer association of the two Rhodesias and Nyasaland. I believe that this is vital, for many reasons, and I believe that it is extremely important that

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such a closer association should be achieved at the earliest practicable moment. This was impressed upon me more and more by my experience in the Commonwealth Relations Office (in those days the Dominions Office) and in the Colonial Office during the war.
These three Territories, as I think anyone who knows them will confirm, and as Lord Swinton himself said, are in various respects interdependent. One thinks of the Wankie collieries in Southern Rhodesia which feed the industries of Northern Rhodesia, and the Kariba Gorge hydro-electric scheme, which is now, as your Lordships know, in contemplation and which will have to serve the areas on both sides of the Zambesi. There is, as Lord Harlech said in his speech, a constant flow of labour from one Territory to another. Economically and, I believe, socially, they ought to form a single closely-knit unit. There are those, I know, who criticise the actual details of the constitutional structure of the Federation which has been recommended by the committee of officials, and who, like, I think, Lord Hailey, in the speech he made to your Lordships this afternoon, believe that that portion which deals in particular with native policy will be cumbrous and difficult to work.
As your Lordships, or anyone who has had anything to do with this very longstanding problem, will know, that has always been a stumbling block in earlier schemes for this same purpose, and it is quite possible that the machinery which is proposed by this Committee could be simplified and improved with the passage of time, and in the light of experience. Indeed, I have no doubt that Lord Ogmore will tell us, as Lord Lucan has already told us, that His Majesty's Government will have to study these proposals, and possibly amend them, in the light of the personal visit to the Territories of the two Secretaries of State, which is to take place in the autumn, and the consultations that they are going to hold there. And after that, Parliament (that is to say, all of us) will have to consider the completed scheme that they put forward as a result of those consultations.
As I see it, what really concerns us to-day is this. Here in this White Paper we have a scheme by which that closer association which is so ardently desired by us all can be made an accomplished
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fact. As Lord Tweedsmuir has said, to damn it because it is not in every way perfect would be an act of very great folly. With all deference to your Lordships, from such experience of politics as I have had—which now, I am afraid, runs back over a good many years—I feel bound to give this serious warning to the House to-day. If this initiative is killed, either here or in the Territories themselves, I believe that the achievement of the closer association is likely to be put off, certainly for years, and possibly for a generation.
In that time a great deal can happen and, as Lord Tweedsmuir has already said, the opportunity may never recur, and certainly not in precisely this form. In any case, whether or not we agree with the scheme as a whole, there is much in this Report of which we can all approve. As has been mentioned by one speaker after another, it is based in particular on the idea of a partnership between Black and White, which is the developing pattern of our whole Colonial Empire.
My Lords, for those reasons, I hope most fervently that the Government will go forward on the basis of this Report. If they think right, let them amend or improve it, in the light of further study and consultations on the spot. I am sure that noble Lords, in all parts of the House, will be very ready to consider sympathetically the completed scheme. But I beg them not to allow it to fall by the way. If, in practice, the scheme proves difficult to work, it can always be amended further by the ordinary processes of evolutionary government—throughout our history that has been the British way. But the scheme must not be allowed to die. That, I am quite certain, would be a disaster, not only to the peoples of the Territories themselves, both African and European, but to the Empire as a whole.
5.4 p.m.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I am sure that all your Lordships will be most grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, for raising this Motion, and to the number of noble Lords who have intervened to give us the benefit of their experience and their views on this subject. I am not one who believes in what Mr. Lloyd George used to call "unbounded faith, unsupported by facts." Thus, it is of some significance to me to

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note the experience that we have had exemplified in the debate. I have made a rough check, and I find that no fewer than three noble Lords who have previously been Secretaries of State to the Colonies have spoken, and, if the noble Marquess will allow me to tie him up with this other category, one noble Lord who has been Secretary of State to the Dominions, one who was Under-Secretary to the Colonies, a former Governor of Kenya, and a former High Commissioner to the Union of South Africa. I do not believe that anywhere else in the world one could have expected such a wealth of experience to be exemplified and to assist us in a debate. Speaking for myself, and I am sure for the Government, I am most grateful to those noble Lords who have taken the time and the trouble to come here and give us the benefit of their advice.
I am sure many of your Lordships feel that in spite of the many difficulties and dangers of the time in which we live there is really no more important subject that we can discuss than this. I believe it was the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, who said that this is a most important subject and one which affects a large and important part of a vast Continent. I do not think he used those words, but I do not suppose I am doing him an injustice in paraphrasing them in that way. I can assure noble Lords that the contributions they have made wi11 be most carefully studied. I hope they will be studied by all who are interested in the subject, and certainly they will be carefully studied by the Government. I make that qualification because I entirely agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, and with other noble Lords, in deprecating the wild and alarmist statements that have been made in certain places in this country. At a time when, broadly speaking, there has been a considerable measure of agreement, in this House and elsewhere, on the desirability of some such broad plan, and when it has been considered most carefully in Africa, it is most unfortunate that we should have had an attack of this sort, not upon the details but upon the scheme as a whole. I cannot help feeling that a great deal of injustice has been done to our fellow countrymen in Africa.
I do not know why, but for some reason anyone in Eastern or Central Africa who happens to have European blood in his veins seems constantly to be
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the object not only of criticism but of slander in this country. I remember going out there myself a couple of years ago, and, after seeing some of the work that had been done, particularly in the municipality of Nairobi—for example, in regard to housing, medical arrangements, and that sort of thing for the Africans—I was very impressed. I thought it a great tribute to the people who had gone out there, that they had spent so much thought, time and money on helping their African fellow citizens. To hear these same people castigated by persons who have never been nearer Africa than Southend really makes one feel most upset.
Another point that I want to bring out here is that the Europeans from these Territories have a great regard for the Africans. The noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, and myself were in Africa at the same time. On speaking to the Europeans there I found that they had the greatest sympathy with and love for the African peoples. There is no other phrase that one can use. When in 1949 we had a particularly successful African Conference in London, I remember the pride with which many Europeans from East and Central Africa came to me and expressed their appreciation of the way in which the African members from East and Central Africa had taken part in the discussions. They were most proud of them, and they said: "Is it not wonderful to think that so many of our people can hold their own in a gathering of this kind?" Knowing that fact, it always seems to me to be most unfortunate that we should in any way deprecate what they are doing. I know that when the two Secretaries of Stale go to Africa they will have the sympathy and support of your Lordships and will receive in the Territories a very warm welcome. I believe that all points of view will be put to them.
I am sure that your Lordships will not wish me to-day to go into any details. It would not be proper for me to do so. My noble friend the Earl of Lucan has set out once more the Government's views on the matter. We adhere fully to the policy which we have re-stated on numerous occasions and to which he has referred to-day. I believe that, with statesmen of the calibre of those who are going out to deal with this matter—my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and my right hon-

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ourable friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations—and with statesmen of the calibre of those of all races who are in Africa, we shall come to a proper solution of this difficult question. Mention has been made of two gentlemen who are of great distinction and who would, indeed, be of great distinction in any company—Sir Godfrey Huggins, and Mr. Welensky. I believe Sir Godfrey Huggins has one further distinction beyond those that have been mentioned today—that is, that until quite recently (I do not know whether he still does it) he has performed operations in the morning before going to his office. Therefore he is, I believe, the only man in history who has combined the two active occupations of a consulting surgeon and a Prime Minister. I do not think I need detain your Lordships any longer, except once more to express the Government's gratitude to every noble Lord who has spoken and particularly to the noble Viscount. Lord Swinton, who so ably opened this debate.
5.12 p.m.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, we are all most grateful to the Minister of Civil Aviation for that very sympathetic and understanding reply. He was good enough to say that he was sure that what had been said in this debate would be of value and assistance to the Ministers who are going out to Africa on this mission. That was, indeed, the whole purpose of this debate. I hope and believe that what has been said on both sides of the House—and the speeches have shown, as I hoped they would, how closely we are together in this matter, and how keen we are that this experiment should succeed—will encourage all those who have to deal with these matters in those Territories to come to a wise and practical conclusion. If we have contributed to that, we shall indeed have done well in our generation. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
5.13 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, your Lordships may now find it convenient to adjourn during pleasure for the Royal Commission.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, would it not be possible to allow the debate on Lord Lovat's Motion to begin now? I understand that the Royal Commission is not to sit until half-past five. That will not be for nearly twenty minutes. A number of noble Lords who wish to take part in the debate on Lord Lovat's Motion have to leave London this evening by an early train for Scotland. It will therefore be a great advantage to them if we can have at least a quarter of an hour of the debate before the Royal Commission. If Lord Lovat is here, I think it will meet his convenience greatly if he is allowed to begin his speech immediately.

