Lords Sitting of 6 July 1976

Preamble
The House met at a quarter-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Leicester.

LORD KAGAN
Sir Joseph Kagan, Knight, having been created Baron Kagan, of Elland in the County of West Yorkshire, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Houghton of Sowerby and the Lord Gregson.
The Lord Plunket—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his brother.
The Lord Elphinstone—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his kinsman.

THALIDOMIDE CHILDREN: LEGAL PROBLEMS
2.32 p.m.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNE-SIDE: 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 when they propose to take action to deal with the legal problems of thalidomide children as outlined in the special article in the Sunday Times of 27th June.
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-Jones): My Lords, the legal problems of the thalidomide children arose from the difficulty of establishing a right to compensation in law for their injuries. These problems have happily been resolved by the settlement of their claims and the creation of a £20 million charitable trust for their benefit, and this was acknowledged in the Sunday Times article referred to. The Government have supported the Congenital Disabilities (Civil Liability) Bill, now awaiting Royal Assent, which will, for the future, clarify the law on liability for ante-natal injury. Wider questions as to the proper basis
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of civil liability and compensation for personal injury are under consideration by the Royal Commission under the chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Pearson.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble and learned Lord for that Answer. Is he aware that I asked this rather complicated Question in order to place on record the magnificent work done by the Sunday Times in the article in which they told the full story, and that action, as has already been acknowledged by the noble and learned Lord, be taken so that the future shall never hold the kind of situation which was so excellently portrayed in the Sunday Times? The noble and learned Lord will agree, I am sure, that the Sunday Times did an excellent thing in bringing to the notice of the nation as a whole—indeed, the nations of the world the problems which there arose. I am sure the noble and learned Lord will accept that everyone will be delighted to know that this terrible situation will never again occur in the future.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I appreciate the purposes which prompted the noble Baroness to put down the Question, and of course her observations. It is an excellent thing that finally, albeit, I am afraid, after a very long time, there has been a happy settlement to this tragic matter.

MOZAMBIQUE: DETAINEES
Lord BARNBY: 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 information our representative in Mozambique remits as being the approximate population of the concentration camps at Inhassune and Masacaze; whether permission is being given for visits by the International Red Cross; and whether Her Majesty's Government regard the Press reports of a total of some 40,000 political detainees in all prison camps in Mozambique as reliable.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, this information is not available to us. Inquiries concerning visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross should more properly be addressed to them. So far as I know, the Answer to that part of the noble Lord's Question is, No.

HOUSING FOR THE ELDERLY
2.35 p.m.
Lord O'HAGAN: 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 action they have taken since the Central Policy Review Staff recommended a study of housing for the elderly in June 1975.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT (Baroness Birk): My Lords, the Government are currently analysing replies to their Consultation Paper on housing for old people published in April, which stresses the need for close collaboration at local level in planning overall services for the elderly. This is in line with the thinking of the Central Policy Review Staff.
Lord O'HAGAN: My Lords, will the Government publish the results of this inquiry and, if so, when?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I expect the results to be published. As the noble Lord will appreciate, the Consultation Paper itself was published only in April. We are now analysing the reply and that must take a period of certainly a month or so. Directly I have any information I will write to him.

BROADCASTING
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will make a Statement about next Thursday's debate on the First Report from the Joint Broadcasting Comittee on Broadcasting. Last week I drew
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your Lordships' attention to the model commentary box in the front of the Press Gallery which was constructed to help the House in considering the Joint Committee's proposals. May I point out that the model has been modified, following a suggestion that the railings should be lowered in order to improve visibility from the Public Galleries. The size of the commentary box remains unchanged.

ANGLIAN WATER AUTHORITY BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, Amendments (privilege) made; Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.
COITY WALLIA COMMONS BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE: SELECT COMMITTEE
2.39 p.m.
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord Shepherd): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. This arises from a debate that we held on 11th March, and although there was no vote it was clear from views expressed that your Lordships' House felt that we ought to set up a Committee on the question of the practice and procedure of the House and Parliament in line with a similar course which is being taken in another place. I have waited until it was clear that the House of Commons were intending to proceed, which they now are, and I now ask the House to approve the Motion which will formally set up the Select Committee. The membership of course will be a matter for the Committee of Selection. I beg to move.
Moved, That it is desirable that a Select Committee be appointed to consider the practice and procedure of the House and to make recommendations for the more effective performance of its functions.—(Lord Shepherd.)
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, we on this side of the House have no objection to this Motion, though perhaps some of us think that there is less wrong with the practice and procedure of this House than the muddle that is made in the House of Commons of the Government time-table.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, I hope the noble Lord will not be too provocative on this rather hot Tuesday afternoon. I take it from what he has said that he is giving me full support on the Motion that is before the House.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, as we are setting up a Select Committee to consider, inter alia, the effective performance of functions of your Lordships' House, may I ask whether that consideration will include the proposition made by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, some time ago that we might consider a reduction in the number of hereditary Peers? May 1 also ask whether the subject of House of Lords reform, however modified the proposals might be, is a matter that could be considered by this Committee?
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, when the debate took place in another place—and I speak now with the permission of the House because this is not a Committee stage, but I am trying to be helpful to the House—the Government made it clear that in their view the question of the reform of your Lordships' House and the relationship between the two Houses, as such, was not to be a matter for the Commons Committee. I would take the view that if that restraint is being shown by another place, we should ourselves respond to it. Although your Lordships' House is very free on its rules of procedure and the way in which we discuss matters, I would hope that the Committee would follow suit and act in accordance with the House of Commons, and that we should seek ways and means of improving the procedure of the two Houses and the procedure of your Lordships' House. Having said that, I would not wish this Committee in any way to interpose on our normal Procedure Committee, which plays a very useful part and a Report of which we shall be considering tomorrow.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

RESTRICTIVE TRADE PRACTICES BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE (VOCATIONAL TRAINING) BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a; an Amendment (privilege) made, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES &c. (No. 2) BILL [H.L.]
2.44 p.m.
Report received.
Clause 2 [Units of measurement lawful for use for trade]:
Lord MERRIVALE Lord MERRIVALE moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 5, line 6, after second (" to ") insert (" inform ")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 1 standing in my name. The purpose of this Amendment is to seek at least assurances from the Government on the all-important question of educating or informing the consumer. The noble Baroness, Lady White, said on Second Reading that it was " one of the most difficult things ". She very rightly added that an even greater effort was needed, stressing, for instance, the long-term role which the BBC could usefully play. Therefore, in this context I should like to refer to last Friday's housewives' programme broadcast by the BBC on the subject of metrication, which was entitled " Money Go-Round ". It usefully summarised the popular arguments against developing metrication, of which there were three. The first of them was fear that it would produce more inflation; the second one was that it should be postponed so far as consumer goods are concerned until inflation is down to single figures—I understand that suggestion originated from the National Consumer Council. The third argument concerned the fear of not understanding the new system.
I think there are a number of positive consumer arguments and I shall deal with them later, but I should now like to comment on the negative arguments which I have just mentioned. Taking the first one, metrication, that, in principle, has nothing to do with inflation and is entirely neutral on the prices per unit of food purchased. However, the Minister already has power to control the price situation under existing legislation by means of, for example, the Price Commission, the unit pricing Act, prescribed orders, and so on. He has in effect already taken advantage of those in cases of bread, butter and so on. With regard to cornflakes, there is an interesting example of a decrease in price, and here I should like to quote Mr. J. SandysWinsch of Kellogg, who said last month:
" With cornflakes we made very considerable cost savings by putting 10 per cent. more product in the same sized box, and this enabled us to price metric cornflakes at plus 5 per cent. for 10 per cent. more food."
To return to last week's BBC programme, a representative of the firm of Tesco said during the programme that of 12 products so far metricated, with 10 per cent. extra weight, the highest price increase had been 7 per cent. I should also like to quote Mrs. Daisy Hyams of Tesco, who said last month:
" As far as many British food manufacturers are concerned, they have progressed so far with metric packaging that it would be impossible for them to resurrect the past, and the Government delay in passing orders is causing irritation and confusion."
The second negative argument which was put forward in the BBC programme could have the effect of postponing metrication once again—I imagine until about 1978 at the earliest. This is highly undesirable, as I said on Second Reading, and although the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, is not here perhaps I might refer to that occasion. Then I was mainly concerned with equipment and machinery. Again, in answer to the query of the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, on 15th June in the Second Reading debate, as to whether countries were refusing non-metric goods, I can find no evidence of this having been applied to food, but I can produce evidence with regard to trade instruments, machinery and so on. However, I think that such an argument for delay, as was mentioned in the BBC broadcast, would also leave manufacturers
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and retailers with no plan and no programme, and with complete uncertainty as to the dates to which they should be working In such circumstances no one would act. It would truly be a prescription to increase cost and price. The third argument of the programme is certainly valid and genuine; that is, the fear of not understanding the metric system. That brings me to the question of the responsibility of informing the consumer; hence the Amendment which I have put down today.
I should now like to refer to some of the more positive consumer arguments. For example, without one measurement system there would be a myriad of new "frontiers" at which the consumer would have to pause and recalculate, both in his working life and in his domestic activities. International advice, based on experience, is that unit pricing should be by the kilo, because that is of course a bigger weight than a pound and permits finer pricing; for example, .½.p and not necessarily 1p. Also, both industry and retailers have pressed strongly the case for definite transitional periods and clear cut-off dates, about which 1 spoke on Second Reading. This would benefit the consumer, because it implies co-ordination, targets and a basis for a good educative programme. Let us also not forget, as was said by several noble Lords on Second Reading, that our younger citizens are involved and 15 million of them have already passsd through an education system which is primarily teaching the metric system.
Therefore, in conclusion, I believe that there is a strong case for the Secretary of State to assume the responsibility of informing the consumer of the personal benefits of metrication, since, so far as I can ascertain, all the popular publicity so far has been on the case against. Furthermore, overseas experience indicates that consumer confusion is reduced and the educative process enhanced if the consumer buys under one system and not two. To quote from the Australian McB Newsletter of January/February this year, that stated:
" People seeking the provision of dual statements usually do not realise that by asking for this ' crutch ' they are encouraging the creation of future generations of cripples ' who, in their turn, would need the support of equivalents and thereby prolong indefinitely the period of dualism with all its confusion and inefficiencies ".
Finally, I believe that Government information should be in the terms and thinking of the metric system, also making clear to the consumer the protection that is already available. As experience has shown in Australia and all other converting countries, the best, and in many cases the only, way of gaining an understanding of metric measures is by personal involvement in situations calling for the use by the individual of metric terms. My Lords, I beg to move.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, I do not regard the Amendment with any favour at all and I hope that it will be rejected. As I understand it, the proposition is that the Secretary of State should accept responsibility for informing existing consumers and potential consumers about all the difficulties associated with metrication. This morning I happened to be reading the Hansard report of another place—I do it almost every morning after breakfast; before breakfast it would make that meal almost indigestible—and what I discovered was this. Quite a number of questions were asked by the denizens of another place about metrication, but with very little success. Questions were asked of, I think, the Under-Secretary of State or the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Mr. Fraser—I am not certain of the post which Mr. Fraser occupies—about the effect which metrication will have on the price of various commodities. In one of the replies, it was stated by the Minister that it has been discovered that cornflakes will probably be reduced in price. There was no mention of the kind of cornflakes. As we know, there are a great variety of cornflakes. But, anyway, that was the answer —very brief, very ambiguous, very nebulous, and similar to the answers I received from my noble friend the Minister, who is responsible in your Lordships' House, when we were deployed in the Committee stage. It was said that metrication was inevitable, that it had to come and so on. A similar argument was adduced yesterday, if it can be called an argument. It is merely an assertion, and not an argument of any validity at all.
Then questions were asked about the cost—I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, did not refer to that—of informing consumers. I believe that the figure of £136 million was mentioned,
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although the Minister said that he would not like to be tied down to a figure. Of course, as we know from our experience, when estimates are furnished about the cost of anything at all they are usually started on a very low profile, and then they gradually escalate until the Government find themselves financially embarrassed. Consumers and retailers ought to have been informed all along about this piece of legislation and its effect, and not after metrication comes into existence.
Therefore, this Amendment has no value at all. I do not want to impose further responsibilities upon the Secretary of State, because he has quite enough to do. Therefore, I hope that the Amendment will be rejected.
2.59 p.m.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, for the way in which he has introduced his Amendment, because he called attention to a number of important considerations concerning public information while the process of metrication is going on. The Metrication Board has already done a very good job in relation to metrication at the level of industry, but we are now proceeding to fields where the consumer is more directly involved. The noble Lord was perfectly right to make the point he did concerning such things as TV programmes and so on. Indeed, during the Committee stage of the Bill I pointed out that the differences between the Bill which is now before your Lordships' House and the one that was introduced in another place were specifically to enable the kind of consumer information to be provided which the noble Lord has indicated is so necessary. Nevertheless, I hope to persuade the noble Lord that his Amendment is not necessary for this process and I shall invite your Lordships not to pass it, though for reasons very different from those put forward by my noble friend Lord Shinwell.
The Amendment is really unnecessary. The new subsection (2A), upon which the noble Lord's Amendment depends, in itself draws the attention of the Secretary of State to the need to bear in mind consumer interests in particular, and she is required to consult organisations that are representative of consumers. The word " consult " does all that the noble

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Lord has in mind with regard to information. In that connection, it may be helpful if I outline briefly the normal consultation procedure under the existing powers for making orders.
When proposals are still at the formative stage, informal consultations are normally held with organisations which appear to the Department to be representative of the necessary interests. These consultations may be in the form of correspondence or meetings. When as a result of those formal consultations the proposals have become firmer, there is formal consultation in compliance with the requirements of the original Act of 1963. Generally this consultation is by letter and includes the proposed draft legislation so that the organisations which are concerned are informed and can express a formal view about the Government's proposals. It will be the Government's intention to follow the procedure that I have outlined.
Lord DERWENT: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Lord, he said that consultation would take place with those organisations which it appeared to the Department ought to be consulted. Can other organisations also put forward their views ?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, perhaps inadvertently I used the word " Department ". In law the responsibility is that of the Secretary of State and it is she—or, in other circumstances, he— who would draw up a list of organisations. Clearly, though, organisations which do not happen in the first instance to be consulted, but which have a point of view, are fully entitled to put forward representations. May I stress that there is nothing strict about this procedure. Consumer groups of all kinds are welcome to send in their representations— and, indeed, they do. Therefore I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, will understand from what I have said that although I am fully with him in the spirit of his Amendment—that the fullest amount of information is necessary in order that consultations should be held at the best level—the insertion of the word " inform is unnecessary for that purpose.
Lord MERRIVALE: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his very full
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answer. In my opening remarks I said that I was seeking mainly an assurance from the Government. If I understood aright the Minister's words, I think that Her Majesty's Government and the Secretary of State are well seized of the necessity to inform the consumer and that, as the Minister has said, the Amendment is not necessary. Therefore I do not propose to press it, and I trust that that will please the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell. However, as the noble Lord mentioned remarks made by Mr. J. D. Fraser, the Minister responsible, at the IGD seminar on metrication, may I quote Mr. Fraser's remarks of 16th June, when he said:
" All the advice I am now receiving from a wide variety of sources is unanimous in the view that metrication has gone as far as it can on a voluntary basis in the retail sector, particularly for foodstuffs. It is clear that regulation is necessary if we are to proceed with metrication with the least confusion to industry and consumers alike ".
I am now satisfied that the noble Lord. Lord Oram, Mr. Fraser and the Government themselves will press ahead along the lines which have been mentioned this afternoon. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.6 p.m.
Lord ELTON Lord ELTON moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 5, line 8, at end insert—
"( ) In Schedule 6 to the 1963 Act after the words " and (b)" in sub-paragraph (1) of paragraph (3) there are inserted the words—
" subject to paragraph (3A) of this paragraph ",
and after sub-paragraph 3 of paragraph 3 of the said Schedule there shall be inserted the following new sub-paragraph—
" 3A.—(1) This sub-paragraph applies to any vehicle on or from which any solid fuel is sold or kept or exposed for sale or available for delivery in containers.
(2) On every vehicle to which this subparagraph applies there shall, in respect of solid fuel of every description which is available as described in sub-paragraph (1) above, be displayed a notice specifying the quantity in which solid fuel of that description is kept or exposed for sale or available for delivery in containers after sale.
(3) Every such notice shall be constructed of wood or other durable material, shall be clearly and permanently inscribed in characters of a height of not less than 6 centimetres and composed of strokes of a breadth of not less than one centimetre and shall be securely and conspicuously affixed to the vehicle in such a position as to be easily read from either side of the vehicle.
(4) If in the case of any vehicle there is a contravention of any of the requirements of

