Lords Sitting of 2 November 1955

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

TANK SUPPLIES TO EGYPT
LORD VANSITTART: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask whether any tanks have recently been sent from this country to Egypt, whether any are now due and, if so—seeing the dangerous xenophobia now fostered by the Egyptian Government—whether delivery will be suspended.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF READING): My Lords, it is contrary to the Government's normal practice to disclose details or quantities of military equipment supplied to foreign Governments. But I cart say that no tanks have been supplied to Egypt since the middle of August. No further deliveries are at present due, and there is therefore no question of suspending them.
LORD VANSITTART: My Lords, I am much relieved by the noble Marquess's Answer; and having had two good Answers in two days, there is nothing more for me to say.

HOME DEFENCE
2.35 p.m.
THE EARL OF LUCAN THE EARL OF LUCAN rose to call the attention of Her Majesty's Government to the problems of Home Defence, including Civil Defence; and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Nathan I rise to move the Motion standing in his name. My first words must be of apology on his behalf for being unable to be here. The day before yesterday he rang me up to say that an operation which he had hoped could be postponed until after
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Christmas had now to take place this week, and his medical advisers told him that it could not safely be postponed beyond to-day. So I begin by expressing his apologies to your Lordships, and my own apologies for being a substitute in a subject which I am sure he would have dealt with far more effectively and far more in the manner that a subject of this importance deserves. Lord Nathan has done a great deal of work on this subject in the last few months. I can only say that I have had the benefit of consultations with him, and I hope that what I have to say will be broadly in line with the speech he would have delivered had he been here.
I do not think any apology is needed for raising this subject at the present time. For a long while Civil Defence has been, if not uppermost in people's minds, at least not far below the surface, and if of recent months the international relaxation of tension has given us rather more relief from anxiety, that does not mean that the subject can be altogether dismissed. At the same time, the first thing to be said on the subject, as has been said by Her Majesty's Government in the last, if not the last two, Statements on Defence, is that the only real defence against nuclear warfare is the avoidance of war. In that, Her Majesty's Government will naturally have the support of everyone in the country.
In the Statement on Defence issued in February of this year Her Majesty's Government devoted a certain amount of space to the subject of Home Defence, and perhaps this would be the point to mention that there tends to be some confusion between "Horne Defence" and "Civil Defence." My noble friend put down the Motion in terms of Home Defence, but he later added the words "Civil Defence" so that there should be no doubt that he intended to cover the whole field. I think Section VIII of the Statement on Defence makes it clear that the Government regard the whole field as one—in other words, what in the last war we called passive air defence, or air raid precautions, or civil defence are regarded as one with the defence of the United Kingdom against attack.
A number of headings were given in that Statement—the Civil Defence Services, the Armed Forces, the Mobile Defence Corps, Evacuation and Shelter,

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Casualties and Homeless, and so on. We were told that the situation "calls for a complete overhaul of our home defence plans," but almost every paragraph in that section contained a clause to the effect that no decision had yet been reached; that the situation was still under review for re-examination, and that it was not possible to assess the full results of nuclear attack. Since the publication of the Statement, eight or nine months have passed and nothing further has come from Her Majesty's Government. It was for that reason that my noble friend thought fit to put down this Motion. What are Her Majesty's Government waiting for? If they are waiting for finality in weapon development, they will wait for ever, because one can never afford to wait for the final assessment of a new development in weapons of war. Meanwhile, there reigns in the field of Home Defence what I think can only be called stagnation.
Some six months ago the Labour Party brought out their own pamphlet on Civil Defence. It was a pamphlet written with no access to official or secret information, but at the same time it summed up the risks and the dangers of nuclear attack; it examined the possibilities of defence and protection and made recommendations as to the action required. That pamphlet was entirely objective in its approach; it was full of common sense, and it made use of the best scientific and other information available at the time. Surely Her Majesty's Government might do the same—they might take the best available information and say what their intentions are. Before I leave that matter perhaps I had better say that it must surely he quite clear that there is no Party capital to be made in this country out of the subject of Defence, whether Home or Civil Defence, or any other form of defence. Any action taken by the Opposition is intended to induce Her Majesty's Government to give a lead and thereby improve the state of the preparations for Civil Defence.
The problem of nuclear warfare has been widely discussed in the Press and in many publications which have come from the United States. A number of varying estimates of the likely damage has been made, but it seems that the following is roughly the effect that is to be expected from an attack on this country by nuclear
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weapons. A bomb exploded over London would destroy all buildings, other than those specially strengthened, within a radius of five miles. It would severely damage all buildings within a radius of fifteen miles. It would cause fatal burns to persons in the open up to twelve miles away. It would cause fires in buildings up to the same distance. Finally, it would contaminate by radioactive fallout an area extending some 200 miles down wind on a width of about 40 miles—that is, some 8,000 square miles would be covered. The fall-out would be fatal to human beings and animals caught unprotected in the open and exposed for a certain period to the rays. The length of fatal exposure would, of course, vary with the distance from the point of explosion, known as "ground zero." The Statement on Defence was guilty of no exaggeration when it said that such weapons would cause destruction, human and material on an unprecedented scale.
There are two measures which, in conjunction, could reduce the loss of life in such conditions. One is the digging of underground shelters. It appears that underground shelter gives a fair degree of protection against radioactivity anywhere except in the immediate vicinity of the explosion. Against the fall-out we are told that trenches with a small amount of head cover will give adequate protection; but one has only to think of the populations of our big cities spending a night in slit trenches in the countryside to realise that such a policy is quite impracticable. Then there is the question of the provision, or the strengthening, of basement and underground rooms in existing or new buildings. We should like to know what is the policy of Her Majesty's Government. Are they going to urge that all new construction should contain underground rooms to provide shelter?
Dispersal is another question. What was known as "evacuation" in the last war was a simple matter compared with this, for, in a nuclear war, where, in these islands, would be a safe area? Moreover the conduct of the war, when a war broke out, or, indeed, the continuance of civilised life in the country, would necessitate large numbers of the population—probably millions—remaining in the cities at their work. So dispersal on an ideal scale to minimise casualties is also out of the question, more especially

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as we know that a dozen hydrogen bombs, suitably placed, would cover with their fall-out area almost the whole of these islands. Nevertheless, with some degree of protection against fall-out there is a possibility of moving numbers of people from more densely populated areas into other parts of the country. Her Majesty's Government were thinking of that at the time that the Statement on Defence was written, and they said in that Statement that they were reexamining policies of dispersal and shelter. I wonder how far that reexamination has progressed. We cannot afford to wait till the emergency is upon us before beginning the planning for an evacuation scheme; that must be done months or years beforehand, and the authorities who will have to carry it out must have warning so that they can start making their plans. I heard that when one local authority recently asked whether further information could be given by the Government they were told that nothing could be published. I would urge upon Her Majesty's Government that time is slipping by, and some indication must be given if an effective scheme is to be put in train. Only when they know the intentions of the Government can local authorities start planning.
There are numerous other matters upon which the Government doubtless have plans, yet nobody except the Government know about them. It would take far too long to go into the full list, but what, for instance, is being done about emergency hospitals, the care of the sick and casualties? What about essential services, fuel and power supplies, drainage and particularly water, which is so easily contaminated? What about food supplies, livestock, crops and emergency foodstocks? Frankly, unless Her Majesty's Government can give positive assurances on these crucial matters, one can only assume that there is no practical Civil Defence scheme in being. Moreover, there is another effect of the lack of information: unless the public can be given some inkling of the intentions of the Government they will not volunteer for the Civil Defence Services in the numbers required. We know that since November, 1949, some 338,000 men and women have joined the Civil Defence Corps, in addition, I think, to about 100,000 in the Auxiliary Fire Service, the
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National Hospital Service Reserve and the Special Constabulary. No-one can claim that that is a very encouraging total of recruitment. And is it, in fact, merely a deception? Does that figure represent trained people or simply the total of enrolment? If it is only the total of enrolment can the Government tell us what is the number of men and women who are fit and trained for their jobs?
Lastly, there is the subject of the greatest importance—command and organisation of the Civil Defence Services. The Government have decided that all the Armed Forces are in future to receive elementary Civil Defence training as part of their normal training. They are also to form a mobile defence corps for fire-fighting, rescue and ambulance services. Can the Government tell us a little more about that? They said in the Statement on Defence that some forty-eight battalions would be organised over the next three or four years, and that it was hoped that the first intake for training would be going to their training depots towards the end of this year. We are now in November, and we should like the Government to give us some progress report on this scheme.
Then what about other branches and departments of the Armed Forces? I think it is accepted by good authorities that mobilisation and the transport of Armed Forces across the Channel to the Continent is an operation that cannot take place in a nuclear war. In a war that opens with nuclear weapons—as Her Majesty's Government definitely think it will—we cannot carry out that long, intricate and complicated operation of reservists travelling to their depôts, being medically examined, being equipped, being formed into units, going to their ports, being embarked, and so on. In the conditions which Her Majesty's Government envisage that would be quite out of the question. Therefore the Armed Forces, surely, will find their first duty in the protection of their own country, and the citizens of their own country, against enemy attack by nuclear weapons. What is to be the system of command? We are to have military forces, organised, armed and disciplined forces, under their own commanders. We are to have volunteer services under their own civilian authorities. What is to be the chain of command both before an emergency—in

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peace time, that is—and during an emergency? That is one of the most important questions to be settled.
I notice that the Prime Minister recently said that arrangements are being made:
"to co-ordinate, under the Ministry of Defence, planning and training for the joint action of civil and military forces in home defence."
It is good to know that arrangements are being made, but above all things there must be a proper system and chain of command laid down in an emergency. Remember the Regional Commissioners organisation that was set up in the last war. The noble Lord, Lord Lawson, knows much more about that than I do because he was himself a Deputy Regional Commissioner. Mercifully, in the last war we never came to the point where the Government had to decentralise command, but in conditions of nuclear attack one of the first things likely to happen will be that central control will break down. Therefore the Regional Commissioners organisation and machinery, if it is not in existence now, must be set up at once—in skeleton if necessary; but it must be in being. There must be a working system long before there is any question of an emergency.
I should like to utter one word of warning to Her Majesty's Government. I hope they remember that traditionally the people of these islands do not look with favour on any suggestion of military control over civilians, and I am quite sure that any system of command must make it absolutely clear—it must be known without a shadow of doubt—that the control and government of the people or areas in this country is vested ultimately in a civilian Minister. A subject such as this can be dealt with only very sketchily in a short speech such as the one I am making. I should like to sum up by saying that we feel that what has been lacking, and is still lacking, is a lead from Her Majesty's Government. Local authorities cannot plan, and the volunteers on whom Civil Defence will ultimately depend will not come forward for training, until the Government show much more frankness and take the country into their confidence. On behalf of my noble friend Lord Nathan, I beg to move for Papers.
2.58 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF DEFENCE (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords, I should like first of all to join with the noble Earl who has just sat down in saying how sorry we are that the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, has been unable to move his Motion in the House this afternoon. I hope that it will not be long before he is well again and able to take his place in your Lordships' House. All of us who have heard speeches which he has made on Defence matters and on Service matters generally in the last few years will know that we have missed a most helpful and constructive speech. In his Motion, the noble Lord expressly used the words "Home Defence" as well as "Civil Defence," and the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, who has taken his place, has ably and widely ranged over this subject. No one, I am sure, will complain of this, since it is a very long time since we had in your Lordships' House a debate on Civil Defence and Home Defence. I looked it up, and I think that the last occasion was in October, 1950—that is, five years ago—on a Motion introduced by my noble friend Lord Teynham. We are grateful, therefore, to the noble Earl for giving us this opportunity of discussing this important subject.
I did have a word a week or two ago with the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, who was kind enough to give me some indication of the broad lines of his approach to this subject. For the convenience of your Lordships, it was decided that I should get up at this stage and give the House an indication of the lines on which the Government are thinking so that the debate which follows will be the more informed. Lord Nathan, was kind enough to send me a copy of what he would have said. He professed to find in the fact that my noble friend Lord Mancroft and I were both to speak in this debate, something (and these are the words in his speech)
"that was mildly symptomatic of the confusion, uncertainty and indecisiveness which lingered in our arrangements for Home Defence."
Nothing could be farther from the truth. Neither my noble friend nor I is confused, uncertain or indecisive.
The responsibilities for Civil and Home Defence are clearly laid down. I would remind the noble Earl, who quoted

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a little of the speech, of the words of the Prime Minister at Bournemouth on October 8. He said this:
"As I have said, this decision with regard to the reserve forces links them with the work of Civil Defence. It is obvious with the development of nuclear weapons there are new problems to be faced, and we are at work on these. In the first place, we must think of this question as one problem of Home Defence, which is a better term than Civil Defence, a defence in which both civil and military forces have to take part. I have made certain arrangements within the Government to co-ordinate planning and training for this purpose under the Minister of Defence. A full-time Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces, will be appointed in the near future."
This statement shows that the Minister of Defence, as Deputy Chairman of the Defence Committee, is charged with planning the part which the Armed Forces would play in Home Defence in war, and with co-ordinating the plans of the military authorities with those of the civil authorities.
The Home Secretary is charged by the Civil Defence Act, 1948, with responsibility for Civil Defence—that is, for the tasks that would be carried out in war by the civil authorities, except in so far as other Ministers have been designated by Order in Council as responsible for specific tasks. For example, the Minister of Health is, naturally, responsible for measures to deal with casualties and diseases; the Minister of Housing is responsible for the maintenance of water supplies, and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for feeding services. The Home Secretary retains responsibility for co-ordinating this civil planning. Home Defence plans as a whole, like other elements of the defence programme, are discussed by the Defence Committee, of which the Prime Minister is the Chairman and the Minister of Defence Deputy Chairman. Other machinery exists for consultation where it is needed.
The background of any discussion of Home Defence must be, of course, that of thermo-nuclear warfare, and it is in that fact that our debate this afternoon on this subject must be so radically different from those of past years. Your Lordships may not remember that yesterday was the third anniversary of the first megaton explosion in the world's history. This event constituted a scientific development of another order of magnitude over and above that already reached at Hiroshima and Nagasaki only seven years
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earlier. It is impossible, when an event of this kind occurs, to appreciate at once all the lessons, scientific and otherwise, which can be learnt. Therefore, it is important to recall that, apart from the Russian explosion in August, 1953, from which naturally we were not in a position to learn many lessons, the only other megaton explosions which have occurred were those in the United States in the spring of 1954. It is from what the Americans have been able to say of this series of trials that we have learnt, and are still learning, the lessons that will enable us to make any sensible judgment on the Civil Defence measures necessary in the event of an attack by megaton weapons on this country. So it will be seen that it is only during the past eighteen months that we have had any kind of opportunity to study the many problems which arise. In the Defence White Paper of February this year a very rough description was given of the effects of such weapons, based on the scientific deductions from the evidence then available.
I do not propose to offer any comment on the Civil Defence measures taken by previous Governments. I will only say that, however effective they may have been against the kind of threat with which they were designed to compete, it must be perfectly clear that the situation was completely and entirely altered by the arrival of the megaton weapon. In the months following the American trials of 1954 our scientists were busy forming conclusions about the effects and attempting to apply their conclusions to the quite different kind of conditions which would occur in this country should such explosions take place. American explosions were carried out in the Pacific on coral rock. Our scientists had to form their views of what might be likely to happen if such explosions occurred on the ordinary land surface in this country, which is of entirely different composition from coral rock.
It was not until December, 1954, that the scientific conclusions were sufficiently firm to enable the Government to consider what might be the result. I want to emphasise that in a matter of this kind there are a vast number of unknowns. We have in this country as good nuclear scientists as anywhere else in the world, but many of the conclusions which have to be drawn from events

