Lords Sitting of 6 February 1967

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

EXPORT CREDIT GUARANTEES
2.36 p.m.
LORD ARCHIBALD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have considered in respect of short term, medium term and long term export credits respectively the relationship between such credits covered by export credit guarantees and the balance of payments; whether the wide use of such guaranteed credits has resulted in an increase of exports; and what is the effect on the balance of payments of instalment repayments of these credits.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, BOARD OF TRADE (LORD WALSTON): My Lords, the answer to the first part of the question is, Yes. Similarly the answer to the second part is, Yes. With regard to the third part, every time an instalment repayment is received, our balance of payments benefits both from the capital repayment and from the interest due.
LORD ARCHIBALD: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his Answer, but may I say that I find it singularly uninformative? I had hoped that it would be possible for him, if I may use the term, to quantify the answer and to give us some information as to the extent to which the use of export credit guarantees has increased exports. Perhaps I phrased my Question clumsily, and if so I apologise and will return to it on another occasion.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, I am sorry that I have not been able to satisfy my noble friend more fully on his Ques-
1142
tion. I certainly would not accuse him of phrasing it clumsily. I am afraid I must tell him that it is impossible—if the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, will allow me to repeat that particular word—to"quantify"the benefits which come from the export credit guarantees, because it is impossible, of course, to know which exports could have taken place without them. But, in the main, I think we can say that the bulk of the exports covered by E.C.G.D. have taken place because E.C.G.D. is there, and, that being so, it means that a very large part of our exports have benefited from this scheme. But it would be very misleading if I attempted to give that proportion.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, can my noble friend tell us what is the result of the consideration which the Government say they have given to the first part of the Question?
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, I am afraid that I shall once more have to look at the first part of the Question. I think I can say that the result is precisely what I said in my answer to the first supplementary question; that we are satisfied that a very large part of the exports are now covered by E.C.G.D. and therefore that a large proportion of them—though I cannot give the exact figures—has taken place as a result of E.C.G.D. The short answer (and I always attempt to give short and precise answers) to it is, Yes; which is why I gave that as my answer in the first place to my noble friend.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I presume that exports, whether unrequited or paid for, figure at their paid-for value in the export statistics. At what stage in our balance-of-payments figures is the adjustment made for those exports which are not paid for except over a long period of time?
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, putting this in a very simple form—possibly too simple for those who are trained accountants or knowledgeable about such matters—may I say that when an export is made under E.C.G.D. the total value of the export is put down on the credit side; but the amount still outstanding, shall we say 80 per cent., which is covered by E.C.G.D., is put down on the debit side, and each year as that debit is paid off it is transferred to the credit

1143
side. Therefore, a true picture is presented in our export statistics and our trade statistics.
LORD ARCHIBALD: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether it is not the case that somewhere about December, 1964, the Board of Trade made a statistical inquiry into the effect of E.C.G.D. credit; whether that inquiry was on a voluntary basis; why the inquiry should not have been on the basis of the power of asking for statistics from industry, and whether they have any figures to give from the results of their inquiry?
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, we consider it is far better to enlist the cooperation of industry in these matters and therefore to do it on a voluntary basis, rather than to use any compulsory powers which may exist or to ask for any further compulsory powers. I am quite sure that the co-operation which we have received from industry, and for which we are very grateful, comes to a large extent from that attitude. So far as the results of that inquiry are concerned, I should have to look them up, and if they can be given to people outside the Board of Trade I shall be very glad to inform the noble Lord of them in writing.
LORD RHODES: My Lords, is it not true to say that unless we had the facilities of E.C.G.D. there would be precious little in the way of capital goods exported to-day?
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Rhodes has far greater experience in these matters than I have and I should certainly agree with what he says.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, if the explanation of the noble Lord of the accountancy of this process is correct, would it not be perfectly easy to give us the position with regard to any particular year at any time?
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, it would be perfectly easy to give the amount of goods covered by E.C.G.D. loans and guarantees at the present time; there is no problem about that. But as I understood my noble friend's Question
1144
I did not think that that was precisely what he was asking for, which was why I did not give it.

ADMINISTRATION OF NAVAL COURTS-MARTIAL
2.42 p.m.
LORD RUSSELL OF LIVERPOOL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, having regard to the fact that the Ministries of all the three Services are now co-ordinated under the Ministry of Defence, they will abolish the Office of the Judge Advocate of the Fleet, centralise the administration of all courts-martial under the Judge Advocate General of the Forces and set up a Department of Naval Legal Services, with a legally qualified staff, in the Ministry of Defence for the Navy.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF PUBLIC BUILDING AND WORKS (LORD WINTERBOTTOM): My Lords, the possibility of rationalising legal services in the Armed Forces has recently been examined in detail. One of the conclusions reached was that there would be no advantage in merging the administration of discipline in the Fleet with the organisation of the Judge Advocate General for the Forces. The Royal Navy is already well served by qualified barristers in the Fleet itself and they have the assistance of other General List officers experienced in disciplinary matters. In appropriate cases, the Admiralty Board might also seek legal guidance from the other learned advisers of Her Majesty's Government. Her Majesty's Government consider that these arrangements are satisfactory and see no need to supplant them by establishing a Department of Naval Legal Services
LORD RUSSELL OF LIVERPOOL: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord for his reply? Obviously, I cannot deal with it by form of question, so I shall have to give notice to bring the matter up on another occasion.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal, I beg to move the Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That Standing Order No. 35 (Arrangement of the Order Paper) be dispensed with on Wednesday next so as to allow the Hartlepool Order 1966 to be taken after the Teachers' Superannuation Bill.—[Lord Shepherd.]
On Question, Motion agreed to.

MR. KOSYGIN'S ADDRESS TO BOTH HOUSES
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, with permission, I should like to make a short Business Statement concerning Mr. Kosygin's address to both Houses on Thursday next. It is intended to adjourn the House during pleasure shortly before 4.30 p.m. in order to permit your Lordships to take your places in the Royal Gallery. It is hoped that Peers will be seated by 4.40 p.m. so as to allow an uninterrupted passage to the platform by Mr. Kosygin and his party shortly before a quarter to five. After a short welcome by the Lord Chancellor and Mr. Speaker, Mr. Kosygin will address both Houses, and finally will leave by going down the Royal Gallery to the Princes Chamber, where the Leader of the House will effect some introductions. The House will resume shortly after Mr. Kosygin's departure.

SOUTHERN RHODESIA (PROHIBITED TRADE AND DEALINGS) ORDER 1966
2.45 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARYOF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS (LORD BESWICK): My Lords, I beg to move that the two Orders standing in my name on the Order Paper be approved. First, I must apologise for a much longer speech than I should like to inflict on your Lordships, but I feel it will be required of me faithfully to explain these lengthy and somewhat involved Orders.
The purpose of these two Orders is to give effect, when read together with the
1146
1965 Petroleum Order, to the Resolution of the Security Council adopted on December 16, 1966. That Resolution imposes a binding obligation on all member States of the United Nations to provide for effective and selective economic sanctions against Rhodesia. We shall honour our obligations. At the same time, it will be noted, our responsibility for sanctions is now shared. Like some of the other Orders made under the Southern Rhodesia Act that have come before this House, these two operate not only as part of the law of the United Kingdom but also in certain respects as part of the law of Southern Rhodesia itself. They do not operate as part of the law of any other of our overseas territories but so far as is necessary, separate and corresponding provision has been made for that.
Article 1 of the principal Order prohibits the import into the United Kingdom of goods specified in Schedule I to the Order that have been exported from Southern Rhodesia since the commencement of the Order. These goods are: asbestos, iron ore, chrome, pig-iron, sugar, tobacco, copper, meat and meat products, and hides, skins and leather. Under paragraph (2) the Article has effect as an enactment relating to customs so that all the provisions of the Customs and Excise Act 1952 concerned with the import of goods are applied. I appreciate that this method of legislating by reference does not normally commend itself to this House, and I must explain why we thought there were good reasons for adopting it in this particular case and that of Article 3 dealing with exports.
As the House knows, we have had in force for over a year now a ban on the import from, and the export to, Rhodesia of virtually all goods, certainly all those covered by the Security Council Resolution. This ban has been imposed under the standing legislation under which all our export and import controls are operated. It is enforced and administered by the Customs and Excise largely through the machinery of the Customs and Excise Act 1952. Articles 1 and 3 of the Order do not, therefore, materially alter the position prior to these Orders having been laid.
But it was thought desirable that we should be able to point to specific legislation prohibiting the import and the

1147
export of the goods mentioned in the Security Council Resolution. On the other hand, we still wanted Customs and Excise, with all their expertise in these matters, to continue as the Department responsible for enforcing the prohibitions. We also wanted them to have at their disposal machinery and administrative and legal procedures to which both they and the importing and exporting trades are accustomed. Since it would not have been a practical proposition to have reenacted, with all the necessary adaptations, all the relevant provisions of the Customs and Excise Act 1952—the Act runs to hundreds of sections and many Schedules—we decided, reluctantly, to draft Articles 1 and 3 in the form which they now take. I hope that the House will agree that in the circumstances this procedure was justifiable.
It may help if I give a few examples of the more important provisions of the Customs and Excise Act which will thus be available for the purposes of these two Articles. Section 44 deals with goods improperly imported; Section 45 deals with penalties for improper importation; Section 56 with offences in relation to the exportation of prohibited goods and the penalties for such offences; Section 301 with the penalties for making untrue declarations and statements; and Section 304 deals with knowingly dealing in prohibited goods. These, I should have thought, were all straightforward administrative procedures, and I mention them simply to show that although this Order is dealing with matters by reference they are not matters about which there is any secrecy.
Article 2 (except for paragraph (5)), operates as part of the law of Southern Rhodesia as well as of the United Kingdom. It prohibits the export from Southern Rhodesia of the goods specified in Schedule 1 to the Order and also prohibits certain ancillary transactions. In particular, paragraphs (2) and (4) regulate contracts concerned with the export of such goods and other acts calculated to promote their export; paragraph (3) regulates dealings in such goods that have been exported in contravention of the Order; and paragraph (5) deals with transmission of funds to, or for the credit of, persons in Southern Rhodesia for the
1148
purposes of a transaction involving the export of goods contrary to the Order.
Paragraph (6) of Article 2, together with two other corresponding provisions elsewhere in this Order, is the subject of the amendment effected by the Second Order. Paragraph (6) as originally enacted followed the form which has been virtually common form in these Orders. It declared, in effect, that contravention of certain provisions constituted an offence if committed by any person in the United Kingdom or in Southern Rhodesia (since the provision operated as part of the law of both those countries) and also if committed anywhere else in the world by persons falling into any of the three categories described in sub-paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) of paragraph (6). No difficulty has arisen over the second and third of the categories described in paragraph (6). But the definition of the first category, that is to say, the category described in sub-paragraph (a), did on reflection seem open to criticism in two respects. First, it did not cover persons who, though United Kingdom citizens or British citizens without citizenship or British protected persons, were not ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom. This could, at least on the technical level, be criticised as a failure to give full effect to the Security Council Resolution, which requires us to cover the activities of all our nationals. Secondly, there was always the possibility of such a person committing in some other country an act which is forbidden both by this Order and by the corresponding law of his own territory and then turning up in this country. In such a case he would not only be immune in practice from prosecution under his own law but he would also be legally immune from prosecution here since he was not ordinarily resident here. To deal with both these points it was therefore decided to remove the limitation inherent in the words "and is ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom" that appear in sub-paragraph (a) of paragraph (6) of Article 2, and also in the corresponding provisions in Articles 4(2) and 6(6). At the same time, it was thought desirable to bring the corresponding provision of Article 1(2) of the Petroleum Order exactly into line. Hence the amending Order.

1149
Articles 1 and 2 of the principal Order have dealt with the export of certain goods from Southern Rhodesia. Articles 3, 4 and 5 deal with trade in the reverse direction; that is to say, with the supply of certain goods to Southern Rhodesia. Article 3 prohibits the export from the United Kingdom to Southern Rhodesia of the goods specified in Schedule 2 to the Order. Article 4 prohibits the supply or delivery of those goods to Southern Rhodesia and also prohibits certain ancillary transactions. Article 5 prohibits the import of those goods into Southern Rhodesia and, again, certain ancillary transactions. The goods in question are: arms, ammunition, aircraft, motor vehicles, and equipment and materials for the manufacture, assembly or maintenance of any of these goods. The question whether equipment and materials are in fact for the manufacture, assembly or maintenance of any of these goods may not be readily apparent in every case, and to meet this difficulty Part II of Schedule 2 lays down certain rules. Broadly speaking, the effect of these rules is that equipment and materials are deemed to be for a prohibited purpose if, and only if, it is shown that the person concerned himself intended that they should be used for that purpose or if it is shown that he had reasonable cause to believe that another person intended that they should be used for that purpose.
I should emphasise again that, though petroleum is not one of the commodities covered by Articles 3, 4 and 5, the supply of petroleum to Southern Rhodesia contrary to the Security Council Resolution is adequately covered by the Southern Rhodesia (Petroleum) Order 1965. Articles 3 and 4 of this Order and Articles 1 and 3 of the Petroleum Order are in fact now virtually identical. Article 6 deals with the manufacture and assembly in Southern Rhodesia of motor vehicles and aircraft. Paragraph (1) directly prohibits the use or operation of undertakings in Southern Rhodesia for this purpose, and paragraphs (2), (3) and (4) strike at certain related or ancillary transactions which might otherwise enable this prohibition to be evaded or disregarded.
Article 7 is the provision which gives effect to that part of the Security Council
1150
Resolution which calls upon States to prevent the carriage of the various prohibited commodities in their ships and aircraft. It will be seen that paragraphs (1) and (3) deal with goods exported from Rhodesia and paragraphs (2) and (4) with goods that are being carried to Rhodesia. It will also be seen that, because of the different nature of these two situations, the offences concerned are framed in somewhat different terms, and the ship-owner or master who is accused of carrying goods to Rhodesia and who is relying upon absence of guilty knowledge has a rather wider defence open to him. Again, I should remind the House that the carriage of petroleum is not covered by this Article, but that Article 2 of the Petroleum Order is the virtual equivalent of paragraphs (2) and (4) of this Article.
Before turning to Article 8, I should emphasise that Articles 4, 5, 6 and 7, like most of Article 2, form part of the law of Southern Rhodesia as well as of the United Kingdom. Article 8 confers certain powers to investigate ships and aircraft that are suspected of being involved in the carriage of goods contrary to Article 7 or to the Southern Rhodesia (Petroleum) Order 1965. In respect of ships, these powers are conferred on authorised officers; that is to say, on naval and military officers, customs officers, consular officers and Board of Trade officials. In respect of aircraft they are conferred on the Board of Trade and officers of Customs and Excise. They are wide-ranging powers, but they are justified. I hope noble Lords will agree that we cannot afford to have British ships and aircraft flouting the Security Council Resolution with impunity. I am sure that in most cases these powers will not need to be used, but, in view of the wide diversity of ships and aircraft that operate under British registration, we cannot rule out the odd case of deliberate contravention, and in any case the mere existence of these powers should be a deterrent to anyone in the shipping trade who might be tempted to evade the sanctions. The fact that we have taken these powers will also help us to persuade other countries to police their own shipping equally effectively. Conversely, it will help us to resist any demand, wherever it may come from, that any other authority should police our shipping. For all these reasons, I hope

