Lords Sitting of 30 January 1958

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers
  BRAZILIAN TRACTION SUBSIDIARIES BILL [H.L.]
  Read 2a, and referred to the Examiners.
CAMMELL LAIRD AND COMPANY BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a, and referred to the Examiners.
CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a.
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, I have to inform your Lordships that as there are over twenty noble Lords who wish to speak on Lord Mills's Motion on Tuesday next, it has been decided through the usual channels that we shall continue the debate on Thursday, February 6.
CAYMAN ISLANDS AND TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
OVERSEAS SERVICE BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.

PEERS' LEAVE OF ABSENCE
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Lords following, with the Chairman of Committees, be named
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of the Select Committee ordered on December 10 last to be appointed to frame and propose to the House Standing Orders for giving effect to the conclusions relating to Leave of Absence contained in the Report of the Select Committee on the Powers of the House in relation to the Attendance of its Members:—

Northumberland,

M. Reading,

E. Attlee,

E. Selkirk,

E. Swinton,

V. Gage,

V. Samuel,

L. Greenhill,

L. Henderson,

L. Rea,

L. Reid,

L. Silkin,

L. Strang,

L. Teynham.

—(The Earl of Home.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PUBLIC RECORDS BILL [H.L.]
3.4 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD TERRINGTON in the Chair]
Clause 1 [General responsibility of the Lord Chancellor for public records]:
(2) There shall be an Advisory Council on Public Records to advise the Lord Chancellor on matters concerning public records in general and, in particular, on those aspects of the work of the Public Record Office which affect members of the public who make use of the facilities provided by the Public Record Office.
The Master of the Rolls shall be chairman of the said Council and the remaining members of the Council shall be appointed by the Lord Chancellor on such terms as he may specify.
LORD CLITHEROE LORD CLITHEROE moved, in the second paragraph of subsection (2), after "the said Council" to insert ", the Keeper of Public Records shall be its vice-chairman". The noble Lord said: Unfortunately I was not able to be in the House when this Bill was debated on

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Second Reading, and therefore I have taken the liberty of putting down an Amendment on Clause 1 which I will briefly explain. As your Lordships will realise, an Advisory Council on Public Records is being appointed under this clause to advise the Lord Chancellor on matters concerning him. It has occurred to me that there would be great advantage if the Keeper of the Public Records, who is referred to in Clause 2, were to be a member—and I suggest vice-chairman—of this Council.
It is possible, I think, that if he is not a member the Lord Chancellor may receive conflicting evidence from his Council and from the Keeper, unless there is some machinery by which they keep in close touch. There is an analogy which I may quote from Scotland, where the Keeper of the Records of Scotland, Sir James Fergusson, is also the Chairman of the Advisory Council. I think that if the Keeper were to be appointed vice-chairman that would strengthen his authority, and that, I think, is desirable, because it is quite possible that successive Masters of the Rolls may not always be able to preside over this body. I do not know whether the Government are inclined to accept my Amendment. The only ground on which I conceive it might reasonably be rejected would be the suggestion that this Council is to be rather a consumers' council, as it were, so that the less official membership there is on it, the better. On balance, however, I think there would be advantage in the Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 16, after ("Council") insert ("the Keeper of Public Records shall be its vice-chairman").—(Lord Clitheroe.)
LORD EVERSHED: May I invite your Lordships on this occasion not to accept the noble Lord's proposal? A vice-chairman, I conceive, may be simply someone who takes the chair in the absence of the chairman, in which case I should have thought the Council might have elected its own vice-chairman, or he is someone invested with a particular status. I suggest to the Committee in this case that it is neither necessary or desirable that the Keeper should be given a particular status on this Council.
Perhaps it will suffice if I remind the Committee of the proposal of the
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Grigg Committee, which it is the purpose of this Bill to implement. In paragraph 144 of the Grigg Report it was suggested that it would be desirable to retain the ancient connection between the holders of my Office and Records, and that for that purpose the Master of the Rolls should be Chairman of this Council. The Council is suggested to be a Council with members drawn from the Judiciary, the legal profession and the universities, and its purpose is regarded as analogous to that of the Consultative Committee on Publications—in other words, as the noble Lord pointed out, one of its main purposes will be, in substance, to give the views of the consumer. The Bill as before the Committee allows the Lord Chancellor to appoint such persons to the Council as he thinks proper, and I submit that it should be left to him to decide whether or not the Keeper should be a member of the Council, and for the Council thereafter to decide who might be its vice-chairman.
I would only add that from some experience as Chairman of the Historical Manuscripts Commission I have always been in the closest and most cordial relations with the Deputy Keeper of the Records, and I have no doubt that a Master of the Rolls, if sensible, would have similar relations with the Keeper of the Records hereafter. May I add, in conclusion, that after discussing it with the officers of the Public Record Office, the present Deputy Keeper shares the view that I am now submitting to the Committee.
LORD SILKIN: I should have thought that the statement of the Master of the Rolls on this point was absolutely conclusive. There is just one sentence I should like to add, and that is that in my view it is, in general practice, undesirable to name a specific person as a vice-chairman of a committee that is about to be set up. I would have said that it is undesirable even to name a specific person as chairman. But in this particular case, of course, there are good historical reasons for naming the Master of the Rolls—I accept that entirely. I think it would be contrary to general practice to name a particular person as an ex officio vice-chairman and therefore, while associating myself with all the remarks of the noble and learned Lord

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the Master of the Rolls, I think that is an additional case for not accepting the Amendment.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR): After what my noble and learned friend the Master of the Rolls has said, and the additional remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, there is little that I need add in order to ask the Committee not to accept this Amendment. Indeed, I would rather put it differently and ask my noble friend Lord Clitheroe not to press it. I want to assure my noble friend, and anyone who may be interested, that the fact that I ask him not to press this Amendment does not in any way detract from the importance which I attach to the office of Keeper of the Public Records. Indeed, I feel that it might on certain occasions be rather embarrassing for the Keeper of the Public Records if he were forced into the position of taking the chair when there were present other people whom he would desire to preside over the meeting before himself. But I think the general principle which has been expressed by the two noble Lords I have mentioned is that the Council ought to be free to select its own vice-chairman. With regard to the composition of the Council, it will, I hope, include eminent men, and it may be that some of those who accept my invitation might be specially suitable for this purpose. But it is, I think, a matter essentially for the Council to look into, and I hope that in those circumstances, and on my assurance of the great importance I attach to the position of the Keeper, my noble friend will not press his Amendment this afternoon.
LORD CLITHEROE: In view of what the Lord Chancellor and the Master of the Rolls have said, I certainly shall not press this Amendment, but I should be clad to learn in due course that the Keeper will, in fact, be a member of this Committee, even if he is not to be vice-chairman. I think that the liaison between the Keeper and the Council is something which is of great importance, and I hope that it will always be preserved.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2
The Public Record Office
(4) The Keeper of Public Records shall have power to do all such things as appear to him necessary or expedient for maintaining the utility of the Public Record Office and may in particular—
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in subsection (4), after paragraph (d) to insert:
"(e) accept responsibility for the safe keeping of records other than public records;"
The noble and learned Viscount said: On Second Reading I said that I thought paragraph (g) as it stood would enable the Public Record Office to accept, for example, the records of the Duchy of Lancaster, if they were offered—and I instanced those records because they were excluded, by paragraph 2 (2) (c) of the First Schedule, from the definition of public records. On consideration I feel that paragraph (g) to which I then referred is particularly apt for private and semi-private records, such as the Carlton Papers of which President Eisenhower made a gift to Her Majesty and which are of great interest, but in order to make quite sure that there is power to deal with records such as the Duchy Records I would ask your Lordships to include this further paragraph. That is the purpose of the Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 21, at end, insert the said new paragraph.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 3 to 5 agreed to.
Clause 6 [Destruction of public records in Public Record Office or other place of deposit]:
On Question, Whether Clause 6 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD CLITHEROE: There is one very small point I should like to make on the Motion that Clause 6 stand part of the Bill. I observe that by the final words of the clause power is given to the Lord Chancellor to dispose of these documents "in any other way." I do not want to put down an Amendment to these words, but I should like to ask the noble and learned Viscount whether he will be extremely discriminating in

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making use of that power. It seems to me that if these documents are not worth preserving in their essential context, it is very doubtful whether they are worth preserving at all. There is a great tendency on the part of local Public Record Offices to accumulate a great deal of stuff with which they really cannot cope and which they have no funds to look after. I hope that the powers which are given in the last sentence of Clause 6 will be very rarely used.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I willingly give my noble friend that assurance. Obviously he has done me the honour of looking once at the remarks which I made on Second Reading, and if he will look again he will see that the importance of the aspect which he has mentioned is in my own mind, as it was in the mind of the Grigg Committee; and of course it constitutes a problem for all Departments. I certainly give him that undertaking, and I shall not only follow it myself but leave a note bringing it to the attention of my successors.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clause 7 agreed to.
Clause 8 [Court records]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This Amendment corrects a mistake which had arisen owing to various enactments. Section 199 of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act, 1925, re-enacted Section 66 of the Matrimonial Causes Act, 1857, under which the Home Secretary was empowered to require records of matrimonial proceedings before 1858 in any ecclesiastical court in England or the Isle of Man to be transferred by the person having control of them to a place in "London or Westminster". This power was never exercised in relation to the Isle of Man records and it will never be needed. The Isle of Man authorities have pointed out that the jurisdiction of their ecclesiastical court in probate and divorce matters was unaffected by the English legislation of 1857 but continued until it was abolished by an Act of Tynwald in 1884. Your Lordships will observe that the Bill does not apply generally to records of the Isle of Man, and it would be anomalous if it applied to records of ecclesiastical courts there. In consequence, it is necessary to delete the words
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shown in the Amendment in brackets in subsection (5). There is a consequential Amendment to the First Schedule. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 14, leave out ("(including any held in the Isle of Man)").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 8, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
First Schedule [Definition of Public Records]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This Amendment is to insert the words "Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation." Your Lordships may observe that in Part II of the Table to the First Schedule the National Coal Board is listed among the "fringe" establishments and organisations whose records are declared to be public records. The Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation is an independent body incorporated under the Companies Act which has responsibilities in relation to miners' welfare. Under the Miners' Welfare Act, 1952, a number of additional functions were conferred upon it, and by Section 9 the records of the Miners' Welfare Commission, which it superseded, were transferred to the Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation while remaining under the charge and superintendence of the Master of the Rolls in pursuance of the Public Record Acts. In these circumstances it seems appropriate, as well as convenient for historians, that the records of this body should be treated in the same way as those of the National Coal Board and declared public records. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 49, at end insert ("Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation.").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This Amendment is consequential. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 12, leave out ("(including courts in the Isle of Man)").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
First Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining Schedules agreed to.
House resumed.