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this paragraph, the person by or on behalf of whom the solid fuel is made available for purchase as described in sub-paragraph (1) above, and any other person who is in charge of the vehicle at the time of the contravention, shall each be guilty of an offence."."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this comparatively large Amendment deals with a comparatively small area. Your Lordships will recall that at Committee stage we discussed the situation in which a merchant selling or delivering coal in sacks on a flat bed vehicle was required to supply each sack with a tally stating the quantity by weight of the solid fuel within that sack. This is a tally which is rarely, if ever, consulted by the consumer and it constitutes something of a nuisance to the merchant. At Committee stage the Government agreed that they were sympathetic to the idea that there should be substituted for this requirement, which springs from a Statutory Instrument and not from an Act, a requirement that a notice should be clearly displayed upon the vehicle stating the weights of the solid fuel which was in sacks on the vehicle and that it would then no longer be necessary to have tallies on the individual bags. However, the noble Lord said that there were difficulties about describing the type of notice and that it might not be possible to bring in an Amendment before the Bill left this House.
In order both to give the noble Lord an opportunity to confirm his commitment to this cause and also perhaps to help forward the search for a suitable formula, I have tabled this Amendment, which is drawn in part from earlier legislation in Northern Ireland which has been found to work satisfactorily. The Amendment describes in some detail the nature of the notice, the materials that it should be made of, the size of the writing and so on, and I hope that it may be found to be satisfactory—although I do not lay any claim to ultimate wisdom in the matter. The noble Lord may well wish to take away the Amendment and improve it, or substitute his own Amendment. However, I want to keep this matter on the move and at the same time to mention that I hope the noble Lord will confirm that it is the Government's intention not merely to bring in the requirement for a notice—-which it does not appear to be possible to do in a shorter flow of words—but also to abolish the requirement for the tally which cannot be done properly
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within the Bill, since the tally springs from a Statutory Instrument which it would be more appropriate to withdraw by another means. I beg to move.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has indicated, we have briefly gone over this ground on earlier occasions. I welcome the fact that the noble Lord has put down this Amendment for further clarification although, as he has also indicated, we are not yet at the point of finality in this matter. However, there is no difficulty between the noble Lord and myself. The Government fully accept the intention behind the noble Lord's Amendment but, as he himself has suggested, we cannot accept it in its present form.
The noble Lord called attention to two suggestions: one is that the tally should no longer be required on the sacks of coal, as at present; secondly, as he has indicated in the Amendment, that there ought to be a sign on the vehicle with the necessary size of lettering and so on. On those points I assure him that there is no difference between us. We intend to implement those two proposals: the first under a Statutory Instrument and the second by an Amendment to the present Bill.
However, we have not been able to transfer, as the noble Lord has suggested, the Northern Ireland form of wording to this Bill because discussions have gone further with the organisations concerned and they have produced a number of detailed points which I will not bother the House with at this stage; but they are points which need to be introduced into the Bill and to be covered by the powers of the Bill. It will be necessary to do that at a later stage. Since there are difficult drafting points, it may not be necessary for us to do it at the Third Reading in this House, but I give a categorical assurance that it is our intention to introduce an Amendment in another place seeking enabling powers to introduce the arrangements that the noble Lord has indicated. This would be done by order and such an order would of course also be made subject to formal consultations and Affirmative Resolution procedures. In the light of those assurances which I give fully, I hope the noble Lord will see fit to withdraw the Amendment.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has raised a very important point. He said it was a minor point, but I regard it as one of substance. Let me explain. He referred to the sale of coal in sacks. I am not quite sure about the situation in London. No doubt people buy coal in various ways from the coal merchant and probably the custom in London is different from that followed in many parts of the Provinces, but ordinarily the coal is sold in hundredweight sacks and it is necessary to discover what is the metric equivalent of the hundredweight.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, if the noble Lord will allow me, I think it might be of use if I were to point out that the substance of the Amendment remains the same whether we use hundredweights or kilos or some Martian equivalent. It is simply a question of how the householder can best be apprised of what he is buying. At present it is on something that he cannot see and rarely refers to; I think that it ought to be on something that he can see and will refer to.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, but even with my limited intelligence I understood that. As I understand it, the consumer wants to know. The person who is about to buy the coal has been in the habit of buying a hundredweight of coal and knowing that there was a certain quantity in the sack; he now wants to be assured that under metrication, at any rate for the same price, the consumer will get the same quantity of coal. That is the position. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, does not dissent from what I have just said, so clearly I understood the meaning of the Amendment.
I think the Minister will be fully informed on this subject. If I may say so, I am a friend of the Minister, having known him for many years in another place and I know he is a person of considerable intelligence. But he has really taken advantage of some of us by not answering the questions in the meticulous fashion that one would expect from a Minister. I say, " one would expect from a Minister " advisedly. Apparently he does not know the equivalent quantity that would be supplied to the consumer. He says that they are going to furnish an
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Amendment in another place in order to correct this matter. Is that the kind of answer that the consumer will be content with? Of course it is not. I am sorry to use the expression, but I am going to use it all the same because it is in my head and so I am going to get it out: I believe many consumers under metrication are going to be swindled by retailers. I do not say for a single moment that every retailer is unscrupulous, but many will be inclined to set aside their scruples when the opportunity presents itself—and that is putting it very mildly.
We ought to have a much better answer from the Minister than saying that there will be an Amendment, or probably that it will be included in the regulations or provided by a Statutory Instrument. These are all the technical procedural devices which are deployed by members of the Government when they cannot provide the ordinary answer that would content the person concerned.
It is not good enough. All that I hear about metrication and all the assurances that it is inevitable, that it has to come, that it has come and we cannot send it back, that we cannot turn the clock back and all the jargon that is associated with this matter, is simply not good enough. We must know a great deal more about it. The fact of the matter is that the consumers have never been consulted as they ought to have been. The Consumer Council does not take into account the wish of the ordinary consumer. If that statement is challenged, then I hope we shall get the evidence, but it cannot be challenged. Therefore, from all that I have read and I all that I have heard and from Questions in another place and so on, I am convinced that this will be a means of extracting from the consumer payment for something which formerly was paid for by the same amount of cash or by equivalent credit but which doesinot provide the same amount of material.
I noticed, in the Questions in another place yesterday, the Minister said that they had achieved a great deal because sugar was now in the shops with metric markings and so far nobody had been swindled. In fact, he suggested that some people got the sugar at a lower price. That is just a dodge. It simply will not do. I suggest to the Minister quite seriously that he must be more meticulous, more

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definite, more decisive in furnishing replies; otherwise we shall remain dissatisfied.
Baroness WHITE: My Lords, has my noble friend seen the letters which appeared in the Financial Times a day or two ago in which it was said that, so far as metrication is concerned, it is the younger generation in this country that we ought to be considering—that is, those who have been taught the metric system in school, who leave school and go into jobs and then find that they have to learn imperial in order to go back to the generation of my noble friend? Is not the real danger of the metrication change not bureaucracy but gerontocracy?
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, allow me to say this in reply to my noble friend: I am not a professional metricationist.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, with the greatest respect for the noble Lord who has just sat down—and I think I have no greater respect for any Member of this House—the purpose of this Amendment is not to achieve the results of dual marking, which at present are elsewhere in the Bill, to ensure that the purchaser is able to relate what he is buying under one system with what he bought under another. I sympathise with that need. I believe that it is dealt with elsewhere in the Bill and this would not be the proper place for an Amendment. The Amendment simply says that there should be a statement—and it can be a dual statement or a single statement—of the weight in the bags, centrally visible on the lorry.
The noble Lord, Lord Oram, made generous and helpful commitments about his future intentions for an Amendment at a later stage. The remaining later stage in this House is clue to be taken in about 48 hours, and I would just mention to the noble Lord the conditions of work already alluded to in another place. I wonder whether he is sufficiently confident of the smooth passage there of this Bill administratively for it to have the time and attention it requires. If the noble Lord was able —and it is difficult—to get the Amendment in this House, I would feel happier that it would be in the Bill when it left both Houses. I do not wish to be unduly pessimistic; I just want to leave the thought with him. I think we all want
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the same thing in this respect, and I think it would be as well to get it down ourselves if we can.
Having said that, I will not delay the House by insisting on the Amendment, since the noble Lord tells us that there are points not covered which have been requested by those concerned, and it would be discourteous and impetuous to insist on it in the knowledge that it was not perfect. If the noble Lord can see his way to bringing forward his own Amendment, we should be grateful. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my own Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 4 [Containers for goods]:
3.31 p.m.
Lord DRUMALBYN Lord DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 5, line 29, leave out (" or on ").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 3. May I say first of all that the Amendments I am moving here all seem to be Amendments of detail but, of course, the details are extremely numerous; we are talking about hundreds of millions of packages. So perhaps I may be allowed to say that it has always been customary to try to ensure that Governments do not take wider powers than they need, than they want, or indeed, than they intend to exercise. It is for that reason that I am querying the use of the words " or on ". I put it no higher than that.
My Lords, as is said in subsection (1) of this clause, we are dealing here with:
" (orders for the purpose of ensuring that goods are only sold or packed for sale in quantities expressed in a manner specified in the orders or in containers marked with information so specified)…"
This proposed new paragraph would require that powers he given for an order to be made that goods
"…are prepacked, or are otherwise made up for sale or for delivery after sale, only in or on a container of a description so specified;…"
Your Lordships may have difficulty in recalling an instance when you had bought things on a container. But it so happened that years ago, when the 1963 Act was being drafted, I was in the Board of Trade and then had to consider each

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of these matters in detail. If I recall correctly, the reason for the " or on " was because it is customary to display meat for sale in portions or cuts on a piece of greaseproof paper in a shop window, and would no doubt be duly marked with the price. That is treated as a container, as it will be, of course, after the weight has been checked (if it is checked) on the weighing machine and is then wrapped up. So you have the container.
But that is not at all applicable to what we are here considering, if we are to take what the noble Lord, Lord Oram, told us on the previous stage of the Bill. At that time, when I was suggesting that this clause (in fact this whole paragraph) should be left out, the noble Lord made it clear that what the Government are trying to achieve here is to seek powers to add a greater measure of consumer protection by standardising sizes and capacities of the containers involved in the wording which I was seeking, temporarily at any rate, to remove. I cannot see how the standardisation of sizes and capacities of the containers can possibly relate to anything that was on " a container. This is the sole purpose of the Amendment. The noble Lord may be able to reassure me that this is necessary, but I do not see that it can follow either from the words of the EEC Directive, or from the purposes that he was suggesting this paragraph was designed to achieve. I beg to move.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I do not think that, in the passage quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, I was insisting that these particular words were necessarily for consumer protection. Frankly, they are the same phrasing as is contained in the 1963 Act, and there were good reasons for including the word " on when the 1963 Act was being enacted. Those reasons continue, and they continue, I suggest, into what we are doing in relation to this Bill. It may be helpful if I read out the definition of a container from the 1963 Act. I think the noble Lord will see then that it does not just refer to meat being on a piece of greaseproof paper. The definition is that a container,
" includes any form of packaging of goods for sale as a single item, whether by way of wholly
1156
or partly enclosing the goods or by way of attaching the goods to or winding the goods round, some other article and in particular includes a wrapper or confining band ".
That is the existing definition of a container, to cover the various possibilities in shops of a packeted commodity. It is for this reason that the clause makes reference to " on a container ", to cover those cases where goods are not contained exactly in a container. This reference is in line with the existing provision which the noble Lord will find in Section 21(2)(b) and (c) of the 1963 Act where it relates to containers.
Therefore, although the noble Lord has brought forward an interesting point, I think these words are still necessary, as they were in 1963. I would urge him to consider withdrawing the Amendment.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, with the greatest respect, I think the noble Lord, Lord Oram, should look at this again, because the conditions are quite different from the conditions as applying in Section 21(2) of the Act. Here we are talking about a requirement that the goods are prepacked, or are otherwise made up or in or on a container for sale or for delivery after sale, only if the container is marked with such information as to the quantity of the goods as may be so specified. In this case, we are talking about standardisation of the size or capacity. One cannot attach the size or capacity to something wrapped up in rubber bands, or anything like that. We are talking about the goods themselves, not what is wrapped round them, or anything else in the form, let us say, of a rubber band holding a bunch of daffodils, or whatever it may be, which is added to the pack.
The noble Lord should look at this again because, as I pointed out, even as drafted it does not quite make sense because we are talking about " in containers ". That is what the clause already says. Thereafter it goes on to talk about " in or on " a container. They do not match up. The mere fact that we are talking about " in or on a container " in the substantive Act does not mean that powers should be taken to make this prescription as to capacity or volume or size apply in this case. The words " or on " are simply not applicable. We really do not know how this phrase could be used,

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and the noble Lord has not explained it, in this connection. The mere fact that these words appeared in the previous context does not justify their appearing in this context. So I would ask the noble Lord please to take this away and have a look at it again.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I will certainly readily do that, in the light of the more detailed explanation of what the noble Lord has in mind. I will certainly check up the cross references to which he has referred. At present my understanding is that these words will still be necessary; but certainly he has argued so effectively that I willingly give him the assurance that between now and the Third Reading I will look carefully at what he has said to see whether his point can be met.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord DRUMALBYN Lord DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 5, line 30, leave out (" description ") and Insert (" size or capacity ").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 4. We are on very nearly the same point here. I am most grateful to the noble Lord for having sent me a copy of the letter he wrote to my noble friend in which he touched on the subect of this word " description ", which we arc proposing to leave out. Noble Lords will remember that I suggested at the last stage that " description " went much too far. We are here still talking about size and capacity, and if we say " description " we bring in the question of materials and all the rest of it and vastly extend the power.
The noble Lord has been good enough to reply—I hope he will not mind my quoting from his letter:
" Basically under one of the EEC Directives it would be necessary for the Government to prescribe different sizes or capacities for containers made of different materials ".
I put my Amendment down before I received this letter, and I would only suggest to the noble Lord that it would be perfectly possible to put those words into the Bill, saying " and the different sizes or capacities may be prescribed for
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containers made of different materials ". That would pin it down to these three purposes and not go any further, and so limit the very wide range of the word " description ". I beg to move.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, when the noble Lord raised this question at the Committee stage I undertook to look at it carefully, and, as he has indicated, I have written to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, on the point. I recognised then, and in fact continued to recognise while that letter was in transit, that all that I was at that point offering was the assurance of the Government that these powers would only be used in the terms the noble Lord has read out. He then goes on to suggest that possibly a new Amendment specifying these words might be suitable. I think I can make him even happier than that Amendment would make him. While I was corresponding with the noble Lord, Lord Elton, this matter was still being looked at, and we have concluded that the form of words the noble Lord himself has put down does not deprive the Government of the powers necessary to do what I said it was essential for us to do; that is, to make different sizes and capacities for different materials. We believe that Section 54(1) of the 1963 Act would enable us to do just what is required, and therefore 1 can recommend to your Lordships that this Amendment be accepted.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord. May I add just this, that if later he were to find that the words he proposes now to accept do not go quite as far as he needs I would not in the slightest mind if he amplified them in the way I have suggested. May I thank the noble Lord for the consideration he has given to this matter.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord DRUMALBYN Lord DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 5, line 45, after (" capacity ") insert (" having regard to any reasonable requirement for an interior packing ").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 5. Its effect would be that the words in the clause would read as follows:
" Without prejudice to the generality of those powers, an order made by virtue of the said

