Lords Sitting of 22 June 1967

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Worcester.
The Countess of Loudoun—Sat first in Parliament, pursuant to the Peerage Act 1963.

RUSSIAN DEBT TO UNITED NATIONS
3.6 p.m.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether Soviet Russia has fully met all her financial obligations to the United Nations; and what, if any, is the sum total of her outstanding liabilities to that organisation.
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (LORD CHALFONT): My Lords, on June 16 the total of outstanding assessed contributions by the U.S.S.R. to the United Nations was £33,183,806. Of this amount, some £5·6 million represents the U.S.S.R. contribution to the regular budget for 1967, most of which will presumably be paid in due course
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that reply, may I ask whether he would not agree that a measure of Soviet Russia's faith in the United Nations would be her willingness to assist in its financial solvency? May I ask Her Majesty's Government what they are doing to see that Russia pays her full share of contributions to the activities of the United Nations, or else is debarred from using the United Nations as a sounding board for her own national policies?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, while I would sympathise with the general proposition that any country which fully supported the United Nations would want
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to pay its dues towards the upkeep of that Organisation, I would point out that the Soviet Union has, of course, openly refused on principle to pay the whole of her assessed dues to the Emergency Force in the Middle East and to the Emergency Force in the Congo. We have rejected this view but, nevertheless, the Soviet Union has held and still holds that the assessments for those two operations are illegal.
As regards what action can be taken to ensure that the Soviet Union pays its dues in the future, this is of course a matter for the United Nations. It may be worth while recalling to your Lordships that in 1965 the General Assembly adopted a consensus which, among other things, decided that Article 19 of the Charter—which says that a country which falls behind with its dues for the preceding two years should be deprived of its vote—should not apply in this case. We shall do all we can to ensure that dues are paid, but our own powers in this respect are obviously limited.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, if we were to fall behind with our subscription to the extent of £33 million, could we also get away with it? Would the United Nations take no more steps to make us pay up than they have taken to make the Russians pay up?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I cannot think of a question more hypothetical.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, if there is a question about the legality or illegality of these dues, could not the United Nations refer it for determination by the International Court?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I have no doubt that this is a possibility and one which ought to be investigated. Certainly that has not been done up till now, as the noble and learned Viscount knows.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, would my noble friend not agree that the sum outstanding is rather colossal, and could not some persuasion be used to get Soviet Russia at least partly to increase her present contribution?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, of course this sum is an enormous one. It is, in fact, about 50 per cent. of all the total outstanding contributions to the United Nations. I fear, as I say, that our

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powers to get the Soviet Union to pay up are severely limited, but we shall, within the limit of our powers, do all that we can.

ARAB REFUGEES: MAINTENANCE CONTRIBUTIONS
3.10 p.m.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows: To ask Her Majesty's Government what total contributions towards the maintenance of the Palestine Arab Refugees have been made to date by Her Majesty's Government, the United States and Soviet Russia respectively.]
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, by the end of 1966 Her Majesty's Government and the United States Government had contributed respectively 95,524,004 dollars and 387,368,069 dollars to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. The Government of the Soviet Union has contributed nothing.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that reply, may I ask him this question? Since Soviet Russia has already taken sides on this issue and proclaimed herself as champion of the Arab cause, what steps are Her Majesty's Government taking to induce her to support the Arab cause on humanitarian grounds as well as on military and political grounds?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, again I have to say that the power of any one Government in this respect is bound to be limited. It is true that the Soviet Union has obviously taken sides on this question and one can only hope that it will see, as we have seen, the real human problems which are at stake in the Middle East and will do something to help to cure them and to reslove them. But I fear that there is very little we can do to make the Soviet Union see, as we and the United States have seen, where the real human problems lie here.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, will Her Majesty's Government ensure that these interesting figures are published over the British Broadcasting Corporation's Arabic Service?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I think that the figures have been published
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before on many occasions. Indeed, when this was a matter of some critical world tension some years ago I think they were given very considerable publicity. But I will bear that suggestion in mind.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, will Her Majesty's Government undertake that the next time a speech on refugees is made by our representative at the United Nations these figures will be loudly proclaimed?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I cannot give an undertaking now that any particular section or passage will occur in a speech made in the United Nations, but again I will take note of that suggestion.
LORD PEDDIE: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether the whole of the amount contributed by Her Majesty's Government is administered by the United Nations Organisation exclusively?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, the sum that I have just mentioned is the sum contributed to this particular organisation, to UNRWA, for the maintenance of Palestine Arab refugees, and is administered by that organisation.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, would it not be highly significant if Soviet Russia could now come forward and make a first contribution to the solution of this very urgent and desperate need?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, of course it would be highly significant, and I share with my noble friend a devout wish that she might do so.

NATIONAL REFERENCE LIBRARY FOR SCIENCE AND INVENTION
LORD IRONSIDE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress has been made on the building plans for housing the National Reference Library for Science and Invention on the South Bank site which has been made available by the Greater London Council.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF PUBLIC BUILDING AND WORKS (LORD WINTERBOTTOM): My Lords, I regret that progress on this scheme has suffered

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a severe set-back, because the Greater London Council have discontinued negotions on the South Bank site for the National Reference Library of Science and Invention, which they now require for another urgent purpose of their own. My right honourable friend is now searching for a suitable alternative site for the Library.
LORD IRONSIDE: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that Answer, which I think is disappointing, I should like to ask him this question. In view of the fact that administrative difficulties arise out of operating the Library in two parts—namely, in Holborn and in Bayswater—and that these difficulties will tend to increase rather than diminish, would he urge his right honourable friend to pursue this matter of a site, and to pursue it as a matter of urgency, so as to settle it firmly and finally?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, the problem is recognised. The present situation is entirely unsatisfactory, since that part of the Library which is in Whiteley's building at Bayswater is thoroughly unsuitable for the work in hand. One or two possibilities in London are being investigated now, and I will press upon my right honourable friend the need for urgency in this matter.
LORD IRONSIDE: My Lords, would the noble Lord, when looking for an alternative site for the Library, also bear in mind that it is important to make sure that it has good access by public transport, and that, if possible, it should be centrally placed?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I will take note of that point.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, while also thanking the noble Lord for the information he has given us, both in his original reply and in the supplementaries, may I remind him that this matter was raised two months ago during a debate on the Arts, and that the Government spokesman then told us that it was being looked into as a matter of urgency? Can he tell us when a decision on it will be forthcoming?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: No, my Lords, I am afraid I cannot. But in view of the sudden cessation of the negotiations with the Greater London
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Council, I am afraid we have to start again from scratch.
EARL JELLICOE: May I remind the noble Lord—
SERAL NOBLE LORDS: No!
EARL JELLICOE: May I put this to the noble Lord—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Ask him!
EARL JELLICOE: May I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that in the Report of the Trustees of the British Museum, which was published a matter of months ago, full publicity was given to this subject, and that it was then reported that there had been this breakdown of negotiations with the Greater London Council?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: Yes, my Lords; but I am certain that the noble Earl will recognise that land in London is in short supply and that it is not so easy to find the large site required for an organisation of this sort.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, may I try to be helpful? May I ask my noble friend whether he recollects that as a result of the Greater London Act many of the boroughs of London have been merged, so that one borough now has two or three, and in one case four, town halls? Would not some of these old, disused town halls be useful for this purpose?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: I thank my noble friend for his helpful suggestion.

UNREST IN ST. KITTS AND ANGUILLA
LORD ROWLEY: 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 the discussions they have had with the Deputy Premier of St. Kitts are now complete, and whether they can make a statement.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS (LORD BESWICK): My Lords, the Deputy Premier has left for New York on other business, but hopes to return by the week-end.

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There will then be an opportunity for further discussion. Her Majesty's Government are very much aware of the internal security problems facing the Premier of St. Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla. Firearms have been used in St. Kitts, but our understanding is that only two men have been injured. The problem, I must make clear, is one of internal security, and not a responsibility of Her Majesty's Government under the constitutional arrangements of the Associated States. But at the request of the Premier we have consulted the neighbouring Commonwealth Governments in the Caribbean. There has been no agreement to provide police reinforcements, but they and we are still hopeful that ways will be found which are acceptable to the Premier of St. Kitts by which the good offices of neighbouring Commonwealth Governments can be used to find a solution to these problems and permit the peaceful restoration of law and order.
LORD ROWLEY: My Lords, is it not the fact that my noble friend stated, when he replied to a Question some days ago, that the main source of trouble was the failure of the Central Government to establish local government in the island of Anguilla? Would that not be part of the original agreement made between the Central Government and Her Majesty's Government, and to that extent is it not something that is of concern to, and the responsibility of, Her Majesty's Government?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I agree with what my noble friend has said, except that since I answered my noble friend's previous Question we are dealing with difficulties both in St. Kitts and in the island of Anguilla, and to that extent the problem has become more complicated. So far as the original problem is concerned, it is quite true that I said that a source of trouble was the insistence by the Anguilla Government that there should be a local authority with a measure of local responsibility. The original intention was that the local authority should be instituted by November of this year. The Premier of St. Kitts said that he will institute this local government by that time, but the people of Anguilla said that they wanted it before the end of the year. That is what is causing part of the present difficulties.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, since Her Majesty's Government, rightly, recognise this to be an internal matter for the three islands, can the noble Lord tell us whether steps are being taken to stop the supply of any arms to these three islands during the present disturbances? May I also ask a particular question? Can he confirm reports that a United Kingdom citizen, Mr. James Milne-Gaskell has been arrested and is being held in detention without, so far as I know, any charge being preferred? Can the noble Lord assure us that an official from the neighbouring United Kingdom High Commission will be able to visit Mr. Milne-Gaskell?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, with regard to the first part of the Question, I have no knowledge of a difficulty about the running of arms in either St. Kitts or Anguilla. I made some inquiries because I had heard through other sources that the noble Earl was going to put a question about arms. The only difficulty I can find is that of the local police in their securing supplies of arms. That difficulty I hope we can help them to overcome. With regard to Mr. Milne-Gaskell, I may say that he was arrested on Sunday, June 11. In reply to inquiries, a British Government representative was informed that he had been allowed to see his lawyer, who reported that he was well and was being well treated. We pressed for him to be charged or released. On June 17 Mr. Milne-Gaskell was given the grounds for his detention. These were:
"That you, James Milne-Gaskell, during the year 1967, both within and outside the State encouraged civil disobedience throughout the State, thereby endangering peace, public safety and public order of the State."
We have asked that Mr. Milne-Gaskell should be brought before a tribunal as early as possible so that the charges can be either substantiated or withdrawn.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, did the noble Lord say that they were overcoming the difficulties about police arms in these islands? Does that mean that Her Majesty's Government are either supplying or selling them?
LORD BESWICK: I did not say that we were overcoming them. I said there was a difficulty experienced by the Government of St. Kitts in providing their own police with suitable firearms.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, do Her Majesty's Government recognise that the police must have arms? If so, will the Government sell them?
LORD BESWICK: We have offered to assist them in overcoming this difficulty.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I should like to express my gratitude to the noble Lord for the information about the United Kingdom citizen. Would it not be desirable, in view of the somewhat political implications behind the charges which I understand have been preferred against him, for a British official to visit him as well as the lawyer to whom he has had access?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I quite agree. The British Government representative, whose headquarters are in St. Lucia, has gone, under instructions, to St. Kitts to look after the interests of United Kingdom "belongers" there.

DECIMAL CURRENCY BILL
Brought from the Commons yesterday, and printed, pursuant to Standing Order No. 45.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, in rising to move the First Reading of this Bill, may I draw the attention of the House to the italic notices in the Notices and Orders of the Day showing the arrangements that have been made, through the usual channels, to take the Second Reading of this Bill on Tuesday next, the 27th June, and the Committee stage on Thursday next, the 29th June? In view of our recent debate on the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Redmayne, it is hoped that the House will agree to take the Second Reading relatively shortly, and perhaps to leave the deployment of our arguments on the pound system or the ten-shilling system to the Committee stage on Thursday. In view of the shortness of the interval between the Second Reading and the Committee stage it may be for the convenience of the House if arrangements are put in hand to circulate Amendments before the Second Reading; and the Public Bills Office is so arranging it. I beg to move that the Decimal Currency Bill be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Lord Shepherd.)
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for bringing to our notice the arrangements he has described. The purpose of these arrangements, which we accept, is not to prevent anybody from speaking but purely to avoid repetition. So far as we on these Benches are concerned, all we have to say can be said on one Amendment. We should therefore propose to treat the Second Reading as a formality. There may, of course, be other noble Lords who have points to raise which cannot be put in the form of an Amendment and who may therefore have to raise such matters on Second Reading.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I agree with the noble Earl. I intend, when I move the Bill on Second Reading, merely to explain the various clauses to it, so that there should be a good understanding of the Bill. I am sure that the quality of our debate on the main and basic issue would certainly be bettered by having it on Thursday instead of first on Tuesday and again on Thursday.
On Question, Bill read 1a.