1151
that the House will agree that this provision, though drastic, is justified.
On a matter of further detail, I would point out to the House the difference in paragraph (1) of this Article between the powers in respect of a ship outward bound from Africa with a suspected Rhodesian cargo, and the powers in respect of the more urgent case of a ship inward bound with a cargo suspected of being destined for Rhodesia. In the former case there is not the same urgent necessity for interference, and we have therefore not thought it right to take a power to do this.
Article 9 and Schedule 3 confer certain powers on the Treasury, the Board of Trade and the Commissioners of Customs and Excise to obtain evidence and information for the purpose of securing compliance with, or detecting evasion of, this Order, or of the prohibition on the carriage of petroleum that is imposed by the Southern Rhodesia (Petroleum) Order. Again, these powers are admittedly wide-ranging and, in a sense, drastic. But again they are powers that we cannot afford to dispense with, if the prohibitions we have imposed are to be a reality and not mere window-dressing. For the most part, I am sure that the commercial community will scrupulously comply with the law, and it is only fair to the majority that we should have power to deal with the few black sheep.
Article 10 deals with penalties and with proceedings for offences against the Order. I would particularly draw attention to paragraph (5). This provides that proceedings for an offence against the Order shall not be instituted except by, or with the consent of, the Treasury or the Board of Trade or, in England and Wales, the Director of Public Prosecutions, or, in Northern Ireland, the Attorney General for Northern Ireland. This ensures that prosecutions will not be brought lightly or frivolously. Proceedings for offences under the Customs and Excise Act 1952 can only be brought by the Commissioners of Customs and Excise. Article 11 deals with the discharge of the functions conferred by the Order on the Treasury and the Board of Trade. The discharge of the functions of the Commissioners of Customs and Excise is covered by the 1952 Act.
Article 12 contains the usual interpretative provisions. Paragraph (2) makes
1152
it clear that goods passing through Rhodesia merely in transit are not caught by the Order. This is intended to prevent, in particular, any difficulty about the transit through Rhodesia of goods from Zambia, especially Zambian copper. Paragraph (3) makes it clear that goods imported into Rhodesia for the purpose of the three Common Service Organisations are also not caught by the Order. Finally, paragraph (4) safeguards the position of vehicles and aircraft whose entry into Rhodesia, either on an ad hoc journey or as part of a regular scheduled service, is merely incidental to their carrying persons or goods and is not part of the process of importation in the ordinary sense of that word. Article 13 deals with the commencement of the Order and also specifies those provisions which operate as part of the law of Southern Rhodesia as well as of the United Kingdom.
My Lords, I apologise again for the fact that I have gone on at some considerable length, but I assume that noble Lords would wish that this Order is correctly and fully explained, and that we can later, if necessary, read in Hansard what is it all about. The mandatory Resolution, which these two Orders are designed to implement, opened a new phase in this unhappy business. The commodities covered by the Resolution comprise 60 per cent. of Rhodesian total exports in 1965. If the embargoes are successful—and we shall do our utmost to ensure they are successful—Rhodesia's exports will be reduced by up to a further £30 million, with particularly serious effects on the mining and agricultural sectors. I say this in no spirit of vindictiveness, and with no feeling of satisfaction whatsoever. I want the sanctions to be as severe as possible so that the time that they apply shall be as short as possible. Sanctions can be ended only when Rhodesia returns to legal rule and the way is opened up for all Rhodesia's people, of all colours, to play the fullest part of which they are capable, in the political and economic developmnt of their country. It is because I believe that most of us in this House seek that objective that I hope these Orders will be approved. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Southern Rhodesia (Prohibited Trade and Dealings) Order 1966 be approved.—(Lord Beswick.)
LORD COLER A1NE: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord could enlighten us on one point? Could he tell us how many Governments which are members of the United Nations have passed legislation to give effect to the Resolution of the United Nations?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, a number have passed legislation, a number are in the process of passing legislation, and some countries do not require to pass legislation. But all member States must report to the Secretary-General of the United Nations by the 15th of this month on the action which has been taken.
LORD COLERAINE: My Lords, could the noble Lord say how many have passed legislation?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, as I say, all member nations must report to the Secretary-General by the 15th of this month, and until that time, until the Secretary-General reports to the Security Council, it is not possible to give any complete figures.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord a question arising out of that? Could the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor say at the end of the debate how many have at any rate already begun the measures?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I have no doubt that my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor will have a good deal of information to give at the end of the debate. Whether figures of that kind can be collected and are useful at this transitional stage is a matter for discussion.
3.8 p.m.
LORD HARLECH: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, said, the laying of these Orders before Parliament represents a further chapter in the unhappy story of this country's relations with Southern Rhodesia. As he freely admitted, he dealt at some length with the precise scope and purposes of these Orders; and no doubt some Members of your Lordships' House will wish to comment on and question some of the detailed provisions contained in these Orders. However, I wish to confine myself to explaining my general attitude towards these Orders. Certainly they deserve serious discussion, particularly
1154
since, in answering questions last Tuesday, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor indicated that this would be a suitable opportunity on which we might take up various points concerning Her Majesty's Government's action in taking the whole question of Southern Rhodesia to the United Nations in December.
I do not think it is necessary for me to restate the reasons why we on these Benches deplored Her Majesty's Government's action. We did so since we did not believe it was in the long-term interests either of this country or of Southern Rhodesia. We made our views absolutely clear by voice and by vote when we debated the whole matter at some considerable length last December. However, I think it right that I should take a few minutes to explain our disapproval of the Resolution introduced by the United Kingdom in the Security Council, which was urged by the United Kingdom in that Council and which was pressed upon other members of the Security Council by Her Majesty's Government's representatives, and which appears to be the principal reason why we are now asked to assent to these Orders extending the scope of sanctions against Southern Rhodesia; although in the earlier part of his speech the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, rather indicated that the Government were particularly anxious that the Security Council should see that at least we were doing something after having passed this particular Resolution.
I appreciate what the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, said last week, to the effect that the Security Council cannot be legally fettered with regard to what it judges to be a threat to peace. Nevertheless, it still seems to me to be of immense importance that members of the Security Council should exercise the greatest care in the interpretation of the Charter. Above all, the representatives of this country should set the highest standard in seeking to uphold the clear intentions of the provisions of the Charter. I do not believe that they have done so on this occasion. I believe that they have been motivated by a political expediency which can do only harm, both to the United Nations and to the interests of this country in

1155
the long run. Her Majesty's Government may be right in law, although eminent men—and perhaps some of them will speak this afternoon—are prepared to dispute even this; but I am sure it is quite wrong for Britain to take the lead in urging on members of the Security Council such a grotesque interpretation of the Charter.
Last week at Question Time I mentioned that the former Secretary of State in the United States of America, Mr. Dean Acheson, was among those who held this view. He holds the view strongly, and as he has a rather trenchant way of expressing himself I thought I would quote some of his words this afternoon. These were contained in a letter that he wrote to the Washington Post:
"Rhodesia's voting laws and system of popular representation in its Legislature are not contrary to any international obligation. The one-man, one vote deduction from the Fourteenth Amendment"—
of course, he is there talking about the United States Constitution—
"is not recognised in international law, as our friend King Feisal of Saudi Arabia can testify. Indeed, the present system in Rhodesia, broadly speaking, has been in effect and regarded with complacency in Great Britain for nearly half-a-century."
He then goes on to say—
"…this system operates entirely within the boundaries of Rhodesia and affects no-one else. In such a situation, the U.N. Charter is plain. Chapter I, Article 2, Paragraph 7, provides unequivocally that the United Nations shall not intervene in matters which are within the internal jurisdiction of any State. The United Nations evades this simple command by reasoning worthy of the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass. One has to follow it closely. Rhodesia, in doing what the U.N. has no jurisdiction to forbid, annoys African members to the point where they may transgress against the first commandment of the U.N. (Chapter I, Article 4):
'All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State.' "
He then continues:
"Since Rhodesia, by doing what it has always done and with which the United Nations cannot constitutionally interfere, incites less law-abiding members to violate their solemn obligation not to use force or the threat of force in their international relations. Rhodesia becomes a threat to the peace and must be coerced."
1156
That seems to me to be an accurate description of what has happened.
The British Government were anxious to impose mandatory sanctions on trade with Southern Rhodesia, but the Charter does not permit such a form of coercion unless a threat to peace has been established. The Government therefore introduced a Resolution with these words inserted, although they made no attempt to support this assertion with any reasoned arguments. Perhaps, as the noble and learned Lord seemed to imply last week, other representatives on the Security Council could have raised some objection if they disagreed, but when the Government which up to that moment had declared that they had sole responsibility in the matter themselves claim to have discerned a threat to international peace, it is not too surprising if other people are misled. I suggest that the blame does not lie with them but with Her Majesty's Government, who are the authors and the instigators of this particular Resolution. I have given your Lordships some indication of why we disapprove so strongly of the Government's policy of seeking to make the application of sanctions mandatory under the United Nations Charter.
As to these Orders, in so far as we see in them the expression of this policy we find them objectionable. In so far as they are simply an attempt to make sanctions more effective there cannot be the same objection from those of your Lordships who, in painful circumstances, felt that the imposition of sanctions was unavoidable. I believe that at one time such a view was held by the majority
in all parts of this House. Nevertheless, the extension of sanctions which these Orders represent, combined with the severance of all communications with Mr. Smith or others exercising authority in Southern Rhodesia, seems to us to constitute a policy of despair, and indeed a policy which was conceived in a fit of bad temper. The Prime Minister now says that he hopes for the establishment of a moderate Government in Salisbury which might take up matters at the point where they were broken off after the "Tiger" episode. What strikes me as somewhat unrealistic is the piling on of sanctions while refusing to have any contact whatsoever with those in Rhodesia who might influence events in the direction wished for by the Prime Minister.

1157
For my part, therefore, what concerns me about these Orders is that they form part of a policy which is almost certainly doomed to failure.
I now come to the difficult problem of what we, in this Chamber, should do about these two particular Orders. I suppose it might be argued that however much we disapprove of the Government's course of action—and we made this disapproval abundantly clear, I think, during the debate in December—the Security Council has now, wisely, or as we think, unwisely, passed a Resolution which makes it mandatory on the British Government to impose precise and rigorous sanctions. If we were now to vote against the Orders and succeeded in nullifying them we should be preventing the Government from acting in a manner in which they are compelled to act by the clear provisions of the United Nations Charter.
I do not know how much weight noble Lords would wish to attach to this particular argument, but what seems to me to be the most compelling argument against refusing the Government these Orders is that it would be an unprecedented interference by this, a non-elected Chamber, in the executive actions of a Government supported by a large majority in another place. I cannot feel that this would be a proper exercise of our powers.
We may think that the Government are acting rashly and foolishly. Indeed we do think so, and have said so. But, at the end of the day, in a democracy such as ours, the duly elected majority must be allowed to govern and it must also of course accept the consequences and the blame resulting from the pursuit of unwise policies. I would therefore urge my noble friends not to vote against these Orders, in spite of the concern and even the strong hostility some may have regarding them, and in spite of their doubts about the whole present attitude of Her Majesty's Government towards the Rhodesian problem—doubts which I most emphatically share.
3.20 p.m.
LORD WADE: My Lords, I should like at the outset to thank the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, for providing an explanation of the contents of these Orders; he did so very fully and very
1158
clearly. Like the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, I do not propose to deal with the Orders in detail, but I have some general observations I should like to offer. The Special Orders Committee have pointed out that the 1966 Order is founded on precedent of previous Orders, and it would seem to me that the proposals put before us in these Orders are an extension of a policy already approved by Parliament. At the same time, the Special Orders Committee have stated that the 1966 Order raises important questions of policy and principle—namely, the interference with trade between Britain and Rhodesia. That is undoubtedly true. But the Orders are also clearly related to another important question of policy and principle—namely, the reference of this issue to the Security Council. In fact the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, has already stated that the Orders are necessary to give effect to the Resolution of the Security Council. Therefore, I do not think one can very well discuss these Orders without some reference to the Resolution of the Security Council.
I would suggest that there are three questions very much in the minds of many in this House as a background to this debate. The first is this. Is the situation in Rhodesia one which was a proper concern of the United Nations? Secondly, did Her Majesty's Government take the right course in referring the issue to the Security Council?—and the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, has expressed his view on that question. Thirdly, are the sanctions supported by the United Nations likely to succeed? I find no great difficulty in answering the first two questions. I am very much less happy about the third. It would seem to me that the state of affairs in Rhodesia was clearly such that the United Nations could properly take cognisance of it.
Article 34 of the Charter reads:
"The Security Council may investigate any dispute, or any situation which might lead to international friction or give rise to a dispute, in order to determine whether the continuance of the dispute or situation is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security."
That is very wide. Some of your Lordships may think it is too wide. But we are not discussing reform of the Charter we are considering its interpretation, and I have little doubt that there was, and is,

1159
in Rhodesia a situation within the meaning of Article 34. Furthermore, the recent pressure by the extremists in the Smith régime—and this was referred to by Mr. Heath in the House of Commons last week—the pressure to get that régime to move to all-out apartheid in Rhodesia, is bound to increase tension in Central Africa and further afield. Again I say it undoubtedly comes within Article 34.
To turn to Article 35, any member of the United Nations may refer a dispute or a situation to the Security Council. The Article reads:
"Any member of the United Nations may bring any dispute, or any situation of the nature referred to in Article 34, to the attention of the Security Council or of the General Assembly."
And it is for the Security Council to decide what action to take. It is true that Article 39 in Chapter VII is not as wide as Article 34, but it is still pretty wide. Article 39 reads:
"The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall he taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security."
Again, it is for the Security Council to determine what Article 39 covers.
If I may be permitted one last quotation, Article 41 reads:
"The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the members of the United Nations to apply such measures."
Then follows the provision for economic sanctions. Although it is a debatable point, there is little doubt in my mind as to the legality of the Security Council decision on this issue. But the practical question is, of course, whether the British Government took the right course in referring this issue to the Security Council. I am bound to say I find it rather humiliating that Britain, in dealing with this matter which was said to be a domestic concern affecting a comparatively small number of people in a territory for which Britain is responsible, has not been able to deal with it herself.
I think when the history comes to be written of the declaration of U.D.I. and the events that followed, the failure of the British Government to make a careful
1160
and adequate preparation for U.D.I., and the failure to take swift and effective action when U.D.I. was declared, will be recorded as a grave error which has cost this country dearly. I hope I shall be proved wrong, but whether I am right or wrong, that does not help very much to answer this practical question as to what the British Government should have done.
Either Britain could have referred this issue to the Security Council, or some other nation would undoubtedly have done so. If some other country had referred it to the Security Council Britain could have exercised her veto, but I think it is difficult to conceive of anything that would have been more unfortunate or damaging in its effect than the exercise of the veto by Britain at this particular time. It would certainly have spelled the end of the British Commonwealth. Therefore, the British Government really had very little choice, quite apart from the undertaking given to the Commonwealth Prime Ministers. But the real problem, surely, is how to ensure that the other countries do not backslide in spite of this decision of the Security Council. These Orders which the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, has explained are important, but far more important is the extent of the support for mandatory sanctions on the part of other countries, including those that are not members of the United Nations, such as West Germany.
In the debate on December 8 last, the noble Earl, the Lord Privy Seal, in column 1238 used these words:
"Our present sanctions are having a marked effect, but there are breaches in the sanctions wall which must be closed if the sanctions are to satisfy the test of effectiveness, and these breaches must and will soon be closed."
I suspect that the words:
"will soon be closed"
are too optimistic.
I hope it is not going too wide in this debate to ask that in replying the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor may be able to give some indication as to what extent other countries are observing the Resolution, and to what extent there are breaches of the trade embargo, for this is now the responsibility of all member nations. Britain has had to face a great deal of hostile criticism since U.D.I., some of it justified and some of it not. But now, surely, the attention

1161
might be focused upon other nations. If some countries are ignoring or evading the United Nations Resolution, I hope that the limelight will be turned on them. That, in fact, is one of the few merits of taking this to the Security Council.
Unfortunately, as I understand it, the Secretary-General has not much power. He can only gather and circulate reports. But I hope that Her Majesty's Government will do all they can in assisting the Secretary-General in that respect. Meanwhile, I should welcome any information that the noble and learned Lord is able to give as to the effectiveness of sanctions so far. For example, in the case of West Germany, which is not a member of the United Nations, I presume that her action depends upon voluntary decisions of the West German Government. But are the sanctions being applied to existing trade contracts? There seems to be some doubt about that. What is the latest position with regard to the 28 tons of Rhodesian banknotes printed in West Germany? These are clearly unauthorised by the legal Government of Rhodesia.
I apologise for putting these questions to the Lord Chancellor without giving him notice, but if he is able to reply I should be obliged. These matters are all relevant to these Orders. I have always been rather sceptical of boasts such as, "sanctions will soon topple Mr. Smith"; but it is just possible that, in time, if they are carried out with thoroughness, sanctions may create a climate in which it is realised in Rhodesia that U.D.I. was really a mistake. It is in that context, and with that background, that I think these Orders should be considered. If we are to impose sanctions at all, they must be as effective as possible; and because I think that these Orders may help in some small way to make the sanctions a little more effective I think they should be supported.
3.34 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, if I intervene in this discussion to-day it is because I understood from some words that fell from the Lord Chancellor on Tuesday last, and have, in effect I think, been repeated by Lord Beswick to-day, that the re-enactment of the new measures contained in the Orders in Council, which your Lordships are discussing this afternoon, flow from the decision of the Security Council to impose
1162
mandatory sanctions on Rhodesia. I should like to make it clear at the outset that in the few words that I propose to address to your Lordships I propose to deal only with the broad policy underlying the Orders, and not with the details of the Orders themselves.
I cannot regret having asked the Question I did on this subject on Tuesday last, for it at any rate elicited a full reply from the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, giving for the Government the case for taking the action they have. I should like to say how grateful I am to him for making so full a statement; but I must say that, having heard it, as after hearing Lord Beswick's speech today, I found it, for reason, which I shall try to explain, entirely unconvincing.
Like my noble relative Lord Harlech, I do not want to weary your Lordships by traversing once more the arguments that I have already put before this House on earlier occasions; but I continue to hold strongly the view—and there are others far more eminent than I in the law who take the same view—that in spite of what the noble and learned Lord said, Chapter VII of the Charter was never meant to deal with a situation like this. I will try to give your Lordships my reasons for saying that. Chapter VII, I repeat, was meant to deal with aggression and threats of aggression, and the Rhodesian Government, whatever their other shortcomings, have never committed or even contemplated aggression. They want only to stay at peace within their own borders.
I know that the Lord Chancellor will not have this. He buttressed his case on Tuesday last by reference to Article 35 of the Charter. But an examination of cases where previous attempts have actually been made to invoke Chapter VII during the 21 years which have elapsed since the Charter passed into operation—I was going to say "into law", but I do not know whether or not that is the right phrase—will, I believe, lead any impartial person to quite different conclusions.
I have been at some pains to consult the book which has been provided in the Library of this House for the instruction of your Lordships. It is called The Charter of the United Nations, and it is the work of two most eminent Jurists, Professor Leland Goodrich, of Brown University and Mr. Edvard Hambro, the

1163
Registrar of the International Court of Justice, two men whom I am sure the Lord Chancellor himself, and all other legal experts, will accept as high authorities.
What have I found? There have been only four cases of major importance where attempts have been made to evoke Article 39, and they have all, with one exception, been cases of actual aggression. There was the Greek question, which came before the Security Council in 1946. In that case there had been aggression in the fullest sense of the word, for guerrilla bands, with the connivance of the Albanian, Bulgarian and Yugoslav Governments, had actually crossed the Greek border. But no action could be taken because the Soviet Government imposed their veto.
The second case arose from the outbreak of hostilities between Indonesia and the Netherlands in 1947. On this occasion, too, fighting was actually in progress. But doubts were raised whether or not the United Nations had any jurisdiction, in view of the provisions of Article 2(7), to which Lord Harlech has already made reference, which precludes, as your Lordships know, the United Nations from intervening in the internal affairs of member States; and eventually, here again, no action could be taken.
The third case quoted by these authorities arose from the situation in Palestine in 1948. Curiously enough, it had in one sense a close similarity to the last one I have mentioned, for Palestine, at any rate until the termination of the Mandate, was under British jurisdiction. This raised serious doubts whether the United Nations had any right to intervene, and in fact action was not taken under Article 39 for that reason.
Finally, I come to the fourth case. I have left it to the last, for it is the one which seems to have most direct relevance to the present situation. It is the Spanish case in 1946. This arose from the action of a Polish delegate who that year introduced a resolution asking the Security Council to call on all members of the United Nations, under Articles 39 and 41, to sever diplomatic relations with Spain on the grounds, apparently, that the very existence of the Government of General Franco constituted a threat to peace. That is very much the same position as
1164
that taken up by the Afro-Asian Governments, and indeed Her Majesty's Government in this country, with regard to the present Rhodesian Government. What happened to the Polish request in 1946? A sub-committee, to which the Security Council referred this very difficult problem, found that the evidence did not justify a finding that the existence of the Franco régime in Spain constituted
"a threat to the peace, a breach of the peace, or an act of aggression."
They therefore rejected the Polish request. Indeed, they went even further than that. They added a rider that, by Article 39, what they described as "a very sharp weapon" had been entrusted to the Security Council and they said that they must be careful—and here I quote their words—to ensure that:
"This weapon is not blunted nor used in any way which would strain the intentions of the Charter or which would be applicable in all similar cases."
Those were very serious words, and I only wish that the Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor had studied them. For that, I submit, is just what the Government have done in this case. They have blunted Article 39 as a weapon of justice and made it merely a weapon of political expediency.
The Lord Chancellor took the view, if I understood him rightly—and he will correct me if I am wrong—that on such an issue as this international law does not come into the matter. I now quote him:
"It is, of course, true that in its determination of a threat to the peace, and in its decision about what measures are called for, the Council will be largely influenced by political considerations."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 279 (No. 98), col. 887; 31/1/67.]
He continued:
"But this is natural as it is a political organ and not a law court. These powers were conferred on a political organ, as distinct from a court, precisely in order that a discretion should be exercised in the light of political considerations."
I can assure your Lordships that it is only with great diffidence that I make bold to disagree with the opinion of so great a lawyer as the noble and learned Lord. But I believe that there is a fallacy in his argument which completely destroys its validity, and the fallacy is this. He has left out of his consideration perhaps the most important element that

