Lords Sitting of 29 May 1951

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers
Several Lords—Took the Oath.
Prayers

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—MOTION OF APPRECIATION
  2.37 p.m.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT JOWITT)THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT JOWITT) rose to move to resolve, That this House, on the occasion of its return to its proper Chamber after ten years in temporary occupation of The King's Robing Room, while not unmindful of the devotion with which all who are permanently employed in its own service have, during the exacting times of war and reconstruction, carried on the high traditions which have always attached to that service, desires also, in particular, to place upon record its appreciation of the manner in which this Parliament Chamber has been restored and of the unsparing labours of the officers and employees of the Ministry of Works, whose ingenuity and resource, in circum-stances of extreme difficulty, have enabled this House to exercise its Parliamentary functions in the Palace of Westminster, with dignity and comfort and with the minimum interruption, during the perilous years of war and the no less exacting years of rebuilding and repair, and further instructs the Clerk of the Parliaments to convey this expression of its appreciation to the Minister of Works.
  The noble and learned Viscount said: My Lords, I rise on behalf of my noble friend the Leader of the House to move the Resolution which stands on the Order Paper in his name. I may say at once that my first feeling is one of great regret that I should have to move it. All your Lordships have come to regard my noble friend the Leader of this House as an institution, and we all know how largely it is due to his skill and good judgment that the business of the House is able to be carried on as it is. Unfortunately, for a short time he—if he obeys his doctors—will inevitably be laid on one side. I

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  hope that he will obey his doctors, because if he does so I have no doubt that in a few weeks' time we shall have him back with us. That, I know, is the wish of your Lordships on all sides of the House. In the meantime, it is a very great disappointment to me that he is not able to be here on this auspicious occasion. He has asked me to convey to you this message. He says—I am using his own words:
  "My Lords, I hope that I may be allowed, through my noble friend the Lord Chancellor, to express my heartfelt regret at not being able, because of sickness, to be present to-day to move our Resolution that stands in my name on the Order Paper. I believe that this expression of our thanks will be in full accord with the wishes of our House, and I hope that I may, though not present in person, join with my fellow Peers, in giving it most sincere support."
  I know that I may convey to the noble Viscount the Leader of the House the good wishes of your Lordships, in all quarters of the Chamber, for his speedy recovery and his quick return to this House.
  My Lords, I think that our first thoughts on this occasion must be thoughts of wonder and of gratitude that so resplendent a monument to one of the greatest Ages in our long history, the Victorian Age, with all its glitter and its pomp and with all its dignity and sense of security, should, under Providence, have been spared to us amid so much destruction during the Second World War. That these national treasures, Westminster Abbey, the Palace of Westminster, the Cathedral of St. Paul's, all of them at the very centre of the target of a malevolent enemy, should have escaped, is at once an example of the goodness of Providence and of the fallibility of man's ingenuity.
  Next, because, for the most part, we are not a young House, our thoughts are retrospective; we retrace our history during the past ten years. It was on the night of May 10, 1941, that London generally, and the City of Westminster in particular, suffered the heaviest raid of the war; and by the Sunday morning following the Abbey had been seriously damaged, the Chamber of the House of Commons was a smouldering wreck, and this Chamber had been pierced by a bomb which, fortunately, did not explode.
  All its coloured glass had been shivered into atoms, and only a miracle, and the devotion of firemen and fire-watchers on the scene, had saved the Hall of William Rufus from destruction by fire. It is an open secret now that arrangements had been made earlier, at the beginning of the war, for an alternative place of meeting for Parliament somewhere in the country outside the Metropolis. But when the testing time came, no Minister, and no member of either House, would think for one moment of leaving this great City, so long as any place remained where Parliament could meet and conduct the affairs of State in the heart of the Commonwealth. And so it came about that the task was imposed, not only upon its own servants and officers but upon the officers of the Ministry of Works and its employees, whether contractors or contractors' men, to keep Parliament going without interruption, and in such safety, dignity and comfort as the perilous state of war permitted. Those conditions have necessarily lasted not only during the years of actual conflict and peril but, as this Resolution reminds your Lordships, through those difficult years of repair and reconstruction that have followed the defeat of Germany and Japan.
  But what an immense task has been faced and accomplished! First, both Houses of Parliament have been kept uninterruptedly in a position to do their work, and to sit as long and as often as public affairs necessitated during the last ten years, when, if my impression is correct (and I do not pretend to have formed more than an impression), Parliament has sat longer, year by year, than at any other period of its history. Moreover, all this has been done in the Palace of Westminster, because, useful through the temporary accommodation at Church House had been, experience proved that it was quite inadequate for the ordinary usage of Parliament. So it happened that a new House of Lords had to be provided, in order that the Commons might occupy our Chamber and that we should occupy the King's Robing Room, which His Majesty had graciously placed at our disposal. I do not deny—and I suspect that I am not alone in this—that I have a great affection for the intimate little Chamber that was so cleverly contrived in the Robing Room. I do not pretend that I, at any

  863
  rate, do not cast some "longing, ling'ring look behind." But, at the same time, the Robing Room necessarily lacked proper accommodation for visitors; nor could it be said that it approached the dignity and magnificence of this historic Chamber of ours, to which we now return. Historic, for in this very Chamber the Royal Assent has been given to all Bills since 1847. Here it was that those distinguished Prime Ministers who then adorned our House, and who now belong to history—Derby, Aberdeen, Russell, Beaconsfield, Salisbury and Rosebery—explained and justified their policies. It has been the task of the Ministry of Works, without interrupting Parliamentary proceedings, to arrange for the clearing of the old House of Commons site, the erection of the new House of Commons, the restoration and repair of Westminster Hall and the Porch of St. Stephen's, the rebuilding of the Law Lords' Corridor, and for countless other new works and works of repair, including the provision of an entirely new power and heating plant in Victoria Gardens.
  The final task, the repair and redecoration of your Lordships' Chamber, has now been completed, and your Lordships, after wandering in what I might describe as a very pleasant desert, have once more found your permanent home. In all this we have enjoyed, of course, the constant and devoted service of our own staff, under the Clerk of the Parliaments, the Clerk of the Crown, the Lord Great Chamberlain and the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod. All these people are, however, of the family; and what they have done for us, they have done as they would have done for their own. That we recognise and never forget. We and our servants, my Lords, form as it were one family, and I am proud to think that it is a happy family. But on this occasion I am particularly asking your Lordships to pay tribute to the devoted work and exercise of their skill on our behalf of the officers and employees of the Ministry of Works, whether directly under the Minister's control or indirectly, either as contractors to the Ministry or working for such con-tractors. They, naturally, have not had the same stimulus or the same interest to serve your Lordships as have our own officers and servants. But, nevertheless, they have come in and helped us,
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  laboured for us and given to us of their best, as though they, too, were our own; and, than that, I have nothing better to say for anyone. The missing carvings have been replaced, the broken panels have been repaired. The various tradesmen, carpenters, joiners, electricians, workers in brass, in iron and in wood, and specialist cleaners, have done a fine job of work. If I may commend them to your Lordships, let me apply to them to-day, in the midst of this splendid and shining tribute to their devoted work and craftsmanship, a phrase that was employed to celebrate Christopher Wren—"Si monumentum requiris, circumspice": "If you seek a memorial look around you." I beg to move.
  Moved to resolve, That this House, on the occasion of its return to its proper Chamber after ten years in temporary occupation of The King's Robing Room, while not unmindful of the devotion with which all who are permanently employed in its own service have, during the exacting times of war and reconstruction, carried on the high traditions which have always attached to that service, desires also, in particular, to place upon record its appreciation of the manner in which this Parliament Chamber has been restored and of the unsparing labours of the officers and employees of the Ministry of Works, whose ingenuity and resource, in circumstances of extreme difficulty, have enabled this House to exercise its Parliamentary functions in the Palace of Westminster, with dignity and comfort and with the minimum interruption, during the perilous years of war and the no less exacting years of rebuilding and repair, and further instructs the Clerk of the Parliaments to convey this expression of its appreciation to the Minister of Works.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  2.53 p.m.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I should like to support wholeheartedly the Resolution which has just been moved with such eloquence by the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor. In doing so, I should like to join with him in saying how deeply we who sit on these Benches regret the absence of the Leader of the House. The noble Viscount, Lord Addison, has the sincere respect and the warm affection of all of us, in whatever part of the House we sit. We wish him an early recovery;

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  for, I feel I may say, your Lordships' House does not seem the same place without him.
  As the Lord Chancellor has already told your Lordships, this is a notable occasion for us all, for to-day, after ten long years, we return to our old home after its temporary occupation by the House of Commons. I do not say that it yet seems quite like home to every one of us. Ten years is a long time in any man's life, and the House of Lords, as the Lord Chancellor has reminded us this after-noon, tends to be rather an elderly body. The noble Lords who sit this afternoon on these Benches are by no means the same as those who sat on them before we moved into the King's Robing Room at the end of 1941. To many of us of the present generation, though the Lord Chancellor, as I understood him, described it as a pleasant desert, it is the Robing Room and not this great Chamber that has at present perhaps the more home-like character. But in time, of course, and indeed very rapidly—for human nature, fortunately, is extremely adaptable—we shall get used to these more magnificent surroundings. We can say at any rate that this is our traditional home, in which the Peers of the Realm have sat, generation after generation, since it was built in the middle of the last century.
  It is clearly appropriate at this moment, when we resume occupation of this Chamber, that we should express our thanks, both to those who have served us so faithfully during our exile and to those who have worked so hard to prepare this House for our occupation and to restore it to its pristine splendour. I do not suppose that this House has ever looked so magnificent since it left the hands of Sir Charles Barry and Mr. Pugin. It is certainly an immense achievement on the part of the officials and the craftsmen of the Ministry of Works that they should have removed the stains of time without in any way impairing the traditional atmosphere of the Chamber. We owe them our warm thanks for the care with which they have carried out their work. They have made it possible for your Lordships to come back into what is probably to-day the finest legislative Chamber in the world—a Chamber which will, no doubt, contribute greatly to the dignity of our future proceedings. I should also
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  like to take the opportunity of thanking the officers and servants of the House who cared so well for us while we sat in the Robing Room. We must recognise that in a great many ways it was not so convenient for them; indeed, no doubt it raised serious problems. But there was never, so far as I know, a hitch or difficulty of any kind. Even in the most arduous days of the war our business continued smoothly and without interruption, in defiance of all the malice of our enemies. We owe to those who have achieved this result our wholehearted gratitude, and I am happy to have the opportunity of expressing it to-day.
  2.58 p.m.
  VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, we are all greatly distressed at the absence through illness of the Leader of the House, the noble Viscount, Lord Addison, particularly on an occasion such as this, our return to our old Chamber, under conditions which he himself has done much to promote, and after some years of careful attention and planning in which he took an active part. We can sincerely say that there is no other member of the House who could adequately replace him as Leader, and we hope that his absence will be brief.
  We return to a House which is effulgent with the splendour of its earliest days, just over one hundred years ago. But as we come back to it, we notice two advantages that have followed this restoration. One is that this Chamber, which was designed to accommodate, and which did in fact accommodate, a membership of over 300, was in the old days a somewhat formidable Chamber in which to speak, with an attendance seldom more than eighty or a hundred, and often only forty or fifty. Those of us who took part in those debates often felt that we were addressing a vast desert, and that we were "a voice, crying in the wilderness." But now the Ministry of Works, very cleverly, have given us what might be described as an elastic Chamber. For occasions of ceremony the seating capacity of over 300 is to be completely restored, quite easily and at little expense, while for the ordinary work of the House the seating is to be as we see it to-day—accommodating a number of about 200.
  The second charge to our advantage is the installation of microphones and amplifiers—very considerate to the elderly members, whose voices are less resonant

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  and whose ears are less acute than those of the younger members of your Lordships' House. We all share the regrets which have been expressed at leaving the cosy Chamber, with its intimate atmosphere, in which we have been meeting for the last ten years. The larger the legislative Chamber, the more rhetoric will be heard, and the smaller it is the more chance for quiet reason. So, in the Robing Room, while perhaps we have had less oratory than we have been accustomed to, we may have had better argument. But certainly that Chamber was cramped. It was lacking in dignity, and the upright, hard Benches were uncomfortable during the long debates and, in fact, caused much insomnia. That defect, however, has been put right again here.
  After all, the dignity of the Parliamentary Chamber is not a matter of small importance. The State should be stately if it is to command respect and is to maintain its authority; and especially is that important in a democracy such as we have in this country. The return to this Chamber will help the House of Lords to fulfil its distinctive function in the Constitution. It cannot and does not wish to rival the House of Commons, deriving, as that Chamber does, and constantly renewing, its authority from the nation. As a consequence, the House of Commons is, and will remain, the principal seat of power. Yet it is the province of the House of Lords, together with the Throne—which is here, physically and symbolically, in our midst—to maintain the customs, traditions and ceremonies springing from a thousand years of history, and so help to maintain the authority of Parliament in the nation and its leadership in the Commonwealth.
  The Motion which is before your Lordships is an occasion for reflections such as these, but its direct purpose is to express the appreciation of the House for the services of the Ministry of Works, and also for the services of its officials and servants. During the war, the duty of attendance through all the air attacks remained with the Officers of the House. As the Lord Chancellor has mentioned, it is well known that arrangements had been made and worked out in much detail for the removal of Parliament, if the position here became untenable, to a remote part of the country. But the members of both Houses were unanimously
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  opposed to that action being taken, except in case of absolute necessity. Your Lordships will remember that we went to Church House nearby because that afforded some overhead cover which was lacking here, but both Houses were still in Westminster. Those of your Lordships who had been accustomed to attend the debates regularly, unless they were called by war duty elsewhere, continued their attendance with the same regularity; and it was the same with the House of Commons. So Parliament was able, in both Houses, with its full complement of members, officers and servants, to remain fully functioning, uninterruptedly, all through the war, here in its accustomed place at the heart of the Commonwealth.
  3.5 p.m.
  THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I wish to associate myself and those who sit on this Bench with all that has been said by the previous speakers, both with regard to the absence of the Leader of the House—to whom I, like all your Lordships, am indebted for constant kindness and much wisdom—and also with what has been said directly relevant to the Motion before us. All I would do is to add one or two very brief footnotes. First, as we think of the care bestowed upon the transfer of this House from here to the Robing Room, I would draw your Lordships' attention to one detail which did not escape notice. The Bishops' Bench differs from any other Bench in the House in having an arm at each end. When we got to the Robing Room I was interested to find that the arm was in its proper position—though why the Bishops' Bench alone should have an arm I do not know. But it shows how fallible memory is: I thought that when we left this House there was an arm at the end at which I sit, and not at the other. How-ever, I cannot believe that a mistake has been made, and quite obviously my memory is at fault.
  Secondly, I am glad that the Lord Chancellor referred to the fact that for a brief while your Lordships met in Church House. Indeed, the accommodation there was completely inadequate for the purposes of the House of Lords and the House of Commons, but during the time that both Chambers met in Church House we did our best to make members as comfortable as the conditions permitted. I like to recall that His Majesty

