Lords Sitting of 20 May 1952

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

NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE CORPORATION BILL
Read 2a, and committed.
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE AND DERBY SHIRE TRACTION BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
NOTTINGHAM CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN
2.40 p.m.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY): My Lords, I have a Message from the Queen, signed with her own hand, which I will now ask the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack to read to your Lordships.
The noble Marquess thereupon left his place and presented the Royal Message to the Lord Chancellor on the Woolsack.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD SIMONDS): My Lords, Her Majesty's Message is as follows:
"Her Majesty, being desirous that provision shall be made for His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh, for Her Majesty's children other than His Royal Highness The Duke of Cornwall, for Her Royal Highness The Princess Margaret in the event of Her marrying, and for any future wife of
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His Royal Highness The Duke of Cornwall, in the event of her surviving His Royal Highness, relies on the attachment of the House of Lords to Her person and Family to concur in the adoption of such measures as may be suitable to the occasion."

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (VISCOUNT SWINTON): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in the name of the noble Marquess the Leader of the House.
Moved, That Standing Order No. XXXIX be considered in order to its being dispensed with for the purpose of passing the National Health Service Bill through its remaining stages.—(Viscount Swinton.)
VISCOUNT STANSGATE VISCOUNT STANSGATE moved, as an Amendment to the above Motion, at end to add—
"excepting the Question that the Bill do now pass; and that Standing Order No. XXXVII be considered in order to its being dispensed with for the purpose of allowing Amendments to be moved upon the Third Reading of the Bill without previous notice given."
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, an Amendment appears in my name on the Order Paper, and I should explain that it is my own individual work. On Friday morning, when I saw the Order Paper and observed the Motion which had been put down, it appeared to me that the full consideration which I personally, had hoped would be given to this Bill was not being given. That was the reason why I put down this Amendment for which, of course, I take responsibility. I do not propose to divide the House upon it, but, if your Lordships will permit me, I should like to explain the reasons for its being put down.
This Bill is a Bill to which noble Lords on this side take the greatest exception. It appears to us to undermine the principles which we though we had established in respect to private health and doctoring. That is the reason why we feel strongly about it. In another place, the Bill did not receive the full consideration which is due to any ordinary measure. It was passed through under the guillotine. It came to this House and the Committee stage was, I suppose one may say, prolonged, but not unduly

1135
prolonged for a Bill of this size. But no single Amendment was accepted. It may have been that the Amendments were bad, but I do not think that that was the reason. I think that the reason no single Amendment was accepted was that, had an Amendment been accepted, then a Report stage would have been necessary and, moreover, the Bill would have had to go to another place, where this conflict—which is a very bitter conflict—would have been prolonged. I do not think the Government wished that to happen. This so-called revising Chamber made no Amendment whatever in this Bill. If a Report stage had taken place in the ordinary way, we should have had art opportunity of making further Amendments; but as no Amendments were accepted, according to the Rules a Report stage was unnecessary.
The noble Marquess the Leader of the House very generously drew our attention to the fact that there being no Amendments there would be no Report stage, and offered to postpone for one day the question that the Report be now received in order that we might put further Amendments on the Paper. I thought this meant that the procession of the Bill through this House would be the normal one: that there would be a Committee stage, a Report stage, followed by a Third Reading, and that the Bill would then be passed. There is a reason for these intervals between the various stages of Bills. The Rules of this House and of another place have been very carefully drawn up in order that there may be time to consider a Bill closely at the various stages and so that the House may discuss and criticise it if they so wish. Therefore, I was surprised when I read on the Order Paper that we were being deprived of the opportunity to do this and that Standing Order No. XXXIX was being invoked in order to telescope the remaining stages of the Bill into one single day. It is not for me to say anything about Standing Order No. XXXIX, but I thought it was a Standing Order that should not be invoked except in very special circumstances. This House has a flexible procedure but this flexibility should be protected. Therefore I thought that this was going beyond what was necessary in the circumstances and that it was, in fact, an abuse of the suspension of Standing Order XXXIX.
I do not know whether the noble Viscount who moved this Motion is going to reply, but I should like to ask why is it necessary for this Bill to be taken through its remaining stages to-day. What is the necessity for it? We are not over-pressed with work. This Bill was guillotined in another place also: it was subject to that procedure in the House of Commons. Therefore I put this Amendment down on the Paper and I hope the noble Viscount will say what is possible in support of his Motion. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
At end to add—"excepting the Question that the Bill do now pass; and that Standing Order No. XXXVII be considered in order to its being dispensed with for the purpose of allowing Amendments to be moved upon the Third Reading of the Bill without previous notice given."—(Viscount Stansgate.)
2.47 p.m.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: The noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, has said that, in putting down this Amendment and making his speech, he speaks only for himself. I am not surprised. The noble Viscount must be well aware of the circumstances in which we arranged for the House to have the opportunity of a Report stage before the Third Reading. On the last occasion when the Bill went through the Committee stage here without amendment, after full discussion, my noble friend the Leader of the House exercised all the ingenuity which he and the authorities of the House could mobilise in order to afford the Opposition the opportunity of having a Report stage, although no Report stage was in order. That was a course which I do not remember ever having been followed in all the years I have been in this House. We were extremely anxious to meet the convenience of the Opposition over this matter, as the noble and learned Earl the Leader of the Opposition himself fully acknowledged; and, indeed, the noble Viscount himself, on a previous occasion, expressed his gratitude to the noble Marquess the Leader of the House for having arranged this. I think the noble Viscount is somewhat less than generous to-day in his observations.
What has happened? By this arrangement, which was agreed to, I know, with the full appreciation of the Opposition Leaders, we have manœuvred the situation (if I may so put it), so that the House has a Report stage where no

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Report stage would normally have existed. There has been an opportunity for noble Lords to put down Amendments on the Paper, and Amendments are on the Paper. If that arrangement had not been made, under the Standing Orders of the House we should to-day have proceeded without a Report stage, to the Third Reading of the Bill, on which, of course, no manuscript Amendment would have been in order.
It is common knowledge that this Bill must become law by June 1: that was fully explained on the last occasion. I am well aware that the noble Viscount wishes to delay it. What, therefore, we are asking the House to do—and, indeed, what I understand it has been generally agreed we should do—is that we spend all such time as is necessary to-day in taking the Report stage which has been arranged and then the Third Reading. It is not at all uncommon that, where special circumstances arise, this House agrees to take all remaining stages of a Bill in one day. Certainly that is not an unreasonable course when one of the stages which we are asked to pass in one day would not have existed at all except for the courtesy and ingenuity of the Leader of the House, to which noble Lords opposite have paid tribute.
The Amendment that stands in the name of the noble Viscount is even odder when, first of all, he says that if an Amendment were made it would go down to another place and the whole of the Bill could be debated. With great respect, he ought to know enough of the proceedings of another place, even if not of this House, to know that that is complete nonsense. If an Amendment is passed in this House and goes to another place, the only Motion before the House is "That this House do agree (or disagree) with the Lords' Amendment." The only thing which may be discussed either in another place or here, if the Amendment came back, is the particular Amendment. There could not be any general discussion upon the Bill.
The noble Viscount asks that the agreed arrangement should be held up in order that there may be a Third Reading on which he or somebody could move a manuscript Amendment. He ought to know that it is a Standing Order of this House, from which the House has never departed, that manuscript Amendments
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cannot be accepted on Third Reading. I well remember once, when I think I was leading, that there was an Amendment which the whole House wanted to insert in a Bill which had reached the stage of Third Reading. Yet so tenacious was the House of that rule, by which, in its wisdom, the House had established that manuscript Amendments should not be accepted on Third Reading, that the noble Marquess, the Late Lord Salisbury, I remember, advised the House that, although we all felt it would be convenient to have that Amendment in, we ought not to break this long-standing rule. The Government and the whole House accepted that advice. If we were to postpone the Third Reading until tomorrow, the noble Viscount could not put down any manuscript Amendment on Third Reading. He has, in fact, put down an Amendment asking the House to do what it has never done, even in the most deserving cases (and this is a case which, as everybody agrees, has no merit at all), that we should suspend this particular Standing Order of the House I have accorded the noble Viscount the courtesy—he has not been too courteous in this matter—of a full reply. I do not think that there is any noble Lord sitting on either side of the House but who would feel that my noble friend the Leader of the House has met the convenience of the House and of the Opposition in every way possible. Certainly, I hope your Lordships will reject this Amendment so that we may proceed with the Business of the day.
2.54 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, in the absence of my noble Leader, Lord Jowitt, who has been engaged in the consultations on this matter, I ask leave to say a few words. It must be at least a month since we had discussions with the Government about the timetable to govern this particular Bill. It is unnecessary for me at this stage to say whether the Government won time or we lost time. The real point is that we did reach agreement
SEVERAL NOBLE LORD: Hear, hear!
LORD SHEPHERD: The agreement reached was that on this day we should take the Third Reading, and that we should also take the stage "That this Bill do now pass." My noble friend Lord Stansgate has raised this matter, I

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think from his point of view quite legitimately. I feel that he has done it quite courteously. He has explained to your Lordships that he has done it entirely on his own responsibility, so I do not think there is any need for any of us to get cross about it. I think that my noble friend Lord Stansgate would be satisfied with this course. I fully understood his point last week, when the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, made his suggestion to the House, that if we had taken the Committee stage last week we should have been confronted to-day, as first Business, with the Third Reading of the Bill, and that the only Amendments which could be considered on Third Reading would be those about which notice had been given.
There are certain disadvantages about that procedure. If, during the discussions, there seemed a new opportunity of reaching agreement on some form of words, it would not have been possible on Third Reading to move Amendments as a result of that agreement. But when the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, suggested that we postpone the Report stage, in order to give an opportunity of considering these Amendments again, he was in fact providing us with an opportunity of changing the Amendments that may be on the Order Paper in the event of our approaching some form of agreement. We do not know whether the noble Marquess's intention will be justified by events, but I think it only right for me to say from this Box that, in making that offer, he seemed to us to do it with a view to assisting some agreement between the two sides of the House to be reached. If we cannot reach that agreement, then I think we must not suppose that the noble Marquess was really interested in taking a "sharp practice" cut to what he might consider to be a desirable end.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, I do not suppose I am in order in speaking now, except to say that, had I been conscious of the making of any agreement of this kind, I should have observed it. I should not have broken any agreement of which I was conscious. But I hardly thought that I should hear the Whip of the Labour Party defending the setting up of the guillotine in this House, to which I myself would take exception.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot co-ordinate the Opposition.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

STATEMENT ON BUSINESS: CHINA
EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, may I intervene for a minute to inform the House that my noble friend Lord Reading will intervene between 3.45 p.m. and 4 p.m. in order to acquaint your Lordships with the terms of a Statement on British business interests in China which my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary will be making in another place at the same time this afternoon?

GOVERNMENT BULK BUYING
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether in regard to any industrial commodities where, in the main, bulk buying practice on Government account continues, the average cost of present holdings is higher than current world market; and, if such be the case, whether current disposal is strictly on replacement price level.]
VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, the stocks of the industrial commodities bought and sold by the Ministry of Materials were last valued on 31st March, 1952. At that date the cost was on average some 4½ per cent. below the value at the selling prices then current. Since that date, the selling prices of two commodities have been reduced to below stock cost. In the case of these commodities it is the present practice to base current selling prices on the current average cost of purchases, and stock losses are accepted
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, arising out of that reply, of which it was difficult to get the full import, if I correctly understood the noble Viscount I gather

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that he referred to prices being reduced below cost price. He did not refer to replacement cost. May I ask the noble Viscount whether he is in fact aware of the concern that exists in the country as to the degree to which Her Majesty's Government are reducing the prices of all raw materials bought with public funds, and whether he could give some further assurance on that matter?
VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, this is a matter which I have had under consideration and under discussion for some time. So far as the materials for which the Ministry of Materials is responsible, I think I should be in a position to make a further statement within a few days. The statement will be made in another place and I shall very gladly make it here as soon as I am in a position to do so.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, arising out of that reply, for which I am grateful to the noble Viscount, may I ask him whether he will bear in mind on that occasion, that the Question which I put on the Order Paper referred to all raw materials purchased from public funds? If I understood it correctly, his reply referred only to commodities dealt with by the Ministry of Materials. May I ask him whether at that time he will be able to give also an assurance (for instance, with regard to cotton), that where purchases are made in bulk with public funds and reductions are made possible—in export tax and so on—the full reduction will immediately be passed on to the consumer, thereby opening the way to an unimpeded market policy?
VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, the noble Lord has really widened the Question a great deal. When I make my announcement I shall be in a position to speak only in regard to those commodities for which I am responsible. The noble Lord has referred to cotton. As a matter of fact, cotton has been bought not by a Department of Her Majesty's Government but by the Raw Cotton Commission established under the authority of an Act of Parliament. In future under the Hopkins Scheme, the adoption of which I have announced to the House and which
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will be in operation shortly, any spinner who contracts out can buy independently of the Commission all his cotton or cotton of any "group." Therefore, obviously, I do not think I can make any further statement on that matter, beyond the full statement which I made to the House when the Hopkins Report was published.
As regards other materials, I certainly shall not include those in the statement I shall make on the negotiations which have taken place with regard to the commodities for which I am personally responsible, the important ones of which are certain of the non-ferrous metals. If the noble Lord desires information about other commodities which are bought in bulk, either directly or on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, perhaps he will be good enough to put a Question on the Order Paper, and I am sure the appropriate Minister will be glad to answer it.
LORD BARNBY: Again, while thanking my noble friend for his reply, I would remind him that my Question referred to bulk buying practice on Government account, without drawing any distinction between the agencies of the Government. Perhaps he will bear that in mind in the statement he makes, indicating that it applies to a limited number of commodities.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: I am sorry, but I must make this clear. I have given an undertaking to the House that as soon as I am in a position to do so I will make a full statement on the policy to be followed in respect of those materials for which the Ministry of Materials is responsible, and my undertaking can go no further than that. No other information will be included in my statement; nor could it be. The noble Lord will have to put down a Question in regard to any other commodity, or set of commodities, about which he wishes information. Then I will undertake that the appropriate Minister will give an appropriate reply.
LORD BARNBY: Perhaps the noble Viscount will forgive my persistence, but what terminology would be appropriate other than that which is on the Order Paper?

FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE SLAUGHTERINGS
3.6 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government to what extent, if at all, the carcases of non-diseased and non-contact animals slaughtered in connection with foot and mouth outbreaks are being placed in cold storage with a view to their being available for human consumption during next winter, when meat may possibly be scarcer than it is at present.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords, apart from infected animals, whose carcases are destroyed. only animals which are known or believed to have been in contact with them are slaughtered. The extra meat thus obtained is more than offset by the reduction in the total quantity of meat available as a result of hold-up in normal slaughterings due to the restrictions on the movement of livestock.
LORD SALTOUN: I am obliged to the noble Lord for his answer. Arising out of it, may I ask him whether the Government do not think it would be wise to provide local cold storage to accommodate excessive slaughtering, thereby preventing Her Majesty's Government, perhaps at an awkward time, from being at the mercy of a sudden outbreak of this disease?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, most of the cold stores in use in this country are not designed to extract the heat from freshly killed carcases, but are used for storing imported chilled and frozen meat. So we use the freshly killed carcases for our normal ration instead of issuing the frozen foods from the cold stores.
LORD SALTOUN: I am obliged to the noble Lord.

NATIONAL TRUST FOR SCOTLAND ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Considered on Report (according to Order).

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE BILL
3.8 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Report of the Bill read.
Clause 1:
Charges for certain drugs, medicines and appliances.
(2) No charge shall be made under this section in respect of—
(a) the supply of any drug, medicine or appliance for a patient who is for the time being resident in a hospital;
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH moved in subsection (2) after the first "of" to insert:
" appliances authorised to be provided in pursuance of a contract or arrangement under which the first examination took place before the commencement of this Act, or in respect of."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment is related to an Amendment which was moved during the Committee stage of the Bill by my noble friend Lord Milner, who is unable to be here to-day. Upon his Amendment we had a full and interesting discussion, and the noble Marquess the Leader of the House gave an undertaking that the points which he had raised would be fully considered. On that undertaking my noble friend withdrew his Amendment.
The Amendment which I am now moving is somewhat more limited in its scope. It applies only to appliances which are provided under the National Health Service it does not relate to drugs or medicines. The reason why the Amendment is now limited in this way is that it may be assumed that drugs and medicines are provided almost immediately after they are ordered, and there is therefore no question of a lapse of time, or of the expectations of the person for whom they were provided being interfered with or defeated. But the case of appliances is rather different. It often takes some time before they can be delivered to the patient, either because of delays in manufacture or else because they have to be specially made to measurements to suit a particular case. The purpose of the Amendment is to ensure that, where the supply of such appliances has been authorised, under a contract or an arrangement which has