SLAUGHTER OF WILD DEER
5.14 p.m.
LORD LOVAT LORD LOVAT rose to call attention to the recommendations regarding deer contained in the Report of the Committee on Cruelty to Wild Animals (Cmd. 8266) and, in particular, to Paragraphs 214 and 215 of that Report; to ask His Majesty's Government whether they accept these recommendations, and if so, what action they propose thereon; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I speak on a subject which I think is non-controversial and also one on which debate is long overdue. Many of your Lordships, no doubt, have had the pleasure of b stalking the wild red deer on the hill. I think that one's first stag probably stands out in the memory of anyone who is fond of shooting. Possibly, a less happy memory is of the first stag one misses. I remember that, in my own case, I missed a stag standing broadside on, and fairly close, with both barrels of a very heavy rifle—first one barrel and then the other. On this occasion I feel in a rather similar condition, because I have arrived here to address your Lordships' House without my ammunition. My papers were sent down from Scotland and returned to Scotland without my seeing them. However, I will do my best in the circumstances.
I step in, rather rashly, to follow up a Question which has already been asked by the noble Earl, Lord Haddington, with reference to the slaughter of, and the infliction of unnecessary cruelty upon, red deer in the United Kingdom, under the present highly unsatisfactory conditions

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whereby these splendid wild animals come under no suitable legislation to prevent untrammelled poaching and the infliction of unnecessary suffering at the hands of desperadoes and organised gangs of poachers. These people have turned their attention to the destruction of our wild herds after being successfully prevented from carrying on, as they had previously done, an even more profitable method of supplying the black market in food—namely, salmon poaching. I feel that it would be greatly to the credit of the Scottish Office. who recently brought into operation an Act which has had most satisfactory and astonishingly rapid results in checking the unlawful destruction of salmon, if they could now turn and do the same thing for the benefit of these unfortunate deer. The traffic in the car-cakes of these animals, I suggest, has, to a large extent, taken the place in the black market of the traffic in poached salmon.
I do not speak as a land owner, but rather as a farmer, and I have no intention of giving the impression that it is in the interests of sport or with regard to the question of cruelty alone that I speak. I speak also having in mind the importance and the value, from a meat-producing point of view, of the deer stocks of Scotland. We reckon that in the Highlands alone there are somewhere in the neighbourhood of 100,000 red deer. Every season about 8,000 stags and hinds are shot under lawful conditions, and their flesh goes to the table in the form of first-class venison. Eight thousand deer represent something like 1,000 tons of meat, and I think your Lordships will agree that that is a not inconsiderable contribution to the nation's food supply. But the unfortunate fact emerges that, for a variety of reasons, since the war the conditions under which that meat supply exists have largely changed. I will endeavour, as briefly as possible, to trace the cause and effect.
The blame, I think, does not rest in any one quarter, but the results collectively are extremely unfortunate. You must distinguish between different collections of deer. There are, first, the deer living in a deer forest, under the control of, and supervised by, a competent staff of deerstalkers, who in turn are directed by a proprietor who lives on his land and whose family has, maybe, had the
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ground for several generations. That class of proprietor is usually extremely well versed in the subject, and by letting his deer forest can maintain it in good order. A great number of estates have been broken up and have changed hands, and though the deer range over an area of some 3,000,000 acres of the Northern Highlands, they are far too often in places where they have no right to be. The Forestry Commissioners have taken over a great deal of valley land, and have bought up estates which have been sold or dispersed. As a result, the deer, who are forest creatures, have entered these woods, and from the protection of the woods have come out and, unquestionably, have done a great deal of damage to crops and small holdings in the vicinity, and have made a nuisance of themselves in enclosed land. In other places, the winter feed in the valleys which the deer must have has been flooded by hydro-electric schemes; and in other cases, where schemes are only in process of completion, the same effect has been caused by great numbers of workmen dynamiting, excavating and putting up heavy constructional works. All this has driven the deer away and sent them where they have no right to be.
But all these things fade into insignificance beside the fact that it is hard to find people who can afford, or are interested in, the pleasure of leasing a forest and stalking stags upon it. I am speaking as one of the younger members of your Lordships' House, and I deplore the fact that young men to-day are incapable of stalking. It is not always due to a lack of money; they prefer to find their pleasures elsewhere. One finds few men of my own age who will go through a forenoon's stalking with the pleasure they ought to enjoy. They like an easy day on the hill, but they seem happier in the lower ground or in the boudoir. I am still talking on cause and effect and I feel that I should add that, during the war, I myself was partly to blame for this. In the Highlands there were mountain warfare training centres, commando training establishments and small boat sections, which did great work in destroying enemy shipping. They were grouped and trained in Argyllshire, Inverness-shire and Wester Ross. Part of their curricula included deer-stalking, to improve their field-craft. A great

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many soldiers could neither stalk nor shoot— that was another rather surprising state of affairs—and they set a bad example, in that the old traditions of the forest were broken.
In the old days one went out with a tremendous feeling of awe, and one had to take care to behave correctly. One was expected to listen to one's host the evening before, to be up early next morning, to fire one shot and to return either triumphant or disgraced, from one's efforts on the hill. All that gave way to the sort of happy-go-lucky mood of "How many cartridges have you got?" "What shall we get to-day? Shall we fill a lorry?" That sort of attitude reminds me of the story told of one commando who, returning from leave, met a stag on the road. He closed with it and gradually over-powered it. Then he was heard to shout "Bring the bayonet, Geordie!" That is hardly the spirit which makes one free of the forest. Through familiarity, the old tradition of deer-stalking has disappeared, and there is a change in our whole regard to that noble sport.
I am leading up to the fact that there is a puzzling habit of killing deer in large numbers with the minimum amount of exercise and because of the meat shortage, with the maximum amount of profit. I know that many soldiers who were snipers, and who performed fine service in the war, have now come home and kill deer under their own arrangements. If they did it for their own profit, that would be understandable, but it is entirely wrong when they have become earmarked as professional killers of meat, who seek only to fire the maximum number of rounds in the minimum amount of time with the best possible results, regardless of the age or sex of the deer they kill. Where gentlemen of sporting instincts used to take a forest on long lease, we now see well-to-do butchers taking a whole series of deer forests and producing their teams of picked marksmen, who manœuvre the deer into a suitable piece of ground, driving them through a pass or some natural feature which will bring them down to a slow walk, so that they can kill from twenty-five to thirty head of stag in one afternoon and get them home.
I have referred to the meat shortage. Before the war it was quite impossible to convince anybody, even the domestic staff of a shooting lodge, that venison was good to eat. Great reluctance was always shown if it was suggested that someone might be sent a haunch of venison. It was pleaded that he might not be glad to get it. Venison was thought to be "high" because the taste was different from beef or mutton. Perhaps it may be that we do not know what beef or mutton tastes like nowadays, but certainly venison is now at a premium. It is not surprising that last winter, in the shops of London, reindeer meat was being sold at 4s. 6d. a pound. If reindeer meat is worth 4s. 6d. a pound, I should like to suggest, without undue patriotism, that Highland venison is worth at least 5s. a pound. That means that a stag in good condition is worth from £10 to £15, which is a considerable sum. The stag which may weigh 70 stone when clean in August or September will weigh only about 11 stone in spring, when it is a feeble object, scraping an uneasy living at the road side; but he is still good to the dishonest butcher or to the uninformed town dweller who needs a joint for the Christmas dinner, a coming-of-age party, a wedding, or any other celebration where more than half a dozen people are gathered together. That stag's haunch is worth 5s. a pound, in whatever state the animal is. It can be quite first-class at the right season of the year, but for the remaining ten months it commands the same value, although not quite so heavy. The haunch of a stag weighs somewhere in the neighbourhood of 30 1b., and at 5s. a pound your Lordships can see that there is a considerable commercial value in the animal for a man who knows how to go about it. That is what is happening. The demand is there; the supply is there; and, under the present law, there are no means of controlling the fines and penalties that go with this wanton and cruel destruction of the animal about which we are talking.
An excellent White Paper has been printed, which I hope is in your Lordships' possession. I wish to refer to paragraphs 214 and 215 of that White Paper, although I shall not read them. Without wasting your Lordships' time, if you read those paragraphs you will see that the proposals there are threefold. I desire merely to amplify them slightly.