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  the King opened Parliament in that little Chamber, even smaller than the Robing Room; and I remember, not inappropriately in view of the interest of the Church in education, that it was in that Chamber that a large portion of the 1944 Education Act passed through the House of Lords. Church House was built only just before the war, and the great Chamber in the middle of the House having been destroyed by a bomb, I was very glad that we were there to receive both Houses. It is an association of which we shall always be proud.
  Now we return to this great and splendid Chamber. May I especially associate myself with everything which has been said about the intimacy of the Robing Room? I survive from the pre-war days. I became a member of the House of Lords before the war began, and I can remember now precisely my feelings when I made my first rather disjointed remarks here. There were one or two people somewhere about the middle of the House, but at the far end I could see only one other person. There came to my mind then the passage in Sir James Jeans' description of the universe, where he tried to show how immense were the inter-stellar spaces. He said that it was as though there were three wasps buzzing in Waterloo Station, and I thought that inter-stellar space was well represented by three Peers buzzing in the House of Lords. We shall all immensely regret the loss of that intimacy, where every motion, every gesture, every hint was at once appreciated because we were so near together.
  May I tread, perhaps, beyond my province and say that there, when one said prayers, one could occasionally hear one person, or even two people, saying "Amen" at the end of a prayer. It strikes me as very characteristic of England that when there are a number of people assembled for public prayer, none of them thinks it necessary to allow his assent to the prayers to travel beyond his own lips. If I may say so, from the point of view of the person taking the prayers, it is a great loss not to hear any response to "The Lord be with you," and it is an encouragement to hear the "Amen" said at the end of the Prayers. As it is, at present the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor faithfully says, "Amen," but I do
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  not hear any other noble Lord in the Chamber saying it. I venture to hope, humbly craving forgiveness for daring to say such a thing, that our return to this Chamber may be signalised by the resumption of the Act of making the responses aloud.
  Forgiven or not forgiven, perhaps I may be allowed, in conclusion, to endorse what the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, said: that it is right that the House of Lords should be housed in a magnifical chamber. I have recently had the opportunity of visiting Australia and New Zealand, and I found there a passionate devotion to the great traditions of this country, and to the great institutions of Parliamentary life here. I found that that gives one a fresh belief in our own way of life. I was received not merely as the Archbishop of Canterbury but as a member of the House of Lords, and for both reasons was looked upon as a representative of England and the English tradition. This House is symbolical of a method of government which this country has given to the world, and which is the more precious in times when it has to stand against grave threats in many parts of the world.
  3.12 p.m.
  LORD BADELEY: My Lords, I venture to intervene briefly in this debate because of the fact that for many years I had perhaps special opportunities of appreciating the work of what I might call the resident staff—the "family" to which the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor has referred—in the Palace of Westminster. For many centuries there has been associated with the Palace of Westminster a Clerk of the Works, and I, for one, bitterly regret that that title has been supplanted by that of Surveyor. The last holder of the Clerk of the Works office here was, I think, Mr. Wilson. I remember well how highly he regarded his title and the fact that he was a successor of Chaucer, who was the first Clerk of Works appointed by Parliament. I know how he would have regretted the change. He was a man of distinguished learning and character, and his portrait—or, rather, a back view of him—may be seen in the mosaic over the entrance to St. Stephen's Hall. I vividly remember the occasions on which he addressed the club which we established in the Palace of Westminster

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  —a club whose membership consisted of all classes at work in the Palace. He used to say that he wished they would all remember that they were the successors to the "King's men" of olden days, with, behind them, a tradition of great dignity, and, before them, a service of which they could be proud. That that service has continued cannot be doubted.
  I have heard more than one comment on the speed with which this Chamber was prepared for the afternoon Sittings when in the morning it had been the scene of the Opening of Parliament. This quick change was also a feature of the King's Robing Room, and for it the resident staff were again responsible. When the Robing Room was being fitted up for the Sittings of this House the assistance which they gave was, experto crede!, invaluable. Now they have made their very real contribution to the work, the fulfilment of which we have witnessed to-day, of what I may call the resettlement of your Lordships. I apologise to your Lordships far sounding this note from a somewhat personal angle, but I feel now, as I did all through the time I was part of the family here (and I hope that I still am part of it) that the sense of a common purpose is the surest road not only to the happy relations which exist to-day but also to the maintenance in the future of the great traditions of the past.
  On Question, Motion agreed to, nemine dissentiente, and ordered accordingly.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I hope that I may be permitted to make a statement concerning the Business of the House this afternoon. It is proposed that a Statement on Persia should be made here between 3.45 p.m. and 4 o'clock. A similar Statement will be made in another place by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. The Statement in your Lordships' House will be made by my noble friend the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Henderson.

  PICTURES FOR BRITISH EMBASSIES
  3.17 p.m.
  THE EARL OF MUNSTER: 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 can state the respective
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  numbers of pictures sent for display in the official houses of British. Ambassadors in foreign countries from (a) the National Gallery, (6) the Tate Gallery, (c) other public galleries, and (d) private ownership.]
  THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF WORKS (LORD MORRISON): My Lords, the numbers of pictures sent for display in the official houses of British Ambassadors in foreign countries are as follows: from the National Gallery, 6; from the Tate Gallery, 75; from other public galleries and museums, 11; from private ownership, 33; making a total of 125. I must apologise to noble Lords for an error in a supplementary answer given on May 9. The eighty-one pictures mentioned in the reply represent those pictures on loan from the National Galleries under Section 1 (1) (b) of the National Gallery (Overseas Loans) Act, 1935, and do not include those on loan from private owners. I should like to repeat that the Government would be very glad to borrow pictures from private owners for use in Embassies and other Government buildings overseas. A few owners have very generously lent pictures, and this has been of great assistance to the Ministry of Works in furnishing Mission Houses abroad. I should like to add that the reference made, in reply to a question on May 9, to the disappointing results of this appeal was not intended in any way to refer to loans from the public galleries and museums, who have been most generous in their assistance.
  THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for the full and ample reply he has given, but there are two supplementary questions which I should like to ask. First, is it not possible for His Majesty's Government to decide now whether they would be prepared to extend the Act of 1935 to cover the houses of Governors-General? Secondly, is it not a fact that there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of pictures which the British public never see both in the National Gallery and in the Tate Gallery, which could quite easily be sent for display in the houses of British Ambassadors?
  LORD MORRISON: My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot give a very certain answer to the last supplementary question; I have not sufficient knowledge of

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  the pictures in question. I will, however, endeavour to see that a satisfactory reply is sent to the noble Earl. With regard to the noble Earl's first supplementary question, I can inform him that discussions are in contemplation by the interested Departments in regard to the possibility of extending the powers of the national art galleries to lend works of art to British Government buildings overseas. As the noble Earl knows, fresh legislation, though perhaps minor legislation, would be needed, and it is on that subject that discussions are taking place.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for his answer to my noble friend's supplementary question, I should be grateful—and I am sure other noble Lords feel the same—if the answer with regard to the numbers of pictures in the National Gallery, the Tate Gallery and other public galleries which are not shown to the public could be given by way of oral answer in this House, rather than privately to the noble Earl. At the present time, as the noble Earl has said, there is a strong impression in this country that there are large numbers of pictures which are not shown and that, so far from these galleries being generous in their attitude, it has been extremely difficult to extract any pictures at all from them. I am not blaming anybody—indeed, the impression may be incorrect. But I suggest that it would be right that Parliament should know exactly, or as nearly as possible, what pictures there are in public hands which are not at present being shown.
  LORD HARLECH: Arising out of that point, and before the noble Lord's reply, may I urge that it is most undesirable to send to foreign countries inferior examples of British art? Admittedly, we still want on the walls of the National and Tate Galleries the finest of our own national products. They have to compete with foreign products in that sphere. When I was in the Office of Works, a difficulty I experienced was in getting for a place like Paris pictures adequate in quality to justify their hanging in the British Embassy in Paris. Another problem I met in carrying out my work in the
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  Office of Works was the great difficulty of temperature. Pictures sent to the tropics have to be specially selected and prepared, otherwise they are liable to undergo serious deterioration. One must always remember that a very large pro-portion of the pictures in the vaults of the National and Tate Galleries are not pictures bought by the nation, but are pictures bequeathed to the nation by—
  SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Speech! speech!
  LORD HARLECH: Will the noble Lord bear that point in mind in any legislation which he brings forward?
  LORD MORRISON: I will certainly bear in mind what the noble Lord has said. With regard to the supplementary question of the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, perhaps the simplest way would be if the noble Earl, Lord Munster, who has previously taken part in this matter, were to put down a Question to which I would endeavour to give a complete answer.
  LORD WINSTER: Might I ask the noble Lord, Lord Morrison, whether, when he is considering this matter, he will also bear in mind Government houses abroad, as well as the houses of Governors-General, as mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Munster? In Government houses abroad which I have seen, the walls are either completely bare or else are occupied by very indifferent daubs indeed, while at the same time our galleries at home have a great number of pictures which they are unable to exhibit to the public. I ask the noble Lord if he would kindly consider the question of making available from the national collections pictures for the houses of Governors of British Colonies as well as for the houses of Governors-General.
  LORD MORRISON: I can only add to the answers I have already given that, if the discussions which I have mentioned should be successful in getting unanimity of desire in all parts of the House, a small amending Bill could be introduced. No doubt when that amending Bill is presented there will be time to decide upon these points.

  TRAINING OF TERRITORIAL FORCES
  3.25 p.m.
  THE MARQUESS OF READING: 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 what steps are being taken to ascertain from the Territorial Army and Air Force associations their opinion as to the advisability of extending to members of the Territorial Army by Order in Council under the Reserve and Auxiliary Forces (Training) Act, 1951, the advantages already enjoyed by National Service men and Class Z reservists by virtue of the provisions of that Act, now that the associations have had the opportunity to obtain the considered view of units within their areas.]
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH): My Lords, on March 14, 1951, the Secretary of the Council of Territorial and Auxiliary Forces Associations wrote to the chairmen of all associations inviting them to ascertain the views of officers and men on this matter and to forward their views and comments through their representative chairmen. This has now been done and replies have recently been received from all concerned. While there is a division of opinion on the subject, the weight of opinion is overwhelmingly in favour of leaving matters as they stand and relying on the co-operation of employers and others concerned.
  THE EARL OF LIMERICK: My Lords, may I ask whether it can be assumed from the noble Viscount's very informative answer that, if experience during the rest of this year indicates that reconsideration of this subject would be helpful to the Territorial Army, His Majesty's Government will look into it again?
  VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I am quite certain that the War Office would then, as at all times, desire to give the fullest consideration to any representations made by those who act so generously and voluntarily on behalf of the associations.

  COURTS-MARTIAL (APPEALS) BILL
  3.27 p.m.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I rise to move that this Bill be now read a Second time. As your Lordships know, this Bill establishes a Courts-Martial Appeal Court. It gives to a person convicted by a court-martial the right of appeal to that Court against his conviction. In my time, I have had considerable experience of courts-martial. I believe—and I think I should be confirmed in that belief by those who have had experience—that they have been a very fair method of deciding cases coming to court. I think that the justice which is administered by courts-martial compares fairly with the justice which is administered by judges and juries in civil life. In any system of justice administered by humans who are fallible, there may be mistakes, but I believe it right to say that the existing system of courts-martial has on the whole, reduced those inevitable mistakes to the minimum. On the other hand, although I believe that to be the fact, I am bound to say that, although justice has been done, I am not so sure that justice has always seemed to be done. Perhaps it was that in the old days the distinguished official known as the Judge Advocate-General combined in his name the word "judge" and the word "advocate," and people used to imagine, without stopping to think very much that the man responsible for the prosecution was also the judge deciding whether what was being done was being properly done—regardless of the fact, of course, that the Judge Advocate-General in those old days presided over two departments which he kept entirely separate—the department dealing with the prosecution and the department dealing with the review.
  Of course, the court-martial system differed from the ordinary civil system in that, though there always was a review—and a review conducted by competent and careful people—yet it was not a review of the type which brought the convicted person into touch with his judges. There was not the open airing in court. There was not what has once been happily described as the "bound and rebound of argument" between the

  877
  judge and the counsel hearing the case. It was done behind the man's back. We all know—at least, I think we do—that if you give a decision, however right your decision may be, without giving the man convicted a right to come and argue his case, he is likely to be dissatisfied, whereas you might easily satisfy him if you gave him a chance to come and talk about it.
  Certainly I believe there has been a very considerable feeling that we ought to do something to reproduce for our soldiers (and, after all, to-day our soldiers are civilians) the benefits and privileges which the ordinary citizens of this country have won—and when I say "soldiers" I include, of course, sailors and airmen, as well. So it came about that although there had been two Committees appointed, one presided over by the late Lord Darling and one by Mr. Justice Oliver, after this last war considerable agitation arose for something on these lines to be done. Indeed, it was that fact which led us to appoint a Committee presided over by the late Mr. Justice Lewis, and then, as that did not deal with the Navy, to appoint another Committee presided over by Mr. Justice Pilcher. Subsequently, in order to work out the scheme which those two Committees had produced, there came into being what I think is commonly called a working party of officials. The result is that the scheme which is embodied in this Bill is one which I believe has the assent and co-operation of all the Services, which alone is a remarkable achievement.
  My Lords, may I just describe briefly what is the existing practice in the Army and Air Force? When a man is found guilty by court-martial, the proceedings are considered, and the findings and sentence are confirmed, or not confirmed (as the case may be), by the confirming officer. Then, if the findings and sentence are confirmed, the proceedings are reviewed by the Judge Advocate-General, whose function it is to see that the trial was in all respects fair and satisfactory. If he finds that there has been a miscarriage of justice, he advises the Secretary of State, or the Commander-in-Chief, that the proceedings should be either wholly or partially set aside. I want to stress that this is an automatic review; it does not depend upon whether a person has, or has not, petitioned. But
  878
  finally, of course, the person convicted by court-martial may submit a petition which may result in either quashing the conviction, or in commutation, mitigation or remission of the sentence. The Lewis Committee recommended that there should be substituted for the present system of confirmation and review by the Judge Advocate-General, a right of appeal for the soldier or airman on questions of law alone, and that the appeal should be against the findings of the court, and not against sentence. We have not followed the Committee's recommendation to do away with the system of confirmation and review, because we regard this as a swift and valuable procedure for detecting injustice; and, moreover, we consider that the retention of this system is desirable as a filter, because those cases in which the Judge Advocate-General advises quashing the conviction will not proceed further, and that will help to prevent the Appeal Court being encumbered with cases which should not have come before it. So under the Bill the appeal to this Appeal Court is in addition to, and not in substitution for, the present machinery.
  My Lords, Clause 1 of this Bill pro-vides for a Court, consisting of the Lord Chief Justice and the puisne judges of the High Court, Scottish judges nominated by the Lord Justice General, Northern Ireland judges nominated by the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, and such other persons as the Lord Chancellor may appoint who appear to him to be specially qualified. The Court which the Bill proposes will be comparable with the Court of Criminal Appeal but will also have the advantage of having Scottish and Northern Ireland judges and other specially qualified persons.
  Clauses 3 and 4 are very important clauses. The Bill allows an appeal against conviction only, and not against sentence. It does not limit the appeal to questions of law as suggested by the Lewis Committee. If a person has been sentenced to death and he desires to appeal against his conviction, application for leave to appeal must, in the first place, be made to the Court. In the case of a conviction not involving sentence of death, the convicted person cannot exercise his right of appeal until he has first presented a petition to the Admiralty or the Secretary of State praying that the conviction be quashed. He must either