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been made before the Bill becomes an Act, they will be supplied without charge, as was the expectation when that arrangement was made.
The second difference between the Amendment which is now before your Lordships and that which was moved by my noble friend is that the present Amendment provides exemption from charge where a contract or an arrangement was made before the commencement of the Act. In that respect, the Amendment is precisely the same as the provision which has been made in Clause 2 of the Bill, as drafted by the Government. Clause 2 (3) provides that in the case of dental services there will not he a charge where a contract or art arrangement for the provision of the services was made before the coming into force of the Act. What is applicable in that case, it seems to me, ought to be applicable in the case of appliances which are supplied to patients. In this respect, I can see no difference between, let us say, dentures and trusses. Therefore, I sincerely hope that the Government will be willing to accept the Amendment in the new form in which it appears on the Marshalled List. The whole point is that it is somewhat unfair, I think, that those patients for whom provision was to be made, and in respect of whom arrangements have been made for the supply of appliances without charge, should have that arrangement altered after it has been made. Without embarking upon a discussion of the general merits of the proposals which are contained in the Bill, I think it is clear that there is a very great difference between applying those provisions to new cases and applying them retrospectively to old cases which it was proposed to deal with under existing law. I therefore beg to move the Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 10, after ("of") insert the said words.—(Lord Douglas of Barloch.)
3.12 p.m.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (LORD WOOLTON): My Lords, when we last met to discuss these questions, while I found myself in the somewhat embarrassing position of not giving anything away I was very conscious—as indeed were the Government—of the importance of maintaining the position of this House as a revising Chamber.
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I am very glad to be able to say that, as a result of the undertaking that was given on the last occasion by the noble Marquess the Leader of the House and by myself, we have been able to have consultations with the Minister of Health and we have gone most carefully into the object of the Amendment put down by the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch. In doing so, we have taken into account what was said during the Committee stage by the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, and by the noble Lord, Lord Milner of Leeds. We realise that even though there may be no breach of contract, even though steps, we hope, have already been taken to avoid misunderstandings in this matter, nevertheless it might give rise to some sense of grievance, and to some extent might justify the contention that some patients were being penalised by supply difficulties, if charges were made for appliances prescribed before the operative date but supplied after that date.
This is not a permanent problem; it is entirely an interim problem arising from the date when the Act first comes into force. Her Majesty's Government have therefore come to the conclusion that it would be right and proper to accept the principle of this Amendment to charge only for those appliances supplied to hospital out-patients which are prescribed on or after the operative date. It is not necessary to amend the Bill to secure this result; it will be done in the regulations to be made under Clause 1 of the Bill. Regulations will be made, in the exercise of powers under Clause 1 (1), laying down that no charge is to be made for any appliances prescribed before the date on which charges began to be payable. This will, I think, fully meet the points raised on the Committee stage and which have been raised to-day by the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch. I hope, therefore, that in view of there assurances the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his Amendment.
3.15 p.m.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, as I understand the undertaking, the regulation will, in fact, cover exactly the point which is intended to be covered by my Amendment. I just want, if I may, to clear up one point in the last sentence or two of Lord Woolton's speech. I think he used words which are equivalent to what is on the Marshalled

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List, but at a slightly earlier point he said: "appliances supplied to hospital out-patients." I take it that his words are not confined to those persons, but will apply to any appliances properly supplied under the National Health Service scheme. There may be other cases besides those of hospital outpatients, and the latter words which Lord Woolton used were not subject to that qualification. I want the noble Lord to make it clear that that is so.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: Would it be possible for the noble Lord, Lord Woolton, to read out the regulation which he has in mind?
LORD WOOLTON: The noble Viscount has the Bill in front of him.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I know that the power to make regulations is in the Bill, but I was speaking about the text of the regulation enabling this to be done. I should like him to read it out to us.
LORD WOOLTON: The text of the regulation enabling it to be done? The noble Viscount has got it in front of him in the Bill.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I am afraid that I have not made myself clear. I understand that the noble Lord says he can meet Lord Douglas of Barloch's point with a regulation. I invite him to read out the text of the regulation which he proposes to make.
VISCOUNT HALL: My Lords, may I ask whether the noble Lord, Lord Woolton, can reply to the question which was put to him by Lord Douglas of Barloch?
LORD WOOLTON: The undertaking which I have given applies only to hospital out-patients, because this clause covers only hospital out-patients.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: With all respect to the noble Lord, I do not follow that argument. It may be that, as the clause stands, it applies only to hospital out-patients. I have not had the time to read it again to verify whether or not that is so. But the terms of the Amendment which I have moved do not apply only to hospital out-patients, and I would ask the noble Lord why, if appliances can be prescribed otherwise
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than for hospital out-patients, the same treatment should not be given to those patients as is proposed to be given to hospital out-patients? What is the reason for the difference? Why should not the regulations be comprehensive and apply to all patients, whether hospital outpatients or not? They might even be hospital in-patients for whom appliances are prescribed.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Woolton, has in mind an Amendment to the regulations to be made under this Bill, but may I remind your Lordships that regulations have to be made under the 1949 Act. Those regulations were never made, and it would be somewhat strange if under this Bill we had one kind of regulation and under the 1949 Act we had another kind of regulation.
LORD WOOLTON: My Lords, may I deal with one point at a time? In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch, these appliances are authorised through specialist services and therefore come through the hospitals. His point is completely covered by the answer I gave. He is anxious that everybody who entered into a contract shall be covered, and in fact these contracts come through the hospital services, which covers his point. I hope that the noble Lord will be satisfied.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, if that is so, I am completely satisfied. I was not trying to be obstructive.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, we have few rules in this House, but we have a rule that one speaks only once on clauses or Amendments, except by leave of the House. I think, within reason, we ought to adhere to that rule.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, these remarks come very well from the Deputy Leader of the House, who has just moved to suspend the Standing Orders to allow the Third Reading to be taken to-day.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, if I may, with the leave of your Lordships add one word, I wanted merely to say that I was not trying to be obstructive about this matter. I was trying to save the possibility of the creation of an anomaly which in itself would have been embarrassing to the Government.

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In view of the noble Lord's assurance that these appliances are prescribed only in the way he has indicated, I have great pleasure in accepting the undertaking he has given to do this by regulations, and I beg leave of the House to withdraw my Amendment.
LORD WOOLTON: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.24 p.m.
LORD AMMON LORD AMMON moved, in subsection (2), after paragraph (b), to insert:
"(c) the supply of any drug or medicine for the treatment of the chronic sick which term shall be deemed to include a person suffering from malignant disease, or from tuberculosis, or from diabetes, or who is a person in a chest clinic or other treatment centre administered as part of the hospital service and the provisions of this paragraph shall apply to section sixteen of National Health Service Amendment Act, 1949, and to any regulations made thereunder;".
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Amendment I am moving has relation to the subject of the chronic sick, which occupied a good deal of time during our discussions on Committee stage. It was discussed exhaustively and there was no lack of sympathy on both sides of the House with the sufferers, but there was a division as to the expediency of this proposal, having regard to the economic situation of the country—a matter which was raised by noble Lords on the other side. The noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, was good enough to make a promise then. He said:
"I make no pledges and promises except that the matter will be looked into."
I gather that the matter has been looked into, and I hope that my Amendment is going to receive as favourable a reception as that of my noble friend Lord Douglas of Barloch. There are one or two points that should like to advance to show that there are practical advantages in my proposal, apart altogether from sentiment. In our previous discussion Lord Webb-Johnson spoke of argument based on sentiment as if it were, in the objectionable phrase, "sob-stuff." I am afraid that, without sentiment, a great deal of fine voluntary work done for cancer and tuberculosis sufferers would never have been done. So great is the popular sympathy for those who suffer from these terrible diseases that they have become a national concern. We
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are all convinced that everything possible should be done to alleviate this suffering.
There are, however, some practical reasons why this should be done. It is not unworthy of comment that this Amendment proposes to link up cancer, tuberculosis and diabetes and to place them on the same favourable terms as venereal disease. The last-named disease is covered by an international agreement, and it is not difficult to understand why this anti-social and highly contagious disease should be the subject of special safeguards. But there is just as strong a case for special treament for cancer and tuberculosis, which are a tremendous drain on the vitality of our people. I would call attention to the fact that no fewer than 8,000 people die from cancer every year—and they the unnecessarily. If we were to hear that 8,000 people in some part of the world were suddenly to die unnecessarily, public opinion would be roused to try to rescue them. Why should public opinion not demand that these people get the necessary treatment?
While looking in the Library I came across the Report of an Inquiry into Cancer Registration in England and Wales prepared by Dr. Percy Stocks. The Report shows the great necessity of keeping contact with sufferers so that the progress of these diseases can be properly studied. That cannot tie done unless we provide the means and ignore altogether the question whether some trumpery payment should be made. The benefit to our national economy is far greater than any return from the charges made. This Report says:
"One of the chief difficulties in this scheme is tracing patients for follow-up purposes, since to assess the benefits of treatment it is essential to know whether the patient is still alive."
We shall not know that if, for some reason or other, a patient who feels unable to afford the charges we are making fails to apply for help a ad is lost sight of. The Report goes on to say that about 50,000 patients are known and treated, but there is reason to think that there are at least 100,000 to 110,000 cases. That is to say, half the number of people who suffer from this disease do not come under consideration at all.
To show even further the necessity for the continuance of the necessary drugs and treatment, and that nothing should

1151
be allowed to stand in the way, is this further statement in the Report. It says:
"In cancer, perhaps more than any other disease, successful treatment and advances in methods depend upon accurate clinical and pathological records concerning the individual patient. In the majority of acute and subacute illnesses the end results of treatment are known within a few weeks or months, and the absence of certain symptoms and signs proclaims that the patient is cured: the practitioner can complete his case history with all the relevant details still in mind. With cancer, however, there is no end point at which the patient can be said with certainty to be cured …"
I venture to suggest that, whatever we might suffer economically, that statement alone is a strong argument for ensuring that full contact with these cases, is kept, so that a complete knowledge of the treatment, the growth and the history can be kept and followed up.
I should like to refer to one other point that was raised by my noble friend Lord Silkin on the last debate. He made the suggestion that to exempt these cases from the charges might even save money. The noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, said that he doubted it, but that he would be pleased to know if it were possible. I believe my noble friend had in mind that there might be some saving on the administrative side. Everybody knows of cases where there have been prolonged illnesses in familities, not necessarily of people who are in the depths of poverty, but people on a fairly decent level of life who have suffered a great deal. At a time like this, when we are so much concerned about the conservation of manpower, and when it is vitally important that the health of the nation should be kept as high as possible, surely some saving is possible in that direction. Even if the saving is not felt directly as a result of this Bill, it certainly will be realised in the health and strength, not only of the patients themselves but also of those who have to provide the administration, the nursing and the accommodation which, in these days, are serious matters. I hope that the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, or the Lord President of the Council, will be able to give a favourable reply in regard to this Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 14, after ("disease") insert the said paragraph.—(Lord Ammon.)
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Woolton, met my noble friend, Lord Douglas of Barloch, in a very handsome manner on the first Amendment. We are hoping that the noble Lord, after the consideration which he and no doubt the Minister of Health and others concerned have given to this matter, will be able to meet my noble friend Lord Ammon in a similar spirit on this Amendment. I am told by those best qualified to judge that the reports of the cascades of medicine of which we have heard have, in fact, been exaggerated. It seems to me, speaking entirely as a layman, that the doctors and the Minister of Health between them could, if they so desired, by administrative methods and without any need for legislation, solve this difficulty and make the necessary reductions in the cost of the Health Service so far as medicines are concerned. It may be that in time past some doctors prescribed large amounts on prescriptions for their patients. We suggest, however, that that is being cleaned up at a quite rapid rate as the months go by.
There is really no need whatsoever for this penalising provision in the Bill. In our opinion, the Government are making a mountain out of a medical molehill. We believe it is part of the doctrinaire approach which was so justly and forcibly commented upon by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, in his speech in your Lordships' House the other evening on the White Paper on transport. Those of your Lordships who were present will remember that the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, said that, although he wished this Government to continue in office, he could not see how they could possibly do so if they proceeded with measures which were purely doctrinaire and did not tackle the real, fundamental difficulties of our times. That is what we feel about this measure: we think it is purely doctrinaire. Great Ministers of the Crown, like the noble Lord, Lord Woolton, and humbler people, such as Members of the other place who are not Ministers of the Crown, made suggestions from time to time in their Election speeches that there must be wholesale cuts in the Health Service. This is an attempt to carry out those rather wild and doctrinaire promises, made in an electoral atmosphere, and it is not really governed by the circumstances of the case.

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In our Amendment two classes of case are covered. My noble friend Lord Ammon calls them all the "chronic sick," but there are, in fact, two types of chronic sick: the first is the sufferer from the malignant disease, including diabetes, and the second is what I call the sufferer from the transmittable disease, such as tuberculosis. I will deal with those separately. My own doctor is a very able man who was much against the Health Service from its inception: he did his best to prevent its coming into operation both in the Councils of the B. M.A. and elsewhere. As occasionally one is in a rather difficult position in arguing with a doctor who feels strongly against a line one is pursuing, we more or less regarded it as a closed subject and did not discuss this particular problem. But when the Government's provision was brought forward and I went to see him, I thought perhaps it was the time to reopen the question. I said to him: "No doubt you are very pleased that the Government are proposing to make these charges." He said: "No, certainly not." He then instanced diabetes, and said: "I think it is appalling that a person suffering from diabetes, who has to have regular treatment, regular supplies of drugs, injections, and the like, should have to pay a charge every time he goes for treatment." There is no doubt that many doctors would feel that this is a reasonable complaint against this proposal. The charge is, in fact, a real hardship on persons who are suffering from a malignant disease, and particularly those suffering from cancer and diabetes.
The other type of disease covered by the Amendment is tuberculosis. Our objections here are fortified by reason of the fact that tuberculosis and diseases like it are transmittable diseases. Not only is there great hardship to the sufferer, but there is grave danger that these diseases will be transmitted to the public. Sufferers will not come at an early stage and get treatment, and other people will contract the disease as a result. In order to make my case stronger I venture to suggest to the Committee that the Government have included in their provision for treatment those suffering from venereal diseases, and if sufferers from venereal diseases, who may or may not have been guilty of immoral conduct, are to receive their treatment free, I ask why
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perfectly honourable, hardworking people who have contracted tuberculosis, possibly at their work, should not also receive treatment free. It seems to me to be putting a premium on immorality. The answer given—and it appears to be a very thin answer—was that we are bound by the Brussels Treaty.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: Does the noble Lord suggest that we should just scrap Treaties straight away when we want to do so because of some political consideration?
LORD OGMORE: The noble Earl must not impute that suggestion to me. I was going to say that is was a very thin reason just because of this Brussels Treaty. What is the object of the Brussels Treaty? It is that there shall be early treatment of transmissible disease. It is no good just saying that we are keeping the Brussels Treaty. What I hope the Government are doing is keeping the spirit behind the Brussels Treaty, and they must at the same time carry that forward into other forms of the fight against diseases of which tuberculosis is one. When I was a boy—and I know my noble friend Lord Hall will remember this perhaps more clearly than I do—we had in South Wales a bad record for tuberculosis. I remember attending lectures, demonstrations and the like in the early years of this century, when there was a movement to reduce the mortality rate of tuberculosis in the mining districts of South Wales. The ravages of the disease are now less than they used to be, but there are still many casualties from miner's phthisis, and the same is true of quarrying and other types of industry in South Wales. I am afraid that what is now proposed is going to have a depressing effect on the people of South Wales when they realise that they are going to be charged for their treatment.
The reasons given on the other side of the House for this charge are that it will reduce the cost of the Service. It may or may not reduce the direct cost, but it will increase the indirect cost; we shall have more tuberculosis; we shall have to provide more hospitals for those dying of the disease, and we shall have a far greater mortality rate from this dread condition. Noble Lords interrupted me in the former debate and said that the charge was equal only to the price of a

1155
packet of cigarettes and that, anyway, people spend money on the dogs and horse races. I suggest that the expenditure of more than the nation should be expected to afford on wines and liquors, on tobacco, on consumer goods of various kinds, and on dog racing and horse racing, presents considerable economic, social and moral issues, but the people least likely to be concerned in such issues are these unfortunate sufferers from cancer, diabetes, and tuberculosis. That argument might logically be applied to restricting the racing at Ascot to two days and the Epsom Races to one day, and be used as an argument for rationing cigarettes and for increasing duties on spirits. But the people with whom we are concerned are not those who go to Ascot and are not even the people who can turn up for the Derby in a top hat and a morning coat, which. I understand, is now the prescribed uniform, nor can they buy foreign liquors, or spend a large amount on tobacco. They are people on the borderline of want, and what I am afraid the Government is doing will push them over the borderline into real want.
The suggestion has been made by noble Lords opposite that the people concerned can get National Assistance. I have in mind many people who have been in employment—not perhaps manual workers but clerks and people whom we call the lower middle class—and I feel certain that in many cases that type of person would rather go without treatment, and will go without treatment, than seek National Assistance, having to declare their little income and to go through the quite necessary formalities which are sometimes difficult and troublesome in order to get assistance. To ask sufferers from these particular diseases to go on National Assistance is a thing which we in this country should not tolerate. Sufferers from these diseases who cannot afford to pay for their own treatment will have to go through all this in order to be excused the payment of a shilling a time, or whatever the charge may be. I think that suggestion is unworthy of this great country and I deplore that such a proposal should go out from your Lordships' House. Since the war we have passed great measures, to a large extent according to the unanimous wish of the people of this country; and for this great country now to charge persons suf-
1156
fering from cancer, tuberculosis and diabetes at the very time when they are in need of attention, equipment or drugs, is to me a depressing circumstance. I am sure that after what my noble friend Lord Ammon has said and after what I have said, the noble Lord, Lord Woolton, who has a hard head but a soft heart, will agree with me, and that the Government will give way to the suggestions we have made.
LORD WOOLTON: I am gratified by the noble Lord's tribute to my soft heart, but I am afraid that this is not a question of anybody's soft heart. But the noble Lord is quite right in saying that we did listen with great sympathy to the criticisms made in debate. The speeches which have been made this afternoon have not added anything by way of argument. I am glad about that, because I should have been sorry if I had missed anything when I was having consultations with the Minister of Health and his advisers. We spent a long time discussing this matter, quite honestly endeavouring to find some way out of the problem. Let us not exaggerate the problem too much. My trouble about the noble Lord who has just spoken is that his natural eloquence tends to carry me away. But let us get this problem into some perspective.
The fact is that this Bill deals only with the question of making charges for medicines obtained in the out-patients' department of hospitals. In point of fact, that is only a small proportion of the people who suffer from the diseases which have been indicated to us in such moving terms this afternoon. The great majority of people who suffer from these diseases obtain their prescriptions through the family doctor and from the chemists' shops. The noble Lord, perhaps forgetting momentarily, said that by bringing in this Bill we were jeopardising the Health Service. When noble Lords opposite brought in their Act in 1949 they did not make any of the provisions indicated this afternoon. We have heard the accounts of their sympathy in the matter which they gave to the House last week. I am quite certain that the reason why they did not make the provisions they are now advocating, was not due to any lack of sympathy on their part, any more than it is due to any lack of sympathy on our part. In fact, the proposal which has been put forward becomes