UNIFORM LAWS ON INTER-NATIONAL SALES BILL
Read 3a, with the Amendment, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

ROAD TRANSPORT LIGHTING BILL
3.28 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I have heard it said on very many occasions that if a Minister makes a mistake and is free and frank about it the House has a tendency to forgive him. I rise with a degree of diffidence, in that this Bill had its origins in a Private Member's Bill to promote the use of reflective number plates. When it came to this House I assumed that it was a Private Member's Bill. I freely admit that a few minutes before 3 o'clock I was horrified to find it was not a Private Member's Bill, but a Government Bill. Therefore it falls to me, with the permission of the House, to move its Second Reading. I would extend my very sincere apologies

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to my noble friend Lord Lindgren, who was given the task of moving this Bill and who, I am quite sure, has done a great deal of work on it.
There was considerable support among members of both Government and Opposition in another place for this measure, and the National Road Safety Advisory Committee expressed its opinion some 18 months ago that permission should be given for the use of such reflective number plates. There are, however, many possibilities for the use of reflective material other than merely for number plates, so it was deemed more fitting that the terms of the original Bill should be widened. Your Lordships may be wondering why it is necessary to amend the existing law of this country before full use can be made of reflective material. I will give the reasons. Although there is some doubt on the subject, my right honourable friend has been advised that reflective materials could be held in law to show a light when, in fact, they are reflecting light; that is, under the terms of Section 2 of the Road Transport Lighting Act 1957. If this is so, it would be illegal to use any reflective material of a colour other than red to show a light to the rear of any vehicle. Although red is generally the accepted colour denoting the back of a vehicle and there is no intention of making a change, experiments have shown that red is not always the most effective colour when it comes to the use of reflective materials; and so if we are to get the maximum benefit from the use of these materials it is necessary to amend the existing law in the way set out in the Bill.
As I said a moment ago, there is some doubt whether reflective materials could be held in law to show a light when they are reflecting light. I think your Lordships will agree that if we are to require or to permit the use of these materials, there must be no room for doubt as to their legal standing. This is the purpose of the first clause. It is a declaratory clause. It does no more than to say that, for the purposes of the 1957 Act, materials designed so as to act as a form of reflector, in the sense in which the word is used in connection with vehicles, shall, when reflecting light, be treated as showing a light. At the same time, it is necessary to make clear that other materials which, because of their polished surfaces
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also reflect light, and which are part of the normal design and construction of most of the vehicles on the roads to-day, should not be treated as showing a light. The difference really lies in the fact that in the latter case what is reflected is an image of the light which is shown on the materials concerned, and they are not primarily designed as reflectors. Therefore this clause goes on to say that material capable of reflecting an image is not, when reflecting the image of a light, to be treated as showing a light for the purpose of the 1957 Act.
It is of very great importance to get this distinction clear, otherwise it would become illegal to use virtually all the vehicles that are now on the road. Having made quite clear that reflective material of the former type should be held in law to come within the provisions of Section 2 of the 1957 Act, it would then be illegal to use any such material to show to the rear of a vehicle unless it was red in colour. My right honourable friend is advised that in the interests of road safety it may be desirable to permit or to require the use of materials of other colours. To do this it would be necessary for her to have special powers, because of the prohibition placed on the using or showing of a light other than red on the rear of a vehicle which is contained in the Act I have mentioned.
This, therefore, is the purpose of Clause 2(a) of the Bill which says that, notwithstanding anything in Section 2 of the principal Act, which is the restriction on the nature of lights to be carried, the Minister of Transport may by means of regulations, make provision to require or authorise
"a light of a prescribed colour to be shown by the prescribed means to the rear of a vehicle"
of any description. Where it is intended to use reflective material, it is essential that the regulations give permission or, in requiring such use, should state the optical qualities of the material, where it is to be fitted on the vehicle, and how it is to be used. If this is not done, the purpose for which the material is to be used may not be achieved. These are the powers which are conferred on my right honourable friend in paragraph (b) of this clause.

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Clause 3 is not connected with the reflective materials in any way. This deals with the use of signalling devices designed to convey some intention on the part of the driver of the vehicle to the drivers of other vehicles who may be travelling behind him. When the Lighting Act 1927 was drafted, and when its provisions were later incorporated into the 1957 Act, it was foreseen that it would be necessary to make certain exemptions to the overall rule that no light other than red should be shown on the rear of a vehicle. Among these exemptions provision was made in Section 2(2)(b) of the 1957 Act for such signalling devices as illuminated direction indicators, because it was evident that in order to avoid confusion with the normal rear lights and stop lights, it would be better to use a light of another colour. However, experience has shown that the words in this provision might be interpreted as giving permission for a light of any colour to be used to illuminate a device showing to the rear of a vehicle, as long as it was the stated intention of such a device to give a signal to the drivers of following cars.
The use of light signals is increasing. They are replacing hand signals—and in many cases, particularly when signalling intended changes of direction, this is an improvement—but it is an essential requisite that any signal which is given shall he clearly understood by other road users. Otherwise, confusion occurs, and in modern traffic conditions confusion leads to accidents. Therefore it is necessary for my right honourable friend to be able to exercise control over the types of the illuminated signalling devices which may be fitted to show a light to the rear of a vehicle. This is what is done in Clause 3 of this Bill.
I should like to make it clear that there is nothing in the way in which this clause is worded which will inhibit design, or act as a bar to progress in this field. If some new signalling device is developed which, after a proper test, is found to provide an additional road safety factor, the Minister may make regulations permitting or requiring its use on some or all types of vehicles. When such regulations were made, my right honourable friend's Department would naturally be responsible for ensuring that their purpose and the meaning which the signalling
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device was intended to convey was generally known. In this way, confusion would be avoided and the full benefit could be obtained from the use of the device.
Clause 4 deals with the Short Title, the citation, interpretation and extent of the Bill. The House will see that it does not apply to Northern Ireland, and noble Lords will no doubt remember that the Road Transport Lighting Act 1957 also does not apply to that country. That is the explanation for its exclusion.
To return for a moment to the question of reflective number plates, I understand that it is the intention of my right honourable friend, when she has the power which this Bill will confer on her, and in conjunction with the power she already has, to make regulations to permit the use of reflective number plates by those motorists who wish to use them on their vehicles. It is not her intention at this stage to make their use compulsory, but their effect on road safety, particularly in so far as they may have a bearing on the avoidance of rear-end collisions will be watched with very great interest.
It is also my right honourable friend's intention to make regulations requiring a special marking on the backs of certain types of commercial vehicles. From what I remember of debates on this subject I believe this step would be very much welcomed. These markings will be obligatory on those vehicles, among others, which may he involved in those rather horrifying accidents in which a small private car runs under the rear end of a large commercial vehicle. These accidents usually result in disastrous consequences to the occupants of the small car involved. By making the commercial vehicle more easily distinguishable both by day and by night, it is hoped that the number of such accidents will he reduced.
In conclusion, may I stress that this Bill is concerned only with road safety. There is nothing in any of its provisions which will inhibit development and progress. It provides only for greater safety of all road users. Therefore, I venture to hope this House will support this Bill and see it placed on the Statute Book as quickly as possible. Again may I apologise for the trouble I have put my noble friend to, and to the House for having kept more closely to my notes than I

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usually do. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Shepherd.)
3.41 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, for his interesting and detailed explanation of this important little Bill and say that for my part I certainly accept his apology for the procedural mistake on the Order Paper? I had spotted it when I read Hansard of another place, and was going to raise an inquiry about why it had ceased to be a Government Bill and had gone into the hands of a Private Member.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord when he spotted this mistake?
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: I spotted it last week when I read Hansard, which proves that I do read Hansard of another place. I gladly accept the noble Lord's apology. I am only sorry that he put himself right and I was not able to catch him.
Reflective material, with which this Bill primarily deals, is a new development for vehicles in this country, other than the old rear reflectors on bicycles, and I welcome this development. I am sure it is wise and good. I was interested to hear that Her Majesty's Government intend to proceed immediately to make permissive use of this material for number plates, and I hope that other uses may follow.
It would be true to say that in this country we are behind events in not having done this already. In most States of the United States reflectorisation of licence plates is not only permitted, but compulsory. I apologise for the "reflectorisation"—I am only glad that my noble friend Lord Conesford is not here. I hope he will soon be back with us to put these things right. In France it is also compulsory, and in many other countries it is either permitted or compulsory.
The point I am making is an important one. The international picture is that the use of reflective material for licence number plates is fast becoming universal, and it is very much in the
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interests of this country, for our export market for our motor cars as well as for our citizens taking their cars abroad on holiday, that there should be uniformity in these matters as soon as possible. There are two questions which I should like to put to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. Perhaps he will be able to answer. The first is: will the Minister of Transport ensure that uniformity with foreign practice is achieved from the start with the type and colour of reflective material used and with the design and layout of licence numbers? Secondly, will his right honourable friend ensure that the reflective material used does not cause glare? This, I am sure, is most important.
With regard to my first question, may I refer to something which the noble Lord said on Clause 3 of the Bill with regard to trafficators? Experience there shows that it has taken years and years to get any kind of uniformity, and if only we could all have started the same, what a lot of trouble it would have saved everybody! Here we are starting something new. Would the noble Lord ask the Minister of Transport to make sure that we do start, so far as humanly possible, with the same standards and types as our overseas neighbours?
The good visibility of licence numbers at night is of first-class importance for two reasons: first of all, for road safety, to which the noble Lord alluded in his speech, and, secondly, for the prevention of crime. With reflective material the visibility of licence numbers is very much improved, and when the lighting system on a motor car fails the reflective material is still effective in the light of an oncoming car. The conventional number plate at night time gives nil visibility from the front and only about 20 to 30 metres from the rear, and this is far too short a distance to afford legibility with a car travelling at, say, 60 m.p.h. There simply is not time within that limited distance to read the numbers. But a reflectorised number plate at night time in the beam of an oncoming or following headlight gives a visibility of 200 to 400 metres. This is an enormous, dramatic improvement and it undoubtedly will have a valuable advantage both for road safety and for police identification.
There are other aspects of the use of reflective material which we can perhaps

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refer to when we come to Committee stage—for instance, on the sides of long vehicles, which may help when they are turning and presenting a large black surface to oncoming cars, and also (a point raised in another place) on builders' rubbish bins, which are being increasingly dumped in the streets with no lights on them. In the main, I am sure that this is a measure that we should welcome. It will be helpful in every way. I have much pleasure in welcoming the Second Reading of the Bill.
3.47 p.m.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, I do not feel that this Bill does any harm at all, but for the life of me, I cannot see that it does a great deal of good. I entirely agree with my noble friend that reflective number plates are desirable, but when one looks at the Bill and sees that red or other colours may be used, one can imagine colours of any description coming from the rear of cars. It should he more strictly defined. This problem has also occurred to me. The Bill says that reflective material shall be treated as showing a light. But in order to show a light, there has to be a light there. If a car carrying a reflector only is to be treated as if it were carrying a light, I cannot say, not being very learned in the law, whether a lawyer could prove that that was carrying a light under the meaning of the Act.
So far as trafficators are concerned, I agree with my noble friend in what he said. Standardisation is long overdue. We should have made the regulation, when trafficators were authorised first of all, that they should be amber both front and rear. It is much too late, but certainly not too soon, to make that regulation now. Apropos of trafficators, though strictly speaking this does not come under the Bill, would it not be possible to make some regulation about their operation? I have seen cars going happily along the road in the same direction for miles with one trafficator flashing away, the driver being completely unaware of the fact. It would be much better to make it compulsory for all cars to have trafficators of the type that cancel themselves after 24 flashes or so, as I believe the London buses have. That could be combined with the steering wheel self-cancellation type, so that whichever was the sooner would cancel the flashes. This, in my view, is highly desirable.
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Apart from that, the Bill seems to me to be very practical. I would say, however, that so far as reflective material is concerned I think the drafters of the Bill are making heavy weather of what is, or what is not, reflective material. One must realise that anything one can see in the dark is reflective material. Even a block of black wood which one can see in one's headlights is reflecting light, because otherwise one would not be able to see it. Therefore I think that "reflective material" should have a more definite definition than it has. Otherwise, I am glad to welcome the Bill.
3.52 p.m.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: My Lords, the noble Lord, in introducing the Bill, mentioned that it was a road safety Bill, with which I entirely agree. I rise to intervene in the debate solely because I see the noble Lord, Lord Elton, present in your Lordships' House, and he has such a strong and rooted opinion, which he has previously expressed, that motoring organisations never support any road safety whatever. I thought I should like the noble Lord to know that, in so far as the Automobile Association is concerned, we support this measure, and we consider it a very practical attempt on an experimental basis to achieve a further measure of road safety.
I would only urge the noble Lord to accept the recommendation of my noble friend on our Front Bench, that when authorising this reflective material he should endeavour to standardise it with the reflective material used in other countries. I think the reasons for this are clear. First of all, it makes it easier for motorists travelling from one country to another. Secondly, it might quite easily prove to be the case that a motorist conforming to the law in this country with regard to the reflective material he was using 'on his car might find himself breaching the law of another country because it was of the wrong colour. That, I think, would be a great pity.
LORD ELTON: My Lords, may I correct the noble Viscount's reference to myself? He said, I think, that I had said recently that the motoring organisations never support any measure for road safety. What I actually said on the occasions to which I am sure he is referring was that they had opposed most