LIFE PEERAGES BILL [H.L.]
3.30 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, our debates in this House have been so extensive and so recent on this Bill that I need not. I think, rehearse the arguments which I used to justify it to your Lordships on the Second Reading and which have been repeated often by my noble friends on the Government Benches. I should like to say that I am grateful for the manner in which the House has received and dealt with this Bill. There has been plenty of robust argument but, unlike previous occasions on which this controversial subject has been discussed, there has been no bitterness in any quarter of the House and we have had most objective debates. I hope that that is due to a recognition that this is a genuine and an honest attempt to proceed towards what we all, I think, have as our goal, and that is comprehensive reform of your Lordships' House, and to proceed towards that goal step by step. Because, since we could not find a basis of agreement on a wider scheme, I felt bound to advise your Lordships that the wisest course was to proceed on those two points on which there was considerable agreement: first, the introduction of Life Peers, and, secondly, the introduction of women.
There is the strongest case for enlisting into our ranks persons from all Parties, or from no Party, who would add to the working efficiency of this House. And while there has been vigorous opposition in some quarters to the introduction of women, nevertheless, that question was put straight to your Lordships' House, the vote was decisive, and it has been accepted by this House that in these days, in this twentieth century, women have a part to play in both Houses of Parliament.
There is perhaps nothing very original in this Bill. In a sense it is two long-delayed corrections of decisions of your Lordships' House: one on life peerages one hundred years ago, and the other against women thirty years ago. This is the first time in fifty years that your Lordships have been able to make any progress at all on this vexed question of reform. This Bill is by no means the
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end of the story, but I hope that it is a significant stage in our evolution; and it is as such that I ask your Lordships to give the Bill a Third Reading and to send it to another place for consideration. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Earl of Home.)
3.34 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Earl for the introductory statement which he has made. I have said all the way through that this Bill was an important Bill because it is for amendment of the Constitution of your Lordships' House; and I felt bound to say that I regretted that this particular Bill should have been introduced in the circumstances it was, in which there was no detailed mandate from the country about the reform of the House of Lords, but only a very general statement in an Election address.
I am prompted to go back to that because the noble Earl has said that this is the first piece of progress in reform of the House of Lords for fifty years and he hopes it will lead on to something much more in the direction of reform than this particular measure affords. It is necessary, therefore, to repeat my case on such a vital matter as amendment of the Constitution and to say that the details of the proposed reforms should be submitted in any general appeal to the electorate for their mandate. It is not good enough simply to say in an election address on behalf of the various candidates, "We propose to deal with the reform of the House of Lords." I hope that that will be carefully borne in mind, especially if the noble Earl wants any future questions of reform to be discussed in the spirit to which he has been so kind as to refer when he said that we had conducted our debates without bitterness. On that particular point, let me add that perhaps what has led to the lack of violent controversy on this Bill has been that there is no proposal in this Bill to amend the powers of the Chamber. If the realm of powers were entered, I am afraid controversy would be absolutely inevitable; and that controversy would be quite hotly pursued.

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I do not propose to say more, because I have addressed your Lordships at some length on other occasions on this Bill, except that we on this side of the House should have been very glad if we had had a more confident reply to the questions which I have put from time to time on what is to be the practice for the administration of the Bill if it is finally placed upon the Statute Book. How are you going to appoint Life Peers, and what will be the kind of number of Life Peers whom you are proposing to appoint? We have no objection in principle to the appointment of Life Peers; but the Government have been good enough to say on two or three occasions—not always with quite the same emphasis, but still, they have repeated the case—that it is part of their objective to strengthen the Opposition in the position in which we find ourselves to-day. That is something which we should like to see fulfilled. But how is this to be effected to increase the measure of power of the Opposition in the House?
We know that the Bill is formally only one to extend the area of Her Majesty The Queen's prerogative; that the appointment of Peers would be made, we are told, on the discretion of the Prime Minister, and that, no doubt, from time to time—"as required," "if necessary," and words of that kind—there would be consultations with the Leader of the Opposition. Now that, to me at any rate, is fundamental. What we have been told so far seems to me quite useless, from the point of view of seeking to strengthen the Opposition here in carrying out its enormous task with the numbers we at present have in this House, and in making sure that we obtain the people whom we in the Labour Party should wish to have—cannot speak for the noble Lord who leads the Liberal Opposition. The members of my Party would wish to be certain, if we are willing, when the time comes, to help in the administration of the Bill, that the people who are nominated to the Crown are the people who are wanted.
There are other areas from which Life Peers can be appointed—people of eminence and distinction, perhaps of no political Party, and people from either of the other Parties with similar qualifications. But when we come to look at
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certain members of my own Party it would be exceedingly doubtful whether, in view of the provision for expenses now made, you would be able to get substantial reinforcements of the Opposition on the basis of appointment as Life Peers unless some proper remuneration were provided. The noble Earl in his reply to me on that particular point was certainly not inclined to commit himself in any way; and, indeed, I thought—perhaps he will recollect the occasion—that there seemed to be no likelihood, certainly in the near future, of any attachment being made to the appointment of Life Peers who would be able to give us real help in the Opposition.
At the same time, you would have no difficulty in getting appointed as Life Peers other people who would strengthen either the Cross Benches or the Government Benches—people who would well be able to afford to do it. Therefore the Opposition would be worse off even than they are now. Unless we can get reasonable assurances on that point, therefore, the Government ought to understand that when the Bill comes from another place we shall have to look at it very carefully indeed.
3.40 p.m.
LORD WINSTER: My Lords, I trust that the noble Earl the Leader of the House will not think that I am discourteous if I say that I am doubtful whether this Bill is going to improve in any way the working of the House. I do not think it will. I have read and re-read the debates which have taken place and the lengthy Press comments on the Bill. I notice that the Press has recently announced that all interest in the Bill has by now been lost, and I think that perhaps the proceedings to-day illustrate that fact. In spite of all I have read and listened to, I still do not know what really is the object of the Bill and what it is hoped that the Bill will do.
Looking at the state of the world at the time when the Bill was introduced, I must confess that I was surprised that the Government could find time to introduce such a Bill when there were such grave matters of international concern to consider. As regards the working of the House, I imagine that what is wrong with I it is that there are so many Peers with

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no wish whatsoever to attend. I do not share the contempt in which what are known as "backwoods" Peers are so often held. I have had the pleasure of knowing a number of them and I have been impressed with their intelligence and common sense. I once heard it said that the typical "backwoods" Peer had three qualities: he knew how to kill a fox; he knew how to get rid of a bad tenant, and he knew how to discard an unwanted mistress. I think that a man who possesses those three qualities would certainly have something to contribute to the work of the House. I only wish that those noble Lords thought it worth their while to come here more frequently than they do.
The fact is that they do not come because this House does not possess any power. In saying that, I hope that it will not be thought for one moment that I am advocating that the House should have more powers. Even some noble Lords who do come are lukewarm. In a week-end speech the noble Earl, Lord Attlee—I do not say this in any critical spirit at all—speaking about your Lordships' House, said, if I quote him correctly, "I do not mind making a speech now and again." That I would describe as a little tepid, as rather tepid praise of this House.
But why is it thought that Life Peers will be more assiduous than Peers of first creation? In making Life Peers, the Prime Minister of the day will have to draw very much the same coverts that he now draws to get Peers of first creation—men of experience, of knowledge, with a record of public service, and so on. When the novelty has fallen off, I fear that these Life Peers will be likely to come to the conclusion that so many Peers of first creation have come to—that the game is not worth the candle, or rather, that there is no candle at all in the game. I can think of three Peers of first creation, men of exactly the type from which we are told Life Peers would be drawn. One, I believe, has not thought it worth his while to take his seat; another has taken his seat but I do not think he has spoken here. Yet he made an important and valuable speech on a subject on which he can speak with great authority, and said things of which I think more might yet be heard, but he did not consider it worth his while to make that speech in your Lordships'
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House—he made it to an outside audience. Another Peer of first creation who also can speak with authority on the subject of civil aviation made a most valuable speech, but again he did not think it worth his while to make that speech in your Lordships' House, but to an outside audience.
These facts are a bad augury for this system of Life Peers. I do not know why Life Peers should show any more activity and assiduity than do many Peers of first creation. We are told that we do important work; in particular, that we amend Bills sent up to us from another place. To my mind, the long correspondence that is going on at this moment in the columns of The Times newspaper is an argument for the reform of another place; and were they to reform their procedure, they would be able to send up their Bills in better shape and those Bills would not require so much attention here. Again, we are not often in Committee on those measures, yet we are told that that is an important part of our work; and I have noticed that when we are in Committee the attendance, never very good, sinks to its lowest point. We are told that our debates are most valuable, but they seem to arouse little public attention. The Press, for instance, with one or two exceptions, completely ignores them.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No.
LORD WINSTER: The debates are very infrequently reported.
EARL WINTERTON: My Lords, the noble Lord must really be factual. if he will read the more responsible newspapers—The Times and the Daily Telegraph—he will find that they give just as much space to the debates of this House as to those of another place.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, why does the noble Earl call The Times a "responsible newspaper"?
LORD WINSTER: My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Earl. Two or three of what he describes as "responsible" papers do report our debates, though, I would say, not quite at such length or in such detail as they report proceedings in another place; but the great bulk of the Press which is read by the public and which perhaps plays the largest part in forming public opinion

