Lords Sitting of 3 December 1962

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Chancellor

PAYMENT OF WAGES BY CHEQUE
2.35 p.m.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the prevalence of robbery with violence, they will urge a wider adoption of the banking habit by wage-earners than has so far resulted from the passing of the Payment of Wages Act, 1960.]
THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords, the provision of the Payment of Wages Act, 1960, enabling the wages of manual workers to be paid into their bank accounts has been in force since December 1, 1960. The Minister of Labour has announced that he intends to appoint March 1, 1963, as the date on which payment of wages by cheque will become lawful under this Act.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for that Answer.

CEREALS IMPORTS
2.36 p.m.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what are the tonnages of—

(a) wheat,

(b) other cereals, including maize,

imported into this country from July 1, 1962, until the present date: and what were the tonnages for the same period in 1961.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (LORD ST. OSWALD): My Lords, in the four months July to October this year 1,275,000 tons of wheat and 1,929,000 tons of other grains and cereal feeding stuffs were imported into the United Kingdom. The comparable figures for the same period last year were 1,255,000 and 1,421,000 tons respectively.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that Answer, may I ask him whether, in view of the considerable increase in other grains during the month—a, matter of half a tons out of 1·4: in other words, an increase of about 30 per cent.—and in view of the heavy harvest of coarse grains in this country and in Europe, he does not think it would be advisable to restrict imports of coarse grains at the present time in

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order to prevent the deficiency payments from becoming entirely out of hand?
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, as the noble Lord knows, the restriction of imports is, in fact, contrary to the Government's present policy and to our international commitments, and in fact, of course, contrary to the policy of other Governments in this country for the last 125 years. So, naturally, we are reluctant to do anything of that nature.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that a matter of some eighteen months ago it became necessary for the Government, whether by voluntary agreement or by other means, at any rate to restrict imports of grain purely in order to ensure that the home production was entirely taken up and that the cost to the taxpayer did not become excessive? Would it not be advisable for the Government to learn from their past experience and to act in good time now, before the matter gets entirely out of hand?
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, as the noble Lord himself suggested, the action at that time was voluntary action; and, of course, we are hoping that the compounders will take the situation into account and will now restrict their forward buying of foreign grains in order to be able to take up the large harvest of this past season.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, just as with games which are all voluntary at certain public schools, there are degrees of voluntariness in some of these matters. Will the noble Lord perhaps use his best endeavours to see that this voluntary action in fact takes place sooner rather than later?
LORD ST. OSWALD: Our best endeavours will in any case be engaged.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, should not the Treasury be doing their best to have a right precision on this? Why should they conduct their business in such a way that they greatly increase their own payments?
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I have in fact referred to that earlier: it
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has not been the policy of this Government or of previous Governments, of some of which the noble Viscount has been a member, to restrict food imports unless it becomes absolutely necessary; and we are under that system to-day.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: So far as I can remember, we have never in previous years had in this period imports of this comparability in regard to the grains which have been quoted this afternoon; yet we have a large harvest of our own which we could use much more cheaply on behalf of the community.
LORD ST. OSWALD: The facts that the noble Viscount mentions are perfectly accurate, but whether his deductions need be as gloomy as they appear to be, I should not like to say. We are naturally keeping a close eye on it and we hope, as I said earlier, that by voluntary restriction on the part of those who buy grain and feedingstuffs the position will improve.
LORD WISE: My Lords, could the noble Lord break down these figures of coarse grain into figures for the countries from which they have come?
LORD ST. OSWALD: No, I am afraid that, without notice, I cannot do that. Naturally, I will let the noble Lord know; but I do not think I can give them to him at this moment, except by sorting them out from the rather elaborate lists and tables that I have with me. What he will have noticed, I think, is that the figures I have given of imports show 20,000 tons up on wheat and 508,000 tons up on grain. That is really what I think his noble friend was directing attention to. I assure him that we are aware of it.
LORD WISE: My Lords, could the figures be published with the Answer to the Question in Hansard?
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I should prefer the noble Lord to put down a Question, either for written or oral Answer, and I will see to it that that is done.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether it is not a fact that a large quantity of grain is being imported into this country in ships which were constructed originally as tankers and are no longer used for that purpose?
LORD ST. OSWALD: I am afraid I was not aware of that, but, if my noble friend wishes, I will naturally look into it. It does not seem to me to be very closely concerned with the substantive Question.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, would the noble Lord tell us whether the imports of grain per capita of population are higher now than, for instance, at the end of the last century?
LORD ST. OSWALD: I am defeated both physically and mentally by that question. I cannot answer my noble friend.

INTERNATIONAL COFFEE ORGANISATION (IMMUNITIES AND PRIVILEGES) ORDER, 1962
2.43 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): My Lords, I beg to move that an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the International Coffee Organisation (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1962, be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on November 20 last. This Order is necessary in order to enable us to ratify the International Coffee Agreement which was signed in Now York apt the end of September. I think your Lordships know that the purpose of that Agreement is to try to get, by international' co-operation, a greater order into the marketing and price of this important primary commodity, with the general purpose of eventually correcting the disequilibrium between the price of primary commodities and the price of manufactured goods which within the last seven or eight years has operated so heavily to the disadvantage of the underdeveloped countries of the world and in other respects against the general stability of world trade.
This Order about immunities and privileges does not confer any juridical privileges or immunities on the personnel of the International Council under the Coffee Agreement which will be established in London. It only confers certain fiscal immunities which are exactly the same as those which we have already conferred on the Wheat Council, the Tin Council and the Sugar Council, all of
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which also have their headquarters in London; that is to say, the Organisation itself is exempt from direct taxation, but not from customs duties, and it is exempt mostly from rates, although it pays a contribution in respect of fire and water rates from which the organisation may be held to derive benefits. That applies only to the actual premises of the organisation. The individual members—the staff—are not exempt from rates on the houses in which they may live. The delegates to the International Conference Which has agreed upon recommending this agreement, by a very large majority voted that the headquarters of the Council should be in London because of its importance as a financial and commercial centre of the world. I think that it is a good thing in every way that it should be in London, and I hope your Lordships will agree to approve the Address to provide for the coming into effect of this Order.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the International Coffee Organisation (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1962, be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on the 29th of November last.—(The Earl of Dundee.)
2.46 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I rise, not for the purpose of opposing this Order, but for the purpose of once more drawing attention to what many of us feel rather apprehensive about: that is, the gnawing number of people who are exempt from taxation and who, in some cases, enjoy diplomatic immunity—although I am glad that that is not the case here—and the organisations which are exempt both from taxation and from the payment of rates. We are, of course, very glad that this Organisation will have its headquarters in London, and this could be to the advantage of this country, but since the Organisation will pay no tax and no rates, the advantages are to that extent very much reduced. I do not know where the offices of this organisation will be, but if, as I imagine, most of these organisations are in the boroughs of Westminster, or, possibly, Marylebone, it is rather hard upon those boroughs that they should have have premises occupied for which they get no rates.

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I imagine that the answer is that if the headquarters had been in some other country, British employees would be exempt from the payment of income tax. I do not know whether that is the kind of thing, but one always feels somewhat apprehensive about the growing number of these cases. I should be grateful if the noble Earl could tell us how many people are now exempt from the payment of income tax in this way and how many organisations are exempt from the payment of tax and rates in respect of their premises. I imagine, from the list the noble Earl read out, that the number must be considerable. I do not propose that we should object to this Order, but I think we ought to keep a very careful watch on these matters and not accept these exemptions without the greatest possible scrutiny.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for this support of the Address. I am aware, of course, of the feelings of apprehension about the growing number of persons who are exempt from tax. I cannot give the noble Lord the total number of persons, but it is estimated that the total amount of income tax which is lost to the Exchequer by these exemptions is only about £34,000 a year.
LORD SILKIN: In this case alone?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: No, in this case it will be very much less—£2,000 or £3,000 perhaps. I was referring to the total number. I gave that figure only because the noble Lord asked for the total number of persons, which I cannot for the moment give him, but I can give him the total amount of money as it has been estimated. Perhaps to a very large extent that is a notional loss, because if they had to pay income tax the losses would be greater and the United Kingdom subscription would therefore have to be higher; so to some extent we gain on the swings what we lose on the roundabouts. The number of people—I am not sure if I mentioned it to your Lordships—on the Coffee Council who are probably going to be affected by this Order will be about 40.
On Question, Motion agreed to; the said Address to be presented to Her Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

SLAUGHTER OF ANIMALS BILL [H.L.]
2.52 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, in rising to move the Second Reading of this Bill, I can certainly claim that it is a very simple one—so simple, in fact, that even I can understand it. It is almost identical with a Bill which was introduced in another place by the late Mr. Robert Crouch, in about 1955. That Bill had a very short life indeed; in fact, it was rejected on its First Reading. Now you may well ask why it is that I—one of the least of the Back-Benchers of your Lordships House—am bold enough to try to reintroduce a Bill which failed when in the hands of an experienced politician. The reason is this: that since that time there has been a lot of valuable research, which in my opinion throws a very different light on the subject, as I hope to persuade your Lordships.
I know that many people will say that the motive behind this Bill is anti-Semitism. I expect that most of your Lordships have received this little white pamphlet known as Shechita, which is the official term for this type of slaughter. On the inside of its back page it quotes the Frankfurter Zeitung of 1893. That was just after this type of slaughter had been made illegal in Switzerland. The Frankfurter Zeitung said:
"One cannot avoid the conclusion that what we witnessed in Switzerland is anti-Semitism using the guise of humanitarianism."
The pamphlet then goes on to say:
"The chemistry of the anti-Shechita agitation is a compound of ignorance of physiological phenomena, intolerance of minority rights, of exploited sentimentalities and anti-Semitism."
My Lords, nothing could be less true of this Bill. There is no anti-Semitism whatsoever behind it. I have no anti-Semitic feelings myself; in fact, I have made a great many very good friends among the Jews. It would be a curious thing, indeed, if I had spent my entire life in the musical profession without doing so, for if there is one art in which they are outstanding it is music. I realise, too, that it is a race which has produced some very fine and some very great men. Nobody who has had the privilege, as I

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have had, of sitting in your Lordships' House and listening to a speech by the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, would question that. There is also that very much regretted figure, Sir Basil Henriques, who for so long was an example of everything that a man should be. No, there is no anti-Semitism whatsoever behind it.
As to sentimentality, I know it is the custom to label all those who stand up in the defence of animals as sentimentalists; but is the desire to avoid cruelty, even if it be only to animals, really just sentimentalism? I think that is a question which would bear a little further consideration. As to minority rights, nobody could be more in favour of preserving them than I am. In this very mass-produced age in which we live they are disappearing only too rapidly. In any case, I hope to convince your Lordships that this Bill is not going to trespass on the conscientious Jew's rights in the slightest degree.
This same pamphlet says on its first page:
"Shechita is a religious rite deriving authority from the Bible. Prescribed by the Divine Law, as interpreted by Jewish tradition, it is binding upon the conscience of the Jew.
Now, my Lords, Divine Law can mean only one thing to the Jew, and that is the law as given to Moses upon Mount Sinai. In fact, the protagonists of this particular kind of slaughter often quote two passages, Deuteronomy, Chapter XII, verses 20 and 21, and Leviticus, Chapter XVII, verses 10 to 14. I have examined those two passages and in them there is not even one single reference as to how the beast shall be slain. All that they emphasise is the fact that one must not eat or, if one prefers, drink blood.
As regards that, I should like to quote the comparative figures of the blood content of carcases slain by the Jewish method and by the Gentile method. I will take the four quarters in each case, and the blood content is measured in grammes per cent. In the case of cattle the Jewish method is 2·6 and the Gentile 2·5. In the case of sheep, in both the Jewish and the Gentile methods it is 2·2. So your Lordships can see that there is virtually no difference in the blood content of animals slain by the two methods. Therefore, even if we were to ask the Jew to eat meat slain by the Gentile method, he
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would not really be trepassing upon his own convictions as regards the Law as given by Moses. But this Bill is not even asking him to do that. All it is asking him to do is to see that the animal is rendered unconscious first. After that, he can use his traditional method as much as he wants to.
After all, my Lords, Jewish law has been modified, as has our own, over the centuries. As we all know, it used to be the custom in the old days for a woman who was taken in adultery to be put to death. That custom is not observed today. Moreover, it has scriptural authority, my Lords. I can tell you where to find it: Leviticus, Chapter 20, verse 20; and Deuteronomy, Chapter 22, verse 22. There is definite scriptural authority, which might be interpreted as Divine Law; yet it is not observed today.
I should like now to quote from the Report of a Committee appointed by the Admiralty to consider the humane slaughtering of animals which was made as long ago as 1904. I will not quote it all—as your Lordships can see, it is a considerably voluminous Report—but I will quote a few words:
"The Committee have been forced to the following conclusions: that the Jewish system fails in the primary requirement of rapidity, freedom from unnecessary pain and instantaneous loss of sensibility and that it compares very unfavourably with the methods and standards recommended by the Committee in paragraph 10; that the subsequent operation of cutting the throat is at best an uncertain method of producing immediate loss of sensibility, and frequently causes great and unduly prolonged suffering to the animal."
That was in 1904, my Lords. Then about nine years ago an experiment to prove whether the loss of sensibility was absolutely instantaneous or not was made in Bristol. This experiment was sponsored by the Jewish authorities there, and was carried out by Professor Ottoway. For some reason or other the Jewish authorities refused to allow the findings of that experiment to be published. What the reason was I cannot say, but that is the fact.
My Lords, I do not know how many of you have ever actually seen this method in process. It is not a pleasant sight. I have seen it, and it is not a thing that I want to see twice. In the case of fully-grown cattle, they are led—and sometimes, in the case of bulls, of course, forced—into a large structure

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known as the casting pen, which is a cylindrical structure large enough to contain the beast. They are then shut into it with the head protruding from the front end. The structure is then rotated so that the animal is upside down, and the chin of the animal is then grasped and forced, sometimes with considerable strength, down to the ground so that the neck is absolutely taut. All this, of course, is done while the animal is in full possession of consciousness. The Shochet, or official Jewish slaughterer, then steps forward and makes the rapid cut. Now the Jewish authorities claim that the loss of consciousness is absolutely instantaneous at the cut. Incidentally, they quote a large number of distinguished English scientists who corroborate them in this statement and who say that, in their opinion, this method is entirely humane. But it is worth noting that all these statements were made before the introduction of a certain apparatus known as the electro-encephelogram. This is an instrument which registers the activity of the brain.
Now the society of which I have the honour of being president, the Council of Justice to Animals and Humane Slaughter Association, which during this campaign has been fully backed up by the R.S.P.C.A., has been fortunate enough to obtain the co-operation of two very distinguished scientists, Dr. Wooldridge, who is scientific director of the Animal Health Trust, and Dr. Bell, both of whom are specialists in the subject of the circulation of blood to the brain. I should like to say a word or two about their experiments. When the out is made, the carotid artery, which carries, of course, the main supply of blood to the brain, is severed; but there is also a secondary supply of blood to the brain in the form of the vertebral arteries. Those remain uncut; and sometimes the vertebral arteries can withdraw slightly and seal so that the blood pressure is maintained. In any case, they found with this apparatus that brain activity could be registered for periods up to 25 seconds in cattle and 15 seconds in sheep.
My Lords, 25 seconds may not sound a very long time, but, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to count out 25 seconds so as to show you that
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it is not such a short time. I am going to start with the cut. [Lord Somers then counted out 25 seconds.] My Lords, that is quite a considerable time during which to feel agonising pain and extreme terror. Of course the period is not always quite so long as 25 seconds, but it can be that and has been registered as such.
Now I know, as has been said by Dr. Wooldridge himself, that it is difficult to state exactly what consciousness is, especially in the case of a dumb animal who cannot give us his impressions of what he has been feeling. But as this activity is registered, the brain is obviously still working, and I cannot see that there is any strong reason to doubt that the animal is to a certain degree, at any rate, still conscious. One must remember that there are degrees of consciousness: one can be fully conscious, one can be semi-conscious or one can be totally unconscious; and one has to remember, too, that it is possible to be at a very low state of consciousness indeed and still feel pain and fear.
I should like now to quote an article which came out in the Jewish Chronicle on November 2 this year. Again, I will not quote the whole thing, just two paragraphs:
"Claims are made by certain animal protection societies that tests have shown that animals remained conscious after Shechita for up to as much as fifteen seconds. These estimates are based on experiments where the carotid arteries, the main supply of blood to the brain, were occluded, that is, tied, but not actually severed so that what happens during Shechita was not in fact reproduced.
"The anatomy of the blood supply to the brain in ruminants is such that there is a world of difference between merely tying the carotid arteries and actually severing them; for when they are severed the blood from the much smaller vertebral arteries which would otherwise go to the brain just seeps back from the cut ends of the carotid and the supply of blood to the brain is virtually brought to an immediate halt. The experiments referred to are therefore of little value."
I will quote, too, from Dr. Wooldridge's reply to the author of that article:
"Dear Dr. Homa: My attention has been drawn to the statement made by you in your article in the Jewish Chronicle of November 2."—
and he goes on to quote what Dr. Homa has said. Then he continues:
"May I point out that the experiments to which you refer were in fact objective scientific experiments carried out under the auspices of the Animal Health Trust. You

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are quite wrong in stating the carotids were not actually severed. In fact, they were actually severed. This fact may affect the conclusions you draw from the experiments which you have, unfortunately, unwittingly misread or misinterpreted."
My Lords, I would also, if I may, quote a resolution which was passed by a conference of slaughtering trade members of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers on February 27, 1949. They passed the following resolution:
"That in the case of ritual slaughtering this Conference is of the opinion that animals for slaughter should be rendered unconscious before cutting."
I have also a quotation from a letter addressed to the Association of Municipal Corporations in April, 1960, from the British Veterinary Association. They said:
"Disregarding religious considerations, it is the opinion of experienced members of this Association that greater suffering is caused to animals by ritual slaughter than by the modern methods of slaughter carried out in accordance with the requirements of the Slaughter of Animals Act and Slaughter of Animals (Prevention of Cruelty) Regulations of 1958."
It was also their opinion that greater distress is caused to animals by the methods of handling prior to ritual slaughter than under modern methods of non-ritual slaughter.
It is worth remembering that about 200,000 animals are killed under this method every year in our slaughterhouses. They are all done in Gentile slaughterhouses, and, what is more, the conscientious Jew will, of course, eat only the forequarters—less than half the animal. The rest he sells to the Gentiles, so that no one knows when sitting down to lunch whether or not he is eating meat killed under that method. It is an interesting fact that the Moslems (who also use his same method, though a rather cruder version of it) do not object to stunning prior to the cutting. I have a letter from the Imam of the Woking Mosque. He says that according to the Moslem Law all animals allowed as food must be slaughtered in such a way that blood flows out. The use of the humane killer does not yin any way go against the teachings of Islam. This instrument only stuns the animal and does not kill it. The animal's heart continues to beat for a considerable time after the use of the instrument.
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My Lords, this method of killing without rendering unconscious prior to the cut has been abolished in Holland, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland and Upper Austria. Is it not time that we followed suit? My Lords, I beg to move this Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Somers.)

INDIA AND PAKISTAN
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): My Lords, before we go on may I inform your Lordships that a statement on India will be made at or soon after 3.30 p.m., which will repeat the statement to be made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations.

SLAUGHTER OF ANIMALS BILL [H.L.]
3.7 p.m.
Debate continued.
LORD JESSEL: My Lords, I oppose the Second Reading of this Bill because if lit were to become law it would make Shechita, which is the ritual method of slaughtering animals, illegal. Not that that would matter to me; but it would matter to upwards of 200,000 people in this country who are perfectly normal citizens and who, as a result, would be unable to eat meat or chickens. Therefore I think we must be absolutely sure before we do this that we are justified in doing it and that Shechita is, in fact, a cruel method of slaughtering. If this were to be proved beyond all possible doubt I should support my noble friend's Bill, and I think the English people as a whale, who are normally much kinder to animals than to children, would say, "Let the orthodox Jews eat cake." But has my noble friend Lord Somers proved his case beyond any possible doubt? There is a tremendous weight of authority against him.
The distinguished scientist, Sir Leonard Hill, and the equally famous physician, Lord Horder, have both stated that Shechita was the most painless method of slaughtering animals. Admittedly,

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that was a few years ago, but in 1960 Harold Burrow, Professor of Clinical Medicine at the Royal Veterinary College, London (I do not know in what year the electro-encephalogram referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Somers came into being, but I doubt whether this Statement was made before that), said something to the effect that:
"Having witnessed the Jewish method of slaughter carried out on many thousands of animals I am unable to persuade myself there is any cruelty attached to it. As a lover of animals and owner of cattle and a veterinary surgeon, I would raise no objection to any animal, bred, reared or owned by me, being subjected to this method of slaughter."
I am glad to see that the noble Lord, Lord Cohen of Birkenhead, is going to speak later in this debate. He is a distinguished physician and I hope that he will deal with some of the technical aspects of this problem.
I must point out that the essential requirements in Shechita are that the animal must be sound and conscious before it is killed, so electrical stunning, of the animal before the act of Shechita is ruled out. This does not apply to the Moslems' religion and that is why they raise no objection to the noble Lord's Bill. But it is very doubtful whether electrical stunning is more humane or more reliable than the Jewish method. It is arguable whether Shechita, where the animals are put into a casting pen in the period prior to and leading up to the actual moment of slaughter, is more humane than casting by rope, which is commonly practised in this country. I do not think for one moment, as the noble Lord, Lord Somers, has said, that there is any anti-Semitic motive behind this Bill, but I think that it is misguided, sloppy and founded on ignorant prejudice. Therefore, I hope that it will not get a Second Reading.
3.21 p.m.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords. I should like to support the mover of this Bill. We are discussing a distressing and difficult subject, an unpleasant one in many ways; but, as has been said already this afternoon, we pride ourselves, I think rightly, on being one of the leading countries of the world in our concern for animals and in our feelings of the necessity for humane care for them. We have not got to the point of becoming vegetarians,
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but at least we insist upon the proper treatment of beasts which will produce our food, and particularly upon their humane slaughter and the avoidance of any unnecessary suffering and cruelty.
It has always seemed to me that one of the greatest inventions towards this end was the humane killer, which is now electric but which in the early days was a captive bolt fired at the animal, which rendered him completely and immediately unconscious, after which he could be despatched in any way thought fit. The humane killer was a revolution in our slaughtering methods, so much so that Parliament passed Acts to make its use compulsory in the slaughter of animals, with the exception, in the early days, of Jewish and Mohammedan slaughtering. We have heard from both noble Lords, Lord Somers and Lord Jessel, that on this question of slaughtering the orthodox Jew believes that an animal must be drained of blood and this can be done only by allowing the animal to live long enough for the heart to pump blood out. According to the Jewish belief, electric stunning of the animal cannot be accepted as it prevents this. From what we have heard from the noble Lord who introduced this Bill, there is no doubt that there must be terror and pain in the Jewish method.
Much has been said about the casting pen, but what has not been said—and I believe this to be the case—is that in practically all slaughterhouses, though the pen is used for big animals, it is not used for calves and sheep. A calf is strung up by one leg and kept there until the man comes along and cuts its throat; a sheep is put on a stand and turned upside down to have its throat cut. That alone, long before even the throat cutting happens, must cause suffering and terror, because animals smell blood very quickly and have a strange instinct about a threatening atmosphere. They become terrified in a way human beings do not: we have possibly lost this kind of intuition.
The noble Lord, Lord Somers, has said that experiments have shown that when an animal's throat is cut it is conscious for up to 25 seconds. I have heard from other veterinary surgeons that it can be a good deal longer than that. I remember being on a sheep station in

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Australia many years ago, where many sheep had to be killed. The usual method was to cut their throats but then animals would sometimes stagger about after it was done, until we devised a method whereby we cut the throat and broke the animal's neck at the same time, but this is not practicable with big animals like cattle. But, of course, the humane killer can do the job much more efficiently.
I would not dare to argue on the religious side of a question about which I do not know, but it seems to me as an outsider that the Jewish method of slaughter does not get rid of all the blood, which destroys their whole case. If there were actually no blood at all left in the carcase, we might say that this makes logical the Jewish religious tenet; but, as the noble Lord, Lord Somers, has shown, there is always a certain amount of blood left. In other words, we want to perpetuate what has been condemned by Parliament as a cruel way of slaughter in order that orthodox Jews should consume a slightly less percentage of blood than if the animal had been killed the Gentile way. That seems to me to cut the ground from under the feet of those who oppose this Bill. It reminds me of what we used to call the Irish teetotaller who thought that so long as alcohol was in wine and not in spirits, it was all right.
I should like to add that, certainly in my case, and in the case of many people who support this measure, there is no anti-Semitism at all. I would not support for a moment anything that had anti-Semitism in it and there is nothing fundamentally against the Jewish religion in this Bill. I have always believed that minorities should be allowed to believe and practice their beliefs as they like, so long as they do not cause harm to other people and so long as they do not offend the cherished beliefs of the majority among whom they live. That is very important. Great religious truths go on eternally, but religious customs do not necessarily do so. We have seen how our own customs have altered. We have only to read the histories of the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches in the Middles Ages to see how these Churches approved the burning alive of witches, heretics and those who did not agree with them. Such action would be considered intolerable these days.
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We have a good example of how customs Which have not been altered lead to terrible damage in India, where we see cows, which are not allowed to be killed, starving and diseased and suffering, experiencing infinite pain—and, what is as bad, causing an economic crisis. One of the great difficulties of India is the presence of millions of cattle roaming about which cannot be used for food or put out of the way. One unfortunate thing about it is that many well-educated Indians now blame the British for not having done away with this. They say that we had the power to do it and never did anything about it and now, when they have a democratically elected Government which depends on a balance of votes, fit is much more difficult to resist an opposition, especially if it is powerful enough, to such a change. I think that is a little unfair, but there it is.
To give your Lordships an example on the other side, these is the Mormon Church Which started out on the plains of America surrounded by Indians, animals and other enemies. They had to multiply in numbers as quickly as they could and under the sacred law of the Book of Mormon they were allowed and encouraged, in fact commanded, to practise polygamy and to have as many wives as they could and to breed as many children as they were able. It was very sensible in those days. And then, through no fault of their own, circumstances changed. They found themselves in the middle of a community Which thought it intolerable, wrong and immoral to have many wives, and very wisely the Mormons gave up that part of their creed. As a result, they are now one of the most virtuous, rich and powerful states in the United States.
We have heard that the Moslems have also yielded up their methods to bow to the feelings of the community. For these reasons, I Should like to appeal to the noble Lord, Lord Jessel, and to those Who support him and oppose the Bill, to reconsider their position in view of these facts and. even if they cannot support this Bill, at least they might not oppose it; and, through them, I appeal to the Jewish community to reconsider whether they would not be wiser to alter their stand and their attitude on this subject. It is one which offends a great mass of the English people, and if I appeal in

