HL Deb 08 December 1959 vol 220 cc129-52

5.8 p.m.

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

THE EARL OF HOME

My Lords, the House is familiar with the story of the Commonwealth Education Conference which was held in Oxford last July, at which the Conference delegates who were there assembled decided that there should be a new initiative which would add to the number of Commonwealth students who could take advantage of education at scholarship and fellowship level; that the educational facilities should be given by each Commonwealth country and that each should accept responsibility for providing a number of additional places in their educational systems.

The delegates agreed that the number which could reasonably be absorbed by the Commonwealth countries was 1,000 new scholarships. There have, of course, been Commonwealth Scholars before, as your Lordships know well, but this was a new effort, additional to anything we are doing at present, to try to meet the clamant demand within the Commonwealth for scholars, technicians and teachers. This Bill deals with the United Kingdom's portion of the agreed effort, which was to provide 500 additional Commonwealth scholarships; and there will be 500 of those scholarships in operation at any one time once we have reached that total.

I want to make only two or three general points in proposing the Second Reading of this Bill. First of all, I would say that we have moved with speed. The seed of this Bill was sown in the Montreal Economic Conference of 1958; it was followed up in the Oxford Conference of July, 1959; and should your Lordships clear the way for this Bill and pass it, then we shall be ready in this country for the reception of the Commonwealth students in the autumn of 1960—that is, in the autumn of next year. That has been, I think, good progress; and so that the progress should be maintained and the enthusiasm and momentum kept at a high pitch it was agreed that there should be another Education Conference in 1961 where the progress and working of the present scheme should be reviewed.

Secondly, as I have said already, these scholarships are additional to anything we are doing at present in this country and represent a very substantial expansion of resources already stretched. Anyone who has seen the programmes of expansion at universities and technical colleges in the next five years will realise that. This additional burden has been cheerfully accepted by the authorities of the universities and colleges concerned, because they realise very well the true value of this Commonwealth scheme.

Thirdly, in this initial stage, I think it is wise—and we have certainly done it—to keep the scheme fairly flexible, so that we may benefit from experience. Your Lordships will see that at one end of the scale the scheme provides for fellowships of one year for people who have done their post-graduate work but who may want refresher courses in any particular subject. As for the ordinary run of scholarships it will be from the post-graduate to the under-graduate level as regards all three years for which the scheme provides; and I think this will provide some places for undergraduates, particularly since, as noble Lords will realise, in many parts of Africa, in the Colonial Empire at present, there may be students who are well worth sending to a university but who cannot yet qualify to fill the postgraduate places.

Now a word on the mechanics of the plan. The Conference were unanimous that the scholarships provided should, in the first instance, at any rate, be largely concentrated in the post-graduate and research field; and from the preliminary forecasts that have been made, while there will undoubtedly be a large number of applications in the technical field, nevertheless, it looks as though the demand from the students is going to be fairly evenly balanced between science and the humanities and the arts.

As noble Lords will see, a Commission is to be set up with the duties of selection, of placing and of generally overseeing the work while the scholarships run, and we will, of course, take the greatest care that that Commission shall be representative of the life of the country. We hope to get people from industry, trade unions and public life. As well as those who have distinguished themselves in the field of education we want men of the world. The work on the administrative side will be done by the Association of Universities of the British Commonwealth, and the British Council have undertaken to look after the welfare of the students while they are here. I think that that is a sensible and practicable division of labour.

However efficient the official organisation of such a scheme as this may be, I feel it will not be really complete unless it meets with the friendly co-operation of the people of our country as a whole and unless they understand the contribution which they can make to it. We are warm-hearted people, I believe, but also we have a kind of reserve which it is rather difficult, especially for a student from an African or an Asian country, to penetrate. I was told that a West Indian student said the other day that it is possible to make friends with the English but it is so much trouble that it is not really worth while. As a Scotsman, it would be in rather doubtful taste for me to pursue that further. But we shall use every effort to tell the people how they can help these Commonwealth students, particularly in the university vacation when so many of them find themselves at a loose end and do not know where to go. I am certain of this: that once they have made the experiment, the hosts of these students will find that they enjoy the experience and will want to repeat it.

So far as employers are concerned, too, I hope that over the whole range of industry and in the professions it will be looked upon from now on as part of the intelligent management of business to send young men and women to a Commonwealth country for part of their training. It has too often been the attitude that a period of service and training overseas is a tiresome interruption. Indeed, I would go further and say that it is often looked upon by the individuals concerned as a handicap to advancement and that their careers therefore will suffer when they return and they will find themselves on a lower rung of the ladder of promotion than they occupied when they left this country. It is surely possible to arrange matters so that no one should suffer if he goes abroad for two years or so in the course of his apprenticeship or training or business. And if there is a will in industry and business, I am sure the way can be found, and that people who are sent abroad and come back to this country will be of great benefit and value to the business by reason of the broadening of their experience.