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The proposals I submit to your Lordships are, first, that there should be a close season for red deer—and the time I suggest is from January 1 to August 1; secondly, that red deer should be promoted to being game animals; and, finally, that no venison should be sold through the market during the close season. Possibly the last recommendation is the most important of the three. There are always unscrupulous people who will sell venison in a close season, with the excuse that it was killed before the season ended and put in a refrigerator. That is simply a matter for investigation and review. There is nothing difficult in my recommendations, and I hope that they can be favourably considered.
My Lords, I understand that I have to close my speech now.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: There is to be a Royal Commission, but that will only take a certain number of minutes. The noble Lord may then continue his speech from where he has left off.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, this may be a convenient time to adjourn for the Royal Commission.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

ROYAL COMMISSION
5.40 p.m.
The following Bills received the Royal Assent:

Finance,

Appropriation,

Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage,

Courts-Martial (Appeals),

Festival of Britain (Additional Loans),

Dangerous Drugs,

Slaughter of Animals (Amendment),

Consolidated Fund (Civil List Provisions),

Isle of Man (Customs),

Telephone,

Midwives,

Midwives (Scotland),

Nurses (Scotland),

Guardianship and Maintenance of Infants,

National Assistance (Amendment),

Fireworks,

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Price Control and Other Orders (Indemnity),

Mineral Workings,

Forestry,

Tithe,

Rag Flock and Other Filling Materials,

Rivers (Prevention of Pollution),

Reserve and Auxiliary Forces (Protection of Civil Interests),

Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) (Scotland),

Sir William Turner's Hospital at Kirkleatham Charity Scheme Confirmation,

British Transport Commission Order Confirmation,

Walsall Corporation (Trolley Vehicles) Order Confirmation,

Pier and Harbour Order (Lymington) Confirmation,

Saint Benet Gracechurch,

Great Yarmouth Port and Haven,

London County Council (Crystal Palace),

Brighton Extension,

Abingdon Corporation,

Nottingham City and County Boundaries,

Bristol Corporation,

Dartmouth Harbour,

Bournemouth and District Water,

Lancashire County Council (General Powers),

Sunderland Corporation,

Faversham Navigation,

Sutton and Cheam Corporation,

British Transport Commission,

Swindon Corporation,

London County Council (General Powers),

Trent River Board,

West Riding County Council (General Powers),

Worcester Corporation,

Nottinghamshire County Council,

Liverpool Extension.

House adjourned daring pleasure.
House resumed.

SLAUGHTER OF WILD DEER
5.55 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD LOVAT: My Lords, it may be as well if I jump one or two fences backwards, so to speak, since I was under the impression that my speech had to be

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brought to a conclusion whereas it was. I find, only a kind of adjournment. I will briefly re-sketch, if I may, what I have already said. Deer-stalking, from being the sport of the few, has become the uncontrolled sport of a great number, and the commercialisation of deer forests, where no harm was done, has resulted in the wanton destruction of deer by persons who are not capable of dispatching the animals in a sportsmanlike, humane, or correct manner. I have asked the noble Earl, Lord Haddington, to deal with the legal aspect. At the moment I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to the awful cruelty of killing large animals at night by the headlights of motor-cars along motoring roads, which is the commonest form of deer poaching to-day.
Whatever is decided in regard to fines and penalties, I respectfully submit that the strongest possible action be taken against these inhuman people who kill deer at night from a car. Between January and April, when the main destruction occurs on the roadsides, the deer are often emaciated and in a starving condition. These unfortunate animals, suffer-as they are from the severity of the winter, are yet seeking protection from human beings—whom in former days they had every reason to trust. Some of your Lordships know that when you were motoring northwards from Blair Atholl you were never out of sight of deer along the roadsides. You could go through the Scottish Lake District into Perthshire and Inverness, from Blair Atholl, where the Boar of Badenoch looks across to the Sow of Atholl and to Cape Wrath, and you would always see deer in the winter time. You would probably see them at any season of the year with glasses or a telescope.
That situation has entirely changed. One evil leads to another, and, although I am not discussing sheep stealing in the Highlands, that is getting progressively worse. It is simply a matter of taking chances and getting away with it, and the sphere of action is being extended. The reply that was given prior to the issue of the Report of the Committee on Cruelty to Wild Animals was that some of the accounts of cruelty were grossly exaggerated and that such things as tommy guns, sten guns and other automatic
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weapons had not, in fact, been used. I am leaving another noble Lord to deal with that matter, but I can tell you, as one who lives all the year round amongst deer, that that is not in fact a correct statement. Every form of weapon is being used. I have even known cases of deer being shot at by night with tracer bullets. Surely that is the lowest form of behaviour—shooting up large animals with phosphorus.
I will not speak on that further, I will not multiply instances of large-scale poaching, but I should like to tell your Lordships of a case which is very much in my mind because it happened recently. I think it shows how discipline has slipped, whatever the chief constables of the county police have said in their report—and I gather a report has been asked for by the Government from the chief constables in the Highland or crofter counties. This case concerns a policeman who was caught poaching. He was a sergeant, not in the county police but in the burgh constabulary of a county town with which I am well acquainted. He was caught red-handed shooting deer wantonly and in the early summer, as recently as three weeks ago. When the factor of the estate concerned investigated the case, this police-sergeant first denied all knowledge and made various false statements.
Subsequently, when the matter was referred to the burgh chief constable, he made the excuse that he thought that, as he was in company with a stalker, he was doing no wrong. Since that incident occurred the sergeant has been promoted to an inspector, and the unfortunate stalker has lost his job. I hardly think that is a very happy state of affairs. I can give your Lordships chapter and verse for that case because it happened to occur on my own property. It is a typical example of the lawlessness which exists at the present time, when this can be done by a police-sergeant or anybody else who has a sister who keeps a boarding-house and likes to sell steak diane at 7s. a pound or maybe a halfpound—whatever it is one gets for it on the black market. When the maximum fine which can be imposed is £2, there is bound to be trouble; and there must be cruelty if men try to kill big animals by rifle fire at night, or shoot out of boats, which is a frequent occurrence in the

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Western Highlands. There deer are caught along the loch side and shot at with little accuracy but with plenty of opportunity, as the animals climb from water level to the higher skylines.
I do not propose to multiply the instances, but I will give your Lordships one more case which occurred this last winter in Glen Affric, which your Lordships know quite well. A lorry was apprehended passing through Glen Urquhart on its way to Loch Ness with no fewer than sixteen carcases on board, all shot at night. Those sixteen carcases on the black market—and there is not even a black market now in one respect, because there is no price control on venison—would have realised anything up to £160. The maximum penalty was confiscation and a £2 fine. If the lorry driver had been found in possession of a rifle and not in possession of a firearms certificate, he might have suffered a further fine, but this £160 haul of meat—and it was quite uneatable, as the month was January or February—could not get him into worse trouble than confiscation of the carcases and a £2 fine because deer are not game. I am not going to multiply the instances. I think your Lordships have probably grasped the trend of what I have to say.
The Motion that stands in my name refers to two paragraphs of this Report. I will not read them out. I am in full agreement, except with one subsection of paragraph 215 of the Report of the Committee on Cruelty to Wild Animals. It reads:
"Dealers in venison should be required to be licensed as game dealers, and records of all purchases and sales of venison should be kept. Such measures would, however, call for special new legislation, and since deer are likely at any time to do appreciable damage on agricultural land it would be necessary to provide, by way of exception, for the lawful killing of deer that is authorised by the Agriculture (Scotland) Act, 1945."
I do not agree with that part of the paragraph which says:
"Dealers in venison should be required to be licensed."
I suggest that, as there should be a close season for the killing of deer, there should be, also, a close season for the selling of venison. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Morrison, who is to reply will bear that point in mind: a close season for the killing of all deer, both hinds and stags, from
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January 1 until August 1, and a close season also for the sale of venison. It is particularly important for the sale of venison, otherwise there will be a black market springing up with licensed dealers, which I think is wrong. I think it is wrong that any dealer should have a licence to sell venison in the close season.
I said at the beginning of my speech that I stand here, first and foremost, as an agriculturist and not as a sportsman or a landowner defending the interests of a few. In the paragraph which I have just read there is a reference to the Agriculture (Scotland) Act which was threshed out and agreed to in 1948. There were conflicting interests between agriculture and landed proprietors. It was quite a controversial subject for a time, but it was agreed to and has, in fact, become the law, and in no case—I have investigated this matter fairly thoroughly—have agriculture and the private interests clashed. Where deer are found on enclosed ground, they have to be killed at any season of the year. I hope I make that point clear: that the deer will be killed if they are net in their lawful habitat. What one might call nomad deer or wandering deer, or deer that are out of bounds, if they are invading turnip fields or young corn have to be killed, as the Agriculture (Scotland) Act insists. But the close season and the closing of sales of venison during the close season would mean that these animals, after having been destroyed, would be buried or consumed under the arrangements of the agricultural authorities who shot them. In no case would these carcasses be fit to eat. If them were no sale of this venison of nomadic deer, there would be no chance of it being black-marketed, providing no sale or special licences were allowed to dealers.
I hope your Lordships will not put the clock back by saying: "We must have different close seasons for the hinds and the stags." Many of your Lordships are experienced sportsmen. I should like that to be permitted if the deer forests existed in the old way and could be run and administered in the old style; but if stalking starts on August 1 and the stags are shot from that date until October 15, which is the normal season although it is not laid down in a Statute or in any known law of the land, from October 15 to January 1 is quite long enough a season in which to shoot your hinds.