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vain, which may well be the case, I appeal to your Lordships for three reasons. In the first place, I think as a principle it is a very bad one to allow a minority to have a privileged position and to exempt themselves from the law. If it is the law and we believe in it, all people of this country should obey it. I cannot see how Her Majesty's Government, or the Minister who is to reply to this debate, can possibly logically defend their attitude. Secondly, I think that, in the interests of the Jewish community, it would be a good thing if this were done. It is not happy to live among a big majority—200,000 people against 52 million—practising something which is so unpopular. Thirdly, I would recommend to your Lordships that if we think this custom is definitely wrong we must support the Bill.
3.33 p.m.
LORD SWAYTHLING: My Lords, I wonder whether there is any special significance in the fact that the noble Lord who moved the Second Reading of Bill chose the first day of the Smithfield Show for the purpose.
I must ask, with all the sincerity that I can, that your Lordships refuse a Second Reading to this Bill. I should be the last to accuse the noble Lord, Lord Somers, of anti-Semitism, but it appears that the sole reason for the Bill is that the Jewish method of slaughter causes pain and suffering to the animals concerned. I speak for the Jewish method of slaughter only as I do not know the details of the Mohammedan method. The Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth bas stated that Shechita, which is the Jewish method of slaughtering animals for food, is prescribed by the Divine Law. It has been universally observed by the Jews throughout the ages; and is to this day religiously observed by all the orthodox Jews of the world. The rules and rites governing this sacred ordinance have come down to us from time immemorial, and amongst other purposes they assure a swift and painless death to the animal. Any other method than the prescribed Shechita (such as stunning previous to the act of slaughter) renders the meat ritually unfit for Jewish consumption. Civil regulations that would interfere with
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this hallowed practice would, therefore, inflict severe hardship upon the law-abiding citizens who would be prevented from partaking of meat except under conditions which would violate their religious consciences. Shechita is a religious rite deriving authority from the Bible. Prescribed by the Divine Law, as interpreted by Jewish tradition, it is binding upon the conscience of the Jew.
Kindness to animals is a basic Jewish teaching, and it is perfectly certain that this method of slaughter would not have been approved or carried on for all these years if there had been any cruelty inherent in it. On these grounds alone, highly important as they are, I would not oppose this Bill if I thought that any cruelty was incurred by the Jewish method of slaughter, but I hope I shall show to your Lordships' satisfaction that there is no cruelty, and that this method is at least painless and humane.
I hope your Lordships will permit me to mention the essential requirements of Shechita. The animal must be conscious and sound, as the noble Lord, Lord Jessel, said, and prior to the act of Shechita must not have suffered any injury; nor must there be a suspicion of injury. The method of slaughter is by a single cut of the neck. The knife is set to exquisite sharpness—more acute than any surgical knife—with a perfect edge free from the slightest flaw, and minutely examined for any unevenness immediately before the slaughter of each animal. The one swift movement of the knife, which causes no pain, severs the trachea, æsophagus, carotid arteries and the jugular veins. This produces an immediate and substantial fall in the blood pressure to the brain which ensures immediate unconsciousness. The person entrusted with the duty of slaying the animal, called the Shochet, must be of recognised high moral character, consistent religious practice, especially trained for the office, possessing a thorough knowledge of the precise rules and regulations of Shechita as well as of the condition of the animal's organs, normal and pathological. He must be steady of hand and qualified by examination, certified and officially appointed, and subject to re-examination at frequent intervals by the ecclesiastical authorities, who alone have jurisdiction to license a person to exercise the functions of a Shochet.

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From time to time the Jewish method of slaughter has been most carefully inquired into. At one time more than 450 of the most eminent physiologists, pathologists, heads of veterinary colleges, and health officers of world-wide fame in the various countries of Europe, not one of whom was a Jew, have declared the Jewish method to be absolutely humane. There are innumerable reports of experts who have specially considered the Jewish method of slaughter and I hope your Lordships wil permit me to quote one to you. In the court of a report Mr. Harold Burrow, Professor of Clinical Medicine, Royal Veterinary College, stated:
"In forming a rational opinion of the Jewish method of slaughter, one has to disregard completely the religious basis for this type of slaughter and the spectacle it presents to the onlooker, and consider solely its effect on the animal itself. No form of slaughter, involving as it does the shedding of blood, presents a pretty sight to the onlooker and one is afraid that this aspect of the question is bound to prejudice the judgment of the man in the street to the extent that he becomes almost incapable of divorcing his own feelings from those of the animal.
"The severence of the large vessels which supply practically the whole of the blood to the brain obviously leads to immediate loss of awareness on the part of the animal, both of its surroundings and of any painful stimuli. This precludes any possibility of cruelty entering into Jewish ritual slaughter. The actual process of severing these blood vessels occupies only a fraction of a second and is much too rapid to involve any measurable degree of pain."
He goes on to say:
"Having witnessed the Jewish method of slaughter carried out on many thousands of animals, I am unable to persuade myself that there is any cruelty attached to it."
I would also mention that in a report made by the late Lord Horder, when he was asked to go into these matters, he stated that it was difficult to conceive a more painless and more rapid mode of death.
There may be abuses in parts of the country, but I would suggest to your Lordships that where such abuses are proved they fall within the scope of the Slaughter of Animals Regulations, and might well be the subject of prosecution in the courts. I can assure your Lord-ships that the Jewish religious authorities would not seek to condone such offences. They are proud of the humane traditions of their religion and will be jealous to see that offenders
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against these cherished traditions are brought to justice. If the Jewish method is prohibited it will not only do violence to the religious conscience of observant Jews but prevent them from obtaining normal supplies of meat. I hope I have persuaded your Lordships that the Jewish case for continuing the exemption of the Jewish method of slaughter rests fundamentally on religious belief. The humaneness of the method, as I have stated, is abundantly supported by scientific evidence of outstanding medical and veterinary experts.
Liberty of religious observance is anchored in the life, traditions and fundamental freedoms of this country, and I am convinced that this House, as a time-honoured guardian of these freedoms, will not allow a restriction, involving great hardship, on the liberty of religious observance of the Jewish community.

INDIA AND PAKISTAN
3.42 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS OFFICE (THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE): My Lords, the noble Viscount who leads the Opposition asked for a statement about the situation in India and Pakistan following the visit of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs. My right honourable friend, who has just returned from India, As at this moment making a statement in another place and, if I may, I will read out his statement. It is as follows:
"The House was promised a report on my visit to India and Pakistan from which I returned this morning. I have tried to condense my remarks as much as possible but I am afraid that I have a good deal of ground to cover.
"I arrived in Delhi on November 24, where I joined the British Mission led by my honourable friend the Parliamentary Secretary and General Sir Richard Hull, which had been sent out to discuss India's requests for military aid in co-operation with a similar American team, headed by Mr. Averell Harriman.

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"My talks with Mr. Nehru, with other Ministers and with Members of Parliament of various parties left me in no doubt that the Indian Government and people, while welcoming the cease-fire and while recognising the deficiencies in their defences, ace in no mood to surrender territory to the Chinese at the pistol point. When I left Delhi the Indian Government was still seeking from Peking clarification of several important points in the Chinese proposals and no definite decision had been taken on the Indian Government's final reply.
"But Whatever reply the Indian Government may make to the present ceasefire proposals, one thing is quite clear. After this unprovoked attack (by a neighbour whom they had trusted, the people of India, who are more united than ever before, have made up their minds never again to rely for their safety and freedom upon the good faith of Communist China. They are resolutely determined, with the help of their friends, to build up the best system of defence of which they are capable. They regretfully recognise that this will inevitably involve sacrifices of all kinds, and no doubt some interference with the rate of economic progress. But that is a price they are prepared to pay.
"General Hull met Indian army leaders with whom he had valuable talks in an atmosphere of complete frankness and confidence. He was invited to visit the North-Eastern front, where he was greatly impressed by the high morale of the Indian forces, despite their recent reverses, and with the energetic manner in which shortcomings in the military organisation were being tackled.
"In the discussions between the British and American military teams and the Indian Defence Staff, it was agreed that first priority should be given to the re-equipment of those formations which had suffered severely in the recent fighting and to the provision of mountain warfare equipment for the other divisions already deployed or to be deployed on the Chinese border. The Indian Ministers and Service chiefs made it clear that
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they had no wish to ask for arms from abroad which could be produced in India and that they were already taking action to step up the output of their ordnance factories and to expand in other ways their manufacturing capacity.
"During my stay in Delhi, I concluded an agreement with the Indian Government, one of the purposes of which was to reassure Pakistan that arms supplied to India to meet the Chinese aggression would be used for no other purpose. Particulars of this agreement have already been given to the House.
"In my discussions with Mr. Nehru I made it clear that, when a fellow member of the Commonwealth is attacked, and asks for assistance, it is our natural instinct to do whatever we can as quickly as possible to help in the emergency. However, both Mr. Harriman and I pointed out that, when we came to consider longer-term military aid, the British and American peoples would be unhappy to see that an appreciable part of the Indian Army was being deployed not for defence against China, but for defence against Pakistan. We therefore expressed to Mr. Nehru our strong hope that, in the face of the Chinese threat to the whole sub-Continent, a new attempt would be made to settle the differences between India and Pakistan.
"At the end of our talks, Mr. Nehru agreed that I might inform President Ayub of his readiness to hold discussions for this purpose. On my arrival in Rawalpindi I found President Ayub equally conscious of the importance and urgency of a settlement; and, despite previous disappointments, he agreed that discussions should be held. I returned to Delhi with the draft of a joint statement which, after some amendment on both sides, was issued simultaneously by President Ayub and Mr. Nehru on Thursday evening. This announced the intention of the two Governments to hold discussions with the object of reaching an honourable and equitable settlement.
"On my return again to Rawalpindi I had a meeting with members of the Pakistan Parliament of different Parties. I found them very sceptical about

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India's intentions; but I did my best to convey to them my belief in the sincere desire of the Indian Government to find some way of ending the differences which divided the two countries.
"On my arrival at Karachi on Friday evening, on my way home, I was shown a report of a statement made by Mr. Nehru in the Indian Parliament that morning, which was interpreted as implying that the Indian Government had, in advance of the discussions, decided to exclude any solution which would involve a change in the status quo. This had created a feeling that the Pakistan Government had allowed itself to be misled; and I was told that a motion of censure had been tabled in the Parliament at Rawalpindi.
"In the light of my previous talks with Mr. Nehru, I felt sure that his statement was not intended to convey the meaning attributed to it. I therefore decided to fly back immediately to Delhi to clear up the misunderstanding. Although the hour was late, Mr. Nehru was good enough to receive me at once. He confirmed that a wrong interpretation had been put upon his words and issued a most helpful statement.
"In this he made clear that he toad no intention of placing any restrictions on the scope of the talks or to exclude consideration of any solutions which the Pakistan Government might wish to propose. At the same time, he expressed his positive belief that, with good will, it should be possible to reach a fair settlement.
"This welcome statement, which reached Rawalpindi just in time to be announced when Parliament opened on Saturday morning, had an immediately reassuring effect, and helped to dispel some of the earlier suspicions.
"It has been suggested that the British and American Governments have sought to act as mediators and have put to the two Governments proposals for solving the Kashmir problem. There is no truth in this. Our roôe has been a much more limited one. As friends of both countries, we have encouraged them, in the light of the new situation, to try again to settle this grievous and damaging dispute
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between two neighbours who have so much in common and who have so much to gain by friendly co-operation."
3.50 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Duke for giving us the statement which has been made in another place by the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations. I would say at once that we welcome very much the statement as a whole and agree with the details which it contains. We on this side of the House have all been exceedingly anxious that the opportunity raised by the general strategic situation in relation to the sub-continent to get these two very important nations within the sub-continent to be more co-operative should not be lost, and I hope that the result of the Secretary of State's visit will really contribute to that state of affairs.
I gather that the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations did not wish to comment at this stage upon the actual effectiveness of the present state of equipment of the Indian forces, in case there was a renewal of the campaign against them. I think that at this stage it would not be wise to ask any further question about that; and perhaps we might await further details that may come to our hands, until we know what arms have been supplied by the friends of India, and how far they are being used for the purpose for which they are sent and not to maintain the special forces facing the Pakistan forces over Kashmir.
LORD REA: My Lords, from these Benches we, too, should like to thank the noble Duke for the statement, and we see no reason to withhold from the Secretary of State our congratulations and thanks for what obviously was a very successful mission. There is one small point at the end of the statement saying that the American and British Missions are not at the moment dealing with the Kashmir question. I hope that that question will be borne in mind, however; and if we can help in any way it would seem to be a suitable meeting point or sound point of mediation in which we might be of assistance.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Viscount who leads the Opposition and

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to the noble Lord, Lord Rea, for their extremely helpful comments on my right honourable friend's statement. I will bring to his notice what the noble Viscount and the noble Lord, Lord Rea, have said, and I am sure he would wish me to say how grateful he is for their co-operation in this very important matter.

SLAUGHTER OF ANIMALS BILL [H.L.]
3.53 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD DOWDING: My Lords, when this subject came before the House some years ago a decision was reached largely on the question of whether loss of consciousness was or was not practically instantaneous after the cut. Those supporting the existing law maintained that consciousness was lost almost immediately, but evidence was relied on from speakers who had perhaps unquestioned knowledge of the human physiology but were unfamiliar with the system of blood supply to the brain of oxen. That is why the noble Lord, Lord Somers, and the Society over which he presides have done such signal service by arranging fox a scientific test which has shown, I think, beyond reasonable doubt that consciousness does persist for an appreciable time. This finding cannot be set aside by those who in veterinary matters are mere laymen.
In fact, when slaughter is carried out by Jewish rites the period of consciousness is often appreciably longer than that determined by the experiment which my noble friend has described. The ox, besides the carotid arteries, has a short artery shielded by the neck vertebræ against the cut of the slaughterer. Also there is a sort of sponge or bag which holds a quantity of blood and continues to supply the brain, somewhat after the nature of the reserve tank of an aeroplane. There is an additional factor which obtains when the throat is tightly stretched before being cut. The great arteries and veins being to some extent elastic tend to restrict into their shields and so restrict to some extent the flow of blood. The stretching of the throat before cutting may therefore actually delay the onset of unconsciousness.
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I have in my possession a letter from a retired Army officer who served for some time in Germany after the war. Jewish slaughter was prohibited in Germany during the war, but it was reintroduced by us in the area under our control under Jewish pressure. My informant was told by a veterinary officer responsible for the supervision of slaughterhouses that as soon as the throat of an animal had been cut by Jewish slaughtermen, he, the vet, ordered the ropes binding the animal's feet to be cut. The animal got to its feet and rushed out of the shed and remained on its feet for 50 seconds. The letter ended:
"The Germans say this is why the English fought the war."
If we may accept it as a fact then that the oxen, at any rate, do not lose consciousness quickly after their throats are cut, the question then arises, why should Jews and Moslems be given special immunity from the operation of our laws on religious grounds? The leaders of some sections of the Islamic faith, notably the Imams of the Woking and East London mosques, have agreed that preliminary stunning does not invalidate the carcase as lawful food, but they have not issued, and are probably not in a position to issue, general instructions to their coreligionists that this practice must always be followed by Moslems. It is not a matter which should be left to the choice of individuals. We have a humane law that animals must be stunned before being killed, and this law should be applicable to all living in Britain, particularly as it has never been satisfactorily shown that preliminary stunning is contrary to the principles of any religion.
It is possible that financial considerations may have something to do with the stubbornness of the Jewish authorities in this matter. Jewish charities are helped to a large extent by the fees obtained from various aspects of kosher killing, but preliminary stunning need in no way affect the finances of the Shechita Board. Other countries, as we have heard, have been able to put a stop to this cruelty without any catastrophic consequences to their Jewish communities. Norway and Sweden have, for a good many years now, prohibited the practice absolutely, and other countries have followed, and are following, suit.

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I should like to say a word on the subject of casting pens, because I played some part in the compulsory introduction of these appliances ten or twelve years ago. Before the introduction of the casting pen there was always a terrible struggle in casting the animal, which was often painfully injured on a concrete floor. The British slaughtermen hated this part of the proceedings, and I received several letters expressing their feeling. The casting pen obviated this struggle. But it is not an ideal operation, since, although it alleviates pain before killing, it does not do away with the terror which the animal feels on being turned over on to its back. Preliminary stunning would obviate the need for the casting pen and do away with both pain and terror. Next, it is a fact that many more animals are killed by the Jewish method than are consumed toy the Jewish community. Jews do not eat the bind quarters of animals, though their own religion permits them so to do if certain large blood vessels are excised. This involves too much trouble or expense, so the hind quarters are passed on for Gentile consumption. There is also a certain demand for kosher meat among Gentiles on the, I am sure, false assumption that kosher meat inspection is more meticulous than that of our own official inspectors. If preliminary stunning were enforced it would not matter how many animals beyond Jewish needs were killed, because both pain and terror would have been removed.
Finally, a word on the esoteric aspect of animal slaughter. I believe that, sooner or later, the time will come when we shall regard the eating of animal flesh as we now regard cannibalism; but, as practical people, we have to realise that that time is not yet. All that we can hope to do to-day is to ensure that all pain and terror shall be eliminated from the process of slaughter, and gradually to bring the thinking public to an awareness of the facts, which are that animals survive physical death much as do humans, and if they are sent out of earthly life crazed with pain and terror, certain physical effects remain in their bodies which are detrimental to the health of those who eat them. Also, that in addition to pain and terror, they bring with them through the gates of death a terrible sense of betrayal, that
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men who have, on the whole, tended them with care and consideration should suddenly turn on them and do such dreadful things to them. It is true that man has been given dominion over the animals; but this dominion was never intended to include their treatment as insensate goods and chattels. Man must learn to consider himself as the elder brother of the animals and to help them up the ladder of evolution, instead of pushing them downwards by cruel and greedy exploitation.
4.5 p.m.
THE EARL OF HADDINGTON: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Somers, and noble Lords who have followed him have explained the purpose of this Bill fully and well, and above all I want to avoid repetition. But from time to time measures come before your Lordships' House for the better protection of animals, and I think your Lordships have always received them with sympathy and understanding, particularly Bills in connection with wild animals which we have recently passed through your Lordships' House. To-day we are concerned with domesticated animals, and I am equally hopeful that your Lordships will give this Bill the sympathy which I think it observes. I believe that domestic animals should have our consideration just as much as do wild animals. Surely they deserve it.
When I was a schoolboy the path to the playing fields led quite close to a rather antiquated slaughterhouse. I have never forgotten the noises one heard and the sights one could not help seeing. I am afraid this is something that has rather haunted me all my life—and I do not think I am really more sensitive than the average person. Certainly it has given me an aversion to eating meat all my life. But, of course, things have improved since then. There must be slaughterhouses. We are a meat-eating nation. Animals have to be killed for food. Things have improved since my schooldays, but still, to me, there always seems to remain a terrible stigma, a terrible (may I call it?) indictment on our traditional life, that every year there should be slaughtered some 200,000 animals—that is the figure that has been stated to-day—by what I can only call a barbaric method, slashing with a knife without preliminary stunning.

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This indictment the noble Lord, Lord Somers, seeks to remove by this Bill. I sincerely hope he will succeed. Who possibly can dare to calculate what kind of pain an animal feels when subjected to this kind of treatment and has to die by this means? It is no good quoting statistics. If there is any doubt about the matter, for Heaven's sake!, cannot we give the animal the benefit of that doubt? That is one point that I feel very strongly about. I can quote Mr. Bywater, who was a member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, a deeply experienced man in all methods of slaughter for forty years. I could quote everything on his side, but it would only weary your Lordships and would only be repetitive of what my noble friend Lord Somers has said.
Leaving aside altogether the question of pain, I do know a little about what animals feel as regards fear. One thing they object to more than anything is being put out of their normal position. That is why the casting pen is so cruel. It is not only the killing by the knife, the slashing of the throat, which may give pain—it may or may not, and I say, give the animal the benefit of the doubt—but the casting pen must put the animal into a state of terror. If a human being is turned upside down, he knows what is happening to him, but an animal does not know and is in a state of terror all the time.
Like my noble friend and other noble Lords, the last thing I want to do is to hurt people's feelings in this matter, but we must face facts. The problem seems to resolve itself in my mind to this: are the religious interests of a small section of the community to override questions of plain humanity? That seems to me to be the question. People talk about minorities, but I do not think that that is the point. Suppose a referendum were taken in the country to-day: "How shall we have our animals killed? Should they be killed by their being stunned by the humane killer so that the animal is unconscious before his throat is out or slashed, and he may well take half a minute to die?" There would be an overwhelming vote in favour of the humane killer. We all know that, my Lords.
I would ask the Government just one question. I do not know what the noble
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Lord, Lord St. Oswald, is going to say in his reply, but I would ask how the Government can possibly justify the Jewish method of cutting the throat of a fully conscious animal when they have condemned it since 1933 by making the use of the humane killer compulsory for killing meat consumed by Gentiles. I have the greatest respect for religious beliefs. The noble Lord, Lord Swaythling, impressed me very much with what he said, but there was not a word of compassion in his speech for the poor animal—not one word. If Shechita is claimed to be Divine, well, is there not something Divine in compassion, too?
I have the greatest admiration for the Jewish people, as have other noble Lords who have spoken. One of the greatest men who some eighty years ago guided the fortunes of this country in your Lordships' House was a Jew, and he wrote this:
"While Christianity is incomprehensible without Judaism, Judaism is incomplete without Christianity."
These two great Faiths surely can reconcile their differences once and for all in this matter. It is a long business; it has long been a running sore. Surely it is time it should be healed. I think that if the Government chose to do so, they could stop this cruelty, now and for ever.
4.14 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, my interest in this matter was aroused when I was a Minister in the Ministry of Food and received a deputation of some of the organisations which the noble Lord, Lord Somers, has met. As a result of that, I went to the slaughterhouse the next day and witnessed the killing of animals by both methods. It has been suggested here that the Jews in this country—I think this was the expression used by the noble Lord, Lord Swaythling—would have their consciences violated if this Bill were passed. I propose to make certain remarks which I will, in imagination, address to the intelligent young Jews in this country, because I believe it is not a fact to-day that every Jew will be appalled and shocked if this Bill is passed. I would go so far as to say that a large number of young Jews in this country would not think of opposing it.
LORD SWAYTHLING: My Lords, might I interrupt the noble Lady for a moment? Might I suggest that when she says "young Jaws" she should confine herself to the Orthodox Jews; because it is only to Orthodox Jews that this applies.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I will take up the noble Lord's point, if he wild listen carefully to my remarks. I have studied the Bible more thoroughly in the last two months than I have ever studied it in my life; I have been into the part of Israel where the Orthodox Jews live and where there are a number of intelligent men. I will also say this. I would dare to say what I am going to say now to the Albert Hall full of Jews. I cannot say more than that, because I feel so convinced my argument is sound.
I envisage Moses as a paternal figure embodying the qualities of a statesman and the commonsense of a man of the people, who recognised that it was not necessary only to maintain law and order, but also to instruct a- primitive agricultural community living in a hot climate how to conduct their lives. The law of Moses embraced the common law, made provision for the most helpless, for widows and children, and propounded the elementary laws of hygiene. Mohammed was equally knowledgeable of the social problems of his day and the hazards to health in the climatic conditions of Arabia. No doubt both these wise men, Moses and Mohammed, observed that the death rate from gastrointestinal disturbances was related to the consumption of food which was no longer fresh, or which had been contaminated in some way. Warnings on these lines in the Bible are repeated again and again.
I would say here—and I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Swaythling, on this—there is no description of any method of animal killing in the Bible, but there are warnings. In Exodus, Chapter 21, verse 28, it says:
"If an ox gore a man or a woman that they die, then the ox shall be surely stoned and his flesh shall not be eaten."
Quite right: in a hot country with sand, dust, flies, that meat would be contaminated. In Exodus, Chapter 22, verse 31, we see:
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"Neither shall ye eat any flesh that is torn of beasts in the field, ye shall cast it to the dogs."
The warnings I want to emphasise in these two verses were against eating meat which had been contaminated.
Moses and Mohammed also observed that in the Middle East the flesh had better keeping qualities if the animal had been bled by cutting the blood vessels. In Deuteronomy, Chapter 12, verses 23 and 24, it says:
"Only be sure that they eat not the blood. …"
Then it goes on:
"Thou shalt not eat it; thou shalt pour it upon the earth as water."
In Leviticus, Chapter 17, verses 10 and 17, it says:
"I will set my face against that soul that eateth blood and will cut him off from among his people."
I dare say this. My interpretation of this is that dysentery was a common complaint; they had learned that it could be transmitted and that segregation of the patient should be enforced. Otherwise, how can one interpret these verses which deal with the feeding of the people? Moses warned them that if they ate meat which was not fresh because there was blood in it, they might get dysentery and therefore would be cut off from the rest of the people.
In Leviticus, again, instructions are given that only healthy animals are to be brought to be killed, and, again, that the blood is to be sprinkled. All this follows Lord Swaythling's interpretation of the Bible. This insistence on ensuring that the animal is quite healthy before it is killed, and that it has not been interfered with in any way, is illustrated again in Leviticus, where instructions are given that a fowl should have its neck wrung by the priest in front of the altar—and, of course, the altar was simply a table of earth—and burnt or, as I interpret it, cooked on a wood fire.
Many of your Lordships have been in the Middle East. I have visited every Middle Eastern country, and time after time I have said, "Why are we waiting such a long time for lunch?" My host has said, in the wonderfully hospitable way of the people of the Middle East, "Well, in this country the neck of the chicken is being wrung after you have arrived here, because it is hot and we

