Lords Sitting of 5 February 1953

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers
The Lord Boyd-Orr—Took the Oath.
The Lord Hollenden—Took the Oath.

PERSONAL STATEMENT BY VISCOUNT HAILSHAM
2.34 p.m.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I must say I regret to detain your Lordships with a purely personal explanation about a personal matter. Your Lordships are met to discuss public matters, and we do not come here to air personal grievances. I hope your Lordships will acquit me of any desire to do that, but there is a matter of principle about which a personal explanation is, I think, called for on my part. I must say that I was surprised and distressed yesterday to learn that the noble Lord, Lord Silkin—to whom I have given notice of what I wish to say to-day—allowed himself to make what I think I can, without rancour, describe as a personal attack on myself in my absence from the Chamber. I was surprised because I had not received any notice from the noble Lord that he intended to make such an attack. I had understood that it was customary to give such notice before an attack was made. I was distressed because the facts which the noble Lord told your Lordships were incorrect, and because the inferences which he sought to build upon them were most unfair.
There are three things which I must come here to correct to Lord Silkin's face about the facts to which he referred. In the first place, it is not correct that I come to your Lordships' House only to hear myself speak. In the second place, it is not correct that I went out immediately after my speech two days ago, and, in the third place, it is not correct that I made an attack such as he attributed to me on any section of your Lordships' community. I know too
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well, and it is a great grief to me, that I attend your Lordships' debates less often than I should like, and I am deeply conscious of the fact that, in modern life, a young Peer with his professional living to make cannot, perhaps, attend so often in the House of Lords as he would like. I can only tell your Lordships that I deplore that fact, and I miss the chance of being with your Lordships more than I can say. It is also true that I tend to come to the House when debates are taking place in which I am interested and to which I think that I may have a contribution to make. Your Lordships' kindness (with one exception) to me has led me to understand, perhaps wrongly, that those of us who are placed as I am professionally, are given some indulgence on such occasions, and your Lordships are kindly, especially to younger Members of this House who have their living to make, as I have, in an exacting and competitive, if honourable, calling.
I was careful to be present throughout on the first day of the debate on the Motion for the Second Reading of the Life Peers Bill. I was in the Chamber before I spoke and I was there after I spoke. For a short time during Lord Moran's speech—a part of which I regret that I missed—I did go out for a cup of tea, and for the first two or three sentences of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Ellenborough, I was engaged outside the Chamber in speaking to a secretary who had come to the House with some urgent documents for me. I apologise to Lord Ellenborough for that absence. Apart from those brief absences I was in the Chamber from beginning to end of the debate. Lord Silkin distinctly told the House yesterday, as appears in Hansard, that I was not, and when my noble friend, Lord Winterton, corrected him, he told the House that he had been at great pains to discover the facts. The facts are as I have told your Lordships now, and the noble Lord was wholly incorrect. If my memory does not belie me, he was not actually present after I had made my speech and during the time that I was sitting here. That, no doubt, explains the mistake, which I fully accept was a perfectly honest one on his part. If only he had given me notice of what he was going to say, or really had been at pains to ascertain the true facts, he would not have made the attack.

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It is unfortunately true, and I frankly confess it, that when I made my professional engagements in relation to this debate, which I have wanted for months to attend, I was not aware that it would be a two-day debate, and I made those arrangements I think before it had been actually arranged as a two-day debate. And I did so with great difficulty, because those of your Lordships who practise in my profession will know that a junior barrister who happens also to be a Peer must, if anything, show exaggerated respect for his tribunal, so that it may not be thought for an instant that he is taking advantage of his position. With great difficulty I managed to postpone a professional engagement which I had made in order to be present on what I understood was to be the only day of the debate. I was not here on the second day, and no one regrets that more than I do. I had told the Leader of the House of my difficulties. I had almost abandoned any thought of speaking, as some of your Lordships know, but I thought I could count on the good will of this House and that your Lordships would understand the difficulties of a man in my position. I find now that I was wrong. I regret that I should have had this experience. I should not have referred to this matter at all if it had been only, in my feeling, a spiteful and uncalled for attack upon myself; but I could not bear that your Lordships should think that I had treated your Lordships' House with disrespect in this matter. I ask your Lordships to believe that is not so. I did not treat you with disrespect.
It was a matter of great grief to me not to be present yesterday to hear Lord Silkin's speech. If he had only told me that he was going to attack me in any way, whatever the cost to myself or whatever inconvenience it might have caused to others, I should have been in my place here to hear him do it. But he did not give me notice. I understand that he has practised in a branch of the legal profession himself. I wonder what he would have said if some young barrister to whom he had entrusted important affairs of his clients had at the last moment deliberately upset those clients' interests and arrangements in order simply to attend somewhere where, for aught he knew, he would not be wanted. I cannot
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believe that the noble Lord would have treated a young man who had done such a thing with very much consideration if the noble Lord had been acting as a solicitor. I do ask him seriously to consider whether, on mature reflection on this matter, what he said yesterday was something which ought to have been said at all. In your Lordships' House we have no Chair to appeal to for protection. We can rely only upon one another for our chivalry and good manners. My feeling is that for centuries we have relied upon that and never in vain.
I do not want to say anything personal about Lord Silkin, for whom I have a very great respect—he has held high office under the Crown—but I feel very strongly that when a personal attack is to be made by one Member in your Lordships' House on another, notice should be given. It should not go forth that a young man who has his living to earn and who is not in a comfortable position to be retired at an early age is to be abused or sneered at simply because he does not come to your Lordships' House on every occasion of your meetings. I can only reiterate my deep apologies for not having been here yesterday. I trust that if I have made nothing else plain in my speech I have made plain that in absenting myself from your Lordships' House, either on that or on any other occasion, I was not following the dictates of my heart in the matter, because here is the place I would have been. Nor would I treat Lord Silkin, and still less your Lordships' House, with disrespect. I wonder whether Lord Silkin, in the circumstances, feels now that an attack of this kind ought ever to have been made.
2.43 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I hope I shall be allowed your indulgence to say a few words in reply to the noble Viscount. First, may I say that I am very sorry that I should have caused him any distress at all? I should like him to know, if he does not already know, that I have always had a high regard for him and a great respect for his outstanding ability. I think that probably I may even have indicated that to him at some time in the past. The last thing I would have wished to do was to cause him distress or do anything which is unfair to him.

