Lords Sitting of 12 March 1963

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD AILWYN on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Southwell
The Earl of Sandwich—sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

KENYA
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I should like to inform your Lordships that at some suitable moment after 3.30 my noble friend Lord Lansdowne will be making a statement on Kenya.

STOCK TRANSFER BILL [H.L.]
2.38 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD CLITHEROE: My Lords, I rise to move that this Bill be read a second time. One of the greatest nuisances in life to-day is the excessive amount of paper work in most forms of business and administration. It causes a great deal of extra work and delay. I think we are all anxious to make this country more efficient, and this is something with which I feel sure noble Lords on all sides of the House will agree. This Bill, though perhaps not very exciting, is an effort in this direction, and I trust, therefore, it will be welcomed by the House. Many of your Lordships will at one time or another have had to spend quite a considerable amount of time, either on your own behalf or on behalf of charities or trusts, in executing transfers of stocks and shares and in being put to the inconvenience of having to find somebody to witness your signatures. The object of this Bill is to reduce some of these laborious tasks from which many of us suffer. Private individuals suffer considerably, and those who hold positions as directors of companies, and so on, frequently find themselves in the position of having to sign and witness hundred of these documents.
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If this Bill is passed, when it comes into effect there will be three advantages: first, the person to whom the securities are transferred will not need to execute the instrument of transfer—that is to say, the buyer will not have to execute the instrument of transfer; secondly, it will not be necessary for the transferor to have his signature witnessed; and, thirdly, when securities are sold on the Stock Exchange, the transferor will need to execute only one instrument of transfer, even if the securities which he is selling are transferred to a large number of people. At the present time, if you transfer securities you may find there are a dozen or more people buying them, and you have to sign a separate document for each.
I need hardly say that this Bill is no brainchild of mine, and I shall say a word, if I may, about its history. In 1959 my noble friend Lord Ritchie of Dundee, who is Chairman of the London Stock Exchange, convened a committee to consider the general problem of the transfer of securities. This committee had as its members very distinguished representatives of the leading institutions in the City of London who are concerned with these matters. I should like to pay a special tribute here to Mr. Wareham, who is the secretary of the Share and Loan Department of the Stock Exchange and who was chairman of the advisory Committee which did a great deal of the work. That Committee, over which Lord Ritchie of Dundee presided and to whom we are all most indebted, published its Report in December, 1960; and this Bill, to which I am asking your Lordships to give a Second Reading, follows its principal recommendations in all important aspects. I think I am entirely justified in saying that not only is this Bill wholly in the public interest, but it also has the support of all those institutions which are best qualified to form an opinion about this matter.
A Bill on similar lines was introduced in another place by Mr. Graham Page, to whose work I should like to pay a tribute, but his Bill was withdrawn so that a Bill might be introduced in your Lordships' House, as it was thought that this would better assist the progress of such a Bill through Parliament. I am hoping very much that the noble Lord who is going to reply for the Government

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will give this Bill his blessing. I have told your Lordships of the simplifications which this Bill effects. These simplified requirements will apply to a very comprehensive list of securities which you will find set out in Clause 1 of the Bill. Partly paid securities, bearer securities and the securities of companies limited by guarantee are excluded because they are either not registered, and hence not transferable by instrument in writing, or they involve financial liability. It would clearly be dangerous if someone could transfer to another person partly paid shares to which a financial liability was attached without that person being aware of the fact.
This Bill prescribes two forms. It is hoped that the stock transfer form which your Lordships will see in the Schedule will largely supersede the current transfer form because it is designed to meet the new requirements, and it is clearly convenient to all who have to deal with the business of transfers if forms can be standardised. It is really nothing more than the equivalent of the present common form of transfer brought up to date and adapted to this Bill. The broker's transfer form appears in Schedule 2 to the Bill. It is a novel form for use in conjunction with the stock transfer where the securities are sold on the Stock Exchange and are transferred to more than one person. This is really the secret of the simplification and I believe it owes its origin to Mr. Bardo of the Bank of England, to whom I would pay tribute because it was a bright idea. In these cases the person selling securities will sign one form and the broker will prepare as many broker's transfer forms as there are purchasers.
Here may I anticipate a possible objection which some noble Lords may raise and tell the House that the sizes of the forms which are illustrated in this Schedule will be much larger than as they appear in the Schedule and therefore more appropriate to the task. It is also the intention that the broker's transfer form will be distinct from the transfer form by being of a different colour. So much for Clause 1. I will not deal in so much detail with subsequent clauses.
Clause 2 generally relates the new arrangement to provisions in articles of association and Statutes, and so on. Provisions which conflict with the new
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system are overridden by this clause. Where clarification is needed as to the rights of registrars, the stamping of brokers forms, the determination of the dates when transfers are duly lodged and so on, this clause provides it. Clause 3 gives to the Treasury—and I think it is quite right that we should do this—the power to vary the transfer forms with the object of providing against changed circumstances in the future. For example, mechanisation might make some changes necessary in the shape or size of the form or some of its particulars, and the clause giving the Treasury this power is designed to facilitate such changes without the Bill having to be amended. It does not alter any of the principles of the Bill in any respect.
Clause 4 has various definitions. I do not think any of them require any special comment from me. The clause gives the Treasury power to recognise stock exchanges for the purpose of the Bill. That is something which should not present any difficulty. Under the Prevention of Fraud (Investments) Act there is already a list of stock exchanges which are recognised by some order of the Board of Trade. I do not think this will provide any problem. Clause 5 applies to Northern Ireland, which has its own company law and other legislation regulating transfer of securities. The Bill does not therefore apply to Northern Ireland, but there is nothing to prevent the Northern Ireland Parliament from themselves legislating about this matter and I very much hope that they will.
To sum up, a person who wishes to buy shares through a stock exchange in future will not need to sign a stock transfer nor to have it witnessed as at present. If he sells his holding, whether to one or more persons, a single stock transfer form need only be signed in order to divest himself of his holding. Under the new procedure the stockbroker will normally send him a stock transfer form shortly after he has made a sale and, perhaps in the same envelope, the contract note. He will sign this and return it to his broker with the relevant certificate, if the broker has not already got it, and that will be the end of the job as far as he is concerned. This new system will be no more liable to fraudulent abuse than is the present system. I am confident that it will improve the efficiency and will certainly

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add to the speed of the operations. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a—(Lord Clitheroe.)
2.49 p.m.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: My Lords, as a partner in a firm of City stockbrokers I have an obvious personal interest in the Bill which must be declared and which your Lordships will quite rightly bear in mind in listening to what I have to say. The Bill is designed largely, or so it seems to me, to assist in providing a means of oiling the wheels of the machinery of my profession. Your Lordships might well ask, who am I to look closely at a gift horse? But I have looked very closely at the Bill and, so far as I am capable of understanding Parliamentary drafting, I think I fully understand it.
At the noble Lord, Lord Clitheroe, has just explained to us, the Bill seeks to render it unnecessary for a transferee to sign a transfer deed on the purchase of Stock Exchange securities, except in certain cases. It is evident, therefore, that if the Bill passes through your Lordships' House and becomes law, much time will be saved in the preparation and passage of documents to and fro between client and broker. The Bill would also render it unnecessary, as the noble Lord has explained, for a transferor to have his signature attested. I think that the assumption is, by and large, that it is all right to transfer stocks and shares into a person's name; it is necessary for a holder to sign a transfer only when they are going to be transferred away from him. That seems to me to be good sense.
There are certain exceptions, which the noble Lord mentioned. I notice that London registered Commonwealth Government stocks, which pass free of stamp duty normally into and out of market names, are excluded, and I am not quite clear as to the reason for this. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Clitheroe, could make this clear when he comes to reply.
The Bill applies only to fully paid securities, the reason being clearly that, if partly paid stocks and shares were to be included, it might be possible to render a transferee liable for the uncalled portion of capital without his knowledge.
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When I first went into the City many years ago there used to be several companies, particularly shipping and banking companies, with partly paid shares, but few remain to-day whose shares pass in this form. In those days, there used to be one company, a Canadian Trust Company, I believe, where the capital consisted of £20 shares, £5 paid, and where the market price had gone into reverse and you had paid something to get rid of the stock. I suppose that if you had been particularly hard pressed you could have bought yourself a few and taken the money, but, of course, you ran the risk of having the balance of £15 a share being called up. This illustrates the point that the noble Lord made as to the necessity for excluding partly paid stocks and shares. I cannot remember what happened to that company in the end, but I believe it was taken over by another trust company.
The Bill as a whole would relieve much pressure upon that hard-pressed, loyal and uncomplaining fraternity, the stockbroker's clerk, and it would provide more time to clear the necessary documents to enable settlement to be made promptly on the fortnightly settlement dates. It occurred to me that it might be possible to take the idea even further and perhaps incorporate the transfer deed with the present contract note, so as to save the need for the preparation of the transfer to go out to the seller on the day he disposes of the stock, for if it is going to become the custom to forward the transfer and contract note under the same cover, it will mean that, in smaller firms on a busy day, when the staff was fully occupied on the preparation of contract notes, they would be involved additionally in the preparation of transfers, though this would have the effect of saving time later on.
I do not know whether I have made this clear, but I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Clitheroe, will understand my point. I foresee also that very much postage would be saved. Further time would also be saved for the operation of the certification processes in the Government's Share and Loan Department and I think that this would be very welcome to them. They would get their documents earlier, because it would be unnecessary for brokers to await the recovery of transfer deeds signed by

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purchasers, who are sometimes inclined to be a little dilatory in returning them, thus delaying the process of settlement. In conclusion, I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Clitheroe, and all those people who have been associated with him in the preparation of a Bill which, I think, should receive universal support. I have tried to regard it in an unprejudiced way. I hope very much that your Lordships will grant the Bill a Second Reading.
2.55 p.m.
LORD RITCHIE OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I am sure there is very little which needs to be added to the admirable speech in which the noble Lord, Lord Clitheroe, has moved the Second Reading of this Bill, but, having regard to the background to the Bill—there is a reference in the Explanatory Memorandum to the Committee of City and other Institutions which issued a report in 1960—I came to the conclusion that it might seem a little odd if I were here in your Lordships' House and remained silent. I will be extremely brief and take up only a few moments of your Lordships' time.
I should like, with your Lordships' permission, to take the opportunity of thanking my colleagues in the Committee to which reference has been made. Apart from the Stock Exchange representatives, we had with us representatives of the Bank of England, the Acceptance Houses' Committee, the Chartered Institute of Secretaries, the Committee of London Clearing Bankers and the Issuing Houses' Association. We also had much help from a number of other bodies—the Association of Investment Trusts, the British Insurance Association, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and the companion Institute in Scotland, the nominee companies of London clearing banks, a number of stockbrokers and stock jobbers and also a number of registrars of United Kingdom and overseas securities. Finally, we received invaluable assistance from the Law Society and the Law Society in Scotland.
I should apologise to your Lordships for taking up your time by citing such a long list of authorities, but I do so, partly in order to express appreciation of the co-operation and help that was given, and partly, and perhaps more importantly,
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to indicate to your Lordships the very wide and—may I say?—very eminent support which exists for the recommendations which are embodied in this Bill.
In my Foreword to our Report of December, 1960, I made reference to the willingness of all parties to forgo possible advantages and to undertake additional responsibilities and work. In this connection, I think it might well be that greater responsibility and perhaps more work may fall upon company registrars. Therefore, I should like to tender one word of advice, or perhaps more accurately to put forward a plea, which, if adopted, will reduce to some extent the work which falls upon registrars.
In the first place, your Lordships will no doubt be aware that until recent years almost all companies made a charge of half-a-crown on the registration of a transfer. This practice of charging a new shareholder half-a-crown to get his name registered in the company's books has always seemed to me to be rather odd. Surely it must be a waste of time and surely it cannot be worth collecting. The City Committee, in fact, recommended that these fees should be abolished at the time of the introduction of any new transfer system. Of late years many companies have taken the necessary simple step, in most cases merely by a board room resolution, to abolish these registration fees. I commend the idea and express the hope that before long all companies will have taken this step. Though apparently only a small matter, it is one which will make a very considerable contribution to the saving of time and the reducing of work.
In the second place, registrars would be saved a large amount of unnecessary work if more care and attention were given to the preparation of transfers. Legibility, at least, should not be a very difficult aim to achieve. Here I think that some of your Lordships may be thinking that it is up to us to clean up our own stable. That would be fair comment. But it should not be forgotten that quite a large number of transfers are prepared and written other than in Stock Exchange offices.
Finally, before I sit down, may I just pay credit where it is due? As always in matters of this kind, it is the people behind the scenes who have done the