Therefore, in commending the Bill I would simply remind your Lordships of the words which were used by the Commonwealth delegates themselves and upon which they agreed at the Oxford Conference. They said they were certain that this scheme will enrich each country of the Commonwealth by enabling an increasing number of the abler citizens to share the wide range of educational resources available throughout the Commonwealth, and thus promote equality of educational opportunity at the highest level. With that recommendation, and with a willingness to answer any questions your Lordships may wish to ask, I would commend the Bill for a Second Reading.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Home.)

5.18 p.m.

THE EARL OF LUCAN

My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Earl for the clear and concise way in which he has introduced this Bill, which, although it is only a one-clause Bill, is by no means unimportant and by no means simple in all its provisions. Indeed, there are a certain number of ambiguities on which we shall ask for answers. But I can say, first of all, on behalf of my noble friends, that we wholeheartedly welcome this evidence of co-operation in the educational field. We have often had conferences of Commonwealth Finance Ministers and so on, but I do not think there has ever before been a Commonwealth Educational Conference—certainly none that has borne fruit so quickly.

We are duly conscious of the generosity of the university authorities in this country who (I think I understood the noble Earl to say) have willingly accepted the additional burden of some 500 students, in spite of the fact that many of them are heavily overburdened already with students. The noble Earl mentioned undergraduates: but, if I read the Bill aright, the bulk of the provision of 500 places is intended for postgraduate students, with a few visiting Fellows and, as I read it, undergraduates would be admitted into the scheme only in rather exceptional circumstances, such as if they were thought so intellectually promising that there were no facilities in their own countries where they could get the proper university training. I do not suppose anybody has thought what the proportions of the different categories will be, but it seems that the undergraduate section will be a small one. That is all to the good, because of the citizens of our Commonwealth coming to London I think it is the young man of undergraduate age who has the most difficult time in adjusting himself to conditions here. The post-graduate, the man of some little maturity, can cope much better with the strange conditions that he finds here.

The noble Earl also mentioned welfare, and that brings up the question of accommodation. I am connected with one of the voluntary bodies that is struggling to get funds to set up a students' hostel for just this category of student—the post-graduate, or the student in industry or in technical college. The difficulty in opening the taps of money for such purposes seems to be very great, and yet there is undoubtedly this enormous need for accommodation, preferably of the club or hostel kind, reasonably sited in London, where students from all countries in the Commonwealth, or even from the Provinces of this country, can mix in their off-duty times. I think that the need for such accommodation will become more and more apparent as more and more Commonwealth students come to this country.

There is one other point that the noble Earl touched on which really is worth a whole debate to itself, and that is the question of persons from this country taking up jobs in the Commonwealth and then returning to take their place on the ladder at home. I cannot say anything about industry or business, but in some of the professions—medicine in particular; and, I imagine, in the academic world also—appointments in this county are filled by committees who advertise for applicants. They sift the applications into a short list and interview those on that short list and make their choice. It is universally believed (and I do not think it has ever been disproved) that somebody of some seniority who has been overseas for two, three, or four years stands a less good chance of getting back into a job suitable to his status and his seniority than if he had stayed at home. That is a very serious difficulty that affects this particular project as well as many others, and it deserves a good deal of thought—and, possibly, a debate in your Lordships' House at some future date.

There are just three points on which I should like the noble Earl's comments. Unfortunately, the conclusion of this Commonwealth Conference—this Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan—seems not to be comprehensive. In other words, without beating about the bush, South Africa seems to be the only Commonwealth country that is not taking part in this scheme. We should all like South Africa to take part in it. We should like to welcome South African students here. But I think we ought to say, here and now, that we would not agree to British students going to South African universities which have now had to abandon their old liberal traditions and conform to the present racial policy of the Union.

THE EARL OF HOME

My Lords, if I may interrupt, may I say that as a matter of fact the noble Earl has not been quite right; but I will put that point right later. But does he mean that if a student wants to go to South Africa, then he is not going to allow him to go?

THE EARL OF LUCAN

I do not think he should be given a scholarship. He can go on his own, of course, if there is free entry into South Africa, but I do not think that we in this country can possibly countenance a scholarship. Look at the Report of the Commonwealth Education Conference, in paragraph 5 on page 4: The Commonwealth is a new experiment in human relationship. It is founded on a belief in the worth and dignity of the human individual and a recognition of the value of freedom and co-operative action."— and there is much more in that tone. That is what we believe in; and so I think we must say that we should like the co-operation of South Africa, but not at any price.