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because of its enormous circulation, completely ignore our debates in this House. They do not give them even a paragraph.
I am sure that your Lordships will have noticed that the Press has been full recently of the question of civil aviation. Great publicity has been given to the proposals for the amalgamation or co-operation of aircraft firms, and a great deal of stress has been laid upon the glittering prizes which await the aircraft industry in the export trade. There was a debate in your Lordships' House before Christmas in which every one of those points was brought out and emphasised. There were only four speakers altogether and only one speaker from the Benches opposite, and he intervened, not to say anything about the problems of civil aviation but to ask, as a good Scotsman, for improved services between Scotland and England. If a subject of such vast importance as that of civil aviation can attract no more interest than that, it really is difficult to believe that our debates are of such value and importance.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD MANCROFT): My Lords, I feel that I must interrupt the noble Lord, since it was I who had the honour of winding-up that debate. It is only fair to say that a number of noble Lords could not take part in that debate, as was stated on the occasion. Three or four noble Lords who could have spoken with great authority were prevented from doing so by the fact that they held office in one or other of the Corporations and therefore were muzzled and unable to speak. But they were present.
LORD WINSTER: I entirely agree with the noble Lord. I realise that point and I think that I mentioned it in my speech with regard to the noble Lord Lord Balfour of Inchrye. But I do not think that those who have great knowledge of civil aviation were present. I do not wish to be invidious, but it is certainly in my memory that many noble Lords with great knowledge of civil aviation were not present on that occasion. What does attract a good attendance? The Wolfenden Report was certainly "good box office", and I have no doubt that when we come to debate A.I.D. there will similarly be a good attendance. But even such tasty morsels as those do not produce an abundance of our numbers.
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Two points, particularly, in my mind are these. With regard to Life Peeresses, I am not an opponent in any way of admitting Life Peeresses to your Lordships' House; they may attend better than some of the Peers do. However, I do not know how much they will add to the value of our proceedings. Many women have entered the Government in the other place; but women having the vote, clearly a certain number of them have to be put in the Government, otherwise how would the Government face a General Election when it comes? But I have yet to be told that women have received posts in the Government because they were manifestly superior to any man who was available. If Life Peeresses are to come here—and, as I say. I do not oppose that in the least—I should like to ask this question: are Peeresses in their own right to be eligible to become Life Peeresses? If not, it seems to me that the hardship from which I believe they suffer will be doubled. They are not allowed to sit as Peeresses in their own right, and if they are not to be eligible as Life Peeresses, then, as I say their hardship is doubled.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: That question has been answered quite often. The noble Lord has said that none of us attend; but if he had attended or listened more frequently he would have known that I myself put that question and it was answered quite specifically.
LORD WINSTER: I apologise. It has not always been easy for me to attend recently, and I may not have been in attendance on that occasion. I am sorry that I missed the point, and I am glad that it is settled so satisfactorily.
I think this Bill will have a rough time in another place, although no doubt it will be passed. But as far as we can look ahead, it seems to me that, although the noble Earl has spoken about step by step, the first measure of reform, and so on, this will be the last measure of reform that we are likely to see in the lifetime of the present Government. I do not think the Government will find it easy to bring forward yet another Bill. I do not know what is in the minds of the Executive of the Labour Party, but when a Labour Government comes into power, as it undoubtedly will at the next General Election—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Oh!
LORD WINSTER: I am afraid noble Lords have not been watching the results of the by-elections, but we can resume the argument after Rochdale has voted. As I was saying, when the Labour Party come into power, as a Back-Bencher I feel certain that that Government will have far more important work to do than to proceed with a measure for the reform of the House of Lords. We are told by the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, that this House is dying on its feet. I doubt very much whether the Labour Party will think it worth while to try to put it on its feet again. They are more likely to watch with interest the effect of this blood transfusion of Life Peers to see whether or not they should rescue this House or whether to allow it to continue to sink into desuetude.
3.55 p.m.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, I do not propose to join in the somewhat grudging send-off which has been given to this Bill by the two noble Lords who have already spoken. On the contrary, I think it is a very useful measure. Its scope is limited; its purpose is excellent, and I think it will prove in large degree effective for that purpose. As to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Winster, I do not know whether he was deploring the inefficiencies of your Lordships' House or rejoicing in them. The conclusion of his speech seemed to nullify all his earlier points. He pointed out in how many ways this House is inefficient: how even the new Peers do not attend; how the debates are not worth reporting in the Press; and he ended up by saying that when the Labour Government come into office they will be only too pleased to leave that situation just as it is. He also pointed out that the new Peers do not often take part in the proceedings of your Lordships' House, and he asked: why should it be otherwise with the Life Peers? The answer is obvious and complete. Those who would be appointed Life Peers would be men and women who keenly desired to take part in the business of your Lordships' House and would undertake to do so. Therefore, the whole of that part of my noble friend's speech disappears.
With regard to the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, he surprised me very much when he said that there was no mandate
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for this Bill; that it was not enough for a Government, before a General Election, to say that they would deal with the House of Lords, but that they must specify and get authority from the people for particular measures. Fresh in your Lordships' memories, not so many years ago, will be a Bill introduced by the previous Labour Government altering the Parliament Act, with no mandate of any sort or kind, which was passed into law against the strongest opposition. I have no doubt that if and when the time comes the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, will have that example quoted to him by many speakers.
I do not propose to repeat in any degree the full debates that took place on the Second Reading and Committee stages of this Bill, but there are two points to which I would wish your Lordships to give attention before the Bill passes from this House. They are points quite proper to be raised on the Third Reading, because they relate to the way in which the Bill is likely to be put into operation when it comes to be an Act of Parliament. The main point is one that has already been referred to: what is the actual procedure that will be adopted in choosing the Life Peers, and what is the spirit in which they will be appointed?
The chief reason why I, for one, support this Bill with cordiality and I expressed it in the earlier debate—is that I think the British Constitution as a whole is working faultily in present conditions; and the reason is that the principle of Party Government has too great a dominance in the working of our democratic institutions. The reason why Life Peers are likely to be a valuable element in the State is precisely that they may be an element which is not yet sufficiently represented in either House of Parliament—particularly since the University Members were abolished—and who, while being persons not fitted or desiring to be Party leaders, are fitted, and may be desiring, to exercise a national influence through their status, their experience, and their capacity for exposition and persuasion. If we had a larger number of non-Party Members—those who sit on the Cross Benches, who represent the Services and the great professions—I feel convinced that the working of our institution, of our Parliament, would be greatly improved.

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But is that likely to be so? There have been questions of a gentlemen's agreement in the choice of the new Peers which would prevent any one Party any longer having dominance in this House. But are we to have in place of that merely a large number of new Labour Members, who have no particular qualifications, except, no doubt, personal good character and some ability, and who are merely faithful Party men? In the Second Reading debate I quoted [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 206, col. 667], not a speech in the House of Commons, but a letter in The Times by a member of the Labour Party, Mr. Usborne, who said that an Upper House would be—and I quote his words:
"somewhere we can send our old war-horses out to grass".
The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, speaking in this House, quoted that letter, and said that the principle was not wholly wrong. I thought that was somewhat ominous, coming from an ex-Labour Prime Minister. But it is an important question: By what procedure are we to obviate an agreement between the two main Parties to exercise, one after the other, an even greater measure than now of Party patronage, and to fill the House with the new life peerage which, on the plea of trying to get a more equal balance of Parties, would leave its composition and merits worse than they are to-day?
I have ventured to put forward a suggestion. If it is desired by the House of Commons and by this House that there should be Life Peers, and that they should be not merely partisans but of the character I have been describing, there should be some procedure for selection other than is now proposed. The noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack dealt with this point in his speech, and he said that it would be necessary for the recommendations to the Crown to come from the Prime Minister of the day. I think, pro forma, that is so, but he need not be tied in his selection, either by the recommendations of his own Party managers or by, as apparently suggested by the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, the recommendations of the Party managers of the Labour Party. The suggestion I ventured to put forward was that there should be a Standing Select Committee of the Privy Council (which could easily
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be constituted of suitable persons, seeing what the composition of the Privy Council now is) which should have the duty of making suggestions for the decision of the Prime Minister of the class of persons that we have had in mind
I could quote a precedent for this course, on a smaller scale and of much less importance. When, some years ago, public opinion was very much concerned about the conferment of honours—not only peerages, but other honours—and it was alleged that not seldom consideration was given unduly to contributions to Party funds, it was decided by general agreement that a Committee of the Privy Council, or selection from the Privy Council, should be made of a few individuals to whom all recommendations for honours should be submitted, and who should have the right to investigate them. That Committee, I believe, is still sitting. I remember that my noble friend Lord Crewe was a member of it for many years, and I think it numbered three. I believe that that procedure still continues. It may serve as a precedent, if precedents are desired, for this particular proposal. The suggestion was commented upon by one or two speakers in the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Brand, said that he thought it might be a good course to take, and my noble friend Lord Layton took the same view. I trust that, either in another place or afterwards, when the Bill is passed, this suggestion may receive some measure of consideration.
My only other point is one that I made previously, but I should like to emphasise it again to-day, without entering into the arguments. It is that life peerages might form a useful means of bringing the other members of the British Commonwealth into closer touch with this country and with this Legislature. One reference made to this proposal by the noble Lord, Lord Ellenborough, seemed to me to be of great interest, and I would quote a few sentences from his speech. He said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 206, col. 913]:
"Only this autumn I had the privilege of addressing one or two meetings in Canada on the subject of your Lordships' House, and I was both surprised and impressed at the interest and enthusiasm shown in the subject—probably a greater enthusiasm, indeed, than is shown within this country. I am sure that if we could get more Commonwealth Members in your Lordships' House, a fine and splendid link between the Commonwealth and its centre would be opened."