35
want you to have the freshest possible food." And I must confess that as a doctor I was very grateful to hear it. I think it is clear that the chief religious objects in the provision of meat for the Jewish and Moslem faiths are concerned with the method of slaughter and the condition of the carcase. The act of slaughter in the time of Moses was as humane as the times allowed. They had to use the implements which they had at hand, and the method was designed, to quote the Islamic Law,
"to allow the blood to flow out",
because as I have said, this improved the keeping qualities of the carcase. Now, my Lords, in terms of preventive medicine these laws of hygiene represented the very essence of wisdom, thousands of years ago, in a hot, dusty country, before the invention of refrigeration and the humane killer.
As it was laid down that there should be no contamination of the animal before its throat was cut, there are those who regard the humane killer as introducing an element of interference. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Swaythling, will not feel that I am being disrespectful when I say this, but my reading of the wisdom of Mohammed and Moses on these subjects is such that I believe that, if it were possible for them to go into the Division Lobby to-day, they would vote for this Bill. The humane killer had nothing to do with the contamination of meat in a hot country by dust, flies and animals—infections of every kind. They knew nothing about bacteriology in those days. Pasteur was not born until the last century, when we learnt about bacteriology. But these wise men learnt that there was something which infected the meat, and in consequence it deteriorated. But do you think for one moment, my Lords, that these wise men would regard a humane killer in the same light? Far from it! The animals lived with the people; they were fond of their animals. And, if it could be said that the animal could be stunned before having its throat cut, I am sure they would approve.
Perhaps I may dare say this about stunning and bleeding: stunning the animal does not prevent the blood from flowing freely, any more than a boxer
36
who has had his head stunned on the floor of the ring ceases to bleed; and nobody I have ever heard in the boxing ring, has ever said that the flow of the blood is impeded after he has been stunned on the floor. Furthermore, no animal, whatever the method of slaughter, is drained completely of its blood. I hope that I shall not put your Lordships off your dinner tonight, but one has only to have an underdone steak to understand that that is true.
I do not wish to elaborate on any of the side issues. It is enough for me to know that some of the most brilliant physiologists in this country (and I would remind noble Lords that so many people they have mentioned, including Lord Horder, are not physiologists; and this is a matter for the experts) advised the Government that these animals should be rendered unconscious before blood is drawn. I would remind noble Lords that the other countries where this is already observed are in the van of social reform. Holland, Norway, Sweden and, in some measure, Switzerland, are countries which have introduced social reforms which we have been only too delighted to follow, and these countries have made use of the humane killer. My Lords, developments are taking place all the time in every field of science, and we must not allow dogmas and taboos to obstruct progress.
In the last century, doctors began to give women anæsthetics at their confinements. Pressure was brought to bear by representatives of the Church—not necessarily the Jewish faith—to stop Simpson and his followers from giving anæsthetics, because in Genesis, Chapter III, verse 16, it is said:
"Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children …"
So there were poor women in the last century who were afraid to have anæsthetics for fear of offending the Church. Now the wise and humanitarian approach has prevailed, and it is the exception rather than the rule that a woman should be confined without an anæsthetic. I would say to those who have spoken against this Bill that in these days, when the Churches of all denominations are seeking to close their ranks, it would be regrettable if customs which emphasised their differences were perpetuated.
4.27 p.m.
LORD COHEN OF BIRKENHEAD: My Lords, despite the theological wanderings of the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, I do not propose to follow her at this stage, but simply to impress on your Lordships that, whatever might have been said in this House, this Bill would have profound import for the orthodox Jew. History records many instances of suffering, self-sacrifice and martyrdom willingly endured for the sake of these laws, in the face of torture and death. My Lords, the case of the noble Lord, Lord Somers, as supported by the noble Lord, Lord Dowding, and the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, is that all this is consistent with Jewish teaching. The noble Lady, and, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Somers, quoted a verse from Deuteronomy. Let me quote it in full:
"Thou shalt kill of thy herd and of thy flock, which the Lord hath given thee, as I have commanded thee …"
My Lords, Jewish Law is based not only on the Bible but also on what is called the Mischna. Jewish Law is both written and oral, and tradition holds that Moses was given the whole Law both written and oral, although the oral Law was put down in writing only in about 70 B.C. or thereabouts. The Law says quite categorically that it is the whole animal which must be free from injury and free from disease, and the animal must be examined after death to ensure that it is free from injury and from disease. But any method of stunning, whether by the captive bolt which shatters the brain and part of the skull, or by electric stunning, which produces irreversible brain changes, as is well known, even in human beings, and also causes severe congestion of muscles and, not infrequently, hæmorrhages and tears, has been known, as the noble Lord will know, to cause fractures in human beings. That is wholly contrary to Jewish Law, because the animal, when it comes to the Shechita, is not, in Jewish Law, whole.
Moreover—and let me say this—electric stunning is not always humane. In many of the publications of the R.S.P.C.A., the recent book by Thornton, in its fourth edition, is quoted. Let me quote you what he says on electric stunning:
"It must be agreed that if certain requisites are not complied with the method may be inhumane, for the electric current may produce a condition known as 'missed' shock in
38
which the animal, though paralysed, is fully conscious".
And, my Lords, if I needed more authority I would turn to the Council of which the noble Lord, Lord Somers, is President, because this is what it says of stunning by electricity in its Report for 1954–55:
"Your Committee has still to be convinced that the electric method of stunning sheep and pigs is humane, and strongly advocates its rejection in favour of the captive bolt pistol, which has proved itself beyond doubt".
My Lords, the interpretation of Jewish law is not in the hands of Lord Somers, of Lord Dowding or of Lady Summerskill. The interpretation of Jewish law, whether it is accepted by noble Lords or not, is in the hands of Rabbinic authority; and the Rabbinic authority makes is abundantly clear that any method other than the prescribed Shechita, such as stunning previous to the act of slaughter, renders the meat ritually unfit for Jewish consumption.
I think it inappropriate, although some of your Lordships may think otherwise, that we in this House should indulge in discussing theological doctrines. It does not appear to me to be appropriate; but, at any rate, Jet the facts be known—and the fact is that Rabbinic authority will not support pre-Shechita stunning. But the noble Lord, Lord Somers, has said that he does not wish to trespass on the rights of conscientious Jews in any degree, and he went as far as to say, in an interview with the Jewish Chronicle a week or two ago:
"My Bill is not going to offend against the Jewish religion. If it did, I certainly would not be sponsoring it. The letter of the Jewish law remains perfectly intact under my proposal".
My Lords, if that be so, I suggest that the noble Lord should withdraw this Bill, since it is completely contrary to Jewish law and wild offend many Jewish consciences.
On the other hand, I think I should say this: that your Lordships should be justly concerned with whether, in the act of Shechita, there is involved any unnecessary cruelty. This is a matter for your Lordships. If this were to be permitted under the law, even though it be countenanced by religious teaching, I believe many people in this country who are not Jews and many who are Jews would seriously doubt whether Shechita should be carried out.

39
They would prefer not to eat meat if it was obtained by any cruel method. I confess that I was a little surprised at the irrelevancies of the noble Earl, Lord Huntingdon, who told us of Indian customs and Mormon customs which appeared to me to have no relationship whatsoever to the Jewish customs, or indeed to the Jewish law which at the moment I am attempting to explain. He said also that if we cannot support this Bill, at least do not let us oppose it. But, my Lords, we either support this Bill or we do not, and if we do not we must oppose it.
He made two statements which I hope your Lordships will reject and resent. The first is that minorities in this country who have religious practices which are not accepted by the majority might look out because it might react upon them adversely. If he said that not directly, he implied it quite directly.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, if the noble Lord will forgive my interrupting him for a moment, may I say that I certainly did not mean it in the sense suggested by the noble Lord. I want to clear myself of any possible anti-Semitism, or any possible threatening use of any words. It certainly was not my intention.
LORD COHEN OF BIRKENHEAD: I accept the noble Earl's explanation at this later stage; but the noble Earl went on to say that minorities must keep the laws of this country. My Lords, the Jewish people of this country are law-abiding citizens. Many of them, I would claim, are as law-abiding as, if not more law-abiding than, many other citizens of this country. But Shechita is the law of this country. Shechita is the law of this country by the Slaughter of Animals (Consolidation) Act, 1958. What the noble Earl I think means is that if this Bill becomes law then Jews should observe it. Jews will observe it if it becomes law, but it is not the law of this country.
Now, My Lords, I come to the crucial question: is Shechita cruel? You have heard that Jewish teaching denies this, and the orthodox Jew's answer on this question is quite clear. He says, "God is an all-loving and all-merciful Father;
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therefore, he would not have commanded us to carry out any act which is cruel". "Our God," he says, "said in the Ten Commandments that the Sabbath Day was not to be for man alone but for cattle as well". "Our God," he says, "says in Proverbs that the righteous man regardeth the life of his beast". But orthodox Jews go further. In the Talmud, which is the citadel of Jewish teaching and Jewish law, it is specifically laid down that cruelty to animals is forbidden. "Thus," they say, "Shechita cannot be cruel as it is Divine law." My Lords, I do not expect you to accept that argument, but it is an argument which is accepted by Orthodox Jews. It will not satisfy your Lordships who, if they are to be satisfied, must be satisfied on other grounds.
In the paper which has been circulated to some of your Lordships, if not to all except the Jewish Members of this House, by the Council of Justice to Animals, it is there stated that doctors, veterinary surgeons and slaughtermen have condemned Shechita as an act of cruelty. But, my Lords, there is not a word about the hundreds of doctors, veterinary surgeons and others who have said that Shechita is not an act of cruelty. I should have thought that it was perhaps in the interests of justice that the Council of Justice to Animals should show justice to man and should put both sides of the question to those whom it is approaching.
The R.S.P.C.A., in the letter which it sent to the Members of this House accompanied by a statement by Mr. Bywaters, a veterinary surgeon, says that the only veterinary support is that of a professor who has not had experience in a slaughter-house for some thirty years. My Lords, that is untrue. I could give my noble friend as many instances as he would wish to read of veterinary surgeons who have expressed quite clearly that Shechita is as humane a method as any. I do not propose to discuss what Mr. Burrow said in 1960 in favour of Shechita or what the physiologists like Krogh, a Nobel Prize-man, said in favour of Shechita, or what Sir Charles Lovatt Evans or Lord Horder said, and so forth. After all, I would concede immediately that there have been expressed many contrary opinions. I think that some of them are not perhaps quite so weighty on the opposing side as they are on the side of Shechita, but this is a matter which noble Lords will judge for themselves. It is, if

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I may say so with the greatest respect, nonsense to assert that some of this is not inspired by anti-Semitism. We know that in the countries of Europe in which Nazi domination appeared before the war and which before the Nazis came had Shechita, immediately the Nazis came it was stopped and prohibited. This is the first time I have learned that the Nazis are the paragons of human virtue.
THE EARL OF HADDINGTON: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, purely as a matter of interest, supposing the noble Lord had to be put to sleep permanently—which God forbid!—would he prefer Shechita or the captive bolt method?
LORD COHEN OF BIRKENHEAD: I will answer that question when I come to it in a moment.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, the noble Lord has made a serious statement in maintaining that there may be anti-Semitism behind this. Could he give us proof? It is a matter of grave concern.
LORD COHEN OF BIRKENHEAD: With pleasure. I do not believe your Lordships will wish me to give a great deal of proof. One example will suffice. One noble Lord—I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Somers—mentioned the 1904 Admiralty Investigation, and it was said that the Report then was, in fact, never published. This was what a veterinary surgeon, who is one of the protagonists of anti-Shechita, says—
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, I must interrupt the noble Lord. I did not say the 1904 Report was never published. In fact I read from that Report.
LORD COHEN OF BIRKENHEAD: I thought the noble Lord said it was never published. I was going to say he could see it if he wishes to. This was a comment by a Member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons—a great protagonist of anti-Shechita. He says:
"The First Lord of the Admiralty at that time was the Earl of Selborne who had been Private Secretary to the Jewish H. C. Childers and was later co-director with the Jews, S. B. Joel and Sir S. Neuman, in the African Banking Corporation and with the Ronds Jews in the Natal Ammonium Company Limited. If the Report had ever got past him it would have been stopped by the Right Honourable Arthur J. Balfour, who was Prime Minister and who promised Palestine to the Jews later on."
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The Report did get past the Prime Minister, as I was going to say when the noble Lord, Lord Somers, interrupted, but this is a specimen (and if the noble Lords wish I would furnish many more) of how anti-Semitism has played a part in this anti-Shechita agitation. I do not say it motivates or inspires the noble Lord, Lord Somers, whom I know from past experience to be concerned about the avoidance of cruelty to animals; or Lord Dowding, with whom I had a pleasant altercation when I gave my maiden speech in this House in 1957. But if noble Lords wish, I will gladly provide them with information which shows the anti-Semitic content of some of this agitation, but clearly I do not need to do so now.
It has been said that laws provide, in certain countries, for the slaughter of animals but not for Shechita. The noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, suggested that these were the sources of many social reforms. I would remind the House that there is no State or Federal law in the United States which prohibits Shechita. And in Canada, Shechita is regarded (after their having taken scientific evidence) as equal to any other method of slaughter, and it is so stated in a law enacted in 1960. But, my Lords, this House will not be persuaded either by the mass of expert opinion or appeals to revered authorities, because some know that when they learnt a little logic one of the fallacies they learnt to avoid was the argumentum ad verecundiam, and I do not propose myself to appeal to revered authorities, nor indeed to the laws of other countries, but to try to apply myself (and I am obviously open to the accusation of bias) as a doctor and scientist, who has done extensive physiological work over many years, to the scientific problem of Shechita.
Although the noble Lady has wandered into the fields of hygiene, these reasons are not accepted by Jewish rabbis any more than is the reason I would myself prefer to accept, that in ancient philosophy the blood was regarded as the life substance—indeed until the 18th century that was so. If the noble Lady has read John Hunter, father of scientific surgery, she would know that was so. It might well have been that the Jews were not permitted to eat meat because of the blood

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being the life substance. In order to remove the last traces of blood from the meat, which they know the meat contains after Shechita, there is this process of salting meat and so forth, so that every single trace of free blood may be removed from the meat if it is there. I would also stress what the noble Lord, Lord Swaythling, said (and which is quite different from the way some of Lord Huntingdon's sheep were killed in the hills of Australia) that the Shochet is a man who must be a God-fearing man. He is trained in the moral law, trained and educated in the teaching of children, and so forth, and many of them are in fact Ministers of small local communities. And the knife must have the properties which Lord Swaythling mentioned, and the cut must be one swift, uninterrupted cut. If it is interrupted, then the Shechita fails and the meat is no longer what is called Kosher but it is nevelah.
What are the scientific data? When you cut the throat of an animal (and here I am referring to the cattle and larger animals) the blood pressure falls off very rapidly. Within four seconds the blood pressure drops in the femoral artery to half what it was before the cut, and that rate of fall means unconsciousness must have occurred earlier. Anyone familiar with this in human pathology knows exactly what the situation is. I will turn to the vertebral artery in a moment. For twelve or fifteen seconds after the cut there is a twitching. That twitching is wholly involuntary or automatic. It is what is known as reflex movement and is not concerned with consciousness at all.
I should like to ask your Lordships, particularly in view of what the noble Earl, Lord Haddington, has said, to remember the difference between what is apparent cruelty and what is actual cruelty. If any of your Lordships were to see a boy or girl in an epileptic fit, suddenly crying out with piercing screams, falling down in convulsions and the like, you would think that this was extreme pain. But let the boy or girl recover, and ask what he or she has felt, and the answer is, nothing. They know nothing of what occurred in these automatic convulsions.
As I have said, any method which produces a flow of blood must be
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repugnant and repellant to many if not most, but there are points which I think that your Lordships should bear in mind. The cut, as made by the Shochet (and your Lordships may have experienced something similar to this, if you have been cut by a razor blade and know of it only when the blood flows), is almost certainly painless: I would say that it is certainly painless. The argument is about how long consciousness lasts. May I ask your Lordships to reject the dramatic episode of the noble Lord, Lord Somers, in counting 25 seconds in your Lordships' House, because it bears no relation whatsoever to the problem which confronts us. What he said was that for 25 seconds after the Shechita cut there can be seen on the electro-encephalograph electrical activity in the brain. Although I hesitate to do so in your Lordships' House, if I would claim expert knowledge it is of the electro-encephalograph. I first used one 30 years ago, and have since continued to use the one I have and others which have much improved. The encephalograph reveals no information but electrical activity in the brain; and electrical activity in the brain persists in profound anaesthesia and in profound unconsciousness, when an injury to the patient is not felt. It persists even for up to a minute in a decapitated animal and has been shown in human hanging to persist for a considerable period of time, just as the heart continues to beat in the Shechita ox for several minutes. The suggestion that the electro-encephalograph is any criterion of consciousness in quite untenable; and I say that with expert authority.
The second point which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Dowding—and your Lordships must forgive me if I prolong this debate unduly, because I feel that all points should be replied to; it is only proper that that should be done, in view of the vehemence With which some of them have been made, and perhaps I may be permitted a little vehemance myself—is about the vertebral artery. Under normal conditions, the vertebral artery is a small artery about one-twentieth of all the total area of the carotid artery, but in Shechita the neck out severs not only the carotid artery but also the jugular vein. By careful measurements of the blood pressure in the vertebral artery, Henry Dukes, who

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is a leader in the veterinary physiological field in America and the head veterinary physiologist in the Veterinary College of Cornell, showed, in results published in 1958, that the blood pressure in the vertebral artery is less than one-third of normal under the most favourable conditions, and that this is insufficient to maintain consciousness.
There is the other point of the retraction of the carotid within the sheaths. This was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Dowding, who told us that his informant was someone who had been told by a veterinary officer in post-war Germany.
LORD DOWDING: Not at all: I did not say that.
LORD COHEN OF BIRKENHEAD: Well, we shall look at the OFFICIAL REPORT to-morrow and see what the noble Lord said, because I have it down that it was a military person who was told by a veterinary officer in post-war Germany.
LORD DOWDING: My Lords, that referred to the incident in which an animal, after having had its throat out, got up and rushed out of the shed and was on its feat for 50 seconds. That was a letter from a military officer in Germany. I think the noble Lord was mixing up two statements which I made.
LORD COHEN OF BIRKENHEAD: My Lords, I am quite happy to accept the noble Lord's explanation that it was not what I myself noted. The fact is that the noble Lord was describing experiments which took place in Germany before the war. They were made by Dr. Klein, director of the abattoir at Lennep, who himself apparently carried out the cutting of the throat. It was not done by the Shochet at all. If the noble Lord wishes to have the reference, I will give it to him.
I was dealing with the retraction of the carotid, in which it was said that pressure in the vertebral artery may be sustained for a longer period. There are three arguments which I think must be considered in this respect. The first is that no Shochet whom I have asked—and I have also asked others to seek this information—has ever observed what the noble Lord has described. Secondly, the pressure in the aorta is considerable
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and if the left ventricle contracts and it is still contracting, it is almost invariably able to displace any retraction of that kind. Thirdly, the jugulars are cut at the same time, and these veins drain the brain of blood. The fourth point, which is of great importance to anyone who knows anything of pathology, is that when you cut the jugulars, in which there is a negative, venous pressure, the patient dies within seconds from air embolism; and the same is true of cattle. My Lords, I do not propose to adduce more scientific evidence, but I would say, despite the fact that your Lordships will clearly say that I am biased, that the available scientific evidence supports Mr.Dukes's conclusion, which is the most recent of those who have gone into the matter with great care, that the method is humane and will almost immediately render the animal unconscious.
In summary, there are two points that I would make. The first is the religious. And, as I have emphasised, the interpretation of the Jewish law is not a matter for the noble Lord, Lord Somers; for the noble Lord, Lord Dowding, or for the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, or, indeed, for your Lordships' House. The second is: is the method humane? I have told your Lordships that the answer to that is quite clear to the religious Jew, but for others the answer can be determined only by scientific evidence. I suggest that such evidence as exists does not suggest inhumanity of Shechita. But, if there is any doubt upon this matter, why not let the Government invite the President of the Royal Society to appoint a panel of experts who could report to the Government on the purely scientific aspects of this matter? I believe that that would be welcomed. I have myself presided over a panel, dealing with another problem, appointed by the President of the Royal Society at an earlier time, and I know that this is a useful method if the Government are in any doubt. Let me say this, finally. The passing of this Bill would plunge into deep sorrow tens of thousands of loyal Jews in this country who for over 3,000 years have ordered their lives in the uninterrupted tradition of what they regard as Divine truth.
5.2 p.m.
LORD AILWYN: My Lords, I shall be very brief. I should like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Somers

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on the very careful way in which he has moved this Second Reading. Having listened to the opposing arguments which have been so ably deployed by the various speakers, I find the evidence so conflicting that on reflection I am not prepared to support the Second Reading of this Bill. I do not find the evidence in favour of altering existing legislation sufficiently convincing to warrant the change proposed, observing the very grave injury that such a change would undoubtedly bring to the susceptibilities and the religious beliefs of the Jewish community, although I must say in passing that I have always been rather puzzled by the Jewish people's insistence on retaining this particular item of Mosaic law when they have allowed so many other Divine commands to pass into desuetude—in other words, to be discarded. "He that blasphemeth shall be put to death. Adulterers are to be stoned." Above all, in Numbers we read of a man who gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day being stoned until he died, as the Lord commanded Moses. It is all very puzzling.
My opinion, for what it is worth, is that the cruelty at slaughterhouses whether Jewish or Gentile, is occasioned not by the actual process or method of killing but by the preliminaries: the approach, the smell, the blood, the slippery floor, the atmosphere of impending doom, utterly terrifying to the wretched animals concerned. I have seen all this. Some years ago I used to visit many of these slaughterhouses, and I do know what I am talking about—admittedly some few years ago. So long as humans insist on eating the flesh of animals instead of living upon the fruits of the earth, so long will cruelty continue, whatever form of slaughter is employed. With great respect to my noble friend Lord Somers, for whom I have the greatest regard, I do not think a case has been made out for this alteration.
5.4 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, this has been a very anxious debate. I do not recall an occasion when one could have looked round the House and seen so many anxious expressions on the faces of Members. We have had the
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undoubted sincerity of the noble Lords, Lord Swaythling and Lord Cohen of Birkenhead. On the other side, we have had the sincerity of the Promoters of this Bill, and I think it is fair to say that the views which have been expressed in this House are views which are held extremely strongly in all quarters of the country pro and con this Bill.
Like the noble Lord who has just sat down, I approach this Bill with considerable hesitation. I have not seen the Jewish slaughter method. I have seen the Moslem method, and I may say that I am indeed pleased that the Imam has not raised objection to the provisions of this Bill. I am pleased that a more humane method is to be brought into being in this country for the Moslem slaughter. I was very disturbed at the way in which this debate developed, particularity to hear the words "anti-Semitism" used, because I do not believe that that really exists in any quarter of this House. The real issue and, I (think, the only issue the noble Lord, Lord Somers, has placed before us to-day is whether there is any degree of cruelty in certain methods of killing in this country. I do not doubt that in this country it is the will of the people to reduce any degree, if there is a degree, of cruelty in the killing of animals. Therefore, I (think that is the first thing about which this House must make up its mind.
I would suggest, on the debate which has taken place, that the statistics which have been quoted on one side or the other would leave us, as the noble Lord has said, in a sense of doubt. If that doubt is there in our minds, does it mean that we should not proceed to give this Bill a Second Reading? I think we must face the fact that there is considerable evidence on both sides. We must also take into account that, if we find that there is an element of cruelty, and it is an element which can be reduced by a different method of killing, there is a small but important minority that has to be taken into consideration. I think therefore that as a House we shall find ourselves in this difficulty. First of all, we should assess whether there is a degree of cruelty and, if we are to take any action in it, whether we are doing anything (to infringe the religious freedom of the orthodox Jew. I think this is