There is one other question, and that is on the composition of the Commission that is to operate this scheme. The Commission is, I think, to consist of a chairman and not more than fourteen members, of whom not less than four are to be appointed"as the holders of high academic office". My Lords, I wonder why that was put in. Why"high academic office"? Indeed, what is"high academic office"? Is there any definition of it? I quite see that the Government wish the Commission to be composed not only of academic people but, one might say, of the general public—people in other walks and of other callings—but the fact that they lay down that at least four must come from academic life means that they must set some store by that. But why restrict it to people holding"high academic office"? Surely, if the word"high" is removed, the Government will then be perfectly free to appoint nothing but Vice-Chancellors if they like, but they will also be free to appoint one or two younger men in the academic world; and that, surely, would be all to the good.

Finally, my Lords, on the Bill itself, I hesitate to bring this point up because it is a matter of constitutional custom, but we see that the Bill is An Act 10 make provision for matters arising out of the recommendations of the Commonwealth Education Conference. Then it says, at the bottom of page 1: In this subsection 'the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan' means the Plan so named which was put forward by the Commonwealth Education Conference held at Oxford in July, nineteen hundred and fifty-nine. That is all we have about it. Is it not unusual to give statutory force to the proceedings of a Conference without putting those proceedings in a Schedule to the Bill? I think that it may be argued that the Bill shows trace of rather hasty drafting. Clause 1, subsection (2), lays down qualifications required of people to be considered for scholarships, then subsection (3) is about the composition of the Commission. It seems to me that for ease of reference the different matters should be separated and logically arranged in the Bill. I should like the noble Earl to say whether he is satisfied that the implementing of the decisions of a Conference in this way is not creating a precedent in legislation. Nevertheless, I would repeat that we welcome the great step forward which the Bill represents, and wish it every success.

5.32 p.m.

LORD OGMORE

My Lords, I welcome this Bill, and I am glad that the Government have acted so quickly in bringing before your Lordships' House in legislative form the recommendations of the Conference. The principle of the Bill I accept, but there are a few questions that I should like to ask on matters of detail.

First, what sort of people do the Government intend to invite to serve on the Commission? The noble Earl, Lord Lucan, has referred to the four members"of high academic office", but there will be at least another ten. Who are they to be? Have they yet been chosen, and what is to be their term of service? I gather from what the noble Earl, Lord Home, said to-day that in the main the scholarships will be for post-graduate students, but he has made the plea that there must be vacancies for undergraduates. I think that this is especially important with reference to East Africa, where there is no university. There is a university college at Uganda and a technical school at Nairobi, and it is hoped that within the next few years the United Kingdom Government will establish a University for East Africa, embracing the three territories and Zanzibar. They have not done so yet, however, and it will be some time before any university is in existence, and I think that this region in the Commonwealth is one which will have to be looked at carefully and, if necessary, some special provision must be made, so that Africans from that area will be placed on a basis similar to those from other territories with universities, who will be in a better position to qualify under the scheme.

From what the noble Earl said to-day, I also gather that the 500 places which the Government are putting at the disposal of students will be 500 places at any one time: it is not simply a once-for-all effort. When the first batch have concluded their studies, another batch will come forward. If 250 scholarships are awarded in the first year, there will be 250 in the next year and another 250 in the third year, so that under the scheme we shall always have 500 students from the Commonwealth in this country. I was interested to hear the noble Earl say that he believes (I gather that this can be only an inspired guess, as the Commission has not yet been set up) that arts and the scientific side will be about equally represented. Generally speaking, we find that, with the paucity of science and mathematics teachers, it is not easy to get a balance of this kind, and usually there are more arts than scientific students, so if we can get an equal number I think the balance will be about right.

With reference to married students, it is important that all students, whether post-graduate or undergraduate, should be able to bring their wives with them. The scheme provides for one wife, one student, but it makes a curious distinction between the children. If a man is over 35 (which I think is the age mentioned), he can bring his children as well, but if he is under 35 and brings them he will have to pay for them himself. This seems to me to be the wrong way round. If a man is under 35, he is likely to have young children and if he brings his wife and leaves them behind, who is going to look after them? From all points of view, I think that this part of the scheme should be looked at and all restrictions on students' bringing their wives and children should be washed out. A student should be able to have his wife and children with him. This is important not only from the point of view of the student but also from the point of view of the wife and children. The wife will learn a great deal when she comes here with the children. If a wife does not come over with her husband, when he goes back home there tends to be a gap between them in their experience. If a student is able to bring his wife, not only is he happier and able to do better but the wife also is being educated, and we are getting double value for the money. I hope that this principle of allowing all students to bring their wife and children will be established.