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I trust that this suggestion also may receive more consideration than has yet been given to it. I do not complain that the Government have said nothing on the point, because it is a matter that has to be handled with great delicacy. The Governments of the Dominions must be able to feel assured that their status and their powers will not in any way be diminished, and that when it is proposed to appoint some of their own citizens to life peerages, that will not be done without their full and formal consent. For that reason, I would not press the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor to deal specifically with this matter, but I hope that the Government may bear it in mind, and that both these points will be carried into effect when the Bill passes from the Legislature and comes to be dealt with as an Act of Parliament by the Executive.
4.10 p.m.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, has greatly enriched this debate, as he enriched the previous debates we have had on this great subject. The only reason I intervene is that I wish to say a few words on a subject that he and, I think, he alone has raised. He gave what seemed to me a devastating reply to what the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, leading the Opposition, said on the question of mandates. He gave the example of the last Parliament Act introduced by the Labour Government without a mandate. I venture to give another example of a constitutional matter. Before constitutional changes are made, there has grown up over a period of many years the practice of attempting to secure some measure of agreement through the method of the Speaker's Conference. There was such a Speaker's Conference towards the end of the life of the wartime Government. That Conference came to the unanimous conclusion that the University franchise should be preserved. The Labour Party, so far as I remember the Election of 1945, never said that they were going to throw over the recommendation of the Speaker's Conference and reverse that decision. Nevertheless, they did so and abolished the University franchise.
I had the honour of being one of the last University Members in the House of Commons, and in the last few weeks two of my colleagues in the representation of
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the University seats, Lord Waverley and Mr. Walter Elliot, have passed away. My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, spoke of the loss of independence due, among other things, to the loss of the University seats. I was sorry that his Party in the House of Commons were not unanimous in their defence.
The other matter to which I wish to allude, because it was mentioned by the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, was the question of enriching this House by some men of independent mind; and I think on that we are all agreed. But I think he went on with the sort of suggestion which I believe to be false: that a man was less likely to have an independent mind in politics if he belonged to a Party. I do not believe that to be true. A man can be independent if he is a Conservative; he can be independent if he is a Socialist; he can conceivably be independent even if he is a Liberal. Independence is far more a question of character than a question of whether or not you have found a Party with which you are in substantial agreement. One of the reasons why the University Members differed somewhat as a body from other Members of the House of Commons—they were not very different—was the difference in the method of election. They could never meet the scattered people by whom they were elected; they had to address them through literature, through an election address which was expected to be, and could be, sufficiently long to be intelligent and to cover the whole field of politics. That appealed to a certain number of people who might not wish to face the hustings.
There was another thing which encouraged their independence. They were the only people whose chance of reelection would, if anything, be increased by the withdrawal of their Party Whip. No Party Whip could in the least affect any University Member. That did not mean that the University Member did not respect the opinions of his Party, if he belonged to one. On this question of a Member's quality, I wish to refute as emphatically as I can the absurd idea that an independent man in politics cannot be a Member of a great political Party. It is untrue. In order to prove the point, may I repeat an argument that I have used on another occasion?

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If anybody wishes to have as his representative in Parliament a man of independent mind, if he is inclined to think at first sight that he wants a man who is non-political and does not belong to any political Party, let him test that view by asking himself four questions. The first question is this: Does he desire as his Member a man who has never thought about politics at all? Secondly, does he desire as his Member somebody who has thought about politics but has never been able to make up his mind where he stands? Thirdly, would he like as his Member somebody who has thought about politics, has made up his mind where he stands, but has never found anybody else who agrees with him? Or, finally, does he wish to have as his Member somebody who has thought about politics, made up his mind where he stands, has found a body of men who agree with him, but prefers not to tell the electors who they are?
4.17 p.m.
EARL ATTLEE: My Lords, I was very interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, said about independent-minded Members. I quite agree you get independent-minded Members in all Parties; they are generally regarded as a nuisance by the Whips but they do enliven the Parties—people like Lord Stansgate. With regard to the University seats, one of the troubles was that they were regarded by the Tory Party as Pocket Boroughs; when a Member was pushed out they made way and shoved him into a University seat. When I raised the matter in the House of Commons, Sir Winston Churchill said, "It is monstrous to do away with the University seats. We should have had a majority."
The other point I wanted to mention was in regard to the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel. In the last thirty years the Liberals have been very strong on independence and independent representation. I cannot remember a time in the heyday of Liberal strength when they were any less keen on Party discipline than any other Party. When they had a majority they pushed things through as far as they could. That seems to be an example of minority-mind, which is quite admirable here; but it is useless to accuse other Parties because they have some discipline, and rejoice in a Party
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that has no discipline, when the real reason is that they have no hope of power.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, may I remind the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, of some of the last Members of the University seats? Does he really think that Sir Alan Herbert represented Oxford University as a nominee of the Tory Party? If he will examine what happened, he will know that nothing of the sort is true. When I became a Member for the Combined English Universities in succession to the late Miss Eleanor Rathbone—not, I should have thought, a typical nominee of the Tory caucus—there were several candidates who I was afterwards told were Socialist in politics but who carefully concealed that fact from the electors, but it was regarded as such a hopeless seat from the Tory point of view that practically nobody else wished to contest it in the Tory interest. I won the seat.
EARL ATTLEE: I congratulate the noble Lord on that. I quite agree with regard to A. P. Herbert. There are a good many instances of people of no particular academic standing being shoved in—Ramsay MacDonald was a case in point—and for years Cambridge University were represented by respectable people who might have stood for other constituencies.
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, perhaps I might point out that, having looked very carefully at this modest Bill, I can see nothing about the Universities and really nothing about all this high-minded independence stuff. I just thought I would say that in case other members are inclined to develop the subject.
4.20 p.m.
LORD HANKEY: My Lords, as an inveterate Cross-Bencher, I feel it is rather an impertinence to take part in this debate. As the late Lord Baldwin used to say, "You are an inveterate mugwump". Whether or not that is so, I did not take part in the earlier debates because, quite frankly, I had not made up my mind. There were certain points which I had communicated to the Committee that sat under my noble friend Lord Swinton, but, broadly speaking, I had not made up my mind, and I did not think, in the tremendous galaxy of talent that took part in the debate, that I could