1159
paragraph (bb) may, in order to prevent size or capacity from giving a false impression of the quantity of the goods in a container, prescribe a minimum quantity for the goods in a container of a given capacity "—
and after those words I propose should be added the words:
" having regard to any reasonable requirement for an interior packing ".
The point of the words I think will immediately be apparent to noble Lords. When he was replying to my proposal at the Committee stage that the whole of this paragraph should be left out, the noble Lord said in regard to consumers:
" They want regulations which ensure that containers are not misleading or deceptive."—[Official Report, 28/6/76; col. 622.]
I entirely agree. But they also want regulations that will ensure that the product itself arrives in good condition. That may well require an interior packing and 'vill accordingly vary the capacity or size that is prescribed. What this Amendment proposes is that in deciding what should be the size and capacity of the packaging regard should be paid to the need for a reasonable requirement for an interior packing. This can apply, for example, to baby foods. It can apply to greaseproof paper where what is packed inside a carton may require to be insulated in that way. It may also apply to paper to keep crisp products from becoming soggy or flat. There are many other occasions when there has to be an interior packing for the purpose of ensuring that the goods reach the consumer in good condition. That is the purpose of this Amendment. I beg to move.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, we fully appreciate the main argument which the noble Lord puts forward; that is, that there are many goods for which interior packing is essential. The noble Lord is certainly right in urging the Government to have this point in mind. I have stressed on several occasions that this Bill in itself provides but the general powers for action which will in fact be taken under orders. There is full stress on the need for consultation before any orders are made. The factor to which the noble Lord calls attention, the need for interior packing, is, I would suggest to him, one of the factors relating to particular goods which the Secretary of State would have to bear in mind when considering the
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minimum quantity that should be prescribed in the order.
I must ask your Lordships not to accept the Amendment. As we have made clear, and as I have just repeated, any order would be subject to consultation, and in our view discussion of what is or is not reasonable—that word is particularly difficult, as the noble Lord will appreciate —can best take place in the context of consultation with the trade and consumers. We believe that if this requirement were put into the Bill in the form the noble Lord suggests it could lead to considerable difficulty. In any case, I am sure he will bear in mind that any order resulting from the consultation would have to be laid in draft before Parliament and would be subject to Affirmative Resolution procedure, so that there would be full opportunity in relation to any particular goods for the fears or the factors that the noble Lord has in mind to be aired and dealt with.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for what he has said. May I ask him a question? I am sure that the House will give him leave to respond to it. Is it intended that there should be one order, or a small number of orders, giving such requirements as to minimum quantities, or are these orders going to be made from time to time and in considerable individual numbers taken as a whole? The point is, as the noble Lord knows very well, that it is not possible to amend a particular requirement in an order. Indeed, it is unlikely that an order would be withdrawn simply because one particular requirement in a very long list of requirements was wrong. It depends very much on what the intentions of the Government are as to whether I would ask him to consider this matter further.
I would not propose to press this Amendment to a Division, or anything of that sort, because I am satisfied with the intention of the Government that they will in fact take this point into consideration when they are considering what sort of order they should make as to capacity and size. But is it important to make certain that the House itself will have an opportunity of drawing attention to any requirement which the Government might have overlooked or a requirement which the Government had overruled. If it is

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to be the purpose of the Government to have one long list, then I think I would be inclined to ask the noble Lord to think of this again and see whether suitable words could be designed to put into the clause as a suitable reminder along the lines I have suggested.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, with the leave of the House may I just respond to the noble Lord's query? The whole question of the time-table for bringing in orders under the powers of this Bill will itself be a matter of consideration, and I should not like today categorically to indicate either the length or the nature of that process. He will be aware that under earlier legislation orders have been brought in dealing, generally speaking, with commodities one at a time. I gather from what the noble Lord says that that is the way he would wish to see it so that if there is any particular difficulty on the point that is raised by his Amendment it could be negatived without doing a great deal of harm in other areas. I take his point.
I am sure that the noble Lord will also appreciate that, as experience is gained, there will perhaps be the need for a rather broader order as time goes on, and that is the reason why I am not anxious to make any specific assurance except, as I have said before, that there will be constant consultation. It is our anxiety that both the trade and consumers' interests should be satisfied about the means and time-table of notification.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, in view of the vast number of commodities that will be purchased and have to be provided for, and the diversity that will exist, may I ask my noble friend whether it will not be necessary to make an order in each case, in which event another place would be fully occupied dealing with a vast number of orders ? Have the Government made up their mind whether it is possible to have a general order covering a vast number of commodities, or must there be an order for each individual commodity?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I can only say to my noble friend Lord Shinwell that I thought I was answering his question when answering the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn. It is true that there are so
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many commodities that if they were dealt with one at a time, then Parliament, both the other place and this House, would be fully occupied in dealing with them; but I gather that we are used to that.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, in view of what the noble Lord has said and the spirit in which he has said it, I am sure that the House would wish me to withdraw the Amendment. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 6 [Fees for performance of Community obligations]:
3.48 p.m.
Lord ELTON Lord ELTON moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 7, line 17, leave out (" services or facilities provided by them ") and insert (" testing and stamping weighing and measuring equipment and for obliterating, on the request of the owner, of signs or marks on such equipment the pattern approval of which has ceased to have effect ").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, at the Committee stage I drew the attention of the Committee to some concern in the trade that the wording of Clause 6 left it open to the Secretary of State to make orders charging for a wider range of activities than the trade had hitherto paid for and which it was felt were already being paid for out of their not inconsiderable contribution to the rates. The noble Lord was kind enough to write to me on this and a number of other matters, and perhaps I was remiss in not having thanked him for that earlier in the debate. As I understood his reply on this point, it was that the wording of my Amendment was unsatisfactory because it did not leave it open to the Department to make charges for obliterating, at the request of the owner, signs or marks on weighing and measuring equipment, the pattern approval of which had ceased to have effect.
It seemed to me that if this was all that stood between us and agreement, it would be sensible for me to lift those words out of his letter and put them into the Amendment, and that should overcome any difficulties in bringing about this small improvement to the Bill. I shall be interested to hear whether, in fact, this is the case. I beg to move.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has said, we briefly considered this question on the Committee stage when he brought forward an Amendment which, on my suggestion, he withdrew. The purpose of that Amendment, as of the Amendment we are now considering, was to restrict the scope of the clause so that no fee can be prescribed for a routine control visit by an inspector of weights and measures. He now suggests that on the basis of my letter some easy Amendment might be possible. I hope that he has had the chance of again looking at the wording in the Bill as it stands, because I think that the words in the Bill cannot be regarded as giving power to prescribe fees for routine control visits, since in going on a routine visit it cannot be conceivable that the inspector is providing a facility or a service for the person visited. I think that, if the noble Lord studies the existing wording, he will find that the fear which he expressed is misplaced. I suggest that there is no danger under the existing wording of a fee being charged in that admittedly undesirable way.
I should perhaps add that the Amendment is open to more criticism than the point that he was making, in that it does not adequately deal with the circumstances in which power to prescribe fees must be available under the Measuring Instruments (EEC Requirements) Regulations 1975. I indicated in Committee that these powers would be needed in connection with the EEC Regulations. The Amendment is not acceptable for that reason as well, so I must advise the House that the Government are not able to accept it.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for what he has said and for underlining the fact that there are areas other than the stamping, testing and obliterating of marks for which it is intended that charges shall be made. These arise principally from a Statutory Instrument of last year, and it is important that that should be on the record because there was an element of doubt about that among those affected by the Regulations.
I am in a procedural difficulty, in that I was slightly anticipating that the noble Lord, in his usual courteous and cautious way, would offer to take the matter away
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to look at it, and I thought that that would then give me the cue for what I wished to say and should have said at the end of our debate on Amendment No. 2 or No. 3; that is, that we have the Third Reading coming up in a remarkably short time. The noble Lord has agreed to look at what I would call the " coal bag Amendment and I have asked him to try to do that before Third Reading. He has also assured my noble friend Lord Drumalbvn that he will look again at what I would call the " in or on Amendment, No. 3, before Third Reading. It is therefore possible that there will be Amendments to table for Third Reading, and I do not think that it is the custom of the House to take Third Reading so close to Report stage when there is a possibility of Amendments. I suggest that the noble Lord might discuss with the usual channels the possibility therefore of taking this doubtless brief but nevertheless important stage a little later; I do not think that that would upset the business of the House, as I do not anticipate it taking more than about half an hour. I should like to put that thought in the noble Lord's mind, and possibly I should give him an opportunity to interrupt now—so that he can be within the conventions of the House in speaking again—if he wishes to make an observation on what I have said before I withdraw the Amendment.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I was not about literally to jump to my feet, but I shall respond to the noble Lord's invitation. We are in this difficulty, as he said. about the Third Reading having been ordered for two days' time. I will consider what he said, although the noble Lord will understand that it is not a matter for me. I go further, as I would not wish to lose any small reputation I may have wined for courtesy, and say that I am prepared to look at the matter still further, but I should not like that to be taken to mean that I think the Third Reading will be later than two days' time or that I think that I can brine an Amendment forward on this subject in two days' time. However, I undertake to look at this question still further. As I say, I believe that the present wording provides no dangers in the way the noble Lord fears, and if it is not possible to do it for Third Reading, then I will make all necessary representations to the Minister of State, who I think will be in charge of the matter in another place, to ensure

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that the noble Lord's arguments are fully considered.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, I am capable of distinguishing between the noble Lord's courtesy and his ability to accommodate my wishes. I thank him for the one in retrospect and for the other in anticipation. I would not want to make an issue of this but it would be helpful. It is also a good thing to keep the House within its traditions of allowing time for reflection, not necessarily on this Amendment, to which I attach less importance than I do to the two which I mentioned earlier. I suggest that we should not get in the habit of rushing our fences and occasionally knocking them over. I am obliged to the noble Lord for what he has said and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 7 [Corresponding amendments of lair of Northern Ireland]:
3.55 p.m.
Lord ORAM Lord ORAM moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 8, line 31, at end insert—
(" (10) In this Act any reference to an enactment includes an enactment contained in an Act of the Parliament of Northern Ireland or a Measure of the Northern Ireland Assembly.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is little more than a technical Amendment which arises from a change which your Lordships made in Committee. Clause 1(6) of the Bill as now printed provides that nothing in an enactment or in subordinate legislation made under an enactment prevents " gram " being the correct or accepted spelling. To ensure that this provision to legalise the shorter spelling is effective in Northern Ireland, it is necessary to extend the meaning of the term enactment as provided in the Amendment. I am sure that this is a proposal which can be accepted without difficulty.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.

NORTHERN IRELAND (VARIOUS EMERGENCY PROVISIONS) (CONTINUANCE) ORDER 1976
3.56 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge)The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE
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(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge) rose to move, That the draft Northern Ireland (Various Emergency Provisions) (Continuance) Order 1976, laid before the House on 27th May, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, explained in another place on Friday the long-term security policy of the Government for Northern Ireland and the implications in the short and immediate term. During our last debate on security in Northern Ireland, on the Bill proposed by the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, I said that my right honourable friend would set out the Government's policy on security in the renewal debate. This he has now done and I do not think that noble Lords would wish me to repeat in detail all the points he made.
The Government see the way forward as taking the necessary steps to ensure the rule of law in Northern Ireland. These steps are to increase the strength and effectiveness of the RUC and its Reserve; to make a modest increase in the full-time element of the Ulster Defence Régiment; to make such changes in the law as are necessary to enable the police to deal effectively with terrorists by securing their conviction in the courts; and to maintain the Regular Army in the Province, in whatever strength the security situation requires, as the main security buttress in support of a developing Royal Ulster Constabulary. In particular, the Ministerial Committee on Law and Order, about which noble Lords asked during our last discussion, has concluded that the strength of the RUC and RUC Reserve should be increased; that further specialist investigation teams should be introduced into the RUC; that improved arrangements should be made for the collection and collation of criminal intelligence; that more flexible use should be made of units to concentrate on serious crime and preventive policing, and that these units should be expanded so as to serve in each division while at the same time forming a mobile force for deployment outside their divisions; and that further development of local police centres should be encouraged. The full-time RUC Reserve should be extended to take over in particular the guarding of police stations, as well as protection and escort duties. The increase in the full-time element of the

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UDR will be absorbed into existing units and these will be able to relieve units of the Regular Army on tasks such as the manning of vehicle check-points. The role of the UDR will not, however, be changed, nor will full-time battalions be set up.
These then are the guidelines for the future. Already, progress is being made. The chief constable is setting up three regional crime squads—units to collate intelligence—and he is extending and strengthening specialist units dealing with forensic and other work. The plan is not, however, a rigid one with a set timetable. As persons are recruited, so new measures can be implemented. The proposals are interrelated and form an integrated whole.
At the same time, we must consider the short and immediate term. The proposals I have outlined do not affect the number of soldiers in the Province which will depend on the security situation. My right honourable friend has emphasised that the Army will stay in Northern Ireland as long as it is required. Violence is currently high: in recent months we have seen an upsurge of attacks on commercial property and of murderous assaults on the Security Forces. The Army is required in strength to support the police and both the Army and the police need emergency powers to enable them to discharge their role effectively. It is for this reason that the Government seek the extension of the Emergency Provisions for a further period of six months.
These provisions are the temporary provisions contained in the Emergency Provisions Act 1973, which provide for scheduled offences, courts without a jury to try such offences, powers of proscription and special powers for the Security Forces: the temporary provisions in the Emergency Provisions (Amendment) Act 1975, which contain the procedure for detention by the Executive as recommended by my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner, and the temporary provisions in the Northern Ireland (Young Persons) Act 1974 which enable the Secretary of State to give a direction in respect of a young person remanded or committed for trial in order that he may be kept in a prison or some other specified place in order to prevent his escape or secure his safety. Noble Lords may ask
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why it is necessary to continue the provisions for detention now that these are no longer being used. My right honourable friend has made it clear that only as a last resort would he once more exercise powers of detention; but that it would be irresponsible of him to remove these powers from the Statute Book: he has made it clear that he would not hesitate to use them if he thought this was necessary.
My Lords, I submit that, in the present circumstances, emergency powers for the Security Forces are clearly essential. The special provisions for hearing trials, recommended by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Diplock, are certainly necessary. Detention needs to be kept as a measure in reserve. These provisions have to be approved every six months if they are to remain in force. I do not think your Lordships' House will dissent from the Government's view that for the next six months they are necessary. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft Northern Ireland (Various Emergency Provisions) (Continuance) Order 1976, laid before the House on 27th May, be approved.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
4.3 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, this order extends for a further six months the Northern Ireland Emergency Provisions Act, which provides the Security Forces with powers to combat terrorism, and which established courts without juries for the trial of scheduled offences. The order covers other proposals which the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, explained in the later part of his speech. I support this order, which I believe continues to be necessary in the circumstances of Northern Ireland today.
The noble Lord has repeated in his own words an important statement made by his right honourable friend the Secretary of State in another place on Friday, concerning the findings of the Ministerial Committee on Law and Order. The Committee has been sitting recently under the chairmanship of the Secretary of State. I should like to welcome the statement as it referred to the Royal Ulster Constabulary. May I take this opportunity of wishing the new members

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of the Northern Ireland Police Authority who have recently been appointed well in the work which they will be doing.
At first sight, I would expect that police work will now have even better prospects of success. The noble Lord mentioned the introduction of three regional crime squads and the use of a mobile force, and he and his right honourable friend referred the other day to the introduction of more specialist police investigation teams to deal with crimes like murder and fraud. I imagine that that idea follows the introduction some months ago of what was called the A Squad but, for the operations of the Security Forces to achieve the ultimate success for which we all hope, intelligence work must be of the highest order. I share the Government's hope that the Royal Ulster Constabulary will be able to recuit and train the men and women who are necessary to back up the opera-dons of these specialist investigation teams with the necessary technical and forensic proof to secure convictions in the courts.
I should also like to welcome the statement that the UDR will be relieving Regular Army units of certain duties and that there is to be an increase in the permanent establishment of the UDR. From these Benches, we have for some time been pressing the Government for the establishment of full-time UDR companies, and I am sorry that the Government feel that they cannot accept that proposal. However, we shall await the Government's deliberations on the proposal, which must be a step in the right direction.
After those words of welcome for what the Government are doing in their immensely difficult task, I should like to put two points squarely to the Government. I must say that I could wish that we should no longer hear the Government saying that it is policy to respond to the level of violence—not that those words were used by the noble Lord today, but it is an expression which was used as recently as 14th June in another place by the noble Lord's right honourable friend. I hope that we shall hear the Government announce that discussions with IRA sympathisers have ceased.
Of course I realise that terrorism manifests itself in different ways—Border
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and urban terrorism, huge explosions and individual assassinations—each one requiring a different response. But a policy which is a policy solely of response surely reveals a defensive frame of mind. I am one who believes that there is no reason for this. Appalling though the loss of lives has been amongst civilians, the Army and, recently and very tragically, the police, I do not believe that the IRA can survive the rate of attrition against them. For that, I pay tribute to the work which has been done by the Government and the Security Forces. But, for this to become clear to the civilian population, which must be weary almost to exhaustion, it is no answer for the Government to say in public that it is policy to have a policy of response and that the Government are conducting long-term discussions with sympathisers of the terrorists who have been taking the lives of so many British soldiers.
May I turn very briefly to the difficult problem of bringing to justice those who organise terrorism in Northern Ireland? When my noble friend Lord Brooke-borough introduced his Northern Ireland (Trial of Terrorists and Witness Protection) Bill in your Lordships' House just over a fortnight ago, I put to the Government the undeniable fact, which I believe is common ground between both sides of the House, that the continued intimidation of witnesses allows those who organise violence—the " Godfathers " of Northern Ireland terrorism—to continue at liberty. I asked that the Government should make a statement on this subject when this order was being presented to Parliament. I should like to thank the Government for arranging that. It may not have been in reply to my request but, none the less, arrangements were made and the right honourable gentleman the Attorney-General made a major speech on this order in another place on Friday.
In his speech, the Attorney-General said that, although the Government have again scrutinised the law to look for any gaps which may be closed, they have come to the conclusion that the real weakness is lack of evidence. I certainly accept that conclusion, but I do not believe that it is a state of affairs that we should accept as though nothing can be done about it. The day after the debate on my noble friend's Bill, the newspapers reported that two Provisional IRA gunmen