This scheme will be a success or otherwise not so much by what students learn from the college but by what sort of treatment they receive outside—in other words, by the social relations established in this country. The noble Earl has told us that the British Council are to be responsible. I think that the point he made about students during vacations is important. It is especially important that those who are going to be the leaders of the future should be looked after. We ought to make a special effort both through voluntary organisations and through volunteers who are not connected with these organisations, to look after students during vacations.

Students like these are apt to misunderstand the habits of people in this country. Two or three years ago an African wrote to me saying that he had been very upset. He had got into a train at Victoria Station to go somewhere within the Southern Region. He was the only African among Europeans, and when he came in everybody in the carriage took up a newspaper and began reading. Nobody said a word to him on the journey. He felt humiliated. He thought that they had not taken any notice of him because of his colour. As we all know, if you get into a carriage of a train going from Victoria in the evening, or to Victoria in the morning, nobody takes the slightest notice of you, whoever you are. People read their papers or look glumly at their feet, and nobody says a word. But with people not of our lugubrious race that sort of conduct tends to be misunderstood. Therefore I think the public also have some sort of duty here.

What universities are to be chosen? I guarantee that in most cases people will ask to come to Oxford, Cambridge or London. In my view, Oxford and Cambridge already have far too unhealthy a predominance in the educational life of this country—and I say that as a governor of a public school; there is certainly an unhealthy predominance, so far as all three of these are concerned, in the minds of all those who wish to come from overseas to enter our universities. Indeed, in many cases they have not even heard of any universities other than those three. I believe that, as a general rule, both for educational reasons and social contacts, they would be much happier in one of the universities other than the three I have mentioned: in other words, in one of the Scottish universities, the University of Wales or any of the provincial universities. For one thing, these universities or colleges are much smaller: they are better integrated into the life of the community around them. I believe that the students would get much more individual attention in these places.

Then I would ask what contributions other Commonwealth countries are making. Of the 1,000 studentships, 500 are to be provided by this country, and Canada is providing 250. But we have not been told of any other country providing any at all. The noble Earl, Lord Lucan, has told us that South Africa has not yet said she will provide any, and has not come into the scheme. Presumably others have come into the scheme, but we have not been told so far how many there are. I should like to know what chances there are of interchange between the various Commonwealth countries. In other words, will an Indian university take certain Commonwealth students? Will a university in Australia take certain Commonwealth students, and so on? I think it is important that there should be a considerable interchange between universities outside the United Kingdom offering places to students outside the United Kingdom, to get that lateral flow that is not quite so great as it should be.

In this connection, I should like to mention an offer—I do not think it has anything to do with this scheme, but nevertheless it is a welcome offer—made by Tunku Abdul Rahman, the Prime Minister of the Federation of Malaya, about three weeks ago, on his tour of Australia, when he offered Australians 100 scholarships in the University of Malaya. He also offered to send teachers of Malay to Australia and to take people who wished to learn Malay to Malaya for the purpose. He said then—and I think he was perfectly right—that it was most important for Australians to learn the language of their 100 million Malay-speaking neighbours.

In another place the Minister of State raised a subject which had nothing whatever to do with the Bill—or, at least, possibly he replied to something that had been said which, so far as I can see, had nothing to do with the Bill. I do not know whether the noble Earl will feel himself in a position to exercise a similar latitude, because, although this matter had nothing to do with the Bill, I think it was an important statement of policy which was made in another place. The Minister of State then said that 500 places are to be provided for Commonwealth students in this country in teacher-training establishments. If that is so, I am sure that is a matter which all your Lordships would be pleased to hear. I should like confirmation of that, because I think it is vitally important. When one realises the enormous increase in schools in the various Commonwealth countries, and particularly in Africa, one appreciates what an enormous burden there must be upon the teacher-training establishments in Africa and elsewhere to provide the necessary teachers. If 500 places are going to be found in teacher-training establishments here, that will be a great addition to their numbers. How the Government are going to do it, I do not know, because I gather that this year 3,000 applicants for places in teacher-training colleges could not be accepted. So there are 3,000 fewer teachers available to this country, owing to the fact that we have not places for them. Perhaps the noble Earl can tell us how he is going to get the 500 places for the Commonwealth.

Finally, I hope that this Bill will give a stimulus, as the noble Earl has indicated, not only to the universities but also to local authorities, professional bodies and industrial and commercial organisations, to do far more than they are doing in training students for the Commonwealth, in having students from the Commonwealth and in seconding qualified people to the Commonwealth, with, as the noble Earl has said, no loss of prospects, no loss of pay or retirement benefits and so on. As the noble Earls, Lord Home, and Lord Lucan, have pointed out, it is a sad fact that we must recognise that if one goes abroad in most professional jobs there is a risk of loss of promotion over here. That cannot be gainsaid. I think we must entirely eradicate that attitude and get the professional and other bodies to realise that people who go abroad on these jobs are doing at least an equally important job as they would have done at home and should not be penalised for it. It may mean that they will have to carry extra staff supernumerary for this purpose; but if so, that will have to be faced.