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usefully speak. Perhaps that is true today. At the same time, I have made up my mind now that this Bill, as it stands, will not do very much to strengthen the House of Lords. That was the first point made by my noble friend Lord Winster, and I am not sure that I should have spoken to-day unless he had mentioned that subject. I feel that, except for the Labour Party, with. whom I sympathise very deeply in this matter (as I have said, I have never been a member of any Party, but I have worked in intimate and most friendly contact with all Parties, and I admire them all) and who require something, I do not see how this Bill is going to help; nor do I feel that it will help them sufficiently substantially to be worth while. Unless it is worth while, I think it would be better not to do it just yet.
In my earlier life, practically from the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 onwards. I was in close touch with international affairs, for many years as Secretary of international conferences taking me all over Europe, and in later years I have been taken to the Dominions and a great deal to France and Egypt. Again and again in all this period I have discussed, with foreign statesmen this question of the House of Lords. I did not raise it; they always raised it. They asked about the House of Lords, and invariably, both in foreign countries and in the Dominions, I found that the House of Lords was much admired. I used to say to them, "I am told that it is completely illogical", and they said, "Well, it does not matter; it works." A Netherlander once said, "It does its job and on no account should you alter it." They regarded it like the Monarchy; it is part of the Constitution of this country. Once you begin to tinker about with it, it is the thin end of the wedge—" It is the first step that counts", as the French proverb says. I am rather timid about this particular step. I wished to place that thought before your Lordships.
But there is another thought. The prestige of the House of Lords is high in a great many quarters. It is high all over the world. It does not depend, by any means, especially outside this country, on what is happening with the day-to-day conduct of Bills, and whether the Bills that come up from another place are properly examined, and so forth. For my part, I believe that they are extraordinarily well handled, although I know
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it is a hard task for the Labour Party; nevertheless, according to my observations, they do it extraordinarily well.
But the prestige does not depend upon that; it depends on all sorts of other considerations and work done by Peers who cannot often appear in this House. I am not talking only of Bishops or of the Judges or other legal authorities who necessarily cannot attend very regularly, especially for any routine business, but I am speaking of people all over the world. How many Governors and Governors-General are there who are Members of this House? I do not know, but I can think of quite a number in Africa. Then there is another in the West Indies. There are also a great many noble Lords who have contacts with foreign countries over a great many other subjects which take them away from here a good deal. The Peers who do these jobs get their prestige largely from being Members of this House, and when they do well, as they generally do, because all over the world they are listened to, whatever may be the subject, they add to the prestige of this House. It is mutual—both the Peers and this House get prestige.
Then there are other people who are down in the City, people who are Lords-Lieutenant, and heads of agriculture down in the counties. There are several famous doctors who occasionally come here and give us their advice. They generally "down" me when I raise the question of nutrition. There are some great scientists. The first mention I ever heard of the hydrogen bomb was made by a Member of this House who spoke only once, and on that occasion, several years before the hydrogen bomb came into existence, he told us exactly what was going to happen. That most remarkable speech is on the records of the House. Then there are people in the City who control vast enterprises all over the world. Some of them are Members of this House who could not take part in the routine work of the House. I mention those points only to venture to suggest most humbly to the Committee that is being set up now to work out the details of leave—is that it?—
EARL WINTERTON: We are not on that; we are on a Bill.
LORD HANKEY: I know we are not on it.
EARL WINTERTON: We are on the Third Reading of a Bill.
LORD HANKEY: But I do not think it is quite irrelevant—at any rate, I hope not—to ask that they will be careful not to do anything which would upset in any way the work of those people, or make it felt that when people cannot come regularly to this House it is necessarily derogatory to them.
4.30 p.m.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, my intervention will, I hope, not be irrelevant, but the noble Lord has said so much that I think it would be well that certain facts should be on record. Of course, we are not debating now the Committee which the House has agreed to set up on Standing Orders, and I do not really see what the casual attendance of very distinguished people has to do—either for or against—with the making of Life Peers who can give regular attendance. So far as the proposal of the noble Lord is concerned, the House has endorsed the findings of what it is good enough to call the "Swinton Committee" and has merely referred the matter to this machinery Committee to put those recommendations into the form of Standing Orders. But in that Committee we were most careful to say to the House that it was fully within the competence of the House, if it so desires (as assuredly it does), to say that those Peers who cannot attend regularly because of other avocations but are willing to come whenever they can, could reasonably be regarded as attending whenever they reasonably can and therefore as discharging the obligations of the Oath. I apologise for getting away from the Rules of Order, but it is important that wholly erroneous things should not be on record in this House and perhaps cause misunderstanding; therefore I thought that the noble Lord and the House would allow me to say what I have said.
4.32 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, may I first ask your Lordships' indulgence if I return to the question before the House, namely, the Third Reading of this Bill. I wish to deal with a point which was first raised by the noble Viscount who leads the Opposition—he has been good enough to tell me of arrangements that he has made by
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which he is forced to leave the House. The special question with which he asked me to deal was the question of how the Bill would be brought into effect. The same point was dealt with by the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, in what I hope he will allow me to say was an admirable speech.
It seems to me that the two noble Viscounts raised very important and difficult angles of the same position. I believe they were both agreed—the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, was good enough to say so—that I was formally correct in what I said on the constitutional position. May I put that very shortly? At a former stage of the Bill my noble friend the Leader of the House said that when the Prime Minister is looking for persons who might be able to help the Opposition he would desire, when and where appropriate, to seek the advice of the Leader of the Opposition; and I have myself dealt with the point on one or two occasions. I believe both noble Viscounts (who have infinitely longer political experience than I have had) will agree that it is beyond question that the duty and the responsibility for advising the Sovereign in matters of titles and honours must, and must necessarily, rest with the Prime Minister of the day; and also that it is the duty of the Prime Minister to decide what advice he will seek in order that he can discharge his responsibility in the public interest. That is the position from which we start.
The noble Viscount who leads the Opposition has raised the very important point that if some of the Life Peers are to have the purpose and aim of assisting the Opposition in this House, he would like some assurance that they will be persons whom the Opposition as a whole consider suitable to carry out that work—I hope that I am putting fairly what he says. On the other hand, the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, wants to be sure that the procedure will provide for recruiting independent persons. My answer is that both of these objectives can be attained, and I should like both these noble Lords to remember that, apart from what we put into Acts of Parliament in regard to constitutional matters, there is another factor of supreme importance in the British Constitution. That is the factor of the conventions worked out over the years, with the concurrence and aid

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of all Parties, which modify the rigours of the Statutes when necessary. Above all, they give an opportunity for the exercise of that great political sense which is one of the blessings of our country and among the greatest that it has enjoyed.
Speaking to-day on how a convention will work out in the future—here I must move into the field of prophecy; and the mantle of Elijah is a very un-chancy garment to try to don—I think that I can go only so far as to say that in regard to the particular problem of recruitment for the Opposition. the practice, the convention—except in the most rare and exceptional circumstances—would so work out that the suggestions of the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition, so far as that section was concerned, would be accepted. I believe that that is how it would work out. I cannot give an undertaking, nor would noble Lords opposite want anything that I say to-day at this stage to cause future trouble to them or to their Party. I can give only my own view as to how I believe things would work out.
At the same time I want to say to the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, that that does not mean that there would be any limitation on the ability of the Prime Minister to invite people completely independent, in the ordinary accepted sense of that word—as my noble friend the Leader of the House put it, to recruit from no Party as well as from every Party. And, of course, one has in mind not so much the technical meaning of "independent" as my noble friend Lord Conesford expounded it, as the fact that the people chosen would be people who have gained their eminence in affairs and experience in life not from the political struggle but from some other field of human experience. That is the way I would put it, and I hope that the noble Viscount. Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, will accept from me that I have given to him, rashly assuming the prophecy, my own view as to what is likely to happen.
I want to say only one or two words about the two discordant speeches that we have heard front the noble Lord, Lord Winster, and the noble Lord, Lord Hankey. Of course, when someone takes the line that Lord Winster did—I suppose I ought to put it into Parliamentary language and call it a piscine olfaction, but
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I think your Lordships can translate it into more direct English terms for yourselves—when anyone takes that line about an institution, there is this difficulty of reply; that if one urges the other point of view, one is immediately accused of complacency and self-satisfaction. All I can say to Lord Winster is that I profoundly disagree with his valuation, either of the debates or of the examination of Bills by this House. I speak with great diffidence to your Lordships, because I am a very junior Member of the House, but I have been here for three and a half years, and I have probably heard more of what has taken place in the House than any other of your Lordships present. All I say with regard to the standard achieved when we are discussing great topics, and also to the examination on which the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, and I have spent so many hours in dealing with various Bills, is that it is a standard of which, in my respectful view, no legislative body need be ashamed.
The only other thing I would say to Lord Winster—for the consolation of his soul, it may be—concerns the fact that he complained about the lack of attention he got in the Press. Speaking from a memory of a quarter of a century, I cannot remember that Commander Fletcher in the House of Commons got any more inches in the daily Press than Lord Winster, whom we are delighted to hear.
LORD WINSTER: If I might interrupt the noble and learned Viscount, I feel that he has fallen into the same error as the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel. I do not decry the work done by your Lordships' House in amending Bills sent up from another place; I merely pointed out that if reforms for procedure in another place now being advocated in The Times were carried out, there would be very much less work for us to do in that respect. In regard to debates, I do not criticise the quality of the debates in any way at all; on the contrary, I deplored that they were not better reported and not better attended than they sometimes are.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, if I misunderstood the noble Lord, I am sorry. I am sure that your Lordships will be relieved at the summary

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of his views which the noble Lord has given, and which, of course, I accept at once.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: It is a pity that the noble Lord conveyed to the Lord Chancellor exactly the same impression which he left upon every other Member.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: At all events, it has given me the opportunity (and I hope your Lordships will not take it amiss) of expressing my own view; and I do not think your Lordships are under any doubt as to that.
I now wish to answer, in only a sentence or two, the second complaint of the noble Lord, Lord Winster, in which he was supported by the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, that whatever be the present position in value of your Lordships' House this Bill will not improve it. My Lords, we have discussed this aspect over and over again, and I would make certain points which I do not believe have ever been sought to be controverted in these long debates. The first is that the restoration to the Sovereign of the power to create life peerages carrying a seat in this House will extend to a section of those experienced in public and other affairs the possibility of coming to this House when they could not have contemplated it otherwise. The second point is the extension to include women. I do not know whether these two noble Lords are dyed-in-the-wool supporters of my noble friend Lord Airlie or not. But let us state it quite clearly: this House, by 135 votes to 30, declared that it wanted that extension; and at the end of the day I am quite sure that the House was right in taking that line. Therefore, we have these two fields of extension, and I believe that they are well worth having.
My Lords, I agreed so strongly with the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, that, despite the relative brevity of this debate, this is an occasion which should not go unmarked. After all, it is nearly fifty years since your Lordships' House first passed a Resolution desiring reform; and this is the first time, as my noble friend
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the Leader of the House mentioned earlier, that a measure of reform in composition of the House has ever reached this stage. I regard that as an occasion which anyone would be very wrong to pass by without some feeling in their hearts and in their minds.
I used the phrase at an earlier stage in the proceedings on this Bill—and I stand by it—that the Bill is a demonstration that your Lordships' House is both organic and dynamic. It is organic because, whatever the noble Lord, Lord Winster, may say—and no one has suggested reforms of the House of Commons which would prevent this—unless a Legislative Assembly can send out Bills that are something more than the mere milk of Party dogma, and are fitted to the lives of the people whom they will affect, that Legislative Assembly fails. And over the thirteen years since the war this House has shown that it performs that task; and it is essential to the working of the Constitution of this country that that task should be well done. Therefore, it is an organic part, a live and organic part, of the Constitution. That is the first thing it has shown.
Secondly, as to being dynamic, this House has shown (the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, followed the same train of thought) that it desires to make its working play the best possible part in the great problem of the new scientific age on whose threshold we are. What is the problem for everyone to-day? It is that their thoughts, their words and their actions should play the greatest part and be most fitted to these vast problems with which we are faced. If your Lordships had sat back and said, "Do not let us worry"; if we had used Lord Hankey's words, "Let us leave it a little longer: do not let us try to fit our working to the best operation of men's words and thoughts and actions," I think that this House would have ceased to be of importance. But your Lordships have not done this. We have taken this step. It is in that spirit that I ask your Lordships to give a Third Reading to the Bill.
On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