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a point which it is vary difficult for any of us in this House to decide this afternoon.
I gave notice to the Government and to the noble Lord, Lord Somers, that if the balance of the debate was such that there was an element of doubt as to how I or other noble Lords would wish to vote, I proposed to raise the point of whether, the House being satisfied that there has been a case made for consideration and possibly for action, we could not give this Bill its Second Reading on the understanding that we as a House would send it to a Select Committee of your Lordships' House. I had some consultation in this matter, and I was advised that on a previous Private Bill—the Boxing Bill of my noble friend Baroness Summerskill—the same suggestion was raised. I looked up Hansard, and I noted that the noble Viscount who leads the House felt that it was perhaps not right that we should use a Select Committee to inquire into the rights and wrongs of professional boxing. I think he was perhaps right—I do not think in fact there is any doubt that he was right. But I would suggest that his objection at that time is not relevant to the suggestion that I should like to put to the House this afternoon.
My Lords, as I understand it, it is possible to send a Private Bill or a Public Bill to a Select Committee and this procedure is adopted in cases where a Bill requires a more minute investigation than it would receive on the Floor of the House and where, before coming to a decision upon it, it is considered advisable to hear the evidence of witnesses. The noble Viscount did use those words on the previous occasion. However, in the light of the debate that has taken place this afternoon, I feel that within these words we have a case for sending this Bill to a Select Committee. But my advice goes even further in support of my view, for the procedure for sending Bills to a Select Committee can be adopted because they are of complexity and detail. Certainly this Bill does not come within that province, but there is a second category: Bills which are introduced by Private Members dealing with subjects on which it is often essential to hear evidence from the persons affected by the provisions of the Bill.
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I should have thought, taking into account the debate and the weight of evidence there has been for proceeding with the Bill, and taking into account that a certain section of our public would be very much affected if this Bill were passed, that if we were to send this Bill to a Select Committee the noble Lords taking part could then hear the full weight of evidence produced by barristers and men who know and understand all the problems, that that Committee could then consider and make its own recommendations to your Lordships' House. I understand that then the House, if it decided to proceed or reject the Bill on the weight of advice of that Select Committee, would be quite free to do so. My understanding of that is based on a precedent. I have not been able to do a great deal of homework on it, but I understand this method was adopted in 1939 with the Bastardy Bill, which received a Second Reading in your Lordships' House, and when one reads the Report of that Select Committee it is quite obvious that the Select Committee went into all the aspects and all the problems that would arise if that Bill became law and they produced a very full Report on which the House was able finally to make its opinions.
I do hope that the House will give this Bill a Second Reading. I hope it will do so for two reasons: to satisfy those who feel that there is cruelty involved in two types of killing, and, I believe, in the interests of the orthodox Jew. The orthodox Jews believe fervently in this method of killing; they say that there is no cruelty. I would not in any way dispute the words of the noble Lord, Lord Cohen of Birkenhead, or the noble Lord, Lord Swaythling, but if we give this Bill a Second Reading and if we send it to a Select Committee I am quite sure that this House will rely upon the judgment of our own Peers, having listened to the evidence produced toy those who are promoting this Bill and by those who may foe orthodox Jews or others who are in fact opposing. I believe that this would be the best way, and I believe it would mean that we could have a Second Reading and that we could proceed, yet the House would not find that it had committed itself to supporting or opposing this Bill.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, before my noble friend replies may I just say a word?
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I was going to say something.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: Perhaps the noble Lord will allow me to say something first, and then he certainly shall. There are two things I should like to say. The first is that I would propose to reply to the suggestion about the Select Committee myself, and separately from the reply to the debate, if that meets with the approval of the House. The second thing is, I think, having regard to what toe has just said, that the noble Lord owes it to his own noble friends to say whether he was speaking on behalf of his Party or simply as an individual
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, this is a Private Member's Bill and, so far as my side is concerned, we are speaking here as individuals; we speak on our conscience.
5.15 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I had not thought of speaking in this debate, but in view of a number of things that have been said I feed that perhaps a word from me might be of some use. First, I hope that I may give the House an assurance that I am looking at this matter entirely objectively and have no prejudice either in favour of or against the Jewish method of slaughtering. I do not insist on eating meat which has been slaughtered in the Jewish way; I have no feelings of that kind whatsoever. Secondly, may I say that I should deplore any suggestion that anti-Semitism enters into this question at all; certainly not, so far as this House is concerned.
LORD COHEN OF BIRKENHEAD:
My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord would like me to say that I did not for a moment suggest that it entered into this question in this House. I said that we had to recognise, in view of What the noble Lord, Lord Dowding had said, that anti-Semitism does inspire and motivate some of the a anti-Shechita arguments. I was challenged to give an example, and I did.
LORD SILKIN: I know that the noble Lord said that there was no anti-Semitism in this House. I was going on to say, further, that there is no anti-Semitism, so far as I have been able to discover it, in the consideration of this question. I think the people who are supporting this Bill are doing so quite honestly and sincerely because they believe that there is some cruelty in the Jewish method of slaughter. I accept all that, and I am quite certain that the noble Lord, Lord Somers, and those who feed disposed to agree with him, axe absolutely sincere in putting forward this Bill.
Nevertheless, having listened to the whole of the debate quite dispassionately, I am bound to say, with my noble friend Lord Shepherd, that the case has not been established; the evidence is quite conflicting. We have had evidence from well-known veterinary surgeons, from well-known physicians, from eminent scientists. But they have not been all one way; some of them have been entirely conflicting. The case that has been put has been highly scientific, depending upon seconds and what happens after the throat has been cut, and so on, and it really is quite impossible for the average person to form a judgment on this matter.
My own feelings in the matter are with the noble Lord, Lord Ailwyn: I believe that the greatest cruelty takes place before the animal is slaughtered. For a number of years I kept pigs and on two occasions I went to see them slaughtered. I can assure the House that it is a most distressing sight to see these poor animal fighting against getting into the pl where they are going to be executed; and it is a thing I cannot bear to see again. But that is inherent in the slaughter itself; it does not depend upon the method.
The fact is that the evidence that we have had to-day is by no means conclusive one way or the other, and it would be most unfair to ask your Lord-ships to come to a decision on this matter. You have to realise that if you do give the Bill a Second Reading it is going to injure the feelings very deeply of people who feel very seriously about this matter. It is of profound importance for the Orthodox Jew, and while the noble Lord, Lord Somers, and others put their

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own interpretation upon Leviticus and Deuteronomy and so on, that is not the interpretation the Orthodox Jew puts on it, and those are the people you have to think about.
What I want to suggest to the House is this. Let us assume that the evidence is conflicting. My noble friend assumes from that that the right course is to give the Bill a Second Reading. I should have thought just the contrary. In order that you should give the Bill a Second Reading you have to be satisfied that the case has been made for it, that the principle is right; and if you are left in any doubt I would submit that the right course is not to give the Bill a Second Reading. My noble friend suggests that having given it a Second Reading somehow we are not committed; we can have a Select Committee who can then weigh up the evidence. It reminds me very much of the procedure of convicting a person first and then giving him his trial. You cannot say, "We approve the principle of this and then we are going to decide whether we should go on with it and make up our minds."
I feel that the British public as a whole, certainly I myself, would not wish that there should be unnecessary cruelty in the carrying out of slaughter. I would suggest that this is a matter which should be investigated, that the people concerned should have the fullest opportunity of stating their case, and so far they have not had it. The noble Lord, Lord Somers, who is a very just man and is the President of a just organisation, is suggesting that we should accept the principle of this Bill without having given those deeply concerned the opportunity of stating their case. I would suggest that we should investigate this in such a way as to give the people so deeply concerned the opportunity of stating their case, and by a body which would hear all sides of the case. I would imagine that the kind of body suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Cohen of Birkenhead—that is, a committee of scientists presided over by a person nominated by the President of the Royal Society—would be a very good tribunal; but that is a matter for the person setting up the committee to decide.
But I also think that this kind of legislation does not come appropriately
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from a Private Member. If there is to be legislation on the subject—and I am by no means saying there should not be—I think it should come from Her Majesty's Government themselves. They should take the responsibility, as I say, after having heard all the evidence, and the House should be given the opportunity of making up its mind on the evidence which the Government had obtained. My noble friend Lord Shepherd also suggested a Select Committee. I wonder whether a Select Committee, which would consist of a certain number of Members of this House, is really the appropriate body, apart from the technical question, which I gather the noble Viscount is going to deal with. This is a matter which is so much the concern of every Member of the House that I think every Member ought to have an opportunity of hearing all the evidence and making up his mind. It is a matter for the House and not for a Select Committee, and it would be, in my view, very unfortunate if we had to decide this merely on a Report of a Select Committee.
So I want to suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Somers—I hope that he will give serious thought to this—that he should withdraw the Bill. I do not know in the least what the noble Lord is going to say—perhaps it is as well—but I hope the Government can give some assurance that they will consider carrying out some form of inquiry into the whole subject. I cannot speak for anybody but myself, but I hope that the Jewish community would welcome such an inquiry and would wish to clear themselves of any suggestion of inhumanity or cruelty in the form of slaughter. At any rate, they could not seriously complain. I believe they would welcome it and it would be a very good thing for removing any apprehensions about the subject. If Her Majesty's Government were able to give some sort of assurance that there would be an inquiry and that action would follow if the result of that inquiry indicated that there was cruelty in the method of slaughter, then I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Somers, would be prepared to withdraw this Bill and not force the House into a most uncomfortable and unhappy Division on a matter which might lead to considerable misunderstanding.
5.28 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (LORD ST.OSWALD): My Lords, I feel sure the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, will forgive me if I begin by correcting something he said which I think it is rather important to correct. He suggested that a new change in the method of slaughter generally used by the Moslems in this country would shortly come about as a result of a statement by the Imam of Woking.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I said it would come about if this Bill were passed.
LORD ST. OSWALD: I apologise to the noble Lord. I understood him to say it was about to take place as the result of a statement by the Imam of Woking.
My Lords, this is an immensely difficult issue for intervention by a Government speaker or any other speaker not bringing either preconceived convictions or technical knowledge to bear upon the subject. The arguments on either side are rooted in the conscience of those taking part, and rooted, of course, far deeper, as the noble Lord, Lord Somers, has said, than anything which can be described as sentiment. So important is the issue, however, that the Government must give a view, and it seemed to me, and I hope it will be considered right at the end of what I have to say, that no purely textbook view from me would satisfy your Lord-ships on this occasion. I felt that the views expressed from this Box should be informed to some extent by personal observation.
Last week I arranged to see this form of slaughter, bath Jewish and Moslem, in three abattoirs in Yorkshire and London, and I have also spoken to some of the leaders of the Jewish community in this country. I have read relevant passages both from the Pentateuch and from elsewhere in the Bible. From the conversations and readings, I am completely persuaded that the Jews in this country, and I understand in the rest of the world as well, insist upon their form of slaughter for two reasons, both utterly convincing to them: first, because it is laid down in the law as recorded,
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and already quoted, in the 12th chapter of Deuteronomy and the 17th chapter of Leviticus; secondly, because they are also convinced, as the noble Lord, Lord Swaythling, has said, that this is the most humane method of slaughter—and the duty to slaughter with the maximum of humanity is also laid upon them by their Scriptures. Clearly, to me the Shochetim and the Rabbinical authorities, who know more than anybody else about this method of slaughter, are devoutly and intelligently convinced that this is so.
The gentleness of the Orthodox Jew is real as well as proverbial, and I have no doubt that the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, could perfectly safely address the entire Albert Hall full of Orthodox Jews on the subject on which she has spoken today. Doctors and scientists of great eminence have disagreed occasionally as to whether this painless element is in fact achieved in Shechita as required by the Jewish law. Lord Horder and other eminent men of medicine who have been mentioned to-day have given it, in fact, a thoughtful, considered preference over other forms of slaughter. The suggestion made during his speech by the noble Lord, Lord Cohen of Birkenhead, will be referred to in the words that my noble and learned Leader says after I have spoken.
It was in the hope of obtaining some sort of visual impression that last week I visited the slaughterhouses I have mentioned. It may be that such visits and such impressions are even more con-fusing than otherwise. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, that most of the repugnance expressed with regard to impressions of slaughter is relative either to the preliminaries or to the aftermath of the act of slaughter. Whatever the form of slaughter, Gentile or Jewish, the observer sees the dead carcase of the animal kicking violently and convulsively for either a minute or perhaps several minutes after the dispatch of the animal. This I was informed by officials of the slaughterhouse was the effect of the oxygen leaving the blood, and was of course continuing long after any life had departed. What was even more grotesque was to see the interior of the brain ticking and twitching visibly 30 minutes after the skull had been severed and skinned. I was told that this might continue for some hours.

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I mention these rather gruesome facts by way of illustrating how difficult it is for any layman visiting a slaughterhouse really to know whether or not life has ceased. From the manner of despatch by the Shechita I was myself indelibly impressed by the degree of skill on the part of the Shochet. These men are, as we have been told, qualified and tested before being permitted to carry out the act of slaughter, and there is meticulous and rigid insistence upon the manner and perfection with which it is done. If the faintest scratch or nick is apparent on the blade of the knife after it has been cleaned the whole carcase is rejected, and I understand that this almost never, or never, occurs. The cut is therefore clean, and almost quicker than the eye can follow, since there is no jarring of the blade against bone or against any other obstacle.
It would, I am sure, be dangerous for me to go anywhere beyond the point which is plain to the observer. But, unlike some noble Lords, I saw virtually no sign of panic among the animals before execution. I think the phrase that the noble Lord, Lord Dowding, used of an animal "crazed with terror" was something that did not happen in front of my eyes in any of the three places that I visited. In fact, it surprised me to notice the placidity of the animals peering out of the stunning pen or of the casting pen at four freshly slain carcases within a matter of feet or yards of them. From the description beforehand, I had imagined some element of cruelty in the method of the casting pen; but this also is designed to carry out the intentions of kindness contained in the Jewish law, and it is padded within to inflict the minimum of discomfort on the animal. So far as it is possible to judge of an animal's mood, what I discerned was bewilderment, rather than panic, as it was turned on its back inside the casting pen.
I come to a rather difficult passage, which I introduce only reluctantly. My noble friend Lord Haddington and others asked how one could possibly judge or measure the element of pain inflicted on the animal by the cut. I think that Lord Somers referred to "agonising pain for 25 seconds". It is right to remember, however, that what the animal has suffered is a clean cut by an extremely sharp knife—and a cut which is over in a matter of, I thought, less than a second.
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As this has become a most important point in the dispute, I think one has the right to ask how much pain, as pain, does that cut itself inflict. As has been pointed out, one cannot ask an animal afterwards, first of all because it does not recover and, secondly, because even if it did recover, it would not be able to speak.
THE EARL OF HADDINGTON: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord but may I ask him just one question? When he visited these abattoirs was his visit advertised beforehand, or did he make a surprise visit? It seems to me quite possible that if they knew that a member of the Government was coming for this purpose, they would put on their best slaughterer for the purpose.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I do not think that they could possibly have explained to the animals that I was coming. As I have said, it is impossible to discover from animals what sort of pain, or lack of pain, this method may inflict in the action. It is possible with human beings, because some human beings have nearly died from loss of blood and have lived to tell the tale. It so happens that two close relatives of mine have suffered that experience, and I therefore dared to speak to them about it. They were both wounded grievously on the battlefield. One, wounded in the stomach, felt no pain at all. He fell to the ground unconscious from a wound in the stomach and nearly died through being undiscovered and un-tended, but had to be given blood transfusions afterwards. He remembers no pain. The other one was wounded badly in the shoulder and lay conscious for 20 minutes. All he was conscious of was a pins and needles feeling in the back of his shoulder, where the bullet had in fact left an enormous hole, until he became unconscious from loss of blood. I mention that, I hope without abusing the time or the good taste of the House, because I think it bears reference to the fact that any form of violence to the animal dispatched by Shechita would in fact render it illegal for consumption, and so would any form of internal injury revealed in the postmortem examination afterwards by the Shochet.
It has been asked why the Jews should be—I forget the exact term—freed, I

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think it was, from observance of the law of this land. The noble Lord, Lord Cohen of Birkenhead, in fact drew attention to the fact that they do observe the law of the land and would continue to obey the law of the land even if it were altered; but, of course, they do observe the law of the land at very considerable monetary expense because they are prepared, in order to meet the requirements of humanity, to undertake an extremely expensive and uneconomic form of slaughter. It is a very costly form of slaughter, far more expensive than the captive bolt which we use ourselves. As has been said to-day, any alteration to the present law as proposed in this Bill would make it impossible for the practising Jews in this country—and they number, I am told, more than 200,000—to eat meat of any kind except poultry, and would impose upon them a form of hardship not voluntarily shared by any of their countrymen.
Although the noble Lord, Lord Somers, said—and everybody in the House accepts it—that there is not a hint or thought of anti-Semitism in this Motion, I believe that it will be extremely difficult for that to be believed far beyond this country. I think some form of lamentable anti-Semitism would be read into it by other countries who know us less well. It is the Government's view that, unless much more convincing evidence becomes available on the relative cruelty or lack of humanity, if it exists, as between Shechita and the more normal methods of slaughter, than has been proved by experiments up to date, it would be wrong to impose such hardships on a racial group which we have so much reason to respect, who have been persecuted or imposed upon in so many countries, but never in this. I therefore cannot advise the House to vote for a Second Reading of this Bill.
5.45 p.m.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I promised to intervene in this matter, and I hope that I shall not trepass too long upon your Lordships if I do so. I do so principally because of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, and the subsequent speech of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, in which various suggestions and arguments were put forward, not so
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much directed to the intrinsic merits of this case, with which my noble friend has dealt from the Government's point of view, as from the point of view of the procedure of the House. I think the House would wish to know what I feel about these matters if it would support me intervening at this point.
I am bound to say at once that I think this is an exact analogy with the situation which arose on the Boxing Bill to which the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, referred. It is, of course, true that there are a number of precedents, though not many, for referring a Public Bill (and this is a public Bill, although proposed by a private Member) to a Select Committee. I dealt with them mostly during the Second Reading of the Boxing Bill, which took place on May 10 this year, and they will be fresh in your Lordships' memories. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, with his customary fairness, quoted a short passage from my speech, in relation to that Bill, which followed a course not altogether dissimilar to this. That was a Bill introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill. There was a conflict of evidence as to whether damage was done intrinsically by the practice of professional boxing, and I ventured to say in relation to that Bill—and I repeat in relation to this—that the House should pass the Second Reading of the Bill only if it is prepared to say, in advance of an inquiry, that it endorses the principle, however it will be examined by whatever Committee follows. If the House feels that the case has not been made out, and that it would like some sort of an inquiry, it ought not to give the Bill a Second Reading.
My Lords, I am absolutely certain that that is the true doctrine relating to this matter. This is not a Private Bill which goes to a Select Committee in order to ascertain, as is the cant phrase, whether the Preamble is proved—that is to say whether the necessity for the Bill is established. It is a public Bill; it is an alteration in the public law, and I do not think it is the custom of either House of Parliament to grant a Bill a Second Reading, unless it is prepared to endorse the principle of it in advance of inquiry. The House may feel, of course, having decided that the principle is a sound one, that it would like a further inquiry; and in that case it may

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send the Bill to a Select Committee. But it should not, I think, endorse a public Bill unless it is prepared to endorse it in that sense.
The second point which the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, raised was this—in fact there were two points in his speech to which I will refer. One was that he thought a Select Committee was not a very suitable type of inquiry to hold on a matter of this kind. The second was that he thought that this was not a very suitable Bill to be proposed by means of Private Members' legislation. I am bound to say that I agree with him on both those procedural points. As I say, I do not want to embark very deeply into matters which have already been so thoroughly discussed, but I do, oddly enough, know a little about this particular subject. Although a Gentile and a Christian, I do know something about the Jewish law. It would be very difficult to compose a Select Committee which would persuade the Jews that their law was invalid. I doubt whether such a Select Committee could be found in your Lordships' House.
One must face the facts about this. The facts are as stated by the noble Lord, Lord Cohen of Birkenhead. The Jews believe that the Torah was given them by God, and they believe that the authoritative interpretation of what that means is laid down by the Rabbinat. Obviously, being a Gentile and a Christian myself, I do not believe the second, at any rate, of the two propositions. But this is what they believe about it. Quite frankly, it is no good the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, making her researches into Deuteronomy. I remember my beloved mother giving me this exact interpretation of the Jewish law about 50 years ago, when I was a little boy, and I am far from saying that there is nothing in it. I am only saying that this is not the Jewish religion. The Jews believe that they are bound to do it in this way; and, quite frankly, a Select Committee of this House is not going to persuade them to the contrary after thousands of years.
I would say that if Parliament tries to legislate about this matter, against the Orthodox Jewish community, it will find itself in much the same position as Nebuchadnezzar and all the other people who have tried this game
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for many centuries since. They may well be right, but the Jews win this in the end, unless you can persuade them not to be Jews at all. So I think that by sending the Bill to a Select Committee of this House the House would be committing a great error of judgment, even if my first argument were not valid; and I am quite sure myself that it is, and that this should not be done unless the principle of the Bill were accepted. I do believe that it would be a great error of judgment if this House thought that a Select Committee would really persuade the Jews to give up what they regard as an inescapable part of their religion.
The third point is that I feel, if this change were to be made, it ought to be done by a Public Bill, after careful consideration by the Government, and not by a Private Member's Bill—because this is very deep water indeed. It is, of course, perfectly true, as every noble Lord, who has supported the Bill has said, that those who support this change are not in the least animated by anything approaching anti-Semitism. But, believe me! the orthodox Jewish community throughout the world would not view it in this light. That is the fact of the matter. If this House gave this Bill a Second Reading, the orthodox Jewish community would believe—and would sincerely believe—that it was an attack on Judaism as such. I should not be doing my duty to the House if I did not make that absolutely plain.
It is not simply that, as the noble Lord, Lord Cohen of Birkenhead, pointed out, there is a rather ugly history behind this particular controversy, which some noble Lords who have supported the Bill are far too nice to know anything about. I can assure them that that really is the case; that it is one of the ways that anti-Semites have traditionally used to get at the Jews, and this is known very widely on the Continent of Europe. Of course this does not arise here, but this is how it would be treated. Therefore, I could only say that, if we were going to undertake this rather serious step in the interests of justice to animals, or of not doing something which offends against our compassionate feeling towards animals, I really think the Government ought to take the responsibility of doing it, if it is to be done, and for my part I should

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be sorry to do it, for the reasons which I have indicated.
That leaves us with only the remaining suggestion, that there should be an inquiry of some other kind. I am quite sure that a Select Committee is unsuitable, and I am quite sure that to do it after a Second Reading would be disastrous. Obviously, I would pay the greatest attention to the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Cohen of Birkenhead, but I think that an inquiry, to have any value at all except for the purpose of founding legislation, would have to be co-operated in by the Jewish community. From my knowledge of them, I personally doubt whether they will co-operate because, after all, this thing is, from their point of view, unalterable. If you want to persuade Jews out of this you must persuade them out of being Orthodox Jews, and this is what all Christians have been trying to do for the last 2,000 years, with only limited success.
But the fact is that this is not only a scientific question. If the Government were to receive a request for an inquiry which they were satisfied would meet with the requirements of the supporters of the Bill and of the Orthodox Jewish community, I am sure we should view that with very great sympathy, at any rate. But I do not think that an inquiry undertaken by one side, in which the other did not co-operate or in which they felt that they were in the dock, would be very helpful. I do not think, therefore, that I could accept it on behalf of the Government this afternoon, until I have seen some more reactions to the various suggestions which have been made. My Lords, I am afraid I have taken longer than I intended, but I felt that my duty to the House demanded that I should give some sort of lead in these matters.
5.54 p.m.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, first of all I should like to thank very much all those noble Lords who have supported this Bill. I must say that I am not in the slightest degree convinced by the arguments in favour of this form of slaughter. But in the light of the statement by my noble and learned friend the Leader of the House, that if we were to pass the Second Reading of this Bill
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it might throw a light of anti-Semitism upon this House—a thing which at all costs I want to avoid—there remains only one course open to me, and that is to beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Second Reading, by leave, withdrawn.
Bill, by leave, withdrawn.

KENYA
5.55 p.m.
The MARQUESS OF SALISBURY The MARQUESS OF SALISBURY rose to call attention to the present state of Kenya; and to move for Papers. The noble Marquess said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name. In doing so I make no complaint, of course, about the time that has been taken by the previous debate. Obviously, it raised very important principles on both sides. But I would suggest, if I might, with all deference to the Leader of the House, that it would have been better if the Government had given a day for a debate on so urgent a matter as Kenya, when it could come as first Order. I had asked, when I put down this Motion, for as good a time as I could get, and I was offered only the second Order on a Monday. In Kenya, itself, as I am sure many noble Lords know, great importance is attached to this debate, and I suggest that it really is hardly decent that it should be started at such a late hour as this, in a House that is already tired. If I have not opposed it, it is only because I thought it would cause greater disappointment if it did not come on to-day.
Now I would turn to the Motion itself. I have drafted it, as your Lordships know, in the broadest terms. I did that quite deliberately, so as to allow noble Lords to go as fully as they wished into all and every aspect of the situation that faces that unhappy country. This, of course, includes the latest development of all, the replacement of Sir Patrick Renison by Mr. Malcolm MacDonald, of which we have had no full explanation yet and which is likely, I should have thought, for the time being at any rate, to increase the already great uncertainties of the situation. Although I have had, and I have no doubt other noble Lords have had too, from Kenya itself, very varying opinions about the position, and no