I hope particularly that my own profession of the law will give a lead in this way, although I must say that it has not done so up to now. As was mentioned in an earlier debate to-day, there are here two separate legal professions. A young man makes up his mind into which he intends to go before he starts on either, and without a real knowledge of either; and then he is, so to speak, shunted off on to a line which is parallel to another line, and it is difficult to get from one to the other. Absurd as this anachronism is in this country for our own young men and women, it is disastrous for the people from the Colonies, because in the Colonies they have fusion; there are not two professions, but one profession. They come over here and learn something of the profession of the Bar, and then they go back knowing nothing whatever about the increasingly large proportion of the work they will have to perform, which is, in fact, the work of a solicitor. The professions here have never made any attempt to deal with that problem and have never helped our students from overseas to grapple with it. I hope that very soon there will be a common system of training and a common series of examinations which can be taken not only by students from abroad but also by our own students in this country. I put these questions in no critical sense, and I hope that the noble Earl will be able to answer some of them. I welcome the Bill, and I trust that it will have the effect that we all hope for.

5.50 p.m.

LORD BRAND

My Lords, I venture to make a few short remarks on the Bill before us to-day. If I may take a personal note, first of all, it is that I happen to have been one of the editorial committee of a quarterly magazine, the Round Table Magazine, which has devoted itself for 50 years now to the interests of the Commonwealth. In these days of television, broadcasting, Sunday newspapers, and so on, a quarterly magazine does not expect to have a heavy circulation, but we do get circulation in all the Dominions, and we get articles every quarter from each Dominion explaining the position in that country. So I have taken for a long time, and I take now, a great interest in the Commonwealth.

I heartily welcome this Bill. At the present moment, the British Commonwealth (that is, the great Dominions and all the other Dependencies in the Commonwealth) is bound rather tenuously together. It is bound together by the Crown, beyond that by material interests that the countries have together and, so far as the White Dominions are con cerned, because the populations of those Dominions hold more or less the same thoughts and possess the same culture that we do. What would happen if there were a great war, and how far the Commonwealth, apart from the White Dominions and ourselves, would stick together, I do not think anybody can say. But, clearly, it is our object to strengthen the ties between all these different communities to the greatest possible extent, and I think that this Bill goes a considerable way towards accomplishing it over the course of time.

It is most important that the most intelligent young people in all these countries, and those most likely to lead, should learn when they are young what the culture is in this country and in other parts of the Dominions. It is equally important that our young people should learn what is happening in other countries, and take a part by becoming students at the great universities in different parts of the Empire. For that reason—and I will come back to this point—I do not agree with the remarks of the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, about South Africa. So far as I can make out—but perhaps the noble Earl the Leader of the House will explain to me—the Bill deals in the main with students who are not technical students but who come to learn history, philosophy, or whatever it may be. Perhaps technical students are included, too. I am inclined to think that so far as the under-developed countries are concerned the most immediately important requirement of all is the increase in technical knowledge and industrial"know-how", and I should like to give some of my reasons for thinking so.

The general view in this country seems to me often to be that we have a duty to provide the under-developed countries with enormous sums of money. That we should provide them with some money goes without saying, but we are not able to give enormous sums of money. Moreover if you give money to a community, they must have technical and industrial knowledge; otherwise most of that money will probably be wasted. It probably has been wasted in various countries of which we know. I do not think that in what I am to say I go outside the terms of the Bill, but one has to remember that any money which this country gives to other countries affects our balance of payments, and makes it more difficult to avoid our getting into a critical position. One has only to look at the United States at this moment. The United States consider—and I think they are probably right—that they have overdone lending and giving to the rest of the world and, in consequence, it is the case that they have now an unfavourable balance of payments of about 4,000 million dollars a year which they have to correct. Even the United States cannot go on doing that. Therefore, while we have to help these under-developed countries, we have to keep in mind the interests of our own people as well.

In any case, in my view—and I have given what study I can to it—in all these countries 90 per cent. of the work of raising the population to a higher standard must be done by the people of the country themselves. It is no good giving them great whacks of money if they are not giving the whole of their attention to the task themselves. If one looks at what the Chinese are doing now, and if one is to believe what one reads, one sees an example of what a community can do on its own, by its own efforts. That reinforces my view still further that these under-developed countries want technical education at present more than cultural education. They must have cultural education, too, but to my mind technical education is their first requirement.