SOLICITORS (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
4.51 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Keith of Avonholm.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD TERRINGTON in the Chair]
Clauses 1 to 16 agreed to.
Clause 17 [Provisions as to the keeping of the roll]:
LORD KEITH OF AVONHOLM LORD KEITH OF AVONHOLM moved, in subsection (2), after "such" to insert "reasonable." The noble and learned Lord said: 'The Amendment that stands in my name on the Order Paper arises out of what I think is an over-sigh in the original drafting of the Bill. Subsection (2) of Clause 17 provides for the restoration to the roll of the name of a solicitor who, for one reason or another, has been removed from it, and provides that he shall make a payment
"of such fee in respect of restoration as the Council may fix, …"
As your Lordships will see, there is no limit to the amount of the fee, and although it cannot be supposed that the Law Society of Scotland would fix a fee that would be unreasonable, the Bill does not say that it shall be a reasonable fee. The Amendment proposes to describe the fee as "such reasonable fee".
There is another point that makes this necessary—that is, that subsection (3) provides for an appeal against the decision of the Council with regard to restoration, which would cover the question of the fee that is charged, if the applicant thought that it was unreasonable. If the Bill were to stand in its present form there would be no basis upon which an appeal could be made, because "such fee" does not suggest any limit at all. The introduction of the word "reasonable" would not only satisfy the intention of the Bill but would also give some substance for the court to deal with on appeal. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 29, after ("such") insert ("reasonable").—(Lord Keith of Avonholm.)
LORD MATHERS: It may seem redundant for me to put this question to a lawyer, but is "reasonable" a sufficiently precise word for a legal enactment? What actually is implied by "reasonable", and is the noble and learned Lord satisfied that the use of that word is sufficient guarantee that the matter will be dealt with reasonably?
LORD KEITH OF AVONHOLM: I think that I can give an assurance to my noble friend that "reasonable" would give sufficient protection to anybody who is affected by this clause, particularly in view of the right of appeal, which I do not think would ever have to be exercised. I cannot imagine that a court would have any difficulty in deciding whether a fee, simply for the restoration of a person's name to the roll, was a reasonable or an unreasonable fee. I think that this Amendment would be adequate for the purpose.
LORD MATHERS: I thank the noble and learned Lord.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 17, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clauses and Schedules agreed to.
House resumed.

TRUSTEE SAVINGS BANKS BILL
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

RECREATIONAL CHARITIES BILL [H.L.]
4.58 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, this Bill received a reception from all parts of your Lordships' House that was almost unexampled, and an interesting point was debated in Committee, so I do not think Oat I need take up any more of your Lordships' time to-day. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 3a; an Amendment (privilege) made; Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

RETIREMENT OF THE BISHOP OF CHICHESTER
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I wonder whether the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Chichester and the House will permit me here a slight irregularity in our proceedings. I think that the speech which we are about to hear from the right reverend Prelate is the last that he will make in your Lordships' House, after twenty-one years of consecutive service on the Bishops' Bench—an honourable record, indeed, and one which I feel must be most unusual. During that time he has been a fearless critic on matters of foreign policy, and he has distributed his rebukes impartially, on all Governments. We have admired his honest, forthright stand on those matters in which he is interested, and we have been stimulated by his criticism. I am sure that the whole House would wish the right reverend Prelate to take with him into retirement our good wishes for his health and happiness.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I would heartily endorse the sentiments expressed by the noble Earl the Leader of the House. We have often listened to the right reverend Prelate, and although we have not always agreed with him I have sometimes felt that he has been much nearer to us than to noble Lords opposite. We admire his work in attempting to get religious unity in Europe and for those who are working in Germany for the Kirchentag. We in the workers' movement never forget that the right reverend Prelate rendered such service to organised workers that he was made an honorary member of a trade union. I do not know of any other Bishop in your Lordships' House who is in a like position of being able to say: "I am a trade unionist." I express my regret that, for his own reason, that of resigning, he will no longer be speaking to us in this Chamber with the authority that he does now. I hope that he will have a long, fruitful and pleasant retirement.
LORD TERRINGTON: My Lords, I am sure that noble Lords who might have been but are not at the moment on these Benches would like to associate themselves with what has been said by the noble Earl the Leader of the House and by the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER:My Lords, I do not often blush, but I am tempted to do so when I hear the very kind remarks from the Leader of the House, the Leader of the Opposition and 'the representative of the Liberal Party. I deeply appreciate the great kindness of your Lordships in speaking thus in this exceptional way. May I also say how much I have appreciated the forbearance and consideration of the House during the twenty-one years that I have tried to serve your Lordships? Thank you very much.

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN EASTERN GERMANY
5.3 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER rose to call attention to recent developments hostile to religious liberty in the Eastern part of Germany; and to move for Papers. The right reverend Prelate said: My Lords, during the last few weeks we have seen a stream of letters and have had many speeches from Mr. Bulganin and Mr. Khrushchev advocating Summit talks for the settlement of political differences and disarmament problems and for the promotion of world peace. I speak as one who desires that full advantage should be taken of these possibilities. But no Power which claims to be a champion of world peace and yet denies or undermines, and so attacks, religious liberty, is likely to convince other Powers which value that liberty of the genuineness of that championship while these attacks continue. There is an ominous development in the Eastern Zone of Germany to which I would call the attention of your Lordships. It is a sharpening in the last few months of the Government's campaign against religious liberty. The condition and fate of the Eastern Zone of Germany is a crucial factor in the international scene; its future is in many ways the key to the future of Germany; and the future of Germany, a peaceful and free Germany, is the key to the future of Europe.
Since the forcible suppression of the Hungarian and Polish struggles for cultural autonomy in the autumn of 1956, the Soviet Union and the Communist International have come to realise more intensely the importance of the Eastern Zone of Germany as a bulwark against the strongholds of Western culture and

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civilisation. In August, 1957, Mr. Khrushchev came expressly to Berlin to testify Soviet Russia's solidarity with the sovereign Republic of East Germany. He proclaimed the Eastern Zone, the German People's Republic, as a model State; that is to say, according to Lenin, a State—and I quote his words—
"not vibrating in rapid revolutionary moves, nor merely applying expedient devices to momentary situations,"
but a State which steadily carries forward the proletarian world revolution through methods congenial to the principles of dialetical materialism.
The East German Republic is a Socialist republic on the Marxist pattern. But the issue before us is not an economic issue, nor one of the shaping of an alternative political or social system. It is concerned solely with religious liberty, which, in theory, the East German Republic concedes. I should like to quote the guarantees of religious liberty in its Constitution. In Article 42 it guarantees:
"the right of the Church to administer her affairs independently from the State … the right of the Church to give shape and order to the religious profession of her members without State interference … No person shall be compelled to undergo religious instruction, to celebrate religious rites or to swear an oath in any religious form".
Article 43 guarantees:
"the right of the Church to organise religious instruction in the State schools on school premises".
Article 48 guarantees:
"the right of parents to decide on their children's religious affiliation up to their reaching the age of 15 years."
But practice and theory have not marched together. The Catholics, under their Bishop in Berlin and the Eastern Zone, Bishop Julius Doebfer, and the Protestants, under their Chief Bishop, Bishop Otto Dibelius, both suffer. The majority of the Church people, the Christians in the Eastern Zone, are Protestants, and I naturally have a much greater knowledge of the Protestant Church than I have of the Catholic Church. But there has been in these years from time to time since the Constitution was adopted an anti-Church drive, and attacks from time to time. Because of the Church's anxiety, on two occasions these guarantees, so far as the Protestants were concerned, were renewed at official conferences, with detailed protocols, the first being on June 10, 1953, and the second
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on December 3, 1956. Each time the whole Zonal Cabinet, under Premier Grotewöhl, on the one side, and the East German Evangelical Church Leaders Conference under Bishop Otto Dibelius, on the other side, endorsed and subscribed to these agreements. But experience bas proved, as with the National Socialists, the inevitable logic of the totalitarian system which leads to the victory of the extremists.
What are the facts? I put before your Lordships some of the recent developments hostile to religious liberty in two broad areas: first, administrative, and, second, youth. As your Lordships have heard, the State guarantees the right of the Church to administer its affairs independently of the State. This should include a reasonable freedom of movement. In fact, there have been increasing restrictions on the movements of Church leaders, and ever since March, 1957, Bishop Otto Dibelius, President of the Evangelical Church for the whole of Germany and Bishop of Berlin and Brandenburg, has been refused permission to enter the larger part of his diocese in the Eastern Zone. In his absence, the State-controlled Press has been filled with libels and insults against him and against Church leaders generally.
But it is not only a case of restrictions on the clergy; the laity are restricted as well. For several years now there has been an annual rally of Evangelical Churchmen known as the Kirchentag, numbering many hundreds of thousands. Last year it was planned to hold this Kirchentag in the Eastern Zone at Erfurt. Church people from all parts of Germany would have come, and a quarter of a million of those would have come from the Eastern Zone. After long negotiations with the Government for permission, the plan was cancelled. The Minister of the Interior of the East German Government. Karl Meron, would consent to the holding of this Kirchentag at Erfurt only subject to the following conditions: first, that during the Kirchentag everything should be avoided which would be likely to be considered as an endorsement of N.A.T.O. policy and as "being directed against peace" second, that an official statement should be put out by the Præsidium, according to which the Præsidium would denounce all such events of the last Kirchentag at Frankfurtam-Main in 1956, as in the view of the