1165
could have brought him to the right conclusion. I was in my earlier days a student of elementary logic, and one of the things I learnt was this: to reach the right conclusion one must start from the right premises. He, I believe, has left out of his thinking the most important premise of all, and that is the wording of the Preamble.
The Preamble—which if I remember rightly, for it is a good long time ago since we were all at San Francisco, was drafted by General Smuts—must, I submit, in this context be regarded as by far the most important part of the Charter. It governs, and is meant to govern, the whole of the rest of the document, for it sets out in clear, unmistakable terms the aims and objects which the new organisation had been set up to achieve; while the rest of the Charter, for all its length and elaboration is, after all, merely the exposition of the machinery which was set up in San Francisco to give effect to the aims and objects of the Preamble. That being so, every organ and action of the United Nations must, I submit, if it is to carry out the intention of its framers, be within the ambit and spirit of the principles enunciated in the Preamble. Perhaps the most important of all these purposes which were enshrined in the Preamble is—I will quote the exact words:
"To bring about, by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace."
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, may I interrupt my noble friend, I hope helpfully? My noble friend is quoting most effectively, not from the Preamble but from Article I of the Charter. His point is even better than he supposed.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I thank the noble Lord very much. That being so, how can it be suggested that any reference to international law is irrelevant to the decisions of the Security Council; that it is a purely political body which has nothing to do with international law? The Security Council, I repeat, like every other organ of the United Nations, can act properly only in accordance with the principles in Article 1 of the Charter. Yet the noble and learned Lord never mentioned at all
1166
in his statement this principle, which is, as I see it, the nub of the whole business. I am quite sure that General Smuts, with whom it was my privilege to work extremely closely throughout the San Francisco Conference, would have been just as shocked as I have been by the whole tone and trend of the noble and learned Lord's argument.
For when one takes into account his own statement of Tuesday last, again in column 887, that a threat to peace
"can arise as much from a situation within a State as from a dispute between States"—
what is the position we reach? It is surely that any member State, simply because it objects to the domestic policy, or even the political colour of another State, can arraign it before the Security Council on the grounds that the very existence of that Government is a temptation to its neighbours to attack it and that it is therefore a threat to peace under Article 39; and that the Security Council, having been apprised of this matter, may come to whatever decision it likes, not on any grounds of justice or equity or international law, but purely on grounds of political expediency: not because the Government in question is in fact threatening the peace of any of its neighbours, nor because it has external ambitions at all, but because its neighbours do not much like its colour or kind.
Is that a position which any of us could seriously defend? What happens to the principle laid down in Chapter I, Article 2, sub-paragraph (7)?—this point was also mentioned by my noble relative Lord Harlech. That Article was regarded at San Francisco as one of the most fundamental in the Charter, without the insertion of which I think it is very doubtful whether the United Kingdom Government, which it must be remembered was composed of all political Parties in this country, would have signed the Charter at all. Does the Lord Chancellor really expect us now to accept the view that the Security Council, at any time it likes, can drive a cart and horses through that provision? Can it by a mere wave of its wand treat that provision as if it did not exist at all? That is surely a very strange doctrine indeed. I recognise that the noble and learned Lord did the very best he could with the material

1167
available to him; but the material was very poor and I thought that even he, with all his brilliant advocacy, made—if he will forgive me for saying so—a very poor case of it.
In order to justify an appeal under Chapter VII, he had surely to prove that Rhodesia was threatening someone, and that he signally failed to do. For Rhodesia, as everyone knows, whatever else may be said of her, does not threaten anyone. As I said earlier, she wants only to live peaceably within her own borders. As a result, he and the Government have lent their authority to a theory destructive, I believe, to all those moral principles for which the United Nations is supposed to stand, and have asked us to embark instead on the dingy and dangerous paths of political expediency.
Of my own Party I will only, in conclusion, say this. No doubt this afternoon they will do what they think right, and not what they think politically expedient, on a matter which raises such grave issues as that which we are discussing this afternoon. I appreciate fully the force of the arguments which were advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, at the end of his speech, regarding the constitutional position of this House. But that is really, after all, an argument against ever opposing a Labour Government in this House for fear that we might win, and I do not think that a very defensible or noble attitude to take up. Moreover, as I have already said, the Orders which we are being asked to pass are both pernicious in themselves and, I believe, most dangerous for the future. They are contrary both to the letter and spirit of the Charter, and also to the lesson which I think we certainly ought to have learned from the Polish precedent (which I have already quoted to your Lordships) and, if I may say so, from the Spanish precedent where both Governments were concerned. I still hope, therefore, that the leaders of the Opposition Parties in this House will show a very much more spirited attitude than they have up to now before this debate comes to an end.
3.53 p.m.
LORD SALTER: My Lords, I am not to have the pleasure, which I had anticipated, of congratulating the absent noble Lord, Lord Bicester, on his maiden speech, so I must turn at once to the
1168
subject before us this afternoon. I am a layman. I speak with no special legal knowledge, but I feel bound to raise some legal questions this afternoon. I assure your Lordships that I do so both with diffidence and with deference, but I feel bound to do so.
When I listened to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor last Tuesday, I could not help feeling that he was arguing as if this were a question to be decided by English law, but he will agree, I am sure, that the law which defines the powers of the United Nations as an institution under its Charter is a matter of international law, and not of English law. International law is in several important respects very different from English law. In the first place, we English have no written Constitution, and therefore the law which English courts have to interpret is law which is created either by specific legislation or by case law. That puts us in a very different position and greatly increases the range and authority of the part played by case law, by comparison with an institution such as the United Nations which is created by a specific law, which has to be interpreted by and in accordance with international law.
I would venture to put this to the noble and learned Lord. We have had evidence from my noble friend Lord Salisbury who was present at San Francisco as one of the two representatives of Great Britain at the drafting of the Charter in 1945. I gather from him that he does not think it was the intention of those who signed that Charter that the institution of the United Nations should have the power of imposing mandatory sanctions in such a case as the one now before us. Also, as my noble friend Lord Harlech has told us, we have the opinion of Mr. Dean Acheson. I should like to emphasise a little the importance of what Mr. Acheson says and his position in saying it.
Not only has he been Secretary of State for America; at San Francisco he was the principal representative of the United States. He was in a position, as, indeed was my noble friend Lord Salisbury, to know what was in the minds of the delegates of the Governments at San Francisco, and what they intended. He makes his own position perfectly clear in the article which has been quoted by my

1169
noble friend Lord Harlech. He thinks, quite definitely, that the provisions of the law under which the United Nations was created do not give it the authority to impose mandatory sanctions in a case such as that now before us.
Of course, in international law—and here I feel sure that the noble and learned Lord will agree with me—the intentions of those who frame and sign the law are relevant to the interpretation of what that law means. They are not in English law. We have had evidence from my noble friend Lord. Salisbury and we know what was in the mind of Mr. Dean Acheson, who was, as I said, the principal representative of the United States at San Francisco, and who, of course, was in a position to know what the other delegates there present—including General Smuts and also Lord Halifax, who was then our principal representative—meant. We have had his quite definite view, speaking, I suggest to your Lordships, with more authority, by virtue of the facts which have been referred to, than any other living person can do.
What follows from that? It surely follows that, if the United Nations do not have authority within the properly interpreted meaning of the international law which created them, then their action in imposing mandatory sanctions was illegal; and I cannot see any escape from that. I present this with great deference and diffidence, only pleading as an excuse that it has been my task for many years to administer matters which have been subject to the limitations of international law. I suggest that what I have just said is true, not in English law but in international law, and that, therefore, on all the evidence before us, there is every reason to believe that this decision imposing mandatory sanctions was beyond the powers of the United Nations as an institution acting, as they were, within a written constitution under which, so far as we can see from the evidence, this was an illegal act.
4.1 p.m.
LORD REAY: My Lords, in one respect I sympathise with what the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, and the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, said. The phrase "threat to peace" in the United Nations Charter has always been open to something unsatisfactorily akin to casuistry in its interpretation. However,
1170
it seems to me that the United Nations Security Council is, as the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said. and as it should be, ultimately a political body, and that it made a ruling that it was entitled to make; and I see no reason to quarrel with the views that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor gave us last week, that there was no illegality committed by the United Kingdom Government in bringing this matter before the Security Council. In addition, if we had not done this it seemed clear then that some other country was likely to do it. We had pledged ourselves to the Commonwealth to do this if those circumstances arose which ultimately did arise; and this Party supported the United Kingdom action at that time, because to none but the Conservative Party did it seem remotely plausible to expect any further advantage from continuing the talks with Mr. Smith unless the pressure against him was increased.
At this juncture I would not seek to quarrel with the ultimate policy of Her Majesty's Government with regard to Rhodesia. It would probably fall within the scope of this debate, but, in the first place, that policy seems clear enough. It seems to me to be that, without prejudice to further and future negotiations with the Smith régime, and without prejudice to the date at which independence on the basis of majority rule would ultimately be given to Rhodesia, Rhodesia must renounce its independence and will receive it back only as a country under majority government, and that sanctions will not be lifted until these demands have been met. Although that policy has, I think, very serious objections, it is not necessary to argue that point now. The question which I think one can ask now—and it seems to me relevant at this stage because these Orders are instruments of Her Majesty's Government's policy at this moment—is this: What progress at all is being made towards achieving Her Majesty's Government's objectives? From all appearances the answer would seem to be, as it has been hitherto, very little indeed.
In another place on January 27, answering a Question put to him about the evasion of sanctions and asking for Her Majesty's Government's estimate of the average flow of refined oil products

1171
at this time into Rhodesia, the Commonwealth Secretary had this to say:
"I prefer to say nothing which might reveal the extent of our knowledge of the régime's complicated and expensive methods of procurement."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 739 (No. 131), col. 389; 27/1/67.]
What we are to make of that Answer, I do not know. Perhaps it means that the Government know nothing; perhaps it means that the Government have some very unsatisfactory news indeed. In any case, what we do know is that, so long as the Smith régime is provided with oil, it cannot be viewed as being under any serious pressure at all. We also know that Her Majesty's Government have proved themselves in the past to be, to say the least, less than competent in the use of the information that it has been in their power to acquire. So I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they ever intend to reveal anything at all of their information on this question; and I should like to remark that a continued reticence on their part only allows a further licence to doubt the efficacy of their policy in regard to Rhodesia.
I would refer to one other matter. There has been one positive indication of the unpromising results in store for Government policy, and that is what has been happening in Rhodesia itself. Not at all unpredictably, there has been a further lurch to the Right. In the Salisbury Parliament on January 27, Mr. Smith said that now that Britain was out of the picture they could get on with the job themselves. He said that reference to the United Nations had slammed and locked the door against further talks. He said:
"I believe that the ideal after which we are striving is a system which acknowledges our different communities"—
and this, without contradiction, has generally been taken to imply, as I am quite sure it does imply, a closer intended move towards an official policy of apartheid in Rhodesia.
One thing that all this makes clear is that, far from there being any sign of a more compliant political attitude in Rhodesia, there has in fact been the reverse. A brief whisper of a more liberal movement seems to have died as soon as it was reported. And yet without this compliance the present expensive policy,
1172
which is likely to become more expensive, will continue; and in any but the very longest terms, if even then, is likely to be as futile in the future as it has been in the past.
I would end by saying that the Government must face up to the fact that they have to make a choice between three choices. They must either continue with their present policy, of which these Orders are a typical instrument, and accept that they will as likely have to do so for years as for months—with all the direct expense of this to us in terms of sanctions, with the sacrifice that it imposes on the growing economies of Rhodesia and Zambia, with the great danger that it has to the possible collapse of the economy of Zambia, and with the dangers of racial rioting in either of the countries, Southern Rhodesia or Zambia, but particularly in Zambia. Or the Government must reinstate their readiness to use force to impose a solution, which might, even if it had to be used (and here, of course, it is quite possible that the threat of it might be sufficient) very easily be less expensive in terms of both life and resources. Or, thirdly, the British Government will have to realise that they must come to the best terms they can with Rhodesia, risk Zambian retaliation on copper and on sterling, risk the break-up of the Commonwealth and drink the bitterest draught of ignominy that any nation can ever have taken such elaborate trouble to prepare for itself.
I sometimes almost think that any one of these courses would be better than the Government's monthly dance of pretence that they know precisely what is happening in their policy towards Rhodesia, precisely where it is going and when it will arrive there.
4.9 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, we were told on December 8 that any vote against the Government was a vote for Mr. Smith. My vote was not for Mr. Smith. Ever since the Socialist Government came to power in 1945 I have been careful to oppose them seriously only on occasions when I felt that their action was unworthy of the ordinary, decent man I know in Britain. That is why I voted against them last time, and that is why I shall vote against them to-day if your Lordships choose to divide.

1173
The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack made a wonderful speech on December 8. If he will allow me, a humble and ignorant person, to say so, the charm and the eloquence of his speeches are so great that it takes me a long time to examine the propositions that he puts forward. But I have given them greater examination, and I think it fair to come back to them and say that his principal points were these: That we were in a difficult position because we had responsibility without power, but that if we managed to impose mandatory sanctions the businessmen in Salisbury would begin to find life quite insupportable and might come around; that one of the difficulties was the completely unreasonable minds of the people in Salisbury; that they were entirely obsessed with one idea, and that one could not reason with them properly as citizens of the world.
What I say about that is that you cannot have responsibility without power; the whole point of responsibility is that you have power. I do not know much about English law, but I know that when a man's mind is so far gone that it does not give him the power to control his actions, he is not treated as a guilty person but as a sick person; it is realised that he has not responsibility because he does not have the power. That is perfectly true. What the Government seem to be trying to do in this matter is to cozen themselves and the world into believing that what took place many years ago under another Government has not, in fact, taken place, and that they have some lurking power which gives them responsibility. To my mind you cannot have responsibility without power.
So far as the businessmen are concerned, I can remember a creature called the "economic man". When I was young we decided that the "economic man "did not really exist. I cannot help thinking that the Socialist Government's "businessman" has taken the place of the "economic man". When the businessman in Salisbury feels the pinch, if he is like every other businessman I have known, then he will draw in his belt and go on to the bitter end. For that reason, I do not echo the hope of the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, that sanctions will bite hard and deep and will create such misery in Southern Rhodesia that the people will quickly come to terms;
1174
because if I know anything about my countrymen, I can assure him that they will not come to terms and that there will be sheer inflicted misery, without result. That will be the effect of what we are being asked to do this afternoon.
My Lords, I do not want to say much more than that. I think an enormous amount of opinion in the country is mounting against the action the Government have taken, and I am quite sure that at any rate one-third of the people in the country are opposed to it. I cannot help thinking that it will fail, and that it will have repercussions in the world which we shall all have reason to regret. It has happened to me in my private life many times in the past that people have done that which I think utterly wrong and against which I might take action. I have come to the conclusion that any action taken will only make things worse than if no action had been taken at all. That is the principal moral argument, as I understand it, against revenge: that whatever you do makes the situation far worse. That seems to me to be very much the point here. Nobody regrets Mr. Smith's U.D.I. more than I do, but once declared I am certain that it would have been very much better for us to have taken more time to consider more carefully what to do, and to have taken less drastic action. We should then have been more likely to have found friends there than we are now. I very much regret it, but I certainly shall vote against this Order if I get the opportunity.
4.15 p.m.
LORD COLERAINE: My Lords, I am not a lawyer and I cannot enter into the illegalities of the action, not so much of the Government as of the Security Council of the United Nations; because it seems to me that if there is any illegality it is in the action of the Security Council. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor—and I subscribe to what the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, said about his powers of persuasion and oratory—said that the decision whether any case constituted a breach of the peace or a threat to peace was for the Security Council alone to decide. Of course, that is true. I think that the noble and learned Lord would agree with me that the Queen in Parliament has the power to enact that everybody who does not vote Socialist in

1175
the next Election shall be executed. Of course, we have the power. We have the power to do anything we like; the Security Council has the power to do anything it likes. But that does not mean that what we do, or what the Security Council may do, is not subject to a somewhat higher test, the test of morality and justice.
My noble friend Lord Salisbury drew your Lordships' attention to Article 1 of the Charter and I think he was justified in saying that Article 1, which defines the principles and purposes of the Charter, governs all the rest of the 110 Articles of the Charter. My noble friend read out Article 1, Section 1. Perhaps I might refresh your Lordships' memories by reading it again:
"To maintain international peace and security and to take effective collective measures…and to bring about by peaceful means and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law"—
and I will repeat—
"in conformity with the principles of justice"—
not expediency—
"and international law the adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace."
My noble friend has already quoted from the authoritative work by Goodrich and Hambro; and if any noble Lord cares to read the comments on the Charter he will see that this phrase,
"in conformity with the principles of justice and international law"
was not slipped into the Charter by accident. This phrase was not, in fact, in the Dumbarton Oaks Agreement as presented at San Francisco. It was inserted at the instance of a number of Governments at San Francisco, including the four sponsoring Powers, for this purpose (and I quote again from Goodrich and Hambro):
"The insertion of these words was intended to provide a safeguard against the settlement of international questions on the basis of political expediency."
I hope the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will not think I am being offensive when I say that they were inserted to provide a safeguard against the kind of interpretation which he gave to Article 39 the other day.
1176
My Lords, let us consider for a moment the case of Rhodesia in the light of that phrase, in the light of justice and international law. So far as justice is concerned, I should have thought that the first thing one would expect if a country or a State (and Rhodesia is a State, whether we like it or not) is arraigned and accused by no matter how big a majority, the first principle of justice would be that she should be heard in her own defence. Rhodesia was not heard in her own defence. She made application; the application was not even answered. What kind of justice is the Security Council dishing out?
Let us look at what has happened. As my noble friend pointed out, Rhodesia has made no threat, adopted no militant attitudes, taken no aggressive action whatsoever. But it is Rhodesia who, according to the principles of justice and international law as interpreted by the Security Council, is conceived to be the aggressor. President Kaunda says that blood must flow before there is a settlement of the Rhodesian question. Who is the aggressor there? Apparently, Rhodesia. President Kaunda's Government sends broadcasts into Rhodesia designed to break up the Government there. Again, according to morality, justice and international law as defined by the Security Council, Mr. Smith is the aggressor. Zambia sends in terrorists to kill cattle and to burn human beings. Again, according to the principles of justice and international law as interpreted by the Security Council, it is not Zambia who is the aggressor; it is Rhodesia.
My Lords, I cannot believe that there is any one of your Lordships who is happy in this situation or easy in his conscience about it. I think that one thing is clear from the debate to-day: that no one, not even the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, hopes for very much from these Orders; that they will topple Mr. Smith, or bring Rhodesia to surrender. What I think is quite clear and quite apparent is that these Orders and the actions which Her Majesty's Government have taken to bring Rhodesia to the United Nations have done very little harm to Mr. Smith, very little harm to the de facto Government of Rhodesia, but have done infinite harm to the United Nations.