I believe it to be the case—perhaps other noble Lords could correct me—that the tremendous rapidity in the growth of Japanese industry in earlier years was due to the fact that they had a sort of apprenticeship system, by which Japanese went not to a foreign university to learn technology, but to the industries themselves. They learnt the work in the industries, and I believe it might be a valuable addition to this scheme if one could have some scheme by which students from other countries could come, not as students at a university, but to industry, to learn the job they have to do in their own country, and being helped by industry here or elsewhere to become proficient at the work.

Lastly, I should like to say a word about South Africa. I believe it to be the case that South Africa has not yet replied. I can understand that the South African Government will have considerable difficulty in replying, now that it has passed its Universities Bill which applies apartheid to the universities and does not allow the great universities of Cape Town, Witwatersrand and Durban to have black students or even coloured students. I do not know whether any of your Lordships read two articles on South Africa which I wrote earlier in the year in The Times, but I hold no brief whatever for Dr. Verwoerd's policy. Nevertheless, I think we damage the British side in South Africa and damage the possibility of the new Progressive Party in South Africa if we take up the violent attitude—it is a violent attitude—that we will not even allow a student to go from here, not to a Government university but to a self-governing university in South Africa in order that he should not only get education there—and they give a very good education—but should learn what is happening in South Africa and be able to come back and tell people in this country what he thinks of it.

It seems to me absolutely out of the question that we can take up an attitude towards a self-governing Dominion that they are so impossible, their Government is so impossible, that we will not allow a single student to go to a university there under this scheme, even if invited by the universities themselves. The more extreme our attitude is in this country, the more difficult the position of the moderate Afrikaner and Englishman becomes out there. I am not myself against the idea of apartheid if it were practicable. If it could be done practicably, I believe both natives and white people would vote for it, just as the Opposition, I think, wishes to have apartheid in Nyasaland. What they are asking for is, I think, equivalent to apartheid in Nyasaland—that no white people shall have any say in Nyasaland. In South Africa the great majority of the British would probably vote for apartheid itself if it were practicable, and many of them do, I expect, vote that way now. But the trouble is that apartheid is hopelessly impracticable and is leading Dr. Verwoerd finally into a brick wall. But I think the more extreme the attitude we take here, the more certain he is to pursue his course.

THE EARL OF LUCAN

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I should like to comment on what he said about my remarks. Would he not agree that in a scheme like this what is essential is reciprocity, the same conditions at both ends? We read in the report of the Conference paragraph 7: Education is thus fundamental to the strength and stability of the Commonwealth, and to social justice and human dignity which must be its inspiration. With those words, I do not see how any Commission set up by Her Majesty's Government could send scholars under this scheme to South Africa.

LORD BRAND

But the governing authorities of those universities have violently rejected the policy of the Government. They have done everything to stop it, and they are self-governing universities.

THE EARL OF LUCAN

They failed to stop it, surely.

LORD BRAND

It is not against human dignity to send a scholar from here to the Witwatersrand self-governing university. It is true he will not meet the natives there, because the Government have forcibly removed them, but that is nothing to do with the university itself. It has violently protested. It cannot finally break the law when it is passed. But are you going to say wou will not send a single student to any of the self-governing universities to receive an education—not to do anything else? They are not the Government.

VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH

My Lords, I think we must point out that reciprocity in such a great and universal scheme in the Commonwealth as this is to be means the conditions under which Government grants are made. They may be making Government grants under the same conditions we offer. The whole point is whether we ought to make public grants in such circumstances, where a Government refuses to allow a student to come over and have education alongside all citizens of that particular country.

May I say to the noble Lord that we greatly respect the noble Lord and his experience and the manner in which he puts his case, but he really must not misrepresent the attitude of the Labour Party to the extent he has done in the latter part of his speech. We have never taken the line that whites must have no influence and nothing to say in Nyasa land. What we have been trying to reach is that the Nyasalanders should be brought speedily to a state in which they are given a share, and a progressive share, in the government of their own country and have a voice in their whole future, and that is being largely denied to them at the present time—not wholly, but largely denied to them. I hope that when the noble Lord looks again at what he said and what our real case is he will not repeat his words in quite the form he did.

6.7 p.m.

LORD ELTON

My Lords, before the noble Earl, the Leader of the House, replies, I should like to ask a couple of questions, or perhaps I should say, make a couple of brief comments. I had no intention of inflicting myself upon your Lordships when I came to the House this afternoon, and my only excuse for doing so is that for twenty years and until very recently I was responsible for organising the selection of Rhodes Scholars all over the world; and of course the Rhodes scholarships were the prototype of all overseas awards and overseas scholarships. Indeed, it is because over the last fifty years the Rhodes scholarships have been, all things considered, so astonishingly successful that we are discussing this Bill this afternoon; for if they had not blazed the trail so successfully I do not suppose that we should be following it this afternoon so wholeheartedly as we very naturally are.