1157
unworkable when you look at it from the sheer hard job of public administration.
There is no equity in making a distinction between people who go as outpatients to hospitals and people who are treated by their general practitioner. If such a distinction were made, then clearly what would happen is that there would be an added inducement for people to swell the already overcrowded out-patient departments of the hospitals, which would not be a good thing. If any such alteration as is proposed were made, it would in justice have to apply to everyone. Now this would be a responsibility—and I am sure that noble Lords who were in office in 1949 had this consideration mind—which the chemists could not undertake. It is a responsibility which we think ought not to be put upon the doctors, and I do not for one moment believe that they would accept it. After all, their business is to prescribe for a patient's physical needs and not to form a judgment on whether or not the patient is in a financial position to pay for his medicine. I invite your Lordships just for one moment to be severely practical and to keep your hearts in order; to consider the pressure which would be brought to bear on the general practitioner by people who quite inevitably would say: "Doctor, cannot I have it free?"
There is another difficulty, and that is of arriving at what is meant by the chronic sick. It may be that a person who comes under that heading may be any person who is suffering from the ordinary processes of degeneration which come with ageing blood vessels. The noble Lord got carried away when he went from a part of a packet of cigarettes right along the road to Ascot, because we had not mentioned anything about Ascot. We have said that the cost of a prescription amounts to only a portion of the cost of a packet of cigarettes. To get hack to these chronic diseases—and I will mention a few others than those which have a sentimental attraction to us: arthritis, gout, sciatica, chronic bronchitis—they are all conditions not capable of definition that separate them sharply from a great variety of acute illnesses.
I investigated the question as to whether there were certain drugs which could be made free for everybody because of their specific qualities. I am advised that it is not possible to attribute
1158
particular medicines to particular diseases in this general way.
There is another factor to which I invite your Lordships' attention, and I am going to repeat what I am afraid I said again and again in a somewhat long discussion last Tuesday. We recognise the need for making proper provision for the sick. I was not quite sure how far the. noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, would have liked to follow his own argument and logic. I know full well that some people do not want to go to any board for assistance, and I have a great deal of sympathy with them. But that is part of the provision that all of us, in our wisdom, have made for people who are in need. I beg your Lordships to give one moment's reflection to the argument I put forward in the first remarks I made upon this Bill, because I put them forward in great sincerity—and. if your Lordships will pardon my saying so, with some knowledge. If people a re in a position in which the payment of these charges is going to be a serious matter to them then, indeed, it is highly probable that their need is much greater than the need of the 1s. I think it is a very wise thing that the State should say to that person: "We will make an arrangement whereby you can have the whole of your needs investigated so that proper provision can be made to enable you to take advantage of these and all the various other things which are provided by the State." Because of the political atmosphere in which this Bill has been brought to the notice of Parliament, it is inevitable that there should, be a good deal of the ordinary political conflict. None of us objects to that. We had rather a long period in which we were able to do it when we were sitting on the Benches opposite. But many of your Lordships have rightly said that all of us in this douse are equally anxious to do what can be clone, particularly in the field of preventive medicine, to maintain the goad health of the nation. Humanitarian instincts have nothing to do with Party divisions.
May I make one other observation? In addition to my conversations with the Minister of Health and his officials, like the noble Lord opposite, took some external advice from medical friends of mine, and this is the conclusion I drew. The really important thing is that we should preserve this health scheme, but there is some danger that its own inevit-

1159
ably growing expense might be a burden to its efficiency. Noble Lords opposite had to face this issue when they were in power. We have, I believe, to choose whether in present circumstances—and, if I may, I would underline that phrase—we are to maintain a really efficient Health Service, or whether we are to have one which is less effective but which makes no charges. This is the problem with which we are faced. Whilst the present economic circumstances make us conscious of the importance of keeping the drug bill of the nation within the strict bounds of necessity, we realise that the development of science is constantly producing new and expensive drugs for the cure of disease, and that they are, for the most part, very expensive. But it is important that general practitioners shall be able to prescribe these drugs where there is need. Any measure that tends to keep within reasonable control the cost of this Health Service will at the same time make it easier for these new and expensive drugs to come within the reach of everybody.
I have taken longer than I intended, but I hope that at any rate I have given your Lordships some evidence that my
noble friend the Leader of the House and I have gone to a great deal of trouble to see whether we could meet noble Lords opposite in this situation. We believe that it is in the general public interest that we should pursue the line we are pursuing; and I hope the noble Lord will not press his Amendment, which I regret I am not able to accept.
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, I do not know what line my noble friend, Lord Ammon, intends to take on this matter but I must say that if he is minded to press his Amendment to a Division, he will most certainly have my support and, I think, that of my noble friends on this side of the House. I am bound to say that, with the best will in the world, I did not find that the noble Lord's statement answered the point. I do not want to take up any more of the time of the House, but I want to register our feeling of disappointment on this matter; and if my noble friend decides to ask for a Division I shall, as I say, support it.
On Question, Whether the said paragraph shall be there inserted?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 25; Not-Contents, 84.

CONTENTS

Jowitt, E.

Burden, L. [Teller.]

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Crook, L.

Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, L

Hall, V.

Douglas of Barloch, L.

Morrison, L.

St. Davids, V.

Faringdon, L.

Ogmore, L.

Stansgate, V.

Hare, L. (E. Lislowel.)

Pakenham, L.

Hungarton, L.

Quibell, L.

Ammon, L.

Kershaw, L.

Shepherd, L

Archibald, L

Kirkwood, L.

Silkin, L.

Bingham, L, (E. Lucan.) [Teller.]

Lawson, L.

Strabolgi, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Simonds, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Allenby, V.

Carrington, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Cherwell, L.

Woolton, L. (L. President.)

Davidson, V.

Clanwilliam, L. (E. Clanwilliam.)

Falmouth, V.

Clydesmuir, L.

Cholmondeley, M.

FitzAlan of Derwent, V

Courthope, L.

Reading, M.

Hudson, V.

Cozens-Hardy, L.

Salisbury, M.

Long, V.

De L'Isle and Dudley, L.

Willingdon, M.

Margesson, V.

Digby, L.

Maugham, V.

Dorchester, L.

Albemarle, E.

Monsell, V.

Dormer, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Runciman of Doxford, V.

Douglas, L. (E. Home.)

Birkenhead, E.

Swinton, V.

Ellenborough, L.

Dundonald, E.

Weir, V.

Fairfax of Cameron, L.

Fortescue, E. [Teller.]

Gifford, L.

Howe, E.

Ailwyn, L.

Hacking, L.

Iveagh, E.

Allerton, L.

Hampton, L.

Mount Edgcumbe, E

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Hawke, L.

Onslow, E. [Teller.]

Balfour of Burleigh, L.

Hayter, L.

Radnor, E.

Barnby, L.

Hindlip, L.

Rothes, E.

Belstead, L.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Yarborough, E.

Brassey of Apethorpe, L.

Leathers, L.

Llewellin, L.

Remnant, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Lloyd, L.

Ritchie of Dundee, L.

Mancroft, L.

Rochdale, L.

Teynham, L.

Merthyr, L.

Saltoun, L.

Turnour, L. (E. Winterton)

Middleton, L.

Sandhurst, L.

Waleran, L.

Milverton, L.

Sandys, L.

Webb-Johnson, L.

Monck, L. (V. Monck.)

Schuster, L.

Wolverton, L.

Ormonde, L. (M. Ormonde.)

Selsdon, L.

Wright, L.

Palmer, L.

Sinclair, L.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

BRITISH INTERESTS IN CHINA
4.17 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF READING): My Lords, perhaps I may be permitted to intervene at this moment to make a Statement on British business interests in China which has just been made in another place by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary. It is as follows:
"The House will be aware that British firms in China have for reasons beyond heir control been facing for some time past increasing difficulties so far as trade and industry inside China are concerned. These difficulties are partly due to the increasing extent to which many of the functions formerly handled in China by private merchants and industrialists are being taken over by organisations operating on a State basis. There are, however, other difficulties, for example the increasing restrictions on the entry and exit of foreign staffs, arbitrary taxation demands and compulsion to retain and pay redundant labour. In these circumstances many firms have been operating at a loss for a considerable period.
"For these reasons roost of the British companies have reluctantly come to the conclusion that they can no longer operate satisfactorily inside China, and that the time has come to arrange for the disposal of their businesses. Many have already decided to apply for closure, custody, transfer, or lease of their various interests, as may be appropriate in each case. There are likely to be many problems involved and, at the request of the China Association, acting on behalf of the firms them-
1162
selves, Her Majesty's Government have presented a Note to the Central People's Government of China requesting that all the necessary facilities be made available to ensure that these problems are dealt with expeditiously. Both Her Majesty's Government and the firms themselves remain convinced of the need and desirability for British trade with China to be continued.
"The suggestion has been conveyed to the Central People's Government that the requirements of this trade under the changed conditions in China might perhaps be fret by setting up a new form of organisation. The firms feel that this could take the form of an association of representatives of manufacturers and overseas buyers, who would maintain direct contact with the appropriate Chinese authorities. This body could, in fact, act as a permanent trade organization.
"I should like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the skill, tenacity and courage of the British community in the Far East. In the course of their long arid honourable connection with China they have contributed greatly to the prosperity of both countries, and much of the traditional good will and mutual understanding which has existed between our two countries is also due to them. The firms concerned have recently had to face increasingly heavy losses, as I have explained, and have, been, in many cases, unable to replace their foreign staffs in China who, as may be imagined, have been working under conditions of great strain and anxiety. In these circumstances it is difficult to see how the firms could have made any other decision. Her Majesty's Government for their part fully realise the gravity of this step, but: they feel that, having regard to the, factors which I have outlined, they can only endorse the decision which the firms have taken."
4.23 p.m.
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Marquess for making this Statement. This House always likes to have Statements which are made in another place repeated here as nearly contemporaneously as possible. My Lords, what a melancholy business this is! Here is a trade which, I think I am right in saying, has been existing for centuries. It has redounded to the advantage of both countries. Our traders have brought great benefits to China, and from China we in turn have received benefits I should like to identify myself and those who sit with me on this side of the House with what the noble Marquess has said in paying a tribute to the courage, tenacity and wisdom with which our traders have carried on their business for so long. Now, I confess, I see no option but to take the course which is indicated in this Statement. I think it is a wise attempt to save what we can from the wreckage: to see whether we cannot construct some kind of consortium of traders to see whether we can carry on and, to some extent, keep the old trade going. I sincerely hope that the efforts which the Government may make in that direction will be attended with success. That is all I wanted to say. I should like to identify myself with what the noble Marquess has said.
4.25 p.m.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, with great diffidence I support what my noble friend and Leader has just said, but may I ask a question of the noble Marquess which I hope it will be convenient for him to answer—namely, will this change of policy and procedure have any effect on our policy with regard to the stationing of consular officers in China? Is the noble Marquess of my opinion, that it is more necessary than ever that we should have proper consular representation in the Chinese ports and centres of industry? Because there are bound to be a considerable number of British subjects and subjects of countries under our protection who will either be remaining or be resident from time to time in China.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: If I may say so, that is altogether a different question from the one with which we have been dealing. I should prefer to say no more at the moment. There are difficulties attaching to the position of consulates.

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE BILL
4.26 p.m.
Report stage resumed.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL THE EARL OF LISTOWEL moved, after Clause 1, to insert the following new clause:
Exemption of certain persons in welfare homes from charges for Pharmaceutical services
". No charge shall be made under subsection (3) of section thirty-eight of the National Health Service Act 1946, or under subsection (3) of section forty of the National Health Service (Scotland) Act, 1947 (which provide for the making and recovery of charges in respect of pharmaceutical services) in respect of any pharmaceutical services provided for any person for whom residential accommodation is being provided under Part III of the National Assistance Act, 1948, and who is not paying the standard rate fixed for that accommodation under section twenty-two of that Act."
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I am moving this Amendment in order to find out from the Government how they intend to treat the old persons mentioned therein in relation to the charge for prescriptions to be made under the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Woolton, was good enough to say that he would make a further statement on this subject at this stage. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 1 insert the said new clause—(The Earl of Listowel.)
LORD WOOLTON: My Lords, the National Assistance Board have agreed that old people unable to pay the normal rate for residential accommodation should be repaid any charges made under this Bill. As a result of consultations that have taken place with representatives of local authorities—I think this is the point which really interests the noble Earl—arrangements have been made for local authorities to act on behalf of the old people, by paying charges on their behalf and obtaining a refund in bulk from the National Assistance Board. This arrangement will apply both where the prescription is dispensed by a chemist and where, as happens in some homes which are adjacent to hospitals, prescriptions are dispensed from the hospitals. It is recognised that arrangements of this kind will involve local authorities and their officers in some inconvenience, but if all concerned will co-operate—and there is no doubt that they will co-operate—the old people themselves will be relieved of any difficulty, which is the main object that

1165
the noble Earl and we have had in mind. There is no question of provision in regulations to meet this particular point, since it is not proposed to exempt these people from payment. It is an administrative arrangement made to meet their needs, like those of any other persons in financial hardship, by the use of the powers of the National Assistance Board under Clause 7 (2) of the Bill. I hope that the noble Earl will agree that we have met completely the position that he put to us on the Committee stage.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Woolton, for going into this matter so carefully, with the assistance of his colleague the Minister of Health and the Assistance Board. We are also glad that these old people will be able to recover from the Assistance Board any payments that are made, so that ultimately they will not be out of pocket as a result of the charges made for prescriptions under this Bill. But I am afraid that I must express my dissatisfaction in certain other respects with the Government's reply to my Amendment. In the first place, my Amendment was to exempt these old people from these payments. What the Government have done is to say that the old people must make the payment, which can be recovered after it has been made.
LORD WOOLTON: I do not want to interrupt the noble Earl. What I said was that repayments would be made in bulk. The old people themselves will not be troubled with this matter.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: I am grateful to the noble Lord for that elucidation. But may I ask him a further question—namely, will the money which is paid in bulk by the local authorities be collected by them from the old people, or will it come out of the local authority fund?
LORD WOOLTON: It will not come from the old people.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: I am very glad to hear that, because that really relieves old people of any hardship at all.
I have no doubt that, the noble Lord will think me very ungrateful if I make any complaint at all about the Government reply. Nevertheless, I have two matters about which I wish to complain.
1166
The first is that this exemption of old people, on grounds of hardship, from having to make this payment is a matter of principle and of policy, and the exemption should therefore have been made in terms in the provisions of the Bill. It is not just a matter of administrative routine; it is a matter which affects great numbers of people, and which the public generally feel very strongly about. Therefore, under the ordinary procedure, which leaves only matters of purely administrative routine to the operation of regulations and of instructions given by Ministers, this should lave been included in terms in the Bill. I do not know why it has not been done in this way. I sincerely hope that it was not because there was a prior agreement that no Amendment whatever to this Bill would be accepted during the passage of the Bill through this House. I sincerely trust that that was not the case, because that would have been overriding the rights of Parliament, a thing which I think no one, on either side of the House, would regard as being right or proper.
The other complaint I have to make is that this is going to impose a heavy burden of administration on the local authorities. They with have to provide the money; they will then have to apply to the Assistance Board for the recovery of the money which they have provided out of their own funds That is surely a tremendous waste of manpower, a waste of the working time of the officials of these local authorities, just at a time when we want to take as many people as possible out of administration and put them into productive work. It is going to put a very heavy extra burden of work on the local authorities concerned. This burden of work could have been avoided if these old people had been exempted—as, for instance, inmates of hospitals are exempted under Clause 1, or nursing and expectant mothers are exempted from charges for dental treatment under Clause 2—as I propose in my Amendment. If I may venture to say so, I think it is contrary to the usual procedure that a matter of this Importance should. be dealt with administratively rather than by specific provision in the Bill.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I do not know whether the noble Earl is withdrawing his Amendment or pressing it.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: I apologise to the House. I should have said that I wish to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Then, Standing Order No. XXXIX having been dispensed with (pursuant to Resolution):
4.35 p.m.
LORD WOOLTON: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a Third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Woolton.)
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, as this is the first controversial Bill with which your Lordships' House has had to deal since the General Election, and as a good many of us are working under quite novel conditions, it may be desirable that we should make some short survey of the Bill and of the discussions that have taken place, because matters of very great importance are attached thereto. On the Second Reading of the Bill I rather complained that the noble Lord, the Lord President of the Council, had not given the same explanation of the appearance of this Bill as had been given in another place. Judging, however, from the debates which have ensued, it would seem that the Lord President of the Council is not standing alone, because nearly all other speakers from the Government side of the House have made no claim that the proceeds from this Bill are going to close the dollar gap. The constant loss of gold in our country is not to be stayed by anything that we have been doing.
I am sure, too, that no noble Lord opposite believes for a moment that the proceeds of the Bill are going to enable the Chancellor of the Exchequer to balance his Budget. The Budget has been well and truly balanced without the effect of this measure at all. In the Budget statement this year—I have already made this point, and I want to repeat it—the Chancellor of the Exchequer has relieved the income payer of payments totalling £180,000,000 and he expressed his opinion to the House of Commons that the country was quite able to do that. It is therefore to be supposed that this Bill, which it is suggested may save £9,000,000 of money, has got nothing whatever to do with the favourable circumstances of the Exchequer. We are, therefore, driven back on the speech of
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the noble Lord, the Lord President of the Council, to find out what this Bill is designed to accomplish. With your Lordships' permission I propose to read a few sentences from his speech. He said (OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 176, Col.609):
"The reason for the introduction of the charges, as your Lordships are well aware, is, primarily, to curb the ever-mounting cost of the Health Service and to keep it within reasonable bounds."
Later on, the noble Lord said (Col. 610):
"I do not think it is unreasonable to ask those who can afford it to make some contribution towards the cost of some of these services with a view to keeping the total cost within some near approach to the ceiling which successive Chancellors of the Exchequer have prescribed … This Bill will not only help to reduce in some measure the estimated expense but may well act as a curb to the extravagant demands on the Service."
There we have, according to the noble Lord, the Lord President of the Council—and, I believe, a great many other speakers from the Government side of the House—the reason for the Bill as seen by them. All I can say is that it is quite different from the impression created by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, first in January and then subsequently in his Budget statement.
Now, it may be well if I say a few words about the ceiling, because it is an object of this Bill to maintain the ceiling, and the two Parties in this House, and in Parliament, generally, ought to know what the ceiling means to them. The public, too, ought to know also what the two Parties in the State really mean by the ceiling. In 1950, the late Sir Stafford Cripps—as I mentioned in my Second Reading speech—said that he could not sanction an increase in the expenditure on the Health Service for that year. He believed that in that year a ceiling was necessary, and he suggested to the health authorities that if they had to enter into any new commitments, they must keep their total commitments within the amount of money which they had hitherto received from State. That, I think, is a statement to which we on this side of the House, with some explanation, could give our assent. We do not believe in a ceiling of a permanent character. We do not believe in a ceiling which stretches over a long period of time. But we do believe that each year, when the various authorities send in their estimates to Parliament, the Exchequer and