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Government of the Soviet Occupied Zone it
"had constituted a criticism of the official delegates of the Soviet Zone's Government";
and, third, that the Præsidium should give an assurance that representatives of the Government of the Soviet Zone belonging to the Protestant Church were to be given an opportunity, within the framework of the Kirchentag, to give an outline of the "peace policy" of the Soviet Zone's Government.
There is, I need not say, no truth at all in the suggestion that the Evangelical Church or the Catholic Church is a political establishment or a part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. How ironical, however, that the East German Government should wish to take the opportunity of an immense Church rally from East and West Germany to do propaganda for the Soviet policy of "world peace"! It is not surprising that such intolerable conditions were rejected.
Other instances in this field, briefly, are these. There has been a drastic cancellation of licences to rebuild or repair churches, parish halls and vicarages, in spite of finance and raw materials being available during the last few months. Again, there has been the refusal of facilities for pastoral care at the All-German Church Synod in March, 1957. In Berlin, Bishop Jacob revealed the considerable difficulties encountered in State institutions, prisons for juvenile delinquents and hospitals. At the Stalinstadt Hospital last Christmas, it was forbidden to read prayers with the sick. There have also been attacks increasingly on the Church welfare organisations, such as railway missions Hilfswerke, and again there has been a threat to Church finances.
Since July 1, 1957, the Government have ceased to pay direct to the Evangelical Church the agreed subsidy for the maintenance of the clergy of 10 million East German marks per annum, which it had been agreed to set aside for this purpose in compensation for the nationalisation by the Government of Church property. Now this fund is being paid out of regional budgets in the hope that local pressure will be steadfastly used against the Church. At the time of the currency exchange on October 13, 1957, the Evangelical Church was accused of
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attempting to import 1·5 million old Eastern marks from West Berlin, all of them legally acquired, and senior Church officials are still under arrest under charges of smuggling the currency.
My second sphere is the most significant sphere of hostility—that is, the department of youth. Article 43 of the Constitution guarantees the right of the Church to organise religious instruction in State schools and school premises. In practice, recently in all State schools such instruction has been abolished on the plea of lack of accommodation. Article 42 guarantees that:
"no person shall be compelled to undergo religious instruction, to celebrate religious rites, or swear an oath in any religious form."
Article 48 guarantees:
"the right of parents to decide on their children's religious affiliation up to the age of fifteen years."
In fact, a new pseudo-religious rite is, with all the power of the State, being imposed upon the young. It is called the Jugendweihe, or dedication of youth. It is definitely antagonistic to, and competing with, the Catholic and Protestant rite of Confirmation.
A marked sign of the increasing hostility of the State for religious liberty appeared when, on September 29 last, Mr. Ulbricht, head of the Central Committee of the Communist Unity Party, laid down this direction:
"All young Germans will have to undergo a Communist youth dedication from 1958 onwards."
This Jugendweihe dedication is preceded by several months of cultural instruction from the age of thirteen. It is accompanied by very great pressure on the children and their parents to dissociate the children and the young from Church catechists and from Confirmation classes. In outward form and shape it is a rite which anticipates Christian Confirmation, but in content it stresses the factor of collective response and collective of mass surrender.
I should like to quote the three questions which are put to what are known as the dedicants, the youths who come forward en masse. The preceptor asks the whole mass:
"Are you ready to fight, with all your strength, together with all patriots, for a united and independent Germany?

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"Are you ready to fight, with all your strength, for World Peace and to defend it to the uttermost?
"Are you ready to fight, with all your strength, for the construction of a better and happier life on earth, for the progress in science, arts and economics?"
To each question the host of these young initiates reply,
"Yes, we promise so to do."
Then the preceptor says:
"We have heard your solemn vow. Hence now receive the Great Promise of the community of all, the workers united in the Workers' World Union, to protect you and to help you reach the high purpose to which you are now dedicated. Go forward fighting the good light toward the vision of victory given to all honest working people on the earth."
This, my Lords, is much more than a civic ceremony. It is intended to rule out the Christian rite. Bishop Dibelius, in Lent, 1956, said:
"The youth dedication rite is clearly and unmistakably based on the philosophy of dialectical materialism."
One has to choose which: it is a case of either this or the other. Some parents and young people may desire it. But to impose it on all is a grave contradiction of the guarantees of religious liberty.
The intensity of the pressure applied is seen by the fact that in 1956 about 3 to 4 per cent. or, say, 6 per cent. of children of an age to receive Confirmation, underwent the dedication rite. In 1957, the figure rose to between 7 and 10 per cent. But in 1958, according to Mr. Ulbricht's order, it is to be compulsory for 100 per cent. Certainly this makes religious liberty of no account. We have a record of the attacks on the leaders, ministers of the Church, and of the punishments inflicted by the State, which tells its own tale. During the last three months of 1957 alone, no fewer than sixty clergy and catechists were attacked by name in the East German Press. During the same period five pastors, two theological students and one catechist were sentenced to terms of imprisonment or penal servitude on charges of allegedly assaulting Confirmation pupils, currency smuggling, or merely maintaining contact with Evangelical academies in West Germany.
I ask your Lordships to picture the difficulty confronting Catholics and Protestants alike. They may he willing
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to accept the Communist Socialist State as a reality, but this is very different from affirming their wholehearted allegiance to a totalitarian system. The difficulty in which they find themselves is fairly and clearly put in the following statement issued a fortnight ago, on January 13, by the East German Evangelical Church Leaders' Conference—I quote:
"A Christian may duly find himself in a position to interpret the basis of his Christian faith in a direction towards affirming the economic and political contents of Socialism"—
Communist Socialism—
"What he cannot agree with, however, is a deliberate confusion of the economic and political expedients with the principles of an aggressively atheist and materialistic world concept."
"The development in all the other Peoples' Democracies of Eastern Europe demonstrates the possibility of being a loyal citizen in a socialist State without swearing a religious oath such as we have had in our East Zone Republic, this Republic being the only Eastern State whose government officially sponsors the Communist youth dedication rite by limiting promotion to the dedicants exclusively and tinder-privileging the adherents of the Christian faith."
My Lords, this is a melancholy and, you may well think, discouraging tale, but it is one that it is necessary to tell. The Catholics and Protestants are at one in this. My purpose is to bring these facts before your Lordships as a very important part of the truth about the Eastern Zone of Germany. I have had some experience of the crushing of religious liberty in Germany by Hitler and the Nazis. To-day, January 30, is exactly the twenty-fifth anniversary of the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor. Some of the most conspicuous champions of religious liberty then find themselves in the same rôle to-day—notably. Bishop Otto Dibelius. Men may look at the world and the human situation from different points of, view, and they are entitled to different and opposing ideologies. No one should make a totalitarian claim for his own. But religious liberty is fundamental to civilised life. With all my heart I desire an understanding between the Western democracies and the Soviet Powers, but if the East German Zone as now administered is really proclaimed by the Moscow rulers to be a model State, the prospects of such a sincere understanding are hardly encouraging. I beg Mr. Khrushchev and

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Mr. Bulganin, when they write their letters and make their speeches and their appeals for Summit talks, to realise and to ponder this fact. I repeat, no Power which claims to be a champion of world peace and yet denies, or undermines, and so attacks religious liberty is likely to convince other Powers which value liberty of the genuineness of that championship so long as those attacks continue. I beg to move for Papers.
5.30 p.m.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, I hope the House will allow me, before I sit down, to say a word in support of what was said by my noble Leader about the right reverend Prelate himself. But before coming to that—I will not detain the House very long—I should like to say, on behalf of those of us who sit on these Benches, what a fine service we consider this last service of his to be. I must not talk of him as though he were about to pass away from this planet; I hope that no obituary tone creeps into my voice. And who knows, with the changes that are now coming about in the House, whether we may not see him back in some other capacity. The same kind of thing has happened before, and I am sure that would be a very welcome thing for all of us.
I feel that it was typical of the man and of the Bishop that he should have chosen what he himself called a "melancholy and discouraging tale" to tell. It would have been so much more pleasant, I am sure, for him on this last occasion, as it seems just now, to have come down with some agreeable discourse which we could all have applauded and which would have cheered us up and sent us away quite happy. But as he said, he felt this was a necessary part of the truth. Obviously, it is not the whole story in regard to Germany—how could it be in the short time that he occupied this afternoon? But it is a necessary part of the truth, and that has always been the spirit in which he has approached his attendance during the past twenty-one years.
I feel that he is uniquely qualified to tell this particular story, because there is no one in this country—no one, I dare say, outside Germany, and few inside Germany—who has done as much for German Christianity as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester. And
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no one, I think, whether in this country, in Russia or anywhere else, even in his most foolish moment, could accuse the Bishop of being a warmonger. No one could imagine that he was telling us this story to interfere with Summit talks on which many of us are tremendously keen. Everyone, I think, not only noble Lords here but those who read his speech, which will carry far abroad, and which will carry to Germany—and may it carry to the Kremlin!—must know the utter sincerity behind it and the passionate love of peace in which he is second to none. Therefore it is all the more important to note the actual facts that he has placed before us.
When I knew that he was to speak I attempted to equip myself in the way we do in this House, and I have obtained a certain amount of material. But I will not make any prolonged use of it except to say that everything in my hands, which comes from extremely good sources, confirms what the right reverend Prelate has told us. I was most grateful that he alluded to the Roman Catholic Church, my own Communion. They are a small minority in Eastern Germany, though of course a much higher proportion in Western Germany or Germany as a whole. I reckon that they are about 12 or 14 per cent., while the Evangelicals are more than 80 per cent., and it would be easy to overlook the Catholics or to treat their position rather lightly. But the Bishop is, of course, far too good a friend of all the Christian Churches to have adopted such a course.
I am informed that there has, in fact, been a great increase in the number of arrests and sentences on members of both the Evangelical and Catholic Churches during the last three months. Indeed, my information is that there have been as many arrests in the last three months as in the previous three years—all of which certainly endorses the right reverend Prelate's account of the way in which this anti-Christian campaign is being stepped up—a very depressing fact, even in the eyes of some of us who do not expect much good from a Communist régime, because some of us had thought, or hoped, that things might be becoming a little lighter and easier. But the facts are as the Bishop stated; the situation is getting worse. I am very glad to quote Bishop Dibelius, as an old and valued friend of the Bishop—I do not think this