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The noble Viscount complained that I did not give him notice that I was going to attack him; but, of course, the very essence of my so-called attack was that he was not here. I did not know he was not going to be here. If he had been here yesterday, what I said would not have been said; it was said because he was no there. I would ask the noble Viscount to consider the position as it appeared to me. He had launched a rather serious attack against my noble friends on this side of the House, as well as against his noble friends on the other side. I take it as a serious attack to be accused of insincerity. Like the noble Viscount, we are here because we regard it as a public duty to be here and to say what we honestly think: and say it with all sincerity. I regard it as the most serious attack that can be made on any noble Lord to say that he is saying here things which he does not really believe.
I do not want to quote the noble Viscount's speech at any length, but he did state this (OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 180, Col. 180):
"Each Front Bench is completely convinced of the sincerity of the other. I frankly confess that I am not convinced of the sincerity of either. They are neither of them sincere."
Then the noble Viscount had a few words to say about his own Leader, but that is not my affair. The noble Viscount does not exactly pull his punches, and he said some very hard things. He might have expected that in the course of a debate which was to continue into the next day there would be some replies to what he had said. I should like to make it clear that I did not come to the House yesterday prepared to say anything about the first part of his speech. I wanted to say something about the second part, the serious part, which I thought was an excellent contribution to the debate and worthy of consideration by noble Lords who spoke on the following day. The noble Viscount was not here and I did not feel justified in dealing with it.
In the course of my remarks I did say that the noble Viscount had made a speech and walked out. That was what I honestly believed. He has now assured me that that was not the case and that he was here. Of course, I accept that statement without any reservation, and I withdraw that part of my speech which suggested that he was not here immediately after he had spoken on Tuesday. I
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withdraw that unreservedly. I also accept the fact that in his position he found it impossible to come on the following day—of course, I accept that. What I would say to him—and may I say it with all respect, and as a friend?—is that if a noble Lord comes here and makes an attack on one side of the House or the other he ought at all costs to be here to hear the replies; and if he is not in a position to hear the replies he should refrain from making the attack, and there would be no criticism whatever. To the extent that I have been inaccurate in what I said, I withdraw it unreservedly. As to the rest, I feel that I have nothing to add or subtract.
2.48 p.m.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, perhaps I may be allowed to say that I do not want to pursue what is obviously a matter which your Lordships would feel distasteful, but it is really very difficult, when one's engagements fall at the same time, always to manage to do the right thing by everybody. I am conscious in my own professional position that people must suffer if at the last moment I do not attend to their business and nothing else would have prevented me from coming to hear the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, make his reply to what he described as "an attack"—I thought myself that it was rather more good-humoured and I did not notice any particular bad blood at the time. I noticed that most of the noble Lords on the other side were present and listened to it and were laughing heartily; but if I caused offence on that matter to the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, I am sorry.
I certainly do not want to pursue the matter, but there comes a moment when one has to choose between different kinds of inconvenience, and the kind of inconvenience I might have caused to others by coming here would have meant a serious loss to quite innocent people. I feel that before launching a violent personal attack on me, it would have been easy for the noble Lord to communicate with me—I am on the telephone, and I should have been only too glad to give an answer, if the noble Lord thought any disrespect had been shown to him. I could have given him the reasons in greater detail than is possible in your Lordships' House. Though I accept his partial apology, I think he may feel, on reflection, that a greater measure of generosity and a greater attempt to understand

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other people's difficulties would not come entirely amiss. I ask for no quarter myself. I do not pull my punches, and I do not expect anybody to pull his punches at me. But I hope that nobody will attempt the feat of hitting me behind my back and below the belt at the same time.

HOSPITAL ENDOWMENTS (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
2.50 p.m.
EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Home, who is unfortunately ill, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to provide for the constitution of a Scottish Hospital Endowments Research Trust; to empower the Hospital Endowments Commission to transfer endowments to the said Trust; to amend the provisions of the National Health Service (Scotland) Act, 1947, relating to the said Commission; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid. I beg to move that this Bill be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Earl Fortescue.)
On Question. Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

MERCHANDISE MARKS BILL [H.L.]
2.51 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, the Merchandise Marks Bill, to which I am going to ask the House to accord a Second Reading in due course, is the fulfilment of a promise made in another place on March 13, 1952, by my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade. I am afraid that the Bill is a very technical one and also a very dull one. I have little optimism in my own powers either to explain the technicalities or to dispel the dullness, but I hope at least that I shall be able to persuade your Lordships that it is a not unimportant measure, a beneficent one, and one which may have large domestic and commercial effects. May I begin by trying to explain what are the general purposes of this Bill? The first purpose is to attempt to widen the legal definition of the expression, "trade description."
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and, by so doing, to give greater protection to honest traders against those traders with fewer commercial scruples. The second purpose is to try to afford greater protection to the public generally and to the shopping public in particular. The third purpose is to do everything that is possible, within the terms of reference of this measure, to afford better protection to the good name of British craftsmanship throughout the world.
As I understand it, the general practice in this matter at the moment is this. There is no obligation on a trader or manufacturer, or, indeed, on a shopkeeper, unless he so wishes, to apply any description to his goods. He can describe them in his own language, or he can refrain from describing them. In the course of preparing my remarks upon this measure, I had occasion to resort to a form of literature which I must confess had not previously come extensively my way—I refer to the popular women's magazines which, as I now discover, have a fantastically wide circulation and of which there are many different kinds. In studying the advertisements therein, one of the things that struck me most, and would, I am certain, strike your Lordships if you were to follow my example, was the number of advertisements which, to the uninitiated, contained no clue whatever as to the purpose or content of the goods advertised. I am told that the housewife would readily understand what all these patent names and patent packages convey, but to the uninitiated they convey nothing. There is no objection to that whatever. That is, with one or two obvious statutory exceptions, perfectly in accordance with the law. The Pharmacy and Medicines Act,1941, concerning patent medicines and similar things, is one obvious exception; the Seeds Act, 1920, imposes upon the merchant certain obligations to describe his goods; and, of course, the various Hall-Marking and Assay Acts, a study of which is a fascinating lesson in England's commercial growth, lay a special charge on those engaged in that trade. If you, as a manufacturer, see fit to describe your goods, you immediately bring yourself into the purview of the Merchandise Marks Act, 1887. It is that measure primarily which this Bill before the House to-day sets out to amend.