1177
Anyone of my age, anyone who can remember pre-war controversy or who was interested before the war in international affairs, must realise that the Covenant of the League, ineffectual as the League was, mischievous as it sometimes was, had a hold on men's hearts and minds that the Charter does not have. One of the reasons why the Charter does not have it is because of the interpretation which has been put on the Charter, not only by Her Majesty's Government but by the other member Governments. They have debased it. My noble friend Lord Harlech said we have stretched international law, and that is very true. It is just as evil to stretch international law for political purposes as to stretch municipal or domestic law; just as evil and very much more dangerous; and no one can say where this folly of the Government and of the Security Council is going to land us and land the world.
There is one more thing that I should like to say, if your Lordships will bear with me. A time like this, when we are taking new measures, even if we know them to be ineffective, is a time to take stock. What is it that we are trying to do, any of us, in this Rhodesian situation? The other day I read through the documents relating to the meeting on H.M.S. "Tiger". I read through debates we have had here and in another place, and it seems to me crystal-clear that in this country, in this Parliament throughout this issue we have been thinking not of the Rhodesian people, or the Rhodesian peoples if you prefer that term; we have been thinking of everything but the Rhodesian peoples. We have been thinking of the Commonwealth; we have been thinking of the United Nations; we have been thinking of world opinion; we have been thinking of opinion in the Labour Party; we have been thinking in the Conservative Party of the public opinion polls when we stand up and say what we believe in. We have never thought for one moment about the Rhodesian peoples, and one thing surely is clear. It is that if we go on—
LORD ALPORT: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt my noble friend, but it would help, at any rate it would help me, to know what he means by "the Rhodesian people".
LORD COLERAINE: My Lords, I have said "Rhodesian peoples"—with an "s". I mean everybody of any colour. I think that is the answer to my noble friend. We have thought of nothing—we have thought of votes, yes, and of electoral rolls, but we have never thought and we have never considered what is best for the peoples. Above all, the thing which has been uppermost in our minds, I think, has been this. These people are in rebellion. Not only are they in rebellion; they are in rebellion against us. They must be squashed. We do not mind other people being in rebellion. We do not mind Nigeria being in rebellion and three or four Prime Ministers being assassinated in one day. We do not mind Ghana. We do not mind what happens in any other African countries because the rebellion there is not against us. We recognise them at once. But this whole tragic year of debate and charge and counter-charge has really been nothing more than an exercise in face-saving—not only saving the Government's face, but saving our own collective face. I have not the quotation, but Burke has often been quoted. He said, speaking of the public attitude towards the colonists in the Revolutionary War, that it stemmed partly from the feeling of insecurity and weakness. I am sure that our attitude towards Rhodesia today stems from that more than from anything else. If we cannot do anything else, by the Lord Almighty, we will teach a people of the population of Portsmouth where to get off!
LORD ALPORT: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, may I say that he referred to a people of the population of Portsmouth. I did not know that the population of Portsmouth was 4,250,000 strong.
LORD COLERAINE: My Lords, if my noble friend will allow me to say so, I was quoting. Many speakers—perhaps the noble Lord himself—have referred to the white population as the same as the population of Portsmouth. We are so determined to knock this population down that we do not give a "tinker's curse" what happens to 4 million blacks.
4.30 p.m.
LORD WEDGWOOD: My Lords, I intervene at this rather late stage in the debate after much has been said, but there are two things that I feel I should

1179
like to say to Her Majesty's Government. The first is this. I am totally opposed to sanctions and have been from the beginning. In general, I do not believe that sanctions are any sound way of conducting negotiations between two countries or of trying to settle a dispute, in particular because they produce conditions in which there are considerable risks in international relations, and in operation they react most unfavourably against that part of the population which is least able to protect itself.
I want to refer to this latter aspect in the first place. We all know that it is those who are in employment who are going to feel the initial effect of sanctions in Rhodesia, and, by and large, that means the African population—the workers in the factories and mines, the office staffs, the tobacco labour force, the self-employed farmers and African cooperatives. Yet these are the people towards whom the alleged benefits of the policy of Her Majesty's Government are supposed to be directed. Your Lordships will also be well aware that there is a large migratory labour force from Malawi which will be seriously affected, if sanctions have the effect which presumably is hoped for by Her Majesty's Government. It is a matter, I think, of some significance that we do not hear much from Dr. Banda in favour of a policy of sanctions. He would appear, wisely, to be more interested in looking to the economic prosperity of his own country than in joining the cold war against neighbouring Rhodesia.
I should like to give just one example of the manner in which sanctions can destroy hopeful and worthwhile development. I know of a small African cooperative, which has been started, advised and encouraged and initially financed by a progressive and able Rhodesian tobacco farmer, whom I knew in the early days. It is a project which received some little publicity in the Press not so long ago. The financial basis of this co-operative is tobacco—of course, one of the principal targets of sanctions. This is just one of the small, useful contributions to Rhodesia's future and the country's real prosperity which can be destroyed. It does not seem to make sense to me that this and other similar ventures should face an undeserved collapse.
1180
In speaking in the last debate on Rhodesia, I made the point that throughout Africa the basic needs of all its inhabitants are often lost sight of in the heat of political controversy. It is a point which is worth repeating. Whatever the considerations which may have been in the minds of Her Majesty's Ministers, I wonder whether they placed such sufficient emphasis on the probable results of their policy of sanctions against the inhabitants of Rhodesia, as well as against those neighbouring States which look to the Rhodesian economy for financial support and employment. In opening this debate, the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, expressed his regrets at sanctions. He hoped that they would be both intense and severe and, at the same time, short. I wonder whether they will be short. It seems, at any rate to me, rather remarkable that the Party which forms Her Majesty's Government to-day (historically), in many quarters, believed to represent the Party of justice and social progress, should now be operating a policy of sanctions which will hurt those it professes to be aiding as much as those of our own race who appear to be the target.
If sanctions are not believed likely to become effective, of course there was never a case for setting them up; but if they are intended to be effective—and we must suppose the application to U.N.O. for mandatory sanctions means exactly that—then in view of Rhodesia's continued and united defiance the results might be as damnable as was suggested by my noble friend (perhaps I may be permitted to call him that), Lord Saltoun, when he said in the Rhodesia debate on December 8:
"In my opinion, there are no effective sanctions that do not involve starvation and, therefore, the starvation of children."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, col. 1382; 8/12/66.]
I, too, have seen something of extreme deprivation among African families, due to drought or just lack of purchasing power, and I place myself firmly beside my noble friend Lord Saltoun in repeating his words to your Lordships. I believe them to be both true and accurate.
There is a certain fatality about the march of events in Central Africa which appears to be ignored. The partial disruption of potentially great industries, such as copper mining, including the

1181
copper mines of Zambia, which are in trouble, the slowing down of the former sound agricultural economy in Rhodesia, the decay of confidence in established channels of trade and commerce, further exaggerated now by the tightening of sanctions, serve no good purpose to the people of Central Africa; and if the purpose of sanctions is to force the acceptance of majority rule ultimately on the ruins of what has been built up since the days of Cecil Rhodes, then I myself can see only a long twilight in this part of Africa and another dark page in the history of man's endeavour.
The second point I wish to make is that the adoption of sanctions inevitably leads to stiffened resistance and a "backs-to-the-wall" attitude. This is perfectly understandable. People are less amenable to reason or successful negotiations. On this one point I am in entire agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Reay. Sanctions have united the country from end to end against Britain—predictable, of course, to those who know the Rhodesians, but perhaps a surprise to those who do not. As sanctions tighten and undoubtedly make life increasingly difficult in Rhodesia, I am convinced that they will not bring the change in Government policy in Salisbury that Her Majesty's Government may wish to see. On the contrary, they are bound to bring an increasing bitterness and hostility which will spread on both sides and involve other countries in an emotional struggle from which no one will benefit.
Do Her Majesty's Government believe that, through United Nations mandatory sanctions, Rhodesia will knuckle under and accept the sort of terms and future prospects for settlement that are on offer to-day? If that is indeed the belief held here, I fear that it shows a continuing lack of discernment which has marked so much of this country's dealings with Rhodesia in recent years. My fears are the same as those shown in many responsible and informed quarters in Britain and other interested countries overseas: that the continued implementation of sanctions will lead, step by logical step, to a confrontation with the whole of Southern Africa. Her Majesty's Government has stated that this will be avoided and that such a situation will not be allowed to develop. The Prime Minister has said so. I believe, as so many others do, that now
1182
that the issue is in the hands of the United Nations the matter will go much further than the Prime Minister expects, and that this country may be faced with most impossible demands for more positive action, which could ultimately lead to hostilities, from a group of nations, some within the Commonwealth and others without it, whose own domestic policies are far from being above reproach.
I listened carefully the other day, as we all did, to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor when he replied to the Question put by the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, on the legality of the reference of Rhodesia to the United Nations, and I must say that I, too, was somewhat appalled at the wide interpretation of the Charter that could be put upon any political dispute taken to the Assembly and the Security Council as a basis for United Nations action. We have heard a great deal to-day from many noble Lords much more qualified to speak on this subject than I am, and I will say no more. But whatever consequences may arise from such an interpretation, it seems obvious to me that it opens the door wide to all sorts of pressures which could place this country in a most invidious position. Rhodesia is not the only target of United Nations criticism in Africa, and we should no longer assume that Rhodesia can he isolated from her neighbours for treatment.
The one other thing which I think I should say is this. I believe that the present policy of the British Government (and it has been mentioned here to-day) against Rhodesia is not acceptable to the people of Britain. As I have some special reasons for knowing, and through public and private discussions across the country, it has become clear to me that opinion in this country, cutting clean across Party, religious or social distinctions, while recently uncertain, is coming out now increasingly firm against sanctions and against any further escalation of the cold war. What I think we should all like to see is a fresh, constructive approach, perhaps conducted initially through intermediaries; and I hope very much that this may happen before any crucial decisions are made in Rhodesia, at the United Nations or, subsequently, here in Britain. There can be no doubt that a settlement is in the interests of both countries. But slam on the sanctions, heat up the irons, and the wounds

1183
inflicted will divide us far beyond any point of reconciliation.
I have said enough in disapproval of the two Orders, and I still hope up to this last moment that the House may divide against them. I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, with great dismay, although I confess that I thoroughly appreciate the issues involved. I feel, however, in this particular case, that maybe noble Lords who sit on the Opposition Front Bench have misinterpreted the feeling in this country, that these sanctions should be opposed, and that in dividing against these Orders your Lordships' House will be exercising its constitutional prerogative in a way which would be interpreted in the country as acting correctly. I believe that these Orders are contrary to the best interests of the people in Great Britain and Rhodesia. They will not achieve their purpose without a level of human misery and degradation which this country should be ashamed to contemplate as coming from a country of humanitarian and civilised traditions; and in their application they may involve us in far greater problems of real danger, to the total detriment of ourselves and a vast population of Central and Southern Africa whose wellbeing depends on orderly and peaceful progress—on trade, not blockade.
4.47 p.m.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, it was on December 8 last year that the noble Lord, Lord Wedgwood, made a deeply impressive maiden speech, and he has followed that to-day with a speech no less impressive. With nearly everything that he said I find myself in agreement. I will say at the end of my speech why I believe he is wrong in his final advice to the House, and perhaps he will keep an open mind until he hears my reasons. In that debate on December 8 I made it clear how totally I opposed the Rhodesian policy of Her Majesty's Government. I considered then, and I consider now, that that policy is morally wrong and disastrous in practice.
I do not, however, want to repeat what I said on December 8, nor the warning that I ventured to give on sanctions on November 15 of the previous year, 1965, when I begged Her Majesty's Government to consider, in imposing sanctions,
1184
whether those sanctions were in the least calculated to bring about the result which they themselves said was their object; namely, to bring about a Government in Rhodesia that would be more acceptable to them. I suggested the probability that sanctions would have precisely the opposite effect. The main reason why I intervene to-day is to speak on the important matter raised by my noble friend Lord Salisbury; that is, the question of the legality of the action taken under the Charter.
In common, I think, with the whole House, I was grateful for the Answer given last Tuesday by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. He apologised for the length of his Answer, which was unusual in answer to an oral Question, but the whole House agreed that he could not possibly have expressed himself more shortly; and I think that perhaps we should be a little unfair to him if we took any section of that Answer as though it had stated at length his final views on the problems with which he was dealing. Let me make it clear where I thought he gave an impression which was very dangerous indeed, and in this I found myself in absolute agreement with what was said by my noble friend Lord Salisbury. It is true, as the noble and learned Lord said, that the Security Council is not a court of law; but that does not mean, of course, that it is not bound by the terms of the Charter or is entitled to make its own law at its unfettered discretion.
I do not think that my noble friend Lord Salter was right in thinking that the noble and learned Lord had overlooked international law. My noble friend Lord Salter pointed out that under international law, in contrast to English law, one looked beyond the mere words of the Statute into preceding negotiations. Of course, the Lord Chancellor did that in his Answer last week. In so far as that is concerned I do not complain, but, as I said, the fact that the Security Council is not a court of law does not mean that it is not bound—and strictly bound—by the terms of the Charter. In fact, it means that it is all the more important that it should pay the greatest respect to the actual terms of the Charter. My noble friend Lord Salisbury, and my noble friend Lord
Coleraine in his moving speech, have both quoted Article I of

1185
the Charter, from which, therefore, I need not again read the vital words; but conformity with the principles of justice and international law is certainly intended to cover the whole Charter.
Can it really be said that the Security Council has observed those words in this case? The closest precedent where anything of the sort has been previously attempted was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Salisbury—the case that arose in April, 1946, when the Polish delegate asked members to sever diplomatic relations with Spain under Articles 39 and 41. In my respectful submission, the sub-committee to which this question was referred by the Security Council gave proper advice and a proper interpretation of Article 39. Of course, they decided in that case that, whatever they thought of the Franco régime, it could not possibly be said to constitute a threat to the peace. The sub-committee advised on that occasion that the Security Council, before they acted under this Article, must be
"affirmatively satisfied that one of the enumerated conditions had actually come into existence"
at the time they came to their decision.
Can it really be said that they came to a considered decision that the de facto régime in Rhodesia constitutes a threat to the peace? Surely it is straining the meaning of words to say that Rhodesia constituted a threat to peace merely because others disliked its government or threatened violence against it.
And what of the principles of justice? Surely before measures are taken against a de facto Government of a country, justice demands that it shall have the right to be heard. This is a requirement of natural justice and has nothing to do with the specific requirements of Article 32, which perhaps is not strictly applicable in this case because it is not a matter of dispute arising under Chapter VI; but under natural justice and the principles of justice, of course, they ought to have been heard. Perhaps I might note in passing that here I am dealing only with Chapter VII, which is alone concerned because it is under that Chapter that action has been, and is being, taken.
Some people outside may be under the impression that the United Kingdom has some sort of dispute with Rhodesia under the Charter. Of course it has not, nor can that be asserted; because, of course,
1186
if the United Kingdom had itself been in dispute it would have been prohibited from voting by paragraph 3 of Article 27 of the Charter, if the Security Council had been dealing with a dispute. It was not. It was dealing, as indeed the noble and learned Lord said, with the words in Article 39 on which it made its decision: that the position in Rhodesia constituted a threat to the peace. In my respectful submission, that shows a contempt for the provisions of the Charter; and, I am afraid that, although it is the latest and worst example of disregard of law by the United Nations, in recent years either the United Nations or one of its lesser bodies, such as UNESCO, has shown an increasing disregard for the law in dealing with such countries as Portugal.
The vigorous letter of Mr. Dean Acheson was quoted by my noble friend Lord Harlech. As I listened to that letter I thought what joy Mr. Dean Acheson would get by reading a leading case in our own law which makes very much the same point. I refer to the case of Beatty v. Gillbanks, which was a rather amusing case. It concerned a West Country town where an intended Salvation Army
procession was threatened by a "Skeleton Army". The Salvation Army planned a procession through the town and violence was threatened against it by this other
army. On that occasion our court of Queen's Bench had no difficulty in finding that the activities of the Salvation Army ought not to be interfered with because the "Skeleton Army" threatened violence against it.
In so far as Mr. Dean Acheson rightly drew attention in his letter to the provisions of Article 2, Paragraph 7, it is fair to say that that paragraph has a proviso at the end excepting action under Chapter VII of the Charter. Therefore, we are driven back to the legality of the action taken under Article 39, and I submit that that action was wrong. No precedent whatsoever can be found for the action of the Security Council in this case. I doubt whether the precedent set is yet understood and appreciated by some of the great Powers who either concurred in or voted for that action. To give an example, I wonder whether it is generally realised in the United States of America that should there be, unfortunately, at some future occasion, racial riots in Los Angeles, there is no reason whatsoever