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had shot dead Mr. Sidney McAvoy, the owner of a licensed gun dealer's store in West Belfast, apparently in revenge for evidence which Mr. McAvoy had given in court against IRA terrorists. Lack of evidence is surely the inevitable consequence of the intimidation of witnesses and, seemingly intractable though this problem is, I believe that the time will come when the Government will be forced to look at the problem again. Possibly an opportunity may present itself when the Government introduce a Northern Ireland Bill on the administration of justice which, I understand from the Secretary of State's speech on Friday, is the intention of the Government for the next Session of Parliament.
Finally, I should like to ask the noble Lord about the timing of three changes in the law which the Attorney-General announced in another place on Friday. I understood the three changes to be: first, to extend the Criminal Damage Act 1971 to Northern Ireland—which will have the effect or providing a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment for a hoax bomber; secondly, to increase from five to ten years the maximum penalty for carrying a firearm in a public place and for possessing ammunition in suspicious circumstances; and, thirdly, to assimilate the Northern Ireland Judges' Rules with those for England and Wales. I understood from the speech of the right honourable gentleman that the first two changes can be effected by Order in Council, and I am wondering how swiftly it may be possible for this to be done. With that final question I support the passing of the order.
4.11 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I am grateful for the noble Lord's reception of my introduction of the order and I wish to join with his good wishes to the new members of the police authority. The main criticism—if that be the right word—that the noble Lord has voiced this afternoon is the suggestion that the Government's policy is solely one of response. I think that this is a misunderstanding of the Government's policy. What the Government have said—and what my right honourable friend said the other day—was that they 'would always respond, and will always respond, to the
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behaviour of the other side. This is perfectly obvious. If intimidation falls off, as happened at the beginning of the so-called cease-fire, when the PIRA—the Provos—voluntarily stepped down their attacks on the Security Forces and on civilians, then the action which has to be used against more active intervention by the enemy naturally steps down somewhat. This is a response of a perfectly sensible kind, and in fact during the so-called ceasefire period we gained considerable friendship—or restored some of our friendship—with certain areas of the minority population by laying off the searches which, from their point of view, had been extremely punitive and tiresome.
So I think that any Government in a situation of urban guerrilla warfare (which is our situation) must always respond to the situation. But this is quite different from solely responding to the situation, and I should deny hotly that this was the only part of Government policy. Government policy is developing the whole time in different ways. We are trying different things, not in relation to an up or down situation on the other side, but in relation to the facts which the noble Lord has been talking about—the facts of intimidation. The noble Lord asked whether we would look yet again at intimidation. It is not a question of looking yet again at intimidation. Intimidation is half the main problem, which everybody concerned with Northern Ireland is looking at every day.
So I make no promises of a quick solution to this; I do not think there is one. But I think that the reorganisation of the RUC (which my right honourable friend outlined, and to which I referred) and its support by the Army, and its current high level of success not only in arresting hut also in convicting, gives us confidence that a good deal more than nothing is happening here. As to the timing of the changes in the law to which the noble Lord referred, the Criminal Damage Act 1971 can be applied by order, and will be applied as soon as possible. The firearms penalties also can be applied by order, and will be applied as soon as possible; and the other changes may require a Bill.
My Lords, the question of the alleged negotiations and the supposed talks comes up very frequently. I think that I must stick fairly well to what my right

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honourable friend has said again and again in another place. For example on 18th March this year he said that his officials will talk to any lawful organisation in Northern Ireland when there is a useful purpose to be served. The conversations which have taken place between his officials and the provisional Sinn Fein have been designed to explain the Government's policy, and explanation has been the key to their meetings. No negotiations have taken place or will take place. The Government are not prepared to give details of meetings with individual organisations. The Secretary of State is fully aware of his responsibility to the whole community in Northern Ireland.
I had a note to explain what the Attorney-General had said, but the noble Lord has anticipated me and I do not think I need do more than note his welcome of the three steps to which he has referred and for which I have just given him the timing. If do not think that I want to add anything to this beyond the fact that it must be obvious to everybody in your Lordships' House that these emergency provisions must continue for a further six months.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

NORTHERN IRELAND ACT 1974 (INTERIM PERIOD EXTENSION) ORDER 1976
4.17 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE rose to move, That the draft Northern Ireland (Interim Period Extension) Order 1976. laid before the House on 27th May, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move this order. As noble Lords will recall, the arrangements for direct rule under the Northern Ireland Act 1974 are renewable for a maximum of one year at a time. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has said on a number of occasions that at present there is no alternative to continuing Direct Rule. I am, therefore, seeking the approval of the House this afternoon to an order extending the current arrangements for Direct Rule for another year from 16th July.
However, as my right honourable friend made clear in another place on 2nd July, the Government's long-term aim is to see a devolved system of government estab
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lished in Northern Ireland which would enjoy widespread support across the community. Unfortunately, the Convention was unable to produce a constitutional solution which commanded sufficiently widespread public acceptance. However, the search for an acceptable solution goes on. It would not be right for the Government to comment on the talks currently taking place between the Official Unionist Party and the Social Democratic and Labour Party, but, as my right honourable friend has explained, the Government are always ready to entertain constructive and responsible ideas from those in Northern Ireland who are prepared to work together for Northern Ireland. For the present, however, Direct Rule will continue and the Government have been considering whether any changes should he made in the procedures.
The Secretary of State outlined on 2nd July a number of proposals for improving Direct Rule, including removing the limitation in Standing Orders on the number of meetings of the Northern Ireland Committee which may be held in a Session in another place, thus providing greater opportunity for debate on Northern Ireland matters. The Government propose to accept in principle the suggestion that we should more frequently apply Great Britain Bills to Northern Ireland. There are, of course, some areas of change in Northern Ireland which will require a full Bill in Parliament. The Fair Employment Bill provides an example of this. We shall continue to introduce legislation in this way when it concerns matters which have traditionally been dealt with by legislation in Parliament, rather than by devolved legislation in Northern Ireland. I have outlined briefly the Government's position on the main constitutional and political issues with which we are currently concerned, including the need to continue the existing Direct Rule arrangements. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft Northern Ireland Act 1974 (Interim Period Extension) Order 1976, laid before the House on 27th May, be approved.—(Lord Donaldson of Kings-bridge.)
4.20 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, it is an objective that is shared on all sides of the House that devolved Government should

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be restored to Northern Ireland as soon as possible, for not only is it natural that people in Northern Ireland should wish to administer their own education, commerce and social services, but the shortcomings of taking all Northern Ireland legislation through Parliament at West-minister whenever there is a necessity for an order, or anything of that kind, become increasingly obvious. Orders covering a wide variety of Northern Ireland affairs appear before this House without any real opportunity for the consideration which they deserve; and because they are orders they are, of course, not open to amendment—and in saying this I am in no way criticising the Government.
Some orders which the House has taken recently have been concerned with major legislation. Indeed, I believe I am right in claiming that the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments has reported that certain Northern Ireland orders are in reality primary legislation. I therefore welcome the Government's proposals for improving the scrutiny and debate of Northern Ireland orders in another place, which I understand from what the noble Lord has said this afternoon will include debating some orders in draft in the Northern Ireland Committee in the House of Commons, which was set up there some months ago. In this House, of course, we are not restricted as to the time which we may take on any one order, but I would have thought that it would be of great assistance if, when an order is published as draft proposals and is going to be debated in the Northern Ireland Committee in another place, the same draft could be made available simultaneously in the Printed Paper Office in your Lordships' House; and I should like to ask the noble Lord if he could perhaps take that suggestion away and possibly give me an answer in writing in the future.
It is disappointing that the Government have as yet no proposals for trying to restart the political processes in Northern Ireland. In both Houses the Opposition have suggested that some form of advisory committee to the Secretary of State, with a wider remit than the economic council which exists at the moment, might involve people in Northern Ireland in their own legislation and might at the
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same time act as a vehicle for the political process within the Province to restart. I am aware that the Secretary of State is not attracted by this idea, and we must hope that the current discussions between the Official Unionists and the SDLP will bring forward some basis for further political understanding. In voicing the wish that there should be closer links between the Secretary of State and Northern Ireland politicians, may I hasten to say that I am in no way criticising the advice which is given to the Government by the Civil Service. Indeed, I should like to take this opportunity to express appreciation for the work which has been done by the retiring head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, Sir David Holden, and to give my best wishes to his successor, Mr. Robert Kidd.
In another place when this roder was going through the Secretary of State told the House of Commons that the Government arc expecting very soon the results of the wide-ranging review of economic and industrial strategy which the Secretary of State commissioned some time ago. This is something which, from these Benches, I think I can claim we have urged for over a year, and I therefore welcome this step. Of course, it is true that nothing could contribute better to the future economic prosperity of Ulster than a cessation of violence, which would encourage new industry to come into the Province; but if the terrible level of unemployment—and it rises to something like 25 per cent., I believe, in some areas—in Northern Ireland is to be reduced, surely it is the existing industries of the Province which must prosper and develop.
In February, I had the opportunity to visit Harland and Wolff, and two factors appeared to me to be clear. The first was that the number of jobs which are dependent upon Harland and Wolff extends far beyond the limits of the shipyard. Indeed, I was told that, of those working at the yard, three times the number are in one way or another dependent upon the continuation of shipbuilding in Belfast. The second factor which seemed to be clear was that the shipbuilding recession and the former concentration of Harland and Wolff upon the building of super-tankers had now placed the yard in a very critical position. We shall be looking with very great care at the report when it is published

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to find out what strategy the Government may be able to adopt towards Northern Ireland's traditional industries. Do not let us forget that engineering work in Northern Ireland achieves a very high level of quality, as the production and the recent sales of Short Brothers' new aircraft demonstrate, and any support which can be given to the traditional industries in Northern Ireland is to give support to work of a very high order.
So I support the passing of this order, but on this occasion the Government must surely expect to be asked to indicate their hopes for the timing of constitutional proposals for the future. During the next Session the Government apparently intend to legislate for devolution to Scotland and Wales. Where does Northern Ireland stand so far as the Parliamentary timetable is concerned? Following the Convention, the Secretary of State has not pushed for any constitutional initiatives, and I acknowledge that he has very probably been wise in this; but that sort of policy may not accord with the Government's general policy during the next Parliamentary Session. Ministers must have given considerable thought to the timing of this problem, and I hope that, if not today at least in the reasonably near future, the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, will be able to reveal to the House the way in which the Government are thinking about this problem.
4.27 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I must begin by failing to fulfil the noble Lord's expectations expressed at the end of his speech. I have nothing to add to what has already been said. My right honourable friend feels that he has simply got to hold the fort for the moment, and he does not feel that at this time there is anything he can seize hold of in order to provide the kind of solution for which we are all looking. He does not wish to comment, as I said in my speech, on what is going on because he is not a party to it. If, as a result of what is going on, anything comes to him, he will look at it most closely. So I am afraid the noble Lord is unable to extract anything further than that from me.
As regards the simultaneous submission of draft orders in another place and here,
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I thought this already occurred. If it does not, there is not the slightest reason that I can see why it should not. I will investigate the matter, but I think that it is probably already occurring. I think your Lordships will find that the draft order is available in the Printed Paper Office from the moment it is laid in Parliament, and therefore no extra action needs to be taken, but I will check on that. The noble Lord is quite right in saying that, though his Party and colleagues have urged on the Secretary of State the formation of an advisory committee, the Secretary of State resists this. He feels that when you know exactly how people are going to vote it is probably not very helpful collectively to have their advice—you can take it individually because there is no question of an advisory committee of the kind that would be concerned here being anything other than strictly political in the sense of Northern Ireland.
I was most grateful and pleased that the noble Lord paid tribute to Sir David Holden and to Bob Kidd, who is succeeding him as the head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service. I have worked with them for a number of years and regard them both as friends. I think we were very lucky to have had Sir David, and also very lucky to have Bob Kidd to follow him. I think the morale in the Northern Ireland Civil Service, which is sometimes said to be low, is not in the least low. I think it is a very strong and vigorous branch of the Civil Service, and I certainly found nothing but pleasure and effectiveness in working with it.
My Lords, I think I will not comment on Harland and Wolff. I was in Oslo a week or two ago talking to Norwegian shipowners, and they have an enormous admiration for the yard and its capabilities. But they are in the same position as we are, that we are all equipped to build something which for the moment is not required. This is a difficult matter. I am grateful to the noble Lord for recommending to the House that this order be agreed to.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

RHODESIA
4.30 p.m.
The Marquess of SALISBURY The Marquess of SALISBURY rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether

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they will state precisely what advantage they expect to accrue to the peoples of Rhodesia if the principle of majority rule is applied to that country. The noble Marquess said: My Lords, I beg to ask the Unstarred Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. The reason for my doing so is that I have read reports that Her Majesty's Government are seeking to establish majority rule in Rhodesia either now or within the next two years. This does not seem to be in accord with what the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, said in the debate in this House last November on sanctions where, in reply to a question from me, he said that Her Majesty's Government stood by the five principles enunciated and also the sixth principle. Nor does it seem to me to be in accord with Sir Harold Wilson's statement in an interview on April 29th last year on BBC-2 in which, when he was asked about the time-scale for majority rule, he said that there was no time-scale, not necessarily today or tomorrow. For these reasons I hope that Her Majesty's Government will state where they now stand in view of the serious position in Rhodesia today.
I should also like to draw your attention to the difference in the attitudes adopted by Her Majesty's Government over Rhodesian affairs and over Northern Ireland with which your Lordships have just been dealing. In Rhodesia, we appear to have the same demand for majority rule, with or without safeguards; whereas in Northern Ireland the principal trouble seems to be that Her Majesty's Government are unable to secure sufficient safeguards for the minority there. With respect to safeguards, we have found it necessary to implement them here. We now have the Race Relations Board supported by the full force of the law. I wonder whether Her Majesty's Government, in exploring the Rhodesian situation, have something similar in mind for that country. If not, I fail to see how they will be able to implement the sixth principle. I should have thought it clear that some safeguards were necessary in African countries. We have only to remember the plight of the Asians in Uganda and the Portuguese in Angola.
It may be that Her Majesty's Government are not guided by any special principles or policies; for noble Lords
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opposite appear to see nothing wrong or objectionable in Russian colonialism in Eastern Europe, whereas they seem utterly opposed to white participation in Government in Africa on the grounds that it is a relic of colonialism. Of the two, I should have thought that the latter was a more beneficial rule and less harsh. It may be that they just want to get rid of this problem both in Ireland and in Rhodesia without regard to the consequences. I believe it true that, since UDI, Her Majesty's Government claim to have taken over direct rule in Rhodesia.
I think that we also ought to take a look at the effects of granting majority rule in Rhodesia. One thing that seems certain is that after a brief period, no democratic Government will exist; and Dr. Sithole has made it clear that it would be a Marxist State. He also said that a great deal of blood will flow, whatever happens. I shall not enlarge on this because I tried to deal with this in the sanctions debate; but the pattern seems to be similar to what happens after the grant of majority rule in other African States. It may be that Dr. Sithole no longer counts; because Mr. Austin Chakaodza, the London representative of ZANU, in an interview with the Argos Press said:
"People like Nikomo, Muzorewa, Sithole and Chikerama are irrelevant, and in the new Zimbabwe there will be no Parliamentary democracy, no voting and no canvassing."
There is some confirmation of this in reports in the Rhodesia Herald of 24th June this year which, among other things, says:
" The Soviet Union is masterminding President Machela's attempt to demolish the overall political leadership of the African National Council."
What has caused this desire for a change of leadership? Can it be that ZANU's paymasters are dissatisfied with the results so far obtained ?—for we must surely accept that Rhodesia's problems stem largely from outside interference.
In this connection I should like to quote from a letter of my father's of 12th January 1966 to the Daily Telegraph in the course of which he said:
" While it may well be that respect for law is the dominating consideration in the minds of Mr. Wilson and his colleagues, it is surely not the consideration which is uppermost in the minds of the Afro-Asian States and of those other nations,