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real work, and I should like to pay a warm tribute to our Advisory Committee, under the chairmanship of Mr. W. S. Wareham, whose name has already been generously mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Clitheroe. The many hours of patient work of that Committee over the last three years are, I hope, rewarded by the Bill which is before your Lordships' House to-day. I should like also to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Clitheroe, on the way in which he has moved this Bill, and I warmly commend it to your Lordships' House.
3.1 p.m.
LORD TERRINGTON: My Lords, in rising to support this Bill, I should immediately declare my interest as a member of the London Stock Exchange, and also as a member of the Wider Share Ownership Council. Speaking first as a stockbroker, I should also like to express the view that the provisions of this Bill will prove most advantageous to investors, both large and small. I entirely agree that under the present system there is a great deal of correspondence and delay which is irksome to the Stock Exchange and to investors alike. The proposed new system should prove a considerable timesaver, and from practical experience I would say that we shall now be able to give the investing public a much-improved service in a number of directions. For this reason, I am sure that the Bill is most welcome to the City of London and to investors throughout the country.
With your Lordships' permission, I should like to say a few additional words as a member of the Wider Share Ownership Council. I think it is probably fair to say that for many years the ordinary man in the street has felt that investment in Stock Exchange securities was difficult and involved endless complications. I am glad to say that generally this attitude is gradually changing, and the number of individual holders of stocks and shares has steadily increased in the last fifteen years. But compared with the United States, where I spend a certain amount of time each year, we have hardly begun to spread the ownership of industrial shares; and I do not myself believe that this is entirely due to the greater individual wealth in America. Clearly, my Lords, education has a great part to
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play in this whole question of wider share ownership, but simplification of procedure in the buying of shares is equally important. For this reason, I welcome this Bill as a member of the Wider Share Ownership Council as much as I do as a member of the Stock Exchange.
Before concluding my remarks, I would express the hope that perhaps this Bill is only a prelude to other steps which could be taken to encourage the small investor. I have already said that complication of procedure is a deterrent; but that is by no means the only one. Costs which are inflated by a 2 per cent. stamp duty must rank as an equal deterrent to the small man who is contemplating his first purchase of industrial shares as part of his overall savings plan. Indeed, it is my belief that many small investors justifiably view this stamp duty as being in the nature of a fine or penalty for doing something which they are being encouraged to do. I hope I may be forgiven for raising this point during a discussion on the Stock Transfer Bill, but I believe it is an important one; and as a supporter of the Bill, on the grounds that it will help the smaller investor, I felt that it could be said. For the general well being of the community, and as part of the plan to develop a property-owning democracy, I submit that ownership of industrial shares has a very definite part to play. In commending this admirable Bill to your Lordships' House, may I also express the hope that Her Majesty's Government will consider encouraging the small investor still further by the early abolition of the 2 per cent. stamp duty on stock transfers.
3.5 p.m.
LORD DENHAM: My Lords, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government I should like to say that we welcome the initiative of my noble friend Lord Clitheroe in bring forward this Bill. We fully support its objects and are in general agreement with the terms in which it is drawn. The reform which it hopes to bring about is one which commands a wide support, and we hope that the House will agree to give the Bill a Second Reading.
It would be less than courteous of me if I did not also pay tribute to the part played by my noble friend Lord Ritchie of Dundee, upon whose initiative the City Committee was set up in 1959, to consider

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generally the problem of the transfer of securities. As the Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill says, its provisions follow broadly the recommendations made by that Committee. I am sure that this Bill, if enacted, will substantially ease the burdens of those who are engaged in the business of transferring securities. It will also prove of great benefit to investors. Given the large scale on which transactions in securities take place, it is important that the procedures should not be unnecessarily encumbered by obsolete or obsolescent requirements. The Bill will, I believe, make our financial machinery more efficient, and it seems to me most appropriate that my noble friend should have introduced it in National Productivity Year.
The subject is one of some legal intricacy, and if the House gives the Bill a Second Reading, there will no doubt be some detail to which we shall need to give careful examination when it goes to Committee. There is one matter which I as the Government spokesman, should now mention. In a radical reform such as the Bill will bring about in the procedure for transferring securities it is natural that questions of stamp duty should have to be considered. Clause 2 (3) of the Bill contains minor provisions on this subject. It provides, for example, that where shares are transferred by means of brokers' transfers in conjunction with a stock transfer the brokers' transfers are to bear the stamp. There is, however a further provision on stamp duty which the new system will necessitate. In the case of a transaction passing through a Stock Exchange under the new system the stock transfer or brokers' transfers will be passed to the buying broker before the name of the purchaser has been inserted. It will be for the buying broker to insert the name of his client and get the transfer registered with the company. In the absence of any provision to the contrary a purchaser might be inclined, particularly if he were contemplating a quick sale, to retain the transfer without having his name inserted aria to pass it on to a fresh purchaser when he in turn came to sell the shares. By this means he might hope to avoid paying stamp duty on the purchase by him.
I have been speaking so far of Stock Exchange transactions. The same thing might also happen in the case of trans-
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actions outside a Stock Exchange although there one might expect that the name of the purchaser would normally be inserted in the transfer before it was signed by the transferor. In order to protect the Revenue, therefore, the Government would propose to introduce a provision, most probably by way of Amendment in another place to the Bill now before your Lordships, to the effect that a transferee or his agent who receives a blank transfer must insert the name of the transferee before he allows it to go out of his possession. The precise details of the provision have not yet been worked out, but I can say now that it will apply only to transfers giving effect to sales or gifts, so that the practice under which blank transfers are sometimes used at present when shares are held by nominees or charges as security for a loan will not be adversely affected. In conclusion, I repeat the hope that your Lordships will give a sympathetic reception to this Bill the general principles of which I believe will commend themselves to the House.
3.9 p.m.
LORD CLITHEROE: My Lords, I should like to thank your Lorships for the reception which you have given to this small though, I think, useful Bill. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Denham, for telling us that this Bill has the support of Her Majesty's Government, and I fully understand the point he made in his speech about the necessity to safeguard the Revenue—that is, of course, unless Her Majesty's Government accept the advice which the noble Lord, Lord Terrington, has offered to them, in which case there will be no revenue to safeguard. I do not see any practical objection to the Amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Denham, has suggested, and no doubt at a later stage such an Amendment can be inserted into the Bill.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, could the noble Lord tell us what sort of cost to the Treasury it would mean if the Bill were not amended?
LORD CLITHEROE: My Lords, I think the cost to the Treasury, if the Bill were not amended, would probably be quite small in practice. The cost to the Treasury would be great only if

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the stamp duty were abolished altogether, which is what the noble Lord was hoping for. Everybody is quite entitled to hope. The noble Viscount, Lord Addison, who was also good enough to welcome the Bill, said, very wisely, that there were further simplifications in this matter which might be possible. That is quite true, and possibly at some later date we may get some more simplifications. But this is as far as we were able to go with general agreement, and therefore I hope the House will be content to let us proceed with such reforms as I have proposed.
This Bill has also been described by the noble Lord, Lord Denham, as a radical reform, and I am sure that Members on both sides of the House will be surprised to see me producing a Bill to promote a radical reform. I am grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Addison, for what he said. He raised the point whether this Bill could be extended to overseas companies which had their registers here. The position is that Parliament in the United Kingrom cannot legislate for overseas companies, but there is nothing in our law to prevent overseas companies from altering their Articles of Association in such a way as to permit the adoption of this revised procedure. I hope that all overseas companies concerned will find it possible to do so, and to take advantage of this procedure. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie of Dundee, for what he said. I am particularly grateful to him for telling the House the various associations who deal with these matters, who have given so much help in this connection.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, before the Question is put, may I ask a question of the noble Lord or the Government? I think the noble Lord said that if the Bill were passed as it now stands, we should possibly be relieving some people of paying stamp duty. I understand that stamp duty arises from the Finance Act, the Budget. Therefore, should we be right, in the position in which we in this House are, in passing a Bill that affects the Finance Act and the Budget? I wonder whether we should not be more correct if we were to ask the Government to see that the Amendment they propose was presented to the
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House before we gave the Bill its Third Reading.
LORD CLITHEROE: My Lords, so far as I am concerned, I shall be very pleased to accept the Amendment in this House.
LORD DENHAM: My Lords, I will certainly look into what the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, has said and, if I may, give an answer to that particular point later.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, is not the position strictly this? Although we cannot deal with finance, yet frequently in this House clauses are introduced—the Government themselves have introduced them—or Amendments are moved. They are put into italics, because they are in a sense privilege Amendments which have to be agreed by the other place. But it is not out of Order for us to do it.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

DRAINAGE RATES BILL
3.14 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE EARL OF GAINSBOROUGH: My Lords, this is a small but not unimportant Bill which was introduced into another place by the honourable gentleman, the Member for Gainsborough. The only claim I have for introducing it in your Lordships' House is that I bear the same name as my honourable friend's constituency. I am not an expert on the law with regard to drainage rates, or drainage in general. It will not be necessary for me to detain your Lordships for more than a few minutes, as fortunately the Bill has received the general agreement, not only of Her Majesty's Government (at least that was indicated in another place) but also of local authorities and other interested parties.
The main object of the Bill is to overcome a problem that has arisen regarding the assessments of drainage rates levied by internal drainage boards. Under Section 8 of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1943, the Minister was empowered to issue certificates

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to drainage boards in cases where the annual value of a hereditament or group of hereditaments had been increased by drainage or other improvement, such as road works, and so on. In 1958, the Government gave their support to a Private Member's Bill to deal with a particular problem of drainage rating. This Bill subsequently became the Drainage Rates Act, 1958. Subsequently it was discovered that the effect of this 1958 Act was to repeal, by implication, Section 8 of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1943. Therefore, Section 8 of that Act was included in the Repeals Schedule to the Land Drainage Act, 1961.
That sounds rather complicated, my Lords, but the effect of all that was that the Minister was no longer able to issue certificates; and it also invalidated, as from April 1, 1959, any action taken under the 33 certificates which had then been issued. This set up problems for the drainage boards who had issued Section 8 certificates. This Bill is designed to solve these problems. It provides that Section 8 certificate values shall be valid for the future, subject to any fresh Schedule A valuation. It also covers the position of boards which levy drainage rates on the basis of Section 8 values.
The problem is largely a technical one, but it has caused great difficulties to farmers in certain areas by producing anomalies between the rates which they would have to pay if they were related to Schedule A values, as between one property and another. There has been a considerable outcry in certain areas where the new rates have been indicated to show greatly increased cost to the occupiers of the agricultural land concerned. I hope that your Lordships will see fit to give this Bill the same favourable reception that was accorded to it in another place, and if any points arise during the discussion I will endeavour to deal with them at the end. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a. —(The Earl of Gainsborough.)
3.19 p.m.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Earl for his speech in introducing this Bill. I must admit that, when I was asked to look after the Bill, I looked first of all at the back of it and saw that it was
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brought from another place. I naturally thought that I could learn something about this Bill by reading the Reports of the debates in another place, only to find, on looking at the Second Reading and the various stages, that not a single word had been spoken about this Bill other than, "I beg formally to move". So I was at the great disadvantage that I had to read the Bill. All I can say about it is that I understand it better now, because I have heard the noble Earl's speech.
The Bill seems to me to have all the disadvantages of legislation by reference, and in this case the unusual complication of reference to a section of an Act which has been repealed. That seems to me to provide some little additional complication. I should have thought that it might have been possible to reproduce in this Bill the actual or appropriate words from the section of the Act of 1943 which has been repealed. That would, I think, have made it very much easier for anyone who comes to read this Bill, when it subsequently becomes an Act, and to act upon it. But I suppose that the lawyers who produced it thought that this was the best way to do it—and who am I to quarrel with the lawyers? Clearly, I think that this is the sort of Bill which, if it does not emanate directly from the Government Department concerned, at least has its blessing. I notice that the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, nods, and I must say that, so far as I understand it, there is nothing in this Bill to which objection might be taken by those in this part of the House. So I think I can, without further ado, add my blessing to it.
3.22 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (LORD ST. OSWALD): My Lords, as we have heard the noble Earl, Lord Gains-borough, describe the purpose of this small Bill, I should like simply to compliment him on the clarity with which he has described the Bill's aims in what is for most of us a complex and esoteric matter. My only purpose in taking up a little of the House's time is to indicate the Government's attitude to this Bill, as I have already indicated it in private to the noble Lord, Lord Champion. As the noble Earl has explained, there is a rela-

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tively short but extremely complicated history providing the background. The Section 8 certificates under the 1943 Act, which the noble Earl has described, enabled account to be taken of the improvements to land which had taken place since the last Schedule A values on those hereditaments were determined. It seems only equitable that account should be taken of the improvements which have been made to such properties for drainage rating purposes, and the Bill does no more than permit the nineteen drainage boards concerned to continue to do this.
The noble Earl has described the certification procedure which was adopted under the 1943 Act. He has emphasised that, since this Act no longer exists, no further certificates can be issued. The sole aim of the Bill is to enable the few drainage boards who have had certificates to continue the methods they have hitherto adopted in levying drainage rates, despite the changes that have since been made by general legislation. The Government see merit in enabling drainage boards to continue on the present lines, not only for the reasons I have indicated but also because of the very considerable difficulties, in the administrative sense, which would face boards if they had to adopt a different set of values having previously used Section 8 values, either over the whole or part of their areas, for a considerable time. The Government therefore support this Private Member's Bill as a useful little measure lubricating, as it were, the complicated machinery of land drainage rating.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I must say that, as I go on listening to the discussion on this particular Bill I wonder what is the real purpose at the end of it. I should not have thought that it was exactly lubrication; nor can I quite accept the idea that it is of general effect. Apparently it comes into operation only where certificates under Section 8 have existed; and exactly what is to be the financial effect I should still like to know. Is this to maintain or
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increase the power of drainage boards to levy rates, and, if so, will the rates go up or not? Perhaps the noble Lord the Minister could tell us the answer to that question.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I am not sure that it is proper for me to speak any further on a Private Member's Bill, but perhaps I may say that it merely restores the right of these nineteen drainage boards to levy the rates in the way they were empowered to do under the 1943 Act.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, will there be a schedule, or something of the kind, to show exactly what districts are concerned?
3.25 p.m.
THE EARL OF GAINSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, for the way he has received the Bill, and also to the noble Lord, Lord Champion, for his support in principle. The noble Earl, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, has raised a point which no doubt has considerable validity, if I may say so, and there would be the possibility of indicating the areas where this would apply. I probably have the information here among my papers somewhere, but as I did not think that the point would be raised it is not exactly to hand. But the principle is, as the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, indicated, to restore the power which was previously available to the nineteen districts in enabling them to issue certificates, or the Minister to issue a certificate. I could obtain the actual names of the drainage boards concerned if it would be of any assistance.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: Put them in the Bill!
THE EARL OF GAINSBOROUGH:
When the Bill reaches the next stage in your Lordships' House, if it is thought necessary to have some amendment, no doubt that would be the right time to consider it.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