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Therefore, I respectfully submit that my Motion is correct in standing firm on that basis. We all know that a law, if it is to be a good law, must be easy to execute, not complicated and not one to cause controversy or the appointment of too many Government officials. Having consulted with owners of deer forests, I am convinced that they are all satisfied that the pursuit of red deer of both types of the species in these Islands would be sufficiently long if there were a close season from January 1 to August 1, and a close season for the sale of venison for the same period.
I will not weary your Lordships longer, but the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, speaking for the rather smaller deer population of the West Country, has asked me to endorse these views. He says there is a very strong suspicion—indeed, there is actual evidence—of the fact that many crippled deer are seen at the present time in the counties of Cornwall and Devon, and that the deer population there has shrunk to the tune of 15 or 20 per cent. since the war. He also says that a carcase on Exmoor is worth £20 more than we can get for the rather smaller specimens that we breed in the Northern Highlands, but he points out, quite rightly, that the pains and penalties are in keeping with the value of the animal. I think I am right in saying that whereas the maximum penalty is £2 in Scotland, in England the penalty is £50 for the first offence and imprisonment on the second occasion. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
6.11 p.m.
THE EARL OF HADDINGTON: My Lords, I am extremely glad that my noble friend has put down this Motion, and has come to speak to it so ably this afternoon. The noble Lord, Lord Lovat, always speaks with conviction, and, if I may say so, he speaks with authority. He is a Highlander, and lives among the deer where the deer live; and, if he will not mind my saying so, with regard to matters connected with the Highlands he knows what he is talking about; he speaks on this subject with far more authority than myself. In fact, my Lords, when I raised this subject in your Lordships' House some two months ago I felt that it was rather out of the sphere of a Lowlander, because in the Lowlands,
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of course, we live amongst the roe deer, the other native deer of the British Isles. The roe deer are very plentiful, of course, but they are not poached to the same extent as the red deer. We are not today really concerned with the roe deer because, although they are multiplying very rapidly, the game is not worth the candle for the poacher: in a densely populated district he would much more easily be caught.
I can do little better in my remarks than follow the line on which my noble friend has spoken, because I agree almost entirely with everything he has said. The answer to my original Question which I put to your Lordships' House some two months ago was that we should wait for the Report. The noble Lord, Lord Morrison, was quite correct. The Report came out a few days after he made that statement, and whatever we may think of that Report (I may say that I am pretty sure that some of its recommendations will be the matter of severe criticism throughout the country, but I do not wish to draw a red herring across the trail, because we are concerned with deer this afternoon) it condemns in no uncertain terms the depredations of these gangster deer poachers. After describing the methods employed, the Report goes on to say:
"Because of this there is much cruelty which has caused widespread concern on the part of forest owners and proprietors, as well as all those who are only interested in the humanitarian aspect."
I do not wish to harry your feelings on the question of the suffering which is inflicted on deer by organised poaching. I leave it to the imagination of those of your Lordships who have had time to read the contents of this Report. I leave it to your imagination to conceive the dreadful cruelty which wounding can often cause, especially when it is inflicted by automatic weapons. There is direct evidence—we have had it from the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, himself, and we have it in the Report—that automatic weapons are used, and at night; and, of course, by unscrupulous and inexperienced marksmen, whose nerves are probably in a state of jitters all the time. How can they be expected to shoot accurately? We have plenty of evidence of the terrible condition in which deer are seen after such raids have taken place—animals with their entrails hanging out, walking about on the moor, animals hobbling

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about with broken limbs until they die. This is a ghastly business. This is what has been seen: how much more is there left which remains unseen?
Let us leave the cruelty aspect for a moment, and deal with another aspect. I am told that in some of the wilder districts which are not keepered (and of course the reason why they are not keepered is that the keepers' wages have risen to such a phenomenal height that the proprietors cannot afford to pay them), poaching has been so heavy that the rateable value of these forests has been considerably reduced. In some cases, where there is a road running alongside or through the forest, proprietors have not been able to rent their forests at all, except perhaps, as the noble Lord has said, to the butchers. The butchers, if you please! This is a very serious matter to the economy of the Highlands, because deer-stalking, as the noble Lord has told you, is no longer the domain of the rich only; many hotels offer facilities for deer-stalking, and many owners lease out their forests at so much a day or at so much a head of deer. Of course, as your Lordships will know, this is very much on a parallel with organised salmon poaching, to curb which Parliament has recently passed legislation—and it is most gratifying to me to know that they have done so. Only this week we read in the papers of three men who were convicted in, I think, the Mull of Kintyre of throwing a tin of Cy-mag into a pool of water, killing large numbers of fish and destroying I do not know how many hundreds of parr of salmon. They received thirty days' imprisonment. The legislation was just in time. In exactly the same sort of way we want to curb the activities of the deer poachers. Clearly, it requires speedy and firm action on the part of the Government. Of course we do not know what a salmon feels or what a deer feels, but we must imagine that a deer can suffer far more than a salmon.
I do not wish to detain your Lordships for long, but I cannot understand why the deer poacher in Scotland is so comparatively immune, compared with his brother in England. The fact is, however, that, in England, for the unlawful killing of deer a man is subject to a penalty of £50 on summary conviction, and for a second offence he is liable to a maximum of two years' imprisonment.
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In Scotland, on the contrary, as deer are not included in game under the Night Poaching Act, there is no means whereby night poachers can be prosecuted. I imagine that very little poaching takes place by day, because the men would be so easily caught; but by day the maximum penalty is only £2. If five or more persons are engaged in an operation I believe that the fine is extended to £5. That is the position as regards the legal aspect. From what I have said your Lordships will see that in Scotland there is nothing worth calling a law to deal with the deer poacher. The law, then, must clearly be revised, and I would strongly support the recommendations made by the Report on cruelty to wild animals, which include increased penalties, power of search and power of forfeiture. Power of forfeiture means the forfeiture of all equipment, guns, ammunition and vehicles.
I am credibly informed that apart from the forfeiture of vehicles, which I understand must be dealt with by separate legislation, the other provisions could be given effect to merely by bringing deer into the definition of "game" under the two Night Poaching Acts of 1828 and 1844 respectively, and the Poaching Prevention Act of 1862. It seems to me that this would not require a great deal of legislation. It is something that could be done quickly, and quick action is what we want. I really do not know why deer have been excluded from the definition of "game." But that is the main reason why the law is so powerless to deal with the poachers. I would make it illegal for any deer to be shot at night. I think that is important. Nobody can be accurate in shooting a deer at night.
I would also beg the Government to pay great attention to what my noble friend has said about a close season. At present there is no close season for deer in Scotland. I believe this is a controversial point, on the score that adequate powers must remain to control deer on enclosed land. As I understand it, that is the whole point at issue with the Department of Agriculture. Of course, we all know that, if left to themselves, deer multiply very rapidly. Now that wolves and bears—the natural predators of the deer—are extinct, deer must be controlled by human hands; and, incidentally, that is probably the most humane way of doing it. I must remind Lord Morrison, how-

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ever, that under the Agriculture (Scotland) Act of 1948 adequate powers already exist to deal with the control of deer. The occupiers of these agricultural holdings can control the deer if they do damage to their crops or trees. It seems to me that there is no need to interfere at all with the Agriculture Act. Let it go on as it is. On the score of humanity alone I feel that it is a disgrace to our country that there should be no statutory close season for the noblest of our native animals. For example, hinds can be shot when they are in calf, and calves can be left to die of starvation on the hill. I think that is an indictment on our country, and will remain so until this matter is put right. The Report recommends that there should be a close season, not only for killing deer but also for the sale of venison, and these dates could be fixed after consultation with experts.
A further point that I think would help in checking the activities of these poachers, although it is not popular with the Government and is not one with which the noble Lord who moved this Motion is in agreement, is the compulsory registration and licensing of those who want to sell venison. I think this would be a very important check on this evil. This was a recommendation of the Scott Henderson Report on cruelty to animals. It was also a recommendation of the Maconochie Report which dealt with fishing. I know that it was not given effect to in the legislation dealing with salmon—I believe that it was considered too controversial, and that it was felt that it would be difficult to establish proof of the illegality of consignments. But it seems to me that, if two separate Committees both recommend the same thing—namely, that there should be compulsory registration and licensing, and that dealers should be compelled to keep records of all transactions in venison—then the weight of evidence must be so great and the argument so strong that it ought to override other obstacles. However, I do not wish to press this point. My noble friend has not recommended it in his Motion and I know the Government are very much against it. But I cannot help feeling that it would be an important factor in attaining the object which we have in mind.
I do not wish to detain your Lordships any longer. In conclusion, I would say
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that this is such an important matter that it should not have to wait to be included in any comprehensive legislation which the Government want to make in regard to the Report on cruelty to animals. It seems to me that cruelty to deer stands out in the Report as calling for immediate steps to be taken. I hope and believe that the noble Lord's reply will satisfy many of your Lordships who want to see this wicked and cruel practice stopped as quickly as possible.
6.26 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, my noble friend has asked me to say a few words on the point of humanity. I remember as a boy the unwritten but unbroken and extremely humane laws that governed deer stalking in Scotland, and when I contrast them with the situation shown in this Report I am completely horrified. I will not lay too much emphasis on the Sten gun; but shooting at night, shooting from boats, from lorries and at impossible range and awkward angles, with tracer bullets and all those things, simply horrifies me. And the suffering that this must inflict on the deer is beyond description. The evidence one gets on this subject from Dr. Fraser Darling is particularly to be respected, because I think he knows more about deer than any man in Britain today. It is a great pity that we have not his book in the Library. I understand it is practically impossible to obtain. Shakespeare says that
"… the poor bettle, that we tread upon.
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies."—
which may be poetry but I do not think it is true. The higher the organism, the greater the suffering. My noble friend and other noble Lords know from the experience of two wars what it is to suffer from gunshot wounds, and one wonders what the wretched deer have done that such suffering should be inflicted upon them. I think we must do something quickly to prevent the continuation of this condition of things. Therefore I hope that my noble friend opposite will have something to give us in his reply.
6.29 p.m.
LORD MORRISON: My Lords, this all too brief discussion has been to me and, I think, to the House both interesting and valuable. I am sure we are all indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, not only