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was actually quoted just now. In a broadcast at the beginning of this year, he said that relations had never been so positive between the Catholics and the Evangelicals as they are to-day under this great pressure. As is so often the case in the world, out of great evil some good can be snatched; and, if we take a long view, it may be a great good.
I do not think that it would help the House for me to dwell at length on the facts which the right reverend Prelate has put before us with great care, and with much more authority than I myself possess. Of course, I also fastened in my mind the increase in atheist propaganda, particularly as directed to the youth through the youth dedication movement, and also the attacks on the clergy and Church officials. Moreover, there is no doubt whatever, so far as we can make out, that the Church finances are being ground down, and it seems likely that understandings previously reached are in process of being broken, and certainly the hostility towards welfare organisations is being expanded and developed. Therefore, so far as the facts go, may I very humbly and respectfully add my support to what the Lord Bishop has said?
Nor am I going to deal this afternoon (because this does not seem quite the moment, and I do not know that I am quite the person to do it) with the wider implications—because in a sense they are infinitely wide. One can look at a story of this kind in two lights. Certainly it can be used by those who do not want talks with the Russians, as an argument on that side. But equally, when you see this terrible situation, the force of the argument may operate the other way. When we think of these persecuted people, for the moment not only those in Eastern Germany but also those behind the Iron Curtain, we must realise that any settlement which secures their liberation without acts of violence must be an even greater blessing than if their condition were not so terrible as it now appears. Therefore, I do not think that these facts, so to speak, can themselves point either way in the diplomatic argument that is going on at the present time—an argument in which I certainly side with those who are most anxious for talks at the summit.
I end on this thought, before referring again to the right reverend Prelate. We
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must surely recognise that German unity is not only a British interest but also a British obligation. I feel that that is a message which should go out from here in such a fashion that it reaches the Germans struggling for unity on both sides of the Iron Curtain. I know that ever since the war, under various Governments, German unity has been a declared objective of British policy. Humanly speaking, I think that has been a perfectly pure objective; it is not one which we have been seeking with any special axe to grind. But obviously, these facts placed before us this afternoon, with others which could have been placed before us, do increase the urgency of the need for German unification. I feel, and I hope that the Minister, when he replies, will let the Germans know, in even more emphatic terms than hitherto, that we do recognise the moral obligation to do everything in our power, short of violence, to achieve German unification.
I am not trying to make a Party point but, if you like, a point in regard to the future. If initiative were to be mistaken for weakness, and if inertia were to be mistaken for strength, then the future of Europe—not only of Germany but of Europe and the world—would be dark indeed. I hope, therefore, that we can be reassured once more—if possible in ways more effective than in the past—about the moral urgency that Her Majesty's Government attach to the unification of Germany.
Finally, may I add a short word to what fell from my noble Leader? I know that the noble Lords, Lord Mathers and Lord Stansgate, both great members of the Free Church Movement, will wish to associate themselves with those words to the full extent of their heart and strength. I recall what was said by the noble Earl the Leader of the House, and I feel that it was very appropriate. When I first came to your Lordships' House and was spokesman for the Government on certain matters connected with Germany, there was no one in the House who could disturb one's conscience in quite the way that lay in the power of the right reverend Pelate. He has been a disturbing force, particularly to members of Governments, through his insistence on seeing that the requirements of State are brought before the bar of moral conscience, before the test of the higher morality. He has always

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disturbed Governments. He has taken up a line on certain matters—Germany maybe, or Africa, or Cyprus, or something much smaller and nearer home, Brighton University. Whatever it is, there is always the appeal to idealism, and the most elevated form of principle.
I know that while there is life in the right reverend Prelate—and I am sure that there will be life in his body as long as there is life in the bodies of most of us—he will continue to stand for ideals, to set us an example and to inspire us, wherever he, or we, may be. And therefore, on behalf of those on these Benches. I wish him well in the future to which he is so richly and deservedly entitled, a future of immense happiness—the happy warrior to whom the whole country(can look with pride.
5.42 p.m.
VISCOUNT GAGE: My Lords, as a humble member of the diocese of Chichester, I should like to say how much share the regret expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, at the fact that this should be the last occasion on which our Bishop should address your Lordships' House. I know little of the subject under discussion to-day, but it would appear to be one on which there will be general agreement in the House. Thai has not always been the case with all the causes advanced by one whom perhaps I might call my right reverend friend; but I feel that at least the spirit and motive which has prompted him to take up every one of those causes has won universal respect.
5.43 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF GOSFORD): My Lords, in an eloquent and most moving speech, the right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of Chichester, has drawn to your Lordships' attention developments hostile to religious liberty in Eastern Germany. The noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, has endorsed the sentiments which the right reverend Prelate expressed—sentiments which I know all your Lordships here to-day fully share. Both have given examples of difficulties and dangers, moral and physical, under which the Churches and Christian worshippers in Germany carry on their worship.
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To-day we have a situation in which an atheist minority, kept in authority by a foreign Power, is attempting to convert the population and, in particular, the young people to belief in their own materialistic and Godless concept of life. The most obvious manifestation of this intention is to be found in the atheistic youth dedication ceremony already mentioned by the right reverend Prelate—a ceremony which has been steadfastly declared by Church leaders in Eastern Ger. many, whether Evangelical or Roman Catholic, to be incompatible, to say the least, with that of religious Confirmation. In the autumn of last year, the East German Communist authorities directly challenged the right of freedom to worship by putting strong pressure on all young people to take part in this youth dedication ceremony. Courageously, the Churches in Eastern Germany stood up for their religious beliefs. Church leaders reminded their congregations of the spiritual importance of the differences between the youth dedication ceremony and Confirmation, and declared their determination not to be frightened by threats, with such encouraging and brave results as the right reverend Prelate has already mentioned. We can only salute, with admiration, their courage.
From this direct attack on the right of the individual to freedom of religious worship, the Communist authorities have over the past months tried to put pressure on the Churches in Eastern Germany in administrative and many other ways already mentioned. They have prevented prominent Churchmen from the Federal Republic from visiting Eastern Germany, and have prevented Church leaders in Eastern Germany from attending conferences in the Federal Republic. In addition, numerous Church leaders have been viciously attacked in the Press and some have been sentenced to severe terms of imprisonment on the most fantastic, trumped-up charges, such as that of making propaganda against the East German régime on behalf of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation; and there are many other forms of persecution about which your Lordships have already been told.
This is a tragic state of affairs which I have to confirm, and our deepest sympathy goes out to those who are being persecuted. There is, I believe, a brighter

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side to the picture, in that there are definite indications that the Communist authorities have not dared to initiate a lull-scale campaign against the Church, because of the overwhelming opposition of public opinion, which they know well. The steadfast and courageous attitude of the Churches has not, therefore, been in vain.
The right reverend Prelate has asked how we can envisage negotiations with people who not only permit but initiate such practices in areas under their control. This is a sentiment with which I l now all of your Lordships will agree. But we must bear in mind the realities of international politics. The fact that we have negotiated with the Russians in the past, and no doubt will do so in the future, does not imply that we in any way approve of their policies or their way of life. We do not know what the future will bring, but I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, that Her Majesty's Government look forward most earnestly to the day when the people of Eastern Germany will once more be part of a reunified Germany, a Germany reunified in freedom and with full freedom of worship.
Finally, I know that your Lordships would not like me to close my few words without endorsing all the touching tributes which have been paid to the right reverend Prelate by the leaders of the three Parties in your Lordships' House and by the noble Viscount, Lord Gage; and I know that many other noble Lords would wish to echo the same words. For more than twenty-one years, as we have heard, he has added distinction to this House. We have come to expect from him views expressed in the characteristically honest, controversial and forthright manner which has earned for him the respect of us all. It is fitting, I think, that his final contribution to our deliberations and discussions should be to draw attention to the wrongs suffered by his
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fellow-Christians in Eastern Germany, for it is in the field of foreign affairs that he has contributed so much in the past. We shall regret his absence, but we wish him as many future years of activity outside the House as he has spent in it.
5.50 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, who has spoken, to the noble Viscount, Lord Gage, and to the noble Earl the Minister. I should like to emphasise the fact which the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, brought out—that I am a wholehearted devotee of peace between the nations. But I said what I did about the melancholy nature of the religious liberty situation in Germany in the definite hope that a knowledge of those facts would make Summit talks both more possible and more practicable in their results. It is a delusion if Mr. Khrushchev and Mr. Bulganin think, as Stalin thought, because the Pope was not able to bring many divisions into the field, that it is simply military matters that stand in the way of a real understanding between our country and various Powers, for which no one longs more than myself. Let them weigh these moral, religious and spiritual facts; and if they weigh them I believe mountains of difficulty will pass away. I should like to say that I am deeply in favour of Summit talks, but with the facts of this particular kind ever present.
I am also very grateful to the noble Earl the Minister, and to the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, for the far too kindly way in which they have spoken of my contribution and the disturbing nature of my occasional interventions in your Lordships' House. I now ask leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
House adjourned at eight minutes before six o'clock.