RACIAL PROBLEMS AND EDUCATION
3.27 p.m.
LORD WALSTON LORD WALSTON rose to ask what steps Her Majesty's Government are taking to promote by educational means a proper understanding of racial problems. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the object of this Question which I am putting to Her Majesty's Government—and I hope that when the noble Lord, Lord Newton, comes to reply he will be able to fill this gap in our knowledge—is to attempt to ascertain what steps Her Majesty's Government are taking at the present time to promote by educational means a proper understanding of racial problems.
I have three reasons for asking this Question to-day. The first is that, unfortunately, discrimination is still with us. I will not weary your Lordships by repeating what many of you will remember from the previous debate we had on an allied subject in May of last year, or by repeating the various instances given then to support the fact that there was widespread discrimination on the grounds of race or colour in this country; but, simply to bring your Lordships up to date, I would mention two instances which have occurred recently. The first of them was also the subject of a Question in your Lordships' House concerning a decision of the Nottingham juvenile court magistrates which made it abundantly clear that at least some of the Nottingham bench harboured feelings of racial discrimination. The second is more recent and took place in the town of Gravesend, and I will read to your Lordships a short extract from the Guardian dated March 6 of this year, the headline being: "Town Accused of Racial Prejudice". It states:
"Efforts to disparage Indians and Pakistanis who have come to live and work in Gravesend, Kent, were condemned yesterday by the town's Conservative M.P. … and the prospective Labour and Liberal parliamentary candidates…
"In a statement, they say that they are perturbed at recent attempts to sow dissension between different groups living in the constituency.
"'We are particularly disturbed that the more virulent of letters published by Gravesend papers have been submitted by persons who prefer to remain anonymous'."
And so on. That is sufficient evidence to convince most observers that, regrettable though it is, we cannot say that we have progressed at all from the state of affairs which prevailed rather less than a year ago, when it was quite apparent that in many parts of this country there were indications of racial prejudice.
The second reason why I consider this to be a subject of very considerable and pressing importance is the effect that such discrimination has upon the Commonwealth. I think that all of us in this Chamber are agreed as to the value of the British Commonwealth. I think that most of us are also agreed that it has in the past years and the past months been subjected to very particular strains, not the normal strains which occur as former Colonies gain their independence—which are in themselves strains, though of a sort which we should expect and be prepared for and which, in the long run, will strengthen the ties of Commonwealth—but the strains arising from the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, which has had a very profound effect upon the feelings of many members of the Commonwealth towards this country, and also the negotiations concerning the Common Market. Those factors, although in my opinion with no justification, at any rate did in many parts of the Commonwealth have the effect of making people feel that this country no longer cared for members of the Commonwealth in other parts of the world. So those are strains which have been imposed, and undoubtedly anything which fosters racial discrimination or allows it to exist in this country is a still further added strain. So those of us who are sincere in saying we wish to hold the Commonwealth together have as a duty, simply for that reason, if for no other, the job of combating racial discrimination wherever it occurs.
The third reason is that, during the debate we had last May on proposals for legislation to combat discrimination, there was, I think I am right in saying, not one of your Lordships who spoke—even among those, who were the majority, who opposed any form of legislation—who did not condemn racial discrimination and who did not say this was something which should be dealt with not by legislation but by education. In fact the noble and learned Viscount the Lord

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Chancellor (as he was), Lord Kilmuir, speaking from the Woolsack at the end of the debate, used these words [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 240, col. 519]:
"In the Government's view, this problem is not solvable by legislation. There is, unfortunately, no short cut answer."
He went on to say that patient education was the only means by which the matter could be dealt with.
So we now turn to the problems of education, to see what is being done and what can be done—a very wide subject and one which perhaps is most conveniently dealt with by dividing it into two sections, adult education and the more conventional form of child education. With adult education I will deal only very briefly. I hope that when the noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough, comes to speak she will possibly develop some of those aspects of it, particularly in the light of the Committee, of which she is Chairman, set up under the Home Office, which very largely deals with these matters. But it goes almost without saying that if we are going to make any inroads upon these very grave problems we cannot confine ourselves merely to the conventional form of child education. We must do all in our power to encourage the proper education of adults also.
In this field there is quite admirable work being done by voluntary bodies and by local authorities in many parts of the country. It is perhaps invidious to pick out any special cases, because there are so many good people and good organisations at work. But I think it is only right to mention the admirable work being done by the National Council for Social Service in this matter, as in so many others, and to pick on two particular districts, Willesden, in London, and Nottingham itself, where forms of citizens' committess have been set up specifically to make it possible and easier for immigrants from the Commonwealth to be integrated into the life of the community. Admirable and encouraging work is being done in those places and in others also. But that clearly is not enough. It does not go far enough and there are many districts which could be mentioned where there is a crying need for this sort of thing and where nothing whatsoever is being done because the local people themselves,
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the local authorities themselves, refuse to recognise the problem, are unable to take an initiative or simply have not recognised that there are things they can do.
In the field of adult education, too, there is an indirect though very important result: the fine work being done by Voluntary Service Overseas, about which many of your Lordships will have heard last week from the right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of Coventry, when he spoke on world hunger. Voluntary Service Overseas, as your Lordships know, was set up primarily to help the overseas countries by sending young people from this country to the developing parts of the world, including the Commonwealth but not exclusively the Commonwealth, in order to help them. But one of the very valuable by-products of this scheme is that these school-leavers, when they come back after their year of service abroad, return with a wide understanding of and love for the people of the country they have been to. They are the best form of ambassadors and purveyors of good will that we could possibly have. But their numbers are lamentably small, when we think of this as a national problem affecting the whole country.
Currently there are only 300 school-leavers being dealt with by V.S.O. under this particular scheme, and another 250 graduates will be going after they have completed their studies. I am in no way disparaging the magnificent work they do, but it is only right to mention these figures to show that this scheme is not by any means the solution: it is simply one of the ways, and one of the most valuable ways, in which it should be done. But it is also only fair to the Government to make it quite clear that, although Voluntary Service Overseas subsists to a large extent on voluntary contributions, it does receive a considerable subvention from the Government—something like £13,000 in the present year, rising, I believe, to £40,000 next year; valuable, useful, but far from sufficient. In this connection, too, the Department of Technical Co-operation is doing admirable work, though again the main object of this is to help the developing countries rather than solve the problem with which we are concerned this afternoon.
Still on the scale of adult education, although in a way it is closely connected

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with schools, one must mention the absolutely first-class scheme which has been put in motion, largely due to the valiant efforts of the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme (who told me he was very sorry that he is unable to be here to speak to-day), through the incorporated Association of Headmasters. This scheme, which is only just in its infancy, is designed to bring about a liaison, a form of adoption scheme, if you like, between schools—grammar, secondary, comprehensive schools, and so on, in this country—and schools overseas in different parts of the Commonwealth. The idea is that pupils in their last year should be exchanged between the different schools and, if possible, that the headmasters should do the same thing.
At the moment 80 boys' schools are associated with this scheme, and 10 girls' schools. They are operating in 18 African countries, and are doing admirable work there. They are the first to admit that they could not do this work without the help and financial support they have received from voluntary organisations: from, for instance, the Elder Dempster Shipping Line, which has assisted them in the transport of people backwards and forwards and in other ways; from the Ariel Foundation, and, above all, from the Nuffield Foundation which has given them a large proportion of their funds to help with this work. If I may, I should like to quote from a letter that I have received from Mr. Hawkins, the headmaster of Calday Grange Grammar School, who is at present running this scheme, in which he speaks of the future. In particular he says:
"The scheme really requires a full-time office and could well be taken over by the Central Bureau for Educational Visits and Exchanges. We have inquired into this possibility and I understand that the Bureau would be glad to do this if the necessary finance can be found. At present the scheme is being run in the evening by a busy headmaster with 900 boys (and parents) as his chief responsibility and with some extra secretarial help generously provided by the Nuffield Foundation. Secondly, the scheme needs a 'liaison officer' out in the field visiting the link schools and constantly relighting the fires and rekindling enthusiasms."
So although private initiative has started some of these most important and highly valuable schemes, they themselves are the first to admit that they cannot go much further without more financial help than they are able to get at the moment from voluntary sources.
Now I will leave adult education and turn to the more conventional form of education, the education of schoolchildren themselves. In this context let me bring to your attention, if you have not already seen them, the figures produced by the 1961 Census which are now outside on the Table. They show that whereas ten years ago 1·9 per cent. of the population of London came from Commonwealth countries, to-day 5·8 per cent. of the population of London comes from these Commonwealth countries. What that means in this context is that the number of schoolchildren from Commonwealth countries, mainly coloured schoolchildren, mainly schoolchildren from fairly poor educational backgrounds, now coming or about to come into the schools of London has trebled in the last ten years, and undoubtedly the figures will rise at a far greater rate as time goes on.
Following upon that, let me read to you another extract, this time from The Times of March 8, entitled "Coping With The Foreign Child At School. Teachers Discuss Difficulties." The extract reads:
"An inspector, Mr. A. R. Truman, estimates that there are 5,756 foreign children in the division, which is made up of Finsbury, Islington and Holborn. More than half of them are Cypriots, and a quarter West Indians, and there are substantial minorities of Italians and Indians. About 300 either cannot speak English at all or their knowledge is so weak that they cannot participate in the school programme.…
"At Gillespie school 40 per cent. of the pupils are from overseas, most from the West Indies. Mr. D. W. McCarthy, the headmaster, said he had to cope with antagonisms between children who came from different islands and whose skin colour was lighter or darker. There was a tendency to form groups at table for school meals so as to exclude white children."
There are further comments concerning the difficulties of actually teaching the English language to many of these children. That is one of the most pressing problems in this whole matter. Already overworked, already overburdened with big classes and the problems which beset the everyday life of a schoolteacher, what is he or she to do when confronted with perhaps 15 or 20 per cent. of the class unable to speak English because they come from India, from Pakistan, from Cyprus, or possibly from the West Indies, where although English is the language it is a form of English which we find it rather hard to understand as they speak it and undoubtedly they find our form of English

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rather hard? What is that teacher to do? Is he to give special attention to the backward 15 or 20 per cent., to the detriment of those who are already in the class and able to go ahead, or is he to ignore the 15 or 20 per cent. and allow them to fall still further back? It is not an easy problem.
I, and many with far greater experience than I, believe that the answer lies in special classes for these children, to teach them English out of school hours. That, of course, means extra work for the teacher, already overburdened; and unless there is a local education authority of great public spirit and of considerable financial resources to enable this to be done, it cannot be done even if the teachers are available. In most cases it can be done only if the central authority, the Ministry of Education itself, plays a part in it and makes available, if not teachers, at least finance to enable teachers to come in from other areas to do this work.
Again, I do not wish to minimise the assistance which is being given at the present time by certain of Her Majesty's inspectors of schools, who are admirable and devoted men; but I think their job would in many cases be made easier if there were some official recognition of this problem and some official assistance given towards coping with it. In addition, I suggest that the Ministry of Education, while in no way interfering with the autonomy of the local education authority, or the autonomy of teachers' training colleges, could still play an important part by, for instance, calling a conference of the principals of teachers' training colleges, to discuss with them how problems of this kind, those mentioned in the extract from The Times that I have just read out, can best be dealt with. There should be no ordering—of course they should not do that—but helping, co-operating, acting as a clearing house and, where necessary, actually giving a lead, and co-operating, of course, with the National Union of Teachers. That, in my opinion, is one way in which the Ministry of Education can take active, concrete and not too expensive steps to help to cope with this problem, which already is serious enough and which, if left unchecked, will attain formidable proportions.
Now I come to a second or further suggestion which has bean made in order to deal with this problem. After the debate to which I have already referred, on May 14 in your Lordships' House, a group of people including myself got together in order to see what could be done by way of concrete proposals for coping with this problem by educational means. After consultation with many experts a particular scheme was evolved. It was not an ambitious scheme, it was not a far-reaching scheme, but simply a modest but realistic beginning, and it had the invaluable sponsorship of the Royal Commonwealth Society which recognised it as a means of coping with the objectives which we all have at heart, of Commonwealth solidarity and understanding in the widest sense. Briefly the bones of that scheme were simply these: that teachers from this country and from Commonwealth countries should be enabled to come together in pleasant surroundings, and should spend ten days or a fortnight together getting to understand each other, getting to learn about each others' problems, getting to realise that a teacher, whether from Ghana, from Trinidad, from Tanganyika, white or yellow or black, has the same problems as the teacher in Nottingham or in Coventry.
How this should be done was worked out in considerable detail by responsible, extremely skilled and experienced people. A syllabus of studies was made up, which included recent political economic developments in the Commonwealth; musical and artistic developments in the Commonwealth; race relations in the Commonwealth itself; movements of people in the Commonwealth, religions, and so on, so that these teachers, when they returned to their schools, whether in this country or overseas, would have an understanding of the wider aspects of the Commonwealth as well as an understanding of the individual teachers concerned. The cost of the scheme was not inconsiderable, because it was felt that it should be a prestige scheme if it was to attract the right type of teacher. In fact, it was estimated that for six courses, spread over two years, the total cost would not exceed, but be in the neighbourhood of, £15,000.
The Ministry of Education—largely in view of the accent on education which had been placed by the Government