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for putting down the Motion but for the practical knowledge which he brings to your Lordships' House. I have only one complaint to make against the noble Lord and I am sure all members of the House will support me in making it. My complaint is that the noble Lord does not address the House as frequently as we should like. I understand that he is returning to the North very soon. I hope to follow him in the course of an hour or two. While I am spending a few days' vacation in that country where the noble Lord's activities are chiefly carried on, I hope to gain some further information about the problem with which he has dealt this afternoon.
It is often said that history repeats itself, and it is repeating itself now inasmuch as a demand is being made for speedy legislation which is, in effect, a similar demand to that made when I sat in another place for legislation in regard to salmon. There were difficulties then, but by good will on the part of all Parties and all the interests concerned, we were able to get an agreed Bill on salmon poaching through both Houses of Parliament. It is now in operation and, as the noble Earl, Lord Haddington, has said, by virtue of it offenders are now being sent to prison. I hope that, as the result of the operation of that Act, fewer people will commit that particular crime. The difficulty in this case, as it was in the case of salmon poaching, is to reduce all the valuable suggestions that are made to terms of a Parliamentary Bill—in other words, to legislation which can be enforced. I am not going to detain the House at this hour, and I know that noble Lords will forgive me if I make a general reply covering the main points which they have made.
First of all, a great deal has been said about the extent of the problem. When the noble Earl, Lord Haddington, put his original question to me a matter of two months ago, as he will remember, in answer to a supplementary question I said that one chief constable in Scotland had reported that such poaching was fairly widespread, but most of the other chief contables knew of only occasional cases. I must say that there is no reference in police reports—and I have read them all—to the use of automatic weapons, such as tommy-guns or Sten guns. I am not saying that no automatic weapons are being used; I am only saying that all the poaching of which the police say they
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have knowledge seems to be carried out by means of rifles. I should also like to say, before I state the case generally, that I wholeheartedly agree with the noble Earl, Lord Haddington, that a fine of £2 is a ridiculous penalty for an offence of this nature.
As the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, has said, the recommendations of the Scott-Henderson Committee can be boiled down. I boil them down—and I do not think noble Lords will disagree with this—into four groups. The first group suggests that deer should be included within the category of "game." The second (I am not putting them in order of priority) is to the effect that powers should be given to the courts to order the confiscation of vehicles used for the purpose of deer poaching. The third group of recommendations propose that there should be a close season for the killing of deer and for the sale of venison, the duration of which should be decided after discussion with experts on the subject. The fourth group of recommendations suggests that dealers in venison should be licensed and should have to keep records of purchases and sales. If your Lordships will bear with me for a moment or two, I should like to deal with these groups of recommendations in a little more detail.
First, let me take the proposal for the inclusion of deer within the category of "game." Let us see what the Report actually says. I quote from page 58:
"Most of these recommendations could, we think, be given legislative effect by a simple provision bringing deer within the scope of the Night Poaching Act, 1828, the Night Poaching Act, 1844, and the Poaching Prevention Act, 1862."
The Committee describe this as "a simple provision," but if you investigate it a little closer it shows many complications. The first is that to amend an Act passed 123 years age is by no means simple. Many of the provisions of these old Acts are completely out of date. The Night Poaching Act of 1828 refers to crossbows. The penalties authorised by the Acts are not related to modern conditions at all. For instance, the Night Poaching Act of 1828 provides that any person unlawfully taking or destroying any game or rabbits by night, or who shall by night unlawfully enter any lane, whether open or enclosed, with any gun, net or other instrument for the purpose

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of taking or destroying game shall, on conviction, be committed to the common gaol or house of correction for any period not exceeding three calendar months. Upon a second offence, the period of detention is increased to any period not exceeding six calendar months and, upon a third offence, the penalty was transportation for seven years. Today the maximum penalty for day poaching is a fine of £5. A fine of £5, I agree, is not likely to prove a serious deterrent: perhaps transportation for seven years would be a little more effective.
The Acts distinguish between day and night poaching and for the latter they provide a heavier penalty. It seems pretty clear from a preliminary study and from consultations which have been taking place with the criminal authorities and the police that, if legislation were to be introduced, it would not be possible just to apply the existing Acts to deer as the Committee seem to have contemplated. I need not add that this, of course, is not a reason for not legislating, but it does mean that legislation is not necessarily so simple and straightforward as the Committee's Report implies. The second point I would take is that with regard to the recommendation for confiscation of vehicles. Your Lordships will remember that under the recent Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act of this Session the power of confiscation is exercisable only where an offender has been convicted after trial by sheriff and jury or in the High Court. Whether this extreme penalty should be applied in a case of deer poaching requires examination in consultation with the appropriate authorities.
Now I come to what I think Lord Lovat will agree is his most important point, and the most important point that arises out of this Report so far as deer poaching is concerned—the question of a close season. The proposal to institute a close season is, I am advised, a particularly difficult and controversial one, upon which consultations with experts and agricultural opinion are proceeding as the Committee recommended. There has, in the past, been much argument about it between sporting and agricultural interests, and up to now no agreed solution has been found. It seems to be clear that the agricultural repercussions of a close season may be considerable and that their nature
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and extent may vary according to the period which may be adopted. It would, of course, be possible for the agricultural executive committees to direct the killing of deer during the close season, as the noble Lord indicated, under the Agricultural Act of 1948. But I think it will probably be agreed that no one wants to create a situation in which deer forest owners have to be served with directions by the agricultural executive committees.
LORD LOVAT: If I might interrupt the noble Lord for one moment, I should like to draw a rather clearer line of distinction between deer forest owners. The term "deer forest" indicates a place where the deer are controlled. There are also other deer which are not true forest deer in enclosed land. They are nomadic and are marauders. There would be no opposition from the neighbourhood when such deer, destroying crops, were themselves exterminated. That has, in fact, been going on since 1948. There is no "rift in the lute" as between deer forest proprietors and agricultural interests on this matter.
LORD MORRISON: I am very happy to hear that. I just suggest that that is another reason why a perfectly simple Bill is quite impossible. This question of the effect upon agriculture and upon agricultural opinion of the institution of a close season is, I am advised, controversial. I am happy to hear that the noble Lord thinks that a great deal of the controversy has already been resolved. That is a most encouraging thing to say, and when I go to Scotland to-morrow I will make special inquiries in order to check up. I hope to find that what the noble Lord has said is correct. It is clear, however, that no final view can be reached by the Government regarding the imposition of statutory close seasons, or as to the periods over which such close seasons should extend, until there has been the fullest consultation with all interests concerned. Apart from the experts suggested by the Committee, I will mention a number of organisations which I believe may be in a position to make a useful contribution to the examination of the various problems involved, and which are being, or will be, consulted. First, there is the Scottish Landowners Federation; secondly, the National Farmers' Union of Scotland; thirdly, the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society;