The first question, or comment, I wish to put is based on the fact that in the selection of Rhodes Scholars there are at least three features which have, I think, been essential to its very remarkable success. The first is that the selection has always been carried out by a network of specially appointed selection committees, all over the world, in the various countries of origin of the Scholars. The second is that no Rhodes Scholar has ever been selected without a personal interview with a selection committee. Thirdly, it has always been an instruction to our committees that they should attach at least as much importance to character as to academic qualifications. Indeed, if we had literally followed the precepts of the founder we should have told them to attach much more importance to character than to academic attainments. That was hardly practicable, but it has been a great element in the success of the Rhodes scholarships that our selection committees all over the world have attached the greatest importance to the character of their candidates and not merely to what they can do on paper. It would be easy enough to select the inevitable laureate of the examination halls, the man who passes top in any examination but could never run a whelk stall successfully for a week. And perhaps there is rather too much tendency nowadays in many modern universities, under the pressure of the great spate of applications which they receive, to take the easy course of judging almost exclusively by the academic record.

My question, or comment, is this: that the noble Earl has told us, and indeed the Bill tells us, that the first function of this Commission is to select the recipients of rewards. I do not know whether that means what it says, that this body of distinguished persons is going to do the selection; or whether it means that they are going to organise the selection all over the world through other bodies or committees. If it means what it says—if they themselves are going to select—then clearly two, at least, of the three main elements in the success of the Rhodes scholarship system cannot be reproduced here. That is to say, there will not be a network of selection committees, specially arranged, in the countries of origin of these scholarships; nor will the Scholars have been sieved through a searching personal interview with the persons responsible for recommending their award. If that is to be so, then I hope all the more that the Commission will remember the moved importance in the experience of the Rhodes scholarships of that third main element, as I see it, in the success of their selection system—the emphasis placed on character.

Admittedly this makes selection a much more difficult job. It is, as anyone who has had first-hand experience of it must know, an extraordinarily difficult job to select the young man who is going to make his mark twenty years hence. But throughout the fifty years of the Rhodes scholarships we have been accumulating experience, and circulating it round our selection committees, and I can only say that I wish this distinguished body which is to be set up the best of luck. I am sure it will not approach its task expecting it to be easy, because if it does so it will certainly be disappointed.

The only other thing I wish to do is to echo most heartily what the noble Earl the Leader of the House has said about the desirability of many outside academic circles going out of their way to extend a warm welcome to these 500 additional students from overseas whom we are going to bring to these shores. On the whole the Rhodes Scholars have been extremely fortunate in the hospitality which they have received in the vacations and outside Oxford, largely through the hospitality organised by the Dominions Fellowship Trust, of which many of your Lordships may have heard. I well remember meeting a professor in Chicago a good many years ago—and he was only one of a number who said much the same thing—remarking that, grateful as he was to Oxford and much as he had learned from Oxford, he was not sure that he was not more grateful and had not learned more from the hospitality which he had received in English homes up and down England through the good offices of the Dominions Fellowship Trust.

So we must be careful that something of the kind will be available for these new students, for we all know that many students from overseas who come to these shores meet with very different and much more unfortunate experiences. It was an overseas student—though not, I am thankful to say, a Rhodes Scholar—who said that what he had found was that an Englishman was cold and aloof and difficult to approach and that when you broke through the ice then what you found underneath was a great deal of cold water. That is not an experience which we want extended to any more students from overseas than we can help.

With those two brief comments, or questions, I can only echo the welcome which all other speakers have given to this Bill and wish the best of luck to those who will have to administer it, for in the last resort it is on them and the character of their administration that the success of the measure will depend.

6.16 p.m.

THE EARL OF HOME

My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, and other noble Lords who have spoken in giving a general welcome to the purposes of the Bill. Quite naturally, a number of questions have been asked, in order that the House may have elucidation, and I shall be glad to try to answer as many as I can. Perhaps I may begin with the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, and by my noble friend Lord Brand. This scheme is subscribed to by all the countries of the Commonwealth, but South Africa has not yet decided whether she will come in. I think perhaps I can extract any controversy from this debate by explaining how, if South Africa did come into the scheme, it would work. It would be that certain scholarships would be offered by South Africa in the South African universities, and they would, of course, be advertised all over the Commonwealth. Then it would be for decision by Canadian students, British students or students from Malaya, or from any other Commonwealth country, whether they wished to apply for a scholarship of that kind. If an individual did wish to apply, then presumably the student would go as he would to any other country, without interference by anyone in authority because it would be an act of his own free will.

The noble Earl, Lord Lucan, asked why, in the composition of the Commission, it was indicated that four persons should have high academic qualifications. I am bound to say that that was deliberate, in the beginning of this scheme, because it is absolutely essential that there should be a link between the Commission and the people who are at the top of our universities and technical colleges. This link is best achieved by having some of those people actually serving on the Commission. In the early stages a link is essential because, if there are hitches or troubles to be got over, these will have to be settled at the top level.