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Perhaps the title of this present Bill is a little misleading: possibly it should be the Merchandise Marks and Descriptions Bill, because the original Act was concerned much more with trade marks than is this present Bill. Under the 1887 Act, as I understand it, the law is this. If a trader chooses to describe his goods, and if the characteristic to which his description relates happens to fall within the terms of any of the legal definitions, then it is a trade description within the meaning of the Act. If that trade description is false in any important feature, then the trader has committed an offence. That is to say, if he describes a coat as being a mink coat, well and good; but the purchasing public are entitled to understand from that that the coat is made from mink, and if the trader puts into it any of the other innumerable furs, with innumerable fancy names, which a few animals seem to assume the moment they become dead then, under this Act, he is committing an offence. If you describe a ring as a gold ring, you are thought to be referring to a gold ring, and not to a gold-plated ring. If you describe a dress as an all-wool dress, you are not—or were not; but this is a bone of contention—supposed to include therein any other material. That is the law, as I understand it, at the moment, and it has been found for some time in the past that the law as it stands is not wide enough for ordinary commercial and everyday purposes.
The reasons why that is so, and the reasons, therefore, why it is considered that the law needs amending, are not without some interest, both commercial and academic. The first reason is the great contrast in the method of describing trade goods exercised by manufacturers to-day, and exercised by the manufacturers before the year 1887, the year of the original Act. In the course of my studies, I have also had occasion to examine the advertisements common in the everyday journals before the year1887, and to compare them with those of to-day. The contrast is striking. In those days, nearly all the advertisements were directed towards the contents of the product; now, the interest seems to be directed towards the performance of the product. That is a most important contrast. By "performance" I mean such expressions as these: "heat-resisting glass." "silent typewriter," "unbreakable
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doll," "unshrinkable mackintosh," and so on. It is the performance to which attention is drawn, and that is quite a new development in our commercial practice.
The second change which has come over our commercial life, quite unrelated to the first, is also in a marked way responsible for the need for this change in the law. I refer to the high-pressure salesmanship and advertising, to the mass-production and the mass-distribution of goods, to which we are all now becoming accustomed. I suppose that there are few of us who do not carry somewhere in the affectionate recesses of our memory knowledge of some example of that most English of all English institutions, the village shop. Your Lordships will remember its familiar smell of paraffin oil and bulls-eyes, the shelves and the dark recesses stocking almost everything—"ships and shoes and sealing-wax"—and in the front the inevitable tortoiseshell cat sleeping on a sack of potatoes. In the year 1887, if you walked into a shop and asked for three-pennyworth of candles, a bundle of wood, a bar of soap and the Morning Post, you undoubtedly got the whole lot, because the village shop always stocked everything. If such a shop exists in your Lordships' villages to-day, you would ask for some commodities, and you would get them. But you would ask for nearly everything by a branded name. The result is that the relationship between shopkeeper and customer is dying. No longer, in a small shop, does the customer depend upon the integrity and the skill of the individual shopkeeper; he depends much more upon the integrity of the big manufacturer, the big distributor and the big advertiser. That has had a very marked effect, because advertising and the spread of these popular goods down to the smallest level has completely changed the commercial relationship between the producer and the shopping public.
The third reason why the 1887 Act is out of date is this. As is common knowledge, within the last fifty years, and particularly within the last ten years, there has been a great development in synthetic materials. I suppose that the chief one, to common knowledge, would be artificial silk, which raised great problems from the point of view of the law, in that it was neither artificial nor silk. Now we have reached the stage with nylon, where the artificial fabric nylon itself is by some

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people, and for some purposes, considered of even greater value than the original material which it was supposed to supplant. Therefore, with all these synthetic products, with various degrees of synthetic material in various made-up garments, great difficulty is experienced in getting an honest and fair description of what the article really contains. The last reason, perhaps, why the need for this change exists lies in the fact that the British Standards Institution, which has a great influence in these matters, was not itself founded until the year 1901.
The effect of all these changes is this. Even while sticking faithfully to the letter of the law, it is perfectly possible, because circumstances have changed to such a marked degree, for rogues to prey upon innocent people in the most scandalous way and yet not bring themselves within the terms of the Act. That is happening, I am afraid, with increasing commonness, and that is largely the reason, for the introduction of this measure. Let me give your Lordships several examples—I am sure you will have many more in mind. You will have followed in the course of the last few weeks the long and interesting correspondence in The Times on the subject of textiles. I have looked into the matter carefully, and I believe it to be almost impossible to define textiles in such a way that everybody is satisfied. I have an example here of a child's dress offered for sale in a suburban shop in London. The ticket alongside it reads as follows: "Less than half the price you would normally pay for an all-wool dress." Now that statement is perfectly true. It would, in fact, be true if the ticket had said, "Less than half the price you would normally pay for a Christian Dior model," because the dress offered for sale was neither an all-wool dress nor a Christian Dior model. The statement literally was perfectly true, but it was equally true that it was calculated to deceive, and probably did deceive.
I will not give your Lordships other examples of cases like this, where the intention is to deceive but no breach of the law has actually taken place; where a false description has been applied but not one which brings the offender within the confines of the law. In the course of the preparation of my remarks, I was happy to receive from an interested party in this matter a present, a bottle of
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whisky. I am sorry to say that it was only half full—I am speaking as an optimist. Were I a pessimist I should, of course, describe it as half empty. But it was not the contents so much as the label on the bottle which led to my being given this present. The label was printed upon a background of what I now understand, from certain friends sitting recently behind me, to be the Clan MacGregor Tartan. In the left-hand corner of the label, a stalwart gentleman, with a broadsword in one hand and a shield in the other, is declaring defiance to all corners. On the right hand side of the label is written, "Pride of the Glen, Gold Medal Liqueur Whisky." Then in very small letters, at the bottom of the label, there were the words, "Made in Japan." As I understand the law at present, no offence is committed by that label. The word "Scotch" does not appear anywhere in it, but that is, of course, the impression it is intended to convey upon the unwary drinker. The law, as we now intend to amend it, will catch such a case. I am sorry to end the story on a disappointing note: the whisky, regret to say, was really quite drinkable. There are a multitude of other cases where there is definitely an intention to deceive as to the purpose and quality of the articles.
Turning to the Bill itself, Clause 1 (1) extends the existing definition of "trade description" to bring within its scope additional characteristics by which goods are now commonly described. It does this by introducing into the wording of the clause the words, "quality" and "fitness for purpose." Those are the important words. That means that if a dish is now described as "heat-resisting" it must be fit for the purpose for which, to a reasonable man, it is obviously intended. If a carpet is described as mothproof, it has to be reasonably mothproof. Subsection (2) extends the meaning of "false trade description" to include misleading trade description. It now becomes an offence to describe goods in a manner calculated to mislead, even though there is no positive falsehood conveyed in the description. That deliberately and completely catches the whisky label which I have just been discussing. It is suggested that this ban on these misleading trade descriptions may endanger existing trade marks which are themselves also trade descriptions. "Veno's