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of the important measures for road safety; and when that was controverted by one or two noble Lords, I instanced their opposition to the proposal for the 30 m.p.h. limit and the proposal for the 70 m.p.h. limit. But I am glad to see them supporting this measure for road safety. I want to make it clear that I never said, as I have been accused of saying, that they object to all measures for road safety. Here I am sure that they are playing a good part, and I am glad that the noble Viscount referred to me, so allowing me to explain how I feel.
3.56 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I was rather hoping that my noble friend Lord Lindgren was going to intervene, because I am sure he is in a better position to answer the various points raised than I am. With regard to the noble Lord, Lord Somers, and the possibility of a multitude of colours, I can assure him that this will not arise. The requirement as to colour will be made by regulations which will be made by my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, and the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, that we should seek to standardise this material and bring it into line with Continental standards. I can only say that, as in the case of colours, so the size and design of these plates will be according to a British Standard and will have to be approved by my right honourable friend. I cannot say at this moment that the number plate will be exactly in line with the Continental specification, although I should hazard a guess that it will, because at present, as I understand it, the material can be supplied only by one company, which is an international company, and my experience of them is that they tend to manufacture very much the same qualities. I also know that there are a number of regulations that will be made shortly—in fact, in the field of headlights, in particular, they will be made a good deal earlier
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than others—but we have been waiting to obtain an international agreement. I am sure that my right honourable friend is well aware of the need for some standardisation between ourselves and the Continent.
I think the noble Lord, Lord Somers, questioned whether it would be possible for a vehicle to have these reflector materials and not have an ordinary light. This Bill in no way affects the existing requirements of a vehicle to have the proper required lights. This is an addition to the existing lighting equipment required on a vehicle. I think that those are the points that have been made in this short debate.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: Perhaps I may interrupt the noble Lord. I asked him particularly to deal with the problem of glare from this reflectorised material. Would the noble Lord say a word about that?
LORD SHEPHERD: I must admit that I have not seen this material. The problem of glare may be a factor, but I think this material that will be available in this country is widely used on the Continent. I am sure it is a factor that my right honourable friend will bear in mind prior to making regulations. The noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, is particularly interested in these matters, and I will see whether I can obtain some material and, if he would like to do so, he and I can carry out an experiment one evening to see how it stands up and how it functions. I am always available should the noble Lord wish to undertake an experiment. If there are any other points that I have missed, I shall be happy to deal with them in Committee or by correspondence. I should like to thank the House for allowing me to move this Bill on behalf of my noble friend, and also for their warm welcome of this small but, nevertheless, important Bill.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY BILL
3.59.p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. This Bill was foreshadowed in the White Paper on Broadcasting (Command Paper No. 3169) published last December. The White Paper referred to the Government's review of measures against licence evasion and to their discussions with the associations representing retailers and the rental companies. It announced that
"legislation will be brought before Parliament in the current Session."
This Bill fulfils that undertaking.
Its main object is to make possible new and effective measures against people who use their television sets without having taken out a licence from the Postmaster General to do so. Part I of the Bill proposes to put this situation right by empowering the Postmaster General to obtain from television dealers the names and addresses of people to whom they have supplied television sets. I hope to convince your Lordships of two things: first, that the problem of television licence evasion is bad enough to justify really drastic new measures against it; and, secondly, that the new measures which the Bill has chosen are the right ones.
The figures all go to show that licence evasion has reached scandalous proportions. Television Audience Measurement, for the purpose of providing their subscribers with information about the number of people reached by the advertisements on Independent Television, carry out a sample survey on a nationwide scale. A by-product of this sample is that it provides an accurate estimate of the number of private householders with television. The latest available figures from TAM show that at the beginning of this year there were 16 million such households. At the same date there were 14 million television licence holders. It is a matter of simple subtraction that this leaves 2 million households which ought to be licensed, but are not. The loss of revenue to the Exchequer amounts to £10 million every year. Every licence holder is subsidising the evaders to the
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Tune of 12s. each year. No Government could allow this situation to continue, and that is why the Bill has been introduced.
So much, then, for the basic—and disquieting—fact. That is the situation with which my right honourable friend the Postmaster General was confronted. It did not, of course, follow as night follows day that information from dealers would be needed. Was there perhaps something fundamentally at fault with the methods of the Post Office in enforcing the licence system? Or, if not a fundamental fault, were there perhaps a number of failings which, even though relatively minor in themselves, could together explain the massive loss of revenue? And, finally, were the methods of enforcement being applied with the necessary vigour? The answers to these questions is, my Lords, that though there were ways in which the Department's procedure could be tightened up, something very much more was needed.
In essence, the reason is this. First, the initiative in taking out a first licence lies largely with the individual who installs or uses the set. As things stand, the Post Office simply do not know that the set is being installed or used. The notification procedure (in Clause 2 of the Bill) will ensure that in future the Post Office do know. Then there is the next step. As things stand at present, if the individual in question comes to the Post Office, as indeed the overwhelming majority do, and takes out a licence, then of course he is on the Department's records. Thereafter, they can try to ensure that he renews his licence annually. Unfortunately, they cannot guarantee to do so.
One might suppose that, once the person was on the books, there would be no further difficulty. But people move. In some urban areas, as many as 10 per cent. of the households move house in a year; and the Post Office lose track of many of them. Once again, the initiative lies largely with the individual. If he remembers to renew his licence and does so, splendid. He is back on the Post Office records and all is well. But he may not remember. How many of us would remember, without being prompted, that it is precisely one year since we paid the £5 due; and that it is time to pay again?

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When, some months afterwards, it strikes a person that it is a long time since he last paid, it will also occur to him that the Post Office have not asked him to renew his licence, and if in these circumstances some people feel no pressing need to go and pay £5 to renew a licence, need we feel astonished? Noble Lords will, I hope, feel able to agree that the initiative lies largely with the individual. What Part I of the Bill is designed to do is to put the initiative where it ought to be: with the Post Office. It will give the Post Office access to lists of everybody who rents his set or is buying it on hire-purchase or credit sale, so that it will be possible to get back on the Post Office's records more than half of the people who have escaped from them.
Now I come to the new approach contained in the Bill. As I have said, Part I is designed to put the initiative with the Post Office. It does so as follows. In future, every time a householder gets a set, new or second-hand, from a dealer, the dealer will have to tell the Post Office. In this way the Post Office will know that this householder has a set. If there is no licence, there will be an inquiry to be made. It will not be the old inquiry, addressed hit-or-miss to the man without a licence, so much as to the man who has a set. It will be a purposeful inquiry. The evaders will know that the Post Office has very good grounds for believing that he has a set.
Moreover, the Bill does not require my right honourable friend to wait until every evader has to replace his set. The Bill empowers the Postmaster General also to obtain from every dealer who lets out sets under the rental or hire-purchase agreements, or is selling them under credit sale agreements, within a specified time—not less than a year of his asking for the information—a list of the names and addresses of people who currently have sets under agreements made before the coming into force of Part I of the Bill. This power will enable us to make a really telling impact on existing evasion without having to wait for the evaders to replace their sets.
The other thing the Bill does is to put up the maximum penalties that the courts may impose on convicted evaders. The present maximum fines are £10 for
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a first offence and £50 for a subsequent offence, with the added option, little used in practice, of ordering the forfeiture of unlicensed receiving sets. The Bill would abolish forfeiture of unlicensed receiving sets, but increase the maximum fines to the point where they can really bite on the evader who has been saving himself the expense of buying licences: up to £50 for a first offence and up to £100 for a subsequent offence.
Before I leave Part I of the Bill I ought to refer to the attitude of the associations representing the television dealers. Before deciding to put forward the proposals in the Bill my right honourable friend the Postmaster General received from them all the help he could wish in the way of comments and advice on ways and means of making his proposals work. The dealers' associations would much rather that their members should not be required to help the Post Office, but, given Her Majesty's Government's decision, they have unreservedly given their counsel on how to make it work. For our part, we have done all we can to make the scheme as little burdensome to the dealers as is consistent with its objectives. And when the Bill was being considered in another place my right honourable friend the Postmaster General referred to his decision to issue special demonstration licences to dealers, at a very small charge, and representing a useful saving in money to the dealers; and held out the hope that if things went really well he might be able to put off for a while, or even altogether, the operation of Clause 3(2): that is to say, the provision by dealers of information about sets already held on hire when the Bill comes fully into force.
My Lords, we all recognise that Part I of the Bill is unwelcome to the dealers. The Government carefully considered the idea that the operation of Part I should be put off to see whether the effect of more intensive measures by the Postmaster General, higher penalties and more publicity, was enough in itself. But we had to reject it. With £10 million being lost every year we cannot wait to try the effect of higher penalties coupled with the existing machinery, which may not have done a bad job but of its nature cannot achieve and sustain the big reduction in evasion which the honest majority have a right to expect.

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The other provision of the Bill which may call for a word or two of explanation is the proposed power to control the import and manufacture of wireless telegraphy apparatus giving rise to interference. This is to cope with the situation in which, to take an example, walkie-talkie transmitters, designed for use on frequencies not allocated for use in Britain to transmitters of this kind, are freely imported and freely put on sale. The Postmaster General cannot license these transmitters because of the interference they may cause to authorised services. But so long as they are freely on sale, people buy them before discovering that he will not license them. They are naturally indignant with the Government at allowing this state of affairs to continue. The Bill will enable my right honourable friend to put a stop to it. There is, however, no question of his using the powers sought in the Bill to interfere with the reasonable wish of radio amateurs, or any other licensed users of radio, to import or make equipment of a kind my right honourable friend is willing to license. But everybody stands to benefit by the removal from the market of transmitters which cannot be licensed.
Now a short account of the main clauses of the Bill. Clause I requires dealers, with certain exceptions, to register with the Postmaster General. This is an essential preliminary to the use of information from dealers. Clause 2 provides that every dealer who deals direct with the customer shall, after the latest day on which he is required to register, send the Postmaster General a written notification every time he supplies a television set; and keep certain records of such transactions. Other dealers, namely, rental companies and hire purchase finance companies who do not deal direct with the customer, are also required to keep records if they themselves collect the rental or instalment payments direct from the customer, but not otherwise. The Schedule to the Bill sets out the particulars to be notified and recorded.
Clause 3 empowers the Postmaster General to call for further information in two different situations. They are alike in that both involve a continuing relationship between the dealer and his customer: this is that the customer
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remains under agreement to make regular payments to the dealer. In the first case, the Post Office may have lost track of the customer, who has moved. Subsection (1) of the clause would empower the Postmaster General to ask the dealer whether there is an agreement still in force and, if so, what is the present or last known address of the buyer or hirer. The power is one which the Postmaster General would continue to use indefinitely. Subsection (2) of the clause relates to the second case. In order to make an immediate inroad into the existing evasion, the Postmaster General seeks in this subsection to be empowered to require any dealer, by notice in writing, to supply him with a list of the names and addresses of all persons who have sets from the dealer under agreements made before Part I of the Bill is activated, and still in force when he supplies the list. Since for the big rental companies supplying these lists will be quite a sizeable task, there is to be a time allowed of not less than twelve months in which to supply them. However, this is a once-for-all operation.
Clause 7 would empower the Postmaster General to make orders that certain apparatus, to be specified in the orders, may not be imported or manufactured without the Postmaster General's authority and on such terms and conditions as may be attached to that authority. The object of this power is defined as
"for the purpose of preventing or reducing the risk of interference with wireless telegraphy".
It would be an offence to contravene the provisions of the clause. Clause 8 makes possible the inclusion in a vehicle excise licence application form of questions designed to establish whether a radio is fitted in the vehicle. My right honourable friend the Minister of Transport will not make use of this power until she has centralised the issue of vehicle Excise licences. But the power has been included in the Bill so as to provide when the time comes for the more effective enforcement of this requirement.
We shall, of course, have the opportunity to look at the details in Committee, but I hope in the meantime that the objects of the Bill will be as welcome to your Lordships as they have been in another place and in the country as a whole, and accordingly that the Bill will