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fourthly, the Black-faced Sheep Breeders' Association, and fifthly, the agricultural executive committees in the deer forest areas.
That brings me to the fourth point, on which I need not spend much time, because the noble Lord himself is not in favour of it. That is, the licensing of dealers in venison and the keeping of records. The Committee's proposal that dealers in venison should have to be licensed and to keep records is rather in line with a similar recommendation on salmon poaching. In relation to salmon, the recommendation was exhaustively considered and fully debated in another place. It was finally decided not to adopt it, because it was not felt that the advantages which would result from doing so would be commensurate with the amount of work which the system would impose on people dealing in salmon. The same consideration seems to me to apply in the case of deer. It would be an onerous business if all dealers had to keep precise records of all their transactions, and it is more than doubtful, even if this burden were placed upon them, whether it would be of material assistance in detecting and suppressing poaching. The system of record-keeping would have to apply throughout Great Britain, and from the investigations made in connection with salmon, it is clear that in the normal case it would be a matter of difficulty to trace an offence or to base a prosecution upon a dealer's record of his transactions. It would be wrong, therefore, for me to hold out any hope that this recommendation will be accepted.
Finally, may I say a word about the application of the Report to England and Wales? When the noble Earl, Lord Haddington, asked a Question on this subject on June 13, the noble Marquess, Lord Willingdon, inquired whether any legislatior would apply to England and Wales. This point has been carefully considered, and the balance of advantage seems to favour a purely Scottish Bill. First, the problem of deer poaching, at any rate in the sense in which it is now before the House, seems to be almost entirely a Scottish problem. The Scott Henderson Committee did not refer to any such cases occurring in England. Secondly, the present law of England, as the noble Earl, Lord Haddington, has said, would seem to give the police adequate
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powers to deal with any poaching that may occur. The Larceny Act of 1861 provides penalties of £50 upon summary conviction in England on a charge of unlawfully hunting, snaring, taking, killing or wounding of deer on unenclosed ground, and a second offence is made a felony, punishable by up to two years' imprisonment, while any instruments used are liable to confiscation. Obviously, it will be necessary to consult wider interests if the Bill is to be a United Kingdom one, and therefore the Government incline to the view that a purely Scottish Bill is preferable.
I hope that what I have said may be enough to illustrate the complexities of this whole subject, and to explain why I am unable to-day to give a definite undertaking about immediate legislation. There will be questions of policy and many technical questions of some complexity to be decided. All I can say to-day, therefore, is that there will be no unavoidable delay in completing the examination of this subject which is at present in progress. We are all anxious to stop cruelty, but to introduce a Bill without full consultation and, if possible, agreement with the organisations I have mentioned, is much more likely to delay legislation reaching the Statute Book than it is to advance it. The Scottish Department will welcome any help your Lordships may give in securing the co-operation of the bodies I have mentioned and at least a measure of agreement sufficient to ensure that the Bill, when drafted, will have a friendly reception in Scotland and a speedy passage to the Statute Book. After that explanation, I hope that the noble Lord who is to reply for the noble Lord, Lord Lovat (who has been unable to stay, as he hopes to catch a train which goes soon after seven), will see fit to withdraw this Motion.
6.45 p.m.
THE EARL OF HADDINGTON: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Morrison, has said, my noble friend Lord Lovat has had to catch a train for Scotland, and he has asked me to reply on his behalf. He has asked me to thank the noble Lord, Lord Morrison, for his reply which, while it may not be altogether encouraging, at least leaves some promise that something will be done—and that in the not very distant future. I am sure we appreciate the difficulties that are inherent in intro-

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ducing any fresh legislation, but we hope they may not be insurmountable. My noble friend has asked me to put this question to the noble Lord: In the opinion of the noble Lord, Lord Morrison, would it expedite matters if a Private Member's Bill were introduced?
LORD MORRISON: My Lords, I think I can say to the noble Lord that if any Member of the House cared to draft a Private Member's Bill, that would be an excellent idea. It would give the House an opportunity of getting their teeth into some of the difficulties that I indicated in my reply. The Government would welcome a Private Member's Bill.
THE EARL OF HADDINGTON: My Lords, I am glad to hear that assurance. One further point my noble friend has asked me to make is that, when the noble Lord, Lord Morrison, is in Scotland, he extends to him an invitation to a day with him on the hill, an invitation which I hope the noble Lord will accept. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

PREFERENTIAL DUTY ON JAMAICAN CIGARS
6.47 p.m.
LORD FAIRFAX OF CAMERON LORD FAIRFAX OF CAMERON rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether, in the event of agreement being reached to purchase Cuban cigars for sale in the U.K., they will lay the matter before the contracting parties to G.A.T.T. with a view to obtaining a higher preference margin for Jamaican cigars entering the U.K.; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, although the hour is late, I am sure your Lordships will forgive me for proceeding with this Motion, because I believe that it is a matter of considerable importance at this time. I shall be very brief. The object of the Motion is twofold: to draw your Lordships' attention, first, to the increasing unemployment in the Jamaican cigar industry, and secondly, to the effect on the industry of Cuban competition and of any encroachment on the United Kingdom market of Cuban cigars. I would remind your Lordships that the United Kingdom has a double responsibility towards Jamaica in this matter. Jamaica
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is a Colonial dependency, and we have a responsibility for her well-being and prosperity. Secondly, the United Kingdom provides practically the only market of any size and importance for Jamaican cigars. According to how we manipulate our trade policy towards Jamaica, we can either cause great misery to the people employed in the cigar industry or we can give them a measure of prosperity.
Unfortunately, the attitude of His Majesty's Government during the last few years has not been wholly favourable to the Jamaican cigar industry. Tariffs on the import of cigars have been increased, and there has, at the same time, been a fairly substantial increase in unemployment in the cigar industry. I am not saying that the increase of tariffs necessarily caused the unemployment in the industry, but I think it is significant that unemployment grew from the time the tariffs were increased. In 1939, there was a duty of 14s. 2¼d. per lb. on Jamaican cigars coming into this country. That represented a preference of 22 per cent. over other cigars imported. That was quite a good preference. Subsequently, that duty, still a preferential one, was increased to 41s. 1⅝d. per 1b. Under the influence of those tariffs and those preferences; the Jamaican cigar industry grew from practically nothing, so that it was sending abroad each year 25,750,000 cigars, which was quite a good achievement. Since then, however, the duty has been raised fairly considerably, and it now stands at 64s. 9⅝ per lb. The preference margin has now gone down from 22 per cent. to 4 per cent., which is a big fall, and it does not leave very much preference. The effect of this has been that the export of Jamaican cigars has fallen from 25,000,000 to 10,000,000 a year. At the same time, since, I think, 1947, the number of people employed in the industry has fallen by 8,000, representing over half of those employed in the industry. And that, in a poor country like Jamaica, is a serious matter.
What is so extraordinary is that these duties were presumably raised to increase revenue to the British Treasury, but that revenue, has fallen by half—on the law, I suppose, of diminishing returns. It has not benefited the Exchequer in this country, nor has it benefited the Jamaicans in any way. That seems bad from everyone's point of view. I cannot help feeling that, if there were an