  879
  be told that the petition has not been granted or he must wait until the expiration of a period prescribed by Rules of Court; then only may he appeal to the Court. The object of not allowing the convicted person to go to the Court in the first place, unless he has been sentenced to death, is to provide another filter which we believe will prevent the Court from being burdened with a certain number of cases which could be dealt with justly and expeditiously by the exercise of the prerogative powers. An important practical feature of Clauses 3 and 4 is that a person who wishes to present a petition or lodge a notice of application for leave to appeal and who is serving overseas may present his petition or lodge his notice locally in accordance with Rules of Court.
  In passing, I will just refer to Clause 27. Your Lordships will be aware that the Royal prerogative powers in court-martial cases are of two kinds. There is the prerogative of mercy, which enables the sentence to be commuted, mitigated or remitted, and there is the prerogative power to quash a conviction. The prerogative of mercy will not be affected by this Bill, but the prerogative power to quash will be curtailed from the time when an application for leave to appeal to the Court against conviction is received by Registrar. That is an essential part of the structure of the Bill, and your Lordships will appreciate how that provision is linked with the provisions of Clauses 3 and 4. Clause 7 allows an appeal from the Court-Martial Appeal Court to the House of Lords upon a certificate being given by the Attorney-General. In this respect the Bill follows the Criminal Appeal Act of 1907. Clause 9 allows an appellant, if he wishes, to present his case in writing, instead of presenting it orally. I may observe here that Clause 11 provides that an appellant shall not be entitled to be present before the Court except where he is given leave, or the Rules of Court give him the right. Your Lordships will, of course, appreciate that it would be quite impracticable to give Service men an absolute right to be present in all cases, because that would often require their repatriation or removal from a theatre of war.
  The intention is that appellants who have previously had legal aid provided by the Service authorities shall continue to
  880
  have legal aid so provided. There may, however, be cases in which, for one reason or another, an appellant has no legal assistance, and Clause 10 enables the Court to give him such assistance. The purpose of Clause 14 is to ensure that a man who has been sentenced to death shall not be executed until he has had an opportunity of appealing to the Court and, if necessary, to the House of Lords. There is, however, an important proviso to sub-section (1) of this clause, which is based upon a recommendation of the Lewis Committee. This allows the authority confirming a sentence imposed by Army or Air Force court-martial to certify in appropriate cases that it is essential, in the interests of discipline and for the purpose of securing the safety of the force with which the person sentenced to death is at present serving, that the sentence shall be carried out forthwith. That, of course, is a most exceptional case.
  My Lords, a number of clauses in this Bill are modelled on provisions in the Criminal Appeal Act. Amongst them is Clause 21, which enables the powers of the Court to be exercised by a single Judge in granting leave to appeal, extending the period within which an application for leave to appeal may be made, and in a number of other cases. The only other clause in Part I to which I need refer is Clause 26, which provides that a person who, at the time of his conviction by a naval court-martial, was borne on the books of a ship of the Royal Australian or Royal New Zealand Navy which was not at that time placed at the disposal of the Admiralty shall not have a right of appeal. Were it not for this clause, the Bill would confer a right of appeal on such people. That would clearly be most inappropriate, and it would be highly inconvenient to have such appeals coming to a court which will normally sit in London.
  With regard to Part II, its main purpose is to give statutory effect to the complete independence in the discharge of their judicial functions already enjoyed by the Judge Advocate of the Fleet and by the Judge Advocate-General and his staff of judicial officers. In accordance with the recommendations of the Lewis Committee, the Judge Advocate-General's office was reconstituted in 1948. His judicial Department was then put under the Lord Chancellor. The responsibility for the Judge Advocate of the

  881
  Fleet was thereafter also transferred to the Lord Chancellor. Clause 30 provides for the appointment of both permanent and temporary judicial staff in the Judge Advocate-General's Office. The remaining clauses of the Bill prescribe the qualifications of the Judge Advocate-General and his staff, provide for their tenure of office—which is similar to that of the county court judges—and make provision for their salaries and pensions, which I trust will ensure—because this is fundamental to the scheme—that we can secure the services of lawyers of skill and experience who will inspire confidence in the minds of the public and in the minds of those serving in the Forces.
  Some doubt has been expressed as to whether the scheme laid down by the Bill will work in war time. I do not believe that anyone can give an absolutely certain answer to that question at the present time, but we shall learn by experience. I think it will depend, first, on the adequacy of the staff of the Judge Advocate General and, secondly, on communications. I myself hope and believe, as do those who advise me—and they have given much thought to this matter—that this scheme will be found to be workable in war time. But any man who positively asserts what will happen in contingencies such as that is extremely unwise. If it is found that the scheme which we are now laying down is not workable in war time it will be for the Parliament of that day to make whatever alterations are necessary. I would point out that we are not altering the existing review system which, as I have already said, has stood us in good stead in the past; we are superimposing upon it the appeal system, which I hope and believe will be found sufficiently adaptable to work in time of war. I trust that before there is any question of war we shall have a certain number of years in which we may find out how the scheme works, and I do not doubt that in those years we shall find where the shoe pinches and where we may have to make some alterations and some modifications.
  My Lords, that is the scheme. In these times, when so many of our men and women serve with the Forces, there is a special reason for giving to those in uniform rights which will certainly be no less than those enjoyed by civilians. I think that there is therefore a real reason to
  882
  welcome this Bill, and I hope that it will make an important contribution to the development of our legal system. The Bill does interfere with the Royal Prerogative at various stages, and I must therefore tell your Lordships that I have it in command to acquaint the House that His Majesty the King, having been in-formed of the purport of this Bill, is prepared to place the Prerogative of the Crown, so far as it is affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor)

  PERSIAN OIL DISPUTE
  3.45 p.m.
  THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (LORD HINDER-SON): My Lords, with the permission of the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, per-haps it may be convenient if I take this opportunity of making a Statement on Persia. This Statement is being made by the Foreign Secretary in another place. It is as follows:
  "In my Statement in the House on May 1, I explained the background of the dispute which had arisen between the Persian Government and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, and His Majesty's Government's attitude towards it. The following is a summary of the main developments which have taken place since then.
  "On May 2 I sent a personal mess-age to the Persian Prime (Minister asking his Government to refrain from unilateral action against the oil company and again suggesting that we should negotiate a solution. Dr. Musaddiq's reply, delivered to me on May 8, contained no response to my suggestion of negotiations and amounted to a reaffirmation of his intention to execute the Persian nationalisation laws.
  "The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company then asked the Persian Government to adopt the arbitration procedure provided for in the Concession Agreement of 1933, and nominated the company's arbitrator, Lord Radcliffe.

  883
  "On May 19, His Majesty's Ambassador at Teheran left with the Persian Government an Aide-Mémoire which has been published in the Press. Briefly, it set out again our view of the legal position, reserved our right to take the case to the International Court if the Persian Government rejected the company's request for arbitration, reiterated our hope that the problem could be solved by negotiation, and offered to send a Mission to Teheran for that purpose.
  "The Persian Government have not yet replied to this Aide-Mémoire. On the other hand, on May 20 the Persian Ministry of Finance wrote to the company's manager at Teheran rejecting the company's request for arbitration, claiming that the nationalisation of the Persian petroleum industry was not referable to arbitration and that no inter-national authority had competence to deal with the matter. The letter went on to invite the company to nominate representatives to meet the Oil Committee 'to arrange the execution of the nationalisation laws.' On May 24 the Ministry of Finance sent the manager a further letter, in terms which amounted to an ultimatum, giving the company until May 30 to send representatives to meet the Oil Committee, failing which the Persian Government would themselves proceed to execute the laws.
  "In the light of these two communications, His Majesty's Government felt obliged to institute proceedings in the International Court of Justice at the Hague, and did so on May 26. In their application they asked the Court to decide that the Persian Government were under a legal obligation to submit their dispute with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company to arbitration, or, alternatively, to decide that the Persian Government were not entitled to alter the Concession Agreement, even by legislation, except by agreement with the company. A copy of the application is being placed in the Library, and summaries of it have already appeared in the Press. I therefore do not think I need refer further to it now.
  "At the same time the company, still following the procedure laid down in the 1933 Agreement, has asked the President of the Hague Court to nomi-
  884
  nate a sole arbitrator, since the Persian Government have refused to appoint an arbitrator. The company has also in-formed the Persian Minister of Finance that, as a measure of respect to the Persian Government, its representative will, as requested, meet the Oil Committee but will be able only to listen to what the Committee have to say and report it to the company's head office.
  "So much for recent developments. His Majesty's Government are still anxious to see this dispute settled by negotiation; and their offer to send a special Mission, if that would help, still stands. Moreover, as His Majesty's Ambassador in Teheran has informed the Persian Government, while His Majesty's Government cannot accept the right of the Persian Government to repudiate contracts, they are prepared to consider a settlement which would involve some form of nationalisation, provided (a qualification to which they attach importance) it were satisfactory in other respects. Their difficulty has been, and still is, that the Persian Government have hitherto not seen fit to respond in any way to their repeated suggestions of negotiation, but on the contrary have indicated merely their intention to proceed unilaterally. His Majesty's Government could not accept such a procedure, and they believe that their attitude in this matter is generally recognised and understood. In particular, they have noted with satisfaction that the United States Government have spoken publicly against the unilateral cancellation of contractual relationships and actions of a confiscatory nature. His Majesty's Government earnestly hope that wiser counsels, taking full account of the dangerous potentialities of the present situation, will prevail in Teheran, and that negotiations can be initiated in an atmosphere of reason and good will."
  3.52 p.m.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for the full statement that he has made on behalf of His Majesty's Government. This is clearly an inflammable situation, and no one, in any part of the House, would wish to say anything which would make it more so. This afternoon, I would, if I may, and with real deference, emphasise the importance not

  885
  merely of our doing nothing that is actually weak in defence of our just cause, but of doing nothing which gives the impression of being weak. That impression, I think, would be dangerous indeed, and not in the interests of peace. As I see it, the point is not whether or not at some proper time Persia should nationalise her oil industry. The point is whether Persia has any justification for repudiating a financial Agreement to which she was a willing party. I believe that in no circumstances should we accept that assumption. From the Statement we have just heard—and I should like to give it more study before saying anything very definite—I am a little afraid that the Government's Statement of their actions and their opinions is not sufficiently forthright in this respect. That is the impression I have gained, and that is the danger that I beg them to guard against. In the meantime, I suggest to His Majesty's Government that it would be helpful to Parliament and to the nation if they could produce a White Paper, giving not only the Agreement itself but all the recent Notes and communications which they have had with the Persian Government, in order that we may be able to form our own opinion on the events that have taken place.
  LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, the noble Marquess will not expect me to give an undertaking at this moment about the publication of a White Paper, but I will certainly raise with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State the suggestion that he has made.

  COURTS-MARTIAL (APPEALS) BILL
  3.55 p.m.
  Debate on Second Reading resumed.
  THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, I do not propose to take up the time of your Lordships' House by arguing the case for the establishment of a court of appeal from courts-martial. It seems to me, whatever may have been the decision of other Committees in different times and in other conditions, that in the state of affairs which exists at the moment the claim for the establishment for some court of this kind is unanswerable. Apart from all other matters of concern, to-day it is not merely a question of a man joining the Forces as a volunteer and
  886
  possibly accepting as part of the conditions of his service the application of a somewhat different system of law. To-day at least a large number of those in the Forces are there under the element of compulsion, and are therefore entitled to be treated as ready as possible on the same lines as their civilian counterparts.
  I am glad that the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack gave some outline of the proceedings under the present system when a court-martial has delivered its finding and the subsequent stages have to be followed out. I think the opinion is too commonly held that once a court has pronounced its finding, and the sentence has been confirmed or confirmation has been withheld, that is the end of the matter. It is important that the public, as well as the Service men themselves, should realise that there are all these precautionary safeguards which come into operation under the present system. I agree with the view which the Government have taken, that it would be a great mistake to eliminate a process of what the noble and learned Viscount called the automatic review by the Judge Advocate-General's Department—automatic not in any disparaging sense as being either perfunctory or casual, but in the sense that it comes into operation in every case of a court-martial which comes to the Judge Advocate-General for consideration.
  Perhaps it is worth bearing in mind that His Majesty's Government have in this Bill gone a good deal further than the Reports of either of these two Committees in two respects—both as to the composition of the proposed court and as to the scope of its powers. The Lewis Committee were in favour of a court which should have jurisdiction in appeals merely on points of law. The Pilcher Committee, on the other hand, thought jurisdiction should be on points of law and on points of mixed law and fact. But when we come to look at Clause 5 of the Bill, we find that the new Appeal Court shall allow an appeal
  "if they think that the finding of the court-martial is unreasonable or cannot be supported having regard to the evidence or involves a wrong decision of a question of law or that, on any ground, there was a miscarriage of justice…."
  That goes a good deal further than either of the respective recommendations, and