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be given a Second Reading without a Division. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.
4.12 p.m.
LORD DENHAM: My Lords, this Bill has become urgently necessary, partly owing to the difficult financial position in which the B.B.C. finds itself, and in view of our previous debates I cannot resist saying to the noble Baroness that this is not helped by the prospect of the increased expenses which will arise from the new programme, Radio 247 and the local radio experiment, and the refusal of Her Majesty's Government to consider financing either of these from advertising revenue. Be that as it may, it is clearly intolerable that, while so much must be financed by licence revenue, one person in eight evades payment, and thereby puts an unfair burden on the other seven. This must be stopped.
My honourable friends in another place have questioned very closely the propriety of putting on the retailers of television sets the onus of collecting information for the Post Office. They felt that perhaps Her Majesty's Government should examine more closely the alternative methods of catching licence evaders, such as the provision of more detector vans, a declaration on the rating form with regard to possession of a television set, or even the possibility of relying solely on the increased penalties under this Bill, so as to avoid inflicting on television retailers what they regard as the distasteful duty of spying on their customers. These points have been discussed very fully in another place, and, rightly or wrongly, have been rejected by Her Majesty's Government, and I do not intend to go into them again. I am going to concentrate on asking Her Majesty's Government to ensure that the additional burden of work placed on the shopkeeper is kept down to the absolute minimum.
Your Lordships may not realise what a totally disproportionate amount of paper work and book work the shopkeeper, and especially the small shopkeeper, has to cope with. I speak somewhat feelingly on this point, as a keeper of small shops, although I have no interest to declare in regard to this Bill. Many suppliers of television and wireless
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sets are small businesses. Often the two or three man business provides especially good service in this field. It is a definite advantage to feel that the man who discussed with you the merits of various sets, and helped you to choose one, is also the man who installs it, and the man whom you will ask to come and put it right when it goes wrong. But someone in the small business has to keep the accounts—the daily takings book, the bank and cash book, the petty cash book, the wages book and many others, in a state that will make enough sense for the annual audit, and he also has to fill in the various forms that go with them. Your Lordships may think that to a man who can find his way through the jungle of multi-coloured wires behind a cathode ray tube, filling in a form—even a Government form—must be child's play. But I doubt it. Now he is to have imposed on him the additional burden of the forms and records laid down in the Schedule to this Bill. I ask that this burden be made as easy as possible.
Noble Lords have often complained about the way in which Government Bills are drafted, apparently so as to be quite incomprehensible. The Schedule to this Bill is a prime example. I had to read it three times before I could get any sense out of it at all. I ask your Lordships to look at Part I of the Schedule, "Particulars to be Notified", paragraph 6. It reads:
"If the set is not and is not to be installed as aforesaid but is or is to be delivered by the dealer or another person to his order to any premises, the address of those premises."
Could not even a few commas be added to that, to help to make sense out of it? Are the instructions to retail shops to be worded like that? My first plea, therefore, is that the instructions to the shops should be re-written so that they can be clearly understood the first time they are read, without making someone puzzle over them.
Part I of the Schedule lists the particulars of each sale or letting that must be forwarded to the Post Office by dealers. Part II gives the fuller information of which the dealer must keep a note in case the Post Office need it at a later date. Surely more information is asked for in Part I than is absolutely necessary in the first instance. Surely all the information the Post Office need at this stage is the date of the transaction, the

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name and address of the buyer or hirer, and, if it is different from the foregoing, the address where the set is to be installed or delivered. All this could be written on one line of a simple form, which would be easy to read and easy to fill in. The Post Office could then check it against the list of licence-holders, and if it were found that the buyer or hirer had no licence, a card could be sent to him, similar to the present licence reminders, asking why he had bought a television set without acquiring a licence. If any further action is needed after that, the information can he obtained from the shopkeeper's records which are required to be kept under Part II of the Schedule.
The additional information included in Part I will be needed only in a tiny fraction of cases. Her Majesty's Government calculate that at present one household in eight omit to pay the licence fee. The increased fines, and the virtual certainty of being found out under the provisions of this Bill, will cut this figure drastically. A card from the Post Office, letting evaders know that they have been found out, will bring all but the most intransigent of the remainder running with their £5 fee. To ask for such full information to be furnished in every case, when it will be needed only in such a tiny fraction of the cases, will add un-unnecessarily to the work and expense of the retailers, which in the circumstances is unpardonable, and will add unnecessarily to the work and expense of the Post Office, which this Bill is designed to minimise. My second plea, therefore, is for drastic pruning of the information demanded under Part I of the Schedule.
My third plea is that the Post Office should issue retailers and hire-purchase companies with printed record books, in which to record the details required to be kept under Parts II and III of the Schedule. This would involve small expense to the Post Office, and would save a great deal of time, labour and confusion for the firms which are being conscripted under this Bill to do part of the Post Office's work.
There is one other point that I should like to raise with regard to these lists in the Schedule, and it concerns the question they use in each Part:
"Whether a particular set is designed for reception in colour."
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I should like to ask the noble Baroness if she can tell me whether the Postmaster General intends to issue a special licence at a different price for people who have sets that can receive the colour programmes. If so, I am quite certain that this has not been publicised, or at least not publicised enough, and I think it should be made clear, so that people who are trying to decide whether they can afford a colour set can take this additional factor into consideration. If there is no question of a differential licence fee, obviously this particular question is unnecessary in all the Parts. Apart from those points, I welcome the principle of this Bill and I ask your Lordships to give it a Second Reading.
4.21 p.m.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, nobody on these Benches could fail to support the Second Reading of this Bill, seeing that it was just about twelve years ago that Mr. Eric Lubbock, who was then with Rolls Royce Limited at Derby but has since removed to Orpington, put forward as a suggestion what is in fact almost identically Part I of the Bill. The Postmaster General of 12 years ago appeared to think that the objections to Mr. Lubbock's suggestion were practically insuperable, but here we have Part I of this Bill and we on these Benches are very pleased to see it.
The noble Lord, Lord Denham, has quarrelled with the Schedule. I should like to take one step back from there and quarrel with the Short Title. We have had Wireless Telegraphy Bills since 1904, and of course I am only too pleased to think that we should use the same language to describe the same sorts of things so as to be consistent—that is provided we are talking about the same sort of things, because in this world you cannot usually legislate perfectly, but you can sometimes legislate with certainty and consistency by sticking to the same expressions to describe the same things.
This Bill does not deal with the same sorts of things with which the Wireless Telegraphy Bill 1904 dealt. In 1904 the pioneers of wireless telegraphy were seeking to send messages from point A to point B by wireless. They realised, of course, that other persons with receiving sets would be able to intercept the messages, but this was positively

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antagonistic to what they were seeking to achieve. It was not until 16 years later that we got the first public sound broadcasting in 1920, and it was another 16 years before we got the first public television service in 1936. This was a British institution, and it began from Alexandra Palace in 1936. In 1954 we had a Television Act. In 1964 we had another Television Act. I would have hoped that that marked the end of the expression "wireless telegraph" to describe television which, after all, is, one of the great marvels of the modern age, and I suppose has done more to broaden the human mind than anything since the invention of Caxton. I would therefore ask the noble Baroness whether she thinks I shall have any luck when we come to Committee if I seek to amend the Short Title by striking out "Wireless Telegraph" and inserting "Television and Radio"?
4.25 p.m.
THE EARL OF SHANNON: My Lords, I must apologise for intervening in this debate, because I am not on the official list of runners, but having read the Bill I feel that I should like to draw your Lordships' attention most especially to Part II, Clause 7. With regard to the first Part of the Bill, I do not think that any of us, especially those who are, the rather smug possessors of our £5 licences, have any great difference of opinion on licence fees. Equally, there is no more mournful dirge than the sound of the Treasury bewailing loss of revenue.
With regard to Clause 7, I would suggest to your Lordships that it is really far too widely drafted. I should like to ask the noble Baroness whether she could state in detail what classes of equipment are likely to be covered. I know she gave your Lordships an assurance that the radio amateurs and their activities are not likely to be interfered with, but in view of the wide coverage of this clause I would suggest that it might be possible for some proviso to be made that an offence shall be committed only if such equipment were actually used. It is very difficult sharply to delineate exactly what equipment will or will not cause interference. I am not pleading that we should be allowed to use with free licence all the old, now probably almost antique, regenerative and super-
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regenerative receiver circuits so popular in the 1920s and whose oscillations, if badly used, caused absolute chaos over a wide band of the spectrum. But I think we should have some assurance, an even greater assurance than we have had already, that the private manufacture by amateurs of certain equipment will not be liable in this way unless an offence is occasioned by its actual use. Perhaps attention might be given to this on Committee.
I would also point out that subsection (7) of Clause 7, as it appears at the moment, is so wide that it covers pretty well every manufacturer of any type of equipment or component in this country. I have only to go and buy a semiconductor made by any of the well-known manufacturers, use it in some piece of equipment, and it renders them liable, as I see it, for having assisted in committing that offence. I would suggest that very serious consideration be given to Clause 7 on Committee stage.
4.28 p.m.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I think we can all agree that at any rate the objects of the Bill have been welcomed in our debate this afternoon. There have been various different views about achieving the objects of the Bill, not, I am glad to say, as many as I had anticipated, and it has been a pleasure to listen to the very factual and practical suggestions that have come from your Lordships.
If I may reply first to the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, my right honourable friend the Postmaster General has at all stages been very closely in touch with the radio amateurs through the Radio Society of Great Britain. He has on several occasions in the other place, and also in Committee stage, given categorical assurances that he will move throughout the whole of this in very close consultation with that society, and I think perhaps I could not give the noble Earl a better assurance than that. They have had dealings with the Postmaster General, and they have on every occasion expressed the feeling that he is very well aware of their remarkable interest.
I would remind your Lordships that this clause in particular is in the nature of a consumer protection clause. I feel

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certain that the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, appreciates that point. Young men do buy this sort of apparatus, which is very freely advertised for sale, on which in very small print it says, "Cannot be used in the United Kingdom". We are all aware that the shopper should beware, but I think your Lordships would agree that anything which helps to protect the consumer, as in fact this Bill would as a piece of protective legislation, is all to the good. But the radio amateurs are a different group, and also there is already properly licensed use of pieces of equipment which are used, for example within a hospital. Those are the kinds of equipment which do not cause interference, and this is used as a rigid criterion by my right honourable friend.
As I had rather expected, the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, brought forward one of the few points on which I appear to have no information at all; namely, why we still continue to call this wireless telegraphy. Being a non-technical Minister I might venture to suggest that at any rate one clause of the Bill does deal with apparatus which transmits and receives—this is the one which we have just been discussing—and therefore that would not be covered if we were to call it merely a Television Bill. Clause 7 does not deal with television; neither does the clause dealing with the vehicle excise licence. So perhaps the phrase "wireless telegraphy" is used as an all-over and comprehensive title.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, I suggested "Television and Radio Bill".
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I should not like to take issue with the noble Lord on that matter. But again, I think that Clause 7 does not deal purely with radio. I will certainly go into the matter. I would agree that in these days we scarcely ever make reference to "wireless telegraphy". But I will come back to this point as I feel certain that the noble Lord will return to it on Committee.
I was glad that the noble Lord, Lord Denham, made reference to the fact that other means of raising finance had been suggested in another place, and therefore he did not reiterate the point. For those of your Lordships who have the time and
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the desire, I would recommend the reading of those suggestions, as they were indeed most interesting. My right honourable friend the Postmaster General has at all stages of the Bill taken full note of the knowledgeable people who have been putting forward these suggestions.
I would say that the burden on the small shopkeeper has been most carefully considered. In fact, my right honourable friend has consulted with the trade representatives, not once but on frequent occasions, and the instructions are the result of joint consultation. The suggestion of a record book seemed to me an admirable one, and I will certainly take this back. On the question of colour television, the noble Lord, Lord Denham, suggested that perhaps it was not fully appreciated whether there would be an additional fee. This information is required, because it is anticipated that colour television sets will be much more readily acquired as the prices appear to be coming down a little. In the original White Paper on Broadcasting issued in December last, the fact that there would be an additional fee of £5 was mentioned. However, I agree with the noble Lord that for the record it is necessary that we should repeat it in this House, so that those who do not already know can be made fully aware of the fact.
I would also repeat something that has not been raised by any noble Lord, but I think it is necessary to mention it. On studying the work of the detector vans it has seemed to me that it is sometimes thought that these are just a piece of bluff. I have heard many people outside this House say that they cannot really detect anything. On discussing this subject with Post Office officials, I was most interested to learn that in fact the detector vans are highly efficient and can be said to detect at wide range, almost down to the actual room and place in which the television set is operating.
I hope I have replied to the points raised by the three noble Lords who have taken part in this discussion. I am quite certain that we are going to have some useful discussion again on Committee. Therefore I would commend this Bill to your Lordships for a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