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Parliament should make up their minds whether in that year the estimates can be agreed to. If your Lordships think that that is an appropriate ceiling, then we believe in the use of the same ceiling.
We believe, however, that the ceiling should not go beyond one year, and that Parliament itself should decide what the ceiling should be in any one year. As I mentioned in my Second Reading speech, in 1951 we made a slight departure from that standard. We decided that in addition there should be charges on dentures and spectacles, but that those charges should be of a purely temporary character. And, following discussion in the House, it was decided that they should come to an end in 1954. We now know something of the operation of those two charges and we are not quite so satisfied with them as we were at the beginning. We are by no means enthusiastic about their retention. Indeed, when 1954 arrives we shall probably drop them, if we are in office and able to do so. We should like to know where the Conservative Party stand in this matter of charges and of a ceiling. Do they believe, with us, that every year Parliament should decide what should be spent on the Service during the succeeding year, or have they some political concept which says that we ought not to pay more than a permanent ceiling in order to compel those who have to administer that sum to keep within that limit? It is very important that we should know that, because I understand that the new Minister of Health, who like myself was a "back-room boy" at the headquarters of a political Party, holds the view that there should be charges; that there should be charges at any time; anti that if people cannot afford to pay the charges, their recourse is not by way of excuse under the Health Service but by way of the Assistance Board. I hope that is not the view of the Conservative Party, because I should hate to believe that there was a Party in the State wanting to go back to the bad old Poor Law days, when the very poor of our land were segregated from the rest of the population.
I am afraid that my original speech gave rise to one or two misconceptions in the minds of noble Lords. The noble Marquess the Leader of the House said some rather severe things when he followed me in the debate and during Committee stage he made reference to a
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previous speech of mine. I am going to quote that reference, not because I want to complain, but because it leads me to two figures which are of great importance in considering any ceiling that has to be adopted. 'This is what the noble Marquess quoted (OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 176, col. 92,5):
"I think the noble Viscount was accurate in also saying that costs will continue to rise until the full needs of the nation have been met'"
That is a quotation from my speech in reply to the noble Viscount. Lord Buckmaster. After some words, the noble Marquess continued to quote from my speech:
"'… then, undoubtedly, the cost will rise until the Service performs the task we expect of it.'"
As I say, I do not complain about that, but I want to explain it a little further because it is going to lead me to a real case. What I said was this (OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 175, Col 973):
"I think the noble Viscount was accurate in also saving that costs will continue to rise until the full needs of the nation have been met. The figures and fact, which he has given about patients are indicative of the point that although we are spending a great deal of money, although we have provided a great number of institutions, and although we have enrolled the medical service in our aid, vast numbers of people are still waiting for treatment, and if we are to overcome these shortages and difficulties then, undoubtedly, the cost will rise until the Service performs the task we expect of it."
What did the noble Viscount, Lord Buck-master say? I want to quote his figures because they are of importance and they will lead me to a question which I hope to put to the noble Mar Tress at the close. The noble Viscount said (OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol.. 175, Col. 971):
"So far as the patient himself is concerned, his position is not altogether happy because owing to the congestion t) which I have referred, we have very long waiting lists at our hospitals, and in an out-patients' department it may be six weeks or sometimes two months before an interview with a specialist can be obtained. Then, if an X-ray examination is needed, there is still further delay."
That is the first point made by the noble Viscount to which I need refer. This is the second point:
"So far as in-patients are concerned, there is a waiting list at the present moment—according to the last figures available—of 124,587 people for surgical treatment which involves staying in bed in a hospital. That surgery does not include orthopædic surgery, thoracic surgery, plastic surgery, neurological surgery, or a whole list of other forms of surgery.…"

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If these figures are accurate—and I believe them to be accurate—there is need of a good deal of development in the hospital services to treat these cases, and if that development is to come there is bound to be an increase in expenditure, and not a decrease. We have to remember, as one noble Lord opposite said in answer to my noble friend Lord Burden, that we cannot find £9,000,000 within the Health Service to get rid of this Bill. The case has been examined, but apparently we could not find within the Service the abuses to which attention had been drawn which would give us that amount of money. I want to put this question to the noble Marquess: assuming that the present level of £400,000,000 a year is to be retained by the Conservative Party as a ceiling, what will the noble Marquess and the Conservative Government do about these cases which have been brought to the attention of the House by one of his own supporters and about which I have made comment? Is it appropriate to say now that, because of circumstances, we can sit back and allow these cases to fend for themselves until brighter days come?
I think I should say one other word about finance, because the noble Marquess, referring to something I said relating to the scale of charges, said this (OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 176, col. 650):
"My Lords, at this moment, when the turn is beginning, what does the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, say? He says: 'If you only let the Labour Party back, there will be an end of any economy. There will be no more charges for the Health Service; there will be unlimited spending.'"
I challenge the noble Marquess to point to any part of my address where he can say I said those words. I am sure that the noble Marquess spoke without due preparation, and would not, I think, be prepared to substantiate that statement. There will be no unlimited spending, because the estimates of hospitals and the health authorities have to be submitted to Parliament; and when they come before Parliament they will go before the members of the Estimates Committee and the Accounts Committee of another place, all with their glasses upon their noses ready to check any wasteful and unnecessary expenditure. Even if we desired unlimited spending, it could not
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come about. We ourselves are anxious that the Service should be run efficiently and without waste, and we are prepared to see that expenditure, although it must rise, must bring improved results.
It is sometimes said that any expenditure of this kind must be a waste. Some people will say that people who are in poverty have only themselves to blame for their condition; that they ought to be able to pay for themselves, and that if they cannot (I am not attributing this view to the Lord President) then they should take what is coming to them. But I have taken this line: that whatever may be the cause of the difficulties in which we find ourselves, and whatever expenditure we may have to incur, it does not follow that the expenditure is wasteful—indeed, as I said on the Second Reading, an expenditure on improving the health of the nation may be extremely valuable. I should like to quote two sets of figures not mentioned by me before to indicate the improvement which comes about in the health of the people when poverty is eliminated. It may be that I am digressing somewhat from the theme on which I am engaged, but I consider these figures important, as they back up the point I have made that money expended upon the improvement of health is not necessarily bad in an economic sense.
The first set of figures has relation to Sweden. They show that in the years 1755 to 1756—that is a long time ago—the expectation of life in Sweden was thirty-four years. The increasing state of health and the improved standard of life of the people of Sweden in 1816 and 1840 raised that expectation of life to forty-one years. Continued improvements in the period 1911 to 1940 raised it to fifty-seven years, and at the present time the expectation of life in Sweden at birth is sixty-six years. Those who know anything about the standing of Sweden and the prosperity of its inhabitants will, I think, agree that if the expectation of life there were still only thirty-four, those prosperous conditions would not now exist and Sweden would be on the level of India, Egypt, Ceylon and certain other countries. The figures I want to place beside the ones I have just given relate to those countries. The article from which I am quoting goes on:
"On the other hand, in countries such as China, India and Egypt, where the average

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expectation of life at birth is in the neighbourhood of thirty years, only fifty-four out of ever, 100 children born reach the age of fifteen, and of those reaching adulthood all but fifteen die before completing the normal span of working life at sixty."
I suggest to noble Lord; in all parts of the House that, when they see the rising cost of the Health Service in this country, they should not stand appalled at the bald figures but should ask themselves, as they are entitled to do, whether this money is being wisely spent, whether it is bringing dividends in its train, and whether this imperial race of Britons, which is endeavouring to teach the world how to govern itself, has the necessary stability and standing to accomplish that purpose.
I want to conclude on what I believe to be a note of great importance—this time of great importance to your Lordships' House. We feel that the two noble Lords opposite who met the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, and myself concerning the business to-day did their utmost to bring to the attention of the Minister of Health the views expressed in this Chamber. We believe that they both did it, not only out of courtesy, but because they realised that the granting of some relief was of importance to the House of Lords itself. We do not like to see our noble Leader (and I use the term "noble Leader" advisedly, because the noble Marquess is not only the leader of the Conservative Party in this House, but is also the Leader of the House itself, and we all take pride in his accomplishments) being caught out during a debate and in a position where he cannot speak authoritatively. I should like to quote from a speech the noble Marquess made on the Committee stage. This, I feel, shows how injurious the present position may be to this Assembly. This is what the noble Marquess said (OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 176, col. 842):
"I do not think it would be possible to accept this Amendment without considering the acceptance of a great many others. I do not know where this would stop. With the best will in the world, it puts us in a difficult position."
He starts with that, from which it is quite obvious that he has not the authority we should like to see him possess.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I should be grateful if the noble Lord would expound that a little further. I
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have not a notion of what he means about my not having the authority.
LORD SHEPHERD: The noble Marquess was trying to meet the claims made from this side of the House, and in particular he was making reference to a particular matter we have been discussing to-day, as the rest of the statement will show. He went on to say:
"What I would suggest for the consideration of the House is this. I hope the noble Lord will not press this Amendment or any others, and when we come to the omnibus Amendment dealing with those suffering from chronic diseases—although I do not exactly know what a chronic disease' is—that is a matter which might be considered before the Report stage, although I should not like to give any great encouragement. I should be dishonest with the House if I were to do so."
He then concluded by saying:
"Therefore, I am sure my noble friend feels that we must stand firm on this Amendment because it does not seem to its that in this case we could make a differentiation. I am sure that others of us a would be willing to consider some sort of wider Amendment, but I could not give very great encouragement about accepting it, because it seems to me to drive a cleft in the Bill and cause such injury to it that it would be hardly worth putting in."
As I have already said, both noble Lords opposite agreed that they did their best to persuade the Minister of Health to give what we asked of them, and they failed. Most noble Lords opposite do not now believe that this House should possess a veto; most of them believe that this House should continue to exercise a suspensory role. We are not anxious to persuade noble Lords opposite that that power which the House possesses should be used even against itself, because we ourselves do not believe in the suspensory vote. But we do agree with noble Lords opposite that this House has a great function to perform. We believe that it possesses the right of review and that it should have the right of revision also, so that after the revision has taken place the details of the revision may go to another place and Members of the Commons given another opportunity of deciding on the issues involved. I will not say that one swallow makes summer, and I do not suggest that, after one Bill in this House, we are in danger of losing our revisional role, but noble Lords will understand very well that from now on whenever revolutionary Bills come up, we shall watch closely to see whether in connection with these Bills

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also this House is going to be refused the Tight of revision and the other place refused the opportunity of a second look at the document.
We believe that noble Lords opposite are with us in maintaining the proper standards of this House, but we suggest that if we are to continue, as in this particular Bill, to review the Bill without a dot or comma being altered, we shall not only lose our rights but the British public will think very poorly of us as an institution.
LORD MERTHYR: May I ask the noble Lord who has just sat down one question? Are we to infer from what he said that there is a certain stigma or shame attached to the receipt of Public Assistance, and, if so, how is this worse than a payment from the National Health Service for spectacles?
LORD SHEPHERD: With the permission of the House may I reply to that question? First of all, there are no free spectacles from the National Health Service. The taxpayers of our country—and we are all taxpayers now—contribute collectively to the cost of the Health Service. The patient who goes for a pair of glasses has already paid to his or her tax collector for that Service. It is one of the main quarrels over this Bill that, having taken from the taxpayer the money to provide these services, we are going to ask those who require these services to pay twice. I hope that will satisfy the noble Lord.
5.5 p.m.
VISCOUNT HUDSON: My Lords, it would be presumptuous on my part as a new member to enter into the controversy about the future of your Lordships' House. As a "new boy" I would venture only to offer one or two observations, which I hope will not be unduly controversial, on how the debate on this particular Bill strikes a newcomer. The most obvious feature is the great difficulty in which noble Lords opposite find themselves with their criticisms—and for this reason, that the Bill introduces no brand new principle. It is, in fact, an extension of a principle already included in two measures passed by the Party opposite. Therefore, the arguments in all these Amendments which have been moved with so much emotion by noble Lords opposite ought surely to have been
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addressed to their own Government when they were in office, and when they were laying down the principles that we are now slightly extending. It would be interesting to know whether the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, who made such an impassioned speech about the chronic sick, ever addressed his own Government of which he was a member, or his own colleagues, upon the desirability of inserting some such clause in their Bill. If he did it must be pretty clear that the answer of his Government was "No," because otherwise no doubt he would have succeeded in his emotional appeal.
The same thing, of course, is true of practically all the Amendments which have been put forward from the opposite Benches. They were not Amendments addressed to the principles of the Bill, they were Amendments designed to exclude certain classes of people from its operation. If these Amendments were sound to-day they would have been equally sound in 1949–50. The fact of the matter is that if they were suggested by noble Lords and their followers during the passage of their Act, clearly they must have been turned down by the Labour Government for reasons that were as valid to them as they have been to the noble Lords on our Front Bench.
The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, in reply to an interjection at the end of his speech, was guilty, I think, of some very muddled thinking. It is true that the taxpayer contributes the major portion of the cost of the National Health Service, but he contributes the whole of the cost of the National Assistance service; and it is to be assumed that the recipient of National Assistance must, at some time or another, have been a contributor to the taxes and, indeed, probably still is, through his tobacco and so forth. To attempt, therefore, to make a distinction between the two is wholly invalid. But the noble Lord went further in his rather muddled thinking. He set out to give us some figures designed to show, as he said, that increased expenditure on national health might well be economic and to the general advantage of the country—I do not think I am misquoting him. But the late Sir Stafford Cripps did not think that when he said it was necessary to impose a ceiling in 1949 and to impose a similar ceiling in 1950. I should be interested to know whether the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, in those days when

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he was a "back room boy," brought those facts to the attention of his learned friend Sir Stafford Cripps and suggested that there were sound reasons against his decision that there must be a temporary ceiling to the National Health Service.
LORD SHEPHERD: As the noble Viscount has invited me to express an opinion, may I remind him that when I dealt with the case of Sir Stafford Cripps we really took that line? We believed that not only the Chancellor of the Exchequer but Parliament should decide each year what the ceiling should be. What we are afraid of in this Bill is that the ceiling, instead of being reviewed from one year to another, is going to become permanent.
VISCOUNT HUDSON: If that is the only objection which the noble Lord takes to the whole Bill, it was dealt with in various speeches of noble Lords on our Front Bench who hoped and looked forward to the day when it might be possible, if the economic conditions of this country improved, to have another look at the whole question of these charges.
I was particularly interested in the quite unconscious tribute which the noble Lord paid to the success, or potential success, of our financial administration of the country, when he predicted with such confidence that by 1954, if his Party got back, they would find the finances of the country in such an excellent state that they would be able to raise the standard of the Health Service and abolish these charges. I am sure it was an unconscious tribute, and I am equally sure that the country will appreciate its value.
5.12 p.m.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, I regret that have taken no part so far in the proceedings on this Bill. Unfortunately, while the Health Bill was going through the House I was suffering from ill-health and was thus defeated in my efforts to take part. I listened with great interest to what the noble Viscount who has just sat down had to say, because I agree with him in the matter of both this Health Bill and the previous Health Bills which were produced by the Labour Government. I was one of those who tried to dissuade the Labour Government from producing these Bills, because I believed that, once they had started a bad principle, other people who did not view
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the Health Service with quite the same eyes as did the Labour Government, would step in and, where the Labour Government had used a razor to shave the Health Service, they would take a dagger arid cut its throat. Therefore, I. opposed the previous Bills so far as I could, and I oppose this one most bitterly. I think this is a bad Bill, and I think that any Labour Government who get back into office in the future should make the repeal of this Bill one of their first actions. We, the Labour Party, started a bad principle. I believe that it was one of the worst mistakes we made, and this principle has been expanded when it should have been stopped. That is all I wish to say on this matter. There is nothing new which can be added. I think that the Bill, in its main principles at any rate, has been pretty thoroughly argued, but I could not let a measure, which in my opinion is so damaging to the nation, go through Parliament without at least one kick from me.
5.15 p.m.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, I wish only to say a word about the remarks of my noble friend Lord Shepherd. He left the Health Bill to deal with the constitutional position, and that certainly is an extremely interesting position. I do not feel in a mood to take up what he said in a controversial spirit, because I have suffered sufficiently by straying from the flock already this afternoon. I would point out to him that if he thinks that our behaviour in this Parliament is going in some way to lay a pattern for your Lordships' behaviour when we come into office, he is making a mistake. This is a conservative House and always will be a conservative House. The certain way in which to keep it a conservative House is to appoint more Labour Peers. I am not saying a word of criticism of my own colleagues—I am talking about the course of time.
Here is a Bill which is decree legislation. As it was issued by the Præsidium—let us use words that really apply—so it is going to receive Her Majesty's assent. It came to this House after a short interval when it was debated in another place, and when it was passed under the guillotine. No amendment was permitted. No amendment had been made in this House. No draft regulations have been laid before this House. That would have been a permissible thing. If the noble