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doubt we shall have more of them this evening, and though the last thing I want to do is to paint too black a picture of the situation there, yet I feel it has all the aspects of a country where, if things are not handled right, there is, economically, at any rate, a very real danger that it will bleed to death, for the European and to some extent the Asiatic population are, I understand, beginning to lose heart, and they have been the life blood of Kenya during the last half-century. I think it will be sufficient for me to give two figures to show that that, if anything, is an understatement of what the Europeans have achieved.
It is, I believe, on record that in 1898—that is, five years after I was born—the exports from the old port of Mombasa were 11 tons of ivory and 10 tons of hides. In the year 1960, so I am told, the exports of farm produce alone through the port of Mombasa amounted to over £25 million, of which £20 million came from the European farms. Indeed, I feel we are all under a tremendous obligation to the white settlers, to the ex-Service men and others, who were encouraged and even begged by successive British Governments to go to Kenya, and who have invested not only their money but their lives. That, of course, is particularly the case as regards the ex-Service men who went out under the Government scheme after the last great War. For as your Lordships know, as a condition for their admission to the Government scheme they were required to get rid of all their assets in other parts of the world. If, therefore, things go wrong in Kenya, they will be utterly ruined, because of the condition which a British Government made.
What is true of the ex-Service men of whom I have just spoken is, in effect, I think, true also of other white settlers. All of them were encouraged to go to Kenya and all, as in the White Highlands Ordinance, were given every reason to suppose that they would have security of tenure there. Until recently, mainly as a result of their effort, the country was prospering, and was likely to prosper more and more as increasing areas of the country were opened up and more and more of the profits of the European farmers were ploughed back into the soil of Kenya, where they had made
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what they believed to be their permanent homes.
That, my Lords, was the situation until a few years ago. And what is the position in the country now? As I already said earlier, the European population, who have been the backbone of Kenya's prosperity, are rapidly losing heart and hope. They know they are likely to be handed over in one, two or three years at most, perhaps, to the tender mercies of men who are still only one generation removed from a savage state; men without any inherited understanding of the hard facts of economics, and without any of our traditions of tolerance; men still primitive, and many of them only avid for political power. They know, these settlers, to what excesses the primitive African can be only too easily excited. They know what has happened in the Congo; they know what happened in Kenya itself to some of the Europeans and even more of the loyal Kikuyus during the Mau-Mau rebellion. They are told by one African leader that the British troops (which are, after all, their main if not their only protection) will not be permitted to stay after independence. They are told by another African leader that they will not be allowed to keep their allegiance to the Queen or their British nationality after independence.
On the other side, the British Government seem to remain resolutely silent as to the future of their fellow countrymen and loyal Africans who are facing so dark and dangerous a future. It is true that the Government have pledged themselves to buy one million acres in the White Highlands for African settlement, and it was probably a very wise thing for them to have done that. But that scheme, quite frankly, was devised more for the benefit of the African than for the European, and only a limited proportion of the mixed farmers of Kenya will benefit from it, for many of them do not live in the area which is the subject of the million-acre plan and so, as they see it, they may well be left to stew in their own juice. Moreover, even of those who will benefit under the scheme there are many who have, so I understand, grave doubts as to whether the plan will ever be fully implemented if independence comes before it is completed.
In these circumstances, as they sit brooding in small remote farms, with possibly a wife and family of small children dependent on them, is it surprising that they feel, many of them, at any rate, much though they love Kenya, that there is no longer any future for them there or for those to come after them, and that they had better move while they can, whatever the cost, and start a new life elsewhere, where prospects are more hopeful? They are more encouraged to do this, my Lords, since they see other elements in the European community, who have played an essential part in making civilised life possible for them, moving out too. Doctors, schoolmasters, even civil servants (from accounts that have reached me) are beginning already to leave, and will do so far more as soon as the stage of internal self-government is reached; and with their departure the whole fabric of European society will be in imminent danger of disintegration.
But, of course, the most important and the most worrying of all for the future of the country will be the departure of the farmers themselves, on whom the prosperity and indeed the viability of Kenya mainly depend. Of these, from what I hear, out of 3,600 registered mixed farmers over 500 have already gone—and that very likely is only a beginning. A very few, according to what I hear, have simply abandoned their farms, but they are very few; others are selling them for what they will fetch—and that is often very little; and, of the remainder—perhaps the most serious portent of all—nearly all have ceased to plough back money into their farms. On the contrary, many are beginning to mine them, to take what they can out of them, hoping to save something from what they believe to be the wreck of their fortunes.
This widespread deterioration in the farming position and loss of confidence in the future is beginning to lead to another evil result. There is already a very large amount of unemployment among agricultural labourers. According to my information, 8,000 Kikuyu families are likely to be unemployed in the very near future, and this may well increase (according to the same information) to 30,000 families next year; and
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your Lordships will not need me to tell you the dangers that might arise from large numbers of idle, hungry Africans roaming the countryside.
That, my Lords, is the bleak situation that, from the information I have, is facing Kenya to-day, and what I want to know, like a great many other people, is what the Government propose to do about it. It seems to me that they have, broadly speaking, only two courses before them, things having reached the present pass. They could, of course, decide just to "let things rip" and abandon the Europeans and loyal Africans to their fate if things go wrong. That would be one alternative, though a very shaming one. Alternatively, as we must all hope, they could still try, even at this late hour, to do what is possible to re-create the confidence that has been so severely damaged. It is, I say quite frankly, a main purpose of my Motion this afternoon to try to find out on which of these two policies the Government have decided.
They cannot just let things drift. If they have already written Kenya off as a "dead loss", if it is indeed their policy for Africa as a whole to get rid of our responsibilities there as soon as we decently can—if that was the meaning of the "wind of change" speech, then it is clearly better that we should know it as soon as possible, though the outlook for loyal Africans in particular, abandoned by those they have been brought up to trust, would not be one which one would like to think of. But if, as I hope, that is not their decision, if it is still their intention when independence comes to the country not to abandon all our friends there, black and white, but to do what they can to ensure that a transition takes place which is peaceful and evolutionary—if that is their policy, then I submit, my Lords, that it is essential that they should take such steps as they can here and now to restore confidence before it is too late.
There are things, I believe, which could still be done which would help. First, I suggest that it should be made clear now that independence will not be granted and British troops will not leave the country until there is good reason to suppose that we are handing over the maintenance of law and order to responsible hands. A firm statement of that kind by itself would, I believe,

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do an immense amount to restore confidence, both in the loyal Africans and in the Europeans. It is the more important that this should be done, for my information is that the police, who are now largely Africanised and who are an extremely fine body of men, are unlikely to stay on under their new masters. The danger of serious disorders, therefore, if troops are withdrawn prematurely, will be very great.
Then, my Lords, there is the question of nationality which, as I think we all know, is greatly perturbing the European population of Kenya. The African political leaders never weary of saying that when independence comes it will be necessary for all white Kenyans of British birth to repudiate their British nationality and, with it, their allegiance to the Crown and accept Kenyan nationality alone. This idea is indignantly rejected by a large proportion of the white population. Bitter opponents though they are of recent policies of the Home Government, and raw though they know the deal is they feel they have had they still retain a passionate loyalty to the Crown and would rather suffer than give it up. Moreover, by surrendering British nationality they would surrender, too, all claims to the protection of the British Crown.
We must all sympathise with these feelings as loyal subjects of the Crown ourselves. And is it really necessary that they should? There are in the world to-day many examples of dual nationality. Why is it not possible that that solution should be applied here? I know what we shall be told: the African leaders would not agree to it. Must we always give way to pressure of that kind? Whatever may be decided about the granting of independence—and even if it is made a condition by the new Kenyan Government that take office after independence that all residents of Kenya henceforth should have Kenyan nationality—could we not make it clear that we in this country shall continue to regard all those of British birth, who so wish it, as retaining in addition British nationality—and by this I mean United Kingdom nationality with all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto? That would surely do much to steady the position and is surely not too much for our
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fellow countrymen to ask of us, who are asking so much of them. Only, my Lords, to have full effect, the statement should be made now so that both White Kenyans and African leaders shall know where they stand.
And now I should like to say a word about what has come to be known as the "compassionate cases". These are cases where, for special reasons, it seems desirable that certain white residents of Kenya should be bought out and enabled to leave the country at the earliest possible moment. Some of these have been put in the list for security reasons; some because they may live in particularly dangerous areas and, owing to their past records, may be special targets for attack; or they may be people who, owing to age or infirmity, are unable to defend themselves from attack in the event of serious lawlessness. There is another category—old, poor people, whose livelihoods, owing to recent developments, are coming to an end; frail, old ladies with small shops in Nairobi or elsewhere which, owing to the changed circumstances of to-day, have ceased to provide them with even a modest living; and other people of that kind. It is essential that something should be done for these special cases as soon as possible.
I believe the Government of Kenya have compiled a list of cases which would have high priority. One list deals with rural areas and the other, about the same size, with urban areas. But I understand that out of upwards of 500 high priority cases on these two lists the British Treasury has up to now provided sufficient money to deal with only 63. The rest have had to be left to face the perils of the future. I should be glad to know whether the noble Marquess is sympathetic on this subject, and would let us know the present position regarding these compassionate cases; and I hope that we may have the assurance this afternoon that all those on these first urgent lists are already being dealt with.
And now, my Lords, to the most urgent aspect of all if confidence is to be restored. Have the Government given any more thought to the broad land position which, it is generally agreed, is the key to Kenya's problems? There seems to be a serious delay over

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implementation of even the limited plans which the Government have already announced. Why, for instance, has no appointment yet been made to the chairmanship of the Central Land Board? It is now eight months since it was announced that the Board was to be set up, and we were given to understand that this was a matter of first urgency on which much of the Government's policy depended. Yet eight months have now passed and still appointment has been made.
I fully recognise that there may be many reasons for this delay. I know how difficult it is to find exactly the right man for a job of this importance, but it would be better to have a man who is not quite the best than no man at all. The delay in appointing a chairman is beginning to raise doubts whether the Government ever regarded the policy really seriously; especially because I believe that the scheme is at present having to be administered by a Minister who is a member of the K.A.N.U. party and (whatever other qualifications he has) cannot be regarded as ideal for the job. I hope, therefore, that the Government will be able to announce to-day the name of the chairman of this Board, or, at any rate, that there will be no further delay in filling that most important post.
And now, lastly, I come to the main land problem. Have the Government any new thoughts on this? I warned them when I last spoke on Kenya in your Lordships' House that if they pressed the white people of Kenya too hard they would take the only remedy open to them and walk out. Subsequent events have not falsified that prediction. The million-acre plan, though it sounds so large, would by itself only touch the fringe of the problem. For one thing, it affects only those farmers living in the area selected for the scheme. Something more must surely be attempted. Here I should like to put forward a proposal which, I assure noble Lords, I offer in no captious spirit. On the contrary, I offer it as a constructive proposition, one which would, I believe, if adopted, go some way towards easing the unhappy situation in which so many Kenyan farmers find themselves to-day.
I should say that my proposal is primarily concerned with the 3 million acres of former White Highlands which
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have been developed as mixed farms, and of which one million acres are, in any case, to be purchased over the next five years for African occupants. As I said earlier, the last thing I want to do is to criticise the million-acre scheme. There are, of course, sound reasons why the million acres designed for African settlement should be purchased in consolidated blocks of land adjacent to the existing African tribal land units. Although no direct measures are to be taken to compel European landowners within these blocks to sell their farms, the exigencies of the situation will, I expect, almost inevitably force most of them to do so.
But there will be some among them who will not want to leave Kenya, even though they are forced out of their present homes and farms. It would clearly be of great advantage to the country if the skill and knowledge of these farmers could be retained. I understand that there are among them a number of farmers of proved ability, who would be prepared, so I am assured, given reasonable inducement, to bulk up some of the smaller farms into large company holdings, which would employ a limited number of Europeans on expatriate terms—which would mean, of course, that they would not be obliged to give up their British nationality—and which would employ, too, a large number of Africans, not only on normal farm work but also, when suitable qualified men could be found, in managerial posts and on their boards of directors.
The proposal, which, I say frankly, is not my own but which has been put to me, is that a substantial capital fund should be set up from which suitable people of any race would be able to obtain loans on easy terms to acquire land and establish such farming companies. Bearing in mind the present political climate in Kenya and the possibility that a future African Government might well impose exchange control, one must recognise that it is improbable that capital to the amount required would be forthcoming from ordinary commercial sources, or indeed at rates that would be sufficiently attractive in current circumstances. It would therefore, I say frankly, be incumbent on Her Majesty's Government to provide the necessary capital.
Experience shows that large companies of this character do not appear to attract

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the same enmity among nationalist Africans as properties owned privately by individual Europeans, and I suggest that a fund of this nature, for which the land itself could be security, could be an enduring Investment for good in the long-term prosperity of Kenya, as well as a means of restoring a measure of confidence in the immediate future. Such is my proposition, which, as I say, I put forward with a very real desire to help, and I would most earnestly corn-mend it to the serious consideration of Her Majesty's Government as a means of continuing our assistance to Kenya beyond the date of independence.
I read the other day a remark made by a candidate at one of the recent by-elections, in reply to a questioner at a public meeting who was worried by the pace at which the colonial empire was being liquidated. This is what the candidate said:
"If you had your way, the British Empire would remain a glorified slum for you to exploit".
Like many other noble Lords, I have fought contested elections myself, and I know that it would be wrong to blame people too much for what they said in such circumstances as that, but I could not help reading those words with a sense of painful shock. Is that really to be our epitaph, after the noble work done by British men and women in Kenya and other Colonies over the last half century? Is it to go down in history that, in our view, all that they have created and are still trying to create, in conditions cruel enough to break the stoutest heart, is "a colonial slum"? Do we in any part of this House really think that? If not—and I hope that that is not the view of any of us here—it is surely our duty to see that, so far as lies in our power, not only those of British origin but also those multifarious peoples who have been our care for so long, do not suffer by our departure. It is in that spirit that I venture to raise these matters with the Government, and with all of your Lordships, to-day. The peoples of Africa, white and black—countless thousands of them—have put their trust in us in the past. It is for us to see now that we do not let them down. I beg to move for Papers.
6.26 p.m.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, there are at least two points which the noble
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Marquess and I have in common. First, I share his disappointment that this debate has taken place so late in the evening, when many noble Lords who might otherwise have been here are unable to be in the House. I hope that it is no indication of the degree of importance that the Government places on this subject that this has so happened. The second point on which I am in complete agreement with the noble Marquess is in his depressed view about the future of Kenya. That certainly is something on which we cannot look with equanimity or with confidence. Though I hope that some of the gloomier prognostications which we have heard, not so much from the noble Marquess as from others, will not be fulfilled.
However, I would say to him that one of the most important contributions that we in this country can make is to do everything in our power to ensure that there is the fullest possible co-operation and confidence between the white people and the coloured people in Kenya. For that reason I do not share certain remarks that he made in the earlier part of his speech, about the primitive Africans and their inability to take responsibility, and the dire results that would follow if they gained power or were given power too soon. There is no point in going through past history. Some years ago, the decision was taken—rightly taken, we believe, though possibly after too much delay—to give independence to Kenya; and what is more, independence under a more or less democratically elected African Government. Our position must now be to see what Her Majesty's Government can do to ensure the success of that decision.
There are two things, above all, that we must do. As the noble Marquess has said, we must build up the productivity of the country. The noble Marquess rightly laid stress on agriculture, but we should not succeed in our object if we confined ourselves to agriculture. Kenya must also be industrialised. It cannot prosper as a purely agricultural country. There must be employment for people in the towns, otherwise they will form nothing but an urban proletariat, the natural prey to agitators and people whose interest it is to raise trouble. There must also be a modern and mechanised agriculture. Kenya must come to that, as every other country

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must come to it. But let us not forget that, though we should give primary attention to agriculture, there is also the important question of industrialisation. The second thing we must try to do is to break down not only the mistrust that so many Kenyan Africans feel against Europeans, but also the mistrust which exists among Africans themselves, between one tribe and another. We are now seeing more and more clearly that the gravest danger to stability in Kenya is likely to lie in tribal conflict and rivalry, in tribal mistrust rather than in mistrust of Europeans.
What can we do to increase the economic standing of the country? The noble Marquess has mentioned capital Without capital it is impossible for any progress to be made. Although I would not go the whole way with the noble Marquess in his suggestion of a Land Bank, I think that any form of agricultural mortgage corporation which is prepared, if possible on an international basis, to advance money on the security of the land itself is something which we should pursue with great energy; and not only in Kenya but also in all other countries where we have any control or influence. That is essential if we are to have any economic advance in those countries.
Secondly, we must make sure that there is the fullest possible co-operation between all people of all skills, whether it is managerial skill, craftsman's skill, the skill of the herdsman, of the tractor driver, the company director or whoever it may be. In other words, there must be full co-operation between the black and the white population. As I said earlier, anything that is said which is going to increase the strain between those people can be only to the detriment of the future of Kenya. Anything that can be done to remove mistrust will be to the advantage of Kenya.
Thirdly, I believe that we should press on, in so far as we can, with encouragement—and we can do no more than encourage—towards the formation of an East African Federation. That was the hope, and is still the hope, of many of us. The common services are still in existence and are still being administered. But we must remember that the time is rapidly departing when
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the formation of a Federation is going to be easy. The longer we wait, the more difficult it will become. Uganda already has independence, as has Tanganyika. If, within the same few months, Kenya also had had her independence, it would have been far easier to achieve this Federation. But if Kenyan independence is delayed for another six months or longer, and the other two countries have by then found their feet, and have got into their general way of administering their new countries, the attractions to them of coming in with new Kenya will obviously be that much diminished.
Fourthly, on the general economic side there is this overriding question of confidence. Until confidence is restored to that unhappy country there will be no fresh capital coming in, and there will be a constant drain upon such existing capital as is there which can be taken out. I shall return to that matter at a later stage.
Coming to the question of this tribal mistrust, is there anything we in this country can do to overcome something which has been in existence for generations and for centuries? I believe that the economic and political side of this are closely tied up together. An economically prosperous and modern Kenya would in itself largely destroy tribal mistrust. The creation of an industrialised country in which men from different areas, different tribal districts, mix together and work together, in Nairobi, and in other towns, where factories are situated, getting to know each other in a new environment, will in itself break down the tribal mistrust.
There must also, of course, be a strong Central African Government. The longer we delay in achieving that, the harder the task is going to be there also. I would suggest that one minor thing which can be done to increase the feeling of nationality, rather than of belonging to a tribe, is in the provision, particularly for the town dwellers in Kenya, of old-age pensions, even of a very small kind. Because the great thing there, as I understand it—and it is natural—is that people who leave their tribes and go to the towns always look forward to having a small plot of land in their tribal area to which they can return. That is the link which holds them with their tribe, even though they have spent many years away from

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it. If security is given to them so that they may know that, when old age overtakes them, they will no longer be destitute and have to return to their tribes; no longer need they hold on to that connection of that piece of land, then again we shall have done a great deal to weaken the ties of the tribe. One thing we do not want to do is to create a loosening of tribal discipline, without creating in its place an increase of inter-tribal trust. Although we cannot put back the tribal discipline, although we cannot remove the troubles which have arisen from detribalisation, we can at least try to see that some of the benefits of breaking away from the tribe begin to make themselves felt.
As I understand it, it was to solve many of these problems that in February of this year the Lancaster House Conference was originally convened. That Conference achieved a certain amount of success: there was a fair measure of agreement as to the future among all the parties who came along. But the essential follow-up of that Conference was that the atmosphere created there, the decisions taken and the agreements reached, should be speedily brought to fruition, and that there should be no undue delays. We are now seeing what is happening as a result of the failure rapidly to implement those decisions. Already, as the noble Marquess has reminded us, there is this steady decline in confidence, a steady reduction in investment, and a withdrawal of people and of funds. I must say, in passing, that I think some of the figures given with regard to the farmers who have left Kenya may have been somewhat exaggerated. But the problem is still there, and undoubtedly they are not fully putting their backs into complete and full production as they would were the future settled for them.
I should also like at this point to agree with the noble Marquess in his plea for the ex-Servicemen, particularly, and for the other white settlers who went out there at different times, not simply in order to do a good job and make a good living for themselves—naturally, that is fair enough—but also because they thought they were doing a worthwhile job. They had confidence in the Government and in the future. I think they now have a justifiable cause for complaint against the people who, in their opinion, have let them down. I
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think it would be very unwise if full compensation were offered to those people at the present time. I should be unhappy if they left Kenya. I hope that they will be able to continue to live there and go on adding their ability, skill and knowledge to the country and to the welfare of the country. I believe that, for most of them, once these difficult times are over that will be possible. But we cannot shut our eyes to the uncertainty they are feeling.
I would once more urge upon the Government—and I think this is the second time I have done so—that some provision should be made for these people if they wish to come back. Personally, I should like to see that they were not given anything like full market value for their land if they left it to-day, but that they should be given a guarantee that, if ever they were either evicted from it by the new Kenya Government or if, at the end of seven or eight years, they felt that life was too insupportable for them, they would then receive something close to its full market value. But I believe that at the present time, if they do not wish to take the risk, they should get only a lower figure. In other words, there would not be an incentive to leave immediately, to cut adrift from it all, and set up somewhere else. There would be a real incentive to stay and some feeling of security, that, if things went badly, they would not find themselves out of a home, out of all their life savings and all the work they had put into it.
I was saying earlier that the decisions of the Lancaster House Conference were in themselves good, and that the essence of them was that they should be carried out rapidly. That is where the main indictment of the present Government, and of the present Department responsible, really must lie. What in fact happened? Various Commissions were to be set up, as your Lordships know. There was a Commission for the Northern frontier, a Commission for the electoral boundaries, and one or two other Commissions as well. The actual document agreeing to that was signed on April 6 of this year. Yet it was not until August of this year that the Electoral Boundary Commissioners went out: a delay of April, May, June and July; a delay of four months to set up a relatively small Commission. It

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was not until October this year that the Commission for the Northern Frontier went out, a delay of over six months for what, in fact, was the key Commission because until they have reported no other Commissions are able to finish their work.
Again, as the noble Marquess so rightly said, a chairman of the Land Settlement Board has still not been appointed. Do not let us forget that land in so many countries, of which Kenya is one, is of equal importance as banks and money are to us. It is the symbol and the actual fact of wealth, and if we are so slow and so idle in appointing the man to deal with this overriding problem, surely that cannot fail to have an extremely bad effect upon all the people living in Kenya, not only the politicians but the actual men and women themselves who look to the land, who want to know what is going on, what is going to happen to the land, every bit as much as a stockbroker looks to the Stock Exchange and his stocks and shares to see what is going to happen to his own well being.
Then, on top of all this delay and dilatoriness, which can do nothing but increase the lack of confidence, increase the election strife and tribal strife and a feeling of insecurity throughout the whole colony, we have this extraordinary business of the change of Governor. I do not know either the outgoing Governor or the incoming Governor and have no idea whether the change is for the better or for the worse; but, surely, if it is a change for the better we are justified in saying, "Why was the change not made earlier?" and, if it is for the worse, "Why was it made at all?" It cannot be, as the Colonial Secretary has said, that conditions have changed, that the Governor's job is now no longer an administrative job but a political job.
Surely, governing one of our great colonies at any time is far more than an administrative job. Surely it must always be something close to a political job. And at this particular period in the evolution of Kenya, when we have constitutional conference, the Lancaster House Conferences and the rest, which have been going on, when we have dealings with politicians, who are Africans from different tribes, men of high intelligence, of high political ability,
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considerable experience, surely for the last five years at least it has been essential that our Governor there should be a man of very considerable political ability himself. To say now that the time has just come, at Christmas, 1962, when we should have somebody who is skilled in political matters whereas before it was adequate to have somebody who was a good administrator, cannot pull the wool over any of our eyes at all.
I hope we shall be told frankly by the noble Marquess what it is that the Government now hope to achieve by this change of Governor; whether it is in fact a change of policy and, if so, how the policy has been changed; and whether as a result of this we can look forward to any speeding up of the general process and a cutting out of the delays which so far have caused so much trouble in Kenya itself. It would be bad enough if these delays—which, in my view, are responsible for very much of the trouble that we are now having, and will be responsible for the future trouble which so many people expect—were in fact confined solely to one area of Africa. But I think it is the experience of all of us who take an interest in these matters that, throughout the whole purview of the former Colonial Office, if not the Commonwealth Relations Office, there is what I described not so very long ago as a general dilatoriness; an attitude that these things might just as well wait, that there is no urgency. Whether it is in British Guiana—which we discussed a short while ago—whether is in the appointment, of which I have personal experience, of an administrator of a small island, whether it is in these much larger matters, the delays go on unnecessarily with no benefit to anybody but with considerable harm to a great many people.
Your Lordships may have read in the newspapers to-day of the Rural District Council of Aldridge, in Staffordshire, which was so incensed with the delays of the Ministry of Transport in putting up a halt sign at one of its crossroads that it put one up itself. It is bad enough when the Ministry of Transport hold things up, but at least rural district councillors are able to go and do something about it. But here we are not dealing with a particular road junction, we are not dealing with a rural district council; we are dealing with the lives

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and well being of millions of people, we are dealing with the eventual strength of the whole British Commonwealth, and we are dealing with the good name and good reputation of this country. We are even, I believe, dealing with the peace of the whole world, because what happens in Africa—Central Africa, East Africa and West Africa—cannot fail to have a very marked effect indeed on the development of the whole world in years to come; and that is where we cannot afford to have the slowness and the delays which we have been experiencing in these past months.
Last week I attended a lecture by a man well experienced in the African scene, Sir Jock Campbell, and he used a phrase there which made a great impression on me. He said:
"In our dealings with Africa we should be guided not by pride and prejudice but by sense and sensibility."
I think all noble Lords will agree with that. But we must, as well as sense and sensibility, have a sense of urgency in what is happening; we must not jog along comfortably saying that time is on our side, that it does not matter if we keep them waiting another six months or another six years, that they have waited long enough already and it will have no effect. African history and world history will not wait upon the speed of the horse and buggy, and until we can convince the Colonial Office and the Minister responsible that we have moved out of the eighteenth century and the nineteenth century and that we are now in the twentieth century where every week, every day and sometimes every hour counts, until we can get them to appoint the chairmen of these Boards and members of these Commissions, with a real understanding of the price that has to be paid for delays, the future of the whole of Africa, let alone Kenya, is a very bleak one indeed.
6.49 p.m.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, for giving us the opportunity of discussing this highly important subject this evening, and I would join with him and the noble Lord, Lord Walston, in regretting that this debate should come on at what is for this House rather a late hour and among a rather thin congregation. I feel that the noble Marquess made a rather gloomy speech and I was rather
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surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Walston, in this respect seemed to confirm what he said. I feel that they were both far too gloomy, because, although there are great difficulties in Kenya, and there is no doubt about that, as there are bound to be in a multi-racial society with the particular problems of Kenya, yet I do not myself feel anything but optimism for the future. I paid another visit to both Uganda and Kenya a few months ago, and I was very much struck in both countries by the great advance that was apparent compared to my last previous visit. The noble Marquess implied that the British Government were letting things drift, but that is not my impression. I feel that, so far as Kenya is concerned, they have done a very great deal in the last few years to support the economy and to maintain the credit of the country in the outside world. In fact I personally do not know of any other colonial territory, past or present, where so much energy and so much money have been poured in by Her Majesty's Government, and by various agencies of the Government, as in Kenya.
The noble Marquess suggested that we should offer people there dual nationality. I cannot believe for one moment that that would be acceptable to the people with whom we have to deal, those who will form the future Government of Kenya, when the time comes for independence. Dual nationality has never been acceptable in any other territory. It was always fiercely resisted when it was proposed. What will happen no doubt, is that people there, whatever their race, will have an opportunity of choosing what nationality they will take in future. That is the freedom of choice which has always been present, so far as I am aware, in every territory which has become independent. But that is a very different thing from saying there can be two types of citizenship at one and the same time; and I cannot believe that this is at all possible.
The noble Lord, Lord Walston, raised the question of the change of Governor. No doubt the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, when he replies will deal with this question. I can only say that I have had the privilege of knowing both of them quite well, Mr. MacDonald better than Sir Patrick Renison. I have