HONG KONG
4.35 p.m.
LORD OGMORE LORD OGMORE rose to call attention to the political, economic and internal security positions in Hong Kong; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, we in this House frequently nowadays discuss matters over which we have little or no authority, but the subject we are to discuss to-day is not only one over which we have authority but one for which both Her Majesty's Government and Parliament have a great deal of responsibility. The origin of our connection with the island and the State of Hong Kong goes back to 1841, when the island was ceded to us, I think much to the annoyance of the Government here, since Lord Palmerston described it as "a barren island with hardly a house upon it." I think that was probably an artistic or politician's rather than a geographical way of describing the island of Hong Kong, because some years ago I met there at dinner one evening an elderly and most charming old Chinese gentleman, who was a grandson of the one of the three headmen who were present when the island was ceded. So I imagine that there were a few more than one or two houses on the island.
In 1860 a part of the mainland opposite the island of Hong Kong, the peninsula, was, for obvious reasons, ceded; and the island and part of the peninsula, Hong Kong, became, with the adjoining islands, a great and prosperous free port, becoming—as Raffles said of Singapore—an emporium of trade with China and many other countries, both in and outside Asia. In 1898 the new territories—that is to say, the portion of the mainland opposite the island of Hong Kong—were leased to Britain for 99 years from 1899. There was, at one time when I was dealing with these matters at the Colonial Office, a query about the old city, the tiny little city, of Kowloon. But I do not intend to go into that to-day, unless the Minister wishes me to do so. It was, as Joseph Chamberlain once said in another place, the size of a London square.
In December, 1941, the Japanese occupied Hong Kong. They remained in occupation for three years and seven months. When we went back in 1945 the population was about 600,000. By
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the end of 1947 it had grown to 1,800,000; and when the Communist insurgence came about and the Nationalists were driven out of China the numbers went up, especially from refugees coming from the Treaty ports, of Shanghai and other places, and to-day the population is about 4 million. We talk about crowding in this country; but an increase from 600,000, in 1945, to 4 million to-day is not a bad rise.
Of course, this immense increase in the population in a tiny little State such as this has imposed problems. The Colony is prosperous, enormously active commercially; it has large sterling balances, and for trade with China it is a valuable outlet, both to the Chinese Government and to ourselves. But of course it has many problems: problems of overcrowding, poverty, a rapidly expanding population and a shortage of water. It has been described as "the Switzerland of Asia"; and there is something in that. I think it is important to noble Lords who do not know the territory well to realise that Hong Kong depends greatly on China for food and water. That is always a problem in the minds of those dealing with Hong Kong.
Apart from industry and commerce, 100,000 people are farmers and fishermen, and very important people they are. I have long been interested in them and in their co-operatives, and on my visit in 1949 they were good enough to present me with a very handsome, hand-painted book from the farmers and workers in the farmers' co-operative, dedicated to me as a memento of my visit and in appreciation of my interest in their welfare. The last part is certainly true, for I have always taken a very great interest in them. The pictures portray vegetable growers in the new territories. There was also a poem from the T'ang dynasty describing the hardships of those who work on the land.
China is, of course, their next-door neighbour, and conditions in China immediately affect the conditions in Hong Kong. In August, 1965, Chairman Mao Tse-tung launched his "Cultural Revolution". The origin is not quite clear, but it seems to those best able to judge that it was probably due to the distress of Chairman Mao in seeing China, in spite of the revolution which he led, failing to become a purely proletarian State and failing to impose

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its political, social, economic and military pattern on other States in Asia, Africa and perhaps elsewhere. He has blamed both the Soviet Union and his own intellectuals and Party leaders—all this in spite of the failure of his disastrous "Leap Forward" policy. Chairman Mao then launched his Red Guards to achieve his ends, which he had failed to do in other ways, by mob rule. By so doing China has lost a lot of her moral influence.
Lately there has been the development of the hydrogen bomb, which is a very ominous development, not only in regard to potential in war but also from the point of view of fall-out. It is rather uncertain who actually controls the hydrogen bomb in China. It would seem now to be under the control of General Wang En-mao, and to what extent General Wang En-mao and Chairman Mao are in sympathy one with the other it is difficult to say—I should imagine it is not very great. It is very sad to me, as one who has had a great love of the Chinese people ever since my early days nearly 40 years ago in Penang. I have always appreciated their remarkable qualities. They are a cultured, artistic, hard-working, cheerful people, with an intense family life. When we see the sort of situation that has come about in China in the last year it is sad for me and for the many other people who are friends of the Chinese and of China.
The effect of all this on Hong Kong has been very great. I thought it would be, and that is why some months ago I put down the Motion which we are discussing to-day. On May 6 there was a labour dispute in two factories in Hong Kong which were making artificial flowers, and those disputes led to minor disturbances during picketing of one of the factories. Immediately the Communists took advantage of those labour disputes and organised demonstrations, with the aid of a number of hooligans, most of whom were paid. The police controlled the situation with a minimum of force and did an admirable job. Firearms were used only once, when just one man was wounded. Thirty-six police and 70 demonstrators were wounded in all. There was only one death, and that was of a bystander who was hit by a stone—it had nothing to do with the police. There were 815 arrests; the soldiers were available there, if necessary, but were not called in.
The reaction of the Hong Kong people has been very interesting, when one realises that in the past, certainly in China, the Chinese people were not, as a rule, wholeheartedly on the side of the Government. In fact the position was usually the other way about, with their feeling that the Government was more likely to do them harm than good—and they were usually not far wrong. But the reaction in Hong Kong has been wholeheartedly in favour of the Government, and at least 97 per cent. of the population of Hong Kong has come out in favour of the Government: 582 organisations, clansmen's, business organisations, and so on, have come out in support. Urban and rural Chinese including my old friends the farmers and fishermen of the new territories have been practically unanimous in conveying their support to the Government. It was proposed that a police education fund should be set up to educate the children of the police, particularly in higher education, and this purely voluntary fund had brought in over 3½ million dollars from the people of Hong Kong—which is quite remarkable, but is of course entirely deserved.
The Hong Kong Government's attitude throughout these troubles has been commendable. It has been firm, fair, dignified and patient—all one could wish. It has been very different from the attitude in Macao, the Portuguese Colony which is quite near to Hong Kong. Because of the weakness shown in Macao, the Communists, especially the Red Guards, have practically taken over there, and I gather that the Macao authorities have actually appealed to Mr. Chou-en-Lai for assistance. I am afraid they are not likely to get very much sympathy from him. It is essential, however, to maintain confidence in the Hong Kong Government's determination to rule firmly and wisely, not only among the people in Hong Kong but among people outside Hong Kong, in the world at large.
I should like to turn for a moment to the future and to explain what I, for one, feel that the Government should do. First of all, I feel that it is essential to maintain firmly, and with justice to all, law and order in Hong Kong. And in this the police and the Government have the overwhelming support of the majority of the people there. Furthermore, they must take the opportunity to ensure that

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police pay and conditions are satisfactory in modern circumstances. This was not always so, by any means, but I hope that if there are any ways in which it can be improved they will be acted upon by the Government. Thirdly, I would ask the Government to look into the practices of the Communist banks in Hong Kong, because they are pursuing quite extraordinary courses. They have opened what is called an "anti-persecution fund", and are putting considerable pressure upon their customers. They even go so far—and this will cause a shudder of horror among those of your Lordships who are bankers—as to go through the accounts of their customers and bring pressure on them to subscribe to this fund. There is no doubt that some of the banks have been centres of Communist organisation in Hong Kong.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, would the noble Lord be ready to add one other object, and that is to secure some minimum wage for the workers? The appalling conditions in the factories have led to the strike which brought about the beginning of these troubles.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, and would remind him that I have not yet finished. I have only got as far as number three of my suggestions, and I have several more things to say. One cannot finish off the whole matter by three suggestions to the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, from whom I know they will receive sympathetic consideration.
LORD BROCKWAY: I understood the noble Lord to be laying down the conditions.
LORD OGMORE: Yes, and I still have a few more. I would ask the United Kingdom Government to back the Hong Kong Government in all these proposals which I am making, for they cannot do these things without the support and the authorisation of the British Government. I would also ask them to make sure that, when we talk about "withdrawal East of Suez" we always exclude from the policy of withdrawals East of Suez—as the Liberal Party has always advocated—the Colony of Hong Kong. It is our responsibility, and we must take the necessary steps to ensure that the Crown Colony is secure.
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Then I would ask the Government to pursue an energetic and imaginative development of industry, commerce, farming and fishing. I do not want any suggestion to be made that there is any let-down in future development, and I am glad to see that the Hong Kong Electricity Company is already making plans up to 1986 for its future development. I strongly urge not only the Government and the Urban Council, but also industrial and commercial firms, to do the same, and to plan well forward Hong Kong's economic development.
I now come to the proposal for reform to which the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, has drawn my attention. The Hong Kong Government has been faced with the problem of the enormously increased population and it has put great effort into the social services. But there is a vast need for greater educational, housing, health, welfare, employment and medical services. As the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, has said, in a way the recent incident started in the factories, and it is important that the conditions of employment in the factories, not only in regard to wages, should be of the best possible kind. In addition, I ask the Government to give all possible assistance to the old, the widows and the fatherless. I am very glad indeed that the Women and Young. Persons' Regulation Bill, which regulates employment, is to be introduced very shortly. That, I hope, will help the young persons and the women in their conditions of service in the factories, and in other commercial and industrial undertakings.
In regard to constitutional progress, the one body on which there are any elected members at the moment is the Urban Council. There are 26 members; 6 of them are ex officio, 10 are nominated and 10 are elected. So only 10 out of 26 are elected. I think the people of Hong Kong, by their conduct and by their support for the Government, have shown that they are in every way suited to have a greater representation of elected members on the Urban Council. They themselves would like—and I am sure they are right—the scope of the Urban Council to be widened in such matters as social welfare, education and medical services, municipal transport and fire services, and I would support the Hong Kong Civic Association, whose plan that is, in that direction.

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I also believe that there should be more women on the Council. I do not know whether there are any on it at the moment, but if there are not then there should be. If there are, I am quite certain that there are not many and there probably should be more. I have not been able to get hold of that figure.
The Hong Kong Civic Association have also proposed that the Urban Council should be renamed the Municipal Council, and I would commend that also. In addition, I think there should be a Rural Council with the same status as the Urban Council, or Municipal Council, for Hong Kong. That is not the case to-day, and I should like to see that brought about, with elected members on that Rural Council.
Then there is the Legislative Council, which consists of 5 ex officio members, 8 nominated and 8 unofficial. None of them is elected, and there is only one woman on the Council. I believe that there ought to be more women on the Council, and I think there should be more unofficial members, because 8 is a very small number. The Hong Kong Civic Association suggested that instead of direct elections to the Legislative Council there might be a system whereby elected members of the Municipal Council and of the Rural Council, when it is created, are appointed to the Legislative Council. In other words, there will not be a direct election to the Legislative Council, but the members will come from the elected members of the other Councils. I hope I have made that clear. That is what the Secretary General of the Civic Association, Mr. Hilton Cheong-Leen, said quite recently. Both the Hong Kong Civic Association, with whom I have been in touch for many years, and the Reform Club are responsible bodies of moderate opinion whose views are well worth taking into account.
As it stands at the moment, the Legislative Council is the old type of Crown Colony Legislative Council. It is exactly the same type of Council that we had in Penang when I was Secretary of the Penang Straits Settlements Association nearly forty years ago. So they do not seem to have moved very far in Hong Kong. So far as I am aware, they are not at the moment asking for direct representation—at least, Mr. Hilton Cheong-Leen is not doing so—and I have
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no doubt that they would be satisfied to have an interim measure such as I have described.
In conclusion, may I say that I think the British Government and the Hong Kong Government should press on with the measures needed to create a democratic and enlightened society in Hong Kong. We ought to make it not only an emporium of trade, which it is, but also a shop window for democracy in East Asia. I should like to send messages of congratulation and good wishes from this House to the Government of Hong Kong, to her security forces and to her splendid people. I beg to move for Papers.
4.57 p.m.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, we must be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, for having put down this Motion to-day, despite the fact that the situation in Hong Kong still seems somewhat uneasy and we must obviously be careful of what we say. I think the noble Lord has been very careful. I must say that I agree with virtually everything he has said, and with the excellent suggestions and proposals which he made regarding both social conditions and the municipal and legislative system.
At the outset I should like to join the noble Lord in paying tribute to the Governor, Sir David Trench, and his staff who, we hope, will bear the present problems which they have to face as stoically as possible. They clearly have the sympathy of the whole House in their present very difficult tasks. I should also like to join the noble Lord in congratulating the police in Hong Kong, who appear to have handled what was undoubtedly an explosive situation with admirable resolution and restraint. It is indeed a remarkable thing that the 7,000 Servicemen there were not required to give help to the civil power. With a population of about 4 million, 50 per cent. of whom are under 21, squeezed into its relatively small area—which I, too, have seen for myself—the possibility of a breakdown of law and order must be an ever-present danger. I am glad that there has been such considerable support for the Government from the many elements of the Chinese community.
Law and order has been preserved at least for the time being, and despite the recent troubles I feel it is most important that we keep the disturbances which have