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Lightning Cough Cure" is one example. This mark is well known, and it is accepted as being not seriously misleading or false, and the prohibition of a mark such as that would probably cause more injustice than justice. A special exception is made for that particular type. The coming into force of the clause is postponed for six months, therefore, in order to give traders the opportunity of clearing existing stocks of any material which they think is likely to offend in any grievous way.
Clause 2 of the Bill, I am sorry to say, is very technical indeed, and is designed to prevent the risk of double prosecution. The clause deals with exceptions to certain statutory descriptions applied to agricultural goods, which are subject to special legislation. Your Lordships will remember that I referred a short while ago to the Seeds Act, 1920. Subsection (1) excepts from the 1887 Act statutory descriptions which sellers are required by the Seeds Act, 1920, or the Fertilisers and Feedingstuffs Act, 1926, to give on the sale of seeds and seed potatoes and certain fertilisers and feedingstuffs. The effect of this clause, as I understand it, is to leave it to the Ministry of Agriculture to decide whether persons, authorised under any of the relevant agricultural grading Acts to apply a grade designation mark to any particular product, should be free from the normal penal liability under the Merchandise Marks Act in the event of applying the mark wrongly. Clause 3 applies only to imported goods, and is intended to close a minor gap in existing legislation on indications of origin. Clause 4 increases the fines on summary conviction, which are at the present moment £20 for the first conviction and £50 for a second or subsequent conviction. I think this was probably good enough value for money, even as far back as 1887, and I think we are fully justified in increasing the fines to £50 and £100 respectively.
That, therefore, is the Bill. I do not pretend for one moment that the Bill is either watertight or foolproof. I think it would be undesirable if one attempted to make it so. If we were to clutter up the trade with so many regulations and so many niceties of definition, the whole Act would be brought to naught. As I have already suggested, we have some major types of merchandise, such
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as textiles, for which it would be almost impossible to draft a clause that would be 100 per cent. watertight. Furthermore, one must be reasonable in these cases. Nobody suggests that a glass dish is really completely heat-proof. If you throw it into a furnace it will obviously not be heat-proof. Nobody suggests that a doll is really unbreakable. Indeed, anybody who has small children is probably prepared to agree with me that nothing has yet been made which is completely unbreakable. It is fitness for purpose which is now the governing factor in the Bill. I think a reasonable excuse must be made for the legitimate "puff"—the legitimate trade boost.
Early on, some well-wishers of this Bill were kind enough to suggest an Amendment to it which, on the face of it, appeared very plausible. We found on closer examination that it would have the effect of immediately making it a criminal offence to assert that "Guinness is good for you," and to seek to suggest for one moment that a glass of that beverage would give a man the necessary strength to lift an iron girder. If the Bill were to be as wide-sweeping as that, it would obviously defeat its own objects; but all such reasonable "puff"—all advertisers' and producers' backslapping—is excluded and will not he caught or brought within the purview of this Bill. After all, there is the old maxim, caveat emptor—it is impossible to protect everybody from his own foolishness. All that can be done, and all we are seeking to do in this Bill, is to protect a man from something of which he could not reasonably have knowledge, or of which he ought to have been put on his guard by a scrupulous producer or a scrupulous manufacturer.
The need for such protection is more evident now that the public have become more quality-conscious. Perhaps the war did that, or perhaps the high price of goods now makes people more than ever determined that they will get good value for their money. Perhaps this is due to the propaganda of such organisations as the Retail Trading Standards Association, and indeed the B.B.C. and the women's magazines to which I have referred, all of which have put the public on their guard against shoddy material and fraudulent misrepresentation. Many people, therefore, have gone shopping determined to see that they get value for their money. I think that this Bill goes far to offset

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many of the evils which, alas! are becoming prevalent in our commercial life. It does not seek to do anything more than it sets out to do. It is limited in its scope but I think its scope is wide. The Bill has met with a favourable reception from the public, and I think that all the trade concerns who have already been consulted are not unfavourably disposed towards it. I trust that I have said enough to persuade your Lordships that it is worthy of your approval also. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read2a.—(Lord Mancroft.)
3.11 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, before I address myself to the subject of the Bill, I feel I shall be speaking for all your Lordships if I say how pleased we are to see the noble Lord, Lord Man-croft, back again after his rather serious illness. We hope that the next Bill he has to introduce in this House will not be quite so technical or so dull as this one—although nothing could be really dull in the hands of the noble Lord. The noble Lord was quite right: this is a good Bill as far as it goes; but it does not go very far. It only brings before us the dire necessity of doing something in 1953 which was impossible and not necessary in 1887.
Now what does this Bill purport to do? The noble Lord has condensed it: it widens the scope of the Act of 1887. I have here a copy of that Act. I believe it is the only copy in existence, and it bears the mark of age upon it. Section 3 of this Act defines "trade description" as:
"any description, statement, or other indication, direct or indirect,
(a) as to the number, quantity, measure, gauge, or weight of any goods"—
and many other things. This Bill inserts at that point:
"as to the quality, fitness for purpose, strength, accuracy, performance or behaviour of any goods."
The operative words are "direct or indirect" and, as the noble Lord has rightly said, "fitness for purpose."
Now, it is necessary at the present time for the public to be safeguarded. It is a popular supposition that the public can take care of itself. But the public cannot take care of itself against the cleverness,
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the slickness and the sharpness of some producers and sellers of goods. Her Majesty's Government are rather on the horns of a dilemma. If they try to catch all the "wide boys"—I think that is the present-day description—they will make the position of the honest trader practically impossible. Nobody wants to penalise the honest trader, who is by far in the majority. But some of the subtleties of the advertiser to-day are beyond description. Advertising, inspite of all that is said about it, is a prostitution of the art of good selling. Advertising to-day, by and large, does not purport to give a description of the goods which it seeks to sell. It is not informative; it is persuasive. Practically the whole of advertising to-day—as the noble Lord has rightly illustrated—really seeks to persuade the buyer that the advertised article is better than the one which he might otherwise have thought of buying. The mail order business is the chief offender which this Bill seeks to catch. After all, personal inspection and personal discussion with a salesman can in a majority of cases satisfy the potential purchaser; but some of the descriptions that appear in the Press from these mail order houses are, in my view, to be condemned. As for the Press itself, it is true to say that a great part of the reputable Press will not accept some of these advertisements; but I am sure that ere noble Lord or the Board of Trade, or both, have in their possession some very disreputable advertisements from the disreputable sections of the Press.
I am going to ask the noble Lord to try to persuade Her Majesty's Government to go a little further. The first thing I am going to try to persuade him to do is to consolidate these Acts. We have the Merchandise Marks Act of 1887, the Merchandise Marks Acts of 1911 and 1926, the Trade Marks Acts, the Registered Designs Act, and the Copyright Act, all touching the fringe of this problem. I ant going to ask the noble Lord how he intends to deal with some of these particular cases which I think should be dealt with: and I am going to suggest a way in which I think they can be. Take the case of a man who goes into a shop and says, "I want to buy a waterproof." He buys one; and the first time he goes out in a thunderstorm he gets wet through. He goes back to the