  887
  although I am not suggesting that it is wrong to go further—for, after all, the point of a court of appeal is that, so far as possible, it should be able to remove any chance of a miscarriage of justice—at the same time it seems to me that this enlargement of scope is likely to add to the volume of cases which may come to this court when it is established.
  As to the composition of the Court, I think it is plain from their Reports that both the Lewis and the Pilcher Committees hankered after referring these cases to the Court of Criminal Appeal as such, but they came to the conclusion that that would impose a well-nigh insupportable burden on that Court. Therefore, they suggested alternatives. In the case of the Lewis Report the Committee suggested a special court, consisting of what they chose to call the Chief Judge Martial—a title which, fortunately, we continue to know as the Judge Advocate-General—and certain of his deputies. The Pilcher Report recommended a court consisting of three King's Counsel chosen from a panel approved by the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor. The objection to the Lewis Committee's Report seems to me to be twofold: first, it puts the Judge Advocate-General and his staff in a dual capacity in which there might well appear to be a conflict of interest; secondly, it is a departmental court, and from that point of view is likely, however unjustly, not to obtain the full confidence of the Service men whose cases would come before it.
  What the Government have chosen to do is to constitute a sort of parallel to the Court of Criminal Appeal, with a wider basis of selection, and, subject to the safeguards in the Bill of the obtaining of leave to appeal, to refer proper cases for argument to that court. One great advantage of a court of this kind is that argument before it will take place in the open—just as the great disadvantage of the existing system is that the whole procedure is gone through in an atmosphere of secrecy, and nobody knows what considerations are taken into account, or what arguments influence those who have to come to a decision. Here there will at least be a public hearing, and that in itself is an immeasurable step forward. Certainly the court which is now proposed is one of a considerably more exalted status than was suggested in
  888
  either of the two Reports. But if I may make this one reservation, the very fact that it will be a court of a more exalted status seems to me to contain possibilities of difficulty of practical application. I accept what the noble and learned Viscount said about the unwisdom of making any definite pronouncement in advance, but at the same time I think it would be wrong to silence one's own apprehension whether this court will be able adequately to discharge the functions imposed upon it at two crucial moments.
  The first, I would suggest, might well come when the court is first introduced, when it will be a novelty and there will be a great desire to take advantage of it. The second, and more formidable one, would come, as the noble and learned Viscount indicated, in the unhappy possibility of actual warfare. In war time it is not the experience that what I may call civilian crime is apt to disappear. Blackouts, shortage of police forces and shortages of goods of various kinds all encourage a considerable outbreak of crime; and, moreover, in the civilian courts emergency legislation of different kinds brings up a number of problems which His Majesty's Judges have to consider; and, after all, it must not be for-gotten that those who staff the Court of Criminal Appeal are the same people who carry on the work of civilian courts from day to day. At one peak period of the last war, between September 1, 1944, and August 31, 1945, there were over 55,000 courts-martial in the three Services. Let me assume—a not very extravagant estimate—that 2 per cent. of those courts-martial find their way to this new court of criminal appeal. There you have this court burdened with something over 1,000 cases with which to deal. What that would involve in the matter of what I may call, not disrespectfully, "Judge hours," is a consideration which it is not easy to decide upon in advance; but it must cause us considerable uneasiness as to the practicability of the scheme at a time when the need for it will be greatest.
  It is said that in the last war the number of petitions was relatively small, and it is argued from that assumption that the number of appeals, or potential appeals, would equally be small. I believe that to be a false argument for this reason. I think it contains this psychological error: that procedure by petition

  889
  is a somewhat mysterious, unfamiliar and abstruse method to most people in the Services, and they would probably hesitate to embark upon so novel an enterprise. But everybody is familiar with the workings of the Court of Criminal Appeal; everybody reads in the Press of the arguments put before them, and decisions given by them. A procedure parallel to that of the normal Court of Criminal Appeal would, I think, lead a great many more people to make every endeavour to have their case carried beyond confirmation, and beyond the normal petition, to the stage at which this Court could be reached. It may be said, as the noble and learned Viscount said: "Well, we must see what comes out of this. No one can foretell. We must wait and see, and if necessary we will make some change." But one would like to see, if it is possible, not a new system which in the view of a good many people would necessarily have to be subjected to change in time of war, but one which was capable of fulfilling all the foreseeable requirements in war time, which I am afraid this scheme, in the opinion of a good many people, may not be capable of doing. With that reservation, and with possibly a certain number of minor proposals by way of amendment which we will raise on the Committee stage, we are in entire agreement with the general thesis of the Bill and wish it well upon its progress.
  4.9 p.m.
  LORD GODDARD: My Lords, as, if this Bill passes, it will at present fall to me to be the President of the Court and responsible for its working, I hope that that is a sufficient excuse for my offering some observations on the Bill. If I asked your Lordships to reject it, as I should like to do, no doubt mine would be "a voice crying in the wilderness." But I cannot help suspecting that there are many among your Lordships, or some, at any rate, who have asked yourselves whether this Bill is really necessary. If the Bill had provided for a radical change in the Judge Advocate-General's office, so that all matters of prosecution or preparation of prosecutions were removed from it, and there could no longer be any misunderstanding as to that department, in its capacity as prosecutor, providing a Judge-Advocate at the trial and then being the department to review the findings, I
  890
  think that would have been a wise change and one very much welcomed.
  But this Bill does not provide for that at all. Except for some departmental changes made in the second Part of the Bill, into which I need not go, its main object is to set up a Court of Appeal. As the Lord Chancellor has reminded the House, three Committees have sat upon this matter so far as the Army is concerned, and Mr. Justice Pilcher's Committee considered the matter for the Navy. The Committee presided over by Mr. Justice Darling in 1919 reported against any Appeal Court, and stated that, in their opinion, the safeguards against injustice afforded to the soldier by the existing system were at least equal to those afforded to civilians. Mr. Justice Oliver's Committee, as recently as 1938, reported most firmly against any Court of Appeal. When that Committee were sitting, by sending round to all the different Commands and also by means of advertisement, they invited anyone who had reason to complain of the justice of a court-martial or its findings to communicate with them under conditions of guaranteed secrecy. In the twenty years 1917 to 1937 exactly seventeen cases were sent to the Committee and the learned chairman—he was not on the Bench in those days—himself investigated every one of those cases. As he stated in his Report, he came to the conclusion that in not one of them was there any ground for suggesting that there had been any miscarriage of justice at all. The third Report is that of Mr. Justice Lewis's Committee in 1946, and the only reason which was given for differing from the Oliver Committee on the necessity for this Appeal Court was the fact that there was now National Service. Well, my Lords, I confess that if the existing system was sufficient to ensure justice to the voluntarily enlisted soldier, I cannot see why it should not ensure justice to the National Service man. If it has been good enough in the past. I think it ought to be good enough in the future—no doubt with certain changes which may be made with regard to the system of revision and so forth.
  What I think gave a good deal of impetus to the demand for this new Court was the fact that one or two cases have lately received a great deal of publicity in the Press. One cannot help feeling

  891
  that the stir which has been created is to a great extent owing to the ineptitude of the War Office in the handling of the courts. Certain courts-martial are held abroad—whether in Korea or in Hamburg—and a small paragraph appears in the Press, sent perhaps by the Associated Press of America or one of our own news agencies, stating that Private So-and-So has been charged with murder or man-slaughter, as the case may be, and that the defence is that he shot because his orders were to shoot to kill. That is all. Thereupon an agitation at once arises, leading articles are written to say how monstrous this state of affairs is when a poor young soldier, taught to kill, has shot and killed. Not one word is given to the public with regard to the prosecution's evidence and what case was made against the man.
  In a recent case—especially as a very distinguished lawyer wrote to The Times on the subject—I tried my best to find out what the prosecution evidence had been and what the facts were. I could not find them, and I wrote to the writer of the letter to The Times and asked him if he knew what the evidence for the prosecution was and if he had been able to find out. He told me that he had not. It seemed to me, therefore, that there was at least as much danger of doing injustice to the officers who formed the court-martial, and who were being attacked, as there was to the prisoner. The comments and criticisms which have been made upon officers forming the courts-martial may, for all I know, be justified, or they may be wholly unjustified. The prisoner may be a most unfortunate man or he may be a most guilty man. At any rate, we have never had an opportunity of seeing the evidence which might have been published so that the public could form an opinion upon the matter. I was told that the evidence could not be published as the case was sub judice, because the review had not gone through. That is a preposterous reason. You can publish as much evidence as you like while the case is going on. If the court were held in England the Press would be there and would report every word. I believe that a great deal of the present demand for the setting up of this court is due to the way in which the War Office have handled these courts-martial which have
  892
  taken place abroad, and the way in which they have refrained from giving the public any knowledge whatever of the facts relating to the charge.
  As I have said, Mr. Justice Lewis's Committee recommended an appeal. They recommended the setting up of an entirely new court, not to be manned by judges but to have a lawyer presiding over it and to have as members other persons to be decided upon later. But they expressively refrained from recommending that the Court of Criminal Appeal should be the Court of Appeal. It is not only on the ground of the extra work which may be put upon the court that I think that this is an unfortunate proposal. In point of fact, what has happened is that the sections of the Criminal Appeal Act have been lifted bodily and put into this Bill. However it may be disguised, in effect the Court which has to work this Bill is the Court of Criminal Appeal. The only difference is that, instead of three judges of the King's Bench Division sitting, one judge will be enough, and he may be an English, a Scots or a Northern Irish Judge of the High Court.
  This puts me personally into a very difficult position. I do not know—especially as it is provided that except if the Lord Chief Justice otherwise directs the court shall sit in London—what part it is thought that the Scottish judges or the Northern Ireland judges are to play. There is no indication. Suppose a Scottish soldier is the appellant: am I to send to the Lord President and ask him to send down a Scottish judge from Edinburgh to London? If a soldier belonging to the Royal Ulster Rifles is appealing, am I to send the court over to Northern Ireland to sit? I really do not know. I hope that some guidance will be given to me as to what part the Scottish and Northern Ireland judges are to play in this court.
  Another matter which I think is not without interest is this. If your Lordships refer to page 2 of the Bill, you will find that the other persons who can be judges of the court are
  " such other persons as the Lord Chancellor may appoint, being persons appearing to him to be specially qualified for appointment as judges of the Court."
  My noble and learned friend on the Woolsack will, of course, understand that I am perfectly confident that, just as all

  893
  his other judicial appointments have been above criticism, so he would see that only properly qualified persons were appointed. But who is it who are to be appointed? The Bill does not say whether they are to be lawyers or soldiers. If this Court is to be constituted in that way, I personally should rather welcome soldiers, because that would give it an appearance, at any rate, of being in part a military court. The one main objection I have to this proposal is that for the first time in our history civil courts and military courts are to be concerned with military law. Hitherto, civilian courts have never had anything to do with military courts, or with military law, except to see that no one not subject to military law appeared in a military court. If a military court attempted to deal with anybody not subject to military law, of course the High Court would interfere on an Habeas Corpus or prohibition or other appropriate writ. But in this case the partly civilian court will be acting as a court of appeal upon military law, and I cannot think that that is a desirable state of affairs.
  I should say that if there is to be an appeal it should be to some such court as was envisaged by Mr. Justice Lewis's Committee—a court which I think was meant to be a military court. If it were to be a civilian court, I should have thought that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council would be the prefer-able body to which to send the cases. They advise His Majesty in the matter of quashing a conviction. But, as it is, in effect the work of this court will fall largely upon the judges of the Court of Criminal Appeal—who already have enough to do; and if judges are dealing with these cases it is inevitable that a body of case law will begin to be built up; and some enterprising firm of law publishers will proceed to publish a series of "Courts of Criminal Appeal Cases." I do not envy the baffled brigadier who is doing his best in a case when he is told that in the case of Jones the Lord Chief Justice said one thing, a second member of the court did not agree and the third member said he agreed with the Lord Chief Justice but for entirely different reasons. When these matters come up in civilian courts we know how to deal with them, but I am not sure that it will be fair if they go
  894
  before military courts. And, as I say, I am sure that if the judges have to decide these cases there will grow up a large body of case law.
  There is another point that seems to me to be overlooked in this matter. The number of cases that will be likely to come before the court is anybody's guess. I am not afraid of that—we shall have to do it, and I have no doubt that we can make arrangements. But it seems to me that a great deal of time is going to be occupied before a case comes before us. I am told that it was hoped that there would be very few appeals, because leave must be obtained from the court. What is the proceeding? First, there is the court-martial and then there is the appeal. Then there is the confirmation. Then the convicted soldier puts in a petition, and that has to be considered. Finally the application has to be made to the Court. It seems to be thought that an application is a very small proceeding. I do not know whether the draftsmen of these Bills have ever seen the work which judges of the Court of Criminal Appeal have to do every week-end. When I am in London no week-end passes in which I do not have to read a pile of papers in connection with about twenty-five cases of application for leave to appeal. That is where the difficulty comes in. If leave to appeal is given by the court, it is generally because the court can see that the conviction will have to be quashed. We have to consider these applications for ourselves, because counsel are not given to applicants merely for this purpose; if they were the cost would be enormous. And many of these applications for leave to appeal are frivolous. Men say that counsel—who have been paid at the public expense—advise them to plead guilty when they are not, or else that the jury have found them guilty but ought not to have done. It is the rarest thing for the Court of Criminal Appeal to quash a conviction on the ground of fact, because the Court has always declined, from its earliest days, to substitute itself for the jury. The Court does not see the wit-nesses, and cannot, therefore, assess their truthfulness, and so forth. The jury is a constitutional tribunal, and so is the court-martial. The real reason for quashing a conviction is that there has been misdirection in some way. In all my experience in the Court of Criminal Appeal,