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spokesman in our debate on May 14—was approached and asked if it would put up half the cost of this scheme, the other half to be raised from charitable trusts and voluntary contributions. In other words, the Ministry of Education was asked to put up £3,750 a year for two years, as a maximum, in order to show that it was sincere and that it really meant that this problem of racial discrimination should be dealt with by educational means. The answer received, I am sorry to say, was a flat, though very polite, "No". The actual words of the Minister were:
"I do not, I am afraid, see how my Department could help you to finance the courses that you have in mind. The Ministry's programme of short courses is limited to those which it arranges itself through the inspectorate, and the expenditure it needs is limited to the amount involved in laying on the courses. Those who attend are required to pay for their board and lodging, and from 1963 their travelling expenses, though they may receive some assistance from their employers."
In other words, such courses as the Ministry has, as I think we shall learn when the noble Lord, Lord Newton, comes to reply, are lamentably few and lamentably small, and entirely different in their scope from those which have been outlined. So we are now faced with the reality that the Government at present are refusing to make even a payment of under £4,000 a year for two years in order to make some small, but significant, contribution to solving this problem.
All that they do—and they do something one must admit—is to have an exchange scheme for teachers. The exchange scheme is not operated directly by the Ministry of Education; it is operated through the League of the British Commonwealth and Empire. The entire scope of the scheme, so far as I have been able to discover, is for the exchange this year with Canada of 55 teachers; with Australia of 30 teachers; with New Zealand of 15 teachers; and with Southern Rhodesia of 5 teachers. That is all the Ministry of Education is doing at the present time in order to deal, by educational means, with this problem of racial understanding.
This problem is, in all conscience, bad enough as it stands to-day, but if we project ourselves ten years hence, with not only the additional strains on the Commonwealth which take place the whole time, but with the growth of the number of young people whose parents were born
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in the Commonwealth and whose skins remain black, although they may be actually born in this country—we have already seen from the Census figures I have quoted how the numbers are already increasing—how much faster will they increase in the next ten years! What will the problems then be in our schools in regard to our teachers and youth employment officers? How will they find work for these young people who will be leaving school—probably, through no fault of their own, at a somewhat lower educational standard owing to language difficulties? This is not something which will solve itself. If we sit back, the situation is going to get ten times or a hundred times worse.
I should like to end by quoting the words of an eminent Negro historian from the United States, Professor John Hope Franklin. In one of his books, he wrote:
"Almost invariably the Negro progresses only to the extent that the white man advances in understanding that a human being is a human being. There have been Negroes as talented as I before me, but they could not get where I have because the white man was not advanced enough to let them."
My Lords, it is our job to see that the people of this country are advanced enough to let anybody who comes here—and particularly any child, whether or not he is actually born here, who is educated in this country—advance just as far as his own capabilities enable him to, and to see to it that there is no question of racial discrimination or colour prejudice put in his way.
This is a challenge not only to the goodwill of the country; it is at this stage a direct challenge to the honesty of the Government. We cannot allow this problem to be left to the magnificent work of the private individuals and of the organisations upon whose work I have already briefly touched. It has now got beyond that. It must not be taken over by the Government, but must be assisted by the Government in a very concrete manner. As an earnest of their sincerity the Government must now put their hands in their pockets—in the taxpayers' pockets—in order to help to rid from this country a stigma which attaches to-day (and there is no use burking this issue) in the eyes of so many members of the Commonwealth both here and overseas, and to prove quite conclusively that we are prepared not merely to utter these pious platitudes and vague hopes

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but, as a country and as a Government, to take action and to spend money in order to rid this country of what can develop into one of the greatest blots upon our national honour.
3.58 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWELL: My Lords, it is obvious that we on this Bench must be very deeply concerned with this question. I will not keep your Lordships longer than I can help, but it is hard to be brief without seeming to be trivial, and a lot of positive harm can be done by trivial discussion of great subjects. This is a subject of profound importance for the social and moral health of our community, and, indeed, for the whole human future.
In the past our people have had pretty wide experience of racial problems overseas. Now we are encountering them in our Island, owing to the post-war tide of immigration, and we are not finding it altogether easy. Of course, there is always, and probably always must be, some tension between the "in" group and the "out" group; and the native is always suspicious of foreigners, even if they are only inhabitants of the next village; but that becomes vicious and destructive if it flows from differences of race and colour, and if it is bedevilled by sexual jealousy, housing problems and economic competition it can be worked up into a most dangerous antagonism. It would be tragic and disastrous for ourselves, as well as for them, if the immigrants from the Commonwealth countries were to become in any way here the victims of racial prejudice.
I want to suggest to your Lordships that, though this is a new problem, it is one that is going to be always with us. It is not merely a temporary incident; it is part of a vast movement due to the fact that the world is one world, one nexus of interdependent organisations, one common market and common labour pool, in which what I may call "racial closed shops" can no longer be maintained; and in which self-contained communities will now be obsolete. Multi-racialism is going to be normal, surely, everywhere in the future, and we must catch up with history. But, after all the disappointments in Africa, let us resolve to do everything we can to make this country a model of trans-racial relationships. For surely the
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long and not inglorious history of Commonwealth and Empire is really leading up to this. Somebody put it in this way: "The Empire is coming home".
Race prejudice is a form of mental illness. From time to time it becomes epidemic, and when it does it kills men by millions. I am not thinking only of the gas chambers: there are some murky patches in our own record, and it is not only in Europe that it happens. But this horrible thing, which poisons and corrupts all human relationships, on both sides, is very difficult to cure, just because it is irrational. It comes up out of the depths of the unconscious. It is really a kind of psychosis which cannot be exorcised by rational argument. Myths and stereotypes, emotion-charged fetishes, are far more potent with it than the most demonstrable fact. The psychotic cannot bear to live with disturbing realities. No doubt we all tend to externalise the tensions and conflicts within our own psyche, and there is a psychological compulsion to project our own failure on to a scapegoat. Therefore, by and large, it is the "mixed-up kid" who is most likely to be found joining in race riots or the obscene rites of anti-Semitism.
The wording of the Question we are discussing asks Her Majesty's Government to use educational means to deal with this problem. As the noble Lord reminded us, the Government spokesman in the last debate laid great stress on educational media. Is tolerance something that can be taught, or is it, as has been said about Christianity, something that can only be caught? Or is that distinction really "too clever by half"? If it can be taught, how are we to set about it?
I want to say a word or two, first of all, about formal education. I think all your Lordships will agree that the matrix of tolerance is a liberal education, which opens the mind and widens the sympathies. But I suggest that there are limits to the possibility of changing adult society through the children, though many people from Plato onward have hoped they could. Surely it is the adult society that conditions them. I do not think young children as a rule have any feeling of race or colour prejudice, until adults put it into their heads. No doubt something effective can be done to forewarn and forearm them against

721
that shock. But what we get from our teachers and our preachers is not so much what they actually say, as the attitude to life that comes through. It is possible for religious instruction to communicate an essentially irreligious attitude of mind.
Religious values at school are communicated not only, even if chiefly, through the periods labelled "Religion", but through the whole tone and ethos of the school's life, and the standards which the community acknowledges. So it is here. The important thing, what really matters, is the total education in human relationships, rather than new subjects inserted into the syllabus. All the same, something can be done by formal teaching and the provision of factual information. Children can at least be disinfected by historical and biological fact from the stubborn, persistent fallacies of race, which have been called "man's most dangerous myth", and the false and deadly simplifications identified with race in the popular mind.
We are well aware here, that there is no such thing as a pure race; and, indeed, probably nowhere in the world could you find a race more mixed than our own. Children can at least have that explained to them and can be taught to realise how much of our strength derives from that admixture in our inheritance. Nor is there the slightest valid ground for equating differences of mental ability, intelligence and so forth with racial origin. There is a book by Doctor Cyril Bibby (the ministry, of course, is familiar with it) called Race, Prejudice and Education, which offers the teacher valuable help on this point. The teacher in the English literature department has his chance. What about The Merchant of Venice or Othello, to say nothing of the school visit to Oliver?
The current affairs man has his opportunity, as does almost anyone who teaches history or geography, although some of the text books badly need revision. Too often they leave exactly the wrong impression. I was reading a careful study and analysis of the G.C.E. syllabuses and the questions actually set, in an article in Race, the periodical of the Institute of Race Relationships, and it pointed out that questions like, "Discuss the differences between the coastlines of East Africa
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and West Africa" might profitably be widened to include some reference to the people who live in them, and so on. Of course, a good deal more can be done at the sixth form level and in universities, where one hopes there will be a growing development of departments and institutes, and where the humanities now on the defensive might find a new, creative rôle if they would reflect on the meaning of "humanitas" and widen out into a study of human relations.
But, of course, contact matters far more than information. In the schools now, in industrial centres, there is a substantial number of coloured children. The noble Lord was giving some figures. I believe the number occasionally rises to 28 per cent; in a few, I gather, it is as high as 10 per cent.; but the average is not more than 2 per cent. But it is going to rise, obviously, through natural increase, quite apart from fresh immigration. There are contacts there, but I hope the Minister will do everything he can to encourage the interchange of pupils between schools in this country and Commonwealth countries; to encourage the development of work camps on an international basis, and the overseas voluntary service; and to provide increased opportunities for travel. Of course, the same goes, and even more so, for teachers; and I should like to add my little plea in support of the noble Lord, who drew attention to the need for some public funds to assist the residential courses for teachers which efforts have been made to get going.
Lastly, I must be allowed to say that what we need most in the long run is the permeation of society by the Christian attitude to men and women. The Churches have been doing a great deal, as was their obvious duty—we take no credit for it—and I feel sure that the Lord Bishop of London will be able to give your Lordships information later about the activities of the World Council of Churches and the British Council of Churches in our own land. I should like, however, to be allowed to refer to the admirable work in education and reconciliation which has been done by the Society of Jews and Christians. Christianity has its own reasons for believing in the dignity of man and the sacredness of personality, and in that

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there can be neither Jew nor Gentile, Barbarian nor Scythian, slave nor free. I long to see the Christian Church as the rallying point of all liberal-minded and humanist endeavour.

KENYA
4.17 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COLONIAL AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE): My Lords, it may be to the convenience of the House if I repeat a statement which has been made by my right honourable friend in another place. I repeat it in the Colonial Secretary's own words.
"The primary purpose of my three weeks' visit to East Africa was to finalise the text of Kenya's new Constitution, so as to enable elections to be held and internal self-government to be introduced. Two out of these three weeks I spent in Nairobi, in almost continuous discussion with Kenya Ministers and with deputations representing regional, racial or sectional interests of various kinds. I received several deputations from the European community. Among other matters, they spoke to me about the problem facing the aged and infirm, particularly those living in isolated areas. I fully understand and sympathise with their difficulties. I am obtaining further information about these cases from the Government of Kenya, and I hope to be able to make a statement shortly. During an interval in the discussions in Nairobi, I paid short visits to Zanzibar, Tanganyika and Uganda.
"Thanks to the energy of the Governor, Mr. Malcolm MacDonald, and of Kenya Ministers, much the greater part of Kenya's new and complex Constitution had already been settled before I arrived. However, there remained about twenty-five issues on which KANU and KADU Ministers had not managed to agree, and which it fell to me to resolve. On one or two of these questions, the differences were eliminated in the course of our talks, and in a few other cases the area of disagreement was narrowed.
"When it was recognised that further discussion would be unfruitful,
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Ministers of the two Parties agreed to refer the points in dispute to me for arbitration, and to accept my decisions. I was very glad of this, since it is of the utmost importance for the future stability of Kenya that the new Constitution should be based upon the willing consent of the two main African parties. As was to be expected, the points of disagreement were mainly concerned with the balance of power between the Central Government and the Regional Authorities, and with the varied tribal aspirations and fears which are inextricably connected with it. Unhappily, the whole of political life in Kenya to-day is permeated by inter-tribal rivalry and suspicion; and any Constitution which ignored this hard fact would, from the start, be doomed to failure.
"In coming to my decisions on the points of disagreement, I was guided by three main principles. The first was to adhere faithfully to the basic constitutional framework agreed between all Parties at the Lancaster House Conference last year. The second was to create Governmental machinery which would be efficient and workable. The third was to provide a sufficient degree of regional autonomy to safeguard one tribal group from domination by another.
"In addition to these internal issues, I also had to deal with two problems of an international character. The first concerned the ten-mile deep coastal strip, including Mombasa, which is part of the territory of the Sultan of Zanzibar but which, under a Treaty of 1895, has been administered as a British Protectorate. The Government of Zanzibar might quite well have maintained that Her Majesty's Government were not entitled under the Treaty to hand over control of the coastal strip to a self-governing African administration. However, when I discussed the matter with the Sultan and his Government they at once made it clear that they warmly welcomed Kenya's constitutional progress and wished to raise no objections to the continued administration of the coastal strip as a part of Kenya, under the new Constitution. It was agreed between us that, before Kenya became

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fully independent, there would naturally have to be talks between Her Majesty's Government and His Highness's Government regarding the new situation which would then arise. I am publishing as a White Paper the text of a joint statement by the Chief Minister of Zanzibar and myself, and I wish to express my warm appreciation of the helpfulness and understanding shown by the Sultan and his Government over this matter.
"The other international problem was the demand for the cession to Somalia of the Northern Frontier District of Kenya. The Report of the recent Commission of Inquiry shows that the Eastern part of this area is inhabited predominantly by Somalis and other kindred people who wish to be integrated with the Somali Republic. On the other hand, the Report indicates that a majority of the inhabitants of the Western part of this area are opposed with equal vehemence to secession. The impressions I received from my meetings with secessionist and anti-secessionist deputations from the Northern Frontier District fully confirm this conclusion.
"I discussed the whole problem very frankly with Kenya Ministers. They felt strongly that, in the absence of a fully representative Government which could speak with authority for the people of Kenya, it would not be right for the British Government on its own to take an irrevocable step. In any case, it seemed reasonable to ask the Kenya Somalis to give a fair trial to the new Constitution with the wide degree of local autonomy which it will confer. However, in order to emphasise their good will, and in order to give to Kenya Somalis greater opportunity for the expression of their racial and religious identity, Kenya Ministers agreed that consideration should be given to the formation of a separate Region. They left the decision on this question to Her Majesty's Government. As the House knows, we decided to create a Seventh Region, embracing the Eastern part of the Northern Frontier District, as envisaged in the Report of the Regional Boundaries Commission We did not, of course, imagine that this would fully satisfy Somali aspirations. While not wishing to exclude future consideration of any methods of settling this
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problem, we did not think that at this juncture a more radical solution would be justified.
"Even if we had wanted to do so, it was clear that in these circumstances a decision by the British Government to cede this territory without the consent of Kenya Ministers would have provoked violent reactions throughout the country, and would certainly have led both KANU and KADU to leave the Government. As it was, both Parties accepted as fair and reasonable my decision on this and all the other points of disagreement. The way was thus clear to fix the dates for the elections for the Regional and National Assemblies. These will be staggered over a period of ten days and will be completed on the 26th May, after which the new Constitution will come into force and Kenya will have full internal self-government."
4.26 p.m.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am very much obliged to the Minister for having passed on to us the statement made by the Secretary of State. I think this statement falls into three parts. There is the report of the decisions taken with regard to the date and time of the election in Kenya, and I think that all your Lordships will be agreed that this has been such a long matter of discussion and debate that the fact that this date has arrived is a matter for pleasure. There are, of course, the hints in the first part of the statement that there are still some problems which the Government are looking into and in which perhaps they can still give help. I think that we shall all join with the Secretary of State in paying our tribute to the Sultan of Zanzibar for the manner in which he has dealt with the question of the Coastal Strip and which has clearly avoided the possibility of future discussions of an unpleasant nature. We ought to express our thanks to the Sultan for that decision.
It is a pity that at this juncture the difficulty should have arisen with regard to the Strip for the North, where a good many Somalis live and in the Eastern section of which there has been a strong expression of opinion that they ought to be allowed to join the general State of Somalia. It is difficult to comment on this matter, I think, at the present