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shop and says, "This is not a waterproof." The salesman says, "No, sir: it is only a shower proof." "But," says the customer, "I wanted a waterproof." Has he been given a false description? The noble Lord nods assent.
Or take pictorial licence, with which I am sure the noble Lord is as familiar as I am—the beautiful catalogues of motor-cars of very small horse-power but said to seat five. I am sure that if, say, the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, and I were to sit in one of those cars, we should find that it would hardly hold two of us. Such is the skill of the pictorial artist in advertising. Is that a false description? Does it come under this Bill? Or take another kind of case. A woman goes in to buy a gown in a very expensive West End shop. She is asked a very high price. She asks the saleswoman, "Is this a model?", and she is told that it is. She pays, perhaps, a hundred guineas for it. Then at the first function she goes to she sees two other women wearing an exactly similar frock or one very much like it.
Now under what does that come? Is that a false description? The words are "fitness for purpose." The purpose for which that woman bought that frock was for her to be the only one in that kind of frock. She goes to the shop and complains that she has seen two other women wearing a similar frock, and the saleswoman says: "We are very sorry madam, but we made only one of these." But they know very well, and any good gown shop in the West End of London knows very well, that, if they dare to put a frock in their shop-window, it is copied within forty-eight hours. Knowing that copying is prevalent, did they give a false description when they said it was a model? And against whom has the woman redress? That is what I want to ask the noble Lord. Does it come under the Merchandise Marks Act or the Registered Designs Act, is it a copyright, or what is it? Who is going to reimburse the poor, unfortunate purchaser?
These are some of the questions that occur to me on reading this Bill, and I think that many of these cases will be caught under it. The British Standards Institution, as the noble Lord says, are doing excellent work, and perhaps in fifty years' time everything will have a standard mark upon it. There is a great
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need for standards. Now, the "Utility" mark has gone and the "Kite" mark is coming in. The "Utility" mark was not a mark of quality; it was a mark to tell people that the price of the article was controlled and they should not pay above that price. The "Kite" mark is coming in to give a standard of quality. I do not think that this Bill will touch it. I do not think the Bill will have any effect. In passing, if I may digress for one minute, I am so afraid—and I ask the Board of Trade to watch this most diligently—that the common denominator agreement as to what the standard shall be to warrant this "Kite" mark being issued by the British Standards Institution will be so low that it will not really be as valuable as it should. This mark is going to be applied to furniture. Let us assume that the "Kite" mark is put upon a suite of furniture and a purchaser comes in to buy that suite. The salesman says: "Yes, sir, it is solid oak; it has the British Standards mark upon it." But very likely it is only oak veneer over plywood. That is a false description. Does it come under this Act? Is the case sheltered by reason that the furniture has upon it that standard mark?
There is always one thing to be said in favour of brand: it is some guarantee to the public. The branded article has brought many complexities into our economic system, but at least the manufacturer who puts his brand upon his article will endeavour to keep up the standard of that article. But a brand mark is no guarantee against a false description. The noble Lord is quite right and he has all my sympathy: loads and loads of regulations will not get us anywhere in this matter. One of the greatest deterrents the noble Lord can use—and on the Committee stage I intend to put down an Amendment to this effect—is that in certain classes of goods (and I do not expect the wit of man to devise a definition for every class, but, at any rate, they include textiles) it should be obligatory for the manufacturer to put his name upon the article. That will be the greatest deterrent against the production of shoddy goods. It will, at least, allow the public to be caught only once, if they have any sense.
I want now to ask the noble Lord how he intends to enforce this Act, be-

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cause it is no good merely widening the scope of it. It is no good the noble Lord being merely so wonderfully persuasive as he has been—and never has he handled a case better in his long experience as a barrister. Mow is he going to enforce the Act? He has not told us that. The Bill before us to-day is sponsored by the Board of Trade. It should be the responsibility of the Board of Trade to police this. I want to ask the noble Lord how many prosecutions the Board of Trade have instituted under this Act since 1887? I know that the Board of Trade are not very happy in bringing cases before the courts. I should not think that their latest experience in the courts over the Cinematograph Films Quota Act will encourage them to go into the courts again for a number of years. The fact is that the Board of Trade shirk their responsibilities and leave the prosecutions to a voluntary association, the Retail Trading Standards Association, the funds for which are supplied by people in trade—manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers who have an interest in honest trading. The Board of Trade let them do the job without themselves standing any of the cost. That is quite wrong.
I have here an instruction. It is a regulation made in 1913 by the then President of the Board of Trade, Sydney Buxton, and is countersigned, by the way, by the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Haldane. The first paragraph reads:
"The prosecution of offences under the Merchandise Marks Act, 1887, shall, subject to the conditions hereinafter prescribed, be undertaken by the Board of Trade in cases which appear to the Board to affect the general interests of the country, or of a section of the community, or of a trade."
I should like the noble Lord to tell your Lordships how many prosecutions the Board of Trade have instituted since 1887. I shall be surprised if he tells us of even one. I want that state of affairs to be altered, because the noble Lord will appreciate, from his position not only as a Minister but also as a barrister, that to bring a successful prosecution under this Act one must have expert witnesses. All these cases are brought and tried before courts of summary jurisdiction. I make no complaint whatever against lay magistrates, but my experience of lay magistrates has been that they need a cast-iron case before
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they will convict. To get a cast-iron case is expensive. Expert witnesses are required and very often test purchases have to be made, because these cases do not arise only through advertising. Any association that has to stand £150 costs and rely upon an award from a test case of about £15 cannot prosecute its job very successfully. On the Committee stage, we shall move Amendments in that direction.
We shall also move Amendments in one or two other directions, not in any way to impair the efficiency of the Bill but to try and widen its scope and make it a better Bill within its admittedly very strict limits. We shall give the noble Lord his Bill; at least, we are not going to do his first off-spring irreparable damage. But I hope he will persuade the Board of Trade that, at some time or another, they must widen their scope; they must really accept their responsibilities. If they are not prepared to accept their responsibilities and prosecute, at least they must stand the financial cost of the prosecutions. It is not fair, in this one isolated case—when I believe that in all other like cases, such as the Weights and Measures Act and other Acts of that description the cost of prosecutions falls on the public purse—that the enforcement of this Act should fall upon the private individual and the private association. My Lords, with those observations, and again thanking the noble Lord for his very agreeable speech, I can say that we on this side of your Lordships' House shall not oppose the Second Reading of this Bill.
3.32 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, I should like to support the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, in his congratulations to the noble Lord who moved the Second Reading of this Bill. We are grateful for the clear and charming way in which he explained its somewhat complicated provisions. I think that, by and large, this is a useful and necessary improvement in the code of our industrial legislation. The Bill should be looked at against the background of the economic tasks which. Her Majesty's Government have asked the nation to surmount, and its introduction is, I feel, peculiarly appropriate at the present time. These tasks are indeed formidable, and I all the cleaning up of malpractices which