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equal percentage fall in employment in an industry in this country, His Majesty's Government and everyone else would be much more concerned than they are about the fall in the employed in the Jamaican cigar industry. If it were at home, I believe that this matter would have received much more active attention. Yet the fact that it has occurred in a Colony, which has no direct Parliamentary representation, is no reason why we should be indifferent to this state of affairs. In the event of agreement being reached with Cuba, it is not difficult to imagine the effect of importing Cuban cigars into this country on the Jamaican cigar industry, if it is not given some protection. Any Cuban cigars coming into this country would take a large slice out of the Jamaican market, and this would be a direct loss to the Jamaican cigar industry, which is already badly hit. Not only that: the Cuban cigar industry is strong—it has the whole of the American market—and no doubt could afford to sell cigars on the United Kingdom market at a cost with which the Jamaican cigar industry could not possibly compete—and, moreover, keep up the sales at such prices long enough to force out the Jamaicans.
There has been no indication from His Majesty's Government that, in the event of agreement being reached with Cuba, they will take steps to protect the Jamaican cigar industry. I do not blame them for not having given any indication yet, because obviously it is too early. But I sincerely hope that, in the event of agreement being reached with Cuba, the Government will take steps to protect the Jamaican industry. I very much hope that we may receive an assurance about that to-day. I hope not only that we shall receive an assurance that the Jamaican cigar industry will be protected, so that it retains a market not smaller than its present size, but also that the Government will say that they will take steps to increase the size of the market available to that industry. His Majesty's Government are unable to alter preference rates—we dealt with that the other day in the Motion by my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye. By giving away their right to alter preference rates, they have put themselves in the position of being less able to protect Colonial industries. The case of Jamaica is an
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example of that. To protect Colonial industries, such as the Jamaican cigar industry, is surely an important duty of an Imperial Power such as we are. Whether or not His Majesty's Government have signed the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade, the duty still remains on them to protect the Jamaican cigar industry.
As to the means by which this can be accomplished, it is open to His Majesty's Government, to approach the General Agreement countries and ask them whether we may increase our preference. I do not suppose that would be at all popular; in fact, it would be a most awkward situation for Great Britain to be in, and one which we do not particularly want. However, it is the only way in which the Government can increase the preference. At the moment, the preference is too small and the tariff too high. As an alternative, His Majesty's Government could lower the general duty, which would, of course, slightly increase the preference. But that would not be so satisfactory. I feel, however, that the Government should seriously consider either going to the General Agreement countries and asking for an increase in preference, or the lowering of general duties. At the same time, I believe that if agreement is reached with Cuba to import cigars into this country, those, cigars should be limited by quota to about 20 per cent. of the Jamaican cigar imports. But limiting by quota is not in itself sufficient protection for the Jamaican cigar industry, because even the 20 per cent. limitation on the existing market is a large amount by which to hit the Jamaicans.
I do not intend to detain your Lordships longer, except to say that, when we were unable to buy Cuban cigars during and since the war, Jamaica extended her industry and came to our help—and everyone will agree they served us very well indeed. I am sure that the Government, now that we are in a better financial position, would not wish to perform a shabby trick on Jamaica by saying: "You can take your cigars: we do not want them." But unless protection is given to Jamaica, in the event of agreement being reached with Cuba, that, in effect, will be what the Government will be saying. I beg to move for Papers.
6.59 p.m.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I think my noble friend Lord Fairfax has performed a great service in bringing up this matter in your Lordships' House before Parliament disappears into the country for some considerable period. There are no more loyal citizens of the Empire than the subjects of the West Indies, and it is only right that Parliament should hear their grievances. The situation that has arisen over the course of years is quite an absurd one. When I was a small boy the object of a Cockney on his Saturday evening out was to take his "missus" to the music hall, to the accompaniment of a fourpenny cigar. A four-penny cigar was considered quite a decent smoke in those days. The British working man was able to buy cigars at seven for a shilling. They were on the counter of every public-house, and the duty in those days was 5s. a pound. To-day, the duty is 65s. Successive Chancellors of the Exchequer—chiefly Coalition and Labour Chancellors—have first taken the cigar out of the British workman's mouth and left it for the middle classes, and then for the well-to-do; and, finally, the latest turn of the screw reserves it entirely for the rich. But the policy of His Majesty's Government is now to eliminate the rich and, therefore, they are in the process of eliminating the last market in this country for these Jamaican cigars.
As my noble friend has said, the revenue has gone down from £1,250,000 to £500,000. How much of that revenue is real, genuine revenue? If your Lordships go into some of the great caravanserais in this City at lunch time, and see the smoke curling up to the ceiling, how many people smoking those cigars have paid for them out of their own pocket? I suggest that three-quarters of them have come out of expense accounts in one form or another and, therefore, have already been paid for by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear.
LORD HAWKE: Yes, the Prime Minister has one. The paltry remains of that £500,000 is, I venture to think, not real revenue at all—perhaps only two-thirds of it is revenue. That is truly an absurd situation. How are we to explain that sort of thing to the West Indies, loyal subjects of the King and our fellow
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citizens? So far as I am aware, this is the first time that this sort of thing has happened. From time to time, changes of fashion and changes of taste have eliminated an Empire industry. Ostrich feathers is an example. But here is a very important industry, in a small part of the Commonwealth, which is being deliberately extinguished by the fiscal whims and fancies of His Majesty's Government. This Cuban Agreement cannot fail to make the matter still worse, because there will now come into the very restricted and diminishing market an ancient and strong competitor. At the best, we are asking His Majesty's Government to impose a quota, but even then Jamaica will be assured only of a certain percentage of an already declining and shrinking market. As a preliminary, of course, there must be a quota, but there must be some way of finding a way round this fiscal absurdity. It is an absurdity, and I will give your Lordships an example. You pay 1s. 3d. duty to smoke approximately forty-five minutes of cigar. You would pay 4d. duty to smoke approximately the same length of time a pipe of tobacco. The rates are out of proportion. The cigar has been "dutied" off the market.
The whole question of anything to do with Excise and Customs is most appallingly complicated, and it is quite impossible for the uninitiated layman to suggest anything intelligent. It must rest with the Minister to send for his officials, to point out the absurdities and say that this problem must be solved before the next Budget. We cannot remain the heart of the Commonwealth and, at the same time, go on, by fiscal policies, imposing unemployment in the far-flung periphery of the commonwealth. Once before we lost an Empire through our fiscal policies. Let us pay heed to the past.
7.6 p.m.
LORD SANDHURST: My Lords, I do not wish to detain your Lordships for long, but I speak on this question with a certain amount of knowledge and from an entirley different attitude. So far as cigars are concerned, the tobacco trade in this country, as the noble Lord has already said, has been carried through during the last few years entirely by the Jamaican manufacturer. I know perfectly well, and it has been made painfully clear to us during the past week, that the present

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Government do not care about any reward for private endeavour. I suggest that when it comes to dealing with our Colonies they cannot adopt that attitude. Private endeavour has to receive its reward.
Now the Jamaican cigar manufacturers have done a wonderful job of work in improving the quality of their cigars. That quality has been raised from something which nobody ranked very highly to something which to-day is distinguishable from that of a Cuban cigar only by an expert. They have brought Cuban operatives into Jamaica, and the result is that the Jamaican cigar to-day is so similar to the Cuban that the only thing which kills it is what I might call "snob value." Now that is not something which I should expect the Government to encourage, but they are encouraging it unless they give preferential treatment. The Jamaican cigar is a very good cigar, on which a great deal of local money has been spent. Are we going to kill it? Are we going to do away with the results of private effort in Jamaica? Are we going to cause unemployment in Jamaica after all they have done to turn their cigar from a third-rate article into a first-rate article? I say, quite frankly, that the Jamaican cigar to-day is a first-class cigar. I am certain that I shall have no difficulty in walking into my premises and producing a cigar which any member of the Bench opposite would be very glad to smoke after his dinner to-night; and it would be a Jamaican cigar and not a Cuban. The Jamaican people have built up their trade arid have risked their money. Are we to destroy it simply to satisfy "snob value"?
7.9 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH): My Lords, after the agreeable and eloquent manner in which the noble Lord moved this Motion, I am afraid that he will be very disappointed with my reply because, in the shortest terms which I can use, it is "No." His Majesty's Government have no intention whatsoever of approaching the G.A.T.T. countries to increase the preference on Jamaican cigars. That is putting the matter very baldly. But I feel the noble Lord's disappointment may be mitigated if I give him the reason—and it has nothing whatsoever to do with G.A.T.T. We have an international
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Agreement of great importance, the United Kingdom-Cuba Commercial Agreement of 1937. If my memory serves me aright, it was not made when a Socialist Government, or even a Coalition Government, were in power. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, will correct me if I am wrong in saying that. The salient Article of the Agreement is Article 7, which I will read to your Lordships. It says:
"The Government of Cuba reserve the right, notwithstanding anything in paragraph 3 above, to terminate the present agreement on three months' notice at any time, should the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland increase the differences which existed on the 1st May, 1936, between the tariff rates applicable in the United Kingdom to sugar and tobacco, the produce of Cuba, on the one hand, and to sugar and tobacco, the produce of any territory under the Sovereignty … or protection or mandate of His Majesty the King …"
That Commercial Agreement between ourselves and Cuba has been a very valuable one. It has brought us in, on insurance alone, £2,000,000 a year. Perhaps I may be allowed to quote another article, Article 4:
"The Government of Cuba agree not to subject British insurance enterprises to legislation imposing conditions which are in any respect more onerous than those already applying to the conduct of their Cuban business."
British insurance has called in aid that Article on many occasions.
LORD HAWKE: That was the Agreement made in 1937. Have the Cuban Government fulfilled those conditions? Is there anything about their treatment of the railways?
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: That Agreement, old though it may be, has proved, and is proving, of the utmost value to commercial interests in this country. We are not going to do anything in breach of it which will injure our relationship with Cuba, which has proved of so much profit to the interests I have just named.
But there are other interests—the level of Cuban import duties on our main exports to Cuba. Our exports of linens and woollens accounted in 1950 for over £500,000 worth of trade. These are all substantial things, ant we would not for one moment risk doing anything which would be in breach of Article 7. If we did, this Agreement between ourselves and Cuba might be terminated. I am sure