Then the noble Earl asked me why the plan which was recommended by the Conference was not attached as a Schedule to the Bill. In the ordinary way I should have done that when presenting the Bill to Parliament, but on this occasion I thought it was extremely desirable in the early stages that there should be flexibility. For instance, minor amendments may be found to be necessary. If, after a year's experience, it was found, say, that we wanted to alter the financial conditions for wives or children, if the plan was in a Schedule to the Bill it would mean that we should have to come back every time to Parliament and ask for the change to be approved. So, after the debate in another place, we consulted Parliamentary Counsel and he assured us that there was nothing constitutionally improper in referring to the plan in this way in the Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, asked me about married students. The question of children's allowances for students was considered most carefully, and it was decided, I think largely because finance is limited in the early stages, that the Fellows who applied and went on courses should have children's allowances. There are likely to be about 20 Fellowships, as opposed to 450 scholarships, so the noble Lord will see that if we were to include a family grant or a children's grant for scholars, the sum involved might amount to a pretty large figure. Post-graduates under 35 years of age will get an, allowance of £200 a year, and after one year's residence here will be eligible for the children's allowance of 10s. for the second child and 8s. for the third.

THE EARL OF LUCAN

My Lords, did I hear the noble Earl aright?—£200 a year to live on?

THE EARL OF HOME

To help to live on, apart from the total scholarships, which will cost about £1,000 per student. This is something which should be looked at in the review of 1961, but for the moment that is the decision that has been taken on children's allowances; and I think probably it was wise. It was felt by those who consider these matters, I understand, that children were apt to take one's mind off one's work at university and that probably it was not wise to encourage too many married students to come.

I agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, about the distribution of the students. I hope that the Commission will make sure that a number of them go to provincial universities, and to universities in Scotland or Wales, where I know they would get very good value from their scholarships. Then the noble Lord asked about the division of effort as between the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries. We are to take 500 scholars; Australia and India have agreed to take 100 each; Pakistan, 30; New Zealand, 25; Malaya, 12, Ghana and the Rhodesias, 10 each; Ceylon, 6 and East Africa, 4. So far as the interchange of students is concerned, I know that when we conferred together at Oxford there was a great desire on the part of the Canadians and Indians—and, indeed, all Commonwealth countries—that this should not be simply a traffic between Britain and the Commonwealth countries but that whenever possible the students should be exchanged between different Commonwealth countries. The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, said he did not want to go outside the Bill, but he felt that of equal importance to the actual financing of scholarships was the expansion of teacher-training and the sending of more teachers to the Commonwealth. All I will say is that I agree. My honourable friend the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations said in another place that we are including in the plans for the expansion of teacher-training colleges in this country 500 additional places for Commonwealth students training to be teachers; and I think the noble Lord Lord Ogmore will agree that that will make a big impact.

The noble Lord, Lord Brand, said—and I am sure he is right—that there should be a big demand for scholarships from students who were studying technical subjects. The scheme, of course, includes that—indeed, we anticipate that probably some 50 per cent. of the scholarships will be of that nature, although I should not like to-day to tie myself down to a figure. When we were discussing these matters at Oxford there was, again, general agreement, certainly by the Asian and African delegates, that education in technical subjects was really the most effective help which the United Kingdom could give to the underdeveloped countries at the present time, and I cannot say how much I should welcome it if a parallel scheme could be organised in industry and commerce whereby persons at some period in their careers could have the advantage of experience in a Commonwealth country. I would certainly give more thought to that, and perhaps if I could consult with those in industry we might achieve something good on those lines.

LORD OGMORE

My Lords, on that matter would the noble Earl look at the training scheme which the United Africa Company have in Nigeria? He might get many fruitful ideas from the scheme they have in operation there.

THE EARL OF HOME

My Lords, I am aware of that scheme, and it might well be one which would be very valuable to quite a number of people outside, as well as for myself inside the Government, as I consider it to be a pioneer scheme of great value.

The noble Lord, Lord Elton, gave us his experience of the Rhodes Scholarship scheme, which certainly has blazed a trail and by its success has inspired others to follow on these lines. I can tell him that the principles which will govern selection will, I believe, be very much the same as those which are applied in running the Rhodes Scholarship scheme, and the Commission here will be assisted by bodies in the country of origin in order that students may be well and carefully selected; and I hope that a good deal of attention will be paid to character, as well as to the intellectual capacity of the individual concerned. I hope that I have answered most of the questions put to me by noble Lords. If I have missed any, I will certainly answer them by letter, and I ask that your Lordships should now give this Bill a Second Reading.

On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.