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this Bill will assist in bringing about, will not make them any less formidable.
We are soon, I hope, to debate the result of the Commonwealth Economic Conference and, in a sentence, I would say that the Government could have followed one path. They could have followed a path of concentration of sterling area development of the Commonwealth and Western Europe, of deliberate and progressive restriction of dollar purchases, of the renouncement of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and of trade controlled along sterling area channels. Let me say at once that there is a body of public opinion which still thinks that we should have set our sights on that objective, and that we may yet have to come to it. But the Government have committed this country to the support of the revival of world multilateral trade, low tariffs, eventual convertibility, acceptance of the challenge of entry into the dollar markets and, most important of all, acceptance of the challenge in our home markets and in our export markets, of German and even Asiatic competition. So we have indeed formidable tasks ahead of us, and if this Bill can assist in the safeguarding of legitimate trade and in achieving those tasks, then, I submit to your Lordships, it deserves our support.
My Lords, fair trade conditions for all goods coming into our home markets are more than ever important when we realise that this policy of Her Majesty's Government means that British manufacturers will have to compete with Japanese products, made by a labour force of, say, 37 million, working some fifty hours a week, with an average wage of £11 a month, and even down to £5 a month in the textile industry. There is no need for me to stress the vital importance to British trade, at any rate, when we are having to face that competition, of seeing that it is on a fair and honest basis. Your Lordships are fully familiar with the publicised examples of malpractices by those who import foreign goods into this country—the "Hercules bicycle forks" made in Japan; the "Raleigh-type hub" made in Japan. The Manchester Guardian last June cited no fewer than seventy-six trade violations by Japanese traders in a period of eighteen months. This Bill will not stop many of those. There is nothing
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in this Bill to stop the pirating of designs. Those seventy-six malpractices include design and patent violations, trade marks and copyright.
I have only three points to make on this Bill—not perhaps of criticism, but in the hope that they may be looked at again by Her Majesty's Government. First, I regret that this Bill is confined to markings, and that there is not some protection for designs, such as for pottery and textiles, which, despite all the protection given by this Bill and by other legislative provisions, can be pirated by foreign competitors. Secondly, I regret that the penalties are not being increased. To make a penalty of £20 in the old Act into one of £50 to-day, and to make a penalty of £50 in the old Act one of £100 to-day is, I submit, not enough in relation to the damage done to British trade by those people who will be found guilty under the provisions of this Bill. I would ask Her Majesty's Government whether, between now and the Committee stage, they will look again at that matter and consider laying down greater penalties for these particular crimes.
My third point concerns the extension of the definition. The noble Lord who moved the Second Reading of this Bill said it was neither waterproof nor foolproof. That is true. I understand that it will give better protection for shoppers. We are all for that. But let us be quite sure of what we are doing. I should like to ask the noble Lord whether these instances that I am about to give would or would not come within the provisions of the Bill. I know that the stock answer of Ministers is, "It is not for us to interpret what the courts do," but, as I understand it, under this Bill it would be for the Executive, on complaint by the citizen, to initiate action in the courts. Therefore, it is not an unfair question to put to the Government, and I do not think the noble Lord will endeavour to take refuge in that ancient line of retreat. I do not think it is unfair to ask whether the noble Lord can give us some view on such instances as I shall give to your Lordships. Certainly the legitimate trade "puff" is to be accepted, though I do not know who is to interpret what is or is not a legitimate trade "puff."
I would ask, would sales of goods described as "Government surplus stock" constitute a misdemeanour

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under this Act if in fact the goods were not ex-Government stock? We see endless supplies of boots, duffle-coats, wrist watches and so on, labelled as "ex-Government surplus stock." The noble Lord will be able to tell me whether, in the event of these goods being proved to have been at no time owned by the Government or sold by the Government, such a description would be a false description. Then there is the question of things which are called unshrinkable. My Lords, nothing is unshrinkable. Therefore, if something is advertised as being unshrinkable, will that constitute a misdemeanour? Then with regard to antiques, I must say that I am rather worried as to the position if somebody sells an "old Tudor chest." If it is proved that it is not an old Tudor chest, and has never known Tudor times, or any times except those of the 20th Century, does that mean that it has been the subject of a "false description"?
Then, to turn to somewhat more personal matters, I saw an advertisement the other day which said:
"Take this and you will not get influenza."
That is a positive statement; it is not in line with an advertisement for a patent medicine which says that it will help to prevent your getting influenza; it is a positive statement that if you take this you will not get influenza. If I took it, got influenza, and then complained to the Board of Trade—assuming this Bill had become law—would the noble Lord arrange for the Executive to initiate a prosecution? Then there are those advertisements which give positive promises of a cure for baldness. They are sometimes most attractive. But I believe that no cure for baldness is known. I hope, in the interests I will not say of most of your Lordships, but of some of your Lordships, that one will be discovered. In the meantime, I trust that these advertisements will come under the provisions of this Bill. One could go on at length giving examples in this connection, but I do not wish to weary your Lordships. Quite seriously, however, I wish to put it to the noble Lord that the definition in this Bill seems extraordinarily wide. Perhaps between now and the Committee stage he will look into the matter and see whether there should not be some tightening up, so that we shall not be passing legislation
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with loose ends and which depends upon common sense only for its proper working.
My final point, and the most important one, to me at any rate, is that this Bill applies only to the home market. We are now going to help to protect the home market against malpractices. But unfair practices could nearly ruin some of our traditional, Colonial, overseas markets. I believe it is just as necessary to have this protection in Colonial markets to which our export manufacturers send their products. If Dominion Governments would look sympathetically on the question of introducing similar legislation, that, I think, would be an excellent thing. As regards the Colonial Empire, if we cannot actually impose legislation, we can, at any rate, suggest to Colonial Legislatures the passing of laws, and I would ask Her Majesty's Government to consider reviewing this matter with Colonial Legislatures and impressing upon them that such protection would be particularly useful to British industry. Through the Colonial Office, Her Majesty's Government might well suggest to these Colonial Governments that they should take unto themselves the same protection as we are endeavouring to provide for our own industry in this country. With those words, and stressing that main point as to the importance of similar protection in respect of Colonial markets, I should like to give my support to the Second Reading of this Bill.

THE FLOOD SITUATION
3.43 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD SIMONDS): My Lords, with the permission of the House, I will make a further brief statement about the flooded areas on the East Coast, on similar lines to a statement being made by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary in another place. The latest figure of deaths known to the police is 256. Her Majesty's Government have under urgent consideration the question of dispersing the persons who have had to leave their homes and are now in rest centres. As it becomes possible to re-house the victims of this disaster it is certain that furniture will be required, and arrangements have been made to store, in a Ministry of Works depôt at Royston, any gifts of furniture which members of the