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moment. It is obvious that the Government have tried to reach a settlement before announcing the General Election in Kenya, and that they have had some success in getting consent from the leaders of the KANU and KADU to the "hiving-off", as it were, of additional territory to cover the area in which the Somalis desire to join Somalia and for this matter to be settled after the set-up of the new Government subsequent to the election. I wish very much that it could have been settled before, but I understand the difficulties which have occurred. All I can say is that I hope that the settlement in Kenya at large will leave a spirit of generous feeling in those who are attaining this self-government so that, having received freedom, they will be prepared to give a sense of freedom to those in the territory that has been made a separate Region.
4.30 p.m.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, we on this side of the House are also grateful for the full and clear statement that has been made, and I think the Secretary of State is greatly to be congratulated on having secured such a wide measure of agreement. Perhaps still more is it a mark of the confidence which he must have inspired in KANU and KADU, who were very much at arm's length on a large number of matters, that they have both accepted the Secretary of State as the arbiter on outstanding questions. That is most satisfactory. I am sure that both KANU and KADU and also Her Majesty's Government are wise to have accepted a federal regional solution in this matter. It is all very well to say that there ought not to be so many tribal animosities and jealousies, but that is the nature of the animal, and nothing could be more futile than to ignore these mutual suspicions and hostilities, which are matters of fact.
It is very fortunate that this regional solution has been adopted. It may well be, indeed I think it will be, that the fact that both KANU and KADU have accepted this regional solution, and will work together to get effective organisation in the regions as well as at the centre, will make it much more likely that they will get unity and co-operation in Kenya. I wonder whether it is too late for the United Nations in the Congo to learn a little from this wise federal regional solution for application in the Congo.
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I share the wish of the noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition that we could have settled this running sore of Somalia. Not having been there for a number of years, I hesitate to express a firm opinion; only the man on the spot can do that. But I am sure that it is wise to create a separate region for the east of Somalia, and that the Secretary of State is wise to leave the ultimate solution to the time when domestic self-government will be a reality. Though I would venture to express the belief that when the new Kenya Government take over the responsibility they will find it is not wise to keep people attached to them very much against their will. There is a pretty clear cleavage in this vast area between East and West, and it may well be wise for them, and may well lead to much happier relations with the whole of Somalia, if they let the Somalis go where obviously the great majority of those in the East want to go.
The Minister of State made a very full statement. I was glad to hear what he said about the old people and that we may look for some further statement about them, because their plight is really unhappy. But nothing was said about land settlement. I would venture to hope that, when the Minister of State comes to reply, he will be able to assure the House that nothing is going to hold up the full progress of land settlement, that it will be accepted in the Constitution as a plain duty for the Kenya Government, and that certainly, in the meantime, so far from being held up, it will, if possible, be accelerated.
4.35 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I am very glad that the noble Earl who leads the Opposition expressed a generous tribute to His Highness the Sultan of Zanzibar. I am sure that we all owe His Highness, a good and faithful friend of this country, a very sincere debt of gratitude for the statesmanlike way in which he has approached the problem of the Coastal Strip. Indeed, as the noble Earl said, things could have been much more difficult had His Highness not appreciated that this was the solution most likely to be in the best interests of his people on the mainland.
The noble Earl also referred to the new Seventh Region. I think that he fully appreciates the difficulties with

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which my right honourable friend was confronted. I think I am right in saying that the population of this Eastern part of the Northern Frontier District, which is to become a separate Region, comprises people who are predominantly of Somali race or who are partly Somali, but predominantly of Somali blood, the Somali way of life and of the Islamic faith. They number some 130,000. As my right honourable friend said in his statement, which I have read, he felt that it would have been wrong for the British Government alone, without the consent of the Kenya Ministers, to take any irrevocable step. The formation of the new Seventh Region does not prejudge a final decision and does not exclude further consideration of other possible solutions which may commend themselves to all concerned. Furthermore, before any final decision is taken, the Governments of the other interested countries will also be given the opportunity to state their views. Her Majesty's Government were determined to approach this problem in as rational and as sensible way as possible, in the hope that the ultimate solution will be one which will lead to the peace and happiness of all those in that area.
I must say that I was particularly glad to hear congratulations coming from a noble Lord with such experience as the noble Earl, Lord Swinton. I feel certain that in all parts of your Lordships' House it will be agreed that these congratulations to my right honourable friend are richly deserved; and I will, of course, convey to my right honourable friend the sentiments expressed by the noble Earl. The whole success of these negotiations—and they were successful, indeed—is due to the fact that a sense of confidence was created, which made it possible for the two leading political Parties in Kenya, when they found that agreement was not possible, to ask the representative of Her Majesty's Government to act as arbiter. So there was no question of any solutions being imposed. Where no agreement could be reached a request was made to the representative of Her Majesty's Government to find the best answer possible. I think that if your Lordships will study the newspapers you will realise with what wisdom these solutions were thought out. For it
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appears that both the principal Parties are satisfied that each has won a number of victories.
I was glad that the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, referred to the observation made by my right honourable friend about the aged and the infirm in Kenya. This is, of course, a matter which Her Majesty's Government have had in mind all along, and we have the greatest sympathy with the difficulties of these people. We are now seeking more detailed information from the Government of Kenya, and my right honourable friend hopes that before long he will be able to make some statement on this question.
As regards the Land Settlement, to which the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, referred, let me assure him that there is no question of any slackening off taking place—rather the reverse. When he was in Nairobi my right honourable friend was pressed by many different people on the question of the Land Bank. The question of increasing the funds for the Land Bank is a matter to which he is now applying his mind, and this will be discussed with the Kenya Ministers when they come to this country at the end of this month to discuss their development plans.
It will not have escaped your Lordships' notice that, due to the revision in the arangements over the Central Land Board, it was unfortunately the case that the post which General Sir Geoffrey Bourne had agreed to accept lapsed. My right honourable friend was very grateful to General Bourne for accepting what would have been an arduous task, and naturally he, and all of us in the Government, express our sincere regret to General Bourne for the inconvenience caused to him through the lapsing of this post, due to a revision in the plans. I think everyone would agree that once it became clear that friction and overlapping would have ensued, no useful purpose would have been served had we gone ahead with the original Lancaster House plan exactly in the form then worked out. I apologise to your Lordships for having spoken at some considerable length, but I thought that these were points your Lordships would wish me to amplify. I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, and to the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, for their observations.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Marquess for his sympathetic reply, both to the noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition and to myself. He has raised the question of General Bourne and his appointment, and I have no doubt that, with a new situation developing it was impossible to go on with the appointment, so that it lapsed. But this very able and distinguished man has, I understand, thrown up an important and lucrative position in order to take this appointment. I am not one of those people who go about asking for "golden bowlers" for everybody; but since this was obviously—I will not say the fault of Her Majesty's Government, but due to an entire change in circumstances for which the Government of Kenya and Her Majesty's Government are responsible, I think we shall probably all agree that compensation should properly be made to the General, who threw up this appointment at the express request of Her Majesty's Government, if he has suffered financial loss through his public spirited action. In saying that, I am sure I express the general feeling of the House, and I mention it only as the noble Marquess raised the point.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl. I hasten to reassure the House at once that the Government are fully aware of the debt that is owed to General Sir Geoffrey Bourne. I may tell your Lordships that it was I who had to break the news personally to the General, and I feel that your Lordships should know the generosity of his reaction to this change of circumstance, which he realised full well was a change beyond our control. His reaction was not that of a man considering himself, but that of a man disappointed that he was not being given the opportunity—and he has, after all, had a very distinguished career—of giving even more service to his country than he has done already.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, may I ask the noble Marquess (I missed what he said) whether he said that the Government do recognise the responsibility for compensating General Bourne?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I said we realised the debt that we owe to General Bourne.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: Is that the same as saying that you mean to pay it, or not?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I think the noble Earl can draw his own conclusions.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: I hope that this is not, as was once said of another British debt in history, a debt which the British Government can never repay.

RACIAL PROBLEMS AND EDUCATION
4.47 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD KILBRACKEN: My Lords, if the time has now come to return from the problems of Africans in Africa to the problems of Africans and others in England, I should like to occupy a few minutes of your Lordships' time in offering full support from these Benches to the noble Lord, Lord Walston, in the Unstarred Question that he has put down to-day. I am sure the House is greatly indebted to the noble Lord—though noble Lords opposite may not agree—for the assiduity which he habitually shows in this House on racial questions. I think it is relevant to recall, although your Lordships are already aware of it, that he is a landlord in a part of the world which supplies many of the immigrants who come to this country: incidentally, so are the noble Earl, Lord Longford, and myself. When questions of apartheid or of colour arise, you often hear the argument put forward: "If you lived among them, and if you had to work with them, then you would feel differently; it is all very well to say that when you have no personal contact".
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord but are the Irish at the moment being put in the coloured category?
LORD KILBRACKEN: No. The Irish are not black although we may be feeling pretty black this evening if the wrong horses win at Cheltenham this afternoon.
I think the noble Lord, Lord Walston, provides striking evidence that such general arguments are not normally justified. If we admire the noble Lord's assiduity in these matters, I feel that we

733
can only deplore the lack of sympathy, or possibly just the indifference, of the Government and of noble Lords opposite to this most important problem. Within our memory, we have seen their enactment of the lamentable, unnecessary and retrogressive piece of legislation the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill; we have seen them refuse to give even a Second Reading to the Bill moved by the noble Lord, Lord Walston, on racial discrimination; and now to-day, on the noble Lord's Unstarred Question, there is not one single noble Lord opposite who has put down his name to speak. I do not know whether we shall have any undeclared runners to-day, but perhaps the noble Earl, Lord Albemarle, is going to appear at the post at the last moment. But no noble Lord opposite decided in advance that he was going to speak. I think it is most regrettable that the Conservative Party as a whole, and the Government in general, should show such a marked indifference to a question of such great importance.
Turning to the noble Lord's Question, I admit that I was a little perturbed when I first saw the phrase, "promote by educational means", because somehow one at once imagined a group of little children being taken into a class room and given lessons on racial problems instead of arithmetic or geography. I thought I should mention that, although it has not been advocated so far, because I find it is a form of education which is being advocated and, indeed, practised in some schools. I am convinced that education of that kind is a mistake, at any rate so far as young children are concerned, because in my opinion and in my experience there is almost no consciousness of this problem among children to the age of 13, 14 or possibly 15, although, of course, it will vary from one school to another, from one region to another, and from one child to another. But that is how it should be with children: there should be no consciousness of colour or race. And that is how it should remain as long as possible.
I feel that if classes of this kind were held they would have the effect of making children aware, for the first time, that such a problem exists and would put it before them as an issue at a time when ignorance might otherwise be bliss. But there is a moment in adolescence, which,
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as I say, will vary with the individual, when the first signs of racial colour prejudice may begin to occur. This may be associated with the sexual awakening, as I think the right reverend Prelate indicated, but it is more generally due to an influence of some kind or another outside, and not inside, the school itself, whether it is the child's own family—because until this age the family will not talk about matters of this kind—whether it is simply the community in which the child lives, or whether it is the mass media with which the child comes into contact. Here I should like to say that mass media generally treat the subject excellently. I think television is a good influence on this problem, and the whole activity which can be included under the phrase "show business" has a most tolerant attitude towards racial and colour problems; and the Press, though not immaculate, I believe has a better record on this than on some other questions.
In combating intolerance at this stage in the child's growth, however it may occur, I believe that education, taken in its widest sense, can play a part, but again not through a special class in racial problems. I do not think I can do better than quote briefly from a report by Dr. Michael Banton in the International Social Science Journal on Dr. Bibby's book which the right reverend Prelate mentioned. Dr. Banton wrote:
"The solution to this problem is not to introduce instruction periods on race and racial relations. It is to re-examine existing curricula in biology, geography, history, religious knowledge"—
and I think religious knowledge provides great opportunities, particularly for the Jewish problem—
"and possibly one or two other subjects to see whether the attention given to racial aspects is proportionate to their importance on the current world scene."
My thinking does not often go hand in hand with the Church, but I am happy that on this occasion I find it running along lines rather similar to those of the right reverend Prelate, who said that what matters—and I wrote down his words—"was the attitude of life which comes through". I agree very strongly with that, and I think the Government can give guidance. What matters is the atmosphere or climate of thought which exists in any school—that it should be enlightened, of course. What matters is