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Lord, Lord Woolton, had said that he would do this or that by regulation, there was nothing to prevent him. It is very unpopular for Ministers to ask for this, but there was nothing to prevent him from laying his regulations so that we could see exactly how these omissions and modifications for which we have asked could be made by regulation. While I am on that point, I wish to point out one great fallacy in the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord St. Davids. I think the Labour Party passed an enabling Bill but never drafted regulations. It does not lie in the mouth of any critic of the Labour Party to say that, had those regulations come forward, they would not have made provision for the hard cases for which we have been pressing in our Amendments to-day. I make that point, and I think it is a valid point. Furthermore we have had no estimate at all—
VISCOUNT HUDSON: Surely one of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch, was that exemptions of this sort ought not to have been left to regulations, but should have been included in the text of the Bill. Noble Lords opposite were influential members of the Labour Party while the earlier Act was being passed, and if what they have been saying to-day is valid, it was equally valid in 1949. The point of my argument is that they did not argue then, and they cannot argue now, that it ought not to be done.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: This is a perfectly valid Parliamentary difficulty: should this exemption be put in a Bill or can it be done by regulations? If you are in Opposition you say that it should be in the Bill, and if you are in power you say you will do it by undisclosed regulations. All I will say is that there is no crime to be attached to the Labour Party. I mention that because, in the course of this debate, my noble friend Lord Shepherd dealt with the position of this Chamber. I was brought up in an old Radical tradition; I have said things and thought things—and still say things and think things—about this Chamber which I would not dare to say and which I am sure would not meet with general approval—and probably not with the approval of my noble friend Lord Shepherd. What he does not seem
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to realise is that every Cabinet wants single-Chamber government. The only difference is that the Labour Party cannot get single-Chamber government while the Conservative Party can. Whenever the Conservative Party are in power they get single-Chamber government. They now have a most unusually rich array on the Front Bench opposite but, of course, they are powerless. My noble friend must not be surprised that the Leader of this House cannot do anything. The Cabinet, or rather the officials, have decided the matter, and the Bill must be passed as it is printed on the Paper, tel quell
So far as reform of the House is concerned—people speak a great deal about the reform of the House. The Liberal Party are the great advocates of the Reform of the House of Lords. The first and most obvious step in that direction would be for the Liberal Party to attend. Therefore, to that extent I am with my noble friend Lord Shepherd. I think that this House can make much more use of Parliamentary draftsmen. People sometimes confuse revision by draftsmen with revision of the sense of a Bill. This House can make a useful contribution in the matter of the revision of the sense of Bills. But if anyone thinks that the Conservative Party are going to use this House for that purpose, let him read the history of this guillotined and telescoped Bill and observe that no single suggestion put forward by the Opposition has been adopted. Some day, perhaps, it may be useful to have a general discussion on where the House of Lords stands. I hope that what I have said will enable us all to co-operate in the good cause of opposing the Government.
5.21 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, the Lord President of the Council has led for the Government, if I may use a legal phrase, in the debates on this Bill. As he has explained to the noble Lord, he has unfortunately been obliged to leave before the end of the debate, and he asked me to say a few words in conclusion. They will not be many; but I will say quite frankly that there are certain conclusions to which I have come as a result of listening to the speeches on this Bill. There have been delivered some very sincere and extremely moving speeches, but I am bound to say that, on

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the general record of the Opposition during this Bill, I am driven to the inevitable conclusion—and I am very sorry to have to say so—that this has been for them very largely a Party stunt. That is the impression made upon me. It has been a good stick with which to beat the Government. The noble Viscount let the cat out of the hag in the very last words of his speech when he spoke of the "cause of opposing the Government" as a laudable thing. That is all that is in his mind. All the crocodile tears he has shed do not mean anything more than that.
The noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, at the beginning of this Parliament made an impressive appeal for the attitude of a Council of State. But there has been little evidence of that attitude in the course of the debates on this. Bill. Moreover, is has not been merely a Party attack made for what the noble Viscount would say is a legitimate purpose. It has been, in my view, very largely a fraudulent attack. Opprobrium has been heaped upon the Government for not exempting the chronic sick from the payment of charges. In Amendment after Amendment on the Committee stage we were castigated for hardheartedness and callousness. But when noble Lords opposite were in power and brought in their own Bill, so far as I know, no member of the Socialist Party in this House suggested that the chronic sick should be exempted from payment of the charges that had to be made. I cannot help feeling, when I recollect that fact, that the present attack, attractive though it must have been in many ways to noble Lords opposite, is a very bogus affair indeed.
The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, made an agreeable speech, as he always does. He made certain statements and put up some ninepins which he proceeded to knock down again. He said impressively that this Bill will not close the dollar gap. Did he and his noble friends really suppose that this Bill was meant by itself to close the dollar gap? If they thought that was the purpose of this Bill their mathematics must be very strange indeed. But, in fact, the purpose of the measure is to assist awards improving the credit of the country; and, through the improvement of the credit of the country it is hoped that the dollar gap will become narrower. There is a Scots proverb which says:
"Mony a mickle mak's a muckle."
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This is a "mickle." You are not going to get great economies except by many "mickles." In the world as it is to-day, if you try to make your economies by saving hundreds of millions of pounds in one sphere of the public services you will find it impossible. What you can do is, where it is necessary, and only where it is necessary, to make the small economies. The total result is then something worth having.
The noble Lord reiterated the suggestion—and so did other noble Lords throughout the discussions—that this charge is to be a permanent measure. "Look at our Bill" they say. "The charge we proposed was only for one year, or at any rate for a limited period, whereas this is a permanent charge." It has already been said from this side that it is not intended to be a permanent charge. The only reason why no date was fixed was because we were not certain when the emergency would be over. It would not have been honest to put in a date without knowing whether that date represented the realities of the situation or not. When Lord Shepherd says that his Party put in a date, I can only say that it was not quite honest to do so if they had no certainty about whether the economy of this country was improving. The noble Lord asked me whether I accepted the view that £400,000,000 should be a permanent ceiling. I do not accept a permanent ceiling for any expenditure in this country. I can well imagine that, just as happened in the last century, the national income may increase—I hope it well—to the point when even £400,000,000 may appear to be comparatively unimportant. But what we equally say is that what you can spend on any object at any one moment depends on the money available at that time. If the general situation today is such that measures of economy are necessary—and I believe that to be true—then we must face the fact and make the economies which the situation imposes upon us.
The remarks which I made, and to which the noble Lord referred, regarding his attitude, arose, so far as I can remember—I am afraid that I have not the quotation with me—from a statement by the Socialist Minister of Health, to the effect that if the Labour Party were returned to power they would immediately remove all the health charges. It was

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on that basis that I suggested to the noble Lord that, if his Party were returned, we should get back into a riot of extravagance. He said that that is not true. I would ask the noble Earl himself to tell me: Do he and his friends unequivocally and completely support the statement of the late Minister of Health? Do they say here in this House that, if they were returned, all charges on the Health services would be immediately abolished? I should be glad of an answer to that.
EARL JOWITT: Speaking from my recollection, I do not think the Socialist Minister of Health ever said that he would immediately abolish all these charges. I think he said he would do away with them at the first available opportunity, and I think he meant by that much the same thing as the noble Marquess meant when he said that he would take the earliest opportunity when the economic situation permitted.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: As I say, I have not the quotation with me, but I am pretty certain that the effect of the words was that, if the Labour Party were returned to power all these charges would be taken off. I think that is the position. The noble and learned Earl does not take that position. He takes very much the position that I am taking now; and in that case I cannot help feeling that it is queer that noble Lords on that side should be so terribly shocked at this Bill and at the very moderate charges which it imposes.
In conclusion, I should like to say this. Reference was made to my own position, I think, by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, and to the position of this House by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, and by the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, was kind enough to sympathise with me in what I understood him to say was the humiliating situation in which I was placed. He said it was painfully evident that I had no authority to amend this Bill. Of course I have not. I am not the Minister of Health. All I can do, as a colleague of the Minister of Health, representing his views in this House, is to say that I will transmit to him what has been said. The noble and learned Earl will agree with me that that was what he used to say a hundred times
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during the last Parliament, when he was in power. He said: "I am very sorry to tell you that I am not in a position to give an undertaking myself, but I will, of course, refer it to my colleague." We always accepted that. It seemed to us the only thing to be done in the circumstances. If the noble Lord really feels that I am humiliated, I can assure him that I am not humiliated. The course I recommended to the House was the only course that, constitutionally, I could recommend to it.
Now with regard to the House. There was a sort of suggestion: "What is going to happen in this new, dreadful situation where the House of Lords is turning down every measure that the Labour Party introduces? Can the country go on like that?" I really do not think there is any justification for exaggerated statements of that kind. Look at our record in this House since the war—the record of the House as a whole and the record of the Party to which I belong. When the Labour Government came into power after the war, we were, by reason of our majority, in a position where we could have completely stultified all the efforts and the policy of the Labour Government. It would have been quite possible for us to do that. But I remember that I made a speech in 1945 when I said that we did not intend to do that; we were going to try to regard ourselves as (I think it was the first time the phrase was used) a Council of State—and, in fact, we did. We passed Bill after Bill which we cordially disliked, and which noble Lords opposite knew that we disliked. We opposed the Government only when we thought it was absolutely vital to the country that we should do so. Even then, when we did put in Amendments—usually quite good ones—they were nearly always turned down by the Socialist Party in another place. I remember Bills of which not a single Amendment that we sent down was accepted in another place. They were taken as a list and voted down.
EARL JOWITT: I should be very interested to know the name of that Bill.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I will let the noble and learned Earl know. I think it happened in the case of the Transport Bill. There was a list of

1185
Amendments that we sent down, and I am pretty sure that nearly all of them were turned down.
EARL JOWITT: On the contrary, nine-tenths of them, and their number was legion, were accepted.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No, no!
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The noble and learned Earl may not accept that; but at any rate he will accept what I said earlier, that we did our best to cooperate in the very difficult situation in which we were placed, and that the course of Government business was not unduly impeded, if it was impeded at all. The noble and learned Earl himself paid tributes to us for our moderation in that respect. That was the position in the last Parliament.
Now we cone to this Parliament. Take the Dentists Bill. We had negotiations during the Dentists Bill over the Amendments proposed by noble Lords opposite. Quite a number of Amendments were found which we could accept. If we have not been able to do it with this Bill, it is because the Amendments which noble Lords opposite have put down are Amendments which would have had the effect of making the Bill unworkable, of driving a cart and horses through it. Noble Lords opposite may not like this Bill; they may wish to destroy it. But they cannot expect us to wish to destroy it if we think it is necessary for the country. In those circumstances, we are bound to take the action we have.
Finally—I have addressed your Lordships quite long enough—I would say this. We have not introduced this Bill (I repeat this for the benefit especially of the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd) because we like charges for health services. We have done it because we consider that in present circumstances it is necessary to impose them. We recognise that there must be, now and for some time to come, charges under the National Health Service, disagreeable though most of those charges may be. I do not wish this afternoon to speculate to your Lordships on the future; but if the economic position of our country dramatically improved, as I hope it will; if, for instance, the number of dentists were adequate, not only for the priority classes but also for the whole of the population; if all those who used the National Health Service
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showed a fully responsible attitude towards its cost, then, indeed, these charges should be, and would be, reviewed by my right honourable friend the Minister of Health. The alterations made during the passage of the Act of 1951 and of the present Bill are, at any rate, evidence that the Conservative Party, although they hold firmly to the belief that charges now are essential, do not declare in this Bill that charges for treatment under the National Health Service must remain a permanent part of their policy. This is, in fact, a temporary Bill to meet what is, I hope, a temporary emergency. We believe that, as such, it is necessary and we commend it with confidence to the House.
5.38 p.m.
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, I think the speech to which we have just listened calls for a short reply from me. It will be very short. First, I want to say that I derive some consolation from that speech, in this respect. There are obviously two schools of thought in the Party opposite. One school of thought is represented by the noble Lord, Lord Brand, for one, and by the noble Lord, Lord Webb-Johnson, For another, who think it good and right that charges for national health should be imposed. Both those noble Lords sail that they were opposed to a free Service. I am not criticising them at all. I understand the point of view, though I disagree with it fundamentally. They think it a good thing that there should be charges. Then there is the other school of thought which does not think it a good thing at all, but regards it as a regrettable necessity. The noble Marquess, from what he has just said, has plainly identified himself with the latter school and not with the former. He regards it as a reg7ettable necessity, and he has assured us that as soon as the economic clouds are lifted to a sufficient degree he, at any rate" will be delighted to bring in a Bill, if a Bill is necessary, to do away with the charges altogether. That is a satisfactory point of view.
But I want to ask MI it is the object of this Bill, because even at this late hour I am not satisfied. It is true, as the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, said, that this Bill which brings in £9,000,000, does not close the dollar gap, and the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, never imagined that that was its purpose. But the point is, does it

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contribute to the closing of the dollar gap? "Mony a mickle makes a muckle." If the "muckle" is the dollar gap, is this a "mickle"? I do not pose as an economist, and I do not think the noble Marquess poses as an economist either. Therefore, this is probably a case of "deep calleth unto deep." But I should like to ask the noble Marquess this question. If this Bill does not either increase our exports or diminish our imports, how does it contribute to the extent of £9,000,000, or any sum at all, towards the closing of the dollar gap? I do not understand. So far as the closing of the dollar gap is concerned, it seems to me that this Bill is wholly and utterly irrelevant. It is not a question of closing the gap; it is a question of contributing towards closing it. I do not understand how it does so.
If it is not for the closing of the dollar gap, what is the object of the Bill? Is it because it is thought desirable to make people pay charges? The answer to that is, No. The noble Marquess has said that that is not the reason at all. Of course, inevitably he and the noble Viscount, Lord Hudson, have twitted us about the fact that we introduced a similar Bill. So we did. But we never came to promulgate the regulations which were to put the provisions of the Bill into operation. I admit frankly that it is exceedingly difficult to see how, as a matter of administration these people can be exempted, and if they cannot be exempted it may well be right not to charge anybody. That was the practical trouble we were up against.
The only other thing I want to say deals with the question of the position of this House. Speaking for myself, I think it is far too early to judge yet, and all we can see is possible danger signals. I have always said, and I say again, that in the circumstances of the last Parliament, noble Lords on both sides contributed to the House acquitting itself extremely well, and I think it increased in prestige amongst reasonable people of all Parties. That was largely due to the noble Marquess himself. Now we have a new situation, in which the Conservative
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Party are in a majority in another place, and have a vast majority here. If they are so minded they can, of course, disregard all our suggestions, and if they do, we shall simply become in practice a rubber stamp for passing through Government proposals. To be quite candid, there is a feature in this Bill, or rather in the procedure connected with it, which I do not like. The Government have already announced in their proposal to the hospital authorities that they are to carry on as though this Bill has been passed—that is, to assume that the Bill will be passed and that this House will do nothing in regard to it at all. I humbly suggest that in the future it would be much better not to assume necessarily that this House is going to pass any Government proposal. At any rate, it would be more decent to indicate that this House is perfectly free to accept or reject, as the case may be.
That matter, I believe, concerns us all, because if for the next period of years, if years it be, that the Conservative Party are in power, reasonable suggestions are not going to be considered and discussed and, if necessary, accepted on their merits, then that is indeed something which will not redound to the credit of the House. But I say quite frankly that I think it is too early to make that accusation. I sincerely hope that when controversial Bills come before this House we shall occasionally get Amendments accepted on their merits, and that arguments, if there are sound arguments for an Amendment, will be considered and weighed in the balance, so that under the new situation, as under the old, this House may stake out its necessary place in the legislative system of this country. Those are the only observations I want to make. Although we have not succeeded in making any Amendments to this Bill we have yet obtained two promises in regard to the form of the regulations, and certainly it is the fact that this Bill has provided us with a sounding board for all sorts of arguments and speeches, some of which, at any rate, I am glad to think the noble Marquess found to be speeches of great sincerity and depth.
On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed

AGRICULTURE (POISONOUS SUBSTANCES) BILL [H.L.]
5.45 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Carrington.)
House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL OF DROGHEDA in the Chair]
Clause 1 [Protection of employees against risks of poisoning]:
LORD AMHERST OF HACKNEY LORD AMHERST OF HACKNEY moved to add to the clause:
("(6) When the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Secretary of State, or either of them, propose or proposes to make regulations under this Act, they or he shall before making the regulations consult with such organisations as appear to them or him to represent the interests concerned ")
The noble Lord said: I hope that this Amendment will prove slightly less controversial than some of the Amendments we have discussed this afternoon. Under Clause 1 of this Bill the Minister of Agriculture and the Secretary of State for Scotland quite rightly take wide powers to make regulations for the safety of those who use poisonous substances in agriculture. As we all know, the use of these substances has greatly increased during the last few years, and the farmer to-day is engaged in a chemical warfare of ever-increasing intensity and complexity. There are many employed in this warfare. There are the farm workers and contractors' employees, who are the spearhead; but there are also involved farmers, contractors, manufacturers and scientists. The use of new sprays and poisons and new uses for old ones are constantly being evolved. The regulations are likely to be of a very technical nature, and many of those who work in the industry fear that at some time the Ministry may take upon itself the job of making regulations without consulting those whose interests are involved. There is a possibility that a regulation which looks very well on paper in Whitehall will not lock quite so well when it reaches the farm. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, speaking on the Second Reading the Bill, at the end of his speech, said (OFFICIAL. REPORT, VOl. 176, col. 409):
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"We shall consult the interests concerned about the precise regulations to be made, in the same way that we have been consulting them about the voluntary arrangements to be made in the meantime. I am sure that we shall have their full co-operation in determining the form that these regulaions should take."
All that I am asking is that he should put something in the Bill to make the holding of these consultations a statutory obligation, and thus allay any possible fears for the future. It is in no way intended to weaken the Minister's powers in making these very necessary safety regulations, and I hope the noble Lord will be able to accept my Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 4, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Amherst of Hackney.)
LORD CARRINGTON: As my noble friend Lord Amherst has said, on the Second Reading of this Bill I did say that we intended to consult the interests concerned about the precise regulations to be made, in exactly the same way that we have been consulting them about the voluntary arrangements to be made in the meantime. We have tried to make the arrangements for consultation as flexible as possible and have consulted whichever interests were concerned—whether farmers, farmworkers, agricultural contractors or insecticide manufacturers—according to the particular matters to be discussed. We have also on occasion brought them all together for conferences on important and general matters of policy.
In many cases the things on which consultation will be necessary will be highly technical and Care are considerable advantages in discussing such matters with small groups of people rather than in large committees or conferences. That is why there is no special provision in the Bill for consultative machinery. We thought it best to leave this to the discretion of Ministers and Departments on the understanding that there is every intention to consult the interests concerned and to keep them fully informed. However, I can weal understand that those concerned would feel reassured if the words which the noble Lord suggests were included in the Bill to make quite certain that there will be consultation, am sorry to notice that the noble Earl the Leader of the opposition and the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, are not in