1187
why that matter should not be brought before the Security Council on the precedent that is now being set. I have no doubt that, should that be done, the United States, which has no inhibitions about trying to protect its own interests in international law, would use the veto: but, of course, that would not prevent the matter from going before the Assembly for further discussion there.
I ventured to tell the House why I agreed with my noble friend Lord Salisbury that this was an improper use of Article 39 of the Charter. I think it sets the most dangerous precedents, and in the long run endangers the United Nations itself. Let me return to Rhodesian policy. Let me remind the House why I believe the policy of Her Majesty's Government to be immoral. The object of Her Majesty's Government, summed up, and fairly summed up, at the end of Lord Beswick's speech, is to inflict quick and great injury on the economy of Rhodesia. My Lords, it is sometimes necessary to do an evil in order that a greater good may flow from it, but I hold it to be absolutely immoral to seek to injure a Government and people when you have no reason to believe that any good will flow from it. That I believe to be the position here. There is no reason whatever to think that if this policy succeeds and enormous injury is done to the economy of Rhodesia, that will bring about a Government in that country which will be more likely to agree with Her Majesty's Government in the purposes they have in mind.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I hope the noble Lord will quote me correctly. I was not saying I wanted to injure the economy of Rhodesia. What I said was that I wanted a situation in which all people of all races could make a contribution to the political and economic development of the country.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I gathered that that was the object after the sanctions had succeeded. If the noble Lord is saying that the whole object of these sanctions is to strengthen the economy of Rhodesia, he is saying something so incredibly absurd that I would not credit any Minister with it. Surely, whatever may be your ultimate object, the immediate object of sanctions is to injure the economy of Rhodesia. If the
1188
noble Lord wishes to intervene again I will willingly allow him.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, what I said—and I do not wish to prolong what the noble Lord is saying—was that certainly I wished to see a return to legal government, but to twist my words to say that to injure the economy was my objective was quite wrong.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I am sure, whatever the noble Lord may think of me, if I said I was quoting him, then that is the last thing I meant to say. I did not take his words down. I was summarising the effect he was hoping for from these sanctions. It is perfectly true that he thinks this will induce a return by some Rhodesian Government to "legality", as he calls it. There is no reason whatever to think these sanctions will have that effect. No reason has ever been given why merely punishing Rhodesia with sanctions is going to bring about the result that the Government desire. We know the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, is a humane and decent man, and if anything I said suggested the contrary, of course, I regret it. What I am talking about is the policy the Government are seeking to enforce. That policy is to ruin the economy of Rhodesia in the hope that that will bring such pressure to bear on the Government there that it will yield to the wishes of Her Majesty's Government. I see no reason of any kind to think that this result will be brought about. That is why I think the policy is fundamentally immoral. That is why I agree so much with what was said by so many speakers this afternoon, in particular Lord Wedgwood in the speech which immediately preceded mine.
My Lords, I asked in the debate in December whether, if this injury is caused to Rhodesia, anybody supposes it will only be Mr. Smith and his supporters that suffer. Does anybody suppose that it will only be Rhodesia that suffers? Does anybody suppose that Zambia will not suffer? I know the Government have long forgotten the fact that the people of this country are going to suffer, nor do I lay particular stress on that, because if this country indulges in a policy which I believe to be as immoral as this one, it will deserve to suffer for it, and it will.
I now come to the final point on which I differ from the advice given by the noble Lord, Lord Wedgwood, and others.

1189
My Lords, I cannot vote against these Orders. I want to give my reasons, and I hope my noble friends will agree that the reason is not funk. The reason is one that at any rate has merit in my own mind. It is quite simply this. I detest the policy of Her Majesty's Government in the matter of Rhodesia, and I desire them to change that policy, as in the end I believe they will have to. I detest that policy entirely, but I want their responsibility for it to be absolutely clear. They regard the Orders which they are seeking to pass through Parliament as vital for the pursuance of their foreign policy. I believe that foreign policy is bad. I want their responsibility to be clear, and I do not believe that you will hasten that day if what they regard as an essential part of their foreign policy which they can carry in another place were to be defeated here. I think that would be used by them as an excuse for the failure which will otherwise become clear to our country and the world.
Noble Lords may think that reason good or bad, but I know that my noble friend Lord Salisbury at least will know I am not actuated in this matter by funk. My reason is that I do not believe it would do any good whatsoever to the cause which I and my noble friend Lord Coleraine and others have in mind; namely, to cause this bad policy to be changed. I believe that policy will be changed the sooner if we make clear what we think of it in this House, in Parliament and in the country, but do not nuke it impossible for the Government to carry out an executive action for which they can carry approval in another place.
5.10 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, we have had an interesting and wide ranging debate. As your Lordships know, there are, of course, many things which have led to the situation in which we now are. It is possible, no doubt, to take the view that we should not have subscribed to the Communiqué at the Commonwealth Prime Minister's Conference and should have let the Conference and, if necessary, the Commonwealth break up instead. It is possible, I suppose, to take the view, though I do not know that I have heard anyone expressing it, that, having agreed at the Conference to take certain action, we should have broken our word
1190
and not gone to the United Nations as we promised. The question today is simply this, is it not? Britain having gone to the Security Council, and having got from the Security Council the Resolution she wished to get, is she to be the only country which then takes no step to put it into effect? That is the only real issue which is before the House.
However, as certain issues have been raised I will do my best to say a few words upon them. First of all, I was asked what other countries have legislated, are in process of legislation, or are going to legislate. I am afraid I am not in a position to answer that question. I believe that some have legislated. Some can deal with the implementation of the Resolution administratively, and some, including Germany, are still considering what legislation is necessary. But at the end of nine days from today all members of the United Nations are under an obligation to make a return to the Secretary-General as to exactly what they have done, and on the 1st of next month the Secretary-General will report to the Security Council what all the countries concerned have done to implement the Resolution.
I was asked about the banknotes case. The position in that case, as I understand it, is that the German Court has ordered the notes to be released to their destination, but that an appeal against that decision has already been launched, and that an order has been made by the Court suspending its original order pending a hearing of the appeal.
On a further question of fact, the noble Lord, Lord Reay, asked what was the present effect of sanctions in Rhodesia, and he complained that there seemed to be a good deal of silence about this on the part of the Government. If there is or appears to be, I think it is simply for this reason. There is no doubt that at one time the Government thought that sanctions would be effective in a shorter space of time than they have been, and once one has been proved to be too optimistic one is naturally hesitant to say very much. But the fact is that so far voluntary sanctions have reduced Rhodesia's exports from an annual figure of £143 million to about £80 million, as a result of which Rhodesia's imports have been cut by about one-third compared with 1965.

1191
There appears to be little doubt that they have been able to sell only about one-third, at the most, of last year's tobacco crop, and that most of it is in warehouses in Salisbury and elsewhere. It is not tobacco which can be disguised. I remember when we decided to go over to Commonwealth preference and started using a great deal of Rhodesian tobacco, most of our tobacco manufacturers had to alter their machines in order to use it. The new season's crop will be starting in March, and I remember I said in December that in the case of a one crop country if they could not sell their second year's crop, apart from where they were going to put it, the effect on them is obvious.
The other crop with which they were doing a lot of good was sugar. Apart from a small sale to Portugal, the sugar position is disastrous. Last year's crop was a record one, but a great deal of it has had to be left in the ground. We have read in the papers of the desire of employers to get rid of employees in the motor assembly plans because there is nothing for them to do. How many weeks the assembly plants will last we do not know. South African statistics show that over 4,250 white Rhodesians emigrated to South Africa in the first nine months of last year. The actual figure is probably much larger, because the 4,250 are those who have registered as permanent immigrants. We must see, therefore.
Most of the arguments advanced were arguments of law about the Charter of the United Nations. I quite agree that this is a matter of international law. I quite agree that Dean Acheson takes a different view from the Security Council, as he is quite entitled to do. He was at San Francisco. But this does not really depend upon somebody's recollection of what was said at San Francisco, because the records are there. I venture to repeat what I said a few days ago. The San Francisco Conference rejected all proposals—because there they are in the records—to restrict the Council's freedom of action by specific provision in the Charter, and expressly decided, as shown in the records, to leave the Security Council to decide what constitutes a threat to peace.
Whether it would be useful for me to say much more about the points raised on
1192
the Charter this afternoon, I do not know. But I would suggest that it is quite useless to seek to argue, as the noble Marquess did, that Article 39 is simply dealing with an act of aggression, because both Article 1 and Article 39 deal with three different things: the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression. Where you find three different things they must contemplate three different things, and not solely an act of aggression. Of course, the first part of Article 1, which is dealing with taking collective measures, says:
"to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches…"
So you get the same three things again.
Then a good deal of reliance was placed on Chapter I, Article 2, paragraph 7 which says:
"Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorise the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any State or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter…"
It was said that Rhodesia is essentially a domestic matter within the domestic jurisdiction of a State. Then the paragraph goes on after a semi-colon:
"but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter VII".
That is why the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, was so right in saying that no reliance can be placed upon that paragraph in relation to the matters under discussion.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble and learned Lord for a moment, I think he is most skilfully evading the whole point which all of us have been making this afternoon. The point we made was that any action which the Security Council made must be
"in conformity with the principle of justice and international law."
The point which the noble and learned Lord has made is that the Conference gave the Security Council a completely free hand to take any decision they liked about a breach of the peace, or a threat to peace, and said nothing about conformity with international law or the principles of justice. In our mind, those two things should govern anything that

1193
the Security Council do. The noble and learned Lord entirely ignored the whole of that.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the parts of Article 1 deal with two different things, peaceful settlement and collective security. It is quite short. In its first part it is dealing with collective security. Then it goes on to deal with peaceful settlement. That is the order in which they appear in Article 1—you have Chapter VII, so to speak, before Chapter VI. The first part is this:
"The purposes of the United Nations are:
1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace,"—
that is the collective security part. Then—
"and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace."
I should have thought that the words relied upon are intended only to apply to the second; but no doubt these things are open to question. Nothing which this
country did in taking this to the Security Council in December has affected this; because if some people, whether Dean Acheson or the noble Marquess, took that view, I cannot think why they did not say so a long time ago now. After all, it was in November, 1965, that the Council determined
"that the situation resulting from the proclamation of independence by the illegal authorities in Southern Rhodesia is extremely grave; that the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland should put an end to it, and that its continuance in time constitutes a threat to international peace and security."
I wonder that those concerned to-day did not say then: "This is all wrong. This is all contrary to international justice".
LORD HARLECH: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble and learned Lord at this point, of course at that time, in1965, the Prime Minister was most clearly on record as saying that he did not feel that it would be right for the British Government to act under Chapter VII of the Charter, and that all action
1194
at that time would be under Chapter VI of the Charter.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, that may be so; but it does not alter the fact that (wrongly, as I understand the noble Marquess to say) as long ago as November, 1965, the Security Council decided that in regard to the situation in Rhodesia
"its continuance in time constitutes a threat to international peace and security".
The Security Council determined then, at the time when the Opposition were supporting what the Government were doing, and again, in April, 1966:
"that the resulting situation"—
which was the Beira matter—
"constitutes a threat to the peace, calls upon the Portugese Government"—
and so on, and on this country. So the threat to international peace and security which is contained in the Resolution of the Security Council of December is in fact the third time that they have so resolved.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I quite appreciate the point of the noble and learned Lord. It is, as I understand it, that under Article 1
"collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace"
need have nothing to do with the settlement
"by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law."
The Security Council may have decided that way, but I cannot accept it that those who framed the Charter excepted
"effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace",
from the conducting of affairs
"in conformity with the principles of justice and international law."
I believe that justice and international law was meant by the framers of the Charter equally to govern the words
"collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace."
The noble and learned Lord does not think so. He thinks they are two separate things, that in "collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace", the United Nations need

1195
have no regard at all for "the principles of justice and international law". I cannot accept that.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I have been a lawyer long enough to know that there is hardly any document the construction of which cannot give rise to differences of opinion. No doubt the noble Marquess is as much entitled to his opinion, as is Dean Acheson, as the United States Government and the British Government, and all the other members of the Security Council are entitled to their opinion. For the reasons I have ventured to give, all I can say is that I agree with the opinion contained in the Security Council Resolution.
The rest is really a matter of history. In my submission, no one ought to object to this Order unless they really objected to what was done at the Prime Minister's Conference, because it really flows from that. Whether the Prime Minister was wrong not to have walked out of the Conference; to have had no final communiqué; the thing breaking up in disorder and bringing about the end of the Commonwealth, is, of course, much a matter of opinion. I quite appreciate that there are those who say and indeed write, that the Commonwealth to-day is a different Commonwealth from what it was; that the Commonwealth used to be a body of countries all of whose members had the same ideas; that we have nothing now in common with these black men; that talk of democracy in countries where there is no democracy is a farce; and that here we are giving them aid, and they turn round and bite the hand that feeds them. They say that when the Prime Minister goes to address the General Assembly they walk out. That it is a farce to go on pretending that there is any value in retaining the Commonwealth and that we ought to let it go.
The Government do not agree with that, and I do not agree with it, for two reasons. First of all, while there is some truth in what is said, it is also the fact that the United Nations is the only place where all the nations of the world can meet together and talk. But it is not often visited by a Prime
Minister. The Commonwealth Conference is unique because you have there Prime Ministers of every country, of every Continent, from
1196
all over the world, of different colours, different social and economic conditions, getting to know one another and talking. I believe that this in itself is of enormous value. They get to know one another as individuals. It will never be the same as it was. It will never again be a Conference where nobody has any idea what anybody says except from reading the final communiqué. Now they go straight off from the table to Twenty-four Hours or Panorama or some programme of that kind.
It is clear that some of them—one must allow for this—are speaking in the knowledge that looking over their shoulder is somebody at home who is quite ready to replace them if they are not thought to be standing up sufficiently for the interests of Africans. It was not pleasant for the Prime Minister to have to sit there in silence and be abused for about a week. But I still believe that, having regard to the value of human communications, the Commonwealth is a body which is worth keeping.
I know a man who is the most reactionary Tory that I have ever met. He is awful! We disagree upon every conceivable subject—and we are great friends. I do not know why this should be. You sometimes meet somebody and I suppose you just take a dislike to him, but, on the whole, the more you get to know people the more you like them. If we were to shut up the Prime Minister in a room for two or three days with Mr. Kosygin, President Johnson, Mao Tse Tung and General de Gaulle, it might be that at the end you would find that Mao Tse Tung and President Johnson had taken like anything to each other. As the House knows, whenever a Prime Minister arrives in London a Member of the Cabinet has to call upon him at once. Naturally, during the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference this has to be divided up. I called upon Archbishop Makarios, the astute Mr. Lee, the Prime Minister of Singapore, and others. These men having got to know one another, in spite of their diverse interests, is of immense value.
The agreement which was made was the only one which could be made unless the Conference was simply to break up in disorder. What did it mean? It meant that we were still not acceding to the general Commonwealth view that the

1197
only way to deal with the matter was by force. We were taking another three months to find out whether we could not come to terms with Mr. Smith. The African Commonwealth was naturally, I think, highly suspicious about these secret talks about talks. We had promised Mr. Smith that they should be regarded as confidential, so that nobody knew what was happening. In fact, Mr. Smith was not really moving at all. Although some critical observations have been made about the time limit, I was not a bit surprised to find that no move at all was
made by Mr. Smith until the last week. It was only the time limit that induced any move at all—only about a week before the expiry of the three months when, for the first time, he said that he was prepared to consider a return to legality.
Unhappily, those negotiations having failed, we had, as we had promised to do, to take the matter to the United Nations, provided that the Commonwealth countries were prepared to play their part, and that the Resolution was one which we could accept and did not involve entanglement in South Africa's economy. Having got the Resolution in its present form, we are faced with the alternatives which the noble Lord, Lord Reay, summarised as being to go on with these sanctions, or to use force, or to give in. What he did not say was which course he was in favour of. I think I am right in saying—and I know he will correct me if I am wrong—that he is in favour of force and he thinks that that is what we ought to have used. I hope I am not doing him an injustice.
LORD REAY: My Lords, I did suggest these courses as being the three alternatives. It seems to me that the Government were presented with those alternatives, and that what they must do is to recognise that if they are to continue with their present policy they may have to continue with it for a very long time. I recognise that this is a very uncomfortable situation indeed, and an extremely difficult choice for the British Government to have to make. It seems to me that if they reinserted the threat of force, that is to say made it clear that in certain circumstances they might have to use force—and I am certain they would tend to think that this should be their policy—then it is very likely that
1198
this could be a less expensive method, in its cost both of resources and of life, than either of the other two alternative methods.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble and learned Lord would give his own impression on whether the Liberal Party thinks the use of force is one for national determination or for the United Nations.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No!
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I gather that the noble Lord, Lord Wade, thought that we ought to have dealt with it ourselves at the beginning. I understood that also to be a reference to force.
LORD WADE: My Lords, I did not refer to force. I was stressing that it would have been better if more preparation had been made when U.D.I. was declared, and that if such preparation had been made these actions should have been carried out speedily. I regretted that that was not the case.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think that Lord Reay's three alternatives are absolutely right. I agree with him that it would be shameful to abandon the four million Africans in Rhodesia. The alternatives, therefore, are either force or sanctions. I am sure your Lordships would not expect me at this hour to start on the whole philosophy of sanctions and whether they are right or wrong. There are those who still believe that the trouble with the League of Nations was that it did not use sanctions, and that it should have employed effective sanctions against Mussolini—and I entirely agree that it means hurting innocent people; sanctions always do hurt people. But it is still a question whether if effective sanctions had been used against Mussolini we should not have avoided the events of 1939. However, I do not propose to say anything more about that to-night.
There was one observation made by the noble Lord, Lord Coleraine, which I really cannot allow to pass, though we all know the sincerity with which he holds his views on this matter. He accused not only the Government, as I understood it, but others as well in saying that they were not thinking for one moment of the Rhodesian people. Well, of course, the whole of the observations, with which so