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the teacher's own attitude to racial problems—that it should be sympathetic. But, above all, what matters is the ability of the teacher to correct mistaken attitudes of mind which are acquired outside the school as and when they first become noticeable, and to be able to do it gently, tactfully and with understanding. It is often best that such guidance should be by a seemingly casual, offhand comment, as opportunity presents itself in the course of the normal curriculum, and without any special, undue emphasis. On the other aspects that have been raised, I agree completely with the noble Lord and look forward with great interest to the reply.
4.57 p.m.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, there is little I feel I can add to the last two speeches, because the right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord who has just sat down have expressed very much my own feelings on this problem. I should like, however, to underline one or two of the things the two previous speakers have said. I would start with what was said by the right reverend Prelate, that he thought young children were generally free from racial prejudice. I would go further, and say there is no doubt that they are completely free of it until, I should say, the end of primary school age. Small children have no colour consciousness whatever, in my observation and in the experience of many people to whom I have spoken. Even at a later age there is remarkably little colour prejudice. London schools with which I have been connected have had coloured boys, Cypriots or Africans, at the head of the school as head boy, and as the leading athlete of the period, generally popular and completely accepted as one of themselves by the boys.
At the same time, there is no doubt that, by the time they grow up, a remarkably large proportion of the population have acquired a race prejudice. The question is: How do they do it? If the schools are sound in their attitude, then it must be from the home that this virus is caught. It seems to me that the problem is not so much disinfection, as I think the right reverend Prelate said, but inoculation to confer immunity when outside the school atmosphere to the virus of race prejudice, colour prejudice and colour consciousness. I expect the noble Lord, Lord Newton, as indeed would any
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Government spokesman, would be very careful to avoid any impression that the Government wanted to guide the content of education in any way.
I think that our education system in this country is so devised and so decentralised that it is very difficult for a Government to influence the teaching in the schools, and I think it is quite right that it should be so. But it is clearly the teachers who bear the responsibility for giving this inoculation to the children. The thing is, how to convince the teachers as they pass through their teacher training colleges, or as they pass out into the world of education, of the extreme importance of conveying the right ideas? As the right reverend Prelate said, it is not so much to do with the formal education, the academic subjects—although there is plenty that can be corrected in those, as I shall show in a moment—but with the general attitude to life. I think there was a very good point made some years ago by Dr. Kenneth Little, in a letter to the Press, when he said that race relations should be represented as a normal part of human experience. It should not be a special subject that you think of when you meet somebody whose face is a different colour from your own.
Boundaries are going down all over the world, the races are mixing socially, economically and in every other way, and surely it would help to dissipate any race consciousness if, for example, as Dr. Little suggests, the B.B.C. were to include a coloured family in its serials or on television, portray a Negro personality in a different light from boxing and popular entertainment. He goes on to say:
"The inclusion of an occasional coloured scientist or man of letters would facilitate this, if he were there as an ordinary member of the intellectual team, and not to talk about race."
We must regard this as a normal part of life nowadays, and I would rather question the, I think, excessively optimistic view of the noble Lord, Lord Kilbracken, of the Press and the cinema generally—what I think we call the mass media—in the way they handle this subject. When there is a Royal tour of Africa or the Far East, what do we see on the newsreels and in the Press? We see tribal dances, witch doctors, people clad in beads and feathers, whether or not those

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are typical of the inhabitants of that particular country at the present day, and nothing else. We never see pictures of the African administrators who are responsible for the organisation of the Royal tour. Oh, no! we see a tribal dance laid on with drums and feathers, and all the rest.
That, straight away, puts the idea of race and Commonwealth relations on a totally false footing because, in fact, our Commonwealth fellow citizens of the present day do not dress in feathers and beads and beat drums. That is part of the traditional ritual in the same way as with some of our rituals in this country which are so attractive to visitors. No, my Lords. I should like to see the Press, when dealing with a Royal visit to a Commonwealth country, portraying the administrators, the judges, the doctors, the scientists, the nuclear physicists if you like, of that country, African or Asian, and not the tribal traditions. That would make a big difference in the attitude of the newspaper readers in this country and that is one of the ways in which present attitudes might be corrected.
We can all think of the history books on which we were brought up. We read about the British conquests and the growth of the British Empire in terms of expeditions to put down human sacrifice, to bring light into savage countries and to put down barbarous practices. That may all be true, but there were other sides also to the growth of the Empire; and the incidence in the history book of that view of expansion in the Colonial era is another factor that gives false impressions. As the right reverend Prelate said, there are other factors in geography and, most of all, biology, because how many teachers have an opportunity of seeing up-to-date books on biology?
I can remember some years ago an excellent little pamphlet put out by UNESCO on the subject of race, demonstrating some of the current fallacies on racial matters. I hope we shall hear that Her Majesty's Government are not just sitting hoping for a change, but are actively promoting and assisting in these efforts. I hope they are promoting everything that UNESCO are doing in this matter; and I hope that the Minister of Education, who does, after all, issue circulars giving guidance, will make it clear
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to the teaching profession that he attaches enormous importance to this subject.
5.8 p.m.
BARONESS SWANBOROUGH: My Lords, I should like to support the noble Lord, Lord Walston, in his appeal for education in its widest terms on this particular subject. I think that the integration of immigrants into this country is not merely a question of welcoming people from overseas into our midst but much more of explaining to our own people what the differences are in the people who come to live in our country, where their customs and ours may clash, and, in consequence, what we should be aware of.
I speak in this connection as Chairman of the Commonwealth Immigrants' Council, which was set up by the Home Secretary last July in order to study the question of the welfare of Commonwealth immigrants in the country and their integration into the community. Since then a great deal of work has been done and a great deal of evidence has been made available to the Council. Talking with those at local level I find that the problems facing people from overseas seem to have as a prime factor the question of housing and the consequent overcrowding—very often gross overcrowding, with, frequently, five families to a house. I find, somewhat to my surprise, that practically every single situation, difficulty or problem eventually stems from or becomes linked up with this problem of housing. This I regard as very serious because it is one of the problems that confronts us on a day-to-day basis with our own people.
Everyone is a little too apt, I think, to look on immigrants as coloured people. The local problem of immigrants is not a question of race, country or colour; it is a question of an influx into a particular area of persons from another country, and the way the local inhabitant is immediately on the defensive lest the newcomer gets a better deal than he does in regard to things in short supply. I believe that it might be a help if we could distinguish between immigrants who come into the country to settle here and those who come for a short time. It is very difficult for immigrants who wish to settle in this country to understand that, because we have not yet caught up with our own housing problems, many local authorities demand a residential qualification of five

739
years before anyone can even be considered for a council house; and most immigrants, when told this, regard it as merely a discrimination against themselves.
There is not one among us who does not recognise this big problem of shortage of housing, with the overcrowding and the friction that it creates. We have all met it, either with families we know, with in-laws, or whoever it may be. But (although this must sound to your Lordships a statement of the obvious) I think it is a basic situation which is not to be forgotten, and one which must be taken as a background to whatever we discuss in our deliberations. People from overseas have a very different way of living from our people. Just in the same way as we appear to them to have a queer way of life, so they feel that congregating together and making a noise, having a jolly time, and generally living in this sort of way, is the right way to live. But when they act like this it seems to lead again and again to trouble locally. It is very easy for us to understand the situation, withdrawn and objectively, but it is much more difficult to understand it if you are living in the midst of it and are irritated by the happenings.
Accommodation is short, and there is the problem that landlords may be of the same or of a different background. There is also the very real difficulty that people in a strange land are prone to be caught by rapacious landlords—a fact which further contributes to the problems. Local authorities throughout the country are trying to improve matters, and many are doing excellent work. This is especially true with the houses in multi-occupation. But there is undoubtedly need for much further effort, both by Government and by local authorities. The panacea is one which can be achieved only slowly, and it is necessary for us, in the meantime, to examine what can be done and how it should be done. I personally am convinced that it would be wrong to treat immigrants in a different way from the way we treat our own people, and I would never recommend special measures for the benefit of immigrants. But I suggest that some essentially temporary measures to assist immigrants in settling into a community might be advisable.
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Such measures should be examined, and, if necessary, they may have to be invoked.
Foremost as a need is the requirement brought forward so tangibly this afternoon for information, explanation, education or whatever you like to call it. That means really liaison work necessary between two lots of human beings with differing outlooks and backgrounds. This can be achieved only if it is supported, and supported to the full, by central authority. There is tremendous value in liaison officers of some sort or another at local level who can provide that link between immigrants and local authorities, voluntary organisations and life in a strange country. But there are many difficulties, even in this, and I am quite sure that the subject must be tackled according to the locality and with a knowledge of local conditions, local problems and local special circumstances. Some local authorities in the country are at present employing immigrants as liaison officers. This idea is, in many places, proving successful. But it is successful only if the bulk of the immigrants in that particular place are from the same country. Where there are several different groups of immigrants in one area, difficulty is caused in having a liaison officer from one country who is dealing with immigrants from another.
When I speak of liaison work, I mean not child education but adult education. But when one turns to schools and the whole question of children, it is known—and it has been stated quite specifically—that a high proportion of immigrant children could be absorbed into the life of the school without problems arising, so long as the language problem does not obtrude itself. It is when the school has too high a proportion of children who do not speak English that educational problems arise. In the interests of the children of the area, if the percentage of non-English speaking children in a school were to rise above a given percentage level it might be difficult to keep a class up to normal level of progression, and inevitably a retarded pace for the other children would result. This is a situation of which the education authorities are well aware, and the language problem is one which again must not only be tackled but must be explained to immigrant parents themselves, so that they fully understand.

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The need for immigrants to learn about the community to which they come is great, but the need for the community to understand the immigrants is also great. Nothing has helped this country more to understand immigrants than the courtesy shown by immigrant bus conductors and the care and gentle handling of patients by immigrant nurses in our hospitals. This has been the best method of communication the people in this country have ever had; and because of the realisation of what they have had at the hands of immigrants, many people have, in turn, I think, recognised that they have something to give to the immigrants and have taken steps to do so.
The process of education is precisely that of human communication. It is to replace prejudice by understanding. Acceptance in this country is not taught consciously; it comes from example, discussion and understanding; in fact through general assimilation, and most often is a result of good communication. Our problem is the question of teaching adult human beings, both immigrant and resident, those things they should know. Such education should make our own nationals think and ponder and understand, which many of them have never taken the trouble to do up to now. I have a friend who is a coloured woman, a doctor. She and I were talking together one day, and she put a point to me that I had never really faced before. She said to me, "You know, you would hate your son to marry my daughter, but have you ever thought how tremendously I should detest my daughter marrying your son?'' This perhaps is basically the type of thing we all have to think about, and think deeply. Integration and collaboration, close friendship and the melting together of different races reveals that deep thought is necessary between individuals if nations are to be able to realise and accept the profound truths which lie at the base of all these things and learn the secret of nations living together.
5.20 p.m.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE: My Lords, I did not put my name down to speak because I did not feel that I could help much by the words that I might say. On the other hand, it was most necessary that somebody from these Benches should be willing to get up. I
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assure the noble Lord, Lord Kilbracken, that there are many people in this House who think along the lines of Lord Walston's speech, and I am sure distinctly along the wise and interesting lines of the noble Baroness's speech, with which I was greatly impressed. Of course, the whole problem is that there is a sore developing in several of our towns and boroughs which is not growing smaller and which must be pricked and ameliorated.
Many of us have pondered on what the Government are doing and what they can do. We have heard from the noble Baroness that last July an Immigration Council was formed and the wise step was taken of putting the noble Baroness at its head. I have myself thought that the Government are inhibited in this matter, perhaps by their inability and by not wishing to interfere with local authorities. Yet this question of coloured immigrants is very different depending upon the angle from which it is viewed. A person like Lord Walston, who has lived on his own estates in the countries which we peopled with people from the West Coast of Africa, has seen that segment of humanity all his life; they have lived under the beneficence of an English laid-down Constitution for 300 years. Then there are people like myself and many others, who have been to South Africa, who have lived there for a year or more and who see the problem quite differently.
Then there are those, and we in this House, who, by belonging to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, in the rooms of Westminster Hall have met —speaking personally for the first time—representatives of those races of whom we are talking, who are highly trained, highly educated and who hold high positions in their own countries. One has had the opportunity of talking to them and of getting to grips with them in a way that, for instance, in my own residence in South Africa I never had a chance of doing. I never had the chance of meeting an educated black man there. I met the black men who were in my neighbourhood at the time I lived there, or those who accompanied me through trackless forests in pursuit of natural history and big game. Therefore it depends upon the angle from which one sees the problem.

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The problem in England can be seen, and is viewed, in two quite different ways. One is the Government way, through the Minister in charge of the Department, but the other is the way of the little local communities where young couples are fighting to get the houses they need. Many of them are disappointed because there are no houses available, and many of them think that they are being ousted from the houses that they would have got had not so many immigrants come in. I know that that is so, because I have a great friend who lives in Bethnal Green and who continually writes to me reflecting the feeling of the young people in the streets. They are against this immigration into an already overcrowded district. We know that there have been troubles in Middlesbrough; we know that there have been troubles in Smethwick. There are so many Pakistanis, who are fine people and who have collected together in a part of Birmingham, that they have formed a Pakistani Union. That is not good: it is not desirable.
When I was a young man in Canada, I met Members of Parliament and all the big officials in Ottawa, the capital. They said: "The greatest mistake in the world in this enormous influx of people from Europe is if they get together and gang up into a community, so that they walk the streets and see and hear people talking their own language." They told me that there is even a town, I believe it is called Berlin, in Ottawa, of 30,000 people, lock, stock and barrel German, who ran three German newspapers. Such a thing as that on a smaller scale in Smethwick or Birmingham is not good for the country. We should not have what I might call foreign bodies inside the main body.
The only way in which we can get that put right is, I suggest, for the Government to do what they dislike doing—namely, to give pretty strong directives as to splitting up: where there is far too great a superiority of one nation in a school, to split them up and not lot them all sit together in a gaggle, or at meal times to occupy a table, talk their own language and turn their shoulders on their little friends of another colour. I should be glad to hear that the Government will do what they
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have not apparently done—namely, give pretty strong directives to try to prevent this ganging-up of foreign bodies in our own institutions.
I do not think I can say anything more of any value. I am extremely glad that Lord Walston has had another "go" at this question of discrimination. We did not altogether like the Bill which he introduced, I think last May. There were one or two things in its clauses that, as it stood, I could not have voted for; but it was a fine effort. He knows the subject better than most, and probably better than anybody else in this House, having been brought up to it from his youth upwards. I hope he will go at it again and again until things begin to look better. The noble Lord quoted something that upset me greatly and detailed something that I have tried to represent here this afternoon. He spoke of the problems reflected in a letter from a headmaster concerning the northern boroughs of London—the bad effect of children who were entirely unfit to go to school because they had not a word of English. Something ought to be done about that. As I have said, I hope that the Government will take steps which it appears they have not taken up till now. Having said that, I wish the Government God-speed in their attempts to deal with a very difficult subject.
House adjourned during pleasure, and resumed by the Lord Chancellor.
5.30 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON: My Lords, as the right reverend Prelate said, I appear to have some information on one aspect on which he touched. So perhaps it is right and proper that I should take up a little of your Lordships' time. Before I do so, I should like express my own thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Walston, for his unflagging concern for this subject and for bringing it once again before your Lordships' House. A great deal of most valuable comment has been made during this debate which I do not think it necessary either to underline or to repeat. What it seems to me to have emphasised is that in this educative process—which I personally believe is the only way ultimately to deal with racial feeling—there is very little place for