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of this kind are not quite matters of fact. Scientific theories have to be formed, and, so far as possible, tested against what is known to have happened. But the knowledge of what happened is in the nature of things singularly incomplete. For instance, it will be remembered that the American series of experiments were carried out in the Pacific Ocean, and it is much more difficult to obtain a continuous picture, which involves measurements and so on, over large areas of the surface of the sea than it is over land.
I think it is obvious that only broad conclusions could be drawn from the information available and that there was a most urgent need to amplify our knowledge. Steps have therefore been taken to obtain this knowledge, and this work is being intensified as it becomes clearer which particular lines are likely to be the more profitable to follow.
Nevertheless, several things which do follow as a result of the megaton bomb, are abundantly clear, even to the layman. In the days of ordinary high-explosive bombs or of kiloton atomic bombs, it was reasonably certain that any enemy attacking this country by air would go for specific targets. Those targets might be docks, they might be cities or towns; but they would certainly not be open country, since bombs dropped in open country would be completely wasted effort. A megaton bomb exploded on the ground anywhere not only destroys completely an area immediately surrounding the point of impact, but, in addition, lets loose a cloud of radioactive dust which, sooner or later, comes to earth over a wide area. The effect of this fall-out, as it is called, can quite easily be fatal over large areas if nothing is done about it. As a matter of fact, there is only one thing that can be done about it and that is, get under cover and stay there—perhaps for days on end—until the intensity of the fall-out has faded to a safe enough level to come out. Fall-out would cause a complete disruption of the ordinary life of the country throughout the area in which people will have to take cover.
One thing we can tell is that at the point where an H-bomb explodes there will be a central area that will be completely destroyed. But farther out there will be a zone where damage is lighter,
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where there will be fires to put out, where people must be rescued from damaged buildings, and where there will be many injured and homeless who will need help and guidance. And over-shadowing all that will be the grim, invisible danger of fall-out. We are considering (my noble friend Lord Mancroft will develop this aspect at the end of the debate) the situation which arises with regard to shelter and evacuation.
Great problems arise in almost every part of the very wide field covered by Civil Defence. For instance, the existence of large concentrated stockpiles of food or other materials is not the right approach to this problem. Not only would such stockpiles be destroyed in the event of a direct hit, but the real difficulty in the aftermath of a megaton bomb attack is going to be communication and movement. We have, therefore, got to see what steps are needed to provide small stockpiles which are very widely scattered. Similarly, we have to see what is needed to avoid contamination of our agricultural produce. Here again, we have put in hand the necessary research.
Then there is the problem of protecting the importing capacity of this country—a matter on which the Government have been working for some time. The major ports of this country are vulnerable to nuclear attack, and plans have been made for the provision of alternative port facilities. The advent of the megaton bomb has, of course, made this more necessary than ever. These plans have gone beyond the paper stage; in suitable places additional quays and jetties are being built, and disused ones restored. Dredging inside some of our smaller harbours and in their approaches is being put in hand. Equipment has been provided, including a reserve of mobile cranes and plant for handling grain. Attention is also being paid to the special problems of rehabilitating ports after attack, and plans are being made for the provision of a pool of mobile equipment, such as generators and pumps, which would be stored away from target areas until it was needed.
I hope that I have said enough to convince your Lordships that the Government are following the right policy by not committing themselves to large and wholesale expenditure until that expenditure can be based on proper scientific

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knowledge. The Statement on Defence, 1955, shows that the Government are well aware of the sort of problems the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, has mentioned. Indeed, he may remember the phrase used: that thermo-nuclear warfare would result in a struggle for survival of the grimmest kind, and that we went on to explain, in Part VIII of the Statement, to which he referred, how the problems of Home Defence were to be tackled. Work on this is proceeding and when the Defence Estimates and the annual Statement on Defence are published in February next year they will naturally deal with Home Defence as well as other types of defence and will explain what progress has been made.
It is not difficult to think of ways of spending very large sums of money on Home Defence. For example, last weekend I re-read the Labour Party's pamphlet on Civil Defence which was mentioned earlier, and although we do not accept all its conclusions, by and large it seems quite sensible. Naturally, it does not go into full details of statistics, but it outlines proposals which might involve anything between £2,000 million and £3,000 million in capital expenditure.
Defence, whether it be civil, home or purely money spent on the Services, costs a great deal of money, and it will not have escaped the attention of the noble Earl that the Chancellor of the Exchequer found it necessary to introduce a Budget last week—a Budget in which he announced certain economies in Government expenditure. The Government have therefore to be absolutely certain that the direction in which the limited amount of money for defence is spent is the right one. The Government believe that the consequences of nuclear war are so frightful that even more than before it is necessary to ensure that war does not break out. We believe that while working for peace in the United Nations, and at such conferences as are now going on in Geneva, the best possible means of preventing a nuclear war is by providing and maintaining a sufficient deterrent. We therefore think that the deterrent should have priority in our defence policy.
Unfortunately the cold war is still with us and there is the possibility that limited wars may break out, and we must have adequate forces to deal with these. In
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these circumstances and with these commitments, the Government's policy in the field of Home Defence is to press on with research, training and planning and with measures to enable the Armed Forces to make a maximum contribution. As the Prime Minister said, all these matters are much more important than the provision of large material resources, although some material preparations will be necessary. It is certain that to throw all our resources into massive and costly preparations carried out at the maximum speed would lead to ruin and would not serve the overriding object of making war unlikely.
I come now to the question to which the noble Earl devoted a great part of his speech, that of command and control; but first of all, perhaps I should explain exactly what forces there are to command and control. We may think of them as divided into three echelons. The first echelon consists of the local voluntary Civil Defence Forces. They will be supplemented by R.A.F. reservists who will be trained during their National Service as fire-fighters to reinforce the regular fire services of the country. The second echelon is the forty-eight battalions of the Mobile Defence Corps, specially trained in first aid and rescue and, in the case of twelve battalions, in fire-fighting for Home Defence purposes. The noble Earl asked me how the mobile Defence Corps was getting on. There are twenty-five battalions in course of being raised and those National Service men who are earmarked for the battalions are attached during the last month of their whole-time service to one of the War Office depots for training in Civil Defence.
Then there is the third echelon, consisting of all Armed Forces, whether Regular or Reserve, in the country at the time with the exception of those engaged in, or supporting, combat operations. In a future global war the comparatively leisurely mobilisation on the pattern of 1914 and 1939 will no longer be possible. The Service Departments are therefore engaged in revising their mobilisation plans to meet the new conditions. Should there be little or no warning before attack develops, many Serious difficulties will arise to interfere with mobilisation. Areas of the country suffering from direct nuclear attack may contain, as the noble Earl said, active or reserve units and Reservists needed for the mobilisation of

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the Forces. Communications, including roads, railways and ports will be severely disrupted, whilst effective central control of the country may be reduced. Ways of lessening the effect of these difficulties are being studied and consideration is being given to mobilisation on a regional basis during the period when control and movement are reduced to a minimum by enemy attack.
The concept of reserve forces ready to take part in large-scale conventional warfare is out of date. In a nuclear war the primary rôle of the reserve army would be to help to maintain the life of the nation and to deal with raids and sabotage. The Territorial Army must continue to be organised as a military force, capable of fighting, but changes in its organisation and training will be necessary. There will, therefore, be available to support the civil authorities the Regular Army formations and units remaining in this country; the bulk of the Territorial Army; and those elements of the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force not engaged in, or supporting, the battle.
These are very substantial and very valuable resources; and the Government have been giving much thought to the question of their training and their organisation so that they could make the greatest possible contribution to the Home Defence if war should break out. The training syllabus for the Armed Forces for some years past has included basic instruction in methods of rescue and first aid—two of the most likely tasks to be performed by Armed Forces in the third echelon of Civil Defence. Such instruction is now being extended to cover the additional problems from radioactive fall-out. Considerable numbers of Class "H" Reservists of the Royal Air Force are to undergo specialised training as fire-fighters in order to provide reinforcements for the regular fire-fighting services of the country. All those destined for the Mobile Defence Battalions will receive one month's intensive training in their rôle during whole-time service, and up to twenty days during their part-time service.
Careful studies of the conditions that may be encountered in nuclear warfare and the action to be taken in meeting them are being carried out at the Civil
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Defence Staff College. Members of the Civil Defence organisations, staff of the public utilities and Government Departments, and officers of the Armed Forces all take part in this. It is hoped that the first major joint exercise in this country, with military headquarters, troops, and regional and local civil authorities, will be held next year.
Then I come to the chain of command. The degree to which Regional Commissioners will have to assume control within their areas will depend directly on where the attack has fallen and its severity. Those areas in which there has been heavy damage, or which find their communications to central Government cut, must be controlled and administered by the Regional Commissioner until more normal conditions can be restored. It is intended to nominate the Regional Commissioners in sufficient time for them to be at their posts when war breaks out, with full powers for the tasks they may have to perform. Each Regional Commissioner will have among his advisers, and in the same joint headquarters, first, the Regional Director of Civil Defence, already appointed to each region in England and in Wales, who will have planned and trained his Civil Defence resources during peace for their tasks in war; secondly, the Army District Commander, who also exists in peace time, and who will have trained his forces jointly with the regional civil authorities for tasks in war. Naval and Air Force liaison officers with full knowledge of the Service manpower and equipment available within the regional area will be attached to the joint headquarters in war.
Civil or military staffs for communications, transport and administration will be provided and, as your Lordships know, for the most part the civil regional boundaries coincide almost identically with those of the Army districts. The Regional Commissioner will be in charge, but will have alongside him his military and civil advisers to control their resources within his area. It should be possible for the central Government to continue to control and issue policy decisions, but the extent to which this is practicable will obviously depend upon the degree of damage to communications and upon the degree of information received. The rôle of the central Government will be to co-ordinate and adjust

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the resources available to the country between the regions—for example, restoring communications and transport and reinforcing the worst damaged regions from those not so seriously affected.
On the Service side, the overall control will be exercised by the Commanders-in-Chief Committee, who will be in close touch with civil authorities and with the central Government. The Armed Forces are in no sense a substitute for civil administration, and the aim will be to support the normal administration by all possible means and to make the fullest use of surviving civilians and resources. It will be one of the first tasks of the Commander-in-Chief, U.K. Land Forces, on appointment, to examine, in conjunction with the civil authorities, the ways in which the Armed Forces can best assist the civil authorities, and to make plans accordingly.
The re-modelling of our defence organisation to meet the new conception of warfare is a gigantic task. Much planning, much research, and much hard work is necessary. It is essential, if we are to survive in any future war, that we find the correct solution. Sometimes, as we imagine the destruction and misery which a nuclear war would bring on this and other countries, we are filled with a feeling of horror that men could be so foolish as to contemplate it. But though we may be filled with horror, we in this country are certainly not filled with despair. Though the difficulties of Home Defence may be enormous, the Government will do its best to make it sound and practicable, and I hope from what I have said this afternoon, your Lordships will agree that we are proceeding soundly and sensibly and doing the right things in the right way.
3.25 p.m.
LORD LAWSON: My Lords, I think your Lordships will agree, in view of the statement we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, that my noble friend has rendered a service to the House in raising this subject this afternoon. I listened with great interest to the noble Lord who told us what the plans of the Government are said to be and informed us that next year there are going to be exercises on a large scale in Civil Defence. I think that is what the noble Lord said. But, as one who had something to do with Civil Defence in
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the last war, I have been deeply concerned at the almost total lack of interest in this subject in the country. That lack of interest has been reflected in the silence of the Government upon the subject. What has struck me much more is the lack of conviction that anything at all could be done about it. To some extent the noble Lord's statement reflects that temper to-day.
We are told that the defence forces are to be co-ordinated with a view to helping in the event of an attack upon this country. Co-ordination is a useful word, but it is also a dangerous word, and it sometimes covers a multitude of sins. As to the Civil Defence forces that are available at the present time, we have not been told much by the noble Lord who has just spoken. I was glad to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, is to speak later on. He may be able to tell us the number of volunteers for Civil Defence, what exercises are being held, and where troops have at any time been co-ordinating in those exercises. As soon as war comes, if unfortunately it ever does come again, inevitably the civilian organisations will be driven to co-operate with the Service organisations. I cannot see how the Territorials in peace time can take steps to co-operate with the civil forces of Civil Defence, because it is very difficult in the present circumstances, apart from the National Servicemen, to get men to volunteer for the Territorial organisation. When they do, the short time they can spare from their ordinary employments and avocations to do the normal exercises of the Territorial organisation makes it difficult, in peace time at any rate, to co-operate with the Civil Defence forces. The consequence is that we are compelled to depend upon the actual existing Civil Defence forces for exercises and for a knowledge of the job that has to be done.
I have heard a good deal about the lire services and about the Air Force (I think it is) being used for fire service purposes. We seem to forget that the splendid rational organisation of fire services in this country as it is to-day was born of the experience of the last war. Some of us had the pain of seeing how insufficient the fire services were in the early stages of the war and how they had to be built up and strengthened. Out of them has come a great national fire service. That, as I say, was born of