1199
many of us agreed, made in December by the most reverend Primate were concerned solely with the Rhodesian people—meaning by that "all" the people. I think that very often when the noble Marquess speaks of "the Rhodesians" he has primarily in mind the 65,035—I think that is the figure—who comprise the adult male white settlers.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I cannot allow the noble and learned Lord to get away with that. He will never find that in any of my speeches, and I have always been an advocate of a multi-racial Government. That really is a quite unjustifiable slur upon my attitude.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: There have been contexts in which I thought at the time that he could not have meant anything else. But he says that "Rhodesians" means all of them, and I am very glad to hear it. This is really a moral isue at base, as the most reverend Primate said. It is because we are thinking of all the people of Rhodesia that we want guarantees for Africans in their Constitutions before independence and guarantees for the white settlers after independence.
LORD COLERAINE: My Lords, I know that I must appear to the noble and learned Lord Chancellor as being absolutely "awful", but what I cannot understand is this. If the Government are thinking primarily of the peoples of Rhodesia, and only secondarily of these other matters—the Commonwealth, the state of opinion in the Labour Party, and so on—I cannot understand the declarations which the Prime Minister made to Mr. Smith on board H.M.S. "Tiger", shortly before they parted, when he outlined to Mr. Smith that Her Majesty's Government had other things to think about and more important countries to think about than Rhodesia, and that they were not going to risk breaking up the Commonwealth because of 1 per cent. of the people of the Commonwealth, and so forth. Not one word was said about the future well-being of the Rhodesian people. What I do not understand—and the Lord Chancellor has not made it any clearer to me—is how he can hope that this policy of sanctions, a policy which has not succeeded yet and
1200
which can succeed only at the cost of bringing ruin to Rhodesia, will do anything but harm to the Rhodesian peoples.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Sanctions naturally hurt. That is what they are there for. But we hope that, when they see the entire world is organised against them, they will pull themselves together and return to legality. All they are being asked to do, after all, is to return to legality. That is all. If the papers are right there is already a petition by 4,000 of their leading citizens, headed by Lord Malvern, pressing for talks to start again and for Mr. Smith to start implementing what on the "Tiger" he said he was prepared to implement.
There is nothing to stop them from returning to legality at any time, and it is our hope that when they see that, organised by the United Nations, the whole world is determined to see they do return to legality; when they see that there is no hope of selling not only the remains—indeed, the principal part—of last year's tobacco crop but this year's crop as well; when they see, both as to imports and exports, the effect which the implementation of the United Nations Resolution is having upon them, they will see that the only sensible thing they can do is to return to legality.
I believe that so far two factors have militated against it. First of all, they thought, as Mr. Smith told me, that the illegal Declaration of Independence would be a nine days' wonder, that the United Nations would never do anything, and that sooner or later some other thing would blow up which would divert people's attention and they would leave Rhodesia alone and let them do what they liked. And, after they had realised that that was not so, then they were persuaded that "Smithy" would settle it. So long as talks were going on, I am quite sure that there was no real prospect of a return to legality among the ordinary settlers of Rhodesia, because they all thought that Mr. Smith would settle it. It is only now, in consequence of what has happened in the last two months, that for the first time they are really beginning to think, "Is there any future in our going on in a state of illegality, with a regime that no country in the world has recognised as the legal government? After all, is not the sensible course to

1201
return to legality on the sort of terms which were under discussion on the 'Tiger'?"
However, the only immediate question before your Lordships tonight, as I have pointed out, is this. As Britain has gone to the United Nations and got the Resolution she wanted, and as the Commonwealth countries have played fair in not carrying the Resolution beyond the point
Resolved in the affirmative, and Motion agreed to accordingly.

SOUTHERN RHODESIA (PROHIBITED TRADE AND DEALINGS) ORDER 1967
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I beg to move that this Order be agreed.
Moved, That the Southern Rhodesia (Prohibited Trade and Dealings) Order 1967 be approved.—(Lord Beswick.)

TORBAY ORDER 1966
5.53 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD KENNET): I beg to move that the Torbay
to which we could have agreed, ought Britain now to back out and be the one country which does not seek to implement the Resolution of the United Nations? I would submit not.
5.48 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Motion shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 66; Not-Contents, 13.

CONTENTS

Ailwyn, L.

Fraser of North Cape, L.

Popplewell, L.

Airedale, L.

Gainsborough, E.

Reay, L.

Alport, L.

Gaitskell, Bs.

Rhodes, L.

Amulree, L.

Gardiner, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Royle, L.

Archibald, L.

Granville-West, L.

St. Davids, V.

Arwyn, L.

Hall, V.

Serota, Bs.

Asquith of Yarnbury, Bs.

Henderson, L.

Shackleton, L.

Attlee, E.

Hunt, L.

Shepherd, L.

Beswick, L.

Kennet, L.

Simey, L.

Blyton, L.

Latham, L.

Snow, L.

Bowles, L. [Teller.]

Leatherland, L.

Soper, L.

Brockway, L.

Lincoln, Bp.

Sorensen, L. [Teller.]

Burden, L.

Lindgren, L.

Stow Hill, L.

Campbell of Eskan, L.

Listowel, E.

Strabolgi, L.

Chalfont, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Swanborough, Bs.

Champion, L.

Longford, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Chorley, L.

Maelor, L.

Wade, L.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Mitchison, L.

Walston, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Darwen, L.

Moyle, L.

Williamson, L.

Faringdon, L.

Ogmore, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Francis-Williams, L.

Phillips, Bs.

Wise, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdeen and Temair, M.

Greenway, L.

Salisbury, M.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Saltoun, L.

Bledisloe, V.

McCorquodale of Newton, L.

Somers, L.

Coleraine, L. [Teller.]

Mar, E.

Wedgwood, L. [Teller].

Effingham, E.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Order 1966 be approved. My Lords, we turn now, somewhat belatedly (for which I express my profound regret), to the question of a possible declaration of independence for Torbay. When this Order was debated on December 12 last a number of doubts about it were expressed by various noble Lords, so I said I would withdraw the Motion and discuss it further with my right honourable friend the Minister in the light of what had been said. This I have done. We went very fully into the matter all over again, and the Government's view is still that, notwithstanding the existence of the Royal Commission on Local Government, the new county borough of Torbay ought to be established and that the Order ought to be approved.
I should like to remind the House why my right honourable friend the previous

1203
Minister decided to accept the recommendation of the Local Government Commission that the new county borough should be set up. His reasons were that Torbay is a resort of national importance which has a major contribution to make towards the development of tourism in this country; and that, as a growing urban area unified by the Bay, there is everything to be said for its being planned and developed in future as a single centre by a single administration. The Order creates the conditions in which the three towns can work together and devote the whole of their resources to the greater benefit not only of local residents but also of hundreds of thousands of future visitors.
During the previous debate the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, asked me whether the Government were convinced that this was in the public interest as distinct from the local interest. It is an interesting question. I am not altogether sure about the validity of this distinction when it comes to considering, under an Act of Parliament providing for a nation-wide review of local government, the right form of local government for a particular locality. The public interest in getting the right administration in the right places is inextricably mixed up with the local interest when one place is being considered. Torbay is of importance as a holiday resort to the whole nation, and it is thus clearly both in the general and in the local interest to get the most suitable kind of administration there.
I am sure your Lordships will agree that it is also in the public interest that Governments should honour commitments and should keep faith with people affected by their decisions. As the House knows, the decision to set up a county borough at Torbay was taken in June, 1965, before the Royal Commission was announced. This is a decision to carve a new county borough out of a county; and, like most such Orders, it does not find favour with the county but does find favour in the proposed new borough. It is a commitment to those authorities who welcomed it; and, bearing in mind that the decision had been taken after statutory processes under the Local Government Act 1958, which went on for nearly six years, the Government would indeed be open to criticism if they had
1204
repudiated the commitment just because there was to be a new look at local government structure in general and there was a possibility of changes quite a long way ahead.
There is something else. In October, 1965, the Devon County Council asked whether full operation of the new county borough council could be deferred from April 1, 1967, which was the date given in the decision letter, to April 1, 1968. This was so that the County Council would have more time to make their transitional adjustments. This was discussed with representatives of the Torbay authorities, who were quite unhappy about it and were sure that, for their part, they could be ready for the new county borough to operate from April 1, 1967. But it was put to them that we should meet the wishes of all concerned as far as we possibly could, and that April 1, 1968, would not be much longer to wait. So the date of April 1, 1968, was adopted. There would certainly have been a breach of faith with the Torbay authorities if, after the whole project had been delayed for a year through no fault of their own, the Government had decided not to go ahead with the Order because the date of the expected Report of the Royal Commission was that much the nearer.
I dealt with many of the points raised in the last debate in my closing speech that day, and I do not propose to go over the ground again. I should like to concentrate on a main issue which ran through many of the speeches on that occasion—that is, whether it is right to go on with the Order, in view of the setting up of the Royal Commission on Local Government. I will deal with this under two heads: whether the setting up of the county borough could prejudice the Royal Commission in framing their recommendations; and whether, as the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, put it, the whole thing is mistimed because the new county borough would come into force in the spring of 1968, which is about the time when the Royal Commission are expected to make their report.
Approving the Order could not prejudice the Royal Commission in reaching their conclusions. In considering any possible structure of local government, they have to take into account the existence of 78 county boroughs in England,

1205
of which no fewer than 30 have a population of under 100,000, and will thus be smaller than the new county borough. This was a point overlooked by many noble Lords last time: that 30 of the existing 78 county boroughs in England are smaller than the proposed new county borough in Torbay. Having to take into account 79 county boroughs instead of 78 (or even 80 if this House approves certain Orders which are coming forward) could not conceivably upset the Commission's deliberations.
On timing, I think that there is a good deal of misunderstanding about the relationship between the setting up of the county borough and the report of the Royal Commission. The noble Viscount, Lord Gage, in our last debate referred to the possibility of having two shake-outs, two redeployments, in a matter of three years. The essential point is that, when the Royal Commission report, there will be no immediate effect on the present structure of local government. The Government of the day will have thoroughly to consider the Report and consult on it with local authority associations and the local authorities before they can take a decision. And if the decision is that major changes should be made, more time would be needed for the preparation and enactment of legislation; and, after that, more time for new authorities to he set up and to get ready for the take-over.
In the last debate the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, mentioned the possibility of the Royal Commission's recommendations being implemented in seven, eight or perhaps 10 years. I hesitated to confirm this because the whole situation is so uncertain. I still hesitate to do so because nobody knows what the Royal Commission are going to recommend, and nobody can assess now the likelihood of their recommendations being accepted by the Government of the day. The most one can say is that, even if progress towards a new structure of local government is as swift as one can imagine, it would be quite a long time before it could be introduced and the existing structure superseded.
So there is no question of a new county borough at Torbay just having a short life until the Royal Commission report. If the Royal Commission make recommendations for radical changes, this will
1206
be no more than what many people expect. But the recommendations will not bring about a quick change in the present structure of local government on the ground. In effect what we have to consider is whether a new county borough at Torbay is desirable within the present structure of local government so long as that structure lasts. Granted that, in the view both of the Local Government Commission and of my right honourable friend's decision in 1965, there were considerable advantages in having a county borough at Torbay, it would seem to me wrong to abandon those advantages because there is a possibility, although not a certainty, that the present structure will be replaced in years to come. I think it would be wrong to abandon those advantages even if we assess that there is a possibility that this structure will be changed. A new county borough at Torbay is bound to have a long enough life within the present structure to enable many and valuable benefits to be reaped from the proposed change.
Since the decision was announced in June, 1965, a great deal of detailed preparation has been carried out by the Torbay authorities. For the reasons I have given, the Government could not now abandon the whole project without a plain breach of faith. In any case, the Government have no sufficient cause to alter the view, expressed on the original decision, that within the present structure of local government the grounds for setting up a new county borough at Torbay prevail over those for not doing so. I hope that your Lordships will agree that it would be wrong at this late stage, after no less than seven years of discussions and hearings in the statutorily prescribed manner, to change course on this project. I hope that your Lordships will also agree that this Order should be approved. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Torbay Order 1966 be approved.—(Lord Kennet.)
6.5 p.m.
VISCOUNT AMORY: My Lords, I am surprised and disappointed that the Government have decided, despite the disapprobation with which this Order was received when we debated it on December 12, to bring it forward again a few weeks later. On that occasion your

1207
Lordships will remember that strong feelings were expressed by Members of all three political Parties—and therefore this is not a political issue in that sense—against the introduction of a change of this nature by the creation of a new county borough of a minimal size (even under the present criteria) to take effect shortly before the Royal Commission are expected to report and, in particular, when it is commonly expected that the Royal Commission are likely to propose a new pattern of local government which will involve very different and probably larger units of administration. I do not intend to repeat the arguments against the passing of this Order in the present circumstances, which were, I think, put forward fairly fully by Members of all three Parties when we last debated it.
In suggesting the postponement of this Order, I am not concerned with the merits of the particular proposal, but with the timing proposed. It seems to me that the arguments in favour of a standstill remain as valid as ever they were. I would remind the House that the Special Orders Committee expressed the view that this Order would raise important questions of policy and principle in regard to the timing proposed. It is not, therefore, merely a minor matter of administration. The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, was good enough to write to me on this matter, and he told me that his right honourable friend the Minister considered the creation of one new county borough could not prejudice the Royal Commission in their work. With that I agree. But he went on to say that inevitably—and he repeated it to-day, and factually I have no quarrel with this at all—some years would elapse before any recommendation the Royal Committee might make would be implemented. Therefore, in the meantime, he could see no good reason for not having the new county borough during the period when the present structure of local government would hold the field.
If I may say so with respect, I do not agree with him. It seems to me that it would be a serious mistake to bring about what amounts to quite a major upheaval with the risk of another upheaval within four, five, six or even seven years. This is a major operation for Devon because it involves the transfer away from the
1208
administrative county of almost one-fifth of its present population. Of course, it is not the only upset with which Devon is likely to be faced. I understand that there is another Order laid (which we must not discuss on this occasion) which proposes the transfer of a further 25,000 or 35,000 of the population away from the county to the City of Plymouth. I realise, from what the Minister told me, that the Government feel that they stand committed by the intentions they have declared to the local authorities concerned; and that, therefore, something must be done.
I think it was Lord Melbourne who said, "When people have told me that something must be done, I have generally found they are about to suggest something singularly unwise. "I hope I have quoted him correctly; in any case, the words were to that effect. Therefore, I ask the noble Lord, even now, to consider the adverse reception that this Order received a few weeks ago from all quarters of the House, and I urge the noble Lord to seek permission from his right honourable friend to withdraw the Order and to put all proposals for new county boroughs or major transfers of population in suspense until the future shape of our local government has been decided in the light of the Report of the Royal Commission. If, in fact, the Commission's proposals and the considerations that follow them point to this proposal and others not being in conflict, then of course the Orders can be re-laid; and I respectfully submit that that must be the sensible course to pursue.
6.11 p.m.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I entirely agree with the recollection of the noble Viscount, Lord Amory, that there was a difference of opinion on both sides of the House with regard to this Order when it last appeared. What would have happened had the matter been pressed to a Division is perhaps another story, but agreeing, as I do, that this kind of question does cut largely across Parties, I do not approach it in any Party spirit. I think that these proceedings to-day raise a question of some importance as to the proper functions of Parliament—I am not talking about the powers of Parliament—in relation to the Local Government Act.
As I see it, it was the intention of the Act, and of the Tory Government which

1209
put it forward, that questions of this kind should, in the great majority of cases, be determined by what has proved to be a rather tedious process of local investigation, consultation and, almost always, local conflict. Nobody expected that in the majority of cases the county and the county borough—those ancient protagonists—would agree, and this was intended to be a method of resolving their differences in the interests of efficient local government. That, if I remember rightly, was the test in the Act.
That test and those proceedings have gone on in this case for some six or seven years, as we were told not only here but also in another place, and there is no doubt about the result. Indeed, there was far more criticism here the other day than there seems to have been during the previous stages of the Order. As I understand it, and this comes only from reading the previous proceedings, the Devon County Council was not opposed to this Order, or to the proposals in it, until some time at about the death of their chairman. Their then chairman had appeared on television and said he did not like the Order in many ways—and that is quite fair—but the Order having been made, and at the stage at which it then was, he thought it the business of the local authorities and others concerned to get it going. I cannot but feel that the noble Viscount, Lord Amory, must be of the same opinion. I do not think he would suggest that Parliament ought to be at all quick, at any rate to intervene in a case of this kind, and I do not think he would suggest that this Order raises any question of principle that is not common to a great many of these Orders—unless the question of timing can be elevated into a question of principle. I am glad to see, as I expected, that the noble Viscount agrees with me.
In those circumstances what we do to-day, as I understand it, is not to speak or decide, if we are going to, on the merits of the matter, but solely on the question of whether or not it is right to approve this Order at this moment with the Royal Commission on Local Government sitting and likely to produce some changes—perhaps comprehensive changes, but changes of which we know nothing—at some time in the future. I know that the Royal Commission on Local Government are there. They have
1210
taken over Gwydyr House, where I used to work. They sit there with a very permanent-looking plate on the door. Indeed, they have entertained evidence. We have seen the evidence from one Ministry at least, which has been printed. It seems to me quite impossible to say how long they are likely to take to produce something, and almost equally impossible to say what the something is going to be when it comes. It is in face of that rather vague future that we are asked to do something which, in the view of the responsible Minister, amounts to a breach of faith with the local authorities and with a number of other people in this part of Devonshire.
I feel that there are matters of timing where Parliament is not in a good position to judge and that this is exactly the kind of case where one must pay attention to the opinion of the operative Ministry itself. In so doing one is not yielding in any way in whatever battle there may be between the Executive and the Legislature; one is merely agreeing that a question of this kind is difficult. This, I should have thought, is rather a borderline case. It is a difficult question and one which involves so many considerations—most of them, but not quite all of them, local ones—that it is wrong for Parliament to intervene unless an overwhelming case can be made out. I should have thought that in a matter of this sort it was rarely indeed that an overwhelming case could be made out, because the knowledge and experience is bound to rest so much in those who have to carry this thing on their shoulders year after year (not necessarily in this particular form but in one form or another) in the responsible Ministry. Therefore, I said, and I beg leave to repeat it again, that I feel that this is the kind of matter where one must pay a great deal more than the usual attention to the views of the responsible Minister.
My Lords, I hope that I am not turning into a sort of Lobby slave or lackey of the Government—I do not think that I ever have been one. It is not for that sort of reason, it is for no sort of Party reason, that I feel we ought to approve this Order to-day. If we do not do so we are taking on ourselves a responsibility that we ought not to seek to carry and which we ought not to be asked to carry; and moreover we are being rather unfair