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their places, because I expect that they would receive my next words with surprise and gratification—
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Will we not do?
LORD CARRINGTON: You did not actually make the remark which I am thinking of. I am sure your Lordships will receive with pleasure the information that we shall be happy to accept the noble Lord's Amendment.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 2 to 8 agreed to.
Clause 9 [Substances to which this Act applies]:
5.51 p.m.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH moved, in subsection (1) after paragraph (d) to insert:
"(e) preparations or mixtures containing any substance which has come into economic use in the United Kingdom since 1st January, 1935, that is to say has been offered for sale publicly for use otherwise than experimentally in agriculture;"
The noble Lord said: I am greatly encouraged by what the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, said a few moments ago, and I hope that his disposition to accept Amendments is not confined to those emanating from one side of the House only. The Amendment which I am moving is intended to give a greater measure of protection to those concerned in using poisonous substances in agriculture than is given in the Bill as it stands. I only wish that I were able, within the limits of order, to extend that protection to the consumer of agricultural substances which have been subjected to treatment with poisons in the course of production. As I am not able to do that, I say at any rate let us try to give more ample protection to those who have to work with such substances.
As the Bill stands, it applies specifically to only two classes of poisons, and to no others. There is power, of course, under the Bill, by means of regulations to add other classes of poisonous substances, but I do not regard that as being adequate protection. Let us take the two classes which are specifically provided for in the Bill. One of those is the dinitro compounds, which include D.N.O.C. and D.N.P., which were introduced for use as
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medicines as long ago as 1933, for the purpose of treating certain diseases. In the course of their use for that purpose, it was discovered that they were dangerous poisons. Many cases of poisoning occurred and some deaths were reported from their use in medicine, and I understand that by 1937 their use for medical purposes had been discontinued. In spite of that fact, these substances were introduced for use in agriculture, and it is because people using them for that purpose have become seriously ill, and in some cases have died, that this Bill has now been introduced. I hope we are not going on in that way, and that other substances are only going to be dealt with after the necessity has been brought to our notice by such disastrous means as that. It is on that account that I am proposing that the Bill shall apply to substances which have been introduced in recent times.
The date which I have suggested in my Amendment, January 1, 1935, appears to be somewhat arbitrary, I agree; but I think it is fairly certain that all the highly dangerous substances in use in agriculture have come into use since that time. It is true, I admit, that there are other poisonous substances which were in use before then. Preparations of lead and preparations of arsenic have been used in agriculture for a very long time, but at any rate with them there is the safeguard that they are very well-known poisons, and the care that should be exercised in respect of them is more or less common knowledge. But when we come to these highly complex synthetic chemicals which have been introduced in recent times—as pesticides and so on—we are dealing with a very great potential danger, and I am therefore suggesting to the Committee that none of these substances should be allowed to be used in agriculture except with the permission of the Ministry of Agriculture and subject to regulations which the Ministry have laid down with regard to each one of them. That is the purpose of my Amendment—to provide that these substances shall not be used except and until the Ministry have laid down the conditions under which they are to be used—if indeed, they are to be used at all. Some of them, possibly, ought not to be used under any consideration whatsoever. But I do not go so far as that. I say merely that these new substances ought

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to be subject to scrutiny, and that the regulations should apply to them as well as to the two classes of substances specifically mentioned in the Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 3, at end insert the said paragraph.—(Lord Douglas of Barloch.)
LORD CARRINGTON: I must confess that when I first saw the noble Lord's Amendment on the Marshalled List I was rather at a loss to understand for what purpose he had put it down, because it is very wide indeed. I think perhaps I ought to explain once again that the intention of this Bill as it now stands is threefold. First of all, it is designed to bring within the scope of the regulations all dinitro compounds. Secondly, it is designed to bring in all organo-phosphorus compounds. Thirdly, it gives the Ministers powers to make regulations about any other substances which at some later date may involve a substantial risk of poisoning to the workers concerned. The noble Lord's Amendment would seem to make the Bill very much less specific than it now is by including any preparations or mixtures, whether they are poisonous or not, which have come into use in agriculture since January, 1935. As I explained during my speech on the Second Reading—I know the noble Lord does not agree with me about this, but I assure him once again that it really is so—at the present time only the dinitro and the organo-phosphorus compounds involve risk of poisoning to the worker using them. No other substance—D.D.T., for example, about which I know the noble Lord is concerned—involves any risk to the operators. Moreover, the noble Lord's Amendment seems to suggest that the Minister should be able to make regulations about any substance he likes without any specific authority fog its inclusion and without any criterion based upon its dangerous qualities. As I have mentioned, there is ample power in Clause 9, subsections (2), (3) and (4) for the Minister to include any new substance which he considers might be dangerous to workers on the land. I regret, therefore, I am unable to accept the noble Lord's Amendment.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: I am sorry to hear the noble Lord say that. I think part of his remarks are based on a misconception of the meaning of my
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Amendment. Obviously it relates only to poisonous substances. I would draw the noble Lord's attention to Clause 1 (1) which says:
"Provision shall be made by regulations under this Act for the purpose of protecting workers against risks of poisoning by substances to which this Act applies.…"
Obviously, if there is no risk of poisoning, the substances do not come within the scope of my Amendment. If the noble Lord agrees with the spirit of my Amendment, the point could be met simply by making "any substance" into "any poisonous substance," although I should have thought that was obvious from the whole scope of the Bill.
I was also sorry to hear the noble Lord assert with such dogmatism that there are no other substances beyond those named in the Bill which are in use at the present time and which are poisonous. There is a whole class of compounds, of which D.D.T. is one—chlordane, and others—and I should be greatly surprised to learn that the noble Lord's scientific advisers say these substances ate not poisonous. At any rate, there is a serious risk to persons who are engaged continually in using such substances. In the United States, it has been found that men engaged in using D.D.T. continuously have accumulated that substance to the extent of 100 parts per 1,000,000. It is true that they have not died of it, but what we have to be concerned about is not only the effect after a short period but also what the effect may be if such a substance is used year after year. There are many substances which are toxic only after ten or twenty years. There is a classic example of that in the use of radium. At one time it was extensively used for the purpose of making luminous the hands and dials of watches, and there were many cases in which the people concerned developed symptoms of radium poisoning but only after fifteen or twenty years had elapsed. I beg the noble Lord to realise that many of these substances are of classes which are known to be toxic if used for long periods, or if allied to other substances which are known to be toxic, and very great care is demanded of agricultural workers or others who come into contact with them. I hope that the Ministry are not going to jump lightheartedly to the conclusion that the two

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classes of substances mentioned in the Bill are the only ones which are potentially dangerous.
LORD CARRINGTON: I do not think if I stayed the whole of this evening I should convince the noble Lord that what I said is true. So far as we know—and we know a good deal about this—the only two substances in use in agriculture to-day dangerous to the people who use them, to the agricultural workers and the contractors' men who put these substances on the ground, are the organo-phosphorus and dinitro compounds. I know that the noble Lord does not agree with me; and I do not agree with him. Perhaps I may say one other thing that I did not say in my first remarks. We are satisfied that if any new substances which may be dangerous to the workers come into general use in agriculture, we have power under this Bill to deal with them and to protect the workers. If I may say so with respect, I do not think the noble Lord is doing a very great service to agriculture in this country by continually stressing the dangers there are in putting these poisons on the land. There really is no danger, except a very limited one with which we are taking full steps to deal in this Bill.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: I do not want to prolong the discussion, but I should like to ask the noble Lord one question. What steps are his Ministry taking to become aware of the properties of new substances which are being introduced for this purpose? At what early stage do they become acquainted with them? I have given the noble Lord an illustration, which he knows well, of the poisonous effect of a substance becoming known only after a long period of time.
LORD CARRINGTON: That is the reason why we are bringing in this Bill. Obviously, it is the duty of a manufacturer of a new weed-killer to see that its properties are well known. He should carry out the necessary tests and trials and state clearly on his tins and containers what danger there is in the use of the poison. I do not agree that it is the duty of the Ministry of Agriculture
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to test out every single spray which has ever been invented in this country or any other. It would not be possible. It would mean engaging an enormous staff at great expense to test these new substances, in all sorts of places and all sorts of conditions, and it would mean considerable delay in bringing into use these extremely beneficial weed-killers, which have done a great deal to help our agricultural production. I am certain that that is the job of the manufacturer and not of the Ministry. The noble Lord asked me how we got to know what new substances were introduced as weed-killers. We have excellent contacts and relations with the manufacturers of these substances and we are not entirely ignorant of what goes on. We are quite satisfied that we have sufficient power under this Bill to deal with any eventuality that might arise.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clauses 9 and 10 agreed to.
Clause 11 [Application to Scotland]:
LORD CARRINGTON LORD CARRINGTON moved in Subsection (3) (b) to leave out sub-paragraphs (ii) and (iii). The noble Lord said: This Amendment relates to the application of the Bill to Scotland and arises out of differences in procedure between Scottish and English law. In Scotland, separate proceedings on the instance of the Public Prosecutor are necessary to bring another person before the court where it is alleged that the contravention was due to that other person and not to the person charged. In England it is possible, as provided for in Clause 5 of the Bill, to convict that other person straight away if it is shown that the contravention was due to an act or default on his part. That difference in procedure makes it unnecessary in the case of Scotland to have the provisions which I am asking your Lordships to delete and, accordingly, I beg to move that they be omitted.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, leave out lines 22 to 25.—(Lord Carrington.)
Clause 11, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.
House resumed.

EMPIRE SETTLEMENT BILL
6.10 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time. If it is necessary for me to speak for some little time on this subject I hope noble Lords will forgive me, but I think it may be helpful to this House and to We country generally if I go rather more fully than has been done in recent debates into the whole story of inter-Imperial migration, even back Into the last century. In these days, as we all know, there is a great deal of talk about migration. It is one of those questions about which people feel extremely strongly, whatever view they may happen to take. On one side, there are those who feel passionately, both on economic and imperial grounds, that migration should be encouraged on the largest possible scale. On the other side, there are those who believe equally strongly that anyone who leaves this country at the present juncture is abandoning his responsibilities at a moment of great national danger and is, in fact, running away. For members of both those schools of thought the views which they hold are, in effect, articles of faith, and any watering down of the pure milk of their doctrine appears to them to be an act of dangerous heresy. They admit of no compromise.
Personally, I have always been, on balance, and I am still, a firm supporter of migration. I believe that the advantages of encouraging free movement of population within the Commonwealth and Empire greatly outweigh the disadvantages. But equally, I believe that if that policy is to be beneficial, both to this country and to the Commonwealth, it must be realistic, and must not be based on a sort of blind fanaticism. Otherwise the advantages which one might hope to gain will be more than counterbalanced by the errors we shall make. Above all, we must take account of the lessons of the past and the views of those who have given special study to this question. It is in that spirit that I wish to recommend this Bill to your Lordships this evening. I therefore make no apology if I go somewhat fully
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into the facts and figures. They may themselves seem dry—they are rather dry—but they have a very direct bearing on our problem.
First I would say this. The object of this Bill is to extend the Empire Settlements Acts of 1922 and 1937 for another five years. Those Acts are at present due to expire on the 31st of May of this year. It may be for the convenience of the House if I remind your Lordships of the history of those Acts. Throughout the nineteenth century and until 1931 there was a heavy movement of migration from Great Britain, mostly to the United States and the Empire. A general idea of the scale of this movement may be given by stating that, between 1871 and 1931, Great Britain's net outward balance of migration Was 3,380,000 persons, or an average of 56,000 a year. Up to 1914, this movement proceeded for practical purposes without financial assistance from the United Kingdom Government.
The first experiment in State-aided migration was the Government's free passage scheme for ex-Servicemen and their dependants which was brought into force immediately after the First World War. Under this scheme nearly 86,000 ex-Servicemen and women and their dependants emigrated to the Commonwealth, most of them to Australia and Canada. As a result of the success of this scheme, a conference on State-aided Empire settlement was held in 1921 between the United Kingdom Government and the Governments of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The conference recommended effective co-operation between the United Kingdom and oversea Governments in a comprehensive policy of Empire land settlement and Empire settlement migration, extending over a period of years. A conference of Prime Ministers and representatives of the United Kingdom, the Dominions and India, held later in 1921, endorsed this recommendation; and the result, so far as the United Kingdom Government was concerned, was the Empire Settlement Act of 1922—the first of the Empire Settlement Acts.
Under this Act the secretary of State was empowered to co-operate with any oversea Commonwealth Government or
"with public authorities public or private organisations, either in the United Kingdom

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or in any part of His Majesty's dominions, … in carrying out agreed schemes for affording joint assistance to suitable persons in the United Kingdom who intend to settle in any part of His Majesty's dominions."
Agreed schemes under the Act might be either development of land settlement schemes, or schemes for assisted passages, training, and so on. The Act provided that the Secretary of State should not agree to any scheme without the consent of the Treasury—that seems to be not an unusual provision—that he should not contribute more than 50 per cent. of the cost of any scheme, and that his liability to contribute should not extend beyond a period of fifteen years after the passing of the Act. It was also provided that the aggregate amount to be spent by the Secretary of State on any scheme or schemes should not exceed £3,000,000 in any one financial year, exclusive of the amount of any sums received by way of interest on, or repayment of, advances previously made.
From the passing of the Empire Settlement Act in 1922 until 1931 (by which time migration, owing to the world economic depression, had temporarily ceased) about 400,000 United Kingdom citizens emigrated to other parts of the Commonwealth, receiving assistance under the Acts at a total cost of about £6,000,000, or £15 per head. Apart from these assisted migrants, some 660,000 persons migrated to other parts of the Commonwealth without any Government assistance, and nearly 400,000 went to foreign countries—principally, of course, to the United States. Your Lordships will, therefore, see that out of a gross total of over 1,400,000 migrants during this period, the great majority went on their own. Contrary to expectations, only a very small proportion, about 30,000 of the assisted migrants, went under schemes of planned land settlement, which, however regrettable that might be, in general turned out to be expensive failures.
From 1931 to the outbreak of war there was little or no migration, and in each of these years there was, curiously enough, a net inward movement to this country, totalling over the whole period nearly 200,000 persons. During this pause in migration, due to the world economic depression, the policy of State-aided migration was reviewed several
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times by authoritative bodies of various kinds. In 1930, the Economic Advisory Council appointed a committee to consider the question of migration from the United Kingdom to oversea parts of the Empire, and in 1932 this Committee produced a report. The committee reviewed at considerable length the economic value of emigration from Great Britain, and came to the conclusion—it was an important conclusion—that
"in view of the progressive decline in our birth rate, and the likelihood of a gradual readjustment of our industrial life to post-war conditions, it is hardly likely that large scale emigration would be economically advantageous to us, as a long-period policy."
On the other hand, they made a point, which to me is vitally important, that
"the solidarity and internal strength of the British Commonwealth will come to depend more and more on the continued growth of the British migrants in the population of the Dominions,"
and on these grounds, despite the economic disadvantages, they regarded it as:
"of great importance that a steady flow of British migrants to the Dominions should be maintained, although the likelihood must be recognised that migration from the United Kingdom to the Dominions will in future be on a substantially smaller scale than it has been in recent years, or than, on large grounds of Imperial and social policy, we should like it to be."
Next, in 1934, there was a further review of the subject. An Inter-Departmental Committee on Migration Policy, appointed by the then Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, reported on the extent and manner in which, if at all, the United Kingdom Government should in future encourage assisted migration from this country to oversea parts of the British Empire. Their report endorsed the views expressed by the Committee on Empire Migration and recommended, among other things, the appointment of an Oversea Settlement Board
"to advise the Secretary of State upon specific proposals for schemes of migration within the Empire and upon any matter relating to over-sea settlement which might be referred to it by him."
This recommendation was adopted.
Then, four years later, in 1938, there was yet another inquiry into the position—I am emphasising this because there seems to be an idea abroad that there has been very little recent inquiry, and that is not true. The Oversea Settlement

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Board, which had been appointed in 1936 (as a result of the recommendation to which I have just referred), produced a further report on migration to the Commonwealth. This report arrived at the same conclusions as its predecessors—namely, that:
"it can no longer be assumed as axiomatic that the migration of large numbers of persons from the United Kingdom to the Dominions is in the interests of the United Kingdom, if those interests could be considered in isolation from those of the Dominions. It is only from the point of view of the strengthening of the Empire as a whole that the encouragement of migration from the U.K. can be justified."
Finally—and this is the last Committee I shall quote—since the war, the question of migration as a remedy for the economic difficulties in this country was yet again considered by the Economics Committee of the Royal Commission on Population, which reached the same conclusions as those set out above (I quote the words), that
"in present-day Britain, with a birth-rate well below replacement level, the maintenance of a large flow of emigration can hardly be regarded as either practicable or desirable, and it is important that this should be appreciated in connection with post-war projects of Empire emigration, if unnecessary disillusionment is to be avoided."
But, my Lords, like the other bodies I have quoted, they recognised the importance of emigration from the point of view of the solidarity of the British Commonwealth.
In their Report, the Commission accepted the view that migration from the United Kingdom is desirable in the interests of the Commonwealth as a whole, but pointed out that, on the basis of the present birth-rate in this country, it would not be possible for the United Kingdom to supply more than one-third of the annual flow of immigrants required by the other Commonwealth countries concerned, which were estimated at about 226,000 a year. The Royal Commission also observe that
"a net outflow of 50,000, maintained permanently, would seem, in the light of past experience, to be quite a high rate. Between 1871 and 1911—a period of heavy emigration—the net outflow from Great Britain averaged about this rate. A maintained net outflow of 100,000 is far higher than anything that could be called probable, and may be regarded as a maximum, short of catastrophic developments or the adoption of a deliberate policy of drastic reduction of the population."
I have thought it right to quote to your Lordships, at I am afraid wearisome
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length, the findings of these successive expert inquiries. For, whether we agree with them or not, one cannot help being impressed by the virtual unanimity of their conclusions. All alike are agreed that, with a birth rate well below replacement level, the main justification for the encouragement of migration is nowadays not to be found merely the need of the United Kingdom to reduce its population. That argument they unanimously reject. But they accept the view that it still remains vitally important to encourage it as a means of strengthening the bonds between the various parts of the Commonwealth and Empire. That is the view, I am happy to think, that has determined the policy of successive Governments ever since that date, and it is to most of us I imagine, the conclusive argument in favour of migration.
LORD SILKIN: Would the noble Marquess explain one thing—namely, to what extent there has been assisted migration? To what extent have loans been made?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The figures I have given have been principally those of assisted migration. It is true, of course, that the Government which in 1937 decided to renew the Empire Settlement Act of 1922 for another fifteen years, reduced the permitted yearly expenditure to £1,500,000. But that was on the purely practical pounds that the earlier limit of £3,000,000 had never been reached. There was no alteration of principle. Nor has there been any alteration of principle in the years since that date, whatever Party may have been in power.
Towards the end of the war, in pursuance of this policy, the United Kingdom Government entered into discussions with the other Commonwealth Governments, both by correspondence and at a meeting of Prime Ministers in May, 1944, and by subsequent meetings with Dominion representatives in London, on the subject of post-war migration policy. The results of these discussions, perhaps inevitably, were rather indeterminate. For none of the Governments concerned, except the Australian Government, could see their way to enter into any commitments until their own problems of rehabilitating their ex-Service men and women had been got out of the way. But