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the highest admiration for both of them. I had the opportunity of staying with Mr. MacDonald years ago, both in Singapore and Penang; he is a man of great ability and great charm and abounding energy, and I think the finest host I have stayed with in my life. I believe he will play a great part in the future of Kenya. I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Walston, when he said administrative tasks would be very important in the future as well as political tasks. But I feel in many of these countries there is a time when what you need is a Governor with a great deal of political experience rather than administrative experience. Although both are needed, the balance shifts on to the political side at a certain stage. That has not always been accepted by the British Government, but that is so and I feel they have decided very rightly in this case that the balance is now shifting over. I should like to wish Mr. MacDonald every possible success, and also from these Benches to thank Sir Patrick Renison for his devoted services to Kenya.
The political situation is not as bleak by any means as the noble Marquess indicated. There is virtually a coalition between KANU and KADU, the two main Parties, and, whatever they say about each other in public, in private they seem to get along quite well, and they are learning the job as Ministers very fast. As to the political future, of course anybody can make their own forecast, but I should say that there will almost certainly be a coalition between KANU and KADU with possibly the right wing of KANU going into opposition, perhaps under the leadership of Mr. Odinga. That is only a forecast, and it may be wrong.
There is one question which I think is bound to come up there as everywhere else, and that is the problem with the Opposition. When we train countries for independence we think of training Governments, and as most of the people who do the training are civil servants it is only natural they should do so. But it is much more difficult, of course, to form an Opposition than a Government. The duties and responsibilities of a Government are clear; they are not always easy to carry out but they are clear. The duties and responsibilities of an Opposition are by no means clear. When con-
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structive criticism becomes blatant obstruction is very often a matter upon which there is a good deal of divergence of view between Government and Opposition. Perhaps it is the same in this country, but it certainly is so in newly independent countries. We need only look at the Commonwealth to find that they have had these difficulties in very many countries—in Nigeria and in Ghana; even in Uganda, which became independent only on October 9, already the Prime Minister, in view of certain activities on behalf of the main opposition Party, the Democratic Party, has had to warn them that unless they mend their ways the Government may be forced to declare the Democratic Party unlawful and suppress it. It takes time to work out an effective rÔle with regard to the Opposition, and it is one matter to which I feel we have never in this country, particularly in Parliament, given enough attention.
The noble Lord, Lord Walston, mentioned the East African Common Services Organisation, and I was personally very gratified to learn from the noble Duke, the Duke of Devonshire, last Tuesday, when I raised this matter in your Lordships' House on the Second Reading of the Tanganyika Bill, that the Government are fully aware of the desirability of sustaining the organisation and of leaving the door wide open far it to develop into an East African Federation if the territories of East Africa so desire it when Kenya becomes independent.
As to the economic future, unemployment is growing to some extent, largely because of the decline in the number of European farms and of the recession in building. The noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, largely dealt with the position of the Europeans and asked about the farms and the lands of the Europeans which are not to be taken over under the million acres scheme. I am quite sure that, so far as many of the European farmers are concerned, the good farmers will be welcomed in the new Kenya: I do not mean necessarily those who are ranching vast areas, but the good farmers who are farming mixed farms and can be regarded as in some ways a pattern in that type of agriculture. They will be needed, moreover, for some years to come in order to sustain

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the economy and to produce the exports which Kenya needs to balance its budget.
So, too, in my view, business will expand in Kenya rapidly. It is a fact well known to all of us that after most of the territories which were originally dependent territories of the British Crown became independent, so far from the European population declining it increased by leaps and bounds. In India and Ceylon it increased three times; in Nigeria it increased largely, and I am quite sure it will in Kenya. They are rather different types of people. You no longer have administrators and farmers, and so on. They are employees of firms, European and American and others, who go there to help in expanding the economy of the country, and they are welcomed. Very often they are put under contract by the newly independent country. So do not for one moment let us think that the European has no future in Kenya. In a rather different sense he has a very fine future in Kenya if he will fit into the pattern that will be set in that country. But, by and large, the future in Kenya must lie with the African farmers and African administration in commerce and industry. There is considerable need to ensure agricultural discipline, to ensure adequate areas of crops of good quality, to ensure soil conservation and to ensure irrigation. In this field agricultural co-operatives can play a considerable part.
As to expansion of African agriculture, this has, of course, been mentioned by the noble Marquess—he touched on it, but not at any length. The Land Development and Settlement Board deals with the basic development of African agriculture. There are two schemes. Both are being met from the purchase of European farms. The first is for the purchase of one million acres, with money to be provided by the British Government, for high density settlement of about 60,000 smallholders—that is, 60,000 families on one million acres. The second scheme is for the purchase of 180,000 acres to settle 7,800 families in low density schemes. These are, as it were, the bigger farmers. One might say that the smallholders are equivalent to tenant farmers in this country. The purpose of the latter scheme is to use high potential land for the larger African farmers so as to provide increased productivity, and for this
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project land will be purchased with funds from the British Government, and the development of these farms will be met by loans from outside Kenya.
No one, surely, can deny that this is a bold and imaginative project. If one looks for just a moment at what it means in actual work to be done, one can see the scope of the thing. It means the provision on a vast scale of water supplies, fencing, farm building, purchase of stock, planting of cash crops, loans to smallholders and also marketing and advice to them. It will have economic, political, social and educational results of the greatest magnitude. How can one say, in face of that, that the British Government are not doing anything? I never thought, as I must admit, that I should find myself defending the British Government. But one must be fair, and when they are putting in hand schemes of this kind it is hardly fair to say that they are doing nothing at all.
Then the other type of development is the Special Crop Development Authority. This was brought in to assist the development of cash crops by African smallholders, mainly in relation to tea. It aims at developing over 9,000 acres of African tea and providing the factories to process it. Although small in comparison with the other, this is a pretty big scheme anywhere else than in Kenya. Nine thousand acres of tea with the necessary factories is no small proposition. As your Lordships know, in the barometer of the rise in the standard of living three tests or important signs are tea, sugar and soap. Kenya produces the first and the third. Tea is a particularly good crop for Kenya, because, unlike coffee, it can be grown in only certain areas, and they are comparatively few; and the tea producing countries, particularly India, are consuming more and more tea as their standard of living rises. So it is a first-class crop for Kenya, and I am glad to see that Kenya tea is booming—or "boiling" would perhaps be a better word to use. This, again, is an imaginative project, and a field staff and administrative staff are recruiting, and the project is in operation.
Finally, we must not forget that existing African farming must also be carefully safeguarded and improved. I have been dealing up to now with land bought from European farmers. This is new African land. But there are 700,000 families

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settled in the reserves on existing African land, and when we have regard to the new land so far as Africans are concerned we must not forget the existing African land, where no fewer than 700,000 families are living. They need all the support we can give them.
So far as the expansion of commerce and industry is concerned, there is already a great deal of it. From the speeches that have gone before mine this evening, it would almost appear as if Kenya and, I suppose, Uganda are still back in the Stone Age, for we heard so much about tribal customs and tribal this and tribal that; but in fact there are a great number of industries in both Uganda and Kenya. I have visited them and have seen them, and I have heard what people have to say about the skill of the African worker in industry. A great deal is being done, and I believe that, through various means, including development corporations such as the Uganda Development Corporation and the East African Development Corporation in Kenya and many others with which we are associated, we can help them a great deal. They do a power of good, in my opinion, and they do something to overcome the difficulty which the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, mentioned, namely, that there is no one man, as it were, who can be regarded as an expatriate, and running whatever it may be—a scheme of some sort. These are development corporations which are largely owned by the people of the country, either through the Government, the local government, or even the individual shareholders. I think I would agree that this is the sort of way in which there should be development in these countries. I would commend to your Lordships the idea of these development corporations.
My Lords, that is all I have to say this evening. I am quite sure that this will be a useful debate. I should like to say of our debates in your Lordships' House—I have taken part in them for many years on Commonwealth subjects—that, as we know to our cost, they get little attention in the Press or on television and radio in this country. One surprising thing about the Common Market controversy, to my mind, is how many devoted supporters of the Commonwealth seem now to come forward.
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We had not realised that they were there in the past. They have never appeared in any of our debates in the past. They never gave us any space in the Press or on television or on the radio in the past. It seems to me extraordinary that there should be this tremendous interest at this stage in the Commonwealth when, as we who have taken part, year in, year out, in debates on the Commonwealth all know, the Benches have always been singularly empty, and there were just a faithful few of us who dealt with these matters.
But, however that may be, as your Lordships who are interested in this subject know, these debates, especially those in this House, make a great deal of impact overseas, and they are widely recorded overseas in Commonwealth papers and journals. Therefore, for that reason if for none other, I feel that the noble Marquess has rendered a service this evening. As I said before, and I repeat, I have every confidence in the future of Kenya, and from these Benches I should like to say that we will give Kenya all the support we can, and we hope, as indeed we are sure will be the case, that in all parts of the House noble Lords will do the same.
7.9 p.m.
LORD COLYTON: My Lords, like the other two noble Lords who have spoken, I am deeply grateful to the noble Marquess for having put down this Motion. He spoke in moving terms of the European settler community, which many of us know so well. It was brought home vividly to me recently in one of the last numbers of the Kenya Weekly News, where there was an advertisement announcing that a representative of Christie's was paying his second visit to Kenya, offering to buy china, silver and pictures. That gives some idea of what is happening.
We last discussed the affairs of Kenya over six months ago, and on that occasion we were debating the Report of the Kenya Constitutional Conference which, lengthy and complicated as it was, in fact provided little more than a skeleton of the new Constitution under which Kenya was to go forward to independence. The nature of the flesh with which it was to be clothed was dependent on a whole series of processes—the Constitutional talks between the

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Party political leaders in Kenya and the Governor; the Reports of no fewer than five Commissions; and then, as a vital adjunct, the establishment of a Central Land Board and the appointment of a chairman, at least ad interim.
Some progress was made at the beginning of July when the present Chancellor of the Exchequer announced certain proposals on constitutional issues, on the land problem and on the Civil Service. But, quite frankly, since then we have been told remarkably little about what is going on. We understand that within the Council of Ministers, the leaders of the two Parties have been collaborating reasonably well, however much they may go out and abuse one another over the weekends. Perhaps this also applies to the Constitutional talks. But the fact remains that it was only ten days ago that the Kenya Government announced that the first part of the draft Constitution—dealing only with the sections not covered by the activities of the Commissions—would be ready early this month. We are only too well aware of the complexities, but it is very difficult, I think, to understand the reason for these great delays, and I hope my noble friend who is to reply will be able to enlighten us.
We should like to know what has been going on in some of these various Commissions. There has been some reference to the work of the Commission to investigate the Northern Frontier District, but we know little or nothing of the others. Then why has there been such an unprecedented delay in the appointment of a chairman for the Central Land Board?—which certainly has given the impression in certain quarters in Kenya, as the noble Lord opposite said, that we are not very interested in this project. I quite understand the difficulty of finding someone of the right stature and qualifications for a job which I understand may last as long as five years; but surely, with the resettlement of Africans on part of the land of the former European mixed farmers as one of the key issues, it was vital to find somebody as soon as possible.
The view has been expressed in certain circles, both African and European, that these delays have been
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deliberately contrived by the Colonial Office to postpone the holding of elections. My Lords, I certainly do not believe that to be the case. I cannot see that it would profit anyone. When one has regard to the fact that the vital need is to re-establish confidence in Kenya among Africans, Asians, European residents and overseas investors, it would seem to be self-evident that the sooner all these issues can be cleared up, the better for all concerned.
There has been some speculation in the Press, both in Kenya and in this country, as to whether divergencies of opinion on the question of the date for the holding of elections was partly responsible for the decision to remove the Governor, Sir Patrick Renison, and for his substitution by Mr. Malcolm MacDonald. It has in fact been suggested that Sir Patrick had been insistent on the danger of prolonged delay in holding the elections. The Colonial Secretary has publicly denied that there have been any differences on matters of policy between himself and the Governor, and, of course, I accept this. But it does not reconcile me to this decision to change horses in midstream at the most crucial moment in the history of Kenya. That is not in any way to disparage Mr. Malcolm MacDonald, for whose qualities and achievements I have nothing but admiration.
But let us face the facts. The negotiations for a self-governing Constitution for Kenya and its practical application are the most difficult that have faced us in any of our colonial territories; at the same time the situation there is far more explosive and the dangers mare far-reaching. Since his selection for this appointment (by, I believe, my noble friend Lord Boyd of Merton not long before the first Lancaster House Conference), Sir Patrick has discharged a difficult, and what must at times have been a most uncongenial task with remarkable success. He has gained the confidence of the African politicians. He is familiar with the intricacies of these long-drawn-out negotiations and the many complex factors involved in the interplay of tribal emotions and the clash of personalities. Above all, he is an administrator. And whatever the final form of Kenya's Constitution, one I thing is certain. There must be a

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sound and strong administration over the period between the entry into force of a self-governing Constitution and final independence. As The Times said in its editorial on November 19, to suggest that a political job is now beginning is patent nonsense.
We are bound to ask ourselves, my Lords, what are the reasons for this change. Is it just to "let things rip," as my noble friend suggested might be one alternative policy, but which he discarded? What then is the reason? Is it perhaps that Mr. MacDonald who has some experience of federal constitutions is being brought in to ensure a smooth working of the Regional Governments, or, perhaps even more, in due course to preside over the welding of the three independent East African territories into a Federation? This would perhaps be an imaginative proposition, but it has its dangers in the short term.
It leads me to this point. One thing that is absolutely vital now is that there should be no tampering with the regional arrangements and other safeguards laid down in the Conference Report last May. I would ask my noble friend for a categorical assurance that in fact there will be no whittling down of these safeguards, if there is to be, as we all hope and as Mr. Maudling pledged, in opening the Conference, there would be, a peaceful transition to independence; and that the pledges to the African, European and other minorities will be fulfilled.
In this connection I have two points I should like to put to my noble friend. In the first place, I would say that it seems to me there is the utmost urgency in settling the boundaries of the regions so that regional elections may be held as early as possible. The Upper House is to be elected by the regions, and whether such election is to be direct or indirect it seems essential that the regions should be in being and functioning before the national elections are held. After all, regional assemblies are an innovation for Kenya, and if the system is to work well and if it is to endure, it is necessary that they should be well established before the time Britain comes to withdraw. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it would seem that the date for eventual inde-
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pendence must depend very largely on the way in which the regional assemblies are fulfilling their functions.
The second question I should like to put to my noble friend is one which he undertook to consider in our last debate. I hope he will be able to give me an answer to-day. Will the official Constitution provide that a specified number of ministers, as in this country, should be selected from the Upper House? Further, if, as I greatly hope is to be the case, non-voting members are to be included in the Upper House to represent minority interests, will they be eligible for appointment as Ministers? Can he tell us anything about this?
My Lords, however this may be, I should like to take this opportunity of endorsing the recommendation of the European Convention of Associations in Kenya that Europeans, and indeed also Asians, should register as voters for national, regional and local elections. Up to the present I understand that only a handful of them have done so, and it would be in my view quite disastrous if the European community were at this stage, so to speak, to withdraw and divorce themselves entirely from politics in Kenya.
My Lords, I have laid emphasis on the need for avoiding further delays. Whatever we may think of the programmes and policies of KANU and KADU, the present uncertainty is leading to rifts and dissensions which are continually exacerbating the situation. Basically, of course, the question is whether men of moderate outlook, anxious to preserve the unity and prosperity of Kenya, are to prevail over the hard core of irreconcilables who take their money and their orders from Moscow—what I thought the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, rather euphemistically described as the "Right wing" of KANU. Until the constitutional plans are concluded and elections are held, the moderate men are bound to go on competing with their more extreme opponents in language and in action. We have just got to face that fact. Then, when you add to this the present lack of confidence and economic uncertainty, with the attendant unemployment and the encouragement to violence, there is a real risk of chaos even before we get to the point of elections.

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My Lords, before I come to my final point, which deals with the question of land settlement, I should like to ask my noble friend one question about the future of the British troops in Kenya. He replied to a similar question I put to him on May 15, when he said that Her Majesty's Government fully recognised and accepted their responsibility for maintaining law and order in Kenya before independence, and that they would keep the necessary troops there for that purpose. I was rather disturbed to see an item in the Sunday Times on November 25, to the effect that the General Officer Commanding East Africa had stated that the British Army would not leave Kenya until next November, and that the period of his command had been extended. I hope that I may have an assurance that this was merely a matter of inaccurate reporting. I cannot imagine anything more calculated to give rise to a Congo situation, than the withdrawal of British troops before independence. Indeed, as my noble friend knows, I most strongly hope that in the event it will be possible to make some agreement with an independent Kenya for the continued presence of British troops, or at least for a carefully phased withdrawal until such time as strong and balanced Kenyan national forces can be built up, capable of defending the frontiers of Kenya against all intruders.
My Lords, I will turn for a moment to the question of land settlement. I listened with great interest to my noble friend's proposal and I have one or two comments to make on somewhat similar lines. I think that we all welcome Mr. Maudling's plan for the purchase, with British Government financial assistance, of a million acres of European land for resettlement by Africans over the next five years. The details of this scheme, now announced and put into practice, have definitely cleared the air both for those who are to be bought out and those who, in certain areas such as Nakuru and Kitale, have now more or less been told that their land will not be touched by Government schemes for five years. I understand—and my noble friend Lord Portsmouth will correct me if I am wrong—that in the Kitale/Endebess area 80 per cent. of the farmers now intend to remain. On balance, those who are selling are getting higher prices for their farms, and some
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of those who were previously sitting on the fence are now deciding to throw in their lot with those who are staying. I think that these are all encouraging signs.
Furthermore, as I had hoped, many of the European farmers who have been bought out are staying on in their existing houses and becoming efficient settlement officers. It seems quite probable that, given stable conditions in the country, after the two-year engagement by the Government which these officers have taken, they may be asked by the new African settlers to remain on in their employment. I think that this again is a good sign. I am told that the co-operation and the enthusiasm of these settlement officers, and of the new African settlers themselves, have to be seen to be believed. I am told that they are working as if they have a mission in life, and they are getting great satisfaction from what is virtually an agrarian revolution which they say reminds them of the old pioneer days, except that nowadays they indent for a tractor instead of for an ox-wagon. I am also told that few of the European farmers who have been bought out are grumbling at the prices they are receiving for their land, though they are complaining about the amount they are getting for their houses and for their equipment.
The Kenya National Farmers' Union have just held their annual conference in Nairobi. There was widespread but, I think, not ill-natured criticism of the million-acre scheme. There were criticisms on some technical matters, on questions of valuation and timing; but the strongest complaint throughout that conference was directed against Britain for tardiness in providing funds for the Land Bank. My Lords, I have had a letter to-day from one of the leading officials of the Kenya National Farmers' Union in regard to the Land Bank. The Land Bank is Government-financed, and it provides loans against the security of their farms to farmers who, of course, in the past have been mainly Europeans. But my correspondent is most insistent that this question of the Land Bank is one of extreme urgency because it deals with two particular categories.
First, it is important to the European farmer who has been bought out in one

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area, but who wishes to stay in the country and buy another farm in another area which a second farmer is prepared to sell because he himself wishes to leave the country. I understand that there are many such farmers. They are finding it difficult, even after the purchase of their farms, to find the cash to buy other farms at short notice at the moment it is required. For them the provision of additional finance by the Land Bank is extremely necessary. Then there is a second category, which I think your Lordships will agree are equally important, and these are the very considerable numbers of African farmers—not merely the yeoman farmers who are going to settle under the wider scheme, but African farmers who wish to go into non-purchase areas: men of repute, with a certain amount of finance behind them, and a good knowledge of agriculture, who for lack of finance are not able to buy their farms in these non-purchase areas. To enable these people to finance themselves additional money is required for the Land Bank. The present figure of £50,000 a month, I am told, is definitely not enough, and at least £1 million a year will be required during the whole period of the five-year plan for resettlement. I have been asked—and I wish to do so to-night—to impress upon your Lordships and the Government the urgency of providing the necessary finance for the Land Bank.
My Lords, there is one further ground for apprehension which residents of Kenya, farmers of Kenya are feeling; and that is this. The present scheme, the million-acre scheme, due to operate for five years, has been proposed by Her Majesty's Government and will be financed largely by them. As it is for five years, it is clearly intended to overlap into the period of independence, and those affected by this scheme are naturally anxious for a guarantee that its provisions shall not be liable to any alteration after Kenya becomes independent. I realise the difficulty of writing any such guarantee into the new Constitution, but I hope that some formal agreement on the subject will be executed before the date of independence.
My Lords, this brings me back to the essential feature of the Kenya scene to-day; that is, the continued and crucial
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need for the re-establishment of confidence among all sections of the community. That, I suggest, is the task to which Her Majesty's Government, the Government of Kenya and the leaders of the African Parties should all address themselves now. Without confidence, however skilfully drawn this Constitution may be, there may be no possibility of establishing a united and independent Kenya. Quite apart from the inter-tribal fears to which my noble friend referred, the whole economy of Kenya may founder unless faith in the future is re-established. I believe that, in spite of the recriminations and the rifts among African political leaders, in spite of the activities of the Kenya Land Freedom Army, and in spite of the uncertainties caused by the present delays, there has been in recent months some slight improvement in confidence in Kenya.
But, my Lords, the hard reality must be faced. In spite of what the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, said, Kenya is a poor country, ill-provided with natural resources. There is no prime mover; no oil, except perhaps now in the disputed Northern Frontier Province; no coal; electricity is far from cheap; there are no minerals, except soda ash, for export; there are none of the essential requirements of heavy industry; and, though secondary industries are developing, Kenya remains an essentially agricultural country. Its economic growth and all hopes of raising the standard of living must depend on a greater output of saleable agricultural produce, larger volumes of products and the finding of new markets to take them.
It is now more clear than ever it was that if, for any reason, confidence were to recede again, and if (let us face it frankly) the European farmers, small farmers, as well as plantation farmers, were to leave en masse, there would be a wholesale collapse of the Kenya economy and, what is more, a catastrophic fall in the present very low standards of living. This has been recognised by the Kenya Government, by the Minister of Finance, Mr. Gichuru, in his Economic Survey for 1962, and I have no doubt that other Kenyan African leaders recognise it as well; but, unfortunately, they are not prepared to

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say these things in public. Wirth the political manœuvring and personal rivalries, this was to be expected, but I think that we should all urge responsible African leaders to face up to these facts now, before it is too late, and to consider not just their personal or party interests but those of the millions of African's whose whole existence is dependent upon a healthy economy, and, what is more, the vital contribution towards it which European farmers still have to make, now and in the future.
7.33 p.m.
THE EARL OF LYTTON: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Marquess for this opportunity. When I learnt that he had information from Kenya which disturbed him, I felt at a loss to compete with him, because I have no information service at all. I was there many years ago and I revisited it last year; so I got the telephone directory for Kenya and addressed a letter to 50 selected persons and institutions, some of which I knew, many of which I did not. This is the letter that I wrote—an airmail letter:
"Some time before Christmas we are to have another debate on Kenya in the House of Lords. lf, in your opinion, there is anything of importance, satisfactory or otherwise, which should be brought out on that occasion I shall be most grateful to hear from you before the debate takes place."
I then returned to my farming and expected to hear very little more except from a few old friends, hut, unhappily, they have all written, and I shall have to make an attempt to select what they say. I do not know whether it is quite in order that I should voice in this House the opinions of Africans, Indians, Somalis, Jews and others in their own words, but I start off, and no doubt I shall be stopped if I go too far.
I should like to say that one of my letters, and one only, entirely confirms the bitterness and the hatred of the Government. When I say "the" Government, I have the impression that it would be the same of any Government; and I am reminded of the fact that in 1923 my cousin, a Brigadier-General of the Indian Army, was Commander-in-Chief of the Kenya Rebel Army, whose motto was "for King and Kenya", who were in opposition to Mr. Lloyd George's Government and whose hostility exceeded anything that I have experienced lately.
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The difference is that then the settlers were politically supreme: to-day they are politically extinct. I should like to say that I myself discount this bitterness on the ground that, while there are causes for bitterness, there are dispositions of mind which lend themselves to becoming embittered. There are some people who take things too hardly, and there is always that class of person in Kenya.
To continue with the better side of things in Kenya, I wrote to an old settler, a rancher who lives on a farming ranch of 50,000 acres, and all he has to say is:
"There is not at the present time any subject to criticise. I think the Government are doing all they can in preparation for a well-conducted handover when independence is obtained."
Having mentioned bitterness as an extreme on one side, I am mentioning this extreme on the other. Things are not quite so rosy. I wrote to another rancher of 50,000 acres. He is a remarkable man about whom everybody speaks in Kenya. He has put in 67 miles of water pipeline and 10 water boreholes, 9 of which failed; and 16 dams and pumping stations, all of which worked until they were swept away by the floods last winter. Then he restored them. On an acreage where there was nothing for most of the year because there was no water, he holds a beast to 10 acres—that is, 5,000 beasts; and by crossing with Red Polls and the Boran humped cattle he raises the value of the beasts he takes to market to £35 each as compared with the African £10. He is a stayer. He is very deaf and does not mix with people very much. He says:
"I keep busy here with my farming…350 Africans plus two Europeans, including myself. This is 50 more employees than before the Macleod Constitution. The 50 are all Turkana stock guards; Meru, as you know, being no good at that work. Stock thieving is a very serious menace these days, and like everything else the only satisfactory method is to do the guarding yourself "
He spends between £1,000 and £2,000 on guarding his stock. He employs the Turkana to guard his stock against robbers from the Samburu.
He is an exponent of the high wages doctrine, like the Americans. He does not go for minimum wages. His older and better employees are earning between £15 and £25 a month, plus food and housing. I believe that compares with an average in Southern Rhodesia, following a recent