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experience during the war and during the operations of the Civil Defence organisation. I should have thought that some steps would be taken to co-ordinate, if there had to be co-ordination, the national fire services, so that somebody would be ready, when the call came, to give guidance and so that they would have some knowledge of the services that were likely to be needed.
I am pleased that the Government have made up their minds about the appointment of the Commissioners for Civil Defence. The noble Lord's statement is about the first statement that has been made about that; at any rate, I have not heard it before. The Civil Defence Commissioners ought to know their respective areas, too, because those of us who have been engaged in this business, and particularly when we have been remote from the centre, have seen how greatly dependent the civil organisation soon came to be upon the military, air and naval defence forces.
It would be unfair to say of those who are serving, who have volunteered in the country and who are doing splendid work, that nothing is being done; but it would be right to say that there is not the slightest sense abroad in the country of the need for building up the Civil Defence organisation. A few weeks ago I saw a large exercise that was very well done indeed. The Government stand on the brink and all the experts say: "Well, what can we do?" If in one part of the country there has been a refusal to face these facts and to do anything about Civil Defence, I say that the inaction of the Government themselves has been responsible for a situation like that. It is foolish because even those who say: "We will do nothing about it; we can do nothing about it," would be the first to give their services if ever the call came.
It is true that there are very fine men and women up and down this country who are giving their time, attending lectures and trying to understand and visualise something of what might happen, the call that would be made upon them and the kind of thing that could be done. It is most important that the Government should concentrate upon the volunteers for the Civil Defence forces. In the main, of course, the only exercises they can do—and I must say that I watched
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them recently—are those with a view to keeping the troops on their toes. The training of a soldier, an airman or a sailor sometimes seems stupid to people who stand on the outer ring and watch it, but everybody knows it is fitting them for the job, physically and mentally, and that it is necessary to keep them at it in order that the man or the officer will be ready for his job when the time comes. So far as I can see, pretty much the same exercises are being practised now, although more efficiently, as were practised before the last war. It is a question of going through the ordinary routine to keep men and women on their toes.
But the main thing is that the Government should not only manifest interest in this matter but should show to the country that they are deeply concerned about the need for men and women who will be ready to give their services if unfortunately that call should come. There are men and women who are giving their spare time freely. This country has a splendid spirit of service, operating to a greater extent than most people know—a many-sided service, freely given by splendid men and women in the spare time they have at their disposal from their work. I am sure that, if the Government could manifest sufficient interest in the matter and really show that they meant business, if the call had to go out the men and women would be there.
I must tell your Lordships frankly that I do not think you will get this from the Home Office. It is no reflection upon the Home Secretary: but is it not a fact that the Home Office has gradually come to be considered the kind of department upon which you dump some organisation that you do not know what to do with? It is true that the Home Office had experience in the last war. I am not making any personal reflections upon the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft—
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (LORD MANCROFT): Thank you.
LORD LAWSON: He certainly does not look that type, at any rate. But it is a fact that over the greater part of a century we have formed the habit of dumping on the Home Office any organisation that we did not know what to do with. The Home Office, of course, has experience from the last war. But I think

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the Government are doing right in deciding to appoint a civilian organisation—I do not know whether it is to be at an early date or before any war comes. I think that that is what was said about the Civil Commissioners. It is not a matter of explaining what the atom bomb will do, or how wide will be its range of destruction, or even what immediate steps are to be taken for safety purposes. I have my own views. I think that we shall have to get underground. If anything is to be done to save particularly young life and the women, I think that deep subterranean passages will have to be built, though there is always the danger of wanting to stay there once you get there. I am sure that if the Government make their appeal and show that they are really concerned about this matter there will be a better response. I think that there is a lack of conviction about the appeals of the Government. If they make a convincing appeal I am sure that plenty of citizens in this country would give their time and their services, when they are told just what they can do.
It is a good thing that this debate has been held to-day, because we have had the statement of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and the debate will show just how much the Government intend to do and what they intend not to do. Like most noble Lords here, I have been in public life nearly all my life. I thought I knew something about this country, but I may say that in recent years the thing that has astounded me has been the multitudinous number of organisations formed by men and women, who give their services freely and who are ready to give their services if they are called upon I am sure that my noble friend and members of this House will agree that we wish we had not to talk about these things. We pray that there may never be any need for this organisation. But if there is need, whether in regard to fire or flood (because flood can be envisaged, too), or death or disaster, then the men and women who are needed for that purpose ought to be trained.
3.45 p.m.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, I too should like to express my regret that the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, has been unable to be here to move the Motion which stands in his name. May I add my wishes for his speedy recovery, and
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say how glad I was fiat the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, was able to address us on a subject on which he is well qualified to speak? In the course of his speech the noble Earl said that there had been no lead from the Government. If he had amplified that and had said that there had been no lead from any of Her Majesty's Governments from 1945 until recently, I should have agreed with him.
ram certain that Home Defence, in all its aspects, has been in a fairly sorry mess since the end of the war, and so far as I can see (I speak from such slight experience of these matters as I had in the last war) that has been because there was what might almost have been called a conspiracy in ignoring every possible lesson of the war. It is not merely that we ignored the lessons of Hiroshima—though the atom bomb is a dwarf compared to the thermo-nuclear bomb. At the same time, I have never held the view that we were justified in waiting, after the lessons of Hiroshima, to see what the thermo-nuclear bomb produced, because in regard to many aspects of Home Defence the lessons of Hiroshima were a perfectly good signpost to the lessons which we are being taught by the thermo-nuclear bomb. But it was not merely the lesson of the atom bomb which was disregarded; there were all sorts of minor administrative and humdrum lessons which were disregarded at the same time. There were any number of lessons to be learned in matters of control of manpower and liaison, of communications, and of flexibility of control in command of those national forces necessary to deal with the various kinds of emergency with which we are likely to be faced.
This question of command was mentioned by Lord Lucan, and I feel that it is one of the problems which needs most urgent study. I almost agreed with what he said about taking care that civilians were in ultimate control. I do not feel so worried as he does because, thinking back quickly, I cannot remember any instances in history since Cromwell's Major-Generals, when the civilians were not ultimately in control of this country, certainly in regard to Home Defence, never mind who is in control of operations overseas. I think the real answer (I believe Lord Lucan was really thinking of this as well) is to have properly integrated staffs—that is to say, staffs in

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control of the different echelons, containing staff officers of different varieties and representing different services, very much on the lines of the sort of staff that General Eisenhower created at S.H.A.E.F., without its being necessary to dress up administrative and transportation experts in the uniform of a full colonel. There I entirely agree with what has been said from the other side.
However that may be, the time has now come when the thermo-nuclear bomb has forced common sense on us; and in my humble opinion we are now, for the first time, beginning to prepare for the sort of war that we are bound to expect and not for the sort of war which would suit Government Departments. There is no need for them to wait any longer for anything. I was delighted to hear what my noble friend Lord Carrington said. It was the first indication that I have seen for a long time that anything was likely to happen on the Home Defence front. One major point strikes me clearly—namely, that it will be quite hopeless to expect any real or worthwhile progress unless at the same time there is to be progress in establishing a greater measure of overall control at Ministry of Defence level.
I know that my noble friend Lord Swinton has put down a Motion for debate next week, and as we shall discuss the Fighting Services then, I do not propose to go any further in that direction to-day—and I am sure that no one in your Lordships' House would wish me to do so. But when we listen to what my noble friend Lord Swinton says we should have in our mind the ways in which his proposals, whatever they may be, can be applied to Home Defence; and, equally, we must consider Home Defence against the background of the overall control of defence as the main problem. It was certainly a good thing that the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, decided to put down a Motion on Home Defence and not on one of the particular aspects of Home Defence, such as Civil Defence or the Home Guard. As the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, said, there is a good deal of confusion, and that confusion will continue if people try to differentiate between different kinds of Home Defence, instead of looking at Home Defence as one problem and one operation of war. I thought that the Labour Party pamphlet on Civil
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Defence had a great deal to commend it. If I said that I agreed with it more than I have ever agreed with any publication of their Party perhaps that would not be saying very much; but if I put it in another way and say I hope that the objective view which that pamphlet takes of a number of Civil Defence subjects may commend itself to the rank and file of that Party, as well as to other people, perhaps that will mean more. At any rate, that is my view.
I come now to some of the relatively minor points, some of those things which I believe are causing, and have caused, hold-ups in Civil Defence for the last ten years. A good deal of trouble on the Civil Defence side has been caused by the failure of those planning Civil Defence to give proper value to the leadership factor or to give proper powers to leaders. A great deal of the frustration and minor trouble and uncertainty that has arisen has been due to this sort of failure in regard to the leadership factor, either deliberate or accidental. If one finds that there are gaps in the Civil Defence service in what ought to be the national pattern of rescue or welfare services, one of the reasons is that there is no real machinery whereby one can get over the rather unenterprising or backwoods rural districts—and there are other inhabitants of backwoods besides your Lordships. There is no machinery by which one can get an apathetic minor local authority to get on with the job, and there is certainly no machinery whereby, even if they want to, they can appoint leaders who will get on with the job and bear the same measure of responsibility for dealing with local Civil Defence services as the commander of a Territorial or Supplementary Reserve unit bears for the command and administration of his unit.
This applies equally to the Wardens' Service. The appointment of wardens is entirely in the hands of the local chief constable. I am not suggesting that anything has gone wrong, but I do not think that is a very satisfactory piece of machinery because one ought not to be dependent on the particular attitude that any one man may take on a particular problem. For this purpose a chief constable is entirely independent of the Standing Joint Committee, so far as I know. I have no particular case in mind where this arrangement has gone wrong,

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but I say that this is not the kind of machinery that is calculated to produce the best results. Then we have the Regional Directors, who have recently been appointed. I consider that their appointment is a welcome and advantageous step, and in all cases where I have personal knowledge of the people appointed I would say that they are thoroughly good and that the best results can be expected from them. But if one is going to appoint Regional Directors and expect good results, one should take care to see that it is possible for them to direct somebody or something. I am not quite sure how far that problem has been tackled, and I hope that it will be looked at again. I am quite certain that, at some time or other, the Civil Defence Staff College must have had exercises in connection with those problems and must have got down to them; therefore I would think that a solution exists, if only on paper.
May I turn for a moment to mobile Civil Defence and the forty-eight battalions of the Supplementary Reserve which my noble friend, Lord Carrington mentioned. Here, I fear, I shall again be slightly critical. I am bound to say, as I have said before, that I believe the decision to disband territorial A.A. units without making use of them for building the forty-eight mobile defence units was a most serious and ill-starred decision to take. I believe that it lost us a great deal of good will, and I also believe, from such experience as I have, that no Supplementary Reserve unit of that size can reach efficiency unless it has an out-of-camp life and existence and the backing of the county association. We have been told that it was pure coincidence that disbandment of the A.A. and the decision to form these Supplementary Reserve battalions came at the same time. Even so, it makes no difference: one does not throw away an asset, for whatever reason, if one can possibly make use of it, as I am certain could have been done on this occasion. Even now, I do not think it is too late to make alterations in the scheme and to bring in the Territorial associations—whether or not the name of units is changed to the Supplementary Reserve I do not mind.
I suggest that if some alterations are made on the lines I have suggested an immense and immediate improvement will
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be found. A great deal of morale can be got back and a great deal of support can be given to these battalions. Support which they are not getting now they would be able to get under a proper system. Let us not forget the county associations. If my memory serves me right (and I think it does) these associations were designed by Lord Haldane partly to act as a link between the local military authority and the county council or other local authority. What better task could there be for the associations than this, where liaison between the military and the local authority must be developed to the greatest possible extent?
We are still in a certain amount of confusion, too, over the Territorial Army itself. I am not blaming anyone for that, because one knows that this is a problem which is connected not only with Home Defence but with N.A.T.O. requirements; and it has not been easy to find a solution. But at the moment, unless I am wrong, we have a certain number of T.A. divisions committed as part of the N.A.T.O. forces. Having read the lecture of the noble and gallant Field Marshal, Lord Montgomery, at the Royal United Services institution recently, I am not quite sure how much importance he attaches to the inclusion of T.A. or, indeed, whether he is reasonably certain that those T.A. formations will be there in their proper place when the time comes.
I confess that I myself am not really certain, even supposing that the equipment for those divisions was already in the place where it was wanted, whether they could be got overseas. But I cannot go so far as the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, who considered it out of the question that T.A. formations should be sent overseas in a future war. I certainly think they should be. It would be a great pity if we broke up the divisional organisation of the T.A. to meet the needs of Home Defence; because whereas a T.A. division, as a division, can help with Home Defence or support Civil Defence while organised as a division, and if the opportunity offers can go overseas, the converse is not the case. So I hope that so long as there is any possibility of using T.A. formations overseas we shall keep the T.A. organised in field formations.
When we come to the Home Guard I am afraid that uncertainty gets even

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greater. I hope that before long we shall be told what is to be the rôle of the Home Guard under present conditions of thermo-nuclear warfare. Are they to guard vulnerable points? Are they to deal with sabotage? I would say here that I think the problem of anti-sabotage has been a good deal underplayed; I believe it to be quite a sizeable threat. Can we treat the problem of shooting a saboteur in isolation from the problems of the Wardens' Service in scattered districts? I doubt it. I am not going to say anything about the National Fire Service or the National Hospital Service Reserve because I believe the problems that exist there are relatively minor. I think I am right in saying that plans exist to exercise national control over fire services in war-time, and that the only trouble with regard to the National Hospital Service Reserve is the general uncertainty. This brings me once again to the question of manpower. I am afraid I have done it often in this House, but I again press for some Government measure whereby the Minister of Labour takes control of part-time manpower as he did in the war, and Departments which wish to employ part-time manpower in Home Defence make their bids to him and he judges upon them, subject to advice he gets from the Minister of Defence or indeed, from the Cabinet itself
Lord Carrington said a good deal about the present shelter policy, and I agree with him in what he said. After all, any widespread policy of shelters will divert an immense amount of steel, cement and labour at a time when we can ill spare it from the social jobs and the export jobs for which we now need it. Here is a case such as one often finds when dealing with an operation of war where it may be necessary to take a calculated risk. And if we are going to take a calculated risk in not implementing a widespread and expensive policy of shelters, I, for one, would agree with that. But implementing a widespread policy is one thing, and research and planning is quite another. I think that, whether or not the Government's present shelter policy includes the implementation of a widespread policy of making shelters at the present time, it certainly should include a determined policy of improving essential things that are going to be
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wanted in any case—communications, research, the testing of prototypes and all the other things which Lord Carrington mentioned, such as protection of ports which we cannot do without and which cannot be improvised in the way that deep shelters often can be.
My Lords, I do not want to keep you any longer. I would end by saying, once again, let us look at this matter objectively and plan for the war we want to prevent. If we do so—and this, I think, has already been said by Lord Lawson—all those engaged in Home Defence, or whom we want to be engaged in Home Defence, will begin to understand and will, therefore, co-operate in a way which they have not done in the past—and I do not blame them. Lord Lawson said, in effect, if not in so many words: "If the people do not understand, how can you expect them to play?", and I entirely agree with him. And I would add one thing. I hope that in the plans that are going to be made the secrecy fiends will not be allowed to keep the upper hand. Of course, one wants to have certain secrets. But in the matter of secrecy for security reasons, the best is always the enemy of the good. Here, again, if the Government want to take a calculated risk, then let them take the risk of telling the people perhaps more than strict secrecy officers would want them to know. If you do that you will get increased co-operation from all sections of the community.
It was good to hear from Lord Carrington that he and Lord Mancroft are not confused, uncertain or undecided. I am sure, therefore, that their colleagues are not, and I hope that their attitude will have the same effect on the officials who advise them. I wish them a lot of practice in blowing their trumpets with no uncertain sound, and I can assure them that if they do that the country will soon begin to prepare for the battle. In fact, sooner than some people expect.
4.8 p.m.
VISCOUNT GOSCHEN: My Lords, as so often happens in your Lordships' House, a speaker has to follow another who has already spoken on certain subjects upon which he would wish to speak. As most of your Lordships know, I am particularly concerned with the Home Guard, and my noble friend who has just sat down has touched on it. I believe that the Home Guard embodies the spirit, as the noble