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since the war migration to the Commonwealth has begun again and has averaged about 90,000 a year gross, and about 70,000 a year net, to the five main receiving Commonwealth countries, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Southern Rhodesia. In speaking of gross and net figures I should perhaps explain that there is also an inflow to this country going on all the time, and the net figure is what results when that inflow is deducted.
A NOBLE LORD: The balance.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Yes, the balance. The total migration during those six years to the countries I have named—Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Southern Rhodesia—has been 545,000, as against which there has been an inward movement to this country of 133,000, leaving a net balance of emigration of 412,000.
I should now like, if your Lordships will bear with me a little longer, to say a word or two about migration to the individual Empire countries, in the postwar years. Since the war a total of 171,000 persons have migrated from the United Kingdom to Canada, against an inflow from Canada to the United Kingdom of 43,000, leaving a net outward migration to Canada of 128,000. The Canadian Government, as your Lordships know, hold the view that migration subsidised to the point where it costs the migrant little or nothing tends to attract the less desirable type of emigrant; and since the war they have not entered into any joint scheme with us under the Empire Settlement Acts. However, last year they instituted a scheme of their own for advancing loans to selected wage-earners from the United Kingdom and Western Europe, subject to repayment by the migrant after his arrival. Under this scheme, some 27,000 United Kingdom migrants went to Canada in 1951.
Since it has often been suggested that one of the factors which has impeded the flow of United Kingdom migrants to Canada is the limit on the transfer of capital to Canada, I ought, perhaps, to say that last year this limit was raised and that migrants are now entitled to take out £1,000, plus £250 for each dependent member of the family up to a maximum
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of four, making a maximum allowance of £2,000 spread over four years, though if a migrant needs the money for some specific purpose the whole can be drawn at once. I was glad to see that the Canadian Minister for Emigration stated the other day that, since this concession, lack of currency has not been a deterrent to migration from the United Kingdom to Canada.
Now I would say a word about Australia. As your Lordships know, Australia is the only Commonwealth country which has, since the war, concluded a scheme with us under the Empire Settlement Acts. As a result of this scheme, the number of emigrants from this country to Australia is higher than to any other Commonwealth country. The gross total since the war up to the end of 1951 was 221,000, and the net total was 184,000. Of these, nearly 150,000 went out under the assisted passage scheme, or under a free passage scheme for ex-Service personnel, which was in force after the war but which has now come to an end. The two Governments have worked in close co-operation under this scheme. On our side we have tried to help the Australians in various ways—by giving publicity to the scheme by means of leaflets and application forms which are sent to all the local offices of the Ministry of Labour and displayed there; by tours arranged for the representatives of Australia House by the Ministry of Labour, and in other ways. On their side, the Australian representatives cooperate with our people in recruiting a fair cross-section of the population and-this is very important, of course—not taking migrants from industries where we can ill afford to lose them. This scheme was renewed by the late Government last year for a further three years, ending 31st March, 1954.
The position as regards New Zealand is rather different, for New Zealand has its own scheme under which free passages are extended to selected emigrants up to forty-five years of age. The whole cost of this scheme is borne by the New Zealand Government—it does not fall on us. The total gross migration to New Zealand since the war has been nearly 48,000, and net migration is 32,000. In the case of the Union of South Africa, owing to the limited field for white labour in that country, the Union Government

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have never taken part in schemes under the Empire Settlement Acts; but, since the war, nearly 90,000 persons have migrated from this country to South Africa, as against an inward movement of over 32,000, leaving a net outward movement of 57,000. Finally there is Southern Rhodesia, where the influx of migrants has been such as to make it unnecessary for the Southern Rhodesia Government to provide any special incentive in the form of assistance to migrants. They have, indeed, been forced lately to impose a limit of 2,700 each quarter. Of this quota, 1,140 are allocated to the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic.
That, broadly speaking, my Lords, is the story I have to tell. I only hope that I have not unduly wearied the House with a rather long exposition of the facts. But, in view of some rather wild statements that have been made in various quarters, it seemed only right that these facts should be known. I hope that I have at any rate said enough to show that the Government have a migration policy; that this policy is based on the unanimous conclusions of repeated investigations into the question of migration; and that the results of that policy, judged by present and past standards, are not unsatisfactory. The present Bill will not, of course, bring about that major redistribution of population within the Empire for which some people are asking. I frankly do not think that this is at present practically possible. But this I do most profoundly believe. Each man and each woman who goes from this country to one of our sister nations, each man and each woman who comes from them to us, is a renewing of our family relationship, a transfusion of blood which strengthens the whole body. Compared with that, the comparatively small loss in manpower is as nothing. To the achievement of the supreme aim of Imperial unity, the Bill that it is my privilege to recommend to your Lordships is, I believe, a substantial contribution, and I ask you with confidence to give it a Second Reading.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, before the noble Marquess resumes his seat, would he mind answering this question? Do the figures he has given include those who migrate but who come back after the period of time allowed under the grant, or do they represent fresh income?
THL MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I think I am right in saying that they represent all those who come from that country to this country. It might be a Canadian who married an English girl who was taken into his father-in-law's business in England but who was a genuine Canadian, or might be a man who had gone out there and done his best but not made a success of it, and had come back. It might be either of those two types.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
6.37 p.m.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, the noble Marquess intimated at the end of his speech that this Bill is of comparatively narrow scope. I think the noble Marquess profitably widened the scope of his speech a good deal. He took us into the reasons for the Bill and gave us some inkling of the history of this subject, at least from the end of the nineteenth century. The scope of the Bill is, indeed, very narrow. The object is to extend the period of co-operation with the other Commonwealth countries in schemes for promoting settlement in other countries, and for this purpose to contribute a maximum sum of £1,500,000 a year for five years. In fact, it is estimated in the Bill that in the current year, so far from spending the amount which is authorised, the only expenditure will be £560,500. It does not seem that even in these days of austerity this country is over-spending itself in the matter of Empire settlement. We are spending only one-third of what we are entitled to spend. I think it is true to say that the Act has never made very much impact upon Commonwealth settlement. In fact, the noble Marquess himself said that ever since the war the vast majority of those who have gone out have gone under their own steam.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I think that is, broadly speaking, true.
LORD OGMORE: So we cannot really say that the Bill as it stands is going to make a very large contribution, although undoubtedly it will make some contribution. What it has done is to give the noble Marquess and, I hope, other noble Lords an opportunity of a peg upon which to hang some remarks upon this very important subject. Last December

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a Gallup Poll was taken in the News Chronicle and, as published in that newspaper, it was found that 31 per cent. of those who were interrogated would like to settle in another country, and that naturally most of the 31 per cent. would like to settle in a Commonwealth country. I think we all realise that there is this need for migration—or at least the desire: we will come to the need later. I want to go back to a somewhat earlier date than did the noble Marquess. The migration in the British Commonwealth over the last 300 years has been the largest voluntary migration ever known in history; and that voluntary migration has built up not only the Commonwealth, largely of English-speaking people, but also the United States as an English-speaking country which until, we will say, eighty years ago was predominantly of British stock. These two factors have had an enormous effect on world history and will have an even greater effect as time goes on.
LORD STRABOLGI: What about Irish stock?
LORD OGMORE: At that time the Irish were in the United Kingdom. When I say "British" I am speaking of the people in the United Kingdom. I do not say "Scottish," "Welsh" or "English," since they are all in the United Kingdom. Not only was there this great voluntary migration in the early days, but there has been a great migration over the years, and that has maintained the strength of the Commonwealth and is one of the ties of sympathy between the nations. Most of your Lordships, no doubt, have friends or relatives abroad. Certainly that is so in my own case. My great-great-grandfather had thirteen children and most of them went to various parts of the Commonwealth. Even up to this day, although the old gentleman was born in 1789, some of these descendants and ourselves remain in correspondence. I am sure that it is a great tie between us.
During that time, this migration has been weighted, as the noble Marquess indicated, by the fact that it is chiefly young men who have gone out. A much greater number of young men than of older men or of older women, or indeed of young women, have emigrated. I think it was on that fact that the Royal Commission on Population and the other
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Commissions referred to by the noble Marquess were really commenting. These young men were the active, energetic and enterprising part of the population, and naturally we do not want to lose larger numbers of these than we can afford. The Royal Commission on Population says that a net outflow of 100,000 per annum would have relatively little effect on the distribution of population. The noble Marquess indicated that if more go, or if the birth rate should be a poor one, too many young people leaving this country would mean that too many old people would be left behind, and there would be maladjustment in the population. They assume that we could afford 100,000, so they were thinking of more than the number the noble Marquess suggested.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: They also said that 100,000 should be the greatest number: that that was probably the ultimate number we could afford to lose.
LORD OGMORE: Yes. Since the war, broadly speaking there have been about 70,000 a year net. I think these were the figures the noble Marquess gave. The net flow to the Commonwealth was 70,000 a year; so they have not reached the 100,000 suggested by the Royal Commission. But we want to look at this matter to-day in broader terms than any of these Committees or the Royal Commission on Population looked at it. Those Committees were United Kingdom Committees; and the Royal Commission on Population was chiefly concerned with the population in this country. That was, so to speak, its terms of reference. None of them was really looking at the subject—they could not be expected to look at it—from the broad point of view of the Commonwealth. In my view this is not a Party matter, because neither of the Parties has a particular policy on this question, except in very broad terms, but I think that both Parties agree with what the noble Marquess said at the end of his speech, though that does not carry us far. I do not want to commit my Party, because we have differences within the Party on this question, just as the Party of noble Lords on the other side have. In my view the population of the Commonwealth is badly distributed. Take, on the one hand, the United Kingdom with 50,000,000 people. Take,

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on the other hand, New Zealand, in a temperate zone and with roughly the same area, with under 2,000,000 people. Then we get to Australia with 8,000,000 people, and Canada with somewhere about 12,000,000—
LORD BARNBY: Fourteen million.
LORD OGMORE: I thank the noble Lord. His figure is probably right. Canada is one-third greater in extent than the United States and has enormous physical resources. From every point of view this is a maladjustment; it is an unbalance. From the point of view of defence, of development of resources, of purchasing power, indeed from almost every point of view, this is a maladjustment; and it is desirable for us in this country—I hope this matter will be kept out of Party politics—to do some hard thinking. I am sure we all need to do some hard thinking and get some hard facts about Empire migration. It is important from the United Kingdom point of view. I would ask the Government what, in their view, is the maximum population that this country can support. We can feed from 30,000,000 to 35,000,000 people from our own land. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, is not here at the moment but I think he would confirm that—with the energetic assistance that he would give—this is possible. But I should say that that is the maximum we could support from our own land.
We have 50,000,000 people. What is the ceiling? Many of these committees who report assume that we are going to die out, or at any rate to diminish; that our birth rate is going to fall. But the birth rate has gone up, and we have 2,000,000 more people in this country now than before the war. What is the maximum? There are to-day 10,000,000 people in London, many of whom are doing nothing else than looking after the others—they are not producers; they are doing important jobs of work but they are not producers. The percentage of actual producers in the country is very small indeed—smaller than it has ever been. Where do we stop? We have before us a very serious situation. It is only when we discuss the position with people who are trying to sell goods abroad that we realise how serious the situation is. We have to meet strong Japanese and German competition. I remember that in the 1930s the imports into Malaya of
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Japanese piece goods went up in one year from 7 per cent. to 91 per cent. And right through the East, British manufacturers of piece goods could not really compete—quite apart from the fact that the Japanese were largely cheating by stealing our copyrights and patterns. In Singapore the authorities even had to set up a special department of the police to check up on false designs. I have just been in touch with the people in Lancashire, and they tell me that to-day Japan is exporting more of certain categories of rayon goods to our Colonies than we are. They are exporting as much in cotton goods as we are to our own Colonies. If this is the position in the Colonies what must be the position in foreign countries where the trade links arid the sentimental ties are not present? I think we have to look at this question very seriously and decide exactly how we are going to meet the future.
The earliest migration—we go back before the time of the noble Marquess—was group migration. The earliest migration was to Virginia, then to the West Indies, to Massachusetts, to Rhode Island, and the Quakers and the Congregationalists to Pennsylvania. It is only in the last hundred years or so that individual migration has developed. Can we go back and develop the idea of group migration? Is that not really the answer to our problem? It entails, of course, taking groups from this country, either geographical groups, selected on a territorial basis, or groups of another character from trade or industry, or something of that kind. Such a scheme has the advantages that it provides a balanced migration of old, middle-aged and young people; women and men It means that people are less lonely when they get out to those countries and are more likely to settle down among friends and relatives with whom they have been associating in this country.
I myself put up a suggestion of this kind in one of the Australian papers a few years ago, and it had some support. I suggested that it was possible to take villages from here, and then these people, in Australia and New Zealand, would meet the publican to whom they were accustomed, or, in other circles, the minister to whom they were used to listen, and the village policeman and so on. That may be rather a fantastic and

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extreme form of group migration, but I would ask the Government to consider under this Bill spending some money on research into this question—that is to say, whether it is possible to induce some form of group migration from this country, a new "Mayflower," a new William Penn movement. Those old people had a good deal of wisdom. They knew what they were about. Although most of the early group migration was founded, perhaps, by people who objected to the system of government in this country—I think one or two of the noble Marquess's ancestors were somewhat responsible for some of the group migrations—at any rate, they were people of like mind who were able to go and start a new world among their own people and to carve out a new life in a new country. Needless to say, I entirely support the object of this Bill. I hope that some of the money will be spent in the way I have suggested to the Government. In any case, I shall be glad to hear from the noble Marquess, if he is able to give me any answer, what he thinks of the suggestion I have made to him.
6.54 p.m.
LORD FAIRFAX OF CAMERON: My Lords, we are indebted to the noble Marquess the Leader of the House for having given a clear and detailed exposition of Government policy upon this important matter. It is something that we lacked before, but now people who are interested in this subject know where they stand. I support this Bill because, although migration is said sometimes to be a purely private matter for the individual, it does none the less need a considerable measure of Government guidance, support and assistance if it is not to be injurious to those who go out. Therefore, I believe this Bill has rather more importance than its purely financial side would lead one to believe. In that way perhaps I differ slightly from the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, in regarding it as rather a more important Bill than he thinks it is, because it is not merely the financial side that matters; it is the interest which the Government take in this matter and which can assist so many would-be migrants to settle successfully.
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In an Empire so scattered as the British Empire, one of the greatest difficulties is to maintain the cohesion of its various parts. I believe that the only real way in which that can be done effectively is by personal contact between human beings. I am certain that it is essential to have in the way of settlers always a healthy and permanent flow of people in between the various units that make up the Empire, because travel purely to see another land is very expensive indeed. To travel from this country to, say, Australia costs several hundreds of pounds for one person. There are not many people who can do that; but, by the infusion of new blood from one country to another, the contact is always kept. I believe that that is more the case in times of economic and political stress such as we are going through at the moment, because I believe that in these matters distance lends disenchantment: you forget that the person in the other land is a human being like yourself, with his own personal difficulties. So I believe that by personal contact those countries which are so far apart geographically can be brought closer together. That is one most important reason for migration.
I believe there are others. I would mention only two of them. It is obviously important that the Dominion economies should be expanded, because we depend upon them, and the whole of the Empire depends upon the strength of the various units that comprise it. It is not enough just to send money to those countries. They are large countries with large resources, and they are short of people to get their resources out of the ground. Unless they have more people in those various countries—I am not saying particularly what nationality—those resources will stay locked up in the ground. It is in our interests that the populations of those countries should be developed. Again, I believe that it is important for us always to keep in our minds the British element in the growing populations of the Dominions. I do not believe that it is a serious problem, because although in the case of Australia the European migration to Australia in the last two or three years has been at least double, if not more than double, the British migration to Australia, none the

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less the population of Australia is 98 per cent. British, and there is a very large capacity for absorbing European elements. Again I believe that Southern Rhodesia has recently been taking in quite a large number of Afrikaans from the Union. But again there is a strong British element in Southern Rhodesia. While the problem is not urgent or pressing now, we must never forget it, because we wish to see the Commonwealth remain a British Commonwealth. Britain has been the traditional source of population for the Commonwealth. She cannot provide all that population now, but certainly she can provide something that cannot be got from anywhere else.
Migration has made good headway since the war. I believe that it has been to the general benefit of everyone concerned, of all the countries concerned. One would not wish to see the flow of migrants fall back. I do not believe that it has been too large a flow, and the remarks of the noble Marquess the Leader of the House would lead us to suppose that he also did not think the flow so far had been too large. But I believe that it is very important indeed that that flow should at least be maintained, and should not be allowed to fall right back as it undoubtedly did at the beginning of the 1930's.
On the question of migration, I believe that it is most harmful to talk in terms of millions migrating. I must confess that there was a time, some years ago, when I was new to this subject and with a lot of enthusiasm and interest in it, when I thought that it would be a splendid thing if millions of people could migrate. But having studied the subject very carefully, I am convinced that such a thing is wildly impracticable. There are all sorts of difficulties in the way which cannot be overcome. Quite apart from the shipping difficulties, there are the difficulties of accommodation, which are absolutely vast, and the difficulties of the economies of the countries concerned. To take Australia, even to-day she has, to a certain extent, I believe, had to cut down upon her intake of migrants because of the inflation that has been caused there, and the fact that newly arrived settlers increase that inflation. But for a number of reasons believe that it is very wrong indeed to talk in terms of millions migrating, even over a period of years.
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I believe that that sort of talk can bring this most important subject into general disrepute and make it appear to be just another crankish theory, which it most certainly is not. It is a most important thing. In the course of his most interesting speech the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, referred to the need to reduce the population of this country to something like 35,000,000—
LORD OGMORE: No. I was, as always, assuming the Government to be the repository of all knowledge, and I was asking the Government what they assumed was the maximum population this country could bear. I gave no indication of what numbers I thought we ought to have in this country. I agree that the noble Lord is making a very valuable point, but it is because of its truth that I wanted some money spent on research.
LORD FAIRFAX OF CAMERON: I certainly do not wish to misrepresent the noble Lord, and I am grateful to him for his correction. But these large ideas about migration prompt the question: How is it to be done? I think that is a very difficult question to answer. The noble Marquess the Leader of the House referred to a desire that a cross-section of the population should leave this country and not just the best young people. But I am of the opinion that under the present system there is a danger that the best young elements may go, because they are the ones who are youthful and energetic; who have the energy to go to the trouble to make arrangements for a job and accommodation at the other end; to arrange their passages and so on, and who are still able to uproot themselves and go to a different country, which is no small thing to do. I believe that under the present system there is a danger that we may not get a cross section migrating.
So far as I can understand it, the unit of migrants at which we are aiming is that of a family. I believe that if you aim at a family you may get something smaller. I believe that you have got to aim at a somewhat larger unit than a family, and then you will get a true family unit. For some time past I have believed that the right unit for the purpose of migration is a small economic unit, such as an industrial unit or a firm which is expanding overseas. As soon as the fir