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like Russia, whom, by bringing the Rhodesian issue before the United Nations, he has rallied to his standard."
Their concern is not whether Mr. Smith's Government is legal. They do not care a rap about that. Some of them have not worried unduly about the legality of changes in their own constitutions. What they are after is something quite different. It is the disappearance from the Continent of Africa, South of the Sahara, of every Government that is not entirely non-European. Behind them loom the far more sinister figures of the great Communist powers, Russia and China, whose aims in many matters may not be identical with those of the African States or even with each other's, but who have this in common: they both want to see the disappearance from Africa of any régimes that are, in their minds, on the side of the West.
Another question that we should ask ourselves is whether the truly remarkable progress made in Rhodesia, both before and after UDI, can be maintained under African rule or even held at its present level. Judging by other African States, the answer must be, No. As one observer who recently returned from Rhodesia has written:
" No one in their senses either in London or Salisbury could possibly doubt that black majority in two years would mean anything but catastrophe and chaos for black and white alike."
There are a number of reasons for this. First, the inability of African States, in the main, to prevent a collapse of the economy—and there are many examples of this. The latest example is Mozambique where Samora Machel has probably earned the unique distinction of plunging his country into economic and financial chaos, as well as starvation, with greater rapidity than any statesman in history. Secondly, the inability to maintain an effective administrative machine; any of your Lordships who have tried to do business with the African Civil Service will know the problems with which one is faced. Thirdly, the collapse of law and order which seems to follow majority rule, at least in the sense that we understand it in this country. There are many examples which no doubt will spring to your Lordships' minds. Fourthly, the inability of these African countries, after majority rule, to feed their population. In the case of Rhodesia it is now well over 5 million people; and although African
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agriculture has made rapid advances in the last few years, this, I believe, is too big a task for it to tackle.
One glance at the Tribal Trust lands will confirm this. The Africans there can perhaps maintain themselves, but they are quite incapable of feeding the urban areas. The food for this must come from the white farms which currently provide some 75 per cent. of agricultural production. Finally, what applies to agriculture is also true of the services such as education and the hospital services. There cannot be any prospect of them maintaining their present level of efficiency—which, indeed, is very high—unless they receive support in administration and servicing from whites.
The truth is that Rhodesia has developed into a prosperous State thanks to the endeavours of its white population. As a result of improved conditions, the population has multiplied and it has grown to a point when it can survive only with the aid and direction of the whites for some considerable time to come. Without them it faces starvation and the deterioration of its services and probably the collapse of organised and effective government. One must ask oneself whether this is what the majority of the African population really wants. This is very difficult to assess. I personally do not believe that they do, and there are indications at the present time that they do not like what they have seen for themselves or heard about what is going on in Mozambique. Nor do I think that ZANU and ZAPU command the support of the majority of Africans, although there have been special occasions when they have been able to whip up considerable support; but, so far, this has never lasted. One of the reasons would appear to be that the African at this stage is politically apathetic.
We ought to consider what the views of the people of this country are. I understand that recently the BBC commissioned an opinion poll, and that this was undertaken by the Opinion Research Centre. Three questions were asked. The first question was: " Do you think the Africans should rule? " To this 11 per cent. said, " Yes ". The second question was: " Do you think the whites should rule? ". To this, again, 11 per cent. said, " Yes ". The third question was: " Do you think there should be joint rule between blacks

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and whites? " To this 68 per cent. replied, " Yes ". This seems a fairly conclusive verdict, one with which I myself concur.
In conclusion, I would say this. I have tried to show what I believe the effect would be of handing over the control of Rhodesia to the Africans prematurely. It would have disastrous results, not only for Rhodesia but for her neighbours. It is for this reason that I seek clarification of Her Majesty's Government's aims and of how they see the future developing in Rhodesia.S
4.44 p.m.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Salisbury has put a question to the Government of vital importance both to this country as well as to the future of the peoples of Rhodesia, and with his very great knowledge and experience of that country—both its history and its peoples—we have heard a very clear reason why he has put this Question and the basis which forms his thinking. Nevertheless, it is not my role, speaking from these Benches, even to attempt to answer the Question, since it is put to Her Majesty's Government, but rather to add one or two questions myself and to single out one or two factors which must be taken into account when we are considering this problem.
First, we are only too well aware of the very rapid change in the political and military situation of Rhodesia: the strengthening of the guerrilla forces in Mozambique and the formation of a possible third force with the support of the Organisation of African Unity. That certainly cannot be ignored in considering the position of all the people of Rhodesia, both black and white. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Salisbury referred to the present position of the people of Mozambique. Not only of course is there catastrophic food shortage. but there is great shortage of medical and para-medical personnel; and, indeed, the Government of Mozambique, as I understand it, are now trying to get professionally trained Portuguese people to come back to Mozambique to contribute to the furthering of the economic and social development of that country. We might take this into consideration when we are discussing the future of Rhodesia,
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If the bloodshed which has been threatened by so many world leaders is to be avoided, and if the great contribution made by the European settlers of Rhodesia in the development of agriculture and their major contribution to the raising of the economic and social standards of living of all the people of Rhodesia are not to be ignored or wasted, the Government must take a new initiative. We need some indication of the Government's intentions. Why, for instance, was it left to Mr. Vorster and Dr. Kissinger to discuss the future of Rhodesia ? Was there no British representative present ? Were we consulted as to the kind of policy which was going to be formed at that meeting? What measures are being taken within the European Community for assisting in a solution to this problem ?
I have put this question before to the Minister: we should like to know what is in the mind of the Government as to what they mean by " majority rule ". Is it not the case that an extension of the electoral roll based on educational standards would lead in effect to the majority of elected and representative members representing the vast majority of the people without eliminating white representatives ? We have not heard any detailed thinking from the Government on this subject. Surely this is of direct and immediate concern to white people as well as people of other colours in Rhodesia.
If Rhodesia is to remian outside the sphere of Communist influence, and if there is to be a peaceful settlement acceptable to all groups in Rhodesia—and both these aims are surely shared by both Rhodesians and the people of this country—the Government must act diplomatically to take the initiative to implement what we regard as two major achievements. What the Government should be doing—and we have no evidence that they are doing this—is encouraging knowledge of the dangers to the European settlers in Rhodesia of refusal eventually to accept majority rule. What measures are the Government taking to inform these people? Are they to put on television programmes? Are they broadcasting on the World Service what are the real dangers to the European settlers of Rhodesia if they do not prepare themselves for a gradual transition to majority rule? Even more important in that context, what guarantees are the

1185
Government prepared to give for the safety, of their lives, property and future prospects in the land where, after all, they, too, were born?
If the white people of Rhodesia are to accept that the British Government supports the policy of an orderly transfer of power into black African hands—and this has been repeated several times by the Government—we believe that there are highly trained and capable Africans who can and do wish to see their country remain outside the Soviet sphere of influence and who are perfectly capable of governing their country together with European settlers. What are the Government doing to encourage and ensure that the safeguards of all the people of Rhodesia lie in the hands of the British Government? So we therefore wish to know what the Government are doing to safeguard the lives, property and prospects not only of the European settlers of Rhodesia, but also the black peoples of Rhodesia, from threats from guerrilla invasion and economic disaster. We have seen over and over again, as my noble friend pointed out, both elements happening in so many other countries in Africa. The responsibility is the Government's and we hope to have an answer from the Minister.
4.50 p.m.
Lord PITT of HAMPSTEAD: My Lords, I think it is rather odd that we should be debating this Question at a time when Her Majesty the Queen is visiting our most famous ex-Colony, which most people would agree has made a success of majority rule. I am nevertheless grateful to the noble Marquess for giving us this opportunity of facing squarely the benefits of majority rule to Rhodesia.
I think the right answer to the noble Marquess's Question is to ask the people of this country what they would regard as the advantages to them of having majority rule. I think one would find they would say that they gained the Factory Acts of 1833, 1874, 1878, and the later amendments, which controlled the conditions under which they were forced to work. I think one would find they would mention the Mines Act, the Municipal Corporations Acts and the subsequent Local Government Acts which established the present system of local government in this country, which is the envy of the world. I think
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one would find they would mention the Poor Law Amendment Act, the various Public Health Acts, and the Education Acts, which first established and then extended State education, the opening up of our universities to other than members of the Church of England and the gradual extension of higher education to its present level. One would find they would mention the reform of the Civil Service, the enfranchisement and the protection of the trade unions and the growth of the Labour Party. They would also mention the Workmen's Compensation Acts, the National Insurance Acts of 1911 and 1920, the Beveridge Plan and the establishment of the Welfare State. They would mention the National Health Service, municipal housing, the Town and Country Planning Act and the development of new towns.
Of course, not all these things would necessarily receive the plaudits of your Lordships, but these were all gained after the Reform Acts of 1832, 1867 and 1884; and I would make bold to say that they would not have occurred but for those Acts and the various extensions of the franchise which followed them. It is similar advantages that we hope will accrue to the people of Rhodesia by the application of the principle of majority rule. They may not make as good use of them as we should like them to, but we will at least give the Rhodesians the opportunity of doing these things for themselves. It is a long-honoured principle that where constitutional channels of progress are closed, revolution becomes legitimate. In the modern world, all peoples demand an equal right to determine the laws which they have to obey and the character of the society in which they have to live. Either adult suffrage will be granted to Rhodesia and the rest of Southern Africa, or it will be won in battle.
Britain has been consistently on the wrong side in Central and Southern Africa. We gave white supremacy to South Africa in 1910 and to Southern Rhodesia in 1923. We admitted South Africa to the Commonwealth in 1931. We imposed the Central African Federation on the peoples of Central Africa in 1953. We presented the Rhodesians with the Federation's armed forces, and it is those forces which are now used to support the rebellion against the Queen. We tried to appease Ian Smith before and after UDI. In each case, we supported

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the minority against the rights of the majority. It is no wonder that the freedom fighters have had to turn to the Communist world for arms. I appreciate the concern of the noble Marquess about the danger of Communist influence in the area, but we are making Communist influence likely by refusing to allow the majority to determine their affairs. We are in fact almost making a present of Southern Africa to the Communists.
The Presidents of neighbouring States —Kaunda of Zambia, Nyerere of Tanzania, Machel of Mozambique and Seretse Khama of Botswana—have all gone to the limit in trying to secure majority rule through negotiation in order to save thousands of lives. They have actually jeopardised, certainly in a couple of cases, their own position in order to do so. They failed because of Ian Smith's continued intransigence, and that intransigence has continued to find support in some quarters in this country. Unless we have more influence than these Presidents and Mr. Vorster, and can exert it on the Smith régime, then a bitter racial war is inevitable, with all the consequences that that will entail. Frankly, it has already started, although it is in such a limited state that at the moment obviously it can still be stopped.
Such a war would affect every society in which different races live side by side, including our own. We have to stand up and be counted, for everyone in this conflict is considered to be either on the side of the majority or on the side of the minority. This is seen not only in Africa but throughout the rest of the world. Soweto has exposed to the world what happens when people are in anger, and I am sure that none of your Lordships would want to see a Soweto in Rhodesia. But, my Lords, how long can Africans be expected to tolerate a situation in which 5 per cent. of the population make the laws and in which land is divided equally between that 5 per cent. and the remaining 95 per cent.?— a situation, if I may point this out to the noble Marquess, whereby he could buy land in certain parts of Rhodesia which I could not buy, regardless of what money I had.
Of course there are difficulties in introducing adult suffrage into Rhodesia. There were difficulties in this country;
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and there are certainly what I would call tragic divisions among the nationalist organisations in Rhodesia. But we have to leave it to the African leaders to try to heal that breach. The tragic situation is being perpetuated and deepened by the refusal to grant majority rule—and I hope that your Lordships will try to see that point—and delay can only intensify the bitterness augmenting the eventual bloodbath. It is in European as well as in African interests to arrange the transition as speedily as possible, with the maximum assistance in training and economic aid. I was very glad to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, deal with that side of the matter in the way she did, because we need to have this transition to majority rule and we need to have it quickly.
It does not follow, as night follows day, that because you have majority rule there is a need for the minority either to be oppressed or to have to leave. There can be a situation in which the majority and the minority can live together; in fact, it is essential for the success of the area that they should do so. But that is being endangered by the continued refusal of the minority to do justice to the majority. I hope that in his reply the Minister will indicate that Her Majesty's Government are firmly committed to majority rule, and will not be deviated one iota from that path. I await his reply with the greatest interest.
5.2 p.m.
Lord TRANMIRE: My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Salisbury for initiating this Question, particularly since it has brought out a remarkable speech by the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, which showed where we are sometimes in disagreement on these matters, because he has regarded Central Africa as similar to London where he has a very distinguished career in administration. This is the mistake which Europe has made in the last century, and when the history of the world is written, people will look at the failure of Europe to help the Africans to form the kind of government that fits them best. We have ourselves hawked around the Westminster model of Parliament to people to whom it is a strange thing for the leader of an Opposition to

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survive, and quite ridiculous to pay him a salary when he has survived. This is not happening in Africa, and instead of trying to send the Westminster model around Africa we should have been thinking about, and helping the Africans to work out, what form of government would suit them best. I am certain that to Africans majority rule does not mean what it means to us here, or to the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead.
The noble Lord, Lord Pitt, said that where constitutional progress is slow revolution follows. What has happened in Africa in the last five years is that where constitutional progress has been fast one revolution has succeeded another. What country in Africa today has a Government with a stable Opposition, such as we try to give them under the rules laid down in Erskine May ? —not a single country. Therefore, we ought to try first not to be so presumptuous as to think—
Lord PITT of HAMPSTEAD: My Lords, will the noble Lord please give way? I ask him please not to be unfair to Botswana.
Lord TRANMIRE: I agree, my Lords, and I think that Botswana has done well. But there is no Opposition in any major country. Certainly, we will give the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, Botswana, but there is no Opposition in Kenya where no Luo dares enter politics. I am not blaming Africa. This is the nature of Africa. Therefore, when noble Lords talk about majority rule let them take the problem out to Central Africa and ask them. I do not have a solution, although I shall later lay down one or two guidelines. But if you say to a Matabele that he will have majority rule, which means permanent rule by the Mashona, what will be the answer? I should like the noble Lord who has just spoken to put that question to Mr. Joshua Nkomo and see what his answer is. Again, if we take the population of Rhodesia, of course the Europeans are a very small minority; equally the coloureds and the Asians are in a minority. But I million of the Africans are in the townships, and over 3 million of them are in the Tribal Trust and other areas. Are you going to say that the townships will be ruled by the Tribal Trust areas? You will not get a very
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sweet reception in Harari and Highfield if you put that view forward to them.
I do not want to take up the time of your Lordships, but somehow we have to find a way in which there can be a proper form of power-sharing within the concept of the African. I have always felt that much swifter progress should he made with local government, particularly in the townships. The Tribal Trust areas have a proper decentralisation of authority, but that has not been so for a long time in the townships, such as Harari, Highfield and Bulawayo. But how this power-sharing is to be done must be worked out when the threat of Communist aggression, which is killing more Africans than Europeans in Rhodesia, is ended. Then, I believe that there should be a great indaba where all these problems can be talked over by the different elements in Central Africa, and a proper solution found. Work is being done. I hope that the Minister of State can say a word on the report of the Quenet Commission, which was published only two months ago, and which, to my mind, gives a remarkably clear picture of how to eliminate racial discrimination in Rhodesia. It is a remarkable report, produced by a Commission which had Africans and Europeans as members of it, and it makes several dynamic recommendations to put matters right.
Meanwhile, let me come to the point made by my noble friend Lady Elles. If we are to have any hope of peace in Central Africa, we must see that agricultural development is advanced far more quickly than is the case at the present time. This requires, in particular, personnel from Europe going out and helping the Africans to develop their agriculture, because they are principally a pastoral and agricultural people. Secondly, it is made very clear in the Quenet Report that the result of sanctions has been to hold up technical education for Africans. I remember that when sanctions were first put on I made an appeal in another place to this country. I said that, whatever were the disagreements, we should pour money in for the technical education of Africans. But nothing has been done, and there have passed something like ten wasted years. If we believe in the advancement of all races in Central Africa, as I do, and in a multiracial community, surely we should

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spare whatever we can in order to increase technical education for Africans. At the moment such education is being delayed by our sanctions policy.
5.10 p.m.
Lord CLIFFORD of CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, I must confess to being somewhat out of date on this subject as it is nearly eight since years I was last in Salisbury. It was at the time when Gibbs, the Governor, was cut off in Government House by the Smith régime before he was finally expelled. I went to visit him in Government House and was very impressed by his line of thinking—as I was by that of other members of what I think was then called the Centre Party, who were all in favour of the gradual extension of the franchise and against the Smith régime.
This was not the reason why I went to Salisbury. I went there because a cousin of mine was then the priest in charge of the outer suburb of Mableraine. He has since died of the disease which had then begun to attack him and this was the reason for my visit. I was taken around the black township of Salisbury by the deputy mayor, also a member of the Centre Party, who was a cousin of the then leader of your Lordships' House, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. We were the only three whites in this township. Not one policeman was in sight. I wonder where else in Africa that could have taken place.
In my cousin's church—Mableraine is mainly a white suburb—people of all colours were worshipping together. Having come to Salisbury from Johannesburg the difference was so striking that I thought that if only this gradual process, which was supported by people like Gibbs and the Centre Party who were then in opposition to the Smith régime, could continue we might reach a reasonable solution to the problem. I spoke words to that effect in your Lordships' House after I returned from Salisbury, but now I am about eight years out of date.
I am grateful to the noble Marquess for introducing this debate. There is only one question which I want to ask the Government: whether they will give me an answer which they failed to give to a question I asked during the debate on immigration 10 days ago which was initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Gridley.
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At my house in Devon last night I entertained the Exeter branch of the English Speaking Union and their guests. This was in connection with the big celebrations that are taking place all over the country on the 200th anniversary of the American UDI. One of the guests came up to me after I had given my talk—they were having supper with me which, thank Heaven! they had laid on—and told me that she was a Rhodesian and that this cousin of mine, to whom I have referred, had married her. She also told me that she had been able to visit her relations here only because she was born in Australia and was able to get an Australian passport. I hope that your Lordships will see the point I am leading up to now.
Today we have heard phrases like: " It will be won in war if it is not won otherwise "—the exhortation of the freedom fighters. The pressure which is being put upon us all the time brings me to the question that I asked 10 days ago and which I should like to ask again: whether the Government will make it quite clear that when this holocaust comes, or is seen to be approaching, there will be no nonsense about regulating the number of people from this country, who will then be refugees, who want to come here. I am anxious about this question because I have relatives in that part of the world and I know that many people of British origin are growing anxious, too.
In both Rhodesia and South Africa people are already thinking about moving. I was appalled by the " neck " of a Mr. Mukherjee, as reported in The Times last Friday, who said that there should be no free allocation for our own people who may become refugees and want to leave Rhodesia or South Africa if this much forecast holocaust comes about. I should like it to be made clear that we are not going to be dictated to by Mr. Mukherjee and his organisation over here which says that the number of our own people coming to this country from Rhodesia must be judged on the same basis as the number of Asians who have been given British passports. An article in the Karachi newspaper Dawn is on the same basis: that Pakistani organisations in this country are threatening our Government by saying that they will cast their votes one way or another in constituencies over here so as to get their own way.