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public are willing to make. Details of the scheme will be announced shortly.
The police gave warning to the public in certain areas last night to be on their guard against the possibility of further flooding during the high tide, but I am glad to inform your Lordships that for the most part the repairs effected to our defences withstood the limited danger to which we were exposed last night; and there was only slight fresh flooding in very limited areas. The danger from the high tides beginning on February 14, to which my noble friend referred yesterday, still remains.
My right honourable friend the Minister of Health wishes me to assure your Lordships that the state of public health in the flooded areas gives, at present at any rate, no cause for anxiety, but he is closely watching the position. I am glad to be able to inform the House that the morale and conduct of the population have been exemplary and that there have been only isolated cases of theft. The police are paying special attention to protecting property in the absence of the householders. The task of the police and of all those engaged in relief and repair operations would be greatly facilitated if the public would refrain from paying unnecessary visits to the area. Offers of assistance, for which Her Majesty's Government are very grateful, continue to come in from Commonwealth and foreign countries. We for our part are giving such help to the Netherlands Government as is in our power, including the loan of British and Canadian sappers from the Army of the Rhine.
3.47 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, we are very grateful indeed for the rather more comforting statement that has just been made. I should like to ask the noble and learned Lord if he could say whether, in the event of people being willing to give furniture, arrangements will be made for its collection from the places where it now is. It would, of course, be somewhat of a burden on individuals to have to send furniture to Royston.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am not in a position to tell the noble Lord of my own knowledge what the position is, but it does appear in the statement that I have made that details of the scheme—and that refers of course to the scheme with regard to furniture—
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will be announced shortly. It may be that something bearing on this point will be amongst those details. If not, and if the noble Lord will be good enough to communicate with me, I will see that he is properly informed.

MERCHANDISE MARKS BILL [H.L.]
3.48 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I welcome this Bill, and I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, on the agreeable way in which he has moved the Second Reading. The Bill, as I see it, serves a dual purpose: it protects the manufacturer from unfair competition and it protects the consumer from misleading descriptions. It does this by dual action. It adds to the trade description in Sections of the Act of 1887 the words which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has already read out. It also adds to the offence of false description that of misleading description, and these provisions combine to protect both the manufacturer and the consumer. Obviously, the proprietor of a brand of goods assailed by lower quality articles purporting to do the same work has protection and remedy under this Bill. He is also given a protection which he has not had so far with regard to misleading places of origin.
We have all heard stories—I have never known whether to believe them or not—to the effect that certain villages in Japan were christened with appropriate names, in order to mislead the home consumer as to the origin of goods made in those villages. So far as I am aware, that was not an offence under the old Act but will become an offence under this Bill. On the other hand, the consumer not only has the protection he gets through any protection given to a recognised trade mark but he is also protected against misleading claims made by the holder of the trade mark. At the moment, any protection available is pretty tortuous. I am no lawyer and I can well imagine the immense labyrinth of case law that must have been built up round the question of what is and what is not a false description. Noble Lords have given all sorts of cases. I add another hypothetical case. If there is a rat poison labelled in large letters, "Non-poisonous"

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and then in very small letters "to human beings," the presumption is that it is harmless to domestic animals, though in fact it may be poisonous. What is that but a misleading description?
It is in the textile trade that the widest field opens up for misleading descriptions of various kinds. I cannot answer for the expensive articles of female apparel which seem familiar to my noble friend and to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, but on a more humble plane the description "unshrinkable," like all other descriptions, is one of degree. It cannot be a scientifically ascertained fact. "Unshrinkable" depends upon the person who does the washing. "Fadelessness" depends on the time factor and the strength and intensity of the light. "Uncrushable" depends on who packs the clothes. "Mothproof" depends on the voracity of the moths. "Thornproof" depends on the length of the thorns. "Waterproof" is a pure matter of opinion. "Fast colours" depend on how the washing is carried out; and "showerproof" on what is a shower. All these things are matters of opinion. There is no scientific certitude about them. Therefore, the fact that the Bill leaves the onus of prosecution on the Board of Trade means a certain degree of danger to the liberty of the subject. It puts in the hands of the Executive a large amount of discretion.
Industry is rather alarmed in certain respects about the Bill, and we may have to devise some Amendments to meet legitimate criticism. One particular trade that is alarmed is the textile wool trade. For some reason which is unknown to me, over the course of years the wool textile trade has managed to get it established that the terms "woolen" and "worsted" are not trade descriptions, and that they do not denote that the goods are pure wool. But I have no great sympathy with them in this matter. To call a mixture of wool "woolen" denotes, to my simple mind, that it is made of wool; and if it is not made of wool I consider that I have been deceived. And I am all in favour of stopping people from deceiving the consumer. With regard to worsted, I admit that the case is not so strong. To me "worsted" still denotes pure wool, but not quite so strongly as "woollen." In the field of choice in the purchase of
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woollen goods the consumer probably labours under as great a difficulty as in any other trade. There is nothing like wool for warmth and health. One has only to look in the London Tubes to realise that fact!
The chemists have been extraordinarily clever in making what they would call substitutes but what I am afraid I call adulterants. These substitutes are really completely indistinguishable from the original. Not long ago I held in one hand a lady's inner nether garment made of wool and in the other hand a duplicate made of some completely synthetic fibre. I closed my eyes and passed them from one hand to another, trying to distinguish which was wool and which was not; and I got it wrong. Some of these substitute fibres behave like wool, but undoubtedly some do not: some do not absorb perspiration, and so on. At the same time, they are hard-wearing, and nowadays they are put into many different sorts of cloth which people would prefer to fine pure wool. Our woollen industry has led the world for six hundred years, and in the use of these substitutes it is probably leading the world to-day. By all means let us use them, but let us tell the world we are using them, because a great deal of the world is conservative about these matters. We made our name for pure wool. We have had it for six hundred years. I feel certain that if we want to keep that name going we must be quite certain that we do not pretend that articles are pure wool when they contain these modern synthetic fibres. Therefore, it may be necessary, before this Bill is passed, to take some technical steps in the matter of the definition of "woolen" and "worsted."
I do not think the same point arises in the cotton industry. So far as I am aware, the cotton industry has never used a trade description which was obviously misleading. If, by chance, goods containing rayon were labelled as "pure cotton," I think that would be a simple false description, rather than misleading, and so would have been caught under the 1887 Act. There is a possibility in the label of "sea island cotton." As your Lordships are aware, there are far more goods sold to-day as "sea island cotton" than could ever be grown in the West Indies; but that is not a very serious offence, because "sea island "has come to mean merely fine, long staple cotton.