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or company is formed overseas, instead of recruiting labour locally it should be encouraged to take its labour with it. Thus by providing a community of people, not only is it able to take the worker, his wife and his child, or two children, but possibly the community can support his mother, his mother-in-law and his other dependants. It is those people who must be included in the migration if it is to be a true cross-section.
Such forms of migration have been carried out in recent years under private initiative, and what I should like to suggest to Her Majesty's Government is the setting up of some form of board. I do not quite know what the right type would be, but at any rate it should go into this question of industrial migration or expansion—call it what you may—from this country; migration which would include the movement of British people as well as the machines, the capital, and whatever else might go, to Australia, to Canada or to one of the other Dominions. I think it would be a worth-while field of investigation. My Lords, I have spoken for long enough. I believe that this Bill is the basic foundation upon which all migration schemes, whatever they may be, are built up. I believe that the Bill is essential, and that it is a pledge of Her Majesty's Government's interest in this most important subject. Therefore, I shall support it.
7.6 p.m.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax of Cameron, has said, but rather than having a board I think that what we really need is a Minister of Migration. This subject is divided up among a number of different Ministries, and if they could be co-ordinated under one head, I think it would be an advantage. I should not for one moment suggest that that person should be the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition—not after the speech we have heard from him; he is not enthusiastic enough. I should prefer that he remained in his present position. Rather would I suggest someone like my noble friend Lord Ogmore, who, because of his enthusiasm, I think would do wonders. Obviously, there would have to be bilateral conversations with the various Dominions, as soon as possible and
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at the highest possible level. It is no use having conferences. I think each Dominion should be approached at the highest possible level and this question tackled in the most serious manner, because it is a most serious question. I suggest that these various Royal Commissions, sitting in entirely different circumstances and with different premises altogether, are utterly futile.
May I ask your Lordships to look at the matter for a moment from three aspects: first, that of this country; then that of the Dominions, other than South Africa: and finally, that of South Africa. We in this country are living in an overpopulated State. My noble friend Lord Ogmore drew attention to the serious difficulties involved in feeding ourselves by selling our exports. Our population is increasing and, to our shame, our agricultural land is diminishing. The next aspect is that of the relatively empty Dominions. In the next few generations, if we do not fill them with European stock they will be filled by Asiatics. Thirdly, we have the special case of South Africa where, unless the political and other obstacles in the way of large-scale migration are not removed and the European stock is not greatly increased, during the next twenty or thirty years the whites will be swamped and South Africa will be no longer a white man's country. That is the special case of South Africa. It is mostly the fault of that country, but we ought certainly to help them. May I enlarge upon that point very briefly? We have in Britain 450 people to the square mile, a population which, as my noble friend Lord Ogmore pointed out, is actually increasing, against all prognostications, by 300,000 a year and an agricultural area which is diminishing—this is the wicked part of it—by 50,000 acres every year, and we cannot from our own resources feed more than half our existing population. We are faced with increasing difficulty in paying for our imports and, I fear, with a threat of unemployment which may spread from textiles to other industries. The noble Lord, Lord Barnby, no doubt will have something to say about that matter when he speaks shortly.
Take the other aspect and look at the position in three of the great Dominions. Australia has four people to the square

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mile, Canada nine people to the square mile, and New Zealand nineteen people to the square mile. Consider all the vast empty spaces. I agree that part of them are frozen—as in the Northern territories of Canada—or desert—as in Central Australia—but nevertheless there are vast areas which are capable of supporting human life and a good standard of living. Then think of the possibility that arises from the pressure of population in Asia and Central Africa. These Dominions, these empty spaces, are a great attraction to the vastly increasing populations in Asiatic countries. Short of land, adventurous, willing and eager to emigrate in family groups, in clan groups or in any other sort of groups, they will get there and settle there. Nothing will keep them out except an increase of the European population in these Dominions. Remember also another aspect: the people in some of these Asiatic countries are seething with a new and extreme form of nationalism, and they are becoming extremely well armed. The rearming of Japan has begun and she may easily take the lead in Asia. We may have very serious trouble unless we, the whites arid Europeans, populate these vast and potentially wealthy areas.
It is all very well to quote what was said by previous conferences and Royal Commissions. I could quote the 1926 Imperial Conference turning down what they called "mass emigration," saying that it was impracticable on financial, economic and political grounds. I think Lord Ogmore struck a much finer note there when he drew attention to the scheme, increasingly canvassed in recent years, for what he calls "group emigration" but what I would call "communal emigration." What we want to see is groups of people of all ages, with all their families and relations, emigrating if possible with their own doctors, their own midwives, their own parsons, in some cases taking their own machinery with them. Sonic of Lord Barnby's textile manufacturing friends, we know, have induced their workpeople to go out plus their machines. And as the greatest trouble in most Dominions is the housing shortage—it certainly is in South Africa and Australia—let them take out their own houses, even their own schools, in sections. If that is done they can easily run them up when they get out to the Dominions, and such a process, after all,
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would only be bringing up to date what the Pilgrim Fathers and others who founded the great colonies in America did.
When Lord Fairfax of Cameron says: "We cannot talk in millions," does he not realise that this is a question of millions spread over the years? In the United States of America, at the time of the Civil War—and be it remembered that some survivors of that war have only just died—there was a population of 30,000,000. Within two generations it grew to 140,000,000 or 150,000,000. So, as I say, it is a question of millions, and if we recall the migration of the Irish at the times of the famines, and the great migration of the British all over the world (which has been referred to by the noble Marquess the Leader of the House) it will be clear, I suggest, that we must think in terms of millions. This trickle of 70,000 persons a year, on the average, a trickle that is perpetuated by this Bill and which seems to be the ultimate target of the present Government, is totally inadequate to deal with the problem with which we as great colonists are faced. I repeat that we should initiate bilateral talks with the great Dominions as soon as we possibly can. I believe their statesmen have sufficient vision, and I hope that even the Conservative Party have sufficient vision, to tackle this matter on the broad imperial lines which it deserves.
7.17 p.m.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, I also should like to thank the noble Marquess for so clearly stating, with his high authority, the Government position on this question of migration. He finally and clearly demolished any belief that thought or action in connection with migration was looked upon with disfavour. On the contrary, he categorically gave his blessing, personally and on behalf of the Government, to the principle that dispersion of the population within the Common wealth should be as substantial as possible. I should also like to pay a tribute to a speech of the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore. He certainly gave a helpful contribution to responsible thinking, particularly by presenting what he said in such an exemplary non-partisan tone.
When I first visited the United States, in the quite early part of the century, their population was 80,000,000. As your

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Lordships know, it is now well over 150,000,000. Like many other members of your Lordships' House, I have frequently visited the Dominions and travelled widely in them, attempting to familiarise myself with the conditions which exist in them. But let me return for a moment to the United States. The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, quoted a figure which I had in mind to give—that was the figure for the population of the United States at the time of the Civil War. But I will go beyond that, and refer to what happened in the succeeding fifty years. Whereas the population was 32,000,000 at the time of the Civil War in the subsequent fifty years the inflow exceeded that, for it was 33,000,000. I myself, when living in the United States, saw immigrants pouring in at the rate of over 900,000 a year. These figures at least give us some sense of proper focus in possible proportions. I speak with fervour on this matter of migration. I approach it almost as a fanatical believer in the necessity for dispersal of the population within the Commonwealth.
I also approach it on economic grounds. I do so, first, because I believe that the terms of trade are against us and will continue against us. By that I mean that the cost of agricultural products will remain different in its relationship to manufactured products from what we knew before the war. Secondly, I believe that United States policy is going to remain highly protectionist. Thirdly, I believe that all countries, including Commonwealth countries, spurred on by nationalistic aspirations, are going to develop secondary industries which will be to the disadvantage of this country and will make it increasingly difficult for us to feed ourselves in times of peace, as we certainly admit it is likely to be in time of war. I base these last two beliefs on the fact that organised labour throughout the world is insistent on protection of its interests. Speeches made on the Japanese Treaty and on textiles have all shown the concern of organised labour in this country about production at lower costs, particularly Japanese production. The problem is exactly the same as that between the cost of production in this country and in Canada, where wages are three times what they are here.
This subject was debated for over eight hours in another place on the Second and
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Third Readings of the Bill. The ground was fully covered and full statements were made by the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and by the Minister of Labour. The noble Marquess himself has done the House a service in giving a recitation of the past history of this question. All these debates brought forward a number of suggestions: first, that there should be a separate department to deal with this matter. The noble Marquess's colleague said that he is the Minister of Migration. That means that there will repose in his Department a central bureau which will be responsible for these matters. It was suggested that a body similar to the Overseas Settlement Board should be established. Having been a member of that Board, I can picture the services which could be rendered by such an organisation. A third suggestion was made by my noble friend Lord Fairfax of Cameron, and supported by my noble friend Lord Strabolgi, that substantial funds should be applied to research. I think the manner in which that can best be done can be left to the Minister responsible. I feel that something useful can be done under these headings.
It has also been suggested to the Government that the Bill should be renewed every two years, instead of five years, so that the question could be debated at shorter intervals. This being a Money Bill, I think it is outside the competence of this House to take any action in regard to that suggestion. We ought to think of all these suggestions, and particularly of the picture given by the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, for the rapid building up of the population of the Dominions, and we should do everything possible to assist to the full the movement of people. Among the multitude of counsels, it is within the power of the noble Marquess to make effective use of such of them as he thinks best. With the happy confidence that it will be sagaciously used, I wish to support this Bill.
7.24 p.m.
LORD GIFFORD: My Lords, I had not intended to speak this evening, but I think someone ought to say a word of welcome to the Bill on behalf of the voluntary migration societies, which have from time to time been assisted by the previous Empire Settlement Acts. I speak particularly on behalf of the Big

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Brother Movement, of whose Council I am a member. In the past few years the support given to some of these voluntary societies has been a little inconsistent. A grant has been made one year and has been dropped the next. Perhaps the noble Marquess would look into that and see whether some more consistent form of support—especially for the Big Brother Movement—could be given. With these few words, I should like to say that I am sure we all welcome the Bill.
7.25 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, there will be no disagreement on any side of the House about the value of this Bill. Every speaker has supported it, but with varying degrees of emphasis. I think the noble Marquess was right: this seems to be a subject which arouses a great deal of passion, and even fanaticism, as the noble Lord, Lord Barnby, has said. I feel that this is not a subject on which one should speak with fanaticism or passion. I am inclined to agree with the noble Marquess that the right emphasis at the present time is that it is a good thing that people from this country should migrate to the Colonies and Dominions from the point of view of maintaining cultural ties, strengthening Commonwealth relations, and helping the Colonies and Dominions to develop with the ideas of our older civilisation and getting from them in return something of their vitality and something of their strength. The greater the contact of that kind we establish, the better.
I think some of my noble friends and some noble Lords on the other side have over-emphasised the desirability of emigration from this country, particularly from the economic and population point of view. I am inclined to agree with the reports that have been made on this subject from time to time and which say that the number of people we can afford to lose is limited. Particularly at the present time there is a limit, and a very small limit, to the number of young people we can afford to lose. As your Lordships know, the number of old people in our population is increasing rapidly and they have to be supported by a smaller number of young people. In these circumstances, we cannot afford to lose young people at all. I would go further. A great many speeches that have been made and a great deal of thought on his subject are dominated
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by the belief that our population is increasing and is bound to increase in future. In my view, that is not true. Our population has increased since the war, but it has increased by keeping old people alive longer and by the immediate effects of the war, but the fact remains that the reproduction rate is not high enough to maintain the existing population in the long run. In spite of appearances, our population is bound to be reduced by natural means in the course of the next generation. Therefore, as a means of reducing our population, emigration is not a necessary policy.
Having regard to the large number of inquiries made in the past, I do not know whether another inquiry is necessary to-day. If we had another inquiry, I think it would take a form different from those we have had in the past. There is a good deal in what my noble friend Lord Ogmore said, that we want to know how many people this country can support. My own opinion, for what it is worth, is that within the next generation the number of people that this country will be able to support will approximate to the actual population itself; that it to say, we are going to get a decline in the population over the next thirty years. In these matters we have to take the long view. However, I may be wrong, and an inquiry may be worth while in that respect. I think the gravest problem which we have to face in the future is the ageing of the population, and the fact that the younger people will have to maintain an increasing number of old people. To that problem migration is no solution; indeed, it is more likely to be an aggravation. Therefore, I suggest that, on the whole, the middle course—I hope I am not misinterpreting the noble Marquess in suggesting that he is taking the middle course—is probably right. I would, however, support further research into the matter beyond the various angles which have been put forward, with a view to forming in the light of post-war circumstances some judgment of the new balance of distribution of the population and of what are the right numbers that we ought to encourage to migrate from this country.
7.32 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I do not intend to weary your Lordships much longer and, indeed, do not think there is a great deal that I

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need to add to my earlier remarks. With the great majority of what has been said by noble Lords since I spoke I cordially agree. I do not think I have often heard a short debate where the contributions were so consistently thoughtful and constructive as they have been to-night. The noble Lord, Lord Fairfax, who speaks with a considerable personal knowledge of the subject, made what I thought was a particularly wise and moderate speech. He spoke of the necessity of keeping up the flow of British blood to the new countries, and I am sure that we all agree with him in that. I, like him, would wish to see rather more going than are going at present, though I would equally agree with the noble Lord that this sort of light-hearted talk about "migrating millions" does a great deal more harm than good, because it makes the ordinary man think that migration is something which is supported merely by "cranks," which is the last thing we want. I seemed to detect in Lord Ogmore's speech a feeling that, in his heart of hearts, he is what I may call a mass migrator. He did not say so definitely, but he played about with the idea.
Lord OGMORE: May I say that in my heart of hearts I am, but knowing how fallacious are one's emotions I suggested that there should be inquiry and research into this before any conclusion was reached?
THE MARQUESS of SALISBURY: That shows great prudence on the part of the noble Lord. He asked me a question—showing thereby a great belief in the omniscience of the members of the Government—as to what is the largest population this country can support. I cannot tell him. There used to be a time when it was thought that it could not support more than about 10,000,000 or 15,000,000, but it appears that that was not quite correct. However, I agree with the noble Lord that there is a limit, and it may be that that limit is being reached.
But I would remind the noble Lord, who referred to rather out-of-date inquiries, which I think I mentioned in my speech: that the Royal Commission on Population, which I mentioned with others, did not report until 1949, which is only three years ago; and that that
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particular Inquiry did say definitely that the birth rate in this country was well below the replacement level. I personally am inclined to agree with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin—indeed, I agreed with practically everything he said—that the population, if it is going up at this moment, is going up not because more people are being born but because not so many people are dying. That is not necessarily a healthy situation for a country to be in. I believe that it was the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, who spoke about group migration. I would not turn down the idea of group migration. As the noble Lord knows, recent experience has not been particularly encouraging, but that is not a reason for altogether turning it down. One thing we have to get over is, how is it proposed to get these large numbers of people to go?
The noble Lord himself referred to early groups—I think he mentioned certain of the people who went in the "Mayflower," and Quakers who went out because of religious persecution or intolerable conditions at home. That is true, of course. But I hope the noble Lord's suggestion that my ancestors are responsible is not quite accurate. I can tell the House this, because it is something that I came across the other day. I think if my family were connected in any way it was more from the point of view of the carrot than the stick. I was looking in an old box in my muniment room and I found there a piece of printing. It was a form of contract for my ancestor in the first occupation of Virginia in 1612. He put £66 into the venture, which was a lot of money in those days. Therefore, I do not think persecution was his particular line. However, no doubt persecution did affect quite a large number of people in making them feel that, however bad it might be in the New World, it was not going to be quite so bad as it was in the Old. But to-day I hope that in this country that sort of inducement will no longer prevail. I would point out to the noble Lord that the more perfect we make the Welfare State—and we are all anxious to do that—the more difficult will be find the achievement of his migration policy the more attractive we make it here, the less will people wish to go elsewhere.
LORD OGMORE: May I say—and I think the noble Marquess should deal with this—that, however attractive the Welfare Stale may be made, by either side, there is to my mind the question of the Hunger State if we are no longer able to export our goods?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: That is a possibility, and it is a problem with which we are all, in our particular ways, trying to wrestle at the present time. I think the noble Lord, from what he said, would agree that it is only uncomfortable conditions here, whatever form they may take, which will make people migrate on a very large scale; and that is certainly not a prospect that any of us would wish to encourage.
One or two constructive suggestions were contained in the speeches made this evening. The noble Lord, Lord Fairfax, suggested that a board might be set up to consider industrial migration. He will not expect me to say anything definite about that proposal to-day, but I will certainly look into what he said. Of course there is the Big Brother Movement mentioned by the node Lord, Lord Gifford. Then there were those who sug-
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gested another inquiry. I am rather doubtful as to whether another inquiry at the present stage would do very much good. I have given your Lordships this afternoon fairly full figures; the facts are all known, and I doubt whether a further inquiry would do much good. However, it is a matter which should be kept under review. In conclusion, in spite of what the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, said, I proclaim myself a complete believer in migration, and certainly I shall do all in my power to promote migration within reasonable limits. I give the assurance to your Lordships that I will look into the suggestions which have been advanced in this debate, for which I am extremely grateful.
On Question, Bill read 2a, Committee negatived.

TYNE IMPROVEMENT BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
House adjourned at twenty-two minutes before eight o'clock.