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dramatic, sudden or grand gestures. There is a combination of a great number of things which, in themselves, are apparently quite small.
In a short while I am due to take part in a meeting in Church House at which representatives of all the Churches—and, I am glad to say, the Minister of Education also—will be hearing the Bishop of Masasi talk about the need for more English teachers in Africa. That is one aspect of improving our understanding of each other from the racial point of view. To have taught in Africa is to come back with a new understanding and a new concern about racial tensions as they might exist where Africans congregate in parts of London. Much can be done in small ways: the consideration of curricula, the reconsideration of some of our textbooks. After 50 years I have still not quite got W. A. Henty out of my own system and some of the things and wrong attitudes I acquired from him.
Much could be clone by co-operation with the various professional associations, the Science Masters' Association, the Historical Association, and so on. There are, indeed, throughout the length and breadth of the country men and women of good will who are concerned about this matter, but who want to know how to bring their various little contributions together into something which makes sense. Lord Walston has suggested that the responsibility in the educational sphere rests primarily with the Ministry of Education. I think he is right. What we need is a constant lead, a constant reminder, so that the efforts of men and women of good will—some within our formal school system, and many more within that vague, shadowy no-man's-land called adult education (the most neglected area of our educational provision)—should be co-ordinated, encouraged and, where need be, given that modicum of financial support which enables a voluntary effort to be put on a more continuing basis.
The Churches themselves are anxious to co-operate and to do all they can; and, as a measure of their concern, the British Council of Churches have decided within the last few days to set up a Standing Committee on Race Affairs. The Committee will be directly responsible to the Council. It will advise them on all matters of race relations, and will keep the matter constantly before the
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notice and concern of the constituent Churches. The Churches are willing to do all they can, but we hope that we shall be able to do it in partnership with the Government and every other agency, so that we shall never be allowed to go to sleep on a question which, because it is not very pleasant, we sometimes try to put at the back of our minds, but shall keep alert all the time. For it is only through this combination of small efforts that we shall remove this sin of racialism which disfigures some parts of our national life.
5.36 p.m.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, it would have been appropriate if the last word before the speech of the Minister had come from the right reverend Prelate, who has done, and is doing, so much in this field. It is often argued whether Christianity points to any practical steps at all in politics and social matters. I think that we might at least agree on this: when it comes to race questions Christians are not only agreed, but are agreed about a positive line of action. It was most encouraging to hear that the British Council of Churches had set up this vital committee on race relations. It is certainly a fine lead which has gone out from both the right reverend Prelates.
I intervene only in order to show my respectful solidarity with—I was going to say "the right reverend Lord Walston". He has been referred to in such glowing terms by ecclesiastical spokesmen that, for a moment, I invested him with an ecclesiastical aura. At any rate, we have agreed that his speech would not have come inaptly from a right reverend Prelate. It was a very fine speech indeed. In many ways the House of Lords does not come very well out of this afternoon. The attendance has been poor. It is a little better now than it was earlier, but, considering the magnitude of the issues, I would have said the attendance has been rather shameful. But at any rate there have been moving speeches from all the main sides of the House—from the Government side, both Opposition Parties, the Bishops' Bench, and last but far from least from the Cross-Benches where the noble Lady speaks with more immediate authority, perhaps, than any other. She made a series of most practical suggestions to which no doubt the Minister will be replying.

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I cannot help looking back to the speech with which the Lord Chancellor of the day wound up the debate on May 14 last year. He urged the rejection of the Racial Discrimination Bill (I am sorry I did not tell him I was going to refer to his speech, but he is too good-natured to mind) and advised the House that the problem was not one soluble by legislation. He pointed out what seemed to him to be a better course. He argued that [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 240, col 519]:
"Only patient education of public opinion by example and expressions of view by responsible individuals and bodies can achieve lasting results."
So he was looking, as an alternative to legislation, to this very education which is being recommended by all speakers to-day. But, in fact, he guarded himself even more carefuly, because the education which he recommended was not the education with which most of us have been primarily concerned to-day, but education "by example and expressions of view". That particular form of education, while valuable and desirable, is very limited in its likely results.
Certainly both in May and on other occasions in this House, and certainly to-day, there have been powerful expressions of view. But, as Sir Winston Churchill once remarked—or is supposed to have remarked—during the war,
"If it were only a question of making speeches. I should have beaten Hitler long ago."
And no doubt there is a certain truth in that. If it were only a question of making speeches in your Lordships' House, we should have carried the day a long time before this. It is difficult to preach these sermons in the quarters where they are most required.
I remember speaking some time ago in a large and very reputable youth club—though many of those present were not in their teens—in a part of London where there had been a lot of racial trouble. Mercifully, there has been very much less trouble since. But I preached the kind of sermon that I expect would have been very acceptable in a debate here. I argued for racial tolerance, understanding and good will, and other virtues of that kind. To say that I was listened to with impatience would be under-estimating the hostility of my reception. When I had
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finished the audience rose with one accord, and for a moment I measured the distance between myself and the door, decided it was too great, and wondered whether it would be dignified for a Member of the Upper House to escape by the window. But, luckily, after a moment's indecision, the audience swung round and marched out in a body, leaving me alone with the manager of the club, who turned to me, not without a certain ghoulish satisfaction, and remarked "Now you see what I have to put up with every day". That was in a certain part of London where feeling was rather high, but things are better there now. But it is difficult to make many converts to our cause by preaching here or preaching there, though we must keep on trying to do it.
Then we come to example. Of course, if this were Africa, and particularly if it were Africa a few years ago, no doubt there would be a great deal that we should do by way of somewhat heroic example. I remember a friend of mine. He was a high ecclesiastic, and he was asked to a dinner of old Balliol men in Nairobi. This was more than ten years ago, but it is within memory. He said that he would be particularly glad to go to this dinner of old Balliol men because a great friend of his, an African, would no doubt be one of the principal figures. However, he was told they would have liked to have this distinguished African present but, unfortunately, the only hotel where the dinner could be held was not a hotel which admitted Africans. My friend said, "If he cannot come, I cannot come"; so neither of them attended the dinner. That was not so many years ago and certainly since I have been a Member of your Lordships' House. That was in a British Colony, an area for which we held the responsibility, and for which we in this House have held our share of responsibility. That was the atmosphere only a few years ago.
No doubt in those days there were opportunities in Africa—and there may be now in certain parts of Africa—to demonstrate one's hatred of this "great sin", referred to by the right reverend Prelate. Here it is not quite so easy. In my own small way—if you like, in my own ludicrous way—I try to show my good will to Africans when I meet them. I sometimes say, "Good morning" to an African in a tube. Occasionally, he is

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rather puzzled; and if it is an African lady it gives rise to occasional misunderstanding. But, nevertheless, I persist with little habits of that kind, and most of us, perhaps, find our own way of trying to show our friendship to the strangers in our midst. Occasionally, of course, one discovers that they have lived here for generations, but we have to take a chance on that. Nevertheless, one must keep trying.
If you take the Jewish community, for example, I am never sure (and to some extent this is also true of the Africans) whether one is doing the best service to them by talking too much about them as a separate community. I have often tried, in this House and elsewhere, to pay tribute to the Jewish freedom from crime, for example. Their record there is very remarkable—far better than that of any other section of the community, taken as a whole. But whether, when one is referring to crime, it is particularly helpful to the Jews to single them out in this way, to point out that they do better than others, I am never sure. It is not always easy, therefore, to know whether one really helps a minority itself by paying tribute to their special achievements. Nevertheless, there again one must keep on trying.
Most people in this House, I suppose, imagine that they are far above racial prejudice, far above prejudice against any minority. I hope that is true: I am sure that it is true of all the more serious Members of this House. But I wonder if noble Lords ever ask themselves how many members of the boards of the joint stock banks are Jews. The noble Lord, Lord Brand, knows the answer, but I can tell him that the number is smaller than the number of fingers on one hand. Indeed, to give the actual number would be rather embarrassing to the two gentlemen concerned. But that is, in fact, the way the Jewish community are treated by the joint stock banks in this country. It is not a thing that we care to harp on. It is one of those things in England that we do not talk about when publishing booklets about our British way of life. But it happens to be true. Therefore there are opportunities in all these matters for doing one's bit, and in a humble way I try to do mine, even in that last sphere to which I have just alluded. It may be that, like the noble Lord, Lord Kilbracken, I have a minority
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mind so strongly developed that I can take no special credit for this passionate interest in minorities. But, whatever the reason, I think most of us must feel that we never do enough.
We are unprofitable servants, unless we exert ourselves positively in this direction. It is not enough to avoid a direct sin; it is a question of helping to improve the atmosphere. But when one thinks of the little things one can do every day, it is true that they do not add up to a revolution in outlook; and that revolution can come only along the lines that were unfolded in the first place by the noble Lord, Lord Walston, and supported by others. He has pointed out that up to now the record of the Government is very shoddy. It may be that no Government in this country can claim to have done any better. But in a matter of this sort one would hope that progress would be gradually achieved. It may be, as has been suggested by the noble Earl, Lord Albemarle, that the Government are nervous of interfering with local authorities; that this is due to some psychological hitch in their minds which has up to now prevented their going forward.
To return once more to the country of the noble Lord, Lord Kilbracken, and myself, so it was in the nineteenth century. It was not viciousness on the part of the people here. I do not suppose that people here were any more vicious then than they are now. But in fact over a million Irish men, women and children were allowed to die at the time of the famines, simply because it was thought that you must not interfere with the sacred laws of supply and demand. Here there was a reluctance to interfere with some unwritten laws—though what those laws were I find it very difficult to understand.
So I must finish where the noble Lord, Lord Walston, finished, and where, in various ways, most of the other speakers have finished. We ought all, as individuals, to do more about this problem than we do. But, above all, I implore the noble Lord, Lord Newton, who I know is full of generous impulses, and who is not a free agent here, not to inform us that this is our fault, and that the Government are immune. No doubt it is true that we can all do more, but so far the Government have not even begun to do their duty. I hope that the noble.

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Lord, Lord Newton, will be able to assure us that they are ready to make a new start.
5.49 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HEALTH (LORD NEWTON): My Lords, I wish to say at once that I have absolute sympathy with the philosophical considerations and practical aims which impelled the noble Lord, Lord Walston, to table his Question. I am in absolute agreement that education, both in the wide sense, and in the strict sense of instruction in schools, is of cardinal importance in promoting among the people of all countries a proper understanding of racial problems and a readiness to live in harmony with each other, whatever their race or colour. I would assure the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, who no doubt will read what I am about to say, that the Government are most anxious that we in this country should meet our responsibility within the Commonwealth and the United Nations for helping forward both educational and all other means which have those ends in view. I will try to tell your Lordships what is being done here at home to educate those who have come from overseas, particularly coloured people, to live happily, and to help our own people to understand them and their problems.
The noble Lord, Lord Walston, was critical, to a certain extent, and disappointed by what is being done, and he put part, at any rate, of the blame on the Government. It may be, my Lords, that in his enthusiasm for his theme—and far be it from me to discourage it—he (like, I think, my noble friend Lord Albemarle and the noble Earl, Lord Longford) has tended, perhaps, slightly to exaggerate the educational rôle of the Government in a country in which academic freedom and independence are enjoyed by the whole teaching profession, from the university professor to the mistress in charge of five-year-olds in the village school. At every level responsibility for curricula is placed upon the head teachers: it does not rest upon the Government. It is the duty of the Government to promote education and to express opinions when necessary about it, but not to lay
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down what subjects should be taught, and still less how any subject is properly taught. For example, the Government cannot, and do not, decree that history shall be taught in the schools; still less do they decree that history can be properly understood only if it is taught, or not taught, according to the principles of Karl Marx.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? By taking Karl Marx the noble Lord has surely taken a rather absurd case, because he knows perfectly well that in no school in this country would Karl Marx be allowed to be taught as a suitable instructor, or prophet of youth. But the noble Lord surely would not say that democracy and Fascism are placed on a level in the teachings of our schools, or would ever be allowed to be.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, some years ago, at Oxford, I had the good fortune to be taught modern political history by my noble tutor, Lord Longford, and a proper understanding of racial problems was not one of the things which he thought it necessary to drive into my thickly resistant skull—but perhaps I was sound on that.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: I took it for granted.
LORD NEWTON: I am very glad to hear that, my Lords. But I cannot help feeling that if the noble Earl had received a directive from the Government of the day to instruct all his pupils in the theory and practice of race relations, he would not have been particularly pleased.
My Lords, what the Government can do, and do do, is stimulate, advise and sometimes seek to persuade. A good example of this is the pamphlet entitled Schools and the Commonwealth, issued by the Ministry of Education in 1961. In his Foreword to it, my noble friend Lord Eccles, the then Minister—and I am delighted to see him in his place—wrote this:
"I felt that the schools would welcome some ideas from the Ministry of Education on the teaching of the history and geography of the Commonwealth. A group of Her Majesty's Inspectors have written this little book making a strong case for more time for Commonwealth studies and suggesting an imaginative and realistic approach to such teaching. I find their ideas stimulating and I very much hope that a great many teachers will do so too."