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occurred in their proper perspective. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, who is to answer for the Government, will tell me whether I am right in thinking that there is a considerable degree of normality in Hong Kong now; and whether the disturbances, which received so much publicity in other parts of the world, in fact occurred in only a very limited area at a time. I was glad to see in The Times this morning that the Hong Kong stock market reopened yesterday after having been closed most of the month.
My Lords, I feel I must refer for one moment to the five-point demand which the Chinese Government presented to us on May 15. I will not go into those points now, or specify them exactly; I think the noble Lord knows what they were. They are, of course, a grotesque travesty of the facts, and I hope Her Majesty's Government have not answered them. I think I am right in saying that they have not been answered. In the past the British Government have always honoured their treaty obligations in regard to this Colony, and we have always hoped that the Chinese Government would the same. I hope your Lordships will agree that it has always been accepted in the past that the Chinese Communist Government do not want us to leave Hong Kong, at least not until the lease of the Colony expires in 1997. I assume our own Government—I hope I am right in this—will also respect our treaty obligations until then, and will not be moved from this policy.
I hope, too, that the Government will be able to give us an assurance—and I hope that it may be an unequivocal statement—that they will in no circumstances allow Hong Kong to pass under the domination of another Power, whether directly or indirectly, as appears to be the case in Macao, where, among other things, the unfortunate Portuguese Government (and our sympathies must be with them) were not in a position even to protect our own Consul.
The value of the free port of Hong Kong to the world—and China, after all, represents a very large part of this world—must not be underestimated. From its early days as a British Colony until the outbreak of the Second World War the economy of Hong Kong was based, as
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the noble Lord has said, on its position as a great entrepôt port for trade between China and the rest of the world. In the post-war period the Colony has developed a wide range of industries, but at the same time the economy remains basically that of a free port having few natural resources and dependent on overseas trade to pay for the imports of food, raw materials and equipment which it needs. As the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, said, one of the most vital of Hong Kong's imports is the water that it receives from China. I understand that requests have been made to increase the quantities of water for the Colony, and I should be grateful to the noble Lord, to whom I have given notice of this question, if he would tell me whether progress has been made in this direction. They certainly need more water.
My Lords, this remaining outpost, set as it is along the coast of China, represents an especial responsibility for this country. The people of Hong Kong, and indeed we too, have much to be proud of, as the noble Lord has said, in the educational and welfare services; and much is being done, as I understand it, to investigate and put right the labour disputes which caused the sparking off of the recent troubles. However, as the entire livelihood of this small Colony depends so much upon its ability to trade with the rest of the world, I hope the Government will agree that we must do all that we possibly can—and I know that the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, agrees with this—to give confidence, to assist the people in their efforts to find markets for their products, and to direct as much trade to them as our own economy will allow.
With the ever-growing power of China as their neighbour, their position is not an enviable one; but in regard to the explosion of China's first H-bomb, I hope we may feel somewhat reassured by the most recent thoughts of Chairman Mao—we are all interested in the thoughts of Chairman Mao—when he said that the Chinese
"solemnly declare once again that at no time and in no circumstances will China be the first to use nuclear weapons."
He added,
"We always mean what we say."
My Lords, I happened, quite by chance, to be in Irkutsk in Eastern Siberia when China exploded their second atom bomb

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in 1965, and I can assure your Lordships that those who knew that this had been done—and, of course, the man in the street did not—were very uneasy there, too. But in regard to Hong Kong I would say this: that the position and the value of the Colony in its present status can be of very real importance to the future economies of many countries. I hope she will long remain so; and, however red his banner may be, I hope Chairman Mao fully recognises its value and will always stand by his solemn declaration.
5.7 p.m.
LORD RHODES: My Lords, may I, too, express my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, for having raised this subject to-day? Some years ago I sat in the office of a prominent businessman in Hong Kong overlooking the harbour, and I said to him, "Tell me something about the occupation by the Japanese." He said: "I saw them swimming across the harbour; they came across the Bund; they came up the steps of this office; and, while they were coming up the steps I wrote something on a piece of paper, put it on the top of my documents in the safe, locked the safe door and, when the Japanese pushed the door in, I handed them the keys. "He was whisked off to Shanghai, to spend the war there. I was dying to ask him the question, "What had you written on that piece of paper?"—and I did. He replied, "Things are never as bad as they seem." I hope that he is thinking the same kind of thoughts now.
I agree with points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore—law and order, pay for the police, anti-persecution fund, military security and social reform—and also with his references to reform of a political nature. But I venture to suggest that the situation in Hong Kong is totally different from that which we have experienced in any other part of the world where we have been an occupying authority, because the Chinese, wherever they be throughout the world, are a closely-knit community. Their expatriates throughout the world send donations amounting to many millions of Hong Kong dollars back to their homeland in China, and this shows intense loyalty to the Chinese mainland. I am one of those who believe in progress towards more democracy in the world in agreed things, but the problem with which they would be faced in Hong
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Kong would be the charge by China of alienation of the Chinese in Hong Kong if the democratic process went too far.
These are the facts—and they have to be faced—that make the difficulties of the Governor and his Administration so much more acute. The Governor and the police have been praised, and rightly so. They have really done a first-rate job. So has the public in Hong Kong. That has been said, and I will not go over the ground again. That firmness, that belief in their own future, I believe must be supported from this country. The firmness of action during those days and weeks surprised the Chinese Communists. They expected an easy run—as they had in Macao.
The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, mentioned what had been done in other territories. I remember the first time I ever went to Hong Kong. I remember the cirticisms I had made in another place of the administration and of the way they ran things. I can recall the charges about low wages and all the rest of it. Then I remember getting to Hong Kong and seeing the energy and brilliance of their operations, both commercial and industrial, and the way in which they were coping with the ceaseless pouring-in of an endless number of refugees, and with the building of their houses—although the accommodation, 14 square feet per person, was small by our standards. But you can go to other countries which are supposed to be very forward and advanced in terms of housing, countries such as Russia, and you can see, even to-day, that they are putting up buildings for the workers with no more than nine square metres for each. I have seen their shift system of schools, starting at seven o'clock in the morning and finishing at eight o'clock or nine o'clock at night. I have admiration for them. There are many things that they could learn; there are many things they are doing wrong; but it was evident to me that there was a real and sincere striving to progress and that they were succeeding. Films and books portray Hong Kong as a kind of snob area, where the old-style taipan sits and sips his whisky attended by servants, until it seems that this image has produced in many people here a kind of Walter Mitty envy of their success and their enterprise.
My Lords, mention has been made about what is happening on the mainland.

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Not having been there for 12 months I make perhaps a risky contribution here. In China you see an example of a shift in Communist policy. You have Mao as the pure Marxist, and you have the Party, the Communist Party, trying to embark on a new policy altogether—imitating the Russians who, as your Lordships know, during these last three years have moved from the Marxist conception over to the acceptance of profit as a yardstick of industrial confidence. The two champions of this move in China were Lin Shao-chi and Tung Shao-ping. For 18 months they have been incommunicado; while Mao has raised feelings in the country for a return to dogmatic Marxism. Old-timers who know China well say that Chinese military strategy is based on surrounding your enemy on three sides—you always leave him the fourth side from which to escape if he can. These two leaders are still in Peking. They have not taken the fourth side escape, so they are in a position of strength yet. Mao closed the schools. He gave 15 million students the title of Red Guards, and off they went on a rampage; and they enjoyed it.
No wonder there were repercussions in Hong Kong. China's foreign policy has resulted in her near-total hostility towards the whole of the world, with the exception of one country, Albania. They have been at loggerheads with the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A., and with Portugal over Macao. There has been verbal war with Indonesia; they have "taken on" Mongolia; there is trouble in the Sinkiang region, trouble in Sushow and in Hunan Province. And now this great civilised race is reduced to splashing glue over departing diplomats. Yet I am sure they will emerge as time goes on as one of the finest races in the world. I join with the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, who has expressed his admiration of them.
It is interesting that during this last day or two there has been a new directive in Peking. It is backed by the Party and by the Government and the Army. It outlaws the excesses which have been so much in evidence during these last few week. The directive forbids violence, the illegal seizure and illegal entry into Party and State premises, as well as private dwellings; it bans the seizure of State and Party documents—all of which has apparently been going on. That is why
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we must be a little patient. We must support the steadiness and firmness of the people on the spot—and I have admired the sentiments of both the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, and the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, and the moderate terms in which they have couched their speeches.
It is easy to "blether" on a subject like this but it is one that is charged with danger. The Chinese have lost face over the way in which the authorities in Hong Kong have handled the situation. I was interested in the question which the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, put to the Minister about what had happened with regard to the five demands. All the time this was going on I never heard any mention whatever by any spokesman in China of what they would do if the demands were not met. Perhaps the Minister will be able to enlighten us on that.
In conclusion I would say that the immediate and pressing need is to take steps to restore confidence. There are people in Hong Kong who are steady, strong and firm, and who need all the support which can be given to them by this Government. Confidence is needed by the local and overseas investors, and I ask Her Majesty's Government to give assurances to them about their future. I will put it in no more demanding a way than that. I realise that the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, will have to work out a suitable formula which, in the present turbulent conditions in China, will appear firm but not provocative. If not, a sudden surge of animosity could do irreparable damage. It may be that that formula cannot be indicated in an answer to-day. We should not expect that, but we hope it will soon be made. We should encourage those who are willing to go ahead by whatever means are available to us: by Government assistance or through the banks, or businessmen. The recent negotiations with the British firms regarding the construction of the cross-harbour tunnel should be helped forward. This applies to other large public works and projects. They, too, should be encouraged and advanced. This is no time to carp about the shortcomings of anyone there. This is the time to give them the means to restore their own confidence and the confidence of those about them. Our businessmen should continue to ship

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their raw materials to Hong Kong, and to place orders for manufactured goods.
Trading in the Far East is a tough job, as anyone knows who has had experience of it. The noble Lord, Lord Erroll of Hale, who successfully led a London Chamber of Commerce mission to the Far East—where I had the pleasure of meeting him—knows this as well as anyone in your Lordships' House, and I think he would back up what I am saying. In the Far East we are in danger of being overwhelmed by Japan regarding our exports to this part of the world. Any foothold we have there should be carefully and firmly held; because in the generations to come this part of the world will be one of the most important places for our exports. If the Government can provide some measure of assurance, they will find a ready response from the millions who have found Hong Kong a place where, at any rate, they could get a reasonable livelihood.
5.25 p.m.
LORD MOYNIHAN: My Lords, I also join in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, for raising this subject this afternoon, the more so because the Motion has been on the Order Paper for a considerable time—a fact which shows a great deal of foresight on the noble Lord's part. Perhaps he foresaw possible difficulties which have since become realities.
I should like to start by disagreeing completely with the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough. I am not prepared to trust Chairman Mao to the extent that the noble Earl is prepared to. Also, Chairman Mao is a very old man, and it is quite possible that his successor, who may not have spent the same amount of time as the noble Earl has in studying Chairman Mao's thoughts, may act completely contrary to them. Anyone who has been in a mob, especially a Chinese mob, will know that there is a great lack of logic in such a mob. There is also a lack of acceptance of any direction. It may be true to say that the people of Peking would have no authority at all over a mob in those circumstances, and therefore, even though he was as good as his word, Chairman Mao could not really be held responsible.
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For these reasons, my Lords, I think it very important to start by looking at the internal and external security position in Hong Kong as it is to-day. I have no military background. I was an ensign for two years when doing my National Service, but that was enough to teach me that Hong Kong is militarily totally indefensible. If I were not able to judge that from my own knowledge, I should not have to look far to find it confirmed by people who know the subject very well. If it is a fact that Hong Kong is militarily indefensible, and if a concerted effort were made by the Chinese to attack it, what should we do? Why are there 8,500 troops in Hong Kong? That is a ridiculous number. It is either far too many or nothing like enough, depending on what our policy is. If we intend to defend Hong Kong militarily, 100,000 troops will be hardly sufficient. If we do not intend to make a fight for Hong Kong, in the event of its being attached, are 8,500 Servicemen necessary to maintain order in the Colony?
Would the Government seriously consider entering into a war on the mainland against Communist China? I could hardly believe that possible—certainly not after the example set to the world by the tragedy of Vietnam. If we do not intend to enter into a war with the Communist Chinese on the mainland, who is the potential enemy in that area? Is it Japan? Is it the forces of the United States on Okinawa? Or is it the Philippines? It would seem hardly likely that any of those was the potential enemy, and certainly none of them would be a potential enemy that 8,500 troops could do anything whatever about. The troops in Malaysia are facing a different problem and are a different subject.
If the troops are there to deal with internal riots, I would draw the attention of your Lordships to the fact that there are 10,701 police officers, men and women, in Hong Kong, and 2,437 auxiliary police. I think that they have proved that they can take care of a very nasty riot without calling on the military. But, if they have to call on the military, surely the first to be called on would be the 600 members of the Hong Kong Regiment, who will be there in any case. It may also be possible to make out a case for leaving a battalion of Gurkhas,