1211
to people, not merely on the naked question of breach of faith but because people have adapted their views and in many cases have perhaps changed their arrangements (I believe there has been a little of this) on the faith of definite statements made recently by the Ministry.
It was in February, 1966, I think, that the then Minister of Housing and Local Government made a statement about what was to be done regarding these Orders in the pipe-line. It was a perfectly clear statement; it covered this case, and this Order ought to proceed if that statement is to be adhered to. It would be rather naughty of us, if I may say so, if, having taken little exception to that statement at the time, we now decided that in a case which turned out to be of considerable importance, but not of significant importance (a good many of these Orders are coming), we were to depart from that principle. If there was a strong objection to it, I think that then was the time for Parliament as a whole to say, "We do not agree with this treatment." There were faint rumblings, if I may put it in that way, but very little more.
To avoid any misunderstanding, may I say that I am not attempting to deal with the number of Orders which may be pending and with the question of how many of them will come forward in one form or another for approval or may be subject to annulment. That does not seem to me to be the real point here. The point here is that a decision, not so much of principle as of governmental machinery and executive action, was made a long time ago, was acted on and was accepted by a great many people, though not necessarily agreed to. Surely it is wrong now to take what I believe is almost the first case that comes up involving it and to say that though we did not object a year or more ago, we do object now. I suggest to your Lordships that the wise thing would be to let this Order be approved. I venture to hope that at the end of the day the noble Viscount will feel able to accept this view of the matter, much as he may differ from the Order itself or from the questions of merit which it undoubtedly raises.
6.21 p.m.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Amory advanced as his rea-
1212
son for not proceeding with this Order tonight the appointment of the Royal Commission on Local Government. That was the only ground upon which the noble Viscount based his argument. I should like to make one or two observations about this, because this reason for not proceeding with the Order was advanced in several quarters in your Lordships' House when this matter was before the House in December last.
Everybody is agreed that it will be some years before the Report of the Royal Commission is available, and that there will be a further time, perhaps a protracted interval, before effect can be given to their recommendations. But whatever proposals the Royal Commission may make for the future reorganisation of local government, I cannot conceive of any proposal which would not bring these three local authorities into the same urban area, whatever its size or powers may be. I cannot conceive of any proposal for these three urban authorities, practically adjoining each other, occupying what is virtually a continuously built-up area between Torquay at one end and Paignton and Brixham at the other, which would not say that they should be administered by the same
urban authority. Whatever the Royal Commission recommend, I am sure that that is one thing they will recommend. This is precisely an area of which it is often said that the existing local authorities are too small and do not possess the necessary resources to provide an adequate service. The local authorities have proposed this amalgamation, which will give a county borough with a population above the statutory limit and above about 30 per cent. of the existing county boroughs.
There is another reason why I hope that this Order will not be delayed until the Report of the Royal Commission is available. For twenty years local government has been conducted in an atmosphere of uncertainty, hesitation and indecision. There have been innumerable investigations of one kind and another into the conduct of local government. There have been two Royal Commissions. One is sitting now. There have been two investigations into London government, one of which was wound up before it had hardly commenced its task. The other produced a report upon which the Government of the day were able to

1213
act, but that is almost the sole effect which all these prolonged investigations produced. There are two departmental committees sitting at the present time, one investigating the question of elected representatives, and the other the question of the recruitment of staff. Out of this mass of investigation, which has gone on ever since the end of the war, nothing has emerged except the London Government Act—with which some noble Lords do not agree—and these Orders which are reaching Parliament now from the Boundary Commission.
Is it surprising, in those circumstances, that those engaged in local government, either as elected representatives or as officials, are suffering from an acute sense of frustration and uncertainty of purpose? I urge your Lordships to-night not to add to that sense of frustration by delaying the operation of this necessary Order for an indefinite and uncertain time—because that is what your Lordships are being asked to do.
I have only one other observation that I desire to make. How should your Lordships' House deal with these Orders which come to us from the Boundary Commission? If an Order has been the subject of prolonged investigations before it was made and presents no feature of exceptional or unusual character, I would submit that your Lordships ought not to reject it merely because it proposes some changes with which some noble Lords may not agree. This Order has been the subject of prolonged investigation: first, a long process of negotiation and investigation by the Boundary Commission; and, then, when the Commissioner's Report went to the Minister, a local inquiry which occupied, I think, ten days. Since then, it has been examined by the Minister and approved by him. So far as I can make out, it presents no exceptional or unusual feature. That being so, I would suggest that your Lordships ought not now to hold back this Order merely on the ground that at some future time an Order might be made upon the recommendations of the Royal Commission which might affect this area in a different way.
I hope that your Lordships will allow this Order to go forward so that this amalgamation may take place. If your Lordships take this course, I am sure that, whatever is proposed by the Boun-
1214
dary Committee later on, it will be much easier to carry out their recommendations for this area if all these three urban districts have been combined into a single authority. I am sure that it will be much easier to absorb this area into the new structure, whatever it may be, if it is
administered by a single urban authority, as it ought to be. I hope your Lordships will have no hesitation in allowing this Order to go forward, as the Minister has expressed the hope that it will.
6.30 p.m.
VISCOUNT LAMBERT: My Lords, at the outset of the few remarks that I propose to make I should like to correct a statement made by the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison. I think he must have gathered a wrong impression which led him to say that the late Chairman of the Devon County Council, Alderman Day, was in favour of the Order, and that it was only the present Chairman, Mr. Whitmarsh, who was against it.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, if I said that, indeed I stand corrected. What I meant to say was that on television, before he died, Alderman Day said that, though he did not like the Order, now that it had reached the stage which it had then reached, he thought that people ought to accept it and to carry it out. That I agree is not quite the same as saying that he liked the Order all the way through. The question to-day is just that: whether, it having reached the stage it has, the Order should be accepted.
VISCOUNT LAMBERT: I did not sec the television programme, but I can assure the noble Lord that Alderman Day was opposed to the Order from the very outset, as is the present Chairman of the County Council.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, said that it is only right for a Government to honour their decision. Well, those are sentiments with which I should entirely agree, except when the circumstances change. I think that many circumstances have changed since the Boundary Commission reported on Torbay. First of all, I gather that Paignton, which was a very necessary town to be included in order to make up the numbers, understood that if they joined with Torbay they would get a reduction of rates of 3s. in the £. That, I gather, is not what will happen. Then, I understand that the

1215
Boundary Commission were under the impression that any loss in rateable value that the Devon County Council might suffer would be made up by the Treasury. The position, as I now understand it, is that Devon has to join with other counties and share in the £30 million that the Treasury are providing to reduce the burden of rates. I feel that, with hindsight, Paignton might have come to a different decision, and the Boundary Commission would never have made this recommendation.
I understood the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, to say in his speech that the Minister confirmed these Orders in February, 1966.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, if I may interrupt, it was in June or July, 1965. What happened in February, 1966, was the announcement of the appointment of the Royal Commission.
VISCOUNT LAMBERT: But, surely, when the Minister announced the setting up of the Royal Commission he said that any Orders in the pipe-line to which he had given his consent would go through. Then the Royal Commission was set up, and they have taken evidence from various Government Departments. Every one of these Government Departments have said that authorities should have a minimum of 200,000 population, whereas the Boundary Commission were going on 100,000 population. I understand that the Ministry of Health said 200,000; the Home Office, so far as children's welfare is concerned, said 250,000; the Ministry of Education said 300,000; and what is most extraordinary, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government said that the minimum population for efficient administration was 500,000; that is, five times the population of Torbay.
When the then Minister, Mr. Crossman, made these announcements, I do not think he realised the great support there was going to be among all the Ministries affected for local authorities of a larger size. My noble friend Lord Ilford said that there had been many Royal Commissions (I am afraid I am not an expert on local authorities) and there had been one sitting on London. But we are discussing Devonshire, which has nothing to do with London. I feel strongly that the interests that affect London might possibly
1216
affect Devonshire in a totally different way.
I am quite convinced that when the Royal Commission report, which will be at about the same time as the County Borough of Torbay becomes operational, they will suggest that Torbay as a county borough should be abolished. The reasons are quite simple. First, the authority will be too small; and secondly, it is badly situated, having the sea on one side. Surely an administrative authority should be surrounded on all sides by the area which it has to administer. Finally, if one lives in Devon, one knows that it is almost impossible to get near Torquay on the roads in the summer months.
Then, my Lords, just think of this county borough trying in the near future to set up their administration. How would they be able to get their staff? The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, said (I do not want to misquote him) that it may well be seven or eight years before the proposals put forward by the Royal Commission will start to be put into effect. Eight years is a long time in a man's life, but it is a very short time in the life of an authority. Therefore, the County Borough of Torbay is being set an almost impossible task. In eight or nine years' time all that will have happened is that we shall have had a constant change over of administration, which does not make for efficiency. We shall have had considerable extra expenditure—I gather that the extra cost to the county, as a whole, will be £80,000 a year. Torbay will be back to square one, and the Devon County Council will have to start all the organisation again.
For these reasons, I do urge the Minister to speak once again to his right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government, Mr. Cross-man. He is a most reasonable person, and if he looks into it, I am sure he will regard it as only right that the Order should not be put into effect until at least the time when the Boundary Commission report.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I entirely agree that my right honourable friend is a most reasonable person, but, unfortunately, he is not the Minister of Housing and Local Government.
VISCOUNT LAMBERT: Surely it does not prevent him from coming to decisions which are in the interest of the people of the county as a whole.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, it does prevent him from coming to decisions about local government boundaries.
6.40 p.m.
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: My Lords, after the admirable speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Lambert, with every point of which I fully agree, I have little to say, but I would begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, for his great kindness and courtesy in taking my place on the last occasion. I should also like to thank all noble Lords who made such admirable speeches last time and, in particular, to express my indebtedness to noble Lords on the Government Benches who spoke so persuasively against the Order.
I think Her Majesty's Government have made a mistake in disregarding the advice given by those noble Lords, especially those on their own Back Benches. The Government really must remember that it is particularly true of noble Lords on the Government Benches that they have made their way by devoted attention to local government. They are great experts on local government, and I feel that their opinions should have had far more weight with Her Majesty's Government than in fact has been given.
Much emphasis has been laid upon the commitment of Her Majesty's Government in this matter. I think we should always remember that in a constitutional country the Government cannot make an absolute commitment. All the Government can do is to undertake to persuade Parliament. To go further than that would definitely impinge upon the constitutional responsibilities of both Houses.
I think enough has been said upon the merits of the Order, and it would not be proper at this hour to argue them at any greater length than has already been done. My position is perfectly plain. I am not opposed to Torbay becoming a county borough—I am opposed to its becoming a county borough now. I can see no injury at all to the three towns, or the other interests which they wish to absorb, by waiting a little until the Royal Commission have reported. I do not see that any sub-
1218
stantial interest in Torbay would be in the least damaged by a much longer delay. To my mind, it will be surprising if the Royal Commission, despite all the evidence to which the noble Viscount, Lord Lambert, has alluded, recommends the continuance of these "mini" boroughs of 100,000 population. If they so decide, what future is there for the counties? In my view, none at all.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Earl for a moment? Surely there is the prospect of an enlarged authority, as Torquay may well become under the Royal Commission's decision?
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: My Lords, that may well be, and I myself hope that there will be an enlarged authority. But if all the conurbations are to be exempt, then I say that counties will become sheerly dependent upon the magnanimity of the central Government, a position that very few people would accept. I think I anticipate Lord Ilford's point. It may be that entirely different directions will be arrived at—a completely new scheme—but that, surely, reinforces the argument for delay, which is all I am pleading for.
For my part, I do not propose to press this matter to a Division. The House has refrained from rejecting an Order on a more important issue. I think it would be foolish to defeat the Government on this matter, even if we had the power to do so, but I end by expressing the strong hope that the authorities of the Torbay boroughs, as they are now, will proceed rather slowly with grandiose and expensive schemes. I understand from the Western Morning News that plans are under discussion for new county borough offices, because the office accommodation of the three boroughs is judged to be insufficient. I very much hope that those plans will not be implemented too rapidly, to the damage of the ratepayers in Torbay and the wastage of public funds.
6.46 p.m.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, once upon a time there was a public forum where, when the great majority decided that such and such a thing should take place, it took place and when the great majority decided that a thing should not take place, it did not. The people thought it was a

1219
magnificent system. The trouble about fairy stories is that when one wakes up to the truth a certain amount of cynicism, and even, perhaps, disgust, creeps in. On December 12 the whole of your Lordships' House, practically without exception, so far as I could see, labelled this Order for what it was. A Motion
in the name of an Independent was moved by a Liberal, supported most ably by three excellent speakers from the Government Benches; and of course from the Opposition we had speeches from my Devon neighbours. The Order was withdrawn: we hoped that it would have been forgotten. But now the executive arrogance is brought back.
I have been trying to make one or two inquiries as to why, and for the life of me I cannot see any particular reason. With regard to the promise of waiting for one year, my information is that there was no question of a promise of waiting a year—the arrangements could not have been made before that time and, in fact, were still being made on and about December 12. If it is a question of promises, in our part of the world we have had promises for the last twenty years that something will be done about an extra by-pass, but nothing has been done about it.
Another excuse which was given was that this would be the last such Order. My information is that Durham County Council is about to have another lump taken out of it. In other words, why pick on Devon? Just over a year ago we had the best parts of East Devon shoved into Exeter; now we are having Torbay whipped away, and within the next fortnight the best parts of Plympton will be thrown into Plymouth. All that is against the wishes of many people. I know that we have to watch the question of local government. We are all under pressure from reformers, from conservationists, from mere empire builders, but to my mind this particular Order is completely without rhyme or reason. What are the Government doing about it? First of all, we have a county borough created, with probably a very limited life, which will cost an extra £84,000 a year. It is a borough which, as the noble Lord has already pointed out, will probably not last very long, as the future equivalent status will be more in the neighbourhood of four hundred
1220
thousand. It is unviable in so many ways. I think all these details have been gone into before.
If the Government would only read again Lord Leatherland's speech of December 12 they would get the best answer to all these problems. What is it going to do to the County of Devon? The County is going to be left an impoverished hinterland, and it is going to cost about £500,000 a year extra from the General Fund to keep it going. The third thing it is going to do is make a large, added increase of civil servants, with pension rights and all the rest of it. Perhaps that is in line with the general trend nowadays, as it seems to be the only spectacular national growth product we have had in the last two years. Poor Torbay! They had to pay their contribution towards the large County Hall that we have in Exeter. Now they will have to pay for a new one of their own. With the old habit of "keeping up with the Joneses" they will be stung for some considerable sum there. Again, when the empire builders were getting this under way, as the noble Viscount, Lord Lambert, has told your Lordships, they went around talking about a 3s. reduction in the rates. I may say that since that terminological inexactitude was nailed there has been no further test of public opinion.
My Lords, I have a personal interest or prejudice to declare in this matter. I happen to live in the Newton Abbot Rural District Council area, which has had a chunk lopped off it for this new authority. What is even worse, my property covers a portion of the main road into the Torbay area. My woods are public lavatories; my gates are no longer replaced, for they are broken and used as
firewood. That is all done by people going into and out of this Torbay area.
They get fleeced by the people in the Torbay area, and we in the impoverished hinterland have to bear the cost of the depredation. Therefore I would much rather that Torbay stayed under the County Council and we all got hit with the same amount.
My Lords, I cannot see any rhyme or reason for this movement, and I do not think anybody else in our part of the world does. I do not appreciate at all what seems to me—and I know I am