  895
  there have been only two cases in which I was a party to quashing a conviction because I was convinced the man was innocent.
  I am satisfied that the safeguards of confirmation and review are great. I think it would be a good thing if the department which had to do the reviewing were entirely divorced from the department which had anything to do with the prosecution. And I have no doubt it would be a good thing if the decision of the reviewing authority could be communicated in some formal manner to the accused. But I think that in the majority of cases that will come before this Court they will decide without the "bound and rebound" of argument which has been referred to. On Monday mornings generally, at any rate, there are no counsel at all in these cases. An applicant can instruct counsel if he likes, but the Court does not give counsel on application for leave to appeal, though if it does give leave to appeal then counsel are always provided. The Court have read the cases and simply announce in court brief reasons why they give or refuse leave to appeal.
  It is very much, therefore, like a review, except that we give our reasons for refusing. If the present system of review were maintained with that alteration—that the prisoner is to be told why the Court do not accede to his petition—I believe that most of the dissatisfaction would disappear. This Bill puts a great many extra duties upon the judges and upon the Lord Chief Justice. I regret to find that it does not make any provision for extra remuneration, although it makes provision for extra work. However, if the Bill goes through, your Lordships may be sure that I and my brother judges will do our best to work the Bill; but I do not pre-tend that I approach it without a great deal of misgiving.
  4.32 p.m.
  LORD WINSTER: My Lords, the rather strong statements made about court-martial procedure apply in the Navy, too. I should like to say with what great satisfaction I listened to the speech of the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack. I am sure that speech will go far to remove many of the doubts about court-martial procedure which exist in the Navy to-day. As the noble and learned Viscount has said, it is necessary not only
  896
  that justice should be done but that justice should appear to be done. There is no need to convince the noble and learned Viscount on that point, but there are certain cases I could discuss with him. There was one case which I have very much in mind, where a certain department of the Admiralty behaved in a most shocking manner. However, I feel that while in future cases of injustice will occasionally occur, this Bill will remove a great grievance, in that justice has not always appeared to be done. In future enlisted men will feel confident that, subject to the demands of discipline to which all enlisted people must, of course, be subject, every effort has been made to approximate their position before a court-martial as closely as possible to the position of their civilian brethren before civilian courts. That, I feel, is the essential point in this Bill. Surely we should not delay in bringing the military system of law as closely as possible into relation with the civilian law, of which we are so justly proud. A great endeavour is now needed in the Services to reduce as far as possible the differences between the enlisted man and his civilian brother.
  This is a great step forward. Every endeavour should be made and is going to be made to reduce any differences of the kind I have mentioned. Many of the points which have been raised to-day are points which will have to be threshed out in Committee. A great deal of discussion will then take place upon various matters relating to the mechanism of this Bill. In particular, I noticed what the noble and learned Viscount said about the state of affairs when war prevails. Of course, it is difficult to forecast what will happen then. While the noble Marquess. Lord Reading, expressed doubts, and gave weighty reasons for his doubts, as to whether the provisions of this Bill would be found to be workable under the stress and strain of war conditions, I feel sure that he would not feel it was wrong to proceed with the Bill because it is not possible to foresee what will occur in un-foreseeable circumstances. I think I am right in saying that there is a Latin adage that says that during a state of war laws are silent. I do not think that can be said nowadays. But as regards the manner in which this Bill will work in a state of war, I think we have to find out what difficulties may occur. I am sure that, with the ingenuity of our lawyers

  897
  and of our legal system, we shall not find that those difficulties are incapable of solution, and that we shall be able to discover a way of making the provisions of this Bill work, even during the upset and confusion of war.
  I should like briefly to repeat with what great satisfaction I listened to the speech of the noble and learned Viscount in introducing the Bill. If I may say so, it hit the nail so exactly on the head that I can only wish that all enlisted men in the Navy could read it. I am sure that they would then realise what a great effort this Government have made to approximate their position before the law to that of their civilian brothers. I feel sure that that would give them immense satisfaction. I believe that this Bill will remove what has been a source of great discussion, possibly of grievance, in the Navy in the past: that justice has not always appeared to be done. Now that the effort is being made it may well be that not only will they receive justice, but that the great grievance of having no Court of Appeal will at last be removed.
  4.39 p.m.
  THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, after the penetrating and authoritative statement of opinion by the Lord Chief Justice, I hesitate to raise one small point. but it is one on which I should be grateful for the opinion of the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor. This Bill probably gives to the Appeal Court a jurisdiction in criminal affairs wider—I mean "wider" territorially—than any which has ever been given to any other court that the world has ever known, because appeals may arise to this court from any part of the world in which British troops happen, for any reason whatsoever, to be stationed. I think it is normal in criminal procedure of any sort to endeavour to bring the trial of a crime, whatever the form of that trial, as nearly as possible to the place where the offence is alleged to have been committed. It occurs to me, therefore, that there are two points particularly (there may be many others) which arise from this consideration. The first concerns the contact between the accused and his counsel or solicitor. I notice that the Bill says that the court may appoint counsel, apparently without first appointing a solicitor. It is at least unusual for counsel to act without solicitors' instructions, and there may be some special point which has made that
  898
  necessary. It is important that any accused man should be satisfied with the manner the appeal is conducted. Unless it is quite clear that he is represented adequately, or has confidence in those who are presenting his case, one of the major features of this Bill will lose its point. That is one aspect which occurs to me.
  Another is that, under Clause 8, this Court, as I understand it, has all the powers of an ordinary High Court—that is to say, it has the power to demand documents and witnesses. Equally, it has power to commit anybody who does not comply with that request. But it occurs to me that in some parts of the world where that might become necessary it would be very difficult for this Court to enforce its demand. For instance, it would be unusual for the writ of the Lord Chief Justice to run to Scotland, though I do not say that that would be impossible. I suggest that it would be easier for the working of this Court, when action of that character was necessary, that in each case it should be taken through the High Court in the area concerned without in any way restricting the power of the Court as such; that normally a committal or any action arising from contempt of court or other factors of the same character should be carried out by the local High Court. I suggest that simply be-cause I think that it is in the interests of the Court that it should in no way arouse offence in any part of the areas where it may be concerned to operate. Those areas are so wide that it appears to me possible that unless this is carefully observed something may arise which will adversely affect the reputation of this Court.
  4.43 p.m.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, perhaps I may reply quite briefly. I am grateful for the observations your Lordships have made and for the general welcome which this Bill has received. I think I must except the Lord Chief Justice, who feels very considerable misgivings about the Bill, but I hope that experience will show that he is wrong. I recall that years ago, when I was quite a young man at Bar, the late Sir Harry Poland, who then, I suppose, had a greater knowledge and experience than anyone else in this country of the criminal law, felt great misgiving at the setting up of the Court of Criminal Appeal. He thought the scheme would

  899
  not work at all, that it would take away the sense of responsibility of juries and judges; and he wrote to that effect. Thanks to the way in which the Court of Criminal Appeal tackled its work, that fear, which might otherwise have been a real thing, was dissipated, and no one can have any doubt at all that the work of the Court of Criminal Appeal has made a great contribution to the satisfactory nature of the law in this country. I hope that in a similar way by its practice, this court will show that it can deal with injustices or threatened injustices without in any way destroying or mitigating the sense of responsibility of the courts-martial. I should like to say that we have quite deliberately linked this court with the Court of Criminal Appeal be-cause we want the same sort of practice and the same sort of traditions to prevail in this court as now prevail in the Court of Criminal Appeal.
  With regard to the difficulty about Scottish or Northern Ireland judges, that provision was put in at their express request—and, after all. why not? A large number of His Majesty's soldiers are Scotsmen or Northern Irishmen, and there is nothing so peculiar about military law as makes it in any way unseemly or improper that they should be tried before a Scottish judge or a Northern Irish judge. As to the way in which the Chief Justice will work this provision, we can, of course, discuss on Committee stage what, if any, Amendments are needed: but for the rest, so far as the Lord Chancellor of the day is concerned, if he can help the Lord Chief Justice of the day I am sure he will be ready and willing to do so. It is obviously essential that we should not allow the Scotsmen to feel any sense of in-justice, or that they too were not bearing their full share of responsibility for the working and administration of this Court. What I have said about Scotland applies equally, of course, to Northern Ireland.
  When the Lord Chief Justice spoke, I think he forgot for a moment that since 1948 the Judge Advocate-General's Department has been reconstituted. The Judge Advocate-General is now responsible to the Lord Chancellor, and is in no way now concerned with the prosecution, which is the function of the various Army and Air Force Departments. If I may say so. I do not think that the agitation for this Court is as
  900
  recent as the noble and learned Lord seems to think. There were two recent cases, of which your Lordships are aware, which gave rise to a good deal of agitation; but it was in 1946 that we set up the Lewis Committee. Quite frankly, we set up the Lewis Committee only after very considerable pressure, and I am not ashamed to admit that I was one of the people who had to be pressed. Suitable pressure was applied to me, and I therefore assented to this Committee being set up. I think that the real grievance was that the man who was convicted perhaps thought that he was wrongly convicted, and resented the fact that, whereas a civilian had the right to go before his court and had the right to hear what was said, and to argue and try to influence the judges, the Service man did not have that right. Service men felt that that was unjust. My Lords, I think there was substance in that matter, and I think we were right to accede to this request, although, as I have already said, I do not by any means think that courts-martial were not courts which administered very satisfactory justice.
  I will certainly look into and bear in mind the points raised by Lord Selkirk. I think he will agree that they are rather in the nature of Committee points, and I should like to give them further consideration. I was very grateful to the noble Marquess, Lord Reading. He has considerable experience and knowledge of this matter, and we shall welcome any suggestions that he may make when we reach the Committee stage, to see whether we can improve this Bill still further. It is the fact, as those of your Lordships who have read the debate in the other House know, that all Parties played a large part in this Bill. This Bill is not to be regarded in any sense as a product of one particular Party. All Parties have made their contribution and, indeed, can claim that this Bill is a House of Commons Bill. Lord Winster made a most interesting speech. I am grateful to him for what he said, and I shall rely upon his co-operation to see that this Bill goes through satisfactorily. My Lords, I am grateful to all your Lordships who have taken part in the debate.
  On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

  CO-PARTNERSHIP SCHEMES IN THE GAS INDUSTRY
  4.50 p.m.
  VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD rose to move to resolve, That this House deeply regrets that owing to the nationalisation of the gas industry the co-partnership scheme which has operated in the South Metropolitan Gas Company with great success for upwards of sixty years has come to an end. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I have ventured to bring before the House the matter referred to in my Motion because, though it may seem at first sight to be only of local interest, it raises a question of industrial policy of vital importance. It may well be that our future national and international position will depend more upon our industrial policy than on any other issue. The facts of the actual question are simple, and I am able to place them clearly and indisputably before your Lordships, because they have been set out briefly in an article published in a magazine called "Segas," which is the organ of the South Eastern Gas Board.
  As your Lordships know, when nationalisation of the gas industry was decided on, all the existing gas undertakings were transferred to these gas boards, which were set up in districts all over the country. Among them was established the London South-Eastern Gas Board, comprising, among other districts, that which used to be supplied by the South Metropolitan Gas Company. This is, or was, a company with a remarkable history. Some sixty years ago, in the 1880's, it was torn with violent industrial disputes, culminating in a strike which, as I can remember, caused considerable anxiety. Mr. George Livesey, who I think was the Chairman in 1886, proposed as a remedy for this state of things a system of profit sharing which would give the workmen, in addition to their wages, a share in the profits of the business. After some controversy, that proposal was accepted in 1889, and on that basis a regular structure of co-partnership was built up. Since that time—that is, for the last sixty years—the relations between employers and employed have been excellent.
  The system which has existed is thus described in the article I have mentioned:
  "In many cases employees became shareholders in the undertaking for which they
  902
  worked; co-partnership committees functioning for joint consultation provided machinery for the discussion of mutual interests of employees and employers; welfare and pension schemes were initiated and extended, and. special attention was given to improvement in the conditions in employment generally and to the safety and health of the employees."
  Two points should be added to this account. In the first place, under general gas legislation for London, there could be no increase in the profits distributed to shareholders in the undertaking unless at the same time the price of gas was lowered; so that consumers were, in some degree, sleeping partners in the business. Further, by special Statutes promoted by the company, the board of nine directors consisted of six members representing shareholders, two elected by the workmen and one similarly representing the clerks. I draw special attention to this recognition not only of the interests but also of the responsibility of all concerned. That is, in my view, the most important point on which co-partnership differs from nationalisation. Nationalisation gives to the worker no real voice in the management or control of the business. Essentially, all it does is to substitute the tax-payers for the shareholders, and a body of officials appointed by the Cabinet for the directors, of whom, as I have said, in this company, two-thirds used to be chosen by those who had put their money into the concern, together with one-third freely elected by the workers.
  Let me complete the account of the position as given by the "Segas" article. This is what the Gas Board very honestly and properly say:
  "The broad principles of co-partnership and its ideas were adopted by a large number of gas undertakings, and it is true to say that the foundation thus laid was the basis for the good labour relations which have played such an important part in the progress and prosperity of the gas industry."
  That is a very handsome testimony to the system which has now been destroyed by what I must call the doctrinaire policy of the Government. It is right to add that the Government seem to have felt some compunction for what they have done or were doing. It has been arranged that the co-partners shall receive, as an addition to their wages, for fifteen years an annual sum equivalent to the bonus paid to them in the last year of the co-partnership scheme. That may be some monetary satisfaction to the persons concerned, but, as I think, it does not touch

  903
  the real evil of the change. The main value, I repeat, of co-partnership is not that it increases wages but that it gives to the wage earners a direct, personal interest in the undertaking. They cease to be mere human machines, and become instead sentient and intelligent beings, working for a common public purpose of great national importance, and receiving tangible proof of the success of their efforts.
  An incident which occurred at the beginning of the First World War will illustrate my meaning. One of the early economic effects of that war was to in-crease the cost of living. This, of course, diminished the real value of the wages earned. Accordingly, soon after the beginning of the war, a notice was posted in the works saying that as from the next pay day wages would be increased by a stated sum. Upon this, the wage earners represented to the management that they doubted whether the business could stand such an increase, and suggested that the alteration should be postponed for a time—which was done. I do not know in the least whether or not this was right, but this postponement surely shows that the wage earners in this undertaking recognised their responsibility for the management of the works, and were pre-pared to do their part for its success.
  It is the same with another palliative which has been offered to the workers. The article I have quoted says that matters concerning safety, health, welfare and employees' privileges will continue to be discussed by joint committees which will be established as part of the negotiating and consultative machinery of the Gas Act. That is good, so far as it goes, but it does not go very far. It means that there will be some consultative committee appointed by the Gas Board for the whole district who will be entitled to make suggestions applicable to certain matters. That is a very different thing, from giving the right to the actual workers in an undertaking not only to elect one-third of the members of the board of management but also to have representatives sitting on the committees dealing with all the conditions of employment, including, if necessary, any disputes as to wages. It is the difference between a voluntary personal organisation and a committee of officials selected, I suppose, by a Department of the Government.
  904
  The article I have quoted refers to the "good labour relations" that have hitherto existed as a consequence of the co-partnership which prevailed in the gas industry, as your Lordships have already heard. The essence of such relations is their personal quality. The moment they become part of an official machine their merit is largely destroyed. In any case, the fact is indisputable that from 1889 to March, 1951, there was no serious dispute between employers and employed in the South Metropolitan Gas Company.
  Why, then, has co-partnership been superseded? No doubt it is partly due to what I venture to describe as the doctrinaire adoption of the principle of nationalisation, largely in consequence of the theoretical views of men like Marx and Lenin and their followers. They regarded all industry, and indeed all society, as a battle between employers and employed, in which the triumph of the latter, the dictatorship of the proletariat, was essential. I do not believe that that is a viewpoint which will commend itself to English opinion. We have had many industrial controversies, but so far we have largely succeeded in avoiding class bitterness, and I hope we always shall. Fights settle nothing. It has well been said that "Force is no remedy," and particularly is it pernicious in questions of social reform. We hear too much now of the value of group loyalty, of Party interests and even of the more magnificent esprit de corps. Loyalty to your friends and even to your class may be a good thing, but it should have one constant limitation: it must never go so far as to destroy or injure individual responsibility. That is the proudest possession of man. It distinguishes the free man from the slave. If a man once begins to say to himself, "I am asked here to do something of which I disapprove, but as it is requested by my group, or my class, or my trade, I shall do it," whatever else may be right, that decision is almost invariably wrong.
  That leads me to make another observation. In this "Segas" article, and in some of the observations made by Ministers, there are constant references to "the appropriate organisation of the employees" or some similar phrase. That, I gather, means the trade union. Everyone recognises the value of the work done by the trade unions in strictly industrial matters. The unions were necessary