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in case it was absolutely necessary to call out troops to maintain law and order. But surely they would be more than enough. I think it is important that what troops remain in Hong Kong should be Gurkhas, because in the event of their being called out it would be possible to avoid any charge of racialism. Photographs) of Gurkhas putting down a riot are far less provocative in certain parts of the world than pictures of the Grenadier Guards doing exactly the same job.
I come now to the endless and unanswerable question of whether China will attempt to take over Hong Kong or not. It is a long subject, in which their political gain must be balanced against their economic loss. I, for one, would certainly not set myself up to give an opinion on this subject because most of the old China hands or Chinaologists (as the Americans now seem to call them) appear to disagree completely with one another on this point. What we must decide is what is our duty and where does our interest lie, and then we must try to strike a balance between these two. Our interest is in preserving the Colony so long as possible while abiding by our responsibilities and duties, and in the meantime avoiding provocations.
As the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes, has just said, we must not provoke the Chinese any further than is absolutely necessary to maintain law and order. I do not consider the maintenance of law and order is a provocation. What I consider to be a provocation is the presence of American warships in the harbour of Hong Kong at any time whatsoever while the Americans are at war, directly or indirectly, with the Communist Chinese in Vietnam. I also consider it a provocation to have members of the forces actively fighting in Vietnam coming to Hong Kong for rest and recreation. A quarter of a million such soldiers came to Hong Kong last year. Surely this is a provocation which could well be avoided. Certainly the Hong Kong Government wish to have the extra revenue these soldiers leave behind, but I do not think it is that important to them, since they survived very well and made handsome profits in their businesses before the quarter of a million came, and would do so after the quarter of a million went.
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Another form of provocation which must be avoided at all costs is the bad behaviour of Brtish citizens in the Colony. There was a case three years ago when the daughter of a non-commissioned officer stationed in Hong Kong had a motor accident in the Wan Chei area, when presumably under the influence of drink, and the breadwinner of a large Chinese family was badly hurt. She did not face any court but was sent back to England as a punishment. Is this really the correct way of handling such things? Unless provocation is avoided, Hong Kong faces more trouble and generally a worsening business climate. I would stress again that in my opinion firm administration and law enforcement do not constitute a provocation.
Hong Kong is a borrowed place, living on borrowed time. We must be fully prepared to pull out of it if the necessity to do so arises. What I should like to see is some plan for an organised withdrawal in the case of military attack. China is under pressure from other Communist countries, who are laughing at the Chinese and saying, "You cannot set yourselves up as authorities on world Communism when you have a colonial Power sitting on your own territory". This argument in itself might weight the balance in the minds of the rulers of Communist China and force them to feel that the political gain would outweigh the economic loss if they were to remove us militarily from the Colony. We all hope that it is not going to happen, and I certainly agree with that; but are there any plans for the evacuation of Hong Kong if it becomes necessary? This is a question which I should like the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, to answer when he comes to speak.
Particularly, I should like to know what would happen to the loyal members of the Chinese Police Force who, we have already been informed by the Communists in China, would be the first for the "chop" if they ever got into power in the Colony. I think that their behaviour has been magnificent, when one takes account of the fact that they were being told in Chinese from loudspeakers on the top of skyscraper buildings throughout the riots that they were going to be killed as soon the Communists took over. They have remained loyal to us in face of that. Is there not going to be some provision for their evacuation if the Colony had

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to be evacuated? I should also like to know from the noble Lord what would be the position of the holders of British passports, as citizens of Great Britain and the Colonies, if it was necessary to evacuate the Colony. Are there in fact any plans at all?
May I now come to our duties in Hong Kong while we remain there? Listing these in order, they are education, health, housing, social security, constitutional reform and opportunity for the Chinese. First, with regard to education, half the population of Hong Kong is under the age of 15, and 150,000 Chinese children do not get education even up to primary standard. Furthermore, the people who are educated have no future whatsoever. If they are lucky, they get jobs as dustmen. So far as housing is concerned, the Government of Hong Kong have made one of the most magnificent efforts in the history of the world. Unfortunately, this magnificent effort, which nobody could possibly criticise in any shape or form, is insufficient. About 25 per cent. of the people in Hong Kong have not got what we should call a proper home.
The position in regard to health is also pretty intolerable. The infant mortality rate is 2·5 per cent. This is what is admitted, and one suspects, if one knows the Colony at all, that it is considerably higher. What is really needed in Hong Kong is a greater degree of Socialism. The fat profits which are being made by certain members of the community should be shared more equally, and a greater degree of constitutional reform should follow. A greater degree of self-government is surely an essential. As my noble friend Lord Ogmore said, at the moment the only elected representatives in Hong Kong are 10 of the 20 unofficial members of the Urban Council—and after they have been elected, what are they in control of? It is called "Public Health and Sanitation", but in practice it has come to mean the administration of garbage collection and renaming the streets.
The cause of the present difficulties stems from unofficial strikes in two small factories. This is going to happen again and again, unless the cause of these complaints is removed. It is no use just saying: "Well, we have done a magnificent job; we have put this riot down,
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and we are back to normal". It is true that this has been done. But that is not enough, because unless something is done to remove the cause of these strikes there will be more of them, and more riots; and the situation will go from bad to worse. Factory workers, if they are lucky, get £2 a week. They work seemingly unlimited hours. They are laid off at the employers' will, and are penalised mercilessly. There must be industrial legislation now, and it must be properly enforced. The Hong Kong Government try very hard, and they have achieved miracles, but they are often still out of touch with the people. The people must be given industrial legislation and a firm political future.
5.42 p.m.
LORD BOURNE: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, for putting down this Motion, and I hope he will forgive me if my remarks are not fully prepared: I had not expected to attend the House today. What has been said has been extremely interesting, and it provokes me to make a couple of points. First of all, I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, and the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, that the Hong Kong Government should be congratulated and backed up with all the support that we can give them in their firm action in putting down these riots. In this connection, probably the best defence against that kind of thing is a properly organised and efficient Special Branch. The parallel requirement exists in Singapore; and I should like to come to that in a moment.
The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, was absolutely right in saying that industrial legislation, and the other measures which he enumerated, ought to be put in train forthwith in order to get at the root of the problem. The fact remains, however, that this kind of organised rioting does not happen just by mistake; it is not quite spontaneous.
If we divide the Chinese threat to Hong Kong, and also to other parts of Asia, into two, I think it will be easier to understand. First of all, so far as the external threat is concerned, I have illustrated in your Lordships' House before, and have given much more detailed reasons, the fact that China has not yet indulged in external aggression of any kind. The most warlike

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act they have done as an external threat, which has upset people outside, is the making of the bomb, and particularly the making of the hydrogen bomb, shortly to be followed, before many years, by the vehicle to carry it. This is an external threat, of course, and if it matures in ten years' time, then the other nuclear Powers will have to take serious account of it. But, so far as conventional external aggression is concerned, I cannot remember any by China in the last twenty years.
The only time China has employed her forces on the ground has been when she thought she was threatened; namely, by the Allied forces in Korea. She has had plenty of opportunities for using external aggression, and using the force of her armies, in their rubber shoes and with their light machine guns, in the jungle. She could have taken over Burma quite quickly at any time during the last fifteen to twenty years had she wanted a port on the Indian Ocean for aggressive purposes. She could have invaded Thailand, and she could have supported North Vietnam with armed forces. She has not done so. In fact I do not believe that, even if she contemplated external aggression, it would suit her book at the present time. It would invite severe retaliation by the United States, who have much more modern weapons, and would throw the Chinese Air Force out of the sky almost as quickly as the Israelis did the Egyptians a week or so ago. We ought to be realistic in this matter, and recognise that China is unlikely to indulge in external aggression at the present time.
Coming to the case of Hong Kong, I am well aware of the fact that it takes X divisions to defend it; and even then they lose the war. We proved that, if it needed to be proved, in a horribly bloody war in 1942, when we had two or three divisions out there, and they might as well not have been there from the point of view of defence, except for the individuals concerned. The existence of a brigade of 8,500 troops in Hong Kong at present, so far as I know, has always been put down by the Government in the Defence Papers—or, later, in Defence Reviews—as for external security purposes; and I do not think that that force has had any other duty except border patrol. I think we ought to be clear about that. In other words, my Lords, invasion of Hong Kong
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is most unlikely at the present time. It would not be consistent with China's policy. Incidentally, it would not be consistent with her economic policy, because China gets far more out of Hong Kong, in the way of foreign currency and exchange, under British management than she would under her own.
When it comes to subversion, I agree that the threat is much more severe. The recent riots in Hong Kong are probably a classic example of this. As I have already said, these riots do not happen by mistake. Perhaps they start spontaneously in a factory—in an artificial flower factory, in the recent case—but they certainly do not go on for a week, with parades outside the Governor's residence, by spontaneity. They are organised, and organised by Chairman Mao's agents. This is where an efficient Special Branch comes in, and I think the Hong Kong police and their Special Branch are to be congratulated on dealing so efficiently with these riots within a reasonable time. If they had required to do it more quickly, and by stronger methods, they could easily have called in the Gurkhas. In other words, in Hong Kong we must be prepared for another outburst of this kind; and we must put it down quickly. We have seen what happens if the authorities are weak: the case of Macao was quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore.
Similarly, the risk is fairly high in Singapore, though curiously enough, it is not so high now that the British have given up the government of Singapore as it was when we were in full control. The reason for this is that Lee Kuan Yew is running a very firm Government. It is not only a popular Government, as your Lordships will find if you go there, as I do regularly, but a very firm Government. There has not been, to my knowledge, a Communist-inspired strike in the schools or in the trade unions since Lee Kuan Yew took over—or, if there have been, they have been put down very quickly, and have not reached the stage of requiring Malay or Singapore troops to put them down. We were a little nervous at one time when we handed over the responsibility for internal security to the Malay and Singapore troops. But we need not have worried. The system there, with a very efficient Special Branch, left by the British and carried on by the

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Singapore Government, has been sufficient to keep the situation under control. The threat is always there. I think we are much more likely to have Chinese riot troubles in places like Manila, where perhaps they are not quite so ready for this sort of thing as they are in Hong Kong and Singapore. They might start in Thailand, though I very much doubt it, because here again we have an extremely efficient police force which is quite ruthless in putting down Communist risings.
My Lords, the lesson I read from all this is that we must be ready to deal with subversive threats at any point on the Chinese perimeter but that we need not worry unduly about conventional Chinese aggression.
5.50 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I should like to join with the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, my noble friend Lord Rhodes, and Lord Moynihan and Lord Bourne, in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, for introducing the debate this afternoon. I am also grateful to him for the interesting historical preface which he gave to us. As the noble Lord said, this fascinating and dynamic Colony is our undoubted responsibility. But it is also true, as Lord Rhodes emphasised, that this is quite different from any other of our colonial territories. Because of its special position, it is not possible for Hong Kong to progress towards self-government in terms of an elected Legislature, as has been the normal development in other colonial territories. We must therefore, as Lord Ogmore himself said and as Lord Rhodes said—though I rather feel that the "Red Guard" of the Liberal Benches was not in agreement with this—look towards the development of the local system, the local government administration, for ensuring that the ordinary citizens of Hong Kong can associate themselves with the administration of the Colony. It seems clear that the best chance of providing this opportunity is in the sphere of local government.
In August, 1965, the Working Party on the Urban Council Franchise recommended that the franchise should be extended to all persons meeting the following criteria: first, that they make a contribution to the community of Hong Kong through service to the community, or professional skill or knowledge or
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educational standards; secondly, that the claims of persons to belong to the categories so defined are relatively easy to check. The Report went on to define the categories of persons which the Working Party considered met these criteria. The result of this recommendation, which was accepted, was that 240,000 people were enfranchised. They were required, however, to register before they could exercise the vote, and only 26,000 of them enrolled. In answer to the direct question of the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, I would emphasise that there was no difference between the qualifications of men and women.
Subsequently a further Working Party criticised that franchise as being too complicated, and recommended what they described as a ratepayers' franchise. This latter recommendation is now being studied. The 1966 Report, which made this criticism of the 1965 Report, also considered the structure of the local authorities which might be established, and the additional functions with which they might be entrusted. I quite agree with what was said by the noble Lords, Lord Moynihan and Lord Ogmore, that it would be advisable to extend the functions of these local authorities, and this is in fact in accordance with the recommendations of the 1966 Working Party now being considered. But it is not, of course, a straightforward matter. Although the total population of the Colony is relatively small, there are certain areas where the density is as high as 5,000 persons to the acre; and this aspect is one among a number of difficult factors which bring their own problems and which require particular study.
The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, I thought gave us a very fair description of the recent events concerning internal security. The internal situation now is well under control; and I am glad to give the assurance for which the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, asked. But there are within the borders of Hong Kong—
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, may I ask which assurance that is?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the noble Earl asked whether we had returned to normality, and I am glad to give him that assurance.