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rise, of £7 a month. Then, backing his confidence, he is building on the coast with his carpenter and mason, who find it difficult to get work, a big game fishing installation, hoping to put big game fishing on the map for tourism in that country. He says:
"The registration of the population for voters' rolls in the coming election is just nearing completion. I doubt if 2 per cent. know what they are doing ".
I wrote also to a young man whose mother has returned and is over here. He is an assistant rancher, and his mother says,
"Nothing will induce Guy to leave his beloved Kenya".
He is a man whose father was killed by a Masai Spearman at a baraza near Narok in 1946, culling a heifer which the Masai did not wish to part with. He has only one anxiety and I am sure he will be delighted to hear what everybody has said here to-day: where can he get the £3,000 which he customarily borrows to carry his steers. If he cannot renew it, he is finished.
I turn now from ranching to education. I appear to have addressed somebody who is a civil servant. I thought I knew him as somebody quite different. However, he writes from a European school of high standard:
"Our integration has gone extremely smoothly and we have a few fine African boys; but they have got to pay our fees and we should like there to be more money available to heap those who cannot pay them. Then we could be more truly selective of those boys who deserved to come here. We have proved that integration is possible and some of us are beginning to realise that it can be an advantage to the school, if properly controlled by the school authority."
He foresees Africa going through a period of selective education because it is impossible to educate everybody at once; his fear is having a quota imposed on him which would level down. That is his anxiety but, generally speaking, one wonders why this integration idea did not occur to somebody before.
Here is a good letter. It says:
"My dear Anthony: Thank you for your letter. We have made tremendous progress and will have over 80 African officers in Kenya alone by early summer 1963. These are broadly speaking ex-effendis or Monstrained. There are of course so many things that can happen here and one cannot be overoptimistic but I really do feel the K.A.R. may
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be the sheet anchor for Kenya as the Indian Army was for India and Pakistan. We are detribalised compared with the Kenya Police but not completely so."
That letter is from the brigadier commanding the 70th Brigade of the K.A.R. He probably should not have written to me, but I am a friend of his. They are enthusiastic for the Africanisation of the King's African Rifles. They have the advantage that a number of the Africans have experience up to 20 years, many of them with active service, who have had a mess of their own and who are either being given a course locally or sent to Mons. I should like to mention one thing about their tribe. So far as I could ascertain last November, 30 per cent. Wakamba are recruited into the K.A.R., but when it comes to the selection of officers the proportion is well over 80 per cent. Therefore you have a corps of officers who are predominantly Wakamba. You have this tribe, a rather unsettled tribe, with only one political leader of note, Mr. Paul Negei, who has recently had what I hope is a temporary dispute with the rest of KANU. It would be deplorable if there were a kind of schism between the ballot box which is the Kikuyu and the Luo, and the military, which is the Wakamba.
I must introduce something which is not in a letter: because I spent so much time with the man he may have wondered why I wrote asking for more information. This is my only contact with the trade unions of Kenya. I went to the secretary of the dock workers' union at Mombasa. He is a man called Dennis Akumu, a Luo, the same tribe as Mr. Mboya. His tribe, large Africans from the lakes, are not always popular with other Africans who sometimes find them bullies. But Mr. Akumu had to have the support of some others besides the Luos in order to win his election. He was elected and he regarded this as a feather in his cap. He also assured me that, with much unemployment, his task was difficult, but he took pride in having had no strike during the five years he was in office. His superior, the deputy port superintendent, Mr. Williams, assured me that he was an excellent man. He was a negotiator. Half of his wage contracts were negotiated—that is, they were above the legal minimum; and of course the minimum is too low. Mr. Akumu takes the minimum wage figure, buys what he

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can get with it, puts his purchases on the conference table and says "Gentlemen, which of you can live on that?" Then there is an enormous laugh, down to the epiglottis—I mention the laugh because it is important. If you have ever dealt with Communists they do not laugh, and if these smiling Africans are not supported, if employment is not improved, they will be replaced by gloomy Communists.
I have a note of criticism from the editor of the East African Standard on the settlement scheme, but I will skip it and take on the next item. A great proportion of the answers to my letters had a common factor. Here is a letter from a lady, a cousin of mine who is getting old, a pioneer of the country, who was formerly chairman of the Countrywomen of the World and held other important posts in the world of women. She writes:
"I personally feel that this pre-election time, with its fever of propaganda and hate between the parties, should be cut short at all costs. We can't know where we are, nor where we are going till after the election."
She has a stake in the country—property, children and grandchildren. I wrote to a friend called Patel—there are 500 Patels in the telephone book; I know only one. He says:
"I would very much wish that the next elections are held as soon as possible so that the new Government has more time to settle down before Kenya becomes self-governing. I personally feel that after the next elections, we shall have to establish firmly the machinery of the Regional Governments and their relations to the various local bodies and the Central Government. This would need a great deal of time. The longer this period, the better it would be, and so it may be good for all concerned to speed up the present elections."
Speeding up the elections is the constant theme of everybody, of all races. It is difficult to understand how, after 70 centuries of sloth. Africa has woken up, so that every day counts. Here is another letter from a friend I have known for a long time. He is a coffee man and his children have been educated out there. He writes:
"There is very little than one can say at this stage except that the longer internal self-government is delayed the longer will it take for our economy to recover."
The President of the Indian Chamber of Commerce writes:
"Kenya, as your Lordship knows, is set on the road to Uhuru (Independence). In my
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view, delay is caused in finalising the interim constitution. The Boundaries Commission, which was entrusted the work to finish regional boundaries, has finished work and a report is expected. In the meantime, pressure is applied by the political parties in Kenya for an early general election. As a result electioneering has started in Kenya. As your Lordship knows, hectic electioneering raises tempers and causes loss of confidence in Kenya. Prolonged electioneering is bound to damage economy in Kenya which is on a low ebb. Kenya is a bankrupt state. This is admitted and publicly announced by Kenya Ministers."
Mr. Shukla signs himself "President of the Indian Chamber of Commerce."
Here is one from a European who now writes a very good and clear letter. He is an old Etonian and a big man in a groceries business. He signs himself as, "Government Whip, KANU Parliamentary Group." He writes:
"At the present time there are complaints that Kenya's Independence is being unduly delayed by the British Government but I do not think there is much ground for this suspicion. We are now waiting for the reports on the Northern Province Commission and the Constituency and Regional Boundaries Commission, and the Fiscal and Economy Commission. Then we have to await the completion of the Draft Constitution and thereafter around towards the end of February we hope to be in a position to announce Nomination Day for our General Elections and Polling Day three weeks later. If this timetable is adhered to, the new Government will take over in April, and I should say we should get our independence the year after that."
Then he goes on to say, as all of them say:
"We need a tremendous amount of financial assistance from overseas".
The next letter is from Mr. Joseph Shikuku, the Secretary Gentral of KADU—that is, Ngala's Regional Party—like all the others he writes extremely courteously:
"I must thank you for your letter and apologise for delay …
"With regards to anything of importance which should be brought out during the debate on Kenya in the House of Lords … I wish to inform you that we have many other things which we would like to have raised in the House of Lords, but the most pressing of all is the question of General Elections which we strongly feel … should be held earliest March and latest April, 1963.
"In view of the foregoing I shall be most grateful if you could raise the above matter in the House of Lords, for we understand that the British Govermnent is of the opinion that the General Elections should be held either in May or June next year, which is unacceptable to us."

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I think that where we have these passions being raised, a whole month makes a great difference. Then there is a letter from KANU, signed by Mr. Tom Mboya:
"Dear Sir,
I acknowledge with thanks your letter … and especially thank you for the interest you have shown in our affairs. The enclosed copy of a Press statement that I issued yesterday constitutes a subject of interest at the moment in our country. The main question is that we had a constitutional conference in March-April this year in London. Since then there have been some four Commissions appointed, but unfortunately most of these were appointed very late. We understand that these Commissions may be reporting back during next month. The problem that we now face is that the whole country is very unsettled due to the people's anxiety to have the general elections as soon as possible. … Whatever you can do at your end to have the British Government speed up these elections will be very useful to us.
"If in the meantime you should desire any further information"—
and so on.
The statement to the Press is presumably available. It is rather long. It contains obviously a suspicion that the British Government may be going to delay the elections for some reasons of their own, perhaps connected with the affairs of Sir Roy Welensky, or for some other reason. Anyway, it seems to me that they think that delay is going to be imposed upon them—or, at any rate, that there will be an absence of any haste. From all that one reads in these letters that I have received, and their urgency with regard to the elections, it is not difficult to appreciate the state of passionate anxiety which afflicts these people at the present time. Then I have a letter from the director of an air service. He writes:
"I cannot think of anything of vital importance that I think should be brought out … except that it appears more and more essential for the country, which is obviously going to be given independence sooner or later, to get it as soon as possible, and hammer out the many problems thereafter."
This letter, my Lords, is from a young man, married and with children, the founder of a charter air service.
There are some severe criticisms that the policy of compensating farmers and civil servants is having the effect of scuttling the ship for those who intend to stay. I have a letter here from a man who was, in his own words:
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"educated in England; served for six years with the British army … discharged with the rank of Major—a very undistinguished war record."
He goes on:
"On leaving the Army I went into business with my family, who at that time owned the Norfolk Hotel, Nairobi. We acquired the New Stanley Hotel in 1948 and have spent £1 million in developing this hotel in the last twelve years.
"I am Chairman of this Company and I am also a Director of our Estates Company, which has 50,000 acres of ranching land and approximately 7,000 head of cattle. These ranches were derelict until I took over at the end of the War.
"I am also Chairman of an Insurance Company; a Director of a large Touring Company, and Chairman of the firm of Ker and Downey Safaris Ltd., the largest big game safari operators in East Africa. In addition, I am Chairman of the Kenya European Hospital Association."
What has this man to say? He hopes that the assurances which Government after Government gave to the settlers of Kenya apply not only to farmers but to the whole economic set-up which has developed as a result of this settlement which they encouraged. He talks about the majority of civil servants being "adequately secured," and of farmers being paid compensation, and goes on:
"I know a European clerk without qualifications who was born and educated in this country and who has had approximately twenty-two years' Government service. This individual has contributed absolutely nothing to the development or welfare of this country in his twenty-two years of service. He leaves Government at the end of this year with a pension of £900 per annum, plus a golden handshake of approximately £14,000. No wonder many of these people are hastily leaving the country."
His whole theme, as that of many others—editors, journalists and businessmen—is the need to reinforce the economy for those who stay. "Do not scuttle the ship by, as it were, bribing people to come out"—although that is not the expression used. I have chosen this man as a representative, because he is in rather a special category. I wrote and asked him about it. He provides an example of some of the things which have hurt different races. He said, in another letter:
"I wish to confirm that I am a Jew and that until this year I have been debarred from three of the major Clubs in Nairobi."
He then says that recently people have invited him to join but he finds it difficult and so far has refused. He says:
"It is all a matter of pride and it is not easy to forget their attitude in the past. At

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one time I was an extremely keen cricketer and although serving on the Executive of the Kenya Kongonis Association (which is equal to the M.C.C. at home) I was not welcome in the Club, which was the Headquarters of the Association."
My Lords, I mention this man because he is a wealthy man and does not suffer materially from what people do to him. But what about similar prejudices against others? If he feels it, surely Africans feel it too. That is one of the troubles. I asked him if, in the hotels he administered, he was scrupulous about avoiding any colour bar. He got an African to write a reference,
"Dear Jack,
Reference your letter … I am myself in correspondence with the Earl of Lytton and can confirm to him that in fact no colour bar to-day exists in the Block Hotels in Kenya. …
Yours sincerely,
Tom."
—that is, Tom Mboya.
The resettlement scheme is criticised by a number of people. I would say that there are anxieties rather than genuine criticisms. When you are putting smallholders into larger units, what are you doing about it? Are you breaking up the farms? Do you make them all viable farms? If you put a large number of small people into a large existing farm, how do you arrange the fences? What about crossing each other's land to the water supply? Who keeps the bull? What is the breeding policy? How can you have a breeding policy, with penny packets of cattle like that? What is the relationship with the seed merchants and fertiliser people? How do you get the product graded and put on transport and marketed? There are hundreds of similar problems.
The Chairman of the Kenya Co-operative Creameries sent me a telegram when he was in London, confirming that there are anxieties about these things. Others go much further and say that they are really doubtful about the speed at which efficient resettlement can be achieved. Of course, we want to go as quickly as possible, but I feel it is not a matter to be conducted at speed, and that agricultural resettlement will not, nor does it ever, provide a solution for industrial unemployment. That has to be cured by restoration of industrial confidence.
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I have one further thing to which I should like to refer, and that is the frontier. I have referred to it before, and I have brought this book, not to read from, but to attract your Lordships' attention and to make a comment on it. It is the Atlas of Kenya. Like most other things that come out of Africa, it is a little mad but very beautiful. It is wonderfully got up; the maps are splendid. They have a map of every province and an index of provinces, but there is no provincial map for the Northern Province. As Negley Farson said:
"Half of Kenya is unknown to the other half."
This is the half which is not even on a provincial map. It is more than a half. Because the Press accompanied the Commission which went round the Northern Frontier District to ascertain the wishes of the people regarding secession to Somalia or remaining with Kenya, the impression has got around (it has been published, and nobody has questioned it) that a considerable majority are in favour of secession. I ask whether the Government are able to say that their purpose in holding this Commission and finding out the views of the people was to apply to that area the principle of self determination. If not, it seems to me nonsense, and I wonder whether the Government can say straight away that in the best possible way—which means probably an adjustment of the existing boundaries—they are intending to apply the principle of self-determination to the N.F.D. portion of the Northern Frontier.
I feel they will have a number of difficulties. Mr. Mboya and Mr. Ngala are reported in the Press—and I have it in a letter from a journalist friend of mine—saying that they would go to war to recover that territory if it was handed to the Somalis. It is also alleged, and reported widely in the Press, that the Emperor of Ethiopia is against it. For reasons which I hinted at in my last speech in the debate on Kenya, there is a possible further obstacle in that a year ago Mr. Kenyatta, on his visit to the Emperor, received a cheque for £7,000 for flood relief for Kenya, which was in a sense a little odd, because the head of a State usually communicates

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to the representative of another State or to the other head. It was not Sir Patrick Renison but Mr. Kenyatta who received this, unless the Press have reported it quite wrongly. It is most probable that the Emperor (whose diplomatic astuteness is well known; he has been able to add Eritrea to his Empire with the connivance of the United Nations) would not have omitted to reassure Mr. Kenyatta that he would ratify the provisional boundary between Kenya and Ethiopia. For a good many generations that boundary has been provisional—perhaps it has always been provisional. At any rate, it does not seem to be ratified. However, Mr. Kenyatta on his recent visit to the Somali capital was in an embarrassing position and refused when he was asked to agree to the self-determination of the area. That, I think, is going to be another difficulty.
A journalist friend, a man of great experience, wrote:
"I have to thank you for your letter of November 5. There is only one matter of which I would like to speak and that concerns the secession of the N.F.P."—
N.F.P. is the old expression—
"to Somali. I believe you favour this. Our problem is this. The Shell-B.P. people have spent some £8 million in the area prospecting for oil. At the moment all their calculations have brought them, in an ever-diminishing circle, to a point 20 miles north-east of Galole, to a place called Walu, which is 10 miles east of the Tana river and in the N.F.P. and just a mile or so outside the coastal district."
He has measured the point, and it is equidistant from Mombasa and from Kismayu, the Somali port. He says there will be extreme bitterness if that oil is not available for Kenya's refinery at Mombasa, at least in part. At the moment the shaft is 8,000 feet down and has another 4,000 to 6,000 feet to go. Neither of these countries has prime movers. Here is the well of contention; but, of course, it may only be soda water. That is all I have to say.
8.6 p.m.
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, at this late hour I propose to reduce the few remarks which I want to make to as small a compass as possible. We have had a long debate and we have listened, if I may so describe it, to the statesmanlike speech of the noble Marquess opening the debate, an idealist speech from the
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noble Lord, Lord Walston, an optimist's speech from the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, and a discursive speech from the noble Earl who has just sat down.
The problem of Kenya's progress towards independence has been repeatedly discussed in this House over the last three years, but grows no simpler with the passage of time. I am assuming, of course, and hoping, that the British Government will at least stand steadfast in a refusal to make a final reckless surrender of its control to certain chaos, which was one of the alternatives mentioned earlier in the debate. It is true that the somewhat devious path of its policy over these three years has given some encouragement to those who take a pessimistic view. Two or three years ago, for instance, Mr. Macleod, with a masterly grasp of the obvious, said that you cannot solve the problems of a Continent with a blue-print. True enough. But when he also talked of a Kenya where all can play their part, he was surely busy building a castle in the air for which the precariously unstable residents, the European farmers of Kenya, are now paying the rent.
This is not the occasion to deal with any "might have beens", or to try to assess the malign effects of weak and hesitant policy or misjudgment. A study of the papers and debates in Parliament during the past three years ends in the conviction, which has been stated many times this afternoon, that in a solution of Kenyan land problems lies the only hope of stable government and the relief of the social tension. Your Lordships have heard speeches this evening from various angles. I am endeavouring to look briefly at Kenya from the angle of the despised administrator. Owing to the loss of confidence internally and externally the economy of Kenya is declining rapidly, with the consequent dangerous growth of unemployment. In general, the European community has a feeling, rightly or wrongly, of being abandoned and betrayed. African leadership is weakened by personal jealousies and feuds, tribal mistrust and hostility is growing and interracial feeling is exacerbated by reckless public mis-statements and accusations.
In the interests of public order and for the relief of the economy it is no doubt desirable to hold elections as soon

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as possible, but some delay seems inevitable pending completion of reports of the five Commissions now studying the background for the new Constitution. After all, the seven-and-a-half weeks, I believe it was, at Lancaster House earlier on ended in a nebulous agreement, at the end of which the Secretary of State said:
"We have certainly not solved the problems of Kenya. We must not exaggerate what we have achieved; we must not minimise the difficulties and dangers ahead. Fears and suspicion still exist and must be exorcised. The economy of Kenya is in a very serious position."
That was said by the Secretary of State. It is not what I have said, and the comment I would make on it is, "Precisely".
This agreement was just a framework which had to be filled in on all important points by co-operative efforts, and, judging by past experience and present indications, such genuine co-operation will be difficult to obtain. The Kenya record, after all, in relation to Lancaster House is, I think one can truthfully say, one of broken undertakings, agreements broken almost before the ink was dry on the signatures. The simple position has not varied. Even this agreement, nebulous and obscure as it was, could have had satisfactory results if only bona fides and goodwill were present, but in the absence of these qualities the outlook is indeed ominous. Safeguards written into a Constitution do not deter an African Government bent on dictatorship. The Conference so recently concluded was handicapped from the very start by the fact that totally different systems of government were wanted by KANU and KADU, who were filled with mistrust of each other. In the end the framework Constitution which was agreed to foreshadowed a federal system and a strong Upper House. It also envisaged a land purchasing and resettlement authority, which, incidentally, will require many millions of pounds of British support. There is also a Bill of Rights with an appeal to the Privy Council.
Meanwhile, a Coalition Government has taken over responsibilities and wants to work out an agreement on the way to fill in the gaps in the Constitution, which are far more than details since some of the most important questions have been left in the air. Among them are problems—many of them have been mentioned to-day—of finance, security and citizenship, the coastal strip, the
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degree of autonomy of regions under the electoral system, the position of the Civil Service, not only the expatriates but especially the locally-recruited men, and the Somali question in the Northern Provinces. Very much depends on this vexed land question and the restoration of European confidence so that Europeans' essential help may be retained in order to avert otherwise certain ruin. In sober fact, something like five years is required before complete independence is granted, otherwise there is bound to be perilous disillusion, perhaps civil war and chaos.
Are the leading African politicians capable of putting the welfare of Kenya first, above all their personal wrangling? Unless an affirmative answer can be given, Kenya may, and almost certainly will, slide back to the conditions from which she has emerged over the last 60 years. Security, a sound economy, education, agriculture, a decent standard of living, will all vanish. The weeks' dreary argument at Lancaster House, the final framework agreement and the subsequent repudiation by leading signatories of much of its obvious meaning, underlines not only their irresponsibility but their inability to understand the two-Party system or to free themselves of the authoritarian background which conditions their outlook on political power. It would be unreasonable as well as unfair to under-estimate the appalling economic difficulties which now face any Government in Kenya in addition to the tribal or racial difficulties which may at any time burst into open flame. One can only hope that the responsibility which now faces them and the clear prospect of chaos will at least induce sobriety in the African leaders of all Parties.
In conclusion, may I emphasise the very urgent need—as has been urged by so many speakers this afternoon—for the appointment of a chairman of the Central Land Board, a chairman whose independence and experience, ability and standing, will command confidence both in Kenya and abroad and who will be able to take the scheme and all its problems out of the political arena; and also the need for the implementation of the settlement schemes; for guarantees of the personal safety and liberty of European farmers and their families; and, finally, the important question of citizenship—that the ability, for those electing

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to remain in Kenya, to choose dual citizenship should be insisted on and enshrined in legislation as a right.
I have deliberately refrained from going into any details of the large financial support already given and promised to the Kenya Government in addition to the undertaking to provide £15 million for land purchase and the African settlement scheme. They have been dealt with by other speakers and many details of what this country has done for Kenya were given by the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, in our debate on July 17 this year. I would end by noting once more that the Constitution to be decided on for Kenya may well indicate a democratic institution, but, in fact, it may not endure for long. The greatest enemy of democracy is surely an ignorant electorate. After all, democracy is a set of values, and institutions are merely a way of safeguarding them. If the values are not there underneath, the institution is a mere facade with no permanence whatever. And, my Lords, to absorb esurient politician's, living on slogans as the currency to purchase power, with all the tribal stresses of superstition and hostility, time is required, and in Africa to-day time is being denied. If the basic traditions of an embryo nation are undemocratic, how can you expect a sudden devotion to democratic forms from people struggling to be a nation at the behest of ambitious politicians? Without the basic patriotism that distinguishes a potential nation from a group of warring tribes it is impossible to expect any success in such an experiment.
The picture I have painted is a somewhat gloomy one, but I look at it in a practical way as an administrator should and must look at it, and it does not help at all if you happen to be an administrator to have beautiful dreams and idealistic thoughts about what ought to happen. You are dealing with human possibilities on the spot. As I have said, my outlook is rather gloomy, but I do not think the future is irreparable, and I sincerely hope that the British Government will pay that great concentrated attention to what is happening in Kenya which is the only hope that they may be able to save it yet.
8.20 p.m.
THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: My Lords, as the one permanent resident,
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a farmer and businessman, who comes from Kenya and who is in this House at the moment, I should very much like to thank the noble Marquess who initiated this debate for having done so and for the extraordinary interest which we in Kenya will get from having known how people are thinking in your Lordships' House; because it does matter a great deal to people on the farms to feel that somebody in this country is thinking of their problems.
After listening to my noble friend Lord Milverton I was reminded that in this country, and indeed in a great many countries of the Western world, it is our habit, or the habit of a good many of us, to go and confess on Sunday what miserable sinners we are, and perhaps rather fewer of us continue in the week days to prove that we are such. On the other hand, the position is reversed in Kenya. The politicians spend the whole of the week-end, especially Sunday, on proving they are miserable sinners in public. When it comes to the weekdays they are much more hopeful people, and they do get to work and get together; their tribal differences are often sunk, their suspicions are welded in common action which very rarely gets into the Press and very rarely gets to the public, because moderate men working together very often do not like it to be known how well they are doing. For that reason I am something of an optimist and much nearer to the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, in this debate than to the pessimists, and I have from time to time quietly amassed information on what good things go on.
If your Lordships will bear with me a few minutes, I should like to say something of these points. In about three days time I shall be asked, and I hope I shall be able, to bring two little Kikuyu children aged about fourteen to hear a debate in your Lordships' House. They are foundlings who were literally living in conditions of starvation, robbing and thieving as they could to get a living. They have been rescued and taken into a home of bright, intelligent children and they are coming over here to appeal for other foundlings to be helped. But it is not the appeal that we are going to be asked to do that matters, to my mind, but a campaign initiated in Kenya, where £5,000 was subscribed by schoolchildren of all sorts, of all races, to help the other

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youth. That is the sort of hopefulness Which, to my mind, is looming large.
Last August there was a convention which was called "The Kenya We Want", One hundred and twenty Africans of all types, public servants, politicians, businessmen, educators and so forth got together for five days. Some of the meetings were held in public and some were working parties in private. I myself was not there at the time, but was assured by the organiser that in the whole of that five days not one word of Party politics was mentioned. The whole business of that Convention was, by mutual consent, trying to lay the foundations of a better Kenya and a more economically sound one. There are standing committees being set up which will push that work forward, and that again gives me a great deal of hope.
I would say one word about this vexed question of unemployment. For some five years now in the Kenya Legislative Council, and I think once in this House, I have said that the writing on the wall of unemployment was there, and we should have taken steps to deal with it then. We have not taken steps until far too late. I would say it is not, in my view, land settlement on a small scale that is going to have any effect on unemployment. It is not going to have much effect even where there are yeoman farmer schemes, but they are capable of making some contribution. What is going to help unemployment is to get a land bank to lend to the developing African farmers, not on new schemes but on developing their own farms—which sometimes badly need it, and farmers are capable of doing it.
Development within African land units is far more important where you are dealing with unemployment agriculturally than are land settlement schemes, however necessary land settlement schemes may be to ease tension politically. Unless we can find ways and means (I am not going into schemes which I could put forward to your Lordships' House) of lessening unemployment, by industrialisation, tourism, irrigation schemes, I am quite certain that the real danger in Kenya is not so much the politician, be he from the North of the Channel or be he the politician on the Equator. Unemployment is the key to
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our dangers to-day. I think it is fair to say that it would be better to make a really all-out effort for constructive, businesslike schemes to be put forward to ease that situation than to have a new emergency on our hands; because we shall have to face one or the other unless we really make some imaginative effort to deal with this problem.
I am standing here as a Kenyan farmer and also a Kenyan stayer. I quite realise that though I have been talking optimistically there are dangers and difficulties ahead. But where are there not in the world to-day? Two Kenya farmers who felt there were dangers and difficulties went to Sardinia to look for a new home and were murdered by bandits. I remember seeing the first "buzz bomb" of the war go over my bead in the country and it landed on a pub in Abbotts Ann where it killed three people, refugees from the bombs. You cannot escape your mark; you have to face it. I am staying because, first, I have worked there for fifteen years, years of great happiness and great, hard work. I am staying because I love the country. I am staying because I think it is absolutely necessary, just for common reasons of bread and butter, that I make a "go" of it. I will be quite frank about that. But I am staying also because there is a challenge there that is really worth meeting, because I have great confidence that there are many more good men than bad men in Kenya, and that with help and friendship they will prevail. I am staying, finally, because of the challenge which I think is worth while.
I think the noble Marquess who initiated this debate said something of the enormous speed with which in the last fifty years we have raised the country. We have also compressed fifty generations into fifty years, and to my mind one of the best tasks you can do is to help in every small way you can to bring that great safari of 1,000 years of mind and skill and customs into something that can work to-day.
8.31 p.m.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I shall be brief. The noble Marquess has given us an opportunity, for which we are all grateful, to review the situation in Kenya, taking into account the important developments since our last debate in May. My only regret,