  905
  in order to enable employees and employers to meet on equal terms, but they have now become something much more than that. They are a part, and a very important part, of the political organisation of the Labour Party. Many of their members hold office in the present Government, and it is not too much to say that no Labour Government could exist without the support of the trade unions. That may seem all right to trade union officials, but is it fair to the ordinary worker if he is not to be recognised except as a member of the union? Does it not mean this: that the worker has no appeal against the action of the Administration which is this employer except through an organisation which is part of that Administration? Is that perhaps the reason for the number of what are called "unofficial" strikes—that is to say, strikes not approved by the trade union con-cerned—which have recently occurred? It is much to be feared that the trade union as an industrial organisation of the workers will disappear. To my mind that means a great danger to our liberty. In this country we have, on the whole, been very successful in combining liberty with authority; but we have done it by carefully limiting the scope of government. By the nationalisation of great commercial industries we are increasing the power of the Government and inevitably reducing the status of those who work in them. The true line of progress is the making of all who work in each industry personally interested in, and responsible, for its success. Liberty, equality and fraternity, by all means; but it must be real liberty, real equality and real fraternity. That is the meaning of my Resolution, which I now beg to move.
  Moved to resolve, That this House deeply regrets that owing to the nationalisation of the gas industry the co-partnership scheme which has operated in the South Metropolitan Gas Company with great success for upwards of sixty years has come to an end.—(Viscount Cecil of Chelwood.)
  5.8 p.m.
  LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I am sure we have all listened with great interest to the speech which the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil of Chelwood, has just delivered to us on this matter. As
  906
  one who was present throughout the discussions on the Gas Bill and who well remembers the strenuous efforts which the noble Viscount made to safeguard the position of these co-partnership schemes, and particularly those in the South London area to which he has referred this afternoon, I have listened with a great deal of sympathy to what he has said in repeating the core of his previous argument. The latter part of his speech raised topics of great interest and importance which go a good deal beyond the limits of his Motion. While I have no doubt they would furnish sufficient material for a most interesting debate, in which we on this side would be happy to cross swords with him, I hope he will forgive me for not following him this afternoon into that area of exploration.
  I think the noble Viscount, no doubt unintentionally, has been, in a sense, a little misleading. From his speech one might have gained the impression that the conditions he has described as existing in the two companies which operated on the south side of the Thames were characteristic of the gas industry over the whole country. That, of course, is not so. There were profit-sharing schemes in a substantial number of gas concerns, notably in the largest of them all—the Gas Light and Coke Company—but the two South London concerns, the South Metropolitan and the South Suburban, were the only two in which there was co-partnership in the sense which the noble Viscount has been adumbrating this afternoon—the sense that the workers were entitled to nominate a certain proportion of the directors. I think that was unique to those two companies, and it was not at all true over the gas industry as a whole that there was co-partnership of that kind.
  The noble Viscount pressed the Government hard throughout the Committee stage of the Gas Bill, and indeed he tabled a number of Amendments, with the object of securing a continuance of the schemes which had been operating in South London, and, as we all admit, operating with great success. But, if he will forgive me for saying so, his proposals were not realistic. I remember very well the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, who is far from being a supporter of the Government, in two exceedingly trenchant and able speeches completely

  907
  exposing the unworkable character of the Amendments moved by the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil. I remember the noble Marquess who leads the Opposition being very much impressed with Lord Ridley's observations on the point, and, I believe, more or less agreeing that it was not possible in a nationalised gas industry to carry forward this type of scheme, however successful it might work in two comparatively small concerns operating in a restricted area and with a comparatively small number of employees.
  The fact of the matter is that on the socialisation of the gas industry it became quite impossible to carry on schemes of this sort in the way that they had operated in the past. The Motion moved by the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, asking the House to regret this fact, is, I suggest, rather like asking us to regret the passing of the Elizabethan Age. That was a very great age in our history, but time marches on, and it is a thing of the past. In a modern set-up of the gas industry, such as has been carried through by Parliament in the Gas Act, 1948, it is just not feasible to have a scheme of the sort which was working with success in those two companies.
  VISCOUNT SWINTON: Does the noble Lord really say that when this matter was being discussed in Committee the Government said that any form of co-partnership in the sense of profit sharing was impossible? I was in charge of the Opposition on that Bill, and that is not what was said. On the contrary, as I recollect it, while not accepting the Amendment, the Government said that they would do their best to see that suit-able analogous schemes were made to work in the individual Area Boards where they were appropriate.
  LORD CHORLEY: The noble Viscount could not have been listening to what I was saying with his usual care. I was saying that schemes of the kind which were operating in these two companies on the south side of the Thames could not be carried forward. The noble Viscount will remember that in the Act it is provided that profit sharing schemes shall be continued for a period to be fixed by regulation issued by the Minister, in order that problems of that kind may be considered. As I understand it, the
  908
  Minister did, in fact, by regulation fix a period of two years in order that those who were engaged in the industry might have discussions, in which all the people who were interested might take part, and in which a scheme could be worked out. The noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, has in fact referred to the scheme, and no doubt my noble friend Lord Macdonald, who is to reply for the Government, will be able to give us a great deal more information about it than I have at my disposal. But, as I understand it, the scheme on the pro-fit sharing side has been agreed in the industry. I have taken some trouble to make inquiries about this matter from those who have been closely concerned with it, not only during these recent negotiations, but for many years past, and my information is that the scheme has given the greatest satisfaction to the workpeople engaged in the industry, and has been very well received. That scheme is that the bonus during the fifteen years in which those workmen who were engaged in the industry before the vesting date will continue to receive a bonus, shall be based on the profit sharing in the last full year before the industry became nationalised. That seems to be a sensible and workable scheme on the profit sharing side, and, as I say, my information is that it has given the greatest satisfaction to those engaged in the industry.
  The other question—and this was an aspect of the matter which the noble Viscount pressed particularly, and certainly many noble Lords on these Benches and I myself have the greatest sympathy with him—is that there should be as much participation as possible in the general control of the industry on the part of the workmen who are engaged therein. As the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, pointed out in his speech on the Committee stage of the Gas Bill, it is not possible to provide for that sort of participation in a nationalised industry on the lines which had been workable in the South Metropolitan and the South Suburban Gas Companies.
  During the two years to which I have referred parallel negotiations have been going on as to the best method of setting up consultative machinery of the kind which, as your Lordships will remember, is called for under the terms of the Act. My information is—and here again I have taken some pains to try and discover what has been going on—that throughout this

  909
  period careful and amicable discussions have been taking place, and at the present time they have come nearly to fruition. I understand that a model constitution has been drawn up—certainly is in the process of being drawn up—for the appointment of joint works committees. These joint works committees will come into existence at each of the individual works. If I may say so, the weakness of the old scheme was that over the whole area of the South Suburban and South Metropolitan Gas Companies there was just the one election of the directors—of these two operative workmen directors and the one clerical director—in effect a centralised system, which is certainly not my idea of democracy. Under the modern constitution which will be brought into force, as I understand it, there will be a joint works committee at each individual works, so that large numbers of workpeople who in the past were able to take only a very indirect participation in management by means of once in a substantial period of time casting a vote for their representative on the board of directors, will, now be able to participate much more directly and closely in all the various matters which are brought before them in these joint works committees. That shows that in actual fact we shall be getting much nearer to what the noble Viscount himself wants: that is to say, to a real grass-roots, democratic participation in the industry, greater than ever existed in the past. In those circumstances, I hope that the noble Viscount will agree that under the Gas Act, 1948, we shall in a short space of time be well on the way to obtaining what he himself wants, and a much better state of affairs than that which existed under the old dispensation, which, after all, was confined to only a small section of the gas industry in this country.
  5.20 p.m.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, in spite of what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, I should like very strongly to support the Resolution which has been moved by my noble relative, Lord Cecil. The noble Lord, Lord Chorley, in the remarks he has just delivered to the House, implied that Lord Cecil's speech went widely beyond the Motion. I do not accept that. I should have thought that it would have been much fairer to say that the latter part of
  910
  Lord Cecil's speech provided the back-ground to the Motion—and an essential background, because he made it clear that the implications of this subject went far beyond the mere question of the South Metropolitan Gas Company. I frankly believe that, when history comes to be written, from the widest point of view it will be thought that one of the most deplorable acts of this Government was their bringing to an end these co-partner-ship schemes in the gas industry when they nationalised that industry. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, I would say that I certainly have no recollection that I accepted the Government view on the Gas Bill. I know that there were difficulties about this question—
  LORD CHORLEY: Will the noble Marquess forgive my interrupting? I was not saying that he accepted the Government's view: I said that he had been much impressed by Lord Ridley's analysis of the situation in which he showed the unrealism of the noble Viscount's suggestions.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Throughout those debates I continued to press for the retention of these co-partnerships schemes. I regard the Government action, in the form in which it was taken, both as retrograde and as showing up the illogical use—to use no stronger word—of their whole political position. From speeches of members of the Labour Party which I have read, and to which I have listened, I always understood that one of the main purposes for which that Party exists is what they call "to raise the status of the workmen." There used to be talk, in a characteristically extreme phrase, of "wage slaves" under the capitalist system, and I always under-stood that when a Socialist Government came into power that situation was to be brought to an end. In the particular firms of the gas industry, however, it had already been brought to an end. Those who lent their labour to the gas industry had in fact become co-partners with those who lent their money—just what I have always understood the Labour Party would wish.
  This scheme of co-partnership referred to in the Resolution, was, as the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, told your Lordships, introduced over sixty years ago, and was a model for other undertakings of the same

  911
  character. The noble Viscount has described the character of that scheme, and I do not want to traverse again ground which he has covered much more thoroughly. I do not pretend that the particular schemes which were adopted by the gas industry would necessarily be applicable to every kind of industrial undertaking. As we know, conditions vary between one industry and another, and even possibly between one firm and another. But what I do say is that in the gas industry the schemes adopted had already proved themselves inescapably to be an outstanding success. They were popular with the management; they were popular with the men; they led to a vastly improved industrial relationship and to the virtual elimination of strikes while they were in operation. The management and the men worked happily together as members of one body, as they should do.
  And what of the merely financial results of these co-partnerships schemes in the gas industry, from the point of view of the industry itself? I should like to quote some figures which I have of the position on December 31, 1946—a very few years before nationalisation took place—and I should say that the figures come from the records of the co-partnership nationalisation committee. These figures, I believe your Lordships will agree, supplement and confirm what Lord Cecil has already said. In 1946, the stock held by the employees in the concerns in question amounted to £3,100,756 and some odd shillings. In addition, these employees held on deposit on co-partnership accounts, £1,376,244. Finally, they had invested in the gas undertakings, in respect of pensions, superannuation, guaranteed schemes, and so on, £4,689,080. That makes a grand total of £9,166,000. Those are very impressive, I might almost say tremendous, figures. In the light of figures such as that, and in the light of the happy industrial relations which existed in that industry, why was it necessary to bring to an end so admirable an evolution of capitalism? I should have thought, if I may say so with all deference, that there could not be a more blatant example of the hollowness of Labour professions that they will raise the status of the worker. Indeed, I must honestly say that I am becoming more
  912
  and more bewildered as to what the Labour Party really do stand for.
  I had always understood that they stood for Socialism, which I have taken to mean the taking over by the State of all the means of production, distribution and exchange. That has been expounded with force and eloquence on many Labour platforms in the country. But now, I gather, from a letter in The Times on May 25, from a Mr. Oram—who is the research officer of the Co-operative Party, which is affiliated to the Labour Party—that that is not the case. He says, with reference to an earlier letter from another correspondent, that this correspondent confuses Socialism with Statism. I do not pretend to understand the exact meaning of that rather repellent mongrel word "Statism," which I am afraid is new to me, but I take it to mean—and no doubt the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, will correct me if I am wrong—the absolute control of nationalised industry by public corporations working under the broad direction of some responsible Minister. That I understood to be the policy of the Labour Party. But now I gather, from two significant sentences towards the end of Mr. Oram's letter, that this is no longer the case. After saying quite definitely that Socialism and Statism are not synonymous he goes on to say—and, I will quote his exact words:
  "… everywhere "
  and I ask your Lordships to note that word—
  "the necessary supervision and control … by Parliament and the central Government should be supplemented by a steadily increasing participation in management by the vocational organisation of all grades of workers concerned "
  That statement, I submit, has a very direct bearing on the Resolution of my noble relative, Lord Cecil, for it is the exact purpose of these co-partnership schemes in the gas industry which the Government has arbitrarily swept away.
  Mr. Oram, if I may continue my reference to him, ends his letter with a yet more pregnant remark, for he says:
  "Perhaps what we need is not so much ' new thinking' as an enlightened application of ideas which are already on record."
  I commend that very wise thought to His Majesty's Government. Let them give practical application to the ideas which were already applied in these cases. Up to now, so far as the gas industry is concerned at any rate, they have done exactly