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Therefore, can the Government give a guarantee that should British stock have to leave Rhodesia if what is being prophesied comes about, they will be able to come back to their country of origin? If they are not allowed to come back, then the blood bath will surely be great because if they have nowhere to go they will fight harder to hang on to what they possess. That is why it will be much harder still in South Africa if this prophesied holocaust comes about. The Boers will have nowhere to go and will fight to the last man. If an assurance along those lines could be given by the Government to our relations in that part of the world, it might allay much of the anxiety for the future of people who came originally from this country.
5.19 p.m.
Lord COLERAINE: My Lords, I must first apologise to the House for my late arrival at this debate. I had to attend a meeting this morning in the Midlands and yesterday morning when I telephoned the office of the noble Baroness the Captain of the Gentlemen-at-Arms, I was assured that the debate would probably take place at about 5.30, so I motored down to London this afternoon thinking that I should be in time for the start of the debate. Therefore, I apologise to the House and in particular to my noble friend Lord Salisbury for having missed his speech.
I am at some disadvantage—and perhaps the House is at an even greater one —inasmuch as I may repeat arguments that have already been put forward. But the first thing that strikes me about my noble friend's Question on the Order Paper is why in the world nobody has ever asked it before. It has always been taken for granted that the principle of majority rule was unquestioned; that it was bound to bring infinite advantages to Rhodesia. But nobody has ever stated what those advantages were, and until this afternoon nobody has ever, I think, even bothered to ask. I can understand this wholly uncritical acceptance of the principle of majority rule ten or twelve years ago when the White Paper was published referring to the creation throughout Africa of Parliaments on the Westminster model, to which my noble friend Lord Tranmire referred a few moments ago; but now, after ten or more years'
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experience of what majority rule means, it seems quite incredible that people should go on accepting it as an axiom which does not even have to be proved.
I am very sorry indeed that, except for the end of it, I missed the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, for whom I have the greatest respect; and if I do not agree with what I heard it is simply for the reason given by my noble friend Lord Tranmire, that it seems to me that the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, was transferring to Southern Africa his own experiences in London—and I freely give him Botswana, as he asked for earlier on!
I cannot understand how anybody today can seriously advance the proposition that majority rule in the context of Africa is a good thing. I do not want to traverse the whole of the African continent, but let us take one or two of Rhodesia's neighbours who enjoy the blessings of majority rule. Let us take, for example, Malawi. I remember some years ago now when the noble Earl, Lord Longford, whom I see sitting opposite, was, I believe, leading for the Labour Party on this side of the House and a report was published on Nyasaland. It was written by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Devlin, and it began with what seemed to me then to be the astounding statement: " Nyasaland is a police State ". If the noble and learned Lord thought that Nyasaland was a police State then, I wonder what he would think of Malawi now, with Dr. Banda and his squad of young thugs who beat up and murder anybody who goes against his policy.
Then there is Mozambique. When Frelimo took control of Mozambique they gave the most categorical assurances to the Portuguese that they would institute a democratic form of government; but as soon as the Portuguese pulled out the undertakings of Frelimo were thrown out of the window as well, and I suppose never in human history has any country deteriorated so far and so rapidly as has Mozambique in the last twelve months. As for Mozambique being a democracy, I should like to read to your Lordships a report of a public speech by President Machel. Speaking at Maputo's Machava Stadium he said:
" We have our prisons full to capacity here in Maputo and other parts of the country."

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Then he went on to say that the only answer to crime was people's courts, in which:
" parents must also participate, brothers, wives, children… in order that everybody knows what the father does. When the husband disappears at night, the wife and children must know what he is doing."
That does not sound to me very much like the ideal democracy which majority rule was supposed to bring.
I do not know whether your Lordships noticed the report of some comments by an African specialist at the Brookings Institute in New York, Dr. Ernest Lefever, on this issue of majority rule. Dr. Lefever said:
" Majority rule is a code word for black rule which actually means rule by a minority of self-appointed militants.
" There is no majority rule in Zaire or Uganda where small cliques govern to suit themselves. Kissinger "—
This is Dr. Lefever speaking, not me—
" has over-identified with guerrilla groups, but no-one's going to stand up and say so because race is the one issue on which no-one speaks honestly."
Then he goes on:
" To the extent that Americans have a picture of Africa it is a projection of the racial situation in the United States. Here "—
that is in the United States—
" we have 10 whites to one black and we are guilt-ridden about slavery and discrimination. We transfer our experiences to Southern Africa where things are very different."
I think to some extent we are even less justifiably guilt-ridden because of our colonial past. I have often thought—and I think I have said it before in this House—that it might have been better if we had never gone into Africa. Looking back, the struggle for Africa was in many respects unedifying, but I doubt whether it was anything like as unedifying as the scuttle from it. We raised these people up so far and then we abandoned them and dropped them down. Lord Acton was not so far wrong when he said—I think it was in his Essay on Freedom in Antiquity:
" Oppression by a minority is bad, but oppression by majority is worse."
I believe that has been proved again in our own time.
If one leaves the philosophical side of all this and looks at the practical side, what do we see? We see in Zambia a once prosperous agriculture which has fallen into utter decline. I think I am right in
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saying—and if I am wrong the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, will correct me—that before it had the blessings of majority rule Zambia was pretty well self-sufficient so far as food was concerned. By a curious irony it has to import food from Rhodesia. I am told that two trains a day cross the Victoria Falls bridge, carrying maize and meat into Zambia. We have the curious irony that if we insist on immediate majority rule in Rhodesia, it would not only be the black Rhodesian who suffers, but the black Zambian and probably, too, the black inhabitant of Mozambique, for I believe it is the case that feelers are being put out from Mozambique to the Rhodesians to supply Mozambique with some of their surplus maize.
My Lords, now that we have committed ourselves so far to this uncritical acceptance of the principle of majority rule, it is very difficult for us to go back to anything more sensible. But if we want a settlement, and if we want to avoid the holocaust which is at the back of all our minds we have got to modify our attitude about majority rule. We have got to make an effort of the imagination, and put ourselves in the place of the white Rhodesians. They see chaos around them. They are not readily going to invite that chaos themselves. My own view is that the white Rhodesians will fight to the death to avoid it. I am sure this will come as a shock to many of your Lordships, but white Rhodesians in general have a contempt for this country, and are unlikely to be moved at all by the kind of lectures to which we have been treating them for the past two years. But, of course, we say, " There is the United Nations. Look how we are bound to the United Nations." How many of your Lordships, if you really examine your hearts and minds, can really feel that we owe any duty to the United Nations?
For example, the Security Council condemned South Africa for its intervention in Angola, which was in fact practically nominal, and made no mention whatsoever of the 13,000 Cuban mercenaries who decided the issue in Angola. Only yesterday or the day before, the Secretary-General of the United Nations worked himself up into a fever of indignation about that very gallant exploit of the Israeli Commandos, and demanded action by the Security Council. He conveniently forgot altogether that the

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Sudanese Government were accusing the Libyan Government of a far more damaging and flagrant breach of national sovereignty than anything the Israelis committed at Entebbe.
There is one final word I would say to your Lordships. We have mocked long enough at the Rhodesians for their superstition, as we have thought it, about Communism and the Red menace. After what has happened in Angola, after what is happening in Mozambique, are we so sure that the Rhodesians are wrong? I conclude with an observation from another American observer, Professor John Hutchinson of the University of California. He said:
" Rhodesia is the place where the NATO countries can call a halt to the recolonisation of Africa. ".
Here, if I may interpolate we must remember that nature abhors a vacuum, and the mere fact that we have stopped colonising Africa does not mean that others are not very busily doing it. Professor Hutchinson goes on:
" If we do not, the knock will soon be heard on other doors."
5.36 p.m.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Coleraine, I have most sincerely to apologise to this House for being late for this debate. I, too, had an appointment which seemed to me to be important. I received the same " guestimate " as to the time, but I make no complaint about that. I express both my regrets and my personal sorrow at having missed what the noble Marquess had to say in opening. I hope that, in what I have to say, I do not fall across things which, owing to my negligence, I did not hear.
I was particularly impressed by what the noble Lord, Lord Tranmire, had to say with regard to the meaning of majority rule. I am, I believe, a democrat, but I do not equate democracy with the rule of the majority. Again as Lord Acton said:
" There can he no worse tyranny than majority tyranny."
We saw an example of that, perhaps, in Northern Ireland, the tyranny of the Protestants: we saw that in Cyprus, the tyranny of the Greeks. To me, democracy means much more tenderness for minori-
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ties, a feeling for the rights of minorities and the guarantee of the rights of minorities. Throughout Africa, majority rule, which, as has accurately been said, is a code name for black rule, has meant the end of the rights of minorities. Nearly all the liberated ex-colonies accepted constitutions which guaranteed the rights of minorities. Almost without exception, those constitutions have been torn up, those guarantees to racial minorities have been broken; the racial minorities have been expelled, and we have to accept them here.
I would define democracy as being a form of government in which opposition was legal, in which an Opposition is free to speak, in which an Opposition is free to organise and form themselves into Parties, in which an Opposition can contest lawful elections fairly conducted and in which Oppositions who won those elections can assume power in peace. I would describe as Fascist a nation in which opposition was not allowed, in which only one Party is permitted, and in which the government can be changed only by violence. On those definitions there is scarcely a democracy in Africa. The noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, for whom I have the greatest respect and I admired his speech, quoted Botswana. Botswana is one of the rare and very small exceptions in the Fascist continent of Africa. That, one must remember, is a place which is so completely under the control of Seretse Khama that he has no occasion to be worried by opposition.
Within this Fascist rule, which in Africa has been the result of majority rule, what has the performance been? In Africa we sometimes hear Fascism described as " African Socialism ". What have been the results of African Socialism? Lord Tranmire referred to the tremendous need for education. Is there a single African country which can seriously be proud of its record in education ? When you look through them, they are quite awful. Again, economically, it is an impoverished continent. Majority rule has meant not only more poverty hut more ill-distributed wealth. Broadly speaking. the governing Parties who have gained control and the soldiers who have gained control in Africa are Mission boys, foreign-trained in foreign universities, ruling in a foreign language which alone

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can express the quite foreign colonial system which they have sought to take over. The only African ruler with an African background is General Amin. The others come from our system, and these Europeanised Parties are getting immensely rich by comparison with their people. This is one of the great difficulties of aid to Africa; how do you stop it simply getting into the hands of the ruling Party. It has been happening all the way through.
Then there is the question of law and order, the terrible examples we have seen in the ex-Portuguese colonies. Remember those two colonies were not racialist. I was in them a few years ago. There was no racial feeling at all. One constantly met Africans who were in command of Portuguese, both in the Army and in business. It was not an inefficient economy ; it was a lazy economy. I think probably in Mozambique it took live men to do the work which one man would have done in the Union of South Africa. But none the less it was a much happier society. In fact I think they avoided probably what have been the three curses of Africa; democracy as applied to Africa, efficiency and racialism. Those were the three things which the Portuguese avoided, and I think they were making a society which had great prospects. But it was too great a burden on the homeland and the nerve broke. Now we have seen this disaster, a Cuban conquerer on one side and simply anarchy on the other.
Now we have to look to the unhappy situation of the Rhodesians, and here, of course, the demand, the slogan of majority rule, has been the curse. I was over there when it all started 10 years ago. I had very long talks with Mr. Smith. At that time it was a quite feasible proposition that if this country would take over secondary education, which was quite agreeable, a constitution providing for an educated vote which would give a majority of black voters in about 12 to 15 years—that is by now—was perfectly acceptable. That could have been negotiated and done. It would not have meant one man one vote. It would not have meant majority rule. It would have meant shared rule. It would have meant a community which would not be the dictatorship either of a minority or a majority. It would have
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meant a State which perhaps had a chance of not joining the Fascist bloc which is the rest of Africa.
But those chances have now gone. I really cannot see how at this point one can advise our friends in Rhodesia to compromise any further. It seems at this point that you either abandon your country to what has happened in Mozambique and what has happened in Luanda —you abandon your country, as well as many of the Africans who were your friends, who have grown up with enterprises which we have created; you abandon civilisation to chaos—or you realise you have got to fight for it. Whether or not you can fight for it, I believe, is a matter of nerve. When Mr. Mukherjee—I think his name was mentioned—stated that we should not allow these white Rhodesians free immigration here, he may have done a great service to Rhodesia, because I believe that the one thing that could kill Rhodesia would be if the young men lose faith in her and start going. They have got to stay and fight.
I should like to see a closer link between Rhodesia and Israel, because Israel has had that experience. They have had to live and had the will to live and the nerve to live and the courage to live in a situation in which their neighbours are importing terrorism. They know there is no use in those circumstances simply sitting on the defensive. If invaders are sent into your land you have to pursue them and destroy their camps; you have to take your reprisals. You cannot sit this out on the defensive. If your people are kidnapped you have to go and fetch them—and what a splendid effort that was. These are the things with which a minority has to live, and it knows that living will depend on its will. I think for Rhodesia the time for soft talk has passed.
5.48 p.m.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Barnby, for allowing me to change places with him on the list; I have an engagement at six o'clock, and 1 know the noble Lord who is to reply will forgive me if I am not here for his reply. I need not have gone to that trouble, because, as always happens in short debates of this sort, the points that one wanted to make and thought rather important have already

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been made by noble Lords with perhaps greater experience of these matters than I can claim to have. But I should like to reinforce what they have said by saying this. This debate is very timely; the judgment of the noble Marquess on timing is absolutely right. I believe the standing of this country on this vital issue was, by our silence, falling very low. Everyone is expressing a view ; all nations which are considered of consequence seem to be giving their views, but at this vital time of obvious deterioration, surrounded by many dangers, we have had official silence. If the noble Marquess gets an answer that will let it be seen that we are still alive and very active in this field, only good can come from it.
In this debate today it is not so much the views of individuals we want—noble Lords have been very helpful, and we have all tried to be helpful in putting on the record what we feel about these things—but those of the Government. I should have thought that the noble Lord who is to reply will have to admit that the reply he gives as to the Government view on this important matter cannot be the same as it was ten or twelve years ago. Ten to twelve years ago things had not happened which have now clearly happened. The evidence is there now for us all to see. There is now clear evidence in contradiction of the rosy views as to what would happen if we had had majority rule—not that one even knew quite what that meant, but if it was majority rule as the people who used the term meant it, and if it had followed the lines they thought it would. We have the clear evidence outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Coleraine, who named country by country. It looks as though all of the apprehensions that the white Rhodesians voiced when they were not prepared to accept the compromises that were being suggested have been confirmed. The rosy views that people on the other side of the argument put forward have been proved to be false.
They must be very unhappy about that, but in their unhappiness it is vital that they should accept the clear message which comes from it. The message which comes from what has happened over recent years is clearly that those who are agitating for majority rule, in the sense that they want it almost tomorrow, are people who have made it perfectly clear
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that they do not want Western influence to be in Africa at all. This nation has a greater responsibility than any other in this matter. The white Rhodesians are not only looking after themselves, but are our allies in trying to retain the Western influence in a part of the world which needs it perhaps more than any other part, and if we are to retain their support, their alliance with us, it is vital that the statement which the noble Lord gives voicing the Government's reaction should be one which will maintain their confidence.
I wonder whether it would not be practical and constructive to think in terms of removing sanctions, or at any rate of greatly watering them down. We have heard lots of suggestions that we are going to have bloodshed, as the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, said, if certain things do not happen. The equivalent of what has recently happened in Mozambique will happen if what other noble Lords have said happens. Ought not we to think in terms of admitting that whatever hopes sanctions may have offered when they were first started—and they have been supported by all Parties; this is not a Party matter—those hopes have not been fulfilled, and do not look like being fulfilled ? The only effect of sanctions has been to make it even more difficult for the people we want to help in Africa to get educated, trained, and be ready to take over the responsibility of government when at some time it comes, as we all know it will. There would be no weakness, there would be no question of showing any cowardice, if we said that sanctions had failed. It may well be that if we could remove or weaken the appeal of sanctions, it may give the white Rhodesians greater heart to compromise a little further than with sanctions. With all the world apparently against them they feel that they have to look after themselves, and bring themselves tightly together in order to be allowed to exist at all.
I would suggest to the noble Lord that to think in those terms may be one way of removing the threat of a holocaust, or the risk of bloodshed. The one thing we must not do is do nothing. The other thing that we must not do is to produce the same arguments that we produced ten to twelve years ago, before the evidence which has accumulated since was there for all of us to see and to take into account.