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that the noble Lord would be averse to anything of that kind. That is the short answer to the noble Lord as to why we do not intend to go to the G.A.T.T. countries and ask them to agree to an increase in the preference on Jamaican tobacco.
There are other points which the noble Lord raised but which, of course, do not now arise. I might be considered churlish, however, if I did not give some answer, because I can see what is agitating the mind of the noble Lord. While giving him these answers, I would not for a moment like him, or any other noble Lords, to think that His Majesty's Government are at all unsympathetic to any interests in Jamaica. But, as I say, there are other interests too—and, incidentally, our own. The noble Lords, Lord Fairfax, Lord Hawke, and Lord Sandhurst, talked about unemployment in Jamaica being caused by the high tariffs, and suggested that if the tariff were brought down the unemployment situation would be improved. But if we reduced the tariffs, even if there were no other obstacle in the way, we should also have to reduce the rates on the imported leaf from which British cigars are made. I suppose noble Lords would not like to see discrimination against British workmen in favour of Jamaican workmen. We are being pressed frequently by the home industry to the effect that if any alteration were made in the duty on imported cigars they would desire similar protection; and British manufactured cigars made from imported leaf represent the greater proportion of cigars smoked in this country. I sympathise with the noble Lord's desire to be tender to the interests of Jamaican employment. But let us not forget that we have people in this country employed in the cigar-making industry; and they are usually elderly people, people who might, perhaps, be unable to find suitable employment elsewhere than in that industry.
But I am going on to suggest to the noble Lord that an increase in the preference or a reduction in the duty would not help Jamaica. Let me give him the figures. The present rate of duty is 67s. 9d. per lb. on imported cigars. The preferential rate is 64s. 9⅝d. per lb. That is about 1s. or 1s. 2d. on an average-sized cigar selling at about 3s. The preference
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margin of 2s. 11⅜d. represents about ½or ¾d. per cigar. If the duty were to be reduced, unless the reduction in duty were very sizable, it would make no appreciable impact on the consumption of cigars. The noble Lord mentioned the 1947 figure—
LORD FAIRFAX OF CAMERON: I suggested that it should be below the 1947 figure—perhaps at the 1939 mark.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Let us take the figure for 1945 to 1947. The preferential rate at the beginning of 1947 was 41s. 1⅝d. per 1b. A reduction to this level would be equivalent to a reduction of 4d. or 5d. on the 3s. cigar. Let us suppose that, if we made such a reduction, it would stimulate the consumption of Jamaican cigars by 10 per cent.—I doubt very much whether it would, but let us put it at 10 per cent. That would cost the revenue of this country £750,000 and would benefit the Jamaican cigar industry by £50,000. It just does not add up to a commercial proposition.
LORD FAIRFAX OF CAMERON: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but I cannot understand his statement about the cost to the British Treasury. As I understand it—I know the noble Lord will correct me if I am wrong—the total annual revenue to the British Treasury from duty on imported Jamaican cigars is about £500,000.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I am talking about the whole, because we could not reduce the duty on Jamaican cigars alone. I have just told the noble Lord that if you reduce the duty at all, you reduce it on leaf tobacco as well, because you cannot pick out only imported cigars and say you are not going to reduce the duty on leaf from which British cigars are made. So we should lose £750,000 and it would benefit the Jamaicans, at a very wild exaggeration of figures, even if the Jamaican imports were increased by 10 per cent., by £50,000. The noble Lord, Lord Hawke, is completely in error—
LORD HAWKE: Did the noble Lord say "inaccurate"?
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: "In error." not "inaccurate," when he says that cigars have been "dutied off" the market (which was the phrase I think he used), because the duty on an aver-

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age 3s. 6d. cigar is only 1s. to 1s. 2d., whereas the duty on a packet of twenty cigarettes costing 3s. 6d. is 2s. 10d. Why do not people smoke cigars in preference to cigarettes? The noble Lord made some humorous remark, which had a great deal of truth in it, to the effect that the cigar had become a luxury "smoke." Years ago I used to buy cigars; then the time came when I had to rely upon those of my wealthy friend, perhaps those included in the category mentioned by the noble Lord; they used to send them to me. Now, I can neither afford them nor are they sent.
LORD ALTRINCHAM: No friends?
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: No friends with those large expensive cigars. The trouble with cigar consumption is that it is a luxury. Therefore, the importation of cigars into this country, if the noble Lord would examine these figures—
LORD HAWKE: There is one point that so far both sides have omitted. I could not teach the noble Lord to suck eggs, because he knows all about it. My point is that if you knock off the duty by a certain amount, the price of the final article may come down by anything up to double the amount that you knock off.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I do not know whether the noble Lord means that I know all about sucking eggs or smoking cigars. What the noble Lord suggests is pure theory. It does not happen in practice, because I am not at all certain what would be the result if we did reduce the duty as the noble Lord wants. There are in this country today many stacks of cigars upon which the higher duty has been paid. Do you think their price would be reduced by the amount of the reduction? Of course it would not.
LORD HAWKE: They would wait until those cigars were finished.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Yes, but it would take a little time to finish them.
LORD SANDHURST: I think the noble Lord is wrong in that statement. One finds that when duty goes down, every seller at once reduces his prices by the amount that the duty has gone down. That applies not only to cigars but to any other article you like to take.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: The noble Lord's experience of trade and industry has been entirely different from mine, because I have found that when anything has been taken off an article, such as duty and tax, the price to the consumer is kept up as long as possible to cover cuts that have been previously incurred.
LORD SANDHURST: That is a completely inaccurate statement.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: That, of course, is a matter of opinion. While I have every sympathy with the noble Lord in his endeavour, we cannot think about reducing the duty. Noble Lords well know that, when Sir Stafford Cripps was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the tobacco duty was increased very heavily for one reason—an attempt to cut down smoking. It has cut down luxury smoking. I cannot agree to the proposition the noble Lord unfolded in his original Question for the reason I have explained—the 1937 Anglo-Cuban Agreement. I cannot discuss, and the noble Lord will not expect me to discuss, any Agreement which is being negotiated now with Cuba, but I can assure him that if all the difficulties which stand in the way were removed, a quota scheme would not be worth anything to Jamaica and would not be worth anything to us because it could not be anchored to anything. There is no embargo upon the import of Jamaican cigars. We do not want to anchor it to any quota. Jamaica is perfectly free to export to this country as many cigars as she can find a commercial sale for. Therefore, it would be impossible to have a quota, unless, of course, the noble Lord wishes to encourage the Government to go in for bulk buying of Jamaican cigars, and to go into the cigar business in a big way. I do not know whether that is in his mind.
LORD HAWKE: And buy a bigger box then.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I should not have thought he would venture to make that suggestion; so a quota scheme is useless. The 1937 Anglo-Cuban Agreement forbids us, while we place value, and while the insurance interests and the textile manufacturers place the value they do, upon the Cuban Agreement. Therefore, as I said before,

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I regret very much that I cannot accept the noble Lord's Motion.
7.26 p.m.
LORD ALTRINCHAM: My Lords, I am going to say only a few words, because the hour is late. However, since the noble Lord opposite seems satisfied with his own reply, I feel bound to say that we on this side are entirely dissatisfied with it. We are not prepared to accept most of the propositions which he put forward. Of course the Cuban Treaty exists, but when treaties cause difficulty, and particularly when they have been in existence for a number of years, responsible statesmen try to renegotiate them. Apparently this Government are unable to approach the Cuban Government to consider whether any modification in this particular direction is possible. After all, this is a valuable market to Cuba, just as Cuba is a valuable market to us, and ancient trading treaties have to be discussed frequently from time to time. Therefore the noble Lord's argument on that point made no impression whatever upon me. Still less did his contention that when you reduce the duty on an article you do not reduce its price. There may be stocks in this country, but I am sure my noble friend behind me is right in saying that, when the duty is reduced, prices have to be reduced.
Finally, I would say that I agree that the general idea in this country is that cigar-smoking is luxury smoking. It is, in fact, a much more wholesome form of smoking than cigarette-smoking. It is most important to undermine the idea that the cigar is only a luxury "smoke." If you go to Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Sweden or Norway, you can get exceedingly good "smokes" for very little indeed. That is how it should be in this country. I should regret it if it involved us in more dollar expenditure for Havana cigars. I think that particular point ought to be re-negotiated. I am absolutely convinced that, in due course, it will be of great benefit to this country if the duty on all forms of cigar and also imported leaf is brought down.
7.29 p.m.
LORD FAIRFAX OF CAMERON: My Lords, the noble Lord who replied talked about the 1937 Commercial Agreement
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with Cuba, and said that there was a clause in that Agreement which prevented the alteration of preference rates. The preference rates given to Jamaican cigars have been altered from 22 per cent. in 1939 to approximately 4 per cent. That is an alteration in value; the actual money rate is the same. Presumably, if we had been trading with Cuba during that same period, that alteration in value would have applied there. So I really cannot understand what the noble Lord means when he says that the alteration in preference rates is forbidden under that Agreement. I am quite certain, on the basis of the alteration in preferences to Jamaica, that if we had carried on cigar trade with Cuba the alteration in value there since before the war would have been considerable. The noble Lord gave me the impression, also, that he was far more concerned about carrying on trade with Cuba than about carrying on trade with Jamaica, and that he had far more fear, perhaps awe, of the Cubans than he had sympathetic feeling for the welfare of the Jamaicans. I think that is a very great pity.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: If the noble Lord will forgive my interrupting, I do not think that is quite a fair thing to say. I prefaced my remarks by saying that nothing I said was to be taken as meaning that His Majesty's Government were lacking in sympathy for Jamaica.
LORD FAIRFAX OF CAMERON: All I can say is that I find it very difficult indeed to line up the content of the noble Lord's speech with that statement, because the impression it made upon me was quite the opposite. It seems also that His Majesty's Government have got themselves tied up so much in a series of Agreements, and have so far committed themselves to this, that and the other, that they are now entirely unable to help a British Colony. That is a most deplorable situation, and one of which I feel His Majesty's Government should be heartily ashamed. The Jamaicans will have very little reason to be proud of us, and I consider that the reply of the noble Lord who spoke for the Government is quite unworthy of this country, which has been a great Imperial Power in the past. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
7.31 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, before the House adjourns. I have a special announcement to make. The House will reassemble for Public Business on Tuesday, October 16. It is expected that Parliament will be prorogued on Thursday, October 18, and that the new Session of Parliament will be opened on Tuesday, October 23. This announcement has also been made in another place to-day.