1221
extremely naïve politically—to be skulduggery that is going to force this proposal through. It reminds me of the state of my woods in the summer on the road to Torbay.
6.53 p.m.
LORD STRANGE: My Lords as there have been a certain number of non-runners, and two people have scratched, I think I am the next speaker on the list. I remember very well December 12, which was a Monday, because I had a very difficult journey to your Lordships' House. I remember coming in when we were discussing grey seal pups. When I woke up, the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, was opening the debate which we had on this subject on that date. I recall that debate very clearly. If I remember it correctly, and leaving out the instigators of the debate, I believe there were seven people from all Parties who spoke very strongly against the proposal. There was only one person who, so far as I remember, supported it. There was one other noble Lord who made the most brilliant speech of the day and I listened to it with amusement and interest; but what he was talking about I do not know to this day. However, I think he was neither for nor against.
It struck me that if we had gone to a Division then, that would have been the end of the matter; but we did not, and it was left. One point that struck me very strongly in that debate was the number of times the Royal Commission was mentioned. The Royal Commission was obviously going to alter the face of local government; and so, when the Report comes out, I think it will. One has to face the fact that there has been a great change of thought about local government in the last few years, since these things have been put into the pipe-line.
It is now realised that with modern machinery and with a larger unit, local government can give more efficient service and can run better. There are all sorts of machines nowadays which the local authorities can afford to have. I am too old to worry about this myself, but I am afraid they can buy better brains. That is the thing of the future: to be able to have the money to buy the best management.
I am sorry to say that if your Lordships allow this proposal to go forward and if it is not altered, the people of Torbay
1222
will in a few years' time be very sorry they have gone in for this scheme, because I think the people of Paignton, who did not want to enter it and only came in because they thought they were going to get cheaper rates, will find they have sold their birthright for a mess of pottage and outside everything is running much more efficiently. I was listening to the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, talking like a chap who writes to a local paper and who is very angry and signs himself "Backyarder". He puts the heading on his letter, "This is not fair", and writes about people throwing old tins and cats into his garden. He says, "Somebody has to stop this". I feel that the County of Devon, with this little golden fringe—all those great moors are empty in winter; there is not even the skirl of the curlew but only the running of a deer—
LORD MITCHISON: A few escaping prisoners.
LORD STRANGE: There is the running of the prisoners from the leaking prisons, and perhaps the running of the deer with the more able members of the hunt after it; and then there are the hounds, with the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals after that, and possibly the British Society of Blood Sports after that—and Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all. Apart from that there is complete silence over the whole of this great region in almost the biggest county in England.
I think my Lords the next thing that happens is the running of appeal, and with the running of appeal comes the running of the tourist; and down they come, bumper to bumper, right through the county, as one noble Lord said, lifting the gates, and throwing down their rubbish so that the cattle will pick up plastic bags and die in horrible agony. That is happening actually all over the country. They come to Devon. Dart-moor is a National Park, supported and run by the County Council of Devon, and the people of Torquay use it as their playground. It is the back yard that I am talking about, into which people throw their dead cats and tins. I think it is extremely unfair and unwise that this proposal should go forward at the present time. I trust that it goes to a Division.
7.0 p.m.
LORD POPPLEWELL: My Lords, in the discussion that we have had on this Order this afternoon one traces something which has been uppermost in our local government life and in Parliament for very many years, the old argument between town and country. Before coming into this House, I served in rural administration for some 18 years. For 21 years, or thereabouts, I served a single borough authority, Newcastle upon Tyne, in the other House. During the forty years of my experience, this has been the recurring decimal, as it were. One traces the arguments, which remain the same here this afternoon, although stress has been put on the fact that if this Order now goes through the area will be subjected to another upheaval a little later. In any case, I should think that the area is going to suffer an upheaval when the Royal Commission eventually issues its findings on the new structure for local government—something that is long overdue. In the meantime we are faced with the difficult legacy that has been left to us by the Boundary Commission. The Boundary Commission, charged with the task they were given, conducted a full and thorough investigation, and, quite distinct from the lobby that we have heard this afternoon, were able to analyse all the pros and cons from both sides. I venture to suggest to your Lordships that it was not a question of a 3s. bribe in the reduction of rates, or anything like that, that made the Boundary Commission issue their findings. They would issue their findings based upon all the facts before them at the time.
The difficulty arises from the foresight of this Government in doing the right thing in establishing a Royal Commission for reviewing local government, something that ought to have been done very many years ago. We cannot live in this modern age with a local government structure that was geared to the horse and cart, or the horse and buggy, as it were; and therefore this matter ought to have been dealt with many years ago. However, it was not, and the Government at the end of last year wisely decided upon this new structure and to draw to a halt the Boundary Commissions. However, there is some difficulty because of existing findings and recommendations that have been made by the Boundary Commissions. It is right that the Government
1224
I should honour them, and Torbay and the other few Orders that still remain in the pipe-line are subject to the Government decision in that direction.
It is always an extremely difficult thing to know where the dividing line should be established. Is the bringing of this Torbay Order and the other few Orders which have to come for ratification by this House the right line to take? Should the Order have been deferred or brought forward a little earlier? The Government have decided. The Commons, by an overwhelming vote, have agreed to this particular Order. I think it would be wrong of this House, with the little information that it has available regarding all the pros and cons which were gone into by the Boundary Commission when discussing this question, to reject the findings now before us.
It has been said that before the new Royal Commission issues its findings some time will have to elapse; some few years will have to be given by any Government to digest those findings; some few years will have to pass before they can be fully implemented. Various estimates of time have been made—five, six, seven, eight or nine years—before the full review could be applicable to the whole of the country. The opponents of the Order say that this puts the Torbay people in an individious position. They say that five, six or seven years is not long in local government. But to the individual in local government at the moment it is rather a long time. On the other hand, Torbay, and many of these other authorities we shall be called upon to deal with, have experienced a degree of uncertainty covering a long period of years. In the case of Torbay, it is some six years since the South Western investigation commenced, and then, following the preview there, there was the inquiry into structure carried out some four years or so ago. Torbay and all the authorities in the area have already suffered considerably because of the uncertainty. The difficulty of staff recruitment and staff replacement is a very real one in local government in all these cases where alterations are taking place.
Therefore the full inquiry having taken place and the Government having given great consideration to its findings, I think it is most certainly in the best interests of the area that the increase to

1225
county borough status should be authorised. I could not in any circumstances feel it would be a hindrance to good government in the area to allow the larger authority to operate. It would be no hindrance but would improve the government of the area, compared with the present situation, with rather small authorities, with continual town and county opposition—the old "town and gown" of the university areas, as it were. Therefore, while I can understand noble Lords expressing their points of view upon this subject, I sincerely hope that, on the balance of the argument, which is in favour of the Order, it may go through without a Division.
7.7 p.m.
THE EARL OF GAINSBOROUGH: My Lords, at this late hour I do not wish to detain your Lordships more than a few minutes. Several things have been said during this debate which have struck me as interesting inasmuch as they do not appear to accord with what has been said by Ministers on previous occasions when local government reorganisation has been discussed. One of them was said by, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, and also the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell: that in any event it may be some years before the Royal Commission report, and also after that some further years before anything is done about it, and after that it will be some further years before anything happens in the areas affected. I hope that is not misrepresenting them. Perhaps it is a slight exaggeration of what they said, but I understood them to say it was generally recognised that several years would elapse before action was taken after the Royal Commission had reported.
That was not the impression I had when I went with the local authority associations to see the then Minister, Mr. Richard Crossman, who said the Report was going to be made in two years flat and action would be taken very rapidly after that, and in the meantime only the most urgent cases of reorganisation would be allowed to proceed. Subsequently, due, admittedly, to representations from certain local authority associations, he agreed to extend the time to August of last year for Orders that were in the pipe-line. This brought this Order into the pipe-
1226
line, and now we have it before the House to-day.
I appreciate that this question was discussed at considerable length on December 12, when on all sides of the House noble Lords spoke against it. The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, I think was taken slightly unawares; he did not expect there would be such strong feeling against the Order that day, and he withdrew it on the understanding that the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, would not press the matter to a Division, as had seemed possible might happen on that occasion. Now we have it back again. What consideration has been given we know only from what the noble Lord, Lord Kennet has said. It does not seem to have made any difference because, as I understand it, the Government are relying on the fact that they cannot break faith with the local authorities concerned which the Minister had told he would allow this Order to go through.
The only other comment I have to make on what has been said this afternoon is on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ilford, who remarked that it seemed obvious that these three urban authorities should be amalgamated. I would agree with him if he were to say that they are to be amalgamated as a second-tier authority. That would seem reasonable, because they are all urban in character and they are all seaside resorts. But when he went further, and said that they ought to be a county borough, then most of us who are concerned with local government to-day would not agree that a county borough of 100,000 is something which should be perpetuated in these days, when the evidence of practically all the local authority associations and the Ministry is in favour of larger top-tier authorities.
For those reasons, I think it is a retrograde step to let this Order go forward to-day, even though I quite appreciate the difficulties in which the Government find themselves, which are not, like some of their other difficulties, entirely of their own making. I hope that that is not an unfair thing to say. But they are in this difficulty and I think they would show great courage and statesmanship if they said: "We see the difficulties of the Torquay and Torbay authorities, but we feel that as the Royal Commission have not yet reported, and

1227
in view of the tremendous weight of evidence against one-tier authorities of 100,000, the Order ought not to go through".
Finally, those of your Lordships who know about local government—and there are a great many who do—will know that even if a new authority is set up next year they must first get themselves organised, which will take some time. Any projects they wish to bring forward in the way of education or health services have to be prepared; they have to get loan sanction; and it may be several more years before any of this can come to fruition. By that time the Royal Commission will have reported, and unless there is a miracle (which to some of us who come from small local authorities—I come from Rutland—seems unlikely) they are more than likely to say that top tier authorities must have at least a quarter of a million in population. All that time and money will have been wasted. I think this is one of the occasions when the ordinary people, the ratepayers of this country, will say that it is a pity that the Government had not the courage on this occasion to say: "We think this was a wrong decision when it was made, in the light of what has happened since the Royal Commission reported and the inquiry was held". Therefore, I hope that this House will not allow this Order to pass.
7.14 p.m.
LORD WISE: My Lords, coming into this discussion at the end of the day I may have to repeat some things which have already been said. If I do, I apologise beforehand. I wish, however, from this side of the House to express briefly my opposition to this Order. My two noble friends have given it their blessing, so I think I am justified in saying my little piece from a different point of view. I do not do this with any joy or satisfaction, but having supported the Labour Part for forty years I can now tell those concerned with this Order that in my view its re-introduction has been ill-conceived and wrongly timed. I am not alone in this. I cannot support those responsible for bringing this Order again before your Lordships so soon after it had been withdrawn by the Government, who obviously realised then that if a vote had been
1228
taken the Order would not have been agreed to. I think that is quite obvious. Defeat for the Government was avoided only by the well known grace and kindliness of the noble Lord who moved an Amendment and gave the Government a chance to reconsider their decision.
I was hoping that we had heard the last of this Order, and that the Government were prepared to await the Report of the Royal Commission. The whole conception of local government may be changed by that Report; the existence of Torbay as a county borough may be short lived, and it may disappear after being brought into being at great expense and trouble. In those circumstances, why cannot the Government take back the Order? That seems to be the sensible thing to do, and the residents of Torbay and district might have cause to thank them for that action. That view was also expressed by the noble Viscount, Lord Amory.
I wonder who or what is behind this sudden urgency? Is some Minister or official trying to save his face, or simply being stubborn? The hasty re-introduction of this Order is treating your Lordships with disrespect and discourtesy. It has been fully discussed before and found little favour. The Government should take note of such discussions. My noble friend Lord Mitchison said that he was not a lackey of the Government. Neither are we conscripts who are compelled to fall into line on the orders of anyone. We are men and women of age, experienced in life and world and national affairs, with minds and wills of our own. We are free agents.
There is no need for me to enlarge upon the many speeches which have been made in opposition to the Order both to-day and in December. I know Devon fairly well, and I am in the county two or three times a year. I know Torquay and its surroundings; I have known it for 50 years. The town, with its seaside and residential qualifications, does not fit into my idea of a county borough. The scheme would cover a coastal area of length without breadth. I am a countryman, and I have lived in counties in which there has been only one county borough. That was no drawback to residents in those counties. Why a rural county like Devon wants three county

1229
boroughs is inexplicable. Devon County Council cannot afford to lose its towns and areas. In a short time Plymouth may seek new powers for expansion.
Like my noble friend I do not speak without knowledge of local government. For several years I was a member of the county council—in fact, the first Labour member. I was also a member of a borough council and a rural district council, all at the same time. I have been informed on good authority that residents in Torbay are not now so enthusiastic. Perhaps they are beginning to count the cost. I have made my appeal to the Government. The present Order is of such small importance in comparison with the great issues with which we are at present confronted. Its timeliness is inappropriate, and it could have been further postponed. Ministers, whether senior or junior, should take heed of voices on both sides of your Lordships' House. Perhaps that might be for their benefit and security of tenure.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, one question, to get this matter in perspective? When he replies, can he confirm the rumour that the Government have put out a three-line Whip for to-night, and whether, faced with defeat, they had the same Whip out when the Order was debated on December 12?
7.20 p.m.
VISCOUNT FALMOUTH: My Lords, I intervene as a fellow West countryman, and I shall not delay your Lordships for more than a few minutes. I am often in Devon, although I am not a Devonian. When I am there, I always think what a thinly populated county it is. I always wonder how on earth it can support good public services on the rates.
Then I remember the towns which lie around the margin of Torbay, perhaps the brightest gem in Devon's crown. I fully support my noble friends in their opposition to this Order. It can only lead to greater financial burdens on the general taxpayer to support the Devon rates and will saddle Torquay with fresh and new administrative costs. I cannot think the Government have made out a good and clear case for this Order, and I earnestly hope, even now, that they will withdraw it at this very late hour.
7.21 p.m.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, in the course of this interesting second debate on this Order we have touched on many of the themes which were broached last time, and I do not propose to enter into these matters again in depth, except to correct one or two misunderstandings and misconceptions which may have arisen in different parts of the House. I should like first of all to take up a small point made by one of my noble friends about the shape of the proposed new county borough. It is an unusual shape for a county borough: it is long and thin and has the sea on one side. But it is worth remembering that the Devon County Council in their analysis of a survey which they themselves made in connection with the preparation of Town Maps for this part of the world, said that "these three towns are closely interrelated". They also said:
"Paignton is a popular resort and it forms part of the almost continuous built-up area which continues round the Bay from Torquay to Brixham."
They also said that
"Brixham has developed as part of the major holiday area for Torbay."
These are the words of the Devon County Council about the relationship between these three towns.
Several noble Lords have touched on the question of costs and how much it will cost to have a new local government unit, an upper-tier unit of this kind, and the figure of £84,000 has been mentioned. The question of these increased administrative costs was argued at great length in the public local inquiry and it was set out in the inspector's report. What was said at that inquiry was that the administrative costs of the County of Devon would be reduced by £13,000 and those in the proposed new county borough would be increased by £97,000: hence the difference of £84,000. The House should bear in mind that these figures are not estimates made by the Government of what is likely to happen; nor are they estimates accepted by the inspector of what is likely to happen. Indeed, the inspector himself commented in the report of the inquiry:
"I think the present estimates although made, I hasten to add, in perfectly good faith, like all similar ones must be regarded with tolerant scepticism."

1231
I commend the inspector's tolerant scepticism to your Lordships.
On the question of increase in subsidy to the County of Devon, I should like to repeat what I said at much greater length in our last debate. Whatever increase there may be will be in the form of an adjustment within the present total Exchequer expenditure on grants, and thus it will not fall on the taxpayer in any shape or form.
The noble Viscount, Lord Lambert, spoke of the evidence given by Government Departments to the Royal Commission on Local Government, and pointed out that they all said that 200,000 was about the smallest one would wish to see in the top-tier authorities which might be proposed by the Royal Commission on Local Government. He made the point by implication that Torbay, being about 100,000, should not be set up. This, I submit, entirely misses the point. The Government do not propose to set up the county borough because they think that it is going to look good in a new local government structure, because they do not know what the new local government structure is likely to be. They propose to set up the new county borough because they think that it will bring clear gains and advantages in the present local government structure, where, as the noble Lord knows, it will be larger than 30 existing county boroughs.
I think that the noble Earl, Lord Gainsborough, may be under a misapprehension about the extension of the "acceptance of orders" to August. This does not refer to implementing the decisions arising out of the Reports of the old Local Government Commission, of which this Torbay Order is one. What it refers to is reviews by county councils under the 1958 Act of their own county districts. So that this does not in any way extend the series of the Orders of the type we are now discussing.
I hope the House will not divide on this Order to-night. I hope that, if it does divide, the House will decide to confirm the Order and I think I should not be doing my duty to the House and to our possible future discussions if I did not say that, in the event of a Division and of the Government's being defeated in a Division, the Government will con-
1232
sider whether or not it would be right to effect the establishment of the Torbay County Borough by the introduction of a Public Bill. This inevitably would mean a further delay beyond 1968, but it may be that the Government would think it worth it.
Let us stand back for a moment. We have heard a conflict of views between two local interests: between, on the one hand, the County of Devon, who do not want a new county borough to be carved out of their territory, and, on the other hand, the existing second-tier local authorities around Torbay, who do want to amalgamate into a new county borough. When a Government are faced with such a conflict of views, there is no doubt about what they should do. First of all, they will have regard to the Local Government Commission, which duly held its South-Western Review and concluded that this new county borough should be set up. They will then see what happens during the statutory consultations between the Local Government Commission and the local authorities in the area. They will then have the whole matter aired at a public inquiry on the spot. They will then consider the report of the public inquiry and will take their decision, which will then be submitted to both Houses. The Government have done all these things. One of my noble friends spoke of urgency and haste in presenting this Motion. It comes to your Lordships as a result of the process of statutory consultations and hearings lasting no less than seven years. I do not think one could call that haste or urgency.
To my mind the most important point in all this is one which has been touched upon by the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, when he said that once upon a time there was an assembly where, if a great majority were in favour of doing something, it was done, and if a great majority were against doing something, it was not done. I am glad to say that there still is such an assembly, and it is an elected assembly which, I believe, would be the most appropriate body of all to listen to what should be done in the case of a conflict of interest in one part of the country. That elected assembly, the House of Commons, as this House well knows, approved this Order by a very large majority. At the end of the day—
VISCOUNT LAMBERT: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? I understand that the only reason why there was a large majority in the other place was that there was a two-line Whip on the Government side, while on the Opposition side there was a free vote. The voting, I think, was about 160 to 10. According to the Rules of the other place, 160people must be kept there to get a closure. So that, far from showing any overwhelming majority of the ordinary Members. I feel it shows the reverse.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, I do not think we should be drawn into a discussion of the domestic arrangements of another place. The point I was seeking to make was this: would the Government in this case be better advised to listen to the advice of the Local Government Commission, and of the inspector, and to pay heed to the decision of the House of Commons; or should they, on the other hand, at the end of the day, pay heed to the views expressed in the House of Lords? I think that, in reintroducing this measure to the House, they are only fulfilling the last movement in a minuet which has already lasted for very many years; and I hope very much that the House will agree to put Torbay and Devon out of their prolonged agony, and to allow Torbay to get on with it.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, it may be the last movement in a minuet, but perhaps I may strike the last note in the minuet. I must say that I have listened twice to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, and he did not strike me as being any more convincing on the second occasion than he was on the first. I do not think he has very many people in the House to support the Government's point of view. I think it rather a pity that the Government have adopted this attitude, and I have great sympathy with my noble friends behind me and with noble Lords opposite who feel differently from the Government.
However, I rise to say only this. There are one or two noble Lords, not only on this side of the House but also, I think, opposite, who suggested that if there were a Division they would feel
1234
compelled to vote against this Order. It seems to me that since, by some quirk of the Parliament Act, as your Lordships know, Orders do not come under the provisions of the Parliament Act, and, therefore, it would be a question of defeating this Order and making it impossible for it ever to take effect—or, of course, the Government could re-lay the Order and this House could throw it out again—this would be a large constitutional step to take on what, if noble Lords who feel strongly about this will forgive me for saying so, is a relatively minor issue. I think that, before your Lordships decide to do something like this, we should at any rate make sure that the issue on which we are dividing is an issue of constitutional importance and national significance. Therefore, even though your Lordships may feel that the Government have been rather silly and rather foolish—and I must say that I think they are very silly and very foolish—I hope we shall think that this is not perhaps the right moment on which to divide the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CAPITAL ALLOWANCES BILL [H.L.]
7.33 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. This is a Consolidation Bill which, if given a Second Reading, will go in the usual way to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills. It had been my intention to deliver a most interesting speech about the history of this Bill, but I rather think, in view of the time, that this is perhaps not the right occasion on which to do so. I shall hope to deliver it when it comes back from the Consolidation Committee. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

EDUCATION BILL
House in Committee (according to Order).
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment; Report received.

TEES VALLEY AND CLEVELAND WATER BILL
Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes before eight o'clock.