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Lord, Lord Lawson said, of all the workers in voluntary services in this country. Members of the Home Guard do not consider that they are at this moment a fighting force. What they do consider is that they are going to be ready to train others who will go along with them when they are needed, and, to my mind, that is one of their most important functions—training people to be ready to take their part. I am certain that all members of all voluntary services—I know more about the Home Guard than about what are called Civil Defence services, which I think we are going to call the Home Service forces, with whom we work extremely closely—are willing to take their part.
But I believe that the nation as a whole—as stated by previous speakers—does not realise how important it is to have a cadre and a teaching system for voluntary workers. Voluntary workers are very important indeed, and they can do a lot of work when and if any emergency arises. One has been told that in an emergency a third force is desperately important to keep the home front going. What does that mean? It really means a great deal. It means keeping the factories going and transport services running so that people are able to get to the factories. These are all jobs which the voluntary service can do and which I believe are most important. I should like to acid here that nothing like this could possibly be done by the Home Guard without the assistance which has always been so willingly given by the Regular Army and Territorial Army to Home Guard associations and units. We are very grateful for that.
I would ask Her Majesty's Government to consider the psychological point of view of members of the Home Guard and Civil Defence who are willing to give up their time to do drills, attend lectures and train themselves. We must give them something; and from the Home Guard point of view that something is the weapons they will be called upon to use in time of emergency. We have some good weapons, not ultra-modern ones, but modern enough. I heard only the other day that we are going to get wireless sets instead of having to signal by flag across London—a subject I have mentioned before in your Lordships' House. We must give the men and women in Home Defence a chance of
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using modern weapons, because they enjoy that.
Any member of the Home Guard, and possibly any Member of your Lordships' House, who fires a two-inch mortar and is given a high explosive bomb which goes off with a great "Boomph" and lands down at the other end—so long as there is no wind and it does not land in the opposite direction or on top of his head—can go back to his family or to the local "pub" feeling he is a terrific chap, letting off a two-inch mortar and the bomb going off with a "crump." We have discussed before the idea that if fie were not allowed to use the real thing it would be just as good. But it does not mean the same thing. We are all like schoolboys in some ways. If you give a schoolboy a modern train to play with, what happens is that you probably play with it yourself and he never gets a chance. It is the same with grown-up people. If we give them the weapons which they know and the proper ammunition and facilities for training, they will always come along. The other side, the Civil Defence and Home Guard social clubs, is very important. After training people can all get together in a social club, something which in many cases they would not be able to afford. To my mind, this is really important.
The total cost of the Home Guard is about £1,300,000, for 37,000 people. If we take that out of the total defence cost, it seems almost a fleabite. I know that my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is trying to cut down on all expenditure, but I believe that this expenditure is worth while. As I have said to your Lordships before, we all know that people will come along on the day; but if that day comes quickly, as it might do, then we should not have a trained personnel. I am delighted that my noble friend Lord Carrington has given us so much encouragement. If given encouragement and directive, then these voluntary workers will go on, and they will form the basis of a force which, if needed, will be ready. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will give encouragement to Civil Defence workers and the Home Guard.
4.17 p.m.
LORD HADEN-GUEST: My Lords, I wish to ask the Government to reply as definitely as possible about the way in which they propose to tackle certain

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immediate problems which will come, not with the outbreak of war, but with the threat of war. The first question is one which has been asked by everyone who has had anything to do with Civil Defence. In the event of a future war there must be a large dispersal of population all over the country. To allow any large number of people to remain in great cities like London and Manchester or in any of the industrial towns in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, is simply inviting destruction, because one of the aims of any attack would be to disable us within the shortest possible time. And the time from the beginning of attack until the end might not be a question of weeks or days; it might be a question of hours, if that. The Hiroshima attack was rapid, and any attack by atomic weapons is bound to be quick in its effects. I hope that our Intelligence is so good that we shall warn ourselves—nobody else will—of any impending attack. I hope the Government will be able to say what plans they have for the dispersal of the population over the country. It is no use leaving a plan of this kind until a war has begun.
What is going to be the chain of command? Communications will very likely be broken, and what method is to be adopted to replace the normal telegraphic and telephonic communications? We must lay down a chain of command, and we must give it the means of giving the command. It will be necessary to plan dispersal, as I have already said. The big towns and many small towns will be uninhabitable. This means organisation in every town, city, and, indeed, large business establishment to ensure the possibility of what was called prior to the last war evacuation—which, incidentally, was very successful—and which is now referred to as dispersion. It will be essential to have that over a large part of the country.
What is to happen to doctors and local government representatives? You badly need doctors when you are being severely attacked. How are they to be given definite duties; and what is their training to be? Then there is the difficult question—and I hope the Government speaker will be able to assist us with information on this matter—of how we are to maintain some places, which will have to be at great depth underground, so that
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observers can remain in cities if they are destroyed. It is not easy to contemplate the conditions under which such people will have to live. Those are some of the questions which I believe need answering. I am speaking like this, because I know from my own experience when lecturing on this subject, which used to be called "air raid precautions," the kind of questions anyone giving instruction will be asked. I want to know the answers to those questions, and, if I get them, I shall then be glad to do more instruction in the future.
4.22 p.m.
VISCOUNT LONG: My Lords, I do not intend to keep your Lordships for more than a few minutes, but, as your Lordships know, I have for many years had the honour to be closely connected with the Territorial Army. I was glad to note what my noble friend Lord Carrington had to say about the Territorial Army. I do not want to go into too much detail, but my noble friend Lord Bridgeman raised a point—it came out also in the speech of my noble friend Lord Carrington—about these twenty-five battalions. We want every volunteer we can get, and it appears to me that Her Majesty's Government have taken away a great deal of our ammunition for getting volunteers by doing away with some of the oldest Territorial Regiments, those with great traditions in this country, which I should have thought could have been maintained under the new system of mobile columns or regiments. Apparently that was not to be.
The regiment of the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, the Royal Fusiliers, which had great traditions, although it was a gunner regiment in A.A. Command, has gone. The Hampshire Yeomanry, which was commanded by that great statesman and soldier the late Lord Mottistone, has gone, too. That is a great pity, especially since many of these regiments were based on centres where volunteers are now being called for. Eight years have passed, but in my opinion we are now back in 1948 and have an added burden and responsibility, inasmuch as some of our volunteers have already been taken by the Government for the twenty-five mobile battalions for Civil Defence. What is the rôle of these other regiments to be? We hear of the regiments within the Territorial divisions that may have to

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go abroad. I do not want to deal with that matter in my speech, because more than one noble Lord has raised the problem of how those divisions are to be transported. What is to be the rôle of these other organisations? Not far from me is a distinguished regiment: two-thirds of it carry out one rôle, and the other third carries out a totally different rôle. I was talking to the adjutant of this regiment over the week-end, and he knows no more than anybody else about the future.
The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, will remember the great difficulty we had in getting volunteers to start us off again in 1948 and 1949. I do not think your Lordships, or anyone else, could accuse those of us who were then interested, and still are, in the Territorial Army of not playing our part up to the limit of human endurance: to be pulled clown and howled down in uniform, as I was, at a certain big stadium by 8,000 people when I was recruiting, and to get a wet mop in your face from the mother of a boy you particularly wanted to join up, though vastly different experiences, were both far from pleasant. However, we are back where we were, and that leads me to ask a question. The National Servicemen who completed their term and drills this last summer will now have left the regiment. From a regiment of, say, 460 men who went out for training last year, there will probably be fewer than 100 who will be able to take the field next year. That is not an isolated case; owing to the new plan and scheme of Her Majesty's Government it must be general. How is it proposed to increase those numbers over the next two years? There will be a dribble, I suppose, of a few National Servicemen. I believe that the new scheme was necessary, but from our point of view in the Territorial Army it was unfortunate. The National Serviceman who had been encouraged to take on his obligations as a volunteer has gone. So we not only lose the three years of the National Serviceman, but we have lost these men who have elected to go back into National Service in order to get out of it. How is it hoped to increase the numbers of these regiments under those conditions? I point this out merely because these are conditions which have been pointed out to me by commanding officers and adjutants within the last five weeks.
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Then we come to the cost of this very costly Territorial Army now. In each unit to-day there are no fewer than four or five, if not six, Regular officers and warrant officers drawing large sums of money to train the men. When you have 600 to 700 men that is all right; but when you have only 100, do the Government not think that a good deal of money would be saved if those excellent officers and warrant officers were sent back to their own regiments to train the National Servicemen? I put that suggestion forward because I think it is an important point from the point of view of administration.
I should like to put this further point. I do not know how these circumstances have arisen, but one particular unit is based in a big city in the West of England, and between fifteen and twenty men living in that city are taken fifty to sixty miles away to Cardiff to do their annual training, whereas exactly the same form of training takes place in that city. The cost of taking those men by rail falls upon the country. Another fifteen or twenty men to bring up the strength are brought from another eighty to 100 miles away. If the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, wants to know the name of that unit and the full details, I shall be only too delighted to give them to him. I have mentioned the case in all sincerity, and I do not know that the noble Lord, or even the Minister, knows anything about it at all.
Lastly, may I come to the question of camps. I know that this is only a small detail, but the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, who I am sorry cannot be here to-day, will remember that in 1947 we were given a definite undertaking that all that could be done would be done to see that the cooking arrangements were right for the troops. I will speak about only one camp, although I could give plenty of examples. I do not want to exaggerate, because we all know that "Tommy Atkins" and the Territorial Army have a right to air a grievance if they want to. During a hot summer there was a tin cook-house at Windmill Camp. I know that camp very well. I have manœuvred all round it, and have also camped there. Although this is a permanent Territorial camp, no effort has ever been made to spend a little money on seeing that the kitchen and cook-house were properly established, with the result that not only

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was it impossible for the cooks to cook the food but before it even reached the troops it was two-thirds "overseas" and had to be destroyed.
Those are small details of instances where I think an improvement in the situation can be made. I ask, once again, that the question I have raised about the arrangements should be gone into. As my noble friend Lord Bridgeman truly said, it is not too late to reinstate these regiments in their original position and under the Territorial Association; and if that were done I believe that it would provide us with the ammunition once again to go forward and do our utmost to see that Her Majesty's Government's scheme is a success.
4.33 p.m.
THE EARL OF LIMERICK: My Lords, may I first add a word of thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, in his absence, for raising this subject at so opportune a moment. I regret that he cannot be here. The time, of course, is opportune because it is one of change, which is incessant. It is expected to be incessant, and it is quite essential that it should be so. Anybody who remembers only the past is, of course, quite unfitted to conceive the future, and the past now, with the rapidity of change in technical achievement, dies far more quickly than ever before in history. I hope that in a very short time—perhaps not to-night—Her Majesty's Government will be able to lighten in our minds many places which at the moment are rather obscure. I think most of us appreciate the colossal difficulties of thought, of planning and of reorganisation which precede any pronouncement, and most of us will even hope that it will not be thought right to hold against the Government at any time any pronouncement as being a definite pronouncement, but that it will be held to be an interim stage in a constant growth. Although, therefore, I am not in agreement, as I will explain, with all that has been done in the recent past, yet I feel at the same time only too grateful that it does not fall upon my shoulders to try to be wise at this particular time.
As this wide field has been so admirably covered this evening by many noble Lords, I propose to concern myself only with the Territorial Army, with which many of your Lordships and I
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have been connected for a good many years; and, in particular, I am going to put in a special plea for the maximum integration of civil and military effort and experience through consultation. That sounds rather trite. Most of us will think "That has been part of the set-up for years." My noble friend Lord Bridgeman referred to it, and, indeed, it was the great Lord Haldane, in his 1908 Act for what was then the Territorial Force, who foresaw and provided for that consultation. It was stressed by the former Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, in 1919, and it was mentioned in your Lordships' House not long ago, in March, 1951, by the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough. So there is nothing fresh in that principle, nor is there any point about it which may at first sight seem worth stressing just now. But, as I shall hope to show a little later on, I am not satisfied that in the recent changes that principle has been used to the full and in a way which could to the utmost have kept the country reasonably informed on forthcoming changes; nor am I satisfied that those changes have taken place after the necessary consultation with those on the civil side who, by reason of their incessant personal touch with every aspect of civilian effort, are thought best able to advise the Service Ministers through the appropriate channels.
Command Paper 9608, in paragraph 3, refers to the changing rôle of the National Service men. The Command Paper is indeed about National Service. With your Lordships' permission, I will read four lines of paragraph 20. That says:
"These decisions do not in any way detract from the essential part which the reserve and auxiliary forces will be called upon to play in the event of a nuclear war. Their training may need to be modified but will continue to be important. It will offer full scope for voluntary service."
Both those paragraphs imply the maximum co-operation with and help from the civil side, and the insistence on voluntary service, which many noble Lords have touched upon this evening, stresses the duty which is laid by statute on County Territorial and Auxiliary Forces Associations in respect of recruiting.
This aspect has an importance which in the future it will be difficult to exaggerate. But, by reason of the period of national service, that duty has been