  913
  the opposite. I hope that we in this House shall signalise our return to this ancient Chamber by making it clear that some of us, at least, really do care for the status of the working man, of which the Government talk so much. I do not know whether or not Lord Cecil intends to divide on his Resolution—that is a matter for him. But if he does decide to press it to a Division I shall support him; and I hope that others, irrespective of Party, who share his concern will follow him into the Lobby.
  THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR): My Lords, perhaps the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, would like to intervene before I speak.
  5.31 p.m.
  VISCOUNT SAMUEL: I am obliged to the noble Lord. I was hoping that the noble Viscount, Lord Mersey, who has for many years had a special interest in the gas industry, and is so well acquainted with its workings, might have been here to-day to take part in this debate; but since he is not able to be here I should like to say a few words bearing on the merits of the case Someone on these Benches must speak on these matters and reaffirm our very strong belief in the general principle of profit-sharing and co-partnership, which has formed a prominent part of the programme of the Liberal Party for many years now. Indeed, a great deal of progress has been made in this direction, and many successful endeavours have been made in certain industries in the promotion of this movement. They have done much good and have helped to a very marked degree towards harmonious working between labour and capital, or labour and management.
  Not long ago my noble friend Lord Cecil and I had the pleasure of being pre-sent at a luncheon to celebrate the hundredth birthday of Mr. Theodore Taylor, the well-known business man, who is still conducting his business and going every week to it, and has paid visits to the United States and Canada on its be-half. For many years in his prosperous factory in Yorkshire he has pursued with enthusiasm and success the principles of profit-sharing. These, however, are exceptional cases; and the movement has not made any great and striking advance in this country of recent years, because
  914
  neither the employers, as a class, nor the trade unions, from the point of view of labour, have supported it. They have. in some instances, rendered it lip-service, but few employers have carried it into effect, and no trade unions have taken it up with any great enthusiasm. They have made a great mistake there—as they did in the case of family allowances. For many years they refused to support Miss Rathbone and others who had been advocating family allowances, and it was long before they changed their position and the principle of family allowances was carried into law.
  Similarly, there has been opposition among the ranks of the trade unionists to profit sharing. Labour intellectuals and others who look forward to the day when private enterprise in all important industries will disappear are not interested in profit sharing and co-partnership. They seem to feel that there is no need to take the trouble to doctor a horse when it is on its way to the knacker's yard. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, that the profit-sharing and co-partnership schemes in force in the gas industry are inconsistent, because of the fact that nationalised industry requires different methods, and that any and every industry which has a scheme such as that in force in the gas industry would, if nationalised, have to surrender that scheme—possibly taking on a different form—for, in this particular instance, fifteen years. No one knows what will happen at the end of that time.
  LORD CHORLEY: It might be quite possible to have such a bonus scheme, but it could not be worked on the method which was in operation in South London. With regard to management, which is much the more important side of this co-partnership idea, the scheme in South London was really one vast fraud from the point of view of the workers. The workers had three out of nine directors. My view, and the view of many noble Lords on these Benches, is that real participation in the management of industry cannot be obtained in that way but that it is much better obtained by joint consultation committees actually at the works.
  VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: Who is to elect the joint committees?
  LORD CHORLEY: As I understand it, there are to be 50 per cent. workers and 50 per cent. management.
  VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: If it is trade unions and management, not workers and management.
  VISCOUNT SAMUEL: I am grateful to the noble Lord for his full reply to my question whether all similar schemes will have to disappear. In a word, his answer is, Yes, they are to disappear. With regard to nationalised industries, of course no question arises as to the distribution of profits, for usually there are no profits: those industries are principally concerned with how to cover the losses. When you are producing not for profit but for use—to use the old saying—the idea of profit-sharing is out of place, and some different scheme must be put forward. But we must say whether we really believe that there ought to be some form of bonus, some form of participation such as exists in this very successful scheme; and I think the country ought to be clearly told the position.
  We on these Benches believe that industry ought not to allow two antagonistic attitudes to remain and create a precarious balance between them—like the balance of power in international politics. The consequence is that, so far as I am concerned, if there is a Division on this question, subject of course to anything that the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, may say to convert me to his view, my inclination at present (I am always open to reason)—quite apart from the question of the particular gas industry, on which I am not sufficiently informed; I do not know whether the scheme now in force is really equivalent to that which has been abolished—on the general principle raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil of Chelwood, is to support him in the Lobby.
  5.40 p.m.
  LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: My Lords, when I first saw this Motion on the Order Paper, I read it with the utmost care, knowing, as I did then, that I should be asked to reply to this debate. I could not quite make up my mind expressly what the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, was trying to do. I was not quite sure whether it was his dislike of nationalisation or his
  916
  fondness of co-partnership that was be-hind the Motion. I am not yet very sure. During his speech to-day he evinced just as strong a dislike for nationalisation as he did a fondness for co-partnership schemes. But I did find during his speech that his great concern was whether the workers in the gas industry would be as well cared for in the future as they have been during the past sixty years.
  VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: That was not my great concern. My great concern was whether they would be given a share in the direction of the industry.
  LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: I would say that that is saying the same thing in other words.
  VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: No, no.
  LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: Let me put it in the noble Viscount's own words: his concern was whether the status of the worker in the gas industry would be as high as it had been for the last sixty years, and that is the reason he put this Motion on the Order Paper. What the noble Viscount has to remember is this. Very often in previous debates in this House on this question there were many expressions of opinion regarding co-partnership. The co-partnership scheme inside the gas industry is a very limited scheme, especially the profit-sharing side of it.
  Having read those debates in your Lordships' House in 1948, I was pleased to notice that all the noble Lords who took part in them placed profit-sharing very low down in the category of co-partnership. That is an indication that they did not altogether think that a co-partnership scheme need embrace this question of profit-sharing. Even the noble Marquess and my noble friend on the Woolsack were questioned as to what a co-partnership scheme, in good English, really meant. For my own guidance, I thought I had better make sure what the definition of a co-partnership scheme was, so I turned to a dictionary. It seems from the debate I have heard so far that this dictionary definition would be accepted by all your Lordships. Here it is:
  "Co-partnership. Noun"—
  we are all agreed so far. Then there are two alternative definitions. The first is:
  "Condition of being associated with another or others in trade or business."

  917
  That was emphasised during the earlier speeches. The second was:
  "System of trading in which the employees of a firm have a share of the profits."
  That is what we are told a co-partnership scheme is. The two basic problems in industry that I have found during my industrial life, both as a worker and as a trade union official, are these: first, how to distribute the proceeds of industry equitably to all engaged in the industry. That is the first basic problem. Quite frankly, speaking for myself alone, I question whether a profit-sharing scheme under a co-partnership scheme does that—whether it is the best way to distribute the proceeds of an industry. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, in 1926 presided over a Commission which dealt with an industry which, for very many years, since I was a boy, has faced this problem of distributing the proceeds of industry. Quite frankly, we never felt (and everyone is entitled to have his own view on this issue) that a profit-sharing scheme was the best way to secure the equitable distribution of the profits of an industry. Whether the noble Marquess and I agree or disagree on this point does not make any difference to the issue before us to-day.
  The other basic problem in industry, we always felt, was how to give the worker a greater share in the management of the industry. He has never had his fair share. And when the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, emphasises in the way he did to-day that he is very much concerned with the status of the worker, let me tell him this: I was employed in an industry for twenty-two years and I never knew that industry under private enterprise to respect the status of the worker. That industry is the coal industry. I agree that the status of the worker is vitally important. But to-day we are discussing this point. An Act of Parliament, which went through this House and received the Royal Assent in 1948, provided certain machinery to decide an issue, that issue being the continuation or otherwise of co-partnership schemes in the gas industry. What did the Minister do? He carried out the instructions given in that Act of Parliament. He asked the Gas Council, along with those representing the workers in the industry, to get together and to decide. The noble Lord, Lord Chorley, was not quite correct in suggesting that those consultations could not have de-
  918
  cided upon a continuation of the profit-sharing scheme. They could have done that; it was within their power to recommend a continuation of the profit-sharing scheme.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: On what basis did these negotiations take place? Were they on a sort of regional basis? I ask that question for this reason: that shortly after the debates in this House I had a letter from the working men under a co-partnership gas scheme. Their scheme was being brought to an end. They said they had had an interview with their local board and they had been told there that the matter was not for the decision of the local board, but was a matter for the decision of the Government. That was directly opposed to an answer which has been given in the House by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, will remember that I took it up with him and we found it quite impossible to sort out. There was a complete conflict of opinion. The men themselves sent me the correspondence which I have here, and they thought they had been given a raw deal, when the Government said it was a matter for regional negotiations, and the regional people said it was a matter for the Government.
  LORD SHEPHERD: Up to a point, I agree with the explanation given by the noble Marquess, but he will remember that when I received the letter from him, I sent it to the Ministry of Fuel and Power.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Yes.
  LORD SHEPHERD: Investigations took place respecting the question involved in the letter, and the noble Marquess will remember that the man who is supposed to have given that opinion indicated that he had expressed no such opinion, and that the matter was one for the board and not for the Government.
  LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: I do not know the private co-partnership scheme referred to—but I do know this: that the Gas Council, in consultation with the trade unions, could, if they so desired, have recommended a continuation of the profit-sharing or co-partnership schemes. They could if they had so desired, but they

  919
  did not. That is the only reason why the co-partnership scheme has been discon-tinued—because those responsible for deciding the future decided against it.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Yes, but who were they who took the final decision?
  LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: Let me repeat: those laid down in the Act of Parliament passed by this House. It is laid down in the Act of Parliament who shall say so—the Gas Council and the trade unions in the industry.
  VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: Yes, that is it: the trade unions.
  LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: Is that not accepted?
  VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: Under the organisation of the Labour Party.
  LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: No, the Act of Parliament laid down the machinery. That machinery has operated. The result of the operation of that machinery is that those responsible for making a decision decided against a co-partnership scheme.
  VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: You should not have passed it.
  LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: I should not worry too much if I could be satisfied that the benefits available under co-partnership to the worker were safeguarded under a new scheme. I should not worry too much. I am sure noble Lords opposite are not worried either. If the benefits safe-guarded by a co-partnership scheme are now safeguarded by a different scheme, I do not see much need to worry.
  Let us just look at the position. It is laid down very clearly. The co-partner-ship scheme referred to in the Resolution makes it quite clear. It had two objects: first, to provide an incentive to the workers, by permitting them to share in the company's prosperity; secondly, to afford them an opportunity of improving themselves and acquiring a stake in the company by the conversion of an annual bonus into shares. There are four special features mentioned in the co-partnership scheme: first, annual bonus; second,
  920
  welfare facilities; third, co-partnership committee; fourth, employee directors. The noble Marquess and his noble kinsman overlooked a rather important thing. Your Lordships were told that for sixty years there had been a very fine feeling in this industry, and that labour relations were exceedingly good. That is true, but let us remember that while the co-partnership scheme applied only to a section of the industry, the good feeling applied to the whole of the industry. Therefore, I think it is rather unwise to emphasise the fact that there has been a good feeling throughout the industry, because it is just as good in the much bigger field outside the field of co-partnership as it is inside; so it is evident that you cannot just ascribe it to co-partnership.
  Now let us see what has been done. First of all let us take the question of consulting with the industry. The Minister of Fuel and Power, in his wisdom, decided that he should give to March 31, 1951, for those consultations—a period of two years. Again I want to emphasise that the Act provided that the two sides should agree upon arrangements which would take the place of, or continue, the existing co-partnership schemes. Such consultations have resulted in a definite alternative scheme being put forward. Let us look at it. All the benefits under a co-partnership scheme are referred to in this agreement. First of all, the co-partnership committees are referred to at great length. In so far as co-partnership committees acted as negotiating bodies on wages and conditions of service, the work will be done, first by the National and Area Joint Industrial Council, and, secondly, by the National and Area Joint Council for Gas Staffs. Your Lordships will be pleased to learn that both these bodies have been set up. One is operating very successfully, and the other will be operating in the near future, we hope just as successfully.
  What was the purpose of these co-partnership committees? Here again their purpose was to promote and encourage measures affecting the safety, health and welfare of persons employed by the boards, and to discuss other matters of mutual interest, including efficiency in the operations of the services of the employees; to ensure the greatest measure of good will and liaison between employers and employees, and to prevent or remove

  921
  causes of friction and misunderstanding. Let me say that under the new scheme to which I have referred, representatives of the employees will be elected exactly as they were to the former co-partnership committees. There is every reason to believe that they will be just as effective in the future as they were in the past. As to the special emoluments of co-partners, here are the words of the agreement:
  "Those aspects of co-partnership which relate to emoluments such as gas and appliances at reduced prices are being dealt with under the negotiating and consultative machinery set up by Section 57 of the Gas Act."
  With regard to the continuation of the bonus let us get on the record exactly what has been agreed. The paragraph in the agreement, is as follows:
  "The right possessed by a co-partner to receive a co-partnership bonus whilst still in the service of the Area Board by whom he is employed as at the date of this arrangement shall be treated as a better Condition of Service. Co-partners as defined in the preceding sentence will receive an annual payment equivalent to the bonus paid in respect of the last completed year before March 31, 1951, for a maximum period of fifteen years. Such payments shall cease as at March 31, 1966, or as at such date as service with the Area Board may terminate."
  The noble Marquess was very anxious to know what happened at the end of the fifteen years. I am sorry that I am not in a position to tell him.
  LORD LLEWELLIN: May I ask the noble Lord what happens now with regard to a new entrant into the industry? He does not get this annual payment.
  LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: I should think, from what I have just read out, that he will not participate. The agreement says:
  "The right possessed by a co-partner to receive a co-partnership bonus whilst still in the service of the Area Board by whom he is employed…."
  I think that rather indicates that it must have been a right enjoyed at the previous date.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The noble Lord has been good enough to refer to me. I think it is clear that this is, as it were, a terminable payment for a period which comes to an end. It is intended to bridge the gap between the old system, where the workers had their
  922
  co-partnership benefits and the new system in which they have not; and to make it easier they pay the sum for fifteen years, but at the end of the fifteen years there is no more.
  LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: That is quite possible. There is one aspect of the co-partnership scheme to which reference has been made, and to which I should like to refer briefly—namely, the participation of the worker in management. The noble Viscount, Lord Cecil stressed that here was a gas company which allowed three workmen directors out of twelve.
  VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: Three out of nine.
  LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: I have the figure as being twelve, but I will accept it as being three out of nine. Does that enable the worker to take part in management? I prefer that the worker should take part in management very much lower down the scale. I do not mind there being three to try to keep the other six in order, but they will find it very difficult. I would not use the strong terms used by my noble friend Lord Chorley, but some of us who have been engaged in industry have from time to time felt that this was an attempt to continue an economic system which we found unacceptable. We felt that co-partnership schemes were an attempt to prolong the life of capitalism in its rawest form, improving it bit by bit in order to remove the resentment of the worker. That has been our feeling. But remember that some of us are speaking from rather bitter experience. After all, memory does count in these things.
  What is happening now? First, these committees which are now being set up all over the country will be taken into consultation right at the bottom. That was not done under the co-partnership schemes. It was rather on the bigger, higher, plane that consultation took place. I have had experience of the coal industry. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, from his examinations concerning pit committees (and I think the noble Viscount. Lord Swinton, has some knowledge of this matter, too), knows that pit committees operated in the coal industry before nationalisation. I myself, when I was Regional Commissioner for the North West Region, had a pit committee at every pit. The same type of machinery is now