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There are within the borders of Hong Kong some of the most densely populated areas in the world, and these obviously present, as Lord Bourne particularly will understand, a very difficult internal security problem. But I feel that recent events have shown that the security forces are fully conversant with this problem and with the most effective means of meeting it. The fact that they were so successful in confining the recent disturbances to relatively small areas of the Colony merits the praise which has been bestowed upon them so freely and generously in this discussion. I am myself particularly happy to associate myself with the well deserved tributes that have been paid to the Governor and his advisers, and the Hong Kong police force, in carrying out their duties so calmly and so efficiently. I would add that their task has been made easier by the good sense displayed by the general public in Hong Kong, and by the widespread support they have given to the measures taken by the Government to maintain public order. Although, as the noble Earl said, the Hong Kong garrison is available should need arise, it has not in fact been found necessary to ask for its assistance in the recent disturbances. The authorities have all the powers necessary for maintaining law and order.
The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, strongly urged the importance of long-term economic planning. Hong Kong is financially self-supporting, apart from the cost of its external defence, and to this also it makes a very substantial contribution. The annual revenue expanded from £18¼ million in 1950–51 to £102 million in 1965–66. The Colony has been able to charge against current revenue all capital expenditure, other than a comparatively small amount financed by borrowing, and in 1965–66 capital expenditure totalled nearly £46 million—that is for that one Colony.
The large increases in population have generated internal economic activity which has substantially raised yield from taxation and other sources of revenue, without any appreciable increase in the rate of taxation. These large increases in population have naturally brought attendant problems; and the Hong Kong Government, while seeking to expand existing services to meet growing needs,
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has inevitably found that there is a time lag before those increasing needs could be met. The budget for 1966–67 introduced increases in taxation estimated to provide an additional £5½ million, but the Government's programme of public works, mainly for new schools, medical facilities, housing, water supplies and other projects, makes it unlikely that revenue will be able to continue financing all capital expenditure.
As has been said by noble Lords earlier, the population, which stood at some 1,600,000 in 1946, is now more than 3½ million. And the achievements in providing the necessary health, housing, educational and other facilities for this population explosion are wholly praiseworthy. The Colony's resettlement estates have attracted worldwide attention, and it is worthy of note that nearly one-third of Hong Kong's entire population now lives in homes built with public funds. Only last week the Hong Kong Government announced as part of its housing programme its intention to build homes for a further 31,800 people with low incomes, at a cost of £1½ million. Since the war Hong Kong's economic development has been linked to industrialisation, and the Colony is now established as an industrial territory with its economy based on exports, rather than as formerly on the domestic market and on its entrepôt trade with China.
An essential ingredient in this economy, as the noble Earl emphasised, is dependent upon confidence—confidence on the part of overseas customers particularly; and this the Hong Kong Government has so far been able to provide. Recent disturbances in the Colony may have given rise to doubts in some quarters about the stability and reliability of the Colony as a trading partner, but I feel noble Lords will agree with me that the measures taken by the Hong Kong authorities to deal with them, with the full support of Her Majesty's Government and the support of the overwhelming majority of the people, have successfully contained the activities of the troublemakers. As I said earlier to the noble Earl, the situation now is very much a matter of "business as usual". In fact I have here last month's figures of exports and re-exports, which show increases of 16½ per cent., in the case of exports, and 22½ per cent., in the case of re-exports, over the corresponding month in 1966.

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There appears to be some difference of opinion on the Liberal Benches about future defence facilities in the Colony, and the thinking of Her Majesty's Government in this matter is more in accord with what the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, said than with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. We have in the course of the Defence Review made some small economies in military forces in Hong Kong. No final decision has been taken on the size of those forces but it is our intention to maintain an adequate garrison there.
The question of labour matters, as a factor in the recent disturbances, has been mentioned and I agree that they are important. Rather more than 1½ million people work in Hong Kong, and of these over half a million are engaged in the manufacturing industries. Factory regulations regulate conditions of safety, health and welfare in registered industrial undertakings, as well as the hours of work of women and young persons. The Hong Kong Government employs a large Factories Inspectorate with considerable and recently increased power to ensure that statutory minimum standards are observed. Of course wages are low by British standards, though not by Asian standards. Among Asian countries, however, the conditions of work in Hong Kong are second only to those in Japan. It must also be borne in mind that Hong Kong has to meet the low-cost competition of neighbouring countries in overseas markets. Wage rates, in fact, increased overall by more than 70 per cent. during the period 1958 to 1965, and since the cost of living is reported to have risen by 14 per cent. over roughly the same period these increases represent a substantial advance in terms of real wages.
My honourable friend the Minister of State has for some time now been in consultation with the Governor about further legislation to improve labour conditions, more particularly to curtail the hours of work of women and young persons. The Hong Kong Government has, in the last week, published a Bill providing the necessary additional powers to control the employment of women and young persons in particular industries. It is expected that the Bill will be considered by the Legislative Council within the next few weeks. But to consider that labour con-
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ditions in the Colony were the underlying cause of the recent disturbances would be a mistake. There is much in labour relations in Hong Kong which we wish to alter, but the disturbances were clearly instigated for a political purpose and as a deliberate challenge to the authority of the Hong Kong Government.
I was asked about the progress of education and I have a good many statistics about that subject, but in view of the time I will not go into all of them. I will simply say that if one takes the overall expenditure of the Colony on education one finds it has increased from £5·1 million in the period 1958–59 to £20·5 million in the period 1967–68. This latter figure represents 17 per cent. of the Colony's annual budget, and under the Government's programme it is likely to be still further increased in the next two or three years. I will just pause there for a moment to answer the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, who asked me about the situation with regard to the wage rates of policemen. I am glad to tell him that the police salaries and conditions were revised early in 1966 as a result of the Report of a Salaries Commission.
I was asked by the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, about water supplies and whether I could give him any assurance on that subject. As a result of very considerable expenditure by the Hong Kong Government on water supply schemes the Colony's water supply situation has been much improved in recent years. To meet the seasonal shortage the Chinese authorities, we understand, have now agreed to make additional supplies available as from June 26. During the year 1966–67 no less than £10 million was allocated for the purpose of improving the water supply situation. There is also a programme covering the continuation of work on the final stage of the giant Plover Cove scheme which, on its completion in 1968, will add 30,000 million gallons to the Colony's existing storage capacity of about 16,000 million gallons. It is hoped that this vast increase in capacity will meet the demands of Hong Kong, and its rapidly expanding population and industries, for some years to come.
I should like to add a few brief comments on the observations about the Chinese attitude. Some of them were helpful, and I much enjoyed listening to

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what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, and my noble friend Lord Rhodes. I did not find myself in such close agreement with some of the other speculations—if I may call them that—from the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan.
LORD MOYNIHAN: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Lord I should like to say that it is not so much a question of "speculation". We all hope that something like that will never happen. What I asked the noble Lord was whether there were any plans in case something like that did happen, much to everybody's consternation.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am certain noble Lords generally will not expect me to disclose such matters in this House.
LORD RHODES: Of course not.
LORD BESWICK: The noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, expressed some views with regard to Chairman Mao's policy on nuclear war. I hope, with him, that the policy will be followed. Frankly, to us, the attitude and the future intentions of China are not clear. It is true that official Chinese organisations, both in Hong Kong and on the mainland, have strongly supported, by propaganda and, we have reason to believe, by money, the activities of the local Communists.
The noble Earl, Lord Bessborough asked about the "Five Demands". We have not, as he thought, answered them. It is hardly to be expected that we should respond to accusations such as, for example, that we should desist from so-called "Fascist atrocities". This is a complete travesty of the measures we are taking in Hong Kong. It is the duty of the Hong Kong Government to continue to preserve peace, order and good government, and they have the full backing of Her Majesty's Government in such measures as are necessary to maintain their authority. In short, it is our intention to maintain our position and our authority in Hong Kong.
The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, suggested that messages of congratulation and good wishes be sent to the Governor, to his staff and to the police and Service authorities, and indeed to the people of Hong Kong. I am sure that all of us would warmly agree with him that such messages should be sent.
6.10 p.m.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken, and indeed to the noble Lords who have listened and who have been very attentive. I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, to the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes, to my noble friend Lord Moynihan, to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bourne, and to the Minister, Lord Beswick, who has taken such trouble to try to answer the various questions raised. I feel it has been a valuable and, to me, at any rate, an interesting debate. It is remarkable, I think, that the speeches after mine managed to cover such a number of issues, in fact most of the issues; and they will be noted, I have no doubt, in Hong Kong.
Although I do not suppose that much notice will be taken of the debate, unfortunately, in the Press and radio and television in this country, because there is a very interesting and exciting Party debate in another place to-day which will get all the headlines and all the scope, this debate will be very widely reported—and this is the important thing—in Hong Kong. We have been speaking to people in Hong Kong, our friends in Hong Kong. I hope that our friends in Hong Kong will realise that there has been a great deal of unanimity in this debate. We have had Labour speakers, Labour Government representatives, the official Conservative Opposition, the Liberals—incidentally, I did not notice the great diversity of opinion on the Liberal Benches which struck the noble Lord, Lord Beswick so forcibly. We have also had, of course, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bourne, speaking from the Independent Benches. I think it is significant and important that there should be this unanimity in regard to the affairs of Hong Kong.
Although I did not myself raise the military issues to-night, I think it is just as well they were raised. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, asked whether it was necessary to keep 8,500 troops in the Colony to defend it. As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bourne, pointed out, they are not there to defend the Colony but basically as a long-stop for internal security purposes. I was very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, intervened, because I remember him extremely well

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in the old terrorist days in Malaya, seeing him there when he was doing such a splendid job of work in command of the forces in Malaya at that time. He speaks,' of course, with great authority on that part of the world and on this aspect of the troubles.
There is one minor point I would make on his remarks. While I agree with his general attitude about the lack of external aggression by China, I am not at all sure that the Indian Government and the Tibetans would completely confirm what he said. And I think that from time to time the Burmese also had a great deal of suspicion of the Chinese.
LORD BOURNE: My Lords, will the noble Lord forgive me for reminding him that the Chinese actually stopped and went backwards in the Himalaya mountains, just North of Calcutta?
LORD OGMORE: Yes; but I am also reminded that they got there first. I entirely agree with the noble Lord's general thesis, which has always been one of my own arguments in dealing with problems with the Chinese, that they have never in history, except for these border incidents, waged a war of aggression.
May I add one further comment before I conclude? I am extremely interested
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in the military situation in Hong Kong because the 1st Battalion of my own regiment, the Welch Regiment, is there, and I read continually in the regimental magazine, appropriately named Men of Harlech, of their exploits and the fine work they are doing. I hope that Her Majesty's Government and the Hong Kong Government will consider urgently and favourably the various points that have been made by speakers in the debate to-night, and will put into operation the proposals we have made from these Benches. With those few remarks, I again thank everybody. I am very grateful to my old friend, if I may call him that in a non-political sense, the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, for the trouble he has taken. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (GENERAL POWER) (No. 2) BILL
Reported, with Amendments.

WALLASEY CORPORATION BILL
Returned from the Commons with the Amendments agreed to.
House adjourned at a quarter past six o'clock.