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rather cloaked and it may be that not all of us on the civil side—at any rate, all of us who have no experience from years before the National Service Act—are fully aware of our incessant duties for recruiting. They are and will become very important and, with respect, I suggest that nowhere is it possible to find instruments so well accustomed and so well suited to marry up the good will and the efforts of civil and military—if indeed there is much cleavage now—as the bodies set up by Statute for that purpose, the County Territorial and Auxiliary Forces Association.
We know that peace and war are now relative terms, but, in the past and in the old definition of "peace," experience has taught us that we could count on approximately 140,000 volunteers as being the strength of the old Territorial Army. If I had been asked my opinion, as I was quite a few years ago, as to whether that was a safe figure to bet on, I should have still said "Yes." If I were asked now, I would say: "That is much more difficult to answer. I do not know the answer." Conditions have been so proloundly modified by all the changing and incessant needs of Home Defence which, though equally important, is less alluring to ardent young spirits and which, as at present organised, has no equal attraction of organised life—if you like, the aspect of club life and so forth. It is more on an A.E.R. basis than on a T.A. basis, and I for one regret that. So although I feel this great doubt and could not answer now with any certainty, the question which was put to me a few years ago, it is right to add that, whatever the organisation of the future, one thing is sure from our civil side, and that is that the country can always rely on the maximum co-operation from the county associations and on advice tendered in a co-operative spirit and with the best good will. They are instruments which have stood the test of time and have shown their public worth. They are the cheapest instruments that the public can use, and I trust that, as my noble friend Lord Bridgeman remarked, it is not too late now to reconsider the organisation of those forty-eight units of the Mobile Defence Corps so that they may have the chance of a corporate life and of the close link with civil activities through associations which they used to enjoy in their old rôles.
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I know, of course, that this is no easy question. Many Ministries are involved in Home Defence. But at the same time I was struck by the remark of the noble Earl, Lord Lucan (from whose distinguished father, I might add in parenthesis, I learned a great deal of my Territorial work) that in a nuclear war a great many of these Ministries might quickly cease to exist. I am wondering whether it would not be fair to raise the picture of a lot of broken eggs but no recognisable or edible omelette. Now we want a conception of the organisation of these units, whether they concern our associations or not, to which we can turn and with which we can co-operate. It is not possible for us, with all the good will in the world, to co-operate with six or more Government Departments.
Summarising these remarks, I would say that my plea, therefore, is for maximum consultation between military and civil effort at an early stage. That implies a high degree of confidence between Service Ministries and the appropriate advisory bodies on the civil side which sit in the War Office and the Air Ministry. If I may add a purely personal opinion—and it is a very strong one—it is that in order that those advisory bodies may pass their mixed views (for they are bound to be mixed occasionally) in a balanced form to the appropriate Minister, those committees should be under the chairmanship of the appropriate Under-Secretaries of State. They used to be. Finally I remember—or I do not quite remember; I only think—that it was Clemenceau who remarked:
"War is too serious for soldiers to meddle with."
I have far too many friends among soldiers and I have far too great a respect for their physical powers to associate myself quite fully with that statement; but I would add that in modern conditions that can remain true if one adds some such words as "unless with the full knowledge and support of civil representatives."
4.48 p.m.
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, this has been an interesting and helpful, though not perhaps a very jolly, debate. I, too, much regret the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, and the reason for it. I am grateful to him for having given me notice of one or two points that he would have raised, all of which have

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been mentioned by noble Lords speaking in this debate. I think the debate, if it has shown nothing else, has shown one point perfectly clearly. We are now perfectly clear in our minds what are the three courses open to us who are considering the problems of Home and Civil Defence.
The first course is that we do nothing. We say when we speak of war: "It may never come: this horror may never be upon us." Or "If it does come, it will be too great a disaster for us to cope with," so we adopt a defeatist attitude, throw up our hands and let fate take its course. I think it is now perfectly clear to everybody that that policy is wholly unacceptable, both to the country and to the Government. It is out of the question politically, militarily and morally. I believe that noble Lords opposite share this view with equal strength—indeed, their pamphlet, to which several noble Lords opposite have referred, takes this view, and the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, endorsed it in the course of his interesting speech. That is the first course.
The second course is that we exist in a state of advanced preparedness, a sort of constant tenth or eleventh hour state of readiness, with our finger always on the shelter door. I think we agree that the burden and cost of that would be out of proportion and quite impossible for a country in our condition. So we come to the third course which is the course which the Government are seeking to adopt—that is, to attempt to steer a realistic middle course between hysteria and inertia. That is the course which the Government have been trying, with all the conviction in their power, for the last two or three years to bring earnestly to the attention of the people of this country. I would repudiate at once any suggestion that the Government have been lacking in conviction or in energy in the way they have attempted to awaken the people of this country to the facts and to the courses open to them. Their attitude is elaborated in paragraph 101 of the Statement on Defence, 1955. Perhaps I may just remind your Lordships what that paragraph says:
"Home defence measures, by demonstrating the country's determination to resist aggression in all its forms, buttress the resolution needed to sustain an effective deterrent policy. Against the thermo-nuclear attack of the future the best defence of the civil population in this
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small, crowded and vulnerable island is to try to ensure that it never materialises. But we must also in common prudence continue to provide financial and other resources for a measure of insurance in case we should fail in our main aim of averting war."
It is with some of those measures of insurance that I should like to deal, and in so doing I will try to answer some of the many questions that have been put to me in the course of this debate.
I should like to agree straightaway with the remarks of my noble friend Lord Limerick, to whose speech we have just listened with interest, when, broadly, he said that some of these problems have no final solution. We are trying to work out what can be done to meet the likely effect of weapons that might be used against us, and we are trying to decide what proportion of the national resources can be allocated to meet this threat. It is easy enough in all conscience to talk in general terms about this matter; what is much more difficult is to particularise.
That brings us straight up against two problems which I think have been touched on more than any others in the course of this debate—the problems of dispersal and shelter. It was the theme of much of what the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, and the noble Lord. Lord Haden-Guest, had to say—and quite naturally so. They would agree, I think, that the question of dispersal, which includes evacuation plans, is fundamental to Civil Defence—indeed, to all Home Defence plans. It differs from many other aspects of Civil Defence in that until it had actually to be put into operation the working out of a scheme of evacuation and dispersal would not involve much expenditure. However, some of your Lordships have pointed out that detailed planning would be required in order to enable a scheme to be put into operation at short notice.
Before we embark on this detailed planning, I am sure the House will agree with me, it is essential that we should be, as in other fields, as certain as we can be that we are on the right lines. If it were now only a question of the well-tried system of limited evacuation of certain priority classes, as we all remember so well in 1939, the way would be clearer, although everybody knows what immense difficulties emerged in practice even with that comparatively limited scheme. But the whole question has had to be looked at afresh in the light of the new forms of attack that we may have to meet. Here

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we have to plan in terms of millions. We have to make the best estimate we can of the time we might have to carry out the operation and to form a picture of the degree of dislocation to the economy that the nation could stand.
Even in advance of an attack, once this has been done, the gigantic problems of transport and of accommodation have to be faced, as well as those of the machinery that can be relied on to carry out whatever plan was eventually adopted. This is one of the many Civil Defence matters in which, as I say, it is comparatively easy to talk in general terms about the way to organise a scheme, but very difficult to formulate detailed assumptions which are sufficiently safe to warrant going ahead with detailed planning. I can assure the House that progress has been made with the review of this difficult subject which would involve the whole national life in war time. I hope the House will forgive me if I say that I am not yet in a position to tell your Lordships that it is possible to announce the Government's intentions in this matter.
On the question of shelters, which marches with dispersal, I am glad to hear my noble friend Lord Bridgeman express approval of what has so far been the policy. Your Lordships who have spoken on this matter have indicated that the question of shelters, together of course with the question of dispersal, is probably our main basis of survival. As your Lordships realise, the two are interdependent. For instance, there is not much point in putting a larger shelter policy into operation in a certain area only to find later that it is intended to be made an area of evacuation. The two obviously march together.
Many speakers this afternoon have spoken of the problem of the colossal work and expense which might be involved in making a realistic policy. Even with unlimited funds, protection against a direct hit or near-miss from a hydrogen bomb is not really "on." But a great deal can be done. We have also to bear in mind the difficulties of prolonged occupation of shelter habitation in fall-out conditions and that relatively safe areas are no longer immune. It sounds a rather defeatist thing to say; but I must agree with noble Lords who suggest that a hole
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in the ground is probably the best protection we can think of. We are examining this problem most carefully, but in view of the heavy demands which the programme would entail. I am sure your Lordships will agree that it is essential that we should make up our minds correctly on this and on the question of dispersal. I am sorry—I am being quite frank with your Lordships—that I cannot give a more definite answer. Those of your Lordships who have considered this problem will realise that it is being particularly well thought about, a little more so than have many problems.
Now may I turn to some of the matters which your Lordships have raised and upon which I am able to report more obvious progress. There is the important question of the monitoring system for radioactive fall-out—that is, the more advanced type of warning to which one or two speakers have referred. Steps have now been taken to implement the Government's plans for setting up a national monitoring organisation to give warning and to measure radioactivity in the event of air attack. In June my right honourable friend the Home Secretary announced in another place that the Royal Observer Corps, in conjunction with the Home Office Air Raid Warning Organisation, had undertaken this important new function in addition to their existing duties. Since the announcement was made, all full-time officers of the Royal Observer Corps concerned with training have attended special courses of a week's duration at a Home Office Civil Defence School, and on October 3 the training of the Royal Observer Corps in the use of the radiac instruments began. Sufficient instruments for training have been issued, and substantial numbers of post observers will be trained in the use of monitoring instruments during the course of the winter.
In September, the Royal Observer Corps and the Air Raid Warning Organisation held a full-scale trial of reporting procedures, from which valuable lessons have been learnt, and it is proposed to hold further trials next spring. Experiments have also been conducted during this summer to test the efficiency of additional siren signals. Three trials have been held: one in London, which some of your Lordships may have heard and been puzzled by, a second trial at Potter's Bar, and a third at Uckfield. The object

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of these trials was to test the possibility of obtaining distinctive siren signals which might be used to give warning of the threat of radioactive fall-out. We have not yet had the final results of these experiments, but I am told that they have produced valuable data, not only upon the possibilities of using additional siren signals but on other matters connected with the efficiency of the existing warnings. I hope your Lordships will agree that good progress has been made in a short time, both in regard to the setting up of a monitoring organisation and the means by which the public can be warned of this new threat.
My Lords, I turn now to a subject touched upon by several noble Lords, notably by Lord Lawson and Lord Bridgeman—namely, the development of the war-time fire-fighting organisation. As previous speakers have pointed out, thermo-nuclear war would bring fire on an absolutely unprecedented scale. Devastation would obviously be much more widespread than in the war of 1939–45, because of the hazards of firefighting in fall-out conditions. Obviously, that means that operations must involve the bringing of appliances from outside the danger area. So the whole fire services of the country will be under central control. The bulk of resources available will be organised in mobile columns, each consisting of thirty main pumping appliances, together with ancillary equipment. The strength of each will be about 600 men and they will be situated outside built-up areas. The need to conduct firefighting operations over wrecked roads and away from water obviously poses new problems from the point of view of equipment. Great ingenuity has been shown in designing and producing suitable equipment for this task. Nearly 3,000 special self-propelled appliances for this particular object will be available by the end of this year.
An experimental training school has been set up at the headquarters of the Surrey Fire Brigade at Reigate. One hundred volunteers from various fire brigades are attending for a period of six months and good results in new techniques and controls have already been achieved. Some form of standard control is now in course of preparation and, as my noble friend Lord Carrington indicated, satisfactory progress in training
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Class H Reserves in fire-fighting has been made. This is done at Washington Hall, at Chorley, in Lancashire, which has been designed to accommodate about 10,000 reservists a year for basic training in fire-fighting. Already some 2,250 reservists have been trained. This scheme has worked remarkably well, despite the pessimism displayed by many people when the scheme was initially launched, and a great deal of keenness has been shown by those participating in it. A second establishment is to be opened next year at the former R.A.F. Station. Moreton-in-the-Marsh, for advanced training on a scale not hitherto possible.
On the subject of training plans generally, about which several noble Lords have expressed some little anxiety, I may say that the whole of the training machinery has now been completely overhauled. The old system was criticised by some people because training of individuals took too long and, so it was alleged, was insufficiently co-ordinated. Frankly, some of it was rather dull. It was decided last year that individual volunteers should be trained by section instructors who could carry through the whole training relating it all the time to the specialised needs of the Civil Defence Corps. The new system had to be instituted and instructors qualified to give the new type of instruction. I am glad to say that excellent progress has been made with this large-scale reconversion. Since the beginning of 1955 nearly 2,000 instructors have passed through the three Home Office schools, and I think I can say that there have been noteworthy improvements all round. I readily admit that complaints are still received about the type of training given by individual instructors. I will admit that it is not possible entirely to remove the grounds for such complaints, but great progress has been made and there has been substantial overall improvement.
There have also been courses for senior officers—that is, those responsible for Civil Defence at local authority level—which have been running at the Staff College since it was first set up; and they have been kept up to date on new developments. There has been a new course this year at Sunningdale for sector controllers, the men who would be actually in control at the scene of damage and who would be responsible for the conduct

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of operations over an area of up to, perhaps, one and a half square miles. My noble friend Lord Bridgeman spoke of leadership and the high calibre of leadership required in Civil Defence, as in all other forms of national service. We could not agree more wholeheartedly, but one cannot get leadership by White Papers or Acts of Parliament: something more tangible is wanted. So far, we have had about 500 of these people who require to show leadership of the highest calibre, but we can do with a great deal more of them. These courses are going on and we attach the utmost importance to them.
I should like here to add a word on a matter of rather technical importance which I think will interest those noble Lords who have been worrying about control at regional level—I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Haden-Guest was more worried than most noble Lords. I readily agree that this is a matter of great importance. As soon as the full effects of the hydrogen bomb had been weighed up it was clear that the system of operational control which had been in existence was no longer adequate to meet the new conditions, and local authorities have had to mark time as regards the necessary recasting of their control system while a careful and thorough survey of the situation was carried out in the light of the greater degree of damage and of the effects of radioactive fall-out. No Civil Defence scheme can hope to be effective without an efficient control structure, and great care has been taken in working out a new system which will carry with it a much greater increase in mobility, although mobility cannot be the whole answer. I am glad to say that it has now been possible to complete the working out of this new scheme and an outline of it will be communicated to local authorities in the near future so that realistic planning can be resumed. We can reasonably expect that this will have a most salutary effect in giving realism to local authority preparations—for realism is, of course, most important—even though it will necessarily take some time to apply the general lines of the new system to the different conditions of each area.
Several noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Bridgeman, the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen (who himself commands a Home Guard unit), the noble Lord, Lard Limerick, and my noble
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friend Lord Long, have raised the question of the rôle of the Home Guard and the Territorial Army. I was very glad to hear Lord Long say such kind things about the death of my own regiment and was also grieved to hear him tell that story about a lunatic "general post" amongst a unit in the West Country. I will certainly have that matter looked into. All I can say is that it does not look as though the, Army has changed very much since my day. The whole question of the rôle of the active Army, the Territorial Army and the Home Guard in Home Defence has been most carefully reconsidered, and this examination is very near completion. I am sure noble Lords will appreciate that the future of the Home Guard forms part of the whole pattern of Home Defence, and they will therefore not expect me to be in a position to make an announcement in isolation. I must ask them on this occasion to be patient, but I assure them that a full statement will be made in the near future.
My Lords, we have another debate of interest to follow, and therefore I will weary you no longer. I have tried to be as frank as I can with the House. There are important aspects of Civil Defence in which we are not yet ready to announce plans—not because we have been in the least unwilling to grapple with the problems involved, but because those problems have proved so intractable. We shall persevere with them, but I am sorry to say that I can see no prospect of our being able to make any comprehensive statement about the progress made and conclusions reached—which even then may have to be provisional in some respects—before the issue of the next White Paper early in 1956. I should be lacking in candour if I did not make that statement to the House now.
LORD HADEN-GUEST: In 1956?
LORD MANCROFT: The next White Paper. In the meantime, as I hope I have been able to show, we have reached decisions and made advances wherever and whenever it has been possible to do so; and action has followed speedily upon decision. As compared with this time last year we have arrangements in train, not simply in general terms for the allocation of such help from the Fighting Services as might be available, but for trained assistance from specially trained units and for the addition of trained manpower to the specialist Fire Service.