  923
  being set up in the gas industry. From there you get to your area committee, and then to your national committee. We feel that, while that may not be an entirely ideal form of workers' participation in management, any advantage that accrued from the participation in management under co-partnership is safeguarded under the new scheme.
  Let me say here that only to-day I was informed—and this is rather an important matter—that the arrangements are well advanced for setting up workers' committees in accordance with the Gas Act. The Government and the industry, of course, can operate only in accordance with the Gas Act. I think your Lordships should know that whereas there was only one co-partnership committee for the whole of the South Metropolitan Gas Company, there will, under the new arrangement, be one committee for each gas works and separate committees for men working on distribution districts. This will probably mean more than a dozen committees in place of the one formerly existing. The result, we believe, -will be more intimate and detailed provision for joint consultation than there was under the old set-up. I believe that the new set-up, given a fair chance, will work just as well as the old set-up has worked, and I think that the worker in the industry will be just as well off.
  There is, of course, no hope of securing agreement, in this House or outside this House, on the question of whether co-partnership affords the best means of distributing profits of an industry. Differences which exist on this issue have persisted down the years. Only last night I spent a little time re-reading a book of essays and addresses which was published away back in 1928. The title of the book is The Way of Peace, and the author is none other than the noble Viscount who moved this Resolution to-day, Lord Cecil of Chelwood. This book is pervaded with a genuine, sincere conviction that co-operation and co-partnership is the only hope industrially, nationally and internationally. I notice that in the first of two essays, under the title "Conservatism and Peace," written twenty-seven years ago, in 1924, the noble author turns to industrial co-operation. It is here that the noble Viscount deals with the different attitude of various people towards
  924
  co-partnership. Here are the words which he used then—I quote:
  "Indeed, it is my own belief that wherever co-partnership has been given a fair chance it has succeeded. The difficulty is not that it fails when it is tried, but that it is not tried. Militant trade unionists distrust it because it is thought to weaken the solidarity of labour. Socialists dislike it as bolstering up capitalism. Some employers disapprove of it as a new-fangled and troublesome arrangement. Others will have none of it because if may diminish their autocratic power in their own works."
  That was the position as outlined by the noble Viscount in 1924, and that, I submit, is still the position to-day. Those differences exist to-day. Therefore, we need not expect to find agreement that co-partnership schemes are the best form of industrial arrangement for the workers in industry.
  There is one other sentence—and only one—from The Way of Peace which I should like to quote. It is this:
  "The very essence of co-partnership is good will on both sides."
  What I want to stress here is this. Whether we like it or not, the agreement which has brought about the present position in the gas industry, and has put an end to co-partnership schemes, is the result of full and free discussion on the part of those whose future and whose welfare are more closely associated with this industry than are ours. They made this decision. It was they who decided that they preferred the new machinery to the old machinery. We are asked to accept their decision. I ask your Lordships to keep that important fact in mind. It was their decision. The noble Viscount, Lord Cecil of Chelwood, has been one of my heroes in the Conservative Party. There are not many in that Party who are my heroes, but he has been one. I have watched his career very carefully, and I have been much interested in it. Since the end of the First World War, no man in any Party has done more than he has to try to secure the right spirit, not only in industry but among nations. I ask him to-day to consider very carefully whether he thinks it wise to force this Resolution to a Division. Surely there is no need to place it on record by means of a Division that a majority in your Lordships' House is in favour of co-partnership schemes. That would be known without a Division.

  925
  I ask the noble Viscount to consider this matter very carefully. As the noble Marquess said, it is a matter for the noble Viscount personally to decide. This industry of which we have been speaking has had a great past, and the noble Viscount has done his share. Is it not better and wiser, since this decision has been reached, that this House should not by means of a Division intimate to those who came to the agreement that the House of Lords disagrees with them? My wish is that in the future this industry should be just as great a success as it has been in the past. A majority of your Lordships dislike nationalisation. But however much we may differ on this Resolution, I ask your Lordships not to take a decision by vote that will show those who have worked for two years trying to find an arrangement to give the new scheme a good send-off that you disagree with the decision of those now responsible for the future of the gas industry. I think it would be far wiser if the House did not divide. However, that is a matter which is entirely in the hands of your Lordships.
  6.6 p.m.
  VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, referred earlier to what took place when the Gas Bill was going through this House, and as I was particularly concerned in that, I think your Lordships before you take a decision should be reminded of what in fact occurred. I have now consulted Hansard, and, having been able to look up the debates, I am bound to say that I think the noble Lord's memory was slightly at fault on both matters. There are here, are there not, two issues, or two aspects of the same issue. One is profit-sharing, and the other is the share of the worker in the management of the industry—not only in the management low down, as the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, frankly said he likes to see it (as we all do), but also above.
  LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: That is right—from the bottom to the top, right through.
  VISCOUNT SWINTON: But there is not now such association at the top. The noble Lord said, in a characteristically frank speech, that he liked to see that
  926
  association much lower down and not at the top.
  LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: My Lords, in order to get the record correct, may I say this? It was not that I objected to it at the top. I think that to be effective at the top it must also operate at the bottom.
  VISCOUNT SWINTON: To be effective at the top, it must also operate at the bottom—I understand. I thought at the time he spoke that the noble Lord was rather ranging himself with one of the classes of people referred to by Lord Cecil of Chelwood, who did not want their autocracy interfered with at the top. As a matter of fact, we have not sharing of management at the top, as I shall show. From the speech of the noble Lord one thing is clear. He dislikes profit-sharing by means of co-partnership schemes as much as we like it. On that he was perfectly frank. I am bound to say when the Bill was going through the House that was not exactly the view expressed on the co-partnership clauses. It was said: "Here we are putting these pro-visions into the Act that these schemes shall go on for two years. After that, there shall be discussions, and the schemes may be continued, may be amended or may be discontinued." Many of us. knowing the view which the Socialist Party took about co-partnership, also said that if they had charge of the negotiations and they appointed a national board which was to select the people with whom they would negotiate, the result was a foregone conclusion: that at the end of two years co-partnership would come to an end. So it has.
  With the noble Lord's convictions, he could not have considered the question impartially. He considered it a bad thing, and he was determined to bring it to an end. After running for two years, it has been brought to an end. Make no mistake about it, co-partnership is dead in this industry where it has been most successful. A bonus payment will go on for fifteen years, but even that, apparently, is to come to an end for people who have a vested right to it, because they are the people who have inherited it. New entrants into the industry are not to have even the opportunity of receiving the equivalent, or what is called the equivalent, or something better, than the old

  927
  co-partnership. In fact, the whole co-partnership business is to be wound up at the earliest possible moment. That is perfectly clear. As the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, has said, it is abundantly clear from the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, that anything approaching co-partnership in any nationalised industry is dead and damned. If my noble friend Lord Cecil desires to express his regret at that, I shall certainly be behind him.
  I do not want to make an accusation of bad faith, but when the Bill was going through Parliament and we were discussing the clause which provided for existing schemes to be continued for two years, and then possibly to be modified, I think your Lordships believed that a genuine effort would be made to carry on co-partnership to see whether it could work. The noble Lord, Lord Chorley, said it would not work in nationalised industry because we had a new system there. In fact, it did work for two years, during which time most of us thought an attempt would be made to carry it on if it were practicable in a nationalised industry. We now know that that has gone by the board.
  LORD CHORLEY: It worked only in the sense that a bonus was paid during the two years.
  VISCOUNT SWINTON: Only a bonus—I am coming to that. I am coming to the other side of it, which was the appointment of workers to the board. The noble Lord's recollection there was quite wrong. He said that on this matter my noble friends Lord Ridley and Lord Cecil were completely at loggerheads, and that my noble Leader, Lord Salisbury, and I were convinced by Lord Ridley.
  LORD CHORLEY: I said "impressed."
  VISCOUNT SWINTON: Very well, impressed. During this debate I have read the whole of the earlier debates, and what happened was this. There was a difference of opinion, not on the intention that a local worker should be on the board but on how we could best give effect to that intention; and there was complete agreement in the House as to what should be done. The Amendment which my noble friend Lord Cecil finally adopted, and which was fully accepted by the noble Lord, Lord Ridley, said (I quote
  928
  from column 1096 of Volume 157 of the OFFICIAL REPORT): "Every Area Board"—I stress the words "Area Board" because it is a complete fallacy in the noble Lord's argument that once an industry is nationalised into a complete monopoly we cannot have a different kind of operation or a different set of appointments in one area and in another. The whole point of the gas structure is that we have Area Boards as well as the Gas Council, and the proposal was not to elect workers to the Gas Council but to the Area Boards, which are the equivalent of the old concerns, such as the South Metropolitan Gas Company and the Gas Light and Coke Company. However, the Amendment said:
  "Every area board shall be constituted as follows:—"
  Then the Amendment went on:
  "not less than one member shall be a worker who has been employed in the gas industry in the area covered in the undertakings taken over by the Area Board, and who by skill and experience has shown himself qualified for the post."
  There was an ingenuous, or rather disingenuous, argument by the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor, who said he did not know whether any-body he appointed a Judge was qualified by skill and experience for the position. To do the noble and learned Viscount justice, his appointment of Judges during his years of office has been singularly happy, and I think he is a very good judge of whether a man has the skill and experience for a job. But that argument did not carry great weight with your Lordships, and without a Division the House agreed to the Amendment in terms which were supported by Lord Ridley and Lord Cecil.
  LORD CHORLEY: The proposal of the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, was that the men should be elected by the workers of the industry and the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, himself pointed out that fact.
  VISCOUNT SWINTON: I am not in the habit of misleading the House. If the noble Lord will take the trouble to go back and read these debates, he will see that I am right. I know what was originally proposed, but I am taking the conclusion which was arrived at with the full assent of my noble friend Lord Cecil; indeed, it had to be in that form, because the appointments were to be made by

  929
  the Minister and the question was what sort of people the Minister was to appoint. What the House agreed to was that the Minister must appoint at least one person with the qualifications I have mentioned. The Amendment went to another place, and the other place disagreed with us—but only, observe, for this reason: because the Amendment:
  "might fetter the Minister's power to make the most suitable appointments to the Area Board from among persons possessing the necessary general qualifications."
  It was not suggested for a moment, though the Amendment was not accepted, that it was not a good idea that in suitable cases there should be a local worker on the Board and that it was to be within the competence of the Minister to make these appointments. I should have thought that here was a good opportunity, in the case of Area Boards covering the areas of the old gas companies, to continue the system of co-partnership. But it was not done, and deliberately was not done, by the Minister, because, I suggest to your Lordships, the whole spirit of that side of co-partnership was to be washed out as well. Therefore, profit-sharing has gone, and the co-partnership spirit has gone, too. For that has been substituted the old outworn dogma defended by the noble Lord. If that dogma works in the gas industry, it will be a happy exception in the relations which apparently obtain in the nationalised industries to-day. I apologise for keeping the House so long, but in view of the fact that what had taken place in this House had been challenged, I thought it only right that the House should have on record exactly what happened.
  6.20 p.m.
  VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: My Lords, I propose to say only a few words. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, will not expect me to follow his elaborate argument. I want to try and impress upon him and others that the point here is not the distribution of profits. I think that that is the curse of modern dealing with industry: it is all a question of how much dividend is to go to this person, and how much in wages is to be paid to that person. That is not the point. If we want really to reform industry satisfactorily, what we have to distribute is not profits but responsibilities. That is the essential thing. That is why I think that nationalisation is a profound
  930
  mistake. It is taking responsibility away from the people engaged in the industry and putting it into the hands of the political machine.
  SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No.
  VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: Yes, it is. It is making the political machine the ruler of the industry—that is the real mistake of nationalisation. The great advantage of co-partnership is that it maintains the conception that those who are engaged in the industry ought to be responsible for its conduct, within whatever limits are inevitable. That is the point. Therefore a good deal of what Lord Macdonald had to say seems to me to have missed the point I was trying to make. The noble Lord quoted a good deal of what I said, but I am rather glad that my infirmity enables me truly to say that I did not hear what he said. I have no doubt that I said a great many foolish things, and some of them he may have dug up. I would not have bothered about this matter if it were merely a question of the workmen of the South Metropolitan Gas Company and nothing else. But this is a principle of enormous importance. Can we restore the feeling of responsibility which used to exist, and which it seems to me, owing to the progress of events, has been largely destroyed? Without personal responsibility, you cannot have anything that is worth having in this country. That is my general thesis. It is for that reason that I am still a strong supporter of co-partnership: not because it will make this or that class of person richer, but merely because it will give a greater share of responsibility to all of them and, therefore, create an improvement in the work and in the whole life of the country. For those reasons, I am afraid that I cannot assent to Lord Macdonald's suggestion that I should not press this Motion to a Division. After all, this House arrives at its decision by Division, and in no other way. It is no satisfaction to me to be told that the general sense of the House is with me. I wish to know what they say in the only formal way in which it can be said—namely, by a Division—and I am afraid I must press the Motion.
  On Question, Whether the Resolution shall be agreed to?
  Their Lordships divided: Contents, 54; Not-Contents, 24.

  CONTENTS

  Reading, M.

  Runciman of Doxford, V.

  Hampton, L.

  Salisbury, M.

  Samuel, V.

  Hatherton, L.

  Simon, V.

  Hawke, L.

  Buckinghamshire, E.

  Swinton, V.

  Hindlip, L.

  De La Warr, E.

  Hylton, L.

  Fortescue, E. [Teller.]

  Ailwyn, L.

  Llewellin, L.

  Haddington, E.

  Amherst of Hackney, L.

  Lloyd, L.

  Halifax, E.

  Baden-Powell, L.

  Mancroft, L.

  Manvers, E.

  Boyle, L. (E. Cork and Orrery.

  O'Hagan, L.

  Munster, E.

  Rennell, L.

  Onslow, E.

  Carrington, L. [Teller.]

  Rochdale, L.

  Radnor, E.

  Cherwell, L.

  Saltoun, L.

  St. Aldwyn, E.

  Clwyd, L.

  Sandford, L.

  Selkirk, E.

  Clydesmuir, L.

  Sandhurst, L.

  Shaftesbury, E.

  De L'Isle and Dudley, L.

  Sherwood, L.

  Denman, L.

  Strathcarron, L.

  Allenby, V.

  Derwent, L.

  Teviot, L.

  Cecil of Chelwood, V.

  Grantley, L.

  Teynham, L.

  Harcourt, V.

  Grenfell, L.

  Wolverton, L.

  Long, V.

  NOT-CONTENTS

  Jowitt, V. (L. Chancellor.)

  Chorley, L.

  Kershaw, L. [Teller.]

  Crook, L.

  Lucas of Chilworth, L.

  Alexander of Hillsborough, V.

  Douglas of Barloch, L.

  Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, L.

  Douglas of Kirtleside, L.

  Morrison, L.

  Amwell, L.

  Haden-Guest, L. [Teller.]

  Ogmore, L.

  Archibald, L.

  Hare, L. (E. Listowel.)

  Pethick-Lawrence, L.

  Bingham, L. (E. Lucan.)

  Holden, L.

  Shepherd, L.

  Burden, L.

  Hungarton, L.

  Silkin, L.

  Calverley, L.

  Inman, L.

  Resolved in the affirmative, and Resolution agreed to accordingly.
  House adjourned at twenty-eight minutes before seven o'clock.