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In Lord Lucas's trade, I wonder whether it would be misleading to describe cars as doing forty-five miles on a gallon of petrol, when in fact they do only thirty-five. That may well be misleading. I do not know whether it would also be misleading to describe a car as doing seventy miles an hour which does so only with a slightly inaccurate speedometer. At any rate, one could travel over other trades, but I mention textiles as I know something about that trade.
I support my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye on the question of designs. I have had before now to initiate passing-off actions against the Japanese, when I was in the front of the trade war with Japan. I sometimes wish that economic pundits who tell us how we must become more efficient in order that we may compete with Japan could have had the experience that I have had. We cannot compete with Japan. Their whole production is on a completely different level. Their factories have been built at a quarter of the cost of ours, and their wages are one-tenth of ours—their standards are completely different. Now that they are knocking at the door of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade the position is most serious. But they are not always villains in the matter of imitation: I do not think they do it out of malice but only because they cannot do anything else. I have known only one original invention proceed from Japan. For the rest, in the past at all events, their factories could only slavishly imitate what the would-be importer of another country sent along and asked them to quote for. Now they are apparently going to join some sort of body, promising good behaviour in the future. I personally do not set great store by that assurance, because of their known characteristic that they are magnificent slavish imitators but not very good original producers. It is of the utmost importance that we try to get the provisions of this Bill extended throughout the Colonial Empire, at all events, and the Dominions, if possible; and there is hope in the Dominions, because in many cases they tend to imitate the trend of our legislation.
I should like to ask my noble friend Lord Mancroft this question. Would Section 3 of the Act of 1887, as it is, or as it is to be modified, include false descriptions given on the air, either on the radio or on television? That will be
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important. We should secure that it does so, in view of the near advent of sponsored television. Reading the Act of 1887 and comparing it with this Bill, there is one thing one realises: we have progressed in many things over the sixty-five years, but we have not progressed in the clarity of our language. The Act of 1887 is framed in a totally different style of language. I would add, for full measure, that the Bill before your Lordships to-day contains a small misprint—and I wonder whether the Act of 1887 contained a misprint when it was presented to Parliament. On the final page, the Table of Statutes referred to, the Merchandise Marks Act, 1887, is given as "50 & 51 Vict. c. 26": it should be Chapter 28. That is a small point, but I feel that in 1887 they looked after these things rather more carefully. I may say, in conclusion, that this Bill will not stop the manufacture of anything now being manufactured: it will merely curb the imagination of the vendor's salesmanship. If, as a result of this Bill, any manufacturer should find that his trade diminishes, it can only be that he has been selling his goods under a false description. If it receives some attention in Committee, no honest man should really fear the Bill, and I support it.
4.5 p.m.
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, if I may have the permission of the House to speak again, I should like to take the opportunity, first, of thanking the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and other noble Lords who have spoken for their friendly references to myself which are greatly appreciated; and secondly, of thanking them for the generous welcome they have given to this Bill. It is clear that I did not exaggerate when I said that it was a technical and difficult measure. No fewer than fifteen direct questions on the interpretation of the Bill have been put to me by noble Lords who have participated in this debate. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, will not accuse me of cowardice when I say that if he thinks that I, in the presence of the Lord Chancellor, am going to attempt to give fifteen snap decisions on one of the trickiest branches of the law of this country, he has "got another think coming." I will say this to him. It is not a matter for the individual always to decide, for this reason: I do not think the problems in these fifteen questions are quite as

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difficult as is at first apparent. Of those fifteen questions, I myself would with confidence answer eleven immediately; two, I am certain, could be answered at once by those who know more about them than I do; and only one, the question of the model dress, is a "real tickler." That one, I know, has twice been before the Court of Appeal in different forms it has been before your Lordships' House once; before the American Courts fourteen times; it is at present before the South African Courts—and I now believe it is not legally possible to bring it before the French Courts.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: May I put another question to the noble Lord, which would come under his description of "ticklish"? If he were out of this House now, looking more attractive to the female eye than he did before he had his operation, and some delightful female threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, and when he remonstrated with her said, "Don't worry; the manufacturer said my lipstick was kiss-proof," but it was not, would he be entitled to say that the description of that cosmetic was a misleading description? That could happen. What would the answer be?
LORD MANCR OFT: The answer would be that that would be an illicit "puff."
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: The noble Lord said that of the fifteen questions fourteen could be answered straight away. He did not say which way they could be answered. Does he mean that there was no case at all, or that in some of them there was a case and in some there was not?
LORD MANCROFT: I beg the noble Lord's pardon. I meant that, to my way of thinking, the answer would be either a pretty clear "Yea" or a pretty clear "Nay," and no great legal doubt would arise.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: Which is it?
LORD MANCROFT: Half are one way, and half the other. I merely say that, as I jotted down the cases given to me, to my mind no great doubt arose as to certain of them, but that there did
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arise in my mind great doubt over others. I know that the case of Lord Balfour of Inchrye's antique is one that has caused trouble in the past. As the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, rightly said, there is no absolute scale or standard in these matters. Ultimately, the courts must decide, and the noble Lord must not accuse me of cowardice if I tell him that that is the right answer in the end. But many of these questions are quite simple and need not worry the lawyers at all, because, after all, are we not paying a little too much attention to the actual enforcement of this Act? I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, if I did not discuss the question of enforcement. I omitted it from my remarks only because there is no change at all in the enforcement, which has worked satisfactorily enough for something like fifty or sixty years. I quite agree that the Board of Trade have not initiated many prosecutions. I have not the figures at my fingertips, but I should imagine that it must be certainly under100, from what I can remember, but I do not want to be held to that figure in the history of this measure. Surely, however, the merit of the measure is not in the procedure or the frequency of enforcement, but in the fact that it sets a standard by which people can, in these particular matters, control their conduct. However, I will look carefully at the points which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and others have made, and make quite certain that the question of enforcement is as satisfactory as it can be.
I would beg the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, not to be over pessimistic and think that this Bill is going to provide a lawyers' paradise. I think it will do so no more than the previous Acts have done. On the question of consolidation, which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, raised, I will, of course, look at that matter, too. I presume he is referring only to the possibility of consolidating the Merchandise Marks Act and not the sister Acts, the Copyrights, Registered Designs and Patents Acts, which in a way do impinge and touch upon this particular Act. That matter, again, I will look at but I am in no position to pledge myself.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: The noble Lord is quite right. When this Bill is on the Statute Book there will be four Acts. Surely they will be consolidated.
LORD MANCROFT: I will certainly look at that point, but I foresee difficulties, because certain of the other Acts touching upon this subject cannot be consolidated. I am not sufficiently an expert in consolidation to know whether it can even be considered, if there are other Acts touching upon the subject which cannot be consolidated. But I will look at that matter very carefully and take advice.
The question of Japan came up on more than one occasion. It was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, and by my noble friend Lord Hawke. I am quite sure that what they pointed out is perfectly true: that this measure cannot affect Japanese goods made in Japan—counterfeited English goods—and sold in the Dominions, in the Colonies, or, more particularly, in America, unless some action such as the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, has suggested is put in train. That, of course, is quite outside the scope of this measure, but it is a matter which I know is causing some
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concern, particularly in America, at the present moment.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: Will the noble Lord consider it?
LORD MANCROFT: I will certainly consider the point which the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, has made. Indeed, I will consider carefully all the points which have been made, because I know that they have been made with a desire to improve this Bill. If I can be of any assistance to noble Lords before the Committee stage, I will certainly endeavour to be at their service, because I, as indeed I know they also, want to make this Bill as good a Bill as possible. With those few words, I thank your Lordships once again for your support of the measure.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
House adjourned at thirteen minutes past four o'clock.