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We have laid the foundations of a nationwide scheme for reporting radioactive fall-out and for making operational use of the information made available. We have strengthened the regional Civil Defence organisation and have reached conclusions about the formidable problem of control of Civil Defence operations which will, we hope, soon enable local planning to start again.
These are only examples. I hope the House will agree that the sum total of the steps forward marks a quite significant achievement. Let me assure your Lordships as strongly as I can that we are far from being satisfied or complacent. There can never be any finality about plans for anything so imponderable as Civil Defence. We realise as well as anybody how much there is still to do and what an enormous field has to be covered before we can express the slightest degree of satisfaction with the progress made; the problem is too vast and too grim for that. But I ask your Lordships to accept the fact that we are realistically and anxiously aware of the problems to be solved and of the need to push on and find practical answers to them.
5.10 p.m.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Man-croft, will forgive me if I point out that between inertia and hysteria there are a great many steps. In spite of the news that he has given us, I cannot help thinking that Her Majesty's Government have still not convinced people, and have not given a sufficient lead to arouse that enthusiasm which is required to get volunteers. I believe there are just two points that may have been misunderstood. I certainly did not advocate a wholesale policy of shelters the cost of which I think Lord Carrington calculated at some £2.000 million.
LORD CARRINGTON: No; I think the noble Earl has misunderstood me. I said that if all the proposals advocated in the Labour Party pamphlet on Civil Defence were actually put in train they would probably cost something between £2,000 million and £3,000 million.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: I thank the noble Lord for that clarification. I think there are varying shelter policies. There are great deep-shelter policies which no-one outside Sweden has contemplated.
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There is also a policy rather like that of the Anderson and Morrison shelters which we had in the last war and which would be capable of adaptation to the problems here. A number of useful points, I think, have come out in the course of the debate. Her Majesty's Government have given us news of some small steps, and I would only say that I agree wholeheartedly with what the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, has said about secrecy. Do not let secrecy stop any Government announcement. It is important to get something, even if it is only provisional, that will give the public the idea of how the Government view the problem. May I thank noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

AGRICULTURE (IMPROVEMENT OF ROADS) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.

THE SOUTHERN SUDAN
5.15 p.m.
LORD RAGLAN LORD RAGLAN rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they can make a statement on the situation in the Southern Sudan; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, your Lordships may have seen in the Press recently reports of serious disturbances in the Southern Sudan. The most serious of these disturbances are reported from a district of which I was for two years in charge. I left that district nearly forty years ago, and since then, so far as I can learn, it has remained in a state of complete tranquility, as, with trifling exceptions, has the whole of the Southern Sudan. The Southern Sudan is a country of very different character from the Northern Sudan. The Northern Sudan is an arid country inhabited by Moslem Arabs. The Southern Sudan is a country of swamps and forests, inhabited by pagan Negroes. To use a colloquialism, the two regions are as different as chalk from cheese, and up till recent times the only contact between the Northern Sudan and the Southern Sudan was that the Northerners used to raid the Southerners for slaves. These slave raids went on until the time of the Battle of Omdurman —that is well within living memory—

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and it is reported that the disturbances to which I allude were caused by the fact that those concerned believed they were to be carried off to Khartoum to be sold into slavery.
The history of the Sudan (I will not trouble your Lordships at any great length about it) is this. In the middle of the last century Egypt extended her hold over the Sudan. Various European adventurers in the employment of the Egyptian Government annexed, in a loose sort of way, parts of the Sudan to the Khedivate of Egypt. Of course, the connection with Egypt came to an end with the murder of General Gordon. After that date, slave raids were resumed with renewed vigour until the time of the battle of Omdurman, when they were put an end to. But when the battle of Omdurman was won it was found that a French force under a very brave and adventurous officer, General Marchand, had marched right through Bahr El Ghazal Province into the Upper Nile Province and had established itself at Fashoda which had been the centre of the slave trade. Fashoda is a place of very great strategic importance. Its occupation practically cut the Northern Sudan off from the South.
The British Government in power was then headed by that very great statesman the grandfather of the noble Marquess who leads this House to-day, and he insisted on the withdrawal of General Marchand from Fashoda. The French Government, very unwillingly, withdrew him at the request of the then British Government. They would certainly not have done so at the request of the Egyptians or of the Northern Sudanese. And if they had not done so those two provinces, which make up about half of the Southern Sudan, would have formed part of the French Colonial Empire. A year before that the Belgians had moved South down the Nile and had occupied what is now the Western part of the Equatorial Province; and there they remained until 1910 when, at the request of the British Government—again the Egyptians and the Sudanese had nothing to do with it—they withdrew. Up till that time—from 1897 to 1910—that region formed a part of the Belgian Congo. And I may say that from that region, also, serious disturbances have recently been reported. As for the frontier between the Sudan and Kenya and Uganda, that was a line drawn in White-
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hall, and it was drawn long before the frontier was administered—certainly on the Sudan side, and I think on the other side as well.
My object is to show your Lordships that the Sudan, as it exists now, is an artificial creation of the British Government. It is really a great chunk of Africa, and it happens that the inhabitants of the Southern half are totally different from the inhabitants of the Northern part. There is no good reason why, without their consent, they should be placed under the domination of the North. The Government were informed that if these people were placed under the domination of the North without adequate precautions there would be trouble, but they chose to ignore this warning completely. They had apparently decided upon a policy of "scuttle," and they proceeded to scuttle without the least regard for the consequences. All I can say is that I hope to hear from the noble Marquess who is to reply on behalf of the Government that the Government have taken some steps to repair the damage which was caused by their obvious neglect of duty. I beg to move for Papers.
5.20 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, who was responsible for this Motion, has asked for a statement of policy on behalf of the Government in the terms of the Motion. Therefore I think it would be for the convenience of the House if I were to make that statement at this early stage and leave it to other noble Lords who may desire to contribute to the debate; and if the House is willing that it should be so arranged, after other noble Lords have spoken I will endeavour to make some reply. I am grateful to the noble Lord for having put down the Motion because it gives me an opportunity to describe, in as brief terms as I can, recent events in the Southern Sudan and to remove some misapprehensions about the present conditions there. In view of what the noble Lord said in moving his Motion, I would point out that, whatever the situation might have been in the somewhat remote past into which he led us in his opening speech, it is now covered by the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement on the Sudan which was entered into in 1953. The terms of that Agreement now regulate the position in

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the Sudan and events in the Sudan have to be looked at in the light of that existing and binding Agreement.
Perhaps, I should first remind your Lordships of the more recent political developments which have brought about the present state of affairs. The Anglo-Egyptian Agreement of February, 1953, on the Sudan provided, amongst other things, for the Sudanisation (I cannot get rid of that objectionable word) of the Administration before the Sudan could proceed to the actual processes of self-determination. In accordance with this provision all British administrators had left the Southern Sudan by the end of August, 1954, and for the most part they were replaced by Northern Sudanese, many of whom were men of considerable ability. I agree that from some points of view this replacement by Northerners may have been unfortunate, since it served to revive the traditional enmity of the South towards the North which sprang from the slave-trading days of the last century. The noble Lord was quite right in saying that that was the main source of the feud between North and South. The position in regard to the appointment of Northerners to duties in the South was largely inevitable since the South had very few men capable of conducting the administration and it would probably have been a long time before enough Southerners could be trained to take over the quite considerable responsibilities.
Since the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement was signed, the Sudan has moved steadily towards self-determination on the basis, laid down in the Agreement, that the Sudan's future status should be decided as one integral whole; and on August 16 of this year the Sudanese Parliament passed a resolution to ask the Co-domini —the United Kingdom and Egypt—to set the process of self-determination in motion. But, unhappily, matters were not progressing so favourably in the South, and only two days after Resolution Day a mutiny of elements of the Equatoria Corps of the Sudan Defence Force broke out at the garrison town of Torit, which is situated in the extreme South close to the Uganda frontier.
The immediate cause of the mutiny seems to have been the decision to remove some companies of the Equatoria Corps from Torit to Khartoum to take part
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in the ceremonies preceding the withdrawal of British and Egyptian troops from the Sudan. But the underlying causes of the mutiny are undoubtedly more deep-seated. They lie in differences of race, religion and cultural and economic development.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
THE MARQUESS OF READING: Certainly they do. As regards responsibility for these tragic events, it would clearly be wrong to attempt to prejudge the findings of the Commission of Inquiry which the Sudan Government has set up. This Commission, which is still in the process of taking evidence, consists of a Christian-Arab Judge, a Northern Sudanese whose career has been in the police and who was formerly Assistant Sudan Agent in London, and a Chief of the Lokoya, a tribe who live in the neighbourhood of Torit.
The mutiny quickly spread from Torit to the other centres of Equatoria Province and the mutinous soldiers were joined by police and prison warders and in some cases by local tribesmen, whose part was chiefly in looting. It is sad to have to record that altogether about 450 Northerners, officials, teachers and merchants included, lost their lives. A state of emergency was declared in the three Southern provinces, although it was only in Equatoria Province that most of the trouble took place. Troops were rushed to Juba, many of them in R.A.F. planes, in order to restore the situation. Before military action was taken against the mutineers they were given adequate time to surrender. Rather than surrender, most of them fled into the bush and it has been an extremely difficult job to round them up. More than 700 have now surrendered and a further 150 are interned in Uganda. The rest, about 400, are at large but are not in organised bodies.
The House may well be concerned about the effect which these events may have on those parts of the Uganda Protectorate which border the troubled areas of the Sudan. In addition to the troops of the Sudan Defence Force at present interned in Uganda, it is estimated that between 2.000 and 3.000 civilian refugees have crossed the border since the mutiny began. It has proved possible to absorb these refugees without difficulty among members of their own tribes who live in Uganda or to find a livelihood for them elsewhere in the Protectorate. However,

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the Uganda Government are carefully watching the situation across the border and are fully aware of the possible repercussions that any worsening of the situation in Southern Sudan might have on the inhabitants of the Protectorate.
Discussions have taken place between representatives of the Sudan Government and the Uganda Government about the future of those mutineers who are interned in a camp at Gulu in Uganda. The Sudanese representatives returned to Khartoum to ask their Government to try to collect evidence which could be used in asking the Uganda authorities to extradite the men. The Uganda Government made it clear that they can only return to the Sudan those who are prepared to go (no one has so far volunteered) and those against whom charges can be substantiated of committing crimes not connected with, or arising out of, the mutiny. The remainder have to be treated as political refugees under International Law, since they were involvd in a mutiny with a political objective.
The Sudan Government have taken steps to restore order in Equatoria Province, and Northern administrators are now present at all the main centres, although they rely for their safety upon the support of detachments of Northern troops. The troops have been given strict orders to observe good behaviour, and our information is that they have for the most part done so, particularly in those centres where the troops are commanded by responsible officers. It is, however, more difficult to keep a close watch on the activities of small detachments of troops in outlying areas, and there have certainly been cases of ill-treatment and illegal methods of extracting evidence. The only really serious trouble which has occurred since the mutiny was at Yei, near the Uganda border, when Northern troops shot dead seven Southern policemen who were trying to escape capture. The policemen were all, it is believed, deeply involved in the mutiny. It is, however, clear that the Sudan authorities will not tolerate conduct of this sort since the officer commanding the troops involved has been removed.
All my information indicates that reports about the situation in the Southern Sudan which have recently appeared in certain sections of the Press are greatly exaggerated. There is a danger that the food and medical situa-
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tion may deteriorate further and that many more refugees will cross the border, but there are signs that in other respects the situation in Equatoria Province is returning to normal. Juba airport is now open again to traffic and the Nile steamer service between the Sudan and Uganda is about to be resumed. The Equatoria Projects Board factory at Nzara is due to be reopened on November 15 and a new Northern manager has been appointed.
Although many people are reported to have fled into the bush, we know that many of them are sufficiently confident to continue to gather together for church services, and at one place in Equatoria Province since the mutiny took place 666 Southerners were confirmed by the Southern Anglican Bishop on one day. There are no secret courts: civil courts are trying cases and appear to be acting legally. The inaccuracy of some Press reports has undoubtedly been caused in part by the fact that they have been written chiefly from outside the Sudan, because until recently the Sudan Government have refused to allow any correspondents into the South. The Sudan Government are now beginning to relax these restrictions and this change of policy will help towards obtaining a more objective view of the situation.
Although the Governor-General has, under the Self-Government Statute, a special responsibility to ensure fair and equitable treatment to all the inhabitants of the various provinces of the Sudan, it is obvious that he can exercise it effectively only with co-operation of the Sudan Government. So far, the Sudanese Prime Minister has shown by the restraint which he has observed that he is aware of the dangers of the situation and of the need for a constructive solution of the Southern problem. The administration of the South is now entirely in the hands of the Sudan Government, and we as a co-dominus can only advise.
A number of suggestions have recently been made as to how the present situation in the Southern Sudan should be dealt with. It has been proposed, for instance, that an International Commission should be sent to the South, possibly under the auspices of the United Nations, to see that the Southerners get fair play. Other suggestions have been made that the International Red Cross or the World Health Organisation should send a mission