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which I share with him, is that owing to the timing of the debate it has come on so late in the evening that a large number of noble Lords have missed the opportunity of hearing a whole series of remarkably well-informed and interesting speeches, including the fascinating epistolical marathon of the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, which, like the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Portsmouth, brought most welcome voices from Kenya into our debate.
The first development to which I should like to refer has already been referred to by other speakers—it is the appointment of a new Governor, Mr. Malcolm Macdonald. May I say, in passing, that I know personally both Mr. Macdonald and the present Governor, Sir Patrick Renison, and I have the highest regard for both of them? The Secretary of State for the Commonwealth evidently considers that a political Governor is better qualified than a career man to handle the final stage in Kenya's constitutional growth. He has denied reports of differences of opinion about policy between himself and Sir Patrick Renison, and, of course, like the noble Lord, Lord Colyton, I accept the statement of the Secretary of State. I also agree that a man with a political background is sometimes better at dealing with political personalities and problems than a man whose background is mainly administrative.
But if, as the Government have said, this is the case in Kenya, why was Mr. Macdonald not appointed earlier? As my noble friend Lord Walston pointed out, if not much earlier, why not in April, a crucial moment to take over after the Constitutional Conference and the setting up of the Kanu-Kado Coalition? If this appointment had been made earlier this year, as the noble Lord, Lord Colyton said, this swapping of horses in mid-stream could have been avoided. Valuable time has been lost in this way in getting what we all hope is the right man into the saddle; and, of course, the timetable to independence is one of the key factors in a smooth transition. However, I am glad to see that Mr. Macdonald's appointment has been well received by all the communities in Kenya, and I know that, irrespective of Party, we wish him the
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utmost success in his extremely difficult task. Sir Patrick Renison, whom I well remember as a most brilliant and successful administrator in the West Indies, has also served Kenya well and his successor will greatly benefit by his experience.
I want to refer now only to some of the most general matters in relation to Kenya. What has struck me most about this debate (and I have listened carefully to all the speeches) as compared with our earlier debates on Kenya, has been the remarkable degree of harmony between the speakers, from the noble Marquess to the last speaker to whom we have listened. I think that, with the single dissentient voice of the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, it can be said that all the speakers were in general agreement with Government policy. Perhaps I am unintentionally exaggerating (I do not wish to do so) the degree of agreement shown by the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, but I think he would at least agree that he showed a greater degree of agreement than in his last speech on this subject in your Lordships' House. But it is most important that there should be Parliamentary support for British policy in Kenya, because that is one of the factors that will establish confidence in that country.
I am sure that it is a disservice to Kenya to exaggerate the dangers inherent in the future. The Minister of Defence has said that he has the security situation well in hand at (the moment and that he has no fears for (the immediate future. I think we have no reason to doubt his judgment. Fear is the very worst enemy of economic recovery and political stability, and (the country needs People of all races with sober confidence in its future—people, if I may say so, like the noble Earl, Lord Portsmouth, who has already said that he is a stayer and whom we well know as one of those who have never doubted the future of the country. At the same time, it would be folly to underestimate the enormous economic difficulties, present and future. Unemployment (is increasing; the flight of capital continues; skilled professional men are leaving (the country, and will continue to leave until after independence.
I have already said that I believe that confidence in the future of the country

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is absolutely essential, and I think that the two main requirements for confidence are these: first of all, political stability, which depends on the continuance of the present slightly uneasy Coalition until the Election; secondly, financial solvency, which depends on the willingness of Her Majesty's Government to go on footing the bill for at least a minimum standard of administrative efficiency, and for the foundations of a healthy economic development. I know that the Government are spending a great deal of money. I think it is well worth putting it into the Kenya economy. The only alternative would be bankruptcy. I think again that on that matter I agree with the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury.
I had intended to say something about land settlement, but I shall not do so because it is a much less controversial subject than I thought it might be. I think we are all in agreement that this one-million acre scheme is a fine and imaginative scheme, and we hope that it will be successful. The important thing is that there are many British farmers, like the noble Earl, Lord Portsmouth, who want to stay on. They realise that their farms are the backbone of the country and of the economy, and that their example of racial partnership and trust is exactly what the country needs at the present time. These British farmers have faced risks in the past and they are prepared to face them again in the future. They are patriots in the best sense of the word.
The most disturbing thing about the advance that is taking place towards self-government is its slow pace. This has been referred to by several speakers, including the noble Lord, Lord Walston. The Government are not keeping up with the timetable they had set themselves. May I remind the noble Marquess opposite of what he himself said in our last debate? The noble Marquess said that he hoped the Constitution would be completed by the end of the year, and that it would be followed by elections and internal self-government. I believe that only about one-third of the Constitution has been completed at the present time. The noble Marquess confirms that I am correct in this supposition. If that is the case, it is obviously out of the question for the whole Constitution to be
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ready by the end of this month; that is to say, by the end of the year. For example, the Fiscal Commission (I think they are the only Commission that have not been referred to this evening) have not yet reported. And on their report, of course, will depend the division of financial powers between the regional authorities and the centre.
This matter of delay is one upon which a great deal of emphasis has been placed, from both sides of the House, by the noble Lords, Lord Colyton and Lord Walston. I certainly hope that it is a matter which the Government will take very much to heart. There should have been a greater sense of urgency in dealing with these Commissions, and I think that it is immensely important that the African leaders should be absolutely satisfied that the Government are not using administrative difficulties, or any other difficulties, such as those referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, to delay self-government and ultimate independence. I, for my part, am sure that the delay that has occurred in completing the administrative preliminaries has not been deliberate, and I hope that a wrong interpretation will not be put on it in Africa. But I think the Government are certainly to blame for not insisting on a greater measure of speed, and I hope they will put this right and that the new Governor will be of great assistance to them in doing so. I am quite certain that any unnecessary delay in the future is bound to stoke up racial hostility and to increase the danger of a political breakdown. I hope that the Government can say that elections will be held not later than the spring. That is what both the Parties in Kenya want, and I think that it will be very dangerous if there is any delay in holding the elections.
My Lords, the only way, I am sure, to remove the uncertainty that paralyses economic development in Kenya, and encourages the disastrous rivalry between the tribes, is for the Government to move forward with the least possible delay to the next stage—the stage of fresh elections and internal self-government for Kenya. I hope that the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, will be able to satisfy us that that is the Government's intention, and that they will be able to proceed more swiftly than they have done in recent months.
8.45 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COLONIAL AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE): My Lords, like the noble Marquess when moving this Motion, I, too, regret that it was found necessary for this debate to be held at this late hour. None the less, I feel it my duty to reply at full length to all the points that have been raised—to reply to all the points to which I am able to reply, for, even though it may involve your Lordships in remaining here until a later hour than perhaps you would wish, I am sure that at the same time you would not wish the people of Kenya to feel that a Minister of the Crown did not consider their affairs as being of the greatest importance.
My Lords, on many occasions recently I have been distressed to hear in conversations which I have had with people from Kenya that they had the impression that Her Majesty's Government, and the Colonial Office in particular, paid insufficient attention to their affairs and cared too little about Kenya. I suppose that that sort of criticism is a classical criticism which one might get from any part of the British Commonwealth, from any Colony of the United Kingdom. But I want to say here and now that this criticism is utterly unjustified. Hours of time, hours of work are devoted exclusively to the problems of Kenya. Never is a request for an interview refused, they are always welcomed, and our officials in the Colonial Office are encouraged as much as possible to visit Kenya so that they themselves may get some personal knowledge—although obviously they cannot acquire great knowledge in a short time—of the country. I hope that the people of Kenya, both black and white, will realise how deeply Her Majesty's Government are concerned with the future happiness of that country and the solution of the many difficult problems that still remain to be solved.
Many noble Lords in the course of this debate have referred to the Lancaster House Conference and the decisions at that Conference, decisions which, as the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, and others have said, were only as to the framework of the Constitution. So a lot has had to be done. Again and again the question of delay has been raised in this debate by noble Lords in all parts of the House.
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I want to make it absolutely clear that it is my right honourable friend's determination that there should be no avoidable delay in working out, to their fruition, the important decisions that were taken at Lancaster House last spring. But I am sure that all noble Lords familiar with the problems realise the difficulties that there are, and there certainly is not, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said, any deliberate delay on the part of Her Majesty's Government. I was glad that the noble Earl said this, because I am able to assure your Lordships that, of course, there is no deliberate delay.
In fact it is true to say, despite my hopes expressed in the debate we had in this House on May 15, that we have so far achieved only about one-third of the Constitution of Kenya. But let me also tell your Lordships that the complexity of the Kenya Constitution is such, as I am quite certain all noble Lords who are familiar with this problem are well aware, that the one-third which we have so far achieved is about equivalent in volume and length to the total length of a normal colonial Constitution.
In order to accelerate as much as possible the completion of the Constitution, my right honourable friend has arranged for sections of it to be sent out for detailed consideration by Kenya Ministers at regular intervals. Obviously, there are drawbacks to what we are doing, but we hope that this may accelerate the process. Clearly, these drafts will have to undergo revision in the light of the comments made on them by the Kenya Ministers; but none the less my right honourable friend feels this perhaps may be a helpful way to accelerate the process of finalising the Constitution.
My Lords, there are, of course, many policy decisions still to be reached by the Government of Kenya, and it is no use our saying otherwise. This is the plain fact: there are still many policy decisions which have to be reached. But I am quite certain—and this is something which I particularly wish to address to the noble Lord, Lord Colyton—that all concerned are as determined and as anxious as he is to see that there is no departure whatsoever from the spirit of the Lancaster House agreements, so that in the Kenya of the future all the tribes and all the communities will feel that

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the system of Government is one that will provide justice and security for all. I particularly wanted to give this assurance to the noble Lord, Lord Colyton.
My Lords, reference has been made to the Commissions, and I should like, for the record and for the information of those of your Lordships who are stayers, like the noble Earl, Lord Portsmouth, who is still there, to tell you exactly what the position is regarding these Commissions. The facts are as follows. Five Commissions have been assembled and sent to Kenya since the end of the Lancaster House Conference last April. One of them, the Economy Commission, although of great importance, has in fact very little bearing on the constitutional arrangements, but the other four Commissions have a very important bearing on these matters. These Commissions are: the Commission to determine the boundaries of the new Regions, the Commission to determine the constituencies for the elections to the Lower House, the Commission to work out the financial relationships between the Centre and the Regions and, lastly, the Commission to report on the state of public opinion within the six districts comprising the Northern Frontier District concerning the future of that area, to which the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, referred. Let me tell your Lordships that arrangements for the assembling of these Commissions were, in fact, put in hand immediately after the Conference.
In the case of the Fiscal Commission, to which the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, referred, the Chairman had, in fact, been provisionally earmarked before the Conference ended, because it was quite clear that, whatever happened, a financial Commission of some sort or another would be necessary. In the case of all these Commissions, as your Lordships will appreciate, it was necessary to find men of distinction and with the requisite experience whose work would command confidence from all concerned. In the case of the Northern Frontier District Commission we felt it was desirable to find people from outside the United Kingdom in case it might be thought that, in reporting on the state of opinion in that area, they might in some way be influenced by British Government policy. Your Lordships I think must be well aware that to obtain the ser-
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vices of men of this sort for Commissions of this kind is extremely difficult. Men have to disrupt their way of life and take on these arduous tasks, and it is not easy to get men of the right calibre to perform these tasks.
As I think the noble Lord, Lord Colyton, said, the Regional Boundaries Commission clearly is the key to much of the other work that has to be done in connection with the Constitution. Until the Regional boundaries are settled, it is obviously not possible for the Fiscal Commission to work out with any accuracy how the financing of the Regions should be organised, and, for that matter, the Lower House constituencies cannot be completely determined until the Regional boundaries are known. It therefore would have been a logical thing to suspend any action on the Lower House Constituencies Commission and on the Fiscal Commission until the Regional Boundaries Commission had completed its task, but to save time we did not do this. Both the Lower House Constituency Commission and the Fiscal Commission went out in the summer, in order that they should at least complete the major part of their task while the Regional boundaries were being worked out.
Your Lordships may inquire, as you have, why the key Commission, the Regional Boundaries Commission, did not begin its work in Kenya until August. I have already given part of the reason: the difficulty of getting the right men for the job. But now there is a further reason. The Commission could not begin until its terms of reference were finally settled, and these were not settled by the Kenya Council of Ministers until mid-June.
Within a few days, we were in a position to discuss these recommendations with a person who seemed very likely to be able to take on the Chairmanship. But we could not do this until mid-June when the terms of reference were put forward and agreed. By July 6 we were able to announce the name of the Chairman and the date, which was early August, by which time we hoped, although we still had to be sure that the other members could fall in with this programme, that the Commission would start work. The Commission was completed, and administrative

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arrangements settled, during July and the Commission began work in Kenya, as your Lordships know, on August 9.
The Regional Boundaries Commission could not visit the Northern Frontier District before the Northern Frontier District Commission had visited the area. We were advised that there would be a serious security risk if this happened. This involved a pause in the work of the Regional Boundaries Commission, and I understand from the Chairman, Sir Stafford Foster Sutton, that this may have delayed completion of his report by two or three weeks.
The present position on the five Commissions is as follows, and I should like your Lordships to pay particular attention to this, because perhaps there has been some doubt as to what has been going on. There has been no opportunity to tell your Lordships since last May, and so I welcome this opportunity provided by the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury. The Economy Commission has nearly completed its report which should be available to the Kenya Government very soon, indeed. The Regional Boundaries Commission submitted its report to my right honourable friend on November 23 and copies were sent at once to the Governor for consideration by the Kenya Council of Ministers. The Report which contains a number of bulky appendices will be published later this month. The Fiscal Commission has completed its preliminary examination, but, for the reasons I have already explained, it will have to visit Kenya again later this month to complete its work in the light of the decisions of the Regional Boundaries Commission. The same applies to the Commission dealing with the Delimitation of the Lower House Constituencies, which, in fact, returned to Kenya this week-end. The Northern Frontier District Commission have completed their work and are now preparing their report which will be available later this month.
My Lords, that is the factual account of the position of the Commissions. I do not think, on careful analysis, that, really, there are grounds for grave criticism.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I do not want to criticise. I just wanted to ask the noble Marquess whether I am
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right in assuming that all these Reports will be published. I think that is important. He said that two of them will be published, but will the Reports of all the Commissions be published when they are ready?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I should be grateful for notice of that question. Without discussing it with my right honourable friend, I should prefer not to give an answer off the cuff.
Naturally, many of your Lordships have referred to the change in the Governorship, and I, for one, was glad—and I am sure that this was felt in all quarters of the House—that there were generous and well-deserved tributes to Sir Patrick Renison. Sir Patrick Renison has, of course, carried this great burden at a particularly difficult time in the history of Kenya. Naturally, my Lords, it is disappointing for him that he is not to have the opportunity of seeing the job through to the end.
One thing I want to make absolutely clear. I think that in fact my right honourable friend has done so, but in case there is still any sort of doubt in anybody's mind I want to repeat that there was no difference of opinion between my right honourable friend and Sir Patrick Renison about the pace at which things needed to go. Both were agreed that there should be no avoidable delay in the progress towards constitutional development. That I wish your Lordships to pay particular heed to. During the recent discussions with the Governor (I did not attend all, as I had to leave for Malaya) my right honourable friend and Sir Patrick Renison very carefully reviewed the work so far completed and the programme for the next few months; and they were both united in a desire to ensure good progress on the work still to be done.
I should like to add my personal tribute to the work of Sir Patrick Renison. I should also like to add my own good wishes to Mr. Malcolm MacDonald, who is to take on this extremely difficult and important task. I believe, my Lords, that it is generally accepted that Mr. MacDonald has the essential qualities needed to help him in the task ahead of him, and I believe that one of the most essential of these qualities is patience. I do not mean by that, of course, that we

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expect Mr. MacDonald to slow down the tempo of things. This is not the case: nor is that the reason why Mr. MacDonald has been appointed.
But, at the same time, clearly, if we are to progress towards a happy and orderly Kenya, there must be patience, there must be understanding, there must be the courageous forbearance that I thought we all detected in the remarks of the noble Earl, Lord Portsmouth. After all, my Lords, there are others who have experience, but perhaps he has more personal experience of Kenya than any other Member of your Lordships' House, at least more than any other Member here to-day. The noble Earl, Lord Portsmouth, was optimistic; he was courageous; he was prepared to believe the best of the Africans, to believe that they have in fact got the qualities which are necessary to bring their country, and the country to which so many British people have given so much of their lives, into a happy independence.
I do not subscribe to the gloom that has been expresed in some of the speeches of noble Lords in this House, and I was surprised to hear those same noble Lords say how important in their view was the establishment of confidence. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said, and in my opinion rightly said, that if you are going to establish confidence (perhaps I am somewhat paraphrasing what he said) you have also to have some confidence; and I think that the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, the noble Earl, Lord Portsmouth, and, if I may be allowed to say so, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, by giving us such a balanced and interesting variety of views out of Kenya have all done a great service to Kenya this afternoon. My Lords, do not let us approach the future with too gloomy and too anxious an attitude of mind: let us give credit where credit is due.
Many of your Lordships, quite properly, have spoken at some length about the Land Settlement Scheme, and I was gratified to hear the noble Lord, Lord Colyton, express satisfaction at the encouraging results which have already been achieved. Of course, we realise that the expanded scheme, the million-acre scheme, is really what we must now be getting on with. Now all this
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is being very carefully studied and very carefully looked at. It is complex and it is expensive, but I hope that before long I shall be able to report favourably to your Lordships about the outcome of this.
I was also interested to hear the observations by, I think it was, the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, when he referred to the land bank. Certainly the noble Lord, Lord Colyton, referred to it; and indeed that is something which I can assure your Lordships Her Majesty's Government are carefully considering. I was also particularly interested to hear the suggestion of the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, about the smaller holdings. He, if I may say so without impertinence, has seemed to me all along to have been approaching the whole problem of Kenya in a constructive way. I have been privileged to have private conversations with him in the office, and I have seen all along that, like all of us, what he wishes is for a happy solution. I know that he does not entirely agree with all that we are doing, but I do know that he realises that we are in fact trying to do something which is very difficult, and that we are trying to do it in the way which we think to be best. I can assure the noble Marquess that I think his proposal (which he says is not really his own proposal) for the "bulking up" of smaller holdings (as I think he called it) into large farming companies is something which should be considered. I can assure the noble Marquess that this will be considered, and I should very much like to have an opportunity of discussing this matter further with the noble Marquess.
My Lords, on this Land Settlement Scheme, as I have said, there is still work to be done. I think that what the noble Earl, Lord Portsmouth, said about it is true. I believe that the unemployment problem is not going to be solved through the Land Settlement Scheme alone, although there perhaps may be ways in which the scheme may alleviate the unemployment problem.
I should like to refer to this sad question of the compassionate cases. The position is this: there are, of course, a number of European farmers who, through age or infirmity, are no longer able to contribute to the economy of

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the country, and who also might constitute a security risk by reason of their inability, suppose things went wrong, to protect themselves; and also because of the remoteness of their farms. Earlier this year, as the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, knows, we agreed to provide funds to the Kenya Government to buy up 63 of such farms. These were the 63 cases considered to be of the highest priority on the basis that the farms bought up should be used for settlement purposes.
It has now been suggested that, in fact, there are probably something nearer 200 than 63 such cases. I discussed this personally with Sir Patrick Renison when he was here, and I have also been in correspondence with him since he returned to Kenya. He is looking carefully into the whole of this question so that we can see what can be done about this problem. The noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, not only referred to what he described as the rural cases; he referred also to urban cases. Such cases as these we are also looking into. I cannot at this juncture give your Lordships any assurances, but I can say this: we are aware of this problem and are trying to find its exact extent. My Lords, it is not the nature of the British people to let British people down.
I think it would perhaps be only right to allude briefly to the security situation. Over the greater part of the country the situation is good, but we know that there are trouble spots in the Rift Valley and the Nyanza Province, and the main threat seems to come from the Kenya Land Freedom Army. But the Kenya Government has taken vigorous action against it, and a substantial number of cases have been brought to court and weapons recovered. The organisation still represents a threat, but we are satisfied that the Government has adequate forces and powers to deal with it. What is particularly encouraging is that the activities of this organisation have been roundly condemned by all responsible political leaders in Kenya. Of course, there are other matters that bear on the security situation—feelings between tribes and, above all, as the noble Earl said, unemployment. But the general
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picture is that the Kenya Government as a whole are supporting the drive to stamp out subversion wherever and in whatever form it may arise, and they are determined to do what they can to remove misunderstanding about the new Constitution which also, of course, tends to give rise to trouble.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, before the noble Marquess passes from the security situation, could he give us a rough idea of the number of men in the Land Freedom Army—whether large or small in number?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I can give exact figures of arrests that have been made. There were 736 persons convicted in magistrates' courts this year—quite a substantial figure.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, is it not a fact that, as the noble Earl, Lord Portsmouth, indicated, the people in the Land Freedom Army are largely unemployed—quite a different situation from that previously when there was trouble in Kenya, when most of the people in revolt were from the Reserves?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I think the noble Lord is perfectly right, and clearly this question of unemployment is vital. Here I am wholeheartedly with the noble Earl, Lord Portsmouth. Unemployment breeds security trouble. I hope it will not be thought, because I said that the general security position was good, that there was any complacency on the part of the Government or that we have forgotten old lessons. Of course we must not forget the past, but I think we may be encouraged by the fact that all the political leaders have condemned the activities of the Kenya Land Freedom Army and subversion in any form. That is something very encouraging for us. I have had put in the Library of your Lordships' House a statement issued by the Council of Ministers in October this year which I think may be of interest to your Lordships. It is a very clear statement on the question of subversion and the whole security situation. I hope your Lordships will read it with interest. The noble Lord, Lord Colyton, and the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, referred to the question of British troops in Kenya. There was, as the noble Lord, Lord Colyton, reminded us, an announcement of the extension of General Goodwin's

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appointment, and some of the Press reports appeared to imply there was an exact connection between the relinquishment by the present Commander of his Command next November and the date when the British troops would be withdrawn from Kenya. The fact is that there is no connection whatsoever. The question of the future of our troops in Kenya, what should happen after independence and the sort of arrangements in the field of defence which we might enter into with the independent Kenya Government are, as I said in May, matters which can be discussed only with the Government which will take Kenya into independence. I think the noble Lord, Lord Colyton, did not expect me to be able to give entire satisfaction on that point.
The question of nationality and citizenship was raised by the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury. He suggests that there might be dual nationality. This question was also raised by other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, but I must make it perfectly clear that in the Constitution now being drafted we are not concerned with citizenship. The Kenya Independent Constitution will have to contain provisions for Kenya citizenship, and these provisions will be negotiated at the Conference about the arrangements for independence. I would only say that we surely understand the feelings of those of British birth or British origin now in Kenya. We know their views and of course we will bear them in mind. This is not the time to discuss usefully this problem.
The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, in addition to his fascinating list of correspondence, specifically referred to the Northern Frontier District. I am afraid all I can tell the noble Earl at this juncture is that, as he already knows, the Commission was set up and it is in fact now writing its Report. Obviously, I cannot prejudge or anticipate anything in that Report, and though the noble Earl himself may have considerable knowledge on the subject, I cannot add to it.
I think this debate, if I may be allowed to say so, has been a useful one. I am grateful to the noble Marquess for having put down this Motion. I hope that I
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have been able to convince the House that real progress has been made. It is true that the degree of progress to which I had looked forward in May has not been achieved. That I will not deny. But real progress has been made; and with calm, with common sense and with confidence, this progress will, I am certain, continue.
I should like to repeat that Her Majesty's Government regard the basic principles which were worked out at the Lancaster House Conference as being of fundamental importance to the future stability and happiness of the country. We are with all speed implementing the Lancaster House decisions, so that there shall be no delay in holding elections and in the enactment of the new Constitution. We fully realise that there are many problems still to be solved, and we are deeply conscious of Kenya's serious financial and economic problems and her people's anxiety about the future. We do not underestimate the tensions between the tribes. But we are determined to overcome all these problems. We are facing them realistically and we are doing what we think is right in the interests of all the communities of Kenya.
9.22 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, this is a genuinely late hour, so I propose to say only a very few words in withdrawing my Motion. First of all, if I may, I should like to thank most warmly all those noble Lords in all parts of the House who have taken part in the debate. I feel sure that they feel, as I do, that it has been worth while. The noble Earl, Lord Portsmouth, who made, I thought, such an outstanding and stimulating contribution to our discussion, said, if I understood him aright, that he thought our discussion this evening would have proved worth while because, apart from everything else, it had let the people of Kenya themselves know that we here in England really care about what happens to them. I certainly—and I am sure all other noble Lords who are here—feel exactly the same. I was particularly glad, if I may say so, that the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, in his reply, said that the Government oared, too. I think it is very important that we should all say that and say it as often as possible.

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The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said he thought that the debate had shown a general approval of Government policy. I thought that that was going a little too far. Indeed, I am afraid that I continue to believe that the Government, by their past policies, have been largely responsible for the situation that has arisen. But I agree that there was agreement on one thing this afternoon, and a very important thing—that was, the need to restore confidence. That, of course, is not a matter for Her Majesty's Government alone; It is also a matter for the African leaders and everybody else concerned. But I think that there was a feeling this evening that if confidence could be restored, the situation in Kenya might yet be saved; and that, I think, is the most Important thing of all.
The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said that it would probably need a good deal of money, and, of course, that is certainly correct; and I hope that the Government (in his words) will continue to foot the
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bill, so as to make this admirable result possible. That, too, is probably the best way to help to cope with the problem of unemployment. The more you can get land schemes going, the more Africans presumably will be employed upon them, and that is a thing that we must all bear in mind. In conclusion, I would only thank the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, for the very full reply he has given. I am quite sure that sometimes, at the end of a long debate, a Minister thinks that what the House really wants is to get through the Government's reply as soon as possible. That certainly was not the case to-day. The noble Marquess realised that and we are all extremely grateful to him. There is no more for me to do but to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes past nine o'clock.