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The thing we must not do, if we want to retain the respect of the world and be able to go on exerting the influence that I believe over the centuries we have attained, is not to leave it to Mr. Kissinger and Mr. Vorster to talk about these things while we are not there or apparently applying no influence at all.
I suppose that behind everything is the question of time. I always felt that my noble friend Lord Home had almost got to the point where he was able to achieve a settlement that could have given worthwhile satisfaction to both sides. I am sorry that that did not occur. It almost did. If we can again get back to that point, and by weakening sanctions and recognising that the evidence of what they said would happen has happened in adjoining countries, we may be able to return to the point where we can take an extra step and bring about some sort of compromise that will remove this easy talk of a holocaust and bloodshed.
In a way the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, gave the answer when he quoted the development in our own country. He said that it was only since we had extended the franchise after the Reform Act that we had the Factory Acts and the local government Acts; and he spoke about all the things that he thinks have improved the way of life in this country, and I believe that to be so. But in saying that, he ought to have remembered that it took 100 years. There is no question that within two minutes of the Reform Act being passed the Factory Acts, the local government Acts and all these things we now look on with so much pride as advancement, happened. It took years. All that I think is needed in Rhodesia is for all sides to recognise that in order to get to the point where we can have multiracial government, where the aspirations of both white and black Rhodesians can be faced up to, is by recognising that it must take time.
We are going to have an explanation from the noble Lord from the Government side of what he believes is meant by majority rule. If he answers the Question put by the noble Marquess, and if we are to get to the point where we can avoid the talk of bloodshed, then we have to make some concessions on our side to show that we recognise the lesson of the last ten
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years. If we do that, I believe that the confidence will be there to carry on where the noble Lord, Lord Home, had to finish, when his was just a minor failure.
5.58 p.m.
Lord BARNBY: My Lords, to all of us in this House who are passionately anxious to help towards a sensible settlement in what is after all British territory, and acknowledged as such, it is refreshing and timely at this moment to have this debate, for which we are indebted to the noble Marquess. It has produced a powerful and challenging speech from my noble friend Lady Elles from the Opposition Front Bench. We had a most refreshingly practical speech from my noble friend Lord Tranmire who, with his long Parliamentary experience and practical knowledge of the subject, was able to put the question before us with such conviction. Neglecting the limitations of Party loyalty, the noble Lord, Lord Paget of Northampton, has again refreshingly put before us other views which are interesting. My noble friend Lord Coleraine, to whom we always listen with interest, has made a speech from which we shall certainly profit by studying it in Hansard tomorrow. My noble friend Lord Harmar-Nicholls, who I know must leave shortly to catch a train, gave a practical picture and provided forceful cause for reflection. The noble Marquess can feel satisfied that he has initiated a very challenging, timely and helpful debate.
Contemporaneously, across the Atlantic in the United States, there arc joyous celebrations for the independence which was declared by the then rebel government of 1776. Our Queen in person is there to honour it, the same Monarchy for which the Rhodesians fought in World War II and in which their Prime Minister was severely injured. Sir Harold Wilson remains the barren hero of sanctions. Her Majesty's Government are ready to recognise, and quickly, any African or other State in which a bunch of fluent rebels with the aid of the gun, the bomb and the knife can secure power. Contrary-wise, the British Government regard as illegal Rhodesia, where internal law and order is maintained by a constitutionally elected British Government; I say " British Government " in this context because they

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are the same stock as those who, in the United States, declared their independence of Britain in 1776.
It is eleven years since an exchange of ambassadors took place. Is it to be a lifetime in the case of Rhodesia ? Is it not time that this nonsense about an outlaw Government was brought to an end ? Is not " forgiveness " in the vocabulary of the Christian bishops or even the World Council of Churches? A constitutional Government remains in Rhodesia. From research I did this morning about the United States it is interesting to note that so great has been its prosperity that, since my first visit to that Continent, the population has increased by no fewer than 140 million. I repeat that we are here speaking of Rhodesia being outlawed by the same folk who would deny to South Africa the arms with which to defend the Cape route, our lifeline, who would see Russia take over that part of the Continent or who would willingly give money to Mozambique, a wholly Communist and Marxist Government. I am sure that the majority of people in this country do not want to see the taxpayers' money being given to a country like that, for it would seem that by so doing the British Government are allying themselves with action by that Communist Government, something which is undoubtedly contrary to their announced intentions.
Terrorists are sent to Rhodesia from Mozambique for the murder and mutilation of black and white. I will, with the indulgence of the House, repeat the interpretation by an Anglican dean of " terrorism ":
" Terrorism stands for what it is, lawless violence. Christian opinion must turn in revulsion against it. Terrorism is indifferent and cruel in all its effects and it overthrows all recognised standards of national and international relations."
I come briefly to another subject which is associated with Rhodesia and the whole of Southern Africa; namely, minerals and raw materials. It is on these that the manufacturing countries of Europe, Japan and, progressively so, of the United States, depend; and of course the control of raw materials permits blackmail. Russia has long understood this. Russia's first offensive in this connection was in the energy field, and what an upset that has brought about in the world! The Russians armed the Arabs and brought about the 1973 conflict in the Middle East. Raw materials
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are indeed the true issue behind the conflicts of today. What a glittering prize the Southern portion of Africa offers, with all its mineral and other resources, to anybody who controls it, and Russia recognises that.
According to authentic figures provided by the Government, since independence Zambia has received £114 million of British taxpayers' money. But she, too, is sending terrorists into Rhodesia. The Head of State is reported to have said:
" The only solution can come from violence."
That country also pays money to send terrorists into Rhodesia. While Her Majesty's Government desire a peaceful settlement in a territory for which they claim responsibility, they countenance, indeed pay for, revolting violence by terrorism. I say that we should give Rhodesia time. We have there a mixed Government, black and white, with blacks in every administrative office; as in the Army, the police and in all Government offices dealing with education, agriculture and agricultural education. One need only look at what has been achieved in the sphere of agricultural education to see what has been done in this so-called illegal territory. Look at the research stations for maize, tobacco and cotton. They are accepted as being among the most efficient in the world.
Need I remind noble Lords that between the Roman and Norman invasions of Britain 1,000 years passed—and we were not so very well advanced even when the Normans arrived. Let us remember the promise for additional education in Rhodesia of, I believe, 10 millions from each Government thrown out by a 6 per cent. sample in the Pearce Report. I am sure that a referendum by those who understood such matters in Rhodesia would have not supported that decision. That is in addition to the 30 million dollars spent by Rhodesia last year in African education.
Today's Question deals with majority rule. We await with intense interest the reply of the noble Lord, Lord GoronwyRoberts. I have been having some correspondence with the noble Lord and I always appreciate his approachability. I am hoping that I shall today receive replies to some of the questions which I have sent him. We look for an interpretation of what majority rule " really

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means. My noble friends Lord Tranmire, Lord Salisbury and Lady Elles referred to this. We are all panting to hear the real interpretation of " majority rule ". Is it heads, including all those in the Tribal Trust areas and the kraals, who have not the least conception of what constitutional government is? Or does it mean sophisticated bodies?
Few of the countries in black Africa that we recognise have constitutional Governments, as has been clearly emphasised by other speakers this afternoon. Have we really a majority Government in this country? They have no overall majority. In the United States, the Polish vote delivered by Stas Radziwill, who died last week, exactly equalled the majority by which Kennedy overcame Nixon. Or again, there are those who might say that the non-white vote put the present Government into office in this country.
We should take heed of foreign dominance in Africa. The examples of Angola and Mozambique and the frightful massacres in the Congo, Uganda and Nigeria should be remembered. Why not trust the British leaders and those of British stock in Rhodesia and give time and help for a peaceful settlement? Why not set our aim against collaborating in any way, however indirectly, with terrorism or sanctions and dismiss this nonsense about present oppression? We have just seen an outstanding example of individual action. Surely the Israeli exploit is something we can admire. It gives the world an example of disregard of hypocritical United Nations discussions and wranglings and world opinion, putting the country's own immediate interests before protocol and diplomacy, meaning action, not words.
I ask that noble Lords should listen to the most informed people, as my noble friend urged. Remove white rule from Rhodesia too quickly and there will inevitably follow violence between the Matabele and the Mashona. The disarray in the ANC indicates that. I repeat, give Rhodesia time. Let it become the granary of Southern Central Africa, which today more than ever before needs food, technology and peace.
6.15 p.m.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, the noble Marquess bears a proud name and
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we can be grateful to discuss his Unstarred Question. I specially noted the words in which it was couched. The noble Marquess asked the Government to state,
" precisely what advantage [will] accrue"
from majority rule. The word " precisely " is significant. May I put the ball in the noble Marquess's court and ask him precisely what advantage will accrue if minority rule goes on during this century in Rhodesia?
After the remarkable speech of my noble friend Lord Pitt, I find that there is really very little to say, and I shall be brief. But it is in the politics of today that we must look at African politics, not in the politics of the last century. We should now look at what is happening in Africa not from the self-regarding attitude of Western man—and that is what has mostly emerged from the speeches today. We have heard mostly about the superiority of white Western man who has had the advantage until the 20th century of reigning supreme in the world. Now that he is rather on the decline, he will not allow the less fortunate peoples of the world to come up as quickly as they want to.
To say that all the problems in Rhodesia come from outside, or that we can arrest Communism and that majority rule would be a catastrophe, in no way stops the march of history. We only have to look round at what is happening in the world apart from what is happening in Africa. Many speakers today have said that the white Rhodesians will fight to the death. But so will the black Rhodesians. So what those speakers are saying is only that a holocaust is inevitable.
To talk of such things as not being able to do business with an African civil servant, or to speak about the inadequacies of African agriculture or the African hospital services raises the question of whose fault that is. Is it not the fault of the white minority which has ruled up to now? The white people have only themselves to blame for all the things that are wrong with the services. Also, to say that the black people in Africa do not really want to rule themselves is what I call political baby talk. It bears no relation to reality. We do not know what evidence people have for talking such nonsense.
The Marquess of SALISBURY: My Lords, I believe that the noble Baroness is referring to what I said. I can only say that, when I was in Rhodesia some weeks ago, I talked to a number of people and they told me that Africans they knew had expressed those views.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, I was not referring to what the noble Marquess said: I was thinking of what many Europeans have said to me about Rhodesia and really was not referring to what the noble Marquess said. We should all like to savour the wonders of gradualism in any process of government but, looking round the world, we cannot speak of white devils or black angels. We can only look towards freedom for minorities and equality for minorities, and the road towards that is a very rough one indeed.
We have no power to order a swift and peaceful path to majority rule because of many things, including past exploitations and past inequalities, both of which cast a very long shadow, and revolution is the price that a minority has to pay finally if it resists the majority during this century. People speak of the threat of Communism ; that threat will always be there if the democracies do not behave as they should, if they do not educate the minorities over which they rule. Everything that is wrong with capitalism will rebound in this way, and Communism will come. It is only when we make a mixed economy work well, when we make democracy work well, that we can avoid holocausts in places like Africa.
I think that the Government can do very little except to face and to deal with the realities of the situation. Up to now we have gone in for a certain amount of self-deception about the power which we can exert in Rhodesia. We have the legal power, but I do not believe that we have the actual power to do a great deal. There is no time in the present; majorities will not wait; they will wrest power wherever they can, even if they are in a very weak position to do it.
Finally, I should like to point out that there are two miracles which could take place in the world today if we looked at the facts facing us. The first is if apartheid in South Africa could, in a miraculous way, be overturned in one night, and the
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other is if in Rhodesia majority rule were accepted. I am not saying that if both these miracles happened there would he no violations of human rights anywhere in the world; but it would make the most tremendous difference to human rights in the world today.
6.24 p.m.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: My Lords, I do not wish to detain your Lordships' House, and I am speaking for myself, not as a Party spokesman, but I felt that I could not leave without contributing at least one Liberal attitude to the debate. I have disagreed with, or thought shorth-sighted, most of the speeches from this side of the House. But one point which is absolutely true is that the technical ability and the enterprise shown by the white settlers in Rhodesia has created enormous agricultural wealth. We need this skill, enterprise and knowledge in Africa, and it will be some time before it can he taught to the natives of Rhodesia or other parts. But having said that, I believe it true to say that all the massacres, all the slaughter, and all the injustice which has been perpetrated in newly emerging, newly independent countries in Africa has has always been worst in those countries which have had least freedom, or least training or least preparation.
Of course we should be proud of how we have brought on these countries, but at least our success in relation to them must be measured by the countries which have been prepared, educated and given a chance. There is no other solution; it must be accepted that one cannot have islands of white supremacy which have been quite blatantly declared by the people there as not to be given up in their lifetime. I have never been in Rhodesia, but it is a fact that Prime Minister after Prime Minister has been discarded because they wished to go farther than the settlers would allow them to go. The present Prime Minister has had to give way on agreements which he had reached in principle simply because his constituents would not give up one iota of power.
We must say simply that there have been enormous imperfections, there are imperfections, there will be imperfections, and there will be trouble, but there is no other way except progress—and progress which can be seen—towards majority rule. I

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should like to ask the Government whether they would indicate how they would give guarantees—and I mean financial guarantees—to the able white farmers who, as has been said, are very necessary for production. Much of the trouble in Kenya has been caused by people who simply have not received economic justice for the work they put in in the past. It would be very valuable to the African populations if the white technicians could see a future in the country. Indeed, I believe that that is essential and I should very much like to have the Minister's views on that. Otherwise, there is no alternative to majority rule.
6.26 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, this has been a serious debate and I think on the whole a balanced one in which a very wide range of opinion has been expressed, beginning with the noble Marquess who marshalled his own particular view of the situation with his accustomed courtesy and clarity. He asked a number of fundamental questions to which I immediately address myself. He asked what do we mean by the term " majority rule "? As I told this noble House, on behalf of the Government, on 29th March, we mean the maximum possible participation of the people of Rhodesia, of whatever race, in choosing their own government. Anything else is not majority rule; indeed it is not natural rule. This does not necessarily mean immediate universal suffrage. Our own franchise remains qualified in certain respects; and certainly Members of this noble House do not fully participate in the privilege of one man, one vote. We do not choose Members of the other place.
But having said that—that no system of suffrage is unqualified—we must come down to the basics of this matter, which are that it is for the people of Rhodesia to decide what form of Government they want for their country. That decision must reflect the wishes of the majority. The noble Marquess made a suggestion that this Government, and elements in this country, are against the continuation of white participation in government in Southern Africa. This is certainly not the case. What we oppose is the imposi
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tion of white rule on the entire population of Southern Africa, of Rhodesia.
The noble Marquess asked—apparently in some disbelief—whether Britain would agree to a race relations board in Rhodesia. Well, it probably needs one, but that is one of the details which a properly convened constitutional conference might settle. He also asked about the pace at which majority rule would be implemented. My Lords, there is nothing sacrosanct about the figure of 18 months or two years, as mentioned by the Prime Minister. Indeed, he indicated that the Government are prepared to be flexible on this point. But I must warn the House that by far the prevailing view among the 6 million black Africans of Rhodesia and outside Rhodesia is that probably two years is far too long. We can only do our best, remembering that the people mainly concerned regard two years as excessive.
Lord COLERAINE: My Lords, the noble Lord is always so courteous that I hesitate to interrupt him, but how does he know that the majority of African opinion would regard two years as excessive ?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I know from the information that Her Majesty's Government, which are not without their resources, are able to gather; but if there is any doubt about this perhaps the illegal régime would institute a properly conducted plebiscite in which everybody in Rhodesia can take part—possibly under international supervision in order to ensure that it is properly conducted. Then we will know.
I pass on now to the point made in the statement of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister in another place on the 22nd March, and that is that majority rule is not an end in itself. Its acceptance is one of the preconditions, although a fundamental one, for the start of negotiations on the actual terms of a constitution for independence. The noble Baroness and others have asked me to state what the Government intentions are at this juncture. They are that when the illegal régime genuinely and conclusively accepts the principle of majority rule, then the way is clear for a properly convened constitutional conference in which will be settled not only the form of the future