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to the South. Either of these measures could be taken only with the agreement of the Sudan Government, who would probably regard such proposals as a sign of lack of confidence in them and therefore as calculated to weaken their position. The despatch of United Nations observers would almost certainly revive and strengthen the movement for some sort of self-rule in the South, thus widening the gap between South and North and running counter to the declared intention of the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement on the Sudan, that the future of the country should be decided as one integral whole. Moreover, these observers would at best be only a palliative. What would happen after their withdrawal?
Her Majesty's Government are strongly of the opinion that the future interests of the Sudan can be served only if the authority of the Sudanese Government is maintained and strengthened. Other countries, at a similar stage on the road towards self-government, have in the past been faced with tragic and complex internal difficulties and their patience and resource in overcoming them has done much to reconcile and unify the various elements. The present difficulties in the Southern Sudan can be solved only if the Sudanese Government themselves earnestly seek a solution by consultation with all parties; and I am glad to say that there are signs that they realise the necessity for such a step.
5.36 p.m.
EARL WINTERTON: My Lords, I always feel that if one is privileged to take part at a comparatively early stage in one of your Lordships' debates one should not strain the patience of your Lordships by speaking too long, and I wish to put my points in tabloid form. I should like first to make one personal observation in general. I am a great admirer of the conduct of foreign affairs since 1945, by both the Labour and the Conservative Governments and by the many distinguished Ministers in office and their advisers who have been responsible for that conduct. But I am certainly not an admirer of the method in which the Sudan has been dealt with. I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Raglan for having raised this matter. Of course, he is absolutely right in making a point with which the Minister never dealt in his speech. He is quite right in saying
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that the Sudan was never a national entity, but was purely a geographical expression. It was obvious that there was no sort of compatibility between the comparatively sophisticated and mainly Moslem and partly Arab North and the primitive, mainly negroid tribes of the South, with their memories of Northern slave raids. The difference goes deeper than the memories of slave raiding, and the two parts of the country are completely incompatible.
When Her Majesty's Government announced that they were going to bring about self-government I was the only Member of your Lordships' House who ventured to express some doubt. My noble friend made his usual courteous reply and said that he would take note of my warning. I would challenge any noble Lord, including members of the Government, to deny what I am about to say—namely, that the country was rescued from the bloody chaos of the past, and enabled to reach a progressive standard of prosperity, only by sixty years of British guidance and superintendence; and in the whole of our history there has never been anything which did more credit to British rule than what we did in the Sudan during that sixty years. It was as clear as it could be to everyone, except, apparently, members of the Government, that the removal of that guidance and superintendence would lead to trouble and possibly to the chaos of over sixty years ago before Lord Kitchener's victory.
I ask: Why did we do it? It was no doubt mainly in order to try to conciliate Egypt—whether we were successful in that the noble Marquess and members of Her Majesty's Government will be able to tell, but we do not seem to have been very successful in getting Egypt on our side in other respects—and partly because we have persuaded ourselves (this applies to all Parties) as a nation that self-government is more desirable than good government. I suggest that the real motive behind that assumption is a desire to appease the opponents of colonialism, for reasons that one can appreciate, because we must work with our American friends, and the wish to avoid trouble, since we already have enough on our hands in Malaya and elsewhere. So we cheerfully, at short notice, divest ourselves of our responsibilities, allowing the inhabitants to murder each other, as they did on a tremendous scale in the Indian Peninsula in 1945.

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I well recollect the speech of Sir Winston Churchill in another place—one of the most formidable of the speeches that even he has made—criticising His late Majesty's Government for what they did when they got out of India. Fortunately, what has happened in the Sudan has not been as bad, though it is had enough. Politically we may be quite right, but whether we are morally justified is a different thing. Of course, at the moment we could not be in a more unfortunate position than we are in the Sudan. We have a British Governor and we have British planes there, but we have no sort of executive authority whatever. Therefore, we are being accused by our numerous enemies in the Middle East of being responsible for the trouble or for doing nothing about it, as the case may be.
We could not be in a weaker or a worse position. I understand that we use British planes to convey some of the troops from the North to the South which of course will make the Southerners—those who are in revolt against the Sudan Government—think that we are in some way on the side of the North. I can only say that the least we can do—and I was glad to hear my noble friend's remarks in that connection— is to let these Southern refugees enter British territory, and to refuse to agree to the proposal which was made by the Sudan Government that they should be returned as criminals. The noble Marquess told us—and I am sure all your Lordships were delighted to hear it—that the atrocities on both sides had been exaggerated owing to the lack of information. For that, the Sudan Government are entirely responsible. There were a number of correspondents, including a war correspondent of great ability of the Daily Telegraph, who endeavoured to get permission to go to the South to see things on the spot, but the Sudan Government refused permission to do so.
My last point is this, and I think it is one which is worth making. I have always felt that the weakness of the British character is that they appear to do things which may look in the eyes of the world rather hypocritical; and here is an instance of something which other nations would describe as hypocrisy. When the Central African Federation Bill was before Parliament, some Members of your Lordships' House, as well as
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of another place, and at least two important organs of the Press, showed intense solicitude for the welfare of Africans in the territories concerned, and great apprehensions as to what might happen to them after federation. None of their fears, incidentally, was justified, and my noble friend the Leader of the House, very properly if I may say so, castigated some Members of your Lordships' House who expressed these fears. The Southern Sudanese strongly objected, so for as they were able vocally (most of them, of course, being illiterate), to the removal of our power to protect them; and the dreadful events which have resulted show that their fears were justified.
The pro-native African party, as represented by those who spoke in your Lordships' House and in another place, and who wrote in the Press, have been almost completely silent on this issue. Instead of using, as they did at the time of the federation, even the pulpit of St. Paul's in order to propound their political views on the subject, not a word has been said, so far as I know, on this subject by anybody of those who objected to federation. I suggest that we are owed some explanation. They were right to express concern for native Africans, which is a very proper thing to do. It should be a general concern.
I say only this in conclusion—I must apologise to your Lordships for speaking somewhat strongly, but I feel very strongly on this matter, having myself in the past had some knowledge of the country. I cannot help thinking that if some distinguished past Members of your Lordships' House—infinitely more distinguished than I can ever be—like Lord Melbourne, Lord Palmerston, Lord Derby and the grandfather of the noble Marquess the Leader of the House, had been present in this debate, they would have had a certain sympathy with what I have said. In their day we showed frankness and directness of approach towards international affairs, because, as a nation, we believed alike in our mission and in our rights in the world—two very important things. It is a state of feeling, a climate of opinion, which, both for good and ill reasons, we have discarded as a nation. Of course, our influence is still enormous, but we use it to-day in quite a different connection. I cannot help thinking—and this is my last word

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—what would have happened in the 'eighties. Suppose that a Liberal Government had done what the present Conservative Government did in the Sudan. We can guess what would have been said by the Conservative Party. We know what the Conservative Party did say about Mr. Gladstone's betrayal of General Gordon. I think they would have been very critical. We can only hope that things will improve, that the noble Marquess's hopes will be justified; and, however critical we may be of what has taken place in the past, all of us can wish that the Sudanese Government will meet with success in governing this country and that there will be a hopeful future for it.
5.46 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWELL: My Lords, I had to speak once before immediately after the noble Earl, Lord Winterton. At that time he violently disapproved of what I said, and I hope I shall not be quarrelling with him this time. I ask to be allowed to add a few words on this extremely important and delicate subject. I think something ought to be said from the Bishops' Bench, because our sympathies are deeply engaged in what concerns the welfare of the Sudan, and we may be able to make some small contribution.
The Church authorities do not command the Intelligence of the Foreign Office—I mean, of course, the Intelligence Service of the Foreign Office—but information does come to us, and perhaps sometimes we know things that some Government officials do not. When we remember the great servants that this country has given to the Sudan, both in Church and State, it is tragic to think that these troubles should have arisen so early in the new experiment, just when all the work of these great servants has been carried out and while the new régime is still so inexperienced. But the tension between North and South, as the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, pointed out, is nothing new. It has always been inherent in the contrast between the Moslem North, with its relatively higher standard, and the pagan and primitive societies indigenous in the equatorial provinces. They are totally unequal in material power, and they are living in different universes of spiritual and cultural development. Does not the weak
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always fear the strong, and does not the more advanced always tend to despise, if not actively to exploit, the more backward?
As has been already hinted, the South has a long and bitter memory, and the more we know about the earlier history of Equatorial Africa the more shall we understand and be able to sympathise with the fears and apprehensions of the Southern people. But the balance was being rapidly redressed. It is only fifty years ago since that great apostle of the Sudan, Bishop Gwynne, whom I have heard described in Khartoum as the second founder of the country, General Gordon being, of course, the first, led the first Anglican missionaries down to the help of the primitive tribes of Equatoria who were then untamed, naked and near savages. In that short time of fifty years a church has developed, drawn from four or five Southern tribes. It has grown to such an extent that during his recent visit to Uganda the Archbishop of Canterbury consecrated a Southern Sudani priest as assistant bishop in that area. And as many of your Lordships know, Southern Christians are already sitting as members of the Legislative Assembly. Schools have been built, health services established and a whole network of social services, some Government sponsored and some mission sponsored, has been initiated and spread throughout the country. It is wonderful what has been done in so short a time. It is a thrilling story, full of hope.
Of course, the Christianised, the educated and the politically informed or conscious are a tiny minority, a sort of little clearing in a vast jungle. The dark gods still reign in the jungle and ancestral voices prophesy disaster, because, behind all these tragic events, there lies a deep and inarticulate terror. All this development has grown up with the help of British officials and administrators in half a century. What is going to happen to these people now? I am sure there is fear and terror in their hearts of what may happen when the last foreigner has been withdrawn. That fear lies behind the scene. This outbreak, apparently, has been far more deliberate and widespread than we realised from the original report. As the noble Marquess appears to confirm, it seems to have been something far more than mutiny that had to be reckoned with.

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Surely we can understand and, however much we deplore the actions to which it has driven people, can sympathise at least with their spiritual predicament and their mental bewilderment and distress.
The situation is delicate in the extreme and full of grim and dangerous possibilities. It seems to me that there are a lot of things that many of us would like to say which are far better left unsaid. Of course, there is the fear that there may be demands for retaliation and revenge. Juba is a long way from Khartoum and the central Government may not always be able to control its representatives in remote places. In connection with that, there are two things that ought to be said. One is that, on the evidence of European witnesses and spectators, the behaviour of the Northern troops of occupation has been quite impeccable. Though there have been occasional incidents and excesses, as there are almost inevitably in situations of this kind, as we ourselves know in other parts of Africa, nevertheless, when such abuses did occur, the Khartoum Government at once dealt swiftly and drastically with offenders. Therefore there is every ground for hoping that the Northern Government may be able to deal with the situation.
The other point is that one of the strongest grounds for hope is the personal character and wisdom of the Prime Minister himself. The noble Marquess has referred to him already. I should like to say from another angle that all the information at our disposal bears witness to the firmness, the moderation and the liberal statesmanship with which he has handled the crisis, refusing to yield to any demands for a vindictive witch-hunt. It might help a little if mention were made of this in your Lordships' House, confirmed as it is by non-political information. It may help to strengthen his hand a little. Of course, there is danger from, the other end: there may be more provocation from the South. But as to that it ought to be on the record that, in spite of everything and amid all the fearful difficulties and demoralised atmosphere, the Christian leaders, both English and Sudani, have been able to wield a calming and restraining influence. They themselves have been instrumental in saving the lives of a number of Northern officials and their families. That fact has been gracefully acknowledged in Khartoum.
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I have only a word more to add. Over and beyond the political problem there is a vast human problem. When the troubles broke out, the crops had not been harvested. The rains have come since then and it is now too late. I am told that in some areas the sleeping sickness controls have broken down and famine and epidemic on a big scale threaten. If ordered government should break down, if the social and welfare services should be completely disrupted, the whole area might easily revert to primitivism. Therefore the human and political problems coalesce at this point, and those who care most for the Southern people will surely hope that they will understand that the only result of further political provocation must be to increase their social and economic distress. Whether Her Majesty's Government can do anything at all to alleviate that, without being invited to by the Sudan Government, I understand to be extremely doubtful; but I know that they will do anything they can. Inside the situation as it is, and looking at the facts as they are and not at the facts as we might wish they were, surely the South will best serve its own true and permanent interests by trying to come to terms with the Northern Government in a constructive spirit of conciliation and co-operation and working together wish them for sudanese unity.
5.59 p.m.
LORD BIRDWOOD: My Lords, the hour is late and I shall certainly try to be brief. We all owe a debt of gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, who, from his great personal experience, painted a picture of the conditions, racial, historical end social, which give the Southern Sudan a completely different identity from that appertaining to the North. I myself have no personal experience of the Sudan; I speak only as a student of international affairs, and if at the close of my remarks I offer suggestions which may appear revolutionary I ask the noble Marquess to believe me when I say that I regard them as coming within the context of the 1953 Anglo-Egyptian Agreement, which he referred to as both existing and binding.
It is, of course, no comfort to those of us who predicted this tragic story to know that we were right. I can recall a friend of mine, back after many years of faithful service in the Sudan, telling me three years ago that already in the North