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Nearly 10,000 copies of the pamphlet were issued in the first year after publication.
First of all, I should like to deal with the education in this country of immigrants from overseas. There have certainly been serious problems to face, and there are others to be faced: problems that extend beyond the scope of the education service acting by itself. I was glad that my noble friend Lady Swanborough reminded the House of the excellent work done by the Commonwealth Immigrants' Advisory Council, set up by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, in advising on matters which affect the welfare of Commonwealth immigrants and their integration into the community. My right honourable friend the Minister of Education has provided the Council with information about what is being done in the field of education, and he will, of course, be ready to consider most carefully any advice which the Council may have to give.
Clearly, the first need of immigrant children and students is the feeling that they are welcome in the schools and other institutions which they attend, and my right honourable friend has no evidence that a welcome has been or is being denied them. Immigrants have, in return for being under the same obligations under the Education Acts as our own people, the same rights under those Acts. Local education authorities and teachers are taking immense trouble in schools in which there are immigrant children to help them with their linguistic and social difficulties: they are doing their very best for them, without any need of stimulation or persuasion on the part of my right honourable friend. The advice of Her Majesty's inspectors is available on their normal visits to schools. Moreover, special arrangements have been made for a group of inspectors to give regular attention to the educational problems, both general and linguistic, implicit in the integration of immigrant children. Conferences for teachers have been organised with the co-operation of local education authorities, and Her Majesty's inspectors have played a prominent part in them.
Where it is appropriate, local education authorities and teachers resort to individual tuition and special classes as additions to normal school methods.
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Teachers of the same nationality as the children are often employed. The aim is to reach as quickly as possible the moment at which immigrant children can take their place alongside their fellows in the life and the work of the schools, and receive the whole of their education in the same classes. To ensure an equitable spread of teachers, my right honourable friend's Ministry has for some years regulated distribution by means of an annual quota for each education authority. Individual quotas have already been raised in a number of instances, when authorities have asked for more teachers to cope with immigrant children. My right honourable friend is always ready to consider applications for help in such situations. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Walston, will feel that what I have said goes some way towards dealing with some of the points which he made on that particular subject.
My Lords, in the City of Nottingham some 3 per cent., or 1,200, of the school population, are immigrants, mainly West Indians, Indians and Pakistanis. One secondary school has a 12½ per cent. proportion of immigrants—the highest—and the corresponding primary school a proportion of nearly 30 per cent. Surveys have been made of the children's capacities in English, and appropriate measures have been taken. The schools in Nottingham, particularly the primary schools, have been extremely successful in their pursuit of integration. In Southall, there are some 600 immigrant children, mostly Indians. Integration is proceeding steadily, by means of reception classes, introductory instruction and the employment of Indian teachers. The schools organise social activities for both children and adults, and they are helped by the Indian High Commission and the Indian Workers' Association.
In Bedford nearly 17 per cent., or 1,400, of the school population are immigrants, mostly Italians, Pakistanis and West Indians. Recently in one primary school immigrants numbered nearly 40 per cent. Special classes in English have been established and work is being done on other educational problems which have been created by the aptitude of many of the children.
There is plenty of evidence that local education authorities and the teachers in their schools are competing magnificently

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with the very real difficulties with which they have been confronted through no fault of their own. Her Majesty's inspectors speak in glowing terms of the devotion and enthusiasm which teachers are displaying in their response to the challenge. But there is no complacency and no room for it. There are still, as I have said, problems to be met, especially in places where immigrants are contributing a very large proportion both of the population as a whole and of particular schools. It is clear, and I agree with my noble friend Lady Swanborough, that exceptional strains could appear at the point at which a particular school has to absorb more than a certain proportion of immigrants; it could begin to change its nature and begin to turn into a school for immigrants. At this point segregation could come about de facto through the spontaneous action of parents. The Government believe that segregation would be wrong and that means should be found to prevent its occurrence. Her Majesty's inspectors are watching the situation most carefully, and if advice may be helpful it will certainly be given.
For young immigrants over school age who wish to take, and are capable of taking, courses in technical, commercial and other subjects of further education, there are available many facilities which they have every right to use. Many of the larger colleges have for many years been welcoming overseas students who have come here to learn and then returned to their own countries. Guidance on welfare has for long been offered to college authorities by my right honourable friend's Department and it has been brought up to date in the light of experience in a Circular issued in January of this year. Much of it is relevant to the welfare of students from abroad who plan to settle in this country.
As regards other immigrants over school age it is no use pretending that where there is need for education, there are any simple formulae for success. It is an obvious hypothesis, and confirmed by experience, that the younger the immigrant, the easier to help him or her, since even children at school, whether British or foreign, may begin to acquire the suspicions and prejudices of their elders. However, in a number of areas successful steps have been taken to pro-
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vide classes in English for young people and adults, often as part of wider social work among immigrants by official and voluntary bodies, and I should like your Lordships to realise that in clubs and organisations for young people immigrants may be assured of a warm welcome by the authorities responsible for them. The same is true of the institutions for further education, but unfortunately it is by no means always easy to persuade adult immigrants to take advantage of the educational opportunities open to them. One of the places in which progress has been particularly encouraging is Nottingham, where a West Indian prominent in public life has been appointed organiser for education work among coloured immigrants.
When I began to consider the implicacations of the Question placed by Lord Walston on the Order Paper it occurred to me to wonder what is happening in the countries from which they come to promote in prospective immigrants to Great Britain a proper understanding of racial problems and to familiarise them with conditions over here. I asked for information to be sought, although elaborate inquiries were not possible in the time available. The British Council, the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Colonial Office have all produced, for the benefit of prospective students and other immigrants, material on such matters as the cost of living in this country, employment prospects, basic laws and procedures, and so on, and this material is widely distributed overseas. Jamaica produces its own excellent supplementary information. The B.B.C. has published an admirable booklet entitled Going to Britain?, based on broadcasts by its Caribbean Service and containing a Foreword by Sir Grantley Adams.
I turn now to the education of our own children. The Government certainly believe that children should learn in the schools to appreciate the problems of people of other races and to be tolerant both in behaviour and in thought. There is no doubt that schools and colleges already exercise much influence in promoting tolerance and discouraging prejudice; and, in fact, prejudice and intolerance are virtually non-existent in our schools. Nevertheless, it is all-important that

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children should acquire early in life the attitude of mind which permits the control of emotional reactions by reason and which will enable them to resist contrary influences when they go out into the world. Cultivation of this attitude of mind may indeed be said to be one of the purposes of the entire process of education, and it is of course conditioned, as so many of your Lordships have said, by parental influences in the home. I am convinced that one should place one's hopes on the steady cultivation by the schools of the right attitude of mind rather than on the conscious attempt to teach racial tolerance either as a "subject" in itself or as an awkward insertion into other subjects such as history, geography or modern languages. I am fortified in that belief by what has been said this afternoon by the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Southwell and the noble Earl Lord Lucan.
Travel on the Continent and other direct contacts between our own school children and young people and those of European countries take place on a large scale. Regrettably but inevitably, distance, time and cost make similar contacts with the Commonwealth extremely difficult. Nevertheless an increasing number of boys and girls aged 17 and 18 are going abroad to developing countries for eight to twelve months at a time under schemes such as Voluntary Service Overseas, to which the noble Lord, Lord Walston, referred.
Many schools are studying Commonwealth and United Nations affairs and have found valuable the pamphlet Schools and the Commonwealth which I mentioned earlier. One of the best sources of help for the schools is the Commonwealth Institute. In its impressive new premises in Holland Park it exhibits illustrations of the scenery, natural resources and day-to-day activities of all the countries of the Commonwealth, provides teaching aids, and arranges lectures and study conferences for schools out of reach of London. Excellent work is also done by the Council for Education in World Citizenship, which receives an annual grant from the Ministry of Education for the provision of lectures and other material for use in schools and elsewhere, especially for older children. Much attention to the treatment of international affairs is given in the teacher training
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colleges, and the Ministry, through Her Majesty's inspectors, has for a number of years held courses in Commonwealth affairs, for serving teachers. The assistance of inspectors, too, is often available to help education authorities and other local agencies who wish to arrange similar courses.
Lord Walston referred to the Royal Commonwealth Society's unsuccessful request to my right honourable friend last autumn for a grant to help run a series of courses on which teachers from this country and holders of Commonwealth teacher training bursaries could work together. My right honourable friend told the Society that, although he welcomed the idea of such courses, a grant could not be made. I have to tell the House that my right honourable friend does not feel able to alter that decision. This Easter Her Majesty's inspectors will be running, for the benefit of English and Nigerian teachers, a course somewhat similar to those planned by the Society and there may be projects on the same lines in future years. It would seem that many of the topics intended to be dealt with in the courses proposed by the Society are covered in the courses of teacher training already being provided in this country for Commonwealth bursars. Some 400 bursars a year are placed by the Ministry in training colleges and other institutions under the appropriate scheme, and my right honourable friend provides over £800 a year for each bursar to help towards the costs.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, before the noble Lord goes too far into this matter—if he will allow me to interrupt—he has stated that the course proposed by the Ministry of Education for Nigerian teachers is similar to the one put forward by the Royal Commonwealth Society. May I ask him to elaborate a little on that and specifically to say whether the course is residential, what proportion of overseas teachers there will be to English teachers, and what the cost, if any, will be to the teachers themselves by way of travelling, residential or other expenses?
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I am afraid that I do not have the answers to those detailed questions either in my head or in my pocket, but I will do my best to let the noble Lord know.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, as the noble Lord has stated categorically that these are similar courses, I very much

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hope that he and his right honourable friend the Minister of Education will satisfy themselves that they are similar courses, because the information I have is that they are entirely different and bear no relation to each other whatsoever.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, that is certainly not my information but, in view of what the noble Lord has said, I will look further into it.
To continue, if I may, with the explanation I was offering to your Lordships of why my right honourable friend refused the request of the Royal Commonwealth Society, the normal arrangements of the Ministry for financing teachers' courses cover only those arranged by the Inspectorate and not those arranged in very large numbers by other bodies. That is why my right honourable friend regrets that the circumstances do not justify exceptional treatment for the Royal Commonwealth Society's proposal.
I have left to the last what I think is the most difficult question of all—the existence of prejudice, and sometimes of intolerance, among our own adult population. Your Lordships will be glad to know that the placing of coloured school-leavers in employment has not presented any major problem. Generally it is easier to place those who have been educated here than those young immigrants who have arrived with perhaps a poor standard of education and language difficulties. In some areas employers occasionally show prejudice; and coloured school-leavers may find it hard to obtain work and tend to get less good jobs than others with the same qualifications. This occurs more in the case of shops and offices than in that of industry. It often happens that once the initial reluctance is overcome, and the young coloured worker is taken on, tolerance replaces prejudice, and he is accepted by his employer and workmates just like any other young person. Youth employment officers, of course, treat all applicants equally when advising them on the choice of a career, and distinguish between them only on the basis of their aptitudes and educational attainments. These officers and local youth employment committees, on which both sides of industry are represented, can be relied on to make every effort to break down prejudice where it exists.
760
I believe that in this matter of prejudice we are all either enlightened or very unenlightened. That may appear a blinding glimpse of the obvious, but what I mean is that I suspect that there is a sharp line between the two attitudes of mind and probably no intermediate degrees. The noble Lord, Lord Walston, and the noble Earl, Lord Longford, referred to the debate in your Lordships' House last May on the Second Reading of Lord Walston's Racial Discrimination Bill, and the noble Earl quoted the sentence in which my noble friend Lord Kilmuir said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 240, col. 519]:
"Only patient education of public opinion by example and expressions of view by responsible individuals and bodies can achieve lasting results."
In fairness to my noble friend, who is not here at the moment, I would say that he pointed out in the sentence immediately before the one which I have just quoted, and which the noble Earl, Lord Longford, quoted:
"There is, unfortunately, no short-cut answer."
He then went on to say what I quoted about the "patient education of public opinion." When replying to the debate a few minutes later the noble Lord, Lord Walston, expressed his agreement with what my noble friend Lord Kilmuir had said. I would respectfully agree, too.
I am also convinced that immigrants themselves can do, and are doing, a great deal to break down the prejudice against them. I number myself among the enlightened, but in order to explain what I have just said I should like to end on a personal note, and I hope that my noble friend Lady Swanborough will approve.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I do not want to spoil the noble Lord's peroration, but before he comes to that, may I just correct him? When he quoted my noble friend Lord Walston as taking the same point of view as the noble Earl, Lord Kilmuir, I remember that my noble friend said this:
"Surely our example, showing where we stand in this matter of proved discrimination, can assist the education which we all agree is the only long-term, fundamental way of solving this problem."
The fundamental solution lies in education.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, when I was referring to what the noble Lord, Lord Walston, said in replying to the debate, I was referring to these words in column 521:
"Obviously, this is a matter which, in the long run, can be solved only by education; but the noble and learned Viscount—"
meaning Lord Kilmuir—
"was quite right when he said 'education by example'."
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, that is why I hope that the Government will give the example on which this educational process can be based and not leave it purely to private individuals and voluntary enterprise.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, it seems to me that the noble Lord is trying to make his points all over again and I doubt whether even he, as the initiator of the debate, is entitled to do so in this House.
A few years ago, a member of my family had a series of operations after a severe head injury. Some of the nurses who looked after him in hospital were coloured, and he could not speak too highly of their gentleness when he was in great pain and they did to him what they had to do to him. Where prejudice exists, that is the sort of thing that puts paid to it.
Because I have no car of my own in London, I am a good customer of Dr. Beeching. I travel regularly by tube to and from the Elephant and Castle, where my Ministry is, and I have observed the steadily increasing proportion of coloured employees: station staff, ticket collectors, guards and even train drivers. They are often noticeably polite and helpful; I have even enjoyed the novel experience of being thanked for handing in my ticket at the top of the escalator. I do not recall ever being thanked for buying a ticket on the Underground, but then I do not think I have ever bought one from a coloured person. My Lords, immigrants to this country can be their own worst enemies; they can be, and often are, their own best friends.

FACTORY LANE, WARRINGTON (LEVEL CROSSING) BILL [H.L.]
Committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.
FELIXSTOWE DOCK AND RAILWAY BILL [H.L.]
Committed to a Select Committee.
BP REFINERY (KWINANA) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.