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Government of Rhodesia—settled by discussion among all those concerned in that future—but also other details relating to economic and social affairs, and indeed the points of guarantee which the noble Lord, among others, raised during this debate. But the first step is for Mr. Smith and his colleagues—and the onus rests upon them —to state quite clearly and honestly that they accept this precondition.
Now the Unstarred Question asks for a statement of the benefits which we consider that majority rule would confer upon the peoples of Rhodesia. The first benefit, in fact, would be independence. It would accrue to the people of Rhodesia once the principle of majority rule was implemented. The one follows from the other. More concretely, majority rule will provide a basis—and the only basis, we believe—for the establishment of peace in Rhodesia. The Rhodesian authorities have laid the blame for the present violence everywhere but where it should be: just as the noble Baroness, of course, as usual, says that the whole responsibility is on the British Government. Not a word about the responsibility accruing to the fascist camarilla that has usurped authority for the last 11 years in Rhodesia in rebellion against the Queen! That is where the responsibility lies, and that is where the point of advance is possible—with these people who, for the past 11 years, have held down Rhodesia and imperilled the peace of an entire continent in so doing.
The Marquess of SALISBURY: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. May I ask him whether this means that Her Majesty's Government approve of the activities of the guerrillas coming in to adjust the balance, as he sees it?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I will come to the question of the guerrillas in a moment. I will ask then: Which guerrillas, and which side? Because people in rebellion against constituted authority are themselves guerrillas.
I was asked repeatedly during this debate about the need for time to make a transition to majority rule, majority rule in the meantime being denounced as being in itself undesirable and, indeed, disastrous. But still, in spite of that, I was
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asked whether we would arrange for a very slow transition. There have been 11 years during which the kind of transition that has been urged on the Government this evening could have been effected gradually, credibly and acceptably in Rhodesia. Those 11 years have been wasted in an expenditure of arrogance and selfishness. One after another the leaders of this country, from both sides of the House—men of the stature and the humanity of the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, and, of equal stature in these matters, Sir Harold Wilson, and others—have gone out to place before the illegal régime and its leaders reasonable, practical proposals, and one after another during those 11 years they have been betrayed; and, with them, there have been betrayed the interests of all the peoples of Rhodesia. So let us not ask where the responsibility lies. That is why I have to say at this Box today that I fear that 18 months or two years is no longer acceptable to the peoples of Rhodesia for the transition.
The blood that is now being shed by all sides in the present conflict is shed because the majority of Rhodesians are being denied their legitimate aspirations—political, economic and social. Her Majesty's Government believe that if the preconditions outlined in the Statement of my right honourable friend in another place on the 22nd March are accepted—and there is time to accept them—it will be possible to negotiate a settlement which would recognise and meet those aspirations, and, hopefully, to work into them guarantees for the future for all the minorities of Rhodesia, thus securing a future, the only possible secure future, for all races in Rhodesia.
At this point I refer to the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, who asked about the admission of, as he put it, Rhodesians of British stock to this country if the worse came to the worst. The answer is, of course, that there is no obstacle to the return to this country of Rhodesians with a right of abode—no obstacle at all. In fact, some of them are already returning to this country.
Secondly, returning to the question of benefits accruing from majority rule, majority rule would bring with it the prospect of a more prosperous future for

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Rhodesia. On the one hand, we are urged to discontinue sanctions; on the other, we are told that sanctions have rebuilt Rhodesia, giving it a new, flourishing lease of life. It is very difficult to know what the effect of sanctions has been.
However, if Rhodesia emerged through the proper processes as an independent country the economic benefits would be considerable not only to that country but—and here I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Coleraine—to countries adjacent to it. He raised a very interesting point when he spoke of the import of Rhodesian foodstuffs into Zambia. This has already ceased; but it is quite true that Rhodesia has the potential to become again a net exporter of food to her neighbours; but, for that, it is necessary for a return of peace, because there is no peace there now, with a chance of further investment and development. Another point that the noble Lord, Lord Coleraine, made was about Rhodesia's railway system. This is potentially of enormous economic benefit to the surrounding countries, including Zaire; but it is idle to think that African Governments will permit themselves to depend on a white minority régime indefinitely for access to the sea. They will continue to seek alternatives and, finally, to find them. Let us not belittle the point made by the noble Lord of the great importance of this railway not only to Rhodesia but to surrounding countries.
I pass on now to the third point of advantage which majority rule would bring to Rhodesia. It would provide the opportunity to tap the vast human potential which has been wasted in Rhodesia as a result of the illegal régime's oppressive racial policies. My noble friend Lord Paget asked which black African Government could be proud of their educational policy. He was making a very good point about the need for the expansion of education—and here I commend the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tranmire, about the need for technical education, too long neglected in Africa. The noble Lord, Lord Paget, asked which of them could be proud of their educational policy. Certainly not the Rhodesia of the illegal régime; because the situation there is that although Whites get their education free and it is
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compulsory, it is not compulsory for the blacks to receive education; and in any case they must pay for it.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, would the noble Lord permit me to interrupt ? Could he tell us which African-ruled country has a rate of African literacy equal to that of Rhodesia ?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I could, of course, with notice, give the figures for this.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, I can give the figures now.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, that is the noble Lord's interpretation of the facts and I have some experience of the noble Lord's eloquence and of his—
A noble Lord: Partiality.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: I would not say " partiality ", but (shall I say?) specific emphasis. Finally I would say a few words about—
Lord BARNBY: My Lords, would the noble Lord give way before leaving education? Is it not a fact that the proposal by the former British Government, agreed to by the Rhodesian Government—was it for £10 million or £20 million each per annum—has now been rejected by the ANC?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the ANC have looked very many of these gift horses in the mouth. I do not think that either the noble Lord or I will find the ANC receptive to these rather particularist proposals until they find a properly constituted constitutional conference sitting down to treat across the board all the questions arising from an orderly and effective transition to independence.
We are faced today in Rhodesia with an illegal régime which abuses the courts and the penal system for its own ends. There is daily evidence that the régime's courts are being used to silence the political aspirations of the majority. We believe there are at present in excess of

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1,000 political detainees and prisoners in Rhodesia, not counting the tens of thousands herded into the so-called protected villages. Her Majesty's Government believe that the best hope of assisting all political prisoners is the achievement of a just and peaceful solution of Rhodesia's political and constitutional problem based on the principle of majority rule.
I detected in the Unstarred Question asked by the noble Marquess and in much of the debate which followed, a hint that majority rule does not mean the same in Britain as it would if it were effected in Africa. This was echoed by a number of participants in the debate. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Tranmire, that we should have done much more to help the Africans to fashion the systems of Government best suited to their history, their temperament and their desires. We have not done one-tenth enough in that field of education in this vast continent where our responsibility in the past has been so immense. We can still help to do this, and our posture and policies towards Africa and its independent countries are based on this realisation that we still can as the former imperial Power now genuinely concerned about assisting these new States in their path to social progress. We can certainly make a contribution now, but not on the basis of sticking out in favour of the retention of a white-based dictatorship in Rhodesia. Anything we say to the Africans until we have ensured a majority rule in Rhodesia will not carry credibility with them.
Lord TRANMIRE: My Lords, will the noble Lord not appreciate that to use European catch-phrases like " majority rule " makes the Africans think that we are not thinking in the terms he envisages ?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, that may be so. I was agreeing with the noble Lord that we should in the past have assisted them—and probably have a chance now, if our posture is right, to assist them—and worked with them to achieve majority rule in terms that affect the African background and aspirations. If there is a quarrel against the phrase, let us find another phrase. It is a perfectly effective and a precise description of what we are all after.
The choice before us is not a choice between a continuation of the past way of
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life in Rhodesia, on the one hand, and some uncertain future under majority rule. The choice is a direct one between chaos, bloodshed and misery and a fresh start and a real effort to build a just society using all that is best from every section of the Rhodesian people. If Rhodesians do not make this effort, then all the good that has been created in that country and of course many white Rhodesians have made tremendous contributions to that country's development—stands to be destroyed. Time and time again in the past 11 years all that could have been saved for Rhodesia as a whole. There was every chance to break from the rock of intransigence of a tiny minority of self-privileged people in Rhodesia. These are the policies which so far have made it impossible for us to make an advance on this problem.
The first requirement, as I said, is an acceptance by the illegal régime of the principle of majority rule. The British Government, of course, will move swiftly from that point. Indeed, the intransigence of the white minority risks provoking the very disaster which they claim to be striving to avoid. Here the impressive speech made by my noble friend Lord Pitt will bear study when it is published in the Official Report tomorrow. I agree with him. The short cut to Communism in Africa is along the Smith road. The only way to avoid the imprint of Communism on Africa is for Europe to get alongside Africa. We are told not to lecture the white minority. It is all right to lecture the African. It is time Europe ceased lecturing the African about his civilisation. Europe in the last few generations produced Auschwitz, Belsen and the unimaginable horrors of the last war.
Now it is time for Europe to become a true partner with Africa. If you want to prevent Africa from going Red, recognise that it is black because the national feeling of Africa goes much deeper than any imported ideology. That is the policy of Her Majesty's Government. Indeed, it is the policy of the Western democracies generally today, to recognise that the fundamentals of this great continent are national and racial in the best sense of the word, and not ideological. Our contribution to Africa must be made as friends and partners. The noble Baroness, as usual, threw me into a

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certain combative mood when she asked a series of probing questions: " Why has Britain left it to Dr. Kissinger and Mr. Vorster to discuss Rhodesia ? " As if this country has never discussed Rhodesia with either of those two gentlemen before! " Those two gentlemen came together and exchanged ideas. Why were we not there ? " Really! The answer is that Dr. Kissinger and Mr. Vorster discussed Southern Africa as a whole, and there is no reason why we, or our friends and partners in the Community for that matter, should have been ,resent at that particular exchange of ideas. Of course we are in constant touch with both the United States Government and the South African Government about questions concerning Rhodesia. Dr. Kissinger gave us a full account in confidence of his talks with Mr. Vorster. He also made clear in Lusaka on 27th April his strong support for British policy in Rhodesia.
As for the European Community, British policy has been fully discussed and continues to be discussed with the countries of the Community, and the Community as an entity has expressed strong support for the Prime Minister's Statement of 22nd March. The noble Baroness asked what we had done to tell the Rhodesian Europeans of the dangers of continuing with their present attitude. She wanted more lectures. Successive Governments have done everything possible so far back as I can remember—Conservative and Labour Governments—to spell out to the white population in Rhodesia the consequences of their actions. Statements by Ministers have been carried by the BBC, the World Service and indeed in the Rhodesian Press. I hope that this debate will be read extensively in Rhodesia. If I may say so without presumption, all the speeches have been extremely competent. Some of them of course have been excellent on the point of view of explaining fully the consensus of view in this country about the way Rhodesia should develop in the future.
I end on this note, my Lords: it is a serious matter. I hope I am wrong. I hope that those who have taken part in this debate, and who have spoken of the approaching holocaust, are all wrong. But hoping is not enough; action must be taken. We have made clear to the
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illegal régime—once more I address myself to the Liberal Benches—that if they indicate effectively and genuinely that they accept this basic principle of majority rule, then the gates will be wide open not only for conclusive constitutional discussions, but also for the consideration of all the necessary economic and social guarantees, if you will, that should follow such a settlement.
This country has a long and honourable record, of its own volition, of assisting former colonies, dependencies, from their situation of dependency to that of independence and, in so doing, to take account not only of the national aspiration which demands independence, but also the economic and social consequences of the tradition. It would not be found wanting if the peoples of Rhodesia and, above all, its present régime, gave the effective signal that such discussions leading to such a transition from dependency to independence were now possible. This country will play its part to help Rhodesia to a multiracial, prosperous future, as it has done in so many cases in so many other parts of the world.
Lord COLERAINE: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I put one point to him. It relates more directly than the latter part of his speech to the Question on the Order Paper. In the latter part of his speech he made a most eloquent declaration of general Government policy towards Rhodesia. He was perfectly entitled to do so, and the House wanted him to do so. I wonder whether I may refer him back to this extent to the Question on the Order Paper. He is asked what advantage the Government expect to accrue to the peoples of Rhodesia from the application of the principle of majority rule.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, with very great respect indeed, I will challenge the generalisation as to what precisely has happened in all countries of Africa. They have developed in various and uneven ways, but I think we should be misleading ourselves if we grouped all new States in Africa under one umbrella. That is not the position. We wish to apply our own special Western European criterion to such States and hope that they would all develop to our satisfaction. They have not; but I know of no new State in Africa where the possibilities of development in their

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own way towards stability, peace and co-operation with their neighbours is either dead or impossible. There is not one State— n ot even after last weekend, and so I would say there is not a single exception to that.
The first part of the noble Lord's question is well taken: what guarantee have 1? At this stage, nobody can guarantee that the kind of Rhodesia we all want to see will in fact emerge from even the most carefully arranged and brilliantly chaired and led discussions. That is the tragedy of it. If we had used only the last 11 years, I do not think we should be in this position today of questioning whether we might succeed. If, first, the illegal régime would say: " Yes, we accept this. Let us get together and let us talk "; and then Britain were to say: " We will chair this conference and we will call it together and invite all elements in Rhodesia to come there and sit down "; and if nothing is excepted from the discussion, I have faith that we might be able to do it. But the time gets shorter every day. Every day this decision is being hammered out on the anvil of guerrilla warfare makes it less probable that what the noble Lord and I, and of course the whole House, want to see in Rhodesia may be achieved. So one guarantees the first part of what the noble Lord said just now, but one cannot agree with the second part.
Lord CLITHEROE: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that the fact that there are seven new black Ministers in Mr. Smith's Government is a matter of great importance?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, it is not for me to agree, but it is for the black population to agree, including the ANC—and they hooted with derision when the announcement was made.

GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL
Examiners Certificate that no further Standing Order is applicable: Ordered to lie on the Table.
HOVE BOROUGH COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to.
WRITTEN ANSWERS

  NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS FOR PEACEFUL PURPOSES
  Lord KENNET Lord KENNET asked Her Majesty's Government:
  Whether the International Atomic Energy Agency Working Party set up following the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference to evaluate the safety and usefulness of peaceful nuclear explosions has reported; and whether the recent United States/Soviet Union Agreement on Peaceful Nuclear Explosions satisfies the expert international opinion expressed within the IAEA.
  Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: The International Atomic Energy Agency's Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Nuclear Explosions for Peaceful Purposes held a series of meetings from 31st May to 11 th June but is not expected to report to the Agency's Board of Governors before February 1977. The IAEA has not commented on the Treaty between the United States of America and the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics on Underground Nuclear Explosions for Peaceful Purposes which was signed on 28th May.

  EEC: DAIRY GRANTS
  Lord O'HAGAN Lord O'HAGAN asked Her Majesty's Government:
  Whether they were consulted before the Commission of the EEC suspended certain grants in the dairy sector, and if so when.
  Lord STRABOLGI: Although the operation of the FEOGA Individual Projects Scheme is a matter for the EEC Commission, officials of the three Agriculture Departments were told informally by the Commission on 9th June that applications for aid under the 1976 Scheme which were in respect of milk and milk products were not being included in the first tranche of projects to be recommended for approval, pending consideration by the Council of Ministers of forthcoming Commission proposals to deal with surplus production of milk products. Decisions on the projects to be included in the second tranche will be taken in the autumn.
  House adjourned at four minutes past seven o'clock.