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they were talking of the spoils which would come from the South when the day of self-determination arrived. And reinforcing these crystal-clear divisions which we have all known divide the two Sudans have lately come intrigue and bribery from outside. The amount of damage done by the Minister of so-called National Guidance, consistently misguiding both the Sudan and his own country over the last three years, will take a long time to repair. Your Lordships may recall the story of a humble medical dresser at Torit who, in his innocence, firmly believed that he was going to receive the appointment of Director General of Medical Services when the great day of Utopia promised by this Minister arrived.
In assessing the present situation it is important that we should be quite fair to the Northern Sudan. I was glad to hear the tribute of the right reverend Prelate to Sayed Ismail el Azheri. Those of us who met him when he came to this country last year were impressed by his sincerity, his balance and, above all, his complete integrity; and if any dim suggestions of a way out which I may offer appear revolutionary, they are made in the belief that it is our duty to help the Sudan as a whole in its predicament. The present situation seems to me difficult to assess. In spite of the noble Marquess's assurances, on October 24 The Times representative in Kampala gave us a tragic picture of conditions. It is true that only yesterday, from the distance and point of control at Khartoum, their representative gave us a slightly more optimistic picture. But whatever the truth as to the conditions, I would agree with the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, that there is no reason to believe that the new administrators from the North who have replaced in the South their British predecessors were not honestly making a brave effort to get on terms with the South and to identify themselves with the interests and lives of the Southerners. Indeed, there is a story of a certain attempt to present an anticolonial front against their less enlightened colleagues in the North.
What about the sentiments of the Southerners? I stand open to correction, but I understand that the Constitution, which was worked out by a Sudanese Commission in 1953, was agreed on by
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the Condominium Powers and gave the South about one-quarter representation in the Legislative Assembly, with two Cabinet Ministers. Years previously to that, I think at Juba, a conference had been called at which Southern representatives had opted for union with the North. But was that a free choice? Did those who made that choice have the slightest conception of the nature of the issues about which they were asked to choose? Certainly, at the time a Mr. Martin Parr, who had spent eight years as Governor of the three Southern Provinces, gave us to believe that, so far as a choice was made, it was meaningless. In any case, at this moment I should like to know to what extent the representatives from the South are in any way in touch with the people they represent.
My Lords, I presume that there is a purpose in these debates. It is not merely to enable us to ventilate our views, but that we may put forward positive lines of approach which Her Majesty's Government may either refuse or accept, may follow up or not. Therefore, I am allowing myself the luxury of what might be called a little "thinking aloud." I can see nothing revolutionary in the nature of a proposal which would ask the Northern Sudan to grant to the Southern Sudan just that freedom of choice which they themselves have been granted and from which they will derive their new nationhood.
Before I elaborate that point, however, I should like to say a word about the constitutional position as I see it—of course, I stand open to correction. As the noble Marquess reminded us, in 1953 a draft Statute was prepared by the Sudanese themselves, which gave the Governor General special responsibility for the South. Later, those terms were broadened to include all people in all provinces. It is important to note that at the time the Foreign Secretary made that announcement in another place, on February 12, he referred to the broadening of those terms in this way:
"This wording includes the Southern Provinces."
I think there is still a Governor General's Commission which sits at the elbow of the Governor General and acts as a brake, if not as a veto; but I would urge that the mere fact that the Governor General's powers in relation to these unprotected minorities were considered at the time, and that statutory arrangements were made, and that the Governor General is

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still in Khartoum, should not be overlooked.
All that may sound like a threat. I quite realise that to-day threats are not popular in international negotiations. So I would put forward, not perhaps so much an alternative remedy as a modification which, on a long-term view, I believe would be to the benefit of all. At this last moment, cannot the Northern Sudan be persuaded to turn back to Her Majesty's Government and ask us to reassume responsibility, at least for the Equatoria Province to be administered as a trust—if necessary, as a United Nations Trust? That is an extension of the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart. Could it not be a Trust which would harness the existing talent which is already in the North in partnership with Great Britain? I cannot believe that, if that kind of proposal were put carefully to the Sudan Government, they would be so unintelligent as to regard it as completely outrageous.
Of course, I anticipate the immediate objection—that Egypt would make obvious charges. As I see it, so far as Egypt is concerned, much hangs on the good will of the Sudan, particularly in relation to such dreams and schemes as the "High Dam" project; and yet so long as doubt and instability reign in Southern Sudan, the South will surely remain the breeding ground for friction and intrigue as between the Sudan and Egypt. And before Egypt would condemn out of hand such a development, she would do well to pause and to consider whether security in the far South is not also a guarantee of her own security at her own back door.
My Lords, that is really all I have to suggest. The poet talked, I think, of "craven fear of being great." That is a line of approach which many of those who have themselves served in the Sudan would support. I claim that a former "greatness" yields to a new "wisdom." "Pray God that justice may not fail through craven fear of being wise!" might govern a new hope for the Southern Sudan.
6.11 p.m.
LORD KILLEARN: My Lords, as the only member of your House present tonight who held the office of High Commissioner for the Sudan when it still existed, your Lordships might perhaps take it amiss if I held my peace and said nothing in the present debate. In any
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case, having listened to the debate I feel moved to get up and say one or two things. I suppose there is nobody in this House—there can be nobody—who does not deplore what has happened in the Sudan. I will go further and say that few of us are really surprised that things have gone wrong. When the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement on the Sudan and other matters were being discussed, most of us, I believe, felt strongly that, whatever might be said or however it might be wrapped up, the South were in fact being "thrown to the wolves." That may be a rather strong and not very tactful way of putting it, but that is what it really comes to. Anybody who knows anything of this subject at first hand knows that there is this inherent difference between the South and the North which has been well explained to-night. We were really expecting much if we believed that things could work there without friction.
There were discussions about safeguards for the South but I do not think that anybody could be surprised at the way things have worked out, though the trouble has perhaps come rather earlier than I thought it would. Most of us in our hearts were afraid that ultimately there would be trouble as between the South and the North. Now it is upon us. We have no particular reason to be proud of ourselves, for we must have known that something of this kind would happen, though perhaps not of so violent a nature, for there was something in the situation which was unwholesome. It is no good for anyone to say, "I told you so," even though some of us did tell you so; for saying that now helps nobody. The real question is: what, if anything, can be done about it? I was greatly relieved to hear from the noble Marquess that those people who have crossed the frontier are not to be returned but treated as political refugees. I am thankful for that, though I suppose we could not have done anything else.
We are largely dependent for information on what we read in the Press. Khartoum is to blame for not allowing Press representatives to go down and give us the picture; but there have been unpleasant stories of shootings and retaliations. I did not know, until the noble Marquess made his statement, that there had already been a suggestion for an international inquiry under the United Nations or the Red Cross which apparently has been ruled out. It may be

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difficult, but we cannot just let things go like that. The noble Lord who has just spoken had a proposal which was rather a root-and-branch policy and I doubt whether it could be done; but I cannot help feeling that this House should take the view that we cannot let this situation go by default. Whether it be an international commission or a Red Cross inquiry or something else, the Sudan Government would have to agree.
Mention of self-determination was made by my noble friend on my left. I should have thought the people there were hardly ripe for that at the moment, but I do not know why it should be indefinitely ruled out for the Southern Sudan, though it would be no solution of the present trouble. I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government whether some form of inquiry might not be possible or desirable. We have, or we had, a certain responsibility to these people. I believe we still have an implicit responsibility for the results of our actions, as we have handed these people over. Even if there cannot be an international inquiry, something should be done. The reasons we have heard against an international inquiry do not appear to me to exhaust the possibilities.
6.17 p.m.
LORD RAGLAN: My Lords, before the noble Marquess replies, I should like to ask him one question. I understand that certain responsibilities were placed upon the Governor-General by the Agreement of 1953. I understood the noble Marquess to say just now that the Governor-General could not do anything because he had no power. Is it really the case that responsibility without power is imposed on a Governor-General? If so, it is sheer lunacy.
6.18 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, I can only intervene in the debate again with the permission of the House, but, as I indicated at the beginning, I rather assume that it will not he unwelcome to the House if I endeavour to deal with some of the matters which have been discussed. This has been in many ways a useful discussion, though, frankly, there seems to he some misapprehension about the Sudan itself. To begin with, the Governor-General has not the status of a British official: he is the servant of the Condominium. It happens that he is
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a British retired Foreign Service official, but he was appointed by the Egyptian Government on the proposal of the British Government. If I may use the term, he is not the "exclusive preserve" of the British Government in this matter; he is the Governor-General, still on behalf of the Condominium.
The other point that has repeatedly been made here is the great distinction that has been made between North and South. In the statement I made earlier I made no attempt to deny that. I pointed out that there were between them these great divergencies of race, religion, culture, economy and so forth. It was said that the Sudan is a great block of territory which has been carved out, more or less arbitrarily, in the past: but it was in the past. It is not new that North and South are being treated alike. The North and the South have been treated as one Sudan during all the period of sixty years to which the noble Earl, Lord Winterton, referred. That has been the structure of the country. I agree with the point the noble Earl made. The difference is that the British service has withdrawn. That may lead to great stresses and strains between the North and the South without any third party to take the weight off the two—I do not like to use the word "opponents." but let me say the two different parties in the country. That is quite true.
But we have to contemplate the situation, not as it was sixty or twenty or even ten years ago, but as it has arisen with the coming into force of the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement which dated from 1953. That was on the basis that the Sudan should continue to consist of these two halves—the North and the South—and the whole endeavour should be to mould those two halves into one coherent, united country. That was the basis of the Agreement, and that is still the best hope, in my view, for the future of the Sudan. If that object is to be attained, it is no good considering what someone would have said in 1880 or what the situation might have been at the beginning of this century. We have to confront the situation as it is to-day. Some of your Lordships have said that you did not want in any way to say, "I told you so," but at the same time have continued your speeches by saying, with ill-concealed relish, almost exactly those words, "I told you so."
LORD KILLEARN: Not relish at all—disappointment, sadness. It was certainly not relish on my part, if the noble Marquess is referring to me.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: Here is the situation as it arises under this Agreement. What is the best hope of carrying out that basic principle of the Agreement that the Sudan shall form one coherent whole? The best hope of achieving that—indeed, the only really promising and constructive hope—must be to give every strength and confidence to the present Prime Minister of the Sudan, to do everything we can, although the matter is in the hands of the Sudan Government; to advise if requested but, at the same time, to see that we do not interfere in ways in which we are no longer entitled to interfere in that country. As for the Prime Minister—and your Lordships are aware of all that has been said about him to-day, the confidence he created in those who met him when he was over here, and the tribute which the right reverend Prelate has paid to him in the course of his interesting and valuable speech this afternoon—it is his task to see that every effort within his power is made to bring these two halves into one harmonious whole. Some of your Lordships have said that you expected this trouble to arise but it has come earlier than you thought. That, I confess, rather surprises me. Although it is a matter for infinite regret that it came at all, I should have thought, first, it was more likely to come at the early stage, and, secondly, that there was more hope for the future in the prospect of this particular trouble coming at that early stage and being dealt with—as has been said—up to date with restraint, with a minimum of reprisals and with a desire not to break off but to continue the policy by uniting the two halves.
EARL WINTERTON: May I ask the noble Marquess this, question? This is really the gist of the whole matter. I understood him now, speaking on the authority of Her Majesty's Government, to say that this insurrection, or whatever you call it, has been put down with the minimum of reprisals. He is speaking, of course, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government. That is not the information we have generally received and it suggests that the Press reports are all false.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: I do not think that anything that has been said to-day—certainly anything said by me—suggests that there have been unjustified, widespread reprisals, by the North on the South. The right reverend Prelate who spoke bore witness to the impeccable behaviour of the Northern troops who had been sent down to the South, and to the state of affairs which, according to his information, there prevailed. I have said, and I say again, that I think much of the reporting of what has taken place down there has been substantially exaggerated, and I did add, when I was originally addressing your Lordships, that, certainly in part, that exaggeration was likely to have come from the fact that reporters had not been able to give first-hand accounts of what they had seen on the spot but had been obliged to write accounts from outside the area.
LORD KILLEARN: Could the noble Marquess give us any information about the report in the paper this morning of forty sentences of death?
THE MARQUESS OF READING: I cannot give any precise information about a number of sentences of death; but what I have said, and what I believe to be true, is that courts are operating down there, and we have no reason to think that they are not operating legally. They are not special military courts or emergency courts; they are civil courts. As to what sentences they may have passed, I have no precise information.
LORD KILLEARN: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Marquess again but will these sentences have to be confirmed by the Governor-General?
THE MARQUESS OF READING: Yes, they will. I have no reason to think that these courts are operating in any way illegally in the work which they are doing now. A certain amount has been said about an inquiry. As regards the suggestion which the noble Lord, Lord Killearn, made of sending down some sort of an international inquiry, as he said, that could only go with the assent of the Sudanese Government, and, for reasons which I tried to indicate earlier on, it seems to me improbable that they would agree to that. What noble Lords did not take into account, I think, was something which I also said earlier—that the Sudanese Government themselves have appointed what appeals to be an authori-

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tative and impartial committee of inquiry which is still operating on the spot.
LORD KILLEARN: How can it be impartial?
THE MARQUESS OF READING: I told the noble Lord the position. It is impartial in the sense that there is no reason to think it cannot produce an objective and acceptable report. The fact that people may have a particular interest does not mean that if they are serving upon an inquiry they are not capable of putting that interest aside and reaching an objective conclusion. Certainly, I am not going to prejudge either the Commission itself or the Report which the Commission may issue until that stage is reached.
The noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, had another suggestion, which I am afraid would be equally impracticable, as it appeared to consist of an attempt to persuade the Sudanese Government in Khartoum to return to the United Kingdom a portion of the South in the Equatorial Provinces.
LORD BIRDWOOD: My Lords, may I correct the noble Marquess? I did not intend to suggest in any way that the South should be returned to the United Kingdom but that it should be held in trust for some period, during which stability might return to the South, with a view to its possible reunification in the future.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: Again the suggestion seems to be that Her Majesty's Government in this country can act by themselves in these matters. Not only are the Sudan Government concerned, but the Egyptian Government are concerned, and would presumably have to give their assent to such a proposal. Again, I cannot really think that an attempt to reopen the whole situation, which has been based upon the position created by the 1953 Agreement, would either have any chances of success or in itself be desirable.
I come back to what I said at the beginning: that no one wishes to depreciate in any way the value of the work that was done by this country on behalf of the Sudan in the past. The situation we now have to meet is the situation created by the 1953 Agreement, and although some noble Lords may dislike and deplore that Agreement, it is the governing factor as regards the status of
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the North and the status of the South in relation to one another. Our best hope of seeing these two halves coalesce is not to emphasise and insist upon the differences, but to point out ways of making the similarities increase and thus to assist the present Government of the Sudan in any way we can to carry on the policy, which is the policy of the Agreement accepted by them, and which, in my submission, maintains the best hope for the future development of the country.
EARL WINTERTON: My Lords, may I ask this question before the noble Marquess sits down? I am in some doubt, as I am sure other noble Lords must be, about the position in international law of the use of British planes to carry troops to the Southern Sudan. We were told that R.A.F. planes were used to fly troops from the North to the South. The noble Marquess has told us that the Governor-General is a Condominium official and not a representative of Her Majesty's Government. If that is so, why were these planes used? What concern is it of ours to fly troops to Southern Sudan?
THE MARQUESS OF READING: Troops were flown down at the request of the Sudanese Government, which is responsible for keeping order not only in the North but in the South. They had no other means of getting troops readily and effectively to the spot. I do not quite understand the criticism of that action, because surely it was in the interest of everybody that troops should be moved into the area and that the state of affairs which had arisen in the South should be brought to an end at the earliest possible moment. It seems to me that by flying troops there and by giving consent for R.A.F. planes to be used for the purpose, those who gave that consent were doing a service to all concerned.
LORD RAGLAN: My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

POLICE (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
Reported from the Joint Committee, with Amendments, and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes before seven o'clock.